Alector's Choice (8 page)

“If they’re
troublemakers… ?” suggested Dainyl, trying to draw the majer out.

“Some are, but most
are just careless. That’s not good because their families are supporting the
rebels. I can’t prove that, but…”

“What else?”

“We had almost twenty
rifles stolen,” admitted Herryf. “They were listed as being in the armory. I
know they were there in the spring, but they’re not there now. Until this past
year, we’ve lost less than one rifle per year.”

“How did that
happen?”

“I don’t know, sir.
That’s one of the reasons…”

After a moment,
Dainyl spoke. “You have two companies here, and they keep the compound, and
serve as guards at the mine. Are all their rifles accounted for?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By number?”

“Sir?”

“I suggest you check
the maker numbers against the inventory. Or have you?”

Herryf looked down,
his arrogance vanishing.

“Let me know the next
time a rifle vanishes. Immediately.”

“Yes, sir.” With
Herryf’s ready assent came a sense of puzzlement.

Dainyl didn’t bother
to explain. He was beginning to see why the Highest had not wanted to send a
company of Myrmidons. He also needed to find out a great deal more from

Herryf, and some of
that would have to wait until he knew what questions to ask.

Still… he could learn
some things now. “How many men are assigned to the guard detail each day?”

“How many prisoners
have been shot trying to escape…”

“How many of your
Cadmians are from Dramur…”

Dainyl had more than
a few questions. He also knew that he didn’t know enough to ask some of the
more important ones because he didn’t know what they were.

Despite two long and
tiring days of flying, on Novdi, Dainyl woke early—with the sky a dark greenish
gray. He washed and dressed and made his way down to the mess, barely after
dawn, where a sleepy-eyed cook fixed him egg toast and ham, with biscuits, and
poured him a pitcher of ale. Like most alectors, he found that the ale helped
in digesting the Corean food.

Only as he was
leaving did he see a captain walking toward the officers’ mess.

“Captain?”

The young-faced
Cadmian captain stopped and stiffened. “Yes, sir, Colonel?” Like Herryf, he was
dark-haired, and his skin was darker. Unlike the majer, he projected neither
arrogance nor fear, just a sense of concern and puzzlement.

“I take it you have
some sort of duty today?”

“Yes, sir. Two of my
squads have mine duty.”

“Do you go with
them?”

“Usually, I let the
senior squad leader take the morning, sir, and I relieve him at midday. The
other squads are on standby here at the compound.”

“Do the companies
that aren’t on duty have off all of Novdi and Decdi?”

“Yes, sir. The other
company does. It’s always been that way.”

“Have you seen any
signs of trouble with the miners?”

“There’s always
someone making trouble, sir. Complaining about the work-gang bosses or the food
or something. They do it when they’re in a group, and you can’t see who’s
yelling.”

“Anything besides
complaining?”

The captain cocked
his head, clearly wondering whether to say more. After a moment, he replied.
“Some… we’ve had more of the mals trying to escape in the last season.”

“Have any actually
escaped?”

“I’d guess so, sir.”

“You’d guess? You
don’t know?”

“It’s like this, sir.
The mine road crosses the MuraltoRiver, and it’s a good ten-twelve yards wide
and more than five deep where the bridge is. The bridge crosses a gorge. Some
of them have jumped from the bridge.” The captain shrugged. “It’s a good twenty
yards, and it’s pretty steep. Some of them hit the rocks and die right there.
We’ve found bodies downstream, but the ones we don’t find, there’s no way to
tell whether they made it or the sleuers got them.”

“Where else do they
try to escape?”

“Some try to climb
the crags above the mine. The mals’ll stage a fight, and when things settle
down, someone’s missing.”

“You don’t use your
weapons to break up these fights?”

“Sir, begging your
pardon. We try not to. If we did, we’d have a lot fewer miners.”

“I’m sorry,” Dainyl
replied. “I should have seen that” He had seen it, but he wanted to hear what
the captain said. “How many have tried to escape in the last season?”

“I’d have to check
the records, sir. We keep track of that. I’d say… maybe ten, could be fifteen.
Usually we find six or seven bodies, one way or another, out of every ten who
try.”

The colonel nodded.
“Thank you, Captain. I’m sorry to have kept you from breakfast.”

“I’ll manage, sir.”
The young captain smiled.

Dainyl was ready to
leave the man, but couldn’t resist asking a last question. “What do you see as
the problem with the miners?”

“A lot of them are
scared, sir. They claim funny things are going on in the mine. We’ve never seen
anything, but… the miners say there are things up there, and deep in the mine.”

