"It's what Curia called the position, they've managed the house for hundred and fifty years at this point, though for the last forty they've shared with Supression Bureau... Founded by three scholars who acquired the House a few decades after Dewulf line ended, they've expanded and shrunk over the years."

"The...Suppression Bureau."

That is not an organization she likes the sound of.

"Better than the Nocturnal Branch, at least. Not good people, but I guess somebody got to keep night-things in the night, so that day-things can walk in day. The Curia got some sort of understanding with them, I think. They didn't bother the House very much, even when they were here. Besides taking the Crucible Tower, that is." 

"I am going to hate this job with a passion and yet with every bit of information I learn about what I'm expected to be doing, I find myself increasingly obliged to take it.  Bloody forbidden knowledge.  Trouble enough with that in my last job and you don't - can't - even have proper organization about it, not that lasts, let alone any sort of established principles as to what dangers lie where; I can't fucking imagine the disasters I'm going to find when I pull the curtain up.  And no doubt mending them will be foisted upon me, because nobody with power tries caring.  Speaking from some experience.

"Right.  If I might beg a moment to note some things down, speaking of looming threats of disaster."

Timothy is taken aback by the rant. "Of course, of course."

"...Ah.  Please do excuse my..."  She waves a hand, vaguely.  "I was dealing with high-stakes diplomatic negotiations, with more lives on the line than anyone should be comfortable with - including my own, though I cannot say I had any right to care when I was the chosen, if unwilling, instrument of placing the executioner's blade at all our throats - and immediately at the point one of the parties gave up all pretense of being a party one could hope to treat with, I washed up here.  I'm - a bit high-strung.  Nonetheless, letting that out on you was quite impolite of me.  My apologies, in other words - for what little they're worth."

And into a little waxen diptych, after she, with some frustration, smooths out one panel, goes:

Investigate legal status of Curia - and Library itself - re: Suppression Bureau; obligations, debts owed, considerations offered.  Crucible Tower: What is it?  Why do they want it?  Do they still have a claim?

Legal status of Librarianship: What power does the position hold?  Appointment and dismissal authority, if any, held by whom?  Contracts?  Bindings?  Sign nothing, though the spell may well have already seized.

WARD PROPERTY.

"No offense taken. Sounds exhausting."

Terrence comes in with tea, and Timothy starts drinking it.

"Oh, it is.  But it needed doing, if I wasn't going to have - so much innocent blood on my hands, by my own inaction.  So I did it.  Because at least that way if I had failed I would have tried."

And then, the tea; it settles into her hands like a lifeline.

"Thank you, Terrence, and Rector Timothy for the offer of hospitality; I believe I may have needed this much more than I knew.

She'll just...take a minute.

And when she has - taken her moment of peace and quiet and a warm beverage shared with, if not friends, then hopefully allies in keeping this town safe -

She returns to business.

"I came here for multiple reasons; one was to acquaint myself with the situation, but another -

"I heard there was some trouble with the king's men, a while back; I heard you were the one that had to deal with it.

"I would prefer to keep the town - the people - out of trouble, no matter what auroch dung I'm caught up in.  Have you any advice?  And I'll admit that I'm curious what past Librarians have gotten up to, if you know, or know who'd know, though that's not as pressing."

"Ah yes, the New King... Right after the Restoration, six years ago, his men came here, looking for, ah, 'enemies of the crown'. They found some, Brancrug was always a sanctuary, but with the House abandoned, and many people leaving after the fire, we couldn't really defend them. They haven't bothered us since then, and I don't know what would attract their attention, or what to do if they come."

"Oh, I can tell you a lot about past librarians! Though, I don't know how it all works from the inside, you'll need someone from the Curia for that, but I've studies the history of the House, and it'd be an honor to share my studies with you."

"What sort of enemies does the Crown make?  Purely so I can be certain that they aren't safely hidden away from whoever comes looking, I'm sure you understand."

