The Old Scholar inclined his head toward one of the young men.
"Speak for me," he commanded.
The young man stepped forward. "We meant no disrespect by our silence in your presence, honored elder," he said. "But we are not ignorant of our own history."
He fixed the historian with a look of pure challenge, his lip curling in a sneer. "You claim that Al-Yajuri met the fifteenth Dayi. Yet Al-Yajuri was dead and buried before the fifteenth Dayi was even born. How, then, did they meet?"
The historian swallowed hard, his knuckles white as he gripped the book. "You are mistaken, boy. This text clearly states he lived in the era of the fifteenth Dayi. Countless other sources corroborate it! Not least among them the Encyclopedia of Ghlizan History, compiled by the most brilliant Frankish scholars!"
A ripple of laughter spread through the Ghlizans. Another man, broad-shouldered with a round face, cut in.
