A School For All
Shortly after the reconquest of the halls of the maidens, Secret Avalanche overheard the following conversation. A crowd had gathered at one of the central posts of the tavern where a rider had just arrived from the Plum Blossom Retreat. He was hammering a sheet of parchment to a post in the center of the hall. Once he had finished, he strode quickly back out the door, and he could be heard galloping away to the east at a rapid canter. In the tavern that night, at the edge of spring, a cross section of the populace of God Crossing was gathered for one last celebration before the planting. Probably half of the adults there, men and women, had the sunburst on their right shoulder that marked them as veterans of the Battle of Breaking Iron, but amongst them were more than few of the short, broad-shouldered hill tribesmen and even a pair of goat-headed men that kept to the outskirts of the crowd. A half a dozen children circulated in the hall as well; children of the manager of the tavern, they carried empty pitchers back to the bar while weaving between legs and under tables. At least twenty of them were elders of the town, greybeards and matrons taking their ease and worrying over the news of the day. The keeper of the tavern, Father Bricks, put down his dish cloth and rounded the bar, looking over the crowd with concern. “Hey, what’s this now? I’ll not have any trouble here tonight.” Selara, closest to the notice, focused her eye on the parchment and saw only a picture of the Retreat’s gates standing open, with an open book beneath them. She squinted, as though the words made some sense to her but were perhaps written in too fine a print. “I think… it must be another war coming!” The crowd shouted, some in delight and some in fear, and everyone pressed closer to the notice. Secret Avalanche slipped out of his chair and hit the balcony floor like a ton of stone; the floor creaked menacingly. Nonchalantly he replaced his stool and sat once again, sipping from his mug with apparent disinterest. “Now, now, let’s see what this foolishness is about. War, during the planting? Kings never ride till the mud dries. Clear a path, you loafers!” Old Maga Trapjaw shouted and pushed her way into the throng. Half as tall as any of the men in room, the years had not been kind to Maga. She had iron gray hair and eyes almost completely occluded by cataracts, fingers like old roots and legs that wobbled like a new-born foal. She beat and cursed her way to the head of the crowd until she bumped into the back of Selara. “Hey, you thug, give me your great-grandmother a hand.” Selara obligingly lifted up the matron to eye level with the notice. She wrinkled her nose and pressed her face close until it almost touched the paper, while the whole crowd leaned in over her. She spoke at last, her rasping voice cutting through the room. “It’s a school. There’s going to be a school at the Retreat.” Old warriors like Selara cackled with laughter at the thought, while the children breathed sighs of relief and continued working. Jebber the Stammerer spit out, “Wh-what will they teach us at this school? Am I to learn to r-ruh-ride all over again?” Fresh laughter spilled over the tavern and mugs clattered on tables. Maga traced a finger down the list of courses. At a pause in the laughter, as Father Bricks was motioning that he had a particularly apt quip to share she broke in and said, “Maybe, you halfwitted oafs, but you’ll also learn to read!” There was a moment of silence as furtive glances were exchanged through the crowd. Someone from the back of crowd asked, in a sheepish voice, “What else does it say?”
