The party went into the wee hours of the morning, and afterwards the songsters decided to take themselves off to the Dust and Pen. They turned down their mouths in exaggerated disappointment when I said that I couldn’t come, but none of them seemed inclined to suggest a different location for their continued revels. We might have gathered intimately in someone’s rooms, but songsters rarely entertain at home. Too much embarrassing squalor, I suppose. So they went off in one direction and I made my way back to Haunts and Scribbles, my head hung low, my energy depleted, my stomach issuing little burps of protest, as I had mistreated it badly with gingered mead.

I had forgotten about the woman who had been following us before, and that was my undoing. I had just gone through the tunnel into the library complex when a footstep sounded behind me on the cold cobblestones. I looked back in fear and found the matron in the gray-green robes hustling towards me. She came up beside me and tilted up a face that seemed red with winter but would have been apple-cheeked in any season.

“Your name,” she said, “is Doefrit the Bend.”

“That is incorrect,” I told her. “My name is Doefrit, and some people call me Bends. I have no surname, as I don’t need one, being a man of some fame.” I was swaying slightly on my feet and drunk enough that I found this surprising interaction with a stranger to be quite charming and normal.

“You have some money problems, I believe.”

“That is personal,” I told her with hauteur, although I did slur my words in an unfortunate manner.

“I would like you to come with me,” she said. She was very pleasant. Like a mother, offering a plate of sugared biscuits.

“Come with you where?”

“Not far. Back through the tunnel, I’m afraid. My friend thought it might be too conspicuous if he took rooms in the library complex itself.”

“Your friend? What friend?”

“I believe you met him the other night. He’s very generous, to those who love him well.”

It took me a moment, but I got there. “You don’t mean the Sasturi Guild Master?”

“Who else?”

“He is generous.”

“Will you come?”

“I will,” I said, my heart swelling with love for this woman and her generous friend. Drinking too much makes some people surly. For me it has quite the opposite effect. The whole world becomes lovely and I can find joy in even the most ominous circumstance.

She led me back through the tunnel, which was dark, echoing, and cold. When we had gone a block or two I glanced back at the wall that protects our dear library. There were lights on in the highest windows. Some itinerant scholar, shivering in a cold room and trying to scratch out a treatise that would make him famous. I pitied the poor fellow. Both he and I were poor, of course, but I had a generous friend waiting for me, and he did not.

She led me along the cobbled lanes to a tall, rather slouchy house. The sky was blushing blue with early morning and shadows fell off of the gables like icicles. We went through a badly hung door that creaked on its hinges and along an entrance hall, our presence disturbing a little mouse who streaked away across the floor. It was so dark and small and quick that I convinced myself that it was a mere floating speck in my weary eye. A very fast speck. Or a ghost. As I puzzled over this question of the mouse’s true identity, we reached the foot of a flight of stairs.

Up we went, pausing at the landings so that my guide could catch her breath and ascending, at last, to an attic. Another creaking door, which I thought must be very inconvenient for those who were trying to sleep on the floors below, but very appropriate for a Sasturi, as it gave the place the aspect of a haunted house. I was frightened for a moment as she led me through, wondering if Sasturi Guild Masters lounge about in the company of the dead during their off hours. But the room we entered was quite cozy. Beautiful carpets littered the floor, piled one upon the other, and my friend was seated before a low brass table and was pouring coffee from a gilded pot into a gilded cup.

He looked up at me and smiled. “I am so glad to see you,” he said. “So glad that we can resume our acquaintance.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you, as well,” I said politely, and tripped on one of the carpets. I would have fallen into the table and collapsed the whole set up if the apple-cheeked matron hadn’t caught me. She was surprisingly strong, and I began to suspect that her huffing and puffing on the stairs had been an act.

The Guild Master smiled at her and said, “Thank you, Vaetra. I find that this coffee has grown a little cold. Would you mind taking the pot to the kitchen and refilling it?”

“Of course, Bhaetamistri,” she said. She took the pot and left the room, and I had the odd feeling that I’d just been the audience at a little play.

“That’s your name?” I asked, settling myself on a floor pillow and banging the brass table with a knee, “Bhaetamistri?”

“It is.”

“That’s a western name, isn’t it?”

“Are there eastern and western names?”

“I think so. Aren’t eastern names more chunky?”

That seemed to amuse him. “As in, they are more likely to end with a consonant? Perhaps you are right. And you are also correct that I am from the east. From Yenceyan, in fact.”

I had been fiddling with the cup of coffee that he had poured for me, which was indeed a little cold. I paused with it halfway to my lips. “Are you the Guild Master of Yenceyan?” I asked.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I am not.”

I relaxed a little. I did not want to find myself in the company of an august presence that evening. My stomach remained gassy, and I was releasing secret farts into the pillow. “But Malreesi Muelant was calling you ‘Guild Master.’”

“It was her little joke. She was telling me that she was aware of my real position within the Sasturi. I am not the master of any weaving guild. But she was claiming a kind of mastery for me.”

“What are you the master of?” I asked, gulping at the coffee.

“I make sure that Sasturi’s secrets are protected.”

“You’re a spy, then.”

He gave a pert little nod. I noticed that his hands were folded in his lap. He wasn’t fidgeting. I would have been reassured by some fidgeting. Made comfortable by his slim fingers weaving together the tassels of his robes. “You may call me that,” he said. “But I prefer to think of myself as a secret-keeper.”

