The Accidental Keyhand (21 page)

Dorrie's mouth had gone dry five words into Ebba's announcement.

“It's going to happen tomorrow! In the Athens Spoke Library,” said Ebba. “Well, not in it. It's too small, but in the house on the other side of it.”

Dread stole through Dorrie. Though she wanted things to go well for Socrates, a part of her had been hoping that the need to act would somehow be put off indefinitely. “We've got to go in right after Aspasia goes in. We've got to be ready. Early. With our costumes on.”

“Yes!” said Marcus, with great enthusiasm “We'll just get down there at dawn and totally
lurk
.”

Dorrie and Ebba stared at him.

“What? I enjoy lurking. It's one of the twelve core skills in Casanova's stealth and deception curriculum.”

Ebba bit her lip. “I don't know. Maybe we should forget our plan and just tell the lybrarians what happened.”

“Why?” cried Dorrie, stunned.

“Yeah, why?” echoed Marcus.

“Because,” said Ebba, fiddling with the edge of the mince tart, “the lybrarians trust you now. I'm sure of it. And the fact that you can get through other archways is amazing.” She looked at Dorrie, her eyes bright. “I don't think they'd hold what happened against you. It was an accident. They could help us get back the
History
of
Histories
page.”

She glanced at Dorrie's thumbnail. “And it is strange that your thumbnail hasn't healed after all this time.”

“What, now
you
think I had something to do with Kash disappearing!”

“Of course not!” Ebba said, looking hurt. “But it's unusual. And what you can do is unusual. Maybe the two things are connected?”

“I don't see why they should be,” Dorrie said mulishly. “That sounds completely random.”

Ebba looked disappointed in her. “Maybe if the lybrarians knew about both things, they could figure out if there was a connection.”

“And figure out that they don't want me here!” said Dorrie.

“Yeah,” said Marcus. “I say we just keep Dorrie's little abnormalities to ourselves for now. I mean, the lybrarians have enough to worry about with Kash still missing and Socrates about to check out for good.”

Ebba looked dubious about Marcus's concern for the Lybrariad's peace of mind.

His words had grated on Dorrie. She threw her mince tart into his lap. “Stop talking about them like they're just characters in a story or something! They're real people!”

“Okay, for reals?” said Marcus, leaning forward and holding the tip of his index finger and thumb so that they almost touched. “I'm this close to Egeria begging me to kiss her. I can feel it! We can't risk getting kicked out now!”

“That's not important to anyone but you!” said Dorrie angrily. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she flushed with the realization that she might as well have been talking to herself. She couldn't bring herself to look Ebba in the eye, and instead looked out at the crowd by the pool in time to watch Phillip throw his head back and laugh in his big way at something Mistress Lovelace had said.

She thought of the sword-fighting lesson she'd had with Savi that evening. She thought of collapsing with laughter playing Twister with Ebba and the other apprentices up in the attics; she thought of Paris. Dorrie forced herself to look back into Ebba's eyes. “I don't want to lose all this. I want to keep training. I want to be accepted as a real apprentice. I don't want to seem like some freak threat to the Lybrariad when I know I'm not! I want to belong here.”

Ebba shrugged. “I think if you want to belong here, then you belong here.”

“Not according to Francesco.” Dorrie grabbed Ebba's hand. “I promise. As soon as we get the page safely back, I'll tell Hypatia about getting through the archway, okay?”

***

Early the next morning, before anyone else was stirring, Dorrie, Ebba, and Marcus donned their chitons and tiptoed into the den. “If anyone asks,” whispered Dorrie, “we just say—”

Someone knocked firmly on the den door.

Dorrie, Marcus, and Ebba froze, looking at each other with wild eyes. The knocking came again. For a furious moment, they discussed in sign language the possible costs and benefits of diving back into their rooms, simply waiting for the knocker to get tired and walk away, which might happen only
after
other apprentices had been awoken, or answering the door. In the end, Dorrie found herself being propelled toward the door by Marcus and then abandoned there as he and Ebba dived around the back side of the fireplace.

Dorrie lifted the door's latch, her heart hammering.
Had
Francesco
come
to
march
her
off
in
chains? Had the lybrarians decided that Dorrie and Marcus would have to leave right away?
The knocking ceased. Dorrie slowly swung the door open.

Mistress Lovelace stood outside the den door, in front of a bicycle hung with two enormous wicker hampers. Her glasses and pearls gleamed.

Dorrie gaped at her.

