Snippet Redux

Oops.  I posted the previous snippet directly to a poster who pointed out that I kept calling the current Lord Jaran Jedrak rather than Kedan.  This was my way of wriggling out of the mistake, plus a bit:

They had met in Mount Alban’s library, surrounded by niches full of priceless scrolls reaching from floor to ceiling.  Night pressed against the windows, held at bay by a chandelier full of guttering candles.  Molten wax dripped on Kindrie’s wild mop of white hair.  He ignored it.  The muted noise of the college rose from below.
“I see you!” 
“No, you don’t.”
A rush of ascending footsteps followed, and an elderly man burst into the library –  a singer, judging by the intricate gold embroidery on the cuffs and collar of his belted robe.
“Shhh …” he said, raising a gnarled finger to his chapped lips, and scrambled for cover behind the room’s largest desk.
A pudgy, panting scrollsman burst into the room on his heels.
“Which way did he go?  Which way did he go?”
When neither Jame nor Kindrie answered, the little scrollsman said “Tsk!” in disgust and rushed away, his robe flapping.
The singer emerged from cover and slunk after him, pausing to give Jame and Kindrie a mischievous, gap-toothed grin.
Jame remembered climbing the twisting ironwood stair that lead through the college’s irregular levels.  Scrollsmen had been tip-toeing across landings, peering into rooms and around corners.  In their wake, there had been a scurry of singers seeking new hiding places.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
The answer came from the doorway as the Jaran Lordan Kirien entered the library.
“The singers have hidden various scrolls throughout the college,” she said.  “If a scrollsman catches a singer, he or she has to tell them where a specific manuscript is.  It’s their somewhat hare-brained response to Caldane trying to destroy certain valuable scrolls this past spring.  Index is beside himself.”
So the old scrollsman would be, thought Jame; his reputation was based on his knowledge of where every scarp of parchment was.
Candlelight caught the delicate bones of Kirien’s face as she emerged from the shadows, her profile as fine as any engraved on an antique coin.  Although both a Highborn lady and a scrollswoman, she wore neither dress nor mask nor robe but rather pants and a plain, belted jacket of good material.  At first glance, one might have taken her for a handsome boy.  She ignored Kindrie despite his involuntary step toward her.
“We heard that you were coming,” she said to Jame, echoing Holly.
“The entire Riverland seems to know,” said Jame ruefully.
“Of course.  Whatever you and your brother do is of interest to the rest of us.”
She still hadn’t even glanced at Kindrie, who subsided looking perplexed and unhappy.
“I suppose Matriarch Trishien has kept you up to date.”
Kirien touched a pocket distorted by the slate on which she and her great-aunt communicated by far-writing.
“Aunt Trishien is worried,” she said.  “The Highlord’s behavior lately has been … mystifying.  My impression is that he is trying to act properly, but under great stress and no, I haven’t any idea what is wrong.”
A scrawny old man bustled into the library and thrust a rolled parchment into Kirien’s hands.
“Hello, Index,” said Jame.
The ancient scrollsman glared at her.
“Here again, are you?” he spat.  “So, what falls apart or down this time, eh?  Or maybe a nice fire … no.”  His gaze wandered up the shelves of frighteningly flammable parchment.  “Don’t you dare.”
Not waiting for an answer, he scurried out again.
Kirien returned the parchment to its a niche.
“No,” she said to the singer who arrived on Index’s heels.  “This was fairly returned and so is out of the game.  Really,” she added to Jame as the singer departed, disappointed, “it’s like dealing with a houseful of children.  Still, I will miss them when I become Lady Jedrak.”
“Wasn’t that the name of the former lord, your great-great-grandfather?”
“So we call every leader of our house.  It’s High Kens for ‘lord.’  I suppose that we’ve always tried to distance ourselves from the concept of leadership.  ‘The Jedrak,’ we say, sometimes.  My great-uncle can’t wait to become simple Kedan again.”
“Will you have to leave Mount Alban?”
“Not altogether.  After all, Valantir is just across the river.  But the head of a house has other responsibilities than scholarship, which is why no one else wants the job.”
Jame thought ruefully about her own duties as the Knorth Lordan, which in the past she had barely met.
Perhaps thinking along similar lines, Kindrie twisted a handful of his blue robe nervously.  “I should have gone with Cousin Torisen back to Gothregor,” he said.  “I’ve stayed here too long.”
Kirien regarded him for the first time, with exasperation.  “D’you really think you can help him?  Aunt Trishien had the right of it:  first, he has to help himself.”
“Nonetheless …”
“Then go!  What good d’you think you’re doing here?”
With that, she turned and stormed out.
Kindrie looked helplessly at Jame. 
Jame shrugged.  “Don’t ask me.”