Book 10 : 767-768

767 Autumn 3,5

I do not wish I was dead, because Oberon needs me.

I wish I was dead. How can I live without my Aari and my Riini?

Maaneyr Doctor is amazed that I have survived, with my weak heart. Or maybe that’s why you’ve survived, he says, I don’t know any more. What use is a doctor who doesn’t know anything?

Don’t do yourself down, Doctor. You have performed miracles. Nobody can know everything.

Hemrom and Baashi are saints. They have nursed us all, the whole street, tirelessly. Their mother is among the dead. Their little sister was close to death, but miraculously has survived.

Hemrom, Baashi and Oberon never got ill at all – the only ones in the entire street. How does ghuhrhu¹ decide who to take, who to spare, and who to miss altogether? Nobody knows.

Why did I survive?

767 Autumn 4,3

I am well enough to have been for a walk into town. Oberon walked the whole way, both ways. He is a very good little boy, but very subdued. He misses his big sister and his Maama.

So do I. So do I.

Behmi is well, was never ill at all. Biishi is gone. I think Roemi is gone, there was no answer at her room and the caretaker hasn’t seen her. He says half the residents have died, and some may be dead in their rooms, he isn’t looking. He’s waiting for the owner to organize a clean-up.

If the owner’s still alive, he says, I haven’t seen him either. I don’t know what’s happened up at the Castle at all. Maybe they’ve shut themselves in and waited for everyone else to die, or maybe they’ve been dying themselves. I’m not sure I care any more.

Imbaal is well, and the railway offices are open. Trains are not running, but Imbaal thinks they will start again soon. With a reduced service for the present. The office has lost a quarter of its staff; if the rest of us can put in extra hours the office can run almost normally, he says, but you can’t do that with train drivers, and we’ve lost two of them. Out of just five based in Laanoha. And the workshops have lost men, too.

He doesn’t know yet how badly Meyroha, Barioha and Briggi have been affected.

If I can work a full week, I can bring Oberon with me, he says. His sister will look after him. She’ll have a small nursery in fact. I’m not the only widower with a small child.

Imbaal’s sister has lost her husband and both her children.

767 Autumn 4,5

I dreamed about Dempsey last night. I hadn’t thought about her, or Mother, Belinda, Clara or Agni, for years. How are they all? Mother and Agni will be old ladies now, if they’re still alive.

Oh Dempsey, I wish you were here now. At least I can hope you are still alive, which is more than my Aari is. Or my Riini.

Oberon is still asleep. I think he was awake during the night. I’ll wake him when I’ve cooked breakfast, not before. He looks so peaceful now. Not four yet, and so grown up already.

We went into town again today, after collecting some bladderwrack and ekraahi for Behmi. She doesn’t know how many customers she’ll get today. She got five yesterday. I said don’t worry about paying me, if you get any customers that’s a bonus. The railway pays me anyway. And Hemrom, too. We’re all right.

Sort of. All right for money and food, anyway.

The landlady of the boarding house on the quay was one of the casualties. Her father, who is ancient, is looking for someone to run the business. Behmi is wondering whether to take it on.

Oberon and I went and checked at the port office, to see whether ghuhrhu hit other places as well, affecting shipping, or whether it was fairly local. Fairly local, they said. Nothing coming in at the moment, because we’ve been quarantined, but we’re showing All Clear lights on the breakwater now, so ships should start calling here again any day now.

I went back to Behmi’s to report, and she’s going to think seriously about it. Neither Hemrom nor I can promise you seafood supplies, though, Behmi. I don’t know who can. That’s less important to the boarding house than to the cafe, she says. Your seafood supplies have made a huge difference to the cafe, but they’d only be a small bonus in the guest house. If the port thinks that trade will pick up again quite quickly, the guest house will do okay. But trade isn’t just where the ships come from, it’s how busy Laanoha is. And I don’t know what proportion of the population died. A lot, for sure.

Oberon has just expressed an opinion, in a very grown up way. I know Baashi and Kaahmi, he says, they will look after me very well while you and Hemrom are at work. I don’t know this Morli lady. She’s probably very nice, but I know for sure that Baashi is good.

Okay, son.

He knows his own mind. Very like his big sister.

Except that he’s still here.

He could see I was crying, and came and gave me a big hug.

767 Autumn 5,7

Trains are running to the normal schedule again, but passenger numbers and goods tonnages are well down. There are fewer wagons and only one coach on each train. We’ll see how fast things recover.

The port is also seeing less trade, but Behmi has taken on the boarding house. She’s already made one major change: she’s opened the downstairs lounge as a public restaurant. And Baashi and Kaahmi bring her seaweed and shellfish every day.

Oberon says he likes watching them collecting, and enjoys the walk into town and back. It takes my mind off things, he says.

He’s not even four yet. He really is very like his sister was.

I dream about Dempsey frequently now. All muddled up with dreams of Aari, and Riini, and sometimes Mkembi. I think I’m remembering my dreams more because I often wake up from them with a bit of a fright.

