Chapter 8

Things were much better in the morning. Supper had been brought in from a back kitchen somewhere, but breakfast was prepared by the innkeeper’s wife at the fire we’d slept beside, in the room we’d spent the whole time in. The innkeeper himself was nowhere to be seen. “I expect he’s fast asleep,” Jinni said. “I don’t know what he was doing, faffing about upstairs all night.”

We were the second shift for breakfast. We weren’t due to depart until eight, and the woodcutters had half a trainload of firewood to load onto Preysh’s train before that. They had already breakfasted and set off for the station with their carts by first light.

The innkeeper hadn’t made an appearance by the time we left.

The fire was still smouldering in Jinni’s engine, and it didn’t take long to get it going nicely. “We’ll leave the boards under the floor for the moment, with all these woodcutters around. They’re the other side of Preysh’s train, but even so. Elbrouha’s a much better place to do it.”

I got my little model Aila out of my bag, and admired it. I asked Jinni, “What’s she made out of?”

“Flesh and blood, of course! And bravery and humour and honesty and generosity. Like Preysh said, you’ve caught a real prize.”

“I meant the model, silly!”

“Don’t think of it as a model. It’s Aila, and you’re supposed to look after her, because the real Aila isn’t with you for you to look after.”

“Ah, okay. Will I have to make people like these for our daughter’s betrothal?”

“No. I’m not sure who’s job that will be. Theoretically it’s your mother’s, but who does it when the father’s mother has already died, I’m not sure. Mum’ll know, and she’ll be at Raamba with us for lunch.”

“So Yaana made these?”

“Yup. And Yaani will make them for Grim’s daughters, and eventually it’ll be Aila’s turn to make them for your sons’ daughters. And you’re not supposed to know what they’re made of. To you, they’re made of flesh and blood. And most importantly, the character of the person.”

The boiler pressure had got up enough to get moving. It probably wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet, but it didn’t matter. “We’ll most likely have to wait for Laar at Elbrouha anyway. If we get there a little early, we’ll wait there instead of here. Give us more time to get those boards up.” So we set off.

At Elbrouha, it didn’t take long at all to get all the boards out from under the floor. Jinni put them at the front of the woodpile, so they’d be the first to be used. “I don’t suppose anyone who matters would notice we’d got oddly long boards to burn, but best to minimize the risk of anyone asking awkward questions. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to burn more than one of them at a time, though.”

As it turned out, they were a serious nuisance. Jinni couldn’t shut the firebox door properly, so there was too much draught. “They’d be okay on the climb, but going this way I don’t need so much steam! If there’s no-one else around, I’ll give them to Mum to use going up the other way.”

Once the end in the firebox was burnt away, Jinni pushed the rest in, and shut the door completely. Even so, she had to vent steam, and we arrived at Raamba even earlier than she’d anticipated.

Faahiha was amused by the boards. “You should have realized what would happen, Jinni! I’d have the door open anyway going up to Elbrouha, of course.”

We had a good time over lunch together, but I realized as we set off again that I’d forgotten to ask her about who would make my daughter’s betrothal models. Jinni had forgotten, too.

How would I have asked, anyway? How could I word the question to get round calling them models? Who knows whether we’ll really have a daughter anyway? We’re not even married yet. But how they all talk! It’s infectious.

We’ll find out things like that soon enough. It won’t be the first time a grandmother wasn’t around to perform her duties!

If I’d been on Peyr’s train, I’d have had to hide under the floor at the Sirimi road, to avoid the lady from Siroha. We’d destroyed my hiding place, but I was sure that she wouldn’t be watching for Jinni’s train.

There was no-one there. “That’s where Peyr originally picked me up!”

“I know. It’s lucky it was Peyr. Some of the rest of them might have done the same, but most of them wouldn’t. And I’m afraid that Berraami and I definitely wouldn’t, even with the outlandish clothes you were wearing. Probably not Mum, either, although she’s pretty relaxed about risk. I’m glad Peyr did, though.” And she surprised me with a big kiss on the cheek.

I shouldn’t still be surprised, I should be getting used to this by now. I like these people. Much less inhibited than the English, much more spontaneous – mostly.

I wonder what would have happened to me if Peyr hadn’t picked me up? I’d have walked to Raamba, or the other way. Then what? No point speculating, really. Where does the footpath go in the other direction? Not to Elbrouha through the tunnel, that’s for sure. People obviously walk that way, anyway, so it goes somewhere.

We had dinner at Belgaam. The driver and a few of the passengers off the passenger train joined us, but most of the passengers were eating on the train, or already had. Jinni knew the driver, but not very well.

Dinner was served by the same two girls who’d fed us there every time. They seemed a little surprised to see me with Jinni instead of Peyr, and slightly less attentive than before. But the meal was as good as ever, and the service was perfectly good. We parted with a friendly, “See you soon!” but again with no mention of when.

The up train was waiting at Embrouha already, and we sailed through without stopping. Just a cheerful toot on the whistles, and we were gone. It was beginning to snow.

By the time we got to Kaahes, it was snowing heavily and settling. Until we stopped, we didn’t really know how much there was on the ground, but walking over to the inn we discovered there was a good fifteen centimetres – more in some places where it had drifted.

“If it keeps up like this, we’ll be going nowhere tomorrow. I wonder what it’s like further north now? I hope Jamaam isn’t stuck anywhere between Tambuk and here already.”

“What happens if a train gets stuck in the snow? How does the driver survive?”

“It’s pretty horrible. But you keep the fire burning low and it doesn’t get too cold in the cab, and you’ve got plenty of water. You can get pretty hungry if no-one gets to you for a few days, though. It’s only happened to me once. I was only a couple of miles north of Tambuk, but the blizzard got so bad they didn’t dare go out in it, and when it calmed down a bit there were three metre drifts across the line. It took them three days to dig through to me, and the train was stuck there for two weeks. They kept on running a few trains south of Belgaam, where there was much less snow, but not a full service.”

“Can you leave a fire burning in an abandoned engine for a whole week? If you let it go out, doesn’t the boiler freeze?”

“If you’re in your engine, you can keep the fire going a long time, just burning low. If you’re going to abandon an engine in conditions like that, you have to drain everything down. It’s a real pain, because you have to tow the train out afterwards with another engine. So once they’d dug me out, we took turns to stay with the engine and keep the fire in. If the snow had lasted much longer they’d have had to start carrying more wood out to it, which is a real pain too.”

Jamaam was a little late, but he made it through okay. “It’s getting a bit iffy in places. If it keeps on like this, you won’t be going to Tambuk tomorrow, much less on to Briggi.

“You must be Owen. Congratulations! You’re a lucky man.”

“You’re not supposed to say that, Jamaam. Berraami would be jealous if she thought you’d have preferred Aila if you thought she’d have you!”

Jamaam laughed. “Making Berraami jealous might not be such a bad thing!”

“I don’t think you mean that, really.”

“No, you’re right, I don’t. And I do think Aila’s lovely, but I’m glad I’ve got Berraami.”

I wondered whether Jamaam and Berraami were actually married, or just betrothed, or maybe not even betrothed. But I didn’t feel able to ask, and no-one volunteered the information. Maybe I can ask Peyr. Or Aila.

And I still have no idea how old anyone is. Jamaam and Jinni and Berraami seem quite a bit older than Aila or me – but are they? How old is Aila? Twenty-three, twenty-four? I really don’t know, could easily be years less, or more.

It was interesting to contrast the character of the different inns on the railway. Kaahes was efficient, comfortable and professional feeling. It had washing facilities and latrines indoors, things I’d only seen at Siroha since leaving England. The food was good and sufficient, without being excellent or generous. The atmosphere wasn’t homely like Belgaam or Tambuk, but nor was it oppressive like Veglid.

If I had dreams that night, I don’t remember any of them.

The morning was bitterly cold, and the snow, which had been slightly damp when it fell, was crunchy underfoot – but no more had fallen, the sky was blue from horizon to horizon, and Jamaam and Jinni decided it was safe to proceed.

Jinni built up her fire, then while the pressure was building up in the boiler, she got me to help her adjust her snowplough right down onto the rails to scrape off anything that was actually frozen to the rail. “You don’t normally want to do that, but when it’s refrozen and hard like this you can even get derailed by it.”

