Scholar: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio (66 page)

“So it would. But is not most of life arranged in that fashion, if more concealed and obscured by custom, golds, and fashion?”

“Certainly, some philosophers have claimed that to be so.”

“What do you think?”

“I do not believe it is always so, but it is more so than most would care to admit.”

“That is a careful and scholarly reply, as befits a scholar.” Rescalyn smiled. “Neither life nor war are always either careful or scholarly … as I hope you have observed in your time with the regiment.”

“I have indeed, sir. Might I ask what you plan next?”

“You may ask. I’ll answer in general terms. We have crushed the four hill holders who declared rebellion. I have sent a courier under a parley flag to hill holder Zorlyn, with a message. That message offers a cease-fire to him and all remaining hill holders provided they swear immediate allegiance to Telaryn and its lord … and offer additional tariffs of two parts in ten. I wrote him that Telaryn is making the offer because he did not join the declared rebels. If he does not so swear, then he will suffer the fate of the deceased rebel holders … as will any holder who does not do so.”

“Do you expect him to do so?”

“What do you think, scholar?”

“I have my doubts, sir.”

“So do I, but, by making the offer, I appear reasonable.”

“You also show the High Holders that, if tariffs need to rise, you will back such increases with force.”

“That, too,” replied Rescalyn with a smile. “Oh … I expect another homily tonight … and would you convey to Undercaptain Gauswn that his services will also be required? You can use the large wintering barn.”

Quaeryt had expected that “request.” He only had been surprised that Rescalyn hadn’t begun with it. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s all, scholar.”

Quaeryt nodded and departed.

When he returned to the barn, Gauswn was waiting for him.

“Sir … are we—”

“Yes, the governor has requested that we conduct services tonight in the large wintering barn. It appears we’ll be here for several days. If you’ll excuse me for a few moments, I need to report to Major Skarpa.”

“He’s at the north end, sir.”

“Thank you.” Quaeryt walked to the far end of the barn.

Skarpa turned from the senior squad leader with whom he had been talking. “Scholar.”

“Major … I just returned from talking with the governor. He asked that Gauswn and I perform the services tonight—in the large wintering barn. He also said that he’d sent a message to Holder Zorlyn, suggesting the holders acknowledge the primacy of Telaryn and its lord. He is awaiting a reply.”

“I hadn’t heard that, but he has called for an all-officers’ meeting in a glass. We’ll be here for several days, then. At least two more. Thank you.”

“I thought you should know, if you didn’t already.”

“I appreciate it.”

Quaeryt headed back to find Gauswn and discuss the service. He also needed to find another “appropriate” topic for his homily.

A glass later, he was sitting on a post in the corner of the barn, below the hayloft, thinking … and murmuring ideas to himself.

“Youth and strength as Naming … no … Cyrethyn mentioned that. Who is better remembered—Caldor, Hengyst, or Rholan? No … that suggests that rulers aren’t to be trusted as much as followers of the Nameless … Rholan … the creation of a legend…”

He paused.
What about the idea that creating a legend is a form of cultural Naming … that legends effectively destroy truth … and why is it that most great men so wish to be a legend in their own time?

Quaeryt smiled. He could do something with that idea … something that he could directly tie in to the acts and behaviors of the hill holders … while suggesting that form of Naming existed in great and powerful men of accomplishment everywhere … and that sometimes, only the intervention of the Nameless prevented even greater disasters. He wouldn’t mention that powerful men often claimed that the Nameless had made their excesses, which they regarded as triumphs, possible.

88

Quaeryt’s homily was well-received on Solayi night, and Rescalyn had seemed pleased, even with the words about the intervention of the Nameless to prevent complete disasters. Lundi morning was warmer. The wind had died down, and Quaeryt managed to wash the worst of the mud and blood off the one set of his trousers and tunics and hang them up in the barn, hoping that they would dry before the regiment moved on—whether against Zorlyn or back to Boralieu.