“Good morning, Dorothea,” Mistress Lovelace said pleasantly.

Dorrie shook her head. “Uh. Good morning.”

Mistress Lovelace consulted a little black book in her hands, and then looked back up at Dorrie with cordial calm. “I've come for items C-DG 23.7 and C-DG 23.7.”

Dorrie looked at her blankly.

“A dressing gown and a bathrobe?” said Mistress Lovelace helpfully. “Checked out from the circulation desk on your behalf by Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim? I've come to collect them.”

“Oh, right,” said Dorrie, flashing on the moment the garments in question had begun to disintegrate. She cleared her throat. “I'm sorry. We've…uh…misplaced them.”

Mistress Lovelace adjusted her glasses slightly. “Both?”

“Temporarily,” Dorrie added hastily.

Mistress Lovelace consulted her little black notebook again. “I'm sorry but if you can't now return those items to the circulation desk, they must be considered permanently lost.” Her tone was irreproachably amicable and firm as stone. “We'll need to add the value of those items to your fine, naturally.”

“All right,” stammered Dorrie, thinking that she and Ebba and Marcus were losing time.

“As I'm sure you know, the fine must be paid in full by the close of day.”

“But, but we don't have any money,” said Dorrie.

Mistress Lovelace drew a card from between the pages of her notebook. Dorrie recognized it right away as a copy of the many overdue notices she'd been sent. She read it out loud: “The dressing gown numbered C-DG 23.7 was checked out from the circulation desk on your card and is now subject to a fine of fifteen minutes of labor behind the circulation desk for each day of further detention. If, after thirty days, the item is not returned, the dressing gown must be sent for by messenger, and the cost in time of obtaining it collected in addition to the fine
accruing
to
the
date
of
the
recovery
of the dressing gown, which cost and fine must be paid
to
make
your
card
good
for
future
use
.”

Mistress Lovelace tucked the notebook away. “Each of you owes a fine of seven hours and twenty minutes. We begin fine work at six a.m. promptly on the day of collection.”

“What time is it now?” asked Dorrie.

Mistress Lovelace consulted a little silver watch around her wrist. “It's 5:51.” She mounted her bicycle.

Dorrie grasped for a way out. But what could she say?
Sorry, not a good day for this. We're busy waiting for a chance to sneak into ancient Athens?
“But…but the Lybrarian Games are this afternoon,” she stuttered instead. She looked down at her chiton. “And we have a rehearsal for Master Casanova's play this morning!”

“I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done about the rehearsal,” said Mistress Lovelace, her voice supremely level. “But if you begin right away, it's just possible that you won't miss the quill-sharpening competition. One of my favorites.”

Exactly nine minutes later, Dorrie found herself pushing an iron the size and approximate weight of a cinder block over a pair of pantaloons in the vast warren of rooms behind the circulation desk. Beads of her sweat kept falling and hissing on the iron. An enormous basket of washed, dried, and badly wrinkled clothing sat nearby waiting for her attentions.

One of Mistress Lovelace's assistants walked by with a box full of wallets of wildly different designs. “Mind you don't let that iron run too long, or you'll start scorching things. You have to turn it off now and then to cool it down.”

Dorrie nodded, too breathless to acknowledge the assistant's advice in any other way. The assistant pushed through the curtains that led out to the circulation desk itself. Elsewhere in the rooms full of storage bins and clothing racks, Marcus sat sewing missing buttons on vests. They'd left Ebba to patrol the Athens archway with Moe until Dorrie and Marcus could get free, keeping an eye on the rack of scrolls and tabs on the Athens keyhands. The plan was to tell anyone who passed that Moe had gone missing in the area. Mathilde had also been roused by Mistress Lovelace for her own crimes against free circulation and stood nearby, arranging coins and paper money from various wherens into neat packets.

Dorrie stopped ironing, her fingers suddenly cold, as she recognized Francesco's voice on the other side of the curtains. “I'll need three tube dresses, two collars, six pairs of palm-fiber sandals, two loincloths, two kilts, six cloaks—”

Dorrie listened carefully for words like “History of Histories” or “Athens” or “instantaneous marooning.”

“Make that three loincloths,” barked Francesco. “And hurry.”

Mistress Lovelace's assistant swished back through the curtains. Dorrie pushed the iron back and forth again vigorously, hoping the woman wouldn't notice the unfortunate scorch mark Dorrie had just made.

“Francesco!” called another voice she recognized. It was Savi! His voice sounded tight and worried. “So Kash has been captured! When were you going to tell me?”

