Since they had each finished their respective tasks, Arthur and Mars parted ways though not before Mars made sure they'd stay in touch. Well, more like Mars forcing Arthur to hand over his mailing address so he could send letters.
'What a goofball.' Arthur shook his head at the sight of Mars disappearing into the crowd, headed off to who knows where.
With the day running long and dinner fast approaching, Arthur made his way back to the dorm, planning to get some studying done before the night slipped away from him.
As the hours wore on he worked through his book, marking down anything that seemed important. When it came time to eat he swung by Amy's room to see if she wanted to join him, but either she wasn't in or wasn't answering. He then grabbed a meal and brought it back to his room instead.
His thoughts drifted back to earlier back to Helena and Brandon, to the conversation at the club stand.
'If only they knew there's a third method that makes it faster.' He scoffed quietly, turning another page and adding to his notes. Mira stood near the door, keeping watch without being asked, making sure no one wandered in to interrupt.
And just like that, his first full day at Aurelius came to a close.
Laying in bed alone Arthur had told Mira to spend the night in her own room. Especially since it was high time that Mira finally met her roommate and got settled in her own room.
He stared at the ceiling for a moment thinking. He didn't want her feeling rooted to his room. She'd need her own space, her own routine. There would be nights she'd visit, that was a given, but it wasn't something he wanted her to feel obligated to do out of habit.
She had her own classes to attend anyway. Two, from what he understood, maid curriculum, focused on keeping up with her duties properly.
'I'm sure she'll stay busy enough.'
He closed his eyes and let the academy's quiet settle around him.
—---------------
His schedule had him starting with History of Luminara & Noble Law right at 9 o'clock over near the library on the second floor.
The lecture hall was tiered, rows of seats descending toward a wide teaching floor with a long blackboard spanning the entire back wall. A good number of students were already seated when Arthur arrived, the low murmur of pre-class conversation filling the space.
He picked a seat towards the left side wall in the middle. Giving him ample view of the board and enough distance he doesn't have to worry about someone giving him trouble.
He sat down placing his notebook and textbook on the desk as watch a stream of students flood in the room with him taking mental notes of who.
Many of which clearly from Noble heritage choosing the seats higher up above giving the appeal of looking down on others. While those more commoners or just minor nobles picking where ever the high nobles weren't.
With the hall becoming more packed, seats were easily becoming thin making some people have to sit near Arthur though he could tell that all that did weren't nobles.
"RING!"
Sounding out in the room a bell signaling the start of class making all students cut their chatter instantly.
The professor arrived without fanfare. Tall, silver-templed, the kind of man who carried authority in his posture before he'd said a single word. He set his notes on the podium without looking at the class, uncapped a piece of chalk, and wrote three words on the board in clean deliberate strokes.
THE NOBLE COMPACT.
"Most of you," Professor Varen began, turning to face the room, "believe history is a record of what happened. You are wrong. History is a record of what was written down. And who wrote it down tells you far more than the events themselves."
"Much of history is written by the winners while the losers are scrubbed away, lost to the echoes of time. So how do we tell history if what we know is supposedly false?"
"Simple."
Varen set the chalk down and turned to face the room fully.
"We read everything, from the winners to the losers we take account of everything that happens. A historian should hold every version up to the light and ask one question: who benefits from this being the story that gets told?"
The room was genuinely quiet now, the kind that meant people were actually listening rather than just waiting for it to be over.
A hand went up near the front. Seraphim house, first row.
"But Professor, if we can't trust the historical records, how do we study it at all? Isn't that what the textbooks are for?"
"An excellent question." Varen didn't say it like a compliment. He said it like he had been waiting for exactly that objection. "Tell me who wrote your textbook?"
The student blinked. "Professor Aldous Crane. He's the leading scholar on—"
"A man appointed by the Royal Academy. Funded by the crown. His chair is endowed by House Seraphim." Varen let that sit for a moment. "I'm not saying the man is dishonest. I'm saying that no one writes in a vacuum. Every historian has a patron, a position, or a prejudice. Sometimes all three."
He turned back to the board and wrote beneath THE NOBLE COMPACT:
WHO IS MISSING FROM THIS ROOM?
"The Compact was drafted by six of the great houses in the aftermath of the Sable Conflict. Six houses sat at that table. Do you know how many existed at the time?"
Silence.
"Fourteen." Varen turned around. "Eight houses were not invited. Three of those houses no longer exist. One was stripped of noble standing the following decade. The other four?" He spread his hands. "They now form what is the Beast nation."
A different hand went up. Thrones house, middle row.
"Doesn't that just mean the stronger houses won? That's how it works."
"That's how it worked, yes." Varen moved away from the board and began to walk slowly along the teaching floor. "Saying the strong won is history. Saying the strong deserved to win is something else. One is a record. The other is an argument. Your job in this class is to know which one you're holding."
He stopped.
"Open your texts to chapter one and I want you to interrogate its text." He looked out across the room. "Find me one claim on the first page that assumes something rather than proves it. You have five minutes."
The sound of pages filled the hall.
Arthur opened his textbook, uncapped his pen, and got to work.
The five minutes passed faster than most of the room expected.
Varen didn't wait for silence. He simply stopped walking and the room responded to it.
"Let's hear it. Someone from the back."
A pause. Then a girl near the top row, Virtues house, spoke up carefully.
"The first line says the Noble Compact was established to bring stability to a fractured kingdom. But it doesn't prove that's why it was written. That's just what it says about itself."
"Good." Varen pointed at her without looking up from his notes. "What else?"
A boy from Thrones, two rows down from Arthur. "It calls the six founding houses the most distinguished bloodlines of the era. But distinguished by whose measure? It doesn't say."
"Better." Varen finally looked up. "Now we're asking the right questions. Who decides what distinguished means? Who decided it then? Are those the same people who wrote this text?" He set his notes down. "You'll notice the book doesn't answer any of those questions. It doesn't even acknowledge them as questions worth asking."
He let that land.
"That is not an accident."
A hand near the front. Seraphim, first row again. The same student from before.
"Professor, with respect if we spend the whole course questioning the sources, how do we ever arrive at anything concrete? History has to be based on something."
Varen looked at him for a long moment.
"Which is why we don't discard sources. We cross-reference them." He wrote TRIANGULATE on the board and underlined it. "One account is a starting point. Two that agree is a pattern. Three that arrive at the same conclusion without knowing each other?" He tapped the chalk against the board. "That's evidence."
"Start with credibility. First-hand accounts — diaries, journals, on-site reports, direct testimony. Rune-captured photographs taken at the scene. The closer to the event, the less time there was to shape the narrative." He looked out across the room. "Not impossible to fabricate. But harder."
"For the next class, I want two pages. Pick any event from chapter one and find it referenced in at least two other sources the library has what you need. Tell me where the accounts agree, where they diverge, and what that divergence suggests about their writing."
The bell rang.
"That is all for class, see you all later." Varen wraps up his lecture, grabbing much of his notes and leaving.
Chairs scraped as the room broke apart in the usual rush, students already talking, bags swinging over shoulders.
Arthur closed his textbook and sat for a moment.
He looked down at the single line he'd underlined in chapter one during the exercise.
The founding six houses acted in the interest of the kingdom as a whole.
'But what of the seventh house?'
He capped his pen, stood, and gathered his things.
Author Note: Patreon.com/Lord_Cuckles for Advances Chapters up to 20 in advance. And you can get images of the characters.