L. Modesitt - Scholar

“… saw a coil back here the other day…”

Quaeryt waited.

“Here we are.” The ostler glanced back at Quaeryt. “Five yards, you say?”

“If you have it.”

“That we do.” The ostler began uncoiling rope, quickly measuring out five lengths from fingertip to chest and then adding a few spans. A quick cut with a thin, worn, and sharp belt knife, and the ostler handed the small coil to the scholar. “Cord’s over here.”

In short order, Quaeryt also had the cord.

“Is there anything else you need, sir?”

“Do you have something broken, iron or bronze, that I could tie to the end of the rope as a weight?”

“Bound to have something like that here somewhere.” The ostler bent and rummaged through a barrel. “Thought so!” He straightened. “There you go.” He presented Quaeryt with an arc of iron, broken at one end. “Will that do?”

Quaeryt weighed it in his hand. “That’s just what I need. Thank you.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Quaeryt nodded politely, ignoring the quizzical look from the ostler, then turned and walked out of the stable before heading westward toward the end stable. He stopped suddenly. He realized that the end stable couldn’t be empty, because that was where the officers’ mounts-and his mare-were stabled. He continued to the stable next to the end one, which was empty, and slipped inside. After closing the doors behind himself, he walked down the center until he found what he sought-a beam close to the ceiling around which he could tie one end of the line, and another ceiling beam less than three yards away, with a pulley suspended from it.

Then it took him time to find a ladder, half-hidden against the rear wall under the opening to a hayloft. With his right hand, he dragged the ladder back to the beams. Then he set to work.

When he finished, he had the broken iron half-hoop or harness trace brace or buckle, whatever it had been, tied to the end of the rope that extended from the first beam, suspended about a yard and a half above the stable floor. The cord ran from the weight to the pulley on the other beam and through it and then down to the floor, where Quaeryt had arranged a framework of slats and the pinecones at an angle so that when the pinecones all rolled off the paper on top of the frame, the change in weight would release the end of the cord.

It took him more than a quint to work out the weight that balanced that of the rope and the iron. The device worked, if jerkily, but that was fine because he didn’t want to know when the cord was released.

He flicked one of the pinecones, starting them rolling off the frame, then stepped over to where he’d be in the path of the swinging rope and iron and raised the heavy shields. Several moments later, the iron at the end of the rope banged off the shields.

Quaeryt nodded and reset his contraptions. The second time, he only raised the light shields, concentrating on the feeling when the iron hit the shields-except that it didn’t work because even the light shields slowed the iron enough that it nearly stopped before it reached Quaeryt.

The third time, he raised only the lightest of linked-air shields, and the iron slid through them, but Quaeryt could barely sense anything. He took a deep breath and set up the cumbersome makeshift device once more, using slightly heavier shields.

More than a glass later, he was finally able to sense when the iron hit any level of shield.

Although the physical side of the shield training wasn’t that hard, he was still sweating, and he sat down on the floor and rested for a quint.

Then he stood and stretched, gingerly.

The next step-he hoped-was to see if he could train his reflexes to create heavier shields without his thinking about it if anything touched the outer shields.

Once more, he reset the framework with the pinecones and the end of the cord.

The first time he tried to link the two sets of shields, nothing happened and the iron thumped into his gut. Nor was the second attempt much better. Nor the third.

Maybe you’re looking and anticipating too much.

With that thought in mind, for the fourth attempt, he turned his back … and the heavier shield did form, but too far from his body, and then flicked out of existence, and the iron thumped his lower back.

Quaeryt was sweating again … more heavily, and he was feeling light-headed.

After two more attempts, he gathered up the pieces of his makeshift apparatus and put them in the corner of one of the unused stalls. Even if someone stumbled over them, they wouldn’t know their use.

He smiled. Most likely, they’d think that it was just a pile of junk no one had cleaned up.

Still, while he hadn’t figured out how to make things work enough to protect him, he had proved it was possible.

His steps were slow as he walked toward the mess and another mug of the lager that was beginning to wear on him.

By late on Solayi afternoon, just before supper, after four solid days of practice with his ramshackle device, Quaeryt had managed to train his body or his mind or some combination of both to react to any intrusion on light image-created shields, whether he could see it or not. That didn’t prove that his improved shields would work in a combat situation or when he was totally surprised, but he was more hopeful than he had been. He also felt that he needed both more work on them and more time to recover from his injury.

With that thought, as he sat in the room serving as the officers’ mess, he took another swallow of lager. He looked up to see Skarpa and Meinyt seating themselves across from him.

“Scholar … you’ve been off somewhere a lot lately,” offered Meinyt.

“I haven’t left Boralieu. I’ve been thinking, doing some light exercise so my muscles don’t stiffen up. And I’ve been drinking more lager than I ever thought because the surgeon told me to.”

“Can’t go wrong with that advice,” interjected Skarpa.

“I feel like I’ll float away at times.”

“Does it help?” asked Meinyt.

“It can’t be harming him,” pointed out Skarpa. “How many men have you seen take a bolt in the chest and shoulder and be up and walking in a week?”

Quaeryt decided against pointing out that the wound hadn’t been quite as deep as those suffered by others. It had been deep enough, and it still ached, especially when he forgot to use the sling. “How have things been for you two?”

“We never did find the rest of those poachers,” snorted Meinyt. “We may have to go visit Holder Waerfyl personally.”

“That’s something the commander has to decide,” said Skarpa. “He’s not here, and that’s why I was looking for you. You’re a scholar … can you talk about the Nameless?”

“I suppose I could talk about Rholan the Unnamer. Why?”

“We don’t have a regular chorister for services, and the commander usually serves as chorister, or Captain Fyten of the engineers does, but they’ve both gone back to see the governor. The commander knows I talk a lot with Phargos. Before he left, he asked if I’d step in or find someone.” Skarpa shook his head. “I like Phargos, and I might be able to say things like he does, but no one would believe me if I started talking about the Nameless.”

Filling in for a chorister was about the last thing Quaeryt wanted to do. “I could do something for the homily, but I don’t know the service.”

“Gauswn does. He’ll do that. He’s a real believer-he might even have considered being a chorister, I heard-but he thinks it’s improper for a fresh undercaptain to act as a chorister. No one will think that about you because scholars are supposed to know things like that.”

“Am I supposed to give it in Bovarian the way Phargos does, or in Tellan?”