On the full-wall tapestry in the office of the Chief of His Eminence's Special Assignments Department was a story that could hardly be read in quasi-cultist literature or in order libraries. It was the well-known "Story of the Maiden Godricia, Who Experienced Fear for the First Time," but it had some deviations from the canonical image and in the eyes of the Inquisition Department might look so strange that an ordinary man would surely be led to the stake. But not Albert Sept. Cleric Sept was fond of such monuments of the age. It always reminded him how easy it is to fall into heresy at the sight of artfully performed "proof," and for many people nothing more is needed than beauty. According to them, beauty hides the truth and therefore cannot lie.
In the tapestry, Godricia was walking in the mountains around the Living Valley. In the canonical story, she witnessed a rockfall that reached from the top all the way to the Heart and inflicted its first "wound." Thereafter, the woman experienced the "holy fright," which gave rise to the construction of the "wall," and beyond that, to the birth of the City. In the tapestry, however, Godricia is simply leaning on a large boulder, threatening to roll down the valley, and then clumsily trying to climb on it, which caused the rockfall that inflicted the "wound." Such a small detail and such a philosophical gap ran through the minds of the people who had the misfortune to encounter it.
Albert kept many such artifacts seized from this or that amateur of alternative history. And it he was a zealous supporter of the official point of view held by the Cult. He was smart enough to know that the truth could not be found in the writings of the Last Poet, nor in the Cult library, nor even in this tapestry given to him by the Supreme Head himself as a token of the highest confidence with, as he put it, ironic overtones.
So Sept preferred to do his job and not think about politics. Albert believed in those who were in power, because if they came to power, it meant there were reasons and qualities of their character that allowed them to achieve it. He liked mysteries. And all these objects of heresy were little mysteries left by him for his visitors, who fell first into a slight and then into the deepest bewilderment even from the paper compactor, where the first airsledges were depicted with particular finesse – they were carried by several chained hovering octopuses.
And so his current visitor, the handmaid of the Duchess Amun, sat staring at the tapestry in utter confusion.
"All right, Dagma. Let's go over it again," Albert drawled. "From the very beginning."
With these words, Sept turned away from the window and looked at the girl. There was something serpentine in his trusting smile. She stared at him with unblinking eyes and in a monotone voice began to repeat her story, already retold many times:
"I have already told you, kind sir, I woke up at 4 in the morning, as our schedule requires, and after the morning toilet I began to clean the Duchess' dining room. I was assigned to her that day. Then the junior cook and I went down to the cellar, from where we got a smoked seedly, cereals, wafflings, cheeses, hookthorn tincture, mint, and tyr. With the help of the students on duty, we moved the supplies to the service floor and from there to the kitchen. Then I remembered that I had forgotten green stuff, so I had to go down to the cellar again, where I had been locked up by mistake. I sat there till the afternoon, when the head cook began to worry that there were no preparations for the first courses, so the dining-room orderly went down to the cellar and unlocked me.
Before dinner, as punishment, I was sent to scrub the floors of the student washrooms in the Faculty of Preventing Bad Health. But by dinner time my hands were needed in the kitchen, and I was again sent to clean the dining room. I was wiping down the very unpleasant table legs, made in the shape of people with bird heads, as if holding the table on their shoulders, when there was a loud pop and glass flew out the north dining room window and the adjoining windows flew open. A pungent, glowing purple smoke billowed from above, and I ran away and hid in the closet next to the stairs that led to the Duchess' chamber. I was so scared that for a while I was afraid to come out of it. But then I heard the Duchess's voice and came out. She treated me very well, reassured me, and told me to go to her chambers and not to go out. And so I did.
The girl took a deep breath and stared at the tapestry again.
"All right, what happened next?" the Drill said with undisguised boredom, leaning on the cold stone windowsill and crossing his arms over his chest.
The girl hooked her fingers on the hem and began to crumple it, her eyes lowered from the tapestry to her own hands.
"I couldn't stand it any longer and went to have a look. But the guards wouldn't let me into the University, so I could only go out into the courtyard, where I saw a crowd near the clock tower and hurried there."
Dagma sighed heavily, raised her eyes to the table, but then lowered them again and began scraping the dried drop of oil with her fingernail.
"There, on the wall, I found my distant relative, Mr. Wolfie, fixing the clock. He was in the most utter confusion..."
"What time was that?" the Drill said abruptly.
"Oh, kind sir, how should I know, sometime after supper, the second sun was going down. The clocks don't work, how should I know?"
"All right, go on," Sept said grudgingly.
