Safehold 05: How Firm a Foundation by David Weber

Author:David Weber [Weber, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General, Historical, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780765321541
Google: 0cYh9uA0itYC
Amazon: 0765321548
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-09-12T04:00:00+00:00

.IV.

Royal College, Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

Dr. Rahzhyr Mahklyn looked up as someone knocked on his office door.

“Yes?”

“Father Paityr is here, Doctor,” his senior assistant, Dairak Bowave, announced through the closed door.

“Ah! Excellent, Dairak! Please show the Father in!”

Mahklyn stood behind his desk, beaming as Bowave escorted Paityr Wylsynn into his office. It was the first time the intendant had actually visited the Royal College, and Mahklyn knew most of his colleagues were a little nervous about his decision to do so now. They’d skirted the edge of what Mother Church deemed acceptable knowledge for so long that having the official keeper of the Inquisition in Old Charis actually in their midst was … disconcerting.

Of course, those worried colleagues of his didn’t know everything he knew about Paityr Wylsynn.

“Come in, Father!” Mahklyn held out his right hand. “It’s an honor to welcome you.”

“And it’s a privilege to be here, Doctor.” Wylsynn took the proffered hand, and Mahklyn surveyed the younger man’s expression carefully. Wylsynn was obviously aware of his intense regard, but he only looked back, meeting the older man’s eyes levelly. “I’ve been away from my own office too long,” he continued, “but there are times when anyone needs a bit of a sabbatical. A retreat to think things through and settle oneself back down, you might say.”

“I understand entirely, Father. Please, have a seat.”

Mahklyn escorted Wylsynn to the armchairs arranged across a small table from one another near one of the large office’s windows. They sat and Bowave set a tray on the table between them. It held two tall, delicate glasses and a crystal pitcher beaded with moisture, and Wylsynn’s eyebrows rose as he beheld it.

“A sinful luxury, I know, Father,” Mahklyn said wryly. “For decades I was perfectly happy living a properly ascetic scholarly existence in the old College down by the docks. Then it burned to the ground and His Majesty insisted we relocate to the Palace. Little did I realize that would be just the first crack in my armor of austerity!”

He poured chilled lemonade into the glasses, and ice—actual ice, Wylsynn realized—tapped musically against the inside of the pitcher.

“His Majesty insists we take advantage of his hospitality,” the doctor continued, handing a glass to his guest, “which includes the royal icehouse. I tried manfully, I assure you, to resist the temptation of that sinful luxury, but my younger granddaughter Eydyth discovered its existence and I was doomed. Doomed, I tell you!”

Wylsynn laughed and accepted the glass, then sipped gracefully. Ice and icehouses had been much more easily come by in the cool northern land of his birth than in excessively sunny Charis. There was ice on the very tallest mountains even here in Charis and even in summer, but getting to it was far more difficult, and there were no conveniently frozen winter lakes from which it might be harvested, either. That made it a scandalously pricey luxury in Tellesberg.

“Will there be anything else, Doctor?” Bowave inquired, and Mahklyn shook his head.

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