Page 41 of A Theory of Dreaming
Preston drew in a breath. His adviser’s head barely reached his chin, and he was stout as a result of a too-permissive diet, and his lassitude showed in the deep circles under his eyes. He looked feeble.Mortal.This seemed to occur to Preston all at once, and for the very first time. A man like this could rule him in the real world,but in the palace under the sea, he was no king. And the membrane between these two realities felt so very, very thin.
“Yes,” Preston replied, surprised by the smoothness of his voice. “You said it yourself, after all. I’ve no imagination.”
Gosse regarded him in an inscrutable way. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the door to the classroom swung open, and the first of the students began to arrive. Most of them slouched to their seats without giving Preston more than a single glance, but when Southey sauntered in, the air in the room suddenly charged.
Preston could not say anything to him directly, of course—not in front of an audience. So he bit his tongue and schooled his expression into one of placidity. No small feat, as when Southey passed by, he gave him an unabashed smirk.
“Right, then,” Master Gosse said. “Settle into your seats. Today we’ll be discussing lines eleven twenty-four to thirteen sixty-seven. These lines recount Neirin the Old King’s first struggle against the enemy, during the earliest years of his reign. The juxtaposition between his title—the Old King—and his youth in this section is poignant. What else jumps out at you about this section?”
Several hands were raised. Gosse nodded toward one of them.
“Well,” the student began, “Aneurin the Bard doesn’tnamethe Enemy; he only continues with their depiction as being ‘garbed in silver.’ There are so few proper names in theNeiriad, generally. There’s only Neirin the Old King—otherwise it’s the Enemy, and the Daughter—archetypes, not characters.”
“Good,” Master Gosse said. “This is typical of this era of epicpoetry. We only begin to see the genesis of modern conceptions of character in the work of the fourth Sleeper and playwright, Gelert Bedwyn-Lawes. What else?”
Gosse called on another student, the one who flashed his cuff links.
“This is the first section where the established meter changes,” he said. “It reverts to its original meter a few hundred lines later, but...”
“Exactly right,” Gosse said. “It’s been suggested that Aneurin the Bard wrote nonlinearly, returning to adjust timelines. TheNeiriadwas, of course, composed over the course of many years, wherein the Bard’s sensibilities could have shifted. Anything else?”
To Preston’s great dismay, Southey raised his hand.
“This passage contains heavy foreshadowing,” Southey said, “with the line ‘for it being more dangerous to entertain sympathy with the Enemy than to loathe them wholly.’ Ultimately, it is this foolish compassion for the Enemy that causes the city and the Old King to fall. At least, that’s howIread it. Perhaps our teaching assistant has some insight to add? Is theNeiriadtaught differently in Argant? Is it taught at all?”
At that, silence fell over the classroom. Every head in the room turned to Preston, even Master Gosse’s.
“I suppose it’s not so appealing,” Southey went on, his tone light, “to see your people painted as the Enemy.”
What could Preston say in reply? He could tell the truth, which was that no, theNeiriadwas not taught, but Argant hadanalogous literary traditions, works similar in style and content, differing only in minor details. That their own stories had just as much richness and depth, that Southey was a small-minded and prejudiced cretin for thinking otherwise. He could only imagine the discourse passed down from the Baron of Margetson to his son. That Argantians had no great literary heritage of their own, only what they had siphoned slyly from Llyr.
It was all a lie, but Preston could not refute it. He hated to admit what he now knew: that truth withered in the face of power.
“Very profound analysis,” Preston said. At his sides, his hands were shaking. “The Southey line has produced such rarefied and insightful scholars.”
Preston was not terribly surprised that, at last, Southey confronted him face-to-face. After class was dismissed and Gosse had departed, when Preston was left to erase the chalkboard and collect the remaining books, Southey parked himself in front of the door, barring Preston’s exit.
As if he could delay the inevitable, Preston put on his coat and slung his satchel over his shoulder in languid, deliberate movements. Then, when there could be no more reasonable idling, he turned to Southey.
They stared each other down in silence, both unwilling to capitulate to the other by speaking first. But Preston was patient. And Southey was an infantile and overindulged aristocrat, too used to instant gratification.
“You must think yourself terribly clever,” Southey bit out.
“No, not especially,” Preston replied. “Your scheming is just crude.”
Southey’s mouth gaped briefly. It was obvious that he was also unused to being so openly challenged. “And why shouldn’t your allegiance be questioned? A loyalty pledge is perfectly reasonable when Llyr is at such a crucial point in its war. A war that we never asked for, I should add. Your people are just so belligerent.”
“Yes, Argant clearly wanted war from the beginning,” Preston said dryly. “That’s why it put its border so close to Llyr’s military outposts.”
The sarcasm was not lost on Southey. A vein in his temple began to throb visibly. “You’ve made a mockery of my father, and he won’t forget it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Preston said, which technically was true. “Your father should have been more subtle. If even theCaer-Isel Postcan deduce his conspiracies, well...”
“Oh, I don’t believe it was you,” Southey cut in. “You have your allies. That insufferable Grey... and your sweet little bimbo, of course.”
Preston stilled.
“She’s in a terribly vulnerable position, isn’t she? What with being the only female student at the literature college. But you’re a clever man. I don’t need to tell you that whatever you do may come back to haunt her, too.”
