The Accidental Keyhand (17 page)

Francesco turned on his heel and Dorrie, not daring to think what he'd do if he found her there listening, fled across the Gymnasium and out another door.

***

As arranged, just before lunch, Dorrie met Ebba on the stairs of the Celsus. Nearby, Marcus was nodding with violent enthusiasm as Egeria pointed out something on a leaf she'd handed to him. He seemed to Dorrie to be shaking his hair out of his eyes with more style and more often than strictly necessary. Not watching where she was going, Dorrie almost bumped into Millie coming the opposite way.

“He's wasting his time,” said Millie, acid mixed in with the words. “She's madly in love with someone else.”

An urgent need to defend Marcus vied with Dorrie's own contempt for his ridiculous panting. She went with loyalty. “He's just very interested in plants.”

“I bet,” said Millie, marching away.

Dorrie was glad Millie didn't see Marcus, the moment Egeria walked away, toss the leaf she'd given him over his shoulder as though it were a particularly disgusting used tissue.

Inside the Celsus, Dorrie, Marcus, and Ebba headed for the mailboxes. Dorrie had been amazed earlier in the week when Ebba had pointed out a pigeonhole in the vast wall of pigeonholes saying, “You have a mailbox now too.” Beneath it, a little brass plate read, “Dorothea Barnes.”

“No one knows how the Library does it,” Ebba had said. “Whenever someone new comes into the library, a new pigeonhole squeezes itself into place here, and a new nameplate appears.” Dorrie had felt grateful to the Library for not engraving the brass plate with “Chewbacca.”

Dorrie peered into her mailbox, not expecting much. “Hey, look! I've got something!” Excited, Dorrie pulled the thing out. It was a printed postcard. In bold typeset italics across the top were the words “Petrarch's Library Circulation Desk.”

Two printed paragraphs followed with some blank spaces filled in by a neat hand. Dorrie read them out loud. “The dressing gown numbered C-DG 23.7 was checked out June 13, 421 PLE. (Petrarch's Library Era). It is now subject to a fine of 15 minutes of labor for the department of circulation for each day of further possession.
Your
borrowing
privileges
are
hereby
suspended
.”

“Oh, not here too!” cried Dorrie, stamping her foot.

Marcus dug in his mailbox and pulled out a postcard of his own. He picked up where Dorrie had left off. “On the date of June 22, 421 PLE, if not previously returned, the bathrobe will 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. All fines must be paid in full by the date of the recovery
.”

Dorrie stared at the bottom of the card. It was simply signed: “Mistress Lovelace.” She glanced back up at Marcus and Ebba, and said softly. “Well, so much for just checking out some Athenian bell bottoms or togas or whatever the ancient Greeks wore.” She shook her head, remembering that the past was also the present here. “Wear.”

“Chitons,” whispered Ebba. “That's what they wear.” She glanced around. “Don't worry, I don't have anything due. I'll just have to get out three.” She pinched her lips together. “Though I'm not sure how I'm going to explain why I need them exactly.”

The distant sound of shattering glass from out on the Commons made them all jump. A look of puzzlement and then dread crossed Ebba's face as shouts and shrieks rent the air. She sprinted for the doors. Confounded, Dorrie and Marcus followed. They got outside just in time to see Roger plunge onto the Commons from an alley between two buildings, dragging what looked like the contents of an entire garage along with him. Lengths of rope, and a tangle of bridles and fishing rods, and a smashed crate hung from his immense body. He thundered toward the Celsus, a long blond wig hanging from one horn, and a trellis full of grapes on the other.

Lybrarians and apprentices dived and leaped out of his way. Dorrie watched Izel scramble up a tree with the speed and agility of a squirrel.

“No! Don't move. Stop screaming!” Ebba called, as with a great tearing of turf, Roger changed direction and headed toward Mistress Wu, who, chest heaving and crossbow at the ready, had charged onto the Commons.

Dorrie gasped as Ebba launched herself off the stairs and between the aurochs and the lybrarian.

Roger just about sat down on his haunches to stop, sending the wig flying from his horns.

“Easy, boy,” crooned Ebba in her low singsong voice, edging toward the aurochs. “You're just scared. Aren't you, Roger?”

Mistress Wu pulled back on the crossbow, setting it. “Ebba, I don't want to even guess where that monstrosity came from, but don't go a step closer.”

