Garth was getting sick of being referred to as this man’s “young friend”, but he narrowed his eyes speculatively. The man wanted to talk?
“Assuredly, Brother Vorstus. Done! I’ll leave you to it then,” and Brother Jorgan bowed and was away, bearing the scroll back to its resting place.
Vorstus lifted his hand from Garth’s shoulder. “I can explain,” he said calmly, then he turned on his heel and walked towards the back of the great hall.
Garth and Ravenna shared one suspicious glance, then they pushed the bench back and hurried after him.
Vorstus led them through a small door set in the back wall of the hall, then down several narrow and dimly lit corridors until they reached a closed door.
He put his hand on the handle. “I can explain,” he repeated, and grinned, making his thin and hawkish face appear years younger. “Believe me.” Then he was through.
The room was small but comfortably furnished, with a large window that opened out into a little garden courtyard—Garth noted that it was still drizzling outside. A small fire crackled in a grate, and Vorstus motioned them to several armchairs grouped about it.
“Please, sit.”
“Who are you?” Garth asked firmly as he sat down.
Vorstus settled into a chair across the fire from Ravenna and Garth. “My name truly is Vorstus, and I truly am a monk.”
“Between masquerading as a street trader,” Garth mumbled, remembering how the man and his merchandise had mysteriously disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Vorstus’ smile expanded momentarily, but he did not comment. “And how strange that I should find a marsh woman here in this library. I thought, lady of dreams, that you had little use for the world of books.”
Ravenna’s eyes widened—and lightened, Garth noticed. “I am willing to search any way that might provide answers,” she said softly. “But you, methinks, are more mystery than answer.”
Vorstus took a deep breath and relaxed back into his chair, his fingers drumming lightly against the armrests. “Let me share some—not all, mind—of my secrets. Then you can decide if you are willing to share some of yours. Brother Jorgan only knows me as Brother Vorstus from a companion order of Ruen, come south to visit Narbon’s admittedly excellent library. True enough, as far as it goes. But apart from my regular order, I belong to a slightly,” he hesitated, “irregular order known—and I would thank you not to mention this to anyone else—as the Order of Persimius.”
“Persimius is the name of the old royal house,” Garth said slowly. “What is the connection to this secret order of yours?”
“Close, young man, very close. We were founded by an ancient king, Nennius by name—”
“He was the king who adopted the Manteceros as his emblem!” Garth cried.
“Shush!” Vorstus hushed, irritated. “These walls are only of one stone’s thickness. Yes, the same man. Our society is dedicated to the protection of the Persimius family itself.” He tapped the tattoo on the back of his right index finger that Ravenna had noticed earlier. It was the outline of a quill. “Our mark. You can always recognise our order by this.”
“And you are dedicated to protecting the Persimius family?” Ravenna smiled innocently, her toes stretching out gratefully towards the fire as her eyes locked into those of Vorstus. “Then you haven’t been doing a very good job recently, have you?”
Garth grinned behind his hand, and Vorstus grimaced guiltily.
“Witch! But, yes, we have been remiss in our duty, and it stings our consciences. Garth,” he took another deep breath, and now Garth noticed that he trembled. “Garth, we know that you found Maximilian down the Veins.”
For a long minute there was no sound in the room save the crackling of the fire and the light rain against the windowpanes.
“Ah…” Garth hedged, unable to stop an anxious glance at Ravenna.
“We know it, Garth,” Vorstus repeated softly. “For the past sixteen months we’ve had our suspicions about Maximilian’s whereabouts. We have kept the Veins and those who go in and out under close watch. Imagine our surprise when the young son of Joseph Baxtor should return from three weeks in the Veins to ask questions in marketplaces about the Manteceros, and search this library for any clue he could find about the creature’s relationship with the Persimius family. When I appeared in the market wearing the disguise of a trader, your hand and eye flew instantly to the medallion of the Manteceros—a small test I devised—and now, greatest surprise of all, you appear in the company of a lady of dreams. One who could take you to the Manteceros itself. Tell me, have you talked with it?”
