The rest of the first meeting passed smoothly. I begin with a little spelling and writing. Over the following hours and acquiring some confidence in his progress, I began to instruct him in the rudiments of several other languages besides his native tongue. I was relieved to learn that the Duke was a quick learner, with a phenomental memory. I had only to teach him once, and he was able to repeat back every word I said, sometimes he would even correct my own errors.
As the day wore on, and the Chancellor had yet to return, I decided to try the cell door. To my utmost surprise, I found that it had been opened the whole time.
I turned, asking "Did you know about this?"
"The door has always been unlocked," he told me. "Always."
Puzzled, I thought. Why would they keep a prisoner in a cell that wasn't locked?
"Why don't you leave then?" I asked.
"Where would I go?" the Duke answered.
"That's true," I said. "But I imagine that when times got desperate, the times when you were hungry enough, for instance, you might have been tempted to leave on your own accord?"
"That door," he paused as though searching for the correct. "The door is clever."
"What?" I asked. "A door that is clever? What do you mean?"
"On the day that I was placed here, they took one of my tears," he explained.
"A tear?"
"Yes," the Duke said. "They took a tear from me. I was pinched until I cried out, and then they took the tear and fed it to the door. And it is because of that tear, the door knows me. It is clever."
"It knows you?" I said. "Then you mean that it recognizes you and won't open for you?"
"I can open the door just fine," he said. "But if I should take one step beyond the threshold…" He gave me a shiver.
"If you should step beyond the threshold," I said. "Then you're saying that something bad happens to you?"
He nodded.
"How could such a thing happen?" I asked. "It is magic?"
"I don't know," the Duke said. "I remember them saying words like 'essential-salts', 'gene-locked,' - words I never have heard before or after."
Taking a breath, I stepped over the threshold, and waited tensely.
"Nothing is happening," I said.
"Because you are not me," he said simply.
"Then I will leave you for now," I said. "You can keep the book. I will see about having you fed."
"Goodbye, Grumper,' the Duke said, turning back to the open book.
I left, and the cell door clanged shut behind me. The sounds of it echoing endlessly in the depths of the dungeons.
I ascended the ivory-colored stairs, and after stumbling through the seemingly endless corridors, all bright identical shiny acoustic tile, I came at last to a room that I thought must be a guard station.
Entering the room, I saw before me s a curving metal desk, surrounded by a shabby, dust-covered console consisting of buttons, dials and tabbed racks.
Behind the desk was a corpulent man, red-haired and bearded, dressed in a dark, leather uniform and cap.
A guard, I thought. Excellent. Maybe he can show me the way out.
"You look lost," he asked me. "Are you possibly new?" His voice was harsh and grating after the long silence.
"Yes. I'm the new assistant to the chancellor," I said. "I've just started my duties, and it feels like I've been here all day."
"I know the feeling. Working here is a tiring thankless job," the guard said. "Take me for example. Someone has to monitor these monitors." He gestured for me to come around the desk, which I did.
I saw there were several screens, like little windows built into the circumference of the desk.
"Monitors?" I asked. He nodded. "Yes, I think that I have heard of these. They show what is occurring in a faraway place, am I correct?"
He nodded a second time.
"And you are supposed to guard those locations shown?"
He nodded a third time.
This puzzled me because half of the monitors simply showed static, or were pointed at identical corridors. One in particular showed a leaky, rusted pipe, and nothing else.
"A busy job," the guard said, pointing at the monitor on the right for emphasis. "That pipe hasn't moved, and I am only wishing that I knew exactly where it was located."
I then noticed the man's face. His eyes moved constantly, searching back and forth, darting, unfocused. Around those eyes were tiny wrinkles, almost like scar tissue. His red beard was uneven across those scars. I looked down at his hands, how palsied they were.
I looked around his work area. The walls were a harsh white color and the floor was stone. Painted in large faded letters upon one of the walls was an unfamiliar word, which I spelled out. R..A...D...I...O...A...C...T...I...V...E…
"What does that mean?" I said and pointed.
"Oh," the guard said. "That's simply a reminder for me to have my radio turned on." He touched a black device strapped to a holster on his belt. "It's not on, if you're curious. It stopped working on my first month. That was almost seven years ago, if you're so curious."
