Superius Frater and Robenc

I had withdrawn to my little study off the refectory half an hour earlier. It was mid-afternoon, and I was trying to stave off the temptation to take a nap, a temptation which speaks to me more urgently of late, particularly after midday meal, and on gray raw days when I cannot get outside and walk away my drowsiness. This past winter has been brutal, but at least the cold kept me awake during the short days, and sunset came early.

Now the days are lengthening, and the wind, though chill, has lost its teeth. I dread the coming of summer, with its endless afternoons and interminable evenings, when I will be plagued with visitors, all of them with urgent and vital business, from sunup until sundown.

I am wrung by anxiety, even though it is still weeks until the official opening of the roads. Two days ago, a premature thaw erupted unexpectedly, causing the ice on the lake to crack and sing, and having a similar effect on the children and their tutors. More and more I find myself retreating to this inner sanctum and ignoring knocks and calls from the other side of the door, only to stare across the lake at that pile of boulders, that look like the remains of an abandoned fortress, its wall breached, its inhabitants slaughtered... unthinkable ages ago.

But yesterday the warmth went out of the air like a quenched fire, and last night it was bitterly cold. Today, as if in answer to my prayers, it began to snow. There was little wind, and fat flakes were sticking to whatever they touched first, piling up two fingerbreadths on even the slenderest twigs. Too warm, I was thinking, too wet. Cannot last. At least the clouds were low, drifting heavily near the surface of the lake, almost obscuring the view of the cliff face opposite. Early sunset tonight, I murmured to myself. If I can just stay awake until evening meal...

My eyes were half closed when I heard footfalls on the porch outside my windows. A man stood gazing out over the lake, his shoulders and hood thick with snow. Oh no, I thought. Not now, not today. I looked more closely at the man, hoping it was one of the teachers out for a walk. His shape was unknown to me, but there was something familiar about the way he stood.

The man then pulled back his hood. It was Robenc.

I could not have known, my son, what was about to happen, but the instant I recognized him I was seized with fear, not of this man, but for him. He was more mature, of course: there was some gray in his hair and beard, his face had lines around the eyes, and he had taken on weight. But it was the same proud man who years ago had served a sentence of humiliation here. I realize as I write that if you are reading this now, you may know better than I, who can only imagine it, what fate this courageous man has met. Well, I leave it to you to complete the tale. There cannot be much time left for me in any case, especially if it is ever learned that he came to me.

I pushed open my casement and invited him to come in through the refectory door. I then fussed over him for several moments, preparing bark tea for both of us and brushing the snow off his cloak as he warmed himself before the fire.

'This is an unexpected honor, Phylax — I should say, Praetor Robenc. I must confess to being more than a little surprised by your appearance at our rustic retreat.'

He smiled his beautiful smile. 'Yes, Abbas,' — he used the familiar term — 'I never expected to return.'

'Your stay with us was so unpleasant?'

'You know what it was, Abbas. You yourself were banished here before me.'

'Ah, but my productive life was behind me then. Yours had barely started.'

'And having paid my debt, I am meaningfully placed in my lord's service.'

'Where you thrive?'

'Where I thrive.'

He seemed reluctant to go on, and I was unsure where in this conversation the traps might be. After a moment I said, 'Can I get you another glass of tea?'

'No, thank you. I see you are perplexed. I fear that I myself am out of my depth.' Once again he hesitated.

'You wish to ask advice of me?'

He sighed. 'I need counsel, Abbas.'

A long silence followed, while he stared at the floor without moving. At last he took in a deep breath, drained his glass, and walked over to the windows. 'How long have those rocks been there, do you think?'

I hardly knew what to say. 'As long as I can remember,' I joked, but he did not even smile.

'Why do they look like that,' he said, 'as if the ground of the world had given way?'

'Perhaps that is what happened.'

There may have been something in the way I said it that made him turn and stare at me.

'I'm afraid I cannot advise you on that subject,' I said, joining him at the window. 'I am not quite old enough.' The man's seriousness was beginning to unnerve me.

He turned back to gaze out the window. 'I have become entangled in a business I do not understand. A short while ago my lord the Golias asked that I locate a friend whom he had not seen since they were boys together. He said he had merely thought of this friend one day for no particular reason, but had been unable to contact him by the usual means. He spoke in a lighthearted fashion, and stressed that he was asking for a favor, not an official investigation. It would not be necessary to involve anyone else, he said.' He fell silent.

'You were suspicious.'

'Not — well, yes. My lord the Golias is a fiercely intelligent man, and he pursues projects that I am not required to know about. What surprised me was that he explicitly told me not to involve anyone else. I never would have done that without asking his permission first.'

'You were surprised that he knew you so little.'

'I was surprised because he knew that perfectly well, and still thought it necessary to tell me. It made me begin to think either that he had stopped trusting me or else there was a secret message in this unusual request. If there is a hidden meaning, I have not deciphered it.'

I kept silent, waiting until I had heard the rest of his tale.

'I proceeded cautiously. I did not entirely believe that the Golias had just thought of this old friend without cause. My first guess was he had heard somehow that his friend was in the city, but he could not, for a reason that was immediately obvious, go searching for the man himself: this Historian was either associated with known enemies of the realm, or was in some sort of trouble that the Golias could not be seen getting him out of. If the first were the case, the Golias would not need an investigator, he would have sent someone better skilled in diplomacy than myself. So it seemed likely that I was chosen as a ferret. And ferret I did. Of course, I was almost certain from the start where my search would lead me.'

'The Office of Inquiry?'

'Where else could a person disappear so completely? It is a world unto itself; no one goes there willingly, and those who are taken there against their will never come back out. As a matter of course I twice attempted to send agents to penetrate that deep secrecy, but once inside those walls they themselves fell silent, and I could hardly request of the Chief Inquirer that he let me have them back.'

'So what did you do?' I asked; I could barely breathe.

'I went there myself, openly, and simply demanded of the gatekeeper that I be permitted to visit the prisoner — they call them clients, I understand. The poor man was completely overborne by my title and my decorations, and after fuddling with some papers in his little kiosk, sent me with a runner boy to the Office of the Prior.'

'The Good Doctor,' I said, my heart sinking.

'The very same. He naturally denied knowing anything about this Historian, but his secretary — '

'Not little Egderus?'

'Yes. He gave me a sign as the Good Doctor was showing me out that made me think I had not come in vain. Later I was able to confirm that the Historian was indeed a client of the Office of Inquiry, and that the Good Doctor was attending to him personally.'

I must have groaned involuntarily, for he added quickly, 'This was not the worst news I could have received — at least the man is still alive, or was when I left the city. Now you must help me, abbas. You know the Good Doctor, you must know something about the Office of Inquiry. How do I rescue this man?'

[Fragment ends here — Ed.]