Waterborn

drug—or perhaps because of them—she felt giddy. This man had a pleasant way about him. 'What sort of help do you need?' she inquired.

'I have recently joined the ranks of the Royal Engineers…'

'That's part of the priesthood?' she asked.

'Yes, in a roundabout way. Sort of caught between the priesthood and the emperor. I think that's their unofficial motto, in fact.'

'Sorry,' Hezhi said. 'Go on.'

'Well, you understand that my father is a merchant, not in the royal family at all, but many engineers are hired from the merchant class, despite our mean birth. I tell you this so that you will understand I have absolutely no knowledge of the old script. It is a total mystery to me.'

Hezhi rolled her eyes. 'You think most nobles know it? Most men your age are considered brilliant if they can puzzle through the syllabary.'

'Well, that makes me feel a bit better,' the young man admitted. 'But it really does nothing to solve my problem.'

'Which is?'

'Well, my first assignment is to design a system of sewer ducts to go from the New Palace to the annex we begin building in a few months. It's a minor sort of thing, really, but I can't do it without knowing all about the old system I'll be adding on to, and frankly, I don't know all that much about underground construction or sewers at all.' He spread out his hands, his voice dropping to a low whisper. 'If I fail, I think I will be shunted back to my father and end up having to pilot one of his scows. That I would not enjoy doing, my lady. So I'm appealing to you…'

Hezhi nodded, captivated by the man's motivation. Few who came into the library showed much interest or incentive to do anything. Most were scribes checking old trade agreements, genealogists tracing family relationships. Their research was carried out laconically, without ambition or zeal. This young man had a real need to learn. She could identify with that.

'Well,' she began, 'much of what you want will be written in the syllabary, so there is a lot you can do without knowing the glyphs. Most of the New Palace was constructed after the syllabary was adopted, you see, and surely engineering texts have been written since then.'

The young man shook his head. 'Fascinating. I knew you had the look of someone with intelligence. But how do I find these books? There seems to be no rhyme or reason here, and there are so many books…'

'Let me explain to you about the index,' she said. 'Follow me as I replace these books.'

She showed him the numbers on the shelves and those in the books that matched them. With some pride, she even took him to volumes that she herself had indexed and shelved. He appeared suitably impressed. She explained the index and how to use it, which he seemed to comprehend. He was also gracious, thanking her and departing before she grew tired of his questions.

That afternoon there were still a few moments for her own research, but her thoughts kept returning to the man, his questions. Something he had mentioned…

Then she had it. Sewers. The First Dynasty had not built any, but the Second Dynasty had, and extensively. Even with the flooding, some of the ancient sewers might have survived. After all, unlike the buried building she and Tsem had explored, sewers were designed to be underground. Add to that the fact that all of the palace had not been buried—parts of the western extension dated to the Second Dynasty—and the young man's assertion that new sewers had to be articulated with the older ones, and her mind began piecing a kind of map together. It was baroque, that map, a brocade of ducts and tunnels lying across old buildings or even through them, those attached to newer ones, and newer still. This added an entirely new set of possible pathways to the ones she had already discovered—the ducts that piped water in to the palace. If she had maps of all of those things, then surely she could find a way to D'en. In fact, she could do some of the young man's research for him, and earn a bit of his gratitude, as well, something she had to admit did not exactly displease her.

Sewers! She went to ask Ghan for the index.

 

 

A few days later she had the beginnings of a map. She worked on it back in the 'tangle,' away from prying eyes. Ghan reluctantly gave her three colors of ink, so she was able to sketch the old, ruined palace in black, the ancient water ducts in blue, and the sewer system in red. She made a separate map of the palace as it was now, matching it to points on her hypothetical map of the buried city with numbers and notations. She worked on this in the evenings, of course, and at lunch. Ghan told her he had renewed his petition for her indenture, based upon the newly damaged book. Though the writ had not yet come back from her father, she attended to shelving, indexing, and repair just as she had for the past few months.

She was busy at the index when the young man—the engineer—came back in.

'Hello,' he said.

She nodded at him.

'You know, I forgot to ask you your name when I was here last,' he continued, a bit embarrassed.

'Hezhi,' she told him. 'Hezhi Yehd… Hezhi.' For some reason it seemed important to her that the young man not call her 'princess.' That seemed absurd, really, considering his mean birth, but part of her enjoyed keeping him in the dark about exactly who she was. Later, when she moved down to the Hall of Moments, perhaps she would tell him then, and he would be surprised. Perhaps he would tell his friends of how casually he and the princess had spoken together.

'Ah,' he said. 'And I am Yen, son of Chwen. I wanted to thank you for your help—though I haven't had time to look at this index yet.'

'Well, this is it,' Hezhi told him. 'But, actually, I had a few moments the other day, and I wrote down some of the books you may want to look at. These first three are all in the syllabary, so you won't have any trouble with those. This last is in the old script, but that really shouldn't matter because it contains the diagrams you will want to see.'

'Well,' Yen said, blinking down at the paper she handed him. 'This is more than thoughtful of you, my lady…'

'You may call me Hezhi,' she informed him, in the 'gracious' tone the ladies used at court. He smiled at that, and she realized that he thought she was lampooning those ladies. Her ears burned a bit, because she had actually been trying to sound grown-up, adult.

'Hezhi,' he began again, 'I have no way to repay you for this kindness.'

She waved it off. 'It only took me a few moments, really. Please don't think anything about it.'

'Well,' he said, bowing a bit. 'Thanks again.' He went off with the paper and began searching for the numbers and titles she had listed, and was soon poring over the books, lost in concentration. She noticed that he made notes, now and then, on a roll of paper he had brought with him.

On their way home that evening, Tsem asked Hezhi about Yen.

'Yen son of Chwen? Not a noble, then.'

'No,' Hezhi replied. 'He's with the engineers. I've been helping him find some books he needs.'

'He smiles a lot,' Tsem noted. 'Too much.'

'You would smile a lot, too, if you were in the palace for the first time. You would be worried about who you might offend if you did not smile.'

Tsem shrugged. 'I suppose. You talk to him a lot, I think.'

'Twice, Tsem. That isn't a lot.'

Tsem was silent, and she realized that she might have hurt him, a little. She and Tsem hadn't spoken that much lately, and since D'en's disappearance he had been her best friend. He had never been quite like D'en, of course—Tsem was always reminding her that he was her servant, and that was somehow different from a friend even if you liked each other. Still, she had taken him for granted lately.

'Let's go to the fountain on the roof, Tsem. I want to look out over the city.'

'Qey said we should come home early…' Tsem began, but Hezhi rolled her eyes at that.

'Come on, Tsem,' she said, and changed their route. Soon they were winding through the abandoned