Cenuij made an almost inaudible noise and jotted something in his notebook.

“Of course,” Travapeth sighed. “This practice can be taken too far; I was present in the Kingdom when His Majesty the present King took delivery of his radio telescope.”

“I thought the area was radio-opaque,” Cenuij said.

“Oh, absolutely,” Travapeth said. “And of course there’s no break in the canopy for hundreds of kilometres. But you miss the point, my dear sir. The telescope was not bought to be used; there was nobody in the realm able to operate it and no electricity supply available anyway. As I have related, modern technology with the partial exception of the guards’ and the army’s weapons-is effectively banned in the Kingdom.”

The old scholar suddenly looked quite sad, and dropped his voice a little. “Even my own modest camera fell foul of this rule after the unfortunate business of the King being thrown from his mount while performing the annual capital boundary riding, during my last visit…” Travapeth seemed to collect himself, sitting straight in his seat and raising his voice again. “No, sir; the King bought the telescope because it cost exactly the amount of money the treasury had to spend and because it was totally useless. Although I believe he did enjoy sliding around inside the bowl for a while, which goes against the letter but not the spirit of the Uselessness creed… But no,” Travapeth said, and came close to scowling. “My complaint is with the site the King chose for his telescope, which was the old castle library; he had the library torn down and all the books burned.” Travapeth shook his head. “Disgraceful behaviour,” he muttered into his wine goblet.

Sharrow stared at him, then made a small note in her own notebook, just to be doing something. Oh shit, she thought.

Zefla was shaking her head, making noises of polite outrage.

Cenuij had stiffened. “All the books?” he said, voice hoarse. “Burned?”

Travapeth looked up, eyebrows raised. “I’m afraid so,” he said, nodding sadly. “They went into the castle furnace; coated the whole city in ash and black, half-burned pages.” The old scholar shook his head. “Tragedy, really.”

“Terrible,” Zefla agreed.

“And for the townspeople, of course,” Travapeth said. “As I’ve said; Pharpech experiences rain only rarely, and the roof-tax tends to discourage people from covering the top-most floor of their dwellings, so all that ash made a quite terrible mess.”

“Were any very valuable books destroyed?” Cenuij said. He gave a small smile. “I’m something of an antiquarian book collector in my spare time. I’d hate to think…”

“To be honest, I doubt it,” Travapeth said, nodding to Zefla as she refilled his goblet with wine. “Thank you, dear girl.” He looked at Cenuij. “Pharpech is something of a desert for bibliophiles, dear sir. There is no literary tradition as such; only a very few of the top officials in the Kingdom, a couple of family tutors and sometimes the monarch can read at all. Though, as one might expect, this has led to a rich oral culture. But no, sir; the library was a Useless purchase, bought a few hundred years ago from an auction house here in Malishu; it had belonged to a noble family fallen on hard times.

“All the rare and valuable books had already been sold individually; what the King destroyed was merely the standard collected classics most noble families favour instead of wallpaper to line one room of their mansions, though usually the wallpaper is in more danger of being read. Its purchase as a Useless article was arguably a change of circumstance of only a very limited degree. I very much doubt that the system bibliocontinua lost anything irreplaceable in the vandalistic conflagration. But dammit, sir, it’s the principle involved!” Travapeth said loudly, banging his goblet down on the table and spilling wine over the holos and the patch of table in front of him.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Cenuij said. He made another note.

“As a result,” the old scholar said, dabbing at a patch of spilled wine on the table with the cuff of his robe, “the only book left in the whole castle is probably the one the monarch sits on during the coronation. Whatever it is.”

“Hmm,” Sharrow said, nodding.

“Right,” Zefla said, laying her stylo down. “Tell me some more about these festivals, Ivexton; which ones would you say are the most vibrant, the most colourful…?”

“So what do you think?” Sharrow asked.

Cenuij shrugged and stirred spice into his mullbeer. “I suppose it could be what we’re looking for,” he said.

They sat, all five, in a private booth in a cafe near the rented office. Miz and Dloan had their route organised; it would involve taking a flying boat from Malishu to Long Strand, a maglev express to LiveInHope, then two slow trains to the Pharpech outlands border, where there was a small settlement they could hire guides and buy mounts in. They hadn’t yet booked any tickets.

“I thought the book had been lost for a lot more than the eight cents since the Ladyrs,” Miz said.

“Anything up to two millennia, depending whose account you trust.” Cenuij nodded. “But that’s just since anybody admitted to owning it. Maybe the Ladyrs stumbled on it when they were dispossessing an uncooperative family or sacking a Corp that hadn’t paid its protection money quickly enough, maybe it had never really been truly lost. Maybe they didn’t know what it was they had-just another old unopened book that might come in handy one day.” Cenuij shrugged. “Anyway, sending it to a coprolite like Pharpech when the anti-imperial heat was on must have seemed like a neat idea at the time.” He supped his ale. “It worked, after all; nobody’s found it, though obviously old Gorko had his nose to the trail.”

“So do we go?” Zefla said. She sucked on an inhalant.

“Well,” Sharrow said, “I don’t see how Breyguhn or anybody else could have set up what happened to Bencil Dornay; the pattern he traced was pretty unambiguous, and it sounds like there is exactly one book in the castle at Pharpech.” She spread her hands. “I think we go.”

“Keeps you out of the way of the Huhsz, too,” Miz said, rolling trax spirit round in his glass. “Caught a recent news report? They’re saying two heavyweight missions left Golter yesterday, one bound for Tront and the other headed this way.”

“I heard,” she said. “At least they sound confused. Any more interesting race winners in Tile?”

Miz shook his head. “Nothing since Dance of Death.”

“How we doing for funds?” Zefla inquired, apparently trying to hold her breath and talk at the same time.

“Fluid,” Sharrow said. “Barely used a third of our allowance. The only drawback is response-time; shuffling the credit trail so it’s difficult to follow. But that shouldn’t be a problem unless we need a lot of cash very quickly.”

Miz held his small glass of trax spirit up to the light, frowning at it. “What sort of funds are we taking to Pharpech?” he asked.

“Cash, gold, diamonds and trinkets,” Sharrow said.

(‘This looks cloudy,” Miz said, nudging Dloan and nodding at the trax glass. “D’you think it’s cloudy?’)

“Getting past the border guards might swallow a fair amount,” Sharrow said to Zefla. “But once we’re in, everything’s supposed to be cheaper than dirty water.”

“Which is probably about all they have to sell,” Cenuij said.

“Think that’s what’s in this glass,” Miz muttered, squinting at the trax glass. He held it in front of Cenuij’s nose. “That look cloudy to you?”

“We’ll have to play it by ear regarding the gear we can take in,” Sharrow said. “Apparently it’ll depend what sort of mood the border guards are in.”

“No other way into this place?” Miz said, sniffing at the glass. “Struck me we’re doing all this horribly officially. I mean, I was standing in a holiday agent’s today talking about travel insurance. I mean, travel insurance! Have we really come to this?” He held the trax up to the light again, then waved it in front of Sharrow’s face. “Cloudy/not cloudy; what do you think?” he asked her.