Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (23 page)

The clerks dipped their pens and held them ready
to pronounce judgement on the attempt.

“First: Name the kings who mark the seven epochs
in Thirna’s history.”

Aedan relaxed. This would be easy. “Vendun, Tana,
Merr, Athgrim, Eilif, Broknerra, and Elgar who still holds the throne at Tullenroe.
Do you want me to say that Tana was a queen and not a king?”

“Noted,” Giddard said, without looking up. “What
is the origin of our city and its name?”

“It was started by prospectors who discovered a
large silver deposit and while they were here they found that the soil was much
more fertile than at the coast. After a few years they were making more from
crops than from mining. The name of the city is an abbreviation. It was the
castle of Athgrim, shortened to Castath. Originally it was much smaller and
only the keep –”

“That will do. Next: Why did Thirna lose the
southern reach of its sea border?”

This was something that had been covered at the
end of one of the first days when many pairs of eyes had glazed over. Aedan had
taken notes – he could see the words in front of him, but there was a problem.
A big problem. He began tentatively,

“It was during the … uh … the floods of the … the
… era of Merr … when the … the … soil …”

“What is the matter boy? At this rate your answer
will span the morning.”

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that I made that
section of notes in Orunean and –”

“
Cleu Orunä a menim en lerrias tor
.”

Aedan should probably have expected to find that
he was not the only one in the room who knew the language. He had not spoken it
in a long time, but was able to recite his notes with something far nearer to
fluency than he had achieved by translation.

One of the clerks smiled slightly and made a note;
the other looked at Giddard, blank, waiting for enlightenment.

“It was correct,” Giddard said to him, with a
touch of amusement. “Final question: What do you feel was the biggest mistake
made by any of the kings during the epoch of Athgrim?”

Aedan considered. He knew what the wizened master
wanted to hear, but he had a different view on this – one he was eager to
present. “Banning of the midwinter jubilee in the reign of Leod.”

Giddard frowned, clearly disappointed. “How could
that be worse than doubling taxes and wasting the money on royal finery, or
starting a war in a desert where troops would be defeated by lack of water?”

“Well in my hometown –”

“Which is?”

“The Mistyvales.”

Giddard nodded.

“Every year we held a fair. But one year we had a
new sheriff, and he decided that the fair was wasting money and slowing
production because it took people away from their work. Instead of working
harder, labourers just stood in the fields and complained for months. It was
the worst yield ever. They still grumble about it as though something had been
stolen from them. The sheriff lost more support from that than from his fancy
clothes and the big carriage that our taxes paid for. We replaced him before
the year was up.

“I think that banning the midwinter jubilee was
the thing that got people to hate King Leod. It was only two months later that
the coup began, leading up to the crimson summer. I think people are used to
putting up with wars and taxes, but this would have felt like the king was
attacking their happiness. I think it was the decision that made Leod an enemy
to his people.”

“That’s a new perspective,” Giddard said, rubbing
his chin in contemplation, “and not without merit.” He nodded at the clerks who
made their entries.

“One more question,” he said. The clerks looked up
in surprise. “I understand that you have perused
The Five Generals of the Elgan
Epoch
. As a young historian, how would you describe the nature of
recording?”

Aedan shuffled. Was it a trap? Had Giddard been
one of the contributors? Obviously the man had spoken to Osric, so there was no
backing down from his original criticism of the book.

“Very … creative,” he said at last.

Giddard nodded, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
“You may proceed to the next exam.”

Law proved a less enjoyable examination. It seemed
that Rodwell was in the clutches of a bad breakfast because his face twitched
and contorted during Aedan’s answers, making concentration difficult and
confidence impossible. Aedan knew the answer to the first question which involved
levels of crime and punishment. He was less convincing with the next one
dealing with means of assessing witness integrity. But it was the last question
that he found nearly impossible to answer with the corpulent man wincing and shuddering
at random, causing his chins to wobble and drop little beads of sweat. Aedan
was asked to give an example of how mercy might be allowed a voice at the court
of justice.

