Gene stood before a mansion not far from the library.
Since it was close to the city center, it was a mansion rather than a manor. Through an elaborately decorated iron gate, laurel and lemon trees grew thickly. A path of white stones ran between them, ending at an apricot-colored house. Beside a pond on the left, the stems of daffodils whose flowers had fallen grew luxuriantly. In every respect, it had the air of an expensive villa, quite at odds with Gene’s black shirt and knife-creased trousers. He felt he ought to have come in a linen kiton, carrying a bottle of wine at least.
He had no wine, but inside his clothes he carried the letter Cetila had written. Standing there, Gene thought briefly about himself. At present, he was a polite, unremarkable visitor, calling on a long-term borrower to recover overdue books. The other person was a noble, and showing the courtesy appropriate to that status would make conversation easier. There was no need to inspire fear. Unless the other person recognized him.
Once his thoughts were in order, Gene knocked.
“Do you know where you are? Get away from here!”
From a distance, a servant ran over, shouting merely at the sight of Gene’s clothes. But up close, he flinched. A servant in a rich house was hardly likely to recognize a legend of the back alleys. Apparently, he had simply noticed the sword and the look of a man who could use it. He glanced about, but there was no one else in the garden.
While the servant tensed, Gene felt rather relieved. He had not come here to play the back-alley legend. Somehow, he did not want anyone who knew the ShadowHawk to see him as he was now.
“Is this the house of Lord Enkishu Nimushi? Librarian Cetila Silvios of the library has a message to deliver, so I’ve come in her place.”
“A librarian?”
The servant’s eyes widened. To the people of Delphinad, the authority carried by the title of library librarian was considerable. Even knowing nothing of their scholarly authority, he apparently felt that anyone directly under Her Majesty the Queen must be a very important figure. That was merely because the library legally belonged to the queen. Nevertheless, Delphinad’s kings and queens became gods upon death. In the servant’s mind, then, a librarian was little different from a priest.
Gene knew that too. Instead of explaining further, he added simply, “Yes. A librarian.”
“Then, I couldn’t accept something like that in his place, could I?”
“No.”
“One moment. Please wait here.”
With a markedly different manner, the servant ran toward the house and vanished through the door. As Gene prepared to wait, a woman suddenly appeared by the pond. She must have been there from the beginning, perhaps crouching. Why? Approaching Gene, she greeted him.
“Hello.”
Closer up, the answer was clear. She held a bulb with a clump of soil attached. She must have been digging it up or preparing to plant it. Yet she did not look remotely like a servant tending the garden. The shoulders of her ankle-length purple tunic bore elaborate embroidery. A jade brooch fastened her cloak, and a band of pearls encircled her hair. If a woman like that were a maid, this house ought to belong to Kaira, goddess of beauty.
That was not entirely fanciful either. The woman was beautiful, with a high nose, large eyes, full cheeks, a smooth neck, and rounded shoulders.
For the moment, Gene made a light courtly bow. Few would have imagined the ShadowHawk knew such a bow. The woman, however, showed no surprise. That meant she did not know who he was. She smiled.
“I hear you’ve come to see Lord Enkishu Nimushi. Forgive me for overhearing. I was nearby, and your words reached me. My name is Eanna.”
Her voice was gentle too. Her easy manner made Gene waver a little over the idea that she might be mistress of this house. Given Enkishu Nimushi’s identity, it was difficult to imagine a lady of the Nimushi family holding a muddy bulb and speaking so casually with a commoner. When Gene happened to glance at it, Eanna laughed.
“Oh, my hands look funny, don’t they? I missed the time to lift the bulbs, and they were about to rot. Now that you’ve seen, I can’t just leave it. Oh, do you like daffodils? Shall I give you one?”
Reaching between the bars, Eanna placed a bulb in Gene’s hand. There was no opportunity to refuse. Involuntarily accepting it with one hand while taking out the letter with the other struck him as so ridiculous that he laughed. Eanna, however, was serious.
