Trial of Intentions (28 page)

Convocation was just days away. She'd place herself firmly in the minds of the people, her councils, and the visiting kings she summoned, by publishing this letter.…

Something struck her head hard, knocking her to the stone floor of the vault.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Write Words

What did authors do before quill and ink?

—Provocation meant to establish the hierarchy of an author's five gifts

R
oth arrived at Author Garlen's door. The smell of burning lamp oil wafted through cracks around the window on the left. The man's modest home stood down a small cobblestone alley, and was Roth's second stop since Helaina had refused to step down from her regent's seat. He hadn't really expected that she would, but asking her first had been the right order of events. Politics was about saying and doing things that could be recorded, seen, and judged proper, while taking private initiative in the interest of the greater good. And so he'd begun to make his rounds, visiting members of the High Council.

He'd started with General Van Steward, a Helaina loyalist. And while it would have been good to have the man's support, the general hadn't been persuaded. No matter. The man would, by law, follow the orders of whoever held the regent seat.

He knocked at Garlen's sagging lintel, like so many others here at the south edge of the central district—not a slum, but only a few years from becoming one.

“Go away!” a crotchety voice yelled from behind the door.

The old author was known as a high-order crosspatch. This visit would be interesting.

“Author Garlen, it's Roth Staned from the League of Civility. It's important. Please, may I have a few minutes of your time?” Roth smiled. No one turned him down when he came in an official capacity.

“Didn't you hear me the first time?” The author's reply came more caustic still. “I've no time for politics.”

Roth had to handle this delicately. He must insist on an audience, but mustn't alienate the man before the door was even opened. “Garlen”—he used just the man's name, more personal that way—“odd as it sounds, I'm not one for politics, myself. That's just where I've wound up. I promise to be brief, but of all the authors in Recityv, you're the only one I can talk to.”

Some cursing ensued, followed by plodding feet toward Roth from within the small home. Then the door snapped open with judgmental haste. “It's not the politician's flattery that pulled me from my writing, leagueman. It's my eagerness to have you come in and prove yourself a liar.”

Roth gave a smile, thinking of how to win the man's approval. “That's fair.”

Garlen retreated inside his home, leaving the door ajar. Roth stepped in, shut the door, and surveyed an absolute disaster of paper, books, maps, art, shoes, dirty plates, pens, ink, magnifying glasses … utter chaos. A few lamps burned low on desks set against the walls. The brightest hung over a tall lectern that Garlen was now ascending with the difficulty of advanced age.

“Will my honesty offend you if I tell you that you keep a pigsty of a home?” Roth put on his charming smile.

“Honesty never offends me,” Garlen said perfunctorily. “Now, get to it. What banal, nonpolitical, conversational topic brings you to my pigsty? Or have you cheapened yourself with a lie to buy a few minutes of my time? I really hope it's the latter.” At that, Garlen offered his own smile, and picked up a quill as if he was only ever comfortable when holding one.

Roth walked a narrow pathway between the clutter, deciding how to begin. Then he found an approach. “What made you take up the author's pen, Garlen?”

“First, stop calling me Garlen. You and I aren't friends, and that's unlikely to change. Second, I didn't have a choice in the matter. No true author does. You do it because you must. Because
not
doing it will drive you mad.” Garlen leaned forward and stared down over the lip of his lectern, smiling. “Suppose that frustrates the angle you wanted to take, doesn't it. Get me all nostalgic and maudlin about my craft, about the idealism of my youth and how I thought I could change the world with my pen.”

Roth put up his hands as one giving up. “All right, I confess, yes. I'd hoped to do precisely that.” But Roth's intentions had a second, deeper layer. “Tell me about this ‘not having a choice in the matter' business.”

“This is what you came here to talk about?” Garlen leaned back, scratching something on the parchment in front of him.

“In a way, yes,” Roth replied, and stopped to show his attentiveness.

Garlen hunched his shoulders. “All right. We'll see where this goes. But it's not a long conversation. Men and women who are given to creating story have two choices: contentment or unhappiness.”

“But never
happiness,
” Roth interjected.

“Not if they're worth their salt, no.” Garlen dipped his quill, beginning to write even as he explained. “If a person is really a writer, then the tales come to them, needing to be written. Those tales don't let you alone until you write them down. The author may do it badly, but that doesn't matter so much; just getting them out and committed to some parchment will give the author contentment. Then, with time and some work and a little luck, the stories will be good enough to share with other folk.”

Roth nodded, dissecting the author's words for how he could relate this back to his purpose for coming.

“However,” Garlen went on, “some who would be and should be authors don't ever put those stories down on paper. They get busy with washing floors or milking cows or running a kingdom, and the stories build up like poison inside them, making them bitter or angry, and often they don't even know why. At the end of it, they're just unhappy, miserable creatures to be around.”

Garlen stopped, finished with his explanation. His quill continued to scratch out words in the silence.

“I see,” Roth said, filling the quiet house with resolute tones. “Then here is my gambit, Author Garlen. You and I are not so different.”

That got the author's eyes to lift from his parchment, and his quill to stop. “I won't be insulted in my own home, leagueman.”

Roth stared at the man for a moment, and then shared a part of his past. “My mother died giving me life. My father never said it that way. But I knew. He was a deckhand in a port city. Mopped boards, scraped fish guts. Needless to say, we didn't have two coins to rub together. When he lost even that job, he and I went into the bedroom, and he got out my mother's few ‘nice things.' My father told me about them. A thin silver ring—her mother's betrothal ring, which she and my father also used. An ivory pinch comb that she wore to feel pretty. A rosewood flute, because she thought music helped brighten the evening. And a small pen set, because she liked to write poems—thought one day she'd put them together in a book.”

