Yes, there was indeed a tapestry there, or some sort of hanging, short of that place: it was not the only one in the hallway: there was no sign it concealed any mystery. And on from that, beyond the guards, but before the end of the hall, was the intersection of the east-west hall with the north hall.
That way led to the library, and a view of a small garden—he remembered it from his childhood, when he had visited here; and suddenly the dream came back in particular detail. He walked that far, and did see, indeed, a difference in the stones, both in the style of stonework and in the pattern where something had been walled up, a change even in the quarry from which the floor pavings came: something had been walled up and changed, and the Lines here might not be what they ought to be… Tristen himself had repaired it, and in great temerity Elfwyn ran his hand along that wall, not looking at his mother’s guards, who must think him a very peculiar sort.
Stay inside, he told the haunt. Mind your place.
The tapestry however, gave under his fingers, hiding a short stair just as in his dream. He moved it back, and cautiously, mindful that the guards were out there watching this trespass, went down those steps into a dark lit only by a seam of light from under the curtain. He felt his way down, and came up against a blank masonry wall.
Something else was walled up here. These stairs had surely led somewhere, once. But the little light that came in under the tapestry gave little definition to the stones, and his own shadow covered all possible detail. Nothing here seemed so imminently frightening, but he began to think it was not a good place to be. He decided to ask Paisi what had used to be here.
He went up again, into the hall, and past the place of the haunt then, trailing his fingers along the wall, and past the guards, who stood facing one another, leaning on the columns near them and talking with one another, so absorbed in their conversation they seemed not to have seen his odd behavior. They never looked his way. Or perhaps he had entered again into the dream. The feeling of that dream began to overlay the hall as it was, but the shape of the hall, exactly as his dream had believed he remembered it… was exactly like this, when he was sure he would never have recalled such detail as the moldings and the shape of the arch at the intersection.
Now he burned to know if the library doors themselves were exactly as what he had dreamed, or he remembered from so long ago, and he walked that hall, and found the doors open, not shut. He peered into the shadows behind one, and saw the eagle with its beak open, indeed, carved in the upper panel, and when he walked into the doorway, he saw the tables as he had dreamed, and the windows, and the shelves… and there was something here. He had dreamed there was something here, of such importance, such dire importance…
An old man in dusty robes intercepted him. “Sir?” that man asked. “Are you looking for a particular book?”
It was what one did in the library. “A history,” he said, trying to seem like a lad bent on business. History was his favorite kind of book. He feared to be caught by a stranger, like this man, and questioned on matters he could ill explain. “A history of Amefel.”
“Well, now, there is that. There are several. Might I ask your name, young gentleman? Are you a guest?”
“My name is Elfwyn Aswydd,” he said, and saw the old man’s jaw drop. “I’m Lord Crissand’s guest,” he said, trying to erase that dismay. “My name used to be Otter. His Grace always has lent me books, for years and years.”
“The boy in the cottage,” the old man said.
“In Gran’s cottage,” he said, with an uncomfortable lump in his throat. Clearly the news had not gotten to this place. And all the while, his dream nagged at him with the most dire sense of something, some secret, some hidden thing within this room that he had to find, that could reach out and kill everything he loved. “Might I just look around, sir?” He showed the duke’s ring, and the old man peered at it somewhat more closely than the guards ever had, and straightened and bowed, and bowed again.
“His Grace’s permission. Do be careful,” the old man whispered, meaning of the books, of course, but the caution stirred the hairs on his nape, all the same. There was more and more in this room that seemed oddly familiar to him, as if he’d seen it all before, down to that very stack of books on the first table, or the exact clutter on the old man’s desk, which he could never have expected to see.
His heart beat faster and faster. The old man directed him to a table, and brought him books. The Chronicle of the Eaglewas one. He opened it very carefully, handled the stiff parchment pages exactly as this man’s predecessor had instructed him. The old man hovered a little less near, told him where other histories were kept, and drifted off about his duties.
He leafed through, standing, finding nothing in particular that caught his eye, except a grand illumination of the Battle of Lewen Field, with soldiers dying and the Eagle banner flying conspicuously. The Sihhë Star was there, black and stark. That he had ever seen that emblem in its proper place still seemed incredible to him, and the ring tingled on his hand as he thought about it.
The fear, however, dogged him, like something standing just at his shoulder, something that darted from one side of his vision to the other, taunting him. He strayed from the table to the shelf the old man had pointed out.
He saw, on the shelves, a large, ancient volume: The Art of War, translated by… but the name had worn off the spine. There was The Red Chronicle. That book drew him, as one he had long heard mentioned, and he reached toward it, thinking to take it from the shelf.
Steps came up behind him. He turned, empty-handed, and the librarian passed over a heavy volume. He felt, for some reason he couldn’t understand, an unaccustomed guilt and distress at the interruption in his reach, as if he had lied to the old man and could not even remember the lie he had told.
The codex the old man gave him was, indeed, A History of Amefel.
“You may read it at this table,” the librarian said, and drew back a chair for him. He sat down, and opened it very carefully, and read at length. It was not the best copyist who had produced this volume, in an overblown script. It was a labor to read it, and he found it a dry, scholarly style, nothing that informed him, nothing so perilous or exciting as he had hoped to find in The Red Chronicle. This one began with very old records, back in the reign of the High Kings, and named every single lord of every single holding, with all the begetting and descending and disputing.
Still, in courtesy to the old librarian who had particularly offered this to him, he stayed at it, laboring over the obscure script, and curious, stiff illuminations of people who stood like pillars, with exactly the same faces and differing gestures. Paisi finally surprised him, having tracked him down.
“I wondered where ye’d gone, m’lord,” Paisi said.
“I wanted to read,” he lied. He suddenly realized everything he’d done since leaving Paisi outside was one long lie, and he didn’t know why he wanted to be here now, but he did and was afraid to be. The book at least gave him respite from dreams and uncertainties: its dry difficulties drew all his faculties into one effort, and left no time for extraneous thoughts, or remembering Gran, or wondering what he would do with himself hereafter. It was only time he had to fill to get from waking to dark, and reading filled it well enough.
Paisi was all over dust and smelled of the stables, not books. “So shall ye be up to supper?”