by C. K. Nolan
“Oh, Marchus,” she whispered. “What can this be about, if not Father foretelling his own death?” She glanced at the archivist, who was staring at the words in front of them. He smiled to himself, his soft, ink-red lips pushing the pale, puckered skin of his cheeks into the etched corners of eyes now shining as bright as gold leaf.
“See the initial letter of each line? They spell out the author’s name. This poem, this book, was written by Hortus. This is not Zossimo’s work. He wouldn’t have used this type of vellum. This is no vellum we islanders have ever used. Nothing destroys it, neither fire nor water. I have tested it. It won’t rip, see? You can’t scratch it or remove text from it, and I’ve tried all manner of ink, but none will stick to the page. It’s like nothing I’ve ever witnessed, and I can only conclude that this marvel was made a long time ago, before the Dark Days.”
“But he mentions me! This poem, and the first one, they were written to me, weren’t they?”
“Look at the last line where he says farewell. I had thought, until you showed me the other poems, that Silva was the name Hortus gave the island. But in the first poem, your poem, who do you think the writer is talking to?”
He turned to the first page of the book:
Silva your name, but gold you are at heart,
Graceful and wise, yet silent night and day.
If you could write, what would your wise words say?
If you could read, this skill, this vital art
Of joining letters, words and minds would chart
A course unto an island far away,
Where bark and leaf of tree their words display
In silent speech.
He shook his head. “I don’t think he’s addressing the island. Graceful? Wise? Very wise indeed, he uses that word twice. Silent? Why would you be silent? That doesn’t make sense here. Whoever, or whatever, he’s speaking to can write, can read, because he tells us in the second verse that ‘these things came to be.’ The island itself can’t read or write, so when he talks to Silva he must be talking to—”
“The trees,” murmured Silva.
“Yes!” said Marchus. “It makes perfect sense. So at the end of the book, he’s not only saying farewell to the island, but the trees, too. Of course, it’s possible that he named the island Silva as well; that would be a fine name for it! Haven’t you ever wondered why our whole island is called Southernwood? And Ashenwood before that, until the city around Great Ash was destroyed? We islanders have always thought there was another name for this place, a better name. This would explain that little conundrum! And Zossimo must have named you after the Silva in this poem, don’t you think? You were the first to be given that name as far as we know.”
Silva’s heart thumped against her chest. “So there is a connection between me and the book! But it’s strange that Father never showed me the poem. He would tell Mother she was made of gold. She had such beautiful golden hair, Marchus. Do you remember? She was gold, and I was silver, he used to say, and I always thought that was the meaning behind my name. No, he never told me about this book.”
She stood up. Marchus closed the notebook and sighed.
“Secrets, Silva, secrets everywhere. I found that cover at the bottom of one of the archive chests, years ago. I would have shown it to Bassan had we not had a fearsome argument about the Arboral. I was so angry with him! So I decided The Book of Hortus would remain with me and I would say nothing to him about the matter. So you see, secret begets secret. And what good it all does us, nobody knows.”
Marchus blew a speck of dust off the notebook and pointed at the picture of the man in the boat.
“Do you think this is Hortus? Perhaps he’s sailing to the island. Or he may be trying to sail away, and if he is, he didn’t get very far, did he? He ended up on the island forever. I’ll study the other poems in this book today, if I don’t get interrupted, and I promise to keep it safe. Next time you come, we could look at your leaves in the family history room. Would you like to do that?”
“Yes I would,” said Silva, bending down to inspect the picture. Hortus was rather expressionless. He was simply drawn: a dot for a nose, a straight line for a mouth, one hand pointing toward the sail. His eyes were larger, more detailed, looking straight out from the page into hers.
“Why did you draw a boat, Hortus? And why did you call the trees Silva?”
“I expect Silva comes from the old times,” said Marchus. “Other than your name, it’s not a word the trees have ever used, and so nor do we, as we speak the language of the trees, do we not?”
He smiled at her, then opened the book again enthusiastically.
