CHAPTER 4 Letters
The library of Pelvok Manor sat at the far end of the second floor's east wing. Viktor had clocked it on one of his earlier crawls three years ago. Back then the door seemed impossibly tall and the handle impossibly high.
Now at nine years old he could reach it just fine.
Creeeak.
'Finally.' He slipped inside, pulling the door behind him until it met the frame without a sound. The room smelled of old wood and something dry he couldn't name yet. Shelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling, each packed with thick-spined books. A rolling ladder hung from a brass rail that ran the full length of the room.
Viktor walked to the nearest shelf and pulled one out.
He stared at it.
'...What am I looking at.' The letters on the page were unlike anything he recognised. Not English, not Mandarin, not even the loose alphabet he half remembered from primary school. These were something else entirely. Curved lines that broke into sharp angles, dots sitting above and below, symbols that repeated but clearly meant different things depending on what sat beside them.
He flipped through the pages hoping an illustration would give him something to work with. Nothing. Just rows and rows of symbols staring back at him saying absolutely nothing.
He pulled another. Same result. Then another.
'Okay.' He sat down cross legged the way he used to sit in lecture halls. 'So I can't read. Not a single letter.'
It was a strange feeling. In his past life reading came so naturally he never once thought about it. Now he was staring at pages full of presumably valuable information and it was completely locked away from him.
'I need a tutor. Or at the very least someone to teach me the alphabet.' He stood up, tucking the thinnest book under his arm.
'Memorise the symbols first, patterns second. That's the method.'
He moved toward the door.
"Leaving already, young master?"
Viktor stopped.
Ser Gregor Aldis was leaning against the wall beside the door frame, arms folded, one boot crossed over the other. His red hair was pulled back today. Those red eyes looked down at Viktor with the same flat, unreadable expression he always wore.
'How long has he been standing there.'
"Ser Gregor." Viktor said evenly. He kept the book tucked under his arm.
Gregor's eyes moved to it. Then back to Viktor's face.
A pause.
"Can you read it?" He asked.
"...No."
"Mmh." Gregor crouched down to eye level the way he had done the first time they met in the great hall. He held out his hand. Viktor considered it for a moment then handed the book over. Gregor turned it over, glanced at the cover and handed it back.
"That one is a land survey record from forty years ago. Not the most exciting choice for a first book."
"I didn't know that." Viktor said flatly.
The corner of Gregor's mouth moved. Almost a smile.
"Come." He stood and walked to the shelf, running a finger along the spines before pulling a slim worn volume out. He held it open to the first page. "This one."
Viktor looked at the page. The symbols here were larger, cleaner, spaced wide apart.
"This is a primer. Young nobles learn from this one first." Gregor tapped the top left symbol. "This is Ael. The first letter." He pointed to the next. "This is Bor."
'Ael. Bor.'
"Again." Viktor said.
Gregor raised an eyebrow. Then pointed again without comment. "Ael." The next. "Bor." Then the third. "Ceth."
Viktor repeated each one quietly, eyes fixed on the shapes. 'Ael looks like a curved horn. Bor has two feet. Ceth has a tail.' He was already building anchors.
"You're serious about this." Gregor said. Not a question.
"Is that a problem, Ser Gregor?"
Gregor studied him for a long moment. "No." He handed the primer to Viktor. "Take this one instead of the survey record. It'll do you more good."
Viktor tucked it under his arm.
"If your lord father asks"
"I found it on the low shelf." Viktor said.
That near smile again. "Smart boy."
Yanneka found him in the courtyard after midday, sitting against the stone wall with the primer open on his knees, mouthing the letters to himself.
"Young master you'll ruin your eyes reading in this light." She settled beside him with her usual sigh, smoothing her apron over her knees.
He closed the book. He knew her routine by now. Once she sat, she talked. And Yanneka, though illiterate and entirely unbothered by it, had a memory like a trader's ledger.
"Yanneka." He started. "Tell me about the kingdoms."
She brightened immediately. "Lorain Kingdom, young master. Greatest kingdom on the continent if you ask me. And most folks would agree."
'Most folks here.' He noted.
"There are others though." He pressed gently.
"Oh yes, several. Ampera, Harford, and the far south has Marisa. Though I wouldn't know much about those southern folk. Dark skinned people they say, different languages, different ways. Travelers passing through the tavern used to say all sorts of things." She shook her head.
'Marisa. Multiple tribes, southern, different tongues. Consistent.' He filed it.
"What about Ampera?"
Her face changed. "Ampera." She repeated the name the way people repeat things that are complicated.
"Well. There was a great conquest not so long ago. Lorain took a great piece of their northern territory. Couldn't even defend themselves properly, those scholar types. Always in their councils arguing about what to do while our soldiers were already marching."
'Unanimous voting. Bureaucratic paralysis.' He thought. 'Cost them territory. Exactly as I suspected.'
"Was my father in that war?"
Yanneka smiled wide. "Lord David, young master? One of the finest knights of his generation. Powerful. Fearless. I heard from soldiers who rested at the tavern that he once held a flank single-handedly while the main force regrouped. A giant among men."
Viktor glanced toward the manor quietly.
"And Ser Gregor?"
Her expression softened differently. "Those two met on that same campaign. Ser Gregor was surrounded, outnumbered, about to be cut down.
Lord David fought through to him. Alone." She paused. "After the war, Ser Gregor swore his sword to your father. Said he owed him his life."
'Not just loyalty. Debt. Real debt.' He noted.
"What about Nepta? The lands further east?"
Yanneka's brow furrowed. "Nepta... coast people yes? Built their cities near water because the land is all sand I think. That's what merchants passing through used to say." She shook her head slowly. "Beyond that young master I really wouldn't know. I've never been further than the capital road and even that was only once."
Viktor nodded.
He had pieces now. The conquest. Ampera's weakness. His father's history. Gregor's oath. The rough outline of nations beyond the border. But only the rough outline. Nepta, Marisa, Luxor shapes without substance.
'It's not enough.'
He opened the primer again and stared at the letter Ael.
A curved horn.
It was a start.The courtyard was quiet around him. Somewhere beyond the manor walls the border wind came through as it always did in the late afternoon, cold and indifferent, carrying nothing but the smell of pine and distant mountains. Viktor pulled his collar up and kept reading.