But even so she was conscious of a difference between these young Girdsmen, long committed to their patron, and herself. Matters that she thought trivial were cause for hours of discussion, and the simple solution she always thought she saw never satisfied them. They picked away at the motives they claimed lay behind all acts, creating, Paks thought, an incredible tangle of unlikely possibilities. She had imagined herself committed to the defense of good . . . but was good this complicated? If so, why was Gird the patron of soldiers? No one had time to think of definitions and logic in the midst of a battle. The way Sarek had said it first made the most sense to her: here are the bad people, and you kill them; there are the good ones, and they cheer for you. Surely it was only a matter of learning to recognize all the evil. She prayed, as Amberion was teaching her to do, and said nothing. She was there to learn, and in time she might understand that other way of thinking. She had time.
Busy as she was, Paks had almost forgotten the mysterious scrolls when she received a summons to the Master Archivist, Marshal Kory. She found him at a broad table set before a window, with the scrolls all open before him.
“Paksenarrion—come and see the treasure.” He waved his hand at the array. “Amberion tells me you had no idea what you brought?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, if it were all you ever brought here, Paksenarrion, the Fellowship of Gird could count itself well repaid. We have all examined these—all those of us in Fin Panir with an interest in such things. I believe—and so do many others—that these scrolls were penned by Luap himself, Gird’s own friend. How they got where you found them I doubt we will ever know for certain.”
“But how can you know what they are?”
Marshal Kory grinned. “That’s scholar’s work, young warrior. But you would know a sword made in Andressat, I daresay, from one made in Vérella—”
“Yes, sir.”
“So we have ways to know that the scrolls are old. We have copies of Luap’s chronicles and letters; we compared them, and found some differences—but just what might have come from careless copying. And these scrolls contain far more than we have: letters to Luap’s friends, little sermons—a wealth of material. We think the writing is Luap’s own hand, because we have preserved a couple of lists said to be his—and one of the letters here mentions making that list of those who fell in the first days of the rebellion.”
Paks began to feel the awesome age of the scrolls. “Then—Luap really touched those—I mean, he was alive, and could—”
“He was a real person, yes—not a legend—and because he writes so, we know that Gird was real, too. Not that I charge you with having doubted it, but it’s easy to forget that our heroes were actual men and women, who got blisters when they marched, and liked a pot of ale at day’s end. Luap now—” His eyes stared into the distance. “That isn’t even his name. In those days, luap was a kinship term, for someone not in the line of inheritance. The military used it too. A luap-captain had that rank, for respect and pay, but had no troops under his own command: could not give independent orders. According to the old stories, this man gave up his own name when he joined the rebellion. There are several versions with different reasons for that. Anyway, he became Gird’s assistant, high-ranked because he could write—which few besides lords could do in those days—and he was called Gird’s luap. Soon everyone called him ‘the luap,’ and finally ‘Luap.’ Because of him, no one used luap for a kinship term after that; in Fintha the same relationship now is called ‘nik,’ and in Tsaia it’s ‘niga’ or ‘nigan.’ ” The Archivist seemed ready to explain the origin of that and every other term, and Paks broke in quickly, sticking to what she understood.
“And he speaks of Gird?”
“As a friend. Listen to this.” Marshal Kory picked up one of the scrolls, and began to read. “ ‘—and in fact, Ansuli, I had to tell the great oaf to quit swinging his staff around overhead like a young demon. I feared he would hit me, but soon that great laugh burst out and he thanked me for stopping him. If he has a fault, it is that liking for ale, which makes him fight sometimes whether we have need or no.’ And that’s Luap talking of Gird at a tavern in eastern Fintha. I’m not sure where; he doesn’t name the town.”
Paks was startled. “Gird—drunk?”
“It was after their first big victory. I’ve always suspected that the reason several of the articles in the Code of Gird dealt with drunkenness is that Gird had personal knowledge of it.” He laid that scroll down and touched another with his fingertip. “We have had the copyists working on these every day. It is the greatest treasure of the age—you cannot know, Paksenarrion, how it lifts our hearts to find something so close to Gird himself. Even when it’s things like that letter—that just makes him more human, more real to us. And to have in Luap’s own words the last battle—incredible! Besides that, we now have a way to prove whether or not these scrolls are genuine. Have you ever heard of Luap’s Stronghold?”
Paks shook her head. “I had not heard of Luap until I came here, sir.”
“There’s been a legend for a long time that Luap left the Honnorgat Valley and traveled west, to take Gird’s Code to distant lands. For a time, it was believed, he had established a stronghold, a fortress, in the far mountains, and some reports had Girdsmen traveling back and forth. But no one has come from the west with any reports of him for hundreds of years, so most scholars now think it was just a legend. But in one of these scrolls, sent back, he says, at the request of the Marshal-General of that day, he gives the location of that stronghold. If someone were to go there, and see it, that would prove that these are, indeed, the scrolls of Luap.”
Paks thought of it, suddenly excited. “What are the western lands like?”
“All we have are caravan reports. Dry grassland for some days travel, then rock and sand, then deep gouges in the rocks, with swift-running rivers in the depths. Then mountains—but they don’t go that way, skirting them on the south, to come to a crossways. North along that route is a kingdom called Kaelifet; I know nothing about it. Southward is more desert, and finally a sea.”
Paks tried to imagine those strange lands, and failed. “Will you go, then, Marshal Kory?”
“Me!” He laughed. “No, I’m the Archivist—I can’t go. Perhaps no one will. Some think it is an idle fancy, and the trip too long and dangerous to risk with evil nearer to hand. But I hope the Marshal-General sends someone. I’d like to know what happened to Luap—and his followers—and why they left Fintha. Perhaps there are more scrolls there—who knows?” He looked at her. “Would you go, if you could, or does this seem a scholar’s question to you?”
“I would go,” said Paks. “A long journey—unknown lands—mountain fortress—what could be more exciting?”
24
Early spring flowers were just fading when Paks rode west up the first long slopes above Fin Panir. She still thought nothing could be more exciting. With the caravan, the year’s first, rode Amberion, High Marshals Connaught and Fallis, and four knights: Joris, Adan, and Pir, from the Order of the Cudgel, and Marek from the Order of Gird. A troop of men-at-arms marched with them, and a number of yeomen had signed on as drovers and camp workers. Most of the caravan was commercial, headed for Kaelifet, but Ardhiel and Balkon rode with the Girdish contingent as ambassadors and witnesses for their people.
Paks continued her training under the direction of the paladin and High Marshals. If she had thought the trip would provide a respite from study, she quickly learned otherwise. By the time they reached the Rim, a rough outcrop of stone that loomed across their path, visible a day’s journey away, Paks had passed their examinations on the Code of Gird and grange organization. She began learning the grange history of the oldest granges, the reasons for locating granges and bartons in certain places, the way that the Code of Gird was administered in grange courts and market courts in Fintha. Now she knew how the judicar was appointed in Rocky Ford, and why the required number of witnesses to a contract varied with the kind of contract.