They both checked that their sandboxes were full, and we were off. “Blow my sis a kiss at Embrouha for me!” Jinni shouted to Jamaam as he climbed into his cab.

“Sorry, there’ll only be time for my own!”

Laughter.

Bad matching of shifts, for a couple – at least one of them won’t even stop at Embrouha. I wonder how the rest of their shifts work out – how much time do they ever get together? Sooner or later I’ll find out – or not.

All the way, the pathway Jamaam’s train had carved through the drifts was still visible. The further we went, the more the outline of his path had been smoothed out by additional snowfall and drifting, but the snowfall had clearly all finished not long after he arrived at Kaahes. We kept moving steadily, and didn’t need to use the sand at all – never a moment’s wheelslip. “I don’t like using sand if I can possibly help it. It makes a horrible mud on the rails that’s even worse than clean ice when it freezes. I’m pretty sure Jamaam didn’t use any last night, either.”

I could feel the whole engine shudder as we hit some of the drifts, but the weight of the train behind us just pushed us through, with great showers of icy snow cascading all over the engine and completely obliterating the blue sky for a moment. Jinni’s obviously done this before. She knows how big a drift she can just plough straight through!

I think she was actually quite enjoying it, to judge by the look on her face. Just as well we’ve got a tarpaulin over the woodpile, though.

I thought of something I could ask, that might lead Jinni into volunteering some of the information I wanted. Not that I really need any of this information, but it all helps to understand how the culture works. I think.

“You and Berraami are Briggi people, aren’t you? Is Jamaam a Briggi man, too?”

“Not originally, no, but he works Briggi-based shifts now, so as to get more time with Berraami. They both do a bit of shift swapping to get even more, but everyone wants to swap shifts here and there for different reasons, and it’s not easy to get exactly the combinations you want.”

The up train was already waiting for us at Tambuk. “That’s good of Parruk, setting off early from Briggi so we don’t have to stop here. The loop here is on quite a gradient, in ice like this it can be hard getting going again.”

Jinni blew three short blasts on the whistles, two high and a low, and Parruk returned the same sequence. “I’ve not heard that pattern before. Does it have a special meaning?”

Jinni grinned. “Not in the rule book, no. That’s blowing a kiss. He’s my boyfriend.”

Ah. I wondered if Jinni was attached. Actually, it’s a bit of a relief that she is. Her friendliness and familiarity aren’t anything more than friendliness and familiarity. That makes things easier.

I found my tongue was a little looser once I knew Jinni had a boyfriend, and felt able to ask things I was too shy to ask before. “So do railway girls always have railway boyfriends?”

I realized it was a daft question before I’d finished asking, but it didn’t matter.

“There’s only three of us. There’s only ever been three of us. If Mum’s got a boyfriend, she’s keeping quiet about it, and he’s not a railway man unless he’s one of the very young ones, or someone cheating on his wife. I don’t think she’s had a boyfriend since Dad died, in fact. But Jamaam and Parruk are both drivers, yes.”

Here’s me being so shy about asking any questions, and people just tell me all sorts of things with no inhibitions at all without me even asking. When will I ever get used to this culture?

But I still can’t ask how old anyone is. I don’t even know when Aila’s birthday is – or my own, in any way that makes any sense here. I don’t even know how the calendar works here.

Ah. That’s something I can ask!

“I know about the days of the week in Laana. In English, we divide the year into twelve months, as we call them, and they have names too, like the names of the days of the week. Is there anything like that in Laana?”

As we climbed out of the head of the valley, the wind got stronger, and there were big drifts that had reformed across the path Parruk had made. We were getting near the summit, and then it would be downhill or level until the viaduct just before Briggi, and we wouldn’t want much steam. Jinni shut the firebox door to slow down the fire before she answered. “Well, there’s four seasons – Cold just now, then Warming, Warm, Cooling and back to Cold. You have twelve seasons in England? Confusing!”

“No, no, we have four seasons just like you do. Months are just divisions of the year, not seasons.”

“Something to do with the Moon, and the tides? Twelve and a bit?

“Hold on tight to the handrail! This is a bigger drift!”

It was, but she knew what her train could stand all right. The shock was terrific and would certainly have knocked me off my feet if I hadn’t held tight, but apart from one big jerk the train just glided on as if nothing had happened. For a moment we had huge pile of snow on top of the tarpaulin over the wood, then that slid off sideways taking with it all the snow that had accumulated there already.

Jinni opened the firebox door and pulled the fire back together with a long handled rake. “All in a big pile right at the front, blocking the boiler tubes. Got to put some more wood on, too. It’d go out if I didn’t, with it all in little pieces like that.”

She lifted the edge of the tarpaulin and picked out a few smaller chunks of wood. She knows just how to do all this. Learnt at her mother’s knee, of course. It’d take me ages to learn all the tricks.

“I hope everything in the wagons is well packed. There’s no grab handles for the load!”

“It’ll be well enough packed. The shock’s much less in the wagons anyway, especially at the back end of the train. The buffers are designed to absorb a lot of shock – especially the long ones on the back of the engine.

“What were we talking about before that drift? Seasons or something?”

“I think I’d got my answer: you don’t have anything between week and season. So it’s just twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week, thirteen weeks in a season, and four seasons in a year.”

“Yes, that’s right. Well, sixty minutes in an hour, too, but that doesn’t often matter. The railway runs by clocks at the inns for the first leg, and the passenger train has a clock to make sure it never leaves anywhere early. As if that would ever happen – they’re always waiting for goods trains in the normal way of things. Apart from the first leg of the day, the goods trains always just go on as soon as they can.”

Interesting that the divisions of time are mostly the same as in England. Presumably they have a common history somewhere a long way back. Written numbers are the same too, of course. I’d not thought about that before.

We talked about the counting of the years as well, and I learnt that Laanoha counts them differently from Meyroha, and Barioha differently again, but that nowadays nearly everybody uses Meyroha years, apart from a few diehard Laanoha chauvinists. “It’s only fair. Everybody talks Laana. Why shouldn’t we count years Meyroha fashion? They’re a digit shorter, too!”

It was year 822, Meyroha style, so they were going to be a digit shorter all my life, anyway. But what the great event was that they were counted from, I didn’t discover. Most of Laanoha can’t be as old as that, never mind over a thousand – most of where it is now would have been under water eight hundred years ago. Unless sea level’s rate of descent has changed in that time. And that’s something else I’ve no means of knowing.

Lower down, the snow had drifted less since Parruk passed, and the line was pretty well clear. There was a curious peace in all the whiteness, despite the noise of the train. Somehow the snow seemed to deaden the noise, even in the cab. Of course the engine itself wasn’t working hard, but even the rolling of the wheels on the rails seemed gentler somehow.

Jinni loosed a long high whistle to announce our approach to Briggi, and used the last of the boiler pressure to propel us up the final gradient into the town.

Graamon and Peyr were there to meet us. “Well done, Jinni! We knew you’d bring him if you could! What’s the snow like at the top? Still drifting? As long as it doesn’t snow any more, Berraami should be able to get through, if you could.”

But there were angry looking clouds coming down from the north, so we weren’t confident. Medaal set off as soon as we arrived, pretty much on time, but he was taking extra food in case he got stuck. Everyone wished him luck, and then the four of us went into the inn by the railway yard.

The innkeeper had warm skiir in a cauldron by the fire, which was very welcome.

“We’ll stay here for lunch, then we’ll go up to my workshop later on and I’ll show you round. There’s a lot we can talk about here, now, but the workshop will doubtless prompt a lot more.”

I was a bit tongue-tied at first, but everyone was very relaxed and chatty, and gradually I found my voice. My knowledge of Laana, good enough by then for everyday conversation, was still grossly inadequate for the kind of deeper technical and scientific discussions Graamon and I wanted to have, but he was patient. “There’s pencils and paper up at the worksop. When we can draw diagrams for each other it will help a great deal. And I know that your knowledge of Laana is going to improve rapidly!”

Everyone was quite at ease slipping casually back and forth between technical or personal matters or the weather, and a couple of hours passed very pleasantly – and interestingly, for me at least.

