“And how far does that take it back?” murmured Aufors, his eyebrows raised in wonder.
“That takes it back well over two hundred years. And I couldn’t look further, for the books before that have been sent to the archives at Havenor, and the book I was looking in was supposed to have been sent, too, according to the clerk, sent long ago, only Staneburgh’s a noplace town in County Southleas—a noplace county, itself—and nobody thought to see to it. Now, o’course, nobody will do it for fear of being blamed for not doing it sooner!”
“Two hundred years is long,” Aufors agreed, though grudgingly. “Very long.”
The Captain nodded, a slow teetering of his head upon his neck, as though to test whether it was still attached. “You’re right that it’s long. And the Lord Paramount isn’t the only one, as I hear tell it.”
“Who else?”
“Well, there’s most all the Dukes of the provinces—which explains why the Duke of Barfezi wiffle-waffled to you—and there’s certain ones at court, mostly the ones living around Havenor, all men, and there’s this heir, Yugh Delganor, son of the Lord Paramount’s brother, and he goes way back, longer than even the Dukes. He’s had two or three wives already, and the Lord Paramount’s had more than that. Whatever this is, this lengthening, seeming it doesn’t work on women, or the Lord Paramount won’t share it with his wives, not one.
“So, there’s sayings and stories and a few jokes of a dirty nature—told in whispers as you’d imagine—but the one thing everyone says is that the ones that live long, they’re all men, they’re all nobles, and they all go through the women, one after another.”
This last remark of Enkors had stuck in Aufors’s gizzard, and subsequent to this conversation he had noticed passing allusions and sidelong references he would have missed before. Many people seemed to agree that the Lord Paramount was very, very old. There were quiet comments made at village markets, such as, “You call this chicken young? Why, it’s old as the Lord Paramount!” and “If this mutton is lamb, the Lord Paramount is only a hunnert.” No one who mentioned the Lord Paramount’s long life seemed to have any idea how long it actually was. “Oh, he’s nigh a hunnert an some,” was as close as Aufors came to getting an estimate when he asked, casually, “How old is he, anyhow?” It seemed that only Enkors had taken the trouble to count up the years, and he had succeeded only because the books of record had not been sent to the archives from Staneburgh. Aufors had subsequently looked up the place. It amounted to one valley and several adjacent ridges enclosing half a dozen farms, one provisioner’s shop, and a grist mill.
Since Aufors began his association with Genevieve with the idea she was to be betrothed, and since Yugh Delganor was somehow involved, Aufors jumped to a reasonable but abhorrent conclusion. Being audacious, which so far had not served him ill, he decided to learn whether an equerry to a duke could gain access to the Havenor archives, as this is where not only the Staneburgh registers but also all other registers had supposedly ended up.
He went to the palace offices and was directed down several flights of stairs to a maze of tunnels which, so he was told, housed the archives. There, he accosted one of the clerical staff, a dusty and bustling creature with a halo of elf locks, a pale, lined face, and a wild expression.
“Why, why, what’s here for you, Colonel? What’s here in the dust, the rust, the musty fust?”
Aufors chose to ignore this oddity and put on his most boyish and sincere expression. “I’m currently serving as equerry to Lord Dustin, Duke of Langmarsh, and though I do well enough with Langmarshian matters, being a native born and bred, I find I’m not well educated in the history and nobility of the other provinces.”
“You’re no more ignorant than most, dumb as a post,” said the madman.
Aufors smiled beneficently. “Maybe so, but I’m a man who likes to know all he can about the job he’s doing, so I thought there might be something in the archives that would let me sound less of an idiot. These people at court, they’re quick to find you out, I notice, when you don’t know what or who you’re talking about, and they don’t let you forget it if you step wrong!”