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"What was?" Merrigan reached for the teapot. She hoped it had been allowed to steep nice and long, because she needed something strong and bracing.
Thanking him, thanking the people who did something nice for you.
"That was just being polite," she muttered, and inhaled with delight as she smelled rich spices in the steam rising from the cup. How could Cook know she favored that particular blend of spices and black tea, with hints of jasmine?
Merrigan stopped with the cup nearly to her lips. How had he found the tea? It came from some far southern kingdom on this continent, ringed by high, snow-filled mountains. The short season when merchants could reach it made any exports highly prized within the continent, much less to Armorica. She only knew that because her father had had to sit her down and give her a lecture with a map of the world, to explain to her why her favorite tea was only available half the year. No matter how she scolded and stomped her feet, they couldn't get her any more if there wasn't any to be bought.
How often have you been polite lately, Mi'Lady?
She wrinkled up her nose at the pieces of the book, then took a long, slow, leisurely sip of the tea. A whimper of delight—and yes, gratitude—escaped her.
"This has been a most surprising and stressful and yet ... gratifying day," she murmured.
We're just getting started, Mi'Lady. Now, the sooner we get me thoroughly assembled, and you finish making those clothes and complete your quest, the sooner we can head out onto the road and find your cure.
"You will help me?" Merrigan moved to the book's end of the table, so she could speak softly. It wouldn't do to be caught talking to the book and end up in a healer's house for the gently insane. Not when hope had finally been awarded her. "Wait—what quest?"
You did a good thing, choosing to find some justice for the miller's son. His name is Corby, by the way.
"Not for him, exactly." She put down the cup, hating the momentary trembling in her hands. Merrigan bent down, resting her elbows on the table to get close to the piles of pages. "I know what it's like to be cheated, and that Fae was so judgmental." She sighed. "I knew I had to do something. It all just made me so angry. But how did you know?"
For someone as thickly woven with spells and orders and conditions, every choice you make, every reaction to directions or help offered, it's written into the spell. As easy to read as—the voice snorted—as a book. Now, what have you done toward helping Corby?
Merrigan told him, her hands automatically getting to work on the book again. He sighed with relief as she took the cover and spine out from the books holding them flat. Under his directions and with the help of magic she felt humming through the papers, she sewed the pages into packets and slipped them into their proper order and place in the binding, gluing everything together with an ease that was very clearly magical.
"Why couldn't you have fixed yourself before this?" she asked, more curious than grudging, as she rubbed her fingers together to peel off the glue sticking to them.
"Too wounded to have much magic left. The enspelled glass of the cupboard blocked me, and the glue pot was too far away." The book sighed, then a chuckle escaped it. "I'm audible again! Oh, what glory."
"I still can't tell—are you a boy or a girl?"
"Yes."
Merrigan opened her mouth to retort that it hadn't answered, then the humor struck her and she chuckled.
"The truth is, Mi'Lady, even being a magical book, I am limited. I need hands to carry me, and tell me about things beyond my ... well, as you remarked earlier, I don't have eyes or ears, but I am able to see and hear and smell for a limited distance. Sometimes it's better not to know all the fine details of the magic involved. As for being a boy or girl ... well, my previous master called me Bib. That sounds more like a boy's name than a girl's, if you feel more comfortable assigning one or the other to me."
"I'd much rather think of you as a 'he' than an 'it,' if that makes any sense," she admitted.
"And there's another fine crack in the spell. You're making incredible progress in creating your own freedom, Mi'Lady."
"When you said previous master ..." She hesitated to voice the nebulous idea churning up through her middle.
"You are the master of the book, now, after saving me from dreamless waiting, with just enough awareness that I could have screamed if I had the energy." Bib's voice thickened, so Merrigan had a good idea of just what he had suffered.
"How long were you ...?" She gestured at the corner shelves where his ravaged pieces had been tossed.
"No idea. I think I don't want to know, either. What are people saying about this place? As far as I can tell, only a small part of my old master's castle remains. Quite a few of the books who were my old friends are gone. The ones that have replaced them." He made a rude snorting noise that earned a grin from her. "Didactic, pedantic, self-righteous, and quite a few contradicting each other. The problem with books of the law is that if they aren't given regular fresh air and sunlight, they get ingrown, with an inflated sense of their importance. Especially when they're still clean and glossy years after being printed. The law was made to be a servant, not a ruler. Kings need to learn that lesson as well."
