“I have archivists of my own,” Jeddrin said. “It is not our custom to let strangers poke and pry.”

“It is not the Duke’s custom to have his vassals disobedient,” the captain said. He did not draw a weapon—Andressat had his own guards in the room—but the threat was clear.

“Duke Alured’s domain lies in the Immer valley,” Jeddrin said. “Mine was never part of it.”

“I would not be too sure,” the captain said. “And all the more reason for the duke’s scholar to study in your archives, as it would be in your interest to conceal evidence to the contrary. Nor should you miscall him Duke Alured now; he has chosen a new name to fit his new status, an ancestor’s name from records he found in Cortes Immer. He is Duke Visla Vaskronin: remember that. As the duke means to rule, it would also be in your interest to show your submission now.”

Cortes Immer was far from Cortes Andres: leagues and leagues lay between, forest and vale. Cortes Andres had never been breached, not even by Siniava, and in the aftermath of that war, Alured, Vaskronin, or whatever he chose to call himself could not have raised a large enough army to invade Andressat.

“Surely your duke has enough to do without bothering a poor stony land far from his own,” Jeddrin said. “I mean no discourtesy, but I will not see my hospitality abused, either. If your duke’s claim is proved true, I will accept his authority, but until then I rule Andressat, and none other. I will escort your scholar to the archives, to see for himself why it takes so long to read and check every scroll and book.”

“We will escort him—”

“You will not. You will remain here,” Jeddrin said, with all the command voice he could muster. The captain shrugged; Andressat told his own guards to find them quarters in the citadel’s outer ring. The scholar followed as he himself led the way into the inner citadel and then into the palace and finally, the main library.

The room was long, almost the full depth of the building, lit by tall narrow windows with shelves between. “This is one of the archives,” Jeddrin said, watching the scholar’s face.

“It is … impressive,” the man said. He did look like a scholar, stoop-shouldered, his fingers ink-stained.

“It does not contain what the Duke of Immer seeks,” Jeddrin said. “This room has been searched and cataloged. My own archivists—” He gestured to the end of the room, where a man sat working at a desk and a woman reached to a high shelf with a long pole.

“What is that?” the scholar asked, pointing at her.

“It is for retrieving scrolls or scroll cases from the top shelves,” Jeddrin said. “My father invented it. He is the one who began the reorganization after a series of wet years brought a spring up—yes, even up here on this height—in the middle of the old archives. Things had to be moved in haste, dried, stacked anywhere room could be found, and the same weather that brought the spring gave his archivist lung-fever. Some records were lost and could not be restored, he told me—I was not yet born—and others damaged. It was some years before he could find someone qualified to begin copying the damaged materials, and as I’m sure you know, some once attacked by the black stain continue to decay—it was a race against the stain, not entirely won.”