The Aeronaut's Windlass (35 page)

Her cousin turned to walk backward for a few paces and smiled. “He’s like that, coz. I don’t know what he means, either. It’s his way.”

The monk carefully did not turn, and Gwen suddenly felt that the man might be laughing at her. So she sniffed once, lifted her chin firmly, and started walking in a straight line down the hall, Wayist custom be damned.

She tripped on the irregular surface a few seconds later, and all but fell. After that she lowered her chin enough to make sure she could watch where she put her feet.

“Pardon me, Brother,” Master Ferus said a moment later. “But might I trouble you to show us the collection, if it isn’t too much trouble? My apprentice has never seen it.”

Brother Vincent’s face lit up as if the etherealist had just offered to cook him a fine meal. “Of course, sir. It’s on the way, after all.”

Master Ferus beamed. “Excellent. Attend, Folly.”

“Yes, master,” the apprentice said.

“Collection?” Gwen asked. “What collection?”

Vincent’s eyes gleamed. He stopped at a very large, very heavy door, and opened it with a gentle push of his hand. The enormous thing swung open wide silently and smoothly to reveal an immense chamber beyond.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a quiet, vibrant tone. “The Great Library of Spire Albion.”

Gwen felt her eyes widen.

The Great Library was huge—it must have taken up three-quarters of the space of the entire temple all by itself. The ground floor was filled with shelving and worktables, and every inch of shelf space was crammed with books—books of every size and shape and color. Why, the collection here beggared the one at her academy—that had been a library of nearly three thousand volumes, and it wouldn’t have taken up a tenth of the space of the ground floor of the library—and there were three tiers of shelves circling the outer wall of the library above the ground floor, each accessed by balconies and multiple series of staircases. More monks moved around the upper floors, dusting and tidying the shelves. All in all there were more books in the library, Gwen felt sure, than she had seen in the entirety of her life outside it.

A dozen saffron-robed monks were seated at the tables, copying volumes by hand, while younger initiates carried paper, sprinkled sand over pages to dry the still-wet ink, and performed any number of other tasks to support the effort. Gentle music drifted through the air, from a pair of monks playing wooden flutes in elegantly interwoven melodies.

Gwen stared for several silent seconds and then realized that she was attempting to calculate the approximate value of the books, based solely upon their materials. The paper for each book was representative of more wood than its volume would suggest. House Lancaster had a library of several hundred volumes, but it was one of the wealthiest Houses in all of Spire Albion. Habble Morning’s academy had nearly a thousand volumes collected over two centuries, some of them quite old and valuable. But this place . . .

The Great Library could scarcely have been more costly, in a purely monetary sense, if its walls and floors had been coated with gold.

But that was, she supposed, in keeping with the rest of Habble Landing. Entire
buildings
had been made of wood here, in their mad division of their working space. She had known the local economy was vigorous, but she’d had no idea that the level of commerce taking place here dwarfed that of Habble Morning itself. All that construction would have required milling of the wood, resulting in mountains of sawdust. Perhaps that had been the source of raw materials for the paper in the volumes before her. That might have lowered the price—but all the same, the books represented a genuine fortune, amongst a group of men and women who were known for their pathological avoidance of excess or material gain.

It also went a great way toward explaining why the monks so strongly discouraged casual visits to the temple, she supposed. Her own family’s vatteries weren’t precisely open to the public, either.

“Oh,” Folly breathed out loud. The oddly dressed girl was staring at the library with round eyes. “Oh, is that . . . ?”

“Oh, yes,” Master Ferus replied.

“I’ve never . . . never felt this in our library, master.”

“Felt what?” Ferus asked. His voice was gentle but his eyes, thought Gwen, were rather sharp.

Folly was silent for a moment before she said, “I am not sure.”

“Think on it,” Ferus suggested. He turned to Brother Vincent and asked, “Might she remain here, quietly, while we take tea, Brother? I give you my word that she will give you no offense.”

Brother Vincent bowed at the waist. Then he stepped aside and murmured something to one of the apprentices before moving back toward the group. “Miss, please do not touch any of the volumes without consulting with one of my order.”

Folly tensed when the monk spoke to her, and cradled her jar of little crystals close to her chin. “Oh, he spoke to me. Ought I tell him that I understand? No, of course not—he knows now, because I asked you about it.”

“There,” Master Ferus said, with a pleased smile. “Now, about that tea?”

Brother Vincent studied the etherealist’s apprentice for a speculative moment, then smiled at Master Ferus and said, “This way.”

The monk led them to a modest dining hall featuring low, round tables made of copper-clad iron surrounded by sturdy cushions instead of chairs. Gwen was unsure of the dignity of such . . . novel seating, but she managed to sit down upon one of the cushions with what she felt sure was acceptable grace, and within moments they were sipping at cups of hot, excellent tea, sweetened with scandalous portions of honey. Rowl had a small bowl of his own. The cat wasn’t satisfied until Bridget had spooned twice as much honey as anyone else had into it.

Once they had all sipped (or lapped), Brother Vincent nodded and turned to Benedict, who sat at his right. “Very well, then. Tell me.”

Benedict made a round of introductions, and gave a concise account of the events of the past days, including the purpose of their own visit to Landing.

“In short,” he said, “we need a place to stay that is free of any undue influence of the guilds. It was my hope that the Walker could be convinced to allow us to operate from here, Brother. It’s the most secure place we could ask for.”

