A Guild of Light and Ink

1588-03-21
Crescent Hearth, Port City

By candle and daylight we became a guild without charter. The tables that once held ale now bore quills and blades side by side. The monk’s steady hand traced circles and stars while I set verses in the margins so the motions would not slip from memory when bruises faded.

We copied what could be salvaged, fragments from Lychenar’s cryptic lines, scraps of Maraisbourg drills remembered by heart, notes from Bonona’s compass written from feel rather than theft. For each figure on the page there was a stanza, measure to mark distance, breath to keep tempo, a single word to remind the hand where the edge must turn. Half art, half scripture.

Travelers paused in the doorway to watch the singing swordsmen. Some stayed to learn, some only to listen. I would not place a price upon it. Keep the art free, I told them. Coin dulls what it cannot buy. The veteran who once challenged me kept order with a nod and a hard stare. The young and proud found their pride polished rather than sharpened.

I named the students Keepers of the Measure. Their duties were simple and strict. Sweep the floor before and after. Hold the lanterns when light fails. Copy a page for every lesson received. Teach a single thing you truly understand to the next pair who asks. If a stranger has no sword, give him a stick. If he has no stick, draw a line on the floor and teach him to step.

Rumor moved faster than boots. A broker swore a courtier’s carriage had paused outside at dusk. A dockhand swore he saw a noble’s son drilling our parries alone on the quay. Whether true or not, the talk worked like a choir behind the melody. Each afternoon the room filled, and each night it quieted to the scratch of quill and the soft thud of practice cuts that stopped short of flesh.

We argued at times, about names, about forms, about who had the right to say what was proper. When voices rose I opened the book and pointed to the blank space left on each page. For amendment, I said. For what tomorrow teaches that we do not know today. The monk smiled and gilded the corners of that emptiness until it shone.

Once a trader offered silver for the whole manuscript in progress. I closed the cover and pushed it back across the table. You can have a copy, I said, if you leave a copy behind.

So the book grew and multiplied, light for eyes grown tired, ink for hands grown sure. The hearth kept warm. The star on the floor did not wear out. We had no charter, no seal, no lord’s permission, yet the city began to treat us as something that had always been meant to exist, like a tune everyone knew but had forgotten how to start. We kept the Fifth Song unvoiced.