Jasnah lithely took her seat in the alcove. She raised an eyebrow at Shallan, then gestured for the parshman to set down his burden.
Shallan still found Jasnah an enigma. At times, she seemed a stern scholar annoyed by Shallan’s interruptions. At other times, there seemed to be a hint of wry humor hiding behind the stern facade. Either way, Shallan was finding that she felt remarkably comfortable around the woman. Jasnah encouraged her to speak her mind, something Shallan had taken to gladly.
“I assume from your outburst that this topic is wearing on you,” Jasnah said, sorting through her volumes as the parshman withdrew. “You expressed interest in being a scholar. Well, you must learn that this is scholarship.”
“Reading argument after argument from people who refuse to see any other point of view?”
“They’re confident.”
“I’m not an expert on confidence, Brightness,” Shallan said, holding up a book and inspecting it critically. “But I’d like to think that I could recognize it if it were before me. I don’t think that’s the right word for books like this one from Mederia. They feel more arrogant than confident to me.” She sighed, setting the book aside. “To be honest, ‘arrogant’ doesn’t feel like quite the right word. It’s not specific enough.”
“And what would be the right word, then?”
“I don’t know. ‘Errorgant,’ perhaps.”
Jasnah raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“It means to be twice as certain as someone who is merely arrogant,” Shallan said, “while possessing only one-tenth the requisite facts.”
Her words drew a hint of a smile from Jasnah. “What you are reacting against is known as the Assuredness Movement, Shallan. This errorgance is a literary device. The scholars are intentionally overstating their case.”
“The Assuredness Movement?” Shallan asked, holding up one of her books. “I guess I could get behind that.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Much easier to stab it in the back from that position.”
That got only an eyebrow raise. So, more seriously, Shallan continued. “I suppose I can understand the device, Brightness, but these books you’ve given me on King Gavilar’s death are more and more irrational in defending their points. What began as a rhetorical conceit seems to have descended into name-calling and squabbling.”
“They are trying to provoke discussion. Would you rather that the scholars hide from the truth, like so many? You would have men prefer ignorance?”
“When reading these books, scholarship and ignorance feel much alike to me,” Shallan said. “Ignorance may reside in a man hiding from intelligence, but scholarship can seem ignorance hidden behind intelligence.”
“And what of intelligence without ignorance? Finding truth while not dismissing the possibility of being wrong?”
“A mythological treasure, Brightness, much like the Dawnshards or the Honorblades. Certainly worth seeking, but only with great caution.”
“Caution?” Jasnah said, frowning.
“It would make you famous, but actually finding it would destroy us all. Proof that one can be both intelligent and accept the intelligence of those who disagree with you? Why, I should think it would undermine the scholarly world in its entirety.”
Jasnah sniffed. “You go too far, child. If you took half the energy you devote to being witty and channeled it into your work, I daresay you could be one of the greatest scholars of our age.”
“I’m sorry, Brightness,” Shallan said. “I… well, I’m confused. Considering the gaps in my education, I assumed you would have me studying things deeper in the past than a few years ago.”
Jasnah opened one of her books. “I have found that youths like you have a relative lack of appreciation for the distant past. Therefore, I selected an area of study that is both more recent and sensational, to ease you into true scholarship. Is the murder of a king not of interest to you?”
“Yes, Brightness,” Shallan said. “We children love things that are shiny and loud.”
“You have quite the mouth on you at times.”
“At times? You mean it’s not there at others? I’ll have to…” Shallan trailed off, then bit her lip, realizing she’d gone too far. “Sorry.”
“Never apologize for being clever, Shallan. It sets a bad precedent. However, one must apply one’s wit with care. You often seem to say the first passably clever thing that enters your mind.”
“I know,” Shallan said. “It’s long been a foible of mine, Brightness. One my nurses and tutors tried very hard to discourage.”
“Likely through strict punishments.”
“Yes. Making me sit in the corner holding books over my head was the preferred method.”
“Which, in turn,” Jasnah said with a sigh, “only trained you to make your quips more quickly, for you knew you had to get them out before you could reconsider and suppress them.”
Shallan cocked her head.
“The punishments were incompetent,” Jasnah said. “Used upon one such as yourself, they were actually encouragement. A game. How much would you have to say to earn a punishment? Could you say something so clever that your tutors missed the joke? Sitting in the corner just gave you more time to compose retorts.”
“But it’s unseemly for a young woman to speak as I so often do.”
“The only ‘unseemly’ thing is to not channel your intelligence usefully. Consider. You have trained yourself to do something very similar to what annoys you in the scholars: cleverness without thought behind it – intelligence, one might say, without a foundation of proper consideration.” Jasnah turned a page. “Errorgant, wouldn’t you say?”
Shallan blushed.
“I prefer my wards to be clever,” Jasnah said. “It gives me more to work with. I should bring you to court with me. I suspect that Wit, at least, would find you amusing – if only because your apparent natural timidity and your clever tongue make such an intriguing combination.”
“Yes, Brightness.”
“Please, just remember that a woman’s mind is her most precious weapon. It must not be employed clumsily or prematurely. Much like the aforementioned knife to the back, a clever gibe is most effective when it is unanticipated.”
“I’m sorry, Brightness.”
“It wasn’t an admonition,” Jasnah said, turning a page. “Simply an observation. I make them on occasion: Those books are musty. The sky is blue today. My ward is a smart-lipped reprobate.”
Shallan smiled.
“Now, tell me what you’ve discovered.”
Shallan grimaced. “Not much, Brightness. Or should I say too much? Each writer has her own theories on why the Parshendi killed your father. Some claim he must have insulted them at the feast that night. Others say that the entire treaty was a ruse, intended to get the Parshendi close to him. But that makes little sense, as they had much better opportunities earlier.”
“And the Assassin in White?” Jasnah asked.
“A true anomaly,” Shallan said. “The undertexts are filled with commentary about him. Why would the Parshendi hire an outside assassin? Did they fear they could not accomplish the job themselves? Or perhaps they didn’t hire him, and were framed. Many think that is unlikely, considering that the Parshendi took credit for the murder.”
“And your thoughts?”
“I feel inadequate to draw conclusions, Brightness.”
“What is the point of research if not to draw conclusions?”
“My tutors told me that supposition was only for the very experienced,” Shallan explained.
Jasnah sniffed. “Your tutors were idiots. Youthful immaturity is one of the cosmere’s great catalysts for change, Shallan. Do you realize that the Sunmaker was only seventeen when he began his conquest? Gavarah hadn’t reached her twentieth Weeping when she proposed the theory of the three realms.”
“But for every Sunmaker or Gavarah, are there not a hundred Gregorhs?” He had been a youthful king notorious for beginning a pointless war with kingdoms that had been his father’s allies.