Story : Of Books and Libraries

=Of Books and Libraries=
===A note for Ambrosius===
One evening, with Ambrosius' meal, comes a note. Composed in Marcus' elegant Latin the substance of the note is simple. While not wishing to intrude upon Ambrosius' research or other projects, Marcus would like a chance to talk to him. Marcus invites him to come visit the Domus Marcus or they could meet in The Library, or if Ambrosius prefers, Marcus will call on him.
Ambrosius set the note down, smiling. While he was not the most social of magi in the Order, he had to admit that the 3 months in isolation with the Aquam Elementals has put him in close touch with his need for fellowship in general. Taking the note with him, he climbed the stairs, past the sanctum marker, to the upper most level, and into his laboratory, he took a clean sheet of vellum down and prepared his ink and pen. Having whetted the pen tip, he sat for a moment, the pen and hand paused mid path. Ambrosius's brow furrowed for a moment or two, and he put the vellum back on the stack, returned his pen and ink to their proper location. He sat for a moment more, as a slight grin crossed his face. With a shout to Llewys, he strode down the stairs, grabbed his heavy gray wool cloaked from the peg, and struck off into the last of the winter snow. He certainly hoped that Domus Marcus was ready for a visit.
The door to Marcus's hall was opened by Nest, the welsh girl Marcus employed as a servant.
"Good evening, lass." Ambrosius greeted the young lady in English. "I have come at the summons of your master, Marcus Severus." As he said this, Ambrosius proffered the elegantly scribed note that he'd received with his dinner.
Nest bobbed a curtsey and took the note. She glanced at it without comprehension, "Please come in, sir," she said in poor English. "Wait upstairs in the solar." She paused for a moment to rack her memory. "Please?" She led Ambrosius up the stairs to the solar, brightly lit at this time of day by the morning light shining in through the windows. The solar had a certain pleasant sense of disarray to it; although papers covered with musical notation seemed scattered about with rough abandon, there was still a sense of order to their arrangement, as if the order was not so much random as following a pattern that only Marcus knew, but a pattern nonetheless. A recorder was being used as a paperweight to hold down a stack of music on a small writing desk, and Nest moved another stack off a chair which she offered to Ambrosius. "Wait please. I get Marcus." She bobbed another curtsy and passed through a door.
Ambrosius walked carefully around the solar, looking at the sheets of musical notation as he did so. In a rather humorous, if failed, portion of his training, Galfridus had attempted to demonstrate to a rather young Ambrosius the correlation between the logic of geometry and that of music. Ambrosius was a spectacular failure at any instrument he picked up. When he tried to play, or sing, animals would interpret it as a danger sign, and scurry of to their lairs for protection. One bird actually dropped dead at his feet when he tried to play a set of Pan's flute. Nevertheless, he attempted to hum what he saw, trying to remember what each pitch sounded like, and how each note movement changed that pitch.
He failed. Miserably. He stopped trying, for fear of being mistaken for a dying animal and having an arrow used to put him out of misery, when he hear the door along the way opposite the windows gently creak open.
====Small Talk====
"Ambrosius, sodalis mei!" cried Marcus from the doorway, the rich tones of voice caressing the Latin. "Thank you for coming to see me." He turned to Nest and in a mixture of rapid-fire Welsh and English with the odd Latin noun thrown in instructed her to do something involving wine. She nodded and swept down the stairs.
"How did your studies go?" Marcus shook his head admiringly, "Three months of such isolation! I could not do it. I am not cut out to be a hermit. A monk ... perhaps, you have your brothers, but a hermit! Was it productive?"
"Productive?" Ambrosius stroked his chin. "I suppose that depends on what stick I measure by." The magus chuckled briefly. "I did not learn what I thought I would, but I definitely came out of the isolation with a new understanding of both the elementals of the cave, and of their element itself. Indeed, I believe we might be able to harvest a bit of vis from their pool, if they were to permit it.
"But," Ambrosius continued, "for all my understanding, and for all the communication that passed between them and myself, I can say that I do not understand their basic motivations. As humans, we are driven by many basic needs, but these elementals - they're laws of existence are completely alien to us. They had killed so many people that there was a mound of bodies under the water, beyond the wall, yet there was no sense of why, or even the right or wrong of it. Completely devoid of a moral compass, I suppose you could say." Ambrosius looked up, sharply as he said this, "Don't get me wrong, Brother Marcus. I do not declare them to be evil, but nor do I declare them to be good. I suspect I simply declare them to BE." Ambrosius paused, to ensure that the magus did not misunderstand him. "Indeed, I was not certain that they would not collapse the chamber in on me, as they had done to so many others, until I had left the last time, and escorted the elemental to the third layer, and his new pool."
Nest returned with a flask of wine and a cup. Marcus blew some dust of the cup resting on his desk and handed it to her as well. She poured, then began to tidy up the room until Marcus cleared his throat. She drew herself up to her full, if tiny, height and descended the stairs. Marcus sighed, "Everything will be clean but slightly out of place today, I'm afraid."
====The Donation====
"Amicus," said Marcus. "I wanted to speak to you today, not as Princeps," he made a gesture as if doffing an imaginary chain of state, "nor really even as a sodalis hermeticus. Rather, it is on behalf of the Schola that I wish to speak. To be blunt, I'd like to convince you to contribute the Donatus and the Cato to the Bibliotheca Scholae."
"Brother, you know that I am fully behind the School." Ambrosius said, switching to Latin. "I believe it is both a superb cover for our activities here on the Mynd as well as an excellent way to seek out the gifted and ensure that they do not suffer for their gift. Aside from all that, education is the only way that the people of this land will ever find their way out of the darkness in which so many of them seem trapped of late.
"Indeed, the Bibliotheca Scholae is the proper home for these works. And it shall be so. I would ask a favor, however, though not in exchange. As you may not be aware, Veritius magi eventually call to their employ a venditores, a person whose specialty is to discretely seek out interested buyers for items that we create. I'd originally thought of Gruffydd for this task, given his proven record of exceptional bargaining, but he has suggested that his daughter, Meryl, may be groomed for the position. In the bargaining for this, it has come to my attention that he is neither willing to devote himself to the task, nor his daughter, at least to the extent that would be necessary for me to make use of her. Either way, he is bound by an agreement ot retrieve books and rumors for me, in his travels. As such, having a literate family member would only help him, I suspect. So, I was hoping that, when she is here, you could help provide her with a bit of classical education. She is ten years or so of age now. If you are able to finish and staff the school next year or the year after that, would you please take her on as a student?"
"Ten years? A good time to begin. Of course, she shall have a place. In fact." He considered for a moment. "Alicia has just begun a class in ... Artes Liberales but Meryl probably does not have enough Latin for the class, I suspect. Yes, the fall is probably the best time for her to start. I hope to have the school begin in earnest come autumn."
"Excellent! I will instruct Gruffydd to speak with you regarding Meryl's education then!"