767 Winter 3,3

I think this is Oberon’s birthday. I lost track of the days while I was ill. Well, as Aari used to say, By Definition: this is Oberon’s birthday now. You need a Laana date anyway, not an English one. You are four, son.

And how grown up you are for four.

I have taken the day off, and I’m going to take Oberon and Baashi and Kaahmi out in Senghori. I don’t know where yet. We’ll see which way the wind blows – and go the other way.

We have been to Iimoni. I’ve never been there before. None of us had. Baashi and Kaahmi had never been further than Laanoha point in one direction, and the Castle walls in the other – and down to the Kromaan ferry just upstream from the railway bridge over the Aaha.

We were close-hauled on the way there, and I expected it to be a broad reach coming back, but the wind backed from south-west to south during the day, so it was a beam reach coming home. Senghori doesn’t do badly at all on a beam reach.

Iimoni is a pretty village, with a more sheltered harbour than Griishi, on the sheltered side of its headland. But that means it doesn’t get the sun on it like Griishi does.

Even from the top of the headland, you can’t really see Laanoha in the distance. Oh, you can imagine that you do, and maybe with a good telescope you could identify it.

We spent an hour wandering about, and had a meal in an inn on the waterfront – very reasonable for me, and a good deal for the children. Then I had a long conversation with an old fellow sitting on the quayside while Baashi and Kaahmi skimmed flat stones across the harbour and Oberon slept with his head on my lap.

They said had a lovely day, and thanked me. Hemrom thanked me too, and said he was jealous, but only half jealous: he’s terrified of the sea.

Then he said that when he gets a few days’ holiday he’ll take them to Briggi. Workshopmen don’t get to ride free in the coaches like office staff do, but they can legitimately ride in the cab, and he’s pretty sure that most of the drivers would take his two sisters as well.

Ghuhrhu never struck in Iimoni at all, not this time. It was very bad there ten years ago, the old man said, but that time it never hit Laanoha. Very bad? Nine people died, and nearly everyone was ill.

I don’t know what the population of Iimoni is, but there must be fifty houses there, so probably a couple of hundred people. Nine early deaths is nine too many, but I think Laanoha was proportionally harder hit. I didn’t say that to the old man.

He reminded me a lot of the old man we met on the quayside at Griishi. I think they both think of themselves as sort of unofficial harbour-masters. Or, now I think that way, perhaps they are actually official harbour masters, appointed by the villages? Just very laid-back about it and no uniforms. I don’t know.

Interesting that Iimoni and Laanoha don’t seem to synchronize their epidemics, whereas Laanoha, Barioha and Meyroha were synchronized, at least this time. Is it because of the railway? Briggi wasn’t affected, but there are fewer people coming and going on that route, and it takes a day longer each way.

It’s also colder. Does that make a difference? And the diet’s different – more meat and veg, less fish and fruit. What fish there is is river fish, not sea fish. Might that make a difference? Who knows? Probably nobody.

Too late for Aari and Riini now anyway.

Don’t cry, Baaba, says Oberon.

I don’t translate what I’m writing for him. Not yet. Maybe one day.

Got a nasty shock when we arrived back – accosted at the bottom of our own street by two guardsmen, demanding to see our papers, and asking where we’d come from. How far did they think we could have come, in that tiny boat? Apparently Iimoni is far enough to be foreign.

I have papers, of course, railway papers, but I don’t normally carry them on me unless I’m travelling by train, or on railway business. I had to get them from the house. The guardsmen were pretty angry about that, and told me I should always carry them, especially when I go out in the boat – they said I was lucky they let me go to the house. And these two girls look more than ten years old to us – where are their papers? I told the guards that their elder brother is another railwayman, and they said they’d better get papers. Try the castle if the railway won’t issue them.

Times change. People never used to need papers in Laanoha, only in Meyroha. Getting to be like Faguri, where I was an ‘illegal alien’. I look foreign here, too, but at least I speak the language. But the girls don’t even look foreign. But then, Iimoni folk don’t look foreign here, either. But apparently they are.

767 Winter 3,4

Oberon slept better last night than he has since Ghuhrhu, I think. He was up bright and early this morning, looking forward to a day with the Big Girls. They told him the tide was right for an Early Start today, and they’ve been and picked him up already. They say they’ll be back in time for him to have breakfast with me before I go to work, and then they’ll take their harvest to Behmi and go for a walk up to the Castle.

They were as good as their word. Oberon is exhausted. I don’t know how many miles they’ve all walked today. I’ll have to wake the little fellow up for his dinner.

Baashi and Kaahmi got their papers at the Castle okay. The guards there were much less unpleasant – but wanted the girls’ names, ages, and address to write down in a huge book before they’d issue the papers. The ages are a guess, of course. The guards know that, but it doesn’t matter.

They were very impressed that the girls could sign their names, rather than putting a thumbprint on the papers.

The railway has settled down to its new, somewhat reduced routine. Imbaal is confident that it’ll pick up again. He’s probably right, but it’ll be a long time before it’s as busy as it was, I think.

