by Neil McGarry
Duchess crossed the room, ducking under the gesticulating arm of a scholar who was vigorously explaining to his colleague that he wouldn’t know a well-crafted argument if it fucked him up the arse. The female scholar looked up at her approach, showing light green eyes and a pug nose in a round moon face. She made as if to rise, seemed to think better of it, then rose anyway. “Are you—?”
“I am,” Duchess replied quickly, before the woman could say her name. “Call me Duchess, if you would. You must be Cecilia Payne.”
Cecilia nodded. “Duchess. Of course. I understand.” She gestured to the seat across from her. “Won’t you sit and take some wine?” A half-finished glass stood on the table, and as they sat Cecilia signaled for another. She shoved aside the pile of papers she’d been perusing and folded her hands. “Thank you for coming.” She laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, but when Darley said she could get me a meeting with the daughter of—that is, someone like you...well, I wasn’t sure if I should believe it.”
Duchess smiled. “I presume she extracted some price for convincing me to come, yes?” Darley never let pass a chance to profit. She had good instincts, Duchess had to give her that.
The girl blushed. “I wasn’t...please don’t tell her I said that.”
Duchess couldn’t help but laugh. “No need. Whatever passed between you and Darley is none of my business, nor anyone else’s.” The wine arrived and Duchess gratefully took a sip. Nothing to compare with Minette’s stock, but certainly a cut above The Merry Widow. “So Darley made it clear what I’m looking for?”
“Yes, yes indeed. She said you were curious about the beginnings of the city, and on that topic I’m one of the best journeyman researchers in Rodaas.” She gestured dismissively to the other scholars in the tavern. “Your interest is not surprising, really, given your lineage.”
Duchess smiled, feeling foolishly proud. “You know of my father’s work.”
“Of course. His treatises on the beginnings of the empire, his pieces on Domae and Rodaasi etymology, are required reading at the Scriptorium.”
Duchess felt a stab. Her father’s work was, it seemed, very much alive. Not all of him had been lost the night of the fire. She blinked back sudden tears, feeling foolish. “That’s...very kind of you to say,” she finally managed.
Cecilia shrugged. “It’s simply the truth.” She sipped at her own wine. “Your father was a great scholar, and by most accounts, a great man.” The girl shook her head, suddenly rueful. “I wish I could say the same of my own.”
“What do you mean?”
Cecilia sighed, her eyes turning to the room. “I’m the youngest of three girls. My father was rather hoping for a boy at last. The first of many disappointments, I’m afraid.”
“I’m guessing becoming a scholar was the latest?”
Cecilia shook her head primly. “It was something of a compromise.” She sipped her wine. “Father didn't have much of a choice when he realized I wasn’t going to marry. Not happily.”
Duchess was uncertain what to make of that, but decided not to press further. “Perhaps that’s why any of us examine the past?” she asked, suddenly philosophical. “To better understand those who came before us? Fathers included?”
Cecilia shrugged. “I suppose. In any case, I’ve changed the subject.” Her expression turned inquisitive. “What was it you wanted to know?”
“I need help with some research of my own, regarding the origins of the city, perhaps back as far as the Domae.” She paused, suddenly uncertain.
Cecilia brightened. “You’re a researcher as well? And in the same direction as your father? Wonderful. You honor his memory.”
Duchess merely smiled; perhaps it was best that Cecilia believe that. She tried again. “Lately, I’ve begun to suspect—Great Mayu, that sounds so—”
“You’ve begun to suspect what?” Cecilia asked, no judgment or mockery in her tone.
Duchess hesitated; she’d thought long and hard about what she wished to know, what she needed to know, but now that it had come to it she wasn’t sure how to begin. She remembered the conversations she and her father had had over dinner, after she’d read some treatise or work of fiction that lay far outside her childish comprehension. While Justin joked and Marguerite yawned, Father would not explain but would ask her about what she’d read, each question a step towards helping her understand for herself. “When a fool starts a journey he ends precisely where he expected, but a wise man goes where the road actually leads,” he used to say.
