All in plain sight.
64
Several quints before tenth glass on Mardi morning, Quaeryt was riding with Rescalyn and Captain Wraelyt from Seventh Battalion, near the head of the captain’s company.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” asked Rescalyn cheerfully. “Not a cloud in the sky, but a cool breeze in our face.” He turned to Quaeryt. “How are you finding Tilbor these days, scholar?”
“The present days are to be preferred over my first patrols in Tilbor, sir.”
“I can’t imagine why,” replied Rescalyn with a laugh, “but it’s well that you’ve endured and recovered. Everyone is handed trials. What you do after that is what matters.”
“And how you do it,” suggested Quaeryt.
“Exactly. Without the regiment and good captains like Wraelyt here, Tilbor would be a far less attractive land. People here appear most pleasant, but that’s because they know the alternative would be far worse. They don’t mourn the passing of the Khanars, no matter what they say. They were always squabbling and plotting. They couldn’t even let the last true Khanar’s heir rule-and she’d run the country as well as anyone for years in her father’s name.”
“Weren’t the ones who backed the Pretender mostly the northers, the northern High Holders, and the hill holders?” asked Quaeryt blandly.
“That’s what they all claim, but a big part of the reason why Tilbor fell was that the Khanars never had a strong enough armed force … Let me put it another way. They didn’t have a large enough strong armed force. The Khanar’s Guard was as good a force as any for its size, but it wasn’t even the size of an old-style regiment.”
Quaeryt concealed a frown. An old-style regiment? He was fairly certain that Bhayar had not changed the size of regiments anywhere in Telaryn. He also doubted the Lord of Telaryn was even aware that Rescalyn had done so in Tilbor.
The governor looked to Wraelyt, one of the older captains in the regiment, most likely an officer who had worked his way up through the ranks. “Wouldn’t you say that’s true, Captain?”
“True enough, sir. If they hadn’t decided not to back the Pretender at the end, we’d have lost a lot more good men.”
“They couldn’t even unite against Telaryn. That tells you how divided they were,” asserted Rescalyn cheerfully.
“You do seem to have calmed them down and given them a sense of unity,” said Quaeryt. “I notice that many of the junior undercaptains are Tilborans.”
“They make good troopers and officers. They’d be a credit to any regiment.” Rescalyn gestured ahead. “I see the gates to High Holder Freunyt’s estate.”
The square gateposts were of dressed graystone, and behind the right post was a gatehouse with a split-slate roof. The twin iron gates were swung open, and two guards in maroon tunics and gray leather vests stood out front, one in front of each open gate.
Beyond the gates, the graystone-paved drive swept to the left around a pond encircled by low grass, upon which swam white geese. To the left of the lane and to the right of the pond were well-tended woods. Quaeryt noted that the paving stones, while mortared securely in place, bore two hollowed pathways, signifying years and years of carriages and wagons traversing the stone. Past the pond, the drive straightened and continued up a gentle slope to a sprawling stone structure close to a hundred and fifty yards long and rising three levels from the low hill. Before the palace-like mansion was a circular drive, in the middle of which was a raised garden, surrounded by a low wall. Quaeryt could smell the mixed perfume-like scents of the flowers.
Rescalyn turned in the saddle. “Captain, we will leave you now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Obviously, Wraelyt was following a set procedure, because he led the company to the right, down a narrower lane that led to a lower complex of buildings, while the governor and Quaeryt rode around the garden to the left and toward the front entry-with an extended roof wide enough to shade or protect two carriages and their teams end to end. The roof arched over the drive and was supported on the garden side by a series of square stone pillars.
“In the winter,” said Rescalyn, “they put wooden panels between the pillars to keep the snow from drifting in front of the entry steps.”
Two footmen waited to take the reins of their mounts, and no sooner had Quaeryt dismounted, not unskillfully, but with far less grace than Rescalyn, than a short man stepped out from the gilded double doors, doors that would doubtless have been covered by the folded-back shutter-doors in times of inclement weather.
“Governor … the High Holder awaits you in the terrace salon. If you would come this way … and you, too, sir,” the functionary in maroon added to Quaeryt.
Quaeryt nodded and followed Rescalyn through an entry foyer with a domed ceiling and polished green marble floors to a wide corridor on the left, also with the green marble floor, except that the center held a thick carpet runner of dark green edged in golden yellow. The functionary escorted them past several archways, one of which opened into a darkened but immense dining hall with fireplaces at each end, until they had walked some fifty yards, where he turned down a slightly narrower hallway to an open door. There he stepped aside and gestured for them to enter.
Again, Quaeryt followed the governor, into what had to have been the terrace salon, a chamber almost the size of the Green Salon in the palace, although it was oblong, with wide windows centered on a set of double doors.
“Greetings, greetings, Governor,” said the broad-shouldered and muscular figure who turned from the open doors that afforded access to the terrace beyond. High Holder Freunyt wore neither green nor maroon, but black trousers and a sleeveless black vest over a white silk shirt with wide collars. Boots and belt were also black, as was his hair, although there was little enough of that on the top of his head.
“Greetings to you,” replied Rescalyn. “It’s been too long. Your grounds look spectacular on a day like today.”
“They do, don’t they? They should, with all the fussing I’ve had my seneschal do for me. Come … you’ve had a dusty ride. Wine … lager … what will you have?”
“Some of your estate white, if you still have it.”
“And you, scholar?”
“The white, please.”
As the High Holder poured the wine from a decanter, Quaeryt studied the room, the walls finished in pale yellow damask with portraits of distinguished looking men and women hung at intervals. The marble floor was largely covered by a thick carpet of green with intertwined cabled designs in gold, with thin lines of black outlining the gold.
“Here you are.” Freunyt handed a goblet to Rescalyn and a second to Quaeryt. “Come look at the garden.”
Goblet in hand, Quaeryt trailed the two out through the doors onto the terrace, a stone-paved area that extended back a good ten yards and ran ten yards on each side of the doors. At the back of the terrace was a waist-high wall of gray stone, topped with a course of whiter stone. The wall was necessary because, beyond it, the hillside had been cut away and a formal maze garden lay below, with flowers and topiary. There were no fountains, though, Quaeryt noted.
“What do you think?” asked the High Holder, looking to Quaeryt.
“It’s beautiful. It’s also well laid out.” Quaeryt frowned. “The maze design…” He wasn’t about to blurt it out directly, but looked for a reaction.
“Is it familiar? It might be, to a scholar … or a chorister.” Freunyt offered an impish smile at odds with his appearance.