Chapter V

The admission scribe looked at the visitor with narrowed eyes before the scribe took down the man's name and discretely counted out the silver coins the man had placed on the scribe's little desk. The royal library was a place of quiet study and contemplation and visitors were rare. Learned men were by royal decree the only outsiders allowed to enter the library and only upon producing proof of their credentials. But it was no great secret that the scribes, who were to ascertain the worthiness of scholars interested in the library and its vast collection of valuable works, could be made to look the other way if a few coins found their way into their pocket.

The man who had just been admitted wore a grey cloak and plain clothes. He was the kind of man who could disappear into a crowd. If you looked closer, though, you would see that the clothes he wore, albeit plain in appearance, were made from expensive materials. The weaving was tighter and the stitching finer than anything which could be bought on the streets outside. A single white ring adorned his left ring finger. His eyes were bluish grey and watchful. His nose was slightly bent and distinctive if you gave yourself the time to look at it. He moved through the halls of the library with long strides, immune to the allure of the many secrets held in the seemingly endless rows of books and scrolls. When he reached the back of the library, he knocked twice on the small wooden door off to the side. Nothing happened. The man looked to see if anyone was around, but the far end of the library was deserted. The man knocked a third time. This time more forcefully.

"What is it? I was not to be disturbed." The head scribe opened the door slightly ajar and looked at the man on the other side. The rotund scribe had crumbs in his beards and chicken fat in the corner of his mouth. He did not seem to recognize the man and was thoroughly annoyed at having been interrupted.

"What do you want?" said the scribe.

"I come with an offer," said the man with the slightly bent nose and looked disdainfully at the disheveled scribe. All the scribes wore brown cowls and their heads were shaved. The head scribe's brown cowl looked dirty and wrinkled and thin, long tufts of wayward grey hairs grew unbothered on his hastily shaven scalp.

The scribe looked up and down the man with the slightly bent nose and saw only his plain clothes. "This is not some shop on high street. We do not make offer and we certainly do not take them. If you need help finding a work, you need to pay the librarian." The scribe tried to slam shut his small door, but the man had put his foot in the opening. As the scribe realized this, he let out a surprised yelp.

"Move!" said the scribe in a voice meant to be authoritative but was betrayed by a distinct note of fear.

"I am quite sure that you'll want to hear what I have to say."

"MO…" the scribe began but was silenced by the man with the slightly bent nose who with sudden speed and startling force toppled the scribe and let the both of them tumble into the room behind the wooden door. The man with the slightly bent nose now sat astride the scribe with one hand over the scribe's mouth. With his free hand, he closed the door behind them. Nobody in the library behind them seemed to have noticed the commotion. The man with the slightly bent nose sat intently listening for a long moment while the scribe struggled meekly beneath him and yelled muffled curses into the hand covering his mouth. The room they had tumbled into was part storage room and part office. It was the throne room from which the head scribe commanded his little fiefdom. Twelve scribes worked in the library copying texts and answering trivial inquires; and the head scribe was in charge of directing their work. The scribes were a class below the librarians but since there were only two librarians, the scribes had won an uneasy victory in the battle for dominion over the library. The librarians mostly kept to themselves in their offices at the other end of the library. A small window placed at the edge of the ceiling revealed that the room was mostly underground. Outside the weather was sunny; constellations of dust particles danced lazily in the lone beam of sunshine, which graced the office. Every few minutes the sunbeam was momentarily blocked by passers-by outside.

From somewhere inside his cloak the man with the slightly bent nose produced a roll of parchment. With a flick of his wrist he unrolled the document. The scribe's eyes widened at this. He recognized his own handwriting. Deflated by the revelation of the man with the slightly bent nose, the scribe ceased his struggling.

"How many were made?" said the man with the slightly bent nose coldly and lifted his hand from the fleshy face of the scribe.

"I… " said the scribe.

"How many!"

"I… I don't know."

"How many!"

The man with the slightly bent nose hit the scribe across his head with an open hand. A red flower blossomed on scribe's lip. The scribe lay shocked for a moment.

"Tell me how many!"

"I… f… f… five. I made five."

"And how many have you sold?"

The man with the slightly bent nose moved to strike the scribe again but the scribe sputtered out his answer before the blow landed.

"All. I mean… I sold. I sold all of them. All five."

The fat head scribe lay defeated on the floor beneath the man with the slightly bent nose. The man got up and walked over to the little desk the head scribe had been eating lunch at a moment earlier. There the man with the slightly bent nose sat down and poured himself a mug of wine from the jug on the table.

"What is your name scribe?" said the man with the slightly bent nose and drank greedily.