From all around the Commons, lybrarians were drawing up in a circle.

“He won't hurt me,” said Ebba, holding out her hand. Roger's gargantuan lips rummaged over her palm. “Poor thing.”

Dorrie felt for her satchel and unbuckled its strap. “Here,” she called softly to Ebba, tossing it to her.

Ebba gently looped it around Roger's neck at the only spot it would fit, right behind his ears. He sighed peacefully.

Mistress Wu lowered her crossbow. There wasn't enough handkerchief in the world to mop the sweat off her face. “Is everyone quite all right?”

“I could have been killed by that foul cow!” shrieked Izel from up in her arboreal refuge, her eyes snapping.

Ebba discreetly rubbed at something gooey and green on her arm. “He's very clean, actually.”

Mistress Wu took a long, steadying breath. “Ebba, did you read that colossus out?” Dorrie thought she looked both utterly betrayed and magnificently impressed.

“I'm sorry,” whispered Ebba, patting Roger's manhole-cover-sized face.

“Put him away wherever it is you've been keeping him,” said Mistress Wu, sounding certain that Ebba herself would soon be facing a marooning, “and make sure he stays there. We'll need to speak to Hypatia.”

“Not to mention Mistress Lovelace,” murmured another lybrarian, as the director of circulation emerged onto the Commons.

Mistress Wu blanched momentarily and then shooed at Dorrie and Marcus. “Well, go on to lunch.”

“Sorry,” mouthed Ebba to Dorrie, before she slowly turned to face Mistress Lovelace. Walking toward the Sharpened Quill, Dorrie sighed. “Something tells me Ebba's not going to be able to borrow anything from the circulation desk for a while, either.”

***

Inside, the Sharpened Quill, the apprentices' table was crowded.

“How's foraging with Egeria going?” asked Mathilde, after Dorrie and Marcus had sat down with their lunches.

“Ask me anything about cat mallow. Anything,” said Marcus, shoving an enormous spoonful of some sort of stew in his mouth.

Anxious about Ebba's fate, Dorrie craned her neck to look out across the Commons through one of the Sharpened Quill's diamond-paned windows, but Ebba and Roger and most of the lybrarians had disappeared from view. Only Mistress Wu and Mistress Lovelace remained.

Saul squeezed onto the bench between Kenzo and Mathilde. He laid a piece of paper and a fountain pen on the table. “Okay,” he said brightly. “I'm supposed to find eleven actors to be in Master Casanova's Greek tragedy.” He looked around the table hopefully. “Who's in?”

“I'd rather have the meat eaten off my toe bones by a rabid dog,” said Mathilde, taking a delicate bite of her stew.

Looking away from the window, Dorrie noticed that everyone else had suddenly become very busy making small adjustments to the positions of their napkins and plates.

“C'mon, please,” Saul begged. “He's not going to let me rest until I've got actors.”

“What's it like apprenticing with him?” asked Marcus. Dorrie thought she heard a note of longing in his question.

“He's great on the stealth and deception stuff, but you don't want to be stuck with him right before the Midsummer Festival.”

Mathilde passed a plate of bread and cheese to Dorrie. “Last year, Master Casanova's two dogs were in the tragedy. They played goats.”

Dorrie took a piece of cheese absently, her eyes back on the window. Mistress Wu was flinging her arms around in gestures of horror while Mistress Lovelace, with great deliberation, wrote in a small black book.

Mathilde's next words jerked Dorrie's attention away from the window. “During the play's big finale, one of the dogs relieved himself on one of Mistress Lovelace's best Greek chitons. You can imagine how well that went over.”

An idea caught hold of Dorrie. As the apprentices argued loudly over which of Casanova's plays had been the worst, Dorrie kicked Marcus sharply under the table.

“What was that for?” Marcus demanded.

“I have an idea.”

“Yeah, well now I have a dent in my leg!”

“It's about returning the
thing
,” Dorrie said meaningfully.

Marcus blinked at her. “Do you not know how to tap someone on the shoulder?”

“Okay. I'm sorry,” Dorrie whispered, trying not to roll her eyes. “Master Casanova's doing an ancient-Greek-style play. Master Casanova's play uses clothing from Athens for costumes! Master Casanova needs actors!”