"You mean to tell me, all these books in here are somehow aware, even if they're not magic?" She tipped her head back and slowly turned, surveying the shelves reaching up to the ceiling, all filled with thick, unused books.
"All books have the potential for magic. It depends on how they're used, and the spirit of the people using them." Bib sighed. "Listen to me, nattering on and on. Priorities, Mi'Lady. First, we solve the problem of the people who cheated young Corby—and yes, the man downstairs a short time ago is the ringleader. Master Swickle. Judge Brimble is just a vainglorious and willing dupe in the plot. From what I overheard, they're now turning their sights on the baker, to take over his shop. Swickle's cousin wants to be a baker, but doesn't want to invest any money or even the time to learn how to bake. They've been working to undermine the baker's reputation. The cousin has a dozen relatives who will claim to be sick from eating the baker's bread. They'll even claim one of them died, poisoned. The baker will have to turn over his bakery to them to keep from going to prison. They won't strike until they figure out how to force the baker and his family to stay on and work for them."
"That's insidious!" Merrigan trembled, thinking of the delicious bread the baker had offered her, for free, when she stepped into his shop. He had given her fresh, not leftovers, as she knew most businesses did when it came to poor, penniless travelers looking for charity.
She thought of the rosy-cheeked baker's assistant, who had offered her cold milk without being asked or ordered. She thought of that sweet young boy working for a man who would lie and cheat to steal someone's livelihood. Such an idea made her furious.
"What should we do?"
"I'm still regaining my strength. While the glue is still wet, I don't dare try anything strenuous. Let me think on it." Bib's pages ruffled slightly, startling her. "Ah, that feels good. I haven't been able to stretch my limbs, so to speak, in a dragon's age. And dragons aren't all unfriendly, I might add. Quite a few can be very stout, loyal friends, with a wonderful wit. If we could befriend a dragon, Mi'Lady, I'm sure he or she could shred the spells binding you and set you free in no time."
"One thing at a time, Master Bib." Merrigan picked up her cup and walked back down to the sewing end of the table. Finishing this sewing job was necessary before she could leave this house and find someone such as a dragon to help her.
The trousers were finished and lying on the table next to the other pieces of clothing. The everyday clothes were finished and ready for fitting. Now she had to work on the fine new robes for Judge Brimble to wear to court—two robes for everyday wear, when he sat on the bench in Smilpotz, then a grander robe with thin silver braid on the sleeves and collar, for when he was called to special cases requiring a panel of judges in Carnpotz. These three robes would be in staid black. A fourth set of robes would be in deep, dark crimson, with black slashes on the sleeves and bracketing the collar, trimmed in crimson and gold braid, for the few times when Judge Brimble would attend the High Court.
"Thank you," she said, giving Bib a chipper curtsey as she reached for the stack of thick black cloth sitting on one of the smaller study tables, now pushed up against the bookshelves.
"We're partners, Mi'Lady. As soon as you started to help me, that gave me the energy and magic to help you, which gave you more power to help me, and in turn gave me more magic to help you. Enchanters have searched for centuries for a self-sustaining source of magic power. Simple people without any magic at all have possessed that secret for just as long."
"Are you part philosophy book?" She spread the cloth out with a smile. Merrigan hoped he wouldn't give her miniature lectures like that all the time—and tried not to think it too loudly. It wouldn't do to insult and irritate the first real friend she had found.
~~~~~
WHEN FLORA AND FAUNA came to the library that evening, Bib took over helping them with their reading. Merrigan continued with her sewing while the girls read to her, this time from a book of fables about magical events in the country itself. The first time Fauna had difficulty with a word, Merrigan nearly dropped the robe she was hemming when her own voice asked Fauna what letters were in the word. She certainly hadn't spoken. Slowly, she glanced up to see if the girls were looking at her. They weren't. They sat in one of the massive cushioned chairs big enough for them both to share, with the book open between them, bent over the page. She thought it rather endearing how Flora ran her finger across the bottom of the line and mouthed the letters with Fauna as she recited them to Bib. He was a very good mimic, apparently.