For some reason I don't think that was what those ancient letters meant, but I kept silent, asking instead "Could you possibly show me the way to the upper levels?"
"You've just arrived," the guard said. "And now you're leaving me to my tedious work schedule?"
"Yes," I said. "I suppose that I am doing that."
"Since you're new here -was it Grumper? Right?" the guard said. "Grumper, do me a favor, will you?"
"Of course," I said. Why not? I thought.
He pointed at a section of wall where an ancient worm-eaten book shelf sat bolted to the wall.
"Since you're already on your feet," he said. "Could you hand me volume number 19?"
I shrugged. The guard looked perfectly capable of standing on his own, but I suppose it was a fair distance from the desk...and I needed to get going.
I walked over, and traced my finger over the volumes before finally reaching the 19th one. I grabbed the top of the volume and pulled it forth...
"Is this the on-"
The book fell apart in my hand. It was ancient, held together by dust and cobwebs. As I stared at the remains of the book, all dust and disintegrated pages I heard laughter.
"Those books..." He tried to get out the words, but it was difficult for between the laughter. "Those books have been there for ages. I think they could be historical artifacts."
"Now," I stammered. I was angry...livid. "If you would just show me to the stairs."
The guard's laughter abruptly ceased, cut off. His face lost all humor, and his eyes which had lost their cloudiness stared at me, boring into mine. His whole body tensed as though it were preparing for violence. At that moment, I believed that he would get up out of his chair and throttle me.
It was clear: this guard was completely insane, and probably had been for some time. I was trapped in this room a mile beneath rock with a lunatic.
As I opened my mouth to speak in my defense, I heard a familiar voice.
"Ah! Grumper," the Chancellor said. "There you are!"
I turned to see him enter the room. I was both enraged and relieved to see him. I turned back to the guard, and found that his entire demeanor had changed. Gone was the anger and fury, replaced by joviality. He smiled pleasantly at the Chancellor.
"Sir," I said, wisely decided to ignore what he had done: attempting to lock me in a cell with what he thought was a deranged imbecile. I didn't know why he had done it, but the chancellor seemed not right in the braincase. If the brain was the seat of reason, then the Chancellor's seat rested upon wobbly legs.
"I see that you're first day has gone swimmingly," the Chancellor said. "Would you like to be show you to your room?"
"I would like that," I said.
"Good," the chancellor said. "How was meeting the King's brother?"
I decided that it would be best to lie. I told him a basically true account, but chose to omit parts where the Duke had spoken. I gave every indication that educating and socializing the Duke would take much work, but I also gave him confidence that it was within my abilities to make it happen.
"He indicated to me that he was hungry," I asked. "Is he regularly fed?"
"Oh, he indicated, you say?" the Chancellor said. "Did he point towards his mouth? He sometimes does that from what I remember. Yes, I gave strict orders that he is to be fed regularly. Julian the guard, he takes cares of it every day. You've met him, you know that he's trustworthy."
I said nothing when I could have said much.
He led me back to the lift that we had used previously. Exiting, we made our way through the entry chamber, taking a different route. We passed a courtyard, where several of the palace guard were conducting drills. I saw that some were polishing pikes, cleaning and oiling shoes and leather. They moved about their routines lifelessly, with an almost mechanical efficiency, the same kind of non-volitional activity one might associate with insects in a hive, like flies washing themselves in endlessly repeating gestures.
After navigating several luxurious hallways, we came to the servant's wing, where the Chancellor showed to my rooms.
"Here is your quarters," he said.
They were stark in its simplicity and lack of decoration. A bed, a small wardrobe, and a modest writing table with chair were the only furnishings. The walls were bare. Even the small window was curtainless, and its high placement on the wall gave the room the feel of a jail cell. A small water pitcher nested within a porcelain basin on a washtable. On one wall stood a tall wardrobe. Against the other stood the desk.
It had been a long day. I thanked the Chancellor for his generosity, and he left me after informing that he would expect me to awaken early tomorrow morning so I could begin working with him at the figures and tables.
After he left, I bathed in a small bathing nook, dressed myself in the night clothes provided in the wardrobe, and then lay down upon the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep after seeing all that I had witnessed on my first day.