Before Marcus could stop her, Dorrie put one hand in the air. “I'll be in it!”

“You will?” said Saul, looking gratefully at her from beneath his dark lashes.

“And so will Marcus.”

“Nooo!” howled Marcus.

Dorrie kicked him under the table again.

“There is nooo way I'd miss an opportunity like that,” said Marcus, glaring at Dorrie as she scribbled down their names on Saul's list. She added Ebba's for good measure, hoping Ebba would forgive her.

Most of the apprentices looked at Dorrie and Marcus in amazement, but Millie crossed her arms, her eyes full of suspicion.

“Really?” said Mathilde.

“Yeah,” said Millie. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Don't scare them off,” said Saul, sweeping his gaze along the benchfuls of apprentices, and blinking his thick-lashed eyelids. “Now who else is in?”

“If I said yes, would you promise to read
A
Vindication
of
the
Rights
of
Women
?” said Mathilde, holding a piece of bread and cheese a few inches from her mouth in a considering fashion.

“Done,” said Saul, touching his silver armband as if that sealed the deal.

Mathilde bit her lip and then finally shook her head. “Sorry. Not even for that pleasure.”

BLISS AND BLEAKNESS

Mistress Lovelace's moving pen had spelled trouble for Ebba. Her borrowing privileges had indeed been suspended, and she was now expected to spend a good portion of every day into the foreseeable future washing and ironing clothes for Mistress Lovelace, and repairing all the objects that Roger had broken. She'd also been summoned to a Lybrariad staff meeting to discuss Roger's fate. Francesco had argued for the aurochs' immediate butchering on the grounds that he was a menace to the community.

Ebba had argued that the solution was to read out just one more aurochs to keep Roger company. The Lybrariad staff present had not shared her view of the elegance of that solution and forbade her to read out any more animals, period, of any size. In the end, Mistress Wu, her eyes brimming over with tears, had brokered a compromise. Ebba had until the Midsummer Lybrarians' Conference to turn Roger into a model, useful citizen of Petrarch's Library, or Francesco would have his way.

Despite missing Ebba's company while she worked and the ongoing worry about the safety of the
History
of
Histories
page (Dorrie checked the Athens archway every morning and evening, not trusting the Library grapevine or Izel to let her know when the lybrarians had decided on what to do about Socrates), Dorrie's next week bordered on the blissful.

Ursula and Phillip hosted a “Get to Know the Twenty-First Century” party for Dorrie and Marcus at Ursula's little stone cottage off the department of human repair and preservation. A good number of lybrarians and residents had attended, and Dorrie marveled at the fact that they all wanted to talk to her. Mr. Gormly howled with laughter at the mention of plug-in air fresheners, and Ebba's mother had a hundred questions about skateboards.

Dorrie felt a little mean telling them about the Internet and computers and the fact that you didn't have to go to a library to find a lot of kinds of information anymore. Some did indeed look stricken at the news, and one older man had to be helped to a chair, but most of the lybrarians seemed more intrigued than horrified, full of questions about what it all meant for the future flow of information and libraries that neither Dorrie nor Marcus could really answer.

And then, one evening, lounging by the fire with the other apprentices in the attics after a swim in the frigid sea, Dorrie heard a knock on the door. More than a few people glanced up from their mugs of cocoa and their books and projects to look beseechingly at Ebba, who happened to be sitting closest to the door.

She sighed, pushed a woolly blanket off her legs, and padded to the door in her slippers. “I guess I'd better go check on Roger again anyway.”

Yawning, she lifted the latch. Dorrie, her nose already stuck again between the pages of
Kidnapped
, heard a joyful shriek. She raised her head. There in the doorway stood Mr. Gormly, grinning, a cage under his arm containing a leaping, chittering Moe.

For Rosa's sake, Dorrie felt a surge of relief that lasted for all of the ten minutes it took Moe to bite her twice. A much bigger surge of relief filled her when Ebba, certain that the mongoose could alleviate Roger's loneliness, begged to take over Moe's care in return for Dorrie allowing the mongoose to sleep in Roger's quarters.

But best of all, Savi continued to teach her the sword, working on her footwork, her grip, and her first parries and thrusts. He swore often and passionately in French whenever she did something Mr. Kornberger would have loved.

