Chapter 17 The Master
I storm without direction across the bustling Academy campus, scowling at everyone who glances my way. Scholars hasten past with armloads of books or delicate manuscripts cradled lovingly in their hands, and I despise them all for reminding me of Marton and his all-knowing attitude.
The wind weaves through the wide-spaced buildings, and I want to go with it, wherever it's going. I want out of my skin and away from this place.
But I can't even shift. Not here, with all these eyes on me, with the weight of secrecy anchoring me to the ground. With all of Marton's concerns ringing in my ears.
I can't show these people what I am, because they might try to kill me. We can't ask the Headmaster for help, because he might try to kill me. I can't even worry about Cherry within Marton's hearing, because then I'm being unhealthy and codependent.
He just doesn't understand.
Everyone I've ever met, everyone but Cherry, has hated me for what I was. It was only with the duty the king bestowed upon me that I became something worthwhile. A hero. A protector. I need that duty, or else everything I did, everyone I killed, was for nothing.
And Cherry needs me. She needs someone who knows her, who won't get annoyed at her demands because they understand that that's just how she is, and who won't leave her alone in this dangerous, unkind world.
We're not unhealthy. We're friends. Partners. We understand each other, and complete each other. I'm directionless without her, and she's defenseless without me. It's a good thing that we have each other. How could it be bad?
As I walk across the campus, quietly stewing, I spot a familiar, tall and gangly white-haired figure headed my way.
Master Albertson. He has a mass of parchment scrolls in his arms, and as I watch, several slip from his grip and go tumbling to the ground.
The scholars passing near him walk on without so much as an offer of help while the old man stoops and drops more scrolls on the ground in his attempts to pick up the first.
I sigh through my nose, crossing the grounds to his side. I crouch and quickly collect the wayward scrolls, arranging them in a bundle with as much care as my irritation will allow.
"Ah, Tarah, my girl. You are quite the gentleman." Albertson smiles behind his armful of scrolls. He makes a move as if to take my burden from me, extending his armload with a nod.
"I've got it," I assure him.
"Oh, thank you, my girl, thank you!" He's all cheer in the fuzzy afternoon sunlight. "These others," he nods to the scholars passing at a distance, "don't offer to help because they don't approve of my work. They call me a senile old fool and say I'm wasting my time."
"Are you—" I begin hesitantly, "Are you trying to do the same thing as Marton? To prove that the old legends are true?"
"Heavens, no!" cries Albertson. "Quite the opposite, in fact.
My research is dedicated to discounting and disproving the old legends.
By pointing out discrepancies in the tales through comparisons with archeological records, or by discovering first person accounts of the moments and events in question, which disprove the myths. "
"Then...why do the other scholars call you a fool?"
"Because, my girl, they already accept as fact that the legends are false, so they do not think my efforts worthwhile.
Why waste time disproving something that couldn't possibly be true?
Marton, on the other hand, he appreciated what I was doing.
That's why he chose to study under me. Because I was the only one who thought they had credibility enough to deserve such scrutiny. "
"Oh..." I mutter. We have been walking along the paths of the Academy as we spoke, and now we come to the lofty building Marton and I first entered through yesterday.
We stand at a back entrance now, nothing so grand as the front.
I tuck my burden under one arm and open the door for Master Albertsons.
He passes inside, and I see we're facing a set of steps leading upward. I take the lead on the stairs, hurrying ahead to open the door at the top. As I step through, I note that we're in the same hallway from yesterday, but on the opposite end. The painting of the Trove is at the other end.
As I follow Albertson to the door of his office, my eyes latch on the spot where I stood with Marton yesterday, where we first encountered Master Albertson. Something he said then niggles at my mind. "Master Albertson."
"Hm?"
"What did you mean yesterday, about women living on the underside of history?"
"Ah, well." He slows his pace, turning back to me.
"Take a look at this school here," he indicates around us with his chin, "for instance.
Men, reading ancient scrolls written by other men.
" He indicates the load in his arms. "And the texts that we write will perhaps be read only by more men in the future.
" He shakes his head as if this is a shame, and I conclude that there are no schools such as this in which women study history, as Marton suggested there might be.
"But to read a men's history of the world," Albertson continues, "is to read only half the story, and there are whole swaths of information that have been lost to us because of it. "
"Like what?"
"Oh, all kinds of things, from the smallest details to the largest. What men experience as a time of prosperity and success in the world, women may experience as a time of pain and repression.
The golden ages are not always so golden for everyone.
And the dark days are not always so dark.
People may find joy in the strangest of places, even amongst adversity. "
Involuntarily, my mind goes to memories of Cherry and myself, huddled in our tower. Sentenced there on the whims of a conniving king. But the friendship and the laughter that we sometimes found there, all the same.
As we come to the door to his office, Albertson leans carefully against the wall, holding his pile of scrolls in place while he fishes in the pockets of his robe for a key.