“If you’re keeping it, dry it well somewhere cool. If you’re planting it, do so at the next new moon. Then it’ll flower early next spring. These little ones aren’t very fussy, but you must choose the ground well. They can’t live in dry soil. If you don’t know how to plant it, come back then. I’ll show you.”
He was a young man who scarcely knew how to store an onion, never mind a flower bulb, yet Eanna seemed to have no doubt that Gene would plant it. With a person like that, it was better simply to nod. Eanna nodded back. Tapping the bulb lightly with her fingertips, she said goodbye to it.
“Then go on, my little one, and be loved. Get through the winter in good health. You’ve worked hard this year too.”
After words like that, Gene was a little troubled. He was not the sort to throw it onto a rubbish heap on his way out. Only then did Eanna look away from the bulb and at his face.
“What is it you’ve brought?”
Gene handed over the letter and began, “To put the matter briefly…”
Before he finished, Eanna was already opening and reading it. The first line should have made the contents perfectly clear. Yet she read on with interest, then burst out laughing.
“Ahaha… Is this really true? It isn’t some event where the library sends out joke letters, is it? Oh, of course it couldn’t be. What’s happened?”
Her reaction was so unexpected that Gene frowned.
“Is there some problem?”
“No problem at all. It’s cause for congratulations, if he’s really borrowed and read such difficult books. How his parents would have wished for that! Unfortunately, I doubt it’s true. The man never so much as dusts the books in his study, yet apparently he’s borrowed forty-seven books from the library and had them on loan for half a year. I’d sooner wager that he pledged them as collateral at a boxing club than that he read them.”
From Eanna’s manner, she did not seem to be joking or lying. Gene’s thoughts suddenly grew complicated.
“But the library’s loan records clearly say forty-seven books were borrowed in Lord Enkishu Nimushi’s name. The librarian remembers it too. Then where have those books gone?”
Eanna nodded.
“Come to think of it, this is no different from going about collecting debts. Rather than arguing that he’s not the sort to get into debt, we should trace the books. If I were to guess, perhaps someone who wanted a long-term loan used Enkishu Nimushi’s name. It’s a very suitable name for such a purpose.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no chance of being found out! He hasn’t set foot in the library since he was ten. Nor will he in future, unless he goes to watch a fire.”
Gene had no idea Enkishu Nimushi was such a man. If Eanna was right, some unknown swindler had impersonated the third son of Delphinad’s governor himself, intending to borrow a pile of books and vanish with them. What extraordinary nerve. But if the lending procedure was so lax, tracing him was as good as hopeless. Still, he could question the servants who had carried the forty-seven books and narrow down the destination.
Gene looked up and asked, “I thought you had to take a citizen’s card or a residence permit to borrow books from the library. Is it different for long-term borrowers?”
“Oh, that…”
Eanna smiled a little apologetically.
“Servants often borrow books on their masters’ behalf, so it is somewhat different. For long-term loans, hmm… There are several ways, but ordinarily a note stamped with a signet ring will do.”
Different treatment, just as he had expected. Hearing it still irritated him. How long had he waited to see those books? Even putting his own situation aside, producing a single handwritten copy took tremendous work. People lined up outside the library to read them. Yet someone could so easily borrow them and toss them anywhere. How many books leaked out, not only to long-term borrowers but even to brazen, audacious fellows like this?
In his anger, Gene began thinking that he ought to make a law to prevent such a thing, then caught himself. Ah, yes. This was Delphinad.
Eanna looked thoughtful too.
“But if someone is going to do something like that, they ought at least to return the books on time. What gives this book thief the confidence to hold out like this? Nothing good can come of being exposed. Perhaps he’s died?”
“Perhaps. But I believe he was walking about perfectly well at the library at least a fortnight ago.”
Though the question was whether someone had died, the thief’s insolence made them sound a little disappointed. Eanna nodded.
“True. Then we must hope he hasn’t promptly died in the meantime. Unless the first person died and a new person has begun using the name again?”
“It’s not impossible, but twice under the same person’s name…”
“More than possible. A noble who never goes to the library is practically made for book thieves, isn’t he?”
Having said that, Eanna seemed to think of something. She looked down the list of borrowed titles and spoke again.
