‘I don’t think he’s breathing.’
‘Doesn’t have to ’til the cord is cut. Give him here.’
Tali cut the cord with her harvesting knife and knotted the end, carefully, respectfully. She picked the tiny baby up, feeling his lungs struggling as she embraced him with her hands and gave him to Mia. If he died, they might escape punishment — no, what sort of a monster was she, wishing that on a helpless infant?
He took a faint breath. ‘You’ve got to hide him, Mia. Hurry! I’ll say you’ve gone to the squattery to pee.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Mia said dreamily. ‘I’ve just had a baby.’
Tali wanted to slap her. ‘A Cythonian baby! And you know the penalty.’
‘They wouldn’t hurt my baby.’ Mia cradled the infant in her arms.
It was like standing beneath a toppling wall. ‘Come on!’ Tali tried to lift her. ‘If you’re quick, you can still get away with it.’
‘Leave me alone,’ wailed Mia. ‘You’re spoiling everything.’ She looked down and her face cracked. ‘Tali, he’s not breathing. Do something.’
The baby’s lips were turning blue. Tali put her hands around his tiny body. Heal, heal! But saving a life was far beyond her skill. He gave a little shudder and lay still. Tears welled in Tali’s eyes. The poor little thing hadn’t had a chance.
As she stood there, not knowing what to do, a rumbling voice echoed through the archway from the next grotto. Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. What was Overseer Banj doing here today? Investigating what had happened to Orlyk, of course.
Guilt rose up in her throat like vomit. She crouched in front of Mia, pressing the baby into her arms. ‘It’s Banj, checking up. Hide it, quick!’
‘Banj won’t hurt me,’ said Mia. ‘Not when I show him my beautiful baby.’
‘Your son is gone,’ Tali said gently.
‘No, he’s not!’
‘Mia, he’s dead. Please — ’
Mia’s face crumpled. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’
Banj was kindly, as slave masters went, but he could not overlook a grey baby. ‘He’ll have both of us scourged.’
‘Run away, then,’ said Mia, kicking Tali in the knee. ‘It’s your fault my little boy is dead.’
That hurt all the more because it was true. It was her fault Banj was here, too, and if ever there was a time for risking her mother’s subtle magery it was now. Tali closed her eyes, whispered the words and made the gestures exactly as she had been taught, then focused her will to cast a concealing glamour over the baby. Mist churned in her inner eye and her scar tingled, but when she opened her eyes the baby was still visible.
It was too late to try again. ‘Put it in my bucket,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll cover it up and carry it out to the composter.’
The compost buckets were often checked in case the slaves were stealing food, and if she were caught the consequences would be dire, but Tali had to make up for the disaster she had caused.
‘Lost everything,’ choked Mia. ‘Want to die.’
‘You’ll get over it. Soon — ’
Mia slapped Tali across the face. ‘Don’t want to get over my baby. Go away! I hate you!’
The overseer was approaching the archway and the best option for both of them was for Tali to disappear. If no other slave had seen the grey baby, Banj might not punish Mia too severely. Tali kissed her damp cheek then ducked below the benches as he came down the central path. It was the only thing to do, so why did she feel like a faithless friend?
She reached the archway, rinsed her bloody hands under a spring and slipped into the next grotto. Suba had gone and the half dozen slaves were moving away, heads down.
Tali scuttled to the exit and out into the broad passageway, which was sculpted and painted to resemble a resin-pine forest under snow. Water gurgled by in one of the siphons, its stone sides carved to resemble a rivulet with reed beds cut in relief. Where to go? Idle slaves attracted attention; she could not wait here.
She headed for the squattery, then stopped. Further on, the passage was blocked by a Cythonian teacher, a buxom brunette with single, bright blue spot-tattoos on each cheekbone, who was instructing a dozen chattering children in the art of wall sculpting.
‘First we take a measure of solu,’ the teacher said, pouring a cupful of palest green liquid from an orange-ringed carboy into a bucket. ‘Be careful with it. The waste alk-’ She broke off, colouring. ‘Forget I said that.’
‘Yes, teacher,’ chorused the children.
‘Solu is a thrice-diluted waste from the segregators, made for us by the master chymister, but it can still burn.’ She held out her forearm, where a long red scar cut across her smooth grey skin.
The children stared at the scar, big-eyed. Tali did, too. She had often wondered what solu was made from, that even thrice-diluted waste could do such damage. She stopped to watch, for she had never seen stone carving done up close before.
Every wall in Cython was carved into dioramas of forest or meadow, glade or stream, mountain or pool or wild seashore. Inlaid pieces of glow-stone fostered the illusion of distance, as if the cramped caverns extended out into their lost homeland, while water gurgling in the siphons, and air sighing through wind-pipes brought each scene back to human scale.
No people, buildings or roads featured in these dioramas, which depicted a natural paradise empty of humanity. Could they not bear to think of Hightspallers occupying the land that had once been theirs, or was there a darker reason?
‘We paint the solu on a small patch of wall, thus.’ The teacher dipped a broad Pale-hair brush in the bucket and swept it back and forth across a square yard of stone until the surface began to swell. ‘We wait one minute.’ She consulted the greenstone chrono around her neck, tapping her right sandal as she waited for the toothed wheels to mesh. ‘Then,’ she took up a small mallet and a chisel with a curved edge, ‘we carve away the unwanted stone like curd.’
Within another minute she had cut a hollow elbow-deep into the softened stone and, at its centre, shaped a noble tree with spreading branches. A lump on one branch became a predatory wildcat, its long tail hanging down. It was staring out of the forest and, as the teacher shaped its eyes with a stone pick, it seemed to wake and the children gave a massed sigh.
‘That’s boring,’ said a round-faced boy. ‘Can I carve a crocodile eating a slave-girl?’
The teacher smacked his face. ‘No, you impertinent lout.’
‘Why not?’ said the boy.
‘Only those scenes set down in the fourth book of the Solaces are permitted.’
She turned back to the wall. ‘Now, children, we roughen the fur with four-times-diluted etchu.’ She painted liquid from a yellow-ringed carboy onto the cat, then washed it off at once. ‘And finally, to make smooth areas we use sheenu — ’
‘Why do we have to live in this horrible place?’ said the troublesome boy.
‘Because the enemy stole Cythe from us.’
‘Who were we before we came here?’
‘We don’t ask that question.’
‘We’re not allowed to ask any questions,’ the boy muttered.
‘You don’t need to. The matriarchs follow the Solaces, and the Solaces know best.’
‘I don’t think we ever lived in Cythe,’ said the boy. ‘I think the matriarchs made it all up.’
The teacher’s face went purple, then she pulled a black wafer from her bag and said furiously, ‘Take this to your father.’
The boy’s grey skin went as pale as Tali’s. ‘Sorry, teacher.’
The teacher thrust the black wafer in his face. ‘Go! You have no place here.’
The boy took the wafer and stumbled away, wailing. No one else in the class said a word and, after a minute or two, the teacher resumed her carving, though now her hand was shaking. It was rare for the enemy to reveal any dissension.
Tali headed back past the air wafters, praying that Mia had hidden the baby and she was all right. Here the only sound was the whisper of the wafter blades and the soft panting of the slaves who drove them, walking their treadmills hour after hour, year after year, life after life.