In Pursuit Of Wisdom (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t need much anyhow.  She was tall and thin, with a strength born from a childhood spent farming.  When she turned eighteen, she left, unsure of everything in her life but committed to one thing.  It took her a day to win a knife in a dice game at a local tavern off a man too drunk to pay close attention.  Learning to cheat at dice was one of the skills she had acquired in the orphanage.
    She had seen her father sharpen his tools with stone before.  Veronica went back to her old house; it was overrun with squatters who had moved in when her family had been killed.  Too many for an eighteen-year-old with a dull knife to try and evict.  She moved on.
    Her home for the next few weeks became the forest, which forced her to learn some basic survival skills.  She found a good stone along a riverbed to sharpen her knife, and she found that her skills at squirrel and pigeon hunting had not diminished over the past three years.  Her father didn’t own any goats or sheep; if they were to have meat, he would hunt for it, and usual ly it was birds and squirrels.  An occasional deer.  Veronica learned well how to strip off the fur and butcher even tiny game.
    A month of living off berries, fish, roots, bark, grass, squirrels, pigeons, and a handful of rabbits, Veronica had steeled herself.  Her grey orphanage tunic and pants were still tight and too small for her six-foot frame.  They were drawn across her body like skin, and were covered in dirt and stained with the blood of small animals.  Looking at her face in a brook, she saw the pale skin that came from her mother and the coal-black hair that came from her father.  It was too long and unmanageable.  Impractical.  So she cut it short with her knife, which she religiously sharpened every night now.  She took another look at herself, with doe-brown eyes.  Uneven cut, but short and clean.
    She waited until after dinner.  Perhaps he liked to drink.  Leaving the woods, she made her way back into the village of Fostler.  There were some people out, mostly the homeless like her, who chose to beg on the outskirts of the village.  Smoke rose from most homes, not because it was particularly cold yet, but because they were cooking fires.  Town mages kept glow balls lit to provide some lighting along main streets.  It was humid tonight, having just rained.  Instead of washing the stench of refuse away, all the rain seemed to do was amplify it.  The current road she was following was particularly bad, with several people starving and sick along the side of the road, too far gone to beg.  She pulled her tunic up over her nose and picked up the pace.
    The man lived on the other side of the village; she had recognized him three years ago.  She could see a small crop of summer wheat growing, with four serfs guarding each side of the small golden rectangle, carrying long knives. Not swords or hunting knives; farming blades for work in the fields.  That wheat field might as well have been gold, for food was the most valuable commodity in all of Fostler.  Smart – we should have guarded our crop as well.  My father didn’t own slaves, but if he had, things might have been different.  I bet he’s feeding them in exchange for their work in the field.
    As the sun s ank behind the grey clouds, Veronica saw one of the most spectacular sunsets.  Orange and pink light seemed to shine up and highlight patches of dark grey.  It was gorgeous and eerie at the same time.  Fitting for this night.
    She was pretty sure this would be the last sunset of her life, so she allowed herself the simple pleasure of watching it.  After about ten minutes, she set her jaw to the task at hand.  His house was simple—four walls, but they were stone.  The man was wealthy enough to keep four slaves, a horse, and she saw three sheep in a nearby pen.  A lot wealthier than I remembered.  Apparently our wheat seed has been good to you.
    She went over to the sheep pen and rubbed some mud