Will Power (25 page)

It wasn’t that I had been starved of reading matter, but books showed up only rarely in the life of an adventurer, and even the library in the Hide back in Stavis tended toward the practical. If you were into siege tactics, herbal remedies, and how to turn a hairpin into a lock pick, that was the place for you. Lisha, Mithos, and Co. were, but
while I will read such stuff in the absence of an alternative, I want books to pull me out of reality, not to plunge me into it, hairpin and broadsword at the ready. In Stavis, and indeed throughout Thrusia, the Empire had made books few and far between. Literacy is dangerous, and they had taken pains to discourage it. When they closed the theaters as similarly dangerous, they also impounded and destroyed whatever playbooks could be found. Then poetry, being considered frivolous, obscure, and, in some cases, lewd, was added to the list. Bonfires on street corners became a regular sight, enthusiastic young corporals standing over them full of the spirit of victory and righteousness. It had been some time since I had curled up with a good book; so long, in fact, that the “good book” category was now easily broad enough to include
A Rhetorical Method for Schoolmasters
.

It didn’t need to be. After only a minute or two, I came upon a table piled high with huge tomes bound with cloth and stiffened with sheets of a board so heavy it took two hands to open them. A catalog. There, in minute, handwritten but perfectly legible print were the titles, authors, genres, and other details about the library’s twenty-five thousand plus volumes. Each record was lettered and numbered to correspond with an area, stack, and shelf. In moments I had oriented myself and was gazing raptly at a ten-foot-high wall of irregular books and manuscripts, some bound with leather and etched with gold leaf, others mere jumbles of papers stitched together or folded into parchment covers, all qualified by a plate halfway up the wall which read, simply,
DRAMA
.

I shut my eyes and chose one, found a stained, ancient desk with a leather-covered chair in a dark recess between the stacks, and sat quite still and silent for two hours. The sun rose high over the dome and the soft effervescence grew, though I barely noticed it, so totally immersed was I in the world whose pages I turned—less hungrily now, but with a sense of peaceful joy spreading through me like the light in the dome. And though, like the starving man who rejoices over a stale crust, I would have been happy with anything, it was good stuff. Very good, in fact. It was romance: not in the sense of a love story—though that was an element of it—but a romance of the epic variety, dark forces propelling the play toward tragedy and the hand of some providential power pulling everything back from the brink of chaos and destruction, into comic resolution, victory, marriage, and the reuniting of sundered families and friends. Romance is the most painful
kind of drama because it announces so clearly that only through art can such horrors be averted, such discord turned to harmony. The end is always joyful, but touched with a galling pathos that reminds the audience that in the world
we
inhabit, the treacherous survive; the grandfather never recovers his sanity; the fleeing virgin, instead of encountering her long lost brother in the forest, falls prey to bandits, rapists, and murderers. Painful, romance is, and hard to pull off. A badly written romance is, at best, predictably tedious, at worst, laughable and embarrassing. This was neither. The characters were carefully drawn with distinct voices and personalities. The plot was deftly woven, turning artfully in on itself like a serpent, balancing thematic unity and clever surprises. The whole had a lyric ease, a grace of diction, a flowing, intricate, spellbinding beauty that pulled me in so that the rest of the world was forgotten.

It was all the more striking, then, when I found myself pricking up my ears and glancing hurriedly about. I had heard something, could hear it still. It was distant and small, but regular, now slowing, not far from the door I had entered. As it stuttered into stillness, I realized what it was: the inkwell I had upset and left on the floor. Someone had kicked it.

I remained motionless for a second, then rose, quiet as I could, lifting my chair so it would not scrape on the floor. Then I listened. Nothing. Whoever, or whatever, had been over there, was intending to be silent. This bothered me. I drew my belt knife and took a long, incredibly slow, step toward the closest stacks, easing my foot down and rolling my weight from heel to toe soundlessly. Then another step, and I was against a bank of shelves about ten feet high. I moved sideways toward the central area where the great indexes were, eyes flashing from the north to the south ends of the narrow book-lined alley. Then I waited, still several yards from the edge of the stacks, and listened. Nothing.

Out of the corner of my eye, something moved, or seemed to. I turned hurriedly to my right, but the south end of the tight corridor was quite empty. I paused and had just managed to convince myself that it had been a trick of the light when the books directly in front of me exploded out of their shelf and, from behind them, I glimpsed first a pair of eyes which ducked away like an animal’s, then the business end of a large crossbow pointed squarely at my thorax.

“Don’t move,” said a voice, before the possibility had even occurred to me, “and drop the knife.”

It was a collected voice, as voices from behind crossbows tend to be, unruffled and in control. It was also a woman’s. I did as she said and smiled sheepishly. There was a tiny rustle of movement, and when I looked up, the space in the shelves was quite empty. I turned and found her coming from the north end, the crossbow leveled at me but held in that casual way that comes from familiarity. Her eyes were on me and there was neither casualness nor familiarity there. They were blue-gray, large, and beautiful like a snowscape is beautiful: entrancing but cold, and best enjoyed through the window of a room with a fireplace.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” she said evenly.

“Will Hawthorne,” I said. “I came to read a book. I was under the impression that this was a library.”

“It’s a museum library,” she said carefully, “and it’s closed. What have you been doing?”

“Reading,” I said. “What else would one do in—”

“What
have you been reading?” she demanded with careful, impatient emphasis.

“A
Seasonal Storm,”
I said. She did not respond. “A play by, well, I don’t think it says. It’s on the table there.”

She stepped past me, the crossbow still trained on my breastbone a trifle melodramatically. At the desk she picked up the text, flashed her eyes over it, and dropped it carelessly back where I’d left it.

