‘Smiles all around, then,’ Crozet said.
Linxe slapped him again. ‘Let her finish.’
‘Well, we were smiling,’ said Rashmika. ‘To start with. After all, this was just what Harbin had been hoping for. The terms were good and the work was interesting. The way Harbin figured, he only had to put up with it until they started opening new caverns again back in the badlands. Of course, he didn’t tell the recruiting agent that he had no plans to stick around for more than a revolution or two. But he did ask one critical question.’
‘Which was?’ Linxe asked.
‘He’d heard that some of the churches used methods on those that worked for them to bring them around to the churches’ way of thinking. Made them believe that what they were doing was of more than material significance, that their work was holy.’
‘Made them swallow the creed, you mean?’ Crozet said.
‘More than that: made them accept it. They have ways. And from the churches’ point of view, you can’t really blame them. They want to keep their hard-won expertise. Of course, my brother didn’t like the sound of that at all.’
‘So what was the recruiter’s reaction to the question?’ Crozet asked.
‘The man said Harbin need have no fears on that score. Some churches, he admitted, did practise methods of… well, I forget exactly what he said. Something about Bloodwork and Clocktowers. But he made it clear that the Quaicheist church was not one of them. And he pointed out that there were workers of many beliefs amongst their Permanent Way gangs, and there’d never been any efforts to convert any of them to the Quaicheist faith.’
Crozet narrowed his eyes. ‘And?’
‘I knew he was lying.’
‘You thought he was lying,’ Crozet said, correcting her the way teachers did.
‘No, I knew. I knew it with the kind of certainty I’d have had if he’d walked in with a sign around his neck saying “liar”. There was no more doubt in my mind that he was lying than that he was breathing. It wasn’t open to debate. It was screamingly obvious.’
‘But not to anyone else,’ Linxe said.
‘Not to my parents, not to Harbin, but I didn’t realise that at the time. When Harbin nodded and thanked the man, I thought they were playing out some kind of strange adult ritual. Harbin had asked him a vital question, and the man had given him the only answer that his office allowed — a diplomatic answer, but one which everyone present fully understood to be a lie. So in that respect it wasn’t really a lie at all… I thought that was clear. If it wasn’t, why did the man make it so obvious that he wasn’t telling the truth?’
‘Did he really?’ Crozet asked.
‘It was as if he wanted me to know he was lying, as if he was smirking and winking at me the whole time… without actually smirking or winking, of course, but always being on the threshold of doing it. But only I saw that. I thought Harbin must have… that surely he’d seen it… but no, he hadn’t. He kept on acting as if he honestly thought the man was telling the truth. He was already making arrangements to stay with the caravan so that he could complete the rest of the journey to the Permanent Way. That was when I started making a scene. If this was a game, I didn’t like the way they were insisting on still playing it, without letting me in on the joke.’
‘You thought Harbin was in danger,’ Linxe said.
‘Look, I didn’t understand everything that was at stake. Like I said, I was only nine. I didn’t really comprehend faiths and creeds and contracts. But I understood the one thing that mattered: that Harbin had asked the man the question that was most important to him, the one that was going to decide whether he joined the church or not, and the man had lied to him. Did I think that put him in mortal danger? No. I don’t think I had much idea of what “mortal danger” meant then, to be honest. But I knew something was wrong, and I knew I was the only one who saw it.’
‘The girl who never lies,’ Crozet said.
‘They’re wrong about me,’ Rashmika answered. ‘I do lie. I lie as well as anyone, now. But for a long time I didn’t understand the point of it. I suppose that meeting with the man was the beginning of my realisation. I understood then that what had been obvious to me all my life was not obvious to everyone else.’
Linxe looked at her. ‘Which is?’
‘I can always tell when people are lying. Always. Without fail. And I’m never wrong.’
Crozet smiled tolerantly. ‘You think you can.’
‘I know I can,’ Rashmika said. ‘It’s never failed me.’
Linxe knitted her fingers together in her lap. ‘Was that the last you heard of your brother?’
‘No. We didn’t see him again, but he kept to his word. He sent letters back home, and every now and again there’d be some money. But the letters were vague, emotionally detached; they could have been written by anyone, really. He never came back to the badlands, and of course there was never any possibility of us visiting him. It was just too difficult. He’d always said he’d return, even in the letters… but the gaps between them grew longer, became months and then half a year… then perhaps a letter every revolution or so. The last was two years ago. There really wasn’t much in it. It didn’t even look like his handwriting.’ ‘And the money?’ Linxe asked delicately.
‘It kept coming in. Not much, but enough to keep the wolves away.’
‘You think they got to him, don’t you?’ Crozet asked.
‘I know they got to him. I knew it from the moment we met the recruiting agent, even if no one else did. Bloodwork, whatever they called it.’
‘And now?’ Linxe said.
‘I’m going to find out what happened to my brother,’ Rashmika said. ‘What else did you expect?’
‘The cathedrals won’t take kindly to someone poking around in that kind of business,’ Linxe said.
Rashmika set her lips in a determined pout. ‘And I don’t take kindly to being lied to.’
‘You know what I think?’ Crozet said, smiling. ‘I think the cathedrals had better hope they’ve got God on their side. Because up against you they’re going to need all the help they can get.’