Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Roka knew of one such institution in Topto that fit the name “school,” an academy for elite young men and women on the cusp of adulthood designed to teach them important jobs and nurture any budding natural gifted intelligence. Not many got the chance to attend a calling academy, perhaps thirty young adults in a year while thousands remained in the workforce. Several calling academies were sprinkled across the empire, but Roka was certain the number was fewer than ten.

Roka’s own education had come from her father and mother teaching her to read at a young age and then the family pooling their time and effort into teaching her how to contribute to a running household. Her older brother had been given the opportunity to apply to a calling academy in the nearby city of Ndalporo, but he had decided not to put in an application. He didn’t think he had the acumen to make the attempt and the cost to the family of attending outweighed any benefit that might be attained.

That accounted for Roka’s understanding of education. She had no concept for what Ensigns might think of study and academic achievement.

The streets that wended their way to Elise King’s school were quiet and mostly empty, a stark contrast to the night before. Bits of paper trash and abandoned personal items littered the way. Groggy shopkeepers and homeowners scoured the cobblestone to clean their environment for the next night’s celebration. Vendors replenished the stock of their food stalls, still rich with the smell of cooking meats and vegetables.

Roka spotted the first unaccompanied child of her stay in Topto, a much more common sight everywhere in the empire, particularly during times of celebration. The little boy ran down the street barefoot. He wore a surprisingly flat expression for a morning that followed a night of glee and merriment. His mother stepped out of a nearby door and cuffed him lighltly on the side of the head, chastising him for running off on his own and then pulling him inside.

Roka watched the scene unfold with a puzzled expression. She hadn’t thought parents in Topto were that strict, but perhaps it was an aberration. Yusubru seemed confused by the boy and his mother as well, but master and apprentice continued to follow Elise King without comment. No one else seemed to notice anything was strange.

The building Elise King led them to didn’t match any of the Ninzamian-style structures around it. It was recently built, probably within the last two years and heavily inspired by Ensign design. The walls were white and fluted cornices made it look taller than it actually was. A single door gave entrance to the front. An unarmed guard stood just outside the door. Despite his skin and pox marks showing him clearly as Ninzamian, his pants and button-down shirt suggested an Ensign employer.

The guard stopped them at the door and Elise King explained who they were and what their business was on the premises. Roka would have thought she would be known to the guard or that he would recognize the heir to the imperial throne, but Elise King let her and Yusubru know that it was standard practice for all of her schools to stop would be guests and force them to declare their intentions. It all seemed overly cautious to Roka, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Perhaps there were no adults inside and the school was run by a gang of children.

As she stepped inside the white-faced building, it occurred to Roka that she had never been inside a room built in the Ensign style, mostly because the experience was not what she had been expecting. The air felt cooler inside than out by a large margin. Hot weather did not bother Roka. She had lived with it so long, she only noticed it when the summer reached its zenith. Whether the interior of a building was slightly cooler than the exterior did not usually register. But passing through the threshold of an Ensign-made doorway, the difference smacked her in the face. The interior was positively pleasant.

Elise King noticed Roka’s surprise. “This is one of the things we’ve been happy to share: Air circulation,” she said. “Since Ninzamian architects don’t know the details of how warm and cold air move, they can’t make rooms and buildings that control the heat. Rather, they couldn’t. We taught them, and now they know.”

“Air circulation,” Roka repeated, only somewhat grasping the concept. “Do you teach architecture here? To children?”

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Elise King laughed. “No, not that. This school is much more basic. Reading, writing, arithmetic. Let me show you.”

She led them down a white-plastered hallway. The walls hemmed them in from either side, only wide enough for three people to walk abreast. Yusubru’s sword tip scraped along one wall until he caught the handle and brought the tip closer to his body. Roka did not regret that her sword rested on her bed in the Citadel Proper.

Elise King arrived at a wooden door with a large square cut out of the middle. A pane of expertly blown glass filled the square. Roka looked at the glass sideways, wondering at the purpose of a window inside a building, and on a door no less. It was no doubt an expensive addition and possibly even weakened the structure of the wall.

At a gesture from Elise King, Roka and her master approached the window. Through the glass they discovered four long tables that stretched the length of a medium-sized room. At each table sat four young children, perhaps six or seven years old. A rough-looking pencil and a neatly cut piece of paper waited in front of each child. Some of the papers had been scribbled on.

Just on the other side of the door, standing in front of the seated children with an open book in his hands, was an Ensign man. His wardrobe bore few differences from that of Elise King’s. Ensign male and female dress did not appear all that different. Always pants and always a button-down shirt, though the cart-driver that had brought Roka and her master into Topto had worn clothes more reminiscent of Ninzam.

The man spoke, but the seal on the door and the glass made his words an almost inaudible mumble. The children remained quiet and attentive, occasionally looking down at their piece of thin paper on the table in front of them.

“What is happening?” Yusubru asked. “This appears to be one of your sermons.”

“I assure you, it is not,” Elise King said. “We have agreed to make no attempt to spread our faith to your people. Frankly, we have no interest in doing so. It is ours and not yours, but I understand you have had difficulties with other nations spreading their contradictory faith among your people in the past.”

Roka did not know anything about Ensign sermons or their faith. She had always assumed they had no god as the empire had no god. She recognized Elise King’s reference to the empire’s past conflict with the Shuibid Faith-state and their toxic religion but was otherwise in the dark.

Elise King squinted, looking through the window. “In fact, judging by the book Frans is reading from, history is the subject of this particular lesson.”

Yusubru gave her a quick look. “You are teaching them Ensign history?”

Elise King’s mouth twitched, but she chose to ignore Yusubru’s choice of moniker for her people. “No, it is not Donparsh history. Frans is an expert on the history of this continent, along with the empire and all the nations you have relations with. His life’s work is the study of your people. He is currently reading to them a children’s history of the empire.”

“I see,” Yusubru said, his skepticism clear, at least to Roka.

“This school has four other rooms such as this, currently occupied by sixteen children and a teacher each. All of our teachers are experts in some field, be it arithmetic, language, and particularly teaching young children to read. They use these private rooms to keep the children free from distractions and focus them on acquiring new knowledge. The different groups of children rotate as a class between each teacher to receive a well-rounded course of instruction. When their studies are completed, they remain in the city but move on to a school for older students more capable of understanding advanced concepts. The children remain together as a cohort and learn from each other, as well as from their teachers.”

Roka took a closer look inside the room. More books waited in small shelves along the walls, possibly enough to account for a large village’s full collection. Most were thin and small, the right size for a child to hold and the right length for a child’s attention span. The children occasionally wrote something on the papers in front of them, though usually only a quick scribble. Still, it was clear that each scribble denoted a word or short sentence. It amazed Roka that so many young children could be capable of as much.

“You said language,” Yusubru said. “What language do you teach them?”

“Ninzamian, of course. We help them to be conversational with each other as well as with adults. It’s important that they be socially educated, in addition to being book-educated. To give you an answer to your next question, we teach older students Donparsh, but only with the consent of their parents.”

The system interested Roka immensely. An intelligent citizen could contribute much to imperial society. A hundred well-educated citizens could elevate that society to heights unknown. She wondered why the practice had not been implemented before.

“That is good,” Yusubru said.

“Yes,” Elise King said. “We have no wish to force our language on your young.”

“Actually, I would have every citizen of the empire learn your tongue fluently, but that is likely too much to ask.” He turned away from the window to face Elise King head on. “Are there no Ninzamian teachers in this school?”