During one practice session, Savi hung his rapier back on the Gymnasium wall earlier than usual. “We'll have to cut practice short today. My sabbatical is over, and I have research to do for the Lybrariad's next mission in Paris.”

The word “mission” worked an instant, electrifying magic on Dorrie. “What kind of mission?”

Savi picked up his satchel. “To spring a manuscript from its prison.”

“What kind of manuscript?” Dorrie demanded, tantalized.

“The kind that from a prison needs to be sprung.” He strode toward one of the Gymnasium's many doors.

“No, really!” she pleaded.

Savi stopped in the doorway. “The Lybrariad has recently become aware that in the early 1590s in Germany, a manuscript by one Cornelius Loos was confiscated by the Bishop of Trier before it could be printed. It offended the good bishop, you see, for the manuscript protested the witch hunts taking place under the bishop's leadership and made quite clear their cruel absurdity. The Lybrariad intends to find it if it still exists.” He made to leave again.

“To give it back to Cornelius Loos?”

Savi's fingers drummed on the doorjamb. “No. He died in prison before we were aware of his predicament. The Lybrariad wants to see the manuscript published as intended. The way history runs now, witch hunts continue deep into the 1700s. Perhaps if Cornelius Loos's manuscript sees the light, they'll end that much more quickly.”

Dorrie flashed on the birthmark that stretched across Ursula's eye and the story she'd heard from Phillip about how the people in her village had tried to burn her as a witch in part because the birthmark looked like a cat. A book that could stop a person from being set on fire felt like the strangest and most powerful magic. “Can I help you?” Dorrie blurted out.

“I don't know. Can you?” said Savi in a prickly voice.

“Please! I mean, aren't I supposed to help you with your work?” Not knowing where she was getting the courage to beg, Dorrie waited, tense, for his answer.

Savi drummed his fingers on the doorjamb again, as if considering. “Very well, mademoiselle.”

From that day forward, Dorrie spent part of every day toiling alongside Savi in his research, looking for whatever he requested in books and files in a dozen different chambers of Petrarch's Library, finding out all they could about what might have become of Cornelius Loos's manuscript.

Once, when Savi had asked her to read aloud a list of private libraries he'd written out on a piece of paper, Dorrie had gotten a good way into one of his poems before she realized her mistake. “‘Since we must all become slaves to beauty,'” she'd read with increasing confusion, “‘would it not be better to lose our freedom in chains of gold, than chains of hemp or iron?'”

“That's not it,” Savi had snapped.

Dorrie had stopped abruptly and scrambled to find the right piece of paper while Savi, replacing a book on a shelf, went red. A little while after Dorrie had read from the proper piece of paper and gone on to another task, she had looked sidelong at Savi and gathered her courage.

“You could get a friend to do what the Cyrano from the play did. You know, stand behind a bush and sort of remind you what to say.”

Savi's face stiffened with pride. “And be mocked forever after!”

Dorrie was surprised that Savi, a master swordsman and a keyhand of the Lybrariad, could care about that so much. But she understood how it hurt to be mocked. “I…I wish I could do it for you.”

Savi smiled, his good humor stealing back. “Your nose isn't nearly impressive enough for the role.” He scratched something with a flourish on a fresh piece of paper. “But the good news is that I believe I now know where to find Cornelius Loos's manuscript.” His eyes gleamed as he crammed the piece of paper into his satchel. “I must be off.” He rushed toward the door, and then stopped, spinning around. “I thank you for your help, mademoiselle.”

***

The next day, Dorrie, Marcus, and Ebba all got notices in their mailboxes announcing that the first play rehearsal was to take place after dinner.

“Is this really necessary?” grouched Marcus that evening as Ebba led them to the Old Field, the spot Casanova had specified for the rehearsal. It lay low and to one side of the architectural tangle, a good trek from the Commons. “I mean, I could be soaking trumpet-flower seeds right now, which I would hate, but at least Egeria would check on me every once in a while.” He gave Dorrie a put-upon look. “I still say you should just deal with a few minutes of nakedness.”

“For the last time, I'm not going naked,” cried Dorrie.

“Fine,” said Marcus. “But as soon as we get the page back, I'm quitting the play.”

“You can't do that,” said Ebba, horrified. “Not if we said we'd do it. Master Casanova will be counting on us.”

