A muscular figure in the same sort of exercise clothes appeared. He looked closer to my father’s age, although he was far trimmer, but his black hair was streaked with gray.
“You’re the latest savior of the seconds?”
“I’m Rhennthyl, sir. Are you Clovyl, sir?”
“Most polite. I can see why Johanyr overstepped himself.” He nodded. “Have you ever been physically trained?”
“No, sir, except for grammaire.”
“You’re going to have a difficult few months ahead. The reason for this is simple, but I won’t make you guess. The duties Master Dichartyn has planned for you will take a great amount of physical strength and conditioning. You understand that imaging is work, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s get started.” He turned abruptly and went through the middle door.
I hurried after him, closing the door behind me.
He gestured to the exercise mat. “You’ll see more of that than you’d like. After the first two weeks or so, you’ll join the other thirds in their workouts, but right now, all you’d end up doing is hurting yourself and getting frustrated. I’m going to show you a series of exercises, and you’re to do them exactly as I show you them. Exactly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The first set is limbering and stretching. That’s so that the later ones don’t hurt you . . .”
When Clovyl said exactly, he meant exactly. At the end of the first half glass, I was soaked in sweat, and he’d corrected me a score of times.
“Your legs stay straight!”
“Keep your heels on the floor!”
I was trying to do the best I could, but I’d never even seen any of the exercises he showed me and then ordered me to do.
“You need a break.” His expression was close to disgust. “Follow me.”
I would have liked to say that I scrambled off the exercise mat, but my movements were more like a stagger to my feet as I walked after him and through a doorway into the adjoining exercise room.
What looked to be a cloth-covered mannequin hung from a rope attached to an iron ceiling bracket. Certain areas were marked in red, and several in maroon. Clovyl walked over to the dummy and pointed. “The red marks the places where, if you strike a man hard enough, you will disable or kill him. When I am finished training you, you should be able to know exactly how and where to strike without looking and without having to think about it-either through imaging or with hands or anything else. You will also have the strength to do so, even if you have just run a mille at full speed.” He paused. “Why do you think this is necessary?”
“Because I’ll be assigned to places where I may not be able to image or where it will not be wise to do so, and I won’t have any weapons at hand? Or even if I can image, I won’t have time to think about where.”
Clovyl nodded solemnly. Then he said, “That’s enough of a break.”
The first set of exercises had only been warm-ups compared to what followed, and I tottered back to the quarters building slightly before the fourth glass. My exercise clothes were soaked, and so was I. With a chill spring breeze blowing across the quadrangle I was shivering, even before I took a too-cold shower to clean up. After I dressed, I tried to read the appendix to the history, but the procedures were so dull that I fell asleep.
I woke at the fifth bell and managed to read some more . . . and I thought I might remember some of what I read.
At dinner, Kahlasa introduced me to two other thirds-Dierkyl and Sonalya. They asked me about portraiture, and I asked them about exercises. They laughed.
At the seventh glass, I was once more outside Master Dichartyn’s study.
He arrived shortly and opened the door.
“Clovyl says that your coordination and skill aren’t bad, but that your conditioning needs work. For him, that’s almost a compliment. How do you feel?”
“I’m tired.”
“You’d better get used to it. Or as Maitre Deloityn said to me when I was about your age, ‘Welcome to the real world, where you never have enough time, energy, or golds.’ ” He paused. “You’re too tired to deal with shields tonight. So we’ll work on precision imagery.” He lifted a wooden ring about fifteen digits across, and then set four small wooden cylinders on his desk. “I’m going to hold this ring up, and I want you to image one of the cylinders into the open center of the ring.”
“Yes, sir.” That I could do, but I had a feeling that worse was coming.
He held up the ring.
I concentrated and imaged a cylinder. One vanished from the desk and appeared in midair in the middle of the ring. Master Dichartyn reached out and caught it with his free hand. “Now I’m going to move the ring back and forth slowly. You still have to put it in the middle of the ring.”
It was going to be a long glass-that I knew.
32
The difference between an explanation and an excuse
lies with the one receiving it.
I’d had to write the essay on the reason for the Collegium’s secrecy in protecting councilors after working with Master Dichartyn on imaging skills on Mardi night. That was more than a little difficult, because, first, I was so tired that I could hardly think and, second, I knew nothing about how the Collegium actually handled protection. Because I could not keep my eyes open any longer after writing the essay, I went to bed. Then, I’d had to get up early on Meredi to read the appendix on Council procedures and precedents. I had to read it twice, and I doubted that I understood a fraction of what I read, because it seemed so arcane. While I waited outside Master Dichartyn’s study, I even read the first ten pages of the procedural appendix again, but I still wasn’t sure I understood it any better.
Once he summoned me into his study, Master Dichartyn didn’t waste any time. “Let me see your paper on imager secrecy.”
I handed it over and sat in the chair opposite him while he read it.
Finally, he looked up. He did not look pleased. “This is not a good essay, Rhennthyl. There are mistakes in grammar and in logic, and your scrivening is sloppy.”
“Yes, sir. I know, sir.”
“If you know, why did you turn in something so bad?”
“I didn’t have enough time to do it better last night, and I was so tired that I couldn’t think straight, sir.”
“You will redo this and hand in a more acceptable effort tomorrow-a much more acceptable effort. Now . . . on to your reading assignment. What is the ostensible purpose of a call for quorum in the Council and what is the real purpose?”
The first part I recalled. “A call for quorum is made to assure that a majority of the Council is present so that important business may be brought before the Council.”
“That is indeed the procedural purpose. What is the real purpose?”
I had not the slightest idea. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Don’t you think that most members of the Council would be present if truly important matters were to be discussed?”
“I would think so, sir.”
“Then why would anyone need to require a call for quorum?”
“To keep someone from bringing up something else?”
“That is partly correct. It’s most generally used, however, to delay proceedings so that members can persuade others or reconsider strategy, or so that the entire Council can avoid making a decision.”
Avoid making a decision? Couldn’t they just not vote or decide? “Would that be to avoid even bringing up something that they were not ready to decide upon?”
“I think I just said that.” Master Dichartyn’s voice was sharp.
“I’m sorry, sir. What I was trying to say was that they might use it even to avoid the appearance of avoiding making a decision.”