“To work! To read! To think! To understand! Now it is my turn to bid farewell. Come and see me tomorrow if you can!”
“I shall,” she promised, and crept out of the office, looking back as she pushed the door shut to see Marchus hunched over the book, his lips moving soundlessly, the pleasure of drinking those new words of Hortus evident in every shivering fold of the limp, charcoal cloak that covered his bony body.
***
The smell of onions, fish, and freshly baked bread wafted around Great Aspen’s stairway. The doors into the Albatorium must be open again as the sound of the square carried upstairs, too: shouts, song, and horses’ hooves, all mingling with the hum of chatter from the halls.
Winifred must be rushed off her feet. Usually only the Great Hall was open, but today the Public Hall had been dusted off and was ready to receive anyone who was willing to partake of Winifred’s creations, which no doubt meant that the whole city would be piling in to grab their portion of bread and meat or pie and pudding.
Trevello had spotted her coming down. He rushed over to move a group of young Southernwooders who were sitting on the stairs.
“Come on, you lot, out of the way! Our Legator comes to join us. Wipe those crumbs off the floor if you please! This way, Silva,” he said, steering her away from the halls. “Let’s have a quick word in my office, shall we? Where have you been? Upstairs, having a rest, I expect? Good!”
“I’m fine, Trevello, really!” said Silva, pulling her arm away. “And no, I haven’t been resting; I’ve been up in the library with Marchus.”
“Marchus, heh? What did he have to say for himself, then?” asked Trevello, leading her into his office. A tidy pile of books lay on a huge desk, and the left and right walls each boasted a large painting. But it was the wall behind Trevello’s impressive desk that surprised Silva. There, neatly arranged in rows, sat a great number of chains, handcuffs, ropes and keys, hundreds of keys, the largest ones set higher, the smallest ones on the bottom row just above a tiny window.
“We talked about Father,” said Silva, gazing up at one of the biggest keys.
“I expect you did. Ah! You like my display, I see. My, Silva, Zossimo would be proud of you today, as we all are. Take a seat. Not very comfortable in here, not like next door,” and he nodded at the entrance to a cellar on his left. “That’s where Filibert works. We see each other quite regularly as he makes his way through my office to get to his little cubby-hole. At least he has a fireplace, unlike me, but then I’m mostly in the guardery out the back or pacing the city streets keeping order. No time to sit at a desk, me, oh no!”
He settled back in his chair and looked at her expectantly. What was she supposed to say? He must have seen the doubt on her face, and leaned forward.
“Silva, one reason a new Legator meets with the Session leaders is to inform them whether they will keep their posts. You are Legator now. You might wish to choose a new Librarian or Treasurer, or even a new chief of the guardery.”
“Oh, Trevello, I hadn’t thought at all about changing anybody. I really wouldn’t know who could replace any of you.”
Marchus crept into her mind. Would he ever have wanted to be Librarian? No. He never left the Albatorium, did he? And being Librarian wasn’t just about books, but the trees, too, and Marchus might know a lot about them, but he had no practical experience, n
ot like Bassan.
“Excellent!” said Trevello. “In that case, let me tell you what I think needs to be done. This tree rot has to be got rid of, and quickly. And our people need to feel safe. They want action. Some of them, very few, but enough, are ready to stir up trouble for any reason. We must put a stop to that, too. You see, Silva, people think this island is a peaceful rock full of law-abiding, sweet-natured folk. Nothing could be further from the truth. The prison in the guardery is full—haven’t kept anyone down on the underfloor since Rath escaped—and there’s a barrel load of complaints from all and sundry about petty theft, trespassing, he-did and she-dids and all kinds of unpleasantness that you don’t want to waste your time thinking about. That’s my concern. I’m an old dog at this job, but Wystan wouldn’t let me retire, and quite frankly, while I can still get out of my bed on a morning, I’ll keep going till I drop.”
