“All right. I’ll tell you. But there are a great many things in this world you are better off not knowing. It would be better not to know a jar of gold is buried beneath the library, for instance. Don’t you think?”
Everyone knew a jar of gold lay beneath the library. Rosa did not consider that a suitable reason. People of Delphinad wagered on “the jar of gold beneath the library,” swore oaths upon it, obtained credit with it, and drew advances against it. When they wanted to marry without a penny, or needed to make a grand show before an aged parent’s birthday table despite being empty-handed, the jar of gold beneath the library came in useful. They needed only dig it out. Just not now. There was no danger of anyone else stealing it. No one would have the courage to pull out the library’s great pillars to dig up a jar of gold. Rather than dig anything out, they would be hauled off to court for leaving even a single scratch and have to spend money hiring a pleader. Did the people of Delphinad suffer because they could not dig out the jar of gold? Well. A very little? Rosa said,
“If you put the sermon aside and speak quickly, you’ll have a silver coin instead of a jar of gold.”
Rosa pulled out one of the silver coins tucked into her belt. With a lily carved upon it, it was also called a “lily silver,” and this one coin would pay two days’ lodging at the inn. Yet rubbing its edge between her fingers, she found it somehow lighter than the coins used at home. The reason was obvious.
Rosa’s grandmother had hung people caught shaving the edges of silver or gold coins naked from the castle walls. The governor of Delphinad seemed unable to do the same for fear the city walls would be covered in flesh. In Delphinad’s fine weather, it might not even be such a heavy punishment. Rosa’s homeland was terribly cold.
The man sitting opposite grinned, twirling the goatee on his chin between his fingertips. Smooth-faced and in his mid-thirties, he had been rolling his eyes through all manner of exaggerated expressions for some time. He seemed to expect they would impress a young woman. But to Rosa, he looked like an actor struggling to show something even to the spectators in the last row. With nothing in particular to admire, Rosa flicked the silver coin. At the little tap it made as it flew, the man’s hand darted out and caught it.
“It’s the key to the botanical garden. It connects to the rear garden. Once the front gate closes at eleven, even Tirenos, king of the librarians, can’t pass through it. Surprised? He made the rule himself, so shouldn’t he set an example? In any case, there’s a little mercy at the rear garden’s back gate. Plants are like children. They wither and get sick at every hour for no reason, so their mother or nanny has to come and go. That’s why a school’s student badge will get you through. Of course, you have to be a student who takes classes from the botanical garden’s director, but those change so often. Could the gatekeepers remember every one? I’ll tell you the way through in detail a little later, so let’s speak about what comes after getting inside… Wait, you’re not interested in the botanical garden? Look here, the garden connects to the museum, and the museum connects to the library. From outside, it looks as though the only way in and out is through the gate, but what you can see isn’t everything. The library is like that in every respect. What you see isn’t half, no, not even a third. It isn’t called a great library for nothing. The passage is… But have you ever been to the library? If you don’t know the layout, explaining will be useless.”
“Just explain.”
There was no need to explain how much Rosa knew about the library. Having received money, the man was the one who ought to talk.
“Well then, let us say you have. But here’s where it gets serious. It took me a whole ten days to find this way. After wandering about like that, the sheer joy when I finally came out through the front gate! Tsk, you won’t understand even if I tell you. Yet just as I’m about to tell you the secret I discovered so, you look as if you’ve run into someone on your way to the privy. It gives a man no pleasure in speaking. Couldn’t you make your eyes shine a little, clasp your hands, and sigh in admiration? A young lady like you. Such a pretty face too.”
Rosa, with her short, slim build and the pale face characteristic of northerners, her long hair merely thrust beneath a hood, never having tied it even once, did not so much as scoff. There could hardly have been a phrase more distant from her present appearance than “pretty.” Nor could she claim she looked this way because she had left home and traveled for nearly a year. Even in her homeland, she had never gone out properly dressed. Such a thing would have been as ridiculous as Rosa’s name itself. Rosa’s real name, Kyprosa, came from the cypress, a tree planted at gravesides. The cypress meant death, the grave, and eternal suffering.
Instead of answering, Rosa opened the tobacco pouch hanging from her belt and gave the goateed man a handful of chewing tobacco. Rosa neither smoked nor chewed tobacco, but knew it could be useful sometimes. Such as now. Besides the tobacco pouch, there hung from Rosa’s belt a whip with a fist-sized stone attached, a short, broad dagger, and a rod about a hand and a half long. The rod was wood, with a surface worn as smooth as iron. The goateed man brightened, put the tobacco in his mouth, and grinned.
“You have some good things.”
Their surroundings were noisy. The tavern’s hundred-odd seats were filled with men smelling of sweat. It was good for telling secrets. At the table just behind them, seven men had drunk two whole casks and were becoming muddled over the distinction between dirty jokes and obscene talk. At the table to their right, gamblers waiting for the result of a gladiatorial match were trading harsh words, on the verge of exchanging blows. Either group looked too busy to listen to what was said at someone else’s table.
