The Pen and the Sword (Destiny's Crucible Book 2) by Olan Thorensen Page B

on Anyar for a century
or more, especially in physics, geology, biology, biochemistry, and, most of
all, chemistry—his specialty.
    He
spent many hours with quill and ink filling blank bound journals with carefully
stroked words, equations, and diagrams. Page after page, journal after journal.
His latest efforts focused on electromagnetism and Maxwell’s equations and a
second journal on the elements of molecular genetics and the structure of DNA.
He hadn’t time to translate everything into Caedelli, so he expanded the English/Caedelli
dictionary, which he’d begun when first learning the language, to include a
Caedelli explanation of English grammar—the dictionary and the grammar to be
stored with the science journals. At some future time, whether in his lifetime
or not, the science journal set would be available. Initially, he’d thought the
time to reveal this set would be after his death, but after the raid on St. Sidryn’s
and his own narrow escape, he became impatient. He needed to push knowledge
forward faster, but it required more people to understand and extend what he
knew. Cadwulf’s enthusiasm for the new mathematics and Brother Wallington’s
epiphany on using the first microscopes to study previously unknown realms of
animal and plant life encouraged Yozef to bring in more Caedelli scholastics.
He envisioned expanding St. Sidryn’s scholastic staff, the Caedellium version
of academics, into a university. These were dreams to which he could devote the
rest of his life.
    However,
the university would succeed only with the abbot’s approval and backing. He had
procrastinated, but the time had come. He spent two days thinking, and then one
mid-afternoon, after seeing the abbot enter the cathedral, he knocked on Sistian’s
door.
    “Enter.”
Sistian sat behind his cluttered desk. “Ah, Yozef, what can I do you for
today?”
    Yozef
jumped right in. “If you have time, I’d like to discuss expanding the
scholastic staff here at St. Sidryn’s.”
    “Expand?
How do you mean expand?” asked the abbot, waving for Yozef to sit.
    “I’m
thinking about the number of scholastics. I understand there are fourteen
scholastics here, plus several of the brothers and sisters are medicants and
have interests that might be considered scholastic oriented. The experience of
my people is that scholastics are more efficient in learning when their number
is higher and represented by many different areas of knowledge.”
    We’d
call it a “critical mass,” but if he asked where the phrase came from, how
would I explain about nuclear chain reactions?
    Sistian
nodded. “I understand, Yozef, but how many scholastics can there be in one
place?”
    “As
many as possible.”
    “Then
how are they supported? An abbey like St. Sidryn’s is doing well to provide for
its fourteen scholastics. Even so, some of the medicant and theophist brothers
and sisters chaff at even the fourteen as being too many.”
    Yozef
had learned early on that the Caedelli service society included three orders:
medicants to tend the body; theophists, to the spirit; and scholastics to study
God’s world. Sistian was St. Sidryn’s abbot and head theophist, while his wife,
Diera, was abbess and the head medicant. This was the first Yozef had heard of
tension among the orders.
    “Obviously,
it takes more coin as the number of scholastics increases,” Yozef said, “which
is why I wanted to speak with you. My people strongly believe in the value of
scholastics and willingly provide such support, but what about the people here?
I assume to expand the number of scholastics on Caedellium would require
considerable additional coin.”
    Sistian
sat back in his chair and folded hands over a stomach that had been growing the
last few years, as Diera had mentioned to him numerous times. “And how would
you see such support happening here?”
    “The
people are already taxed, the funds going first to the district boyermen and
then part to the clan hetman.