Dorrie's heart seemed to stop for a moment. She met Mathilde's eyes. Mathilde shook her head, holding up her hands. Dorrie crept closer to the curtains and peered through the gap to one side.

“We only just got the news via messenger,” said Francesco, his face grim.

Savi grabbed hold of the counter. “I want to be part of the rescue mission, of course.”

Francesco looked down at a list he held. “You may sit in on the mission meeting, but you'll stay here.”

Savi's eyes burned with cold fire. An uncomfortable silence took hold around the circulation desk. The few other borrowers who'd come to return costumes they'd worn at last night's party eased away from Francesco and Savi.

“Kash is my friend,” said Savi, his words sharp as glass. “It's my job to help get him back.”

Francesco fixed Savi with a hard look. “You are over-involved and your judgment of late has proven supremely underwhelming.” Dorrie's breath caught, sure he meant Savi's decision to take her to France. Francesco turned to the enormous box of goods that Mistress Lovelace's assistant had placed on the counter in front of him. “I don't want any mistakes made.”

Now, Dorrie's face burned for Savi. A mask seemed to descend over Savi's face. He lowered his voice. “Francesco, I beg you.”

“Enough!” said Francesco. “Do your duty here, and don't dishonor your friendship with Kash farther with any more heedless actions.”

Savi went perfectly still. Dorrie had the distinct feeling that Savi might at any moment interpret “doing his duty” to mean running Francesco through with his sword.

Instead, he simply bowed slightly. “I shall, indeed, do my duty.”

“I'm glad you're finally being sensible,” said Francesco stiffly. “Tameri should reach Petrarch's Library this afternoon. We'll get the whole story from her then. We'll hold the emergency mission meeting after that.”

He shouldered past Savi and out of the Circulation Room.

“Indeed, I shall,” said Savi softly.

ATHENS

When Mistress Lovelace finally released them, Marcus insisted that they walk, not run, through the deserted corridors. “Stealth and Deception 101. People notice you if you walk quickly or slowly. And they definitely notice sprinters. Oh, and notice how I'm not whispering?” he continued, looking horribly self-satisfied in Dorrie's opinion. “Whispering only attracts attention.”

They saw Moe before they saw Ebba. He was sitting on a tattered sofa near the Athens archway. A generous helping of gold fringe obscured the sofa's legs. Ebba eased herself out from underneath it and brushed herself off, her face full of worry. “I've been watching all day, and no one's touched the scroll rack, but look.”

She pointed to the archway's calendar. Under the month Gamelion, the number 19 blazed brightly. “Time's moved forward! The keyhands must have gone in
yesterday
morning. Izel must have gotten the story wrong! Anything could have happened yesterday.”

“We should go right now,” whispered Dorrie. “Just about everybody's out on the Commons watching the Lybrarian Games.”

“I think we've talked about the whispering,” said Marcus.

Ebba stared at the archway, as though into the maw of a great heartless shark, her breath shallow and loud.

Dorrie patted her chiton, where she'd tucked in the scroll that belonged in Athens, and took a deep breath. She took hold of one of Ebba's cold, trembling hands and reached for one of Marcus's warmer ones. “
Don't let go when we're going through.
It's an instant-death kind of thing.”

“Good to know,” Marcus said, squeezing Dorrie's hand hard.

“Wait,” hissed Ebba, as Marcus and Dorrie were about to step through. She took one last look up and down the corridor, and then nodded.

Taking a deep breath, Dorrie stepped through the archway. Just like the first time, she felt the familiar resistance and then pull. Ebba's hand seemed to be crushing her own. When they were well clear of the archway, Dorrie slowly let go of their hands.

A wild happiness shined in Ebba's face. “I did it!” She spun round to face the archway. “I did it.”

Marcus went to the wooden door and put his ear to the crack. “There's music playing again.”

Dorrie and Ebba began to pull scrolls out of the rack, unfurling and glancing over them with furious speed.

The sound of strumming and the thin, reedy sound of flutes suddenly became much louder. Dorrie turned. Marcus had opened the door a crack and stood, tapping one foot and moving his head back and forth like a chicken.

“What are you doing?” Dorrie demanded, picking up another scroll. “Help us look!”

“What?” said Marcus absently, his face pressed to the crack.

“The page!” hissed Dorrie.

“Right!” Marcus reluctantly joined them at the table. For what seemed like a half an hour, they unfurled and scanned, unfurled and scanned, jumping at every noise from the other side of the door.

