Chapter 11 – An Authority Among Scholars #3
“I will beg Her Grace’s pardon,” Forgess said quickly.
It was one thing to mock the penmanship of an unknown Tresingale pseudo-scholar, and something else to personally insult the Duchess of Andelin, Daughter of the Stars.
“I was…intemperate. But even so, if we wish to learn the truth of the devils, it must be documented prop—”
“That is correct,” Justenin interrupted.
No matter how badly Tresingale needed scholars, he could not overlook this insult.
“We do need proper documentation. We only have one copy of Her Grace’s excellent work, which His Grace left behind for your study despite the advantages it might have afforded him on his dangerous journey.
Therefore, I will not see you again until you have produced a complete, exact copy. Each.”
“Sir Justenin.” Master Torigne drew himself up, stiff with polite offense. “As Masters representing the Tower of Scholars, we cannot accept such treatment—”
“Unless you think we need more copies than that, Sir Edemir,” Justenin added, glancing at his distinctly unfriendly companion.
“Six, including their journeymen,” Edemir said, after a lengthy pause that made it clear that further protest would only increase the number required.
“And I will leave it to you to determine how you might make a persuasive apology to Her Grace.” Privately, Justenin knew this would be impossible. Her Grace would never believe any apology was sincere. He lifted his head, fixing them with a cold, pale stare. “Persuasive to me.”
“We regret that it has come to this, sir knight,” Master Torigne replied, with an air of apology that did not match the glint in his eyes as he dragged the fuming Forgess out the door.
“Will you go?” Edemir asked in the silence.
“Later,” Juste said, picking up the orders they had been discussing before the scholars interrupted. “She will need a little time.”
Though Ophele was nothing at all like himself, Juste thought he understood her. She would hold herself together and retreat to some quiet place to lick her wounds. His presence would only prolong the bleeding. Later, she would be able to hear his arguments. She was a sensible creature.
He was not angry, himself. Juste rarely felt anything with intensity.
But he was…irritated. All this time he had been so careful in instructing her, letting her intelligent, pristinely untutored mind unfold at its own pace.
It was challenging, rewarding work, and while he had begun for Remin’s sake, he continued it now because he enjoyed it.
It pleased him every time she made some new connection that would never have occurred to him or asked a question that challenged his own preconceptions.
She was a little puzzle box he had been painstakingly opening, and those stupid men might have made it snap shut again.
* * *
The duchess was not at home when Juste went looking for her later that afternoon.
A visibly curious Lady Verr said she had gone to the harbor, though if it weren’t for the hovering forms of Leonin and Davi, he would never have found her.
She was not at the harbor, but above it, hidden in the encircling roots of an old chestnut tree on the hill by the barracks.
From there she could see all the activity of the docks without being observed, seated in the grass with her chin on her knees.
“My lady.” Juste dismounted, smacked his horse on the nose when it tried to bite him, and left it to crop the yellowing grass. Leonin met his gaze with his usual expressionless nod, but Davi still looked as if someone had strangled his pet kitten. “I hope I am not disturbing you.”
“No, it’s all right.” Her voice was subdued, but steady, and though he could see signs of recent and prolonged weeping in her face, she was much more composed than he had expected.
There was a fragile steel in this girl. It was easy to overlook with her soft exterior, but it all but confirmed his suspicions about her past.
Steel was only forged in a crucible.
“I did not think I would find you here,” he said, gesturing Leonin and Davi back with a wave of his hand. “Are you busy, Your Grace?”
“No. I promised Sir Edemir I would look at the harbor,” she said, nodding toward the busy docks and warehouses below. “There are always at least two ferries waiting to be unloaded by this time of the day.”
“I see.” Juste had heard about the problem. Master Gibel would have been tearing his hair out over it, if he’d had any. “What have you discovered?”
“I don’t know yet. It might be a problem with one of the warehouses,” she said, without much interest. “The one on the end. ”
“Why do you say that?”
“The porters take a longer time in it. Maybe. I don’t know.” It was too close a reminder of her other work, and her mouth shut. She knew why Juste had come looking for her. For a moment, he hesitated, wondering how to approach the subject, and then shrugged. Neither of them enjoyed small talk.