He stood up and clapped his hands together. “The years have eaten into my flesh, Silva, but my voice and my mind remain. My mind tells me that there’s more to this matter of the treesmoke than meets my eye. Never seen anything divide the Session like that before. And there’s something in the wind, too, Silva, blowing that reek over the island, making people unsure, scared, and unpredictable. So! We must increase the guard in and around the city; that’s the first step. We’ll bring most of the guard back from Oakenwood and those at Ashenwood, too. Catching Rath is secondary at this time. We simply must control the situation here first, before squandering resources elsewhere.”
Silva wished her mind were as clear as Trevello’s. His plans made perfect sense, but were at odds, surely, with Isleaf’s words of warning. Isleaf had mentioned Oakenwood and Northernwood. Shouldn’t she be sending the guard out to those places to check what was going on? And he’d mentioned a traitor in Southernwood, too. It couldn’t be Trevello, could it? Oh dear, how could she trust anything anyone told her?
“Do you remember my pledge, Trevello? I said that I also wanted to find out what happened to Father. I do wonder whether his disappearance is connected to the problems our island faces.”
“Whyever do you think that?”
“Er, well, it’s something I read on a leaf.”
Trevello sat on the desk and folded his arms. “A leaf! Don’t get me wrong, Silva, the trees are wiser than we are, I know, and it was a leaf that announced your legatorship, but the leaves don’t have to haul petty criminals out of hiding holes or chase over toward Quagfen to stop a riot. Some of our trees like fact and figure, a straight yes or no. Others like to dream, to paint with pretty prose and poem, to dance with summer twig of leaf or winter branch of snow. They are who they are and who they must be. And so must we be, also, using our common sense, our powers of persuasion, and our understanding of the best way to get something done. And when the Session meet at sunset tomorrow, they’ll want a strong leader standing before them, not a tree!”
If he was upset with her, he didn’t show it. He smiled, then turned his gaze to the cellar door and laughed.
“Filibert! You can come out now.”
Filibert suddenly appeared, a grin on his face.
“Telling our Silva what to do, Trevello? Quite right, quite right! That’s our job, to advise, to persuade, as you so diligently point out, and then, oh, the luxury of it all, when we can leave the decision making in the hands of our capable Legator!”
Trevello laughed again and got off the desk. “I do not doubt that our Legator is extremely capable, Filibert. She is more like Zossimo than she knows. He was a man of the trees, your father,” and he nodded to Silva, his eyes lit with the memories of a man he had clearly admired. “We would talk through the night, congratulate ourselves on our wonderful ideas, shake hands on a new course of action, and then he would disappear off into the Hintermounts, where a driving rain would cast him into a copse where a tree, who knew much more about our plans than we did, would, with a word, persuade him to change his mind completely! But enough of an old man’s chatter. I go to eat with the crowds, and then I must return to the guardery where I’m sure there’s work aplenty.”
Trevello left. Silva stood up. Filibert was still grinning.
“Very good, Silva. You didn’t let Trevello boss you about, which means you’ve got more spleen than many a Session member. Would you like to take a look at my little cellar?”
He disappeared into his room. Well! Trevello had certainly not left her in any doubt that the Session would expect a strong, decisive leader. It was difficult to imagine that she would ever sit down for a cozy chat with Trevello like Father had. How could she face the Session tomorrow? It was one thing talking to Trevello in his office, but quite another standing in front of a crowd of scheming, excitable Session members who were probably just waiting for her to put a foot wrong. They wouldn’t want to hear her nattering about a leaf! They’d be nudging each other, smiling to themselves, slowly coming to the conclusion that they might put up with her for so long, or not even very long at all, before forcing a new election for one of their own. What if she showed them exactly what Isleaf had written? Yet it seemed his words were only for her, and he hadn’t even let her keep the leaf with—
“Are you going to come in?” came Filibert’s voice. “I have some magnificent jam pudding here, and it’s got to be gobbled up! You probably haven’t eaten, and neither have I, but it’s often a good idea to start with some pudding, I find, and I’ve put it by the fire to warm up a bit.”
