A Princess Of Landover Part 12

"You saw how things are around here last night. If you want to stay, you have to work in the Stacks. That was the excuse I gave for your being here." He gave her a quick smile. "Look, I want you to stay. I told you that last night. I want to have someone to talk to."

He hesitated. "Okay, it's more than that. I don't want to talk to just someone someone. I want to talk to you. I like you."

She almost blushed, but not quite. "Well, I don't mind being your sister if that's what it takes for me to stay. But don't you have to get permission from His Eminence?"

"Oh, sure. But he'll agree. He likes beautiful things, so he'll like you well enough." He faltered, apparently realizing what he had just said. He brushed nervously at his mop of dark hair. "We can go see him after you've finished eating."

"I'm finished," she announced, and she stood up.

He took her back out of the kitchen and down the hallway past all the doorways to the servants' rooms, including her own, until they were back in the front anteroom where the big desk fronted the two huge closed doors. Only now the doors were open, and Thom led her through.

She stopped short when she saw what was there. They had entered a cavernous chamber with ceilings so high she could only just make out ma.s.sive wooden support beams standing out in stark relief against the shadows. The floor of the room comprised huge stone blocks on which rested hundreds upon hundreds of shelves, row upon row running left to right and back into farther darkness. The shelves were each perhaps twenty feet high and connected by rails on which rolling ladders rested. Books and papers of all sorts were crammed into the shelves and stacked on the floors and dumped in piles in the aisles. Although there were windows high up on the walls on either side, their gla.s.s was crusted with grime and dust and cobwebs, and the natural light was reduced to a feeble glow. Usable light emanated from more of the tiny flameless lamps she had seen in the hallways earlier, these attached in pairs at the ends of the shelves, their yellow glow almost, but not quite, reaching to the center of each shelving unit.

"The Stacks," he announced. "It's kind of a mess up here, but better when you go farther in. We've been working back to front and from the middle outward. Don't ask me why; His Eminence ordered it done that way. So those parts are cleaned up and organized." He paused and looked at her. "It's a big job. You can see why we need help."

She could, indeed. As she was thinking that the number of workers necessary to clean up this mess was not a handful, but hundreds, a pair of the Throg Monkeys emerged from the gloom between the stacks, hunched over and conversing in low tones. When they caught sight of Thom and her, they abruptly turned around and disappeared back into the gloom.

"That's the way they are," Thom advised. "They do their level best not to be found so that they don't have to work. They are very good at it, too. Every day, I have to hunt them down and herd them over to the section we're working on. It takes up a lot of valuable time."

She kept staring in the direction of the vanished Throg Monkeys, thinking how creepy they were. "How many of them are there?"

He shook his head. "Don't know. I keep trying to count them, but I can never get them all together in one place. There are a lot, I know." He frowned. "It seems as if there are more all the time, but I don't know how that can be-unless they're breeding, of course, but I've never seen any evidence of that. Fortunately."

He grimaced. "However many there are, there aren't enough since only a small percentage of them ever do any work. The only thing I can trust them to do is lift and haul; they're hopeless at organizing and filing. I keep telling His Eminence that we need better help to finish this job, but he never does anything about it."

He gave her his loopy grin. "But now we have you-my little sister, Ellice. Things are looking up!"

She gave him a grimace of dismay. "How long have you been at this?"

He looked skyward for a moment. "Oh, about three years now."

"Three years? Three whole years?"

The loopy grin returned. "Well, it's slow going, I admit. But His Eminence seems satisfied. Come on. Let me introduce you."

"Wait!" She held up her hand to stay him. "What am I supposed to do when I meet him? What should I say?"

"Oh, that's easy. You really don't have to say much of anything. His Eminence will do all the talking. You just have to play along. Remember your lines. You are my little sister, Ellice. We live in a little village at the south edge of the Greensward called Averly Mills. When I introduce you, bow to him. Always address him as 'Your Eminence' or just 'Eminence.' Can you do that?"

She could if she had to, though she didn't much like the idea. But she held her tongue. "Does he have a name other than 'Eminence'?" she asked instead.

Thom gave her that familiar shrug. "He says his name is Craswell Crabbit, but I think he made it up. It doesn't matter because he won't allow us to use that name anyway. Only 'Your Eminence' will do."

"Is he a n.o.ble of the Kingdom? Is that why he insists on being addressed as 'Your Eminence'?"

