Let this be our goodbye, for I will likely never see your face again, except in the company of the Archivist or his lackeys, but know this: I cherish you, my friend. Guard yourself at all costs, and when you can, fight for the soul of what we both love.
Do not let the Library become an evil shadow on this world.
Text of a message from Lingua Magnus Cao Xueqin, 1750, to the Archivist Magister:
Most esteemed Archivist, it is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen today, and I pray you will forgive this imposition upon your time. It is not the place of the head of Literature to question your wisdom, which comes from a place of divine scholarship, and yet I feel I must tell you of my deep concerns.
I have been a lifelong friend of Obscurist Magnus Maryanna Sfetsos, as you know, and your most recent decree that no Obscurist may leave the Iron Tower without your express permission troubles me deeply. I hasten to absolve the Obscurist Magnus from any guilt; the disquiet I feel does not mean that she has in any way shown opposition to your decree. It is, perhaps, purely selfish that I grieve for the loss of the company of my friend, when we have all our lives been close companions.
I have been told that this is a temporary measure, for the protection of our Obscurists, and to allow their absolute concentration upon the work of the Library. If this is so, Archivist, may I respectfully ask when this seclusion will be complete? For it seems beyond comprehension that you mean for it to continue longer than the year.
With utmost respect and prayers for your good health,
Lingua Magnus Cao Xueqin
Text of a reply to the Lingua Magnus from the Archivist Magister, written the next day:
I regret to inform you that Obscurist Magnus Maryanna Sfetsos suffered a collapse within the Iron Tower last evening, and the best efforts of our Medica Obscurist were not enough to save her. We all mourn her passing. Her funeral rites will be held in three days.
The Obscurist Magnus, in her final communication with me, urged me to continue the seclusion of the Iron Tower, for the protection of those within, who are under special threat from Burners and other heretics. I shall honour her request, and I trust you will do the same.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The open ground between the Welsh front lines and the city walls of Oxford was nothing but mud ... churned constantly by Welsh assaults, beaten and mixed by the rain that still fell, though it was more of an annoyance than anything else now. Jess laboured under his pack, which felt like the weight of an extra person clinging to his spine. The constant, squelching, dragging mud made them all clumsy - even Wolfe and Santi, though they managed it better than any of the students. Pity about their new Library coats, Jess thought. They were already wet, lank and miserably laden by muddy hems.
The sickly rotten smell of the battlefield overwhelmed him to the point that he no longer noticed it; he had much more to concern himself with now. On top of the Oxford walls - new walls, strong walls, built of solid granite and reinforced with iron bands - stood English troops, and they pointed their weapons straight at the steadily advancing Library party.
Wolfe had taken a telescoping pole from his pack and attached the Library banner to it - black, with the symbol worked in reflective gold paint, it seemed to glow in the dim, oppressive light. The banner even had some kind of reinforcement to keep the flag straight and highly visible, despite the lack of wind.
The Library took no chances.
No one fired on them, but the massive metal gates didn't open, either. The road that had once brought the city's trade and travel had been destroyed, and fragments of it were buried in the mud, all too easy to stumble over; more than one of their number went down as they clambered through the rubble, but nobody seemed injured, and the students clustered at the gates behind Wolfe and Santi. Santi's High Garda soldiers surrounded them in a solid black, heavily armed block.
Morgan looked small and cold to the bone as she stood there, staring up at the city that had been her home. Not a happy event for her, and she seemed very alone even in the middle of their group. Jess moved to stand next to her. He didn't touch her. He didn't think she would welcome it, or his pity.
Santi pulled a parade ground voice from deep in his chest and shouted, 'Open in the name of the Library!' It echoed and rang from the stone and metal, and with divine timing, thunder rumbled overhead.
Nothing happened. Jess felt as if he were sinking slowly into the mud, and tried to pull his feet out, but it only made him more uncomfortable. The minutes crawled by. Black flies buzzed, and there was a worse stench to the mud here that pushed insistently at his empty stomach: death, blood, rotting flesh. Surely there were fallen men lost under that churn. Jess had a sickening feeling he might be standing on top of one. We could join them, he thought. Under the mud. Forgotten. Just like Warlow said.
