He waved his hand at the hole in the floor, and Jasmine realised that it was in fact a trapdoor that led down to a deep cellar.
She had hardly taken this in when the old man was speaking again. ‘I have waited long for this moment,’ he said. ‘May I present myself? I am Josef, once Palace Librarian to King Alton. I—I wish to give you these.’
His hand trembled as he lifted the lid of the chest on which he had been sitting.
Jasmine looked down, and her heart sank. She had thought of many things the treasure might be. But she had not thought of this!
The chest was filled to the brim with old books, all bound in the same pale blue cloth, all the same size, and all with exactly the same gold lettering on the front.
She raised her head to look at Josef once more. He had drawn himself up, plainly waiting for a reaction.
‘The Deltora Annals?’ she repeated stupidly.
A smile transfigured the old man’s wrinkled face, making it glow. ‘Of course you are shocked,’ he said gleefully. ‘You believed the Annals to have been burned in their storeroom, many years ago. And I with them. But I played a little trick on Prandine, you see. Yes, so I did.’
He laughed. ‘I could not disobey his order openly. But neither could I bear to burn Deltora’s history. So I set a fire in the storeroom, and left a note saying I had put an end to myself. Then I, and the Annals, escaped the palace to hide and wait for happier times.’
His eyes were sparkling. ‘And we survived, as you see—of later years with the help of Ranesh, my apprentice, who brought you here. Is it not wonderful? Will not the young king rejoice?’
Jasmine forced a smile, and nodded. She did not want to disappoint the courteous, excited old man. She would help him and Ranesh take the old history books to the palace.
But she was sure, absolutely positive, that no-one would care about them at all. Least of all Lief.
7 - Doran the Dragonlover
Jasmine had often said that she would never understand the ways of the palace. She was even more sure of it when she saw how Josef was greeted.
On seeing what was in the cane chest, Sharn shrieked with amazement and delight. And she was not the only one. In moments the great entrance hall was ringing with the voices of people cheering.
Jasmine stood silently by, shaking her head in bewilderment, waiting for her chance to slip away.
“Thank you for helping us,’ a voice said in her ear. The man she now knew as Ranesh was beside her.
‘It was nothing,’ Jasmine said, shrugging.
‘You did not realise the importance of the Annals, did you?’ Ranesh persisted. ‘I saw it in your face when Josef opened the chest.’
‘Old books are not what I think of as treasure, certainly,’ Jasmine answered shortly.
Ranesh laughed. ‘When I met Josef, years ago, I would have agreed with you. I was just a ragged orphan, then—living by thieving in the streets of Del. I thought Josef was an old fool to have given up life in the palace for the sake of a few old books. Now—I feel differently.’
His sharp hazel eyes softened as they looked at the old man bowing to the admirers crowding around him.
‘It is good to see Josef receiving the honour he deserves,’ he murmured. ‘I owe him much. He taught me to read and write. He gave me a home. He taught me to live without stealing—well, almost!’
His white teeth flashed in another smile. ‘After the pottery was raided by the Grey Guards, and the kind people who had fed us were taken, we were often very hungry. Occasionally, I admit, I persuaded myself that what Josef did not know would not hurt him, and went back to my old ways to feed us both.’
‘You were lucky to survive the raid yourselves,’ said Jasmine.
Ranesh’s smile disappeared. ‘The Grey Guards did not find the cellar, and the fire did not touch it either. It grew warm, though. For a time I thought Josef and I would be roasted like ducks in an oven—and The Deltora Annals with us.’
‘Would it really have mattered?’ Jasmine sighed. ‘About the books, I mean,’ she added hastily, as the man raised an eyebrow.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘They are not just dry history, you know, but a day-by-day account of events in the kingdom for many centuries. Every volume is full of tales, sketches, maps—’
‘Maps?’ Jasmine asked, suddenly alert.
‘Of course,’ said Ranesh, glancing at her curiously. ‘Are you interested in maps?’
‘If they show me how to reach places I want to go,’ said Jasmine cautiously. ‘And if I can understand them.’
Ranesh grinned. ‘Then you should look at my favourites, in volume 5. They are only rough sketches, but I would trust them with my life. They were made by Doran the Dragonlover.’
He looked at Jasmine to see if the name meant anything to her, and, seeing that it did not, went on:
‘Doran was a famous traveller who explored Deltora from the coasts to the Shadowlands border. He always wrote in the Annals with his own hand. He said he could not trust the librarians to do it, for they introduced errors by making his words too polite and his map lines too neat. Doran was a great character, and a man of many talents, who…’
Jasmine was no longer listening. She had begun to think rapidly, calculating the best way of gaining some time alone with the Annals. Doran’s maps sounded just what she needed, if she was to find the fastest, most secret way to the Shadowlands.
‘Jasmine?’ It was Sharn’s voice. Jasmine looked up.
‘Jasmine, would you be so kind as to take the Annals to the library and stay with them for a time?’ Sharn asked quietly. ‘I would like Josef and Ranesh to take some refreshment, but Josef will not rest until the books are safe, under the eye of someone he trusts.’
Rather startled that her wish had been granted so immediately, Jasmine agreed willingly. In moments she was running up the stairs while a palace guard followed, carrying the chest of books.
Sharn took Josef and Ranesh into the kitchen where a meal had been prepared for them. She returned to her duties with a far lighter heart than she had begun them that morning. How overjoyed Lief would be to hear of the unexpected return of the Annals!
It was also wonderful to see Jasmine happy. The girl seemed relieved, for a time at least, of her misery over the fate of the prisoners in the Shadowlands.
And that means, Sharn thought gratefully, that I can be relieved, for a time at least, of the fear that she will do something foolish.
As soon as the palace guard had put down the chest and left the library, Jasmine searched rapidly through the Annals until she found the one marked ‘5’.
As she picked it up, it fell open at a page with no ruled lines, and covered in untidy printing. Jasmine guessed it had been opened at this place many times before. The page was signed ‘Doran’.
Doran the Dragonlover might have been a man of many talents, Jasmine thought, but he had plainly not valued neatness. He had scribbled down his report, and a verse, then corrected them both at a later date, using a different pen and darker ink.
Tears were burning in Jasmine’s eyes as she read the last words of the verse and thought of her mother, dead in the Shadowlands. Yet… it seemed to her that something about the rhyme did not quite ring true.
Frowning, she read the whole page again. The more she looked at Doran’s hasty corrections and added lines, the more she became convinced that they were intended to conceal something. Curiosity buzzed in her mind like an annoying insect.