Thom beckoned with a sweeping gesture of his arm, directing her to follow. "Come with me. You can decide for yourself."

He walked her down the right side of the Stacks and along the far wall until he came to an ornately carved oak door, scrolled with all sorts of symbols and runes and edged in gilt. At the very center and right at eye level was a sign that read: HIS EMINENCE.

Knock Before Entering The letters, also outlined in gilt, fairly jumped off the polished wood of the door. Directly below was a huge metal knocker resting on a metal plate. It looked to Mistaya as if it would take a fair-sized battering ram to knock the door down if it was secured.

Without hesitating Thom lifted the knocker and let it fall once. A silence followed, and then a rumbling ba.s.s voice replied from within, "You may enter, Thom."

How the inhabitant knew who it was who'd come calling was a mystery to Mistaya, but Thom seemed undisturbed and pressed down on the door handle to release the latch.

The room they entered was large but not cavernous, and it in no way resembled the Stacks. Here the wood was polished to a high gloss, the walls decorated with paintings and tapestries, and the floor laid with rich carpet. The ceiling was much lower, but not so low as to make it feel as if it were pressing down, and there were slender stained-gla.s.s windows at the rear through which suns.h.i.+ne brightly shone in long, colorful streamers. A ma.s.sive desk dominated the rear center of the room, its surface piled high with doc.u.ments and artifacts of some sort. His Eminence sat comfortably behind it in a high-backed stuffed armchair, beaming out at them with a huge smile.

"Thom!" he exclaimed, as if surprised that it was the boy who had entered. Then he stood up and held out his arms in greeting. "Good morning to you!"

Mistaya didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't exactly this unbridled display of camaraderie. Nor was Craswell Crabbit quite what she had envisioned. Sitting behind his desk, he looked fairly normal. But when he stood up he was well over seven feet tall, skeletal beyond simply lean or gaunt, a collection of bones held together by skin and ligaments. As if to emphasize how oddly thin he was, his head was at least two sizes too big for his shoulders, an oblong face suggesting that the obvious compression it had undergone hadn't been quite enough to make up for the job done on the body. Because his legs and arms were rather crooked, even given the oddity of the rest of his body, the whole of his appearance was something rather like that of a praying mantis.

"Good morning, Your Eminence," Thom replied promptly. Rather quickly, Mistaya thought, he led her forward to stand before the desk. "This is my sister, Ellice."

"Ah, what a lovely child you are, Ellice!" the spider enthused, reaching out with one bony hand to take her own.

"Your Eminence," she responded quickly, letting the hand he held hang limp as she gave him something between a bow and a curtsy.

"Come for a visit?" he pressed. "All the way from ... ?"

"Averly Mills, Your Eminence," she answered smoothly.

"Yes, that is the name. I'd forgotten." He smiled. "Missing your brother, are you?"

She noticed now that his head was shaved of hair, but fine black stubble grew over his bald pate and along the smooth line of his angular jaw in a dark shadow that refused to be banished. His sharp eyes locked on her own, and she could feel them probing for information that she might not wish to give.

"Yes, Your Eminence," she answered. "I thought perhaps I might be allowed to remain with him for a time. I am willing to work for my keep."

"Oh, tut, tut, and nonsense!" the other exclaimed in mock horror. "We don't treat our guests that way!" He paused, c.o.c.king his head at her. "Then again, we are short of helping hands just now, and our library reorganization clearly lacks the concerted effort it requires. Why, if not for your brother, we might not have made any progress at all!"

"Ellice is a good worker," Thom cut in. "She can read and write and help me with the organizing. She would be an immense help."

"I would be pleased to do whatever I can," Mistaya affirmed quickly, trying out a smile on him.

His Eminence looked charmed in his praying-mantis sort of way. "How very gracious of you, Ellice! I would not ask it of you, but neither will I refuse the offer. You may begin work at once! Please consider yourself a part of our family while you are here. Thom, has she met everyone?"

"Mostly, Your Eminence," the boy answered. "Pinch last night, some of the Throg Monkeys today, although I don't know which ones or whether they even care. Not all of them, I'm sure. They seem to multiply daily. Anyway, thank you for allowing her to stay with me. I miss her every bit as much as she misses me."

"Well, I am certain you do." The oblong face tilted strangely, as if about to fall off its narrow perch. "Though you've never once mentioned her before, have you?"

