by Tom Lloyd
She picked a lamp up from the desk and started off down the wide stair that curled around the north end of the hall, eyes on the new stone lintel above the main door to the south wing. Halfway down however she stopped, sensing a slight gust of wind run up the worn steps towards her. Gennay looked around and frowned. Up on the mezzanine the shutter rattled its bolts again like the gentlest of unquiet spirits, but that was the only sound.
‘No, there can’t be a window or door left open,’ she surmised after a moment of silence. ‘We opened few enough today and I bolted them all myself before Sarras left.’
To confirm her thought she twitched open one of the long drapes that covered the enormous windows on that side of the hall. Through the mullioned windows she saw a few fat flakes of snow fall at an angle. Clearly the breeze was strong enough to throw around any window that had been left open, not just make it tremble.
The young woman hesitated and returned in her mind to a few hours previously when the former lay brother, Sarras, had come up to her desk. Having been brought up in a monastery, the tall man was wary of any strong-willed woman and tended to creep up to her desk like a deer ready to take flight, even more bundled up against the cold than Gennay.
They had checked the rooms together as always, moving methodically through the library to check the bolts on each window and lock the remaining doors until at last, Gennay would unlock the main entrance and lock it again behind Sarras. It was a ritual that was less necessary now the main building work had been done, but one she felt a curious pleasure in its monastic formality – quite aside from reassuring the young woman that she was secure there when alone after nightfall. With so much work to do before the official opening of the library, she couldn’t afford to only keep to the few daylight hours of winter. The night watchman had been instructed to arrive only when the Hunter’s Moon was above the rooftops so for a few hours she was, unusually for a woman of noble birth, quite alone in the library.
At the bottom of the stair Gennay stopped again, setting the lamp on a nearby table and cocking her head to listen. After half a minute or more she let her breath out in one long puff, satisfied there was no breeze or movement coming from any of the open parts of the library. She wove her way around the workman’s tables where shelving and desks were being constructed and opened the peephole set into the great main door. She had to stand on her tip-toes to look out and flinched when she did as a gust of icy wind rushed through the grille to catch her unawares.
A second try revealed the courtyard just as she had expected; empty of people, with an icy sheen on the cobbles and a little snow drifted up against the right-hand wall. Gennay could just about pick out the swirling descent of a few snowflakes in the faint starlight and felt surprised that not more had fallen. As yet it was only a scattering, but the temperature had dropped dramatically today and Narkang was readying itself for a sustained siege of white.
‘My thick boots tomorrow, I think,’ she said to herself, preferring to speak aloud and break the silence.
She snapped the peephole cover shut again, then whirled around. Somewhere behind her there had come a sound, barely audible over the closing hinge but distinct none the less.
‘Or was it?’ Gennay muttered. ‘Am I just imagining things at long last?’
She took a step forward, arms wrapped around her body until she realised she was acting like a frightened little girl. ‘Oh Gennay, if Emin was to see you now you’d never hear the end of it. It’s a rat if anything at all – no bolts are going to stop them getting into a building of this size.’
She stamped her heel against the flagstone floor and listened to the echo race around the empty library. No scuttling sound followed it, no scrabble of a startled creature or anything else.
‘Well, there you are, it was your imagination,’ she declared loudly.
Despite her assurance, Gennay’s fingers went to a pocket in her dress and closed around the comforting shape of a knife handle. It was something Emin had quietly insisted that she carry, despite the fact she was be escorted to and from the library each day by Pirn, her father’s most trusted retainer.
As soon as he’d heard she would be alone in the library with Sarras, Emin had given her a small dagger to keep on her person. Gennay’s protests that the timid scribe, Sarras, was terrified of her had drawn only a sardonic smile from her younger brother and she’d eventually agreed to keep Emin from worrying. Now, however, she felt glad he’d insisted, however sure she was about Sarras.
