The Mazer (14 page)

“I want to read it,” said Silva. “That’s one reason I came to see you. And I’ve brought something I thought I’d leave in your care. Would you like to take a look?”

She eased Zossimo’s notebook out of its pouch.

“Oh, Silva,” said Marchus, taking the notebook carefully and laying it on the bare table. “Oh, look at this!” And he started to laugh.

“What is it, Marchus?”

“Do you know what this is?”

“Of course I do. It’s a letter, a poem, from Father. I found it in our apartments after he disappeared and took it with me to the cabin after Mother died.” She swallowed. “It’s very precious. I don’t know what’s so funny about it.”

Marchus was bending over the notebook, turning the unbound pages carefully.

“It is extremely precious, Silva. But it’s not a letter to you.”

“Yes it is! It’s got my name on the first page.”

“Yes, your name is there, isn’t it? Strange, that. Coincidence? Probably not!”

This was ridiculous. Marchus didn’t know what he was saying. Maybe Bassan was right to keep the
Arboral
down in the laboratory.

“Very fine vellum, this, don’t you think? The best I’ve ever seen. Now, watch.” He removed the middle sheet and held it above the candle, letting the flame lick the bottom edge.

“What do you think you’re doing?” gasped Silva, getting up and making a grab for the sheet.

“Nothing at all, look! Nothing’s happening to this clever vellum, see? It doesn’t burn!” He dipped the corner of a page right into the flame, and what he said was true: there was not a mark to be seen, not even a little soot.

“And,” continued Marchus, putting the sheet back down on the table, “it’s not even hot!”

She touched the vellum. Marchus was right about that, too.

“What is it? What’s it made of?”

“I’m not sure. You can see it’s not the kind of vellum we are familiar with. But I’ve seen this before, and if I’m right, it comes from the same document.” Marchus licked his lips, went to the door, and looked back at her, his eyes gleaming. “A moment’s patience, Silva. I’m going to fetch something from the archive.” He slipped out the door in his tatty woolen slippers.

Only then did she notice that the room was almost completely empty apart from the desk, their chairs, and a metal bucket next to the fire. There were no books, no shelves, no quills, nothing. The door opened, and Marchus slid in. He shut the door firmly behind him.

“Marchus, don’t you work in here? I thought this was your office?”

Marchus grimaced. “I only come in here if I want a bit of peace and quiet. It gets too stuffy with the stove on, even though I keep it very low. I don’t like to disturb the archives any more than is necessary, you see. They don’t like heat, light, or dust, although this particular specimen seems to be an exception.”

He held up a folded sheet of smooth vellum with a picture on the front.

“I knew it! Same size, same material, and the same style of writing. Let’s put them together and see what we’ve got.” He slipped the pages inside the illustrated sheet. They fit together perfectly.

“There we are, Silva. There’s nothing more satisfying than finding the missing part of a book and making it complete, exactly as the author intended. Don’t you agree?”

The documents definitely belonged together. Indeed, her treasured notebook seemed to have taken on a whole new personality. It was akin to meeting a close friend who had suddenly adopted a different style of clothing or manner of speech.

“So this is the cover of Father’s notebook,” she said, frowning. “But I cannot understand the title, nor the picture that accompanies it.”

She gazed at the writing on the front cover, trying to fathom its meaning:

The Book of Hortus

The drunken Session members upstairs would have laughed at the picture. A man sat in a boat, a small vessel with a single sail, riding on a silvery blue sea, with sun and stars above and fish in the water below.

“I don’t know who or what Hortus is, and I cannot see why Father would have wanted a picture of a boat here. It makes no sense to me.”

“Pull up your chair, Silva. Remember I told you this is not a letter to you? That’s because the author was not your father. And how do I know that?”

Marchus opened the notebook and pointed to the bottom of the inside back cover. More lines were written in that neat, clear script, and she leaned forward and read their words:

Heartwood of Ashen and Maple and Yew,

Oaken and Aspen and Elm ever true,

Rare was our friendship, and so, when I die,

Turn to each other and weep not, for I

Under your branches forever shall dwell.