As the number of unexamined scrolls diminished, Dorrie grew increasingly anxious. “What if it's not here?”

Marcus unfurled a particularly long scroll, written over in red letters.

As Dorrie stared at the vivid red ink of the letters, a hideous thought occurred to her. Her gaze raked over the remaining scrolls. “None of these have ink splatters on them.”

Ebba stopped mid-roll-up. “Yeah, so?”

“When we crashed into the table, some of the scrolls fell into the spilled ink,” said Dorrie, a note of barely contained panic in her voice. “I remember seeing them on the floor, soaking the ink up.” She looked back at the scroll rack. “Whoever cleaned up didn't put the ink-stained ones back!” Slithery eels seemed to be practicing figure eights in her stomach. “What if the page has been thrown away?” She said it louder than she meant to.

Almost immediately, the door in the whitewashed wall was shouldered open by a woman with three chins and a mountain of sweaty hair. Dorrie quailed.

The woman shifted the tray of food she had balanced on an arm and got a better grip on the two enormous pitchers that she held, one in each hand. She nodded with the particular satisfaction of the predictably disappointed. “‘The hirelings are coming,' the steward says. ‘They'll be here any minute,' he says. ‘I hired you plenty of help,' he says.” She eyed them up and down. “How long have you been hiding out in here, eh? Think you're clever, do you? Charging the master good money, while you shirk in his library?”

She paused for an asthmatic breath. “I could get better service out of a pack of alley cats.” The sweaty flesh hanging from the underside of her arms shook as she held out the tray and the pitchers. “Well, don't just stare at me! Take these out to the symposium guests.” She thrust the pitchers at Dorrie and Marcus and the tray at Ebba, and pushed them all along through the door. They soon found themselves in an open courtyard filled with talking and laughing people.

A wizened old man with eyes like milky marbles stepped into their path. “About time!” he said impatiently, herding them toward another door. “The master wants to make a toast.” Just inside the doorway, Dorrie, Marcus, and Ebba stopped, uncertain.

“Have you lost your senses? Move on!” the old man cried. “They can't have a toast without wine.” On the other side of the doorway, crowds of men filled a long room. They stood in clusters and reclined on couches. The air hummed loudly with their conversation. “You come with me,” said the old man, taking the second wine jug from Marcus. “I need some chairs moved.” Marcus looked back at Dorrie and Ebba helplessly as the old man dragged him away by the arm.

Dorrie huddled close to Ebba, the enormous clay vessel in her trembling arms becoming heavier by the moment. “What should we do?”

“Stay together!” hissed Ebba, her wide dark eyes sucking in the details of the room with the power of two of the hungrier black holes in the universe.. “And hope we don't run into any of the lybrarians.” A man with drooping eyes snapped his fingers at her. When she didn't move, he snapped them again more insistently. Slowly, Ebba held her laden tray out to him. He rummaged for the grapes he wanted and stuffed them all in his mouth, talking to another man all the while.

“He didn't even say thank you,” said Ebba, as they forced themselves to move forward through the crowd in the direction Marcus had gone. “And no women here, of course. Typical ancient Athenian deal. Mathilde told me all about it.”

Another man brayed at Ebba. “Olives! Over here!” Ebba gave Dorrie a pinched, helpless look and eased toward him with the tray. Dorrie was about to follow her when a man held out a black and red bowl with two little handles under her nose. She froze, staring at him blankly, until he jiggled the bowl. “Some wine if you please.”

Dorrie slowly lifted her pitcher, glancing wildly around for Marcus. He was standing next to the cluster of musicians, head bouncing to the drummer's rhythms. “I don't believe him!” she murmured.

“Any time, girl,” said the man. Dorrie tipped the pitcher up over his bowl, and before she could tip it back, an overflowing slosh of red wine poured onto the man's hand and the floor.

“You dunce!” said the man, passing the bowl to his other hand and shaking his arm. She tried to look as apologetic as possible.

Dorrie heaved the jug of wine into a more secure bear hug and hurried off in search of Ebba. Coming around a group of men, she almost dropped it. Not far away stood a long-boned man with a purple cloak over his chiton, holding his hand up for attention. It was one of the other Athenian keyhands, Leandros. She dived behind the fronds of a potted plant.

“Oh Mercury! I entreat you! Get our host on with his speech!” groaned a man sitting on a couch nearby. “And on with this blasted symposium.” He had a great globe of a forehead and a thick, black curling beard. “Socrates wants to be free to call the sun the moon and the moon the sun. And I say—prattle away! But laws are laws and he must be willing to take the consequences.”

