The Iron Ship (37 page)

Demion pulled at his bottom lip.

“There are other benefits. Should an engine we sell to a client fail, a new part, exactly matching the old, can be sent to them. It is an incentive, husband, to buy our manufactures. With greater precision too comes the possibility of finer, more efficient engines. Don’t you see how this will ensure our future prosperity?”

Demion thought a long moment. “Do it,” he said. “Let’s try it. Anything to improve our finances. I think you might be on to something here.”

Katriona’s secretary knocked and popped his head around the door. “Begging your pardon, goodfellow, goodlady, Goodman Holdean’s here.”

“Ah!” said Katriona. “Send him in, Hollivar.”

“Right you are. Shall I have the tea brought in?”

“Please.”

“Are you ambushing me? I feel ambushed. This is going to be very awkward for me.” Demion cracked his knuckles.

“I do not shy away from my duties, nor should you. But I am not attempting to outmanoeuvre you, husband. There is something I must ask Goodman Holdean. We were speaking of finances. Better practice is not the sole answer to those,” she said to Demion. “I believe he can shed some light on that matter.”

Holdean came in, holding his hat respectfully in front of him. His hair had been greased and lay flat in last year’s fashion. He was surprised to see Demion with Katriona.

“Good day, Goodman Holdean,” said Katriona.

“Goodlady, goodfellow.”

“Goodfellow Morthrock and I were discussing my new plans for the factory.”

“Your plans, goodlady?” He looked at them. “I do not recognise the draughtsmanship.”

“It is mine,” she said.

“You drew these?”

“Yes, they are my plans.”

In came Katriona’s secretary bearing a tray with the accoutrements of tea drinking upon it. Demion cleared a space on Katriona’s desk. Hollivar set the tray down and withdrew.

“Tea, Goodman Holdean?”

“Yes, yes I will.” Holdean looked to Demion. “Goodfellow Morthrock, forgive me, but I am not completely certain of your intention. The factory is my responsibility. You yourself appointed me.”

“I did, cousin, but Katriona has some very fine ideas,” said Demion. “We should be open to new ideas.”

“I thought she was looking into the accounts?”

“She was. It has rather gone beyond that now.”

Holdean paled. His hands shook as he drank his tea.

“Goodfellow Morthrock... Demion. My position...?”

“Nothing to worry about man! You and Katriona will have to work together, that is all. You still have my trust.”

Katriona smiled encouragingly. Holdean relaxed visibly. “Well then. Well! That is a relief.”

“You thought your position in peril?”

“I don’t like to say, Goodfellow Morthrock,” he said. He gave a nervous chuckle. “My, oh my!” He took a drink of tea. Katriona did the same.

“I am glad that you are comfortable with Katriona’s appointment. There will be some changes around here, for the better, I am sure of it!”

Holdean obviously wasn’t happy, but he was smart enough not to say.

“You aren’t happy about it, are you, Holdean?” said Katriona.

“Oh no, not at all! It is not right, if you ask me. Women are all well and good, but the female brain is simply not suited for business. Do you know, they are actually smaller than men’s? The seat of intellect being smaller, then surely the intellect must be smaller also.”

“I say there, steady on, Holdean!” spluttered Demion. “That’s my wife you’re talking to.”

Katriona held up her hand.

“Are you taking money from the company, Holdean?”

“Yes I am,” he answered wholeheartedly, although his face displayed utter horror. “I have been since Mester Morthrock appointed me.”

“And how exactly have you been doing this?” Katriona said pleasantly. She held her tea up to her lips, but did not drink.

“It was very easy,” he said enthusiastically even as his eyes bulged and rolled in panic. “Demion is not at all interested in the business, and I have been able to take his money as easily as if he dropped it in the street! I have been making deals with our suppliers, purchasing goods at normal market rates, but securing receipts for inflated prices and pocketing the difference. And entering into the books that I have been buying far more than I actually have.” He looked helplessly at Demion. He tried to stand.

“Sit down,” said Katriona icily.

Demion’s knuckles whitened on the chair arms and he half rose, but he could not stand. The cords on his neck stood out with the effort, his face reddened.

