John wiped his mouth, uninterested. “I feel terrible.”
“Yes,” Mizar agreed. “So does Tygo Brachio. What an odd fellow, that one. Inciting you to drink. That’s not like you.”
He spat out acrid saliva.
“You know he slept all night in your office, on the sofa? With his hands still chained. I offered him a bed. But he said he preferred to be near the mirror. What a funny man.”
John panted. “You let him sleep all night in my office? All my records and books are in there!”
“I didn’t see any harm in it. He was just as sick as you are now. It wasn’t as though he was pawing at your belongings, sir.” He paused. “His arms are chained.”
“Have you given him free rein of my courtyard, as well?”
Mizar bent stiffly and began wiping up the vomit. “I thought he was to be your assistant. I didn’t know he was to be watched like a prisoner.”
“He was in jail for treason. You just said he was shackled. It should be evident that he’s to be watched!”
“Not to me it wasn’t.”
“You left him all night with my mirror and all my books—”
“He was only checking the mirror for faults, he told me.”
John goggled at his servant. “You let him touch it again? Mizar, that mirror is perhaps the only link between our world and the heavens and you…” he sputtered. “You just let a known con-man finger it as though it were his own?”
Mizar stopped wiping up the vomit and glared at John. “I don’t know him to be any con-man. I thought he was a Walking Doctor.”
John hurried to dress and went at once to his study, where he found Tygo standing in a corner with a large book balanced upon his chained forearms. Gray light fell from the window onto the floor just beyond where he stood, so he was partially in shadow. John noted with some relief that the mirror was still in its holder, unharmed, though still uncovered. He rushed across the stone floor and threw the dust-cloth over it again.
Despite what Mizar had said, Tygo Brachio looked just as well as he had the night before. No sign he had been sick. John ran his hands fretfully over the dust-cloth, feeling the shape of the mirror beneath it.
“Good morning to you, too,” Tygo chirped, from behind the book. “Although maybe not so good, eh? How do you feel?”
John scowled. “I don’t recall giving you permission to scavenge my rare books. What are you looking at? Those are some of my oldest volumes, not fit for daily use. Some of them are so old I’ve only held them a few times, for cataloguing. Don’t touch them.”
Tygo held the book up. “This one isn’t too fragile, I don’t know what you’re so excited about.” He eyed the mirror, John’s hands on it. “Got it in your head that I’m a thief, did you?”
John flushed. “It’s Lord Astronomer to you. You are to call me by my title. And you are not to read my books! You are not to … to do anything. Unless I say so. Give me that.” He extended his hand and Tygo, snickering, gave him the book.
“O, I think you’ve read that particular one more than a few times.”
John turned it over and looked at the spine. Sexual Astrology: Effective Positions for Begetting Heaven’s Children.
“Were you intending to beget yourself some star children?” Tygo’s eyes furrowed with laughter. “Tell me, have you used any of the techniques in here? It’s so stupid. Look at this.” He snatched it back and opened it. “‘The position for a boy will be best achieved after a thorough massage to the feet and legs. You will find the leg massage tilts the cervix back, allowing for easier passage of the seed.’” Tygo flipped the pages. “There’s more: ‘Caress the underside of the breasts. Elementals delight in a winding motion applied to the nipples.’ Did you know that a leg massage opens the cervix? I didn’t.”
John grabbed the book. “I’ve never read this book.”
“But the drawings, you’ve looked at those.” Tygo turned it sideways. “It has very good drawings.”
John felt a glut of hate and jealousy for Tygo rising in his throat like more vomit. So at ease all the time; talking, poking fun, slinking along as though everything were a joke when almost nothing ever was.
“It may astonish you,” John snapped. “But some people think about more important things than sex. That book is a relic. I inherited it from my father’s library, and I imagine he inherited it from his own father’s, ad infinitum. If you’d bothered to look”—now he was stammering—“you’d have noticed that this corner of the library is dusty. In fact I hardly ever come here. Not that I could expect you to possess such basic powers of observation. Being that you are a drunk. Now.” He took a long, slow breath. “We’re late already for our audience with Alyson. Although I don’t know what we’ll tell her. We haven’t even begun studying the transcription.”
Tygo’s face lurched with pleasure. “There was a message from her earlier. She wishes for us to meet her at her golf course, since you were so late getting up. Did you know she plays golf?”
John could feel his still-hot face. “Everyone knows that.”
“Fine. Sorry for asking,” Tygo said.
“I’m sorry too,” was all John could think to say.
“The Hierophant will play golf with us.” Tygo’s eyes became strange and bright.
John’s head throbbed. “That’s just wonderful. He will surely have plenty of wrong-headed suggestions about how we should do our jobs. He always does.” He sighed. “You best not stare at the queen the way you did yesterday. Marvel is her father.”
“I gathered that. I think the queen didn’t mind being stared at, though.”
John had to get away from the little man
