Pride and Splendor appeared empty when Able walked in to the jingle of the bell above. He turned to close the door behind him.
"There you are!" Lark's outburst startled Able and turned to laughter as Able turned to see him poking his head around from the back room.
"I didn't forget." Able held his hands up. "I had a much more interesting morning than I had anticipated."
"Oh? Wait one sec—" Lark disappeared into the back and came out a half a second later with a basket on his arm. "You can tell me on the way!"
Lark wasn't a woman today, judging by the breeches, but by the airy tunic, he probably wasn't a man either. As if that made any sense. As they walked to the grocers, Able recounted his encounter with Forest Mason that morning and asked Lark if he could help.
"I'd leave Forest alone," Lark said immediately. "You want someone who is in the know, and he clearly isn't."
"I realize that, but what if he could get me to someone who is?"
"Let me think."
"...you know someone?"
"At this point, I'm pretty sure I've already convinced anyone I could to talk to you. But venturing into friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend territory, I should be able to think of someone."
"What about..." Able pulled out his notebook and flipped through it. "Credible Westfield and Kindness Darkcloud?"
"Oh?" Lark cocked his head. "What about them?"
"They're the elders that supported resisting Larbant rule in Fairbanks. So, I thought, maybe?"
"Well, I don't know. And I don't know how they'd take to us asking, either, but we can still try."
"Shopping first," Able assured, and Lark grinned in response.
They'd not gone another block before Lark asked, "Hey, are you all right?"
Able winced. When he had stepped out of the wharf offices the salt air had swamped him with a wave of sadness that he'd yet to shake off. And somehow, Lark could tell.
"Sure." He shrugged it off, then, "But I was wondering—you remember how we use the term 'pale eyes' back in Larbantry?"
"You mean like yours?" Oh, right.
"Yes, well..." Able straightened his jacket. "I was wondering how they might call that color here."
"Hm!" Lark's eyes lit up—and the whole brain behind it as well. "Now that is an interesting question! Lemme think..." Thinking was usually an inward activity, but Lark turned his attention outward, casting his gaze all about as if the colors might shout their names to him. "I think, I think," he said as he turned back to Able, "that, depending on the person, they might say hazel, light brown, or maybe green? I think."
"I see." One candidate had "brown" eyes, the other "gray." So potentially neither were eliminated.
"What brought that up?" Lark frowned in concern.
Able sighed, probably only illustrating his dampened spirits to Lark, so he might as well tell him, "I was looking through records of the unidentified dead that have washed up on these shores. I noticed some differences in the way they describe people here than in Larbantry."
"Why were..." and he fell silent.
Able was content to not explain further, but he still had one more question. "Could I see your arm?"
"My...? Okay." Lark held up his arm and curious eyebrows.
Lark's open sleeves only went about halfway down his arms, and Able rolled up his own sleeve and held his arm alongside Lark's. Lark's skin was lighter than his own, but not significantly enough that he'd think to say so when describing him to someone else.
"Trying to get an idea of...?"
"How dark is 'dark,'" Able replied. "Do people here call your skin dark?"
"Oh." Lark made the more typical inward thoughtful face this time. "...maybe? If I think back to when I was a kid, people seemed sure I was a Larbant without me saying so."
"Do you avoid the sun?"
"What?" Lark laughed.
"To avoid tanning so you fit in better..." Able stalled at Lark's amused expression.
"Able, I'm pretty sure if I avoided the sun, I'd wither up like a neglected daisy."
"The sun here must not be that strong at such a low altitude." Able frowned up at it. "...at least, I assumed that's why people here were so pale?"
"Oh, I think they find it plenty strong. Northlanders do not get, ah, darker in the sun. They turn red."
"They turn red?"
"Like tomato soup." Lark grinned impishly. "Go down to the docks and you'll see."
Able had been at the docks and he had seen only had attributed it to exertion. "That's...wow. Okay." He shook his head in bemusement. After a decade of being admonished for his study habits making him the palest, all he'd had to do was go to another port to be the darkest—wait: "But, if it's not the sun, why are you so much paler than me?"
"About that, my father was generations back a Larbant of Larbantry, but my mother..."
"Wasn't," Able quickly fathomed and had to chuckle. "You're both."
"Both!" Lark concurred enthusiastically then laughed. "I don't mind going around and asking people if they'd describe my skin as dark, but there is that."
"It'd be more efficient to ask them to describe mine."
"Sure." Lark's eyes fell, but before Able could ask if he was okay, he nodded up at the grocer's looming ahead of them. "Start with Bundy, I guess?"
They visited several shops to obtain a variety of foodstuffs. Then, at Able's request, Lark took him to a cartography workshop that evidently had not seen many customers in recent years, which was a shame because the surprised and under-dressed cartographer's work was so beautiful that Able couldn't resist purchasing a highly detailed map of the territory as well as a more affordable chart of the nearby sea. Like most the other Borealunders asked before him, the cartographer described Lark's skin as "a little brown" and Able's as "brown," and "hazel" continued to be the popular choice for Able's eye color.