Lunch arrived, and I realized how hungry I was. The Railwayyard Inn in Briggi expects engine drivers and their friends to arrive hungry from Kaahes, and they didn’t disappoint.

After lunch, it was snowing. Jinni excused herself and went home. “I’ll be back at three, to meet Berraami. If she gets through – it’s not snowing much down here, but who knows what it’s like on the top?”

“I hope she does get through, or at worst doesn’t set out from Tambuk. I don’t like the idea of her being stuck up there on her own.”

“Neither do I. But she’ll survive even if it happens. It happened to me once, a few years ago. Nasty. You learn a lot about yourself. It’s an experience, one you don’t forget, but it’s survivable. See you in about an hour.” And she was gone.

“We’ll stick around here too. The workshop will still be there this evening, or tomorrow.”

“Did you ever get stuck in the snow, Peyr?”

“Not like Jinni, no. I got stuck for a couple of hours once, that’s all. I was in sight of Tambuk, coming from here. I whistled and they came and dug me out. Just one big drift, and then I was moving again. There’s not many of us have been stuck as long as Jinni was. But on average, it’s getting worse year by year. Graamon’s been working on better ploughs, haven’t you?”

“Yes. There’s something ready in the workshop now – not as good as it’ll be by next winter, or even maybe by later this winter, but a lot better than we had last year. If Berraami doesn’t arrive reasonably soon, we’ll be on our way with it.”

At half past four, it was decided that it was time to go in search. Three engines were coupled up, Peyr’s in front, then Viilam’s, and finally Jinni’s, facing backwards. Jinni’s engine still had its plough set at rail scraping height, for reversing out, but the other engines had their ploughs removed. Graamon’s ‘something’ was a separate wagon in front of Peyr’s engine, with a plough the full height of the engine on it.

It had special long travel buffers, to absorb even more shock than the engines’ rear buffers, and it was filled with stone to make it weigh more than an engine. “The stone is fitted tight in a metal box so the whole thing is solid. It’s heavy enough to stay on the rails pretty much whatever happens. It’s got more inertia than an engine – it’ll really hammer the drifts. And with those buffers, hammering drifts won’t shock the engine much at all.”

If I hadn’t been able to work out a lot of what Graamon talked about for myself, I’d have been floundering trying to follow what he said. As it was, I was struggling trying to pick up all the new words. Many slipped past me, or I picked them up and then forgot them again. But I was very conscious how my learning rate had jumped back up somewhere near where it had been in the early days.

The plough was longer and sharper than the little ploughs that bolted onto the front of the engines. “The idea is that you push the snow sideways and compact it into the walls of the path you cut, rather than throwing most of it up into the air to fall where it will. If you’re going through a path that’s already got compacted walls, it should be able to push them back, even up the sides of cuttings. The only places I’m worried about are the three cuttings with vertical rock walls. The first and maybe second run through those should be okay, but after that I think we might have to wait for the thaw. I’m considering asking for a budget to roof them over, with the snow getting worse every year.”

“That would be a really good idea anyway, even without the new plough. They’re always the worst places with the old ploughs.”

“Yes, but roofing over a total of nearly two miles of track is an expensive proposition. You’ve got to justify the expense. How often is the line shut, and for how long? Are there any other ways you can keep it open for longer? The next version of this plough will be better than this one – it’s got steam rams to push the blades sideways, rather than just ramming forwards into the drifts.”

“It’s got its own boiler, then?”

“No, it’ll be connected up to the lead engine’s boiler. There’ll be a couple of new controls in the cab to operate it. I don’t really want to convert all the engines to connect to it, though. I’ll either convert just enough of them to be sure there’s always one here, or I might ask for Laar’s old engine when the new one is delivered, and keep it here as a dedicated snow clearance engine, permanently coupled to the new plough.”

The new plough worked very well. We found Medaal stuck in the first of the rock cuttings, unable to move forward or back. He was very pleased to see us! Well, hear us really. We were whistling like mad – three engines on both whistles, three short blasts, wait for reply, repeat – “rescue train on its way”.

Having reached him, we left a team of workmen to dig away the snow around his last wagon, and returned to Briggi to detach the plough wagon. Then we went back with just an ordinary plough on the front of Peyr’s engine. “If Medaal still can’t get moving, we’ll have to take Peyr’s plough off again, couple up to the end of Medaal’s train, and pull him out. Four engines have plenty of traction!”

But by the time we got back to him, Medaal was moving. We picked up the workmen, and headed back to Briggi.

“After Medaal gets to Briggi, will be going back to clear the line?”

“Not tonight, that’s for sure. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, tomorrow. At least we know Berraami’s safe at Tambuk – as long as she’s not stuck between Kaahes and Tambuk, that is. That’s Tambuk and Kaahes’s problem, though, there’s nothing we can do about it. Trains don’t often get stuck on that stretch, anyway. It’s pretty wild, but not like the top.”

Graamon and Jinni stayed at the inn for dinner with Peyr and Medaal and me. Conversation ranged widely again, but a lot of it was about snow and keeping the line open. “Another big advantage of the next version of the new plough is that you can open the blades at the front, and couple straight on to the train you’re rescuing. You won’t have to go back and detach the plough, which could be a problem if it’s still snowing heavily or drifting a lot.”

Graamon and Jinni headed home long after dinner. “I’ll be down here first thing tomorrow, and we’ll go up to the workshop.”

The snow was falling heavily again. Medaal had never been stuck in snow before, and was somewhat unnerved by his experience. “I don’t think anyone will be going anywhere tomorrow, even with the new plough. I think I’d want one of them on each end of three engines before I’d set out, even if it doesn’t do this all night. But at least we know there’s no train on the line anywhere between here and Tambuk, if Graamon does want to try.”

“We’ll see what conditions are like in the morning. I trust Graamon to take any decision wisely. And don’t forget – as Jinni says, it’s survivable, whatever happens. Although I think I’m inclined to take plenty of food!” Peyr laughed, but was failing to get Medaal to see the funny side of it.

He tried again. “Owen here has been through much scarier times than a few days stuck in a snowdrift with a nice warm fire, Medaal!”

“I heard – vaguely. Sometime I’d like to hear more of that story! I’m not sure tonight’s a good time though. I’m going to have bad enough dreams as it is.”

I’ve never thought in advance about what dreams I might have. I just take them as they come. Has Medaal planted an idea in my head? If he has, what will the consequence be? Not bad, I hope.

I lay awake for a long time after everyone else had gone to sleep – unless they were lying awake thinking quietly too. How much snow is there in Baragi? What’s Aila doing, what’s she thinking about? What have I committed myself to? Is Aila lying awake, wondering what she’s committed herself to? She’s probably got a better idea of that than I have.

How long will this snow last? How long will it take to get things settled, to know whether I’ve got a job with Graamon? When will I see Aila again? Peyr’s obviously quite at ease about it all.

I remembered with utter clarity what Aila had said. “We never really know what’s going to happen next. Whatever it is, it’s not going to kill us, so I’m not worried. It’s not even going to get us into trouble, so what is there to worry about?” My head told me she was absolutely right, but somewhere deep down inside something was gnawing away at my confidence.

When I did sleep, I dreamed that I was trying to rescue Aila from the snow. When I reached her, she was just my little model Aila, and I could still hear Aila shouting for help further away. It was almost dark, the snow was falling thick and fast, almost horizontally in the wind, and I was sinking thigh deep in drifts.

Then I was under the floor in Peyr’s engine, but it was freezing cold and I knew the fire was going out for lack of fuel but I couldn’t open the panel to get out and feed it.

I woke. It was dark, but by the light of the fire flickering low I could see the innkeeper sitting on a stool by the fire, just putting a couple of lumps of wood on the fire. He was wearing a thick woollen jacket over his clothes, and looked enormous. It was freezing cold. I pulled more of the bedding pile around myself and tried to go back to sleep. Is it always as cold as this in Briggi? Are other places in Briggi warmer than this inn? Did Peyr pick up my clothes at Sirimi Road? If he did, why hasn’t he mentioned them? Maybe he’s got them hidden somewhere, because he didn’t want someone getting ideas about them – is there someone around that he doesn’t trust? I won’t saying anything until there’s just the two of us – he’ll probably say something himself then.

