V: Appointment

Sister Gena was not wrong about there being room, but one could quibble over just how ample it was.

I awoke, stretching my arms out of habit and banging my knuckles and wrists against the hard stone. After the start that gave me, I laid there, collected my thoughts, remembered where I was, and began the laborious effort of shuffling my way out of the tight bunk.

The College of Apostles is, above all, a monastery, where men and women commit their lives wholly to the study of Ae’s divine works and of that greatest work of all the gods, the Mundus Medias itself. The severity of this dedication does vary from apostle to apostle, but even the lowliest and least responsible among them ought to be impervious to accusations of laxity or excess. They call their residences “cells”, and I was finding out why.

A monk is not locked into their cell, but I’m sure they find them quite confining, all the same.

I adjusted my gown—now getting slightly musty in a way that I hoped only I noticed—as I found the ground with my feet, and turned to see Hester, reclining with his hands clasped behind his neck on the bottom bunk. The bunk was completely insufficient for his warrior’s frame, but he made it seem somehow comfortable anyway, like a bobcat squatting in a rain pail several inches too small for it.

We said our “good mornings” and stood, puzzled, for a moment, while it dawned on me that I had no things to collect or hygiene to practice, since I had slept in my clothes and possessed nothing else. So instead I made for the door in an awkward silence, and Hester followed.

We attended morning prayer as guests, had breakfast in the refectory, spent most of the morning at our own leisure (myself in the library with a copy of Castrum Astronomica; Hester said he’d be touring the grounds), and returned for lunch¹, where we were to meet Sister Gena.

Gena arrived late, wearing a courier’s document satchel. As ever, she strode directly toward us as if no man, mountain, or mayhem could deter her, and she wore an expression of steely—possibly smug?—determination. She sat, the satchel resting on the seat before her.

“Already?” I asked, eying the satchel. “You had us ask for the cells for three nights.”

“Oh, this?” Gena said, lifting the satchel and laying it on the table with a leathery thud. “It’s not mine to travel with. It’s for you today.”

She unfastened the single brass button on the satchel and a ream of papers burst out of it. I realized immediately that the entire weight of that thud was paper. How many hundreds of sheets could be in twenty pounds of paper?

Gena swiveled her head to ensure we weren’t being overheard, and then she smirked. “Hester, you’re going to request to view the Doctrina Tempestas today. Well, you’re going to make the request today. You will request a viewing date tomorrow evening with Librariarch Justina.”

“But the tome is not here; you said so,” said Hester.

“Exactly.”

Hester seemed troubled by this.

“I have been thinking about this,” Gena said, watching his face. “I still can hardly believe what you say about your dream. I know not whether you are lying or perhaps you are too young, noble, and dim to perceive this vision with clarity. But I do know that one of the holiest treasures of the college is missing and the college itself stands no chance of recovering it. You and I are going to go find it. But I’m going to do my duty to the college, even if it’s somewhat… circumspect in manner.”

“You make this request and wait for your viewing opportunity,” I explained to Hester. “Eventually someone shall have to find the book and learn that it is missing. Meanwhile, I suppose, Gena will arrange to be away from any of the librarians who might think to get her involved in this investigation. Sabbatical?”

“I wish I had that sort of tenure. I’ll call it a family summons and plead the college’s forgiveness later.”

“So,” I finished, “once the librarian bears you an apology, we rendezvous with Gena at a chosen place outside the college and begin our journey to the east.”

“Not so fast, Horwendell,” said Gena.

“… Oh?”

“We’re not going east until I’m sure east is where we need to go. I’m not going to journey a thousand miles through the highland forests and into the grassy empty of the east just on Hester’s assurances that it’s vaguely in that direction.”

“Fairly judged,” Hester said. I couldn’t tell if he was speaking from boundless grace or from obliviousness. He had completely ignored how Gena had called him “dim” earlier, a fact that did nothing to shed any light upon this mystery.

“So you, Horwendell,” she said, “may need to help me with this part. It may be easier than it seems to learn what happened to the liber.”

“You have a plan, I presume?”

“Blackmail.”

I felt my eyebrows rise involuntarily.

Gena’s smirk returned. “It’s a simple solution for a simple problem. The problem is this: the Great Works are shelved in the main collection, at the very center. The center shelves are fashioned of steel and the tomes themselves are chained in. The three Librariarchs are the only ones with the keys to the locks.”

