The Way of Kings

“Yes, Brightness,” Shallan said. “We children love things that are shiny and loud.”

“You have quite the mouth on you at times.”

“At times? You mean it’s not there at others? I’ll have to…” Shallan trailed off, then bit her lip, realizing she’d gone too far. “Sorry.”

“Never apologize for being clever, Shallan. It sets a bad precedent. However, one must apply one’s wit with care. You often seem to say the first passably clever thing that enters your mind.”

“I know,” Shallan said. “It’s long been a foible of mine, Brightness. One my nurses and tutors tried very hard to discourage.”

“Likely through strict punishments.”

“Yes. Making me sit in the corner holding books over my head was the preferred method.”

“Which, in turn,” Jasnah said with a sigh, “only trained you to make your quips more quickly, for you knew you had to get them out before you could reconsider and suppress them.”

Shallan cocked her head.

“The punishments were incompetent,” Jasnah said. “Used upon one such as yourself, they were actually encouragement. A game. How much would you have to say to earn a punishment? Could you say something so clever that your tutors missed the joke? Sitting in the corner just gave you more time to compose retorts.”

“But it’s unseemly for a young woman to speak as I so often do.”

“The only ‘unseemly’ thing is to not channel your intelligence usefully. Consider. You have trained yourself to do something very similar to what annoys you in the scholars: cleverness without thought behind it – intelligence, one might say, without a foundation of proper consideration.” Jasnah turned a page. “Errorgant, wouldn’t you say?”

Shallan blushed.

“I prefer my wards to be clever,” Jasnah said. “It gives me more to work with. I should bring you to court with me. I suspect that Wit, at least, would find you amusing – if only because your apparent natural timidity and your clever tongue make such an intriguing combination.”

“Yes, Brightness.”

“Please, just remember that a woman’s mind is her most precious weapon. It must not be employed clumsily or prematurely. Much like the aforementioned knife to the back, a clever gibe is most effective when it is unanticipated.”

“I’m sorry, Brightness.”

“It wasn’t an admonition,” Jasnah said, turning a page. “Simply an observation. I make them on occasion: Those books are musty. The sky is blue today. My ward is a smart-lipped reprobate.”

Shallan smiled.

“Now, tell me what you’ve discovered.”

Shallan grimaced. “Not much, Brightness. Or should I say too much? Each writer has her own theories on why the Parshendi killed your father. Some claim he must have insulted them at the feast that night. Others say that the entire treaty was a ruse, intended to get the Parshendi close to him. But that makes little sense, as they had much better opportunities earlier.”

“And the Assassin in White?” Jasnah asked.

“A true anomaly,” Shallan said. “The undertexts are filled with commentary about him. Why would the Parshendi hire an outside assassin? Did they fear they could not accomplish the job themselves? Or perhaps they didn’t hire him, and were framed. Many think that is unlikely, considering that the Parshendi took credit for the murder.”

“And your thoughts?”

“I feel inadequate to draw conclusions, Brightness.”

“What is the point of research if not to draw conclusions?”

“My tutors told me that supposition was only for the very experienced,” Shallan explained.

Jasnah sniffed. “Your tutors were idiots. Youthful immaturity is one of the cosmere’s great catalysts for change, Shallan. Do you realize that the Sunmaker was only seventeen when he began his conquest? Gavarah hadn’t reached her twentieth Weeping when she proposed the theory of the three realms.”

“But for every Sunmaker or Gavarah, are there not a hundred Gregorhs?” He had been a youthful king notorious for beginning a pointless war with kingdoms that had been his father’s allies.

“There was only one Gregorh,” Jasnah said with a grimace, “thankfully. Your point is a valid one. Hence the purpose of education. To be young is about action. To be a scholar is about informed action.”

“Or about sitting in an alcove reading about a five-year-old murder.”

“I would not have you studying this if there were no point to it,” Jasnah said, opening up another of her own books. “Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can – what we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.”