Chương 116: Chapter 2.53: Bonds

Brutus laughed.

"Favius, he's a ranger."

"You're responsible for security. You can't just—""I only noticed him several minutes ago, already doing..." Brutus shrugged. Favius felt the familiar ember of anger rise. The Magnicultor cut him off with a sharp gesture.

"He's my sworn blood brother. You can trust him as much as you can trust me." Brutus stepped closer, but Favius's reaction shifted from anger to confusion.

"Wasn't Severin—I mean, my real father—your blood brother?" Brutus snorted.

"Why would you think you can only have one blood brother?" Favius narrowed his eyes and chuckled.

"Well..." He looked at him.

"If you are sure this is fine..." Brutus put a hand on Favius's shoulder.

"Duran is smart, but it's not the same kind of smart as Urania. Without knowing any of your teachings, he doesn't have a chance to figure out how"—Brutus grinned—"or why you are doing all this." He gestured broadly. Favius took a deep breath through his nose before shaking his head. I decided to trust Brutus a long time ago, so I might as well continue doing so. He nodded before his eyes became fixed on the man's now-strung longbow.

"Why is he running around armed?"

"Best guess? He's feeling vulnerable without his leathers and cloak. After all, he is as fond of his spiritual yew longbow as I am of my axe."

"I thought all Rhexioni fought like you. Two-handed axe and a great bow." Brutus shook his head with an amused expression.

"The way of the Lireni is to fight on the ship and at the coast. The Cindrathi fight in a line with sword and shield, yet we Rhexioni..." He clicked his tongue.

"It is true that we favor bow and axe, but we do so in all their forms. After all, the warriors of the mountains must be as varied as their home." Favius hummed, but his eyes remained on Duran, who was in an animated discussion with Arryn. The boy said goodbye, and Duran pressed a piece of sausage into his hand. Favius raised an eyebrow at the broad smile on his woodcarver's face. For all that Duran appears like a surly ranger type, he does have a hand for people... Brutus's rumbling voice spoke up behind him.

"Trust me, Favius, they're all good people." Favius hummed, thoughts about blood brothers and others still on his mind. He walked into the workshop building. While pulp boiling and soap making had been moved outside under the open roofs during the heat of summer, the three printing presses operated within what had once been the woodworking workshop. Favius grinned broadly as he studied the teams quickly operating them, rapidly printing page after page after page.

Hard to believe that Arryn only finished the first complete wood type of the mathematics book half a week ago. Favius meandered around the workshops, occasionally listening in and even more rarely commenting on conversations. The people still gave Brutus and him glances, yet ever since his presentation they had gotten more and more used to the presence of aristocrats and realized that Favius was far more upset about them interrupting their work than he was about not being properly greeted.

After a while, he found himself in a different room of the workshop, where Gaius and Arryn were waving books about. Favius studied the thin booklet in the tanner's hands, bound in leather. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. He even recommended the right kind. His eyes fell on the ones on the table where a woman was working on them. It's the dumbest setup I could think of. Two wooden boards with holes.

Then we make holes in the pages and run string through them. Finally, we glue a leather cover around the whole thing. It almost looks like an actual book back from Earth instead of those... He grimaced at the memory of the estate library. Endlessly impractical scrolls of parchment and papyrus.

"Believe me," said Gaius, "this drilling of holes is extremely wasteful. If we could only get good needles and sew the books instead." Arryn sniffed and gestured dismissively.

"Oh please. It is a practical solution. And I tell you, what the Dominus wrote about folding pages together and printing on half-pages, that's what we ought to try." Gaius flicked the finished book in return.

"We already have so many failed prints. Even if we were to merely print four times on a single page instead of two, how much greater do you believe the losses would be? Never mind that larger pieces of paper have proven problematic during all required steps." Arryn groaned as Favius stepped forward with a grin and raised hands.

"Please, please. Both of you have valid points." He smiled as he remembered one of his own recent entries into the Book of Issues. I basically dumped everything I knew about bookbinding on them. Not that that was much. I don't even know the correct term, but those books with hard cardboard-like covers used some sort of stitched back to bind the pages, while paperbacks... I think they just used a very strong glue as well as the folding technique.

"Well, Dominus," said Arryn, not even slowing down in his argument, "I considered your point about two big pages, but really, I experimented. We could easily reduce the writing on the negatives in size by at least half. Maybe even down to an entire third of its original size." Favius raised two fingers.

"I appreciate your enthusiasm, and I do want you to experiment, but ultimately..." He tapped his fingers onto one of the finished books and looked to the side, unable not to smile. The Entity challenged me at the end of last winter to print a thousand books, and now... He used his insight and grinned broadly. One hundred fifty-seven. But there's at least a dozen of them flying around the workshop while various people ponder and play with them. I'm well on track to my second quest slot.

"So..." Arryn lowered his head.

"You're saying we shouldn't be wasting any paper?"

"I still don't understand," began Gaius. Favius stopped himself from cutting the man off. He's not wrong. From his perspective, rushing to print a thousand books is nonsensical. But still, I have a good answer.

"Well, you need to understand that I want to present the priests with a sufficient volume to really make them see what we can offer." He smiled at Gaius.

"But you mentioned that there are a lot of rejected pages."

"Yes," said both young men in unison.

"If you want to experiment with new binding techniques, just gather all the failed pages together to make example books. After all, if it's about the binding..." Gaius snapped his fingers.

"The content doesn't matter. Of course! We wouldn't even be wasting paper." He began murmuring and wandered off. Favius and Arryn exchanged a grin before Favius nodded at him.

"Do you know where..." Favius snapped his fingers.

"I forgot her name. The painter woman is working?"

"Follow me." Favius looked over and paused until Gaius had stopped writing down his ideas on a wax tablet.

"Gaius, come along, please," he ordered. The tanner bowed.

"Of course, my Lord." They soon found the woman, who was in her early thirties. Standing directly before her, Favius noticed that her eyes were the color of embers, their shape somehow not quite human. Some distant Shifter blood, perhaps. Though I couldn't begin to guess what kind. Favius held out the wax tablets.

"I have a special project that needs to be ready by sunset. You see those patterns?

"Draw them using only black and red paint." He gestured towards her workstation.

"I believe we still have a supply of ochre, or whatever you believe best." She smiled.

"Yes, Young Lord. I do believe I could find some suitable red paint among my painting supplies." Favius chuckled and raised his hands.

"Well, the important thing is to make sure that the symbols don't shine through and that the backsides are identical." He looked at Gaius.

"Probably best if you glue at least two sheets of paper together, then size them so they are stiff but not brittle." The three of them studied Favius's designs.

"You want fifty-four pieces of paper?"

"Yes."

"What are they for?" Favius froze before he could answer as something stung his nose. Brutus stiffened in the middle of a conversation with someone working near the presses. A moment later, Duran appeared in an instant at the entrance.

"Brother, do you feel it too?" Brutus sniffed and made a dismissive gesture.

"Yes, yes. Another breakthrough. Quit being so excited, Brother. After all..." He grinned and turned away from Duran to give Favius a wink.

"There's nothing special about that at this estate, after all." The dour, stoic mask of the ranger shattered.

"What!?" He gawked, and several of the craftsmen let out low, nervous chuckles.