Realms of Valor - James Lowder [52]
The pricking scratch of my quill ends as my secretary's shadow falls across the parchment sheet on which I am toiling. Light is precious in this dim tower closet the priests have granted me, and now my aide, granted by those selfsame clerics of Denier, has managed to position his broad self in front of the only window. Looking up, I blink as his girth is swathed in the glow of daylight beyond. I am annoyed by his presence, since it is an interruption of my solitude, but I cannot ignore his question. Besides, my secretary is a good priest, so I curb my temper, pushing back the stack of parchment before me, and considering. “I am undecided, Firstborn Foxe.” I cannot manage the accents of his honest family name, foreign to me though common enough in this city, so I call him Firstborn in honor of his birth. “I have heard your gossip about his table, all the magnificent dishes he serves-the finest in Procampur. What if it were to overtax my humble stomach? Besides, I am not learned in the ways of your western courts and might offend him. After all, I am only a simple lama.” Foxe will not relent as he gathers up the sheets and fusses in a bass voice that matches his size. “Simple lama, indeed,” he mutters, once again assuming because of my weatherbeaten and shaved looks that I am old and therefore hard of hearing. “You are a famous historian. You were a guest of the king of Cormyr and wrote a history of the Tuigan wars for him.” From one of the book-crowded shelves, he takes a bundle of blotting paper and cuts the twine. “It was not a history, Firstborn Foxe, only a few incomplete notes on the customs of the Tuigan-nothing at all compared to Goodman Reaverson's complete account of the wars.” I recall the bard Reaverson's patient translation and guidance with those notes. For the time he put in, my work had been as much his as mine. “The duke has money and he likes the arts,” Foxe reminds me with an irritated glare. He thrusts my manuscript into the hands of waiting scribe. The boy nods and slowly backs down the stairs, apparently reluctant to miss any of our words. I wave him away. It is clear I will write no more today. “The duke has all the manners of a foreigner.” My insult, the worst to any born in the East as I have been, is lost on Foxe. “He is less than pleasant,” I explain. “I am a poor ambassador, Foxe. I will say something foolish to anger him. There must be some other way to raise the money to pay the scriveners and binders or some cheaper way to have a book copied. Perhaps a wizard could conjure duplicates.” I barely glance at my secretary. Perhaps he will disappear if I do not look at him, the way the epistemological Brother Ulin claims everything should-what we do not observe does not exist. “Hah! That kind of work's beneath most mages. Too much like a trade.” Foxe snorts; he has seen through my deceit. “You know there is no need for this. You can stay with us here at the temple while you write. I'll make sure the high scrivener sends copies of your Tuigan history to every temple of Denier throughout the Heartlands.” I shake my head. We have discussed this before and he knows some of my feelings, but both Foxe and I are too stubborn