Crown of Renewal(159)

Every day after that included a ride. Usually it was that horse, but sometimes one of the others. Often he had to walk half the length of the valley to find them, though they usually ended the ride closer to the house. As he grew stronger, the horses quit kneeling for him to mount, at first standing near a rock or stump on which he could climb but then on lower ones, and lower ones, until he was finally mounting from the ground. Their behavior once he mounted changed, too—from a slow walk to a faster one, to a comfortable gait for which he had no name but fast enough to put a breeze in his face, then a trot. He fell from time to time; the horse from which he’d fallen always stopped while he got up and mounted again.

One day when he returned to the house, he found two others with Mathor. The man was taller than Mathor, with long-fingered, ink-stained hands, and the other was a woman, yellow-haired and gray-eyed, with a merry grin. She had a ring of silver on her brow.

“Dragon says you’re well enough to start learning wisdom,” Mathor said. “And you won’t learn that from me.” He laughed. “Master Kielson is a scholar and judicar; he’ll help you with this—” Mathor gestured to the pile of papers and books on the table. “And this paladin will help you regain your fighting skills.”

Camwyn’s memory nudged him. At one time—he thought—he had been able to read and fight. The scars on his legs and what Dragon had told him proved the latter. He nodded to them; Mathor had a meal ready, and they all sat down to eat.

Reading came back to him quickly—the papers and books taught him about something called “House of the Dragon”—a bard’s tale, he would have thought, tracing the story of that house from “Camwyn Drakonfriend” to a time when the king and his sons all died and left the Dragon Throne empty, in the care of a man who proved a fool.

“Dragon does not like fools,” Master Kielson said.

“Some of the others were fools, too,” Camwyn said. They had discussed the actions of a line of kings over the long years—some wiser and some more foolish.

“The question is, Camwyn, are you wise or a fool? You yourself?”

He glanced aside. The paladin sat at the end of the table, rubbing wool fat into a strip of leather. She looked up with a smile but said nothing. “I think … I think it is being a fool to claim wisdom, like claiming a sword or a boot as one’s own. For no one is perfectly wise but the gods—or maybe Dragon, if Dragon is not a god. But I know some things accounted wise, and I try to see ahead to the flowers of a seed, and the fruit of that flower, and the seeds it leaves. I could not do that when I woke, but I am learning.”

Master Kielson nodded. “And what must a man do to remain as wise as he is?”

“Learn more,” Camwyn said. “Become wiser. But learning means mistakes, and mistakes are not wise.” He paused, scratched his nose, and went on. “I think … if I could see more ahead … I would make fewer mistakes. But sometimes you can’t wait to think to the end of time.”

“True, and well said. We have discussed all the past kings in the House of the Dragon: Which do you think was wisest?”

“Camwyn III,” Camwyn said. He listed his reasons.

“And which the most foolish?”

“Pelyan. He was not only lazy, mean, and a drunk, he drove out that other one, the bastard.”

“Do you know what became of the bastard?”

“No—do you?”

“Indeed yes. In another land he became a peer of the realm; he is a notable military commander and has met Dragon, who considers him somewhat wise.”

“As wise as Camwyn III?”

“No … but wiser than Pelyan or the one who became Chancellor.” Master Kielson stood up and stretched. “Well, Camwyn, my work here is done, I believe. You are competent in reading; you have learned the language of the house, and from here, I believe you can educate yourself.”

“Alone?” Camwyn stared. “Sir—what I learned is that I need help.”

“And you will find the help you need, I’m certain, but for now, it is time for me to go to another student who needs me more now than you do.” He nodded toward Paks. “And you still have work to do with this lady before Dragon returns.”

Camwyn bowed, and Master Kielson bowed in return, then left and—when Camwyn looked—walked up the path that led past Mathor’s house to … where? Camwyn had never gone to the top of the slope … Was there a town beyond? Why had he not wondered that before? And why had he not wondered that the season seemed, as it had when he first came, late spring. The spindly-legged foals were now much larger, able to gallop with the herd … but nothing had changed in the land itself. Day after day had slipped past; he had no count of how long he had been there.