Michael Sullivan - The Crown Tower

“Brown.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can see it.”

“But can you describe a color without using a reference? How would you, for example, explain the color blue to a person blind from birth?”

Hadrian considered saying it was cool, or tranquil, or like the sky or water, but none really defined blue . Arcadius’s robe was blue and it was none of those things.

“You can’t,” the professor said at length. “We only know colors by relationships. Your father likely pointed to hundreds of objects whose only common feature was the color, and eventually you understood that the commonality of color equaled the word he used. A lot of things are that way, abstract ideas that have no object to define them. Right and wrong, for example. Problems tend to occur when people are eager to fill their cups and accept ideas by those who might be, metaphorically, color blind. Once an idea is learned, once it settles in, it becomes comfortable and hard to discard, like an old hat. And trust me, I have many old hats. Some I haven’t worn in years, but I still keep them. Emotion gets in the way of practicality. By virtue of time spent, even ideas become old friends, and if you can’t bear to lose an old hat that you never wear, imagine how much harder it is to abandon ideas you grew up with. The longer the relationship, the harder it is. This is why I try to get them young, before their minds petrify with the nonsense they learn out there in the color-blind world. I’m not always successful.” He stared at an older boy seated across from them and winked, causing the boy to scowl and turn away.

“I take it you found your friend Pickles?”

“Yes. We had dinner together.”

“I heard about that. Something about a thrown meat pie. Where did you meet this rash young man? Surely not in Calis.”

“In Vernes. On the way here. He’s not entirely civilized.”

“So I’ve heard. But tell me, what have you done with yourself since leaving home?”

“You must know some of it or guessed in order to have found me.”

“Your father said you became a soldier.”

“I told him I was leaving to join the army of King Urith.”

“And did you?”

He nodded over his cup, smelling the cinnamon.

“But you didn’t stay?”

“There was some trouble.”

“Veteran soldiers are rarely forgiving of being bested in combat, especially when the humiliation comes at the hand of a fifteen-year-old boy.”

Hadrian peered at the old man through the steam. “Took a while to learn that. I guess I thought they’d be impressed, clap me on the back, and cheer. Didn’t turn out that way.”

“So you moved on?”

“I did better in the army of Warric under King Ethelred. I wasn’t so quick to show off and I lied about my age. Made captain, but Ethelred got in an argument with Urith and I found myself lining up against men I had fought beside for almost a year. I resigned, hoping to join the ranks of a king farther away. I just kept moving until eventually I was in Calis.”

“The perfect place for a man to disappear.”

“I thought so, too, and it was-in a way.” Hadrian looked over his shoulder at the doorway as more students staggered in, their gowns disheveled. “Part of me certainly disappeared.”

Arcadius used his finger to stir his drink. “How do you mean?”

“The jungles have a way of changing you … or … I don’t know, maybe they just bring out what was already part of you. There’s no boundaries, no rules, no social structure to get entangled in-no anchor. You see yourself raw, and I didn’t like what I had become. Something snapped when I got your letter.”

Hadrian looked down at his swords. He’d strapped them on that morning with no more thought than when he pulled on his boots-less so, the boots were new.

“Have you drawn them since leaving Calis?”

“Not to fight with.”

Arcadius nodded behind his own cup. His eyes looked strangely bright and alert for such an old face, polished diamonds in an ancient setting.

“I can’t help thinking how many men would be alive today if I had listened to my father and stayed in Hintindar.”

“They might have died anyway, hazards of the profession.”

Hadrian nodded. “Maybe, but at least their blood wouldn’t have been on my swords.”

Arcadius smiled. “Strange attitude for a career soldier.”

“You can thank my father for that. Him and his stupid chicken.”

“How’s that?”

“Danbury gave me a newborn chick for my tenth birthday and told me it was my responsibility to keep the bird alive, to keep it safe. I diligently watched after the bird. Named it Gretchen and hand-fed the thing. I even slept with it nestled in my arms. A year later, my father declared his son would have roast chicken for his birthday. We didn’t have any other chickens. I pleaded and swore that if he killed Gretchen, I wouldn’t eat a bite. Only my father had no intention of killing Gretchen. He handed me the axe. ‘Learn the value of a life before you take it,’ he told me.

“I refused. We went without food that day and the next. I was determined to outlast my father, but the old man was a rock. For all my pride, my sense of compassion, my loyalty, it only took two days. I cried through the meal but ate every bite-nothing went to waste. I refused to speak to my father for a month, and I never forgave him. I hated my old man off and on, for one thing or another, until the day I left. It took five years of combat to realize the value of that meal, the reason I never took pleasure in killing or turned a blind eye to pain.”

“All that from just one chicken?”

“No. The chicken was just the start. There were other lessons.” Hadrian glanced at the other boys seated nearby pretending not to listen. “You should be happy to have the professor here as a teacher. There are worse masters.”

“He was teaching you the value of life,” Arcadius said.

“While at the same time training me on the most efficient ways to take it? What kind of man teaches his son to fly but instills a fear of heights? I wanted to do something with my life. Use the skills he pounded into me. What good is it being great with a sword if all you are going to do is make plowshares? I saw the others-rich knights who were praised by great lords for their skill-and I knew I could beat all of them. They had everything: horses, fancy women, estates, armor. I had nothing. I thought if I could just show them…” Hadrian drained the last of his cider and looked back at the line for breakfast, which had grown longer.

“So tell me, Hadrian, what do you plan to do now that you’re back? I assume you aren’t going to be joining the military ranks of any local potentate.”

“My soldiering days are over.”

“How will you live, then?”

“I haven’t thought about it. I have coin to last me a little while. After that, I don’t know … I guess I’m sort of avoiding the issue, really. Drifting sounds good at the moment. I don’t know why … Maybe I’m hoping something will just turn up-that something will find me.”

“Really?”

Hadrian shrugged.

The professor leaned forward, started to say something, then hesitated and sat back again. “Must have been a long trip from Calis to here. I trust your travels were pleasant at least.”

“Actually no-and it’s good you brought it up. Have you seen anyone around the school recently who isn’t a student? Someone wearing a dark cloak who keeps the hood up?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Six people were murdered on the barge I took up from Vernes to Colnora. Five in one night, throats slit. A guy in a hood slipped away before I could find him. I’m thinking he might have followed me here.”