"Now, let me see...ah yes, well, you have missed that appointment by two minutes and" - the Chief Hermetic Scribe consulted her timepiece that hung from her rotund waist - "fifty-two seconds."
An exasperated noise escaped Marcia.
Jillie Djinn ignored it. "However, I can give you an appointment in seventeen days' time at...let me see...three-thirty-one precisely," she said.
"Now," snapped Marcia.
"Not possible," retorted Jillie Djinn.
"If Beetle were here - "
"Mr. Beetle has left our employment," Jillie Djinn said frostily.
"Where's your new clerk?" asked Marcia.
Jillie Djinn looked uncomfortable. Merrin had not shown up for the second day running. Even she was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her latest appointment. "He is um...engaged elsewhere."
"Indeed? What a surprise. Well, as you are so short staffed it seems I shall have to go down to the Vaults unaccompanied."
"No. That is not possible." The Chief Hermetic Scribe folded her arms and stared up at the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, daring her to disagree.
Marcia met her dare. "Miss Djinn, as you well know, I have the right to inspect the Vaults at any time, and it is only as a matter of courtesy that I make an appointment. However, courtesy seems sadly lacking here. I intend to go to the Vaults right now."
"But you went there only last week," Jillie Djinn protested.
"How true. And I intend to do it every week, every day and every hour that I consider it to be necessary. Stand aside."
With that Marcia swept by and threw open the door in the thin partition that led into the Manuscriptorium. Twenty-one scribes looked up. Marcia stopped, thought for a moment, then threw a large gold coin - a double crown - on the front office desk. "That should fix your window, Miss Djinn. Get a decent haircut with the change."
The scribes exchanged glances and suppressed smiles. Marcia strode through the lines of tall desks, well aware that twenty-one pairs of eyes were following her every move. She pushed open the secret door in the bookshelves and disappeared into the passageway that led to the Vaults. The door closed behind her, and Partridge said,
"Meooooow!"
To Partridge's delight the newly appointed Inspection Clerk, Romilly Badger, giggled.
Down in the Vaults, Marcia discovered two things, one pleasant, the other much less so. The pleasant surprise was that Tertius Fume, the rude and overbearing Ghost of the Vaults, was not at his post. For once Marcia was able to go into the Vaults without being harassed about passwords. Marcia enjoyed being alone in the Vaults. She Lit the lamps, left one on the table by the entrance to guide her back and took the other deep into the musty vaulted chambers that ran under Wizard Way. As a matter of courtesy, a scribe was normally sent to the Vaults with the ExtraOrdinary Wizard to fetch whatever she wanted, but today, as Marcia had noticed, courtesy was in short supply at the Manuscriptorium. However, like all ExtraOrdinary Wizards, Marcia had a copy of the Vault Plan, and she was quite content finding her way through the maze of boxes, trunks and metal storage tubes, all neatly stacked and labeled over thousands of years. The Vaults contained the archives of the Castle, and the Wizard Tower had nothing to rival them. This had always been a matter for smugness among Chief Hermetic Scribes but also a matter of annoyance, as ExtraOrdinary Wizards did indeed have a right of entry to the Vaults at any time - and on some of the ancient maps (secreted in the Chief Hermetic Scribe's upstairs office), the Vaults were actually shown as belonging to the Wizard Tower.
Marcia found what she was looking for - the ebony box containing the Live Plan of What Lies Beneath. There had recently been some trouble with ice hatches becoming UnSealed, and Marcia had been keeping an eye on things. In the light of the lamp she cut the wax seal, drew out the huge sheet of paper and carefully unrolled the Plan. The Plan showed all the Ice Tunnel Sealed hatches - including tunnels that were not shown on the basic map given to the Inspection Clerk. Marcia stared at the Plan, not quite able to believe what she was seeing - the major tunnel out of the Castle was UnSealed at both ends.
Minutes later the secret door in the bookshelves banged open, and Marcia burst into the Manuscriptorium. All the scribes looked up. Pens poised, ink dripping unheeded onto their work, they watched the ExtraOrdinary Wizard speed between the desks and disappear into the narrow, seven-cornered passageway that led to the Hermetic Chamber. A murmur of excitement spread through the room - what would their Chief Hermetic Scribe have to say about that? No one, not even the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, entered the Hermetic Chamber without permission. The scribes waited for the inevitable explosion. To their amazement it did not come. Instead Jillie Djinn appeared at the entrance of the passageway looking a little flustered and said, "Miss Badger, would you come into the Chamber, please?"
With the accompaniment of sympathetic glances, Romilly Badger slipped down from her seat and followed Jillie Djinn into the passageway.
"Ah, Miss Badger," said Marcia as Romilly entered the Hermetic Chamber in the wake of Jillie Djinn.
The Chamber was a small, round, whitewashed room simply furnished with an ancient-looking glass propped against the wall and a bare table in the middle. Jillie Djinn took refuge behind the table while Marcia paced like a caged panther - one of the dangerous purple ones.
"Yes, Madam Overstrand?" said Romilly, convinced that she was about to follow in her predecessor's footsteps and be summarily dismissed.
"Miss Badger, Miss Djinn informs me that the Keye to Seal the Ice Tunnel hatches is not at present available. In other words, it is lost. Is that correct?"
"I, er..." Romilly was not sure what to say. All she knew was that she had only been Inspection Clerk for four days, and she had yet to set foot in the Ice Tunnels due to what her Chief Hermetic Scribe called "a technical difficulty."
"Miss Badger, have you actually seen the Keye since you took up your appointment?" asked Marcia.
"No, Madam Overstrand, I haven't."
"Does this not strike you as odd?"