THE SHERIFF OF HNUT / CH. 25: THUNDERCLAPS

DIRAK AND LENEPOLI'S BUILDING-SITE, HNUT, MID-MORNING, EARTHDAY 12TH WINTER

“Dirak?” Yalb called, looking at the smooth wall in front of him. “Have you forgotten the doors again?”

“No, Yalb, I just need to do them afterwards,” Dirak called back from where he was apparently standing in mid-air, using the rock mover to put mine-tailings into the extruder. “It is much easier to cut holes in this stuff with my staff than to make this thing do complicated shapes.”

“Oh. Does that mean I shouldn't have done arches and columns for the high council, then?”

“No, Yalb. It just means that a family house made with a deadline in mind gets built with practicality in mind and not beauty.”

“Except for things like the tower, of course.”

“If making the tower takes too long, I might not build it until spring.” Dirak replied. “Tower rooms are not as important as being married before spring brings Lenepoli's hatchday.”

“Oh, that's the deadline? I thought it was the err, um, both moons.” Yalb said, deeply embarrassed at where his unthinking sentence had brought him.

“Same date, first of Spring.”

“Ah.”

“The nice thing about this stuff, of course, is it's going up quickly. The not-so-nice thing is going to be the plumbing in the middle of winter.”

“I'm quite surprised your well didn't freeze last night.”

“This stuff is quite insulating. That's why we put the layer on the cellar floor, really, to keep the water from freezing, and what keep warmth we could in the stone, too. It's going to freeze eventually, of course, unless I can get get the house floor in.”

“That is confusing me a little. Why are you building the walls in the air?”

“It's because every three-side corner is a time-consuming pain. It's going to be much easier to put a ceiling on the cellar from underneath than to do build these walls sitting on top of it.”

“I'll believe you,” Yalb said. “So you're going to do all the walls on all the levels and then put the floors in?”

“No. I can do the cellar like that because it's got no internal walls. I really don't want to have to try to fill in the floor between two walls. You can think of it as a bit like making a box full of dove-tail jointed dividers, that get sunk into a clay base. It's much easier to put the clay on once all the joints are made, but you really wouldn't want to put the clay in between two layers.”

“That makes sense. The walls really sink into the floors?”

“So I understand. Not by much, but a bit. Well... It gets compression-welded anyway.”

“Right. You still don't want any help?”

“I expect the others will need lots of explanations about what goes where.”

“Assuming the plans are all accepted. I'm nervous.” Yalb admitted.

“Oh! But I heard a lot of them going, I assume the meeting's over.”

“No one's said anything to me,” Yalb said.

“Take it as a good sign. They want to let Keldi move into a nice warm house of her own as soon as possible, so if there had been a problem you'd have heard all about it.”

“You're sure?”

“I don't think I dare stop feeding this while it's in mid-air, but I'll happily check when it's done, if you like. Or you can interrupt Lenepoli if you want to risk that.”

“Interrupt a lesson? No way! I heard her telling off a parent who tried that last year.”

“I think it's a geometry test, actually.”

“I'm not going back to school during a test, Sheriff. I might end up having to re-take it.”

“From the pupil's point of view, is she a good teacher?”

“Strict. She doesn't let you get away with sloppy thinking, or with poor excuses. And if you try a poor excuse, or forget your homework because you were doing something else, then you get extra homework 'because you obviously have too much free time'. But she does accept genuine excuses. I remember, one day, being in an absolute panic because I'd not been able to finish an assignment because Dad had wanted me with him on a trip to Qnut, so I was franticly trying to write it during the mid-morning break. And she said, 'Yalb, I don't expect you've done justice to the homework, since your trip took so long. Let me have it by next week, and get some fresh air.' She never said 'next week.'”

“Except when there's a genuine reason?”

“Not even then, normally. But it was really good to have the extra time, it let me look at far more stuff than normal and write a much better paper.”

Suddenly, a miniature Sithini appeared in front of Dirak, just as he was about to release another scoopful of rock into the extruder's hopper. “Hey! Careful, sis! You almost got hit by falling rock.”

“It would have bounced.” Sithini said, back at normal size.

“I really hate to think what happens if your bubble fell into an extruder.”

“When I'm in air I do have a force-field around the bubble, Dirak.”

“I'd assumed so. So what happens if someone tries to swat you?”

“I presume they discover things about inertia and pressure. The risky bit really is when I come out of bubble.”

