Two Kingdoms 26: Hand and Eye

[DoctorM]

TWO KINGDOMS 26: HAND AND EYE

Author's Note: This is the twenty-fourth part of an AU construction about a very different post-1120 Gwynedd where the coronation challenge at Kelson's coronation went rather differently--- very differently. This episode falls some weeks after "Spyglass". As always, input and comments are very much appreciated.

*****

Booksellers, Christian thinks, come in two kinds— the gnarled and gnome-like  sort and the scarecrow sort. Driss is the second kind. He's folded onto a high stool in the back of the shop like some great stick insect. 

Christian steps into the shadowy depths of the mektaba and looks around. Seven or eight years since he's been in Djellarda, and Driss' shop is still the same. Driss is on his stool, with an untidy pile of manuscripts spread out on the counter. Driss himself could be anything— tall and gaunt and dry, maybe any age from fifty to older than the city itself. Probably Moorish, or Moorish once, but maybe anything now.

There's a high rack of pigeon-holes on the wall behind the bookseller, most of them stuffed with rolled sheaves of documents. There's a flat shelf next to that, crowded with heavy bound books. Somewhere in the back, Christian knows, there's  a scriptorium with copyists poring over manuscripts and another room where the binders are crafting pages between fine covers. Nothing's changed here  in more than a half-dozen years.  The Darija for bookshop is mektaba, and the Mektaba Driss is a fixture in Djellarda.

Driss looks up at him and shakes his head. "Look who it is," he says. "Can't stay out of the South, can you?"

Christian shrugs. "Can't seem to. I keep ending up back down here. And nothing changes, does it?

"Not in my shop it doesn't. You have, though. Older. Better dressed. You still working down here?"

"I am," Christian says. "Haven't given it up yet."

"Heard you were in the Gwynedd wars," Driss says. "I've heard a lot of nonsense tales about you, too.  You're supposed to be up in the far north end of things. Moving among the high born. Who's got your contract these days? Don't tell me the wars are coming south. I don't need to hear that."

Christian is looking at the rows of manuscripts. "You know I'd never work for the Haldanes. I'm at Valoret these days."

Driss laughs. "There's a story that says you married rich."

"Well, that one's true. I did marry up in the world."

Driss spreads out his hands. "Mbrük— congratulations. Good to know. So— come down here to spend your rich woman's money?"

"Something like that."

Driss cocks his head. "Whatever became of that tall skinny blonde thing you were with— the scary one?"

Christian grins. "I married her."

The bookseller stares at him.  "So she was high-born after all. She always acted like she was. That explains the scary part. Some rich lord's daughter playing at being a runaway? You light-horse troopers have all the luck— got an eye for the main chance, too."

"Not a lord's daughter. A duke's daughter."

Driss waves a hand. "So she's rich and you have money to spend. Duke's daughter— wartime's always good for your kind. Chaos opens all the doors, after all.  The stories I keep hearing about you— God alone knows where they come from. You're not what anyone expects. You never were."

Christian runs a finger along the counter, along the edges of manuscripts tied with bits of ribbon.  "I'm here shopping. Maybe not just for books."

Driss sighs. "Information isn't cheap these days. But you have a rich wife and we both know whoever has your contract is the one really paying. What are you looking to know?"  He leans back on his stool and looks at the shop door. "If you've got bravos, bring them in. I don't want them lounging in my doorway scaring the clientele. Just keep them from touching the books."

Christian nods and closes his eyes for a moment. The shop door opens and two of the Queen's Moors come in, hands near blade hilts, eyes moving around the room.

Driss looks at them with suspicion. They're in nondescript dark clothes that might or might not be Moorish, but Driss is looking at the red cords around their necks. He knows what they're wearing, knows that the cords go to bits of script encased in pendants. They're not wearing the crimson sashes of fedayin, but he knows who and what they are. The corners of his mouth draw down.  "Zanadiqah," he says. "Heretics. But you would have them for your men, wouldn't you?"

Christian shrugs. "They're loyal. And they're skilled."

"Tell me what you're looking to know."

"Tell me about the Anvillers."

Driss almost laughs aloud. "The Anvillers? What do the Anvillers have to do with the Gwynedd wars?"

