Chapter Seventeen #4
“His assistant? Why can’t I be the wealthy patron?”
“My sweet, please do not be offended when I say I am perhaps a little more used to playing the part. And you have the expertise when it comes to books. Does it not make more sense for me to be the fool with more money than is good for him, and you to be the one who appreciates the details?”
I sighed. “I suppose so.”
“Perhaps you remain my devoted sister, unmarried as yet because you have pledged your life to the study of rare volumes.”
“Why such an elaborate story?”
He turned to me, looking wounded. “I wouldn’t call it elaborate.”
“Well, why am I your sister again? Why not your daughter?”
“My daughter?” He was dumbfounded. “How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not yet thirty, and you’re …”
“Twenty. It’s the beard. It makes you look older.”
“The beard.” He turned back to face the road, back stiff.
“And the gray hairs.”
“I don’t have gray hairs!”
“If you say so.”
There was a short silence.
“Speaking of fathers …” I began, a question that had been at the back of my mind rising to the surface again.
“You are wondering who yours might have been?” Patrick said with that uncanny way he had of reading my mind.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Many young men came to consult with Ban Edevane.
He was quite a famous mage, you see, and his library of spellbooks was renowned across all of Virelith.
I imagine it was one of them—the scholars. ”
It was hard to imagine my mother being swept away by passion.
Other than her passion for her work. I could not imagine her falling in love with a visitor—loosening herself long enough to fall into his arms. I could imagine something more calculated, however.
Perhaps she had wanted a way out that she thought one of the scholars could provide—or had wanted a child for her own strange reasons?
I could hardly imagine her being my age at all.
She seemed to have sprung from the womb fully formed as the guarded, grimly focused woman I had always known.
“I’m sorry,” said Patrick. “You must miss her.”
I looked up, surprised. “Yes.”
“I understand.”
“What was she like, when you knew her?”
“I didn’t know her for long, but she was …” He paused. “Terrifying.”
“Terrifying?”
“Strong. Decisive. Brilliantly clever. I was petrified of her, when I was a boy. She was not cruel, not in the same way as Sybil, but she was … driven. When she left, the house felt dead. Well, at least for the short while I was permitted to stay.” He shifted in the saddle, his voice becoming more businesslike.
“Well, she would be pleased to know how close you are now to finding her.”
When we reached the monastery gates, wrought iron elaborately set into tall walls of yellow sandstone, even Patrick’s air of complete self-assurance didn’t stop the guards from barring our way. He presented some official-looking letter with a flourish and waited while they examined it.
“Forgive us, my lord,” said the guard with a bow once he had finished.
“With this recent unrest, we have to exercise more caution than ever.” He lowered his voice.
“From what we hear, there has already been insurrection against the Temple. Followers attacked on the road, if you can believe it, and a Priest slaughtered in cold blood!”
“Horrifying,” Patrick murmured.
“Horrifying, indeed. It violates one of our most sacred ordinances.” He was practically vibrating with indignation. “If the Followers can no longer move in safety … Well, who knows what sacrilege will be next?”
“I quite understand,” said Patrick. “Now, if everything seems to be in order, perhaps you could let me and my niece through to speak to the abbot? We are in rather a hurry.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Your niece?” I murmured. “I thought I was your sister.”
“And you suggested daughter. It’s a compromise.”
“You’re not old enough to be my uncle, either.”
“I was a late birth. Large age gap between me and my … sister? Brother?” He shrugged. “Your choice. And after all, you are my niece. In a manner of speaking.”
“Oh.” There was an awkward silence. “I suppose so.”
The guards bowed low as the gates opened, and Fane trotted through.
They were clearly used to visitors. A servant caught her bridle as we dismounted and led her to the stable, and I blessed the solid ground beneath me as I looked around.
The grounds of the monastery were wide and well tended, made cool and pleasant by the many silver-barked trees that dotted the grass.
News of this particular visitor’s wealth must have traveled fast, because the abbot scuttled out to greeted us personally.
“Welcome, my lord, my lady,” he said, bowing low, with his hands tucked in his wide sleeves.
