'Yes, Scholar.'
That, Jess thought, was one of the simplest things he'd been asked to do so far, and it cheered him that he'd found something that made Wolfe look at him with real interest. He wrote it down in his journal that evening: I think I might have finally found my place now.
And he was, of course, wrong.
The next morning, when the Codex instructions came, Jess still had no individual study. It felt deeply unfair, especially since he was one of only four who didn't.
'It doesn't really help,' Thomas told him later, when they were all back in the common room at the end of the day. 'Individual study only makes me know how little I understand. And it seems no matter how much we know, Wolfe will always know more.' He was trying to cheer Jess up, which was kind of him, but it wasn't going to work. Jess was in a completely dark mood. 'It only allows us more opportunities for failure, ja? So perhaps you are better off. We will be lucky if any of us survive to get a placement.'
'Speak for yourself,' Dario said from where he sat near the fire. 'I intend to wear the gold and become Historia Magnus one day. If you feel that way, Schreiber, you should save yourself humiliation and slink home to the land of ... cabbages, isn't it?'
Thomas, busy with a clock that he'd disassembled and laid out for inspection, ignored him. His big hands worked with delicate precision as he sorted and cleaned the tiny cogs. Dario was playing dice with one of his cronies, Hallem, while the other, Portero, looked on.
Jess, despite his foul mood, had agreed to a strategy game of red and white stones with Khalila. He'd learnt not to challenge her at chess, at which she excelled, but she'd not mastered the game of Go quite so readily. He was able to hold his own, which helped his mood a little. The rest of their classmates were clumped in groups around the room. Some studied, looking pinched and worried; some buried their fears in games, or dozed in the somewhat worn armchairs. He wondered what Dario was up to. He didn't like the calculating look in his roommate's eyes.
'You're not paying attention,' Khalila chided him, and he focused back on the game board. Indeed, he hadn't been, and she'd almost succeeded in trapping him. He made his countermoves, and almost laughed when her expression turned thunderously dark. Had she been Glain's size and temperament, he'd have been right cautious, but on Khalila, thwarted ambition looked about as intimidating as a puppy's snarl. 'I shouldn't have played fair and warned you, I suppose.'
'Not if you plan to win,' he said.
'I do like winning.' She smiled, the fit of pique gone in an instant, and Jess realised why Dario was staring his way. Dario did not like it when Khalila smiled at someone else. Jealous, Jess thought. That could be useful. Dario had few weak points, other than his tendency to believe everyone was inferior to him. Khalila could be a sore spot.
Jess was ashamed of that in the next heartbeat, and concentrated hard on the board in front of him. In six moves, he'd driven her into a corner, and Khalila declared defeat with good grace. 'Next time we play chess,' she said.
'Don't play to your strengths,' Jess told her. 'Strengthen your weaknesses.'
When he pointed to the board, silently asking for another turn, Khalila shook her head. 'No, I've got more work from Scholar Zhao to do.' As soon as she said it, he saw the flash of contrition in her eyes; she had additional study, and she hadn't meant to rub that in his face. 'Sorry.'
'Maybe Brightwell's not just stupid. Maybe he paid Wolfe off, and that's why he's got no tutoring,' Portero said as he rattled his dice. He'd taken Hallem's place across from Dario. 'Though I doubt a scrubber like him has two Romans to rub together.' The official coinage was a geneih, but everyone called it a Roman, for the portrait of Julius Caesar on the face.
'Maybe he's giving a different service,' Dario said. 'Have you finished licking our esteemed Scholar's arse yet, or are you merely pausing for breath?' There was an edge to Dario's voice, and Jess understood why. He'd seen Dario vulnerable, when his Codex was stolen. They'd hardly exchanged a word since, unless it had that sort of confrontational teeth embedded.
Khalila looked up sharply at him, frowning, and Thomas dropped a wrench loudly on the table.
Jess poured himself a glass of wine from the decanter on the sideboard. 'Sorry, was I taking your turn polishing his apples?'
Dario's smile was a flash of teeth from a dangerous animal. 'Honestly, Brightwell, I don't know why you keep trying.'
'Dario,' Khalila said. 'Please shut up.'