Christian is looking at a stack of pages. "Maybe nothing. But what have they been doing? They've used you to do their bookbinding for twenty years and more. You hire out copyists to them by the dozen. So what's happening inside the commanderies?"

The bookseller motions Christian to a stool. "If you're back in Djellarda, you've seen them in the street. Always the finest mounts. They're rich, God knows. They have their hands in everything financial here. They haven't been to war in years and years, though. People are starting to ask about that, about just what the Knights of the Anvil actually do. They do host a lot of scholars and adepts, though. People say— some people say —they're too close to Moorish ideas. Some people say they're too close to Deryni magic. They pay for a lot of copying, a lot of binding. What do you care about the Anvillers?"

"What I care about is if any of them are writing about Gwynedd. Or if they're hosting anyone from Gwynedd. Or maybe if there's anything happening inside the Order. Any new factions."

Driss considers. "Thirty years ago, yes. There was a split. Back thirty or so years ago there was a split in the Anvillers— I'm not sure why. The story was that some of the Knights wanted to find a new mission— they weren't fighting on the Moorish borders any more, and they didn't like just being caught up in local politics here. Money, too, I hear— who got to control lands and money that came in with the Orders the Anvillers gave haven to back once upon a time."

Christian looks at him hard. "Like the Michaelines?"

"I wouldn't know. But there were stories that whoever split off, they had their own splits, too." Driss watches the two fedayin leaning against the wall. He looks back at Christian. "The Anvillers have been arguing inside their Order. I know that much. They're writing and arguing about what the Order should be. Doing a lot of debate— I'm making good money on it."

"Is there anyone new in Djellarda? Down from Gwynedd? Anyone new joining the debate?"

Driss frowns. "Like churchmen, you mean? Nothing like that."

"Like anyone. Remember Magister Lucien in Truyère? Maybe Lucien's friend Stefan Coram or any of his students. Anyone like that."

"What are you looking for? What's any of that have to do with the wars up in Gwynedd?"  Driss shakes his head. "Coram... I remember the name. He hasn't written in years, has he?  What's Stefan Coram to you?"

Christian shrugs. "It's political. Something I'm contracted for. I want Coram, and I want to know if he's involved with anyone here. I want to know if there's some new group here— if there is, I want to know if it's reaching out to Gwynedd."

"Coram hasn't been in town that I've heard. At least he hasn't shown up at any of the Anviller houses or any of the scholars' houses. I'd have heard the name if he had.  I wouldn't know his face, but the scholars, they'd all brag if someone even half-famous came to see them. You know that. No one is talking about his students, either." Driss is running possibilities through his head. "Whatever you're doing, it's a Deryni thing, isn't it? Something that's deeper than just the wars up in Gwynedd?"

"Something like that." Christian shrugs again. "Who's writing about Gwynedd nowadays? Who's writing about Deryni and politics? Or Deryni history? And has anyone been paying in Lognac silver?"

Driss holds up one bony finger. "Maybe there's something. Maybe." He pulls a  heavy book from the shelf behind him.  "A client rented half a dozen copyists from me. Kept them working for a good long while. Then he wanted one set of pages bound. He paid in Lognac money." He hands the book to Christian. "Take a look."

The book is thick enough, and expensively bound— good, solid boards, carefully finished leather. He opens it. There's a frontispiece, something illustrated with care. A man at arms stands on a hill with a great, thickset herding dog at his side. Two cowled figures are behind him— not quite monks, not quite priests. Each figure holds a sword. Christian frowns. Down below the hill and in the distance are small sheep and a walled town. He looks over at the title page. The Latin is good, the script isn't bad, maybe better than his own hand. There's a title: The Guardianship of the Land.  And now, Christian thinks, we're starting to get somewhere.

Driss looks at him. "You want to read through it,  go ahead." He gestures at the two swordsmen leaning against the wall. "Go send the zanadiqah for wine or kahwa, your choice. Have your heretics make themselves useful. You sit and read."