The memory of the girl crying for her father at
the city gate was still vivid in Aedan’s mind, and he explained how sentences
might be mitigated for the sake of dependents. Rodwell did not seem impressed
with the answer, saying that such mitigation would then encourage large,
unsustainable families. Aedan left feeling thoroughly deflated.

Navigation and cartography presented no
difficulties, the names of towns, rivers and mountains being long known to him.
The calculation of distances and directions, and drawing according to scale he
explained easily.

The examiner for foreign relations was a young man
named Kollis. He had an apparent love for questionable cultures, and bristled visibly
at any hint of intolerance. “There is no such thing as a bad culture,” he would
say, “just as there is no such thing as a bad spice. It’s all about being able
to appreciate and understand from an unprejudiced perspective.”

Kollis looked bright and eager. “Well Aedan, due
to the imminence of the Lekran threat, I’ve decided to focus my questions on
their fascinating culture. First: Name the three most important celebrations on
the islands of Lekrau.”

Aedan’s jaw locked. He fixed his eyes on the oak
floorboards, trying to contain his disgust. He had ignored every word said
about Lekrau, and had more than once been tempted to walk out when Kollis had
played for affections with Lekran folk stories and even jokes. As he considered
his experience of Lekrau, his feelings became words and barrelled out.

“Their entire economy runs on slavery and murder!
And you want me to talk about their celebrations?”

Kollis drew himself up and glared with the wrath
of injured pride. “Your prejudice is due to ignorance boy. Sheer ignorance. The
proceedings require that I put the question to you again. Name the –”

“The only celebration of theirs I want to know
about is where every one of their ships burns, every slaver with blood on his
hands hangs, and the rest are locked in their own cages.”

“Thank you for your candour. You have made it
clear that you are not fit to be a marshal.”

“If being a marshal means I have to be chummy with
murderers, then I agree.”

Aedan had seldom been so angry. He stormed from
the room. That anyone could sympathise with the beasts that Quin represented
was incredible to him. He had half a mind to go back and suggest that Kollis
try an interesting new spice on his next meal, one that a world of fools had
not yet learned to appreciate, that ignorant and prejudiced people knew as
arsenic.

“Name?” The voice broke in on his vengeful
thoughts. It was Skeet, the petulant retired commander who clearly resented the
fact that he was stuck teaching boys, not out on the field hurting people with
sharp and heavy objects.

Aedan gave his name crisply, fire flashing in his
eyes. He was in the mood for a brawl; he was going to be failed anyway.

“First question: You have a force of a hundred
archers at the top of the Narill valley which provides excellent cover. A division
of four hundred heavily armoured infantry enters the bottom of the valley. You
must defeat them, even at the cost of your men. What is your first order?”

“Run away.”

“What!” Skeet slammed his fist on the desk. Though
he was a relatively small man, his aura of sparks and smoke gave him a colossal
presence. A partly shrivelled left arm proclaimed the reason for his recall
from the field, and the rest of him proclaimed his frustration. Explosively so.
At first Aedan had thought this master to be similar to Osric, but he had
learned that while Osric was a deep cavern of hidden thought and carefully
directed power, Skeet was all immediacy and reaction. With him, annoyance felt
was annoyance expressed.

Aedan glared back. “I saw that valley not so long
ago. It is a death trap for archers. It is filled with low branches and vines that
would make a clear shot impossible even from ten yards. The high ground means
nothing because the slopes are so thickly overgrown the infantry would be
invisible while they moved uphill. Even if arrows were somehow shot on target
they would get caught in the tangle of branches. You said it has excellent
cover, but it’s the kind of cover infantry dreams about.”

Skeet’s fist hovered, seeming a lot less sure of
itself. “Your next order?”