“I imagine so. You make a humongous forcefield from bubble space, then flip yourself into that volume, I presume?”

“Yes, but I didn't actually come to talk to you about manifold sizes or balancing air pressure across a forcefield while you're collapsing the bubble it's generated from within. I came to ask if I can borrow Yalb.”

“Erm, sure.” Yalb said. “What for?”

“There's a couple of slight problems with the plans.”

“Oh no. What?” Yalb asked.

“Number one, there's only one copy, and five people want to read them at once and some of them are justifiably worried that if they let the others hold them they'll get left in the snow, etc. Number two, plans are flat and the ground isn't, so there are questions about three dimensional geometry, projected versus actual versus scale distances and all the sort of thing you might expect when you've got a bunch of mathematicians used to looking at places from high in the sky but not used to reading an architect's plan, and wanting to stick pegs in the ground to milistep accuracy so they don't get things wrong.”

“It sounds like the council approved them, Yalb. You're going to be a busy man.”

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LANTHI'S SCHOOL, THE CITY, EARTHDAY, 12TH WINTER

“Hi, Aneth,” Lanthi greeted her friend as she arrived in the school grounds. “How was your weekend?”

“About as far from wonderful as you can get without it involving death. At the company dad worked for, the boss was has been arrested, nothing really to do with the company, but it turns out that a lot of the work was for his contacts. Now his name is poison, even his old contacts don't want anything to do with the company, so there's no work coming in at all. That was bad enough, but some lawyers came and said 'sorry, not your fault, but everything he signed in his normal way was fraudulent, and is null and void', so all dad could do was add his name to people who had a claim against him. Everyone got paid their salaries and told they could take their desks home if they liked, dad did, it seemed silly not to. There's no point turning up today, since the office space was rented under a fraudulent contract, too, and the owners are going to be looking to rent it out to someone else, and so dad's lost his job.”

“And there was no one who could step in and take over?” Lanthi asked.

“Competitors, that was about it. That's OK for the delivery guys, but dad worked on checking accounts, stuff like that. The competitors will have their own version of him. He's been with the company since I was born, Lanthi. It's really hit him hard. Plus the police said they might need to talk to dad, too.”

“They think he knew about the fraud?”

“No, but they're looking for evidence linking the boss to something really bad.”

“Aneth,” Lanthi said, a horrible suspicion dawning, “Does the name Tathig mean anything to you?”

“How did you know?”

“A name I've overheard in connection with some really bad things mum was helping solve a week ago. Connection not proven, I should add.”

“Last week? As in when Tandetha was interviewing her and the sheriff of Hnut about the hool? Tathig was involved in that?”

“Not proven yet,” Lanthi said.

“I need to talk to the police,” Aneth said, deathly pale.

“Pardon?”

“In work experience week, I was shadowing dad, remember? Dad was in away at some kind of meeting on my last day and Tathig popped in and asked me to make an urgent order and deliver the payment. I was so proud to be trusted to do it! I bet the police don't need to talk to dad, they need to talk to me.”

“It might not be it, Aneth.”

“Who better to get to make an illegal payment than the stupid girl who doesn't know policies or payment laws or anything?” Aneth said, on the verge of tears.

“OK, well,” Lanthi tried to reorder her words into green-friendly sequence. “I've had a couple of meetings with a policeman in this district — about the watch disaster — who might be involved in the investigation, I don't know. I'll happily come along for moral support. Or you can go and talk to someone with your parents, of course. Oh, another option: years ago I sometimes got baby-sat by apprentice-wizard Dirak, I still know him pretty well. And he's now sheriff Dirak up in Hnut, and is in charge of the investigation.

"Of course, we'd have to find some wizard to get in contact with him, but there are bound to be some around.”

“Your parents aren't?” Once again, forcing her reply into chronological order, Lanthi said, “Mum's carrying, the Doctor says she might have three or even more eggs. God-willing she's laying tomorrow.”

“You're putting things in the right order for me, aren't you? Thank you, it really helps.”

“I've been practising with some apprentices. Oops, teacher's coming.”

“I'm not going to be able to concentrate.”

“I'll pray for you.”

“Thanks. But I can't think northern like this, Can you explain it to the teacher?”

“Of course!” Lanthi said. “Sir, Aneth's just realised she might be a key witness in a very serious crime, and it's stressing her so much she can only think in very straight lines. She delivered a payment when she was on work experience for someone who's publicly under arrest for fraud, and I know to be a suspect in another case.”