The thought hit me like a sack of bricks thrown through a stained glass window. “You suspect them?”

“Naturally. Outside theft is possible, sure. But the lock had not been sawed off or damaged, and I have found no other reason to think a thief has been in the library. Which leaves the Librariarchs. So, which one?”

“I must say, Sister Gena, that you are remarkably… cynical about the most holy institution that you are dedicated to serve.” I would have expected an earful from her had I been the one to level an accusation at a Librariarch.

“I disagree.”

“Oh. Um.”

“I take my holy vows very seriously. Because I do, I can readily see how not everyone around me does.”

“I think I see your point. So, uh, blackmail?”

“Right. The idea is simple, but timing will be everything. We send each of the Librariarchs an anonymous letter informing them that we know what they did, and we watch to see which one panics. They’ll probably try to flee the college.”

“You think they won’t try to call the bluff and stay put?”

“Perhaps. But that’s partially why Hester files his request with Librariarch Justina. Again, we choose her because she’s the soonest appointment we can get. She’ll need to retrieve the book itself tomorrow evening. If she is the culprit, she might try to forestall or reject the appointment on some technicality in the request paperwork. If she’s not, she discovers the book is missing. In that case, that’s when we plant our letters.”

“But you’re gone to avoid getting wrapped up in the investigation.”

“And in whatever politics fall out of the arguing between the Librariarchs. It could get pretty bad. Remember the symposium?”

“Acutely.”

“Imagine that but with three noble-born co-moderators, all suspicious of each other, and with life-or-death stakes.”

“I won’t, thank you.”

“Right. This, of course, means that you need to watch the Librariarchs for me. Hester might help you, but…”

We both turned to Hester, who was already working through the stack of papers with a fountain pen. He flipped a page and began examining another formidable mountain of legalese.

“… Are you sure you should be trying to take that on alone?” Gena asked.

“I sign dictionaries for my father all the time,” he said mildly.

“You mean edicts?”

“Right.”

Gena and I shared a look.

“It doesn’t matter that much, does it?” I mused. “Justina will find a pretext to reject it if she needs one.”

“But we’d rather her not find a reason to reject it when she might be of a mind to accept it. You’ll proofread for him while I draft the notes and make travel arrangements,” Gena said.

“Right, right,” I said, crestfallen.

“I’ll get the letters delivered tomorrow. You’ll be in the library in expectation of your appointment. Watch the entrances and wait.”

The rest of the day was dreadful. I have experienced quite a bit of pain in my life, but few things have ever been as painful as that stack of forms was².

Access to the Great Works is, ostensibly, available to any soul of good intent. The college goes to great lengths to establish good intent. And soul, for that matter. Lord Hester I, Son of Joan, Heir to the House Eastmost provided their grasping, probing process with innumerable handholds with which to question these things. His signet, we thought, might suffice to prove his personage and his good faith, but verification would be subject to an interview with the Keeper of Banners and Arms in the office of the chancellor. To be permitted in the chancellor’s office he would be required, as a guest of the college, to submit to a personal interview with one of the chancellor’s sub-secretaries. I pursued these appointments while Hester forged on in the paperwork (leaving a formidable trail of spelling errors and mischievous homonyms), only to learn that by identifying his relation to Duchess Joan he would be required to furnish a letter of sponsorship from her ladyship or from another in her household.

That being impossible in our time frame, we resolved to submit him as a studious, inquiring student from the House Eastmost, bearing their signet as a token of his errand. This required the verification of the signet as before, but now also we would be required to furnish three generations’ worth of family tree (which we borrowed from one of Hester’s closest friends back home, a stable hand). He would be required to interview now also with one of the sub-secretaries of the Librariarch, for reasons unclear to me, and post collateral (requiring a separate set of forms Gena had helpfully included in the heap). No appointments were available besides one that conflicted with our visit to the chancellor’s office. So I would submit the signet for verification on his behalf, adding another ten sheets of paper to that set of forms.

But we would not be deterred, and by the time the last bells were tolling to return the contemplating apostles to their cells, we had a letter confirming our appointment with Librariarch Justina at the front desk in the central library, Just shy of a day from that moment. We also had cramping hands and aching legs. We slept well.

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