Geomancer (Well of Echoes) (70 page)

Nish hardly saw Irisis from one week to the next, though each time he did she looked more and more stressed. They had not been lovers since leaving on the failed hunt for Tiaan. One night he went past her door at two in the morning and noticed that her light was still on. He knocked.

‘Come in, Nish!’

She was sitting up in bed with a coat about her shoulders, staring at the wall. ‘I’m not in the mood,’ she said before he could open his mouth.

‘Neither am I.’

‘But …’ She did not go on.

‘I came because … are you all right, Irisis?’

She had drawn the coat sleeve across her face and was rubbing furiously at her eyes. ‘It’s started again.’

‘What?’

‘The sabotages. Another controller was damaged yesterday while we were out. Gryste has been making veiled threats.’

‘Against you?’ he said incredulously.

‘The saboteur isn’t
Tiaan!
’ Irisis said with dripping sarcasm. ‘After she went to the breeding factory I felt that it was the apothek, but he’s dead. So who
is
it? I once suspected Muss the halfwit, but I don’t know any more. Now I’m being blamed. Every time something has happened, I’ve been around. I have a record and I’m the obvious suspect. And if I
didn’t
do it, Gryste is demanding to know why I haven’t found out who did. I am in charge, after all.’

‘Gryste is a bitter man,’ said Nish. ‘Is he out to get you, do you think? Have you ever had …?’

‘He’s not my kind of man.’

‘Have you ever rejected him?’ Nish asked delicately.

‘Not knowingly. He’s never asked. Besides, he goes for big, blowzy women. Artificers and other low types.’

He did not react to the provocation. She was not herself. ‘Then why does he hate you so?’

‘He was passed over for overseer, remember? Tuniz was way below him and promoted straight to the top. Her work is flawless so he’s after me instead. He’d never have made overseer anyway, and the scrutator blames him for not uncovering who the saboteur was last time. Gryste blames his troubles on me.’

The following day Nish was on his way to the water barrel when he heard two artificers gossiping.

‘Reckon it is the crafter,’ said one. ‘You heard what she did to set up Artisan Tiaan?’

‘Yeah! I’ve never liked Irisis, the stuck-up cow! About time the scrutator …’

They broke off as he approached, hurrying back to their benches. Nish heard a lot more of that in the next few days. The scrutator went about with a thunderous face and there were unannounced searches of many rooms in the manufactory, including those of Nish and Irisis.

Nothing was discovered, but a week later a hedron, one of the best, was found smashed on the crafter’s bench. Within the hour Irisis was in the cells.

Nish was not allowed to visit; the way was blocked by a pair of the foreman’s personal guard. He went looking for Gryste, but he was in conference with the overseer and scrutator. Collecting a plate of stew and rice from the refectory, Nish went to Ullii’s room to ask his daily question.

‘Have you seen any sign of Tiaan or the crystal?’

‘No.’ The seeker wrinkled up her nose, then slipped in her noseplugs.

He did not offer her any of his dinner, for she would not have been able to eat it. The stew was heavily spiced to disguise that it had been made a week ago and was well past its best. Ullii lived on fruit, vegetables and cereal, with an occasional piece of mild cheese, poached fish or boiled kid. She could not abide strong flavours of any kind, nor any sort of spice or condiment.

Nish sat on the floor, miserably eating his stew. It tasted even more horrible than usual.

‘What’s the matter, Nish?’ The seeker crept up beside him.

‘Irisis has been put in the dungeon.’

‘That’s nice.’ She sighed.

‘What?’ he cried.

Ullii scuttled away from the miniature explosion. ‘I was happy in the dungeon of Mancer Flammas.’

‘Irisis will not be happy. And I can’t even talk to her.’

The trial had gone badly from the first. A succession of guards testified that, at the time of the sabotages, the only person in the vicinity of the artisans’ workshop had been Irisis. Foreman Gryste confirmed the evidence of his guards. Notes made previously by Gi-Had were read out. They contained Irisis’s admissions about planting evidence against Tiaan and stealing her work. Lastly, the clerk read a statement by Jal-Nish, detailing his suspicions about Irisis and describing her ‘unprovoked’ attack on him by the frozen river. Witnesses were called to confirm the attack, including Nish.

