“Did you say something dear?” asked Lord Wairth distracted by the suddenly fascinating display of Rach walking towards the stage.

“No,” I said through gritted teeth.

He looked immaculate. His suit carried an embroidery line of red and gold, the colors of the Empire and the royal family. It was just on the edge of daring.

Whispering, Lord Wairth surprised me with his insight by saying, “See his suit and the lines in red and gold? It’s a little more than socially acceptable to adopt that much of the royal color but not quite enough to comment on without looking petty. That man is either trying to garner the attention of the royals or tacitly signaling he already has it. We must be careful to be polite if he comes by us darling.”

I squeezed the lord’s hand in reply, not trusting myself to speak as I watched him part the crowd. Rach carried himself with the easy authority of someone who never truly needed to bow. Oh, he might play the role, but it would never be real. Even now, walking into a challenge, he seemed unfazed. His face hadn’t aged a day since I last saw him. The only real change was the evident growth in his ego from the way he held himself and the power he could openly wield.

Nonchalant, Rach proffered his pen. I almost went green with envy when I saw it and I could feel Wairth tense next to me. Murmuring in my ear, he said, “That, my dear, is a Hummingwhy.”

I gasped, along with the rest of the crowd, as Rach held it aloft. “One of the last Authors, Hummingwhy, created this article just before he killed himself. My family took it from a Republican savage in the wars. I will wager it for a chance to challenge the Penmanship Guild’s representatives. What will you offer me in return?”

Stepping away from his pin, the male representative raced over. Ah, I thought, of course the man has sole authority to make such wagers. Rach must have considered this, anticipating that they would look like fools scrambling to answer him. All designed to bait them into a greater humiliation.

Winded, the man stammered out, “We would be overjoyed to accept such a wager! But my Lord, we hardly came prepared for such an article. You must accept our apologies as we cannot match your stake tonight.”

Disappointed, the crowd murmured it’s displeasure. I glowered at Rach as covertly as I could. He was too clever by half to let this surprise him. Instead of a challenge, he’d managed to usurp the crowd’s approval and display his wealth all without appearing garish. It was quite the success. It made the burning anger in my stomach flare up. I was tempted to cast off my disguise and challenge him right there on the lawn. As I warred internally, a female voice cut through the crowd.

“If the Penmanship Guild cannot stand the wager then I shall provide a stake for them,” said a young girl in a firm voice. She was pretty, in a forced way. Without the help of her bevvy of accessories she would be merely average. Her brown hair and eyes were plain as the rest of her body yet the dress she wore was anything but. It glittered, each thread a separate line of Text. Impractical, I thought, and utterly impressive.

“Let’s see,” she said coyly. “Would you accept the first dance of a princess newly come of age, Lord Rach?”

Bowing low, Rach answered her in an obsequious tone. “My humble pen is nothing next to such a prize. I fear that it is I who has not brought enough to match the wager this time your highness.”

“Nonsense!” she said, preening. “A dance is but a moment, but such a pen will last forever.”

“But on upon the memories of such dances are Novels written, your highness.” The crowd and I inhaled sharply at his statement. Novel, he said.

Flushing openly at his daring praise, she added in what a young girl would imagine to be a flirtatious tone, “Then we shall improve your wager. If you win, my eyes will be the first to read the Novel you write.”

My mind flashed back to a far different classroom than the one I’d sat through at the University. Instead of desks and chairs, it sported piles of moldy parchment and damaged paper. Instead of classmates, I had competitors. Instead of prestigious donors and posh standards of conduct, the law of the Library was first to find, first to read.

The princesses simpering tone broke me out of my ruminations as she said, “Now then, Lord Rach, as you are the challenger I shall set the terms.” Pursing her lips and placing a lone finger along them, she paused to consider the two Penmanship Guild representatives for a few terse seconds. The crowd waited with baited breath. Beside me, Lord Wairth tensed, unconsciously squeezing my arm tighter. Then the princess spoke.

“Two contests, the first precision and the second speed.”

Insipid, I thought. Two contests with no tiebreaker and no imagination. She hadn’t even managed to come up with anything original, merely mimicking what the Penmanship guild was doing before she arrived. My estimation of the girl dropped even further. The lack of imagination disappointed even Lord Wairth, judging by the way he sighed and grumbled next to me.

Even Lord Rach could sense the letdown in the crowd. His immaculate smile slipped just a hair, falling from his eyes. With another low bow he acquiesced and said, “Your highness, please permit my unworthy self to make a suggestion.”

From the way she reacted, she was aware of the crowd’s disappointment as well. Uncertain for the first time tonight, she nodded.

Rach immediately sprang from his bow and said with a flourish, “The first challenge, one of precision. We shall each Write with our non-dominant hands using knives on wood. Each of us will Write a birthday card for the princess.”

Seeing her blush and nod in approval he continued, “For the second, the contest of speed, each of us will Write a compliment to the princess in water. You,” at that he turned to the princess and gave her another deep bow, “shall simply have to tell us which you prefer.”

Eagerly, the princess nodded. At my side, Lord Wairth harrumphed, “Well, a decent set of challenges, if a tad fancy for my tastes.”

In a mindless voice, I asked, “What would you prefer, my Lord?”

Smiling at me with a triumphant expression, he intoned sagely, “In the war we’d no time for such frivolousness! Our contests were to the death against the cursed Republicans, not against our own countrymen.”

Inwardly, I sighed. Outwardly, I shuddered and clung a little closer to him as I said in a frightened voice, “How horrible! You’re so brave, fighting like that. It scares me to think of the Republics and their foul soldiers.”