“I see.” Dainyl
paused. ‘Thank you.“

“Yes, sir.”

The captain headed
toward the mess and Dainyl toward his quarters.

Once back in his room,
the colonel considered what the captain had said, especially compared to what
Majer Herryf had said. The captain had been telling the truth. So had Herryf.
Yet one saw the mals doing the mining as frightened, perhaps terrified, enough
to jump into rivers in gorges, and the other saw the mals as part of a
reballion.

He hadn’t been in his
quarters more than a quarter glass when there was a knock on the door. “Colonel
Dainyl, sir?”

Dainyl moved to the
door and opened it.

The Cadmian squad
leader who stood outside his quarters door was short, broad-shouldered, with
black eyes and a swarthy cast to his face. Despite the light brown hair, his
antecedents were mainly indigen. “Squad leader Rhasyr, Colonel. Majer Herryf
has detailed me to escort you.” He smiled. “Majer Herryf arranged for an early
meeting with Director Donasyr. The Council Director will be available after
that at your convenience. I had one of the larger mounts saddled for you.”

Dainyl could sense
the general good nature of the squad leader, and that helped lift his
irritation at the majer. At the very least, if Dainyl had been expecting a
senior officer, he would have escorted the officer, and if he’d been unable for
other reasons, he would have made sure the escort was an officer of appropriate
rank. Then, there weren’t that many officers. The one captain had duty, and
there was only one other. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll wait
below for you.”

After closing the
door, Dainyl walked to the desk and folded the sheets of paper with some of his
questions, slipping them inside his tunic. He checked his sidearm, then made
his way outside and down the steps.

Rhasyr not only had
two mounts, but two other Cadmian troopers as well. “An officer such as you,
sir, you must have at least a small honor guard.” He inclined his head.

“Thank you.” Dainyl
turned to the two rankers. “I appreciate your being here so early.”

The younger of the
two looked almost frozen; the older inclined his head, and said, “Thank you,
sir.”

Dainyl mounted, and the
four rode across the courtyard to the open gates, where a pair of guards
watched them leave.

Beyond the compound
walls, the graystone road was less than four yards wide, and there was no
shoulder, just reddish clay with scattered clumps of grass that was half-tan
and half-green. As with all Cadmian compounds, the first half vingt away from
the walls was level and clear, with the only vegetation being grass. Beyond
that were low trees that were scarcely taller than Dainyl’s head as he rode
beside Rhasyr.

“What are the trees?”

“Casaran nuts. They
are very bitter.” Rhasyr grimaced. “They soak them in salt water and dry them.
Then they crush them. They make good fodder for horses and livestock. We need
it because there is not enough grass here for proper grazing, and the good
grass only grows on the plains south of the big mountain.”

“What other crops
grow here?”

“Not much, sir.
Everything except the wheat in the south comes from the west. The biggest crops
are maize and the apple bananas. They have plantations for the bananas in the
west, across the mountains. They’re very tasty.”

Dainyl hadn’t heard
of apple bananas. “Where are the dyeworks?”

“Those are at
Santazl. That’s on the bay south of Dra-muria. Most of the young ones learn to
dive early, and they bring up the purple clams. The black comes from the
squid-docs. They must use nets for those, and heavy gloves. Poisonous things,
and nasty. Some of the dyeworkers get killed every year. I don’t know that
being a dyeworker is much better than being a miner, except the dyeworkers can
go home at night.”

The road curved
southward through a hillside cut, descending toward a stone bridge over a
stream. Beyond the bridge, the fields and nut orchards ended, and the graystone
houses began.

“How far?” asked
Dainyl.

“The mining building
is just across the bridge, and a couple hundred yards up the road that turns
into the mine road farther out.”

As they crossed the
bridge, Dainyl glanced at the water, then upstream. So far as he could tell, no
one was fouling the water. Clean rivers were important in growing lifeforce
mass.

About fifty yards
beyond the bridge, the four turned right at a stone-paved boulevard. They rode
for but a fraction of a glass, before Rhasyr said, “There. That is the mining
building.”

The building before
which Rhasyr reined up was a square one-story stone structure no more than
twenty yards on a side. The red tile roof was highest at the rear and sloped
forward, with eaves overhanging the front wall by a good three yards to form a
covered porch.

As Dainyl dismounted
and handed the reins of the bay to Rhasyr, a man stepped onto the smoothed
stones of the porch.

“You must be the
colonel. I’m Director Donasyr. Do come in.” Like Herryf, Donasyr was short,
squarish, and dark, but unlike the majer, his eyes did not bulge. They were a
dark gray and deep-set under bushy black eyebrows. He wore a short-sleeved
brown tunic and matching trousers, with dark brown boots.