“Retreat to the plain with the archers and wait
until the whole force of infantry has taken up the chase, shoot a few crooked
and broken arrows to make it seem like arrows are out, and then lead them far
enough onto the plain to make their retreat impossible. After that, unload on
them. If they charge, run away again. Their armour will make them slower and they’ll
get tired quicker. If they flee, chase them. They won’t survive long under
falling arrows. Only fools or people who’ve got no knowledge of terrain would attack
in the valley. Loss of sight, loss of command, loss of advantage, and no
knowledge of the outcome until the last survivors trickle in.”

Skeet took a deep breath as if to say something,
then let it out again, this time scowling at the notes in front of him. He
looked up at Aedan. “Blood and fire! You’re right.” Then he turned to the
clerks and spoke in a dangerously quiet voice, “Which of you halfwits set this
question?”

Both shrank into their seats. Each pointed at the
other. Skeet ignored them.

“Good, work Aedan. You are the first to impress me
and I fully expect that you will be the last.”

The next two questions were simple explanations of
standard tactical procedures.

In the sixth room, there were only two men. Aedan
started as he saw the tall grey-haired examiner wearing the long blue robes of
the academy’s high seat. This could only be the great Culver, the man before
whom everyone in the academy quailed, the most learned scholar in the city if
not the land.

Beside him sat a voluminous scribe with a wild
black bush of hair and another of beard. The hair covered all but a large round
nose that glowed slightly from the cold, and sharp eyes that twinkled as if
he’d played some terrific prank on the world that morning.

“Aedan, son of Clauman, why do you wish to be a Castath
marshal?” Culver asked without any preamble.

Aedan, despite his lingering anger, was intimidated,
but he squared his shoulders and tried to sound confident. “I want to bring
justice to Lekrau,” he said.

“Is that all? Have you no other ambitions?”

“I hate tyrants. I hate bullies. All of them. If I
could bring war to the whole lot I would, but I intend to start with Lekrau.”

“You want to start a war with Lekrau?” Culver
lifted his brows. The weight of his eyes was imposing, but his incredulous tone
felt to Aedan like mockery, and it raised his temperature despite the warning
at the back of his mind. Unconsciously he clenched his fists as he replied.

“Lekrau has already started a war with us. We sit
and cower, hoping that they will choose the village next door. That is not
avoiding war. It’s just fighting it badly.” His voice had been too loud. He
knew it.

Culver regarded him in silence for an
uncomfortably long time. “Have you any more to say?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Then you may leave.”

The bushy scribe was writing and did not glance up.
Aedan was taken through to a hall in which a large fireplace, several yards
across, was hard at work against the chill of the day. Here he found Peashot
and the others who had been ahead in the line, slowly baking themselves in
front of the coals.

“Ever seen anyone with less personality than that
last dried up stick of a man?” Peashot asked.

“You mean the chancellor?”

Peashot fell silent with his mouth open, then bit
his lip.

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing.”

The other boys joined them and bombarded Aedan
with questions, comparing answers, but even their nervousness couldn’t shake
him from the bitter experience of foreign relations and of Kollis the Clown.
When the questions had run dry, he dragged himself away from the group and the
fire to a gloomy corner where he kicked at the floor, waiting for the hall to
fill and fates to be announced.

Eventually, the last of the hopefuls arrived, and
then the examiners walked through and entered a room that opened off to the
side. Before the doors closed, the aromas of hot tea and oats-and-honey cakes
drifted out, taunting the cold and hungry boys.

They didn’t have long to wait before matters
became interesting. It sounded like several men were speaking together, loudly.
Kollis’s moralising tones took over and then a voice that could only have been
Skeet’s cut through all conversation, “By my sword-arm you shall not! You take
your ideals too far, sir!” Culver’s voice intervened and restored calm. It was midday,
though still cold as dawn by the time the examiners emerged and walked to the
stage. Giddard approached the lectern with a sheet of paper.

“There are twenty names on this list,” he said.
“But before I read it, I must congratulate every one of you. We have never been
privileged to examine such a competent group. Those of you who are not named
now will be shortlisted for potential military promotions should you choose to
enrol there. Every one of you would be a valuable asset to our permanent
garrison.”