One of my feet was still cold, and I tried to reorganize the bedding a little to cover it better. The innkeeper must have heard me moving, and looked over at me. “Are you awake? Cold? Come over and warm yourself by the fire with me. I’ve got some hot skiir, too, it’ll do you good.” He spoke very softly, obviously not wanting to wake the others.

I picked an old jacket off the pile and wrapped it around my shoulders to keep my back warm, and joined the innkeeper at the fire. He ladled skiir out of the cauldron into a mug and gave it to me. We sat staring into the fire, with our hands round the warm mugs, sipping occasionally. “Is it often as cold as this here?” I whispered.

“No, not often. But the sky’s cleared now, and the temperature’s dropped a lot outside. There was a lot more snow after we went to sleep before it cleared, though. And it’s drifting dreadfully, it’s up to the eaves on the leeward side of the inn. It’s not been like this since ’13. That was the year Jinni was stuck up on the top.”

I could hear the wind. I wasn’t surprised the snow was drifting. So Jinni’s been driving engines for at least nine years. How old does that make her? I simply don’t know.

“How often do engines get stuck up there?”

“Oh, once or twice most years someone or other gets stuck for a day or two. Parruk was stuck for four days last year. There was a tremendous lot of snow on the top, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as this, and it was melting as fast as it fell down here in Briggi. It got bloody cold later, but there was no more snow, and there wasn’t this wind. The inn keeps toasty warm even in really cold weather, as long as there’s no wind.”

We lapsed into silence, sitting staring into the fire and taking occasional sips of skiir. The innkeeper put more wood on the fire at intervals, and occasionally adjusted it with a long poker and a pair of tongs.

A dim grey light gradually appeared in the sky where I could see it through the north window, but the south window was dark. I assumed it was blocked by snow.

The innkeeper built up the fire, then got up and went over to the table and fetched an oil lamp. He lit it with a taper from the fire, and took it back to the table. He started to prepare breakfast.

I went over to the north window, and looked out. This was the side away from the railway yard, and there was a wide space between the inn and another row of buildings – or what I knew to be a row of buildings from my previous visit. All I could see was a line of snowdrifts, with gaps blown clean here and there where alleyways gave the wind passage, and chimneys and the tops of roofs sticking out of the snow. Our side of the space was blown nearly clear, with just old snow half melted and refrozen, and streaks of new snow across it here and there.

The innkeeper heated a pan over the fire, then began to fry the slices of mutton he’d been preparing. The noise or the smell or the combination woke Peyr and Medaal.

The three of us went outside to relieve ourselves. We each took a pot of warm water from indoors to clean our backsides, but there was no other washing. The pump would have delivered water all right, but none of us wanted to freeze to death.

We returned to a delicious and filling breakfast of bread, fried mutton, and warm skiir.

Shortly after we’d finished, we heard someone stamping the snow off his boots in the hallway, and guessed it would be Graamon. It was. The innkeeper ladled out another mug of warm skiir for him. “I expect you’ve eaten?”

“Yes, yes. Viina always feeds me well, you know that. But your skiir is always welcome! Well, we’re obviously not going to try clearing the line today. But you and I have a lot to talk about, Owen, and a workshop to take a look around.”

But he stayed long enough to finish his skiir without hurrying, and get warm again.

I felt a little strange leaving Peyr at the inn. Somehow I felt that maybe Peyr was staying behind, either of his own volition or by prior arrangement with Graamon, to make sure that Medaal didn’t come with us. I didn’t know why, but I was somehow glad not to have Medaal along.

Once we were out of the inn, Graamon didn’t beat about the bush. “So – how do you fancy working for the railway? We need people like you, and you need a livelihood!”

“Goodness! You scarcely know anything about me!”

“Enough. You’re a young man with an independent mind, a lot of technical knowledge and understanding, and the ability to make use of it. That much I know already. What more do I need to know?”

“Well...I think it would be ideal. As you say, I need a livelihood, and the railway seems to be a good employer. In fact, I don’t know anything at all about any other employer.”

“Oh, there are other employers. But as you say, the railway is one of the best – it’s not going to disappear overnight, that’s for sure. Senior posts in the Meyroha or Laanoha guards pay better, but I’m sure you’re not the kind of person who’d like working for organizations like that. Except perhaps as a fifth columnist, and that would be a perilous role. In fact, one of the advantages of working for the railway – an advantage I value highly – is the protection is gives you against the worst abuses by the guards. Possibly more important for you, the protection it gives your family.”

“Well, unless you’re very devious – and I’m sure Peyr doesn’t think you are, and I trust his judgement – that’s the best offer I could possibly want. Yes, I’d love to work for the railway.”

“Good. That’s settled then. I was pretty sure it would be! There’s someone you need to meet. He should be at the workshops by the time we arrive. We’ll talk about terms and conditions there.”

“Where will I be based?”

“Oh, initially here in Briggi. You’ll technically be my assistant, but I suspect you’ll rapidly develop a role of your own, and we’ll certainly want to visit the workshops in Laanoha and Meyroha fairly often. Between you, me and the gatepost, I’ve got another project in hand that’s nothing to do with the railway, that I’m sure you’ll be interested in, but we can’t talk about that until after Baamoon goes back to Meyroha. Or at least until we get some time to ourselves.”

“Baamoon?”

“He’s the chap who should be waiting for us at the workshops by now. He’s the head of the railway committee. We need him to sign your papers. But Baamoon’s not your average committee member, he’s got more sense than most of them. It’s not every committee member who’d drop everything and ride on a goods train all the way to Briggi just because I send him a note saying it would probably be rather useful to have him here! And now he’s stuck in Briggi until we can reopen the line. But I expect he’ll forgive me.”

“Ah! Was it Baamoon who rode with Peyr?”

“It was. But neither of them knew why Baamoon was coming – although Peyr very likely guessed.”

Baamoon was waiting for us outside the workshop. He’d been inside, but had seen us from the window and come out to meet us. He was an elderly man, but seemingly sprightly and alert.

“You’re Owen. I’m Baamoon, I’m very pleased to meet you. Graamon’s been telling me about you. We’re very pleased to have you on the team.”

Not afraid of making assumptions, either.

“Thank you very much, I’m pleased to meet you, too. I guess you already know I said yes, then.”

“Graamon said he knew you would, and I didn’t see any sign of the sky falling, so I thought it was a pretty safe assumption.”

I like this man. He’s absolutely straightforward. Procedures here are very different from those in England, much less formal, and I like that too. Or maybe that’s just the railway. Oh, and there’s another idiom that’s like the English one – more or less.

Graamon laughed. “I don’t see any sign of the sky falling today, either. But it certainly fell yesterday.”

“It certainly did! I wonder when I’ll be able to get back to Meyroha? You’ve definitely imprisoned me here for a few days very effectively, Graamon.”

“You’d enjoy a long break here, I’m sure. But I’m afraid we’ll probably get you out of here quicker than you think. The expanding plough isn’t ready to expand yet – we don’t have an engine with a steam take-off for it yet, anyway – but we’ll very soon be able use it as a back-end plough on a line-clearing train, so we can reverse out even if there’s heavy drifting behind us. I think we’ll probably get through to Tambuk in a couple of days time, whatever the snow does. If we have to push through to Kaahes as well, it’s all going to be a bit slow, and we’ll only be taking very short trains with several engines, but as long as it doesn’t snow or drift a lot more, we’ll probably keep the line open. But we’ll see. We can’t be certain until we try. Yesterday was the first trial with the simpler one, and it was very encouraging, but it’s early days yet.

“But let’s get inside out of the cold, and deal with the paperwork and talk about Owen’s arrangements.”

Graamon’s workshop was an impressive size, with two railway tracks, overhead cranes, machine tools and workbenches. The expanding plough looked small in the middle of it all. Inside, we were out of the wind, and it wasn’t as cold as outside, but no-one could have called it warm. Two men in boiler suits were working on the plough, and another was doing something at a bench. They looked up as we came in, then went back to their tasks.

