Hiraeth is eleven when the village teacher loses her patience with him barely a month into the new year. She says if he thinks he is so smart, then he should be teaching the little ones and let her have some peace while she manages the lessons for everyone else.
The twins think this is a wonderful idea, and he has to bribe them to keep this from their parents. They think this is an even better idea, and demand far too many desserts. Not that he has time to enjoy them anyway: teacher makes sure he has a pile of equations to solve and chapters to read after he is done grading the little ones' work.
He is reading the twins another adventure of Zelda the Great when he realizes it's been half a year since he's read anything that isn't for school, except for this. After they go to bed, he skims the next chapter to see how much he will have to change, but is only about the dotty old knight hunting his Questing Beast.
The twins are old enough they could read the real version of the legends if they wanted, but they are still little enough to prefer being read to. He wonders if they will be angry when they discover the stories he's had to skip or change, or if his sisters will understand why he had to. He laughs as he returns the tenth volume to its proper shelf, for he can already hear how they will plot to get more sweets from him either way.
Hiraeth is about to light the lamp and settle in to work on the last proof teacher assigned when he hears the visiting bell. No one in this village keeps city hours but his father, and he would rather give the twins a hundred rupee and let them loose on market day than call attention to his coming home late. Again.
"A moment of your time, sir - please, hear me out," says his teacher downstairs.
"Not interested," says Link, cold and dangerous. Hiraeth can tell he's been drinking, but his teacher stops the door closing in her face anyway.
"It's about your son," she says quickly. "Please, I had prefer for everyone's sake not to be discussing this in the street."
"There is nothing to be discussed," snaps Link. "Take your bigoted meddling somewhere else."
"Husband, you are being rude. Forgive him, please - come into the garden. There is a nice breeze," says his stepmother, a little too brightly. "Tea? Coffee? Wine?"
His teacher demurs, and they say something too low to hear.
Hiraeth edges closer to the window, clicking open the catch. He stands in the darkness, listening to his stepmother's vain attempts to diffuse the tension.
"Enough," says Link. "The sooner you make your bloody point, the sooner you can leave."
"Sir. I mean no offense, but something has to be done. I've been teaching the children of this village for thirty years, and I taught ten years in the capital before that. I have never faced such a challenge as Hiraeth," she begins.
"I will speak to the mayor. Whatever has been set for your pension, consider it doubled," said Link. "I will ride to castletown in the morning to begin interviewing your replacement. Get this scorpion out of my house, wife."
Hiraeth listens to his father's boots measuring the downstairs room, his stepmother swearing softly in the garden below his window, the click of the cabinet lock.
"He's not always like this," says his stepmother. "I'm not sure why tonight-"
"Do not be concerned for my sake," says his teacher with confidential sort of warmth, entirely removed from her wry manner in the classroom and her deferential, doomed petition. "I have faced a hundred men more wealthy and more arrogant than our celebrated architect. My only concern is for my students."
Hiraeth can barely make out the question which follows, but it has the same shape as his stepmother's perennial worries. Was there an accident? A fight? Did he cheat?
"Not at all. A few broken slates and spilled lunches are nothing worth remembering," says his teacher. "The problem is - I'm out of books."
"Oh no, why didn't you say before? We will replace everything he's ruined," says his stepmother at once.
Hiraeth hammers his fist on his brow in shame that she would think he would destroy one book and nevermind hundreds. And on purpose! As if! He knows he is clumsy, but this is too much.
"I mean when he solves these proofs I have nothing else to assign him," says his teacher. "I ordered copies of more advanced theorem from the royal archives, but that will only delay the inevitable."
"I don't understand," says his stepmother. "Why not just advance him another grade? He is tall enough to be mistaken for fourteen, why not school him as if he-"
"I've done that already," his teacher cuts in. "I can't advance him any further in maths or natural philosophies or geography or composition with the resources available in this village. He's on level with some of my oldest students and ahead of the rest. I can order another language course, but I won't be able to teach myself quickly enough to grade his work."
"Oh," says his stepmother.
"You must reconsider," says his teacher. "If you will not take him to the city, at least withdraw your opposition to advancing his studies in history and theol-"
"No - I'm sorry, we can't," says his stepmother. "Those things are of no use to a boy of his station - and even if they were, Link won't change his mind on this. I know my husband. The ban is absolute."
"Do you realize what you're doing? An unbalanced education is a dangerous thing," says his teacher. "He needs to hone his critical thinking, develop a proper sense of scope and scale and substance, cultivate an appreciation for the goddesses' grand design-"
"Then assign him bigger equations," says his stepmother.
"I have," says his teacher. "That's why I've come. The last proof he turned in should have occupied him for a month, but I can't find any errors. Creative shortcuts more appropriate to a royal scholar, but no errors. I cannot set him enough challenges to keep him sharp without desperate measures. Do you realize I've had him teaching the lowest grades all year?"
"Oh - but that's wonderful! Our Hiraeth dotes on his sisters - he is so good with children," says his stepmother.
"Madam - Hiraeth is a child. He shouldn't be teaching anyone - my hand is forced because otherwise there is no way to occupy him for an entire day. Do you understand? He's only been disruptive to my other students over the years because he is bored. Hiraeth needs better than the best this village has to offer, and unlike a hundred thousand other families in this world, it is within your power to provide it to him," says his teacher. She leaves no doubt of her intention that Link hear her.
"You've said quite enough," booms his father, throwing open the door to the street. "Now leave."
"Will you hide his light under a stone all his life? Or cannot you see what your decision is already doing to your child?" His teacher snaps, marching through the little house to challenge his father direct. "If you want him to wreck himself with vice and learn well to hate you before he's even half grown, continue your present course, sir."
Link slams the door behind her, and a violent silence rushes to fill her wake. Hiraeth cannot stop imagining his father in a towering rage, destroying everything in sight. He cannot stop seeing himself reflected in his teacher's dire threats. He cannot quell the hunger to know why it is forbidden. To learn the things his father is afraid of him knowing.
The house remains quiet, and one by one the lanterns are put out.
The next day, Hiraeth can barely keep his eyes open he is so tired. He could neither sleep nor concentrate on his work, and he is ashamed to pile half-finished assignments on his teacher's desk.
She hands him a new book of calculation tables, and another of proofs. Both reek of new ink and newer glue. He thanks her, but she says not one word in return.
Hiraeth gets the others started on the day's reading, and sits down to his own work. He still cannot concentrate - so he surrenders to his curiosity and opens the book of proofs.
The endpapers and frontispiece promise to deliver the fourth volume of Threnody's Infinitums. The third page, however, offers a complicated genealogy chart, and the eighth begins the editor's notes on the Chronicles of the Four: A History of the Lions of Hyrule, Translated into the Modern Vernacular by Decree of the Queen, for the Improvement of the Common Citizen.