“We will wait for you
here, sir,” Rhasyr said.

“Thank you.” Dainyl
stepped up onto the porch, then had to duck his head to go through the doorway
into the narrow foyer, following Donasyr into a conference room holding a
circular table and five chairs. The single window looked out on the empty
boulevard.

“My study’s filled
with reports and papers.” The mine director smiled, but only with his mouth.
Behind Donasyr’s pleasant and well-modulated voice, Dainyl sensed irritation
and anger. ‘Take any seat, please.“

Dainyl sat in the
armless wooden chair that faced the window across the table. Donasyr either had
to sit close to the colonel, or with his back to the window. The mine director
sat down across from Dainyl.

‘Tell me about what’s
happening at the mines that’s different,“ Dainyl said.

“We’re losing
workers. Some are getting killed trying to escape, and some are escaping. Worst
of all, none of them are working as hard as they used to. I’ve checked the food
rations. I’ve even increased them some. That didn’t help. For a time, I got
Majer Herryf to send more guards, but that didn’t help either. I switched the
overseers around. That didn’t help. I returned them to their original duties.
That didn’t help.”

“Do you have any
ideas why this is happening?”

“If I knew, I could
do something about it.” Frustration spilled into Donasyr’s words.

“When did you notice this?”

“Midsummer. After
the… incident. Two miners died. Found ‘em at the end of a tunnel. Not a mark on
them. None of the others could say how it happened. I even had one or two
flogged, but that didn’t change anything.” Donasyr shrugged and gave the nervous
headshake again. “After that, production dropped off, and the number that tried
to escape went up. We’ve got more bodies than we did last summer, and
production is down by almost two fifths.”

Those were facts that
no one had mentioned to Dainyl. “I’m a little surprised that you direct the
mines from here,” offered the colonel.

“You couldn’t get
anything done up there,” replied Donasyr. ‘There’s the smell, and the bugs.
Also, I need to be down here to take care of the shipping and financial
arrangements, and to keep track of the payments as they get transferred to our
account in the Duarches’ Bank.“

“Who gets the
payments?”

“They’re split. The
crafters and the guilds put up some of the money. So did the council, and a few
of the eastern sel-tyrs. The return isn’t that great after expenses, but it’s
created jobs and kept Dramuria independent of the seltyrs.”

Dainyl talked to
Donasyr for almost another full glass, but he wasn’t certain that he learned
much more than he had in the first few moments. More details, certainly, but
nothing that shed any additional light on what was happening at the mine.

In time, he thanked
Donasyr and left the building. Outside, Rhasyr and the other two Cadmians were
waiting on the shaded front porch, although the midmorning sun had turned the
day pleasantly warm for Dainyl.

The colonel gestured
toward the docks. ‘The council building’s still off the square?“

“They have talked
about building a new one for years,” replied Rhasyr, “but no one has.”

The four mounted and
began to ride into Dramuria. From all the carts and peddlers, Novdi was a
market day. As they rode slowly down the middle of the main street, avoiding
carts and wagons, Dainyl was aware that more than a few eyes focused on him. He
listened to those murmurs he could pick up.

“Myrmidon officer…”

“… means trouble when
you see one of ‘em…”

“Don’t stare at him,
Georgyt! They can kill you with a look…”

Dainyl was tempted to
turn and smile at the woman and her small son, out of perversity. He refrained.

Like the mining building,
the council building was a small graystone building with a red tile roof, but
the tiles were far older, and many were cracked. The building was oblong,
rather than square, and the front eaves only overhung the stone porch by little
more than a yard.

Dainyl dismounted,
again handing the bay’s reins to Rhasyr, and walked toward the main entrance, a
door painted a bright blue. Before he got there, it opened.

“Colonel Dainyl, do
come in!” The voice out of the shadowed foyer behind the door was hearty, and
Dainyl half expected a burly man, but the speaker was slight and rail-thin.
“Might as well use my study. One place is as cluttered as another. Oh… I’m
Sturwart, the current head of the council. For another season, that is.”

“I’m happy to meet
you, Sturwart.”

“I figured it would
be better for you to talk to Donasyr first. He likes to spend end days at his
place out west in Cyalt. The later you talked to him, the less he’d tell you.”
Sturwart scurried ahead of Dainyl down a corridor and through another doorway.
He gestured at the study, more spacious than the conference room at the mining
building, with a desk stacked with papers, a small square table with three
chairs, half-filled with papers, and two bookcases overflowing with volumes.
The two windows were high and narrow, and open.