Egderus and the Good Doctor

The Good Doctor had been appointed Prior to the Chief Inquirer, and I was to be the Good Doctor's secretary. He told me that the only reason he was bringing me with him from Mountain House was that my handscript was legible and he would be needing documents prepared immediately, but that as soon as he could find an accomplished scribe he planned to get rid of me.

I did not entirely believe this: for one thing, I never entirely believed anything he said, but I also suspected that my removal had more to do with separating me from the Superius Frater and possibly from Robenc than with the beauty of my handscript. I did not know why I thought that, but subsequent events proved my intuition correct.

My first duties were to catalog and summarize the testimonies of the various clients whom the Office of Inquiry had questioned, and to make copies of those interviews which the Good Doctor designated as worthy of further attention. As Prior the Good Doctor would be unlikely to conduct many of these sessions himself, but he did oversee the Examiners, and spent many of his mornings observing them at work. Every Examiner had his own scriptor who transcribed each interrogation, and it was from the ranks of these scriptores that the Good Doctor imagined (or contended) he would find my replacement.

At first they resented me because I had entered at an already fairly exalted rank — one usually became scriptor after an apprenticeship, which I obviously had not undergone; and only after years as scriptor might one be chosen to follow his master up, should the Examiner in question be promoted.

In addition, it was unusual for the Prior or any official above the rank of Examiner to be brought in from outside. Apparently the Good Doctor was a less suspicious case than myself because, I discovered, he had worked as an Examiner before being called (or sent) to Mountain House.

I was billeted with the scriptores, and by my humility and good humor I soon convinced them that I was not to blame for my present position, and that there was much I needed to learn from them. Within a short time I got to know how they worked: speed was everything in transcribing a client's interview, and so they used a system of abbreviated characters, amounting to a kind of code, which only another scriptor could decipher.

This code was not at all regular, and nowhere was it written down so that a lay person could use it. The characters of this shorthand consisted mostly of pictographs which over generations of rapid writing no longer resembled their original lineaments. However, once the fundamental characters were learned — man, woman, client, Examiner, ask, speak, scream, faint, revive, confess, beginning, and end — it was possible to see the progress of a session in the notae of its scriptor, though it took much more experience to be able to make out what the actual questions, answers, and confessions were.

What I was cataloging for the Good Doctor were called 'realizations', logs of sessions written in ordinary characters, a task the scriptor was supposed to perform directly after the end of an examination and then submit to the Examiner for approval. But an interrogation could take place at any hour, in the dark or the light, and might last for an entire day or longer. The Examiner's work was complete when he asked his last question; not so for the scriptor: even though utterly drained, he still had to produce a timely realization. So the scriptores covered for each other — an off-duty scriptor was always 'on call' to complete a realization for one of his fellows, with the understanding that this favor would be repaid when his turn came around for a long or grueling session.

In the beginning I was bewildered by the varieties of heresy that the Office was prosecuting — my own understanding of orthodoxy was neither deep nor comprehensive — but I soon realized that what a client professed or believed was not really important. What mattered was the clash of wits and will, cat against mouse. Only rarely did the mouse somehow manage to dodge into death before the cat was done with its game.

My friends the scriptores were, in their own minds, nothing more sinister than simple artisans. They took pride in their work, but that work was writing, not torture. In every aspect of their lives except the exercise of their craft they were what they conceived themselves to be — loyal, honest, kind, hard-working — and besides, what way out was there for them? I could not respect them, but I could understand their belief that they were making the best of a bad situation.

My contact with the Examiners, on the other hand, opened new realms of feeling within me: I had known fear and anger, even a kind of restless dissatisfaction with my life; from my fellows' masters, however, I learned loathing, disgust, and, ultimately, despair. They professed to be the guardians of faith, but they believed nothing; they deplored the methods they were forced to use against heresy, but inflicting agony upon others gave them deep pleasure; they professed love for the truth, but they hated everything — their victims, themselves, everything that lived.

And from both I learned hypocrisy, the basic mode of behavior in such a situation. Curiously, while hypocrisy masks everything, it hides nothing; but in a short time under such a regime one ceases to care what the truth is...

The Good Doctor rarely conducted an examination himself, but when he did, I was his scriptor. At first, of course, I had trouble keeping up, not having learned more than the basic characters of scriptorial shorthand. To make up this deficit, I devised my own system, which naturally even the other scriptores could not decipher. I found this system useful in making observations about the Good Doctor's technique, while at the same time keeping up with the proceedings.

And he was very good at this work: I observed with surprise that, though in ordinary intercourse he was waspish and excitable, in the examination chamber he rarely raised his voice, never himself touched a client, and only brought in the Rectifier ('Bone-Snapper') when he had exhausted every means of mental torment in his repertoire, which was large and varied. Before the events I am about to relate, I only witnessed one session in which the Bone-snapper actually had to do anything — every other time his mere appearance caused the client to capitulate — and I was ill for a week afterward, in a fever of revulsion.