“There you have it,” said Katriona. “Really, Demion, did you not question where the money was going? Why this profitable industry had become suddenly unprofitable?”

“Is this true?” asked Demion.

“Oh absolutely, Goodfellow Morthrock.” Holdean gritted his teeth to keep the words in. They escaped, somewhat strangled, but sincere and warm. “You are so blind it was almost too easy.”

“By the blazes!” Demion looked from his cousin to his wife. “Why did you confess?”

“That is good tea, isn’t it?” asked Katriona.

“It is delicious, goodlady.”

“It is made with the finest Ocerzerkiyan herbs. And the Waters of Truth.” She flung hers into the pot of the large plant behind her desk.

Demion looked in shock at his tea. “That’s illegal!”

“So is defrauding your employers. All the worse that it is family who are robbed. If one betrays one’s kin, who can one turn to? A sad aphorism, I always felt, and one unfortunately that Goodman Demion here will soon learn the truth of. Now, one final question. Who aided you in this venture?”

Holdean blurted a list of names. Unable to prevent himself from speaking, he said them quickly, but Katriona was ready and noted them all down. Four of Demion’s own employees, including all three accountants, and six more in other firms.

“Thank you very much, Goodman Holdean. That will be all. You are released.”

Holdean let out a cry and fair sprang to his feet. Red-faced, he waved his hat and shouted.

“What are you going to do? Discharge me and I’ll let everyone know that you have Demion on a leash. He’ll be the laughing stock of Karsa.”

“Do so,” said Katriona, “And I will inform everyone of your perfidy. You will be outcast and destitute.”

“We’ll see!” he said. “We’ll see!”

“I think you should be going now, Holdean old boy,” said Demion quietly.

Katriona called through the door. “Hollivar! Have Goodman Holdean escorted from the premises. He is not to stop or speak with anyone.”

“Right you are, goodlady,” called the secretary. Katriona had had three of the factory watchmen standing by. They were in the office in an instant. They grabbed Holdean’s elbows. He tried to shake them off, but they held fast. His hat dropped from his hands and rolled upon the rug. They did not allow him to retrieve it.

“You’ll not get away with this,” said Holdean.

“I think you will agree that I have got away with this, and rather that it is you that did not. Good day, Goodman Holdean. Take him away,” said Katriona.

Holdean did not go quietly. His shouted imprecations echoed down the corridor.

“So sad that men must resort to such crudity when they are confounded,” said Katriona.

“Well, well,” said Demion. “You, you are shaking all over! My dear, sit down!” Demion pulled out a chair for his wife. She sank gratefully into it.

“Such an interview is very bad for the nerves, husband.”

“I thought you unaffected.”

“Not so.”

He took her hand. “Did you drink the tea?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will ask you a question.”

“Oh?” she raised her eyebrow, but made no attempt to stop him.

“Do you think you could ever love me?”

She did not answer immediately, but stared deep into his expectant eyes. Hope brimmed in them. “Perhaps,” she said eventually. “Perhaps.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Revelation

459
PROVED TO
be a very cold year in Karsa.

The clouds of the Islands retreated, leaving the sky open to gimlet stars. In the cities, and in Karsa City in particular, their lights were dimmed by the smoke of factories. But these smogs were short lived and the clouds remained away. By late Frozmer, the year’s uncommon rains were a distant memory. The mornings were frosty, the nights cold. The fifth week of the month saw the first snow of the year. It blew in from the southeast in wet flurries that disappeared as soon as they touched the ground. Not unusual in the isles, perhaps, but it caused the old folk to mutter charms against Father Winter, and spit and complain to whoever would listen that it was never this bad in the old days.

No one listened, for they said the same thing every year.

The more provocative broadsheets carried warnings of dire weather to come, foreseen by those magisters who dabbled in meteorology. Snow glimpsed in dreams, ice in nightmares. The patterns of clouds in the guts of dead dracon-birds.

For once, they were right.

