Scholar

mind.

After dropping the body, he rode back down the river to the ferry piers, where he turned north on the good road leading to the Telaryn Palace. He was careful to keep the mare well in the middle of the road and away from any shadows. The aching throbbing in his arm and shoulder reminded him that he needed enough time to be able to image a defense.

You might even think about a better way to use imaging as a defense. While that was a wonderful thought, at that moment he didn’t have the faintest idea how he might accomplish such a defense. All he’d been able to do was to use imaging to divert, disable, or kill people who were attacking him.

With those thoughts swirling through his head, he kept riding. After another half glass, he stopped and dismounted to water the mare at a public fountain in a small square that was eerily quiet. The square was dark, because Artiema had set, and there were no lamps or lanterns lit, but Quaeryt could see well enough. Then he mounted again and kept riding northward at a leisurely pace. He did worry that his progress through the outskirts of Tilbora was marked by the barking of dogs, but only one actually came anywhere close to the mare before stopping in an alleyway and barking until Quaeryt was well out of sight-or smell.

Even taking his time, before that long Quaeryt was soon on the north side of Tilbora and nearing the Telaryn Palace, and he began to look for a place where he could wait until it was light enough and late enough in the morning to ride up to the gates. He finally found a short hedgerow on the north side of a small field to the southwest of the palace, where he dismounted and tied the mare.

Eventually, dawn came, and then sunrise.

Once there was light, Quaeryt took out the wax-sealed document case, turning it over in his hands under the early light. Then, after looking more closely, he froze. The wax sealing the case had been replaced. It was still sealed, but not as he had sealed it. He’d looked at the case any number of times since leaving Rhodyn and Darlinka, but he hadn’t examined it closely.

He swallowed, then took out his belt knife and carefully scraped away the wax, easing open the case. Inside, in addition to the appointment letter and the letter from Vaelora was a small folded paper-and two golds. Quaeryt opened the paper and read the lines, written in Bovarian.

Please forgive me for this intrusion. While I am trusting, I am not that trusting. Accept these tokens as payment for my lack of trust, and my wishes that may all be well with you.

The signature was that of Rhodyn.

“The old namer-demon,” murmured Quaeryt, smiling as he did. He couldn’t blame the man for his care. Had the letter from Vaelora helped? Probably only in reinforcing that he was who he’d said he was. There wasn’t even a name at the bottom, only her initial.

After a moment, he took both the note from Rhodyn and the letter from Vaelora and slid them into the inside hidden jacket pocket, then slipped the golds into empty slots in his belt. The document case went into the larger inside jacket pocket. He straightened in the saddle and surveyed the lane again. He still had at least a glass to wait before he could approach the gates.

Only a handful of wagons passed the hedgerow lane on the main road while he waited. Finally, he judged that it was late enough that he could make his way to the palace.

As he neared the gates, he rode down through a vale and past a row of cafes and shops he didn’t recall from his previous ride through the area, seemingly located amid small plots of lands, and he wondered why they were there. Then his eyes flashed to the Telaryn Palace, and he nodded. To separate the soldiers from their pay and to provide diversions from boring duties, but away from the main part of Tilbora.

Before long, Quaeryt reined up short of the two guards before the gates. “Good morning.”

“What do you want, scholar?” demanded the shorter and stockier man, wearing the undress green uniform of a Telaryn soldier, set off by black boots and a wide black leather belt, with a matching short sword scabbard on one side and a knife sheath on the other. He was not wearing the uniform jacket, but few soldiers did except in winter-and almost never in Solis.

“I’m supposed to report to Princeps Straesyr. I’m his new scholar assistant.”

“And I’m-” began the guard who had spoken first, before the other guard cleared his throat. “What?”

“Seems to me … weren’t we looking for a scholar…?”

“… supposed to be here weeks ago…”

“The ship I was on got caught in a nor’easter, went on the rocks…” Quaeryt said loudly. “That slowed me down.”

“He’s probably the one. They said he was supposed to see the princeps first.” The taller guard turned back to Quaeryt. “What’s your name?”

“Quaeryt Rytersyn, from Solis.”

“Sounds like the same name. Better escort him up.”

“I’ll take him,” offered the shorter guard, with a sharp look at the other, before turning and calling, “Gate open!” Then he looked to Quaeryt. “Follow me.”

After several moments, the left side of the gate swung back far enough for the guard to walk through, and the scholar followed. The gate closed behind him. A single mount was tethered on the north side of the east tower, and the guard untied it and mounted. Without speaking, he urged the horse onto the planked bridge over the dry moat.

The hoofs of both mounts created a dull echo as they crossed the bridge. The towers on the far side appeared to be exactly as tall as the bridge was wide, and the cables that ran from the top of the towers to iron rings on the south end of the bridge were as thick as the wrists of a large man.

Absently, Quaeryt wondered if anyone had ever tried a winter attack on the palace, since it might have been easier to fill a section of the moat with snow and ice and then let it freeze solid. But then, how would you shelter and feed a large force in deep winter?

The angled approach to the palace was a stone-paved road wide enough for two wagons and with a slope gradual enough to be passable in winter.

If shoveled clear, thought Quaeryt, turning to the soldier riding slightly ahead. “Who has the duty of clearing the snow in the winter?”

“Whatever company is assigned,” replied the gate guard. “Usually the one with the most troublemakers the week before.”

“I suppose that keeps them in line.”

“Not always. A fellow can get stir-crazy. It’s gray all winter long. A squad in Third Company got so worked up they threw snowballs at the duty guards so that they could get out and shovel. But they’re all crazy in Fifth Battalion.”

Inwardly, Quaeryt winced, glancing out across the valley below lit in morning sunlight, trying to imagine it dark and gray, covered with ice and snow. He glanced back uphill. On the top of the long rise loomed the gray walls of the palace, walls that looked to extend a good half mille across the front alone. He hadn’t realized just how huge the area enclosed by the walls truly was.

When the two neared the top of the approach road and rode toward the gates at the east end of the palace, Quaeryt noted that they were open and swung outward and flush against the flanking towers. Each side was comparatively narrow-less than two yards wide-and extended upward some four yards. When closed, they would fit against the stone on both sides and along the top.

Two more guards stood outside the gates.

“It’s the scholar the princeps is expecting.”

The guards looked Quaeryt over, but said nothing. The space under the archway between the two towers was effectively a walled tunnel some five yards long. A second set of gates was recessed into the inside walls of the guard towers, and beyond them was a large open courtyard at least seventy yards on a side.

To the right of the capacious entry courtyard were severe stone buildings some three stories in height, looking like troop barracks, and farther to the west were the stables. Behind them were the walls, only a handful of yards higher than the barracks roofs. To the left and directly beyond the entry courtyard were gardens, and the scent of flowers was almost overpowering to Quaeryt.

Gardens? Given the grimness of the stone walls, he hadn’t expected gardens.

A single stone-paved lane, edged by a knee-high wall, led through the middle of the gardens, and the escort