At the table to the left, behind the goateed man, sat a large plains nomad, a Firran. His companion had a youthful, light-brown face and seemed to be from the south. They were eating comparatively quietly, but Rosa paid them no attention. From their relaxed way of ordering food and watching the uproar, they were both clearly people of Delphinad. Travelers prick up their ears to find information, and with the other tables so noisy, they had little chance of making out this conversation. Rosa could not hear their conversation at all either.
That was a mistaken judgment. The two were conscious of Rosa’s presence. There were three reasons Rosa had caught their attention from the moment her party entered.
First, Rosa wore leather-patched trousers, boots with gaiters, and a half-cloak with a hood pulled up over her head. In other words, she was dressed like a man. It suited neither the local customs nor the sultry weather. Of course, travelers newly arrived in Delphinad often wore odd clothes. And Delphinad received more travelers than any other place on the continent.
Second, the girl sitting beside Rosa was the only underage customer in this tavern. Besides, she was uncommonly beautiful. Though she wore only a faded blue dress, her face framed in golden curls seemed to shine. But she was too young to hold the men’s attention for long, dangling her legs from the high chair. It would have been another matter had she been seventeen or so.
Third, Tahyang, a nomad from the plains, had far sharper hearing than humans. That was the real reason.
“Gene, there’s a suspicious conversation behind you.”
The southerner, Gene, did not turn. He took another sip of wine, tapped the hand lying on the table once, and smiled.
“I can tell even with the back of my head.”
Tahyang and Gene were friends. Though Tahyang was more than a hand taller and over twice Gene’s age, neither minded. With faces that combined a cat’s and a beast’s, fur and manes covering their bodies, and long tails, Firrans were not uncommon in Delphinad, where every race lived together. Since Firrans rarely came outside the plains, they were surrounded by dreadful rumors. Strength that could snap even a horse’s neck, swift bows, merciless plundering, and even rumors that they fed human flesh to the snowlions they rode. Meeting every requirement for a tale of terror, Tahyang’s mere appearance in Delphinad the year before had frightened people. A year and a half later, he had gained another name. The ShadowHawk’s “left-hand sword.” Tahyang spoke.
“I’ve seen her before. Last winter, at the docks.”
“During the affair when the butcher died?”
“Yes. She was one of the witnesses. One of those who supplied goods to the dead man.”
“Your eyes are never wrong. But now she seems to be doing something entirely different.”
“A person can have two occupations.”
“A butcher cannot go in and out of the library.”
“For all that, it’s a rather roundabout story.”
“He must put in the effort to earn his money. Did she give him much?”
“Enough to buy her head and have some left over.”
“So she’s paid the price of a loaf and looks set to receive one raisin from inside it.”
Tahyang chuckled. Most people did not recognize a Firran’s smile, buried in fur, very well. They were even nicknamed “those who never smile.” But Gene, who had lived through hardship and happiness with Tahyang, read his expression easily. Gene spoke.
“Why? Do you think I should put things in order?”
Tahyang listened a little more, then shook his head.
“He may be selling her something he heard somewhere. And he may not know what value the story he tells has. So he cannot know its exact price either.”
“Well. If that were all, it would be better.”
Drawing his chair a little closer, Gene glanced behind him. From where he sat, only the golden-haired girl caught his eye, then he turned back as he spoke.
The golden-haired girl was Rosa’s younger sister Nana, but by appearance alone, Rosa looked like the hired servant of a rich little young lady. It would have been no wonder if someone like Gene thought Rosa and the goateed man had met to buy and sell Nana.
By then, Rosa was irritated by all the useless talk coming into her ears. The drinkers’ dirty songs and gamblers’ arguments had steadily grown louder, until at last the gamblers began grabbing each other’s collars and swearing. Because of them, the conversation between Gene and Tahyang, which Rosa ought to have heard, was buried in the din.
Just as the goateed man finished explaining the secret way connecting the garden, museum, and library, and his narrow escape from the library before sunset, Nana, who had sat quietly until then, suddenly spoke.
“A lie.”
Rosa looked at Nana. The sisters’ eyes met. Rosa sprang up. The rod hanging from her belt was already in her hand. Swinging it like a dagger, she struck the goateed man at the back of the neck. It happened in an instant. With a short scream, the man collapsed face-first onto the table. He was conscious, but as though paralyzed, he could neither speak nor move. Rosa took his purse from inside his clothes and opened it. She removed the five copper coins she had given him earlier and the additional silver, touched none of the rest, closed it again, and thrust it beneath his chin. The goateed man struggled to move, but his body only trembled. Someone might take his purse while he was helpless, but that was merely the goateed man’s misfortune, none of Rosa’s concern.
“Let’s go.”
It was just as Nana began to rise. Suddenly, the door flew open, and someone shouted,
“Ironhook Marius has won!”
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