“Walker?” Gwen asked.

“The foremost brother or sister at the temple,” Brother Vincent said, smiling. He turned back to Benedict and shook his bald head. “I’m sorry, son. The laws of our order are precisely that. The Wayist temples do not take sides in political disputes of any kind.”

“But this is your home,” Gwen blurted. “If the Aurorans conquer Albion, they conquer you along with it.”

“The Temple of the Way in Spire Aurora operates quite peacefully,” Brother Vincent said in a mild tone. “We would deeply regret the loss of life that such a conquest would necessitate. We would help the wounded and the bereft in any way that we could. We would peaceably protest any inhumanity perpetrated by either side, and accept the consequences of that protest. But we are neither soldiers nor warriors here, Miss Lancaster. That is not our path.”

“I don’t remember asking you to fight anyone for me, Brother Vincent,” Gwendolyn replied. “I have recently discovered that I have something of a knack for it.”

“Should we permit you to use the temple as the base of your inquisition, it would create the impression of partisanship with the Spirearch. We deeply respect his authority and his restraint, but the purpose of our temple is to serve all humanity—not merely the inhabitants of one Spire.”

Benedict smiled without much humor. “Which is the answer I expected you to give, Brother. Perhaps you have a suggestion as to where we might stay in relative safety. It’s been a while since I was last here, and even then I didn’t know the habble as well as the order does.”

Brother Vincent took a long, slow sip of his tea, his eyes narrowed in thought. “If you’re searching for an entirely honorable proprietor in this habble, I hope you brought considerable supplies to sustain you.” He returned Benedict’s faint smile with one of his own. “It’s all the money, I think. It does strange things to some people.”

“Surely some must be better than others,” Benedict said.

“Some certainly appear to be,” Vincent replied. “Whether the truth matches the appearance is another matter. I have often heard it said that anything in Landing has a price—especially loyalty.”

Gwendolyn lowered her cup and stated, “We don’t need an honorable innkeeper, Benny.”

Her cousin blinked at her. “We don’t?”

“Not at all. We simply need one who sells his loyalty with adequate integrity.” She turned to Brother Vincent. “Is there an innkeeper who, when bought, remains bought?”

The monk raised his eyebrows. “A mercenary innkeep?”

“It is the quickest way, and we are in something of a hurry,” Gwen said.

Vincent seemed to muse over that for a moment before saying, “Giving you even so little a thing as our advice strains the neutrality the order has worked hard to cultivate.”

“What if we were not asking Brother Vincent?” Gwen said. “Suppose we ask my cousin’s old teacher Vincent for a recommendation?”

“Sophistry,” the monk said. “And threadbare, at that.”

“We’re simply having conversation over tea,” Gwendolyn pointed out firmly. “It isn’t as though the Spirearch has written requesting your aid.”

Brother Vincent pursed his lips. “I must carefully consider the impact my actions might have on the order and other followers of the Way.”

“While you’re at it,” Gwen said, “perhaps you should consider the impact your
lack
of action might have on the Wayists of Spire Albion—along with all of their neighbors. Surely they are included in the rolls of the humanity you say you wish to serve.”

Brother Vincent blinked several times. Then he said in a mild tone, “You don’t take hints terribly well, do you, Miss Lancaster?”

“Perhaps I’m choosing not to hear them,” Gwen replied in a honeyed tone.

Something that looked suspiciously like a newborn smile suddenly danced in the monk’s eyes.

Gwendolyn smiled brightly back at him.

Chapter 27

Spire Albion, Habble Landing, the Black Horse Inn

B
ridget walked along a bit behind Benedict, whose eyes constantly scanned the streets around them as they walked from the temple to the inn Brother Vincent had named. She really shouldn’t have been chattering at him on the way there. After all, it was his duty to watch for danger and protect Master Ferus from any attack. How could he do that effectively while she was hanging all over him?

“What did you discover, Folly?” Master Ferus was saying to his apprentice.

The oddly dressed girl frowned for half of a minute before she spoke. “Frozen souls.”

“Ah!” Ferus said, raising a finger. “Yes, near enough. Well-done, child.”

Folly beamed and hugged her jar of crystals to her chest. “But why haven’t I ever felt anything like that in our study?”

“It is primarily a matter of density,” Ferus replied. “One needs more than a handful of trees to see a forest.”

Folly frowned at that. “It seemed as if . . . they spoke to one another?”

“Nothing quite so complex as that, I think,” the etherealist said. “Some sort of communion, though, definitely.”

Bridget cleared her throat and said tentatively, “Excuse me, Master Ferus?”

The etherealist and his apprentice turned their eyes to her. “Yes?” he asked.

“I do not mean to intrude, but . . . what are you talking about?”

“Books, my dear,” Ferus replied. “Books.”

Bridget blinked once. “Books do not have souls, sir.”

“Those who write them do,” Ferus said. “They leave bits and pieces behind them when they lay down the words, some scraps and smears of their essential nature.” He sniffed. “Most untidy, really—but assemble enough scraps and one might have something approaching a whole.”

“You believe that the library has a soul,” Bridget said carefully.

“I do not
believe
it, young lady,” Ferus said rather stiffly. “I know it.”

“I . . . see,” Bridget said. “Thank you for answering my question.”