In Which Libraries are Not Quiet

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel strides into the library with easy speed. He walks past the strange computer help desk and past the current front shelves-- something about animation, this time, and history, and those changing shelves are always interesting, but it's not what they're here for.

Harry, while clearly no admirer of libraries, may still notice that there a few more books here than in the libraries he was used to. Just a few.

Comments

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel laughs. "Do I seem one to be enamored of ignorance, then? --Don't worry, you wouldn't be the first to assume I was; many of my teachers would take your side in that."


He looks at Harry thoughtfully. "You wouldn't choose ignorance--not in something you valued." This is based more on a knowledge of Feuilly than of anything Bahorel knows about Harry Percy; f Harry was insistently ignorant, Feuilly wouldn't be so fond of him. "You must have studied battle, at least, and the history of your country, and the rights and duties of your family."

[harryhotspur]

"Why, so I did-- of course I did," Harry says. "But such things are not learned in books."

[clayforthedevil]

" Maybe you didn't have the right books. Not many libraries can answer every request. But there are books you could have used-- stories from commanders and fighting men, and more-- the maps alone! But there are maps--were maps, will be-- in both our times. Books on planning and campaigns and tactics, too."

He looks at Harry thoughtfully. "And you didn't get to read them. Somehow, in your own castle or by the decisions of men possibly nations away, someone decided you wouldn't get to know. That you didn't have the right even to choose ignorance, that you couldn't be trusted to do your part if you had that bit of knowledge."

Sorry, Harry, you've got him on a tear now. "And you may ask how I know that, and I know that because I read it; the words of censors and the stories of men who chose what books went where, long before I was born. And what my teachers told me, too, some of them; read this, don't read that, you're not soul enough to stand against it!!Hah, and they'd prate on about the soul needing to learn strength, and then swear it couldn't handle a few stray bits of ink!"

But while he's on a tear, he hasn't lost sight of what prompted it. "--So you see I did learn to fight from study, and for study. How to see the fight being set up, and sometimes how to get out of a fight I hadn't chosen; that, first. And more." He smiles and flips a book out of the stack he's accumulated, and holds it out to Harry. It's a slim little thing, with the title Defense Against the Dark Dead: Combat Against The Superhuman. "And then there's the direct lessons, of course."

[harryhotspur]

Harry takes the book carefully, looks at the title: yes, he'll be hanging onto that one, thank you.

He does not know, of course, about the most recent and most significant instance of what Bahorel describes, but he has more than enough memories to draw on without it, all of which come floating vaguely to the front of his mind. His father's voice and his uncle's, assuring him thou needst not know and it concerns thee not and could it not be there were times they said nothing of the kind, but quietly decided between them there were things they would not mention?

"It may be so," is all he manages to say. But it's very likely the direction of his thoughts shows more clearly in his furrowed brow.

[clayforthedevil]

Hey, turns out rigidly hierarchical societies are horrible for everyone!

No, really. Even aside from the issue of Harry's complicated family relationships-- the ultimate outcome of which Bahorel knows better than Harry, due to reading, no less--Bahorel's watched enough of his bourgeois-born friends fighting with rules that make and bind them and their families to know that verily, the class structure stinks like overflowing sewers on pretty much every level. That Harry's clearly been kept ignorant by people who thought it made him useful is only a confirmation of that.

Bahorel amiably thumps Harry on the shoulder. " You'll see for yourself-- or you won't, I suppose. But here, it's your own choice. Though if you ever want company for hunting down the right book, my schedule is usually open."

Which is to say, horrifyingly bored on a level that has nothing to do with pastimes. But the Library helps!

[harryhotspur]

"I doubt not I will come to thee again," Harry says. Because boredom! ...and maybe also books, a little, too.