“To be honest, I doubt it,” Travapeth said, nodding to Zefla as she refilled his goblet with wine. “Thank you, dear girl.” He looked at Cenuij. “Pharpech is something of a desert for bibliophiles, dear sir. There is no literary tradition as such; only a very few of the top officials in the Kingdom, a couple of family tutors and sometimes the monarch can read at all. Though, as one might expect, this has led to a rich oral culture. But no, sir; the library was a Useless purchase, bought a few hundred years ago from an auction house here in Malishu; it had belonged to a noble family fallen on hard times.
“All the rare and valuable books had already been sold individually; what the King destroyed was merely the standard collected classics most noble families favour instead of wallpaper to line one room of their mansions, though usually the wallpaper is in more danger of being read. Its purchase as a Useless article was arguably a change of circumstance of only a very limited degree. I very much doubt that the system bibliocontinua lost anything irreplaceable in the vandalistic conflagration. But dammit, sir, it’s the principle involved!” Travapeth said loudly, banging his goblet down on the table and spilling wine over the holos and the patch of table in front of him.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Cenuij said. He made another note.
“As a result,” the old scholar said, dabbing at a patch of spilled wine on the table with the cuff of his robe, “the only book left in the whole castle is probably the one the monarch sits on during the coronation. Whatever it is.”
“Hmm,” Sharrow said, nodding.
“Right,” Zefla said, laying her stylo down. “Tell me some more about these festivals, Ivexton; which ones would you say are the most vibrant, the most colourful…?”
“So what do you think?” Sharrow asked.
Cenuij shrugged and stirred spice into his mullbeer. “I suppose it could be what we’re looking for,” he said.
They sat, all five, in a private booth in a cafe near the rented office. Miz and Dloan had their route organised; it would involve taking a flying boat from Malishu to Long Strand, a maglev express to LiveInHope, then two slow trains to the Pharpech outlands border, where there was a small settlement they could hire guides and buy mounts in. They hadn’t yet booked any tickets.
“I thought the book had been lost for a lot more than the eight cents since the Ladyrs,” Miz said.
“Anything up to two millennia, depending whose account you trust.” Cenuij nodded. “But that’s just since anybody admitted to owning it. Maybe the Ladyrs stumbled on it when they were dispossessing an uncooperative family or sacking a Corp that hadn’t paid its protection money quickly enough, maybe it had never really been truly lost. Maybe they didn’t know what it was they had-just another old unopened book that might come in handy one day.” Cenuij shrugged. “Anyway, sending it to a coprolite like Pharpech when the anti-imperial heat was on must have seemed like a neat idea at the time.” He supped his ale. “It worked, after all; nobody’s found it, though obviously old Gorko had his nose to the trail.”
“So do we go?” Zefla said. She sucked on an inhalant.
“Well,” Sharrow said, “I don’t see how Breyguhn or anybody else could have set up what happened to Bencil Dornay; the pattern he traced was pretty unambiguous, and it sounds like there is exactly one book in the castle at Pharpech.” She spread her hands. “I think we go.”
“Keeps you out of the way of the Huhsz, too,” Miz said, rolling trax spirit round in his glass. “Caught a recent news report? They’re saying two heavyweight missions left Golter yesterday, one bound for Tront and the other headed this way.”
“I heard,” she said. “At least they sound confused. Any more interesting race winners in Tile?”
Miz shook his head. “Nothing since Dance of Death.”
“How we doing for funds?” Zefla inquired, apparently trying to hold her breath and talk at the same time.
“Fluid,” Sharrow said. “Barely used a third of our allowance. The only drawback is response-time; shuffling the credit trail so it’s difficult to follow. But that shouldn’t be a problem unless we need a lot of cash very quickly.”
Miz held his small glass of trax spirit up to the light, frowning at it. “What sort of funds are we taking to Pharpech?” he asked.
“Cash, gold, diamonds and trinkets,” Sharrow said.
(‘This looks cloudy,” Miz said, nudging Dloan and nodding at the trax glass. “D’you think it’s cloudy?’)
“Getting past the border guards might swallow a fair amount,” Sharrow said to Zefla. “But once we’re in, everything’s supposed to be cheaper than dirty water.”
“Which is probably about all they have to sell,” Cenuij said.
“Think that’s what’s in this glass,” Miz muttered, squinting at the trax glass. He held it in front of Cenuij’s nose. “That look cloudy to you?”
“We’ll have to play it by ear regarding the gear we can take in,” Sharrow said. “Apparently it’ll depend what sort of mood the border guards are in.”
“No other way into this place?” Miz said, sniffing at the glass. “Struck me we’re doing all this horribly officially. I mean, I was standing in a holiday agent’s today talking about travel insurance. I mean, travel insurance! Have we really come to this?” He held the trax up to the light again, then waved it in front of Sharrow’s face. “Cloudy/not cloudy; what do you think?” he asked her.
“There are lots of other ways in,” Sharrow said, pushing Miz’s glass out of the way. “But they’re all even more complicated, too dangerous and involve walking or riding enormous distances in the company of people who kill, capture or rob other people as a way of life; the border guards sound like nursery wardens in comparison.”
“I still say a decent pilot could take a chopper or a VTOL in through-” Miz began, still frowning at his glass.
“Well, you try finding a plane,” Sharrow said, “anywhere on Miykenns. Flying boats or nothing; that’s your choice.”
“Yes, Miz,” Cenuij smiled. “I think you’ll find a lot of people felt the same way earlier in Miykenns’ history; that’s why there’s so little cable and membrane clutter around Malishu, and why the extensive Pilot’s Cemetery is such a poignant feature on the sightseeing circuit.”
“I bet I could-” Miz began.
“Something else,” Zefla said quickly, slapping the table. “We are not taking Travapeth.”
“He might come in useful,” Cenuij said.
“Yeah,” Zefla said. “So’s a broken leg if you want to kick yourself in the back of the head.”
“No Travapeth,” Sharrow said, then frowned at Miz, who had taken a small torch out of his jacket pocket and was shining it through the glass of trax spirit.
Zefla sighed. “The old guy’s going to be awfully upset when we don’t make the documentary,” she said. “He was talking about a book tie-in. And he could use the money.”
“He doesn’t think we’re going to get to make the thing anyway,” Sharrow said, brows furrowing as she watched Miz sniff at the trax glass again. “He’s got five grand,” she told Zefla, “for three days of sitting pontificating, flirting like a gigolo and having wine and food poured down him; easiest money he’s ever going to make.”
Miz made a tutting noise and put the trax glass to his ear. He flicked its rim gently with one finger, an expression of deep concentration on his face.
“Oh, give me that!” Sharrow said, exasperated. She took the glass from his fingers before he could protest, put it to her lips and drained it.
Then her face creased into a sour expression and she turned and spat the trax out behind her, onto the age-stained planks of the booth. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “What did you do; piss in it?” she asked Miz. “That was horrible!”