The Faintest Ink (Watty Winner 2015)

Chapter Seventy-Eight

The Clerk of the Eastern Tower bent low over his charge, so that his ear was positioned little more than an inch over her moving lips. Since she had awoken the previous night, she had talked intermittently, fast and frantic one moment, pouring out information into the small tower room, and then silent, sometimes for hours at a time.

After spending most of the night, and a good deal of the morning, kneeling by her bedside, quill in hand, listening for any messages the woman might care to offer him, he was exhausted. Around noon, he decided that the woman was probably done talking for the time being, and allowed himself to close his eyes. Just for a moment. The clerk had been shocked out of his skin when she started up again, finding himself in near darkness.

He wrote in the dark, unable to take the time to find candles least he miss a single word. After a few minutes, she stopped, and sighed, lapsing back into the comatose state he had grown used to.

He let out his own sigh, and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. He wasn't strictly supposed to do that, but he didn't think his charge would mind sharing the mattress too much given what she'd just conveyed.

With the words now dried from her lips, the tower room should have returned to silence, and the clerk was puzzled to find that there was a strange sound in the room.

He leant down once more, placing his ear against her mouth, but whatever it was, it was not coming from her. He took him a full minute to realise it was the papers shaking in his hands. No surprises there. He didn't think there were many things in the world more disconcerting to one's nerves than sitting in the dark listening to the whispered ramblings of a sleeping oracle. He moved his free hand to hold the wrist of the other, so that it didn't shake. Except, there was still something. It sounded... breathy. Images of ghosts and demons flittered across his mind, and he chased them away with whatever rational thoughts he could come up with.

He eased himself off the bed, and looked about him. Shuffling over to his desk, he felt around until he found a candlestick, with what felt like two inches of good candle still stuck in it. Another blind search pulled up a flint. It took a few attempts to get it lit, as his hands were still shaking, but soon his desk was bathed in a smokey yellow halo.

And there he was, the source of his ghostly visitation. The master. Snoring. The clerk clearly wasn't the only one unprepared for the long vigil.

The clerk crept over. There was a line of drool running down the master's unshaven jaw. It was strange to see the man who so tormented him looking so vulnerable. That was going to make it so much easier to betray him.

Since their last meeting with the Chancellor, the master had been determined to prove his worth. He looked over every transcript as it was sent out, signed by him before being handed over to the messenger. He would love to be able to pass this news over in person. But, considering he was asleep, it seemed only right the clerk should be the one to go, alone.

As he made his way over to the door, he stuffed the papers inside of his shirt, then as a thought struck him, he paused, ducked down, and removed the chamberpot from under the bed. He nodded to himself, and chamberpot in hand, lifted the latch. The door was heavy enough to keep an invading army at bay for at least at day, and he had to ease it open to stop it from announcing his exit.

"Where are you going?" said the master.

Damn. The clerk sighed. "Just popping out for a moment."

The chair creaked as the master leaned forward. "Popping out where?"

The clerk raised his eyebrows and held out the chamberpot. "Do you really want to know?"

The master pulled a face. "No thanks."