THREE: A Lesson on the Fairground
The Knight who lacks Self-Knowledge stands upon the Brink of Disaster, even if he does nothing but Cower in his own Keep.
—Conradin 3:14 The Art of Knighthood
The rising sun assaulted Cal’s eyes as it hit his face through the narrow east window of his room. He woke. His arms and legs did not want to move from the bed.
He forced himself to sit up. Blearily, he realized he had drunk too much mead at the banquet the night before. He had needed to do something to avoid thinking about Alynde.
That isn’t a good excuse.
His ears swelled with pain. Lying on his bed was bad enough, but sitting upright forced him to exist in three dimensions. His overloaded brain had trouble handling them.
Merchants. Traders. Noble Daughters.
What's the difference?
Muffled knocking came from the door, originating from waist height. Cal ignored it. The knocking came again, this time even harder. He wondered whether it was worse to sit there and absorb the pounding on his skull or to risk a voyage across the room.
The only way I am going to get revenge on the idiot at the door is to answer it.
He got out of bed.
Halfway across the room, he tangled his foot in the clothes that he had thrown onto the floor the night before. Cal sprawled face-forward on the thick bearskin rug residing on the stone floor of his chamber. Still suffering from last night’s binge, he let his body settle into the deep brown fur for a few delicious moments. He wanted to go back to sleep.
The moron at the door started beating on it.
Despite his dizziness, Cal crawled a short distance, then struggled onto his feet and staggered to the door. He leaned on the frame for a few moments. With the last of his strength, he pulled it open.
Coriss stood in the doorway, his small eight-year-old face turned up and grinning with childish pleasure. He giggled. Somehow, his little brother managed to look disheveled despite wearing clothes that the tailor had made just before the Fair.
I’m going to murder him.
Cal stood in the door, blocking the way in, but Coriss wiggled past his brother’s bulky body and skipped into the room. Coriss stopped next to the iron perch for Cal’s goshawk and began to toy with the heavy leather glove used to handle the bird.
Cal yelled, “What do you want?”
Coriss answered in a righteous little voice, “Immel told me to wake you up, big brother. He wants all of us to go to the fair with him.”
Cal groaned. After last night, the last thing he wanted was to clutter his brain with academic crap. Curse that old man, why doesn’t he shove a gold piece up his...
His little brother shook the hawk’s jesses, making the tiny bells tinkle. The sound felt like he had rammed a spike in Cal’s ear. He wished the bird had been in the room. The goshawk would have snapped off the brat’s offending finger with his predatory beak.
“We better get going,” continued Coriss in a contrite voice, “Earwin is already in the bath.”
Cal threatened, “Get out or I’ll throw you in the bath.
“I’m scared...” taunted Coriss, as he scurried out the door, giggling at his older brother’s futile threat.
Smart of the old man, sending Coriss after me. I would have told a chamberlain I wasn’t going, but that brat loves to annoy me. He doesn’t care if I yell at him.
Cal summoned the bath attendants. He intended to tell them not to heat the water. I need something to wake me up. Immel’s lecture certainly won’t.
* * *
The Tutor led his three charges to the booth of Trader Kelar. The Trader had a large selection of books, ranging from lyrical poems to medical texts. Immel discussed the merits of various scholarly authors with the obsequious businessman, while Cal watched the crowd—trying to find something that would distract him from stewing over Alynde. Coriss played with a loose tooth. Earwin, however, listened closely.
Immel picked up the obligatory volume of The Alchemy of War, the sacred tome revered by the warrior-priests of Maht-Hildis. Tutors across the Baronies used it to teach children their letters. He sighed with pleasure as he ran his good left hand over the cover's beautiful, hand-tooled leather. “This is excellent work. The binding is of the best quality.”
The squat trader nodded and smiled.
“You bring these from Selinger?”
The trader nodded again.
Earwin shyly began to look through the books as the trader and Immel talked. For a short while, Earwin went unnoticed; but he caught the Trader’s attention when he opened a thick book bound in red leather and lost himself in reading after only a few passages.
“Ah, young sir. You have a good eye,” commented the Trader, tilting his head sharply upward to look at Earwin’s face. “That book is very popular, especially with the young nobles of the Prince’s court.”
The tutor looked over Earwin’s shoulder and squinted at the title page. “I don’t recognize the author.”
“He’s a new artist attached to the Prince’s household. He writes of the Prince’s young knights and the strange lands they travel to...”
Cal noticed a small group of Aldon’s dragoons head out of Dannik-town following the southern road. Recently, he could hardly walk across the practice yard or into a smithy without tripping over another of these ill-trained ‘warriors’. Mounted footmen—what a ridiculous concept. That’s like pasting turkey wings onto a horse and expecting it to fly.
After the troop passed, Cal resigned himself to Immel’s chatter.
“Are there many young nobles at the Prince’s court?”
“Certainly, sir! From all over. These young lordlings come and buy everything available. Why, when I was a scribe in the Prince’s court, I penned adventure books for them in my spare time. The demand became so great that I decided to become a book merchant.”
The tutor gently picked up another volume. He ran his shriveled right hand over the dark leather cover, tooled with elaborate decorative patterns, and then slowly began to page through it.
“You have discerning taste, Your Holiness. That work is an ancient history from the old empire, written during its peak. It tells of the rise of the Thorandians, and their wars.”
Immel asked in a clipped tone, “Whose work is it?”
“Sanust.”
“His works were lost long ago! How...”
“They were rediscovered by a scribe in the service of the Prince. The Prince has ordered his entire scriptorium to copy it.”