Neither girl ever looked up, and Merrigan felt some gratitude that he had taken over. Not that she would have minded getting up and stepping over to the chair to lean over the girls and look at the word. A chance to stretch her legs would be welcome. Still, it was pleasant to have someone read to her, to let her mind wander a little, and have someone else tend to the teaching. She was more than willing to admit she wasn't the most skilled in teaching. Then again, why should she need the talent at all? She was a queen—other people were responsible for teaching underlings how to do their jobs. The day she had to teach a servant how to serve her, she would seriously fear for the state of the kingdom that would put her in such a position. Something was wrong.
Well, of course something is wrong, she scolded herself. Look where I am. Oh, Leffisand, why did you have to be such a fool? You had to go haring off and make even bigger mistakes, take bigger risks to cover them. Why couldn't you have thought of me first, for a change? Sometimes a king's life is more important than his reputation or his kingdom.
Now who's turning philosophical? Bib said, directly into her mind, even as his impersonation of her coached Fauna into pronouncing "vainglorious."
It's not philosophical, it's common sense. Why couldn't Leffisand have included me in the plot so much sooner? She sniffed and glanced up at the book that sat innocuously on the corner of the table next to her, half-covered with the skirts of the robe. Eavesdropping is rude.
You think so loudly, Mi'Lady. Bib chuckled, the cover of the book lifting a little to allow the pages to riffle in a whispering sort of sound.
Merrigan preferred carrying on a conversation with Bib outside of her head. Besides his tendency to eavesdrop, it disturbed her to do so much thinking. So when Flora and Fauna finished their reading lesson for the night, she was relieved. She bade them goodnight, remembered to thank them for the hot water they brought up to the library for her to wash with—odd, to consider hot water a luxury—and closed the door firmly to ensure no one would overhear her. Then with one shielded lamp sitting on the table, she curled up in the window seat bed, with Bib perched on a pillow on a chair nearby, and settled in to talk.
She asked how he had come to be torn apart.
"It's an odd tale, Mi'Lady. To begin: Under ordinary circumstances, the magic that infiltrates my pages requires that I only answer the questions asked of me."
"Despite all the tales in all those books," she gestured to one bookcase that contained nothing but tales of magic, the breaking of curses and the foibles of enchanters, "I find nothing ordinary about magic of any kind. You are most certainly magical. And rather extraordinary in your own right," she added with a smile.
"A lovely compliment, Mi'Lady. I thank you." Bib riffled his pages in a buzzy sort of laughter. "Yes, under ordinary circumstances, I am limited in my powers of speech. I only speak when spoken to, and only answer the questions asked me. It takes the presence of a majjian somewhat stronger than a hedge witch to break the geas and allow me to have intelligent conversations." He sighed melodramatically.
Merrigan chuckled. She liked the warm feeling from sharing genuine laughter with someone, not staged, public-face laughter.
"I assure you, Bib, I have no magical powers to speak of."
"No, Mi'Lady, but you are permeated with magic. It radiates from your flesh and bones. Now that's a consideration I hadn't taken into account until now."
"What?" She sat up, just when she was starting to feel deliciously drowsy. "You have an idea how to break my curse?"
"No, Mi'Lady. It just occurred to me that once we break the curse, there won't be any magic enfolding you, and we might not be able to talk, really talk, anymore."
"Oh." She lay down again and tugged the blankets up to her chin. "That's ... that's rather sad. We've only known each other a day, but I suppose when you've been sorting through someone's innards like I have with your pages, that produces a kind of ... intimacy." She echoed his last sigh. "I truly think I will miss you when that happens, Bib."
"Thank you, Mi'Lady. On the bright side, the curse may be on you long enough, magic soaking into you, when it's broken, enough magic will remain to allow me to speak freely."
"Hmm ... yes." Merrigan would much prefer to break the curse before any more magic soaked into her. The mental image was of swamp ooze clinging to her skin. "So, I assume the inability to do more than respond to questions led to you being destroyed?"
