on the way to the arova
late morning on the 27th of roalis, 2720
I
’m sorry.His head was thundering.
“Numbrey, Inspector,” Magister Desrouleaux was repeating, a curious smile on her face, “we shall be able to see Numbrey by this evening, just across the river. I’m certain that’ll bring back memories?”
The Inspector resisted the urge to rub his eyes, or even to close them, though they stung. He sat very straight in his seat, his dark-gloved hands folded in his lap. As ever, he was just tall enough, and the coach’s box just small enough, to be uncomfortable; nevertheless, he did not need to stoop. The tiny road out of Redwine was growing more and more poorly-paved, and every pebble or mound the wheels hit sent another stroke of pain through his skull.
“In fact, I was there in Hamis.” He had worn his dress uniform since Desrouleaux had arrived at Graywatch that morning, and he was wearing it now; he felt rather laden with gold braid, and crawlingly self-conscious, strangely more for the third pair of eyes in the coach than for the magister.
Bernadette Desrouleaux hardly carried herself like an inquisitor. Of course, she wasn’t; she was a Brunnhold professor who had found herself thrust rather suddenly into this by arcane law. She was a clairvoyantist of around sixty or seventy, though spry and alert; she was almost as short as – the passive, but rounder by far, with a wide, matronly face full of kind lines.
She had worn a smile on her face through most of the proceedings, with a twinkle in her eye reserved for the passive. “My goodness, look what they’ve put you in, Aurelie,” she’d tutted, “but you’ll be out of that dreadful old thing and into a proper uniform in no time at all.”
“Oh?”
“And Brunnhold, Magister. I was asked to give a guest lecture on effective interrogation techniques.”
Magister Desrouleaux shivered, then laughed. “Goodness me,” she said. “A matter with which you have experience?”
Morandi tried very, very hard to smile. “A great deal, madame. Indeed. I am rather well-known for it, in the capital.”
“Fascinating.” Magister Desrouleaux seemed still on the edge of a laugh; she had not looked at the passive since they had entered the coach. As if she had put the woman in light blue wholly and entirely out of her mind. As if her presence did not even trouble her, as if she were very used to them.
He did not think it quite… appropriate, to discuss such matters in front of her. Not, of course, that he was ashamed; he had been quite proud to receive the invitation, and to have been recognized for consistently producing results. But, after all, there was a reason they were gated. And it was as if the magister had simply forgotten she was present.
He thought he would have sold his engagement ring to have somewhere else to look, but the coach windows were shaded; he had only an indistinct impression of the countryside outside, of the sounds of the insects and the rustling of the leaves growing louder and louder underneath the rattle of the wheels and the scratch of the moas’ talons.
He did not, at the very least, have to look at – her. She was sitting beside him. Ordinarily, there would have been a reasonable distance between them; because of his size, rather uncomfortably, they were shoulder-to-shoulder. In the corner of his eye, he could see a blurry strip of red hair, and – lower – a pair of small hands, cuffed.
She had already been put in handcuffs when he had met her and the magister outside Graywatch that morning. He had wondered briefly if her bracelet was underneath them. Only briefly, of course.
“Well, my dear?” Desrouleaux asked, finally looking at – her. “Home, in no time at all. I know the prospect of a trial must sound very frightening, but you’re in excellent hands. Everyone knows you’re not to blame for any of this.”
