But beyond kindness Mistress Boileau realized Adele was a student with abilities exceeding those of anyone else she had trained in her long career. They worked on terms of increasing equality, Adele’s quickness balanced by the breadth of information within Mistress Boileau’s crystalline mind. Nothing was said, but both of them expected Adele to take Mistress Boileau’s place when the older woman died at her post—retirement was as unlikely a possibility as the immediate end of the universe.
Maybe without the war . . .
Cinnabar and the Alliance had fought three wars in the past century. This fourth outbreak had less to do with the so-called Three Circles Conspiracy than it did with the same trade, pride, and paranoia which had led to the earlier conflicts. Those were politicians’ reasons and fools’ reasons; nothing that touched a scholar like Adele Mundy.
But the decree that came out of the Alliance capital on Pleasaunce touched her, for all that it was framed by politicians and fools. The Academic Collections on Bryce were a national resource. Access to them by citizens of the Republic of Cinnabar was to be strictly controlled.
Mistress Boileau suggested a way out of the crisis. She had friends on Pleasaunce. They couldn’t exempt Adele from the ruling, but they could make Adele an Alliance citizen as soon as she renounced Cinnabar nationality.
A moment earlier Adele would have described herself as a citizen of learning and the galaxy, not of any national boundary that tried to limit mankind. Cinnabar was a memory of the riots she saw in person and the slaughter she missed by hours.
But she was a Mundy of Chatsworth, and she would be damned before any politician on Pleasaunce made her say otherwise.
Then the Elector of Kostroma asked Mistress Boileau, Director of the Academic Collections on Bryce, to recommend someone to run his new library. The request had seemed a godsend at the time. Now . . .
Bracey cried in alarm. Adele raised her head.
Bracey sprang backward, bumping into the boxed remains of several electronic data units that might antedate the palace. One of his companion drunks vomited. Most of the yellowish gout cascaded onto a gunnysack filled with loose paper of some kind, but splatters landed on Bracey’s boots.
“Bracey,” Adele said, her voice a handclap, “get out, and take your fellows with you. And stay out!”
“Aw, don’t knot your panties, chiefie,” the assistant said. His boots were red suede; he tentatively rubbed the toe of one against a pasteboard carton, smearing but not removing the splash of vomit. “I’ll get one of the maids to—”
“Get out, by God!” Adele said.
Bracey’s face clouded. The friend who still stood had been watching Adele and had seen more than a short, slim female in nondescript clothing. As Bracey opened his mouth to snarl a curse, the friend tugged his arm and muttered.
Bracey shook himself free, then dragged the sick man up by the collar. “Come on, Kirkwall,” he said. “If you’ve ruined these boots, I’ll flay another pair from your backside, damned if I won’t!”
Two men supporting the third, the Kostromans shuffled out of the library. Adele remained by the data console, following them with her eyes. When she looked around the room again, the other assistants and the two carpenters were staring at her. All of them turned their heads instantly.
“I’ll take care of this, mistress,” Vanness said as he trotted toward the mess of vomit. He waved the bag which had held the logbooks, to use as a wiping rag.
The bag itself might identify where the contents had come from—
But Adele caught her objection unvoiced. There was nothing she’d gain from speaking that would justify the seeming rebuke of a man who was trying to do his job.
“Yes, very well,” she said instead. She turned her hawk glance onto the carpenters. They’d resumed measuring their plank against the brackets they’d yesterday fastened to the paneling and the frames mortised into the brick fabric of the wall.
“You two!” Adele Mundy ordered. “Come along with me to see your mistress, and bring that silly piece of veneer stock with you. I need proper shelving now, and I don’t mean enough for a medicine chest!”