The following morning, when all of his guests but one had finished breakfast and departed, the innkeeper was in the common room collecting dirty dishes. He knew something was wrong, as his guest from another land had never before picked at his porridge for an entire hour.
“My wife makes a good porridge, does she not?” Doko asked with worry.
Distracted from his thoughts, Ilika looked up. “There’s nothing wrong with the porridge, Doko. It’s very good, as always. It’s just me. I should do something today, but I’d rather do something else . . . scrub floors . . .
anything.”
“I have been in your shoes, my friend. Anything . . . I can help you with?”
“Perhaps you could. Are you familiar with the religious orders?”
“Just a bit . . . things I hear, you know.”
“I have visited two of them, and found them far too rigid to supply the kind of people I am seeking. I haven’t yet seen the one near the Traveler’s Gate.
Do you know anything about it?”
“It’s the strictest one. I hear you shouldn’t go in unless you plan to stay and never come out.”
Ilika breathed a huge sigh. “Thank you, Doko! You just saved me a frustrating and useless day.”
“Glad to be of service. You have become Mosa’s favorite customer, you know, with your compliments about her stew and the coins you give young Sata for fetching your juice.”
As the large man carried a stack of dishes toward the kitchen, Ilika smiled
and leaned back against the wall. Once he was alone in the common room, he closed his eyes.
A few minutes later the innkeeper’s daughter set a cup of fruit juice on his table. “Sorry, sir. The fruit man was late getting to market.”
“Thank you, Sata,” he said, and dug out a copper piece.
“Sir, what’s that?” she asked, pointing at the bracelet on his left arm.
“Just some jewelry that comes with my profession.”
She grinned, glanced at the bracelet again, then dashed off to add the coin to her growing stash.
Ilika found the girl’s youthful joy and carefree attitude quite contagious.
He soon finished his breakfast and strode out the door.
Ilika let his feet carry him that day, and allowed the world to reveal itself to him in its own fashion. Every time he passed a guild hall or a shop that looked interesting, he went in and asked about adventurous young people who were smart enough to learn new skills. He received a wide variety of reactions.
In some shops there were simply no young people. Aging workers with bent backs and shaking hands looked up from their workbenches.
In the craft guilds, only the master craftsmen were allowed to do any training, and then only for the guild’s apprentices.
But in a few shops he did spy bright-eyed young people, his age and younger.
“Now don’t get me wrong,” one shopkeeper said after Ilika explained his purpose. “My three sons and two daughters are not slaves, and if you ran into them on the road, made them an offer, and they decided to go on this journey with you, well that would be their choice — all but the youngest one who is just eight, of course. But seeing as they are at work right now, I’d have to take offense. It would hurt the family business for them to disappear just now, it being springtime when we need the most hands.” The man pulled out a dagger and started sharpening it with a flat stone. “If you take my meaning.”
“I do,” Ilika replied. “Thank you for your time.”
In three other shops he received a similar answer, although it was usually given with many fewer words. The dagger, or something similar, was almost
always present.
Toward mid-afternoon, Ilika noticed the Jeweler’s Guild, remembered something the baker had said, and circled the area several times before finding what he sought. The sign was small and easy to miss, set beside a modest wooden door.
As soon as Ilika stepped inside, a wrinkled clerk slowly rose from his cluttered desk to greet the visitor with a slight bow. “Welcome to the College of Nobles, young sir.”
“Hello. Do you have students who might be available to learn highly-skilled professional work?”
“Um . . . well . . . most of them are destined to carry on the occupations and inherit the estates of their families. But a few, second and third sons mostly, sometimes apply to the guilds. May I show you around?”
“Yes, that would be wonderful. How old are your students?” Ilika asked as they ambled along a gloomy wooden corridor.
“Usually twelve to fifteen or sixteen, although we can make exceptions for families of high status. In this room, they study labor management.”
Four nicely dressed young men goaded, sometimes whipped, half a dozen slaves who carried bricks from one end of the room to the other, then back again. A guard with sword stood by the door. Ilika closed his eyes for a moment but said nothing.
“And over here is where the girls learn the womanly arts to prepare themselves for marriage,” the clerk said, pointing to another door.
Seven or eight young ladies worked on dresses or applied makeup, all the while talking and giggling among themselves. A matron helped one girl with her dress.
“I think I have a good idea of what you teach in your college,” Ilika said. “I should be going.”
“But . . . um . . . what kind of professional work did you say you had available?” the clerk asked anxiously as he followed his visitor back to the entrance.
“Oh . . . it really isn’t the right kind of work for these fine young men and women. They would be better off on their estates, or in the guilds.”
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 36
“I see,” the clerk said with disappointment. “Thank you, sir, for visiting.”
Ilika avoided showing his frustration until he was outside, but he was soon smiling again when he rounded a corner and discovered street musicians and dancing children.
As he resumed his wandering along the streets of Cobble Town, Ilika became aware that another man, wearing the robes of a religious order, was ambling in the same direction, always just a little way behind. Ilika’s heart pounded in his chest and his mouth became dry.
After gazing into a shop window for a moment to consider the situation, he began a slow, zigzagging course through the streets, a course that no one else could possibly take by coincidence. After half an hour, the man from the order was still near, pretending to peer at some flowers blooming in a window box.
Ilika glanced around. A little candy shop caught his eye, so he casually crossed the street and entered.
The girl tending the counter wore her wavy yellow hair loosely about her delicate shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled as she made eye contact with the handsome young man who had just entered the shop.
Ilika immediately forgot why he was there. The girl smiled as she answered his clumsy questions about the candies on display. Soon he too was smiling.
“Do you know you are being watched?” she asked in between their glances at each other.
Jarred back to full awareness of his situation, he somehow resisted the temptation to turn around. “Yes, I know. A goon from one of the orders. I don’t think they like me.”
“There are two of them.”
A shiver coursed through Ilika’s body. “Would you make me an assortment of candies, about a dozen of your favorites?”
“Okay,” she said, still smiling and glancing at him as often as possible.
“After I make up your box, would you like to go out the back door into the alley? It comes out on Scribe Street.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment. “That’s . . . a good idea. But
. . . can I come back and see you again?”
With a glowing smile she set the little wooden box of assorted sweets on the counter between them. “I would be very happy if you did!”
“Is this enough?” he asked, holding out a great silver piece.
“Several times over!” she said with wide eyes.
“In that case, the rest is for you.”
She grinned and blushed. “There are three priests now. They are talking among themselves and not looking. If you go quickly, they might be confused and not try to follow.”
After a moment of indecision, he scooped up his box, dashed into the kitchen, and slipped out into the alley. A round-about series of streets brought him to Doko’s Inn without, as far as he could tell, anyone following.
Deep Learning Notes
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the craft guild system evolved over hundreds of years during the Dark Ages (about the years 400 - 1000). It became a highly stable institution for training skilled workers, setting prices, and controlling quality. As Ilika discovered, guild policies were usually quite rigid.
The College of Nobles was just a finishing school for the nobility, analogous to a junior high school or middle school today. Education beyond that level only existed in the craft guilds and religious orders.
A small map shows the location of the candy shop in relation to Doko’s Inn.