“Well, that's a new excuse to skip class!”

“Withholding evidence is a crime, sir. I might not be a witness but an unwitting accomplice. It's not that want to skip class, sir, but think I have to go to the police.”

“Your detailed work-experience diary will of course be valuable evidence, and of course that makes me a supporting witness, doesn't it, if your suspicions are correct, since I marked it. You're thinking of the payment when the owner didn't want the receipt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you still have it?”

“Father's lost his job, so we spent the weekend packing up what we absolutely needed and throwing away what we didn't expect to be able to sell. I'm sure it would have gone into the rubbish pile, sir, along with other memories.”

“And the rubbish pile went where?”

“Mother was going to arrange for a cart to take it to be burned.”

“Then the first thing to do is protect that important evidence, isn't it? Lanthi, accompany Aneth to confirm things to her mother and if they don't need you to help find the receipt, then see if the police will listen to you without Aneth. No, that's really not a good idea, is it?”

“Probably not, sir. But I know the head of the investigation. I could get a message to him.”

----------------------------------------

ANETH'S HOME, EARTHDAY MORNING

“Mother?” Aneth shouted, “You haven't arranged for the cart yet, have you?”

“Why aren't you at school, Aneth?”

“That receipt I got on work experience might be vital evidence. Tathig is a suspect in the hool case, and I might have been his ignorant accomplice.”

“I was just going to finish the washing before arranging the cart.”

“Please don't arrange anything yet,” Lanthi said. “We might need a long time to find that receipt in the rubbish pile.”

“You father never was happy about why Tathig wouldn't want it, Aneth. He put it in with our year's receipts, just in case Tathig wanted it back. It shouldn't be in the rubbish pile.”

“With respect,” Lanthi said, “I'm not sure lots of what's in the pile ought to be there. I can easily store things for Aneth at the college. But I'm very glad the receipt is safe.”

“You need to introduce me to your startlingly coloured friend, Aneth.”

“Lanthi, this is my mother, Onnetha. Mother, this is Lanthithanapoli daughter of Keldithanapoli, and friend of Sithinilakiina, the green-turned-red. I've seen Lanthi's royal talons and witnessed her manage to not give into the royal rage when insulted, and herd her talk of the peace-loving qualities of Yalb of the Yant, which made her reach an understanding with him.”

“Welcome to what is currently my home, Lanthithanapoli.”

“Aneth has told me, Onnetha. Are your husband's hopes of finding work really so poor?”

“Some work, no. But without employer's references, with an ex-employer in jail for fraud? We have small hopes that he will ever find employment as chief book-keeper or at his old salary. Mud sticks. And this house is not cheap to repair or heat.”

“But you're not renting it?” Lanthi asked.

“No. There is a small mortgage to still repay, but we have no need for it, and there are unused rooms. It's too big and keeping it costs money that we no longer have.”

“You could rent one or two of the rooms, couldn't you?” Lanthi suggested.

“The sort of people who want to rent close to Drana...” Onnetha grimaced. “I've had neighbours who let some people stay and they didn't wash much and broke things and then couldn't afford to repair them properly. I'd rather move.”

“I was thinking you could rent to some journeyman wizardesses, for example,” Lanthi said. Seeing Onnetha's expression change to one of confusion, she added “Would you like me to ask around in the college? I cannot promise anything, because a lot of people are moving to up to Hnut, like my parents. But there are not many nice rooms to rent with respectable owners this close to the college. I've heard new journeymen speaking about it often enough.”

“Lanthi's parents are wizards, mother; there are some family apartments in the college.”

“Oh. Well, urm, if there are some urm, quiet bookish types who are just looking for somewhere to sleep...”

“I'll ask around,” Lanthi promised. “Unless you'd like me to wait until you've talked to your husband?”

“Ask and see if there's interest, please. The weekend's packing was hard on us all. I don't want to raise false hopes.”

“Mummy, can you find the receipt, so Lanthi can tell sheriff Dirak it's here?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Who's sheriff Dirak?” Onnetha asked.

“He's in charge of the hool investigation, mummy,” Aneth said. “I know Tathig sent me to send a lot of money to someone in Qnut. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it's not right to pretend we know nothing.”

“I'll get it, dear. But why did he want you to keep it?”