"And I'd be equally honored to receive your studies, and perhaps archive them in the Library myself."

"Anyone who critizes the King in a way they don't like, or the new policies, or that 'Royal Endeavour' the King has going on. Or anyone who his men don't like."

"I can certainly get my notes, but there's indeed quite a lot there - thousand and a half years of history for the House in general, and hundred and fifty even just since Curia took posession. You'd be... Twelfth Librarian of the Curia of the Isle, before that there were six Barons Brancrug, and one Baroness, and before them there were many Abbots and Abesses, hard to say how many exactly."

"...Ah.  I expect there will be trouble, then.  That policy itself is one that I muchly mislike.  Rule - must bind the ruler, to mean anything.  And this...

"This so-called 'rule', does not.  Kyros's Law at least straightforwardly declares that Kyros has the right to kill you out of hand, and prescribes limits on that...'right'.

"What's this 'Royal Endeavour', anyway?  What policies are new?"

"...A thousand and five-hundred years; goodness.  Kyros's reign has lasted for slightly less than half that time.  I'll have quite some reading to do."

"Well, theoretically there are limits on his power, the parliament, and various charters, but he has a lot of support, he did save the kingdom from constitutional collapse..."

"I'm not sure what Royal Endeavour is, exactly. We're quite far from the capital after all. But it's some sort of industrial project that the King is spending a lot money on."

"The policies I'm most familiar with are Church politics, technically all kings have been supreme governers of the church, but they usually didn't get involved, but the New King has been rather active."

"Yes, well.  The theory is so much weaker than my own that I fear to contemplate the depths of its practice.  And - did you say the King is bound by a constitution like guilds are?  I am simultaneously deeply intrigued by the possibilities, and very suspicious of its enforceability.

"...Why on earth does he need to embezzle like that?  If he can't tell anyone what the project is, enough that you, a fairly intelligent person, who knows of it in the first place, are unable to know its barest nature when it's being touted as some grand accomplishment -

"That's a clear sign someone's doing something positively atrocious with resource expenditures.

"I know I've seen enough of it; a lot of my casework was dealing with such matters.  Auditing granaries, arranging harvests and field blessings - everything to do with the Forge-Bound and their supplies -

"...It frustrates me, that I am the one who was chosen for this duty, when I know there are dozens more qualified than I for any single facet of it.

"But only I am here, so I will do my best.

"...You have a state religion?  Kyros was...rather against organized worship, even of Kyros - there were laws about Kyros being the Overlord's name and neither slandering it nor casually invoking it, but not about worship - so that's very strange to me.  ...I am not going to explain why Kyros was so against religion, at this time, so please refrain from asking."

"We do, the Church of the Unconquered Sun, I am, actually, a priest. It exists all throughout the world, though during the Reformation, when there was a lot schisms, England's church separated from the rest of the world, that's when the king was given supremacy over the church."

"You aren't the first librarian to be upset with the position. Strathcoyne, the fourth, was quite unhappy with having to do it. And Blackwood, the tenth, though that was mostly about the Bureau. I've never quite understood how Curia selects the Librarian, but they have many times claimed 'absence of suitable candidates'."

"Quoth their letter, they ensured they'd find a suitable candidate this time at the expense of all else.

"What is the doctrine of the Church of the Unconquered Sun, exactly?"

"'The Sun gave us sight and mind, all the Glory's gifts. In His House, one with His many selves he dwells. Though divided, one day, shall He be reborn in all His Splendour, and guide us into Glory, where will we forever dwell'."

...She looks like she has bitten into a lemon.

"...I do not expect I'll convert."

"Well, I won't let that get between us. Brancrug has always been a refuge for all the world might consider impure."

"And may it ever be."

"Oh, I just remebered, I think I still have the spare key to Keeper's Lodge. I should probably get it for you." he says, and goes rummaging on one of the shelves in the room.

"Keeper's Lodge?"

"A small lodge next to the House proper, where groundkeeper lived."