It was a strange little weapon; its blade no longer than the handle with a gently rippled edge that was sharp enough to shave with. With her thumb Gennay slipped off the toggle that kept it in its leather sheath and advanced a few steps, listening all the time.
Once she reached the centre of the hall she stopped, knife still in her pocket. There were three doors ahead of her, each flanked by an empty bookcase that protruded out from the wall. To the left was a thick door that led to the kitchens and store rooms behind, all currently unused. From where she stood, Gennay could see the bolts were closed, so she discounted that. It was thick enough to mask most sounds and any thief stood behind it was going to stay there. The rear rooms did have access to the other wings, but it only took Gennay a moment to confirm that the doors leading from each were just as securely fastened.
The sound came again, a slight scratching on the edge of hearing, no louder than the whisper of fingers brushing a page – except the reading rooms were empty. The shelves in two had been completed and the first scrolls set upon them, but she’d checked and shut the doors herself. No one could have got in without her hearing from her desk, almost directly above the door.
‘Which means it’s a rat,’ she said with slight relief. She didn’t like the creeping creatures of course, but they were unavoidable in a sea-port and Gennay had seen enough not to be frightened. Just to be sure, she went to fetch her lamp and moved it to a shelf where it would cast its light inside the room. Ever mindful, she checked it was secure and out of the way in case the rat ran out and startled her, then moved forward and gave the door a thump.
Nothing happened, there was no sound from within at all. Gennay pulled her knife from her pocket and held it ready while she unlocked the door and pushed it open. It swung easily enough to reveal a dark room four yards by six, containing a high shuttered window and a table in the middle. On the table was a small pile of books, one of which had half-slipped from the top and lay open at an angle down the side of the pile.
‘A draught on the pages?’ Gennay wondered as she took a cautious pace forward. The room was steadfastly empty of living creatures, the only movement was her shadow stealing over the shelves. ‘Ah, it must have slipped and the pages slipped one by one, rustling as they did so.’
In a flash her courage returned and Gennay marched into the room, closing the book with a firm snap and setting the pile straight. They were the first works to have been delivered by her most unlikely resource, the Knights of the Temples.
In an effort to impose a high standard of literacy upon their young officers they required that each be taught something of a copyist’s skill. The result was far from the beautiful work done by monks or a mage, but it served for business records and also Gennay’s purposes. The Knights of the Temples had many accounts of travel in addition to their collections of myth and scripture, but were reluctant to release anything from their libraries that they had not gone to the expense of copying.
Just as she was finished a crash echoed through the hall and Gennay shrieked in alarm.
‘Mistress Gennay?’ called a concerned voice from behind the door, ‘Mistress? Is all well with you?’
Gennay gasped with relief, then laughed at herself. It had come from the main door, a wooden staff knocking on it most likely.
‘Yes Pirn,’ she called, hurrying forward. She opened the peephole again and saw a whiskery face pressed up against the grill, peering forward. ‘You gave me a fright, that’s all. I’m perfectly fine.’
&n
bsp; Quickly returning her knife to its sheath, Gennay unlocked the main door and pulled it open. Pirn marched on in, eyes scanning for danger and hand on his sword.
‘Peace, Pirn,’ Gennay said soothingly, ‘I am fine. I thought I heard a noise and when I went to investigate you banged on the door.’
‘A noise?’
‘It’s nothing, I’ve already checked. Just a book that slipped from a pile in one of the reading rooms.’
She pointed toward the open door behind her and Pirn nodded. He strode forward and poked his head inside. Satisfied there was no danger, the former soldier returned to the door and beckoned inside his companion.
‘Come on then, Bewen,’ he said gruffly, ushering forward the night watchman who’d been loitering outside. Bewen hopped forward out of the cold and whipped a grey woollen cap from his head before bowing to Gennay as best he could with a large fur coat in his arms.
‘I brought your thick coat,’ Pirn explained, ‘it’s got bitter since Lord Tsatach closed his eye.’