Thrice magically warded by Magister Ardovani, Vand’s shipyard was immune to the weather. Rain rattled off the corrugated roof. Weak sunshine failed to warm it. Storms tugged the sheets upon their nails without loosening them. Under this cover the activity on the ship never ceased. Hammers rang from sun-up until well after sundown into nights lit by glimmer lamps and paraffin. Arkadian Vand was forced to disburse the last of his liquid capital in silencing the complaints of the wealthier folk nearby. When he was not raging against their lack of foresight, he said to Trassan that nothing should detract from the great unveiling.

Every day Trassan came huffing in from the cold, trailing the sharp smell of bitter weather after him. A wall of industrial heat met him. By the time he had reached his office atop its stairs he had discarded his over clothes for his servants to collect.

The 33rd of Frozmer, three days before Coldbite and the official beginning of winter, was no different. Trassan dropped his overcoat over a cast-iron newelpost, deposited his gloves on a desk on the third landing, dropped his hat on his production manager’s station. But the clothes he wore beneath were not his normal attire.

He burst into his office.

“How do I look?”

Issy looked up from the catalogue of seed drills and sundry other agricultural equipment she was reading.

“Not so noisy now!” she scolded. The catalogue was enormous to her, so large she must walk its pages to read it.

“I said, how do I look?”

Issy walked the length of her home to get a better view. The sight of so perfect a creature in a cage had tugged at Trassan’s heart, and she now occupied a large model mansion. The interior he had furnished from a doll’s shop with miniature reproductions of fine furniture. Unlike the bird cage, large parts of her house were private, screened from human view. The edifice was the most fashionable (and most expensive) one he could find. The cage remained as garden, and Trassan had added small plants and three platforms linked by ladders to its interior for her to wander. Altogether Iseldrin’s home was an odd combination of toy house and aviary. Issy said she loved it, although she admonished him too, describing its construction as a heroic exercise in work avoidance.

It was to one of the platforms in the garden cage she went. From there she was close to the level of Trassan’s eyes.

“You look sweaty,” she said.

“The Goodlady Tyn overly flatters me,” he said irritably. “I had to run here.”

She shrugged. “Set off earlier then.”

“I am not sleeping much.”

She cocked her head, took in his pale skin, purple bruises under his eyes. “And you look like it. You are putting on weight too.”

“You are infuriating!”

“
You
are infuriating. I cannot lie. That’s a geas.”

“You have more geas than seems feasible.”

Her water had to be stirred anti-clockwise with a spoon of rowan, her food could not be eaten two days running from the same plate. Her name might be spoken freely except on the day of Omnus and all of the month of Little during leap years. There were more besides. Trassan had taken to writing them in a little book.

“Sit down,” she said. “Call for some tea. Take a breath!”

“Yes, yes. Alright.”

“It will be fine.”

“Of course.”

“You really are getting fatter.”

Trassan stared at her. She grinned back with her sharp, sharp teeth. “You’re welcome.”

She stepped down the stairs gracefully, her coiled hair bobbing prettily. She still wore the same dress. Trassan had never seen her bathe, nor wear any other clothes, but she was never dirty. Her house was crammed with objects and papers, all were ordered neatly; it was as immaculate as his office was messy.

Trassan sat a moment, fidgeting incessantly. He stood and went to the door. The clamour of the shipyard came in as he opened it.

“Send me Tyn Gelven!” he called out. “And get me some tea.”

He shut the door, and went back to his desk. He flicked through a disorderly pile of papers. They were all demands for payment. He scowled and pushed them aside. He drummed his fingers. He smacked his lips. He fiddled with a model of a new steam manifold he was designing. He tapped his feet. He...

“Stop fidgeting!” moaned Issy.

Trassan froze.

“Really! A grown man! You are like a child.” Issy tore a strip from her catalogue and began to eat the paper, her custom with the journals she particularly liked. “You should calm down. Work is going well. I have nothing bad to say to your future father-in-law, except that you cannot keep your hands from the body of his daughter.” She smiled around her paper and munched.

“That is great news,” he said sullenly. He began spinning a pen around on his desk, until he caught Issy’s furious look.

“Then what is wrong? After today, the money will come in. Your bills will go away as if magicked. Poof!” she waved her hand. A trail of glitter fell from it.

“I don’t suppose you could do that for me right now so I don’t have to go through with this?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said. She hid a delicate belch behind her hand. “Excuse me.”