“No, I’ve changed my mind. It looks like just one person. They’ve concentrated on books from a single field. A student of theology, perhaps? By the way, there are late fees, aren’t there?”
“Yes. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-five pion.”
At Gene’s answer, delivered like a tax collector’s, Eanna made a show of surprise.
“Wow! That’s far more than I expected. How much per book? No, it must vary with the number of days overdue. They write receipts, I suppose? Since it goes to the library, would it count as a donation? But why am I worrying about this? The book thief will take care of it.”
It was rather refreshing to hear such talk of tax collectors and the law pouring from the mouth of a young lady wearing a pearl band. Like her appearance, her apparent nobility seemed misleading. Noble young ladies were hardly likely to have considered such matters in detail. Lightly biting the end of her forefinger as she thought, Eanna nodded.
“Then again, citizens would never have to pay a large late fee. The moment they’re overdue, they’re barred from borrowing. So these late fees are paid only by people with money. Quite reasonable, really. But in this case, it looks as though that expensive fee means we’ll have to take on the trouble for our dear book thief.”
For a moment, Gene did not understand and asked, “What trouble do you mean?”
“I mean it looks as though we’ll have to find the book thief and recover the books for him.”
Of course, that was Gene’s intention. He needed the books, not the late fees. But why was Eanna proposing it when she had no interest in them? And since when had it become “we”?
In any case, Gene answered faithfully in his role as the librarian’s messenger.
“We should, but not because of the late fee. Because those books are important to the library.”
“For me, it’s because of the fee.”
“You mean Lord Enkishu Nimushi will investigate the thief’s whereabouts himself, to avoid paying his late fees?”
“No! Don’t say such a dreadful thing. Enkishu must never find out. If he hears this, he might seize our thief and sell him to the arena instead of paying. We must prevent that. So you must keep it secret. Do you understand?”
Eanna’s perspective was completely beyond anything Gene had expected. A little astonished, he looked at her face. Brushing most of the soil from her hands, Eanna took a gold coin from an inner pocket and slipped it into the hand holding the bulb.
“I’m sorry, this is all I have on me. I’ll give you more later.”
“Why are you giving me this?”
“An advance. Please find our thief and recover the books. Make absolutely certain Enkishu doesn’t find out. And if the books have been lost and compensation has to be paid, tell me about that too.”
He had come to retrieve books and was now being promised a reward for retrieving them. It was difficult to imagine how the speaker’s mind worked. In the end, Gene asked frankly, “Why would you do all this for a thief who used someone else’s name?”
“A thief, yes, but didn’t he do it because he wanted to read? If he’d stolen the books to sell them, he wouldn’t have borrowed one at a time over half a year. From the titles, he seems to be researching something. Someone like that may write something wonderful someday. But he won’t have the ability to become a hero in the arena, will he?”
Gene exclaimed in admiration without meaning to. At the same time, he became curious about this young lady’s identity. In what surroundings, and with what kind of upbringing, did someone come to think that way?
“You’re merciful. Very well. I have no personal grudge against the man, so I’ll try persuading him first, as you suggest. He may hand over the books and late fees quite readily.”
It was not true that he had no personal grudge. Still, he could offer that much repayment for the kindness Eanna had shown a man whose identity she did not even know. Gene decided. Eanna bowed politely in thanks, folded the letter, put it back into its envelope, and returned it. Presumably, it meant they should treat Gene as though he had never come here at all. She was not merely generous; she was thorough.
As he withdrew, Gene suddenly asked, “Since you live here, I thought I’d ask in case you know. Among the people familiar with Lord Enkishu Nimushi’s tastes, can you think of someone interested in books like these, but without the status for long-term borrowing?”
Eanna smiled. Her expression suggested she had suspected someone from the beginning.
“Well, since I’m asking this favor, I should help. Enkishu likes the theater next best after the boxing clubs.”
Gene nodded and bowed.
“I understand. I’ll take my leave for today. Thank you for speaking so kindly.”
“No, I’m the fortunate one, to have met someone so considerate. May peace be with you.”
“May peace be with you as well.”
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