“He didn't. He looked at it really strangely when I asked him where I should file it, and he said 'What would I want to file it for? It was a clan thing, not a business expense, throw it away.' I explained that it would help me prove I didn't make it up for the diary I had to keep, and asked if I could keep it, he said fine, at least if I took it away then it wouldn't get confused with company paperwork.”

----------------------------------------

HNUT, LENEPOLI AND DIRAK'S BUILDING SITE

“Say that again, Lanthi? Right from the start.” Dirak said.

“Aneth was working for Tathig, as a work experience thing. He sent her with a big pile of money in her school bag to a certain trader. He said afterwards it was a 'clan thing' but he'd got the money from the company safe, and there was an order with it on company paper, which confused her. I've seen the trader's receipt; Tathig didn't want it messed up in the company papers, so first he told her to bin it, then let her take it home as evidence that she wasn't making it up. Order some complicated number from Tathig Trading, on behalf of 'Tumpf mining, minerals and manufacturing, Qnut' final payment received.”

“Magz?” Dirak said, it being her who'd let Lanthi call Dirak, “Can you please get to Aneth's home and protect them and that paper while I organise things? It'll take me a while to get there, since I still can't do bubble-maths reliably. Oh, and if there's anyone not busy with the building project, it'd be good to get Tanepoli there as a witness.”

“OK. Will do.”

“Dirak?” Lanthi asked “Two questions. Is Aneth in trouble for delivering the money? She's talking as though she part-expects to be arrested for being an accomplice.”

“Based on what you've told me, she's entirely innocent, Lanthi. I don't expect to do more than ask her in the future to report suspicious receipts rather than just keep hold of them. Next question?”

“I've not said anything, but... they are about to sell almost everything and move house because Tathig's company has fallen apart, and Aneth's father was chief book-keeper. With Tathig being arrested for fraud, and no chance of a reference, Aneth's mother thinks her husband will never get a good job again. Is there any kind of reward for Aneth coming forward? She realised she needed to talk to someone in the police.”

“Reward? Probably not big enough to make much of a difference, sorry. But haven't Yalb's family been thinking of finding a book-keeper? Also, Tanepoli might be able to give him a some kind of reference, once her people have finished taking the company apart, so feel free to ask her. Now... Magz, any practical advice? I've currently quarter of the way through extruding the ceiling of my cellar stroke floor of the ground floor, with the walls already in place above it. It's sitting on a forcefield from my staff, which in retrospect was a silly idea. Do I just tell it to pause and leave it, hanging from the crystal in mid-air, maybe all day? Or should I shut it down entirely and face the challenge of restarting later, or try to pile stones under it so it doesn't fall?”

“Forget the stones, you'll never get them accurate enough to be any help. It's a standard design extruder? With the guidance fields in all directions?”

“Yes.”

“And the floor is crystal too?”

“Yes.”

“So why don't you turn on a straight-down guidance field, in distance-lock mode, and then fine-tune the angle as needed using the laser distance measurer. You might get a bit of a ripple, depending on how fast you are at switching, but you ought to be able to get it self-supporting. Then pause it.”

“Magz, you're a genius! Thank you,” Dirak said, turned off his transmitter and gave a shout “Yes! Praise God!”

“Good news?” Lenepoli asked from behind him, making him almost jump out of his skin. “Sorry, all the thunderclaps were getting too distracting for my teaching plans. Once the geometry test was over I told the kids they should pick a spot on the hillside and draw something from the day. So I'll be up there.”

“I'm off to the city. Tathig didn't make a fuss about Lanthi's friend destroying an incriminating receipt when she asked if she could keep it rather than bin it.”

“How incriminating?” Lenepoli asked.

“Final payment to Tumpf mining minerals and manufacturing, which he told her was 'clan business', and not to be entered in the company accounts, although the money came from the company safe. So, it's almost certainly going to lead to a conviction for something.”

“But you hope it's for the hool.”

“Yes, his personal bank show a hool-fee sized injection into the company funds, but the company records don't show it. If this receipt is anywhere near the date of the kidnapping, then we've got him.”

----------------------------------------

ANETH'S HOME, EARTHDAY LUNCHTIME.

“Sorry this has taken so long, everyone.” Dirak said. “I wanted to ensure that every piece of evidence about Tathig was properly supported and witnessed.”

Aneth's father, Juthen, who'd returned before Dirak had arrived, asked “Am I free to leave and continue my job-hunting, sheriff?”

