Enslaved Chapter 2 Scene 1

Enslaved to Duty

Chapter Two: Enscribed

“The three traits required to make use of an education are humility, self-discipline, and ambition. Without humility a man thinks he knows what he needs to, and will not listen to his teacher or his peers. Without self-discipline, a man may know he has much to learn, but will not turn his nose to the grind-stone and will instead move through life a pitiful creature, cursed with the knowledge of his own failings.”

“Worst,” Erunian lectured with the steady intonation of a practised but uninspired orator, “is the man without ambition. He may have the humility to bow before his teacher, and the discipline to do so meaningfully, but he will not pursue learning beyond what is demanded of him. He will not hunker down with quill and pen at night until the candle burns down to its wick.”

The master scribe moved between a dozen wooden tables with a hitched tread, his right leg not quite keeping up with the limber stride of his left. Despite his growing frailty, his eyes were clear, and his voice still carried the rich timber of the healthier man he had been in his youth. In a way he was lucky that his trade did not require the intense physicality of the smith or carpenter, but even so his failing health had demanded he acquire assistance in manual chores.

He cast his eye over the papers tended to by each of his students as he walked, continuing his lecture. His purpose was not to dictate notes to them, he was not so vain, but to see if they could copy Mistress Salinka’s Commentaries on Herbal Remedies while enduring the distraction of his voice.

“I do not expect a lack of ambition to be your failing,” Erunian continued, noting that one of his students, Jeremus, smiled at the admission but kept the sense to continue with his note-taking while he did. “As the sons of nobles and merchants, you are privileged to be taught by me, and your parents have bred ambition into you as carefully as they have bred that privilege.” He paused, looking over the shoulder of Artimenner, whose father traded in Marcillian glass and silks, “some of you, like Artimenner have let that sense of privilege sour your discipline until it sets in as a deep rot.” A short ash rod flicked through the air and struck the boy’s hand, and he flinched at the trifling pain. Erunian interrupted his lecture to explain to the boy that his writing was cramped and nearly illegible and that his stinginess with the ink meant he had wasted rather than saved it.

He turned away from Artimenner and returned to his patrol, wooden rod tapping at his side with the rhythm of his words. “More of you will lack humility. You will make your livings on the backs of the men you own or whose allegiance you claim, and you will mistake their works for your own, and congratulate yourself for it.”

He paused, listening for a tell-tale thud of blade striking wood. It was almost time for his students to depart. “Do you think I mistake my Davani servant’s discipline for my own?” He asked, waiting for one of them to make the mistake of answering his question. None did. He smiled at himself, knowing that the wooden rod had taught them to listen for the tone of a rhetorical question.

“I would sooner mistake my aging muscles for his youth and thus his capacity for my own, and I will severely punish any of you for doing likewise,” he paused a moment before clarifying. “If I find any of you have done the same in seeking the service of your lettered servants, you will be physically disciplined and your lessons discontinued. You may otherwise leave and finish your copies of the commentaries in your own time.”

Abruptly the boys’ attention moved away from their note-taking and they hastily turned to blotting their papers and storing their notes in waterproof sealskin bindings. With a youthful exuberance that stirred in Erunian a tired envy, they departed their tutor’s classroom and made their way to the street outside. Erunian sighed at the resulting debris and called for his servant to cease cutting firewood behind the classroom and come and help him tidy the room left messy in his students’ wake.