Preening, Lord Wairth placed his arm around my shoulders, forcing me to bend down slightly to accommodate him. Pulling me tight, he whispered in my ear, “Not to worry, my dear, I’ll not let anyone harm your beautiful head.”

His hands were smooth, the hands of an aristocrat. I doubted Lord Wairth had done any real fighting during the wars. Like most aristocrats, I suspected he spent most of his time behind the lines ‘leading’ while the commoners like me did the dying. His soft hands disgusted me.

Instead of his hands, I longed to feel the calloused grip of the Librarian and his arthritic fingers one more time. My first night at the Library I made the mistake of asking why he refused healing. His response echoed in my ears now.

“Idiot,” he’d snapped at me. “Do you imagine that I want someone else’s Writing to touch my hands? What would I be then, if I simply let the Scribes tamper with my hands?”

Uncertain, I’d replied, “I don’t know? Healthy?” In the bitterness that followed my expulsion, I’d had no tact.

Fortunately, the Librarian knew about my prickly demeanor and answered my impudence with a rap of the knuckles. As I smarted he said, “Hurts, doesn’t it? But that’s the damn point you foolish girl! If you want to Write, to really put down something original, you have to live and feelings, especially pain, are what drive us to living.” Then he’d slammed a dust covered tome down on the table in front of me and said, “Here’s the work of the ancient Philosophers. They won’t teach you this at the damned University.”

Atop the stage, Rach shook me from my ruminations as the servants finished preparing for the first challenge when he suddenly threw his hand up as if recalling an important fact and said, “Why, we’ve forgotten the tiebreaker!”

The crowd played along by calling out and repeating this important fact as though they too were unaware. Motioning them quiet, Rach intoned solemnly, “We’ve simply no time to prepare a proper slate of Writers to judge. Instead, we must defer to the judgement of the crowd. The measure of their applause must be our meter!”

Lord Wairth let me go to applaud the decision, saying with grudging respect in his voice, “Now that’s proper. A bit unconventional but we did similar things during the war.”

For a moment, I wanted to point out that he’d proclaimed duels weren’t a part of the war, then I abandoned the notion. Lord Wairth would say anything he thought would impress me without requiring his actual effort or a demonstration of his rather meagre skill.

Then he turned to me and said, “This ought to be an interesting demonstration of the more visually impressive aspects of Writing, darling. But of course you should keep in mind that flash isn’t the same as substance and nothing compares to actual combat experience!”

His superiority protected, Lord Wairth returned to gazing up at the stage with naked jealousy. It freed me from the necessity of phrasing a response to his insipid comment. He wasn’t wrong, however. Penmanship, for all that the Empire prized it, was functionally almost useless when it came to producing superior Writing. Not that he knew it of course.

Still, the thought reminded me of my own previously limited view of Writing. After the Librarian offered me the philosophy textbooks, I’d pushed them aside in disgust and ignorance proclaiming, “These are just plain words!” in disappointment. “Any country bumpkin could have created this.”

“Well we don’t have access to the fancy tomes that the University does. If any of them find something with a whiff of true Writing in it they snatch it up,” he complained in a voice that made my bitterness seem petty by comparison. Then he added in an acerbic tone, “Besides, not everything you read needs to be Writing. Don’t get so caught up in the Writing that you miss the Words.”

Foolishly, I’d snorted and cast the mundane book aside scoffing, “The words? Who cares? The power is in the Writing, not the words.”

Irate, the Librarian whipped out his thin pencil and slashed a word onto the desk in front of me. Then he snapped at me, “Read!” and the Word activated.

The force of his construct hammered into me far harder than anything I’d ever felt before. Gasping under the sudden rush of energy, I had to grab the edges of the desk to resist the command. Trembling, my hands dug into the wood as I fought. Squeezing my eyes shut and furling my brow, I stammered out with great difficulty, “Stop!”

When the pressure lifted and the power faded, I opened my eyes. I could see the Librarian bent over the desk, cutting a line through the Word. Resisting the vertigo that always accompanied the sudden release of such a strong Writing, I asked, “How?”

He simply smiled and said, “Read,” in a gentle voice.

It was one of the few happy memories of my time in the Library. Indeed, it was one of my few memories of the Library at all. A month later the Librarian died. One of the other Librarians brought me the news with a triumphant simper, barring me at the gate saying, “You haven’t heard? Your benefactor died, so you’re banned from the Library once more.”

Shocked, I’d shouted, “No! How?!”

Arrogant, the desk Librarian informed me. “The arthritis finally caught up to the old fool. His hands failed him while Writing last night and the backlash killed him. Which means you can’t hide behind the shield of his license anymore. Now off with you, peasant!”

In the end, they’d dragged me away over my protests. Cast out from the Library I had nowhere left to learn and without the Librarian no one left to teach me. But the two most important lessons stuck with me, live authentically and focus on the Words, they create the Writing. Using what the Librarian taught me, I’d grown from a scared young girl to a woman flush with the strength to pursue revenge.

It took years poring over pages to find the knowledge I needed, all while skirting under the eyes of the Empire’s police Scribes. They wouldn’t leave me alone, not just because ‘I needed to be put in my place’ according to the Scribe in charge of monitoring me after my expulsion but because most everyone thought that if they pushed me hard enough I’d be desperate enough to give them anything they wanted, my body included.

The princess’s voice snapped me out of my pensive thoughts. “Begin!” she exclaimed with a flourish.