“I would prefer you did not, Juthen.” Tanepoli said. “Until we've spoken. I am informed that the records you have been keeping are excellent.”

“Thank you,” Juthen said.

“Therefore, at the very least, I will write you a testimonial indicating that although my uncle has misused the clan name and thus claimed things that are not true, in no way does that fraud indicate a lack of probity in yourself or the records you have been keeping.”

“Thank you, lady Tanepoli! Oh, thank you!” Juthen said, grasping his wife's hand.

“Don't thank me yet. I don't actually want to write that sort of letter. Because it implies you're rejecting an offer I'd like to make. I don't think everyone here needs to listen to it, however. Perhaps your wife would like to hear it, though.”

“In that case, Lanthi, can you introduce me to your teacher, assuming he's still at school? I'll need to collect some evidence from him, too.” Dirak said,

“Certainly, sheriff. Maybe I'll find out what lessons I've missed, too. Aneth, I assume you'll stay here?”

“Can I come?” Aneth asked, picking up her coat, “I need to find out about homework too.”

“Of course.” Dirak agreed.

There was a thud as a piece of wood fell from Aneth's coat. “Oh! I almost forgot!” Picking it up she handed it to Dirak. “On my last day Tathig gave me this paper-weight, saying I might as well have it as a memento, it had been cluttering up his desk for three years.”

“Hmmm, carefully polished around the edges, anyway,” Dirak said, turning over the disk which was a bit like an overgrown bath-plug. “An unusual paperweight.”

“Oh that? He told me he'd picked it up on the coast, the day before his wife died.” Juthen said.

“Strange shaped piece of wood with sentimental attachments!” Lanthi gasped. “It must be a vital clue!”

“I took it as a sign that he wanted to get rid of it but didn't want to just throw it away.” Aneth said, primly. “But I thought I ought to mention it.”

“Thank you, Aneth. And thank you for your hospitality, Onnetha and Juthen” Dirak said, putting on his coat and heading for the door. “For what it's worth, Lanthi, the last I heard your mother was still eating lots and lots of cheese and such like. That was just after we spoke by radio.”

“That's good. How's the house building going?”

“The cellar and well are dug, the well's capped, and the cellar lined. I've done all the ground floor inside and outside walls, and I'm part way through the cellar ceiling which will be easy. The ground floor ceiling will be very easy. After this it gets harder though. Unless I hear some more helpful hints like I got from Magz this morning.”

“So will you be finished by the weekend?”

“Not to move in, I'm pretty certain. Maybe the roof will be on, or most of it. But talking to Yalb made me decide that I'll do the fiddly inside bits before starting on the tower. It's not like a couple of steps of snow and ice is going to break the crystal.”

“Aren't you making it too thick, then?”

“Not for heat insulation, no.”

“Good point.”

“I thought so, when Sithini pointed it out. I was very glad to throw all my engineering calculations in the bin.”

“All of them?”

“Well, not every single one. But when you've proven that the thickness of crystal to keep everyone nice and warm on the coldest winter days won't move unless the wind is faster than the speed of sound, and that a twenty step by twenty step balcony won't collapse under the weight of the church, that's probably good enough.”

“You're going to have a twenty step by twenty step balcony?” Aneth asked, confused.

“No, but that's roughly the maximum dimension of anything. Basically I proved to my satisfaction that if anything breaks it'll be the rock the house stands on, which is good strong rock. And then I got Sithini to check my calculations weren't stupidly wrong.”

“And?” Lanthi asked.

“She gave me an B-plus, because although I got the right numbers, I didn't state my units in a couple of places.”

“Harsh, but units are important,” Lanthi said. “Are we walking?”

“We are right now. Any objection to flight?” Dirak asked.

“Other than a more crowded than normal airspace?” Lanthi asked, looking up.

“Is that thunder?” Aneth asked.

“No, just wizards,” Lanthi said, dismissively.

“Lenepoli is going to have words with some of the wizards. I know it saves some time and there's lots of equipment to move, but some of them were arriving so low or carrying so much or something that they were disturbing lessons. She told the students to dress up warm and do some outside art about the start of building work, instead.”

“No doubt Rangar's thlunks are disturbed too?”

“Last I saw, they were all lying down next to the fence, like they do when a big storm is coming. So, grab Intervention and we'll fly.”

“Fly? Seriously?” Aneth asked.

“It's much faster than walking,” Dirak said.

