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But always, there was Erann. He loomed huge in her thoughts. No matter what, she couldn’t abandon him to his fate. Still, as the morning slowly revolved in hard manual labour, she let her mind go blank and enjoyed simply being with someone she didn’t love, detest or distrust.

They ate again before Freya told her the way to the Librarian.

‘Walk to the end of the hallway and then take a candle down the few steps to the lower level.’

‘Oh, wait. I have something for him.’ Sereh returned to her room of the night before to find Emma’s script. If Freya was surprised, she didn’t show it.

‘Now, I wonder what she wrote,’ Sereh mused as she went down the hallway, but she wasn’t tempted to open it. The seal must mean it was some private letter. She suspected Emma was writing to the Librarian about her. Whatever it said, she didn’t truly wish to know.

The massive wooden door creaked ominously as she pushed it inwards, having first looked at the main library door. The two were almost the same size. A not unpleasant smell of dried vellum assaulted her nostrils. She breathed in the scent of scripts and ink which lingered heavily in the still air. She pulled the door shut, and descended the small number of steps cut into the rock. A faint glow issued from the black walls offered some light, but she was glad of the candle illuminating her way. She stopped briefly and allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom after the brightness of a chill, snow-enclosed day.

‘By the Gods,’ she expelled. Everything her father had told her hadn’t prepared her for the view greeting her.

The library was huge, housing innumerable scripts on shelving that seemed to stretch further than she could see. How she’d love to have the time to read them all and learn all there was from their contents. Perhaps then, touching scripts her father had once examined, she’d feel connected to him. Sometimes, it was too easy to forget she’d ever had loving parents.

The warmth inside the Library again reminded her of the caverns. But, there was no nearby mountain. The Library wasn’t constructed of the same stone. Was it?

Recalled to her task, by Arrow’s claws on the hard floor, she spied some candles glowing near a cluttered work desk to her right. Two candles gave off a strange blue muted light she’d never seen before. At the work table a man sat, bent double, perhaps with age. Freya acknowledged the Librarian was an old man. He must be if he’d trained her father as his apprentice! Her father would have been well into his fourth decade by now.

She walked towards the desk, candle before her face, carefully examining the wizened face expectantly looking at her. He wouldn’t be able to see her, in the shadow cast by the flame, so she took the time to compose her face into one of disinterest. She needed to gain his confidence before he’d share any information that might help her find Erann. Again, she considered what Emma had written. How had she explained Sereh’s arrival, and her quest?

Finally, she reached the desk and placed her candle there. The Librarian, for it could be no other, looked at her, studying her face. She was sure he startled with recognition. Had he too identified her as her father’s daughter? After everything Freya and Ralf had said, could the Librarian not have saved her from Rankil?

‘Here,’ she thrust the rolled script into his hands. Her intention had been otherwise, but faced with the Librarian, the man who knew all about her people’s past, she couldn’t help feeling a spark of dismay that he’d not tried to help her after her parents’ death. Had he really cared so much for her father, then surely he could have done something, even if it was only to offer her sanctuary.

‘Emma Flokisdottir asked me to bring you this. I know nothing more.’ She caught his hands shaking as he gripped the script. He knew Emma’s name. But how could he possibly know Emma? He rarely left the Library. Emma hadn’t left run-ketill apart from when she’d rescued her and Erann. She wanted desperately to ask, but her questions were rarely answered by those who knew more than her, and she suddenly worried that perhaps she didn’t want to know anything more about the Librarian. She needed his help. No matter what.

Purposefully, she stepped away, her eyes focused on a script to the side of his desk. It was held out flat and weighted down with two pieces of black rock, glittering in the glow of the candles and the light from the walls which somehow infused the room. Was it similar to the green glow of Skaldi’s chamber? She thought not.

Reverentially, she ran her hands over the smooth vellum. None was as smooth any more. It reminded her of Erann’s journal. Surely the two must be of an age!

From behind, she heard the old man’s gasp of shock.

‘Are you well?’ she queried over her shoulder, unable to draw her eyes away from the treasure before her.