Silva! My Island! I bid you farewell!

“Oh, Marchus,” she whispered. “What can this be about, if not Father foretelling his own death?” She glanced at the archivist, who was staring at the words in front of them. He smiled to himself, his soft, ink-red lips pushing the pale, puckered skin of his cheeks into the etched corners of eyes now shining as bright as gold leaf.

“See the initial letter of each line? They spell out the author’s name. This poem, this book, was written by Hortus. This is not Zossimo’s work. He wouldn’t have used this type of vellum. This is no vellum we islanders have ever used. Nothing destroys it, neither fire nor water. I have tested it. It won’t rip, see? You can’t scratch it or remove text from it, and I’ve tried all manner of ink, but none will stick to the page. It’s like nothing I’ve ever witnessed, and I can only conclude that this marvel was made a long time ago, before the Dark Days.”

“But he mentions me! This poem, and the first one, they were written to me, weren’t they?”

“Look at the last line where he says farewell. I had thought, until you showed me the other poems, that Silva was the name Hortus gave the island. But in the first poem, your poem, who do you think the writer is talking to?”

He turned to the first page of the book:

Silva your name, but gold you are at heart,

Graceful and wise, yet silent night and day.

If you could write, what would your wise words say?

If you could read, this skill, this vital art

Of joining letters, words and minds would chart

A course unto an island far away,

Where bark and leaf of tree their words display

In silent speech.

He shook his head. “I don’t think he’s addressing the island. Graceful? Wise? Very wise indeed, he uses that word twice. Silent? Why would you be silent? That doesn’t make sense here. Whoever, or whatever, he’s speaking to can write, can read, because he tells us in the second verse that ‘these things came to be.’ The island itself can’t read or write, so when he talks to Silva he must be talking to—”

“The trees,” murmured Silva.

“Yes!” said Marchus. “It makes perfect sense. So at the end of the book, he’s not only saying farewell to the island, but the trees, too. Of course, it’s possible that he named the island Silva as well; that would be a fine name for it! Haven’t you ever wondered why our whole island is called Southernwood? And Ashenwood before that, until the city around Great Ash was destroyed? We islanders have always thought there was another name for this place, a better name. This would explain that little conundrum! And Zossimo must have named you after the Silva in this poem, don’t you think? You were the first to be given that name as far as we know.”

Silva’s heart thumped against her chest. “So there
is
a connection between me and the book! But it’s strange that Father never showed me the poem. He would tell Mother she was made of gold. She had such beautiful golden hair, Marchus. Do you remember? She was gold, and I was silver, he used to say, and I always thought that was the meaning behind my name. No, he never told me about this book.”

She stood up. Marchus closed the notebook and sighed.

“Secrets, Silva, secrets everywhere. I found that cover at the bottom of one of the archive chests, years ago. I would have shown it to Bassan had we not had a fearsome argument about the
Arboral
. I was so angry with him! So I decided
The Book of Hortus
would remain with me and I would say nothing to him about the matter. So you see, secret begets secret. And what good it all does us, nobody knows.”

Marchus blew a speck of dust off the notebook and pointed at the picture of the man in the boat.

“Do you think this is Hortus? Perhaps he’s sailing to the island. Or he may be trying to sail away, and if he is, he didn’t get very far, did he? He ended up on the island forever. I’ll study the other poems in this book today, if I don’t get interrupted, and I promise to keep it safe. Next time you come, we could look at your leaves in the family history room. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes I would,” said Silva, bending down to inspect the picture. Hortus was rather expressionless. He was simply drawn: a dot for a nose, a straight line for a mouth, one hand pointing toward the sail. His eyes were larger, more detailed, looking straight out from the page into hers.

“Why did you draw a boat, Hortus? And why did you call the trees Silva?”

“I expect Silva comes from the old times,” said Marchus. “Other than your name, it’s not a word the trees have ever used, and so nor do we, as we speak the language of the trees, do we not?”