He did spend some time, when he retreated to a quiet corner of the loft, studying the quarrel he had retrieved days earlier, and practicing some different types of imaging, beginning with imaging shafts of straw into barn beams, so that they protruded. Even if someone had been watching, it would have been highly unlikely that they would have seen a straw seemingly appear stuck to the ancient wood, not in the middle of a hayloft.

After that, he checked the mare, thought, talked about matters with Meinyt, and fretted.

Just before supper on Lundi evening, Skarpa appeared in the barn holding Sixth Battalion. “The governor’s called an officers’ meeting.” His eyes went to Quaeryt. “That includes you, scholar.”

Quaeryt inclined his head.

“I don’t think it’s good,” added the major.

“I wouldn’t expect so. The hill holders have regarded themselves as beyond anyone’s law but their own for far too many years.”

“Why did he even send a message, then?”

“So that, after we’ve destroyed Zorlyn and a few more holders totally, he can make an offer again for those few remaining.”

“They could just abandon their holds and wait him out,” pointed out Skarpa.

“Do you really think so? You’ve told me how hard the winters are. Second, no one’s ever succeeded in carrying this kind of war to them before. They don’t really believe it can be done. They’ve been too isolated, and they’ve never dealt with someone who has the skill, determination, and the number of trained troops that the governor has. Even so, he’s just starting the destruction. He’s counting on the winter to largely finish it.”

Skarpa nodded slowly. “I need to tell the other officers. We’re to meet immediately.”

“I’ll come with you, then.”

The two walked toward Gauswn, some twenty yards away, standing back from the east doorway.

Quaeryt said nothing more as Skarpa gathered his officers, and they all walked to the meeting—in the same chamber where Rescalyn had received Quaeryt the day before. Once all the officers had appeared, the governor entered the room. He wasted little time on greetings of formalities.

“As I reported to all of you yesterday,” he began, his voice shorn of the heartiness it so often possessed, “I sent a courier with escorts to Holder Zorlyn. My message offered an amnesty for those hill holders who had not taken up arms against Telaryn, provided they swore allegiance to Telaryn and its lord and provided that they paid tariffs equal to the rates of other High Holders, with an addition of two parts in ten for the next several years.” Rescalyn paused, then went on. “We received a reply less than a glass ago. The courier and his escorts were returned … and released three milles from here. When they reached our camp, two escorts were dead, strapped to their mounts; two were alive but wounded; and the courier was alive—but with a letter pinned to his chest with a knife.…”

Quaeryt felt like wincing.
The idiots … the absolute, boar-headed insufferable egotistical sow-slutted … They’re playing the plaques exactly as he had planned they would.
And yet, there was no real proof, only his suspicions. Was he justified in planning what he did with only what he knew and sensed? And yet, waiting too long would create another problem.

“I will read you the letter,” said Rescalyn, coldly. He cleared his throat.

“To the one called governor—

“The message you sent is an insult to Tilbor. It is also an insult to any self-respecting Tilboran, let alone to a holder whose lands have remained self-governing in his family for generation upon generation. Not even the most absolute of the Khanars ever insisted upon such outrageous tariffing. Nor did they bring in foreign scholars to change the way those who received their education at the Ecoliae were taught. Nor did they elevate mere crafters and merchants to the levels of those who have stewarded their lands wisely for all these many generations. After such acts, then for you to attempt to destroy all those who stand up for their time-honored rights and traditions is an even greater outrage, and one for which you and every man in your regiment will perish.

“There can be but one reply to such ignorant arrogance and such self-serving egotism … and that is the reply you receive. I spare those whom I have returned solely so that you may know that I indeed am the one who sends this message…”

Rescalyn paused. “The courier and the two surviving ranker escorts told me that Zorlyn himself personally read them these words in the great hall of his hold, before two of them were cut down, and the others were maimed.”

Rescalyn let the silence speak for him. Only after it became oppressive did he speak again. “I have offered amnesty and mercy twice. It has been spurned in the cruelest way. We will begin destroying this hold at dawn tomorrow. We will ride out by sunrise.” He paused but momentarily before saying, “That is all. Pass the word to your men.” This time, he stood silently as the officers, and Quaeryt, filed out.

