‘Oh,’ said Amirantha seeing two servants in the doorway. One held a tray with a pot and infuser, cup and canister of tea, the other a short ladder. ‘Never mind.’ He pointed to the stocky man with the ladder and said, ‘Put that over there, climb to the top, and gently pull down the top most book.’ To the other he said, ‘Put that on the table please.’ As the servant moved to do as he was instructed, Amirantha said, ‘And find me a chair for that table. Thank you.’ He turned his attention to the man climbing the ladder and the massive job before him.
The day wore on, and Amirantha drank two pots of tea. Other than having to relieve himself three times before lunch, his morning was uneventful; there was nothing remarkable about his findings. He had chanced across a few things, a treatise on higher consciousness and the gods, which he found more compelling for its blind leaps of faith than he did for its hypothesis; but it had been composed in precise and elegant language, and he found himself admiring it despite its irrelevance to his current search.
There was one interesting account of a very bad famine, more family chronicles than he imagined possible; the Quegans were a self-aggrandizing people. Even modestly successful merchants had commissioned family histories—most of which were more fancy than fact, he surmised. One particularly vivid, but improbable tale concerned a merchant from the Kingdom city of Krondor who had contrived to build a fortune out of thin air, or so he claimed.
There were a couple of other interesting finds, beyond quaint curiosities; a book of dark spells, which had more truth in them than the author understood. He put it aside for Pug or Magnus.
Another work was a chronicle of a struggle between two temples, neither of which he recognized. The magic he used to read foreign languages did not make the understanding of proper nouns any easier. Someone named Rah-ma-to was named, and his only insight into that puzzle was context. It might be a local god, a local name for one of the gods he already knew, or he could have been a farmer, for all Amirantha knew. Still, it touched on myth and magic, so he set it aside, too.
Other volumes contained similar curiosities, but nothing akin to the information he was seeking. He wondered if Pug and Magnus were having any more luck.
The midday meal was announced by the arrival of Livia. The charming Quegan woman seemed amused by the sight of Amirantha on his knees stacking books. ‘Are you finding anything useful?’
He pointed to a dozen volumes stacked on the table next to the empty tea pot and said, ‘Those look promising.’ He exaggerated, but he wanted to make this look like a worthwhile undertaking to bolster his need to return.
‘I’ve come to take you to the archivists’ quarters, where a repast has been provided.’
He rose and found his knees slightly stiff. Feigning more discomfort than he felt he said, ‘I need to walk a bit more I think. Too many days of sitting and I’m turning into an old man.’
She smiled as she slipped her arm through his. Amirantha had dealt with flirtatious women all his life, and from her familiar gesture, knew he had been judged and found appropriate enough to warrant further scrutiny. He considered the odd aspects of this culture, that a woman this attractive and bright might consider a foreign scholar of modest means a suitable substitute for a man of rank; then he remembered women of her age might see their child-bearing years coming to a close, and reconsidered; she might be ready to marry the first man who asked her.
He sighed and weighed his need for pleasure against the possible injury to her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ he replied.
‘You sighed, and rather heavily.’
He smiled. ‘Oh, it’s just that the amount of material yet to be considered is daunting,’ he lied. He would dismiss the servant after lunch. The pile was manageable enough now for him to sort through alone and now that he was becoming used to the manner in which the Quegans recorded their personal histories, business records and the other sea of useless, he should be able to get through the bulk of it by supper.
‘Perhaps you might stay longer?’
He smiled as he looked at her and saw that his instincts in this were almost certainly correct; this woman needed to find a husband and start a family. With a pang he realized that he didn’t find the idea repellent, just impossible.
He shook his head. ‘As I understand it, the agreement between your Emperor and the King of Isles is for three days, no longer. As I am but a companion to the official researchers…’ He shrugged.
‘I might talk to someone?’ she ventured.
‘I live a very long way from here,’ he said neutrally, but she took his meaning.
She fixed him with a narrow gaze and pulled away ever so slightly. ‘You have a wife?’
‘No, nothing like that,’ he said. ‘My work consumes me.’
‘Ah,’ she said as if that explained everything.
They remained silent until they reached the room set aside for their meal. A modest lunch by Quegan standards, but a small feast by anyone else’s, was waiting for them. A moment after Amirantha had been shown through the door, Pug and Magnus arrived. Livia withdrew with their escort, leaving the three of them alone.