He eased himself down to the ground and waited. ‘If you think I’m going to carry your bag for you, you’re mistaken,’ he called up.
Jay searched for the pathetic little sack which contained everything he owned in the world: two shirts, two pairs of trousers, one pair of clogs and one pair of shoes, his pride and joy. Also a piece of carved wood his uncle had once given him. Nothing else. At least the bag was light.
Then he, too, jumped down and found that Callan was talking to a young man who had stopped to watch. Jay wondered whether it was good manners to go up and join them, and decided to play safe. He listened intently, nonetheless.
‘I’m surprised to see you here,’ Callan was saying.
‘Oh, domain business. Someone had to come and I offered. A little change, you know.’ He pointed at Jay. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘Henary found him. Asked me to deliver him here.’
The young man crooked his finger, so Jay obediently approached.
‘A find by Scholar Henary? You are a lucky boy. I hope you realise that?’
He was a tall and finely dressed young man, perhaps ten years or so older than Jay was, but decades away in manner and self-possession. Jay noticed that he talked to the grizzled soldier with familiarity, even amusement, as though he was doing him some sort of favour. Jay was now even more confused.
‘Well, I will not keep you. I hope your service will end soon and you will return to your old place, Callan Perelson. Our trees miss you badly.’
‘I miss them. I will return soon enough.’
The young man nodded and walked away. Callan grunted.
‘Who was that?’
‘The nephew of Lord Thenald. A grand fellow, don’t you think? Actually, not a bad young man, but a little too aware of his name. Still, he has a sense of fairness and decency, which is valuable in these days.’
Jay understood not one word, and Callan laughed at his puzzlement. ‘You’re going to have to disguise your ignorance better, young man. Remember: scholars know everything, even when they know nothing. Merchants are honest, even when they are crooks, and domain holders are just, even when they are total bastards.’
‘What about foresters?’
‘Splendid fellows all,’ he said. ‘Come on. Grit your teeth, calm your nerves and follow me.’
Jay did as instructed, and the next day began his new life.
8
Henary’s negotiations with Jay’s parents had been easy enough; not only were they proud at the idea of having a student in the family, his father in particular was quite glad to see the back of him. Henary was doing everyone a favour; the lad was the sort who could get himself into trouble without a suitable outlet, and this Henary could provide. He would spend the next few years of his life working harder than he ever dreamt possible.
Once he had packed the boy off with the soldiers and the wagon, he and the Visitor mounted their horses and left. Both were exhausted. Henary wished his companion didn’t feel the need to converse all the way. The young man, one of his students, had been a Visitor for the first time. He had been nervous, and Henary had decided to hold his hand, guide him through. Now he was exhilarated from relief that it had passed off without disaster. He had a tendency to be over-eager, to show off. Henary had been there to calm him. ‘Easy, my boy. What do they care about precedents? They will trust you. You don’t have to give them a lecture as well. Their lives are quite hard enough as it is.’
He’d done well, grown into his role. After only three weeks, he was already much more confident, much less likely to glance at Henary to seek advice or take refuge in pomposity. He’d proved himself to be judicious and generous as well. Henary was pleased.
‘I have space for a student, and he tickled my fancy,’ Henary said when the young man asked about Jay. ‘If he’s no good, then I will know before the six months’ probation is up, and I’ll send him home again.’
Eventually, the talk petered out. Henary didn’t really want to explain and further possibility of discussion was ended by a small delegation standing in the middle of the road as they came round a sharp bend. Henary groaned. ‘Oh, no. Please, no!’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough.’
Duties were duties. The pair stopped to hear what they had to say. They were worried. A hermit named Jaqui had turned up some months back. He had been delirious, raving, and they had nursed him back to health. He had retreated a mile or so out of the village, where he had taken over an old hut. A few children had assisted him and he had paid them by telling wonderful stories. He had helped with the harvest and had some skill in healing. When someone was ill he would visit and his presence could fend off the demons which cluster around the seriously sick. He would attend births and his touch was helpful.
‘So what do you want from us?’
Because Jaqui could read and write, the villagers knew he had to have been a scholar or student, and they wanted to be certain they were not harbouring an outcast.
Henary sighed. ‘I’ll go,’ his student offered.
‘No, no. I’ll do it. You’ve worked hard enough these few weeks. You go on. I’ll have a look, stay the night and then branch off to Willdon.’
Very grumpily, he turned his horse and wearily allowed the villagers to lead him to the east. When he arrived at the village of Hooke he was welcomed, then given directions over the fields.
‘Ho there!’ he called when he came to the hut. ‘I seek Jaqui, hermit.’
‘You are looking in the wrong place,’ came a voice from behind him.
Henary turned and saw a man standing a few feet away, leaning on a stick. He was unkempt, with long, greasy hair; his eyes were strangely formed and wild. He looked as though he could be dangerous.
‘I have been asked to talk to you. I am a Storyteller from Ossenfud.’
‘I have done no harm.’ He spoke with a strange accent.
