The Gold in the Dark

Chapter Ten

"Forty-ninth day of Chyor? What is this nonsense?" King Orrus looked up from the report he'd been scanning, surveying the pallid, nervous man before his throne. The man's long black archivist robes made him appear even more wan than he already was. Palace archivists were the sort to hide away in the depths of the library, far removed from any sunlight.

The archivist's response was a quavering tumble of words. "Your Majesty, ancient Hygotians did not just believe Chyor ushered in the autumnal season. Rather, they reckoned each year by two distinct parts: when Chyor's breath chilled the earth and when Chunvar's footsteps warmed the earth. The forty-ninth day of Chyor would have fallen sometime in the early autumn."

Orrus's brows furrowed as he read further. "And what's this about 'Grand Lady' Osna...? No such title exists."

The archivist gulped. "Very astute, Sire. It's a title that fell by the wayside more than five hundred years ago. We would have called the 'grand lady' a queen in our modern day, but it seems..." He quivered, and Orrus noted the shine of sweat on his upper lip. "...It seems a consort in those times could only ascend to true royalty when she bore the king a child, despite already having taken the marriage vows."

There it was. No wonder the archivist was facing such an onslaught of nerves. Orrus's own wife, Queen Lisia, had still not provided him a child despite their four years of marriage, and the archivist did not wish to offend. For half a second Orrus was tempted to feign anger just to see the poor archivist's reaction, but better judgment won out.

"A primitive practice," he said, wrinkling his nose. Internally, his thoughts lingered on the grand lady title. Orrus had enough illegitimate heirs squirreled away here and there throughout the kingdom to know the issue of conception lay not with him, but with the queen... But there was a time and a place for him to sink into those frustrations, and it was not while talking with a royal archivist about history.

The archivist nodded, clearly eager to move on to less dangerous territory. "The document is a unique, almost singular, glimpse into Hygot's past. Based on the customs described within and the method of marking the calendar year, we believe the grand lady's diary to be more than eight hundred years old."

His interest piqued, Orrus skimmed further through the transcription. It was a halting account, with many incomplete sentences and scholarly footnotes discussing possible meanings and interpretations. "Why is the text so broken?"

The archivist gave an uncomfortable cough. "The circumstances of the account's unearthing were, ah, not ideal. It was discovered by accident in the deepest level of the library behind a brick in the wall, as we were moving books to a higher level for preservation. It gets quite damp in the library's lower reaches, so we're lucky to have saved even this small fraction of the original document. The diary's discoverer happened to be one of our younger, inexperienced scholars, who handled it without proper care. Some of the pages crumbled to dust immediately... Fortunately I was nearby and salvaged what I could. And the young imbecile has since been dismissed," he said with a smug smile, before continuing.

"The prose is also quite hard to decipher. Much has changed language-wise since the time this was written. We're left with more questions than answers, unfortunately. Yet I still have certain hypotheses regarding the diary."

"Such as...?" Orrus was enjoying this exchange now. It made for a welcome diversion from the usual slew of audiences and council meetings.

"For instance, I would argue we must regard the document as important not only because of its age, but also because of its hiding place. For Grand Lady Osna to hide it behind a brick in the deepest depths of the library speaks of a need for secrecy—a need to hide the diary's content from prying eyes."