----------------------------------------

HNUT, LUNCHTIME

“Ranth?” Lenepoli said, “Urgent discussion about flight restrictions please.”

“Flight restrictions?” Ranth asked, looking up from his clipboard.

“Some of the thunderclaps this morning were practically rattling windows, certainly they were disturbing school lessons. The parents I spoke to are all hoping that it's going to stop soon, and I'd assume that goes for the whole village. It might be fine in the noisy city, but we're not used this much noise except from a passing cart, and they only happen occasionally except at harvest time.”

“Oh, I understand,” Ranth said.

“So. I've told some mothers that all these thunder-claps would be stopping entirely during meal times and afternoon-nap time, which means no thunderclaps at all from half an hour's time until four. I have also promised people that you'd be coming up with some rules that mean it's no louder than when Thuna comes to visit on her own. Otherwise I'm sorry to say that my firm expectation is the village will be changing its mind about the school being built, and we'll go back to it being an extra room on our home. I'm not exaggerating.”

“It's the size of the loads, Lenepoli,” Ranth said.

“Sorry, Ranth.” Lenepoli interrupted. “If you're about to tell me the loads can only be delivered quietly without using bubbles, then you just need to revise your plans to not use bubbles. I've spoken to Thuna, and she agrees. Until this morning the village was looking forward to watching the school being built. If this noise continues, I expect angry crowds by evening, and I'm going to be among them. You don't want to face a crowd of angry Zerkers and deep reds, Ranth. Stop the noise.” There was a particularly loud arrival, which Lenepoli felt made her point, “Now.”

Ranth picked up his staff. “All flights, all flights, this is Ranth. I've just been told the noise levels are entirely unacceptable, and putting the entire project at risk. For the moment assume there's a total ban on bubble travel except for individuals, and on all entries or exits below a thousand steps. Furthermore, no bubble entries or exits in meal times or afternoon nap times. That's to say, half an hour from now to half past four. Please pass the word on.”

“Sithini's method of soundless bubble travel being an exception,” Lenepoli said.

“Sithini is always exceptional,” Ranth said. He pressed transmit, “And just in case anyone thinks they know how Sithini does it quietly, please check exact parameters with her, get her to agree you've done it right and can do the maths every single time, and then follow her complete testing regime before you try it.”

“Athrel speaking. That took her years, Ranth.” Athrel pointed out.

“I know.” Ranth replied, “I also remember her tweaking the sixth order polynomial with an empirical method, and saying she didn't believe it near the end points.”

“I gave up on the polynomials, Ranth, it was too risky.” Sithini's voice replied, “But yes, out-of-atmosphere testing for temperature compensation is an absolute must, well before you get to air-pressure equalisation. Just fly straight, guys. It's too noisy here in the city too, there've been complaints.”

“What are all the deliveries, anyway?” Lenepoli asked, “I thought your schedule said it'd be ten today.”

“We had some, ah, loading issues, the morning's first flying cart very-almost broke apart mid-air. It did on landing. We decided to break some of the deliveries into smaller packages.”

“Ah. OK, so it's not just people thinking 'drat I forgot my scarf' and similar?”

“Mostly not, no,” Ranth agreed. “But, urm, the ban on after-lunch travel means I'll need to eat here, as will a number of others.”

“It shouldn't be a problem, Ranth. Thuna's adjusted the catering plans.”

“Lenepoli!” Yalinth said, running up, panting. “Doctor says please help, now. Yagah.”

“Yagah? What's happened about her?”

“Egg,” Yalinth panted. “too soon.”

“Oh no!” Lenepoli exclaimed. “Ranth, can you fly me? First to my parent's, then to Yagah's”

“Certainly.”

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HNUT, EARTHDAY, EVENING

“Ethepoli, Ruath, have you seen Lenepoli recently?” Dirak asked.

“Not since she went to help the doctor, no.” Ethepoli replied. “She didn't get much of a message, but it sounded like Yagah was starting to clutch prematurely.”

“I didn't even know Yagah was carrying.” Dirak said.

“I asked her if she was on Restday,” Ruath said, “she said it was possible, but she didn't really believe it.”

“So, unplanned, unexpected, early, and she hasn't been eating properly?”

“I don't know about that last one.” Ethepoli replied, “She said she'd been eating more than normal, but whether it was enough I don't know.”

“You've been praying. May I join you?”

“Of course, Dirak.” Ruath agreed.