Marcus appeared beside her. “Nice guy, that drummer. We traded a few rhythms.”

“You are impossible!” hissed Dorrie. She pulled him closer. “One of the Athenian keyhands is out there!”

Ebba sidled up beside them. “I hope there's a really nice room for women in this place,” she said, “and men better be serving the grapes. What do we do now?”

Dorrie pointed Leandros out to her and checked to make sure no one was listening. “If the
History
of
Histories
page did get thrown away, maybe the trash is still around here somewhere.” She turned to Ebba. “I don't suppose Mathilde happened to mention what ancient Athenians do with their trash?”

Marcus tapped his foot to the music. “Well, I know it eventually gets dumped in a big pile about a mile outside of town.”

Dorrie's hopes shriveled. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, I had to come up with an equivalent of the trash-compactor scene in
Star
Wars
for Casanova's play, so I asked him what the ancient Greeks did with their garbage.”

Dorrie dropped her face into her hands. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“But maybe no one's taken it there yet,” said Ebba, putting her tray down on a handy table.

Dorrie raised her head. “At home, we put trash out on the curb. By the street. Near the front door.” She pushed the wine jug into Marcus's arms. “Here. Just keep serving people so that old guy doesn't come looking for us. And stay out of sight of Leandros. We'll be right back.”

In silent agreement, Dorrie and Ebba ducked and slipped their way back into the courtyard, just in time to watch a man with an enormous stomach waddle into it through a wide opening.

“That sort of looks like a street out there, doesn't it?” said Ebba, her voice giddy with new sensation, her eyes on the opening in the mud-colored brick courtyard wall. Dorrie nodded. Shoulder to shoulder with Ebba, she made her leaden legs move forward, her heart crashing about at the thought of moving even farther away from the safety of Petrarch's Library.

At the opening, they stood aside as three men entered laughing boisterously, and then ducked through. They found themselves in a narrow, crooked street lined for the most part with more two-story brick buildings, roofed with heavy-looking tiles. Great clay vessels stood against the walls beside various doorways, and a thin stream of dirty-looking water wended its way down the street's middle.

A mound of rubbish lay in front of the building across the street and in front of another building beside it. A strong wind carried the scent of rot and plugged-up toilets. Against the near wall, a few yards away from the entrance to the courtyard they'd exited, Dorrie caught sight of a half-circle of mud mixed with straw. A few bits of broken pottery and pomegranate peels poked out here and there.

“Oh, no,” whispered Dorrie, running over to the spot. “If this was the trash, someone's already taken it.”

“Look,” said Ebba moving a bit of the straw with her foot. A piece of papery material lay in the mess. Just as Dorrie reached for it, the foul wind sent it flipping and flopping down the street.

Dorrie and Ebba dashed after it, their sandals making slapping noises on the dirt. As they approached a corner, the wind died. “Hah!” shouted Dorrie, leaping, stretching out her leg, intent on coming down with her foot on the runaway piece of papyrus. Instead, she found herself crashing with great force into a person just turning the corner.

She felt trapped and entangled for a moment before the person threw her off and she landed hard on her side. Something hard and shiny bounced into Dorrie's lap. It was a little, stoppered silver bottle. Dorrie stared at it, blinking, frightened of it somehow. For a moment, she had the inside-out feeling that the little bottle
knew
her.

The man snatched the bottle up as Ebba pounced on the piece of paper. Dorrie staggered to her feet. “I'm sorry,” she exclaimed. The tall man, his hair silvery, said nothing but regarded her with an air of withering accusation. Like everyone else Dorrie had so far seen in Athens, he wore a chiton, but he also wore a wide belt and an extra piece of cloth over one shoulder.

In the dusk, his nails glowed clean and ghostly white, as though he never had to do anything with his hands except perhaps wave them through the air. He walked on, followed by a cadaverous man, his stringy hair blowing in the wind, carrying an enormous lizard wearing a jeweled collar.

Dorrie shuddered and took firm hold of Ebba's arm, in case she had any ideas about chasing after the men and trying to pet the crocodile thing. They scuttled back toward the house, trembling. At the entryway, breathing hard, they huddled and hurriedly smoothed out the piece of paper. Ebba read aloud. “Almonds, grape leaves, salted pork, anchovies...It's just a shopping list.” Dorrie felt like weeping. “We have to get back and tell Hypatia what's happened.”