Septimus Heap 4 : Queste(25)

All that changed when he pushed open the door to the Manuscriptorium. He was confronted by Jillie Djinn and Merrin Meredith, who were about to go into the Manuscriptorium itself. At the ping of the door and the click of the counter, both of them looked back.

“And where have you been?” demanded Miss Djinn.

“I—I was doing a hatch Inspection. Marcia—I mean Madam Overstrand told me to—”

“You are not employed by Madam Overstrand, Mr. Beetle. You are employed by me. I have had to take a scribe out to cover you. Which leaves precisely nineteen left for the Duties of the Day. Nineteen is not enough. Luckily for you, I have a promising candidate for the vacant post.”

Beetle gasped.

Merrin smirked.

Jillie Djinn continued. “And what, pray Beetle, do you mean by removing my advertisement, crumpling it up into a ball and throwing it in the garbage? You are getting above yourself. In fact I may well consider this young man for your post if you continue in this manner.”

Beetle went pale.

“Excuse me, Miss Djinn,” said Jenna, emerging from the shadows of a teetering stack of books by the door.

Jillie Djinn looked surprised. She had been so angry at Beetle that she had not noticed Jenna. In fact, Jillie generally found dealing with more than two people at one time confusing. The Chief Scribe gave a small bow and said, a little awkwardly, “How may I help you, Princess Jenna?”

Jenna put on her best Princess voice. She thought it sounded pompous but she had noticed it generally got her what she wanted. “Mr. Beetle has been engaged on very important Palace business. We have come to give you our personal thanks for allowing us to have the benefit of his expert knowledge. We do apologize if we have kept him too long. It is our fault entirely.”

Jillie Djinn looked confused. “I was not aware of any Palace business this morning,” she said. “It was not in the diary.”

“Highly confidential,” said Jenna. “As we are sure you are aware.”

Jillie Djinn was not aware of any such thing, but she did not want to be shown up in front of her possible new recruit.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, yes. Highly

confidential. Of course. I am glad we could be of service, Princess Jenna. Now, please excuse me, we are already two and three quarter minutes late for the interview.” With that Miss Djinn ushered Merrin into the gloom of the Manuscriptorium, gave another small bow in Jenna’s direction and was gone.

Beetle extricated Ullr and set him gently on the desk. “Phew,” he said. “I don’t know how to thank you, Prin—Jenna. I really don’t.”

“Yes, you do.” Jenna smiled. She handed him the rolled-up silk pouch.

“Yes,” said Beetle, looking at the pouch. “I guess I do.”





19


MR. EPHANIAH GREBE

F oxy?” said Beetle in a hoarse whisper.

Nineteen scribes looked up from their work and the sound of nineteen scratching pens ceased. “Yeah?” said Foxy.

“Would you watch the office for me? There’s something I need to do.”

Foxy was not sure. “What about her?” he whispered, jabbing his thumb in the direction of a firmly closed door just off the Manuscriptorium, where Jillie Djinn was interviewing Merrin.

“She won’t be out for twenty-two-and-a-half minutes,” said Beetle, thinking that sometimes Miss Djinn’s obsession with timekeeping had its advantages.

“You sure?”

Beetle nodded.

Glad of an excuse to stop copying out Jillie Djinn’s calculations about the projected price of haddock for the next three-and-a-half years, Foxy slipped down from his high stool and padded out to the front office. At the sight of the soaking wet and disheveled Jenna he raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

Beetle gave Foxy a thumbs-up sign and said to Jenna, “I’d better go and take this down while I’ve got a chance.”

“Can I come?” asked Jenna, to Beetle’s amazement.

“What—with me?”

“Yes. I’d like to see what’s going to happen to the map.” Jenna was reluctant to let her only hope of getting Nicko back out of her sight for one moment.

“Well, yes. Of course. It’s, um, through here.” Conscious of Foxy’s stare, Beetle held open the door that led from the front office into the actual Manuscriptorium, and Jenna walked through. Eighteen pens stopped their scratching and eighteen pairs of eyes stared as Beetle and the Princess walked past the rows of desks toward the basement stairs.

The basement was actually a collection of cellars. Over many hundreds of years the Manuscriptorium had annexed its neighbors’ cellars, usually without any of them noticing, and it was now in possession of a long network of underground rooms in which Beetle hoped to find Mr. Ephaniah Grebe, the Conservation, Preservation and Protection Scribe.

