Romantic love and desire was my torment. Sallo was my solace, and so was my work.
Everra had finally given me free run of the library of Arcamand, which till then I had never entered, even when I was a sweeper boy and went all over the house. Its door was on the corridor past the domed shrine of the Ancestors. When I first entered it, I felt the fear of crossing a sacred threshold almost as I might have done if I had transgressed and gone among the Ancestors. It was a small room, well lighted by high windows of clear glass. There were over two hundred books on its shelves, all carefully arranged and dusted by Everra. The room smelled of books, that subtle smell which to some is stuffy and to others intoxicating, and it was silent. No one ever came down that corridor except to sweep it or to enter the library, and no one entered the library except Everra, Sotur, Sallo, and me.
The girls were allowed because Sotur had asked our teacher to allow her and Sallo the privilege, and Everra couldn’t refuse her anything. So-tur was the only older child of the Family pursuing her reading or studies, for neither Yaven nor Astano was free to do what they liked any more. She told Everra that he had given her and Sallo the soul’s hunger for books and thoughts, and must not deprive them now that Sallo was starving among the inanities of the silk rooms and she among the pomposities of merchants and the illiteracy of politicians. So, with the permission of the Father and Mother, and with many cautions about indiscriminate reading, he gave them each a key.
It was hard for me to admit it to myself, and I never talked about it with Sallo or Sotur, but the long-desired library was a disappointment. I already knew more than half the books in it, and the ones I didn’t know, that looked so mysterious and treasurable sitting on the shelves in their dark leather covers or scroll boxes, mostly turned out to be dull—annals of law, compendia, endless epic poems by mediocre poets. They had all been there for at least fifty years, sometimes much longer. Ever-ra was proud of the fact. “No modern trash for Arcamand,” he said. I was willing to believe him that most modern writing was trash, on the evidence that so much old writing was trash; but I didn’t put it that way to him.
Still, the library became dear to me as a place to be with Sallo, with Sotur, and by myself. It was a place of peace, where I could give myself to the poets I treasured, and the great historians, and my own dreams of adding something to literature.
My poems to Sotur, written with my heart’s blood, were stiff and stupid. I knew I was no poet, though I loved both poetry and history—the arts that brought some clarity, some hope of meaning, to human emotions and the senseless, cruel record of human wars and governments. History would be my art. I knew I had a lot to learn, but learning was a delight to me, I had grand plans of books I would write. My life’s work, I decided, would be to combine the annals of the various City States into one grand history; thus, incidentally, I would become a grand and famous historian. I made outlines of such a synthesis, ignorant, overambitious, full of errors, but not entirely foolish.
My great fear was that someone had already written my history of the City States and that I didn’t know it, because Everra wouldn’t buy any new books.
One morning in early spring he sent me across town to Belmand, a household known as ours was for its books and learning. I liked going there. The teacher, Mimen, a younger man than Everra, was his closest friend. They were always exchanging books and manuscripts, often with me as messenger. I was delighted to be excused from hearing little children drone out their alphabet, to get out of the house into the sunlight of morning. I took the long way round, through the sycamore grove where Torm used to drill us, south along the streets under the city walls, loitering along and enjoying my freedom all the way. At Belmand, Mimen made me welcome. He liked me, and had often talked to me about the works of some modern writers, reciting me poetry by Rettaca, Caspro, and others, whose names Everra wouldn’t even say. Mimen never lent me their books, knowing Everra had forbidden me to read them. This day we talked a little, but only of the rumor of war with Morva. Both Yaven and a son of the Bel Family were with the army there. Mimen had to return to his schoolroom, so he gave me an armload of books, and I set off home.
I went directly across town this time, because the books were heavy. I was just crossing Long Street when I heard shouting. Looking down the street towards the River Gate I saw smoke—a house afire—or more than one house, for the clouds of smoke billowed up higher every moment. People now were rushing past me across the square behind the Forefathers’ Shrine, some running from the fire, some towards it; those who ran towards it were city guards, and as they ran they drew their swords. I stood and saw, as I had seen before, a troop of soldiers coming up Long Street, mounted and afoot, under a green banner. The soldiers and the city guards met and fought with a shouting and clashing of arms. I could not move until I saw the riderless horse break from that knot and muddle of fighting men and gallop up the street straight at me, lathered with white sweat streaked red, blood running from where its eye should be. The horse screamed, and then I could move.
I dodged and ran across the square, between the Shrine and the Senate House, by the back streets, to Arcamand. I burst into the slaves’ door shouting, “Invasion! Enemy soldiers inside the city!”
It was news to the household, for Arcamand is set apart by the quiet squares and broad streets of its neighborhood. There was great panic and dismay as the word spread. Elsewhere in Etra word of the incursion had got about much faster, and probably by the time Ennumer had stopped shrieking, the city guards and off-duty soldiers and citizens had driven the invaders back out the River Gate.
Cavalrymen from a troop quartered near the Cattle Market went in pursuit of them and caught a few stragglers east of the bridge, but the main body of the enemy got away. None of our soldiers had been killed, though several had been wounded. No damage had been done except the firing of several thatch-roofed storage sheds near the Gate; but the shock to the city was tremendous. How had troops from Casicar been able to approach Etra in broad daylight, let alone ride right in through the River Gate? Was this impudent foray merely the signal of a full-scale assault from Casicar, for which we were utterly unprepared? The incredulous shame, the rage, and the fear we all felt that first day were uncontrollable. I saw the Father, Altan Arca, weep as he spoke to Torm, giving orders for the defense of the house before he left for an emergency meeting of the Senate.
My heart swelled with the wish to help my Family, my people, to be useful, to stand against the enemies of Etra. I helped collect all the children in the dormitory with Iemmer, and then waited in the schoolroom for orders as to what we house people could do. I wanted very much to be with Sallo, but she was shut up in the silk rooms, where male slaves could not come. Everra, grey and shaken, sat reading in silence; I paced up and down the room. There was a long, strange silence in the great house. Hours passed.
Torm came by the door of the schoolroom and seeing me, stopped. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting to know how we may be of use, Torm-di,” Everra said, getting up hastily.
Torm shouted to someone, “Two more here,” then strode on without a word to Everra.
Two young men came in and told us to follow them. They were wearing swords and so must be noblemen, though we did not know them. They took us across the back court to the barrack. The barrack doors had a great outside bolt across them, which I had never seen closed before. The two young men slid it aside and ordered us in. We heard the bolt slam to behind us.