The word sparked a memory. I had said something witty, once. Or something that someone had treated as witty, even if it wasn’t. It tickled the back of my mind. “Meaning that you don’t go about spying on others?”

“I do when they know something they shouldn’t, or have something they shouldn’t. But beyond that, I am uninterested in their secret lives.”

“Well, that sounds a little more noble, I suppose.”

He smiled generously. “I am also unconcerned with nobility. I find it to be a confusing virtue. It changes shape so often.”

“Well, you could say that about any virtue.”

“I think not. I myself am much attuned to the virtue of prudence. The virtue of knowing what to do or say, and the right time to do or say it. And I believe that this evening is the right time for us to deepen our friendship.”

“In what way?” I asked. I wasn’t adverse to friendship with this man. He was so calm and well spoken. In truth, I rather wished that I was more like him.

“I need to know what is happening in Haunts and Scribbles.”

“What’s happening? I can tell you what’s happening. Some scholar is asleep at a table in a reading room, and drooling on an ancient manuscript. Some other scholar is pacing the floor of her chambers and muttering to herself. Soon it will be breakfast, and everyone will go down to the refectory. Most will eat in grumpy silence but a few overly bright old biddies will titter and gossip and say very loudly that they find morning to be the time when they get the most accomplished. They will eventually manage to alienate anyone who wants to eat their gruel in peace, and the crowd will dissipate. The corridors will ring with brisk footfall, and the air will fill with dust as books and tomes are unearthed from their ancient rest.”

“An entertaining picture,” my host said, smiling. “But I wonder if you have noticed any of those scholars playing with a little green elephant. Tucking it away in their robes and fidgeting with it.”

He was watching me closely, and it made me nervous. I had seen said elephant, of course. Had seen it just that evening, at the Prince of Churl’s party. It struck me that my old friend Lewibindi was up to something, and I found that my state of inebriation had lifted somewhat. I was inclined to become sly. “I might have noticed such a thing,” I allowed. “I would like to have noticed it. But my noticing might need some incentive.”

He gave a laugh, then, and it took me by surprise. It was so loud and so genuine. When it subsided he said, “I very rarely meet honest people in my work. I find you very pleasing.”

“Honest?” I asked. “Didn’t you just ask me to spy on my friends?”

“Yes. And you made it clear you would do so for a price. So let me name a price. It seems that you have been banished from the wineshops. I have undertaken to pay your bills.”

I was thunderstruck. “What, all of them?”

“All of them.”

“Because, you know, Bhukahnee said that there was an interdict. I’m not allowed in any tavern or wineshop until I’ve paid them all.”

“Your debt has been paid.”

“All of it?”

“Yes. You seem to be struggling with disbelief.”

“You don’t know how much I drink.”

“I do. To the last coin. But perhaps you need a demonstration. Shall we move this conversation to the Dust and Pen?” He glanced at the window. “It is rather late in the night. Or should I say early in the morning? Are they open now?”

“Oh, they’re always open. Yes. Let’s go to the Dust and Pen. I need to see this miracle for myself.”

I had an ulterior motive, of course. I am not without guile. I wanted people to see me in this man’s company. I know that spies are supposed to meet in quiet corners and that they endeavor to go unobserved. But I also know that spies often get stabbed to death in dark alleys. I wanted my new friend to know that people would notice my sudden demise. ‘So sad about Doefrit,’ they would say. ‘And who was that man he was whispering to in the Dust and Pen? Perhaps we should let the city guard know about that fellow.’

I thought that my host might demur, but instead he stood and gathered his robes around him and led me smiling from the room. The apple-cheeked matron did not reappear as we left the house. We strode openly through the waking streets, dodging here and there to avoid the night waste that was being flung from second story windows. The Dust and Pen was, fortunately, nearby. It is located in a cellar, which is part of its charm, and the stairs leading down to it are usually begrimed with vomit by the second or third night bell. A couple of waifs were busy scrubbing them as we descended.

My friends the songsters had either been diverted elsewhere or had gone home. The only denizens at that time of the morning were a couple of drunks in a corner and a scholar from Old Ancient who was there every day to greet the dawn with a petite glass of port. She sat very straight at her usual table and lifted the glass to us as we came in. Bhukahnee was at the bar, having sent the rest of her staff home. She lifted her head and gave me a hard, steady look. Then she nodded, to indicate that the gate barring my entrance had been lifted.

The Dust and Pen has three snugs, and the spy master led me to the back one, which is the most private. Bhukahnee followed us in, and I ordered whisky, as I thought that it might settle my stomach after the gingered mead. The spy master ordered the same.

“I didn’t think that westerners liked whisky,” I said.

His mouth quirked down in a humorous frown. “You have discovered the secret of my trade. I do what others do, as it pleases them and helps me to fit in.”

“I think that’s the secret of any trade.”

“Perhaps you are correct. Now, have I proven my good intentions?”

“Abundantly.”

“Then you will, perhaps, tell me about the little elephant?”

“How do you know that I don’t have it?”

Another quirky smile. “If you had it on your person, I would know. If you knew what it really was, you would be afraid. And if you possessed it, you would certainly know what it was.”

“Well, that’s all very mysterious. But you are correct, I don’t have it. Lewibindi Jaestis does. Or at least he did. I saw him deposit it on a shelf in the Prince of Churl’s study this very evening.”

Our drinks hadn’t been served yet. If they had, I am certain that Bhaetamistri, spy master of Yenceyan, would have dropped his glass.