When he had finished with telling about a typical day, with Jakyr questioning him minutely about the meals, and how one earned or lost those precious slices of bread, Jakyr took him back over a day again, this time in the dead of winter. He asked how they protected their feet from the snow, and how long they had to work at the icy water in the sluices, then what kind of bedding they had once the winter set in. As he questioned Mags ever more closely, Mags described how many of the kiddies would get chilblains and how they had to be careful not to lose fingers or toes to the cold, and he thought the stranger was going to burst. Except that anger was all on the inside. On the outside, he looked just as calm as calm, and never once faltered in his writing down of things. He could have been writing down what everyone here had for breakfast, for all that he showed. It was strange, listening to the silence in the room broken only by his voice and the steady scratching of a pen. Very strange, as it occurred to him that he probably had not spoken so much in an entire year.
Then Jakyr asked about the injuries to the mine workers. And the dangerous question, “How did people die?”
That was when Mags got frightened all over again. This was dangerous, dangerous stuff. Everyone knew what would happen if you told such things, and Pieters found out about it. You’d end up in a “cave-in” yourself. And Mags had suspected more than once that the Pieters boys had a very special punishment for those who really transgressed. He had the feeling that the ones that woke their worst ire were sealed into those played-out shafts—broken, scarcely able to move, but still alive. Though of course, they didn’t stay that way, not for long. The question would be whether they ran out of air first or whether they died of their injuries before then.
He could see it in his mind’s eye. He could see himself in the absolute dark, gasping out his last breaths. Pieters would find a way. He knew it. His insides went cold and knotted up, his hands began to shake, and he wanted to go and curl up in a corner behind something and hide.
“I cain’t—” he whispered, tears starting into his eyes, his voice choked off into nothing by the fear. “I cain’t. When Master Cole finds out who ’twas told—”
“Master Cole cannot reach you, Mags.” It was the stranger who spoke, voice tight with rage and mind so full of the same anger that his thoughts were lost under a red wash. “Master Cole can never touch you again. Now don’t you want to make sure the rest of the children get that same protection?”
:Mags, this is not a premonition you see, it is only your fear. Don’t let Pieters keep you a prisoner!: Dallen’s voice rang with conviction in Mags’ mind. Mags quivered with fear, but deep in his heart, he knew the stranger was right, and so was Dallen.
The stranger’s reaction had told him so. He knew now that no one should have been treated as he and the others had been. He knew that Cole Pieters deserved to be punished. He couldn’t leave the others there, not now that he knew Master Cole was an evil, bad man. And what he had said so far might not be enough to win them free.
But it was hard, hard, hard. He had to fight past the fear of Master Cole that made his throat close up, fight past the knotting of his gut and the hunching of his shoulders against the blows he knew must come for breaching the silence.
And then, in a whisper, he told everything he knew.
To the best of his ability, he drew a map of the mine and showed where the bodies were. As far as he could, he detailed what they had really died of. And when it was over, he was shaking, his clothing was soaked with nervous sweat, and he felt as weak and drained as if he had run for days.
When they let him go, he had barely enough energy left to drag himself to the bathing room and pour himself a bath. He stank of fear and sweat and—suddenly he was feeling fastidious, being around all these cleanly people. He didn’t want anyone to think he didn’t know better. Not now. And besides, he was so wet through, and so drained, that he was shivering with chill as well as reaction. His stomach was still in knots, and he still kept wanting to hide. It took forever to fill the bath, his hands were shaking so that the buckets sloshed.
So he stripped and soaked in the hot bath, trying not to think of anything, until his shivering, internal and external, stopped. He lay back against the rear of the tub, his mind emptying, steam rising in his face.
:You mustn’t be afraid, Mags.:
Now, until this moment, Mags had accepted whatever Dallen told him unquestioningly. But this was too much to swallow. He knew very well he should be afraid. What was he? Nothing. Now, he was not very smart, and it was clear to him from everything that Dallen had been pouring into him that the way he and the other kiddies had been treated was not the way things were usually done. Yet Master Cole had gone on doing it. Mags was not very smart, and he was not at all wise in the ways that the world worked, but there was one thing he did know, and that was all about power. You either had it, or you didn’t, or you had some, but not as much as someone else might. The Pieters boys had some, over the kiddies and the other mine workers, and they did whatever they wanted to the people below them. But Master Cole had power over them and did what he wanted to all of them.
Now this was a fact: Master Cole had treated the kiddies very badly indeed. Yet he had been able to do so for years and years and years, stretching far back beyond where Mags’ memory started. So it stood to reason that somehow Master Cole had plenty of power that extended far beyond his own mine. Or, if he didn’t, there was someone with a lot more power who was protecting him.
Now what Mags was telling Herald Jakyr and the stranger was going to turn Master Cole’s mine upside down, maybe even shut it. That was going to make Cole Pieters very angry, certainly angry enough to kill. And if there was someone even bigger than Cole Pieters involved, it would surely make that person angry, too.
So what reason was there for Mags to not be afraid?
Dallen read all that swiftly from Mags’ mind, as quickly as he reasoned it out himself. And for the first time, Dallen was silent.
Finally, he spoke.
:You are right, Chosen. You have reason to be afraid. But you have no reason to keep being afraid. No matter what happens, you can be sure that Herald Jakyr will not allow anyone to know who gave him this information. To be absolutely honest ... Herald Jakyr can do some of the same things that you can, and many, many more that you cannot. He has the means to get this information by himself, once he gets back to the mine. I will warn him to be sure that Cole Pieters thinks he got it all by magic.: There was a pause. :There. He and Scribe Myrden are conferring now. The only people that will ever know where it all came from are the people in that room and the King himself.: