But Carcasson was no more.

The monastery sprawled out from the twin foci of cloisters and cathedral, the original pure design of the place lost in a welter of later building. There were schools and dormitories, cells of contemplation, gardens restful on the eye and conducive to contemplative thought. Most of the theories which had shaped the Ramusian religion had sprung from here as their authors looked out on the fountain-rich gardens or the green hills beyond.

There were also kitchens and workshops, smithies and tanneries, and, of course, the famed printing presses of the Inceptines. Charibon had its own lands and herds and crops, for there was a secular side to it as well as the spiritual. A town had sprung up around the swelling monastery complexes and a fishing village on the lake’s western shores kept the monks supplied with freshwater halibut, mackerel and even turtle on fast days. Charibon was a self-sufficient little kingdom whose chief exports were the books that the presses ceaselessly turned out and the faith that the Inceptines promulgated and the Knights Militant enforced.

The monastery had been sacked a hundred and fifty years before by a confederation of the savage Cimbric tribes. There had been a war then, with troops from Almark and Torunna sending expeditions into the mountains’ interior along with contingents of the Knights. The tribes had eventually been crushed and brought into the Ramusian fold, finally completing the task which the Fimbrians had attempted and failed to accomplish some four centuries earlier. Since then, a dozen tercios of Almarkan troops had also been stationed at Charibon, even as the Torunnans had garrisoned Aekir further east. Charibon was a jewel, a light to be kept burning no matter how dark the night—especially as the brightness that had been Aekir was now extinguished.

A LBREC squinted into the cold, eye-watering wind, looking for all the world like a short-sighted vole peering from its burrow at the close of winter. This high in the hills the winters were bitter, snow lying for four months in the cloisters and the inland sea growing fringes of ice along its shores. His cell then would be like a small cube of gelid air in the mornings, and he would have to break the ice in his washing bowl before spluttering at the coldness of the water on his pointed face.

He wore a habit of Antillian brown, much worn, and the Saint symbol at his breast was of mere wood, carved by himself in the dim, candlelit nights. Though all were clerics alike here in Charibon, some were of a higher order than others. Some indeed were of aristocratic background, the younger sons of noble families whose fathers had nothing to give in the way of inheritance. So they became Inceptines, a different kind of noble. For the commoners, however, there was only the Antillians, the Mercurians, or if one was of a zealous turn of mind, and hardy to boot, the Friars Mendicant.

Albrec’s father had been a fisherman from the shores of northern Almark. A dour man, from a hard country. He had never quite forgiven his son’s fear of the open sea, or his ineptness with the nets and the tiller. Albrec had attached himself to a small monastery of Antillians from a nearby village, and found a place where he was not reviled or beaten, where the work was hard but not frightening as the days on an open boat had been frightening. And where his natural curiosity and inherent stubbornness could be put to good use.

He worked in the library of St. Garaso, his hand not being apt for the rigour of the presses or the finer of the illustrating that went on in the scriptorium. He lived in a dusty, half-subterranean world of books and manuscripts, old scrolls and parchment and vellum. He loved it, and could lay his hands on any tome in the entire library within a few minutes.

It was because of his labyrinthine knowledge of the shelves and chests and stacks that he was kept on as assistant librarian, and in return he was allowed to read anything he chose, which for him was a reward beyond price. There were levels to the library which were rarely visited, ancient archives and forgotten cupboards, their contents mouldering away in dust and silence. Albrec made it his mission in life to explore them all.

He had been here for thirteen years, his eyesight progressively worsening and his shoulders becoming more bowed with every book he squinted over. And yet he knew he had not yet unearthed one-tenth of the riches contained in the library.

There were scrolls there from the time of the Fimbrian Hegemony, works which he spent days coaxing open with sweet oil and a blunt knife. Most of them were dismissed by Brother Commodius, the senior librarian, as secular rubbish, or even heresy. Some had been burned, horrifying Albrec. After that he had shown no more of his unearthed treasures to the other brothers, but had hoarded them secretly. Books should not be burned, he believed, no matter what they contained. To him all books were sacred, fragments of the minds of the past, thoughts from men long gone to their graves. Such things should be preserved.

And so Albrec hid the more controversial of his finds, thus unintentionally beginning a private library of his own, a library of works which, had his spiritual superiors discovered them, would have consigned him to the flames in their company.

T HIS morning he was staring out of one of the library’s rare windows to the hills beyond. His Excellency the Prelate of Hebrion was expected to arrive today to join the three other Prelates who were lodged in Charibon already. The entire monastery was abuzz with gossip and speculation. There were rumours that since Macrobius was dead, God have mercy on his soul, the Prelates were meeting to choose a new High Pontiff. Others said there was heresy brewing in the western kingdoms, sorcerers willing to take advantage of the confused state of the Ramusian monarchies in the wake of Aekir’s fall. This synod would be the beginnings of a crusade, it was said, a holy war to rid the west both of its enemies within and the Merduks who bayed at the gate.

Momentous times, Albrec thought a little nervously. He had always considered Charibon as a retreat of sorts, isolated as it was up here in the hills; but he saw now that it was becoming one of the hubs upon which the world turned. He was not sure if the feeling thrilled or frightened him. All he asked for was the peace to continue his reading undisturbed, to remain in his dusty, candlelit kingdom in the depths of the library.

“Gathering wool again, Brother?” a voice drawled casually.

Albrec backed away from the window hurriedly. His addresser was in rich Inceptine black, and the symbol clinking at his breast shone with gold.

“Oh, it’s you, Avila. Don’t do that! I thought you were Commodius.”

The other cleric, a handsome young man with the pale, spare visage of a nobleman, laughed.

“Don’t worry, Albrec. He’s closeted with the rest of the worthies in the Vicar-General’s quarters. I doubt if you’ll be seeing him today.”

Albrec blinked. He had an armful of books which he was cradling as tenderly as a young mother might her first child. They shifted in his grasp and he gave a grunt of dismay as they began to topple. But Avila caught them and set them to rights.

“Come, Albrec. Lay down those dead tomes for a while. Walk in the cloisters with me and watch the arrival of Himerius of Hebrion.”

“He’s here, then?”

“A patrol has reported his party to be approaching. You can lock the library after you—no one will be needing it for the next few hours. I think half of Charibon is outside indulging their curiosity.”

“All right.”

It was true that the library was deserted. The cavernous place resounded to their voices and the patient dripping of the ancient water-clock in a corner. They turned the triple locks of the massive door behind them—it was always a source of pride to Albrec, a pride that he immediately chastised himself for, that he carried on his person the keys to one of the great libraries of the world—and, tucking their hands in their habits, they journeyed out into the cold clearness of the day.