"The previous owner of this house, Judge Brimble's uncle, discovered my ability to speak. A curious, sad family history. The uncle's father cheated his brother, Judge Brimble's grandfather, out of his inheritance as the oldest son. As I recall, there were several brothers in between the heir and the cheat. His trickery earned him a curse. Odd, if you think about it. Usually the youngest sons are the good ones, the heroes and recipients of majjian help."
Merrigan reflected that she was the youngest, and the various local magical folk never went out of their way to help her. Maybe that was the problem? People had scolded her for her attitude and her siblings referred to her as "the brat." She sensed she had been cheated of her magical birthright as the youngest, the favored one. Wasn't that enough to sour anyone?
"The curse kept the previous two owners of this house from enjoying any success in the family way. The great-uncle found eight wealthy maidens to agree to marry him. Each one vanished, either carried off by a black knight or running off on a quest of her own before the wedding could take place. His son was adopted, though they always denied it. He went to a foreign country for a year, then returned with a tale of marrying an enchanted princess. Supposedly the day their son was born, she vanished, turned into a black swan. People stopped believing him when no black swans ever came to visit the baby. There are rules to magic and curses, and usually a loophole that leads to breaking them."
"I wonder how long it will take to find the loophole to break mine," Merrigan murmured into her pillow.
"Be that as it may," Bib continued, "the curse kept the adopted son from finding any joy in wife and children. He ended up adopting his orphaned cousin or nephew or whatever Judge Brimble was to him. The house and all the books, mostly law books by this time, came back into the possession of the proper bloodline."
"That doesn't explain how you were torn up and looked like you had been dropped into several mud puddles."
"Painfully accurate guess, Mi'Lady." He sighed, the pages riffling louder, so Merrigan felt a slight breeze. "Brimble's uncle didn't ask the right questions, so I couldn't give him the answers he wanted. He became so frustrated with me, he tore a few pages out of me at a time, to loosen my tongue. His own words. The fool. When it was just a few pages at a time, I had the strength to repair myself. He tried to burn some of my pages, but I killed the flames. Eventually, he got so infuriated that he took me outside and ripped pages out by the handfuls and threw me into the hog pen."
"How awful! I'm so sorry. You must have suffered terribly." In her travels, she had encountered far more hog pens and the attendant stench than she cared to remember.
"While I have the power of speech, Mi'Lady, fortunately I lack a sense of taste or smell unless I can borrow the senses of the people I serve, if they so permit by an act of will."
"I will keep that in mind." Such an ability might come in handy.
"A protective spell brought me back to the library while I repaired myself. By this time, most of the family fortune had vanished, and the uncle only came into the library when he needed another rare book to sell. He was nearly apoplectic when he saw me sitting on the reading stand where I belonged. Much bedraggled and worse for wear, but in one piece again."
"Oh, dear," Merrigan murmured, envisioning what likely came next. Mostly because, she was oddly ashamed to admit, she would have done the exact same thing. She had never ripped apart books, but she recalled destroying other things that had failed her. "He tried again, didn't he?"
"Five times. Until he learned he had to rip all the pages out of me so I couldn't repair myself. Each time, he rode farther away, trying to defeat the magic that brought me home."
To her surprise, Bib chuckled. More accurately, he snickered.
"What's so amusing? I can't imagine any of those experiences were pleasant for you at all. You didn't actually feel yourself being torn apart, did you?"
"Yes, and no. It wasn't how I imagine you would feel if say, someone peeled off your skin and then pulled off your arms and legs, but yes, it's a disquieting sensation to feel yourself going to pieces. Accompanied by maniacal laughter. My only consolation was that each time that wretched man saw me again, he had an apoplectic fit. The fourth time, he was confined to his bed for two moons. Most of that time, he was unable to speak. Quite fitting punishment, if you ask me."
"Indeed." She reached out and stroked the cover. "Am I imagining things, or is it the candlelight, or is your cover ... thicker? The colors darker?"
"My repairs are still progressing, Mi'Lady. Your sympathy, your discomfort on my behalf, comfort and strengthen me. Hastening the healing."
"Oh ... well ... I'm glad I could be of help." She wriggled a little, feeling somewhat squirmy inside. Being helpful to someone was a good thing, wasn't it? It wasn't like she was breaking any sort of rule for being a queen. Was it?
Merrigan scrambled for something else to focus on, to get her mind off the odd thoughts that seemed to focus beams of uncomfortably warm light back on herself.