Dario shrugged and leant back, spreading his arms extravagantly wide. One of the other students was passing, and jostled him. Predictably, that focused Dario's attention. The boy who'd trespassed was a quiet one, pale, with light flaxen hair and eyes more silver than blue. From America, Jess remembered, but with a very French name.
'Pardon,' the boy said, and moved on.
'Danton, isn't it? You're related to the famous French Burner.'
'I'm American.'
'No, you're a pitiful French expatriate. Do you go to Paris for the re-enactments? The mass beheading of the Burners?'
Danton had no readable expression on his face, but his body language was guarded. 'I've never been.'
'Very educational. Living history. No stomach for watching your ancestor's head coming off?'
'Dario,' Glain said, and shut the book she was reading. 'Leave him alone. Someday, someone is going to teach you a real living history lesson. It'll hurt.'
'It's all right,' Danton said. His voice was as level as ever, and as unsettlingly calm as his expression. 'It's common knowledge. He didn't have to dig far to get to a sore spot. But then, Master Santiago never works very hard at anything he does.'
'I was just pointing it out. Burner sympathies run in your family,' Dario said. 'I'm sure they're keeping a close eye on you, Guillaume. Feeling nervous yet?'
'Maybe you're nervous,' Jess said. 'Where are you in the class ranking now, Dario? Number ten?'
'And where are you? In my shadow. As usual.'
'Rankings change. I'm in for the long run, not the sprint.'
'Yes, of course, you would be a runner,' Dario said, and Jess felt cold inside. Dario had resources, and he valued whatever dirt he could dig on all of them ... but he relaxed as Dario went on. 'You would be a runner because you don't have the stomach for a gentleman's fight.'
'Your version of a gentleman's fight means a knife in the back, so no, I don't fight like a gentleman,' Jess said. 'I fight to win. Want to play?' He gestured at the Go board, eyebrows raised. Dario pushed back from the dice table, gave him a long and measured look, and then shrugged.
'Why not. Portero's almost bankrupt, anyway.'
Portero's faint 'No I'm not!' was generally ignored. Danton, released, pushed away and towards the back of the room, where he sat beside Glain. Dario stood up, stretched, and settled into the chair across from Jess ... all without breaking the steady, measuring stare.
'I'll take red,' Dario said. That wasn't a surprise.
What did surprise Jess was how acutely smart Dario Santiago was at the game. Jess was good, he knew he was, but it felt almost as if Dario could see directly into his mind. Every clever move he made, it seemed Dario had seen it two moves before. Jess thought he could almost feel the young man's intelligence at work. Dario had left his ego to one side, which made it an interesting match indeed.
They worked in silence. No barbs. Jess became aware that others had moved to observe. Even Thomas gradually stopped fiddling with his bits of metal and stood motionless as he watched.
Gradually, Jess became aware of vulnerability in Dario's approach. It was subtle, and Dario played fast and fierce to draw Jess's attention away from it, but at last, Jess had him. He heard an indrawn breath from the crowd around them as he sprang the trap; one single stone placed in exactly the right place, and Dario's strategy collapsed. Now, Jess was the aggressor, Dario the defender, and as Jess played through the moves in his head, there was no possibility that Dario would win.
Dario came to the same conclusion. Jess saw the fl
ash of recognition go over his face, followed by a swift wave of anger ... and then it was gone, and Dario played it out to the bitter end until he'd no more moves to make.
Then he rose to his feet, bowed slightly to Jess, and said, 'Well played.'
Jess stood as well and bowed in turn. 'Well matched.'
They stared at each other for a moment, and Jess had the feeling that for the first time, Dario was actually seeing him ... not as an obstacle, or a victim, but as someone worthy of notice. He wasn't entirely sure he liked it.
Dario must not have, either, because he smiled an entirely too brilliant smile. 'Doesn't make us friends.' He turned on his heel and walked from the room. His usual acolytes fell in behind him, but some cast glances back, as if recognising that the balance of power seemed to have undergone a subtle shifting.
Thomas clapped a large hand on Jess's shoulder. Not gently. 'That was impressive,' he said, and sank down in the chair that Dario had vacated. 'How did you learn to play this game?'
'My brother taught me,' Jess said. 'So he could beat me at it.'