Two chroniclers sat on the scrutator’s right hand – the official historian of the manufactory, and a scribe recording the event for Irisis’s family, to be sure the shameful scene was written correctly into the family Histories of the House of Stirm. The manufactory’s teller was there too. When all was recorded the scrutator sat back in his chair, sucking on his whiskers. He stared at Irisis, at Nish and at each of the witnesses in turn. Irisis met his gaze defiantly. The others looked away.

‘Well, Crafter Irisis, have you anything to say?’

‘I have previously admitted to planting evidence against Tiaan and to stealing her work. It is true that I assaulted the perquisitor. The brute deserved it and I would do it again! I deny the sabotages and all the other charges.’

‘She would!’ cried Gryste. ‘Scrutator, we must be rid of her for the good of the war.’

Xervish Flydd turned that gaunt face to him. ‘Are you trying this case, foreman?’ he said mildly.

‘I just …’

Flydd waved his hand and the man fell silent. ‘Clerk, would you read out the penalties for this series of crimes?’

The clerk, a tiny woman of advanced years and as wrinkled as a dried olive, squinted at a piece of parchment.

‘On the charge of planting evidence,
admitted
, a month in the breeding factory.’

Nish was watching Irisis. As the penalty was read out, her face cracked. For an instant it looked as if she was going to scream, then she took control and he saw only a mask.

‘On the charge of stealing Artisan Tiaan’s work,
admitted
, three months in the breeding factory. On the charge of assaulting the perquisitor,
admitted
, two years in the breeding factory.’ She paused to draw breath.

‘On the charges of sabotage,
denied
, the penalties are public execution in each case, by any of the methods specified for the criminal’s craft.’ The clerk handed the parchment up to the scrutator for signature.

Xervish Flydd picked up a quill. ‘Have you anything to say, Crafter Irisis, before I sign the warrants?’

‘Only that the charges I have denied are false. I would never do anything to betray the cause I, and my family, have worked for over these past hundred and fifty years.’

‘All traitors say that!’

‘Once I am dead, you will still be looking for the real traitor and the sabotages will go on.’

‘Hmn,’ said the scrutator.

Nish put his head in his hands. He could not look at Irisis. The thought of attending the execution, as he would be required to do, was too ghastly to contemplate.

‘Has any other witness anything to say?’ said the scrutator.

Nish could think of nothing that would count as mitigation. No one else spoke either.

‘Before I confirm the sentences,’ the scrutator went on, ‘which I am entitled to do on the evidence before me … Well, I like to be sure. I propose to call a witness, and carry out a test, of my own. Call the seeker!’

Nish sat up. It seemed irregular to say the least, and surely several of the sabotages had been carried out before Ullii arrived at the manufactory.

Ullii was led in, wearing her mask and earmuffs. She was trembling as she took her place beside the scrutator. He spoke softly to her and gave her his hand. As Ullii drew it to her nose, Nish felt a moment of jealous outrage. That was
his
role; surely the smell of that withered old man could not do the same for her?

The scrutator gave an imperceptible twitch of his snaky eyebrow. Nish, who was sitting up the back, heard the door-bolts click. The guards took their positions, two on either side of the door.

‘I have here,’ said the scrutator, holding up a chain and the broken remains of a pliance, and in the other hand a milky hedron, ‘evidence which Overseer Gi-Had kept under special guard. It is the remains of Artisan Tiaan’s pliance, destroyed when she tried to read one of the failed hedrons. The enemy felt this evidence so threatening that they attacked the manufactory to recover it. Fortunately they did not get it.’ Reaching across, he put the objects by Ullii’s hand.

‘Seeker, Artisan Tiaan saw something in these artefacts. Can you read anything from them? Please stand so everyone can see you.’

Ullii stood up, shaking. For someone who avoided people at all times, this was the worst ordeal she could be put to. Holding the hedron out, she said something in an inaudible voice. Irisis, who had risen to her feet, sat down and the light faded from her eyes.

‘Speak up, seeker!’ rumbled Flydd. ‘No one can hear you.’

In a voice that precisely imitated his, she said, ‘It is dead. I can see nothing in it.’ She laid the ruined pliance on the benchtop.

Among the crowd, someone let out a great sigh. ‘And this crystal,’ said the scrutator, ‘which is the failed hedron from Disgraced Operator Ky-Ara’s original controller?’

Ullii reached for the crystal but drew back at once. Emitting a single sharp scream, she began to curl up into a ball.

‘Stop that!’ the scrutator said sharply. ‘Come back, seeker.’

Ullii froze, then slowly, gracefully uncurled.