The Immel answered, “This book must be very common...”
“Not at all sir! Every scholar wants to get his hands on a copy,” replied the Trader, the haggling gleam in his eye.
After a protracted bargaining session, they settled on a price of sixteen silver pieces. Shortly after Immel had concluded the transaction, he led his three students toward a large tree about twenty yards from the edge of the fairground.
Cal glumly looked at his tutor as he waited for Immel’s lecture to begin. The tutor stood by the dark gray trunk of the solitary oak, his long brown robe and wild hair gently waving in the breeze. Looking at the monk’s scraggly hair, Cal could not help but think of the Winterfest he and Alynde had spent all night playing backgammon in a hidden alcove while the adults made merry in the Great Hall. They had discovered the old man unconscious after a rare night of indulgence, and Alynde could not resist using honey from the table to paste mistletoe into the tutor’s long hair. Immel had been forced to hack out the tangled clumps with barber shears.
Gods I've missed her!
That realization only made him feel worse.
Immel looked around the small group, catching their eyes, and then asked, “What did everyone learn from Trader Kelar?”
Earwin answered primly, “That you have a lot to learn about haggling.”
Cal sat up in surprise and laughed. Coriss giggled and rocked back and forth, his face stretched by his wide, childish smile. Immel frowned, and then he relented and laughed along with his students.
“All right! I am a tutor, not a trader...and glad of it! Now, did anyone learn anything else?”
The boys were quiet for a long while. Immel waited. The silence became uncomfortable and still he waited. Coriss sat on a damp patch of earth, which pooled into a puddle right under his legs. He was content to sit in it. Earwin sat on the ground with his legs crossed in front of him, his posture straight and alert. He managed to appear proper despite the outdoor setting. Cal slumped against a large rock and allowed his legs to sprawl in front of him. He spied a distant thrush, and began to sketch out new heraldic bird of his own devising on his lesson slate.
Like innumerable times before, Cal wished his father’s handpicked Chaplain had avoided the training accident that had withered his sword-arm long ago. Immel would have inherited his father’s manor and never become a monk.
Earwin could not stand the silence any longer. He ventured, “Well...there are many young nobles at the Prince’s court.”
“Good,” commented Immel. “Now, what does the presence of young nobles in Selinger’s court mean?”
Earwin treated their tutor with a blank stare. Cal continued to write on his hidden slate. Coriss slapped his palm into the puddle, causing water droplets to fly. Immel scowled at his youngest pupil. “Coriss! Stop that—now!!!”
The aged tutor gave Coriss another glare to punctuate his words. Then he returned to his lecture. “The Prince of Selinger is not going to send out heralds to announce his plans. We have to think, and make intelligent deductions. Sometimes we will be wrong, but often we will uncover a portion of the truth.”
This speech did not bring forth any answers from his students.
“Remember, the Trader said the young nobles came from all over, which means they’re from the Baronies. The Prince has worked hard to attract them. He’s flooded the Northland with books glorifying knights who take service in Selinger’s Orders. Why would the Prince do this?”
Again, Immel waited for an answer.
Reluctantly, the tutor answered his own question. “The Prince wants to gain the loyalty of the young nobles. These young gentlemen in Selinger are, for the most part, the younger sons of Barons. The Prince gives them a chance to become important.”
“Now, imagine that the older brother dies. The new heir is one of these young nobles. Instead of an enemy, the Prince will then have a Baron who is an ally. Keldrin has many ways to spread his influence, if he can attract young nobles to his service.”
Immel paused, and then sequentially looked each of his pupils in the eye. “Prince Keldrin’s methods differ from his predecessors, but he plays the same game. He wants to rule the Baronies.”
Earwin objected, “But, the last war with Selinger ended long ago.”
“Oh, really?” challenged the tutor, fixing his prize pupil with an intent stare. “Then why is Selinger aiming his merchant fleet at us?”
The question surprised Earwin. “What does trade have to do with...”
The tutor stepped closer to his students. “He didn’t build it out of kindness, I can assure you. It’s not because he likes to sail, either. Keldrin’s fleet helps merchants from Selinger, and the coin these merchants take from fairs goes back to Selinger.”
Immel saw the pupils of Earwin’s dark eyes open wide to catch the dim rays of sunlight streaming through the oak tree’s branches. Cal began to sense the old man had, for once, chosen to lecture about something he needed to know. He looked up from his drawing and pressed the side of his head with the fingertips of his right hand. He hoped the gesture made him look thoughtful rather than giving away his blurry vision.
The tutor continued, “Prince Keldrin is much cleverer than his ancestors. They tried to take the Baronies by force. They failed. With over two hundred Baronies, there are too many to control. Instead, Prince Keldrin’s merchants give the peasants the goods they crave, and take their money in return.”
Immel added, “Remember, power follows gold. Where does the coin go? Who collects the power?”
The monk had parroted "power follows gold" from Orlon, an ancient philosopher of the Thorandian Empire. These days, very few ever held a gold piece in their hands. The only gold left in the Baronies was Thorandian coin hoarded since Imperial times, before traitorous dwarvish warriors had descended from the mountains. The gold mines had been impossible to work since the Collapse.
Meanwhile, Earwin considered the tutor’s question. After a short silence, he answered, “The Prince.”
The tutor nodded his approval. “The peasants support Selinger every time they buy goods brought by one of his merchants. And the Barons cannot stop it!”
Cal and Earwin’s eyes glazed. The lecture had hooked them, and their minds churned.
Immel decided he had pushed them enough for one day. Rather than pushing them farther, he released the boys from the lesson and sent them back to the fair.
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