Page 11 of Valdemar

“Evening, Rainel,” he said to the guard, who went stiffly to attention.

“Majesty,” the guard acknowledged.

“Baron,” he corrected, for the thousandth time, and managed not to sigh. “There’s not a lot that’s majestic about me this late in the day.” Rainel struggled to keep his composure and replied, “As you say, Baron.”

“Oh, Kordas, stop harassing the poor man,” Isla remonstrated. “I want to hear what Delia and the Old Men have cooked up.”

The guard opened the door for her, and she nodded graciously and sailed through, followed closely by the rest of them.

“I liked being able to open and close my own doors,” Kordas complained, as soon as the door had been closed behind them. “I miss the Dolls, too.”

“And I liked any number of things we don’t have now, but I don’t complain about them,” Isla replied, waving the others to seats in the “receiving room,” and taking one herself. “People need to see you as a leader, and a leader doesn’t open his own doors, nor does he go unguarded when he sleeps. Now, what’s all this about the apprentices?”

Delia flopped down ungracefully into the inviting embrace of a heavily padded chair. “They can’t read. At least half of them, the ones who were small children when we first arrived here. So the mages and the Healers have to waste valuable time teaching them how to read and write, when they could be using that time to teach them their proper work.”

He slid into place beside Isla. “How did that happen?” he asked.

She shrugged. “The escape happened. Then there were more important things to do than teach your child how to read. Both for the littles and their parents. People were sending their offspring out in the fields to scare birds, or to places it was safe to gather wood, or some other useful task, and by the time evening comes around everyone is too tired to do things like teach and learn. So the older apprentices are teaching the younger ones reading, writing, and ciphering, which cuts into their learning time as well. It’s not a disaster, but it’s seriously irritating the actual mages and Healers.”

He pinched the top of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Well, having half the population illiterate is not an option either. I’ll put this in front of the Council. I don’t think there will be a problem with finding time in the day for younglings for lessons; the problem will be figuring out who can take the time to teach them. Especially since you absconded with all the literate adults who have mobility issues, and put them to copying books.” He held up a hand. “And I am not saying to stop that, and I am not saying it was a bad idea. It was an excellent idea, and I’m extremely grateful you not only came up with it, but you and Alberdina made it work.”

Delia nodded, looking gratified.

“And I am not going to allow our tradition of literacy for all in Valdemar to die,” he continued, perhaps a little more forcefully than he had intended. “That’s one of the ways tyranny is able to take hold. And—” he stopped himself. “I’m not going to lecture. You already know Valdemar’s history, better than some.”

“Being able to read, freely, to read anything, is the first thing a tyrant suppresses. The enemy of a tyrant is rational, informed thinking, and the ignorant make the best slaves,” said Delia, quoting from Kordas’s great-great-grandfather.

“Exactly. Well, things are a bit easier now. We’re not frighteningly close to starvation anymore. We rebound from shocks better. We’ll figure something out.”

“That’s all I needed to hear,” Delia said cheerfully, and bounced up from her chair. “I’ve got things to do before bedtime. Thank you, Kordas.”

He snorted. “Don’t thank me. I wasn’t the one to find out the problem. We’ll sort out something.”

“We always do,” said Delia, on her way out the door. “That’s one thing we can count on.”

There was silence for a moment after she left; Kordas illuminated the mage-lights with a thought, but kept them at a level he considered “cozy.” He had expected his boys would all depart to their “rooms”—more like cubbies than rooms, but they were quite private, and even if the manor was packed full of people escaping danger, the rooms would still remain private. Restil and Hakkon did—but Jon did not.

In fact, Jon was very clearly thinking about something. Kordas waited. His youngest might only be barely fourteen, but he was a deep thinker, and when he spoke it was generally with good sense.

“What about us?” Jon asked at last. “Highborns, that is. Highborn children. A lot of us don’t have much to do—especially the girls. Learning Court stuff from the past just isn’t relevant anymore, and there’s not the whole heaps of fine things to make fancywork with that there used to be. Many mamas don’t want to see their daughters at common looms, and who needs fancy tapestries right now? Well, some of the sons, too. There’s only so much weapons practice you can do in a day, and not everyone is good at it. I’d like to volunteer to teach, in fact.” He grinned a little. “I still remember every bit of how our page-teacher taught us, and I am pretty sure I can do the job.”

“Now, that is a fine point, and one I’ll make to the Council. It will certainly count strongly in its favor that you volunteered first.” He smiled broadly as Jon blushed a little. His youngest was a fine hand with a bow, but not as robust as Hakkon and Restil—although there was no doubt who their father was; they all looked like he had when he was their age. If this idea was partly a ploy for getting out of hand-to-hand practice, well, that was fine. If Jon had any ability with magic, it hadn’t shown yet, but then again, Hakkon hadn’t shown anything either, yet, and Restil had come into his powers rather later than most. So until and unless that happened, he wouldn’t need time training in magic either.

And it was true that a great many of the highborn younglings were a lot more idle than he liked. He couldn’t tell their parents what they were to do with them—he didn’t have that right. But a great many of them were not going out on foraging expeditions, or spending actual productive time in the gardens, or helping with housework . . . and bored youngsters with little to do in a Court where all their traditional outlets simply didn’t exist now (and probably wouldn’t until they had children of their own) was a recipe for mischief.

“If you go do this teaching . . . it’ll be fashionable to do it,” he said aloud. “I won’t even have to ask anyone; people with offspring at loose ends will be asking me to let them do it. There will be security concerns, of course, and all who teach will need to be taught how to teach, so that students retain what they learn. Yes, this is good thinking.” I need to discuss this with Isla tonight. By the time I bring this up to the Council in the morning, we’ll have just the right spin on it.

“My work here is done,” Jon said, standing up and giving his father a mocking little bow.

“Never,” Kordas declared. “But you can retreat to your cubby and whatever book you purloined from Jonaton now.”

And as Jon sauntered off, trailed by a black cat, it occurred to him that this might solve a problem of his own. I wonder how Hakkon would take to teaching. . . .