Serial Saturday: "The Last Inkweaver" Part 8

 Part 8

"The Proclamation"

Calligraphy happened to be the one class in all my Academy years that I had ever actually looked forward to on a regular basis.

Of course, all the good feelings ended as soon as I walked in, for who should catch me not five paces into the door but Terra. 

"Oh, Callista!" She greeted me with her usual level of unbridled enthusiasm. "You made it! How did things go with..." She faltered, glanced around to the people casually glancing in our direction, and hinted, "you know. Did you still pass?"

I glanced over to the desk by the big window, where Matthias sat. I didn't doubt he could hear us from his seat, but he only smiled as he finished priming his fine metal nibs and uncapping his ink.

I chose to nod at Terra without saying anything. At the front of the room, Master Colton made a big deal of straightening the papers on his desk and waiting at the front of the classroom with his eyes over us, signaling that he was ready to begin, and that we ought to be also. I made my way over to my seat, just a column away and a row back from Matthias' table. I checked the tip of my quill for any splinters or cracks, once again stealing an envious glance at the metal-inlaid wooden pen in Matthias' hand. I loved Calligraphy so much--how I wanted to feel the way a metal nib skated across the page, rather than the clumsy scratching of a feather quill. 

As Master Colton gave the opening of his lesson, I doodled on the sheets of vellum blotting paper in front of me. I did my best to treat my poor quill like a metal-nib pen. Perhaps it was the way one held the pen, or the angle of the tip against the paper that could possibly make a difference. I tried to mimic the way Matthias held his pen, forming the letters with a controlled grace--

"Callista!" Terra's voice hissed in my ear. I had been so distracted that I hadn't even heard her boots clacking on the floor as she walked over to my desk. She wasn't even looking at me, anyway. I followed her astonished gaze down to the paper in front of me.

Mercy! There was my name, Callista, followed very clearly by Matthias' patronym, Olmsyn, as neat as you please! When had I written that--or, more importantly, why? I froze like a scared rabbit in a trap, unsure of what I should do in a situation like this, nor how long I had before someone would take notice, and what amount of trouble I would be in... How long before people started staring?

Master Colton's assistants were already on their way down the aisles between the desks, passing out the document that we were assigned to copy. If any of them saw what I had done--

Terra's quick fingers caught the corner of the vellum and swept it off my desk, crumpling it into a tiny ball as she did so. She scurried back to her seat just as the assistant reached my row. Suspended on the slate around his neck was a proclamation document, looking very official, with the Royal Seal set upon it and everything. I forgot all about my embarrassment as I read the words inscribed on the paper:

 “BY FORMAL REQUEST OF THE KING’S COURT,” it began, “Beginning at the height of Verdant, convoys will depart from Gramble City, traveling to every Academy branch in the kingdom, to gather the foremost students among the population, as selected by the Academic Headmaster of each region. These students, by invitation, will become the inaugural class of Gramble Finishing School, which has just completed construction in Gramble City. Here, they will be rigorously evaluated on what they have learned in the Academy, and trained at the highest level of education, after which they will be eligible to travel to any Academy as Apprentice Tutors until such time the Tutor feels that they may receive that position. Graduates of the Finishing School may also receive the option of serving in the King’s Court, according to the skill of greatest capacity in their report. All cities and villages possessing an Academy of any sort may reasonably expect the arrival of a royal convoy between the end of Verdant and the end of the subsequent Greyfrost. Classes at the Finishing School will begin at the start of Renewal, providing time for all the convoys to return over the Fforgan Pass. IN THE NAME OF KING DESMOND, SO MOTE IT BE.”

I felt a small thrill race over my shoulders. A Finishing School? Didn't the very name sound just grand and impressive!

I paused in the middle of the phrase "selected by the Academic Headmaster" as a burst of frustrated mumbling accompanied the sound of tearing vellum in the front row. I dipped my quill and smiled to myself as I concentrated on making slow, even strokes.