"The glass—in the corner case—it had a spell on it?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. That was part of the curse put on me by the enchanter who—no, let me back up in the story. When that despicable, temperamental old man—"
"Why don't you ever say his name? You always refer to him as the uncle, but never his name. Don't you remember?" She found it amusing, despite her own inability to remember people's names.
"I don't want to speak it. I loathe him. Even more than I loathe the enchanter who put me behind that enspelled glass. Now, as I was saying ..." Bib paused, and Merrigan wondered if he expected her to interrupt again. "When that fiend recovered from his last fit, he promised all the magical books remaining in this library to an enchanter who could deal with me. He offered me in the bargain, but the man didn't want me." He snickered. "He had once fought with the enchanter who made me. He refused to even touch me, and declared the world was safer if I remained within the confines of the ruins of my master's castle."
"So the stories are true?" Merrigan sat up again and looked around the shadowy library. She thought about the rows upon rows upon shelves upon stacks of books in this library. What were the chances that a book of magic could be found in here that would break Clara's curse? Then she sighed and curled up again. "The enchanter took all the books, didn't he?"
"Oh, no indeed. There are a great many books of magic still here. He couldn't remove them any more than he could remove me. Despite the punishment cast on the warring enchanters, binding their magic until they could act with proper civility and concern for and duty to others, some magic remained in effect. My previous owner put a spell on all his magic books so no one could take them from his castle without his permission. Even if he died."
"Oh. Then ... When we take care of the judge and the miller, I won't be able to take you with me, will I?"
Odd, how disappointing that was. Merrigan admitted she had grown quite fond of Bib in such a short time. He was amusing and clever and kind, and he flattered her without making her feel he was maneuvering for something to benefit him rather than her.
Bib chuckled, several ripples of his pages, before saying, "Oh, you must take me with you, Mi'Lady. I think it was ordained. But let me finish my story. The enemy enchanter created the glass to seal the corner cabinet that held my pieces. Only someone with magic, from outside the household, outside the town of Smilpotz even, could find me. Ask anyone in the household. They'll tell you that corner is solid wood, not glass. The uncle was mightily relieved when he came in here to remove some ancestral silver plate and couldn't see me. He searched all over the library, and kept walking right past me. I think there was a don't-notice-me spell in force. The spell was intended to keep my first master from finding me, if he ever regained his magic. A codicil in the spell says my rightful owner cannot take me up again until other hands, disinterested hands, someone with justice on their minds, repaired me. Then I could leave the ruins of this castle, either with the one who saved me or with my original owner."
"How long have you sat there, waiting? Judge Brimble is ... well, he's so huge, it's hard to tell his age, and I'm very sure he dyes his hair and paints his face."
"Well, perhaps two centuries since my master was defeated and exiled, and maybe thirty years or so since my pages were entirely ripped from my spine."
Merrigan winced at the imagery. "And no one has seen you, even come near you?"
"Well ... I have my suspicions. Several people with magic have visited this house. I'm very sure Cook has inherent magic, but chooses not to use it. Although, some would say that cooking is a kind of magic all its own."
"Certainly far more useful than most magic," Merrigan retorted. That earned another rippling chuckle from him. "How do you know Cook has magic?"
"He used to come up here. Streamers of magic would follow him around, soaking into the books that were sleeping—that's what magic books do when no one has used them in decades. They sleep. Cook has enough magic to leave a trail, and it ... I don't know, it soothed the other books. Made it easier for them to sleep. You don't want a magic book to wake up from a bad dream or simply wake up cranky or furious at being ignored. No, indeed, Mi'Lady. A few times, he stopped and put a hand on the glass, and he looked right at me. He never said anything, but there was such sorrow flowing off him, through the wards of my prison."
"Bib ... what if Cook is your original owner, but he couldn't get through the glass to take you out and repair you?"
The silence from the book lasted so long, Merrigan feared she had said something to offend him. Or worse, hurt his feelings.
That just showed how low she had fallen, to be concerned about the feelings of a book.
"I think ..." he said slowly, when he finally did speak, "I think, Mi'Lady, I should like to get out and see the world, when the time comes for you to leave."
