She wrapped her arms around herself. It felt as if something had just scuttled over her coffin and was clawing at the lid, trying to get in. ‘Were you ever friends?’
‘No. I was his mentor for a time, but that was terminated by mutual agreement. Jal-Nish is too ambitious, and ambitious people can’t be trusted. They’re always looking out for themselves.’
‘Coming from someone who has been scrutator for thirty years, that’s a bit rich!’
‘I was made scrutator because I was better at what I did than anyone else. I never wanted to be on the Council, though having got there, I cling to it because I know what happens once you let go. I still think I can do the job better than anyone else, in spite of the last few months. Ah, it’s hot in here. You don’t mind if I take off my shirt, do you?’
‘I’ve seen your chest before,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘I don’t expect to lose control.’
He pulled it over his head, revealing a scarred and sinewy torso that looked as though all the flesh had been gouged out from under the skin.
‘I wonder about you,’ she said, fascinated. He was ugly but not grotesque. The scrutator was such a likeable man, once you got to know him, that his appearance became irrelevant.
‘People do.’
‘Who did such terrible things to you?’
He emptied his glass but did not answer.
She held out the bottle. ‘More?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve a job to do later on and I’ll need my wits for it. The Council of Scrutators did this to me. At least, it was done at their command.’
‘Why would they torture their own?’ she said, appalled.
‘I was not scrutator then. I was a perquisitor; a young and handsome one, rising fast. I became too full of myself, and too curious. As you know, the scrutators have the best spy network in the land. We pride ourselves on knowing everything, though of course there’s no such thing as perfect knowledge. I was too clever. I pored over what everyone else had looked at, and saw something no one else had seen. I saw a pattern. People had been a little careless.’
‘What are you talking about?’
He rubbed his chest, pointedly. ‘Do you really want to know?’
She did not. She sipped. He reached for the bottle, drew back, then filled his glass after all. They sat in a companionable silence, listening to the crackling of the fire.
‘It was about our master,’ he said, now slurring just a little.
‘The Council of Scrutators?’
‘No, our real master. The Numinator.’
‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘No one knows who the Numinator is, but be assured, there is a power behind the Council, working to its own purpose. It may not care who wins the war. It may have manipulated everything that’s happened since the Council was formed.’
‘The Numinator?’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Don’t mention that name again! It’s a death certificate. I must have had more brandy than I thought.’ Suddenly he looked frail and rather vulnerable, which she found strangely endearing.
‘I’ve also had more than is good for me,’ she said, moving close. She traced the scars on his chest with a fingertip. ‘You must have suffered so.’
‘I did,’ he said, ‘and would rather not be reminded of it. Besides, you have also felt the lash.’
‘And I have the scars to prove it, though they are nothing like yours.’
‘I’m sure they are.’
‘Would you like to see them?’
‘As a matter of fact, I would.’
She unbuttoned her shirt, pulled it off and draped it over the back of the chair. Irisis had a magnificent bosom, though the rest of her did not put it to shame.
His eyes passed over her, and again. Finally he said in a hoarse voice, ‘I see no scars.’
She turned her back. The creamy skin was marked across with welts that, even after half a year, had a purple tinge. He laid a hard hand on her back, quite gently. A shiver went up her neck.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘Of your back, I meant.’
She turned around.
‘Would you like to see the rest of my scars?’ he said.
‘That depends.’
He raised his forehead-wide eyebrow. ‘On what?’
‘On whether every part of you is as emaciated as your chest.’
He took off his trousers.
Irisis considered him thoughtfully. ‘Am I the job for which you needed your wits about you?’
‘You are.’
‘You’re not the handsomest of men, scrutator, nor the youngest. What gave you the idea that I would be interested?’
‘I told you. We scrutators pride ourselves on knowing everything.’
TWENTY-TWO
Well, thought Irisis, smiling to herself after Flydd had gone to sleep. The things they teach you in scrutator school! Easing out of bed, she looked down at him. They must have appeared quite the oddest couple, when they were at it, for he was her opposite in every physical respect. Tucking the blankets around him, she dressed, went to the bathing room and after that to her own room, but not to sleep.
Her room was small, dark and airless, like every chamber in the manufactory, and even after all this time she found it confining. As a child of the wealthy House of Stirm she’d had a room bigger than some people’s homes, with views of meadow, lake and forest. Having been surrounded with beautiful things, the profound ugliness of this place was a drain upon her soul. Her work was, too. Irisis had always wanted to be a jeweller but her family would not hear of it. For four generations they had been crafters or better, and it was her duty to raise them back to the pedestal they had slipped from.
Irisis hated them for it, but with the world at war she had no choice. Family and Histories were everything to her and she could not go against them. She had become an artisan, and was now crafter, but her mother demanded more. She must rise to chanic, the pinnacle of the artisan’s profession. Irisis was going to, though not for herself. She still planned to be a jeweller once the war was over.
Her gaze wandered the walls, which were decorated with things she had made in her spare time, mostly miniatures created of silver, plentiful here, and semi-precious gems. They gave her more pleasure than anything she had done as an artisan. It was a canker in her soul. Many women in the manufactory wore jewellery she had made, which was remarkably fine. But making jewellery did not aid the war, and the war had to come first. She understood that, and accepted it, but it was not enough.
Irisis sighed and turned her mind to duty. The mountain might be full of crystal but not even Ullii could sense it through a league of rock. However, if the miners could get her close enough, Ullii would see the crystals like plums in a pudding, and then it would just be a matter of mining them out.
The failing nodes were another matter. Finding out what had gone wrong with them was vital to the war, and for the scrutator to have given her the job meant that he was unhappy with the work of the other teams.
But I don’t know enough, Irisis thought. I don’t know anything about nodes, except that’s where the field comes from. This is a job for a mancer, not an artisan, and I’m neither. I can’t do it.
It became clear, as the night wore on, that she really only had one option. She must go to the scrutator and confess.
She knocked on his door at six in the morning, carrying a loaded tray.
‘Yes?’
She put the tray on the bed, since his table was littered with work. Flydd laid the pen aside, rubbed his temples and sniffed appreciatively.
‘That smells nice. I’ll bet a bottle of last night’s brandy you didn’t get it from the refectory.’
‘I made it,’ she said. ‘Specially.’
He gave her a keen stare, picked up the tray and placed it on his maps and papers. He took the cloth off to reveal freshly baked buns, a piece of grilled fish, still hot, and a bowl of ginger tea.
‘Will you join me?’ He indicated the other chair.