Captive Magics

37 - Martha with a side of Beans

Nutte really did have an alarming habit of sneaking up unexpectedly. The ink blot was spreading formlessly over the page and Leander was so busy looking for blotting paper he missed Nutte's announcement.

"Sorry?" he asked. There it was! A blotting book. He tore out a leaf and pressed it to the page while Nutte hovered disconcertingly close beside him.

"I said visitors. We have visitors," Nutte repeated. Leander discarded the ink stain as a bad job and followed Nutte through to the desk in the atrium.

There were two people waiting in the same robes worn by Teckirrion, but worn as robes should be, turning the two figures into dark columns which gleamed dully under the lamp light.

"You take down their details," Nutte told him, waiting while Leander obediently went to the desk and asked for their library cards. Why ever did they think there was work for two librarians?

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Leander, the new librarian," he said as he took the card of the young woman in front of the desk.

"It's good that they found someone to help Mister Nutte," she replied. "He has done a lot of the work by himself for a very long time. I'm Martha and this is Beans." She had a very sweet, mousy face which couldn't be described as pretty but nonetheless made Leander like her immediately. Beans, behind her, took a step sideways into view. Leander was in an instant quandary over whether Beans was a man or a woman.

"How do you do," he said to Beans. Beans replied with a hello. They both gazed, wide-eyed, and Leander was disturbed by this until he realised he could see better than them in the low light. "I'll get you a lamp," he said hurriedly, and then followed them into the library to get away from Nutte, who stared from within his alcove again.

"Did you prefer to work in the library to the College?" Martha asked him, smiling with polite interest. She and Beans were both slightly browner skinned than Leander which fascinated him, for most people in Pelland were pale, the few who weren't were wealthy traders, and as with most Pellandians he had never troubled to conceive of a darker-skinned person who wasn't rich, foreign and male. But Oran was different, its citizenry diverse, and if he wanted to pass as a local he had to try not to stare.

"I'm not a sorcerer," he told her apologetically.

"How'dyou know runes then?" asked Beans, looking at Leander with a blank, inscrutable expression.

"My wife: she's very talented."

"That's lovely, that you've taken up her interests."

"What's her name?"

"Alys."

"Alys...?"

"Alys St. Baudeliensis," he told her. Every time he gave their false names came with a vague sense of panicked uncertainty, but it was getting easier.

"I don't know anyone in the College with that name."

"No, she wanted to join but couldn't."

"That's very unfortunate."

"Why not?" Beans asked.

"Unfortunately she never got any qualifications," he said. They wound a course around a large circular reading table and Martha led them into a narrow side room even dingier than the others, with a large curtain of cobwebs across the ceiling. "Let me know if there's anything I can help with while you're here.

"I don't suppose you've seen any books on agriculture around?" she asked as Leander tried to spark another grimy lamp for them and realised it was out of oil. "I'm sorry for your wife not having any qualifications, by the way. Was it a disappointment, being rejected by the College?"