The Old Field was a barren piece of pebbly ground where only saw grass grew. Ebba led them to where a fire blazed inside a low circle made of rough stones. A little way behind the fire stood the mouth of a shallow cave, set in a dark, jagged rock face.

Watching the flames leaping, Dorrie thought of a question. “How come Petrarch's Library is full of fires, but I never see any piles of logs?”

Ebba shrugged. “If a library arrives with a fire or a candle or a torch or something burning, it just keeps right on burning, but the candles don't get any shorter, and the wood never seems to go to ashes. Some of them have been burning for almost four hundred years.”

“I love this place!” said Marcus.

“Ah, good, fresh talent,” Master Casanova said, turning away from a very elderly lybrarian with a monocle that kept falling out. Master Casanova flung the loose end of a brilliantly yellow scarf around his neck. On either side of him, his two little terriers jumped up and down like furry Super Balls. “Down, Sophocles! Down, Euripedes!” Casanova bellowed. He stared intently at Ebba, and then Dorrie and Marcus in turn. “You,” he said, pointing at Marcus. “You will read for the part of the hero, Iakchos.”

“Total typecasting,” said Marcus.

“Yes,” said Callamachus. “You're the only male person here under fifty.”

“Is this hero an Athenian?”

“What?” asked Casanova.

Out of Casanova's sight, Dorrie jumped up and down, and shook her head violently back and forth.

Marcus paid her no attention. “I only like to play Athenians.”

Dorrie dropped her face in her hands.

“I assure you,” said Casanova, thrusting a sheaf of papers at Marcus. “He's an Athenian's Athenian.”

Master Casanova sized up Dorrie. “Can you act?” he demanded, throwing his arm up and out forcefully to one side so that the papers in his hand trembled.

One of the dogs gave a sharp bark.

“Yes,” said Dorrie, glad to be on familiar ground. “Mostly I've played pirates.”

“Pirates?” said the old man, obviously appalled. “What authentic writer of tragedies would insult an audience with the presence of a pirate?”

“Well, usually the plays were more pretend sword fights than real tragedies,” stammered Dorrie.

“Oh, I think you could call them tragedies,” Marcus put in.

Casanova took in a deep, slow breath. It took him some time. He seemed to be carefully keeping track of all the air entering each of his individual lung sacs. “When I ask, ‘Can you act,' I mean, have you ever donned a mask in a proper Greek tragedy?”

“Not exactly,” said Dorrie.

Master Casanova lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Oh, Zeus, bring me
actors
!” He thwacked a sheaf of papers against Ebba's chest. “Here. You shall read for the part of the devastated Parthian Queen, our heroine.”

“What? No.” said Ebba firmly, handing back the script. “How about a part in the chorus?”

Master Casanova ignored her words and swung one of Ebba's hands high in the air. “My Parthian Queen!”

Dorrie looked into Ebba's stricken face and tried to radiate deep apology.

Casanova chose that moment to turn back to Dorrie. “Chorus,” he pronounced, handing her a script and turning quickly away.

Just then Millie marched into their midst, with Izel sidling along beside her.

“Millie!” Dorrie stammered. “What are you doing here?”

Millie shook her bangs out of her face and stared hard at Dorrie. “I guess the same thing you are.”

“…You morons,” Marcus offered up solicitously.

Millie glared at him as Master Casanova took a step backward and a sidelong look at Millie. “In you, I sense the natural energy of a powerful goddess complete with destructive tendencies.”

“Goddess?” repeated Millie, her eyes wary now.

Master Casanova took in Izel. “And her wily maidservant.” He put on a falsetto voice. “‘Artemis, Artemis, where art thou?'”

“Chorus?” muttered Dorrie to Ebba. “What about me screams out ‘chorus'?”

Casanova clapped his hands together. “Now, I'm thinking of playing a good deal of the action in the cave. It's not traditional, but with the echoes and a few torches, I think the effect will set the hairs on people's heads standing straight up.”

“And Millie—Millie screams out ‘goddess'?” added Dorrie. She had to firmly remind herself that the whole point of being in the play was just to get the costumes. She leafed through the script, growing more and more alarmed. Mathilde hadn't been kidding. Even Dorrie knew that a story needed a beginning, a middle, and an end. The script seemed to be all middle, with the hero mostly giving long, long speeches.