01 - The Price of Talent (34 page)

“Something tells me that the kind of girls who like guarding the jail are not the sort who… uh, would enjoy hanging out with young men,” I replied.

“Regardless, it should make it easy for me to find what we need and sweet talk my way out again,” she said.

“Just make sure they don’t try anything… uh, untoward,” I said, flailing away mentally to find the right word.

“Oh please,” she said with a smile, “I have very little to fear from them. If they try to get fresh or handsy, they will get the ol’ knock out spell, same as any belligerent patient.”

“How are we going to keep this gear hidden until we have the opportunity to escape?” I asked.

“Well, I think we just keep it in the storeroom until we are on our way out,” she said. “What I mean is that, on the night we escape, I will secure the gear we need and keep it with me. There’s no point in getting it before we need it, and if things go missing, or a guard wakes up locked in a storeroom, questions are going to get asked. I think it would be preferable to be long gone from here when that happens.”

“Ok, so that covers the gear,” I said. “Now we need a pretext or distraction to cover our tracks when we leave, so that we have a decent head start over the people Claudius is undoubtedly going to send to capture us.”

“That’s also not too hard to come up with,” she said. “From what I have heard from my classmates, every year, before the winter solstice celebrations, they hold an exam for the inquisitor initiates who they deem worthy of becoming full inquisitors. Usually this involves trying to catch the advanced students in the priest training class. This year though, I bet it will involve tracking and capturing you. But even if it doesn’t, it will act as a decent distraction under which we will be able to escape.”

“So… The exam for the inquisitors is to try to catch the priest initiates?” I asked. “What all is involved in that?”

“Well, from what I have heard, it’s a lot like your training sessions in the yard,” she replied. “Essentially, they send out some of the more advanced priest initiates to hide on the grounds, and the inquisitor initiates are sent to find them. The most successful teams, or individuals, in capturing priest initiates get passing grades and graduate to become full inquisitors. Those that fail have to endure another year of training.”

“Ok, that makes sense, and explains a lot of the training Claudius and Alfieri have been having us do, but I think we’re going to need to know more if we’re going to plan our escape around it,” I said.

“Well, that may be a bit of a problem,” she said. “From what I have been told, they try to change up the format a little every year, to keep the test from being too easy for the initiates and to test their ability to solve problems on the fly.”

“Then how do we plan our escape around it?” I asked.

“I think we’re going to need to play things a little loose, I’m afraid,” she said. “We know the approximate date, right around the winter solstice, and we know generally what it will involve, i.e. sending the initiates on a castle-wide game of hide and seek.”

“So the plan is just to use the confusion of the exam to steal what we need and slip out the front door?” I asked. “Because, if your suspicions are true and they are going to use me in the exam, then a lot of eyes are going to be on me and our escape routes.”

“True, but we will be dressed as guards, I was hoping that might allow us to slip out the front gate,” she said.

“Will there be a lot of people visiting the castle for the ceremony?” I asked.

“I’m not sure honestly, most likely there will be,” she said. “You think that will help us escape?”

“I was thinking that we might be able to slip out on someone’s cart or carriage,” I said. “After all, the stables are right by the front gate, we might well be able to slip onto a carriage or into a crate on an outgoing cart from there.”

“That might work actually,” she said. “Even if a lot of people aren’t coming in for graduation, there will probably be an increase in deliveries to the castle, and that should mean an increase in people leaving as well.”

“We should probably do some spying to see what sort of security will be in place, that might give us some ideas on how to slip out unnoticed,” I said. “Last thing we need is to run into some unforeseen problem and have to abandon the plan after you have pilfered some gear from the castle storerooms.”

“Ok, so what we need is more information…” Meredith said pensively, “I think I should handle finding information about where personal files are kept, as people are a little suspicious of you, and then you can use some of your free time to go for long walks around the castle grounds. That way you can walk by the castle gate frequently enough to get a better idea of the security there.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll make long walks part of my regular evening training, call it a warm up before hitting the targets. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I’m just stretching my legs before a workout. Hopefully that will be enough cover to get a good look at the security here on a regular basis.”

“And I will spend some time poking around and talking to teachers about where files are kept,” said Meredith. “See if I can come up with some sort of research project as an excuse to poke around.”

“Do you get many research projects?” I asked. “Because my training mostly involves using magic and sparring.”

“Well, your education is a little… different from normal priest initiates,” said Meredith. “We spend a lot of time in the classroom. This is especially true of the few of us learning how to be doctors. There is a lot to learn about human anatomy and the use of magic power to help heal people. My time is almost evenly split between book learning and working in the hospital.”

“What about initiates learning about other areas of study?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Since I’m being tutored privately by Claudius, I’m not sure how they fill their days. All I know is that most of them shoot me dirty looks at meal time and pointedly ignore me.”

