Iris pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose you could fetch me a few books on the properties of minerals. After we’re done with this batch of Mayan red.”
After they were finished, Petra left the Dye Works and waited outside the closed door. She did not want to arouse Iris’s suspicion in any way, so she thought she would make it seem as if a pass to enter another level of the castle was the furthest thing from her mind. After a good few minutes in the dark corridor, she opened the door and complained, “The guards won’t let me pass.”
“Oh, bother.” Iris grabbed a sheet of parchment and a pot of ink. She wrote, “Third Floor Clearance.” Then she signed it and stamped it with the Krumlov seal. A design of a white ermine now marked the paper.
“Will the library let me take books out?”
“Bother!” Iris scribbled a postscript.
Petra strolled toward the door with the note, as if she were not interested in the slightest in going to the library.
“Well, hurry along, won’t you? You’re not made of molasses!” Iris called as Petra shut the door behind her.
THINGS WERE VERY DIFFERENT on the third floor. The hallway ceiling was golden pink and the blue carpet was plush. It took Petra a moment to realize that the carpet was rippling under her feet in gentle waves. The wallpaper on either side seemed plain blue, but as Petra walked farther she could see a many-sailed ship floating off to her right. She heard a gull screech. She stroked the marble that bordered the doors. The stone was riddled with holes. Some of them were tiny bubbles. Others were deep enough for Petra’s finger to wiggle inside.
That is travertine marble, Astrophil informed her. The fissures were made by water.
Many of the doors that appeared in the stretch of sky-colored wallpaper were shut, but as Petra passed she peered into rooms where the doors stood ajar. She saw a salon with long, silk-colored divans. She gazed into an immense ballroom with cathedral windows. Many servants fluttered around the ballroom, and several gray-blue men and women were crouched on its wooden floor, polishing it until it gleamed.
Soon she reached a large double door made from oak. The word Bibliotheca was carved above the doors in blocky Gothic letters.
There it is! cried Astrophil. He bounced up and down on her ear.
Calm down, will you?
Across the doors was a large carving, showing an old man sitting in the dirt with a stick in his hand, drawing something. Far behind him, soldiers were crashing into one another with swords and shields. And right behind the man was a muscular soldier with a raised sword.
What’s that all about? Petra was curious. The scene had nothing to do with books.
That is Archimedes. He was a Greek scientist and mathematician. See: he is so preoccupied with his idea that he is writing notes in the dirt while the Greeks and Romans war behind him. He was so dedicated to his work that he did not even notice that a Roman had come to kill him. He died for his idea.
Was the scene supposed to be a warning? Or was Archimedes supposed to be some kind of role model? Whatever the case may be, Petra did not like the carving. She pushed open one door. It swung widely.
She stood in a room the size of a large closet. Directly in front of her sat a man in a high-backed, stuffed brocade chair. His desk was short, small, and bare aside from a long bar that read, SIR HUMFREY VITEK, ESQ. The man was heavyset, and about her father’s age. He wore a wig, spectacles, and a black robe trimmed with scarlet piping. He hadn’t noticed Petra, but was staring into space, his eyes flicking left, then right, then left, then right.
The door Petra had opened began to groan backward. It thudded into place. Sir Humfrey jumped. “What? What?” Then, adjusting his spectacles, he focused on Petra. “Well, miss, who might you be?”
“Viera.”
“Well, Miss Viera, I don’t mean to be rude … but are you quite sure that you mean to be here? You see, I was just reading some exquisite Persian sonnets about a desert flower called the selenrose. I was feeling so restful.” He wrung his hands, folded them, and sighed. “If you don’t have a library pass I shall have to call the guards, which would disrupt my sense of tranquillity. The rules say I must call the guards in cases like these. But it seems to me to be an unnecessary action to take for such a little thing as yourself.”
“I’m looking for the library.” She scanned the room, but it was utterly empty. There were no other doors besides the ones she had just stepped through. “Is this it? Where are the books?”
This is most disappointing, said Astrophil, hurt.
“All the books are here, in a sense,” replied Sir Humfrey.
Petra glanced again at the blank walls. “Sure. Right”
“They are here.” He tapped his forehead. “At least, one copy of everything except books specifically banned by the Lion’s Paw to the eyes of anyone but Prince Rodolfo. I have a delightful job, really. I get to greet lovers of literature and history. And when no one comes, I am never lonely. I can read away.” His gaze drifted from Petra and he stared off into space as if there were an invisible page before him. Then he looked at Petra again. “But you shan’t make me call the guards, I hope? That would be so unpleasant.”
“My mistress sent me.” Petra held out Iris’s letter. “Won’t this work as a pass?”
Sir Humfrey’s eyes widened when he saw the ermine stamp. “Is this from the Countess of Krumlov?” Petra nodded.
“Oh, my.” He stared at the letter in Petra’s hand. He reached out a finger and then drew it back.
Realizing what made him so hesitant, Petra said, “If she had been acidic when she wrote it, the letter would have burned up. There’s nothing wrong with the paper.”
He looked a little sheepish. “Yes, of course.” He took the letter and studied it. “All right, then. Yes, everything seems to be in order.” He passed back the paper. “Go on ahead.” He waved at the blank wall behind him.
“Sir?”
“Oh, I am sorry. I am so absentminded.” He shook his head, then leaned across his desk and touched his nameplate. The back wall vanished.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Sir Humfrey whispered. “And remember: keep your voice low, pianissimo”
Now, this was more like what Mikal Kronos had described. The ceiling was rocky. Silent birds swooped above. Shelves many times taller than Petra flanked either side of the library. A woman approached a nearby shelf and pulled a lever. The stacks silently yawned open, revealing whatever hidden treasure she was seeking. A handful of readers studied at desks lit by the green glow of brassica-fueled lamps.