Graamon led the way across the end of the shop, up an open flight of stairs, and into a small room built over the workbenches. There were two windows in the outer wall, one with a desk under it and the other half obscured by a large drawing board. The opposite wall was all windows from waist height upwards, looking out over the workshop. Graamon shut the door behind us. This room was comfortably warm, and we took off our coats and gloves. Graamon slid a pot across its rack, closer to the fire, and fetched mugs. “It’s worth waiting for that to warm up, I think. I’ve got papers ready, Baamoon, but we perhaps ought to talk some details before you sign them.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary. You’re sure you want him, he’s sure he wants the job, that’s good enough for me.”

I wasn’t quite ready. “We’ve not even discussed terms and conditions yet.”

Graamon reassured me. “The papers are only to say you’re an official of the railway company. They’ll get you in and out of Laanoha and Meyroha, and pretty much any office anywhere, apart from Castle offices and upper guard offices. No more smuggling in and out of Laanoha under trains for you!”

So Graamon knows perfectly well where I was, and doesn’t care that Baamoon knows, either. Well, maybe not exactly where, but more or less.

Baamoon laughed. “Really? I can’t imagine how that could possibly happen. Who would have believed it? It doesn’t sound very comfortable.”

Graamon evidently realized that I didn’t know what to say to that. “I don’t suppose it is. But it’s only for a few minutes, I expect. It couldn’t be done without the cooperation of the engine driver, and once they’re clear of Laanoha, there’s no problem about carrying passengers without papers.”

“Quite a trick to get out from underneath a train, and then hitch a lift in the driver’s cab, without the train even stopping. But I really don’t want to know how that’s done. Most of the committee think I’m mad even riding in the cab. But the drivers are mostly better company than the committee.”

“Too true. Here’s his papers, anyway.”

My papers were very different from Peyr’s, the only other papers I’d ever seen. Peyr’s were just a single sheet of paper, folded in four. Mine were a little booklet with a fine leather cover. Baamoon took a pen out of a pocket in his jacket, dipped it in a little pot of ink Graamon extracted from a drawer under the desk, and signed in a space amongst the printing on the first page. Then he wiped his pen clean on a rag from the drawer, and returned it to his pocket.

“Now we need your signature, Owen. Don’t worry, I guess you’ve never written Laana before. We’ve got two choices. There’s no theoretical reason why you shouldn’t sign in English. As long as you wrote the same thing again when asked to sign, they couldn’t really complain. But it would probably lead to less trouble for you if you write in Laana. I’ll write it for you, and show you the proper stroke order so you can do it repeatably even when you’re a fluent Laana writer, then you practice a few times before signing the papers.”

“Do you have another name, Owen? I presume Owen is your personal name. Do English people have a family name too, like we do?”

“I didn’t know you did, actually! I’ve never heard anyone use a family name. Yes, we do. Mine’s Morley.”

“Mor Liiauen?” Baamoon laughed. “I shouldn’t laugh, but we’ll have to give you a new, Laana, name. We can’t have people calling you Mor Liiauen.”

It took me a moment to realize that he’d put my family name first. I oughtn’t to find that difficult to get my head round. I’m used to word order being different from one language to another. But none of the languages I knew before put family names first, and personal names last.

“No, it’s Owen Morley, not Morley Owen.”

Now it was their turn to get confused for a moment. Graamon got there first.

“Oh, I see. It’s not that your family name is Owen, it’s just that English people put their names the wrong way round. But if you call yourself Owen Morley, everyone will think Morli’s your personal name, and they’ll call you Morli – and that’s a girl’s name. But Baamoon’s right – we should give you a Laana family name. Owen’s okay; it’s unusual, but it’s a good name, and everyone who knows you knows it already.”

“You laughed at Mor Liiauen, Baamoon. Well, I know what mor means, but I guess liiauen must mean something, too, by your reaction. I’d love to know what.”

“I suppose that’s not the kind of thing you hear often in the normal course of life – unless you spend time with butchers.”

Describing the insides of animals when your foreign listener hasn’t got much of the relevant vocabulary is not easy. Graamon listened to Baamoon for a few moments, and then went and got pencil and paper, and drew a picture.

“Aha! Intestines. No, I don’t really want to be called Goat’s Intestines, you’re right!”

“You can have my name, with pleasure. Meyru Owen? Sounds good.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Baamoon. Meyru Owen’s papers, signed by Meyru Baamoon? You’re not supposed to sign close relatives’ papers, and Meyru’s not a common name. Mine’s common enough, but it’s probably better if no-one thinks he’s related to me, either.”

“How about Riish? From what you say, Peyr seems to have pretty much adopted him.”

Graamon laughed. “No, that really wouldn’t do. People would think he was marrying his sister!”

I didn’t even know Peyr had a family name, much less what it was. And I still don’t know whether Aila gets her father’s family name or her mother’s, or what happens to family names, if anything, on marriage. I’ll have to ask Peyr, it’s not important here and now.

What about Birgom? I wonder what his family name is. I suspect that both he and Viilam would be pleased to have more family, and he speaks English, too. As if that really meant anything to anyone but us. But I need a name now, and I wouldn’t want to do that without asking him. Ah – but Viilam must be here, somewhere! But I scarcely know him.

“There’s an old man in Laanoha – Birgom – with whom I feel an affinity. We obviously can’t ask him whether I can use his name, but his grandson is an engine driver and he’s somewhere here in Briggi at the moment, I’m pretty sure. He drove the train before Peyr’s coming up this time. But I don’t know them well.”

“I’m sure they’d be pleased really, and anyway they could scarcely object. They don’t own the name. Viilam’s name is Mezhab, but I don’t know whether his grandfather’s is the same. Maybe we should ask Peyr’s advice.”

Graamon slid open a window to the workshop. A cold blast hit me, and I shivered for a moment. Graamon shouted down into the workshop, “Kaasham! Pop over here a minute!”

One of the boiler-suited men came over from the plough, and must have stood just under where Graamon was leaning out of the window, but out of my sight. “Can you dash down to the Railwayyard Inn, and see if Peyr’s still there? I expect he is. If he is, or you can track him down without too much trouble, can you send him up here, please? Just him, we don’t want anyone else with him.”

Graamon shut the window. “While we’re waiting for Peyr – I expect Kaasham will find him okay – we can talk about some of the other things we need to discuss. For example, where are you going to live? The railway would be very happy to keep you in the Railwayyard Inn forever, but they’ll pay for somewhere better than that, for you and your family, and it’ll be better for you, and for them in the long run, if you’re more comfortable.”

“I’m very much in your hands, really. I don’t know Briggi at all, or much about how things work here. What sort of place would you suggest?”

“I suspected you’d say something like that. For the moment, until Aila joins you, you’d probably be as happy with a room at Viina’s house, where I live, as anywhere. She’s a good cook, she keeps a warm, clean and tidy house, and there’s plenty of table space to spread out papers or little models. And she doesn’t mind residents coming and going at odd times. After that – well, it’s as much up to Aila as to any of us. The railway will pay for anything reasonable.”

Baamoon nodded. “Graamon’s absolutely right. The railway will pay for anything reasonable. Unless you have other ideas, you move in at Viina’s as soon as you like. She’s got a spare room at the moment, Graamon?”

“Yes, she has. A couple at the moment, in fact, since Biiniha got married. I took the liberty of telling Viina that we’d probably want to take Biiniha’s room, assuming that you’d probably want it for a while Owen, until you need a place with Aila. It’s one of Briggi’s very few upstairs rooms – a big room over the whole of the middle of the house, all round the chimney and with dormer windows facing each way. It’s a lovely room, and always warm.”

“Biiniha? She’s Viina’s daughter, isn’t she? The one who looks like my grand-daughter Maaniya?”

“That’s her. She’s married Baam, a teacher from Barioha, and gone to live there with him. He’s an interesting chap, been coming up here studying the glacier for years. You’ll meet them before long, Owen, I’m sure. They’ve not visited yet since they were married. Viina’s expecting them any time. Sends letters all the time, but only gets a few replies!”

“Won’t they want Biiniha’s room to stay in, when they come?”