A simple survey of this very room gave a reasonable indication on the students most likely to be selected. For example, the young man on his fourth sheet of vellum in the front row was Feyton, the perpetual perfectionist. He was the sort who, whenever his pen deviated just a hairsbreadth from the original, would rather tear up the near-empty sheet and start afresh than make any attempt to recover the blunder. On the one hand, such rigorous standards meant that every assignment he turned in was absolutely flawless; on the other hand, such an obsession meant that he rarely turned in assignments on time, if at all.

A few rows back, on the right side of the room, sat Stacinda, with her bountiful golden curls and a new wardrobe every season, it seemed. She was one of the few students with multiple pens and ink colors, switching pens just about every other word in order to illuminate every inch of her vellum. The whole thing would be saturated by the time she was done, and wouldn't it be just her luck if Master Colton deemed her work indecipherable, for all her pains! I formed the letters of "serving in the King's Court" with precision and care as befit a professional scribe. 

[...]

I saw Terra’s head pop up like a child’s spring-puppet, and everyone heard the crinkle of vellum and the heart-stopping chink of an inkwell toppling. She ignored it, and waved the tidy sheet of vellum in the air. 

“Done!” she crowed, as the thick, black ink tracked its merry way down the front of her green dress.
A subdued, nervous chuckle rippled through the classroom, as Mr. Colton pasted on a smile and beckoned her forward. I wondered if she had read it, either; Terra wasn’t the sort to care about her education, but she was astonishingly apt as a student. In spite of her shortcomings in Etiquette and her daily remonstrations from teachers all over the school to “Walk, Terra”; “Graceful, Terra”; “Quietly, Terra,” or “Think, Terra”, she approached every task with dogged determination, blowing through them with speed and accuracy I could only envy, ink-stained, wrinkled dress and all.

In looking up to watch her gather her skirts in one hand (I cringed inside; Madame Collette insists that we are never to bunch our skirts), I happened to make eye contact with a dark-haired, ice-blue stare. I felt the warmth crowd into my cheeks before I could manage to tear my eyes away.

There would be another familiar face who would no doubt join us on the journey to the capitol city: Matthias Olmsen. He was smart, capable, steady, and his family lived quite comfortably. He was also gone a lot. The Friedlan family had a house on the third loop--Terra and I would run there frequently to invite him out to play with us when we were younger. Olm Freidlan was one of the few transient merchants allowed in and out of the village, while every other business and family set up storefronts and hardly ever left. [...]

I'd asked my parents what made Mr. Friedlan's work different than the other shops--why did he get to come and go as he pleased, when no one else in Mirrorvale ever dared to show their faces again if they ever left. Mother would purse her lips and squint in confusion and tell me "Go ask your father," and when I did just that, Father would shrug and say, "Mirrorvale isn't any different from other towns its size. We don't trap people here--anyone of us is free to come and go."

That answer didn't sit well with me. It certainly didn't feel like anybody was free to leave, and Mirrorvale was plenty different than the other towns and cities I heard about in Academy classes! However, I only tried pressing the issue a few times before my father figured out just why I was asking--or at least he thought he did. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Olm’s boy, would it?” His grin at my discomfort turned into a solemn frown. "I surely hope you haven't been speculating, have you?"

"No, Father," I'd replied, quickly banishing any idea pertaining to Matthias and friendship at all, as if he could see my thoughts seeping out of my very face.

He turned around and continued examining the pamphlet before him, addressing me without looking.
"Where will speculating get you, Callista?"

He always used a particular tone of voice when he expected a specific answer. I remember closing my eyes and reciting the response, like a bizarre sort of catechism. 

"Speculation is meaningless and amounts to nothing. It has no proof and yields no valid results." I found safety in being able to satisfy my parents and my instructors with rote recitations, rather than comprehensive logic. 

If I always gave the expected answer, I could hide the fact that my own unique experience defied the accepted perspective. I learned from conversations like this that compliance didn't necessarily require comprehension--just because I said it back to them didn't mean I had to believe it was true.

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