“Well, the dirty looks are because you are denounced as a murderer by most of the staff here, as you well know,” she said. “As for how other priest initiates’ days go, I’m not sure. I believe their days are evenly split between instruction and work as well. Those who can conjure fire light the candles, keep the fires going and even help out in the kitchens. Others work in the vegetable garden, brew beer and other stuff like that. Didn’t Claudius explain most of this to you?”

“He did, but he just explained it in general terms,” I said. “And I wasn’t going to question him too much at the time. After all, he had only just let me out of my basement cell.”

“Well, anyway, most of the priests attend classes and help with chores around the castle,” she said. “Because there are so few of us, most of us have our duties assigned on an individual basis. I know some who are quite book smart who are going to end up in the church administration in Caer Dogmatorum. The best speakers are being trained to give sermons to local populations who have aging local priests. It really depends, you know?”

“I wonder what that means I’m being trained to do?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Meredith. “I think Claudius has special plans for you. He’s getting on in years though. Maybe he wants you to replace him. Given your skills with external uses of magic power, that would make sense, and it would explain why he is personally training you.”

“Ugh!... That’s a scary thought,” I said. “Me, in charge of capturing other kids the same way I was? Why would he think I would go along with that?”

“Same reason every kid who is captured does,” said Meredith. “Treat someone well, nurture their powers, and feed their ego a steady diet of lies about their abilities making them special, and over time you get a group of people who think they deserve to rule others and treat them like second class citizens.”

“People actually buy into that crap?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Tyr, most of the kids being trained here grew up doing hard manual labor in the fields, or working for strict taskmasters in the trades,” said Meredith. “They live a much easier life here and wouldn’t go back to their old lives even if given the opportunity.”

“So they accept that they were kidnapped and forced to work for their captors?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Except they don’t view it as a kidnapping, they see it as being freed from a life of obscurity and toil. They believe they have been called to the service of the church by god and that their powers are proof of that. They believe the story told to them because it feeds their deep seated need to be important and get away from a life that they disliked.”

“But I didn’t dislike my previous life,” I said.

“You have to view it from Claudius’s perspective,” said Meredith. “To him you were living as just another dirt grubbing poor farmer in the middle of nowhere. Why wouldn’t you prefer to be an all-powerful priest and take over as the head of the inquisition when he retires or dies? Why wouldn’t you grow to accept it? After all, here you would be powerful and important, there you would just be another lowly peasant farmer.”

“Lowly peasant farmer?!” I said, so shocked I couldn’t articulate my outrage.

“In Claudius’s perspective, that’s exactly what you were,” she said. “A man who feels justified sending armed men to abduct children who had the misfortune of being born with magical gifts is just the sort of person who looks down on non-priests. Likely it helps him to sleep at night, thinking of it as saving poor unfortunate souls from a life of hard labor.”

“And he thinks I can be taught to think like that?” I asked.

“Tyr, it’s a very seductive view,” said Meredith. “Most people already think they’re special. The priests who train initiates just continue to tell them what they already secretly believe. Get them at a young enough age and they have no problem accepting it. That’s the way indoctrination works. You tell people what you want them to believe in a flattering way that feeds their egos and makes them feel special and they usually eat it up. Lots of people really want to believe it. They want to be special, they want their lives to have meaning. So yes, I think he does believe you will eventually come around.”

“Ugh… We really do need to get out of here,” I said. “Because that kind of thinking disgusts me.”

“Disgusting as you may find it,” said Meredith. “It’s quite effective. Anyway, I have to go now and get ready for bed. I have another long day of people ignoring my advice on how to get well.”

              And with that said, she headed for the door. She paused briefly by the door to smile and wave, then left, shutting the door behind her.

So let me get this straight, after all these many months of being locked up here, the best plan you two can come up with is escape during a graduation ceremony?

Oh, do you have any better ideas?

Well, as a sword, I have limited knowledge of the goings on beyond this room and the practice yard. But at this point, even just walking up to the gate, killing the guards and then running for it seems like a better plan.

The point of our plan is not to alert the guards at all. We want to be well on our way before they figure it all out.

And you expect no one to notice that the possible center piece of their graduation exam, namely you, will go missing?

Weren’t you listening? My whole role, assuming they use me the way Meredith believes they will, is to hide. If they have trouble finding me, well, that’s part of the game isn’t it?

Honestly I drift in and out when you two are babbling away. But if you honestly think your actions will go unobserved, then I think you’re fooling yourself. In the end, if you and Meredith are going to escape, you are going to need to fight your way out. Fortunately, that’s my specialty.

Oh, and when did you do enough fighting to specialize in anything?

I’m a sword. We are kind of a single purpose design. Blades are for cutting, points are for piercing. It’s you that’s making this more difficult than it needs to be. Why not just steel the gear you need under cover of darkness, kill the guards that get in your way and head off to your friends in the woods?