A Dice Roll Away - Chapter 67

Leo ran. He considered not visiting the bath house as instructed but as he ran he decided that Mistress Marta must have felt like an hour really was enough time for him to get the information he needed and to visit the bathhouse as well – he did not think she would have deliberately set him up to fail. He didn’t waste any time though. And he was panting when he finally got to the library. Eadweard – Mistress Marta’s fifteen year old apprentice who Leo knew was only still her apprentice because he wanted to be – was standing on the steps. “This way, Leo. The Mistress sent a note on ahead of you.”

Eadweard lead Leo into a room full of books – he had been in here before. It was where the books on nobles were kept and that is what he was after. A footstool stood next to a shelf pulled out from the bookshelves and there was a book on top of it. He climbed up onto the footstool and looked at the cover of the leather bound book. At the top of the cover were the words ‘Barony of Pinchwater’ etched in gold. Beneath that was a sheet of leather that seemed to have been sewed onto the leather cover. In a slightly different shade of gold, was a shield – a coat of arms, in fact which consisted of a shield with a scroll underneath. On the shield was a dice – a die, there was only one of them – cube shaped so it was obviously meant to have six sides, but on the forward face, there were seven dots – six arranged in a hexagon around a central seventh dot. And on the scroll was a motto he recognised.

“VITAM INTELLIGENTIAM IMPENDITUR”

or rather… he looked carefully. The first letter of each word had been etched in a way that made it look more solid than all the other letters.

What had that motto meant? Mistress Marta had translated it for him - “A life devoted to intelligence.” He decided that made as much sense as any motto he had ever heard of, but if it had some special meaning, it escaped him right now.

Under the motto were the words ‘Earldom of Hilmill’ in the same shade of gold as the shield design.

He opened the book. There had been six Barons of Pinchwater by the look of it – no, four Barons and two Baronesses, the last of whom – Baroness Tessara – had been born in 930AS – 67 years ago – the seventh child of the third Baron. How had she inherited the title? Four of her older siblings had died in infancy, but two had been Barons in their own right and died without children, before she inherited. He paged through the book to look at the pages devoted to these. Apparently she and two older brothers had all become Crusader during the First Crusade, and had risen through the ranks of the Crusading forces – but while her brothers had died, she had survived to become a General – she had even commanded the entire Albish contingent on her final mission, by which time she had been created the Countess of Hilmill – it was an Earldom, but because she was a lady, she was a Count. He supposed all that matched what little he knew of her.

But what struck him – and struck him hard – was a mention of her marriage. She had married a Baron. The Baron of Cranwell. That was we had read the name before. When he had looked at the book on the Cranwells. She was his grandmother. She was his father’s mother.

Leo paused. He wasn’t an expert on these things but something seemed wrong here. When he had seen her armour in the vaults beneath Cranwell Manor, the man Seaforth had told him that the Countess of Hilmill had died… he was sure he had said that. But if that was the case… why hadn’t Leo’s father been Earl of Hilmill? That was how it worked wasn’t it? And why was Leo only seen as heir to the Barony of Cranwell.

He read the last lines of the entry on the Countess of Hilmill. His grandmother. It described how she had gone forward during a battle in the Holy Land and had never returned. She was listed as being presumed dead. Was that the issue? Couldn’t the Earldom be passed on unless her death was certain?

It wasn’t that Leo particularly wanted to be an Earl. He wasn’t sure he particularly wanted to be a Baron, or a Court Baron, although it was definitely better than living on the streets. But once again, there was something he didn’t quite understand. This was beginning to get very annoying.

He wished he had more time – but he had no idea how much time he really had. Perhaps he would already be late back to school. He ran out of the library as fast as they would let him. He ran all the way back to school. He ran up the stairs and he ran to Mistress Marta’s rooms. He was panting.

“Am I late?” he asked – her door was open and he did not bother knocking.

“No,” said Mistress Marta. “You have exactly one minute left. Now go to class.”

As he walked down the hallway to class, his mind went back to what he had been told when he had visited the timekeepers on top of Guild and Council Hall. Master Hawburn had told him that the timekeepers there could slice time down to a tenth of an hour – that was six minutes – and occasionally could do even better than that with a lot of work. He had also told him that Mistress Marta used the candles they made for her time keeping – but the candles were not that accurate. How had she known he was a minute short of being late?

She was a Sorceress – maybe something about that meant she could tell time perfectly. It would not surprise him if that was so.

But it also would not have surprised him, if she had just decided he was going to just make it – whenever he eventually turned up.

He walked into his classroom. Blinda was just rubbing the board clean of whatever work they had been doing. “That’s your second minus, Castor. Just because I’m not looking at you doesn’t mean I can’t hear you. Sit down, Leo. We’re about to start doing some geography. Does anybody here think they can draw an accurate map of the northern lands?”