"We still don't have a plan yet to punish the judge and Swickle." Merrigan lay down again and snuggled up under her blankets. There was that warm spot again, pure pleasure that Bib wanted to go with her.
Perhaps it was pitiful, to be happy a book wanted to be with her. Then again, she had always preferred books over people when she was a child.
"We can't leave until we do something about them," she continued, as a yawn thickened her voice. "And time is running out, if you consider how quickly the sewing is coming along. That was you again, helping me, wasn't it?"
"Always delighted to oblige, Mi'Lady."
"I think you just enjoy showing off."
"What I enjoy is being able to do things, move things, help people, after sitting idle for so long. There's nothing more dreadful, more depressing and destructive to the soul, than being unable to help others, unable to fulfill my purpose in life."
Merrigan swallowed hard, to keep down the urge to ask what exactly her purpose was. Had she ever had a purpose, other than to be a queen, standing beside a powerful king? Now it seemed ... well, not useless and empty, but limited. Lonely. Truth be told, there was something cozy about being here in this library, her world made so very small, surrounded by her handiwork.
I'm sleepy and worn out from a long day of work, that's all. Merrigan turned her mind toward the challenge of finding proof to use against Judge Brimble and Swickle.
"We need an excuse to get into his office and look through the papers," she murmured, after a long, comfortable, deep silence had fallen on the library. One nice thing about Bib was that he didn't feel the need to keep talking when there was nothing to say.
"You get me into the office, Mi'Lady, and I will take care of searching all the papers right under the big buffoon's nose. He'll never notice. My master once remarked that ordinary, un-magical people have a remarkable talent for blinding themselves to magical, un-ordinary things around them, so they don't have to admit that magic is everywhere. Some people are happier believing magic always happens to other people, in other kingdoms."
"Bib, you're brilliant." Merrigan smiled at the sleepy, muffled tone of her voice.
"Thank you, Mi'Lady. In what way, exactly?"
"I'll take you with me to the office and insist the judge has to be fitted for his new clothes there, instead of his bedroom." A shudder worked a chill through her comfortable, sleepy warmth. "I certainly wouldn't want to go into his bedroom, even looking as I do now."
"Don't be too certain about that. Your hair seems more gray than white now. But yes, Mi'Lady. Brilliant idea."
Merrigan couldn't get her eyes open, couldn't seem to drag herself awake enough to think about what he said. Something about her hair? Then a moment later, she forgot what it was as sleep claimed her in a long, luxurious, comfortable slide down into dreams.
~~~~~
JUDGE BRIMBLE WAS DELIGHTED, effusively so, when Merrigan knocked on his office door midway between breakfast and luncheon, and announced she was ready for the first fitting. Bib suggested she not only ask the seneschal to help her bring the clothes to the judge's office, but be present during the fitting. The seneschal didn't just act as the head of the household, directing the servants and paying bills. He also served as the judge's body servant, attending to his clothes, bringing him wash water, shaving him, and other assorted tasks that two or three other servants would normally have attended to. The judge was not as wealthy as he appeared to be. Or perhaps it was simply difficult to get enough servants willing to work for him.
Merrigan delegated the seneschal the task of helping the judge in and out of his nearly finished clothes, behind an enormous modesty screen. She was so grateful for that screen, she didn't wonder about the incongruity of it being in his office until after she went back upstairs.
The freedom to stick Judge Brimble with pins at regular intervals during the fitting helped her find some enjoyment in the otherwise humiliating exercise.
"Well?" she muttered, as she carried Bib back upstairs more than three hours later, sandwiched between the trousers and the shirts, while the seneschal carried the robes and vests.
Oh, Mi'Lady, in the parlance of the street thugs—who, I might add, come here regularly to take odd jobs for the judge—he will never know what hit him. Bib rustled his pages, and the soft, dusty laughter sounded thicker and somewhat congested. Merrigan hoped that was a sign of just how many pieces of paper with necessary proof he had managed to confiscate while she was busy pinning and adjusting and stabbing Judge Brimble.
"It might just be fun seeing his schemes fall apart and all his cheating come back around to choke him," she said with a sigh, once the library door was closed behind her and she was alone with Bib again. "Still, I doubt it would be very safe to remain once the feathers start to fly. What other magical powers do you possess, besides the ability to rifle through someone's desk drawers and ledger books and remove papers without anyone seeing?"