****

The kahwa is hot and rich and laced with cardamom. Christian is skimming through the book while he drinks.  The book sprawls across tales of the Deryni past and stories of loyal and faithful servitors. It mixes in the history of the old military Orders with misty visions of what a society should be. Whoever wrote this— and there's no author's name —was a font of quotations and associations.  It's a mess, and it was never written for a scholastic audience, for university men whose lives were about parsing every word, every comma, in a book of hundreds of pages. But he's getting a sense of who it might just be for.

Driss looks over Christian's shoulder. "The client paid double to get the frontispiece done. He wanted the best binding I could get him. My copyists ate well off the commission for a long while. I haven't told him it was done yet."

Christian turns a page. "He didn't have a name, of course."

Driss laughs. "Of course he did. Mestre Johannes. Same as about half my private customers. I was hoping it might be something heretical. Christian heretics will pay anything to get copies made on the quiet. But this isn't heresy as far as I can tell. The frontispiece— that's all old and ordinary, right? Shepherds, sheepdogs, sheep, You know that, don't you?"

"I know the figure. Shepherds, sheepdogs, sheep— clergy, knights, peasants and villagers. The way things are supposed to be ordered in the world. This is a mess. It's just...off. Those aren't really priests or monks— they have blades, and they're shown as hooded, not with tonsures." He turns pages back towards the front. "The stories aren't right, either. They go from talking about sheepdogs standing off wolves to talking about Noah and Moses."

"It talks about Gwynedd near the end. Not about the wars, though. It calls Gwynedd a ship. Didn't the first Haldane king fight Moors by sea?"

"A ship. St. Bearand. Noah." He drains off his kahwa.  "Why Moses?"

Driss shrugs. "Moses— Musa —was in a basket on the river. Kept from drowning in a basket. Isn't that like a ship?  Nūh had his family in a ship when the world flooded."

"An ark," Christian says. "Not navis. Arca."  He looks up at Driss. "Ark is more like something protective. Like Musa's basket on the river." He's turning pages now, scanning for anything about Gwynedd.  "Here... It's playing with words. Arca is ark, like in the story of Nūh. The text says arca about Gwynedd, Gwynedd is an ark. And it uses arx, too. Arx can be ark, but it's citadel, too. Gwynedd is a citadel."

"So it's just propaganda for the Haldane kings.  The kings in Gwynedd are like Nūh and his family. They're supposed to rebuild the world. So they have to be cherished and defended."

Christian opens his hands. "There's something more. The frontispiece figures, the ones in the hoods. That's something else. There's more here." He flips another page over and stops. "Tell me what this is."

Up in the upper corner of a page there's a tiny sketch of an upright hand, fingers together, palm out. Christian flicks pages back towards the end. There are two more pages with the same sketch of the hand, and two others with a tiny sketch of an eye next to the hand. He leans in to read the letters under that. "The hand follows the eye. The eye directs the hand."

Driss shakes his head. "Just marginalia. You know about that. Idiot bloody copyists, they get tired, they get bored, they write things. I'm tired. My hand hurts. It's cold. I wish I had a cup of beer.  Just marginalia."

"The hand follows the eye. The eye directs the hand. That's something else. It sounds like it could just be about copying, about how you copy things, but it's not. Something read, something heard." He looks up at Driss. "Get me the copyist on this. Where is he?"

Driss jerks his head towards the back room. Christian nods and gestures to the Moors.

*****

The boy is no more than twenty. Long hair to his shoulders, that starved student's look. He's standing there in front of Driss and Christian, trying not to look guilty. The two Moors are back on the wall. They're looking at the boy like he's not there at all.

"I haven't done anything," the boy stammers. "I mean, I haven't stolen anything."

Christian laughs, Driss just looks bored. "I know about copyists," Christian says. "I know about students, too. So does my friend Driss here. You've got a room somewhere with a stack of  fresh paper sheets and a box of stolen styluses and ink hidden away. No one cares. Don't get greedy and that's a cost of doing business in the book world. What I care about is this." He holds up the book. "You were the copyist for this. Tell me about the job."

The boy shrugs. "Driss hired us out, " he says, "Six of us. We made copies from glossed pages. I have the best hand, so the client's people wanted mine bound. Driss paid me a bonus for that."

"You didn't do the work here. Were you at a monastery? At an Anviller house?"

