An Unexpected Apprentice Read Online Free Page B

he had no patience either with children’s fancies or such affairs as magic. He had openly disapproved of Teldo and his studies, but as long as Gosto, as head of the family, permitted it, Jurney had nothing to say about it unless Teldo committed a crime.
    “All right, order,” Mayor Jurney said. “I hereby open this meeting.” Everyone obediently bowed their heads. Tildi tucked down her head and studied her folded hands. “We ask for the bounty from those forces who give all blessings, Mother Nature and Father Time, whom between them encompass all existence.”
    “Give us your blessings,” the assembly recited.
    “So mote it be. Secretary Mazen, announce the date.”
    Everyone glanced at the smallfolk scribe who sat at the foot of the council with pen and ink on a stool at his side. Mazen taught the upper grades in the local village school, and was an artist by inclination.
    He carefully drew the rune for the day, season, and year in ochre-colored ink on the top of the page in the huge annal open on his knees, and turned it toward the assembly.
    “This is the ninth day of Haymonth, in the year of 15,268 since creation began,” he said, his clear voice reaching to the rear of the hall.
    Tildi nodded as she translated the complicated mark. Those lines in the center described the month and the season, half-spring, half-summer, and the tick marks were the day itself. The year formed a wreath around the rest. It was a pretty design. Each sign stood for a letter, a word, or an entire phrase. Workaday words were the simplest, for speed in setting them down on paper, probably a throwback to when they had had to be carved in stone or wood. More complex concepts required more complex pictographs. She remembered thinking before
she could read that a page of text looked like a garden of flowers, each a complex blossom. Or …
    With a feeling of shock, it occurred to her it looked like a simple version of the design she had seen in the eye of the thraik. The golden mark had been a word! But how was that possible? Thraiks weren’t intelligent, not as smallfolks counted intelligence. Surely they could not read. And what did it mean? Tildi tried to bring back the memory. What had it looked like? She remembered what she could of the configuration of the design. Her mind’s eye followed all the complicated whorls and crooks, as intricate as the tiny pattern on the tip of her fingers. The configuration was unfamiliar to her, so it wasn’t a word or phrase she had ever come across before. Did that mean that the thraik had been looking for something specific, and thought she was part of it? She had been saved when others had been carried off or killed. Would it come for her again? She was called out of her worried reverie by the sound of her name.
    “ … Tildi?” Mayor Jurney said, with a touch of impatience. He must have said it a few times.
    “I am sorry, Mayor,” she said, sitting up straighter. “My mind was elsewhere.”
    “Hmph.” He pursed his full lips. “Well. That’s understandable, girl. It’s been a hard day for you. I wish you to know that until matters are settled for you, you can count on everyone in the quarter to assist you in any way you need. You have our deepest sympathies. That’s official. And personal, from all of us, I might add.” He gathered nods from the rest of the council.
    “Thank you, Mayor,” Tildi said. She had to press her lips together so she wouldn’t begin to cry. One could depend on smallfolks, she thought gratefully. They were a conservative breed, rule-bound and suspicious of outsiders, but healthy and hearty and willing to throw themselves into work to help friends and neighbors.
    “You’re very welcome. Now, about the business of what occurred today, can anyone give a good report to those of us who did not witness it?”
    Mirrin rose to his feet among the elders sitting on the padded benches along the back of the dais. “I can.” He paused.
    Tildi felt hands on her