Mistaya felt a chill go up her spine. But Thom simply gave that familiar shrug. "I never thought it important enough to speak about, Your Eminence. You have so much else with which to grapple that it never seemed appropriate to talk about myself."

The tall man clapped his hands. "How very thoughtful of you, Thom. Indeed, you never disappoint me. Well, then. You've had your breakfast and taken a look around, Ellice?"

"Yes, Your Eminence."

"Then I shall not keep you a moment longer. Your brother goes off to work and you must join him. We shall visit again, later. Goodbye for now."

He gave her another smile and a perfunctory wave that couldn't possibly be mistaken for anything other than a dismissal. Giving deep bows and muttering their profuse thanks, the boy and the girl backed from the room and closed the door.

At once Thom put a finger to his lips. In silence, they retraced their steps back down the aisleway and to the front end of the Stacks. When they were safely clear of the walls and out in the open, Thom turned to her.

"What do you think now? Is he a n.o.ble of the realm?"

She made a rude sound and didn't answer.

It was only a few minutes later, the boy and the girl gone by then, that a knock sounded in the wall of Craswell Crabbit's office. His Eminence grunted and a hidden panel slid smoothly aside to admit Rufus Pinch. The hirsute little man trundled over to the side of the desk he couldn't see over from the front and peered up accusingly at its occupant.

"Mr. Crabbit," he greeted.

"Mr. Pinch, don't call me that."

Pinch ignored him. "Surely you don't believe their story, do you?"

His Eminence smiled beatifically. "I tend not to believe anything anyone tells me, Mr. Pinch. That way I am never disappointed. Are we speaking of our Thom and his lovely sister, Ellice?"

"I don't know who she is, but she's not who she claims. You can be certain of that."

"That, and much more, I think. But you are absolutely right. She isn't who she claims. But then neither is he, in case it had escaped you."

Pinch looked puzzled. "He isn't?"

Craswell Crabbit steepled his fingers in front of him. "Do yourself a favor, Mr. Pinch. Don't try to do the thinking in this partners.h.i.+p. Leave that to me. Stick with what works best for you. Spying. Keep an eye on those two and find out what they are up to."

He looked deeply thoughtful as he paused. "Because they are almost certainly up to something."

BACK IN THE STACKS.

For the remainder of the day, Mistaya worked side by side with Thom in the dark and musty confines of the Stacks, cataloging and shelving the books that were stored there. Each book had to be removed, checked against a master list that His Eminence had supplied to Thom, cleaned and repaired as best as possible, and then returned to its s.p.a.ce. The shelves themselves had to be scrubbed, since dust and grime had acc.u.mulated in clumps and layers thick enough to provide homes for nests of insects, which had long since gone condo. The work was slow and laborious, and by the end of the day they had barely completed one small section of the acres that required attention.

Of course, the task would have taken a dedicated crew of twenty able-bodied men and women as long as two years to complete, so they were somewhat at a disadvantage having only themselves and the completely unreliable Throg Monkeys as laborers. The annoying little creatures skulked around like evil weasels, appearing out of the gloom and then disappearing back into it once more, coming and going as they pleased. When they bothered to pa.s.s by, they regarded Thom with undisguised dislike and Mistaya with malevolent intent. Thom managed to get them to do some work, mostly the heavy lifting of the books from the shelves to the floor for easy reach, using the whistle they hated so to bring them to heel. But mostly they just drifted about, demonstrating no interest in the charge His Eminence, supposedly, had given them.

Still, some work was accomplished, and by the end of the day Mistaya could look with pride on the small area of shelving to which she had successfully lent her efforts. The ancient wood gleamed with waxing and polis.h.i.+ng and the books rested upon it proudly, each in its place, giving the s.p.a.ce a look of bright promise. She took special pleasure in hearing Thom compliment her on her efforts, pointing out how much easier things were now that she was there to help.

Neither of them made any mention of the fact that Rufus Pinch had been spying on them the entire time, making a poor job of concealing himself as he peeked around corners and through gaps, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. What he was trying to accomplish was anybody's guess, but after their first sighting of him resulted in a quick exchange of wordless looks, they pretty much ignored his pathetic efforts in favor of concentrating on the task at hand. Mistaya did find herself wondering more than once if the little man was intent on making this his life's work, but imagined that eventually he would grow tired of the game.