She chuckled and sat in her sewing chair, and lightly stroked his cover. If she wasn't mistaken, the leather seemed several years newer than it had been last night. It was now a lovely shade of blue with streaks of green, like a semi-precious stone.
"Books contain unlimited wisdom," he said, "for those who know how to use it properly, and who are willing to take the time to study and learn."
"And ask the right questions? Bib, if I ask you here and now to point out to me anything I need to know but don't think to ask, will that cover any lapses?"
"If only the judge's greedy bully of an uncle had thought of that." He chuckled hard enough to flip himself open. A dozen sheets of paper in cramped handwriting slid out onto the table. "Mi'Lady, you and I have passed to a much higher level of friendship and partnership. I shall always try to offer information that hadn't occurred to you, and point out areas where you might be blind or mistaken."
"Good. I must admit, when I was a child, I had a rather nasty temper. I wouldn't like to be so provoked that I threw you off a bridge or tried to rip out your pages in a thoughtless moment." She patted the open page. "That's not a threat. Please don't take that as a threat."
"None taken, Mi'Lady." His pages rippled, and more papers slid out on either side of where he lay open.
Soon a sizable stack had piled up to the right and left of Bib. Merrigan could only shake her head. The papers piled up higher than his usual thickness, and yet he hadn't looked any larger or felt any heavier when she carried him back to the library.
"That's useful magic." She chuckled. "I don't suppose you were used by a pickpocket at any time in your past?"
That earned laughter from Bib, and he regaled her with some silly stories of his first master. In their early days together, they had traveled the world, and the adventurous young man had secreted items within his pages. Some were done to inflict justice on people who cheated others, such as Swickle. Others were somewhat selfish, such as stealing a meat pie or a piece of bread or cheese from a shopkeeper who looked at the young man's travel-worn clothes, assumed he was a beggar, and refused to let him enter the shop to buy.
He finished two stories before Flora came up with the tray of Merrigan's noon meal. Merrigan bit her tongue against complaining that it was an hour late. She knew she had made the judge late for his meal, and as this was his household, he had to be served first. He probably demanded twice as much to eat, since he had had to wait. She was further silenced by the realization that admitting her fault didn't sting quite as much as the last time. She didn't feel the need to complain that if people knew who she really was, they would treat her better.
How odd.
"Well, now we have the evidence. What do we do with it?" she mused, after demolishing her meal. Cook's fare was always delicious, but today he had outdone himself. "There is no higher authority in Smilpotz than the judge, and we certainly can't present the evidence to him."
"We go to the next highest authority, the Overseer of Judges, in Carnpotz."
"And just how do we convince him of the truth of our story?" She nudged the dirty dishes out of her way so she could slouch properly, elbow on the table, chin on her fists.
"Well ... I suppose we can ..." Bib sighed. "I must confess, I've been so enthralled with the idea of getting out of here and seeing the world with you, I quite didn't think that far down the road. So to speak."
"I don't suppose you know the kind of man the Overseer of Judges is," she mused aloud. "Is he the kind to be astonished or afraid or even think he's losing his mind if some magic happens right in his lap, instead of in the next town or country?"
"What are you thinking, Mi'Lady?"
"Who would argue with a magic book?"
"Only fools, Mi'Lady."
"Bib." She smiled and sat back. "Playing obsequious does not suit you."
"Yes, Mi'Lady." He chuckled, his pages rippling hard enough to flip himself closed again. "I see where you are going with this. If we walk into the Overseer's office and I disgorge all the papers in front of him, he can't very well argue against the evidence that I am magic. That ought to convince him of the truth of our story."
"If only we could find the miller's—Corby." She nodded, pleased that she had remembered his name. "If only we could find Corby and have him back up our story."
"We could take the baker with us, as he seems the next target of the nefarious schemes."
"No, we won't take him—we'll ask to ride with him." She glanced down the length of the table. On one side were all the papers, all the signed documents, the town records that Brimble and Swickle had rewritten, alongside the originals. On the other side of the table were the clothes that needed to be finished before she could leave the judge's household. "We have one more day to make our plans."