Bardas, who didn’t even know where his quarters were, nodded appreciatively. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and wondered what he could say to make the adjutant let him go. The stool was starting to get excruciatingly painful, and he had the feeling that a sudden movement would probably break it.
‘On the technical side,’ Asman Ila went on, carefully stifling a yawn, ‘you can always consult the foreman, Maj. I can’t say he’s entirely trustworthy, though I dare say he’s no worse than most, but he seems to know what he’s doing. He repaired a set of candlesticks for me; Riciden ware, missing the scrolled finials and the dished base. You can hardly tell the difference, except in a strong light. My great-grandfather took them from the library at Coil, so it’s hardly surprising they were damaged.’
A strong light, Bardas reflected. No danger of that here. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Will that be all?’
Asman Ila sat perfectly still for a few moments, staring at something above and just to the left of Bardas’ head. ‘And remember,’ he said suddenly, ‘my door is always open. Far better to deal with a problem when it arises than to try to hide it away until everything starts going wrong. After all,’ he added, ‘we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?
‘Maj,’ Bardas shouted for the third time. The man shook his head.
‘Never heard of him,’ he shouted back. ‘Why don’t you ask the foreman?’
Bardas shrugged, smiled and walked away. Going to have to find some way of coping with this noise, he thought, as he threaded his way between the benches, doing his best to stay out of the reach of the machines and the swinging hammers. Anyway, it makes a change after the mines.
Eventually he found the foreman (who was called Haj, not Maj); he was curled up in a little niche in the gallery wall, fast asleep. Haj turned out to be a short, stocky man in his early sixties, with long, bony forearms and the largest hands Bardas had ever seen. His right shoulder was higher than his left, and his hair was bristly and white.
‘Bardas Loredan,’ Haj repeated. ‘The hero. Right, follow me.’
Haj moved quickly, taking lots of short steps; he ducked and threaded his way through the crowded workshop without apparently looking where he was going, leaving the more cautious Loredan far behind, so that twice Haj had to stop and wait for him to catch up. Like everybody Bardas had seen in the workshop, Haj wore a long leather apron that started under his chin and ended just above his ankles; he wore big military boots with steel caps over the toes, and the pocket of his apron was stuffed full of small tools and bunches of rag.
‘You coming, then?’
‘Sorry,’ Bardas said.
‘This way,’ said Haj; and a moment later he vanished. Bardas stood for a second or two, trying to work out where he’d gone; then he saw a little, low archway in the gallery wall, nearly invisible in the dim light. He had to bend almost double to get under it.
The archway led to a short, very narrow passageway that ended in another steep, scary staircase that spiralled four turns and emerged on to a plank catwalk, high above the shop floor. There was no handrail. Fancy that, Bardas reflected, glancing down. Presumably I’ve been afraid of heights all my life and never realised it till now. He fixed his eyes on the door at the end of the catwalk, which led into the back wall of the gallery. Unless Haj had fallen to his death or turned into a bird, he was beyond that door somewhere. Bardas sucked in a long, deep breath and followed, his hands clasped behind his back, taking care not to look at his feet.
Beyond the door there was another narrow corridor, which turned a right angle and then stretched on into the darkness. Doors opened off it at frequent intervals; one of them was open, and Bardas went in.
‘There you are,’ said Haj’s voice in the gloom. ‘Well, this is it. Nice room.’
Bardas felt his way along the wall with his hands until something blocked his way. He reached out and felt rough wood; flat planks and a bar. He lifted the bar, which slipped through his fingers and fell on the floor, then groped around until he found a handle, and pulled. The room flooded with light as the shutter swung back, revealing what looked depressingly like a prison cell. There was a shelf projecting out of the wall, with a single folded blanket and a single yellowing pillow; another ledge under the window, on which stood a plain brown pottery jug and a white-enamelled tin bowl. That was it.
‘Thank you,’ Bardas said.
Haj sniffed. ‘You don’t like it, I can tell,’ he said.
‘No, no,’ Bardas said, ‘it’s fine. At least, I’ve lived in worse.’
‘Really?’ Haj said. ‘Most of us sleep on the roof, or under our benches in the shop in the wet season.’ He looked round, as if daring Bardas to criticise further. ‘Has anybody told you what you’re meant to be doing?’ he said.
‘Not really,’ Bardas replied. ‘The adjutant said something about supervising, but-’
Haj smiled. ‘You don’t want to bother too much about anything he says. It’s the foremen who run this place, which is how it should be, of course.’
‘I see,’ Bardas said. ‘And what am I? A foreman?’
Haj shook his head. ‘Really, you haven’t got a job,’ he said. ‘They do this from time to time, send us people they can’t find places for anywhere else. Doesn’t do any harm, usually, so long as they keep out of everybody’s road. Basically, you do what the hell you like, just don’t interfere, that’s all. Let’s see, pay call’s last day of the month; you lose two quarters kit and uniform levy, three quarters wounds and burial club, two quarters retentions, and the rest of it’s yours to spend, though if you’ve got any sense you’ll keep it in the big safe in the back of the stockroom, like the rest of them do. Good rule of thumb: don’t leave anything lying about unless you don’t care if it gets stolen. Lot of light-fingered types here; nothing else to do, see. Right, mess call’s an hour after each shift; you’re entitled to use the officers’ mess in the tower basement, but that comes expensive, a quarter a day not including wine or beer. Otherwise, you can muck in with the rest of us in the canteen; ask anybody and they’ll show you where it is.’
Bardas nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What’s retentions? ’
‘Retentions,’ Haj repeated. ‘Two quarters a month. Don’t you know what retentions are?’
‘Sorry,’ Bardas said. ‘Not something we had in the sappers, or at any rate we didn’t call it that.’
Haj sighed a little. ‘Retentions is what’s stopped out of everybody’s pay for their demob. You know,’ he added, ‘when you leave the army. It’s for your old age, that sort of thing; you get back what you put in, plus your gratuity, less stoppages, fines, levies, exemptions, stuff like that. Didn’t you have that in the mines?’
‘No,’ Bardas said. ‘I suppose the chance of any of us having an old age was too small to warrant the extra work.’
‘Whatever,’ Haj said. ‘Well, we got it here. Now, is there anything else I’ve got to tell you? Don’t think so. Anything you don’t understand, just ask somebody, all right?’
‘That’s fine,’ Bardas said. ‘Thank you.’
Haj nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got to get back down there, before the whole section grinds to a halt.’
When he’d gone, Bardas sat on the bed for a while, staring at the opposite wall, listening to the sound of hammers. Just the ticket, he told himself cheerfully; no problem at all staying out of trouble. I’m going to like it here. It didn’t work. Above all, he could hear the pecking of the hammers; when he put his hands over his ears, he could feel them just as clearly. It’s higher up than the mines, he tried hopefully. And there’s nobody trying to kill me; now that’s got to be worth something.