“That last part true?” Garlen asked, skeptical.

“I don't lie about my mother,” Roth replied. “My father told me that they were just things. That Ma lived inside us. And that with no money, he needed to take them to a skiller, get what coin he could for them.”

Garlen eyed him. “There are lots of stories of poverty.”

Roth ignored that. “But he didn't take Ma's nice things to a skiller. He took them to a gambling boat. He lost them all. He might have been swindled. Probably was. But he lost her nice things in a game of placards.”

A taut silence stretched between them.

“I was the reason she died. And to feed me, my da gambled away his last tokens of who she was.” He gave Garlen an honest look. “I don't tell you that for pity. I tell you that because most people who have it rough like I did don't get the chance that was given to me.”

“With the League,” Garlen surmised.

“With the League.” Roth smiled, not wanting it to seem that he was trying to play on Garlen's sympathies. “I know the League isn't terribly popular. But to be fair, neither has any other government or society been popular that has tried to introduce change. Even when the end results prove the merits of their cause.”

“Clever,” Garlen said, shaking his head with wry amusement, and maybe a little to dust off the lingering feelings of Roth's story. “But other societies, not unlike the League, have thought themselves enlightened when they began, but proved rather more odious when it was all said and done.”

“For instance?” Roth asked, inviting an example.

“Well, at the risk of being unoriginal, how about the Whited One?” Garlen barked a laugh.

Roth held back his irritation at being compared to the dissenting god. He maintained his smile through the slur. “I'm at a disadvantage trading insults with a crafter of words,” Roth submitted, with as much self-effacement as he could muster.

“Oh, I think you do just fine, there, leagueman.” Garlan jabbed his quill at Roth, then started again to write.

“My point is this.” Roth began to pace, thinking more clearly as he moved. “In many important ways, what you do chose
you,
just as what I do chose
me.
And, whether you admit it or not, at least one aim of your work is the edification of your readers.”

“I think ‘edification' is a strong word for what I do,” Garlen said.

“And I think that's false modesty on your part.” Roth pivoted and retraced his steps, pacing now as he often did when he found his rhythm. “I won't argue with you about that, however, since I can't prove it. But I
will
say that I know many who own your books or retell your stories. And they do so with a clear belief that your stories
matter
. That they provide moral guidance, enlightenment, and a much-needed escape from the hardships of their own lives.”

“A happy consequence,” Garlen said, testily. “I write for myself.”

“Maybe.” Roth offered an incredulous smile. “But if you didn't want an audience for your writings, you'd become a diarist or historian, or hells, even a scrivener.”

Garlen glared down on him, apparently too angry to speak.

Roth noted the author's wrathful expression and modified his approach. “Forgive me for presuming why it is you write.”

The author's next words came out in a torrent. “You take me for a cheap entertainer who seeks the adulation of the crowds. Or worse still, a sycophant who craves the attention of those who trod our vaunted marble halls.”

“Not exactly,” Roth corrected. “I think you believe what you do can shape attitudes and opinions. That's why I think we have at least something in common. And, if I may be so bold, Author Garlen, that's not a bad thing.”

The aged author put down his quill. “So you're here to form an alliance, is that it? You believe that what you attempt to do with the League is the same as what we authors attempt to do with our pens.” He shook his finger at Roth. “And for that, we should find ourselves in cahoots. That about right?”

Roth dropped his arms to his sides and looked up as submissively as he could. “That's about right. I want you to understand, though, that this isn't about power or control. I've been thinking about this for a long time. You know our own order has a faction devoted to history; these men and women prize the authors' work, often finding more truth in it than they do in historical texts.”

Garlen sneered with skepticism. Roth pivoted his argument. “The authors are a powerful lot. They enjoy the affection of the people. They represent knowledge, learning, intelligence, and wisdom. These values perfectly express what I wish the League to be known for. The alliance of the author's society and the League would be a powerful step forward. Together, the work we could do would provide great value and direction. It's an ambitious vision, but not an unattainable one. And it begins—perhaps ends, if I may wax poetic—with discussion, even disagreement in small rooms like this, between men like you and me who prize honesty and have passion for what we do.”

Author Garlen slowly stood. Though not a tall man, standing atop his pedestal he loomed large in the room, his head casting a shadow over Roth. “Comparing what authors try to do, working through the small hours of night, hunched over parchment we can often ill afford to buy, dizzy with the smell of our own ink, scribbling out the musings of our hearts … with the political power-brokering of the League, that tramples those who oppose it, and puts men to death—even members of its own fraternity—to advance its own interests … is perhaps the greatest insult I've received in my long life.”

The author did not rush or rant, but offered his comment evenly, his eyes leaden upon Roth. And when Garlen had finished, Roth knew his maneuvering had failed. He let his prevarication drop from him like a mask. But he was not done.

“Very well, Garlen, then let me make something plain, with the words of a mere politician who cannot dream up stories and metaphors to teach and enlighten. I
will
have your allegiance as we reconvene the Convocation of Seats, and as the High Council prepares to vote on some important topics. Or the society of authors may find itself in the same position the Sheason did some few short years ago.”

The old author barked laughter. “Extermination? You think you can push through an order that would see storytellers burned or crucified for stringing together a bunch of words? You really are drunk on your own power, Roth.” He laughed again.

The old man's cackle infuriated him. His composure dwindled further, and he thrust his fist into the author's stand, rattling the pens, sending papers fluttering, and spilling the ink down the side of the lectern. “I won't be laughed at, old man!” Then Roth calmed himself, adopting the same coolness the author had used in denying and berating him a moment ago. “You have the choice, here and now, to seal a kinship between our two societies that will build the right future … or you may choose to damn all those who find themselves … content.”