It was then I realized that I had come to hate as well as fear the Good Doctor, and to desire, if not yet to plan, to somehow bring him down.

And, as the Remnant say, desire begets occasion.

But again, I anticipate. My hatred healed me, as it were, and I was soon back at work.

I began to read more deeply in the records of the Office's proceedings, going further and further down in time, until I had a clear understanding of the Good Doctor's history with the Office. He had been removed several years before in a purge engineered by the previous Prior, seemingly at the Chief Inquirer's suggestion, but there were hints that the old Golias himself had wanted the Good Doctor gone.

The reasons for his removal from the Office were nowhere to be found, but it was clear that the Good Doctor had retaliated in some way, procuring his predecessor's demise when the present Golias ascended to the throne.

There were references in some of the documents to an exchange of letters between the Chief Inquirer and an unnamed monk in an unnamed community, but none of the correspondence itself appeared in the archives. In my youthful enthusiasm, I immediately convinced myself that the Good Doctor had been sent to spy on the Superius Frater at Mountain House, though such vague allusions as I found could have been to anyone anywhere.

And it never occurred to me until much later to ask why a spy would be sent to Mountain House at all.

Time passed, and the opportunity to realize my vindictive intentions arrived at last.

A man known only as the Historian appeared among the clients of the Office, and he successfully resisted the exertions of at least two of our best Examiners before he came to the Good Doctor's attention. The Good Doctor quickly took a keen interest in this Historian, and observed several sessions with a third Examiner, whom he subsequently dismissed for incompetence, and took over the inquiry himself.

The Historian was not a tall man, and he limped, but he was sturdily built, and had shaggy blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a rugged face. In short, he was beautiful, and I was instantly infatuated. He seemed to notice this, though the Good Doctor did not, and took what occasion he could to return my stare, at first with anger in his eyes, then a question, and finally a command: if I loved him, I must help him. I had no idea how, but I promised him with my eyes that I would.

This interchange took place just before the Good Doctor, as if to confirm my evil resolve, commanded the Bone-Snapper to break the man's thumbs.

When I returned to my cubicle outside the Good Doctor's study in order to prepare the realization, I was in a frenzy of rage, muttering and weeping, pacing impotently back and forth. I had not noticed that there was someone waiting inside the Good Doctor's study, himself pacing to and fro by the door. When I did see this figure I jumped, which caused me to fall over my stool with a great crash. The man rushed out. It was Robenc.

His features were larger and somewhat coarsened, he had put on weight, and there was some gray in his beard. He helped me up and asked where the Good Doctor was; I thanked him and told him my master would be returning any minute. At the sound of my voice Robenc looked at me sharply, then he broke into a smile.

'Ah! The Man Egderus! Of course! The Bad Quack took you with him when he landed this fat job. How are you, my angry young friend? But you've grown — or at least filled out! You have the face of a man now. And your voice has settled down, I notice. Well! Just coming from an examination, are we? Who with, or am I not allowed to ask?'

'You may ask, but I am not authorized to answer.'

This caused him to laugh out loud. 'Fearless Man Egderus! Impressed by no uniform or badge of office! How have you escaped the Bone-Snapper with a sharp tongue like that!? Or are you merely presuming upon the protection of the Good Doctor's skirts?'

'The Prior will return shortly. If you would rather not wait, I will tell him that you were here, and he will contact you later.'

'Do not be angry, Brother Egderus. I should not tease a serious young man such as yourself. I am not your enemy. Do you not remember me?'

'You are Phylax Robenc.'

'Phylax no longer, but Robenc just the same. I, too, have ascended in the world. I am now Praetor Robenc, commander of our ruler's Bodyguard. I protect more than just a sleepy group of scholars in a far-off retreat these days — everyone in this city is under my watchful eye. Once again, your safety is in my hands.'

His voice was jocular, and he smiled as he spoke, but in his eyes was a hard, glittering light. I had felt those eyes probing me once before, but this time I was not a youth who felt he had to protect his master and so barked like a little dog at every word Robenc spoke. This time I wished to destroy my master, and was interested in anyone's help.

'It is good to see you again, sir.'

'Is it? Is it indeed?'

I met his eyes and held them. 'It is indeed.'

At that moment the Good Doctor returned. He did not see Robenc right away. 'I want that realization immediately. And I am not to be disturbed.'

'Apologies, Prior, but you must see me now,' Robenc said. His manner had completely changed. He was cold, peremptory.

The Good Doctor took a step back in surprise. In his face I saw three things: anger, then fear, then deeper anger. He wheeled on me. 'Why did you not tell me that Praetor Robenc was here?' He cuffed me on the ear, then pushed me out of the way and entered his study, turning back inside the door. 'Come in, Praetor.'

'This will not take much of your time, Prior. I know you are busy.' I watched him enter the study, then the door closed.

I waited a long moment to see if the Good Doctor would come back out, then swung open the door of the document closet. Some time before, I noticed that one of the shelves was loose, and in trying to repair it had found that it slid back in such a way that a small person such as myself could climb in.