So together they prayed for the precious little life that was at risk and the young couple if things went wrong. Lenepoli came in, just as they said Amen.

She looked exhausted. “Yagah tried to fight the doctor.”

“Oh no!” Ethepoli said. “Bad news?”

“Yes and no. The doctor's OK. Shaken up, but physically OK. I had to tie Yagah up until she calmed down. It wasn't a fertilised egg, the doctor's sure. It was very small, and not calcified. The shell failed when Yagah was cleaning it.”

“And that's when she attacked?”

“Yes. Dad, they want to talk to you.”

“Of course.”

“It can wait a bit, but expect a long talk about self-reliance and asking others for help and the like. If anything Girt is more traumatised than Yagah, now. The doctor had a long frank talk to them about eggs, dancing and hynberries.”

“They'd been dancing with berries?” Ethepoli asked.

“They weren't planning for eggs now, they'd planned to wait for spring. But yes, they sometimes went dancing and then ate hynberries to calm their urges. They didn't pay attention in school, it seems, or didn't realise the consequences, anyway.”

“I take it you've not been to the building site since I left?” Dirak asked.

“No. How long have you been back?”

“Not long. But Sithini asked if they could practice 'some of Ranth's clever techniques' on our house. She promised to cut away anything that was a disaster, and follow the plans, so I said OK. I'm just wondering what state the house is in now.”

“Shall we go and see?” Lenepoli suggested, “I've still got my coat on.”

“Eat something first, love,” Dirak said.

“I'll eat on the way.” she said, grabbing some bread. “It'll be getting dark soon. How did your trip to the city go?”

“Very conclusive evidence. Tanepoli asked that he be tried immediately, and confronted with the evidence in court, he's admitted everything. He first made the initial contact years ago, hoping to find where Taresha had run off to.”

“Nasty.” Without needing to discuss it, she held Intervention and they lifted off.

“Very. But it also gives me some extra leads to follow up on, because he's named some more names. More time away from building, sorry.”

A minute later, looking at the crowd of wizards, apprentices and on-lookers around their new house, Lenepoli said. “Dirak, they're finishing it! “.

“Many hands make light work, I guess. Do you mind?”

“Not if they've done it right.”

“Yalb and Sithini are there, so they probably have,” Dirak said, “Hey, Sithini! I thought this was just practising techniques!”

“It's OK, Dirak, we'll put it all back the way it was when we've finished.”

“Don't you dare!” Lenepoli replied. “And you've done the stone layers in the

walls too! Lovely.”

“It took me a while to work out what you meant there, Dirak, But you're right, baking them in makes a much better finish than cutting a slot for them and dropping them in.”

“You don't mind?” Yalb asked. “Just, with the tower room, it's got more fiddly bits than the other houses, and they wanted to try to work out which approach to fiddly bits worked best.”

“We don't mind at all,” Lenepoli said, and started a tour of inspection.

“What's this thing that looks like a big fat mechanical fluffy the bathroom, Sithini?” Dirak called.

“Once you clarified where you're putting your waste pipes, that is going to connect them to the village sewer system.”

“I didn't know we had a village sewer system,” Lenepoli said pointedly.

“Fake-fluffy there can tunnel at one step a minute through rock and five steps a minute through soil, extruding crystal pipes as it goes. So no, there's no sewer system yet. And I need to look up pipe diameters and things, because he needs a bigger brother for the main drains.”

“And the thing with rollers?” Dirak asked.

“That lets you tell fake-fluffy where to go. But you'll notice that there's a new hole over there,” She pointed to a round hole a little distance from the house “That's proof that Fake-Fluffy can make bigger holes, but slowly, and it's also proof that he's waterproof, because that's now connected to your high pressure river and its where we're going to take water to Keldi's house. Fake fluffy also had a peek into your river, and you hit it dead-centre with your well. It's only about a step across, and comparing flow rates it is almost certainly the one that comes out by the ford.”

“All in the afternoon?”

“I got some apprentices to measure the flow rates this morning.”

“And does Fake Fluffy have a tiny brother to cut pipes in walls?” Lenepoli asked.

“No, but Dirak knows how do do that, don't you, Dirak?”

“I do, yes. What I'm less certain of is connecting them to something more like normal plumbing.”

“Oh, Dirak! Surely you can guess what I use!” Sithini said.

“It's gum, isn't it?” Dirak said.