“No, it’s only a single room. It’s a big room, but there’s only a single maalba, and Viina wouldn’t want to get a double just for occasional short visits. She got rid of her own double after Grim – her husband – died. They’ll stay at the Briggi Inn, in the middle of town, where Baam stayed when Viina didn’t have a spare room. It’s the only inn with maalban in Briggi.”

Maalba? I think that must mean bed. He’s talking about beds. I’ve not slept in a bed since that night at Siroha. Luxury? I’m not sure. I’ve got used to piles of old clothes on the floor.

“The other question is how much we pay him, Graamon. I guess he doesn’t have much idea how much anything costs, so it’s really up to you to decide. The committee will accept anything reasonable if I tell them what reasonable means.”

“I suggest fifty coins a week for the time being. That’s more than the drivers or workshop men earn, and enough to support him and Aila in reasonable comfort, without being so much he’ll make anyone jealous.”

“Okay. We’ll review it when we see what you’re actually achieving, Owen. Does that sound okay to you?”

“If Graamon says it’s enough to support Aila and me, that sounds good to me. But as you say, I don’t have much idea of what things cost anyway. No doubt I’ll find out.”

I wonder what drivers and workshop men do earn? I wonder what Aila’s earning in Baragi?

Then Peyr was knocking at the door of the office. Graamon gestured to him to come in.

“We need some advice from you, Peyr. Owen needs a family name – he’s got an English one, but it really won’t do in Laana. We thought about using mine, or Graamon’s, or yours – but there are good arguments against all of those. Owen mentioned Birgom and Viilam, says he’s got a bit of an affinity with Birgom, but we’re not sure whether Birgom’s family name is the same as Viilam’s, and he doesn’t know Viilam well enough to ask him if Birgom would mind him using his name. What do you think?”

“I’m absolutely certain that Birgom would be delighted to call Owen his grandson. Yes, Birgom’s name is Mezhab, same as Viilam’s. We ought at least to check what Viilam thinks, though. He’s at the Briggi Inn at the moment. No problem talking to him about it, Owen, Viilam’s as straight as sunbeams. I’ll go and dig him out. I don’t suppose he’s gone walkabout in this weather.”

I looked out of the window. It was snowing again, big soft flakes. It can’t be as cold as it was, big flakes like that. But it must still be damned cold up at the top. And at Tambuk, for that matter.

And Peyr was gone. Graamon shut the door after him. “Drivers!” he muttered, “never shut doors. They forget that other people don’t have fires designed to boil half a ton of water.” But he was smiling.

I wonder. I never noticed Peyr forgetting to shut the door in Laanoha. But you can see by his face that Graamon is actually rather fond of Peyr.

“Well, Graamon will explain how we operate and what he expects of you. There’s really only one thing left for me to deal with here. I need to know the full name you’re going to use, so I can get everything set up in the paper chain. And we won’t know your name until Peyr gets back, at the soonest. So I propose a wander around the workshops while we’re waiting.”

Graamon ladled out mugs of warm skiir from the pot. We put on our coats, and holding our mugs, we set off down the stairs into the workshop.

The expanding plough was a beautifully made thing, and the mechanical design looked as though it had been very carefully and cleverly done. The hinge pins were placed and aligned to make the two blades open in such a way that the snow was lifted slightly as it was pushed, and so that the passageway opened through the drift was actually slightly wider than the closed plough, which itself was slightly wider than the engine and wagons. The hinge pins themselves were of impressive dimensions, with bronze sleeves. “They don’t need pressurized oil feeds, like the moving parts on the engine. They’re not expected to operate hundreds of millions of times in their lifetime. Hand greasing is all they need.”

The steam arrangements intrigued me. Where in England they’d have had flexible polymer hoses with spiral steel wire reinforcement, there were solid iron tubes with hinged joints. Okay, fair enough, if you don’t have polymer hose material. I’m sure that works. I’m sure you’ve done it before. But wouldn’t it be better to use hydraulics, rather than running steam right out to the far end of the plough? But I won’t say anything just now, not in front of Baamoon – or in front of the workshop men.

But they could all see that I was studying the thing in detail and with an understanding eye, which I thought was probably a good thing. But I must be careful not to give the impression that I’m deliberately trying to impress!

Graamon showed me all the machine tools as well. There were some similarities with the machines back at the school in London, but there were some interesting differences, too. I found the little engine in the corner that provided all the power for them especially interesting, and made a mental note to ask Graamon about it later. It obviously ran extremely fast, because it had an impressive gear train between it and the main shaft down the back of the workbenches. Graamon saw me looking at it and grinned. “My own invention,” he said, “it runs on flammable vapour, a by-product from charcoal production. I’ll explain it to you later.”

“You make your own charcoal?”

“Yes, we do. We used to buy it in from charcoal burners who made it up in the woods, but we can do it much better here – and get all the byproducts, too, instead of letting them go to waste. We’ve got a furnace for it in the foundry. I’ll take you next door to the foundry later, but just now we’d better be here. Peyr and Viilam will probably turn up quite soon.”

“I don’t know about you two engineers, but I’m ready to head back to the office into the warm!”

Graamon laughed. “You’re a rare committee man who takes an interest in all this stuff anyway. We could all do with a bit of warmth, and some more skiir, I’m sure.”

Peyr and Viilam arrived just as we were climbing the stairs. Graamon got two more mugs, and filled all five with warm skiir.

Peyr had evidently told Viilam what it was all about already. Viilam gave me a hug in very much the way Grim had. “Welcome into the family, brother! I know for a fact that Grandad will be pleased and proud to call you Grandson! He talked about it on the way home, the night he met you – he said you’d be needing a Laana family name, and hoped you’d want his. He says he really wants a chance to have a long private chat with you as soon as you can spend some time in Laanoha, too. He hopes it will be before too long.” Viilam paused for a moment, looking reflective. “He says he doesn’t think he’s got much longer to live. But he’s been saying that for years.”

“So that’s settled then. You’re Mezhab Owen. Now all you’ve got to do is learn how to write that, and fill in your signature on your papers.” Graamon opened the drawer under the desk, and extracted the ink, the rag, and another pen. “This is your pen now, I’m sure you didn’t have one already.”

Then he turned to Baamoon. “You know, we’ll have to take him up to the tailor’s and get him a jacket made. He doesn’t have suitable pockets for his things.”

It was true. My trousers had hip pockets suitable for a rag and a wallet and a few coins, but I’d nowhere suitable for my papers or a pen. I noticed that both Baamoon’s and Graamon’s jackets had several pockets, very possibly with specific purposes of which I was still unaware, apart from pockets obviously specially made for papers and a pen.

“Get him a complete outfit – two in fact. He can’t represent the railway in ill-fitting working men’s clothes like that. It’s one thing when he’s riding on engines, in inns, or here in the workshop, but quite another elsewhere. He’d cause a bit of a stir in the offices, for a start – and I can imagine guards being a bit suspicious of his papers, too. But let’s get this signature done.”

Graamon showed me how to write my name, and I practiced a few times on a piece of paper he produced from the drawer. The pen had a tendency to flood, and make blots. Graamon took it from me, wiped it on the rag, and inspected the nib end with a little hand glass. He produced a tiny file from a pocket, adjusted the shape of the nib, and handed it back to me. “There, try that.”

The pen glided smoothly instead of snatching at the paper, and the flooding had stopped. Magic. I wish I had that kind of skill with small tools.

“Not bad. You’re doing the final downstroke upwards, though. The shape will change a little when you get that right, so you’d better get it right before you commit your signature to your papers.”

Three more attempts, all looking pretty much identical. “Okay, that’ll do. Here’s your papers.”

Somewhat nervously, I signed. Happily this one looked almost exactly the same again.

Graamon moved the papers to the far side of the desk, and put a bronze rod across the middle to hold them open while the ink dried.

“So. You exist now. I suggest we go straight to the tailor’s and get you measured up before lunch, and then we’ll see how they’re getting on with the expanding plough. I’m hoping to take a double-ended three engine set up the line and see if we can get through this afternoon, if they’ve got the coupling done. No expanding yet, of course – we’ll be lucky to get that done before the weather warms up anyway.”

Peyr and Viilam excused themselves and headed for the Briggi Inn together. “Peyr’s staying in the Railwayyard Inn, isn’t he?”