767 Winter 3,5

Behmi’s boarding house is just a stone’s throw from the port office, and not a lot further from the railway office, so I popped round there on my way home today. She’s very cheerful, which is good for me. Her restaurant is doing well, and she says a lot of that is thanks to those two girls. The boarding house is beginning to pick up again, but it’s slow. Without the restaurant, she’d be struggling.

She says I’m to make sure those girls don’t take any chances trying to collect seaweed and shellfish once the weather starts to deteriorate. We’re well into winter now, and we’ve been lucky with the weather so far.

767 Winter 7,2

Another earthquake during the night last night. We seem to get more, but less violent, here than in London – much worse, further north. But then, they’re worse further north in England, too. No damage here at all, as far as I know. Not in the town, anyway.

We’ll hear soon enough what’s happened further north.

Baashi has been helping in the boarding house, cleaning it up and giving all the woodwork upstairs a good thick coat of limewash. Behmi’s been told it reduces the risk of fire, and it’s probably true.

Tidying up thick old dust and litter will help, too, especially in the kitchen, and they’re doing that as well. At least the kitchen and restaurant have stone walls.

I worry a little about Oberon being with just Kaahmi, but she’s very mature for her age, and he would be heartbroken if I changed the arrangement. They adore each other.

767 Winter 7,5

News has arrived from Briggi. Liimiha is gone. The glacier leapt down the valley again, and destroyed it completely. Quite a lot of sheep and goats were killed, but the everyone is pretty sure there were no people there. The owners of the animals were safely at home in Briggi.

A lot of the best building materials had already been salvaged and either put to good use in Briggi, or stacked up waiting to be used.

Briggi itself suffered extensive damage in the quake, and heavy snow is not helping. But, thankfully, nobody died, nobody was even seriously injured, and the railway line was not affected this time. If it snows much more the line may be blocked near Tambuk though, Beyram² says. The short trains we’re running at the moment mean you can get up more speed to charge the drifts, but you’ve got less weight behind you when you hit them. I’m not sure which effect is more important.

We’ve had a dusting of snow here in Laanoha, but it was gone in just a few hours. From the top of the headland there was a fabulous view of snow on the mountains, but Beyram says the line through the mountains was absolutely fine.

Oberon says he’d like to ride the train through the mountains in the snow. Well, if it’s still snowy next time I get a day off, we will, son. We’ll get the train to Barioha, and switch trains at the passing place at the foot of the mountains the other side and come straight back. In the cab, as long as there’s no-one else in there.

Apart from the driver, Oberon adds, and grins. Isn’t that passing place near Mezham, where Maama came from?

Not far, tiddler. You can see the Mezham cliffs from there, but you can’t really see the village. You have to go a bit further along the line to Barioha for that.

And I’m impressed with his grasp of geography, at four. Very impressed. And his fortitude about his Maama. Which is more than I have.

Don’t cry, Baaba. I’m sorry, he says, I shouldn’t have said.

This boy is four. What is he going to be like as an adult?

767 Winter 8,3

We were up well before dawn this morning, to catch the train at half past seven. Praemon told me yesterday he’d take us in the cab, and then when we stopped to couple up to the banking engine, he told us to go and ask Koemal if we could ride in that, for the better view ahead. Both ways over the mountains in the banking engine. What a treat!

We’re in the banking engine at the passing place, waiting for the train from Barioha.

Koemal wants to know what I’m writing, and is reassured to know that I’m writing in English, that no-one can read. It’s okay you being with me, he says, but Oberon shouldn’t be really. But I know he’s a good and sensible little fellow.

Going north, the banking engine is going backwards, so you have the firewood bunker in front of you, not the boiler. Koemal put Oberon on top of the wood for the best view. Just make sure I remember to get you down before the tunnel, youngster, he said.

There’s plenty of clearance really.

And make sure I don’t pick you up and chuck you on the fire by mistake!

Oberon knew this was a joke, and grinned. Koemal knew Oberon knew it was a joke, then later on grabbed him and pretended...

767 Winter 8,4

The train from Barioha was bang on time, and we got back to Laanoha ten minutes ahead of schedule.

We were incredibly lucky with the timing yesterday: today the weather is absolutely foul. Heavy rain here in Laanoha, and probably heavy snow in the mountains. No fun for Koemal going backwards over the top in the morning – not so bad coming back forwards in the afternoon.

Baashi, Kaahmi and Oberon walked into town with me this morning, and spent the whole day with Behmi. They actually had quite a few customers for lunch, despite or perhaps because of the rain. The two girls helped in the kitchen and serving the customers, and came home with two coins each. They are over the moon!

Behmi said she can’t promise that every day, but if trade continues to improve, you never know.

They’re demolishing the wooden tenements where Roemi used to live. The railway has bought all the timber from the old buildings for firewood. They’ll get a good part of the money back hauling the stone from Sirimi for the new buildings.

