“Found again,” said Mother.
“In the Great Library?” asked Rigg.
“By your father Knosso,” said Mother. “You see, you weren’t the first royal to think of becoming a scholar.”
“Well, there it is!” cried Rigg. “Did they let Father Knosso have access to the library?”
“They did,” said Mother. “In person. He would walk there—it wasn’t far.”
“And now the surgeons of Aressa Sessamo—and the wallfold, too—I mean, the Republic—have benefitted!”
“Your father lay down in a boat, which was placed in a swift current that moved through the Wall in the north, far beyond the western coast. He injected himself with a dose that the surgeons agreed was right to keep a man of his weight deeply asleep for three hours. There were floats rigged on the boat so it couldn’t capsize, even if it ran into shore breakers before he could wake up. And he brought along more doses, so he could row himself to an inflowing current and repeat the process and return to us.”
“Did he make it through?” asked Rigg.
“Yes—though we have no way of knowing if he was made insane by the passage through the Wall. Because he died without waking.”
“And you know this because he never returned?”
“We know this because no sooner was he beyond the Wall on the far side than his boat sank into the water.”
“Sank!”
“Trusted scientists watched through spyglasses, though he was three miles away. The floats came off and drifted away. Then the boat simply sank straight down into the water. Knosso bobbed on the surface for a few moments, and then he, too, sank.”
“Why would a boat sink like that?” asked Rigg.
“There are those who say the boat was tampered with—that the floats were designed to come loose, and a hole was deliberately placed in the boat with a plug in it that was soluble in salt water.”
“So he was murdered,” said Rigg.
“There are those who say that,” said Mother. “But one of the scholars who was observing it—Tokwire the astronomer—was using a glass of his own making, which was filled with mirrors, so the other scholars did not trust his observations. But he swears it let him see the sinking of your father’s boat much more clearly than anyone else, and he says he saw hands rising up out of the water, first to tear the floats away, and then to pull straight down on the boat.”
“Hands? Human hands?”
“No one believed him. And he quickly dropped the matter, for fear that insisting on the point would ruin his reputation among scholars.”
“You believe him.”
“I believe we don’t know what’s on the other side of the Wall,” said Mother.
“You think there are people there who live in the water? Who can breathe underwater?” asked Rigg.
“I don’t think anything. I neither say ‘possible’ nor ‘impossible’ to anything,” said Mother.
“But he passed through the Wall.”
“And never woke up.”
“Why is the story not known throughout . . . the Republic?”
“Because we didn’t want a thousand idiots making the attempt and meeting the same fate,” said Mother.
“What if there are water people in the next wallfold?” asked Rigg. “They’ve never crossed the Wall, either! Would they even understand what our boats were? What kind of creature Father Knosso was? They might think that because he’s shaped like them, he could breathe underwater as they did.”
“We don’t know how they’re shaped,” said Mother.
“We know they have hands.”
“We know that what Tokwire saw he called hands.”
“Mother, I can see that Father’s plan should not be tried again,” said Rigg. “I would love to see anything he wrote, or failing that to read everything he read from the library. So I can know what he knew, or at least guess what he guessed. But I swear to you most solemnly that I am not fool enough to attempt to cross the Wall myself, certainly not unconscious, and equally not in a boat. If I’m too stupid to learn from other people’s experiences, I’m no scholar.”
“You relieve me greatly. Though you must know how it strikes terror in my heart that within a day of your arrival, you’re already talking about duplicating your father’s fatal research.”
“I was already interested in the Wall before you told me the story of Father Knosso, Mother. Duplicating his research may save me time, but I have ideas of my own.”
“I’ll ask Flacommo what is possible concerning the library. But you must promise me to let me serve you as I served your father. Come and tell me all you learn, all you wonder about, all that you guess.”
“Here?” asked Rigg. “This is your place of privacy, Mother. I’m uncomfortable even now, knowing that I should not be here.”
“Where else, if we’re not to bore the rest of Flacommo’s house with our tedious scholarly conversation?”
“The garden,” said Rigg. “Walking among the trees and bushes and flowers. Sitting on benches. Isn’t it a lovely thing, to be among the living plants?”
“You forget that it’s open to the elements, and winter is almost here.”
“I spent many a winter in the highest mountains of the Upsheer, sleeping outdoors night after night.”
“How will this keep me warm in the garden this winter?” asked Mother.
“We’ll talk together only on sunny days. Maybe my sister will join us, and we can share a bench with you between us—we’d keep you warm enough then, I think!”
“If your sister ever consents to come out of her seclusion.”
“A seclusion that excludes her only brother, lost so long and newly come home, is too much seclusion, I think.”
“It’s what she thinks that counts,” said Mother.
“Then she doesn’t listen to your advice?” asked Rigg.
“Listening isn’t obeying,” said Mother.
“Come with me and show me the house, Mother!” said Rigg. “I think this is an ancient place, with old ways of building.”
“So you study architecture as well?” asked Mother.
“I’m a scholar! In my heart, anyway. Old things intrigue me. Especially old buildings! You can imagine how I loved the Tower of O!”
“I can’t,” said Mother. “I’ve never seen it.”
“Then I’ll draw you sketches of it.”
“I’ve seen sketches,” she said testily.
“But you haven’t seen my sketches!” said Rigg. “Come on, come with me, let’s see this house.”
Mother allowed herself to be drawn to her feet, and together they began walking the corridors, holding hands. Rigg knew that they were leaving Param behind, invisible, but that could not be helped.
When Rigg sensed anyone’s path near enough to overhear them, he would walk apart from Mother, letting their hands clasp in the space between. But when he knew they were alone, and no one could hear, he took her hand in both of his, and leaned close.
It was in those times that he told her about Umbo and Loaf, about going back in time, about the jewel—even now he still mentioned only the one—about his time on the boat with General Citizen, about Shouter’s attempt to kill him, about his own failures to travel back in time without Umbo’s help. She listened to all without interruption.
In return, she told him little, but apologized for the fact that the little she told was all she knew. Param’s gift was not understood—she simply couldn’t be found sometimes, even as a little child, and then she’d turn up somewhere in the house, hungry and cold. Several governesses were dismissed because of their failure to keep track of her, and finally they were moved into Flacommo’s house precisely because it was tightly walled and she could not escape.
“I think it’s because of all the secret passages,” said Rigg. “So they could watch her and see what she does.”
“Then they certainly know what I know. When she was still young, it only happened when she was frightened by something—she’d start turning to run away, and then she faded and was gone before she’d gone far.”