‘That was very kind of you.’ Gennay slipped on the coat and collected a thinner one from a hook behind the door, bundling it up in her arms. ‘Have a good night, Master Bewen,’ she said once she was done. ‘Don’t be so foolish as I was and start imagining strange noises in the night.’
‘I shan’t, Mistress,’ the white-haired watchman said with a bob of the head.
She handed him the ring of keys he would need for the night, which he accepted with another bob and slipped them onto his belt with a practised movement.
‘I’ll set some traps, catch you a few rats by morning.’
Gennay laughed, a feigned grimace on her face. ‘And a lovely present they’ll be, I’m sure!’ she said as Pirn led her back out the door. ‘See you in the morning.’
The following day was a busy one, presided over by a pale winter sun that did little to warm the stones of the library. Gennay arrived not long after sun up, fairly dragging Pirn from his bed and hurrying him through the empty streets. A few inches of snow had settled on the roads, but it was the night breeze whipping in off the ocean that had made Narkang’s streets treacherous. At every intersection the pair were been forced to shuffle over ground polished smooth by the icy wind, but it wasn’t far from the Thonal household and they arrived there before anyone else.
‘Master Bewen!’ Gennay called as Pirn knocked ceremoniously on the library door. She felt a moment of anxiety when her call was not replied to immediately, but then she heard the thump of feet on the flagstones.
‘Mistress Thonal,’ Bewen said as he eased the door open. ‘Good morning to you, and you Master Pirn.’
‘No excitement in the night?’ Gennay asked, noting the ageing man’s face was crumpled into a frown.
He shook his head, eyes scrunched up in the day’s light. ‘None, my lady, quiet as the grave. I checked the rat-traps not long ago, didn’t catch a thing.’
‘Forgive me, Master Bewen, but you don’t look like a man who’s had a restful night.’
‘Restful, Mistress? No, I suppose not, but bad dreams is all, nothing for you to worry about.’
‘Been at the brandy on duty?’ Pirn asked, a warning tone in his voice. Bewen was allowed to sleep once the library was locked up; he was a light sleeper and anyone breaking in would certainly wake him.
Bewen grimaced as he stepped back from the doorway to admit the pair. ‘Now you know I don’t do that no more, sir, not on duty. It was an old lump of cheese I brought as part of my supper, nothing more.’
‘See that it stays so,’ Pirn commanded sternly.
The night watchman bobbed his head in acknowledgement, aware that any man with a history of drinking would be watched carefully by his master’s steward. He fumbled briefly at his belt before freeing the large ring of keys and returning them to Gennay.
‘Thank you.’ She put a hand on his arm as she took the ring. ‘Bewen, what did you dream of? I’ve not seen you look so out of sorts before.’
‘I, ah, I don’t rightly remember, Mistress. I think I was trying to find my way through the city, I don’t know where I was going. All I remember is shadows on the streets and me taking one wrong turning after another.’
Gennay hesitated and stared into the man’s rich brown eyes. Her lips were pursed as though anxious but, before she could say anything, Bewen shook his head and gave a short laugh.
‘Now don’t you pay any regard to that, Mistress – my dreams never made much sense my whole life, and for certain they never meant a thing about where I was or what preyed on my mind. Half-gone cheese has made me see boats flap their wings and lift off the water before, and a watchman’s mind has time enough to wander far.’
Gennay smiled at the idea. ‘You’re right; too long by oneself leads to an over-active imagination. Do you read?’
Bewen’s face fell a little. ‘Never had much call to learn, Mistress, was born to a deckhand and a seamstress.’
‘Then you shall have to join our first class,’ she declared, shaking her head as Bewen opened his mouth to object. ‘No, it will be good for both the teachers and you, quite aside from the fact that it would be a terrible waste to spend night after night in this place and not read any of the works we’re collecting.’
Seeing her mind was set, Bewen bobbed his head again and smiled uneasily, retreating out of the library as fast as he could and back to his home in the south of the city.