I can’t help imagining Aari saying, “and using a good part of the wood firing the engines that bring the stone from Sirimi,” which would probably be true, too, but the end result is that my darling son tells me to stop crying again, and comes and gives me a big hug.

768 Spring 12,2

I think this is my birthday. And, By Definition, Aari’s. I am forty-two, and Aari would have been thirty-one.

And I am not crying.

Yet.

An ordinary day at work. I have not told Oberon, and I don’t think anyone knows. I shall not tell them.

768 Spring 12,3

Bless Hemrom’s heart, and his sisters’. Last night they accosted me on my way out of the office, and dragged me into Behmi’s restaurant, and sat me down with a keroo. Not a skiir, a keroo. Behmi was just lighting more oil lamps than I’ve ever seen in there. Then she produced a fabulous meal. For all of us.

Why me? They don’t do this for anyone else.

Nobody else actually has a birthday, Baashi said. And you’re our Uncle. No, I know you’re not our uncle really, but you’re the best uncle we haven’t got.

And my Uncle too, said Behmi, even if you are half my age. I’m sure Behmi isn’t really eighty-four, but I’ve no idea how old she is.

After the meal, several folk from the railway office, and some from the workshops, came in for a drink. I didn’t know before, but apparently they often drink in Behmi’s restaurant in the evening, but not usually so many of them on the same night. Then Hemrom produced my mizma, and Imbaal and Roebon produced their fihihis, and told me in no uncertain terms that I was to lead them in a sing-song.

They had to get it started themselves, but once it was in full swing I managed to join in. And finally they got me improvise mizma solos, for what seemed like hours. I’m slightly suspicious that Behmi may have got one of the drivers to smuggle some kind of illicit brew to mix in the keroo, but perhaps it was just the atmosphere.

It was late when we finally finished. Hemrom and Baashi borrowed oil lamps for the walk home, and we sang all the way, Oberon fast asleep on my shoulders.

768 Spring 12,4

I was going to write more yesterday, but Hemrom and Baashi came and told me I was to come with them. Bring Oberon, they said, and led us back into town, to the railway workshops. There was quite a crowd already there.

I knew there was a new engine nearly ready, the first built in Laanoha. It’s for the Meyroha run. There’s going to be a second train alternate days all the way now.

We’re going to make you cry, now, Birgom, they said, pretty much in chorus. We know you will, and we’re all with you. This is a day late for your birthdays, but your present is only just ready. Imbaal handed me a parcel, after warning me it was heavy, and telling me not to drop it.

It was labelled, For Mezhab Birgom and Anaari, which started me crying straight away. Oberon almost told me not to cry, but Baashi knew he was about to, and picked him up and cuddled him with one arm, and put her finger to his lips just in time to stop him. Let him cry, she said, he needs to.

My son is wise before his years, but Baashi is older and wiser.

Open it, Imbaal said, and I did.

Now put it in place, and Hemrom will rivet it on. There’s a matching one already fitted on the other side of the boiler.

The new engine is called Mezhab Anaari.³

I was very touched, and didn’t know what to say but, Why?

You were the best boss ever, Imbaal said, and having Aari in the office was like having a ray of sunshine. It’s far too small a gesture. Do you want to ride in the cab on her test run? Or on her first trip to Meyroha and back? Or both?

I’m not sure.

You should, Baashi said. Both. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

O…kay.

Oberon nodded, vigorously. I think he was mostly agreeing with Baashi, but is also excited to ride in the cab again.

768 Spring 13,7

Last day of spring. 10 May, maybe? About that.

Oberon found his Maama’s fihihi a week ago, and has been teaching himself to play it. He’s doing very well, considering he’s still only four and a half. Kaahmi and he take turns, very equitably, and she is also teaching herself. She’s got a bit ahead of him in her skills, and is teaching him part of the time. They’re a real pleasure to watch.

I don’t know how old Kaahmi is. Thirteen? Fourteen? I don’t think she or her siblings know, not even approximately.

Riini would have been nine and a half now.

Oberon does not tell me to stop crying, but does come and put his arms round my neck.

Tomorrow is Mezhab Anaari’s test run. To Mezham and back, with two wagonloads of stone borrowed from the Sirimi train for a load. She won’t need the banking engine, loaded only lightly like that.

We’ll leave early, half an hour before the Meyroha train, then do a shuffle at the passing loop and return half an hour after the train from Meyroha. All being well.

768 Summer 1,1

Mezhab Anaari performed perfectly yesterday. She barely slowed down at all for the climb into the mountains, until just before the summit when Roebon let her coast almost to a standstill at the top so she didn’t have so much energy to get rid of on the way down the other side.

We don’t want to burn out the wagons’ brakes, he said. Normally each wagon only has slightly more than its own weight to brake, with the engine’s weight shared between the whole train. But Mezhab Anaari weighs a lot more than two wagons full of stone. You can put her into reverse and pump air into the boiler, and let it out through the primary safety valve, but as soon as the secondary starts to blow you have to ease off. You don’t want to blow out the safety bung, or we’d be stuck waiting for the next train to push us.