A recess in the back of the closet actually opened into the space behind the wall of the Prior's study, from whence it was possible to hear most of what was said in the room. I had only used it once or twice before, the last time being when the Good Doctor dismissed the third Examiner who had been working on my Historian.

Even as I first crawled into the recess I could hear the sharpness in the voices of both men. It was clear they hated each other; perhaps now I would find out why.

'It does not matter how I know,' Robenc was saying, 'The Golias wishes the man released.'

'Forgive me if I am perhaps overcareful, Praetor. Should I not be hearing this from the Chief Inquirer, rather than yourself? Strictly speaking, you are not my superior, and I may not obey even a direct order from you without approval.'

'It should be sufficient for you that the Golias has spoken.'

'Ah, but has he spoken? I don't wish to appear ill-mannered, but why should I believe you?'

'Why should you not believe me?'

'Because you bring no proof — '

'Proof?! What proof do you need? Do you want the Golias himself to come here to beg for his friend's release?'

'Ah! So he is a personal friend of the Golias, this man you think we have in our care.'

Robenc said nothing for a moment. 'The man is unquestionably "in your care" — '

The Good Doctor interrupted sharply. 'Did that young fool tell you that?'

'What young fool?'

'Egderus, my secretary.'

Robenc laughed. 'No, no. I was merely teasing him about our last encounter — '

'At Mountain House?'

'Yes. I interviewed him — '

'I remember, and he told you a lot of nonsense, embarrassing both the Superius Frater and myself. I hope you did not believe him.'

'Egderus was not the only one to tell me about Gig chasing the brothers with his axe — '

'But Gig never chased him. Of that I hope you were convinced. Egderus never went more than a few yards from the House because of that ridiculous leg of his — '

'It hardly matters now, Prior. And all the young fool said to me today was that you would return shortly.'

'Did you ever solve the mystery of Phylax Gig's death?'

'No.' There was a pause, while the Good Doctor waited for Robenc to say more. 'I was called back to my lord's service before I could complete the investigation.'

'What became the official version of the story?'

'That Phylax Gig died from an accidental fall.'

'Which tore him limb from limb? And left his head perched on top of a boulder a hundred paces away? You should have had me conduct your investigation, Praetor. Then you would know what happened.'

'Unfortunately for us both, Prior, we have other work to do now. I had hoped you would be more cooperative. The Golias will not be pleased.'

'I have no wish to disappoint the Golias, but your request is irregular in the extreme. First of all, I am not convinced that this man you describe is even with us at all. What is his name? The Historian? That is not a name.'

At the mention of my new friend I jerked upright, knocking my head against a post. The two men must have heard me, for there was silence for a moment. Then I heard footsteps coming towards the door!

'I do not know his name,' Robenc said. The footsteps stopped. 'I have not met this man. The Golias only told me that he was a friend, a school fellow or something. Apparently he is also the younger son of a prominent citizen, who has gotten himself into some scrape, and the Golias wishes to rescue him, discreetly. That is why the Chief Inquirer has not been approached. Indeed, I would not be bothering you at all, had you not taken over his examination — '

'Who told you this? Whom have you placed here to spy on me? It must be Egderus.' The footsteps started toward the door again.

I was frozen with fright. I would never make it to my desk before the Good Doctor got there. But Robenc started speaking again, and the footsteps stopped. I struggled back out of the recess as silently as I could, then slid the shelf into place. I was just closing the document closet when the Good Doctor's door opened violently and he charged at me.

'What are you doing? Why are you not working on that realization?'

'I am working on the realization, sir. I just needed some sand — '

'You were eavesdropping!'

'But how, sir?' This was almost a mistake, because the Good Doctor looked suspiciously at the document closet. I followed his eyes. 'Sand, sir. For the realization. I keep it in the closet, on the bottom shelf.'

Robenc was standing in the doorway, looking not at the Good Doctor but at me. I did not dare meet his eyes while the Good Doctor was peering into my face, but when he shoved me out of the way to get at the closet, I managed to nod quickly to Robenc, hoping he would understand that I would help him if I could.

'Please, Prior,' he said. 'Discipline your secretary later, if you must. It is imperative that we resolve this issue immediately.'

The Good Doctor ignored him, opening the closet door and pushing everything around.

'If you will only tell me what you are looking for, sir, I can probably find it.'

He wheeled on me, eyes burning fiercely. 'I know you were eavesdropping.'

I met his gaze. 'I do not lie, sir. Not to you, not to anyone.'

For a moment we stared at each other thus, then his eyes flickered. 'Get back to work.' He pushed me out of his way and stormed back into his study, causing Robenc to have to back out of the doorway before his charge.

The door closed again.

I resolved to fix the shelf so that only I knew how to remove it. In the meantime I had the realization to begin. I worked rapidly, so that when the door opened again I had perhaps half a page completed. The two men were saying farewell in a polite if strained tone. Robenc left without looking at me. As soon as he was out of sight, the Good Doctor hauled me into his study and beat me severely, paying particular attention to my lame leg.