She took a breath. “Cecilia, where do we—the Rodaasi, I mean—come from?”
The scholar frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The Ulari, the Ahé, the Nerrish—all of these have their homelands. But the Rodaasi aren’t from this city, or at least we didn’t start here. The Domae built this place and many of the things in it. So where did we start?”
Cecilia lifted an eyebrow. “An interesting question. It’s true that we are not what we once were. We have mostly oral records from before the settlement of the hill, when our ancestors lived in a nomadic society organized by tribe or clan, most likely in the northern mountains. The Nerrish are an extant example of such a society, and in the Southern Duchies the old ways still hold.” Cecilia gestured eagerly. “Most likely the Nerrish are our distant cousins, and at one time we may even have been one people. Perhaps we were split by some policy of Old Domani, or by war, but we almost certainly sprouted from a common source. Yet the current differences between our cultures could not be more stark. They live much as they did eight hundred years ago, but in a tenth of that time the Rodaasi went from a loose confederation of tribes to an imperial autocracy. A nomadic people to a settled, highly organized civilization.”
Duchess sipped her wine, thinking this over. “That sounds like what happened to the Domae, except in reverse.”
“In reverse!” Cecilia thumped the table with her palms, drawing a few looks from other patrons. “Precisely! A stationary civilization mysteriously and almost overnight becomes nomadic, abandoning their home and everything in it, and then we—the Rodaasi—take up residence in their place and quickly adopt their ways.” She took a gulp of wine. “I say quickly when it took sixty or seventy years, but in the lifespan of a civilization a few decades are nothing.” She sat forward, as if suddenly becoming aware she might be overheard. “In a way, we Rodaasi are mere pretenders.”
The word echoed uneasily in Duchess’ ears, and she thought of the old Domae woman on the Godswalk. You and yours pretend to a legacy not your own: children playing with toys not of your making. “But how did it all happen? Why did the Rodaasi change so swiftly, while the Nerrish remained as they were?” She bit her lip, thinking of Jana and what she had said of those who lived upon the hill, of why they were called edunae. “Could it have been...something about the city itself?” She hesitated. “Or something in it?”
Cecilia looked at her strangely. “Is this a joke? You've read Vassilus and now you're making fun of me?”
"Vassilus?" It took Duchess a moment to place the name, but then she recalled a long-ago Rodaasi emperor who was fond of gathering together the Shallows folk in one place and then regaling them with lectures on the morality of the city, or the lack of same. He'd even had a tower built with a bell that would be rung when the citizens were summoned to another sermon, and so Bell Plaza was born. “You mean the mad emperor?”
“Mad?” Cecilia snorted, signaling for more wine. “I should be lucky to be so mad.” She frowned at Duchess’ clear confusion. “I’m sure the history books make him out to be so, but those were written by scholars favored by Vassilus’ elder son, a man who murdered his own father. Oh, there’s a kernel of truth in the tales, but the full story can be found in the writings of Vassilus himself. And those of his younger son.”
Duchess shook her head. “But what does this have to do with—”
“Vassilus left behind more than a tower in Bell Plaza. He filled entire books with his ideas, the most intrig
uing of which was that the city of Rodaas was...alive, in a very real way. He believed the place contained what he dubbed a genius loci, a spirit of the place. Vassilus believed that whatever had caused his people—our people—to change so quickly and fundamentally remained in the city. I believe those sermons he delivered from his tower in Bell Plaza were not ravings but warnings. Vassilus believed that whatever had changed his people remained—and was still changing them.”
Duchess clutched her glass but did not drink. Genius loci was not a familiar term, but she believed she knew this spirit by another name: He Who Devours. Perhaps Vassilus had himself ventured beneath the city and heard that cold voice from the pit. Her father had said that Vassilus had been killed for speaking hard truths, truths no one wanted to listen to. She shuddered and set down her glass before she broke it.