You can let some more air out through the whistle, can’t you? Oberon asked.

Smart boy, said Roebon. Yes, you can, and it would help, but only a little. And you’d startle every animal on the mountain, and worry anyone in earshot if you just keep whistling on and on and on. Actually, we’ve got two whistles, and you could use both of them at once. But it is an awful racket.

We went right past the passing loop, and stopped on the bridge at Mezham – the famous bridge the railway company didn’t want to build. Roebon picked up Oberon and helped him to pull the whistle rings in sequence, Pooeep-Poop-Peep – Peep-Poop-Pooeeooeeooeep.

That’s the “I’m a special train, and I’ve arrived” whistle, he said. “We don’t often get to do that one.”

I don’t suppose anyone in Mezham knew what it was all about, but they surely must have heard it. And seen a shiny new engine with just two wagons. And then seen it set off backwards, back the way it had just come.

With some bits of firewood on the cab floor representing the four engines and their three trains, Roebon got Oberon to work out all the shuffles that had to be done for them to end up all going where they were supposed to, in the right order.

Which he managed with plenty of time before either of the other trains arrived.

Oberon suggested that we should also shuffle our own train round so that although Mezhab Anaari would still be going backwards, her two wagons would be following her. I suspect that Roebon had intended that all along, but had left it for Oberon to suggest. But I don’t know. It would have been perfectly fine to go home wagons first. But we didn’t.

Writing this, I realized that Oberon is an anagram of Roebon.⁴ Like the wagons and engine. How long it will be before Oberon notices things like that? He’s started reading and writing.

768 Summer 10,4

Imbaal’s sister, Morli, is getting married again. I don’t know her fiancee, or even his name yet, but they’ve asked me to play my mizma for them at their wedding. I suppose I have to. I certainly don’t want to upset anyone. I shall have to practise – the real difficulty is accompanying singing. Playing solos isn’t too hard, but it’s probably not what’s really required.

I shall have to get Hemrom and his sisters to sing for me to accompany them. At least I’ve got neighbours who are good singers!

Oberon says he knows they’ll be pleased to be asked. Any excuse for a good sing-song!

Oberon is probably wiser than his Baaba. Trust him, Gom.

768 Summer 13,6

Morli’s fiancee is a widower with two surviving children – a son and a daughter. His first wife, and his infant son, died in the epidemic. He’s a design engineer from Meyroha, the chap who designed the latest improvements to the engines, which have been used for the first time in Mezhab Anaari. He was consequently a regular visitor to the workshops here while she was being built.

His name is Meyru Moeroon, which is a bit of a tongue twister, at least for an English mouth. It’s apparently a bit aristocratic. At least, that’s what Hemrom says. He thinks this chap probably has Castle papers, not just railway ones.

Which reminds me. They’ve put a guard station at this end of the Kromaan bridge, and they’re checking passengers’ papers, including any passengers in the cab. So far as the railway’s concerned, anyone can travel by train as long as they pay the fare. But Laanoha Castle has decided in its wisdom that only folks with Laanoha papers, Castle papers from anywhere, or railway papers, can leave or enter Laanoha by train.

So other passengers have to get on or off at Kromaan and use the ferry. Extra revenue for the ferry – which belongs to the Castle. Not very subtle.

They’d tax the railway directly if they could, but the railway committee is too powerful for them.

768 Autumn 1,6

Kaahmi is going to play the fihihi in duets with me at the wedding, which is next week. This makes me very happy. It will help me immensely in overcoming my shyness. We’ve been practising together, and she really is very good already.

Oberon says we need another fihihi so he and Kaahmi can play together. I’ll get him one, but since they’re made to order, we can’t have one in time for the wedding. Someone may lend him one, possibly. I think Imbaal has one, if I remember correctly. And someone else, I don’t remember who.

768 Autumn 2,7

Oberon is a very happy little boy this morning. Imbaal didn’t just lend him his fihihi yesterday, he gave it to him. But Kaahmi says she won’t take Aari’s fihihi, because it was Aari’s, and I should have it. She’ll borrow it, very happily, but it’s still mine and always will be.

She says I should learn to play it as well as the mizma, and I should teach Oberon the mizma too. I doubt I’d need to teach him, he seems to have his mother’s ear for music. He’ll teach himself.

The three of us played together at the wedding, and everyone was amazed at how good Oberon is – not just playing perfectly in time, and not just playing in unison with Kaahmi, but harmonizing and even adding his own little flourishes.

In fact the weakest player was me, on the mizma. I’m getting better at playing as part of a group, but they have to let me lead or I get lost. Kaahmi is amazing.

She managed to accompany the singing, along with Roebon. Oberon and I just sang. We didn’t try to accompany. It was all a bit chaotic, and how those two managed to accompany it I don’t understand at all.

The musical high point of the evening was definitely Kaahmi accompanying Moeroon’s sixteen-year-old son Baamoon. He has an amazing voice, and knows how to use it. Kaahmi, who’s been playing the fihihi for little more than a season, played flawlessly.

