Ink and Bone

The gate cranked upward, and Santi led them into Oxford.

No one said a word. They moved in silence through the crowd. Hundreds of people pressed around them, staring at these well-fed, armed strangers with strangely empty expressions. It wasn’t just hunger, Jess thought. It was the absence of hope.

Wolfe stopped them when an armed crew blocked their path. The English soldiers, presumably, though in contrast to the neatly uniformed Welsh, these men had only remnants of their former red and black about them – a grimy pair of pants here, a tattered scarlet coat there. They looked as dirty, tired and near-starved as the civilians. The man in front was of medium height, with close-cropped brown hair and cheekbones that would have been prominent even if he’d been well fed, but now jutted out painfully sharp, as if they might soon cut the skin. A thin-lipped mouth and grey eyes the colour of the leaden skies, he looked every inch a warrior, and the very opposite of General Warlow … and yet this man was on the losing side of the war.

‘Let us pass,’ Wolfe said.

‘As soon as we’re clear on the rules,’ the man said. ‘Scholar Wolfe. Yes, I know who you are. And you, Captain Santi. My name is William Smith, and I’m in charge of the Oxford defence.’

‘And what is your rank?’ Santi asked.

That got him a humourless smile in return. ‘All the bastards with rank are buried. Call me the major general of walking corpses.’

‘You said there were rules,’ Wolfe said. ‘Let’s get on with them.’

‘Simple enough. Straight to your Serapeum, get whatever you need, and get out. You have until nightfall. After that, your neutrality doesn’t matter a damn.’

‘By the accords, Library neutrality doesn’t have a time limit.’

‘It does today.’

Wolfe merely nodded, as if he’d expected it. ‘I suppose there isn’t much intimidation the Library can manage on the major general of walking corpses.’

‘Exactly,’ Smith said. ‘I’m giving you this day from the kindness of my cold, soon-to-be-dead heart. Use it well, Wolfe. Or I’ll take you, your party, your precious books, and use you for every advantage I can.’

‘You’d damn your entire country,’ Santi said. ‘But I suppose you know that.’

‘Do you think I care about that?’

It was simply said, but there was no question in Jess’s mind that the man meant every word. Wolfe didn’t try to negotiate. He just nodded, and when Smith gestured his men out of the way, Wolfe continued to lead the Library’s party forward.

Smith called after. ‘Need a guide?’

‘We know the way.’

After that, no one blocked their path, though there were still those eerily silent Oxford citizens watching; some were standing in long, unmoving lines to get meagre rations of food, medicines, clean water. Some were lying beneath lean-to structures to keep the rain off, alone and unfriended.

The city stank of waste and sickness and unburied death, which was an awful contrast to the beauty of it – clean, ancient buildings sturdy under the weight of history. The Serapeum was off Catte Street, near the colleges, and as they neared it Jess was struck by its resemblance to a fortress. Heavy, old iron gates blocked a large grey-stone courtyard, with the library building itself towering over it and casting it into cold shadow. Battles had been fought here. Blood spilt.

It looked old, and it was. As they got closer, Jess was disquieted by the number of Oxford citizens who’d gathered at the gates: men, women, children of all ages. It was a press of them, blocking the way, and on the other side of the bars stood a contingent of the local Library Garda, armed and ready. There was muttering, and it grew louder as Wolfe’s party approached.

‘On your guard,’ Santi said to all of them. ‘This might be difficult.’

He was right. The crowd didn’t want to give way, and mutters quickly gave way to pleas. Jess swallowed hard when he saw a woman grab at one of the Library soldiers’ sleeves; she was moved away, firmly but gently, by the soldier behind him. The voices rose around them as they pushed forward, and grew in desperation.

‘Please, Scholar, let us have the food! We know they have stores inside!’

‘We need shelter!’

‘Please, only take the children inside!’

‘Bastard! We know you’re hoarding water!’

‘Why do you get to leave? What about us?’

The guards formed a wedge that drove through the crowd to the gates, then pushed open a corridor to let Wolfe and the students advance towards the closed barrier. On the other side, a robed librarian turned the lock to open it.

As it swung aside, the voices rose to shouts, and Jess looked around to see that the soldiers who’d guarded his back were now defending themselves. They were shoulder to shoulder, two deep on each side, and formed a tight, strong arc to hold the crowd at bay.

‘Inside!’ Santi ordered, and shoved Thomas after Wolfe as the Scholar stepped inside the courtyard. ‘Go, go, go!’

Jess grabbed Morgan, and Glain grabbed him, and the rest of them hurried after. Dario brought up the rear, pistol out and ready, but he didn’t need it. The lines held. Santi called retreat, and it was made quickly and efficiently, with the lines compressing into a thi

Jess stumbled to a fast halt as he almost ran into a guardian statue. A lion, this one. Massive. It was on all four feet, head down, red eyes glowing like lava. A rumbling alert came from it, and Jess quickly held up his Library bracelet for scan. The lion brushed him aside and advanced to stalk into the courtyard.

The crowd stormed the gates. Bodies slammed against the unyielding iron bars, and it was a mass of screaming faces and flailing limbs. There was no speaking with this crowd, no reasoning with it. They could only hope the gate could hold, and that the guardian lion, which now paced the inside of the fence and roared warnings, would be able to help Santi’s men hold the line.

‘Come inside, quickly,’ the librarian who’d greeted them said. She was a tall, thin woman of African descent, with close-cropped greying hair and a bleak look in eyes that had seen too much. ‘My apologies, Scholar Wolfe. I am—’

‘Senior Librarian Naomi Ebele,’ Wolfe said. ‘You’ve done very well under difficult conditions. You only need to hold on a little longer.’

She caught her breath, and from the sudden shimmer in her eyes the relief was overwhelming, but when she spoke her voice remained steady. ‘Help is most welcome, sir. You’ll see the extent of our problem inside.’

‘What about the gates? Will they hold?’ Jess asked. The mob – and it was a mob now, mindless and violent – was trying to climb over. Santi’s men were keeping them off.

‘They have so far,’ Ebele said. ‘This isn’t their first try getting in. They believe we’re hoarding supplies.’

‘Are you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve barely enough to keep us alive another day or two. What we do have is books. You were told of the cache we found?’

‘Yes. Black market?’

‘If so, it’s from ages ago. It seems more likely that some early librarian stored a valuable donated collection here intending to ship it on, but something happened and the storehouse was forgotten until we opened it looking for more supplies. It came as quite a shock, believe me. We’d already sent all but our core staff out of the city when the negotiations failed.’

‘How many do you still have here?’

‘Three, including me. I sent our resident Scholar away to London a week ago, over her objections. But she was too old and frail to stay.’ Ebele walked them up a set of steps to the oak door, which looked stout enough to withstand a determined attack. She opened it with another key and led them into a hallway that seemed drenched in shadows, but then it opened into a vast echo chamber of dark wood, high arches, and shelves. Like all Serapeums around the world, this one was filled with blanks, ready to be served from the Codex, but in addition to those, the long polished tables down the centre of the hall were piled with books. Originals.