“And moss,” Sithini grinned, “Seriously. The moss gets killed by the gum of course, but provides some extra flexibility. That's how it all started. Grandma's father used to use it in mending well-linings, before accidentally discovering its other uses. Gum on its own is a bit too rigid, it risked breaking the bricks, but mix it about half and half with moss — preferably oven-dried — by volume, and you get a lovely watertight sticky mess for mashing into holes, and which can accommodate some normal flexing. You must have seen me using it?”

“I guess I thought you were teasing.”

“Nope. But anyway, we've proven that once the site's clear we can mostly get a house up and weather-tight in a day, which is great news for when snow is more frequent. Do you like it, Lenepoli?”

“Like it? I love it! I really wasn't looking forward to it drawing on week after week. When can I move in?”

“Urm, after the wedding?”

“No, that's when Dirak can move in. There's a new local custom I've just thought up that says the bride gets to move into the new house as soon as possible to make sure of the soft furnishings.”

“Well I'd wait until the heating is in place first, if I was you.” Sithini laughed.

“Urm, Sithini?” Dirak said, realising that being able to see people working on the roof above wasn't great. “I love the rock around the bathroom and bedrooms and the downstairs toilet, but, urm, when were you planning to put the sheets of rock into the floors?”

“Urm, was that written in the plans?”

“Did it need to be?”

“You could paint it. I assumed you were going to paint it, I guess. And you hadn't done it in the cellar.”

“I hadn't finished the first layer of the floor either.”

“Ah, true. Well, urm, can we solve it tomorrow?”

“Of course. I could solve it tomorrow, depending on how the investigation goes.”

“Am I allowed to know about new developments?”

“Tathig, disgraced and expelled from clan Tan, has admitted attempted infanticide to the court.”

“Tanepoli expelled him? I thought that had been decided to be unwise.”

“She sat through the evidence against him, and when he started talking about clan honour she raised and unfurled the clan battle-standard, which of course meant he shut up. The judge asked what was going on, and she said, urm, hold on. I've got it written down, 'In accordance with the ancient words and my undiminished rights as head and poli of the ancient and noble clan Tan, and I expel Tathig for his vile and dishonourable acts, his violations of the law of the land and of the clear policy of the clan ruler. He belongs less to clan Tan than the faeces of a thlunk in the clan's stables. Any who deny my right to make this pronouncement earn the curse of God who raised me to this position, the vengeance of the royal talons by which the lands were distributed, the feud of the Tan and the retribution of the law which forbids a duel, which is the only way to question my authority on this matter. If dishonourable Tathig repents of his actions, and against all likelihood honours his vows to this court to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I may eventually reconsider some of what I have decreed, and perhaps readmit him to the clan as the lowest sort of penitent. But as Tathig is not of clan Tan, I have no role in this court of law now.' At which point, still flying the battle-standard, she left, along with some other clan members.”

“I guess that counts as impressive,” Sithini said. “Were there any reporters?”

“Yes. Taresha wasn't there, but there were a number from her newspaper. One followed Tanepoli, I guess hoping for an interview.”

“Does Keldi know?” Sithini asked.

“Kand said she was resting, but I told him. I don't think she needs to think about shredding Tathig at the moment.”

“No. I can't imagine she'd be staying calm at hearing about unfurled battle standards.”

“And you're not feeling too sick at the thought of it all?” Dirak asked.

“Not too bad. I assume his telling everything was after she left?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“That's OK. I've found one use for your crazy mixed up way of speaking, Dirak. It means I wasn't dreading as much blood in your account as I might have been otherwise. Why couldn't she have just said, 'I don't like criminals in my clan, especially not ones who try to kill my babies, he's out'?”

“She had to be careful not to prejudge the case, Sithini. And the stuff about the vile and dishonourable acts could have just been her talking about the false use of the clan name, which he'd already been found guilty of. I guess I should have said he was just insisting that he be called 'Tathig of the Tan' when she stood up, so it was good timing to make her point, I felt.”

“Hmm. It worked, but I still don't like it. I would have expelled him by sticking a note under the door to his prison cell, I think. But I guess someone might use the 'c' word about that method, which you probably don't get from unfurling battle-standards.”

“Probably not,” Dirak agreed. “Are you staying up here tonight, or heading back to the college?”

“I'll head back, I need to check up on Lanthi.”

“Oh yes, she said. Feel free to tell her about the court room.”

“I think I'll leave that for someone who's not green.”