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“Excuse me Domina,” someone called as Pali settled back onto her heels, the hefty tome she’d been pulling out made a controlled fall into her arms. It was a bound compilation of official proclamations circa the era when Artorin Damara woke after the Fall.
Pali cradled the book close to her chest carefully, not at all wanting to lose the privilege of being allowed to access the books herself, and turned to find a man with black hair and sallow yellow golden-brown skin much like Jullanar’s friend Basil, who was wearing the Zuni equivalent to Pali’s scholarly robes as he hurried toward her.
“Oh good,” the man said as he slowed to a stop before her and straightened his robes. “You’ve had that book out every day for the past week, I was starting to worry I would never see it before it was time for me to leave.”
“And you did not put in a request for the archivist to hold it for you?” Pali asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Well, as you have had it for so long, I thought you might still need it. No, I was hoping that you might be willing to share it for a few hours.”
Pali shifted how she was holding the book, holding it with one arm and bracing the bottom against her torso. She considered the man. Truthfully, she was mostly done taking notes on the proclamations contained within, and was mostly taking out the text for when she needed to check back on the specific wording of the various proclamations.
Her head was still full of the discussion of what people were planning to do with their portion of the stipend that the chancellor had instituted, full of her own assurance that Emperor Artorin didn’t have the vision or support to reform Zunidh on his own quite so thoroughly as it very clearly had been reformed. She had failed miserably in her goal to keep her study focused on the Emperor Artorin’s pre-Fall reign.
“What are you researching?” Pali asked the man.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Zemius Mdang, a professor at the University of the Vangavaye-ve, which is in the Wide Seas. I study Zuni History, and I’m currently researching the succession of the Lords Magi of Zunidh. Properly, I’m actually here visiting my cousin, but I couldn’t resist access to the Astandalan Archives while I was here. From your robes, I take it that you are from St Erlingale’s College at Stoneybridge?”
Pali raised an eyebrow. It was not unexpected that her university had been identifiable by her robes - Stoneybridge was one of the three Sisters on top of being one of the Circle Schools of Alinor, and quite well known. That the man had known enough to identify which college she was a member of, while himself being from Zunidh rather than Alinor, indicated some personal interest. More than that though - “Mdang?” she asked, mimicking the nasal ‘a’ sound he had used. “Like the Lord Chancellor?"
“Ah, yes,” Zemius said, somewhat sheepishly. “The very cousin I’m here to visit if you’ll believe it.”
Pali considered Zamius, then nodded. He was a source. A biased source, but then every source had bias. For all that people seemed willing to talk about and praise the Lord Chancellor in casual conversation, his presence had been surprisingly sparse in the records Pali had been looking at. She was sure that if she asked the archivists, they would be able to direct her to better sources, but that would be admitting that she had allowed her research to scope creep.
“I think we can come to an arrangement,” Pali said.