“Oh, he probably wants a chat with Viilam. I think he generally prefers the Railwayyard, but I think the only reason he stayed there yesterday was because he knew Jinni would bring you there.”

The three of us set off for the tailor’s, wherever that was – or so I assumed. After a short way, Baamoon excused himself, “You don’t need me any more, Graamon. I’ll see you after lunch, and I’ll probably come with you if you are going to try to clear the line. You’ll be lunching at the Briggi, I imagine?”

“Yes, we’ll wait for you there.”

Baamoon disappeared between two snowdrifts, and into an alley between the buildings the drifts were hiding behind. The snow, now soft and damp and falling almost vertically, was beginning to cover the areas that had been blown clear, as well as giving an extra coat to the drifts of old, dry, cold, fine snow. There were a few people out on the street, but not many.

“Where will he go for lunch? He won’t join us at the Briggi?”

“No, one of his sons lives here. He stays there when he’s in Briggi, and he’ll be going there now. I expect he’s enjoying the break anyway – he’s got two young grandchildren here.”

The tailor’s was only a hundred metres further up the street, on the south side. There was a beautifully painted sign outside, the like of which one might see outside an inn in England, but certainly not outside a tailor’s. Graamon knocked at the door, but then led me inside without waiting for an answer. The tailor appeared in his shop from a backroom as we entered.

“Master Graamon! Good to see you. And what can I do for you today? You haven’t worn holes in your knees and elbows again, I hope?”

Graamon laughed. “No, Lomeyr, not yet. It’s nothing for me this time. This young man’s just started as an assistant engineer with the railway, and we need two respectable outfits and an overcoat for him. You know the style – all the same pockets I have. Oh, and keep his measurements. He’ll be wanting a wedding suit before long, too. I doubt he’ll have time to put on much weight between now and then.”

It was Lomeyr’s turn to laugh. “Well, you certainly haven’t put on any weight working for the railway, Graamon, but some of your colleagues have. You keep as active as Graamon, young man, and don’t get too fond of your food, and you’ll be fine. What’s your name, anyway? It helps if I can put a name alongside the measurements, if I’m supposed to remember whose measurements they are.”

“Owen.”

Lomeyr produced a tape measure from his apron pocket, and started to measure me. “Just Owen? It’s true you’ll be the only Owen on my books, but I do normally put two names for everyone.”

“Sorry. Mezhab Owen.” I was quite proud of myself remembering not to say Owen Morley.

“You’re not from anywhere around these parts, that’s for sure. I can’t place your accent at all, nor your clothes. And you’ve never been in a tailor’s shop before, either, have you?”

Well, not one anything like this. But I shan’t say anything about that.

Graamon realized that I didn’t really know what I should or shouldn’t say, and answered for me. “No, Owen’s not from anywhere round these parts, you’re right. He’s come a very long way, and we’re lucky to have him. He’s only been learning Laana for a few weeks, but he’s doing very well.”

“This cloth is unusual. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He was feeling the fabric of my trousers. They were part polymer, part hemp. I’d seen hemp growing near Laanoha, but not a lot of it, and I’d not seen any sign of artificial polymers at all. Most, maybe all, of the cloth here was cotton, linen or wool. I made a non-committal gesture that I hoped said, “it’s just ordinary stuff where I come from, I don’t know much about it.” Lomeyr seemed to accept it cheerfully enough.

“I expect you’d like one jacket as soon as possible, and the rest when it’s ready? You can have one jacket by tomorrow evening, and the rest in three days’ time, all being well. Okay?”

“That’s absolutely fine. You’re right that the first jacket is the priority.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow evening then. And Owen, if you can get me any of the fabric your trousers are made of, I’d be very interested.”

Graamon led me out of the shop as Lomeyr disappeared into his back room. Not a word had been said about price, or payment. He’ll just bill the railway. He knows Graamon. As simple as that.

“I don’t see how I could get any of this fabric for Lomeyr. I’ve no contact with England, no way of establishing trade – even if I wanted contact with England, which I really don’t.”

“Do you know what it’s made of, and how it’s made? There are people here who might be able to make it, if you tell them how it’s done.”

“I don’t know whether I know enough to make exactly this material, but I might know enough to help them make something like it – or something different from what they’re making already, anyway. But things for the railway are surely what I’ve got to do now?”

“Certainly the railway will expect you to get on with things for them, but they don’t expect you to spend every waking hour doing nothing else. I get involved in all kinds of things apart from railway work, and they don’t mind at all as long as the railway work keeps progressing okay. Some of the things I do that weren’t ever intended for the railway end up being very useful to the railway, and some things I do for the railway end up being useful to other people. That’s life. The railway uses quite a lot of fabric, actually. Something hard wearing would be really useful in the passenger trains.”

“The big difference with this fabric is that half the fibres aren’t natural fibres at all, they’re artificial polymer fibres. Polymer is the English word, I don’t think there is a Laana word for it, because I don’t think you have any artificial polymers here at all. We’ll have to talk about how to make polymers, they’re useful for all kinds of things, not just cloth. I understand the basics, but I’ve never seen the actual industrial processes to make them, so there’d have to be a lot of experimentation to develop methods of large scale manufacture.”

“I know people who’d be very interested to learn whatever they can about things like that.”

“My balloons, and the water tank I used for water ballast when I was ballooning, were made of artificial polymers.”

“That’s another thing we need to talk about sometime. I understand from Peyr that the people at Siroha have taken charge of all the things you left where you landed. We’ll have to retrieve them somehow. He was going to pick up your clothes this last trip, he said, but with Baamoon on board he didn’t stop at Sirimi road, even though the lady who was going to give them to him was waiting there. And now the timetable is all scrambled for a few days at least, so she won’t know when Peyr’s expected. It might be worth our while hiring a gig from Raamba to take us up there. With you in a proper senior railwayman’s outfit and the two of us going together, I think they’ll realize they’ve missed their chance to catch hold of your tail. Peyr says we’ll need at least a big part of a wagon to carry your stuff in.”

“I should think so. Maybe an eighth of a wagon load. Probably not even quite that much.”

“Not a problem bringing them here to Briggi. It’s the other direction we’re usually fully loaded. We’ll only take anything the other way if once we know there’s a really good reason to do it.”

Lunch at the Briggi was very good. I could see why Peyr preferred the Railwayyard, though. It was much more homely, and there was nothing wrong with the food there, either.

Like almost everywhere else, there was no bill to pay, nothing to sign, nothing. We were railwaymen, and the railway had a contract, end of story. I wondered whether the inns actually kept a record of how many meals they’d served, and how many railwaymen had stayed the night, or whether it was all done on an estimated long term average, or some other basis entirely. But a couple of places, I remember Peyr paying. I don’t remember which places they were. I wonder what the difference is?

Back at the workshop, it was clear that the plough wasn’t going to be ready in time for an attempt to get through to Tambuk before dark. “Don’t worry, Graamon. Kaasham and I will work as long as it takes this evening, we’ve already decided. It’ll be ready to go at daybreak tomorrow. Jinni’s been in while you were out, and she’s going to come down and assemble the train at first light. We guess what you want is the old new plough on the front, three engines, then four or five ordinary wagons, and the new new plough on the back? You won’t want more than four or five wagons, I don’t think, or you’ll start cutting into your traction, but you’ll want a few if you’re going to go right through to Laanoha with it, and I guess you’ll do that?”

“I’m not sure about that. For one thing, I’d like the ploughs to come back with Berraami, assuming she’s at Tambuk. If she’s still at Kaahes, or worse still somewhere on the line in between, we’ll be clearing that stretch as well. We’ll definitely want the ploughs on her train, when I think about it. And probably extra engines, too, just in case. I think we’ll take all five engines.”

“With five engines, you can take as many wagons as will fit in a loop. You don’t want more than that if you’re going to have to shuffle at Tambuk to get the ploughs onto Berraami’s train. Oh, and I’ll put an old plough in a wagon for you – you might need it in the mountains down south.”

“Hopefully we won’t need ploughs in the mountains down south – we don’t get drifts on the viaduct at the end of the branch, and the main line should be clear enough. But you’re right, best not to take a chance. Of course if it’s actually blocked, that’s another matter!”