The boy shakes his head. He looks baffled. "An Anviller house? No. We went to a house outside of town. We went out every day before dawn, stayed 'til dusk. It was set up for us to work. They fed us there, too."

Christian draws in a breath. There's a house now, Whatever's out in the shadows has a presence in the real world.  He looks at the boy. "How many people were there? What were they like— monks, clergy, who? Did you see the client?"

"Just once, I think.  Not clergy. Well-dressed, well-spoken. He said he was Maitre— Mestre —Johannes. Could've been from anywhere. Told us to work hard and be diligent, that what we were doing was important. His people were all secular— dressed that way, anyway. Didn't look like scholars, though. They looked like upper clerks."

"Accents?"

The boy sounds unsure, "A couple sounded northern, maybe, Like from somewhere up in Gwynedd. At least one was pure Nur Hallaj." He looks back at the two Moors. "Never more than two or three people there. Sometimes just one. There were always a couple of swordsmen, too. Guards by the front door. They never said anything."

Christian is starting to grin. He has a place to start, now. He's seeing the ghost of an outline.  He wishes the Moors had brought wine.

He holds up the opened book. "Tell me about the marginalia. What are those?"

The boy is stammering again. "The client's people. They had little necklaces with the eye as a pendant. I thought they might be for luck— you know, warding off the evil eye. The hand...that was on papers they had. Stamped on, it looked like,. And one of them, one of the northerners, he had a pendant with the hand."

"What's the saying mean— The eye directs the hand, the hand follows the eye?"

The boy still looks uncertain. "I heard them say it one another. The others— the other copyists —heard it, too. They said it like it was a formula. Like when Moors say Inshallah.  Or like saying God preserve you in conversation. It sounded like that."

Christian is hearing the formula in his head. Shepherds and sheepdogs...he's sensing more about the outline. He closes the book. "Did they ever use a name for what they were? A name for a party, a faction, an Order? Did they use anybody's name? Did anyone say Stefan Coram?"

The boy frowns. "Stefan Coram? No— I don't know who that is. They never talked to us, really, Just asked how the work was going, or if we needed anything. We were just there to copy pages." He looks over at Driss. Driss is rolling his eyes at a student who hasn't heard Coram's name.  The boy thinks for a moment. "Once, though— one of the northerners said something to one of the others. Again, like he was using a formula. He said something like...like... I am a Hand of...someone. The other one said  back We serve...somebody."

"That makes it easy," Driss says, "They serve somebody. Lord Somebody of Someplace."

Christian looks hard at the boy. "Think hard. King Somebody, Lord Somebody, Saint Somebody? Think really hard." 

The boy starts at Christian's voice. He shoots a look at the two fedayin. "I can't... Wait. Cedric. It might have have been...Cedric. Something like that. Or...something like Campbell or Camden. Something northern."

"Cedric. Campbell. Camden." Christian knows where this is going. "Was it Camber?"

"Camden...Camber. It was Camber. I remember it. A northern name— Camber."

Christian pivots away from the boy and Driss and swears. And here we are. This  is coming out of the shadows, There's a house outside Djellarda. And there's a name— I am a Hand of Camber. There are hands and there are eyes.  Something's coming out of the shadows.  Coram's part of it, but there's more here. There's an ideology, and there's a lot more than just Coram's minions from the Council.

He turns back to the boy. "Tell me where the house is. If you saw any of the hand-and-eye people in Djellarda, tell me where you saw them. Write it down— anything you can remember about them." He lets out a deep breath and points to the Moors. "Take this one to his rooms. Pack him. Let him write down anything he needs to." He looks at the boy. "You're leaving town. Say a month in Vezaire. I'm paying. Do I need to tell you what happens if you try to come back early?"

Driss is watching him. You can see him adding up his fee. He's probably doubling whatever he'd been going to ask for. 

Christian looks at the two Moors. "Take him to his rooms. Get him ready, get him out of town. Then go find Michael Gordon and Razik. I want them here— in the Mektaba —and I want them as soon as they can get here."

Driss laughs. "This time," he says, "I'll send for wine. You'll need it. I probably will, too."



   

[Laurna]

I do like Christian, and I enjoyed his outing to the book seller. Nice deduction for the Hand of Camber. I am curious about the book of Deryni history and its writers.
Nice Chapter, DoctorM.