And that’s something about the Meyru family: they know exactly how old they are, which is rare around here. And their children have music lessons, from professionals. Hemrom is right about them being aristocrats!

And Hemrom has every reason to be extremely proud of his little sister, who’s never had a music lesson in her life. You could see in his face that he was, too.

768 Autumn 3,2

We – Hemrom, Baashi, Kaahmi, Oberon and I – are on the train to Briggi. This is something of an upheaval. Hemrom and I have new jobs there, we don’t really know exactly what yet, in fact my first job is to sort out what they are going to be.

Imbaal called me into his private office yesterday. I’m very worried for your niece Kaahmi, he said. Moeroon, my new brother-in-law, is a thoroughly decent man, as is his son Baamoon. There were two boys from the castle at the Laanoha Hotel, at the wedding. Baamoon heard them talking about Kaahmi. Their intentions are not honourable, and they know they can get away with anything. The only way you can keep her safe is to take her away somewhere they will not follow.

Moeroon supports me in arranging for you and Hemrom to be redeployed, immediately, to Briggi. You can stay initially at the Railwayyard Inn, and find suitable accommodation as and when you can. The railway will pay for this. You and Hemrom will work out how you can be most use to the railway there. You can collect your wages at the Railwayyard Inn.

So here we are at the summit, just waiting for the banking engine to be uncoupled and shunted out of the way. It doesn’t come down the incline this side on the Briggi line, the gradient is gentle enough that the trains from Briggi don’t need it.

And now we’re at Veglid – at Veglid station, that is, half a mile from Veglid – while four wagons are loaded with firewood for Briggi. And our own bunker is topped up with firewood and our water tanks topped up too.

Keyrsham – that’s Behmi’s brother – brought Kaahmi and Baashi round to Kromaan in Senghori, so they wouldn’t be seen by the guards at the bridge, or by the ferry people if they came that way. Probably not a necessary precaution, but the fewer people know where Kaahmi is the better.

The rest of us rode in the cab from the railway yard. It would be just too paranoid to think anyone would think anything about two railwaymen and the little boy in the cab. We’re in the coach with the girls now.

The other passengers are middle class, not Castle people. Imbaal had discreetly checked in the bookings that no-one from the Castle had booked on the train today. I don’t think any of them have ever been on the Briggi train.

When they go to Meyroha or Barioha they generally book an entire coach to themselves. We’ve considered getting them to buy a coach of their own to add to the trains when they want to travel, but it’s not come to that yet. I think other would-be passengers get rather annoyed though, when they can’t get a booking, and then see one coach half empty.

768 Autumn 3,6

First time I’ve been still long enough to write in days! The five of us have an upstairs room very like the one the four of us stayed in when we visited Briggi before, and Roembaam and Feyhi feed us very well.

Hemrom and I have had a very good look around Briggi, and decided that it’s perfectly feasible to set up a workshop here to service the engines and rolling stock for the Briggi line at this end. This will take the pressure off the workshops at Laanoha, meaning that they will be able to take on the increased workload from the new trains to and from Meyroha, without having to expand. Expansion is a problem in Laanoha – it can only be done by demolishing yet more of the middle of the town – whereas here in Briggi there is space.

There are building materials salvaged from Liimiha stacked up here, and people desperate for employment ready to build workshops, offices, accommodation – whatever we need.

I’ve written a letter to Imbaal about it. He’ll have to consult the committee. I’d be surprised if we don’t get the go-ahead, but it’ll take quite a few days: my letter by train to Laanoha, then his to Meyroha. Maybe a few days’ deliberations in committee. Then the return journeys.

I am impatient: it’s already well into Autumn – the end of August in English counting – and Briggi is not a good place to be trying to do building work in Winter.

This house was Feyhi’s ancestral home. Roembaam is a Liimiha man, and when they first married Feyhi went to live with him there. Feyhi’s elder brother died of ghuhrhu, so they’ve inherited the house.

Feyhi is literate and good with numbers. She was delighted to learn that Baashi and Kaahmi have made a start in the same direction, and says that she’d like to teach them if they’re willing. Which they say they certainly are!

Oberon said, What about me? I’m nearly five!

Feyhi looked him up and down, apologized, and said, Well of course!

Hemrom does read and write – Aari and I taught him too for a while – but not very well. He’s good at arithmetic though, and his writing will improve with practice. I hope; he won’t have time for lessons. Not much, anyway.

I racked my brains to think where I’d heard the name Feyhi before. It was Aibram’s wife’s name.

I wonder how Aibram is getting on? It’s four years since Kazhiir’s visit, and I don’t think either he or Greyr has been this way since then. They’ve not visited us if they have.

768 Autumn 4,1

Perhaps I am not impatient at all, but Hemrom is. He is also a natural leader, which I am not.

He has taken it on himself to assume that approval will be given, and organized the first construction work. The workers know there is a risk that the project will be cancelled, he’s been quite open about that, and that if it is they may not be paid. But he says he’s pretty confident approval will be given, and that the first buildings will be useful anyway.

