they’re naturally hungry for information about our various
adventures in the outside world.
I was quite melancholy during the weeks that followed, of course.
I still felt the pain of my separation from my sister most keenly.
oddly, that separation brought father and me closer together. In my
,eyes. father and I had been competing for Beldaran’s affection ever
since he’d returned to the Vale after his extended bout of drunken
debauchery. With Beldaran’s marriage that competition had
vanished. I still insulted father from time to time, but I think that was
more out of habit than anything else. I certainly wouldn’t admit it,
but I began to develop a certain respect for him and a strange
back-door affection. When he chooses to be, my father can be a
likeable old sot, after all.
Our lives in his tower settled down into a kind of domestic routine
that was easy and comfortable. I think a lot of that may have come
about because I like to cook and he likes to eat. It was a tranquil
time. Our evening conversations were stimulating, and I enjoyed
them.
It’s an article of the religion of every adolescent that he – or she
knows far more than his elders; the half-formed mind suffers fools
almost ecstatically. Those evening conversations with my father
rather quickly stripped me of that particular illusion. The depth of
his mind sometimes staggered me. Dear Gods, that old man knows
a lot!
It was not only my growing respect for this vast sink of knowledge
that prompted me to offer myself up as his pupil one evening while
we were doing the dishes. The Master – and mother – had a hand
in that decision as well. Their frequent suggestions that I was an
uneducated ninny probably had a great deal to do with my offer.
Father’s initial response set off an immediate argument. ‘Why do
I need that nonsense?’ I demanded. ‘Can’t you just tell me what I
need to know? Why do I have to learn how to read?’
He was diplomatic enough not to laugh in my face. Then he
patiently explained why I absolutely had to be able to read. ‘The
sum of human knowledge is there, Pol,’ he concluded, pointing at
all the books and scrolls lining the walls of the tower. ‘You’re going
to need it.’
‘What on earth for? We have “talent”, father, and the primitives
who wrote all that stuffy nonsense didn’t. What can they have
possibly scribbled down that’d be of any use to us?’
He sighed and rolled his eyes upward. ‘Why me?’ he demanded,
and he obviously wasn’t talking to me when he said it. ‘All right,
Pol,’ he said then, ‘if you’re so intelligent that you don’t need to
know how to read, maybe you can answer a few questions that’ve
been nagging at me for quite some time now.’
‘Of course, father,’ I replied. ‘I’d be happy to.’ Notice that I walked
right into the trap he’d set for me.
‘If you have two apples here and two apples over there, how
many do you have altogether?’ When my father’s trying to teach
some prospective pupil humility, he always starts there.
‘Four apples, of course,’ I replied quickly – too quickly, as it turned
out.
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, “Why?” It just is. Two apples and two apples
are four apples. Any idiot knows that.’
‘Since you’re not an idiot, you shouldn’t have any trouble
explaining it to me, should you?’
I stared at him helplessly.
‘We can come back to that one later. Now then, when a tree falls
way back in the forest, it makes a noise, right?’
‘Of course it does, father.’
‘Very good, Pol. What is noise?’
‘Something we hear.’
‘Excellent. You’re really very perceptive, my daughter.’ He
frowned then, a bit spuriously, I thought. ‘There’s a problem,
though. What if there’s nobody around to hear the noise? Is it really
there, then?’
‘Certainly it is.’
‘Why?’
‘Because -‘ I floundered to a stop at that point.
‘Let’s set that one aside as well and move on. Do you think the
sun is going to come up tomorrow morning?’
‘Well, naturally it will.’
‘Why?’
I should have expected that ‘why’ by now, but I was exasperated
by his seemingly simple-minded questions, so I hadn’t even thought
before I answered. ‘Well,’ I said lamely, ‘it always has, hasn’t
it?’
I got a very quick and very humiliating lesson in probability
theory at that point.
‘Pressing right along then,’ he said urbanely. ‘Why does the moon
change her shape during the course of a month?’
I stared at him helplessly.
‘Why does water bubble when it gets hot?’
I couldn’t even answer that one, and I did all the cooking. He
went on – and on, and on.
‘Why can’t we see color in the dark?’
‘Why do tree leaves change color in the autumn?’
‘Why does water get hard when it’s cold? And why does it turn
to steam when it gets hot?’
‘If it’s noon here, why is it midnight in Mallorea?’
‘Does the sun go around the world, or does the world go around
the sun?’
‘Where do mountains come from?’
‘What makes things grow?’
‘All right, father!’ I exclaimed. ‘Enough! Teach me how to read!’
‘Why, of course, Pol,’ he said. ‘If you wanted to learn so badly,
why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
And so we got down to work. My father’s a disciple, a sorcerer,
a statesman, and sometimes a general, but more than anything else
he’s a teacher – probably the best one in the world. He taught me
how to read and write in a surprisingly short period of time
perhaps because the first thing he wrote down for me was my own
name. I thought it looked rather pretty on the page. Before long I
began dipping into his books and scrolls with an increasing thirst
for knowledge. I’ve got a tendency to want to argue with books,
though, and that gave father a bit of trouble, probably because I
argued out loud. I couldn’t seem to help it. Idiocy, whether spoken
or written, offends me, and I feel obliged to correct it. This habit of
mine wouldn’t have caused any trouble if I’d been alone, but father
was in the tower with me, and he was intent on his own studies.
We talked about that at some length, as I recall.
The reading was stimulating, but even more stimulating were our
evening discussions of various points that had come up in the course
of my studies during the day. It all started one evening when father
rather innocently asked, ‘Well, Pol, what did you learn today?’
I told him. Then I told him about my objections to what I’d read
– firmly, even challengingly.
Father never passes up an opportunity for a good argument, so
he automatically defended the texts while I attacked them. After
a few evenings so enjoyably spent, these disputes became almost
ritualistic. It’s a pleasant way to end the day.
Our arguments weren’t all intellectual. Our visit to the Isle of the
Winds had made me more aware of my personal appearance, so I
started paying attention to it. Father chose to call it vanity, and that
also started an ongoing argument.
Then, early one morning in the spring, mother’s voice came to
me before I’d even started making breakfast. This is all very nice,
Pol,’ she said, ‘but there are other things you need to learn as well. Put
your books aside for today and come to the Tree. We’ll let him teach you
how to use your mind. I’ll teach you how to use your will.’
So after breakfast I rose from the table and said, ‘I think I’ll walk
around a bit today, father. I’m starting to feel a little cooped-up here
in the tower. I need some air. I’ll go look for herbs and spices for
tonight’s supper.’
‘Probably not a bad idea,’ he agreed. ‘Your arguments are getting
a little dusty. Maybe a good breeze will clear your head.’
‘Maybe,’ I replied, resisting the impulse to retort to that veiled
insult. Then I descended the spiral stairs and ventured out into the
morning sun.
It was a glorious day, and the Vale’s one of the loveliest places
in the world, so I took my time as I drifted through the bright green
knee-high grass down to that sacred hollow where the Tree spread
forth his immensity. As I drew closer, my birds welcomed me with
song, hovering over me in the lucid morning.
‘What took you so long, Pol?’ mother’s voice asked.
‘I was enjoying the morning,’ I replied aloud. No one else was
around, so there was no need to do it the other way. ‘What shall
we do today, mother?’
‘Continue your education, of course.’
‘I hope your teaching won’t be as dusty as father’s sometimes is.
‘I think you might like it. It’s in the same general area, though.’