CHAPTER 5 The Scholar
The second floor corridor of Pelvok Manor ran long and straight, lined on one side by arched windows that let the late afternoon light fall in clean rectangular columns across the stone floor. Tapestries hung between each arch, thick and old, depicting battles and hunts from generations past.
It was in this corridor that Ser Gregor Aldis first spotted Lady Annesa approaching from the far end.
She moved the way she always did. Unhurried but deliberate, as if the corridor had been built specifically for her to walk through. She was tall for a woman, with a long elegant neck and a posture so naturally straight it made the maids trailing behind her seem to stand taller just by proximity. Her hair fell past her shoulders in loose golden waves, the kind of blonde that caught light and held it, warm like candlelight but cool like winter at the same time. Her eyes were a deep vivid blue, not pale, not grey-blue, but the full saturated blue of deep water on a clear day. They were sharp eyes, the kind that registered everything and revealed only what she chose to reveal.
Her dress was a deep navy with silver threading along the cuffs and collar, fitted at the waist and flowing below. On her left ear, as always, the ruby earring. Set in gold with fine intricate engravings that curled like vines around the deep red stone. It caught the corridor light as she walked, throwing a faint pulse of red across her jaw.
Behind her walked two maid servants. The elder of the two, a stout woman with brown hair pinned tightly, carried a folded cloth over both arms. The younger, barely out of girlhood, kept two steps behind and watched her feet.
Gregor stopped and waited.
He was not a man built for grandeur. Ser Gregor Aldis stood at a lean, controlled height, broad enough in the shoulder to suggest strength but without the overwhelming mass that David Pelvok carried. His red hair was kept back and tied at the nape of his neck today, a few shorter strands falling loose at his temples. His face was clean shaven, sharp at the chin, with high cheekbones and a jaw that looked like it had been drawn with a straight edge. And his eyes. Red, fully red, not bloodshot but naturally red as embers cooling in a hearth. They were unsettling to those who did not know him. To those who did, they were simply Gregor.
He wore the dark grey coat of the Pelvok House guard, a silver clasp at the collar bearing the house sigil. No armour in the halls. But his sword sat at his hip as it always did, so naturally it seemed less like a weapon and more like a part of him.
He gave a single respectful nod as she approached. "My lady."
Annesa slowed, her blue eyes settling on him with quiet attention. "Ser Gregor." Her voice was measured, the kind of voice that didn't need volume to carry weight. "You look as though you have something to say."
He almost smiled. She had always read people quickly.
"I encountered young master Viktor earlier today, my lady. In the library."
Her expression did not change immediately. "The library."
"He had let himself in. Alone." Gregor said. "He had pulled several books from the shelves and was attempting to read them. He couldn't, naturally. But he wasn't discouraged by it. He sat with them. Studied the shapes of the letters." He paused. "I showed him the primer. Taught him the first three letters. He repeated them until he had them. Didn't stop until I left."
The corridor was quiet save for the soft shift of the maid's cloth being readjusted behind Annesa.
Then she smiled. Not the polite smile she offered at formal dinners or when receiving guests in the great hall. This was quieter than that. It came from somewhere behind the eyes first, warming them before it reached the mouth. The kind of smile a person cannot perform, only feel.
"He walked all the way to the east wing by himself." She said softly. More to herself than to Gregor.
"He did, my lady. And he chose the thinnest book on the shelf to take with him." Gregor added. "Strategic."
She laughed once. Brief, genuine. "That boy."
She straightened, composing herself with the practiced ease of a noblewoman who understood when a moment had run its course. "Thank you Ser Gregor. Your service to this house and to my son does not go unnoticed."
Gregor gave another nod, lower this time. "My lady."
She held his gaze for just a moment longer with a look that carried more than words, then continued down the corridor, her maids falling into step behind her. Gregor turned and walked the other way without watching her go.
That evening the solar glowed amber. The candles had burned low by the time David and Annesa retired and the great bed's silk curtains were half drawn against the draught from the window.
Annesa lay facing her husband. David Pelvok, flat on his back, stared at the ceiling with the heavy stillness of a man whose body remembered every year it had been put through.
"He snuck into the library." She said.
David turned his head. "Viktor."
"Gregor found him trying to read. He can't yet but he's trying." She kept her voice light. Watching him.
David made a sound low in his chest. "He should be swinging a wooden sword, not sitting in dusty rooms with books he can't read."
"He's nine, David."
"I was training at seven."
"And look what that gave you." She reached up and ran a hand along his jaw, the grey beard rough under her fingers. "A son who sneaks into libraries at nine years old. He has your nerve at least."
David looked at her. The corner of his mouth moved.
"A tutor." She said. "A proper scholar from the capital. Someone who can teach him to read, write, understand the world he's growing up in."
"And the sword?"
"The sword will still be there when he's ten. Eleven. The mind needs feeding first."
Silence.
She shifted closer, her golden hair spilling across the pillow between them. Her blue eyes held his in the low light. "He is our son David. All of him. Not just the parts you hope for."
David studied her face for a long moment. Then he exhaled slowly and looked back at the ceiling. "I'll send for someone from the capital in the morning."
She smiled against his shoulder.
"Annesa."
"Mmh."
"You always do that."
"Do what?"
He said nothing. Just pulled her closer. The candles burned lower. The curtains swayed. The following morning David Pelvok sent a rider south toward the capital before the dew had dried off the courtyard stone.
Two months later a scholar arrived at the gates of Pelvok Manor. He was a lean older man with ink stained fingers, a leather satchel that looked older than he did, and the slightly bewildered expression of someone who had not expected the posting to be this far north.
He stood at the gate and looked up at the manor.
Inside, Viktor was still mouthing the letters of the primer to himself.
Ael. Bor. Ceth.'
He didn't know help was already at the door.