Work has begun already. Hemrom has taken it upon himself to decide where the workshop should be built, and its design. It’s the only sensible place, he says, and it’s obviously got to be like this to accommodate an engine being cleaned and serviced. I’m sure he’s right, and I like his confidence. I just hope Imbaal and the committee do too. I’ve written to Imbaal again.

768 Autumn 5,1

Imbaal writes to say the committee are pleased with Hemrom’s initiative. An engineer from Meyroha will arrive at some point to discuss plans, but in the meantime Hemrom has been given his head, to get as much work complete as he can before winter. Just be sensible about what to start now, and what to leave starting until you’ve had a chance to discuss things with the engineer.

I’ve been authorized to pay workers at standard rates from funds available at the Railwayyard Inn.

I’ve also been given the go-ahead to start issuing tickets at the inn, until we have a ticket office built. We need arrangements with the inns at Belgaam and Veglid, too. I will go and visit them and see if they’re agreeable. Up to now, the drivers have been issuing tickets immediately before departure everywhere except Laanoha, which isn’t very satisfactory at all.

Baashi decided that two or three hours of lessons a day was plenty for her. She visited the Railwayyard Inn to see if they had work for her in the kitchen, but they didn’t. They suggested she try the Briggi Inn, but they didn’t want her either. There’s one other inn on the waterside, but best for you not to try there, they told her. It’s not really a safe place for a young lady. Can you sew? The tailors are both looking for seamstresses since the ghuhrhu took several old ladies.

No, but I’m willing to learn, said Baashi. She started a couple of days ago, just a coin a day until she’s up to speed and working to a good standard.

When they’re not having lessons, Kaahmi looks after Oberon while I’m working. When the weather’s nice, they go exploring Briggi, and then in the evenings they tell the rest of us all about where they’ve been. They’re getting very good at giving descriptions, it’s lovely.

768 Autumn 6,1

Kaahmi and Oberon were down by the river today, not far from the Riverside Inn, and saw a barge with a woman at the tiller just arriving and tying up. They’re not so good at giving descriptions of people, though, it seems. I’d quite like to go and see if it’s Viiniha, if she’s still there tomorrow. I wondered whether Baashi could cover the ticketing at the inn for me for an hour or two tomorrow – and she says she’s love to, all I have to do is show her how. She’s sure the tailor will give her a couple of hours’ leave if she promises to make up the time later.

768 Autumn 6,3

Yesterday morning Baashi got a half-day’s leave from her seamstressing. She grasped ticketing so quickly and easily that I’m sure she ought to go into railway office work rather than sewing or cooking.

It was indeed Viiniha tied up by the waterside inn. Good to see an old friend, but sad too. She was devastated about Aari and Riini, and had her own sadness, too.

I’m lucky to be alive, she said, and still to have my barge, but my crew are both dead, and my beloved Liimihari is gone. Pirates. After my cargo, not my boat, but they’ll have repainted her and sold her. Or sold her to someone else who knows they have to repaint her.

Copper, one load worth several times more than Liimihari. My charge for transporting it a bit more than I’d charge for the same weight of something of lower value, but still a tiny fraction of the value of the copper. I’m lucky that my client believes me, and isn’t chasing me for the value of his cargo. He knows I couldn’t pay a fraction of it anyway, and I’ve helped him make a lot of money over the years, shifting copper for him.

[The following section is missing from Owen’s translation...]

I wonder where the copper is coming from. Obviously a great deal of it! Surely not from Aibram’s accursed site in the middle of the forest? What is the truth of that story? I promised Aari...Aari is no more, and her death has nothing to do with any curse, unless it can work backwards in time, and I can’t really believe in any real effect that can do that.

And anyway, I am not going anywhere near that site. Aari is no more, but I still have Oberon to care for – and Hemrom and his sisters, truth to tell.

What am I thinking? I don’t need huge amounts of money, and anyway, if that’s where this copper’s coming from, someone else is recovering it and certainly wouldn’t treat a competitor kindly.

If Aibram’s story is true anyway. And if it is, what is the real cause of his friend’s and his wife’s deaths, and his own illness? And how, if that’s where this copper is coming from, are the people who are recovering it avoiding illness and death?

Or, horror of horrors, is the dealer knowingly using people whose deaths will not raise any concerns anywhere?

If Aibram’s story is accurate, the copper itself is dangerous – is that why it’s packed in those beautiful boxes? Do they seal in the danger in some way? And what happens where those boxes are opened, and what happens to the people wherever the copper is eventually used?

I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to be involved, or for anyone I care for to be involved, either.

Should I talk to Viiniha about this?

I don’t know. I promised Aibram – and Aari – that I wouldn’t tell anyone. But Viiniha isn’t about to go looking for copper in the accursed forest, and so far from putting someone else at risk, talking to Viiniha might help to save someone from that risk.

A thought: does Viiniha know Aibram? They don’t come from the same place, but have their paths crossed in their travels up and down the coast? Probably not, but I can ask. She’s here for another couple of days, she said.