He was understanding in an entirely new way what Wolfe had been trying to teach them ... that the Library was not just the bloodless work of making vast stores of information available to the masses; it was defending that information against this. Death. War. Destruction. It had all seemed so much easier in the safety of a classroom, smugly discussing the days when the Library had been vulnerable to this kind of chaos, when knowledge had vanished in flames and the cries of fanatics.
It had been unthinkable it could still happen in modern times.
Their party seemed so small, but that, too, was part of the message the Library was sending ... that it didn't need to dispatch an army. Harm any of its people, and the army would surely follow, as Khalila's recitation of the story of Austria proved. The leaders behind this massive wall must have been weighing those lessons carefully.
Wolfe and Santi waited with patience, and Jess tried to imitate that calm certainty. It paid off at last as a voice called down, 'Step back from the gates!'
Wolfe turned to them and nodded, and they all backed away to avoid the swing of the huge metal-clad doors as they moved open. They were on some kind of steam-driven mechanism, and behind the doors was a portcullis of steel mesh that slowly cranked upward as the Library party walked forward. As he came even with the gateposts, Jess realised there were soldiers standing on either side of them, arranged so as to avoid any potential crossfire. This was a killing zone.
The gates reversed course behind them and cranked shut with a heavy boom that Jess felt through his bones and boots ... but all that faded away - the soldiers, the guns, the mud, the rain, the nerves - because crowded ahead, just beyond the next gate, were the people of Oxford.
There were so many, and they were so shockingly thin.
Khalila, who was pressed at his side, whispered, 'How long has this siege been going on?' She sounded shaken, and so was he. The misery was written on their faces, on their shrunken bodies dressed in worn and dirty clothes. The children were the worst of it, and he had to look away, because children shouldn't be so thin and ill. Even in the worst of London, it hadn't been so bad as this.
'Too long,' Thomas answered. He was on the other side of Khalila, and his expression reflected all the anguish he must have been feeling. 'Mein Gott, look at them. They're dying.'
'No quarter,' Jess said. 'They're all under a death sentence.'
'Easy for their king to say, safe in London,' Glain said. 'He'd be begging for surrender if this was happening in Buckingham Palace.'
'Stop your chatter,' Santi snapped. 'We have a job to do. Stay together and stay quiet.' He sounded tense, and coming from the always-calm captain, it had the impact of a closed fist.
The gate cranked upward, and Santi led them into Oxford.
No one said a word. They moved in silence through the crowd. Hundreds of people pressed around them, staring at these well-fed, armed strangers with strangely empty expressions. It wasn't just hunger, Jess thought. It was the absence of hope.
Wolfe stopped them when an armed crew blocked their path. The English soldiers, presumably, though in contrast to the neatly uniformed Welsh, these men had only remnants of their former red and black about
them - a grimy pair of pants here, a tattered scarlet coat there. They looked as dirty, tired and near-starved as the civilians. The man in front was of medium height, with close-cropped brown hair and cheekbones that would have been prominent even if he'd been well fed, but now jutted out painfully sharp, as if they might soon cut the skin. A thin-lipped mouth and grey eyes the colour of the leaden skies, he looked every inch a warrior, and the very opposite of General Warlow ... and yet this man was on the losing side of the war.
'Let us pass,' Wolfe said.
'As soon as we're clear on the rules,' the man said. 'Scholar Wolfe. Yes, I know who you are. And you, Captain Santi. My name is William Smith, and I'm in charge of the Oxford defence.'
'And what is your rank?' Santi asked.
That got him a humourless smile in return. 'All the bastards with rank are buried. Call me the major general of walking corpses.'
'You said there were rules,' Wolfe said. 'Let's get on with them.'
'Simple enough. Straight to your Serapeum, get whatever you need, and get out. You have until nightfall. After that, your neutrality doesn't matter a damn.'
