'He ordered it!' Gi-Had said savagely. Standing before the assembled workers, he read from the letter: I, Perquisitor Jal-Nish Hlar, order Probationary Overseer Gi-Had to personally give twenty lashes to my incompetent son, Cryl-Nish, and to Artisan Irisis, for suspected complicity in the drugging of Artisan Tiaan and her banishment to the breeding factory, and for other crimes that I do not specify.
Tiaan will be restored to her position immediately. Once the investigation is completed, if their guilt is established, Cryl-Nish will go to the front-lines, Irisis to the breeding factory and… He choked on the words. Gi-Had will clean out the drainage pipes for what remains of his miserable life.
While waiting for the lash, Nish looked across at Irisis, who was still staring straight ahead. 'My father is coming,' he said out of the corner of his mouth. 'What evidence is there against us?'
'The word of one man,' she said grimly.
'Who, Irisis?'
Her lovely lips set in a hard line. 'Even if I knew I wouldn't tell you.'
'Can he be blamed?'
'Only if he's dead!' She bared those carnivore's teeth.
The first lash fell on her creamy back. Irisis writhed, tossed back her head and opened her mouth, but let forth no scream. After that, as the knotted leather tore into his own back, Nish was in too much agony to notice. And agony it was, the humiliation even worse than the pain.
Gi-Had wielded the whip as if he was trying to flay them alive. Nish broke on stroke sixteen. He screamed, and again for each of the remainder, not to mention afterwards when a tar-boy painted the wounds with a bristle brush.
Only then did he realise what a strong woman Irisis was. She had bitten through her lip, her back was a bloody ruin that would be scarred for life, but she had not let out a whimper.
Nish watched, with a thrill of horror, the mixture of tar and blood dribbling down her backside. His own must be the same.
'I can't do anything!' he gritted. 'I'm bidden to Tiksi with Gi-Had.'
'Just as well!' she hissed back. Irisis stood up straight, thrusting out her chest, and at that moment he desired her more than he ever had. Nish and Gi-Had left for Tiksi immediately, but after an hour were forced back by a blizzard so strong they were in danger of being blown off the path. By the time they struggled through the gates, four hours later, it was growing dark.
The manufactory was abuzz. Apothek Mul-Lym was dead, having committed suicide with an extract of tar. It had been a horrible death that left his lips and mouth blistered, and his corpse with a pungent phenolic reek. There were no witnesses. It was assumed that he was Tiaan's poisoner, though many wondered why he had taken his life in such a painful way. His drug ledger was open at the next but last page. It showed a tiny vial of calluna to have been used, though no patient's name had been entered.
A rumour spread that he'd been spurned by Tiaan, had poisoned her in revenge, and then, knowing the deed would be traced to him, had taken his own life. Gi-Had questioned Irisis and Nish closely but of course Nish knew nothing about it. If Irisis did, she gave not a hint of it under a six-hour interrogation, and no witness could place her anywhere near the scene of the crime. Finally Gi-Had dismissed her. The apothek's death was the best solution for them all.
Nish ran into Irisis in the corridor in the middle of the night and asked her what had happened. 'I know nothing about it,' she said, and walked away.
Nish was more worried than ever. She must have murdered the man. Nish was in way over his head and sinking fast. Querist Fyn-Mah had still not appeared when Gi-Had and Nish set out at dawn. Presumably she had also been delayed by the weather. The snow had stopped but the wind was scouring snow off the path as they hurried down the mountain.
They arrived in Tiksi with red, wind-blasted faces, reaching the breeding factory at midday. The door guard sneered when he caught sight of Nish, who trembled lest the man reveal the details of his previous visit. In Matron's office they received a most unpleasant surprise. Tiaan had escaped in the night.
Gi-Had let out a monumental groan and gripped his head in gnarled hands, as if trying to squeeze the pain out of it. 'Where has she gone?'
