Sleepy and Master Santaraksita at the Royal Library
The Taglian Royal Library is the largest library in the ancient city of Taglios and a location in the early chapters of Water Sleeps. Sleepy, the Black Company Annalist, took on the alter ego of a lowly, illiterate Gunni boy named "Dorabee Dey Banerjae" and was hired as a sweeper there by the library's Master, Surendranath Santaraksita. Sleepy's goal was to covertly research a solution to free the Captured from the faraway Cave of the Ancients.
Other noteworthy employees of the library are the severely nearsighted copyist Baladitya and the gateman Adoo.
Description[]
The Royal Library is primarily a repository of histories – featuring no texts on sorcery – and is evidently available only to high-caste Gunni men. During the years of Soulcatcher's dreaded Protectorate regime, the number of visitors slowly declined.
Sleepy described the library as follows:
| “ | The library, created by and bequeathed to the city by an earlier mercantile prince who was much impressed by learning [...] Outside, the library resembles the more ornate Gunni temples. Its pillars and walls are covered with reliefs recalling stories both mythical and historical. It is not a huge place, being just thirty yards on its long side and sixty feet the other way. Its main floor is elevated ten feet above the surrounding gardens and monuments, which themselves cap a small knoll. The building proper is tall enough that inside there is a full-size hanging gallery all the way around at the level where a second floor should be, then an attic of sorts above that, plus a well-drained basement below the main floor. I find that interior much too open for comfort. Unless I am way down low or way up high, everyone can watch what I am doing. The main floor is an expanse of marble, brought from somewhere far away. Upon it, in neat rows, stand the desks and tables where the scholars work, either studying or copying decaying manuscripts. [...] There is not one grimoire in the place. [...] There are more glass windows in the library than anywhere else I have ever seen. The copyists need a lot of light.[1] | ” |
The library featured a restricted section that was accessible only to the most favored scholars, with books that were not available in multiple copies. The exterior featured an iron gate and gardens that were tended by gardeners who were only permitted access by the Master Librarian himself.
Shadow Games and Bleak Seasons[]
Although the library is primarily associated with Sleepy in Water Sleeps, other Black Company veterans visited the place in preceding years. Croaker certainly went there during his early searches in "all the libraries around town" for the oldest missing Company Annals[2], and perhaps this was the first one he visited[3]. Croaker already correctly suspected that the Taglian court wizard Smoke had privately confiscated all texts pertaining to the Black Company and squirreled them away within his own secret library within the Palace of Taglios.
A few years later, the new Annalist Murgen visited the Royal Library, where he was assured by the "official historians" there "that the real keys to history are the details. Like the entire course of history can veer sharply because one man gets dinged by a random arrow during a minor skirmish."[4]
Before Water Sleeps[]
At some point after the Black Company's defeat in the Kiaulune wars, the band secretly entered Taglios and transformed into an underground organization. After "three and a half years of scheming and several carefully targeted murders" Sleepy was hired as "Dorabee", the library's sweeper. During her seven years in this role, she was caught looking at books on two occasions, but this was largely ignored since the staff believed she had simply been looking at sexual imagery.[5]
Working unseen in the library, Sleepy taught herself the High Taglian alphabet and scoured the shelves for books about the Company's earliest history. She greatly enjoyed her time there, and to have more private time, she would often encourage Master Santaraksita to go to meetings of the bhadrhalok, a local group of high-caste but powerless Gunni intellectuals who privately opposed Soulcatcher's dreaded Protectorate regime in Taglios.
Water Sleeps[]
Sleepy was finally caught by Master Santaraksita to be reading extensively at the library, but she talked her way out of the predicament with her impressive knowledge of history. The librarian, still thinking she was a lowly Gunni boy, allowed "Dorabee" to keep working and reading there out of an amazed sense of novelty. He soon allowed her to have access to every book except those in the restricted section, which she secretly accessed anyway.
Soon the library was deprived of its Master librarian, one copyist, its sweeper, and its gateman. Sleepy had Master Santaraksita and Baladitya abducted, never to return to the library.[6] Later, she ceased showing up as "Dorabee" when she was warned that a group Soulcatcher's Greys had disguised themselves inside as library staff.[7] When the disembodied spy Murgen determined that Adoo the library's gateman was responsible for alerting Soulcatcher's enforcers, One-Eye ordered Pooch and Spiff to kill Adoo.[8]
References[]
- ↑ Water Sleeps, ch. 12
- ↑ Shadow Games, ch. 31
- ↑ Shadow Games, ch. 24
- ↑ Bleak Seasons, ch. 31
- ↑ Water Sleeps, ch. 12
- ↑ Water Sleeps, ch. 33
- ↑ Water Sleeps, ch. 35
- ↑ Water Sleeps, ch. 38