annoyingly as he stooped to pick up the scrap of paper she'd apparently let fall from her pocket. His hand brushed hers as he mimed handing the paper back, which made her feel slightly sick. It wasn't a deliberate try-on, she knew that; probably he wasn't even aware he was doing it. She hated men, sometimes.
Once he was safely out of sight, she sat down on one of the stone ledges beside the market-house wall. Her hands were aching, and when she looked down she realized the knuckles were white. Deliberately she relaxed; hands, then arms and shoulders, then her back and legs. It made her wonder how people who lied for a living managed it. Presumably they got used to it, like slaughtermen or butchers, or soldiers after their first few battles.
With a click of her tongue she got up again. She hated running late. She'd have to rush to get Moritsa to school (was today the spinning test, or was it tomorrow?), and after that, all the usual chores to cram in before he came home again. Some days she had no idea where the time went.
The door was open when she got back. She was cursing herself for not shutting it properly on her way out when she realized there was someone in the house: two men in military uniform, light armor but no weapons. She felt all the energy drain out of her.
'Ariessa Falier?'
She nodded. 'You didn't have to bash the door down,' she said. 'You could've waited outside till I got home. I was only gone a few minutes.'
The soldier looked past her at the door, which wasn't the least bit bashed in (they had little wire hooks, she remembered, for lifting latches from the outside). 'Very sorry,' he said, 'orders. While we're on the subject, where have you been? You don't usually leave the house till it's time for the kid to go to school.'
If she hadn't had so much practice with people like him, that would've thrown her. Instead, there was no perceptible delay before she answered, 'I went to get the beer for this evening. There's a special sort Falier likes, but you've got to get there early or it's all sold.'
The soldier nodded very slightly, as if complimenting her on her facility. It helped, of course, that it was true about the beer. Did the soldier know about Falier's exacting taste? She wouldn't be at all surprised.
'The bottle's empty,' he said quietly.
'I didn't get there early enough.'
This time he smiled. 'Wasted trip, then.'
'Yes. Looks like it's going to be one of those days.'
He stared at her face for a second or two, then said: 'It'd be appreciated if you could spare the time to come up to the Guildhall. There's a few questions…'
'I can't. I've got to take Moritsa to school.'
'Already been done.' The smile sharpened into a slight grin. 'We'll collect her as well, if you're not back in time. She can come and wait at the guard lodge until you've finished.'
For a moment she wished she was a man. She'd have liked to have been Ziani, killing the two guards in the stable, the day he escaped from the Guildhall. Instead she had to stay still and quiet and wait to hear what was coming next.
'Of course,' the soldier continued smoothly, 'you don't have to come if you don't want to. But I'm sure you do really. Your civic duty, and all that.'
She lowered her head slightly. 'So, is it true, then, what they were saying? Psellus has got Boioannes' old job.'
She'd managed to surprise him there, at least. 'You're pretty well up in current affairs, aren't you?'
'My husband was talking about it last night.'
He nodded. 'Most women wouldn't even have heard of Commissioner Boioannes. Commissioner as was, of course. He's a wanted man now.'
'And Psellus is the new boss?'
He shrugged. 'They don't bother telling me stuff like that. They just tell me to go and pick up women.' Leer; all men do it. 'I prefer it that way,' he said. 'Never did understand politics.'
It was a pity, she decided as she drove through the streets on the way to the Guildhall, that the only times she got to ride in a carriage were when she was under arrest. Under other circumstances there'd be a great deal of pleasure in looking down on the tops of the heads of people she passed, watching familiar landmarks whirl by at an unnatural pace. As it was, she couldn't enjoy it. Everything good gets spoiled, sooner or later.
Round the side of the Guildhall rather than in through the front door this time; none of the usual waiting on benches in corridors, but straight through into the sort of room she hadn't believed existed. The walls were paneled with dark wood, almost black, deeply and rather crudely carved with leaves, flowers, birds and vines tumbling with fruit. The floors were tiled; not the austere black and white checkerboard you'd expect to find, but red clay tiles glazed in warm, bright colors. Everything was old and ornate; and the plaster ceiling was painted with an extraordinary scene which she simply couldn't make out. For a start, all the people were naked, but it wasn't that kind of painting at all. The men were excessively muscular, the women were rounded and plump, and-no two ways about it-their skins were pink, like the savages. The obvious conclusion was that this wasn't the work of the Painters' and Sculptors' Guild. The pink skins, together with the feeling of extreme age, meant that all this stuff dated back to before the Mezentines came here from the old country, and the painting, the carving and the floor tiles were all the work of the savages, the ancestors of the Eremians and the Vadani, who'd lived here before the Republic was founded.
She wasn't the least bit interested in history, let alone art; but since she had nothing else to occupy her mind with except fear, she wondered about it. Why hadn't all this stuff been torn down years ago, and replaced with proper decorations, neatly done, in accordance with the appropriate specification? Right here, in the Guildhall itself, you'd think they'd know better. It couldn't be because they liked this primitive stuff better than genuine Guild work. Maybe it was there to remind them of how close they were to the savages, in both space and time. Or maybe they meant to get rid of it but hadn't got around to it yet. From what she knew of the Guilds, that was the likeliest explanation. Somewhere there must be a Redecoration Committee, still striving to iron out a compromise between the agendas of the different factions: the conservatives, who favored plain beech panels and whitewash, versus the radicals, hell-bent on sweet chestnut flooring and hessian wall-hangings.
The door opened, and someone she didn't know came in. The fact that it wasn't Psellus disconcerted her, but the man himself looked harmless enough; a short, round, balding pudding of a man in his early thirties, with little fat fingers tipped with almost circular nails. He sat down on one side of a long, thick-topped black table, and waved her to a chair on the other side. At least her chair was recognizably Mezentine: the Pattern 56, straight-backed with plain turned legs and no armrest. Her cousin Lano made the seats for them at the furniture factory down by the river.
'My name is Dandilo Zeuxis,' the human pudding said, in exactly the sort of high voice she'd have expected from him. 'I'm Commissioner Psellus' deputy private secretary. The Commissioner can't be here himself, unfortunately.'
'Is it true?' she interrupted. 'Is he the new boss now?'
Maybe he was deaf. 'The Commissioner has instructed me to ask you if you can shed any light on the whereabouts of your previous husband's toolbox. Apparently, although it was listed in the inventory of house contents compiled by the original investigating officers, there's no record that it was ever impounded for evidence or removed from the premises at the time of his arrest. Curiously, there's no mention of it in the later inventory taken before the trial itself. Since the box appears to have gone missing at some point between Foreman Vaatzes' arrest and his trial-during which time, of course, Foreman Vaatzes himself wouldn't have had access to it-we were wondering if you or a member of your family removed it.'
She glanced at him for a moment, but it was like looking into a mirror. 'Have you checked the factory?' she said.
He glanced down at some papers on the table in front of him; the way he leaned forward suggested he was a bit short-sighted. 'Yes,' he said. 'All areas of the factory to which Foreman Vaatzes had access have been thoroughly searched.'
'Oh.' She shrugged. 'I thought maybe one of the people he worked with might've borrowed it. Needed a special tool for a job or something.'
He seemed to be thinking for a few seconds; then he checked his papers again. 'Unlikely,' he said. 'I have here the list of items contained in the box at the time of the original search. Would you care to see it?'
