The Hand That Mocked Them

He'd have to do his very best to keep his mouth shut in order to appease the scholar. Perhaps if he did well and the scholar woke his master, he would be rewarded! Perhaps with a straw mattress instead of a scrap of carpet--though he knew his master had trouble affording such luxuries--or maybe a lantern so he could do his reading safely instead of by candlelight.

This was a horrible mistake. If any single person identified him here, with this thing, or with its master, Kivvien's life could so easily be ruined.

Hieronymus read now with excessive care not to jostle or rip the pages of the journal, and making sure he read every miniscule detail on the page. It wasn't every day a lowly homunculus was permitted to read the research of a royal scholar. He had so many questions now!

Kivvien tried to devise how he would explain this to his superiors should work get back to them. The truth would hardly do, he had only the most tenuous of permissions to be out in the world proposing this quest. Perhaps this could be spun as an avenue of research, or an attempt to ensure the alchemist wasn't doing anything illegal in his unsupervised experiments.

He glanced through the slats every now and then to check where they were as he read; he was learning so much already! Perhaps this information could help his master somehow. Maybe the scholar already had something in mind. Maybe Hieronymus could help somehow.

The farmland gave way once again to forests, and Kivven lowered his hood. He felt much more secure now that he was out of the open.

Hieronymus eased himself out of the burlap and sat reading and itching himself. He did keep his hood up, though.

"Why could your master not just take in a local urchin to do his reading for him? Would that not be far easier?"

"My master never explained it to me." Hieronymus glanced at Kivvien, delighted that he had initiated conversation this time. "My guess would be that the university doesn't allow urchins on campus. And taking up a student's time isn't something my master would do."

"Employing an assistant had to have been a better option than knowingly getting banned from the college."

"I wasn't the entire reason he was banned," Hieronymus replied bitterly. "He kept me a secret for three years before a visiting professor caught me moving scrolls from his office to his bedchambers. It was something else."

"What was it then?" Kivvien may have gotten himself in a worse situation than he thought.

"He never told me," Hieronymus replied. "I believe it was a combination of the risks he was taking for the sake of alchemy."

"So he is reckless."

"No," Hieronymus said firmly. "You mistake my meaning, sir. Master Laurean has ambitions and a brilliant imagination. His exploration into the forbidden side of alchemy was bold, but it was done with as much care as you might expect from a Talo professor. But the dean and his committee didn't see his breach of protocols as forgivable."