"My … my name is … it is … I am Pio," said Pio and got up from the floor sucking his bloody lip.

"Are you lying to me?" The man with the slightly bent nose hardly seemed interested in Pio anymore. He poured himself another mug of wine at the table and picked up the half-eaten chicken on the clay plate. He studied the chicken for a moment and then bit off a large chunk.

"No. I. No. No sir. My name is Pio."

"Not about your name. About how many copies you made."

"No. I … five were made. I made five."

"Good. You will regret lying to me." The man looked at Pio for a long moment before he continued. "Now Pio, you have committed treason against the ivory throne by fraudulently copying a royally sealed document. But you of course realize this yourself." The man paused and bit off another large chunk of chicken. "Do you know the punishment for treason?"

Pio looked pleadingly at the man with the slightly bent nose.

"Do you?"

Pio knew the punishment. Every man, woman and child in Ottonia did.

"Well?"

"Death," said Pio. His voice was barely a whisper.

"Death by public flogging, yes. This is the punishment for a commoner such a yourself." The man with the slightly bent nose nodded approvingly and broke off a piece of bread from the small loaf Pio had had one of the lesser scribes bring him only a few minutes earlier -- a short eternity ago now.

Pio stood and looked on helplessly as the stranger ate his lunch.

The man with the slightly bent nose seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. He ate and drank as if he had not eaten and drunk for days.

"Now," the man began when he finally finished eating. "I am not one to put myself above the law. Crime must be meant with harshness. That is my view. Otherwise the degenerates will soon cast aside their thin veneer of civilization." He paused and removed a piece of chicken from his teeth. "Ottonian law, though, is not my concern." He paused again and looked at Pio.

Pio shrank under the contemptuous gaze of the man with the slightly bent nose.

"Do you understand my meaning, Pio?"

Pio nodded meekly. He was not sure what the man with the slightly bent nose meant.

"You have -- of your own volition -- broken your allegiance to the king of this blessed city," the man spread his arms in a mocking gesture "and now it befalls me to offer you the honor of serving my liege in his stead."

The man with the slightly bent nose motioned at Pio. Hesitantly Pio moved closer. The man with the slightly bent nose removed the white ring on his left ring finger slowly and carefully. Pio looked on transfixed. He could hear his own heart throbbing in his ear. Outside a cloud passed in front of the sun and the room grew dim and colorless. The man with the slightly bent nose sat for a moment and looked at the white ring as he held it between his thumb and index finger. Pio blinked. The white ring in an instant became like a viscous liquid between the fingers of the man with the slightly bent nose. To Pio it looked as if the ring was melting. A large part of the ring was dripping towards the table - moving slowly as if it were candle wax. The melted mass hit the wooden table with a muted clang. On the table now lay a ring identical to the white ring the man was still holding. Both rings were solid with no sign that they had been melting a moment earlier. A fully formed duplicate had simply fallen from the white ring, which the man with the slightly bent nose now put back on his left ring finger. He grimaced almost imperceptibly as he did so.

"Take this." The man with the slightly bent nose held out the newly formed white ring. Pio felt a deep aversion to touching the white ring. The eyes of the man with the slightly bent nose were cold and uncaring. Pio had seen eyes like that before in the seedier parts of town. He accepted the ring from the man. It was cold to the touch and heavy, heavier than in looked. A part of him wanted to dismiss the whole thing as a cheap parlor trick.

"Put it on and accept your new master or face the public whip." The man with the slightly bent nose got up from the chair and towered over Pio menacingly "the choice is yours". Pio hands trembled as he moved the ring onto his right ring finger. The ring was too big for his finger, but it shrunk as it passed the first and then second joint until it sat tightly around the base of his finger. Too tightly. Pio tried to pull the ring back off the finger onto which it had slid easily a moment earlier, but the ring was stuck. Desperate, Pio looked up at the man with the slightly bent nose. The man looked back at Pio with a mixture of glee and pity. The ring burned Pio's whole hand with a cold fury, fusing mercilessly with his flesh.

"What is this?" said Pio.

"Your new lord demands absolute subservience," said the man with the slightly bent nose "from all of her servants."

"I want no part of this!"

"You have forfeited your right to choose."

Pio moved to strike the man with the slightly bent nose, but his clenched fist stopped short in midair. Pio looked at his arm. It was if time had stopped around it.

"You do have a little fight in you after all." The man with the slightly bent nose laughed and brushed aside Pio's impotent fist. "But it no longer matters what is in your heart."

Pio's arm fell limply to his side.

"No more of this," said the man with the slightly bent nose. He found a piece of parchment on the table and dipped the quill in ink. "I want names. I have work to attend to."

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