Ephaniah Grebe not only worked in the basement, he lived there. None of the present scribes could remember ever seeing Ephaniah upstairs, although it was rumored that he did emerge at night when everyone had gone home. Even Jillie Djinn had seen him only once, on the day she was inducted as Chief Hermetic Scribe—but Beetle knew him well.

Usually anything in need of Conservation, Preservation or Protection was left in a basket at the top of the basement stairs every evening. In the morning it would be gone and in its place would be some of the Conserved, Preserved or Protected objects that had been left over the last week or so. Beetle would not have dreamed of leaving the precious fragments of paper in an unattended basket, so while Foxy kept an uneasy watch for Jillie Djinn—but no customers, as he had locked the door to prevent any danger of that—Beetle and Jenna set off in search of Ephaniah Grebe.

At the foot of the stairs was a long, dark corridor that ended with a door covered in green baize and big brass rivets.

Beetle gave it a hefty push and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. The appearance of the basement was not what Jenna was expecting; it was light and airy and smelled fresh and clean. The walls were painted white, the flagstone floor was scrubbed, and from the vaulted ceiling hung lamps that burned with a bright white flame and emitted a constant hiss—which was the only sound that Beetle and Jenna could hear.

The first cellar was the one Beetle was familiar with—this was where Ephaniah had helped him rebuild his timepiece. It was what the Conservation Scribe called his mechanical cellar, and it was peopled by tiny and not-so-tiny automatons.

One of which—a rower in a boat followed by a circling seagull—suddenly sprang into action as Jenna walked by, and it was all she could do not to scream. But of Ephaniah Grebe there was no sign.

The next cellar was full of shelves that were stocked with a large array of colored bottles, each neatly labeled. On a table under a glass dome was a crushed Remember Me

Spell that Beetle remembered a distraught woman bringing in a few days previously. This cellar too was empty.

Feeling as though they were intruding, Beetle set off with Jenna deeper into the interlinked cellars, their footsteps echoing with the tinny sound that brick gives back. Beetle was amazed at the mixture of work in progress. In one cellar was a tiny book, laid out page by page, each one attached to a thick piece of paper by a long, thin pin. To one side were a pair of tweezers and a pot of newly collected paper beetle larvae. Another cellar held a small snake, rearing up as though about to strike. Beetle jumped back in shock and then, embarrassed, realized it was actually a stuffed snake, and a box of assorted snake fangs sitting beside it told him that its fangs were being replaced.

But still there was no sign of Ephaniah Grebe. Worried that time was ticking away, Beetle sped up. They scooted through one cellar after another, each with an ongoing project set out neatly on a table and each one devoid of Ephaniah Grebe, until at last they arrived at the wide archway that opened into the final and largest cellar.

Underneath Jenna’s cloak, Ullr unsheathed his claws.

At first sight this cellar also appeared empty, apart from a round table in the center with a bright white, hissing light suspended above it. But as they stood in the archway a slight movement drew their attention to a figure, bent over a task that they could not see, sitting on a tall stool at a bench in the far corner. The figure was wrapped in a white cloak, blending in perfectly with the whitewashed wall behind him.

“Ahem,” coughed Beetle quietly. There was no response. “Excuse me,” he said. Still there was no reaction. The figure continued with whatever painstaking task he was busy with. Increasingly worried that Miss Djinn’s interview would soon be at an end, Beetle hurried over and tapped him on the shoulder. The figure leaped with shock and spun around.

“Ephaniah, I’m sorry to bother you,” said Beetle, “but I—”

“Argh!” Jenna screamed. Too late she tried to smother it, her hand flying to her mouth in horror. Half the man’s face was that of a rat.

Rat nose, rat whiskers and two long, yellow rodent teeth. The rat’s mouth opened in shock, showing a pointed pink tongue. Quickly, the rat-man covered the lower part of his face with a long white silken cloth that had gotten loose and fallen around his neck. He readjusted it, winding it round and round until the swathes of silk covered the pointed bump of the rat nose.

“Oh,” gasped Beetle, realizing he should have warned Jenna what to expect. “I am so sorry, Ephaniah. I didn’t mean to interrupt like this.”