"I am no longer pale nor pale-eyed," Able mused as Lark, who had insisted he was not burdened by their purchases, led him on to see if the town elders were home. "Say—is there a library or at least a bookseller?"
"No library—I mean, probably people still have their private ones." Lark rolled up his eyes thoughtfully. "A few booksellers left, sure, but...probably the histories you're looking for would be something they'd have to order for you?"
"Who said I'm looking for histories?" Able chuckled wryly.
Lark laughed with him then said, "There's the school, though—the primer school is still running, I think."
"Oh?" Able raised his eyebrows in surprise. "As in a Dagobari primer? That's not been shut down?"
Lark shrugged. "It's been open when I pass it on West Way. Although it's probably closed right now for the day."
"Huh." Able scratched his chin. "I'll have to ask Nightwatch how he's managing that without the public system—unless the magistrate is paying for it?"
"Magistrate as in the count?" Lark only laughed at that idea.
Able could only nod in agreement. "Not many magistrates fully fund the primer schools, if at all. The viscount of Southern Shores is one of the stingy ones, so I'm grateful my uncle insisted on paying for my brother and I."
"Oh." Now Lark raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I bet you are."
"Did you not go to school?"
"Er, not until the Hatlings made me." Lark chortled. "It was actually pretty fun, looking back on it."
"Did you get to stay until you were twelve?"
"Thirteen. My birthday is midwinter." Lark cocked his head, "'Get to,' though? You didn't?"
Able shook his head. "Only four years in a Larbant primer. I was on my own after I was eight."
"Wow, I didn't know that." Lark frowned deeply and hugged his basket a little tighter. His voice resonated sincerity when he added, "Good job muscling through on your own, then."
Able hoped he did not blush at this unexpected compliment. "Not going to lie—I was pretty jealous when I found out Dagobari schools last twice as long. But now I'm excited that I get the opportunity to see one!"
His excitement had to sustain him through to the next day, as neither of the elders was willing to let on that they had any connection to the Resistance. Then in the morning, he asked Nightwatch about the unidentified dead, but it seemed neither candidate could be his father. The mayor kindly took time to consider Able's sea chart with him and suggest other places bodies might wash ashore.
Now Able stood outside the school that Nightwatch would not let close even if he had to pay for it himself—which at this time he was partly doing. Much like the structures around it, it was made of timber, but it stood out by being broadside along the street and only a single story high. The roof had some glaring spots where shingles had slid away, and one of the shutters was tied in place with string. If Able had a spare hinge on his person, he might have just fixed that while he waited.
Soon swarms of tiny people were squealing and jumping out of the run-down building into the sunlit street and scrambling off to their childhood haunts to avoid chores—if these were anything like Larbant children. Able waited for them to clear out and be on their way before he made his own way inside, looking for a teacher. There appeared to be two, cleaning up for the day, but only one noticed him enter.
"Can I help you?" she asked slowly with a nervous frown.
"I hope so," he aimed for a friendly tone. "I'm new to the region and don't know much about it, sadly, so I was hoping you might have history texts? Being a school."
"You want to read our history text," she repeated quite helpfully and looked over at her compatriot to be certain she had successfully repeated him. Okay, it was odd for a foreign man to walk into a children's school and make this request.
"Especially one for the local area and especially one for the older children, if possible," he added.
The older of the two women got up, went to a cabinet and returned from it carrying a pleasingly proportioned book bound in bright blue that she handed to him.
"I can't let you take it," she said, "but you may stay and read if you do so quietly."
"Thank you." The title page listed the University of Godmount. Able had read many a text published by this highly-respected establishment located near the capital of Dagobar. "Is this written by a Dagobari?"
"Well, we haven't had much time to change texts, now have we?" Her nostrils flared. "Unless you just want to hand us a new one?"
"Easy, madam. I was merely asking. I'm not here to inspect your school."
"...well, yes, then."
While the teachers returned to cleaning up their classroom and preparing it for the next day, Able sidled in at a table that his knees barely fit under. He tested the tiny chair to be sure it would hold his weight before he flipped to the front page, where the text began two hundred fifty years ago.
Admiral Guidance Fartower was on a mission to chart the eastward sea when he saw strange lights on the horizon. When he made the decision to investigate, he did not know he was about to discover a new and wild land full of beauty and promise. For the next hundred years after, the forests of Borealund would usher in a golden age of tall ships, including the Farfleet. Named in the Admiral's honor, the Farfleet is a fleet of exploration vessels that continue to expand our horizons to this day.
In the margin beside this section, a child had written:
Sure, my ancestors built the beacon on Lightridge just so some Dag could have the honor of discovering it.
