Free Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series by David Wingrove Page B

that
     led off to the right. They
     went through, moving slowly, cautiously, side by side, using their lamps to light
     the way ahead.
    They explored, throwing open the shutters in each of the big rooms, but there was
     nothing. The rooms were empty, their dusty floorboards bare, only the dark outlines
     of long-absent pictures
     interrupting the blankness of the walls.
    No sign of life. Only the husk, the empty shell of what they’d come for.
    Augustus. Not Amos’s son, Augustus, but his namesake. His grandson. No one talked
     of that Augustus. Yet it was that very absence that made him so large in their imaginations.
     Ever since
     Ben had first found that single mention of him in the journals. But what had he been?
     What had he done that he could not be talked of?
    She shivered and looked at Ben. He was watching her, as if he knew what she was thinking.
    ‘Shall we go up?’
    She nodded.
    Upstairs it was different. There the rooms were filled with ancient furniture, preserved
     under white sheets, as if the house had been closed up for the summer, while its occupant
     was absent.
    In one of the big rooms at the front of the house, Meg stood beside one of the huge,
     open shutters, staring out through the trees at the river. Light glimmered on the
     water through gaps in the
     heavy foliage. Behind her she could hear Ben, pulling covers off chairs and tables,
     searching, restlessly searching for something.
    ‘What happened here?’
    Ben stopped and looked up from what he was doing. ‘I’m not sure. But it’s the key
     to things. I know it is.’
    She turned and met his eyes. ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Because it’s the one thing they won’t talk about. Gaps. Always look for the gaps,
     Meg. That’s where the truth is. That’s where they hide all the important
     stuff.’
    ‘Like what?’
    His face hardened momentarily, then he looked away.
    She looked down, realizing just how keyed up he was; how close he had come to snapping
     at her.
    ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up again.’
    She nodded, then followed, knowing there would be nothing. The house was empty. Or
     as good as. But she was wrong.
    Ben laughed, delighted, then stepped inside the room, shining his lamp about the walls.
     It was a library. Or a study maybe. Whichever, the walls were filled with shelves,
     and the shelves with
     books. Old books, of paper and card and leather. Ben hurried to the shutters and threw
     them open, then turned and stared back into the room. There was a door, two windows
     and a full-length mirror
     on the wall to his left. Apart from that there were only shelves. Books and more books,
     filling every inch of the wall-space.
    ‘Whose were they?’ she asked, coming alongside him; sharing his delight.
    He pulled a book down at random, then another. The bookplates were all the same. He
     showed her one.
    She read the words aloud. ‘This book is the property of Augustus Raedwald Shepherd.’
     She laughed, then looked up into Ben’s face. ‘Then he lived here. But I
     thought…’
    Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he used this house to work in.’
    She turned, looking about her. There were books scattered all about their cottage,
     but not a tenth as many as were here. There must have been five, maybe ten thousand
     of them. She laughed,
     astonished. There were probably more books here –
real
books – than there were in the rest of Chung Kuo.
    Ben was walking slowly up and down the room, looking about him curiously. ‘It’s close,’
     he said softly. ‘It’s very close now.’
    What’s close? she wanted to ask. But the question would only anger him. He knew no
     better than she.
    Then, suddenly, he stopped and turned and almost ran outside into the corridor again.
     ‘There!’ he said, exultant, and she watched him pace out the distance from the end
     of the
     corridor to the doorway. Fifteen paces. He went inside and did the same. Twelve. Only
     twelve!
    She saw at once. The