"Mr. Wolfie was very worried that he had lost his doll and that without it his life was over, and his work had stopped. I was so upset that I decided to ask the Duchess to help him. He was fixing our clocks, after all."
"Tell me, how many people in the castle have keys to the tower of the university museum?" Albert changed the subject.
The confused girl didn't immediately know what to answer, unclasped her hands, and began crumpling the hem again:
"The Duchess was so sweet... I don't know, kind sir. Probably the senior technician and the key-keeper? Yes. Probably just them. They both have a full bunch."
"All right, go on," Sept turned away toward the window.
"The Duchess was so sweet..." the girl continued.
"Do you often ask her to do something?" Albert asked again, not turning away from the window.
The girl stammered and stared again at the tapestry, then at the table, then turned to the wall, and, after staring at the obscene image of Emperor Ismariosis, went back to the hem and hands.
"No," she said quietly.
"Why not?" Sept wondered.
"Well, it's not the done thing."
"Then why did you go to ask her this time?" Albert was even more surprised.
"Because I felt sorry for him, Mr. Wolfie," said Dagma.
"Where was the Duchess when you went to ask her for this favor?" the Chief of the Special Assignments Department continued.
But the girl wasn't listening to him.
"The Duchess is very kind. She's always helping those in need," the maid said, sobbing, "Once she got me out of Trocchia's house, too. I thought I'd go mad with those werewolves there."
"My question was not about the temper of your mistress," Sept snapped irritably, "But about where she was when you..."
"She had just gone out into the courtyard to meet the Chief of Police," the girl interrupted him in relief.
"I se-e-e," said the Drill.
"The Duchess was so sweet..." the girl paused in fright, expecting a question, but then continued, "That she immediately asked the Chief of Police to release Mr. Wolfie's doll."
"So the Chief of Police knew about Mr. Wolfie's doll?" Sept wondered.
"Yes, he did, kind sir, he already knew about the doll, caught by that time by the police along with the criminals."
"There were several of them?" the Drill again seemed surprised.
"Oh, I don't remember, sir. I was so glad the doll could be returned that I ran to make Mr. Wolfie happy," she raised her big dark eyes at the cleric, but immediately lowered them and looked down at her hands.
"Who is he to you?" Albert clarified.
"I don't know much about it, kind sir. He seems to be the brother of my aunt's brother-in-law."
"So he's not even related to you?" Sept sniggered.
"Not by blood, but everyone in our family is," she babbled.
"All right," said the Drill thoughtfully, turning his hawk-nosed profile toward the window.
The girl looked up at him, full of hope:
"Can I go now?"
Albert was silent, and then he walked over to the girl and brought his face close to her and gritted through his teeth:
"You're lying, aren't you? You don't have an aunt-sister-brother-in-law. This whole story is a fabrication to protect your mistress. Do you know what I can do to you?"
The maid covered her face with her hands and burst into tears:
"I don't know!"
Sept's jaw clenched with tension, and for a few seconds he massaged his cheek with his hand. Then he moved the paper compactor with his hand, leaned on the table, and said:
"You'll spend the rest of your life in the slammer. Or I'll send you to the mine. Or maybe to the Salt Lake, along with all your imaginary family."
The girl howled still more loudly and blew her nose in her hem.
"There, there. Don't get so emotional. You were taught to be a good girl, weren't you? So be a good girl. Tell me what happened, and I won't say anything to your mistress," he said conspiratorially.
But the maid would not let up and cried more than ever. Looking up at the white sky, Sept lifted a bell in the form of a ritual prayer eater from the table and rang it twice.
"Sit for a while and think," he said, and a younger cloaked servant immediately appeared in the doorway.
"To the dungeon," the Drill said coldly.
"D-d-d-dungeon?" sobbed the girl.
But the junior servant had already grabbed her under the armpits and dragged her out of the chief's office.
"Those are the rules," the Head of the Special Assignments Department smiled at her and sat down at the table.
Report. The mere thought of it made him grimace unpleasantly. A few days ago, first the assistant to the potions master disappeared, and then the master himself, taking all the valuables from the house with him. The second wasn't surprising, it was understandable that this trickster and slacker couldn't do anything without his apprentice, but having to find out what happened to the assistant was distracting Sept. His head ached at the thought of having to search for another grain of sand in the desert. But the master was serving the Supreme Head of the Cult himself, and Albert couldn't afford to forget about the matter.
Sept got over the headache, sighed heavily, and rang the bell again. Another junior servant appeared, and Albert said dryly:
"Bring this Magister Asstolok, or whatever his name is."