'I'm surprised he could.'
'I didn't say it turned out the way he planned.' Jess swept the board. 'Let's play.'
They were twenty postulants when he went to bed, yet somehow, when Jess woke the next morning, there were twenty-one in Ptolemy House. He'd adjusted to sharing schedules with Dario, and the advantage of taking his bath in the evening before bed meant that he could go straight to breakfast and be there first.
But not today.
Today, there was a girl there that he'd never seen, writing in her personal journal. When she saw him, she put her pen and book away.
She was pale-skinned, with lustrous brown hair pinned up tight in a style he hadn't seen since leaving England, and she was wearing an English dress too heavy for Alexandrian weather. He was struck by the shape of her, trim and smoothly curved, and by her eyes, which were a striking light brown. She looked intelligent and guarded ... and deathly tired.
Jess stopped. He knew he was staring, but he couldn't think what question to ask first. She spared him by offering her hand. 'Morgan Hault,' she said. Her palm was warm and soft, but her fingers seemed cold. Nerves, he thought. 'They said I could eat here.'
'Are you visiting someone?'
'No, I just arrived. I'm a postulant.'
Jess cocked his head and considered that as he reached for a fresh, hot roll - benefits of coming early, the food was much better at this hour. 'How's that possible? Our class was formed weeks ago.'
'And I was supposed to be in it,' Morgan said. She chose a pear and took a small bite. 'I was delayed. Fighting around Oxford.'
He recognised the accent then. Oxford. She must have had a devil of a time getting out. She was thinner than she should have been; that, too, would have been a souvenir of the war with the Welsh. Food was getting scarce, last he'd heard. And hadn't there been a siege?
She finished off the pear quickly. He silently handed her a bread roll, which she bit into with sudden ferocity, and made a delighted sound in the back of her throat as she chewed.
'Bread must have been scarce,' he said for her. 'Fruit too, I'd imagine.'
She swallowed as she nodded. 'Everything was scarce,' she said. 'Is there any meat?'
He silently indicated the section at the end that held fish and fowl. No pork, and he missed bacon, but it wasn't a common dish in this part of the world. She loaded a plate and found a table. He brought her a cup of Egyptian coffee, which she tried politely. She clearly didn't care much for it.
'I'm Jess Brightwell,' he said. 'From London.'
'Any other of our countrymen here?'
'There was, but he's already packed off home. First rule of Ptolemy House, don't get attached. We've lost twelve students already.' Her wide-eyed look spoke volumes, and he shrugged, feeling suddenly like an old, wise veteran. 'Wolfe is a very tough proctor.'
'I've heard stories. Is he as bad as they say?'
'You'll see. How are you on history?'
'Fairly good. I'm still working on memorising the core collection on the Codex.'
'Memorising the Codex?' She'd caught him by surprise with that one, and he took a bite of his bread to cover it. Chewing and swallowing allowed him time to consider. 'Why would you do that?'
She smiled. 'I come from a war zone, Mr Brightwell. The Codex doesn't always function as it should. I'd think you'd know, as an aspiring librarian, to plan for the times it fails.'
He'd never considered it, not for a moment. The Codex was simply there, available, a living document mirrored from the original in the Library. Had been all his life. It was how he located books and loaded them into blanks; it was how everyone did it. Why would the Codex not work?
And yet, clearly, that was possible. Even Khalila had that blind spot; she'd never so much as mentioned it, and Jess knew she wasn't studying for it. Quizzing them on the contents of the Codex they all took for granted was exactly the kind of nonsense that Wolfe would pull.
'Interesting,' Jess said, and tried not to show the new girl how much she'd just taught him about his own assumptions. 'I suppose that might be useful. When did you leave Oxford?'
'Almost a month ago,' she said. 'It was a long, hard journey to get to safety.' Morgan took another bite of bread, then followed it with some spiced chicken. 'I need sleep. And a new wardrobe. Is it always this hot?'
'Afraid so,' he said, and fetched her another plate.
Before she finished what was in front of her, others had started filing in, still yawning. Glain made it as far as the coffee urn before she turned and stared at the newcomer.
'Allow me,' Jess said, when Morgan began to speak. He stood up. 'Everybody, this is Morgan Hault, she's new, so be kind.'