‘What do you see in the crystal, seeker?’

She gasped, clutched at his hand and said. ‘A clawer! Spying on me.’

‘Do you mean a lyrinx?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘What else?’

‘A man. The clawer is giving something to a man. White gold!’

‘A man? The spy! Can you see his face?’

‘No. His back is to me.’

‘And that is
all
you can see?’ Nish could read bitter disappointment in the scrutator’s frame.

‘Yes,’ said Ullii.

‘Very well. Have you anything to say, Artisan Irisis? Do you admit that this man is your paymaster?’

‘Don’t be absurd! My family is rich. I have more money than I can ever spend.’

‘Doesn’t mean you don’t want more! Thank you, seeker. You may go down. Clerk, if you would be so good as to hand me the charge sheet, I will confirm …’

Suddenly something occurred to Nish and he sprang to his feet. ‘Scrutator! scrutator!’

‘Yes?’ he snapped. ‘It’s too late for special pleading now, artificer. The trial is done.’

‘It’s new evidence,’ he cried. ‘Please, I beg leave to put a question to the seeker.’

‘Oh? What question could you possibly ask that I haven’t already thought of?’

Nish chose his words with particular care in case he insulted the scrutator. ‘I know her better than anyone, surr. The seeker never volunteers, because it never occurs to her, and she only answers what she is asked. You asked the wrong question, surr. With great respect.’

‘Respect is a commodity you’ve always been short of, boy, like your wretched father. Very well, put your question.’

‘Ullii,’ said Nish, his heart pounding, ‘would you take up the crystal?’

Turning her masked eyes to him, she reached out, touching the hedron with one fingertip.

‘No, take it in your hand, Ullii.’

She gave a little cry of anguish, or of terror. The scrutator clasped her other hand. Ullii took up the crystal.

‘Look at the image of the man with his back to you. Do you recognise him?’

‘No,’ said Ullii.

‘Bah! Damned nonsense,’ came a voice from the crowd. ‘I already know who the paymaster is.’ Foreman Gryste stood. ‘I’ve been doing
my
job, even if no one else has.’

‘Are you suggesting that
I
haven’t been doing my job?’ the scrutator asked mildly.

Gryste faltered. ‘No, surr. I’m sorry. I have the man in my cells, surr.’

‘Oh?’ said the scrutator. ‘Which man, foreman?’

‘The one who’s always hanging around, sticking his fat nose into everyone’s work, and doing none of his own. It’s Muss, surr. Eiryn Muss.’

‘The halfwit!’ Flydd burst out laughing.

‘He’s no halfwit, surr. He’s a cunning spy and he’s fooled us all.’

‘Even me, foreman?’ Flydd said dangerously.

‘I’m afraid so, surr.’

The scrutator gestured. ‘Bring Muss here, and keep a firm hold of him. Don’t let him see anything secret on the way.’ He laughed at his joke.

It was like watching a corpse laugh; but Nish wondered, as he had once before, if Muss was more than he seemed.

The scrutator did not resume his questioning of Ullii. There was silence for a few minutes, then the guards came pounding in. ‘Surr, surr!’

‘What is it, man?’ the scrutator inquired.

‘The prisoner has fled, surr,’ the leading guard cried.

‘How?’

‘The lock is burnt completely from the door. Sorcery!’ He shivered.

Flydd did not look surprised.

‘What did I tell you, surr,’ said Gryste. ‘This proves it.’

‘It proves something, foreman, though I don’t know what.’

Flydd turned to Nish. ‘Go on with your questioning, artificer.’

Nish’s confidence had taken a battering. There seemed little point in continuing. ‘This man you saw in the crystal, Ullii, does he have a talent of any kind?’

‘A very small talent,’ she said softly. ‘Tiny!’

‘Then you should be able to see him in your lattice.’

Ullii shrugged.

‘Search your lattice, Ullii. Is there anyone in it with the same kind of knot as that man’s talent has?’

Irisis was on her feet, quivering with emotion. The scrutator stood as well.

Ullii folded up. ‘Yes.’ She looked down at the polished surface of the bench.

A buzz went through the crowd. One by one, everyone rose. ‘It’s Muss!’ cried Gryste. ‘After him, before it’s too late!’

‘Silence!’ The scrutator held up his hand. ‘The first person to make a noise goes to the front-lines.’ No one moved.

‘Is that man in the room, Ullii?’ said Nish.