Jasmine put her hand up. “Anybody else?” asked Blinda. “No offence, Jasmine – but we all know you can do it. If I really needed an accurate map I would get you to do it or copy it from a book. I want somebody else to try. Kellar… you should be able to do this. Come up.”

Kellar stood up and went to the board. “I’ll have to use my left arm.”

“Yes – well, yes, I suppose you’ll have to. No writing, though. I’ll label it. I’ve never heard of anybody saying drawing with your left hand is wrong. We must be able to use it for something.”

Leo watched Kellar drawing the map. He wondered how accurate it really was. He seemed to know what he was doing and he did seem to be pretty good at it, so Leo assumed it must be reasonably good.

Blinda took the chalk and began writing on the board, saying the names of places as she wrote them.

“Albion… Cornumbria… Ereworn… Glissom… Mercania… Chaubrette… Kurland… Algandy… Braeburg… Krarth….” Krarth was absolutely huge. “I won’t get you all to copy the map down – it’s good, but I think we will copy one by a cartographer next week – but who can tell me a major city in each nation? All right, Jasmine – just one please. In Thuland.”

“Katorheim.”

“Good. How about in Ereworn?” Leo noticed the whole class put their hand up except him. This was something he really did not know much about. “Hantel?”

“Ereworn.”

“Yes, the only city in the country has the same name as the country. Glissom.”

Again, everybody in the class put their hands up. Leo again did not know the answer and started to feel a little stupid. “Castor?”

“Glissom!”

“Yes – another very easy one. Cornumbria.”

Fewer hands flew up this time, but Leo’s was one of them. Blinda noticed. “Leo.”

“Criggen Varas?” he said, hesitantly. He really did not want to be wrong.

“Good,” Blinda said to Leo’s relief. “All right – now off to the continent. Krarth.”

Nobody’s hand went up. Blinda looked around the room. “I know at least some of you know. It’s all right to say it.”

Nobody’s hand went up. Blinda gave a deep sigh. “We talked about this. Do I Need to get the Mistress in again? She’ll be very upset if I do. There’s nothing wrong with saying the name. It’s a dark and deadly place, a frightening place, but you can’t get cursed by just saying the name.”

From the front row, Jasmine spoke quietly. “Then you say it, Blinda.”

“I’m the teacher not the pupil.”

“You don’t want to say it, either.”

“Anybody?” Blinda looked around the room. “Jasmine, I know you know. What is the main city of Krarth?”

Jasmine shook her head. Blinda said “Minus. Peudar – what is the main city of Krarth?”

The boy next to Blinda shook his head as well. “Minus. Castor.”

Castor spoke, “Blinda, I already have two minuses.”

“I know.”

“This isn’t fair…”

“Unless you say it… or somebody else in this class does… come on. Surely, you’re not so afraid of the word, Castor, that you’ll take a birching. Surely the rest of you won’t let him?”

Dead silence. For quite a long time.

Leo raised his hand.

“Leo?”

“Krarth?” Well, there had been two cities that had the same name as the country they were in.

“Minus,” said Blinda. She looked at the class. “Last chance, Castor…”

“This isn’t fair,” he said. Blinda looked at him.

“You’re right. It isn’t. Sorry. But we really should not be so afraid of the name and I was hoping to break that hold.” She took a deep breath.

“The city of Spyte,” she said.

Leo listened to the entire class breathe out together. He realised he had been holding his breath as well. But did not really know why.

Blinda continued, now she had said the name once, it seemed that she had broken whatever spell it had – and Leo for a moment wondered exactly how appropriate that terminology was. “The blasted City of Spyte. All right – Kurland.”

Leo did not want to move on to another country. He put his hand up along with several others, not wanting to answer the question but to ask his own. But Blinda did not call on him. Nor did she when he held his hand up for the next and last country on the map on the board, Algandy. He kept his hand up.

“Yes, Leo.”

“Why are people scared of talking about Spyte?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know why I should be.”

Blinda walked over to the window and glanced out of it. “Castor,” she said. “I know you know this. No threat this time – if you do not want to answer, all right. But you’ll be a lot less nervous with one minus instead of two and if you give a good answer to Leo’s question, I’ll take one of your minuses on to myself.”

Castor said “Krarth used to be ruled by very powerful witches. The most powerful witches ever. The Magi. They blew up their city with themselves in it. Nobody has been able to get in there and come out again since.”

“Good answer, Castor. I’ll take that minus,” said Blinda. “All I’ll add is that the Magi were not just powerful witches, but according to most accounts, powerful evil witches. And they left behind heirs, who were nowhere near as powerful as they were. Whether they were truly the most powerful users of magic ever – there have likely been more powerful people than the best of them, but as a group they were incredibly powerful. Does that answer your question, Leo?”

“Sort of. Did they turn into stars?”

“The Ghosts of the Magi. That’s the story. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Now – let’s actually talk about Chaubrette which is where I wanted to teach about today.”