Garth closed his mouth, but Ravenna answered, her eyes steady on the monk. “Yes. I took Garth to the Manteceros.”
Vorstus raised his eyebrows at her. “So much power in one so young. Interesting.”
“The Manteceros refused to help us rescue Maximilian,” Garth said bluntly. No use keeping silent now that Ravenna had spoken.
“I have no doubt,” Vorstus said softly. “It would already have verified Cavor’s claim to the throne when the man made it. The Manteceros will be displeased that another claim may well be made. It is a creature of order and will be discomforted by the mess of a counter-claim.”
“How did you know about Maximilian?” Ravenna asked.
Vorstus steepled his fingers and raised his eyes to study the ceiling. “We are a small and somewhat secretive order, but not totally unknown. Some sixteen months ago a minor nobleman—there is no point revealing his name here and now—aged and dying of the wasting disease, requested our abbot attend his deathbed.”
“Yourself,” Garth observed, watching Vorstus carefully. The man had an aura of authority about him.
“Yes. Myself. He seemed anxious to confess a sin committed many years ago and which had weighed heavily on his conscience ever since. He said that years previously he had been involved in a…well, shall we say, an abduction? Yes, that will do nicely. An abduction. A young boy, no more than fourteen, was seized by a group of men in the hire of a person that even the dying man was too frightened to name. They seized the boy, and subjected him to the horrific pain of having the mark on his right arm burned off.”
“It’s still there,” Garth muttered, close to tears, “under the scar tissue.”
“Is that so?” For the first time, Vorstus seemed excited. “Really? Well, all the more good.”
“And then what happened, Abbot Vorstus?” Ravenna asked, her eyes dark at the thought of Maximilian’s agony.
“Please, only call me Brother, lady,” Vorstus replied hastily, glancing about. “None here suspect my true identity.” He paused, then answered Ravenna’s question. “Three of the men tied the boy up—he had fainted by this stage—and carried him away. My dying sinner did not have a clear knowledge where…but he did have some idea.”
“The Veins.”
Vorstus nodded. “Yes, Garth, the Veins. But we could not be sure, and we had no way of seeing for ourselves. Even our arts could not penetrate beneath the surface…and there is no need for a monk below to confess the dying. From the Veins they go straight to the fire pits of the afterlife.”
At the mention of “arts”, Garth’s mind slipped back to Vorstus’ mysterious disappearance from the marketplace. “What ‘arts’?” he asked suspiciously, but Ravenna simply looked at Vorstus and smiled.
“Our order is dedicated to the preservation of the Persimius family, true,” Vorstus said, “but for many hundreds of years we had little to do save study ancient arts and texts as the family waxed strong and ruled wisely under the Escatorian sun. Garth, once Escator was far more than it is now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once Escator was the centre of learning in the known world—men travelled to study at our universities and academies from most of the Eastern Kingdoms. Narbon housed the largest university, but Ruen, Harton and even Sorinam to the north had well-established universities. All gone, now.”
“What happened—” Garth began, but Vorstus held up his hand.
“Shortly, my boy. Music and enlightenment, sciences and suppositions, dreams and knowledges were once Escator’s main exports. Now the filthy gloam feeds our populations and tinkles the coin into Ruen’s treasury.”
He paused and heaved a great sigh. “Ten generations ago, gloam was discovered in great deposits along the coast by Myrna. Initial excavations were so promising that the Veins were carved deep into the earth. The Persimius family withdrew funding from the arts to sink into the Veins—only in the past generations have prisoners been used to work the rock-face—and, hungry for the riches the gloam brought them, they allowed the universities and academies to fall into ruin.” He paused. “So much knowledge and learning was lost. Now this library is virtually all that stands from those once-heady days of knowledge. This library…and the Order of Persimius itself.”