“That’s never happened, has it?”

“Not yet, no. But it’s getting worse, year by year, and this looks like it’s a particularly bad one. If these ploughs really work, I can see us wanting some down there before long. Or we’ll work out how to make better ones, and they can have these ones.”

We left the three workshop men busy at the plough, and headed for Graamon’s lodgings. Viina’s place – my lodgings! I’d been there once before, with Peyr, looking for Graamon.

We had to go round to the back door, because there was a snowdrift half way up the roof at the front of the house.

Viina remembered me, and welcomed me like a long-lost son. I wasn’t sure whether it was moving or funny or both.

“So you’re Owen. Peyr never introduced us, when you were here before. I’d better show you the room, see if you like it. There’s actually a choice of two, but I think I know which one you’ll want.”

She showed me the downstairs room first. It had a big window, but that was blocked by snow, and she lit an oil lamp. The room was perfectly lovely, there was nothing wrong with it at all. It was a very good size, with a substantial table, three chairs, a bed, a cupboard, and a chest of drawers. It was spotlessly clean, dry and reasonably warm despite the snow drifted against the outside wall and window.

Furnished like Siroha. Not like Peyr’s place at all. I hope I don’t get above myself – Peyr’s still my best friend here.

Graamon seemed quite at ease at Peyr’s place, and everyone seemed at ease with him there. Everything will be fine.

“It’s a lovely room!”

“Thank you. But I think you’ll like upstairs better.”

We crossed a large living room cum kitchen. There was a blazing fire in a large fireplace. Our way was opposite the fireplace, up a flight of very solid stone stairs with one side open to the room. At the top, a door led into my room.

My room. Viina was right – this was the room I wanted. I felt incredibly lucky to have it. It was bigger than the one downstairs, probably twice the size or a little more. It ran the length of the house, down the middle of the space under the roof. One dormer window had snow halfway up it, but the opposite one was clear, and the room was quite light. The furnishing was similar to that downstairs, but the table was larger and there were two benches rather than chairs. It wasn’t nearly as big as Peyr’s family’s room in Laanoha, but it was more than generous for one of me. The chimney was about halfway along, and extended from one wall almost halfway to the other, almost cutting the room in two.

There’s plenty of room for both me and Aila here, until we have children. Except that she’ll probably want to have our own place, rather than being lodgers, with Viina running the house. Or will she? Yaani seems perfectly happy sharing a home with Yaana. I just don’t know until we talk about it – maybe not even then, until we’ve tried it.

Graamon said Viina didn’t want to get a double maalba just for short visits – but it might be quite okay to have one for permanent residents. Or maybe Aila would prefer us to sleep on the floor anyway.

“This is perfectly wonderful, Viina! The rent must be a lot more for this room. Are you sure the railway’s okay about it, Graamon?”

“Absolutely. Remember, they expect eventually to have to provide not only for you but for your wife and children, too. This is no problem.”

“So you’ll take this one then?”

I was speechless. Graamon answered for me, “Yes, please.”

And that was that. Settled.

We went back downstairs, and Viina busied herself with something at the fire. Graamon took me through the back hall, and showed me the washing and lavatory facilities – all indoors, and with warm water on tap. “There’s a tank built into the side of the chimney, the side away from your room under the edge of the roof. There’s a little door from your room to get at it, but there’s never any need. Everything works fine – as long as someone goes outside and works the pump every now and then! If you work the pump until the tank just starts overflowing, that usually keeps us in water for two or three days.”

He took me out of the back door and showed me a long handled pump that I hadn’t noticed as we arrived, and the little pipe under the eaves where the water came out when the tank overflowed.

Then Graamon said there was some paperwork he ought to deal with while we were waiting for the plough to be ready. “I know how good your spoken Laana is, but how’s your reading and writing coming along?”

How did he know I was learning?

“It’s coming along, but I’ve only just begun. Aila’s been teaching me for a couple of days, but that’s all. And she’s really only a beginner herself.”

“Ah, okay. I don’t think you’ll be able to help much with the paperwork yet then. I’m sure Viina would be very happy to teach you, though.”

She was, she was delighted. “We can work on it for about an hour now, before I start preparing dinner, then again as long as you like when I’ve cleaned up after dinner.”

Viina was a very good teacher, and we got on very well. The hour seemed to be gone very quickly, and Viina went to start preparing dinner. I sat at a table in the living room with a pile of paper and a pencil, and practiced cursive writing. I’d only written printed-style writing with Aila. I assumed she’d been going to go on to cursive writing later, but didn’t know for sure whether she’d actually got that far herself yet. I knew I still had a lot more to learn about the printed style, anyway.

I wonder how good a teacher Gamaara is? I hope I don’t end up ahead of Aila. I don’t want to upset her.

There were two other lodgers, two young men from outlying villages who’d got work in Briggi. They joined us for dinner. They introduced themselves, but said very little thereafter.

Dinner was very good – something midway between the kind of food at Peyr’s home or in the inns, and the food at Siroha. Not as elaborately presented as at Siroha, but with more expensive ingredients than Peyr’s family usually had. Shopping with Yaana taught me a lot about the prices of different things – but of course prices here in Briggi could well be very different from those in Laanoha.

Viina and I worked at reading and writing again for a couple of hours after dinner, as well. After a while, Graamon joined us. “I’ve had enough of that damned paperwork. It’ll keep a bit longer.”

He sat the opposite side from the table from us, and watched me writing for a time. “Write your name again, Owen.”

I did. I even remembered the Mezhab bit, and to put it first. “Now let’s have a look at your papers.”

“Good, good – looks like the same handwriting, but not so identical as to be suspicious. Excellent! Not that you’ll have to sign to prove it’s really you very often. Now all you need is that jacket to keep your papers and pen safe.”

We carried on doing a bit of reading and writing, but got chatting a lot more, too. Viina wanted to see my model Aila, so I got her out of my bag. Viina admired her, “Your grandmother-in-law to be is a fine craftswoman! Has she got many grand­daughters married already?”

“No, Aila’s her only granddaughter.”

“She’s been practising a lot, then. Or she had help – but I shouldn’t say that, no-one ever gets help.”

Graamon laughed. “Officially,” he said, but Viina gave him a look that said “Stop!” and he did.

“You know you’ve got to keep her safe until you can keep the real Aila safe, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know that. Will she be safe in my room?”

“For a little while, but if you go far you have to take her with you.”

“Oh, I would anyway. I wouldn’t want to be far away from her.”

“I’m sure you don’t want to be far away from the real Aila, either, but that can’t be helped for the moment, I imagine. Is she with her mother?”

“No, she’s working as a nanny in a village two hours’ train ride from home. But the children are nearly ready for school – one of them could go already, and the other one will be ready soon. Her employer is teaching her reading and writing, and she was thinking to try to get a nursery teaching job when she’s not needed there any more.”

“Will she be looking for a job like that here? There’s plenty of families who’d be pleased to employ her if she is. I’d have room to run a kindergarten here, in fact. I’d love that.”

“I’ll have to discuss it with her, of course, but that sounds ideal to me!”

“And of course there’s plenty of room for her to share your room, at least until you have a flock of your own children!”

People here aren’t shy about things like that, are they! But how can I question whether Aila will want to be in lodgings? Maybe I don’t need to, at least until Aila’s here. Well, I can’t, so the question doesn’t arise.

But Graamon knew how to handle that. “You can’t ask Owen to speak for his fiancée about things like that, Viina. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for Aila’s own opinion.”

Viina put on a sour face, but couldn’t hold it, and burst into laughter. “You’re right, of course, Graamon. But you can’t blame me for trying.”

Graamon knows Viina well, of course. I’ll get to know her, too. She seems like a lovely landlady.

It felt strange to be in a bed again after so long, and all alone in the room. The clouds had cleared, and the moon was shining in through the top half of the window whose lower half was covered with snow, filling the room with a silvery light. It was so quiet that I could hear the tiny sounds made by the fire in the room downstairs. There wasn’t even a breath of wind.

I woke to the sound of wind. The sky had clouded over again. I could just make out the windows, a slightly paler shade of black against an utterly black background.

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