He smiled at her, then opened the book again enthusiastically.

“To work! To read! To think! To understand! Now it is my turn to bid farewell. Come and see me tomorrow if you can!”

“I shall,” she promised, and crept out of the office, looking back as she pushed the door shut to see Marchus hunched over the book, his lips moving soundlessly, the pleasure of drinking those new words of Hortus evident in every shivering fold of the limp, charcoal cloak that covered his bony body.

***

The smell of onions, fish, and freshly baked bread wafted around Great Aspen’s stairway. The doors into the Albatorium must be open again as the sound of the square carried upstairs, too: shouts, song, and horses’ hooves, all mingling with the hum of chatter from the halls.

Winifred must be rushed off her feet. Usually only the Great Hall was open, but today the Public Hall had been dusted off and was ready to receive anyone who was willing to partake of Winifred’s creations, which no doubt meant that the whole city would be piling in to grab their portion of bread and meat or pie and pudding.

Trevello had spotted her coming down. He rushed over to move a group of young Southernwooders who were sitting on the stairs.

“Come on, you lot, out of the way! Our Legator comes to join us. Wipe those crumbs off the floor if you please! This way, Silva,” he said, steering her away from the halls. “Let’s have a quick word in my office, shall we? Where have you been? Upstairs, having a rest, I expect? Good!”

“I’m fine, Trevello, really!” said Silva, pulling her arm away. “And no, I haven’t been resting; I’ve been up in the library with Marchus.”

“Marchus, heh? What did he have to say for himself, then?” asked Trevello, leading her into his office. A tidy pile of books lay on a huge desk, and the left and right walls each boasted a large painting. But it was the wall behind Trevello’s impressive desk that surprised Silva. There, neatly arranged in rows, sat a great number of chains, handcuffs, ropes and keys, hundreds of keys, the largest ones set higher, the smallest ones on the bottom row just above a tiny window.

“We talked about Father,” said Silva, gazing up at one of the biggest keys.

“I expect you did. Ah! You like my display, I see. My, Silva, Zossimo would be proud of you today, as we all are. Take a seat. Not very comfortable in here, not like next door,” and he nodded at the entrance to a cellar on his left. “That’s where Filibert works. We see each other quite regularly as he makes his way through my office to get to his little cubby-hole. At least he has a fireplace, unlike me, but then I’m mostly in the guardery out the back or pacing the city streets keeping order. No time to sit at a desk, me, oh no!”

He settled back in his chair and looked at her expectantly. What was she supposed to say? He must have seen the doubt on her face, and leaned forward.

“Silva, one reason a new Legator meets with the Session leaders is to inform them whether they will keep their posts. You are Legator now. You might wish to choose a new Librarian or Treasurer, or even a new chief of the guardery.”

“Oh, Trevello, I hadn’t thought at all about changing anybody. I really wouldn’t know who could replace any of you.”

Marchus crept into her mind. Would he ever have wanted to be Librarian? No. He never left the Albatorium, did he? And being Librarian wasn’t just about books, but the trees, too, and Marchus might know a lot about them, but he had no practical experience, not like Bassan.

“Excellent!” said Trevello. “In that case, let me tell you what I think needs to be done. This tree rot has to be got rid of, and quickly. And our people need to feel safe. They want action. Some of them, very few, but enough, are ready to stir up trouble for any reason. We must put a stop to that, too. You see, Silva, people think this island is a peaceful rock full of law-abiding, sweet-natured folk. Nothing could be further from the truth. The prison in the guardery is full—haven’t kept anyone down on the underfloor since Rath escaped—and there’s a barrel load of complaints from all and sundry about petty theft, trespassing, he-did and she-dids and all kinds of unpleasantness that you don’t want to waste your time thinking about. That’s my concern. I’m an old dog at this job, but Wystan wouldn’t let me retire, and quite frankly, while I can still get out of my bed on a morning, I’ll keep going till I drop.”