Filibert’s cellar was a small, high room, and wonderfully warm. A single candle burned on a table that was littered with quills, boxes of mathematical instruments, colored bottles and a set of goblets. The light flickered upon long scrolls hanging from metal spikes. A ladder stood in the corner. The scrolls fluttered as she closed the door.
“Filibert, your walls are alive!”
The Treasurer chuckled. “Those are my calculations, Silva. I write everything down on one long scroll, and then I get the guards to come and hang it up. I can’t climb a ladder myself. This is a strange room. Look at it! I’m not sure why it was built like this. Perhaps Trevello’s office and mine were supposed to be storerooms for the kitchen. I don’t have much space to lay out my work, so I thought I’d use the walls, and the spikes were already hammered in. Every so often I have to clear some of the older scrolls to make room for the new. Can’t store them here, you see,” and he pointed to a line of barrels running from the edge of the hearth around to the door, “because Trevello has half-filled this room with water barrels. He’s afraid of fire, as we all are, but Trevello says, if the Albatorium is going to burn down, it’s not going to be because the fire took hold in his part of the building. Still, I’m glad to have the fireplace—here, come and sit by the hearth. Trevello hasn’t got one in his room, did you notice? So that’s why my door is always open. It lets the heat out and visitors in. Would you like some rose petal tea?”
He went to his table and poured some pink liquid into a goblet. Silva sat down and took a piece of the pudding, which was wrapped in wax paper.
“Winifred left food for me yesterday,” said Filibert. “There was far too much, as usual. This pudding’s the last of it. It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Delicious,” said Silva, her mouth full of sweet pastry.
Filibert took a sip of tea.
“Oh, that stuff is vile! Winifred made it, and I’m trying to get a taste for it, but it’s an evil brew if you ask me. You don’t want any? Then let’s pretend we drank the lot,” and he came back to the fire and threw the rest of the tea into the flames. The logs spat out a flowery, woody scent, and Filibert sneezed.
“I’ve got a much better recipe than that,” he said. “Apple, honey, spice, you can’t go wrong with those three.” He put the empty jug by the hearth, helped himself to some pudding, and walked over to examine one of his scrolls, munching happily.
“I like my cellar, Silva. When I was an apprentice, there was no heating in this room, and the Treasurer used to share the guard chief’s office behind
the Albatorium in the main guardery building, a cheerless place, and a bit smelly to tell you the truth, being near the kitchen rubbish pit. The arrangement didn’t work too well as you can imagine, so when Zossimo came to power, he decided to move the two offices here, and they installed this small hearth. It’s situated almost above the main fireplace in Bassan’s laboratory downstairs.”
“I like it, too,” said Silva. “It’s much nicer than Trevello’s office, or upstairs where Marchus works, although he said he spends most of his time in the writing room.”
Filibert gazed up at his scroll thoughtfully.
“Ah, yes, Marchus. An interesting fellow, and very learned. He produces the finest manuscripts on the island, as you know. Which is why,” and he tapped the parchment in front of him, “I have persuaded the old chap to produce a special scroll for our Winifred, packed full of my tastiest recipes, including my apple tea.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Silva, smiling. It was hard not to laugh. She’d have to ask Marchus tomorrow how his work on all these recipes was coming along! But then the thought of the Session flitted into her mind again, and her stomach began to churn.
“Filibert, I don’t know how I’ll persuade the Session to go against Trevello’s recommendations. What would you do?”
Was Filibert even listening to her? He’d wandered over to his desk to fetch a quill, and now he was scribbling furiously on the bottom of his scroll, quill in one hand, pudding in the other.
“Hmm, that’s not quite right. How on earth did I arrive at that conclusion? I can’t believe I spent days thinking about this problem only to come up with an incorrect solution! And why is that? Because I didn’t understand the problem in the first place. Define your problem, Silva! Then devise your plan of attack. You may need to solve more than you think to find your answer, but in this matter, the conclusion may depend less on intellect than the voice of your heart,” and Filibert looked down at Winifred’s pudding in his hand and sighed.