The Masked City (46 page)

Usually Librarians work in the field until they’re too old or too severely injured to be able to handle the physical side of the job competently. This generally means working till they’re in their sixties or seventies. Some even stay in the field for longer, if they really take to the world where they’re living and working. But such Librarians tend to be ‘Librarians-in-Residence’ who’ve put great time and effort into their cover identities. Some of them even choose to die a comfortable natural death in a world that they’ve grown to love. Others make their eventual retreat into the Library. Then they can finally settle down to read all the books they’ve collected, study the languages they’ve wanted to learn, write critical comparisons of books from different worlds, argue with their colleagues … oh, and mentor the juniors, too.

What goes into the education of a good librarian spy?

Languages are very important. A Librarian who speaks (and reads and writes) multiple languages is very useful to the Library, as they can be sent on a much wider range of missions than a monolingual spy. General physical health, martial arts skills and great marksmanship are all useful - as is the ability to run fast when needed. A good Librarian is expected to be able to be diplomatic where necessary, and to be able to blend in under most social circumstances. Some Librarians like to train their proteges in spycraft and wetwork (assassinations, etc.), plus strategy and tactics. Others encourage their juniors to learn skills like lock-picking, burglary, fast-talking and the art of the con. The oldest Librarians, the ones who never leave the Library, teach less immediately useful skills such as art theory and literary criticism. They are also always ready to discuss their favourite works of literature and talk about how much tougher it was in their time.

The perfect Librarian is calm, cool, collected, intelligent, multilingual, a crack shot, a martial artist, an Olympic-level runner (at both the sprint and marathon), a good swimmer, an expert thief and a genius con artist. They can steal a dozen books from a top-security strongbox in the morning, discuss literature all afternoon, have dinner with the cream of society in the evening, and then stay up until midnight dancing, before stealing some more interesting tomes at 3 a.m. That’s what a perfect Librarian would do. In practice, most Librarians would rather spend their time reading a good book.

Other than books (I know, what else is there but books?!) what might be a sought-after delicacy for the discerning librarian?

Some sort of stimulant, for those long nights with an enjoyable read, whether it’s tea, coffee, chocolate, cognac or absinthe … Irene prefers coffee, with brandy for those moments when one really needs a slug of brandy. She hasn’t yet developed an educated taste for coffee, but she does prefer the good stuff to the cheap stuff. Bradamant likes cocktails, but would rather have them bought for her than shake them herself. Coppelia takes her coffee very black, with a lump of muscovado brown sugar, producing something so richly bittersweet that it curls the toes of the casual drinker.

Finally, the love of books and libraries comes across in every page of your work. Is there a particular library that is special to you or is there one you’d still love to visit?

I have memories of libraries from all the places that I’ve lived, but I think one of my most special memories is the library from my old school - Christ’s Hospital. I was one of the pupil librarians who used to help keep the books in order, and I used to spend a lot of my spare time there. I remember the bay windows in the main fiction section, and the light slanting through them in the afternoon. The heavy old wooden tables and chairs. The card index. (This was over twenty years ago.) The side door leading to the old Dominions Library where a lot of the reference works and older books were stored, where it was always quiet. There were paintings and curtains and so on, but it’s the wooden floors and shelving that I remember, dark and old and heavy, and the books themselves.

Of course, it may all be different now, but memories are an alternate world of their own.

ENDNOTES

1
. The question of whether this is sociopathy or psychopathy is beyond the scope of this briefing document.

2
. Figuratively speaking. Librarians’ personal lives are their own business.

3
. Librarians who have other theological opinions are reminded that their personal beliefs are also their own business.

4
. We are aware that this is extremely simplistic. An in-depth discussion is beyond the scope of this briefing document and requires a high level of expertise in the Language.

Praise for
The Invisible Library

‘I absolutely loved this … flavoured with truly unique mythology and a dash of the eldritch. Such clever, creepy, elaborate worldbuilding’

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The Invisible Library
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‘Written in a similar vein to Deborah Harkness’s All Souls trilogy … Contemporary meets fairy-tale in this novel’

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THE MASKED CITY

Genevieve Cogman got started on Tolkien and Sherlock Holmes at an early age and has never looked back. But on a perhaps more prosaic note, she has an MSc in Statistics with Medical Applications and has wielded this in an assortment of jobs: clinical coder, data analyst and classifications specialist. She has also previously worked as a freelance role-playing game writer. Her hobbies include patchwork, beading, knitting and gaming, and she lives in the north of England.
The Masked City
is her second novel.

By Genevieve Cogman

The Invisible Library

The Masked City

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you, again, to everyone who helped with this book. Thank you to my agent Lucienne Diver, who helped me find monsters in the depths of London, and my editor Bella Pagan, who is marvellous at her job and to whom this book owes a great deal.

Thanks to my beta-readers, my friends, my family, my supporters, and the Classifications team at work. Your help is very much appreciated.

And many thanks to the beautiful city of Venice, which deserves far better writing than I have been able to give it.

First published 2015 by Tor

This electronic edition published 2015 by Tor

an imprint of Pan Macmillan

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ISBN 978-1-4472-5626-7

Copyright (c) Genevieve Cogman 2015

Cover Images (c) Shutterstock

The right of Genevieve Cogman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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