“It might be best if I started several generations before,” suggested Sarastyn, smiling broadly. “Context is often as important as the events themselves. Nidar the Great was the last of the truly strong Khanars-the great- grandfather of Eleonyd. He was the one who rebuilt the harbor here in Tilbora and restructured the old clan levies into the Khanar’s Guard and the militia.… Not coincidentally, he was the one who thwarted Hengyst’s ambitions to conquer Tilbor.…”
Quaeryt listened closely as Sarastyn continued, interjecting occasional questions for his own clarification and mentally noting particular references. Over the next glass and more, his interest grew, he had to admit, as Sarastyn’s verbal history drew closer to the present.
“… Tyrena was-I expect she still is-very blond and very strong-willed … as good with arms, if not better, than her father. But then, Eleonyd wasn’t much good at anything. So long as he listened to his wife … he got good advice … she died giving birth to Tyrena … listened to his daughter, but not enough … Rhecyrd … raised in the Noiran coast highlands … typical norther … tall, handsome, and thought everything could be solved with a bow or a blade … Eleonyd thought to preserve his lineage by marrying Tyrena to him … she wanted to rule in her own right … northers objected … members of the Khanar’s Council from both Midcote and Noira walked out…”
Quaeryt nodded as Sarastyn elaborated on what Chardyn had mentioned the night before.
“… can’t say as I blame Tyrena. She didn’t have much choice…”
“Could she have ruled in her own right?”
Sarastyn offered a rueful smile. “There’s never been a Khanara who ruled, but the people of the south preferred her. Rhecyrd started tales that Eleonyd wasn’t ill, but that Tyrena was poisoning him … most likely that his personal healer was, possibly paid by Rhecyrd … Eleonyd started to get better when the healer fell off a balcony and died … damage was done by then … and Eleonyd never fully recovered … got carried off by a nasty form of croup … might have been a civil war except the northers are hotheads … southers don’t like to fight losing battles…”
“Except that they did-with Chayar,” Quaeryt pointed out.
“No. Most of the southers didn’t fight at all. The Guard pulled back to the palace, and Rhecyrd’s clans fought. I don’t know that either of the Telaryn governors has understood that. Southers, and that’s all those south of the Boran Hills, are realists.”
“Just don’t back them into a corner?” asked Quaeryt.
“Mostly. Except for the Pharsi. They’re stiff-necked, but there aren’t many left since the riots years ago.” Sarastyn coughed several times. “I think I’ve talked long enough for now. Time for a rest before I take my afternoon medicinals.”
“Thank you. Have you written down any of this?”
“Save you, and a few others, who would care?”
“Those who have yet to be born who would also care,” suggested Quaeryt.
“You have great faith, Scholar Quaeryt. Few learn from what they observe, and fewer still from the accounts of the mistakes of others.”
“I have little enough faith, sir, but I refuse to give up hope.”
Sarastyn laughed, openly and without bitterness or malice. “Well said! Well said. So should it be for all scholars.” He coughed again. “This has tired me. We should speak later.” He rose slowly.
“Are there any books in the library that you or others have written that might be of value?”
“Those I wrote have long since vanished, and the others … you can see what you will.”
Quaeryt stood and watched as the older man made his way toward the nearest door.
Once he turned to head toward the stables, he saw Chardyn seated at the other end of the porch, seemingly reading a book. He had his doubts that the Sansang scholar had been just engaged in reading.
As Quaeryt stepped off the porch, he glanced to the north and west, but the sky remained clear, without even a trace of haze. While the day felt cooler than it had on Samedi, by late afternoon, it well might be hotter. He shrugged and continued to the stable.
When Quaeryt had finished saddling the mare and led her out into the sunlight, where he mounted, it was close to midday. He didn’t see Chardyn on the porch when he rode past the northeast corner, nor any other of the few scholars he might have recalled from the night before. Several students were playing what looked to be a form of turf bowling on the lower lawn in front. He thought one of them might be Lankyt, but the youth didn’t look in his direction.
He rode eastward past the anomen, and then farther, past the circular crossroads, which seemed even quieter than the last time he had ridden through it, before he finally came to the broader paved road that led south to the river piers or north to the Telaryn Palace. He turned the mare north.
Less than a hundred yards later, he rode past a produce wagon, filled with baskets of maize, most likely headed toward the river piers. A short distance behind that wagon was another, this one bearing bushels of the red and green apples he’d seen at Jorem’s factorage. By the time he was a good half mille, or so he judged, from the lower gate to the causeway serving the palace, he’d ridden past more than a dozen produce wagons, all headed south-and on a Solayi, to boot.
He eased the mare to the shoulder of the road and reined up and studied the Telaryn Palace and its grounds. The long rise ran roughly east to west and had been stripped of all vegetation except grass, and the grass had been grazed regularly enough that it looked to be less than ankle-high in most places. A dry moat some twenty yards across encircled the base of the entire rise, and another road ran parallel to and south of the moat, intersecting the road which Quaeryt had taken at the lower gate that guarded access to the causeway leading up to the palace. Halfway up the slope, the hillside had been carved away to create a wall out of the underlying limestone some three or four yards high. The sole break was where the angled causeway turned straight uphill for a timber bridge that crossed that gap. On the uphill side, the causeway angled back to the east, reaching a stone- framed gate near the eastern end of the gray stone walls.
After taking in the palace, he urged the mare forward and rode slowly toward the gates.
The iron gates were closed, set in gray stone towers that extended back to the moat. A timber bridge crossed the moat, supported in the middle by a single pier rising from the bottom of the dry ditch. A set of towers on the far side of the moat, with cables running to the edge of the bridge on the gatehouse side, suggested that the entire bridge could be lifted.
Two guards, Telaryn armsmen wearing standard green uniforms, were posted in front of the gates, one on each side, each standing under a slanted roof that cast enough shade to keep them from excessive heat. The taller guard, the one on the west side, followed Quaeryt’s every motion as he rode past, but did not move or say a word.
Quaeryt continued westward on the road flanking the dry moat, noting with a smile that the stone paving ended about a hundred yards from where the dry moat turned north and away from the road. The wooded hill to the west of the one holding the palace was empty of any dwellings, walls, or fences, but Quaeryt had no doubts that any incursion was likely to result in the appearance of armsmen.
He kept riding, deciding to try to make a large circle back to the Ecoliae.
27
The circle route that Quaeryt rode on Solayi afternoon had taken him a good three milles north and another mille south to a village so small that it had neither signs nor millestones to give a hint as to its name, and none of the handful of buildings holding shops and crafters had signage, In that, Tilbor clearly resembled the rest of Telaryn, since lettered signs were not exactly common anywhere, although more prevalent in port cities and in Solis. The village almost could have been one anywhere in greater Telaryn, except for the steeply pitched roofs and the narrow windows that hinted at long and cold winters.
After he returned to the Ecoliae and stabled and groomed the mare, Quaeryt washed off the sweat of the day, reminding himself that he needed to purchase more scholars’ garments on Lundi.
That evening, with little better to do and hoping to learn more, in one way or another, Quaeryt decided to take in services at the anomen next to the Ecoliae. He had to admit that he was not especially inclined to the worship of anything, particularly a deity as vaguely defined as the Nameless, although from what he had read