'By the accords, Library neutrality doesn't have a time limit.'
'It does today.'
Wolfe merely nodded, as if he'd expected it. 'I suppose there isn't much intimidation the Library can manage on the major general of walking corpses.'
'Exactly,' Smith said. 'I'm giving you this day from the kindness of my cold, soon-to-be-dead heart. Use it well, Wolfe. Or I'll take you, your party, your precious books, and use you for every advantage I can.'
'You'd damn your entire country,' Santi said. 'But I suppose you know that.'
'Do you think I care about that?'
It was simply said, but there was no question in Jess's mind that the man meant every word. Wolfe didn't try to negotiate. He just nodded, and when Smith gestured his men out of the way, Wolfe continued to lead the Library's party forward.
Smith called after. 'Need a guide?'
'We know the way.'
After that, no one blocked their path, though there were still those eerily silent Oxford citizens watching; some were standing in long, unmoving lines to get meagre rations of food, medicines, clean water. Some were lying beneath lean-to structures to keep the rain off, alone and unfriended.
The city stank of waste and sickness and unburied death, which was an awful contrast to the beauty of it - clean, ancient buildings sturdy under the weight of history. The Serapeum was off Catte Street, near the colleges, and as they neared it Jess was struck by its resemblance to a fortress. Heavy, old iron gates blocked a large grey-stone courtyard, with the library building itself towering over it and casting it into cold shadow. Battles had been fought here. Blood spilt.
It looked old, and it was. As they got closer, Jess was disquieted by the number of Oxford citizens who'd gathered at the gates: men, women, children of all ages. It was a press of them, blocking the way, and on the other side of the bars stood a contingent of the local Library Garda, armed and ready. There was muttering, and it grew louder as Wolfe's party approached.
'On your guard,' Santi said to all of them. 'This might be difficult.'
He was right. The crowd didn't want to give way, and mutters quickly gave way to pleas. Jess swallowed hard when he saw a woman grab at one of the Library soldiers' sleeves; she was moved away, firmly but gently, by the soldier behind him. The voices rose around them as they pushed forward, and grew in desperation.
'Please, Scholar, let us have the food! We know they have stores inside!'
'We need shelter!'
'Please, only take the children inside!'
'Bastard! We know you're hoarding water!'
'Why do you get to leave? What about us?'
The guards formed a wedge that drove through the crowd to the gates, then pushed open a corridor to let Wolfe and the students advance towards the closed barrier. On the other side, a robed librarian turned the lock to open it.
As it swung aside, the voices rose to shouts, and Jess looked around to see that the soldiers who'd guarded his back were now defending themselves. They were shoulder to shoulder, two deep on each side, and formed a tight, strong arc to hold the crowd at bay.
'Inside!' Santi ordered, and shoved Thomas after Wolfe as the Scholar stepped inside the courtyard. 'Go, go, go!'
Jess grabbed Morgan, and Glain grabbed him, and the rest of them hurried after. Dario brought up the rear, pistol out and ready, but he didn't need it. The lines held. Santi called retreat, and it was made quickly and efficiently, with the lines compressing into a thinner and thinner arc until the last of them was inside the courtyard, and the gate could be secured behind them.
Jess stumbled to a fast halt as he almost ran into a guardian statue. A lion, this one. Massive. It was on all four feet, head down, red eyes glowing like lava. A rumbling alert came from it, and Jess quickly held up his Library bracelet for scan. The lion brushed him aside and advanced to stalk into the courtyard.
The crowd stormed the gates. Bodies slammed against the unyielding iron bars, and it was a mass of screaming faces and flailing limbs. There was no speaking with this crowd, no reasoning with it. They could only hope the gate could hold, and that the guardian lion, which now paced the inside of the fence and roared warnings, would be able to help Santi's men hold the line.
'Come inside, quickly,' the librarian who'd greeted them said. She was a tall, thin woman of African descent, with close-cropped greying hair and a bleak look in eyes that had seen too much. 'My apologies, Scholar Wolfe. I am--'
'Senior Librarian Naomi Ebele,' Wolfe said. 'You've done very well under difficult conditions. You only need to hold on a little longer.'