And I think further, not just about women, but about all the peasants in my village, living on scraps while people feasted in the halls of the king's palace.
And I think about the protectorkin, scattered across the realm. While the rulers and the nobles go on about how this is a time of peace and plenty throughout our disparate nations, my kind huddle in forests and scrape out a life among the shadows.
"Do you think we are in a golden age right now," I ask Master Albertson, "or a dark one?"
Master Albertson fits the key in the lock. "Oh, I think we have been in a dark age for a very long time. But maybe it will not last forever." As he pushes the door open, he gives me a look over his shoulder that I cannot understand the weight of. "Maybe not much longer at all."
I follow him into the office, my skin prickling.
"I wonder what's been going on," Albertson continues to muse as he settles his armload of scrolls atop his already cluttered desk, gaze darting up to meet mine, "on the underside of our present history, all this time?
" From the walls around us, the eyes of the books seem to stare down, seeing and knowing too much.
Just like the eyes of the man before me.
But I can't be certain what it is he thinks he's seeing.
Suddenly wanting nothing so much as to get out of this tiny office, I hastily place my own bundle of scrolls atop the desk. As I turn to go, a new thought occurs to me, and I hesitate at the door, turning to look over my shoulder at the old man, one hand on the doorframe.
"Have you had much luck," I ask, my attention fixed on his face, hoping to gauge his reaction to the question, "disproving the various legends that you've studied?"
Albertson's smile is mysterious. "Oh, I've disproven every legend that's fallen in my way.
" His eyes seem to sharpen on me beneath his bushy white brows.
"Don't forget, young Tarah, that history is written by the victors.
If you want to write a new story, you have to fight for it.
So that no one may tell your story for you. "
I ruminate on my conversation with the old master for the rest of the day, wandering the sidewalks and halls of the Academy until I inadvertently find my way back to the dormitory building I departed with Marton this morning.
I take the stairs up to our level, then open and close doors at random until I find Marton's room, the scents too diluted with frequent passings to follow my nose.
Thankfully, most of the rooms are empty, and I only walk in on one half-dressed scholar who gapes at me in horror.
I shut the door with disinterest, and the next door that I try opens to reveal a familiar room cluttered with books and the smells of lavender and mint.
I enter the room, but I can instantly tell that Marton isn't here and hasn't been recently.
I suppose he's still buried in research, and I only feel mildly guilty that I'm not currently contributing my efforts to locating the Trove.
Marton can go through ten books in the time it takes for me to peruse one, and he'll probably get even more work done without me there to distract him.
But I'm alone in his room with nothing to occupy me except fears and anxieties, both named and unnamed.
I think there is something strange about Master Albertson.
It seemed almost, at the end of our conversation, as if he knew the truth about the legends he has worked so hard to disprove.
But why would he do that? Disprove stories that he knows to be true?
And why did he look at me so significantly?
Does he suspect what I am—and what does he plan to do with the information?
Nothing he said seemed threatening, but what do I know about the behaviors of bookish old men?
Maybe those parting words were a threat, indicating that he would take action against me if I tried to reveal what I was to any more of his students.
I don't know, and thinking about it only lends me more confusion, more helpless anxiety, just like thinking about Cherry and what's going on with her now.
To distract myself, I study the spines of some of the books strewn about the room.
I land on a title that seems promising, and when I pick it up, I realize it is a book of stories, similar to the ones Cherry used to have.
Fairy tales, full of errant knights and magical creatures and cursed damsels in need of rescuing.
Like my own life, with a rosy filter dropped down over it, so that all the rough edges are softened and all the endings are happy.
I graze through the collection, stopping when I come to an illustration that catches my eye.
It is of a young girl leaning out the window of a dark castle, her hair blowing about her in the wind and a look of distress on her face.
In the tale, a beautiful maiden is trapped in a tower by an evil witch, who has stolen the girl from her home to replace the daughter she once lost. The witch casts dark magic spells on a lizard that crawls up the eaves one day, and the lizard is transformed into a monstrous dragon.
The dragon villainously guards the tower from the noble knights who come to break down the doors and rescue the fair maiden.
Man after man, this dragon kills, until one day a prince rides in seated nobly astride a white horse.
The prince is clad in enchanted armor and bears a magic sword, which he won from a wizard's lair elsewhere in the tale, for the express purpose of rescuing the damsel from her captor.
When the prince faces the dragon, his enchanted armor protects him from its flames, and his magic sword is able to pierce the beast's impenetrable scales.
My stomach grows sicker and sicker as I read, until finally the prince climbs the tower to face the witch, brandishing his sword at her greenish, warty face while the princess cowers against the wall.
I slam the book shut, flinging it away from me with more force than necessary.
It goes flying across the room and smacks into a sconce, whereupon it falls to the ground and lies in a crumple of pages.