'How in the blazes should I know?' Matron replied. 'I wish I'd never set eyes on the wretch. The damage she's done to our reputation won't be undone in a hurry. I've a good mind to ask for the indenture money back, after the damaged goods you've sold me.'
'You knew what you were buying!' he cried, unwilling to let her get the better of him.
'You said she was incurably mad!'
'That was the advice my healers gave me,' Gi-Had said stiffly.
'She was sane and cunning when she woke up.'
'In which case you should have paid more for her, not less.' Nonetheless Gi-Had was delighted to hear that Tiaan had recovered. 'Where is she now?'
'No one knows. She led the entire household a dance for hours, then escaped.'
'The factory will buy her indenture back,' Gi-Had said, 'as soon as she's found.'
'Now just wait a minute…' she began.
'There'll be a bonus in it. And, I should warn you…'
'Yes,' she said, alerted by his smouldering temper.
'This comes at the orders of Jal-Nish Hlar, the perquisitor.'
'Of course we'll do everything in our power to cooperate,' she said quickly.
'Did she have any visitors?'
'Only a decrepit old miner. Should never have let him in the place.'
They questioned Tiaan's mother too, but all Marnie could do was complain – about the discomfort, the ingratitude of her daughter, but most of all that her client would not be coming. Next they went to the querist's house but Fyn-Mah had left Tiksi some days back. By the time they reached the fire-scarred city gate they were no better informed as to where Tiaan might have fled.
'She could not have gone far,' said Nish, 'with no money, clothes or friends.'
'Perhaps to the coast,' Gi-Had mused. 'She has half-brothers and sisters down there.'
At the gate they had their first piece of useful news, for among the guards was the fellow Tiaan had escaped from.
'Damn near burned the guardhouse down.' He indicated the charred timbers. 'And then she fixed the bar so it'd fall closed behind her. I'd never have known, had I not seen it fall.'
Nish was about to make a sarcastic remark about the intelligence of guards. He'd had an awful day and his back was in agony. But he caught Gi-Had's eye on him and, mindful of the trouble he was in, held his tongue.
'Do you have any idea which way she went?' he asked.
'Straight up the road.' The guard pointed.
'She might have doubled back,' Gi-Had said.
'I followed her tracks as soon as it became light,' said the guard. 'She was going up the path to the manufactory. It's a wonder you didn't run into her this morning.'
'She must have heard us coming.' Gi-Had gave the man a coin for his trouble.
About an hour later, rounding a hairpin bend in light snow, they came upon two porters and a guard, plodding along, heads down, in a state of exhaustion.
'Hoy!' Gi-Had roared.
Their heads jerked up. The guard broke and ran but the others called him back. Gi-Had jogged up to them, stepping high through the snow. Nish hurried after him, which hurt his back cruelly.
The woman cried out, 'It's Overseer Gi-Had. Gods be praised. Surr, surr, we've been attacked by lyrinx!'
She staggered and nearly fell. Gi-Had held her up. 'Porter Ell-Lin, is it not?'
'That's right, surr! Kind of you to remember.' Ell-Lin touched one shoulder and then the other, a sign of respect. She was a large, stocky woman with big shoulders and a thick neck. Jet-black hair had been cropped short around a broad, weatherbeaten but not unhandsome face. Her slanted black eyes were narrowed to slits.
'Tell us about the attack, Ell-Lin. You know Artificer Cryl-Nish, of course!'
'I saw him at the whipping.' She averted her gaze. Nish flushed nonetheless. 'We were coming down Ghyllies Pinch, ten of us and the new clanker. We'd left late because of a cracked front strut. It was the last hour of the morning. As we rounded the corner a boulder rolled down the hill and smashed the clanker in. The beasts came out of the rocks; three, there were. Everyone else is dead. Were we not ahead they'd have got us too.' She shuddered at the memory. 'Lyrinx were eating Wal, and poor ole Yiddie…' She put her head in her hands. 'It ain't right, is it! Eating folk!'