‘The villagers are concerned, that is all. They mean you no trouble, and nor do I.’
Jaqui was an unusual hermit. He was strong, for a start. Not too old, either, nor did he have the extravagant speech which many of his ilk affected. An odd face, though, which Henary found himself examining closely.
‘Where are you from? Your place and family?’
‘I have no place and no family.’
‘I am told you can read and write.’
‘I have nothing to read, except what I write. Perhaps they are just scribbles on a page.’
‘Show me and I will tell you.’
‘Ah, no, Storyteller. That I cannot do. Perhaps you will find they are meaningless, and disappoint me. Why don’t you go away? I do not trespass on your stories. I have no interest in them, and you have no interest in mine. I know that already.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I talked to a scholar once, one like you. He asked me questions. I told him things, what I knew and thought, but he wasn’t interested.’
‘What was the name of this man?’
‘Etheran. You know him?’
‘He was my teacher. The man I revered above all others. He died a month ago.’
Jaqui nodded slowly. ‘I am sorry for that. He was a good man. I had hopes for him.’
‘You are insolent.’
Jaqui laughed.
‘I think we have talked enough,’ Henary went on. ‘You do not seem very dangerous to me. But I counsel you to be careful about what you say.’
‘Who are you, scholar? You know my name, I do not know yours.’
‘My name is Henary, son of Henary.’
‘What are you doing here? Am I now so famous that a Storyteller comes all the way from Ossenfud to visit? Did Etheran talk of me to you?’
‘Hardly,’ Henary said. ‘I am on my way to Willdon for the festivity.’
‘What is that?’
‘A celebration of the seventh year of Thenald’s rule. I am a friend to his wife.’
‘I am flattered you spend your time with me, then. I’m sure the lord and lady would n
ot.’
‘Probably Thenald would not,’ Henary said, ‘although if I know Lady Catherine, she might well welcome you. You judge too easily.’
He considered this as though it was some weighty, important statement. ‘Well, perhaps I do. But as I am a hermit in a hut, I can do as I please. Now, will you leave me be?’
*
That expedition was the last time Henary ventured out of Ossenfud on a formal Visitation for many years. He had his studies and his teaching, and when Thenald died, shortly after he had met Jay, he found himself travelling to Willdon far more often to give advice to his widow. He liked his life, apart from the interruptions. His new student was introduced into Ossenfud and learned enough to pass through the probation period without too many difficulties.
Eventually, Henary also began writing the story of Etheran, dutiful student that he was, doing what his master never had time for, setting down his memorial to be lodged in the Story Hall of Ossenfud along with that of every other scholar. Etheran’s death had shaken everyone; the most brilliant man he had ever known. An austere teacher, who never drank alcohol, never ate too much, slept on a straw pallet like the least student. Who rose at dawn and read until night had fallen, without a break. He had been the most generous man as well, able to turn the dullest passage into magic through his enthusiasm and skill.
Then he died. Quietly, one night, he went out of his little house and was found the next morning, dead in a field. There were enquiries, but not too many, as people were afraid to know, lest his memory be tarnished. Henary’s own wife had examined his body. ‘Let us just say that he had a broken heart,’ she said. ‘There is no more to it than that …’
Henary took on the task of preserving the memory of his teacher and friend, knowing that if he did not then his wisdom and knowledge would be lost as well.
He had loved the man and wished to do a proper job, teasing out the sense and the value even in his later work, when he became wild and unbalanced in his assertions. It meant trying to find out all those things which he had never known, and then crafting them into a narrative which summed up his life. The good and the bad had to be there; the scholarly achievements, greater than he knew; the final death, sadder than he feared.
Etheran had gone mad, he thought. He had begun to question the Story, but without knowing how to answer his questions. Loyalty and curiosity came into murderous conflict, and his heart broke under the strain. So his tribute was also an exploration and an apology, for Henary had grown apart from Etheran in his last year. He had accused his teacher of becoming foolish and indulgent, giving credence to the irrational, lending support to those who disdained intellectual rigour. Henary thought it was irresponsible.
A terrible lesson, and as he wrote – taking his time, for the dead are in no hurry – he often thought of Jay, who resembled Etheran in some ways, as he was also incapable of restraining his questions and was tempted to stray into dangerous areas. Often Jay was disciplined and punished, but it never made any difference. There was a structure to argument: thesis; evidence from the story, preferably examples separated by several Levels; counter-argument, similarly backed up; and conclusion, where the most important quotations and examples were deployed. Simple enough, surely?
It was for most people, but not for Jay, who seemed to see it as a surrender. He was a good student, and Henary was pleased to see how he learnt quickly and developed a real feel for the Story. In all respects except one he demonstrated time and again that Henary had chosen well. The exception, however, was troublesome, for Jay found it difficult, even painful, to conform to the styles of disquisition that marked out the true scholar. How do you prove iron wheels were not as good as wooden ones? It was a simple task, set to all students after five years of study when they had mastered the language and scripts. All he had to do was cite the example of Yadrel, in Level 1, the cartwright who built the wagons which brought the travellers south, and who hewed yew trees and seasoned them and cut them to make wheels strong and pliant. What more was needed?