Fortunately Cecilia’s wine had arrived, so the scholar did not notice her discomfiture. “Admittedly, the genius loci is far-fetched, but Vassilus’ writings on other subjects are above reproach. Yet his words were left out of many of the histories, purposely so.”
“Purposely?”
Cecilia’s mouth tightened to a thin, hard line. “Vassilus had two sons and doted on the younger, so much so that he brought the boy to his daily speeches. The elder son was not blind to his position as the less favored, and when the nobles grew angry at what Vassilus was doing, he saw opportunity and he took it.”
Duchess shook her head. “He led a revolt against his own father, placed himself on the throne, and then had the histories written so as to make Vassilus seem mad.”
“The fact that his brother died in the coup is not a coincidence.” Cecilia sipped her wine.
Duchess took a moment to gather her thoughts. They’d gone so far from where they’d begun. “Cecilia, you mentioned my father’s works on etymology. Have you ever heard the word edunae?”
“E-dun-ae,” she repeated, seeming to taste the word. “A Domae word, yes? E would mean not. Dun, from dom, person—no, people, plural, those who are enfleshed...” She trailed off, frowning. “Interesting. I suppose...stranger might work as a rough translation, the word might be something a bit closer to—”
“Soulless,” Duchess interjected flatly.
“Soulless,” Cecilia repeated. “Yes, that might work. What does it mean?”
“It’s what the Domae call those who live in Rodaas.” The scholar made no reply, and they sat in silence for a long moment. Just then, a pair of scholars at a neighboring table began to scream over a scroll held open by candles and wine cups. Each was pointing at the same paragraph but claiming different interpretations of its contents.
Duchess stirred at last. “Cecilia, this has been illuminating, to say the least, and it might even be the beginning of what I’d like you to research for me.”
“Go on.”
“Someone once told me of a theory that Rodaas passes through periods of long stagnation punctuated by spasms of change, sometimes violent change. It's a cycle that seems to repeat itself."
Cecilia frowned in thought. “An interesting theory. It could be argued that regardless of our transformative beginnings, change does not come easily to the city. You wish to prove this theory?”
Duchess nodded. “Or disprove. I’m looking for the truth, Cecilia. Could there be something to the old tales? Of our beginnings, of Vassilus, the genius loci, the tales of the Domae. Is there something that links all of it together? A single, underlying thread that connects them?” A wise man goes where the road actually leads.
Cecilia looked at her, silent, for a long moment. Then she burst out laughing so loudly that some of the nearest scholars quieted long enough to stare at them.
Finally, she managed to get ahold of herself. “Is that all?” she asked through tears of laughter.
Duchess found herself chuckling along, honestly glad of it. “What is it?”
“That’s...an enormous thing to ask for. It’s a thesis in its own right and I’m afraid...” She trailed off, suddenly serious. “I’ll do it. I’ll give you what you want, though it might take some time. But first I need something from you.”
Duchess nodded. Cecilia had sought her out for a reason; time to find out what that was. “Darley said you were in search of—” she glanced around uncomfortably “—my father’s heir. What does that have to do with your thesis?”
Cecilia looked suddenly nervous. “I’m not surprised she didn’t give you further details.” She looked up at the ceiling as if gathering her thoughts. “I’ve been at my studies for nearly ten years now, and am finally ready for my final test to join the upper ranks of the Scriptorium and become a savant.” She was obviously proud, as well she might be; as far as Duchess knew there had never been a female scholar, much less a savant.
“Congratulations,” Duchess said, “but what does this have to do with me?”
Cecilia fiddled with her glass. “I’m one of the best researchers in the guild, but to advance to the highest levels requires more. I must submit to the savants, and then defend, a scholarly work of my own. I must add to the store of our knowledge in a meaningful way. Interestingly, what I have chosen to present is not far from what we have just discussed. My thesis examines the origins of the current imperial cults: Mayu, Ventaris and Anassa. I intend it to be a definitive history of what the Rodaasi worshipped before they came to the hill, and what they worshipped after.”