She caught her breath, and from the sudden shimmer in her eyes the relief was overwhelming, but when she spoke her voice remained steady. 'Help is most welcome, sir. You'll see the extent of our problem inside.'
'What about the gates? Will they hold?' Jess asked. The mob - and it was a mob now, mindless and violent - was trying to climb over. Santi's men were keeping them off.
'They have so far,' Ebele said. 'This isn't their first try getting in. They believe we're hoarding supplies.'
'Are you?'
'No,' she said. 'We've barely enough to keep us alive another day or two. What we do have is books. You were told of the cache we found?'
'Yes. Black market?'
'If so, it's from ages ago. It seems more likely that some early librarian stored a valuable donated collection here intending to ship it on, but something happened and the storehouse was forgotten until we opened it looking for more supplies. It came as quite a shock, believe me. We'd already sent all but our core staff out of the city when the negotiations failed.'
'How many do you still have here?'
'Three, including me. I sent our resident Scholar away to London a week ago, over her objections. But she was too old and frail to stay.' Ebele walked them up a set of steps to the oak door, which looked stout enough to withstand a determined attack. She opened it with another key and led them into a hallway that seemed drenched in shadows, but then it opened into a vast echo chamber of dark wood, high arches, and shelves. Like all Serapeums around the world, this one was filled with blanks, ready to be served from the Codex, but in addition to those, the long polished tables down the centre of the hall were piled with books. Originals.
So many. The room had a vividly familiar smell to Jess, a crisp, dusty aroma that woke memories of his father's warehouses. Of old books cradled in his hands, or strapped against his chest.
The smell of history.
Even Wolfe took in a breath at the sight of what lay before them, because it was a massive number of written works, more than most of them would ever see in their lives. Jess, who'd touched more originals than they'd ever dream, was silenced by the sight, and felt a prickle not just of awe, but actual alarm.
'As you see,' Ebele said, 'We have a problem.'
'Agreed,' Wolfe said. 'Your message was
cut before you could report the actual numbers of what you'd found, but we did gather that it was large. This is ... not large. It is enormous.'
'A rare prize,' she agreed. 'You see why I could not abandon my post, even under orders.'
No librarian could, not when the Welsh army was poised to rain down fire and death on the city, and when everything in it had been named fair game. This wasn't a prize, these thousands of books burdening the tables of the Bodleian Serapeum of Oxford.
This was a holy treasure.
'We can't.' Khalila's voice shook with emotion, and she took a breath to steady it. 'We can't possibly manage to send so many, even if we have enough tags!'
'Then we sort and save what we can,' Wolfe said. 'Form into teams of two and sort into three stacks: unique, rare, common. Go. We have little time.'
Khalila paired up with Dario, and they immediately went to work. Thomas had already chosen - unexpectedly - Portero. Jess looked for Morgan, and didn't find her. He gestured Glain over and asked, but Glain just shrugged.
'Don't know. Come on, let's get started.'
'I know most of the rare things,' Jess said. 'You organise and read me titles.' What did Wolfe have Morgan doing? And where had Wolfe gone? He was nowhere in sight now, though the rest of them were clustered around the table, working as he'd instructed.
Glain sent him a silent look of gratitude, and opened the first book. 'A Gentleman's Guide to the Cultivation of Wheat, Including the Diseases to which it is Prone. Author Hywel Pryor.'
'Common. And boring.'
'Unless you like to eat,' Glain said. Touche. 'On the Circumference of the Planets. Author Ping Le. Translated from the Chinese.'
'Rare. Careful with that one.'
'On Sphere Making.' He stopped dead, staring at her, and he could feel the blood draining from his head down towards his feet. Glain glanced up at him, and gave him a hard smile. 'We couldn't be that lucky. The title is A Process of Iron, by Gwen Neame. A novel.'
'Rare, and don't do that again.'