The Prince of Churls had claimed one of the best houses in Direschki District for himself. And that’s saying very little. There have been previous attempts throughout our long history at conquering Libreigia and making it conform to the bowing and scraping and rigid hierarchies of everywhere else. But no one had thought to actually live there once they’d conquered it. A king or emperor would usually come into the city, take a look around, decide that there was little fun to be had and many headaches, and make some disfavored courtier the duke or count or governor. And that courier would duly decide that their seat of power should be elsewhere. A little ways down the road, perhaps. Maybe in Pahlabayo.
Our real rulers, down through the ages, have been the mayors, duly selected through sortition in our ancient past, then appointed through much conniving as we fell under the sway of empires and kingdoms. Even when everyone decided that we should be a free city there were always secret hands at work in a mayor’s selection. But it has always bewildered me that anyone would want to connive and politic to obtain the post of mayor. The mayor’s life is a sad one, subject to the whims of whining scholars and the mercurial nature of merchants. A mayor wakes in the morning thinking of sewage and goes to bed at night thinking of disease. Who would want such an existence?
The mayoral mansion is ungainly and poorly decorated, at least compared to the magnificence of the Library’s First Tower. It sits on a hilltop in Direschki District, but the king hadn’t deigned to occupy it. Neither had the Prince of Churls, his uncle. The king had chosen a merchant’s mansion as his seat of power, and his uncle had chosen an old brewery. It had vaulted ceilings and wide open halls, and it smelled happily of yeast and malt. I paused as we entered through a door that had once been used by wagons laden with beer barrels. I sniffed the air appreciatively. I looked back. The woman who had been following us had disappeared.
We were met by a harried majordomo who was working hard to maintain an outwards appearance of calm. He had a string of little beads, and he clicked his way up and down it in an attempt to maintain his equanimity. All of the prince’s people have one kind of tic or another. It is hard to be in his service and avoid flying into a frustrated rage.
The prince himself was sitting at a high table, surrounded by the usual bevy of fawning sycophants. In his youth he had cultivated the most beautiful people in all the realm, regardless of their social station. He had plucked many a fair maiden or winsome boy from the obscure backwater in which they had been eking out this or that meager living. He had befriended many a flow youth. It was said that when you entered his social circles you had to shield your eyes. His friends were too beautiful to look at.
They were all quite old now, and beauty fades. But they compensated for their wrinkled skin and dull hair with exuberantly immature behavior. As we entered, a lovely flow dancer was cavorting on top of the high table. Never mind that they were about eighty, and each swing of their legs threatened to dislodge a knee. Everyone was laughing and beating the table in a rhythmic pattern that was getting faster and faster. The flow dancer was becoming quite ecstatic, and I had visions of them leaving their body and floating up towards the ceiling.
My friends the songsters were alarmed. They quickly unpacked their instruments and began to play a jaunty tune. Its rhythm conflicted with the rhythmic table banging, and gradually the banging subsided, and the gentle people of the Prince of Churl’s court turned their attention towards this new entertainment.
As my friends were occupied, I had nothing better to do than to wander the party. I suspected, in fact, that they had brought me along for this purpose. While they were busy entertaining, I could float from dark corner to dark corner, listening avidly to the gossip and collecting stories. I stopped a servant who was carrying a tray of pewter cups that were full of gingered mead, availed myself of one of them, and then began my slow meander through the crowd.
I wasn’t surprised to see Lewibindi Jaestis there, although he was quite surprised to see me. “Doefrit,” he said, detaching himself from a circle of people who were flitting about the Countess of Baelahsa, “I thought you were under house arrest.” There was as calculating look in his eyes, and I thought that he would soon ask me to carry a note to some lady who was far above his station.
“Not at all,” I said. “As you well know, I have been deeply engaged in serious scholarship.”
His eyes twinkled with mirth. He was holding a small statuette and turning it in his hand. He seemed as nervous as one of the Prince of Churls’ servants. I peered quizzically at the object, as it was made of a smooth green stone that was unfamiliar to me. He followed my gaze and tucked it away in his robes, seemingly embarrassed. “A gift from a lover?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, after a moment’s pause. I suspected that pause. But I didn’t inquire further, as news of Lewibindi’s love affairs is not exactly salable. No songster of any merit would give me good coin for the amorous adventures of an ambitious scholar, as such adventures are commonplace in the City of Libraries. “Are you known to the Prince?” Lew asked, confused by my presence at the party and trying to discern the reason for it.
“Oh, we are old friends,” I said lightly.
“It is always dangerous to claim relationships that you haven’t earned,” he warned me.
