"It's more… costly than I imagined," Grey muttered lowly.
The tavern was loud in the way dockside taverns tended to be, and I had to strain to hear his quiet words. I sat with my back to one of the beams, a half-filled cup of watered wine in hand, watching Grey turn his own ale slowly in its mug.
I nodded. "That's one way to put it. There are landed knights out there that do not see half that wealth in a year."
The maesters loved to spout their truisms. Any are welcome, they said. Any that hunger for knowledge and truth may walk our halls. Even old Rowen back home repeated it.
I snorted. Bullshit. To start off, you have to be born with a cock between your legs. That axed half the population. The maesters were glad to ignore that. But even for boys, becoming a novice at the Citadel was not so simple. My visit to the order of maester's headquarters made that clear.
After passing beneath the shadow of the great sphinxes flanking the Citadel's gates, I found my way across arching stone bridges and into the office of a bureaucrat for the order who told me how things truly worked.
Yes, any can come to the Citadel, but the maesters turned away ninety five in every hundred boys that knocked on their doors. Only the most exceptional, the geniuses smart enough to wow whichever old man is responsible for picking and choosing new novices, are granted free entrance into their halls.
The only way to guarantee acceptance? A letter of recommendation by a lord, a maester, or another personage of great import to the Citadel's own affairs, like a rich Oldtown merchant or those who were open-handed with donations.
And even then, those guarantees do not come cheap. For the "maintenance of the highest of standards and the continuing preservation of knowledge," recommending lords had to pay a yearly fee of fifty gold dragons to keep a boy studying here.
Not an extravagant expense for any high lord, those who covered themselves in rubies and diamonds, or who could dish out thousands of gold dragons in prize money as easily as they could give pennies to the poor. But considering a smallfolk family was unlikely to see two gold dragons in a year, that should tell you enough about who was really welcome in the Citadel.
And that didn't even ensure that the boys would be given anything but the opportunity to study. Some came with lofty goals and left years later with not a single chain-link forged and an empty purse. It all depended on the Archmaesters of each subject considering a novice knowledgeable enough to earn a link.
I took another sip of the watered wine, and once again regretted drinking decades-old bottles of Arbor Gold with Ser Gerion. My tastes were ruined forever.
Around us, a pair of sailors were arguing about dice. Someone laughed too loudly near the bar. I sat up and leaned closer to my companion.
"This is what we'll do from now on, Grey," I said. "We'll be expanding recruitment as soon as we get back home. Double our numbers to fifty boys. In six months, if we feel our standards have kept, we'll double again to a hundred."
He looked up sharply. "That's a lot of mouths, m'lord. Won't that… pull too much from the island?"
"No," I said at once. "Dawnrest's growing. You've seen it yourself. Folk are coming in from the countryside, yes, but even more from outside—Massey's Hook, small port towns along Shipbreaker Bay and Cape Wrath, even the Stepstones. Some families, yes, but mostly young men and boys seeking their fortune. Better they find work under me than find trouble on their own."
Grey nodded slowly. "Idle hands don't stay idle."
"That's right. They drink. They fight. They steal. I'd rather give them a roof and put a bow or a spear in their hands than see them at Evenfall Hall's stocks for thieving."
Bows and spears, yes, but also hammers and shovels. There was more work on Tarth than Father liked to admit, and men willing to work were worth more than gold. If I could, I would get my lads working on Tarth's infrastructure while they earned some coin for themselves.
Roads. Houses. Docks. Storehouses. Shops. With more and more people flooding Dawnrest, there would be need for expansion, new construction. That's where my boys came in.
"It should work so long as the older members keep the new lads in line," Grey said.
"Right," I agreed, "that's where you come in."
"Me?" he sputtered. "I'm not much of a disciplinarian, m'lord."
I laughed. "I know. That'll be Jack's doing. He'll whip them into shape. No, you'll be picking just a handful from amongst them. The smartest and cleverest ones. Any who you think have the talent and the will to become learned men in service of Tarth."
Grey's fingers stilled on the cup. Curiosity shone in his eyes. "To become maesters?"
"Not quite, no," I said. "I don't need them to turn into gray-robed men shackled by those useless vows. I want them to focus on specific subjects they might be interested in learning and that we can use back home. Medicine. Building. Ravenry. Warcraft. Practical knowledge."
My mind stirred with all the possibilities. Surgery. Siegecraft. Logistics. Men who could read a map and calculate supplies without guessing. Who could care and train ravens—or perhaps even pigeons, to carry messages and orders during battle.
It would cost me. More than I liked. I'd be spending as much on these few Citadel novices than on the rest of my company entirely. But it would pay for itself in time.
"We won't rush it," I said. "A year at least. Maybe more. You can weed out the ones who don't have the stomach for it."
Grey hesitated, then said, "Should I… should I come as well?"
He framed it as a question, but to my ears it sounded more like a request he was too afraid to properly make. I studied him for a moment.
"Do you want to become a maester?"
His brows knitted together. "No. I don't believe I do." Then he pursued his lips. "I just… I just want to study things. Learn more."
I smiled at that. "Good. That's a good mentality to have, Grey. You'll come, then, but not yet. A year and a half from now, maybe two. I need you home first to help with starting up some projects.
"Then I'll give you time to study," I went on. "Three years to learn whatever you wish here before I'll need you back for a while. If you still want chains after that, you can come back and forge them."
"Thank you, m'lord," he said, nodding deeply. "I won't disappoint you."
I waved the gratitude away. I tried not to show it too much to them, but I considered him and the twins as friends. True friends. For Grey, this would be a gift as much as it was an investment for the future.
We sat in companionable silence after that, watching the room ebb and flow. A wench passed by a few minutes later, red-cheeked and moving fast, and I lifted two fingers without looking. She stopped long enough for me to slide some copper stars across the table. Grey murmured thanks when she came back to top off our cups.
My thoughts shifted, and I turned to check the light through the tavern's open door. They should have been back by now. Jack and Jace weren't the sort to dawdle. Even Jack, loud and boisterous as he could be, knew how to follow orders well.
I took another sip. Frowned. Glanced toward the door again.
Grey noticed. "They should've been here almost an hour ago," he said. "Could they still be at the inn?"
"Novices like to talk," I said, more to reassure him than anything.
Ten minutes passed. Then another ten. The dice game close to our table broke up. A new group of sailors sat down in their place, voices loud and smelling of tar and fish. No twins.
A knot tightened in my gut, slow and unwelcome. Jack and Jace could handle themselves. I'd made sure of that. But Oldtown was big, and not every danger was the kind you could deal with steel in hand.
"If they're not back in ten minutes," I said quietly, "we go looking."
Grey nodded at once, already shifting in his seat.
We didn't wait more than a minute before we left.
xxx
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