As he walked back to the barn, Quaeryt couldn’t help but admire Rescalyn’s planning and understanding of the hill holders.

89

Mardi morning was clear, but the skies to the northwest showed a haze that promised a change in the weather. The wind also blew from the northwest, hard enough to fan the fires set in all the structures in Demotyl’s holding into infernos within less than a quint after they had been set. By midmorning, the regimental column and its wagons, almost twice as many as had left Boralieu as a result of those recovered from the various holdings, had covered more than seven milles, and a third of the sky was covered with low, thick, gray clouds. The wind had turned intermittently biting.

The first attack on the vanguard started at ninth glass, when several hundred riders galloped across the matted brown grasses of an upland meadow to within two hundred yards of the road and the lead companies. There they reined up and began to loose volleys of arrows at the Telaryn forces.

Rescalyn called on Fifth Battalion to attack by circling from the right. The hill riders waited until the first company was within fifty yards before loosing three volleys at directly at the cavalry. Fifth Battalion ran down those too slow to escape and cut them down on the spot, perhaps fifty, according to the messenger who rode up and passed the work to Skarpa. Fifth Battalion suffered almost that many casualties, and more than twenty men were killed or wounded in the vanguard.

Rescalyn sent out more outriders and scouts.

All during the time between noon and the first glass of the afternoon, arrows and quarrels arched intermittently from the woods or from hills or bluffs down on the column, occasionally striking riders before one of the squads detailed to chase the archers away neared the attackers and they faded into the trees. The column scarcely slowed at all.

Shortly after that, a ranker rode back and summoned Quaeryt to ride forward to see the governor. When Quaeryt approached, Rescalyn motioned for him to ride next to him, but the governor did not speak immediately.

After they had ridden more than a hundred yards, Rescalyn asked, “Scholar … what did you think, honestly, of Zorlyn’s reply?”

“Foolish … and predictable.”

“Zorlyn is anything but a fool.”

“I am certain that is so, sir, but intelligent and perceptive men still make foolish statements and attempt unwise acts when they fail to realize they are captive to perceptions or beliefs that are in error. Zorlyn has never faced a determined foe whose desire is to obliterate what he stands for. Neither have any of his forebears. The Khanars always compromised, and the hill holders believe that all rulers will do so, rather than fight and lose more men than is seen to be worth their while. Zorlyn, like all hill holders, assumes that your interest and that of Lord Bhayar is merely to collect tariffs. He also assumes that you will not pay the price for your actions. Were his assumptions correct, then his defiance would be justified. But those assumptions are incorrect.”

“How does a man tell when he is captive to erroneous perceptions or beliefs?”

“Some men never do. Others discover the errors of their ways when they fail or are about to die from those errors. Seldom do they discover such errors except through some form of trial or pain. Even then, some do not.”

“You could unsettle any man, master scholar,” replied Rescalyn with a hearty laugh.

“I doubt it. Those who might be unsettled usually refuse to see.”

“You are a cynical man, even for a scholar.”

“When people disagree with what stands there for all to see, they often call those who observe events with accuracy cynical. One such might call you cynical for observing and acting on the fact that the hill holders will not capitulate to reason until you have effectively destroyed the majority of those with power.”

Rescalyn laughed again, if with a slightly bitter edge.

Before the governor could speak, Quaeryt pressed on. “I have to ask … once you’ve destroyed Zorlyn and his holding and men, how many more will you have to obliterate before the remaining hill holders surrender? All of them?”

Rescalyn frowned. “One or two more, at the most. We have already destroyed three of the four most powerful holdings in the Boran Hills. Zorlyn’s is the most powerful. On Samedi I received word that Commander Pulaskyr has done the same for the two strongest hill holders in the north. The remaining five hill holders in the south can likely muster together fewer men—and women and youths—than Zorlyn can alone. The remaining four in the north pose little problem. They’d just as soon be minor High Holders, but feared the others. We may have to destroy one more here in the south to prove that we will go after even the weaker hill holders. We could destroy them all, if need be.…”