Jay ignored the tale of Yadrel, because he had gone mushroom hunting in the woods when he should have been at a lecture on the subject. Instead, he went and talked to a wheelwright and a blacksmith, and wrote about the way iron could shatter under strain. Right conclusion, wrong argument. His teacher (not Henary on this occasion) had hardly known where to start.
‘Jay, just stick to the texts next time,’ Henary said wearily after he had spent an hour listening to the teacher’s complaints. ‘Everything is to be found in the Story. Go and do it again.’
Look where that sort of thing led Etheran, he could have added. But he was loyal to the memory of his master, and loyal to the potential of Jay. Both had a spark which promised wonders and threatened disaster. So he used Etheran’s story to present the case for such wildness and equally the need to discipline it. To gather evidence for his case, he took himself off to the Story Hall, where Etheran’s papers had been stored, trying to understand how his mind had developed, and why it had then broken down.
There he came across the hermit Jaqui once more.
This encounter happened one evening, when anyone watching the main square of Ossenfud might have glimpsed a curious sight. A shadow passed across, and, hugging the walls of the buildings, made its way around the central area where markets were held every second Tuesday. The shadow paused by an opening in the great wall that formed one of the massive sides of the Story Hall and there was the lightest clinking of metal, the faintest scrape of a key turning in a lock.
Henary was at that moment breaking any number of rules. Against being out after dark, which was frowned upon even for senior scholars. Against going into the Story Hall out of hours. Against taking a light in without someone else to guard against accident or fire. Luckily, he was much too grand a figure to be questioned, and when he entered he paused in the semi-dark, savouring the smell and atmosphere of this most wonderful place, the quiet, the banks of boxes climbing the whitewashed walls, each containing their precious scroll or book. The whole world was there; Henary was conscious that he was standing in the very centre of the entire universe, and it gave him, as usual, a profound sense of humility and peace.
The papers he sought were grouped in five bundles and he made his discovery in the third: scraps of paper in a very different hand that stood out amongst his old master’s appalling scrawl, which, on its own, was almost enough to ensure that his thought remained forever hidden.
There were two letters only; Henary tucked them into the pocket of his thick cloak, carefully replaced the manuscripts, blew the dust off the table so no one would suspect he had been there, and then, as quietly and surely as he had arrived, slipped across the great echoing hall, through the little side door and back into the alleyway.
*
The letters described the encounter between Etheran and Jaqui, although as only half of the correspondence was there, it gave the impression that his poor teacher submitted silently to a torrent of meaningless abuse.
‘You tell me that the Story contains everything, and I reply that you are a fool, Etheran the Wise. You don’t think, and prefer silly tales and blind belief. How is it that someone like you is considered intelligent? What must your colleagues be like if a dunderhead like you is acclaimed?
‘How can this Story of yours contain everything? Ah, you say, only in potential, and its meaning will not be understood until Esilio returns and brings it to its end. Obscure nonsense. Meaningless babbling.
‘What do you mean by containing everything? Every bird and leaf and insect? What pathetic creatures you are! You await your end like cattle, and it will come, believe me. You will vanish as if you had never existed; it’s all you deserve.
‘Everything is something to do with the giants. But who were they? You don’t know. You are here because of the great Return from Exile. What was that? You don’t care. All you do is compare this tale to that tale; see that a certain phrase in one part of the Story is used in another part; discover tha
t one dead scholar generations back contradicted another dead scholar generations back. You call this learning?
‘“When the Story is finished, it will fold into the world and each will extinguish the other.” One of your quotations. When? How? Anyone can come up with grandiose and meaningless phrases. I can too. How about this: “The world will end on the fifth day of the fifth year.” Is it any more nonsense than the sort of thing you recite with such reverence? No. Except that what I say is true. Wait and see.’
There was no notion of what prompted this lunatic outburst because Etheran had not made copies of his own letters. Henary could guess, though. In his last year, Etheran had been preoccupied with stories of the End, when the god returns to judge his creation. Silly stories, ignored by serious scholars, but Etheran had become alarmingly fascinated by them. It had been the cause of Henary’s disaffection from his master.
What astonished Henary was not just the content, but the fluency and ease of these letters. An interesting lunatic, he thought. None of it made sense, though, and he thought no more of Jaqui the hermit until the time came for Jay to consider his thesis.
9
The key problem I was working on derived from a computer simulation that was ordered by Hanslip in one of his fits of caution. It was carefully designed to do two things: firstly to establish the degree to which the course of history would be altered by changing an event, and secondly to test various theories of the nature of historical evolution. This was supposed to be a preliminary investigation into the practicality of altering parallel universes to create suitable conditions for exploitation.
The trouble was that events were simplified in order to make the calculations possible within a reasonable time-frame and budget; Hanslip was always parsimonious. It was also anonymised; the assessment programme was unaware which of the scenarios was real, in case natural prejudice on its part influenced its decisions.