The servant nodded and disappeared in the doorway. The Drill pulled out an extract from Magister Astolok's personnel file and snorted when he got to the end. At that moment the door opened and on the threshold appeared the frightened figure of the senior technician, who had already been in the cell for twenty-four hours.
"Oh, there you are, my friend!" laughed the Drill. "How surprisingly in time. Come in, come in."
He got up from the table and walked toward the whitened Astolok.
"My dear Shmis, why are you frozen at the door!" he took the magister under his arm and led him to the visitor's chair, but he did not let him sit down, but led him to his personal chair and sat him down so that the senior technician could see the painting of the modern artist "Sinners on the Threshold of Punishment" hanging on the opposite wall: three men engrossed in the game of "om-ni-ma."
"Make yourself comfortable, my dear Astolok. I hope you haven't had any headaches today. Oh, this lunar day! I'm very amenable, you know," Sept quavered and stood behind the chair, giving the magister time to study the room.
"What's your title again? Remind me, please," he said thoughtfully, putting his hands on the back of his chair.
"S-s-senior technician, Y-y-your Lordship," Astolok fidgeted in the chair.
"Come now, I'm not your lordship. Just call me Albert," Sept smiled as he looked at the birds flying past the window. "Tell me, my dear senior technician, what are your duties?"
"I m-m-monitor the technical condition of the ca-ca-castle, Y-Your... I mean, Albert," the magister replied, struggling to find the words.
"So tell me, dear Shmis, why did the intercom at the emergency guard post not work and the servants had to run to His Majesty's Palace on foot before they reported to me what had happened in the tower?" Sept asked, as he did, with the same unctuous voice.
"I... e... o-o-oh..." Astolok's lips quivered, and his hands clutched at the handles of the chair.
"Do you know who I am?" the cleric asked quietly.
"Y-y-you are the ch-ch-ch."
"Silence!" Sept yelled, grabbed the senior technician by the collar and threw him to the floor.
Shaking his full and clumsy body, Astolok collapsed beside the table and wailed something indecipherable.
"You're an idiot. I'll have you court-martialed. Why were the doors to the museum tower open? Did you open them? For whom?!" shouted the cleric, pacing around the office.
"For the G-g-grand Master!" sobbed the magister.
"Which one?" Sept interrogated.
"P-p-perleglose. Troc-c-chia," Astolok whimpered, covering his face with his hands as if he were afraid of being beaten.
"Why? Answer me!" as if to do his bidding, Sept kicked the senior technician so hard that the poor man's body began to sway.
"He, he w-w-went to l-l-look at some books in the li-b-b-b," the magister stammered, unable to cope with himself.
"Come on, you jelly," the cleric roared.
"Library. In the museum library, Your Lordship."
Astolok crouched on the floor in the fetal position. Sept sighed, sat down beside him, embraced him, and stroked his greasy, bald head.
"There, there, calm down. It's okay. It's okay. What time was that?"
Stammering and choking back tears, the magister panted:
"In-n-n the afternoon, just b-b-before the first s-s-sunset. The t-t-tower clock doesn't w-w-work, it's ha-a-ard for me to tell m-m-more precisely."
Albert picked him up from the floor and sat him back in his chair.
"There, now, hush, hush," he said, wiping away the man's tears with his handkerchief. "And this Wolfie, who is he?"
"Mag-g-gister W-wolfie?" clarified completely confused Astolok.
"Yes, yes, him," the cleric nodded sympathetically.
"He's a junior technician and f-f-fixes c-c-clocks on the t-t-towers. He c-c-came along with the Grand M-m-master. I walked him to the c-c-clock t-t-tower, and then I stopped by to show him a p-p-picture," the magister finished, sobbing and blowing his nose.
"All right," Sept went to the window. "Do you know anything about his relationship to your dining room maid, Dagma?"
"N-n-n..." Astolok began, but the office door opened without knocking, and the junior servant entered, holding an envelope in his hand.
Sept looked into his eyes, hoping to find an explanation for his impertinence. But the servant just handed the Chief of the Special Assignments Department the envelope and waited in silence. Albert opened the envelope, ran his eyes over the short text, turned white, crumpled the paper, and threw it into the fireplace under "Sinners."
"This one to the dungeon," he said to the junior servant. "And my ship right away."
"Already awaits you," he bowed.
Sept nodded to him briefly, glanced at Astolok huddled in his chair, opened the window, and stepped out onto the balcony, which served as a dock, where the little brigantine was already approaching, humming with its heart jet engines, the swirls of which immediately scattered papers and dust in the office, silencing the cry of the senior technician.