“Are you saying that the cults aren’t originally Rodaasi?” Somehow, she’d always assumed at least the gods’ constancy. Another piece of the puzzle.
“Yes and no. Our faiths changed just as we did. And just as quickly. The thousand named and nameless gods at the center of the Godswalk come from the old times, certainly. You’ve seen them, I’m sure; gods of wind and water, love and envy—the list is exhaustive. In fact, the Nerrish still worship them. But bare generations after settling in Rodaas, our ancestors abandoned the powers they had venerated for millennia in favor of a religious structure that was as foreign to them as...well, anything else they took on. We call that structure the imperial cults.”
“Well, you seem to have it all worked out. What seems to be the problem?”
“My sponsor won’t let me present the paper, and he will not say why.”
Darley’s involvement suddenly made sense. “Your sponsor is Savant Terence.” The girl nodded and Duchess spread her hands. “I don’t see how I can help.”
Cecilia seemed to choose her words with care. “We spoke earlier of you following in your father’s footsteps. He was one of the city’s preeminent scholars on both the origins of the Rodaasi and of Old Domani.” She paused. “And the savant holds him personally in great esteem.”
As Duchess well knew. “You wish me to speak to Terence on your behalf?” She shook her head. “That’s easy enough, Cecilia, but I don’t know that he’ll listen any more to me than you. I am no scholar.”
Cecilia nodded. “I agree. Which is why I need not your words, but your father’s.” She leaned in close. “I need his diaries.”
Duchess blinked. “How on earth will that help?”
“Marcus Kell published a great deal in his lifetime, but several of his pieces reference other work that I believe he never finished. I suspect your father was hard at work on a magnum opus of his own, cut short due to his, ah, involvement in the War of the Quills.” The mention of the conflict that had ended her father’s life squeezed Duchess’ heart, but she said nothing. Cecilia went on, heedless. “Unfortunately, the diaries containing all of this unpublished research were lost with him when gangs from the Deeps burned his home.” She paused dramatically. “Or so it was believed.”
Duchess watched her carefully. Just how much did this woman know about what had happened that night? “You believe differently?”
“Yes. When Savant Terence expressed opposition to my paper, I told him that if I could get my hands on Kell’s diaries...well, I’m sure they would substantiate my theory against even the most withering criticism. You can’t argue
with the truth. When I said that, he got a strange look and told me those diaries were unavailable. He told me I should have to look elsewhere for evidence or even change the topic of my paper altogether.” She frowned. “It was the way he said it: unavailable. Not burned or lost, or something equally final. What does unavailable mean?”
“You suspect that Terence himself has them?”
She shook her head. “Savant Terence is an honest man, and if he had those diaries he would have turned them over to the Scriptorium. That’s the law: at his death, all of a scholar’s unpublished works become the property of his brothers. Everyone knows the savant was Marcus Kell’s best friend; I cannot believe he would betray both that friendship and the customs of his guild by keeping those diaries for himself. No, I don’t think he has them, but I think he knows where they are.” She looked directly into Duchess’ eyes. “It is vitally important that I have access to that work. If I can back up my own findings with the work of Marcus Kell, then Savant Terence will not be able to deny me.” Cecilia clasped her hands. “Please.”
Duchess blinked. “You think I have them?”
“I just assumed—” She raised a hand before Duchess could reply. “I know it’s a great deal to ask—they must be one of the few things you have left of your father, and I can only imagine what your life has been like without him. You wouldn’t have to give them to me if you don’t want to; if I could just copy them for reference—”
Duchess held up a hand of her own. “Cecilia, the night my father died I left with only the clothes on my back.” She remembered dimly the great blue volumes in which her father would make notes, the same as any other scholar. In the country estate, the Freehold, those books were always in the library, but whenever the family went to the city her father had always made sure they were included in the baggage. Had they been in the house the night of the fire? There was no way to know for sure. “I don’t have those diaries and never did.”