“The mutton’s much better than squid,” observed Skarpa.
“It’s good, but I still like the squid,” said Daendyr.
“You’re from Thuyl. You would.”
Quaeryt smiled and served himself healthy portions of everything before him. It had been a long day since breakfast, and the mess didn’t serve a midday meal.
After eating, and mostly listening, as Quaeryt walked back toward his third-floor quarters, thoughts swirled through his mind. He was getting a picture of how matters were going in Tilbor, and it did appear that the troubles facing the governor and the regiment centered on the backwoods holders and the northern High Holders. In that vein, he also found it interesting that both Phaeryn and Zarxes were from backwoods holder families. He needed to find out if Straesyr or the governor knew that, but, since he wanted to avoid total destruction of the Ecoliae and persecution of scholars, he definitely couldn’t ask directly. He also wasn’t ready to reveal what he’d been doing in the days before he’d arrived at the Telaryn Palace.
And he did need to write some sort of reply to Vaelora.
He also couldn’t help but wonder about the note he’d found in Considerations Behind the Strategy of War. If it had been written by Tyrena, given the handwriting, it had likely been written several years before the war … and if it had been that obvious to her …
He shook his head.
37
If anything, there were fewer officers at breakfast on Solayi morning than on Samedi night. Quaeryt ate alone, then made his way to the chamber in the lowest level of the palace that held the archives of the khanarate. As the princeps had said, the entry was guarded by an older ranker.
“Good morning, sir. The assistant to the princeps said you might be here.”
“I’m here. Do you know anything about how the records are arranged?”
“No, sir.” The ranker paused. “Excepting that all the papers from the last year or so are in the four wooden boxes on the long table just inside. There.” He pointed. “I’d be guessing that there was no one left to put them in proper order.”
“That might have been difficult,” agreed Quaeryt. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, sir. Don’t see many down here.”
Quaeryt stepped into the chamber, a stone-walled and windowless enclosure a good ten yards wide and forty deep. The chamber was so still that he could hear the unevenness of his steps and the scuffing sound of the boot on his bad leg. There were two oil lamps lit, both near the table pointed out by the guard, but the rest of the space faded from gloom into near blackness.
He walked to the box nearest the door and stopped. When he lifted the wooden top off the box, a container a yard long, and half a yard deep and tall, he immediately saw that, if anything, the ranker had understated the lack of organization. Papers of all sizes and types, some in leather folders, but most not, were just crammed in, side by side. Dust billowed out, as if no one had looked in the boxes for some time.
He eased the first box to the rear of the long sturdy table and took out the first span of papers from the right end of the box and then set them on the table in front of the box. He picked up the first sheet, glanced at a cargo manifest of some sort, saw that it dealt with woolens and other types of cloth, and set it aside. The second, third, and fourth sheets comprised a petition from a town council requesting the Khanar improve the bridge over a stream because the horses of the Khanar’s Guard had damaged it beyond the ability of the town to repair and it required replacement.
Quaeryt read through three handspans’ worth of paper before he came across the first sheet that interested him, a proclamation that declared officers of the “militia of the northern Boran Hills” bore their ranks equivalent to those of the Guard of the Khanar. The document was signed by Rhecyrd, Khanar of Tilbor. He set that aside and kept looking, not that he knew precisely what he sought.
Shortly thereafter, he found a letter addressed to Eleonyd, Khanar and Patriarch of Tilbor, written by one Fhaedyrk, High Holder of Dyrkholm. Most of it was flattery and obfuscation, but one paragraph stood out.
… the wealth of Tilbor lies in two sources, that of its High Holders and that combined which derives from its growers, factors, and crafters. Both create greater wealth from lesser sources, as opposed to the timber holders of the hills, who harvest what they have not grown in greater amounts than the forests will sustain in years to come, and the clans of the north who prey on all who are weaker … In all your efforts to improve Tilbor, and in regard to the revisions suggested in tariffs, you and your predecessors have kept these sources in mind, and continuing such may well be in the best interests of the khanarate …
He’d heard the name Fhaedyrk, but he couldn’t remember where. So he set that letter aside as well and kept reading through the assorted papers. At the end of another glass, he’d found a missive from Chayar’s ill-fated envoy announcing his arrival and suggesting that Eleonyd meet with him at his earliest convenience, with the barely veiled suggestion that matters of mutual interest should be considered sooner rather than later, but there was no mention of what those matters might be.
Then, after another few quints, he came across another letter under the crest of the Khanar, this one signed by Tyrena, as regent for Eleonyd, Khanar of Tilbor. He almost overlooked it, because it was in the back of a leather folder behind a flap, and he’d been about to replace the folder in the box when he realized there was a flap and lifted it. After he finished reading it, he nodded. Although the bulk of the text dealt with routine matters before the Khanar’s Council, there were several suggestive phrases.
… as for consideration of tariffs on the timber road, that is a matter that will be reviewed at the next session of the Khanar’s Council …
… at this time no funds can be spent on paying for enlarging the harbor at Noira … better funded by the High Holders and factors of the north as they are the only ones who might benefit …
… the matter of the potential marriage of the heiress of the Khanar will also be discussed at the next Council meeting …
… discussion of the dispatch from the Autarch of Antiago will resume …
While the text had been written by a scrivener, the signature was different and, from what Quaeryt could recall, similar to that on the note he’d discovered in the tactics book, although the signature seemed more mature. After studying the letter again, Quaeryt checked back through the other leather folders he had already looked at, but none contained anything else hidden behind flaps, and another glass of looking revealed nothing else dealing with Tyrena.
By midafternoon, his eyes were blurring from all of the searching through papers and documents, but he did manage to complete going through the four disorganized boxes of papers, bills of lading, proclamations, even scattered ledger sheets. The one thing that was very clear was that the last days of the khanarate, if the documents were any indication, had been hectic and disorganized. Still, he had perhaps twenty documents that might prove of interest. He slipped them into the folder that had concealed the letter signed by Tyrena, and placed that folder at the end of the third box.
That single letter from Tyrena raised several questions. First … if she had acted as regent for her father, why was there only one letter? Or had there been more, and the others removed? That was most likely, given that the single letter he’d found had been tucked behind a flap in a folder containing other papers. But, if there had been others, who had removed them? Rhecyrd? Or one of his assistants, on the Pretender’s orders? Would Quaeryt ever know?