[DoctorM]

I do like Christian, and I enjoyed his outing to the book seller. Nice deduction for the Hand of Camber. I am curious about the book of Deryni history and its writers.
Nice Chapter, DoctorM.

Thanks, Laurna! I think we may see some of the stories in the book soon...or at least see Christian's reaction to them.

[Jerusha]

Excellent chapter!  I was hanging on to every train of thought.

Hopefully, nothing derails...

[DoctorM]

Excellent chapter!  I was hanging on to every train of thought.

Hopefully, nothing derails...

Thank you, Jerusha! I think Christian is in his element here-- and I think it'll be a complicated ride.

[Nezz]

Well now you've got me wondering if we're going to meet a certain Knight of the Anvil who we haven't seen for 20 years or so.

[DoctorM]

Well now you've got me wondering if we're going to meet a certain Knight of the Anvil who we haven't seen for 20 years or so.

You never know...

[DerynifanK]

Very intriguing. I am really interested in the book, who wrote it and why, and what Christian thinks it means. Do Christian and Stefan Coram have a back story? Christian seems very concerned about what Coram is up to. In fact that seems to be his main focus rather than anything the Haldanes or Wencit are doing. How will it affect Charissa and her kingdom? Stefan supported the Haldanes while Christian supports the Festils. Or is it really Charissa he supports rather than the Festil line? He was after all more of a mercenary before he fell in love with Charissa. I wonder. And who are these two men he summons at the end of the chapter and what does he want from them. As noted in another comment, curiouser and curiouser.

[DoctorM]

Very intriguing. I am really interested in the book, who wrote it and why, and what Christian thinks it means. Do Christian and Stefan Coram have a back story? Christian seems very concerned about what Coram is up to. In fact that seems to be his main focus rather than anything the Haldanes or Wencit are doing. How will it affect Charissa and her kingdom? Stefan supported the Haldanes while Christian supports the Festils. Or is it really Charissa he supports rather than the Festil line? He was after all more of a mercenary before he fell in love with Charissa. I wonder. And who are these two men he summons at the end of the chapter and what does he want from them. As noted in another comment, curiouser and curiouser.

Christian does have a backstory with Coram. When he was young he wrote a book (this gets a mention in "Library")-- regarded as quite scandalous --about the early history of the Deryni,  and got him called in to explain himself to the Council. He and Coram had harsh words, and there's little love lost. Like Charissa, Christian sees Coram as the most vocal opponent of her regime, and as a threat.

Christian's family of course came over to Gwynedd with the first Festil, and they've been Festillic allies ever since, even after the Restoration. So he is loyal to the Festils (though not so much the Torenthi Furstans) even if it's Charissa he sees as both Queen and lover. The two of them have known each other since childhood and been together since they were fourteen, I think.

The book! Ah, now-- we'll see more of it, and the ideas behind it. And we'll meet the men behind it, too.

Michael Gordon is Christian's cousin and (until Christian and Charissa have children) heir to the Falkenberg lands. Razik is one of the officers of the Queen's Moors. Michael Gordon has made a couple of appearances before, I think.

I like the idea of curiouser and curiouser... I think we'll see some labyrinths soon...

[DerynifanK]

You have a real talent for labrynths and you draw the reader in further and further needing to know what happens next and who is hatching what nefarious plots. I'm getting addicted to this although i have to confess that i still hope the Haldanes win in the end although they really seem to have no role in this story line. I do find that a bit of a lack but I love your story.

[DoctorM]

You have a real talent for labrynths and you draw the reader in further and further needing to know what happens next and who is hatching what nefarious plots. I'm getting addicted to this although i have to confess that i still hope the Haldanes win in the end although they really seem to have no role in this story line. I do find that a bit of a lack but I love your story.

You're right-- I haven't been using any of the Haldanes as POV characters. I've probably been shying away from that, but I may have to re-assess the idea of at least bringing Nigel in.

Thanks for the kind words about the stories. I am going to have to do a few reveals soon.

[Nezz]

Reveals! *girlish squee!*

[DoctorM]

Reveals! *girlish squee!*

I do try to please.