She was about about my age, maybe a year or two more, tall, and blond like everyone else here, but she was not dressed as a courtier. She wore a long dark smock with a white shirt beneath, open enticingly at her throat. Her arms were long and slender, her wrists and fingers similarly slim and pale as new ivory. Her hair was gathered tight to the back of her head with a silver clasp. Her mouth was small, her lips full in a permanent half-pout, her forehead and cheekbones high, her jaw sculpted. She looked like an alabaster statue which had come to life. To put it another way, she was hot.

“You must go now,” she said. “And if you wish to see the library, you need express permission from the King’s Counsel.”

“How might I get that?”

“I really don’t know,” she said, “but I’m sure—”

“I mean, it seems such a shame to lock away all these wonderful books,” I said. “People should be able to read them without ‘express permission,’ surely?”

“This is a museum. The stock here is too precious to—”

“I’d be very careful,” I tried.

“Parts of the building have not been structurally sound since last year’s earthquake,” she said, not really bothering to conceal the fact that she found these explanations tiresome.

“Earthquake?”

“You’re not from round here, are you?” she said, as if thinking the implications of this through for the first time.

“No,” I began, “I’m a guest of Sorrail, as I said, and . . .”

“Of course,” she said, and a light went on somewhere in her memory. “Well, yes, there was an earthquake. A large section of the outer wall has not yet been repaired, though it fortunately faces away from the goblin presence in the forest, so—”

“Perhaps you could show me around? You know,
supervise
me?” I said, pushing my luck a little.

“What?” she asked, caught off guard. For the first time it seemed like she wasn’t following a script.

“I mean, perhaps you could show me the library.”

“I’m very busy. I really don’t have time to . . .”

“I’d love to just come and read a little. I wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. . . .” I began.

“Perhaps I could have one of my assistants take some books to your lodgings.”

“Perhaps you could bring them yourself,” I said with a smile. There was a pause and her gaze flicked away, as if uncertain of what to say next. I filled the silence for her. “Couldn’t you just show me around the library?”

“I really am very busy,” she answered, less adamantly than before. “And if you do get permission to visit the library, you will also get a tour escort from the library staff.”

“Would that be you?” I smiled winsomely.

“It might be,” she said and, for a fraction of a moment, her eyes thawed slightly.

“Then I’ll make an appointment immediately,” I said, relaxing. “Might I request your company by name?”

The crossbow moved fractionally, paused, and then dropped completely.

“Aliana,” said the woman. “You’d better go.”

“Yes,” I said. “Er . . .”

“I’ll let you out the front way,” she said, and this time the smile, which had begun in her eyes, made its way to her lips. I was, momentarily, transfixed by the result. She saw me notice, recognized my interest, and turned away as her smile widened.

“This way,” she said, turning back to me, but not meeting my eyes.

She moved quickly, leading me into a dark, cold vestibule where the great oak doors that I had tried to force stood. She stooped and pulled at the floor bolt, but it was stuck.

“Allow me,” I said, bending with her till my cheek was inches from hers. She smiled, showing that little girlish flash of coyness again. As she straightened, I was struck with how different a response I would have gotten from Renthrette. The bolt moved easily in my hand and the great door shuddered as it came free. She held it open.

“Well, good-bye then,” I said, lingering in the doorway.

“Good-bye, Mr. Hawthorne,” she answered.

“Right,” I said, stupidly, before backing awkwardly away, my eyes still on her. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” she said, smiling broadly now.

And with that, she closed the door and was gone. I turned, scuttled down the steps, and skipped across the forum.

“Did you find your admirer?” asked Renthrette, without looking up from the feathers she was trimming for arrow flights.

“Not exactly,” I replied, thinking wistfully of Aliana. “Why? Jealous?”

She snorted slightly and her thin lips creased into a dry smile. She lifted a goose quill to the light and examined it carefully.

“I mean,” I continued, “you should let me know, if that’s how you feel.”

There was a long silence.

“What?” she said slowly, her eyes and attention still wholly on the feather, which she had now laid on the table, her knife poised above it. She adjusted the angle of the blade fractionally and cut delicately, meticulously, like a surgeon.

“I said,” I explained, “that if you find yourself struggling to vanquish the resentment and envy you feel toward this unknown lady, then perhaps you should lay your heart bare. . . .”

“What are you talking about?” she said, looking at me for the first time since I had walked in.

“That special bond between us,” I said, grinning. “Give in to that unspoken, secret desire which keeps you awake, yearning for my presence beside you. . . .”

“Oh, that,” she said, returning her gaze to her work. “Well, what would be the use?”

This was new for Renthrette. My audacity usually irritated and flustered her in ways that made her prone to violence. I’d never seen her play along with such composure. For a moment I dried up. When words came to me, they did so slightly defiantly, though I grinned all the while. “Perhaps I would take you after all,” I said, wondering how far I’d have to push her before she took a swing at me. “Perhaps I’d take you in my arms and kiss you hard on the mouth and run my hands through your hair and . . .”

She stood up abruptly. I smiled in quiet triumph as she took a step toward me, but her face was set, unamused.

“Would you really, Will?” she said. “Would you?” Her voice was soft, pensive. Even sad.

I stood where I was, my mouth open, dumb with surprise.

What the hell?

Her eyes searched my face and then fell slowly, sorrowfully. My mouth moved, but initially, nothing came out. Then I whispered, “I didn’t think . . .”

“Don’t you think . . .” She paused, catching her hand up to her mouth as her hair hung across her face, a picture of desolation. “Don’t you think it could work?
Us
, I mean?” she whispered.