'New?' Portero came closer to inspect her. 'New and gone tomorrow. Doesn't look like she can stay the course.'
'Who says you can?' Glain shot back. 'Stop breathing on the girl.'
'She's too far behind,' Guillaume Danton said quietly, as he put an inordinate amount of bread on his plate, along with smoked fish. 'She can't make up time unless Wolfe gives her breaks, and you know he wouldn't.'
Morgan said, 'I can keep up. So if you think you'll get rid of me that easily, get ready for disappointment.'
'Morgan, if you are coming with us, you should get changed,' Khalila said. 'We're scheduled for the field today.'
'The field?'
'The High Garda compound.' Khalila set her plate down on a corner of the same table Jess and Morgan occupied. Jess took the hint and got up, since he'd finished, and Khalila gracefully slid into his spot. 'Wolfe is a great believer in the idea that we must be able to defend ourselves, and Library property, at all times; I think he takes the Burners too seriously, but we all must complete a basic High Garda training course. You will want looser, lighter clothing if you're coming.' Khalila had dressed in her version of that: a summer-weight pair of ankle-length, gathered trousers under a long tabard, split at the sides. She still wore the headscarf, but today's was light, opaque silk. 'Stay with me, I'll see that you--'
There was a sudden, audible intake of breath from across the room, and a clatter of utensils on plates, and Jess looked up to see the dark, foreboding presence of Scholar Wolfe in the doorway of their common room. That was bad enough, but behind him loomed Captain Santi, Wolfe's High Garda shadow. Jess's fellow postulants had gone very still, and Jess knew why: inside Ptolemy House, they'd always felt free from any interference by authority ... until now. Now, it was abundantly clear that Wolfe, or any Library authority, could enter without warning or announcement.
Their home was not their sanctuary.
Wolfe's gaze raked the room, and settled on Jess ... no, not Jess. The girl across from him. He gestured to Morgan.
'You. Come here,' Wolfe said.
'Sir?' She had gone milk-pale, and Jess saw, with a pulse of sympathy, that the heavy dark circles beneath her eyes stood out even more starkly. She looked exhausted and quite sensibly afraid.
/> Wolfe didn't feel like explaining himself, clearly. He exchanged a look with Santi, who came forward and put his hand on the girl's shoulder. When she didn't get up, he pulled just enough to guide her to her feet.
'Where are you taking her?' Jess couldn't quite believe he'd opened his mouth to ask; he usually had a better sense of self-preservation. But he had done it, and the question hung in the quiet air.
'Did I make it your business, postulant?' Wolfe asked.
Jess mutely shook his head. Morgan sent him a quick glance and a half-smile that struck him as surprisingly brave, under the circumstances. 'It's all right,' she said. 'I should have reported to you first thing, Scholar Wolfe. Here are my documents.'
She reached into a pocket of her dress and brought out her Codex, which she flipped open to show a familiar shape: the same acceptance letter that Jess carried upon one of the pages of his own book.
Wolfe took the book and studied the page, then snapped it shut and handed it back. 'You're late.'
'I know, sir. The war--'
'You're late, and I don't care about excuses. You may ask anyone here how forgiving I am, and how likely it is that you'll be staying, Postulant Hault. But as I am a kindly soul at heart, you may take the day to recover from your travel. I expect you to present yourself with the others tomorrow, and I expect you to be fully prepared in every way. You'll get no further consideration. Understood?'
Morgan didn't speak. She only gave him a single, sharp nod. If she was afraid, she concealed it better than Jess would have thought possible, and when the soldier let go of her arm, she calmly sat back down to finish her breakfast.
Wolfe watched her for another few seconds, then walked to the coffee urn and poured coffee for himself. Oh God, Jess thought, appalled. Now he's going to hang about. He must not have been the only one who feared it, because the students closest to the door began furtive moves towards it.
Wolfe said, with studied casualness, 'Don't bother to flee, students. Today I've decided to cancel the scheduled weapons training. We will be assigning you into teams shortly.'
'Teams? Doing what?' Khalila was the one who asked, probably because she was the only one safe enough to question him, and Dario - who surely would have - hadn't yet arrived.