Scholar

“You’ve never left much to chance.”

“With you around, how could I?” Bhayar shook his head again. “Go. Go and pester my governor and princeps with your questions.”

Sensing both exasperation and humor in Bhayar’s words, Quaeryt bowed. “At your command, Lord.”

Quaeryt was almost to the study door when Bhayar added in a low voice, “And take care of yourself. If you think it necessary-and it had better be-I will come to Tilbor.”

“Thank you … and don’t be too hard on those who ask questions while I’m gone.”

“Only those who ask stupid ones.”

Quaeryt smiled, but kept walking. He still had to meet with Ghoryn … and he wanted to read whatever it was Vaelora had written-if only to be able to protect himself.

Are you certain that’s the only reason? He didn’t laugh softly to himself until he was walking down the private staircase.

6

Once he left the palace, Quaeryt immediately made his way back to his chamber in the Scholarium, where he could read Vaelora’s missive without interruption. Before he met with the mate of the Diamond Naclia, and parted with silvers, he wanted to know why Bhayar’s sister was sending him a missive … and what she had in mind. While it might be exactly what she had claimed, he had more than casual doubts-far more. Vaelora might be only nineteen, going on twenty, but not a one of that family was lacking in brains and cunning, and for a mere scholar to get drawn into whatever might be on the young woman’s mind was bound to be risky.

But she definitely is attractive. He pushed that thought away.

Once he closed the door and slid the lock plate, just for practice, he imaged the seal from where it joined the edges of the paper to a point slightly lower, then opened the two sheets and began to read.

Dear Scholar Quaeryt-

Many, including Lord Bhayar himself, have noted that you possess a quiet but pervasive understanding of both history and those who would make it, whether those persons be men or women. It is said that history is written by those who have triumphed. That is often so, but it is also true that, at times, it is written by those who have not. They are the ones who have survived others’ triumphs and then their decline.

What then is triumph? The momentary accession to power, followed by a constant struggle to increase or maintain that power? Or is such triumph always followed by an inevitable loss of power, whether such a decline is visible to observers at the time? Can power be merely maintained by a wise ruler? Or is that a fiction created by such rulers? Or must it always be increased, or lost? Are the wisest of rulers those who quietly surround themselves with men and women of ability, and listen to them, choosing what serves their ends most judiciously? Yet how is this possible, when so many men of ability seek to further their own ends, rather than those of another?

Quaeryt stopped and reread the clear and graceful writing of the previous paragraph once again.

“‘Men and women of ability,’” he murmured, “yet ‘so many men of ability seek to further their own ends.’” An accidental choice of words? Not likely. Not at all.

A woman of ability must subordinate herself to a man, if indirectly, in order to obtain her ends, while a man may seek to make his own destiny. Thus, a ruler must always ask of a man who ostensibly serves him whose ends that underling truly works for and in what circumstances, while the ruler can ask with which man a woman is allied and how her acts and requests might benefit the man in question.

“I don’t know about that … a woman can flatter one man while serving another.” But that’s what’s she’s saying.

This is not as simple as it may appear, for a mother may have desires for her husband or her lover or her children. The honest woman is the one who is direct with the one she loves the most, but do men respect such honesty?

Another good question. Quaeryt kept reading.

In historical tomes, one often reads of how effectively a ruler must treat with allies and enemies. Seldom is there ever reference to the effectiveness in dealing with those closest to a ruler, save when a ruler cold-bloodedly removes all those whose bloodlines might supplant his own. Yet Lord Chayar was most successful in not resorting to such familial bloodletting, as was his father and as has been his son. Why do those who study history not remark upon such?

Because Chayar had only a single son and because his father Lhayar sent all his sons into battle against the descendants of Hengyst until but one son remained.

Or is it because they use circumstances in quiet ways to limit familial rivalries before they can threaten the internal harmonies necessary for a successful ruler?

These are mere thoughts, offered for your consideration.

The signature was a single letter-“V.”

When he had finished, Quaeryt folded the missive carefully, then slipped it inside the document case Bhayar had given him.

What exactly did Vaelora have in mind? What she had written wasn’t a flattering treatise on his intellect or insight. Nor was it seductive-except in the sense of showing that she could indeed think … and raise issues without revealing, at least directly, even who she was. The document was unlike anything he had ever read, and it was incredible, so incredible that he had to wonder if Vaelora had composed it herself.

Yet … who else could have? From the brief meeting, he had doubts that Nerya had, and none of Vaelora’s sisters had been in residence in Solis in years. That meant that the document reflected either Vaelora or the presence in the palace of another woman of intellect and perception. Perhaps Aelina?

Quaeryt nodded. That was possible. Was the document suggesting that some of the better of Bhayar’s decisions had come from his Lady?

Either way, the missive had raised many of the key issues of ruling, including perhaps the most important, that of assuring an orderly succession. Hengyst had been a great ruler, and yet within a few generations, his successors had been anything but great. Supposedly, the same had been true of Caldor, the founder of Bovaria. Kharst had come from a cadet lineage that had scarcely been noted a few generations earlier, when suddenly, all the direct descendants of Caldor had suffered various fatalities that had never been explained satisfactorily, perhaps because anyone who raised such issues also vanished.

Was the letter a form of indirect communication from Bhayar?

He shook his head. While he certainly couldn’t discount the possibility, Vaelora’s words to him and the tone of the letter mitigated that likelihood. Besides, Bhayar had never minced words with him, not ever. He had hinted, upon occasion, that his youngest sister was proving to be difficult-a greater and greater problem for which he had no easy solution. Because of her intellect? That was all too possible.

Was Vaelora interested in Quaeryt? Perhaps … but why? He was essentially a scholar with a modest income, very modest, and she had no idea that he had a limited ability, through his imaging, to do somewhat better than that-but certainly not the ability to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. Nor could Bhayar afford to waste an asset like Vaelora on a mere scholar, even one the Lord was familiar with and friendly to.

As for some sort of liaison, Vaelora’s words had almost hinted at that … but, as Quaeryt had as much as indicated to Bhayar, giving in to such an impulse, even if Vaelora were interested, would be tantamount to Quaeryt sentencing himself to a distant exile … or even death. That was certainly not his plan, not when he had so much he wanted to accomplish … somehow. In any case, he would not even have a chance to see Vaelora before he sailed, yet she had asked for his comments.

He sat down and took out a short sheet of paper, thinking, and then finally writing.

Dear Mistress Vaelora-

Your missive raised most of the issues of historical interest in assessing the problems facing a