“Your handwriting could use improvement, my lady,” he said bluntly, sitting down beside her.
“Though I didn’t think anything of it. I do remember stopping here and there to decipher a word, but it’s nothing worse than I’ve seen from Miche or Bram.
They’re probably pickier in the Tower. But it says nothing at all about your scholarship. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She was holding her head high, but her hands were clenched tightly together in her lap.
“And it is likely that some of the forms are lacking,” he went on, considering.
“Particularly in your mapping. There are a variety of methods for such work, and Edemir and I did not teach them to you; we didn’t know you needed them.
But we—no. I am pleased with what you did.
You surpassed my expectations. I found no fault in your method or your conclusions.
And it exceeds much of the scholarship of the Tower in one significant area. Can you guess what it is?”
“No.”
“Utility,” he said, with an edge. “The Tower produces a great deal of work that is perfect in its form and utterly useless for any practical purpose. Do you think Edemir would have his secretaries continuing your work to flatter you?”
“No,” she admitted. She knew Edemir far too well to believe he would squander his secretaries’ time when there was so much other work to be done.
“Do you think His Grace took fifty men to the Spur because he’s besotted with you?”
“No,” she repeated, with a startled noise that was almost a laugh. Her ears turned red.
“Then if you cannot believe in yourself, then believe in us, who believe in you,” he said firmly.
“We’ve been planning that expedition to the mountains for three months, and we overturned all those plans because we thought you were right.
His Grace is gambling his life on it. Perhaps he is risking all our lives, next year.
Your work isn’t just thorough, logical, and admirable. It is useful.”
For a while, they sat together quietly, watching the bustle of the harbor below, and Juste found himself watching the men entering the furthest warehouse, squinting to make out the details of their hair and clothing.
He couldn’t see well enough to be sure, but he thought he counted forty seconds for one man and nearly a minute for another before they reappeared at the doors.
It did seem a long time to walk through a building.
“Thank you,” Ophele said finally. “I—I did feel terrible. When I heard him say that.”
“They will apologize,” Juste promised.
“I don’t want it. I don’t want to see them.” Her lips quivered and she pressed them together. “I mean, I don’t want their apology if they don’t mean it. If they’re just saying it because I’m a duchess.”
He understood why she would feel that way, but he could not agree.
“They will apologize because they were wrong, but even if they were right, they will apologize anyway, out of respect for your rank.”
“Why?” she wanted to know. “Why should they respect me? I haven’t done anything to deserve to be a duchess.”
This was why Juste enjoyed talking to her. She questioned premises.
“There are many types of authority,” he said, leaning back against the tree.
“One of which is inherited. Your father’s divine blood, for example, is an inherited authority.
Because of it, you became the wife of Remin, Duke of Andelin, and so his authority is conferred to you as well.
You are owed respect on the grounds of your birth and your marriage.
But if authority is not continuously maintained, and asserted when challenged, then it will pass away. ”
“And their insult to me challenges that authority,” she said, her eyebrows drawing together as if she did not much like the thought. “It’s like a game no one asked if I wanted to play.”
“You were born into that game, as we all are. Some of us with better positions than others,” he added, thinking of his own privileged birth, and the events that had ripped all rank and authority away from him.
“And if you are born to it, then you must rise to it. You earned a little authority on your own, did you not? Your work on the devils gave you authority on that subject among us, but now the scholars have challenged it. Is scholarly authority something you want? Will it be useful to you? And will you seek it on our utilitarian terms, or the terms of the Tower?”
“I…maybe neither,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I do want to be useful, and I hoped it would help, but…I did it because I was curious. I just wanted to know where the devils came from.”
“Please continue to be curious,” Juste said approvingly.
“But all the same, you must maintain your authority as His Grace’s wife, as well as the authority you inherited as a daughter of the House of Agnephus.
Insist upon it, in all its trappings. Do it for His Grace, even if you do not like it for yourself.
There are many who will try to degrade you to diminish him. Don’t let them.”
They had already discussed this, obliquely. She knew what he meant.