“Very well then, I shall go about earning the acquaintance.” And with that I flitted off. Why spend time chatting up Lew at a party, when I would see him that evening if he deigned to come skulking to my chambers?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
If Lewibindi’s presence at the party wasn’t very surprising, Malreesi Muelant’s was. She was wearing an even more ridiculous wig than she had at her little soiree. It was piled high on her head in three distinct structures, as if she had built a map of the Library out of hair. Haunts and Scribbles was missing from this map, of course, but it’s often left out of the many images of the cities, the paintings and drawings that are dispersed widely throughout the land. Her face, too, was even more powdered than before. And she had brought a little dog. It sat in her arms and puffed out its long whiskers and growled at me quite unnecessarily as I approached.
Even more surprising than Malreesi’s presence was the fact that her sister was standing right beside her. Doesa Muelant contrived to be as opposite to her sister as possible. Her own hair fell down her back in a neat braid. She had little glasses perched on the edge of her nose. She was unafraid to let her age show on her face. And she greeted me with a polite interest that was its own form of condescension.
“This young man is a scholar in Haunts and Scribbles,” Malreesi told her and Doesa held out a hand for me.
“The mysterious tower!” she said, and her voice was that of a young child. High pitched, and full of wonder and innocence.
“Not so mysterious when you live there,” I said, bowing over her hand. “It is, I’m afraid, as full of scholars with stained robes as any other tower.”
“But surely you have a reputation for being engaged in dubious studies?”
I accepted the word dubious, but I didn’t like it. “All the towers have a bad reputations to maintain,” I said, smiling foolishly for her benefit. “Old Ancient was founded by those who were interested in the things of this world, and how to use them. There is a whiff of alchemy about it. And Old Wondersuch was, at first, dedicated to recording a fair and reasonable history of humanity’s progress in this land. But since that progress has involved many tortures and beheadings, it can be a very grim place.”
“He refers to the first and second towers,” Doesa said for her sister’s benefit.
“I do.”
“And the third tower?” Malreesi said. “I believe that it was founded to compete directly with the Sangrahalaya.”
“Both institutions are quite interested in the Previous World,” I admitted.
“And there are other lesser towers of course,” Doesa said. I was discovering that she had a talent for pedantry. She should have been a scholar herself.
“Including Haunts and Scribbles,” I allowed.
“Your focus is on the dead,” Malreesi said, as if she were informing me of something that I didn’t know.
“We were founded after the eruption of ghosts in the eighth century. Soon after the founding of the Sasturi and the establishment of the shrines.”
“Old Ancient and Old Wondersuch, and what is the third tower’s nickname?”
“Old Sangralahaha.”
“Old Sangralahaha! You scholars are such wags.”
“We do enjoy amusing ourselves at each other’s expense.”
A snide, conniving look floated up from under Malreesi’s face powder. It was the same look that she had worn when telling that scandalous story to the Sasturi Guild Master. She opened her mouth to speak and I forestalled her.
“What brings you to tonight’s revels?” I asked Doesa. “Is the queen herself here?”
Doesa’s mouth turned down in a pout. “The Queen is much occupied with consoling the king.”
“Was the setback to construction really so great?”
“Sadly it was. Nirmaluko says that we have lost three whole years.”
“I imagine that the scholars are celebrating,” Malreesi said in an offhand manner.
“Celebrating?” I asked, feigning surprise and a whiff of offense. “Why should we celebrate?”
Malreesi slapped my arm with a bejeweled hand. “Now, now, Haunts and Scribbles. Do not pretend with me. I know that the scholars dislike the idea that they will have a king looking down at them once the palace is finished. You forget that I entertain many of your contemporaries at my little dinner parties.”
I glanced at Doesa, to see her opinion of this blatant lie. She was looking away, as if interested in a witticism that had been offered by a nearby courtier, a fat and sweating man who was speaking loudly, no doubt believing that things are funny when they’re shouted. “I believe,” I said to Malreesi, “that you might have only met a small sampling of Libreigia scholars.”
She chose to take offense at this. Her eyes turned very frosty, and her dog growled. “Oh dear,” she said, “it looks as if you need to refresh your drink.”
So I toddled off to refresh it. The evening passed slowly. There was a hectic, sweaty feeling to the whole affair, which made it far less pleasurable than you would think. And my days of secluded study seemed to have blunted my enjoyment of crowded rooms. I wandered out of the great hall and down wide side passages, listening for the rumble of phantom beer barrels and imagining the hands that had pushed them over the cobbled floors.
I came to a short staircase and went up it, and found myself in a solarium. Dusk was smudging the winter sky, and only a dim light fell through the stained glass windows. I had an immediate sense of intrusion. This must be the prince’s private study.
I was about to retreat when there was a movement in one gloomy corner. I squinted and saw Lewibindi there. He was fiddling with some doodads that littered a shelf. I snuck away. Who am I to interrupt a friend’s furtiveness?