She also found herself wondering how in the world the job of repairing and restoring Libiris and her books would ever be accomplished if things didn't change dramatically from the status quo. As things stood now, it would not be likely that the work would wrap up in her lifetime. But she wasn't there for that, she kept reminding herself. She was only there to hide until she could figure out a way to bargain with her parents about her future. She was working at Libiris not because she wanted to but because it was the only way she would be allowed to stay. As soon as she was able to do so, she was going to leave this dreadful, dingy place and go somewhere else entirely, somewhere at least marginally reasonable.

All of which reminded her that she was in this mess in the first place because she had listened to Edgewood Dirk, and the cat had not reappeared since.

"Tell me something about yourself," Thom asked her later, as they were eating dinner in the kitchen. As usual, there were only the two of them. Rufus Pinch seemed to have given up spying on them for the day and the Throg Monkeys had gone back into the gloom. "Nothing too revealing; I'm not asking you to give up your secrets. Just something you think I might like to know."

She thought about it a moment, giving him a measured look. "And then you will do the same?"

He grinned. "Of course."

"All right." She thought some more. What could she say that would really amaze him? She wanted to do that, to shock him. But at the same time she had to be careful not to give anything away.

"I know," she said finally. She squared her shoulders. "I have met the dragon Strabo, and talked with him."

He stared at her as if she had lost her mind. It was exactly the reaction she had hoped for. "You have not," he insisted. "You couldn't have."

"But I have. It happened when I was ten years old. I was outside my village, carrying milk to my grandmother's cottage." She was improvising now, making it up as she went. "The dragon landed in a field and ate a cow right in front of me! When he was done, he looked at me and asked me what I was staring at. I couldn't speak, I was so afraid. But the dragon said not to worry, that as a rule he didn't eat little girls. Only now and then, and this wasn't either. Then he flew away."

He exhaled sharply. "Right in front of you? I would have been afraid, too! I've seen the dragon flying, but I can't imagine talking to it." He leaned forward, his face serious. "I think you were very brave."

She blushed despite herself, not so much at the compliment as at the knowledge that she was perpetrating a deliberate deception in order to impress him. She liked Thom, and she wanted him to see her as something more than a runaway with strange traveling companions. Her meeting with Strabo hadn't been anything like what she had described, but she couldn't tell him the truth without giving away her ident.i.ty.

"I wasn't so brave," she said, making a dismissive gesture. "The dragon wasn't interested in me."

"You would have made a nice snack," he suggested. "Did you believe it when he said he wouldn't eat you?"

She shrugged. "He was scary looking, but not aggressive. He didn't threaten me. He just made that one comment, that's all he did." She was anxious to move on. "All right, now it's your turn. Tell me something about you that I should know."

He gave her his boyish grin and shook his head. "I don't think I have anything to tell you half as interesting as what you just told me." He rested his chin in the cup of his hands. "Let's see. Well, I like books. I read all the time."

"That's not surprising," she challenged. "You work in a library."

"Lots of people work at places they don't have any interest in." He paused. "How about this? I don't like fighting with weapons. I'm not very good at it."

She gave him a look. He didn't seem all that awkward. In fact, she thought he looked pretty capable. "What else?" she pressed. "That's not enough yet. You have to tell me something important, something you wouldn't tell just anyone."

He leaned back, looking much put upon. "You can't expect me to match the dragon story. Well, okay. I saw the dragon once, flying by, high up; I already told you that. Does that count?"

She shook her head. "Something else."

"There isn't anything else!" he exclaimed in mock exasperation. "Wait! Okay, one other thing I can tell you." He leaned forward again, bending close and lowering his voice. "I'm not here because I am an apprentice. I'm here because I'm indentured to His Eminence."

"Indentured? Like a servant or slave? You mean he owns you?"

"Something like that, I guess. My father sold me to him for five years to satisfy a family debt. I have to stay here working for him until my five years are up." He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "I'm only in my third year."

She was appalled. "Why would your father do that?"

"Ah," he said, drawing the word out. "That's the question, isn't it?"

She frowned. "Well, you have to tell me!"

He shook his head in rebuke. "Not until you tell me something more about yourself. Then I'll tell you the rest."

She leaped to her feet. "That isn't fair!"

"Who said anything about playing fair?" He stretched lazily. "Anyway, I'm off to bed. We start early around here, and tomorrow is your first full day in the Stacks. You'll need all the sleep you can get."