‘Are you sure about that, Mistress Gennay?’ Pirn asked with careful politeness as he watched Bewen cross the courtyard. ‘He’s a shade too old for learning, I reckon.’
‘Nonsense, no one is too old, and as much as anything he’ll be a good challenge for the teachers we’re employing. He can be my spy in the lessons too,’ she added brightly.
Pirn was careful not to let any expression cross his face. ‘I’m sure he’ll be delighted to help.’
‘Good.’ She prodded him on the arm. ‘Now get yourself back to the house, I’m sure father’s got two dozen things you need to see to.’
She ushered him out and shut the door firmly behind Pirn before heading up to her desk on the mezzanine, pulling open the two largest pair of shutters on her way.
‘There we are, a bit of light,’ she announced to the empty library, glad her father had agreed to replace the glass in the tall, shutterless windows that provided the bulk of the hall’s light. ‘Now, let’s see about reviving that fire before Sarras gets here.’
As night fell, the library again emptied with alacrity, the last of their half-dozen newly hired scribes hurrying out the door with an almost apologetic look on his face. As Gennay watched him shuffle gingerly across the snow-covered courtyard a slight movement caught her eye.
It had been too brief in the gloom to be sure of, but for a moment Gennay thought someone had poked their head around the open gate at the far end of the courtyard. The scribe himself made no sign of seeing anything as he neared the gate, head low against the light falling snow. When she looked again, the darkness there seemed empty so she sighed at her own foolishness.
‘Mistress Gennay?’ asked Sarras from behind her. ‘Is everything okay?’
She turned and looked at the tall man’s anxious face that was punctuated by his curiously straight eyebrows. ‘Of course, I thought I saw something but it was just … well, it was nothing, just a trick of the light.’
Relief flooded his face as Sarras nodded. ‘Very good, should we perhaps look through the letters of application before I leave?’
Gennay agreed and shut the main door before leading him back up to her desk. The sound of their footsteps on the stairs sounded oddly loud now they were alone and Gennay felt a slight unease creep into her heart as they started leafing through the applications from townsfolk.
There were several hundred already, for children of all ages. It had already been decided that half would come from the families of merchants and traders – people who could pay for the tuition and contribute to the library’s income, so the other half could be chosen f
rom families without the money.
Gennay’s most difficult task had been to devise a test for the illiterate children brought to their door by parents equally lacking in learning. She agreed with her father that educating the most intelligent of Narkang’s poor would improve the fortunes of the city, but Gennay had found picking the lucky ones a difficult and heartbreaking exercise.
‘What was that?’ Gennay asked suddenly, looking up from her desk.
‘What, Mistress?’
‘That sound, didn’t you hear it?’
Sarras smiled nervously. ‘I heard nothing, only the fire.’ He pointed behind him where the fire was crackling merrily still.
‘No, not that,’ Gennay said with a shake of the head. She looked out over the balustrade, down at the hall below. There was no one there, the main door shut as she’d left it. ‘I thought I heard a scratching sound.’
‘Rats, Mistress? It’s so cold outside, they’ll be seeking out the warmth.’
Gennay frowned at him and he wilted under the look. ‘I don’t think … ah, you’re right, I’ve just been spending too long in this draughty old place.’
She reached for the next piece of paper. ‘Oh, I don’t remember this one at all – Barra Entashai, son of a cook and a dockworker.’
‘Master Koyn met that one, I believe,’ Sarras said. ‘A cocksure street-brat he said.’
Gennay nodded, reading the short summary written by the ageing man who’d been her tutor for several years. ‘Master Koyn said the same about my brother,’ she said with a smile. ‘It might be a sign of intellect.’
‘He’s older than the rest.’
‘Not by too much. He passed the test easily, as you’d expect of one older – maybe we should see him again and ask something a little more difficult of him.’
Sarras inclined his head in acquiescence, but before they could move on to the next Gennay slapped her palm down on the desk.