SIX
‘Nish!’ Irisis wailed, right in his ear. ‘Get up, quick!’ Rolling over, he blinked at the bright lantern and tried to pull the pillow over his head. ‘Later,’ he moaned. ‘I’m too tired.’
She poured icy water onto the back of his neck.
Nish shrieked and leapt out of bed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Look what Tiaan’s done now!’ she said savagely.
He rubbed sleep from his eyes. She was holding out a controller, the most beautiful piece of work he’d ever seen. At least it had been. Several arms were broken off and the others twisted as if someone had jumped on them.
‘What happened to it?’
‘Tiaan smashed it, the vicious little cow.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Nish could not believe anyone would wantonly destroy such a precious thing, least of all Tiaan.
Irisis sat on the bed, holding the controller against her breast. Its broken arms dangled uselessly. ‘I only finished it yesterday!’ Her lip trembled and she turned away, as if ashamed at that loss of control. ‘It’s taken me a month to make and it’s the best one I’ve ever done. I came in early to fit the hedron but the controller was gone. It was behind the door of Tiaan’s cubicle, like this.’
‘There’s a guard down at the offices, night and day.’ Nish rubbed the back of his neck, still throbbing from the ice water. ‘Better speak to him.’
‘I have! The only artisan who’s been in the workshop since I left was Tiaan. She’s in the pay of the enemy. You’ve got to stop her, Nish.’ She moved up close behind him.
Her warm breath aroused distracting thoughts. He turned away. ‘It could be just an accident.’
‘Don’t be stupid! It was in her cubicle, Nish. It didn’t float there. She destroyed my controller, just as she sabotaged the others.’
‘That’s hard to believe.’
‘What does it take to convince you?’ she raged. ‘Will you let her destroy the manufactory?’
‘It takes evidence!’ he said vehemently. He longed to get back at Tiaan but probers must follow the rules. His father would never trust him again if he accused someone who subsequently turned out to be innocent. Especially the best artisan in the manufactory.
‘Go and talk to the guards,’ she said icily.
‘I will.’
‘Bah!’ she snorted. ‘You’re secretly in love with her. You don’t want to find her out.’
Nish went looking for the guards who had been on duty outside the offices overnight. Their post was close to the artisans’ workshop. He found the midnight guard in the refectory and explained what had happened.
‘No one went near the workshop on my shift,’ she said, pointedly turning her shoulder to him. He was a lowly artificer, after all.
Nish had to take her word, though the damage could have been done in a few minutes while she was at the privy, or gossiping to another guard, or warming herself by the furnaces. After all, there had been no one watching the guard.
The day guard, who was talking to Foreman Gryste, had seen no one go into the workshop except Tiaan and, sometime after that, Irisis.
‘My door was open,’ said Gryste. ‘If anyone else came past I would have seen them.’
‘Where’s Tiaan now?’ Nish asked Irisis, who was coming out of the workshop.
‘She’s gone out again. Come on!’
Nish followed her towards the front gate. ‘Where did she go?’
‘How would I know?’
They asked old Nod at the gate. ‘She went down to the mine,’ Nod said.
‘She goes there all the time,’ said Irisis as they walked out into the wind.
‘She has to select the best crystals.’
‘You’re a fool, Nish! She’s selling our secrets to someone there. She’s going to meet him.’
‘Don’t call me a fool,’ he said coldly. ‘And don’t ever call me Nish again. My name is Cryl-Nish.’
His anger made her step backwards. Bowing her head, she took his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Cryl-Nish. Please come and see for yourself.’
As they emerged from the forest Tiaan came out of the adit and took the path to the village. Irisis and Nish followed, keeping at a safe distance.
‘Where’s she going?’ Nish asked.
‘To old Joeyn’s place, I’d say.’
They tracked her to a hut above the village. Tiaan went inside, then she and the miner came out and sat on the porch.
‘What are they doing?’ Irisis whispered.
‘Drinking tea.’
After some time, Tiaan and Joeyn headed back up the path to the mine.
‘Come on!’ said Irisis.
Nish went with her to the hut. She slipped inside. ‘Quickly!’ she said as he lingered on the path.
Nish thought it unlikely that there was anything to be found, but humoured her. Shortly, however, feeling under the old man’s blankets, his hand touched a folded piece of paper. He carried it to the doorway.
Both sides of the page were covered in writing in a tiny hand. It was a description of the preparation of a hedron. ‘That’s Tiaan’s writing,’ Irisis said, coming up behind him. ‘The traitorous slut!’
Nish examined the paper, which was rough-cut on three sides, razor smooth on the fourth. ‘Looks as if it’s been taken from a book.’
‘It must be from her day journal.’
They found nothing else. Without saying a word Nish went back to the manufactory, searching Tiaan’s room and then her work cubicle. Her room revealed nothing. Her day journal had a leaf missing, neatly razored out.
He locked the cubicle, put the key in his pocket and went to see Overseer Gi-Had. There he explained that he was a prober, working secretly on his father’s behalf, showed his letter of appointment and told Gi-Had about the ruined controller and the missing leaf.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said the overseer, though he looked worried.
‘Anyone can be corrupted by the enemy.’
‘Not Tiaan. She has no vices, no secrets, no life apart from her work.’
‘Perhaps one of her brothers or sisters is in trouble and she needs money desperately.’
Gi-Had consulted a ledger. ‘She has forty-nine silver drams to her account, more than almost anyone in the manufactory. Twenty-six more and she could pay off her indenture. Unheard of!’
Nish whistled. It was a small fortune. ‘There you are – it’s her wages as a spy.’
‘It’s her pay over the past fourteen years! She’s spent virtually nothing in that time. You can check the entries, prober. Every copper nyd is accounted for.’
Nish did, and found all to be exactly as Gi-Had had said. It shook him. ‘Perhaps you’d better come and see the journal.’
‘I will,’ said Gi-Had, and his face grew even blacker as he matched the leaf to the cut. ‘Anyone could have done this! Why would she cut a leaf from her own journal, incriminating herself, when she could simply copy it?’
Nish was forced to consider the unpalatable alternative, that Irisis had smashed her own controller and planted the evidence to discredit her rival.
‘Do you have anyone in mind?’ Gi-Had rasped. It was clear that he did.
‘Me?’ Nish said hoarsely.
‘You are supposed to be the prober.’
‘I’m thinking on it.’
‘Then think fast! I want a report today. Tiaan is working on a special project for me and suddenly this happens. It’s damned suspicious! If someone is trying to bring down my best artisan, I’ll hang their head over the front gate and their guts from the flagpole. Whoever their family is!’ His eyes flashed. ‘I’m putting a guard on the workshop, night and day! No, two guards.’ He stamped out.
Nish sat down on Tiaan’s stool, shaken. What was he supposed to do now? He was almost sure Irisis had cut the page from the ledger. If she was behind the sabotage too, she must be denounced. She was a liability he could not afford.