He was a tall man, but stooped, which gave him an air of servility.
Patrick explained our reason for visiting, waxing lyrical on the sheer ostentatiousness of the volume he desired to have made, and the abbot became friendlier and friendlier as the description became more and more elaborate—and expensive-sounding.
“Your … pet will have to stay outside,” the abbot said before he led us in, looking at Baldbeak with distaste. “We can’t have animals around the books.”
“He’s quite used to books,” I said. “And very well-behaved.”
“I’m afraid we can’t risk the possibility of … excrement,” the man said. I fought the absurd urge to laugh.
“All right,” I said. “Baldbeak, wait out here, please.”
With a loud and clearly irritated raark, Baldbeak flapped up to the branch of one of the silver trees and glared down at us. As I waved goodbye, he cocked his tail and sent a green-white stream of “excrement” towards the abbot, catching the very edge of the man’s robes as he turned away.
Patrick was still talking as we followed the abbot through the halls, which were wide and echoing, paneled with shining dark wood.
“It is a simple enough spell, but very important to my family,” I heard him say, “and I want to see that it is preserved in the most beautiful volume we can afford. My niece is well-versed in the care and preservation of such volumes, and she will be helping me direct its creation.”
“How lovely,” murmured the abbot. “And will you be using this book yourself, my lord?”
“No,” I heard Patrick say over the sharp clip of his boots. “I have no mages in my family any longer. But I desire it to be worthy of my collection.”
“Of course,” said the abbot. He paused and gestured grandly at an archway leading to a vast library filled with desks and monks scribbling away at them.
I had expected a workshop, a larger version of the Book Man’s, but what I saw was a vast room more like the interior of a Temple than a warehouse.
Arched windows stretched from floor to ceiling, and the domed ceiling overhead was also glass, so that the whole place was flooded with light.
I supposed they needed the best possible light for their intricate work, as Mother had.
“The scriptorium—the finest in Virelith,” the abbot announced.
“Very impressive,” said Patrick.
“As you know, the words of a spell are divinely inspired, and the magic practitioners themselves are mere conduits,” the abbot said rather pompously.
“This is the spell-writing wing: a place of prayer and meditation; a sanctuary where the spell-scribes quiet the noise of the mundane and allow the voice of the One-Eyed God to speak through them onto the page.” He walked on.
“Is that really what they believe?” I whispered to Patrick as we followed obediently.
He shrugged. “Perhaps. It is certainly true that using words and spellbooks allows for much more complex, long-lasting, and powerful spells than merely casting without them. As for the One-Eyed God, however … There are many spell-scribes outside of the Temple who are perfectly able to write well-constructed magic formulas without any ‘divine inspiration.’” He turned his head to look at me with uncharacteristic gravity.
“You don’t seem to need words at all, for your magic.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Nor heard of it. ”
His hazel eyes were very intent. I didn’t quite know what to say, so I looked away.
“If only I knew how to use it properly,” I said with a thread of bitterness.
“You will,” he said with certainty.
The abbot turned his head. I realized that we had stopped walking and were standing still on the marble floor.
“Here we are,” said the abbot.
Dozens of monks sat at dozens of tables, some with staggered tops at differing heights so that they could work on several volumes at once.
There were also great book wheels, like the one Mother had built, that could be turned with large levers to give access to several open books in turn.
The whole place was lit with a vast number of glims as well as the natural light pouring through all the glass—enough that it would probably feel like noon even at midnight, in this room.
“It is wonderful,” I said, and meant it.
“Please, look around,” said the abbot.
I hadn’t realized how much I had missed the scent of books.
I opened one—newly made, its paper soft as a baby’s skin—and inhaled the sulfur and damp-moss smell of ink, and the elusive musk of the paper itself, singed with the woody incense the monks burned as they worked.
I looked up and saw Patrick watching me with a strange expression.
He raised his eyebrows at me and grinned.
“What?” I said defensively.
“Are you planning to eat it?”
I flushed and lowered the book, placing it back on the table with a pat as if it were a sleeping kitten. “I like the scent of it.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know how you can smell anything over this damnable incense.”