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Then she entered the Directory.
It reminded her a little of the grand court in the Sadda-Vale, in that there was a hole in the ceiling admitting light and air, though it was smaller. Columns of various colors and types of stone stood all around, ones of limestone much decorated, with a pair of old black obelisks set off in an alcove in dignified isolation. Benches, stools, chairs, and statues of mighty beasts littered the open space—there was even a dragon, though the artist had become carried away and it bore entirely too many horns and tusks and the wrong number of toes.
Perhaps ten-score men met here, talking or drinking or eating from long, tiny platters built to easily extend a tidbit. They wore robes of black and white. White trimmed with black seemed to be the most popular, but some had black trimmed with white. Scribes and servants sat on little cushions, writing messages or keeping track of a debate.
Clever stairways and rests were built into many of the statues. Some men had climbed to the top of the larger ones to be better heard.
All eyes turned to her as her shadow fell across the floor.
Ansab rang a gong as they entered. Paffle leaned over to say something to one of the scribes. The scribe picked up sort of a wooden case and, holding it steady as though afraid to disturb the contents inside, carried it in their wake.
Ansab climbed onto a black statue of a pair of teamed horses rearing and leaping. A platform stood between them, carved to look like traces.
He spoke in a tongue only slightly familiar to Wistala. As best she could make out, he said, “Let the ears of those of the Directory hear, and through their tongues those of the city speak, and through their loins those of future generations remember, our words.”
An elf stepped forward, long grapevines hanging to his waist growing from his hair. He wore a draping sort of garment tied this way and that about his torso.
“I am Cornucus, Voice of the Directory,” he said, climbing the dragon statue until he stood just behind its horned crest. “Are you the same Wistala granted citizenship in Hypatia under the request of the librarians of Thallia?”
Wistala was grateful that he spoke so clearly. She had an easier time understanding him.
“I am.”
Assorted shouts broke out from the men in black and white robes.
“Dragon. Librarian. Emissary,” the Voice said. “Ahem. Which do you come as?”
“A daughter of Hypatia. A sister of dragons. I will be true to both.”
Some of the directors shouted advice to the Voice, but he gave no sign of recognition.
“Say what you have been asked to say,” the Voice said.
“The Tyr of the dragons asks me to say: We share a common enemy, the Red Queen of the Ghioz. In the end she will want the whole world. Should Ghioz claim either of our two kingdoms, the other would fall quickly. Only together can we see victory.”
“Then you also come as a mother of troubles,” a man in a white robe called.
Shouts and whistles broke out as she spoke. They were losing their awe of her quickly. Men were ever thus, plunging from fear to contempt. She tried to remember the respect for Hypatian institutions that Rainfall had taught her—after all, they’d known peace for years not easily counted.
“There will be no war,” the Voice said. “Not if the Directory acts wisely.”
Behind her she heard the head librarian mutter something to Paffle.
“You are wrong,” a voice called in a more familiar accent of the Hypatian tongue.
Wistala followed the echo to a dark young man in riding apparel. He wore a heavy necklace of rectangular pieces of gold.
“We’ve already heard you speak—ahem—Thane of Hesturr.”
Hesturr. Wistala remembered that name. The ruins of Hesturr tumbledown, the evil thane who’d stabbed gentle Rainfall. She looked at the man afresh. There was something of Vog in his wariness.
“But she has not heard me, sir.”
He stepped up beside her and raised his palm in salutation. “I know the name Wistala of Mossbell.”
At that there were more murmurs.
He ignored them, raising his voice. “While we speak through the day, dine and dance at night, and sleep long into the morning, Ironrider scouts move through Thul’s Pass and raid our flocks in the north, steal horses, and assemble piles of firewood. I do not believe they do all this for the sake of amusement, though it may be hard for some of those here to imagine any other pursuit.”