‘Yes, yes,’ he rebuffed. Her attention was consumed with scanning the long line of names on the scripts, searching for her own. The Landtakings’ was an ancient script listing all those who’d first claimed the lands of Biklander. Her father had spoken of it. Now it was here, before her. Temporarily, she forgot all about Emma and the mystery of the message she’d sent to the Librarian. Even Erann’s loss faded as her curiosity grew.

Its detail was astonishing, listing boundaries, and cataloguing people and their children and all they’d owned. She’d often heard her father speak of the document. It hadn’t been written by the first wave of settlers but by those in the next generation, to stop bitter disputes from leading to bloodshed, he’d told her. Even now, it could be consulted on matters of land ownership. The farmers took great pride in their long and elaborate family trees stretching all the way back to the events recorded in the Landtakings. Without the written proof of who you were and the land you owned, it was impossible to prove your case in the many and frequent disputes which arose. And that was the job of the Librarian. He was the custodian of information. He was always the last and final call in judgements. His word was law although he had no official position. His home was provided for him by everyone on Biklander. The farmers tithed to the jarls, and in turn, the jarls were compelled to send renders to the Library. Although, well, Freya had been scathing about the lack of decent tithes, especially from Rankil.

The arrangement ensured the Librarian could be considered impartial and unbiased. His seclusion within the Library ensured he never served the interests of one set of people.

As she read the script, Sereh surreptitiously turned to study the Librarian. She was astounded he’d allowed himself to age as much as he had, without seeking a replacement. Undoubtedly he was imperilling the future tranquillity of the land. Should he die before he’d taken a new apprentice with the express purpose of replacing himself, then surely the information here and its classifications and intentions, could be lost for all time. How would those on Biklander resolve their almost constant legal disputes if the Librarian wasn’t here? The thought was as unsettling as the knowledge the Librarian could surely have sent for her after her parents’ death?

His blond hair hung long, and his shoulders appeared to be painfully hunched from constantly bending over his desk. When she caught him looking at her as intently as she was looking at him, she distracted herself by peering closer at the tiny, crabbed green writing on the Landtakings until, finally, she found her family name listed: Harkonsson. Her brief flare of joy died quickly with the realisation that with her father’s death, the land listed below the name had transferred ownership.

For all those rotations, the steading had been their family’s. It had passed to her father, all the way from the first to claim it in an unbroken line. Her father had shown her the precious, ancient, vellum, which listed his name as only the latest in the family line.

But, the steading would never be hers. It would never return to the Harkonsson’s. It would always be Rankil’s now, taken to pay off debts he stated Hagon had incurred. Sereh doubted it now, as much as she had then.

Her father had always been a careful man. She couldn’t believe he’d signed away his steading in exchange for Rankil’s help in solving the dispute with Erann’s father, Ramon. Ramon and Hagon had always been friends. Her father might have been Ramon’s scribe, but the relationship had been about much more than that. It made no sense now, even with the rotations that had passed. She couldn’t understand why others had accepted Rankil’s words then. Those who had had pushed for Ramon’s exile, and since then, they’d gained at the expense of others.

If only she’d been older when her parents had died, she could have fought him herself. She could have demanded the proof he claimed existed. She’d have called on others to help her. That was the way of her people. If she’d been older, she’d have sought an advocate, and they’d have challenged Rankil on her behalf. It might still have cost her some of her lands, but by no means, all of it. The honour of her family’s name would have been preserved. Tears formed in her eyes. She stood abruptly so as not to mar the pristine script with the tears flowing unchecked down her wind-chapped cheeks.

She jumped in fright, as the Librarian joined her. She wiped the tears away and found him examining her closely. He couldn’t have failed to note the tears. She brushed them away, all the same.

‘It’s a beautiful piece of work, isn’t it?’ His voice belied his age. He spoke with the vigour of a young man in his enthusiasm for finding someone as intrigued as he was by the script.

‘It’s amazing,’ she answered honestly, his tone made her peer ever more closely at him. Was he truly as old as she was supposed to believe? Or was he somehow like Emma? She still couldn’t quite make sense of how long Emma had lived within run-ketill.