Any student writing in a school book back at Able's old primer would have had to buy the school a new book, but he shook off his shock and mentally thanked the cranky kid for this insight to keep in mind against the tone of the rest of the text.
Skimming through it,, he gleaned that the first trade agreements between Dagobar and Borealund were settled two-hundred ten years ago. The Borealunders had been ruling themselves independently from town to town, but over the course of the next twenty years, the trade relations grew so demanding that a central Borealund council was founded for the express purpose of dealing with the outside world. The central city Aimsby that hosted it began to serve as the region's capital.
Because the book focused strongly on who built or founded what and when, Able initially missed the part where the proud and independent people of Borealund had gotten themselves a king. Not the Dagobari emporer, mind, but a Priest-King of the Eagle, a man named Pristine Fires. No sooner did the book start mentioning Fires than did it began mentioning the rebellion marching on Aimsby against him.
The text was light on explanations, but Able knew enough Dagobari history that what it did mention jogged his memory with concurrent events.
Ninety years ago, Dagobar had discovered islands rich with silver veins and dozens of rare medicinal plant species, which would have been fortuitous for them if only far western Myretan had not claimed it had discovered those same islands first. Dagobar had built up a massive navy in order to fight off Myretan's claim the old-fashioned way.
The only reason Dagobar came here, and the only reason Larbantry bled them out, Lark had said. The heart and soul of Borealund.
The two teachers were idling and looking at a loss for how to ask him to leave, but Able left them to their discomfort long enough to learn how the priest-king was deposed and Borealund came under Dagobari rule. Pristine Fire's forces clashed with the rebelling forces for some years until Dagobar sent in their army to restore order and power to the council, who then—the book alleged—were inspired by Dagobari lawfulness and civilization to join the empire.
Able now thanked the teachers for their patience and walked back to Pride and Splendor's. What must have been omitted from a text meant for children—not just children, but children intended to be instilled with admiration and loyalty for Dagobar? From what Lark had said, Dagobar's demand for lumber must have sparked a civil war between the Borealunders enticed by the profits and those religiously protective of the forests. Dagobar had not interfered until it had settled its own dispute with Myretan, if Able wasn't confusing his dates, so "restoring order" must have required a large army.
There was also the tone of the text. His hand found its way into his pocket to spin the rete of his astrolabe. As a Larbant, he'd been in the habit of keeping quiet about his long-standing admiration of Dagobar. While the books he had read when he was young were not intended for children who had no choice in reading them, he had still started at an impressionable age. Observation, deduction, reason...those books had been an awakening to him, had instilled in him an assurance that things could be known and that he knew how to know them. Told him that even when the adults around him spoke nonsense, he could trust himself.
The faults in Larbantry had always stood in his face, sour scars in need of attention. But those in Dagobar? Had he been guiding himself by a distant glow, blind to horrors hidden below the horizon?
Able climbed the stairs over Pride and Splendor's and took his hand from his pocket to grip the door handle. He held it a moment, cool bronze leaching the warmth from his palm and fingers. When he turned it, the spindle inside pulled the latch back. Even though he couldn't see any of this, he could trust this was happening because he'd taken one of these apart once to see how it worked. He could take anything apart.
Opening the door brought the pleasant aroma of baking flatbread over him. Able closed the door behind him and was removing his boots when Lark came and leaned against the door frame to the sitting room.
"So, what would you say to a trip to Aimsby?" Lark floated this question on an air of triumph.
"I'd say how do you keep reading my mind?" Able straightened and took his from his shoulder.
"Oh?" Lark laughed. "Learned something in school, did you? Great! We'll go tomorrow."
"I'm guessing you had a reason that wasn't historical research, though."
"That's...maybe debatable." Lark laughed anew. "I was going to take you to meet Heedful Fairweather."
"Who is Heedful Fairweather?"
But in response Lark merely put his finger on his nose and looked at Able expectantly.
Able frowned in confusion until he recalled Lark's promise. "Someone who is in the know with the Resistance, but I certainly didn't hear it from you?"
Lark grinned and pointed at Able's nose now. "You're good at this. Heedful is very old, over a hundred they say. She fought her first battles when she was fifteen, against the Dagobari takeover."
"Oh." This was some suspicious serendipity. "What makes you think she'll be willing to talk to me?"
Lark shrugged. "I was only told she would be. My guess would be her age is a factor. What could the Larbants do to her now that she hasn't seen a hundred times before? I bet she'd like to look one in the face and give him a piece of her mind."
"Right." Able sighed. "Well, if that's my in, I guess I'd better sit through an old woman yelling in my face, huh?"
"Oh, I can't imagine Heedful yelling. Waste of energy. Anyway, Aimsby is always exciting!" Lark turned to head back into the dining room and predicted, "You're going to love it."