Oberon wants to know what I’m writing. He’s five. How much should I tell him?

And now Baashi sees me being thoughtful at Oberon’s question, and she wants to know too. Hemrom tells her not to be nosy, but I can see in his face that he wants to know, too. And just look at Kaahmi’s face, Gom.

You will have to learn to keep secrets, all of you, I tell them. And it’s my little son, five years old, who comes out with this wisdom, and all of them nod in agreement:

“No,” he says, “I’m not old enough to keep secrets. Just tell us the bits we don’t have to keep secret. It’s good that you write in English, not Laana.”

And I don’t have a problem explaining that those little marks that I don’t usually bother with are speech marks.

768 Autumn 6,4

I decided I had to talk to Viiniha, for my own peace of mind, and in case she’s still in involved with anyone in the copper trade.

I don’t know Aibram, she said, but I’ve heard of him. I don’t think the source of the copper is in the accursed forest, but I don’t really know. It could be. But the curse is well known. Aibram’s wife and their friend aren’t the only people who’ve died after venturing in there, not by any means.

The dealer is in Barioha, which is pretty certainly where Aibram and his friend must have been selling their copper, if he’s a Zhaam man. But there’s still plenty of land wrecks in the wild country the other side of Barioha, and no curse there. I doubt if they’ve all been stripped yet. All the ones close to the river probably have been, but the ones deeper in the wilds must still have good pickings. A long drag through swampy forests to fetch the stuff out, but at least you get to live to enjoy your gains.

I’ve not heard of anyone else diving to offshore wrecks like Aibram, but that would be Zhaam or Troum folks, on the coast with nothing but the accursed forest landward of them, not folks from this side.

[End of the section Owen omitted.]

Viiniha’s trade now is almost entirely firewood and timber. She plies up and down the Ariha from Barioha to Briggi. She buys from carters who’ve bought from woodcutters in the forest and brought it to the riverside, then takes it to Barioha or Briggi to sell. It doesn’t pay as well as taking copper from Barioha to Perruhi, but without Liimihari, what can she do? And neither she nor the dealer would want her to meet pirates again anyway.

She has two horses to pull her barge, but whenever she can she uses sail and lets the horses trot alongside unharnessed. That’s about half the time, she said. She can’t sail close-hauled at all, but she’s okay on a beam reach. I’d really like to be at sea, but I can’t see how I’ll manage that again now, at my age.

I don’t know whether she has, or ever has had, family, and I don’t feel able to ask.

768 Autumn 6,7

Baashi wants to know whether she can take over ticketing at Briggi properly, and give up her sewing work. It would release you to do more important stuff, says Hemrom, and it’s true. And yes, it’s my place to make decisions like that.

Okay, Baashi, you’re on. Oberon and I will go on a trip to Veglid and Belgaam to negotiate with the inns there and find someone in each place who can do the ticketing there.

And yes, Kaahmi, you can come for the trip too. Have a break from your lessons, and help me looking after Oberon. We’re only going to Veglid and then coming back, we won’t go all the way into Laanoha.

It’s less than three weeks since Hemrom got the building work started, but it’s going really well already. He’s very popular with the workmen, which really makes a terrific difference. He’s conscious of the need to prevent them taking any risks. They’re using robust wooden scaffolding to work from, and hauling materials up with pulleys, not carrying stuff up ladders. It’s a pleasure to see his work, and to see the respect he commands despite his youth.

768 Autumn 7,1

The innkeepers at both Veglid and Belgaam were very happy to take on the ticketing work themselves, and good enough at arithmetic to manage. Some of the drivers were struggling, so this is a significant improvement. I have a strong suspicion that passenger traffic will increase, because people will have confidence that they’ll get a place on the train, rather than fearing that they’ll turn up at the station only to find the train already full. I suspect we’ll need more coaches soon, and possibly even need to put on a more frequent service. The engineers would be very happy to get an order for another engine and more rolling stock.

Veyrmon, a senior railway committee member, was on the train that the three of us caught in Veglid on the way back, so I had a long talk with him on the train. He seems very happy with what Hemrom and I have been doing, and has promoted Hemrom to Senior Engineer, with responsibility for works at Briggi. Hemrom is over the moon. He’s been doing exactly that job for weeks, but now it’s Official. And he has a commensurate stipend.

Baashi is not only doing the ticketing, she’s also taken over my responsibility for paying the workmen, and I’m feeling a bit like a spare part. Those three are still very young – very mature and responsible, and taking on very responsible roles – but I feel responsible for them, in loco parentis, really.

768 Autumn 7,7

I have discovered that all the workmen call me Uncle. Of course they all have dealings with both Hemrom and Baashi, who both call me Uncle.

At forty-two, I’m older than most of the railway workers. There are very few much older; a few about my age, but whether those few are old or younger, who knows? Most of them don’t know how old they are. But I’m Uncle to every one of them. So be it.

Back to the top

On to Book 11