The Administrator raised his eyebrows. He was a stout man, his skin a dark brown, his bald head scrunched into folds of fat. He wore a gown of silver silk, embroidered with flowers; it hung open to expose his flabby flesh, and was tied with only a loose knot to hide his most private of parts.
He made quite the contrast with Aranfal, who was as thin as a rake and as pale as a spectre, his sunken features and grey eyes framed by a curtain of blond hair. He wore his blue cloak over a dark woollen shirt and hempen trousers. The pair of them looked like the build-up to a joke, sitting in the Great Hall of Northern Blown with nothing but a crackling fire for company.
‘That is … odd,’ the Administrator said. He stared at his papers as if they might offer some explanation. The search appeared to fail. ‘Uh, why is it so?’
Aranfal allowed his thin mouth to fall into a grimace. In truth, he did not mind the questions, but he couldn’t allow this man to assert himself too boldly.
‘Ah, not that it matters, Watcher,’ the Administrator said, leaning back in his chair and smiling broadly. He did not want to appear frightened, but Aranfal could see it in him. He had seen it all before. ‘I was just interested. I am not used to the ways of the North.’ He giggled.
Aranfal stood and threw a log into the flames. They crackled back at him appreciatively.
‘It’s not a northern thing, Administrator. If you must know, it came about when I was a young man. A boy, really. I lost my name when I went to the See House.’
‘You … forgive me, Aranfal, but how can a person lose their name?’
‘It was taken from me, by the Tactician.’
There was a moment of silence as Aranfal took his seat again, sighing with pleasure as he unfolded himself into the furs of the furniture. They did not make chairs like this, in the South. They did not make rooms like this in the South, either. There was a fire on each of the four walls. The stony ground was caked in the filth of dogs and the detritus of ten thousand meals, and the room was unadorned with paintings or fresco or any of the other fads of the Centre. The hall was filled with long wooden tables, scattered with brass pots and knives and cracked plates. At the top of the room, on a raised level, was a high table, where once the King had sat with his family and his most senior functionaries. No more. Modernity ruled here now.
Aranfal turned back to the Administrator. The man’s eyes were wide discs. He had placed his papers on his lap.
‘Tactician Brightling stole your name,’ he whispered. ‘Is there nothing that woman cannot do?’
Aranfal barked a laugh. ‘No, truly there isn’t. Here is what happened. I showed up in the Centre, in that black tower, a boy down from the cold North. Brightling took an interest in me. She decided she didn’t like Aran Fal, though, and since then I have been Aranfal.’
‘She didn’t like Aran Fal the name, or Aran Fal the person?’
A pause. ‘Both of them are gone now.’ The Watcher mocked himself inwardly for his melodrama. ‘I have spent almost half my life as a Watcher, now. As Aranfal.’
‘And a fine job you have made of it.’ The Administrator raised his glass of wine, before remembering that Aranfal was not drinking. He shrugged, and took a long slurp by himself.
They sat in silence for a while, staring into the flames. They used peat as fuel, up here, digging it from the bogs. Sometimes they found bodies there, in the soggy muck, preserved for thousands of years, from before the Machinery, even. The fuel took a while to get going, but when it did, the smell was delicious. It transported him back to older days. He had been happy as a child, hadn’t he? He could not remember. That was the world of Aran Fal.
He snapped back to reality, to find that the Administrator was staring at him. The man was making a habit of that. What did he think was going to happen, if he stopped looking?
‘Have you completed the inventory?’
The Administrator started, then hurried to gather up his papers. ‘Yes, master Watcher, it’s all in here. Nothing of any great significance, the usual old weaponry, not much use to us now. We can probably melt it down. Some jewels, though. I think the Tactician would like them. And sundry clothes, dishes, etc.’
‘Nothing of any tremendous value.’
‘No,’ the Administrator said with a slight shrug, before raising a finger. ‘Apart from the land itself. This is a good spot to control. From here we can keep watch of the northern waters.’
Aranfal nodded. ‘Do you expect some enemy to appear from those waters?’
The Administrator fell silent. He thinks I’m trying to catch him in a trap. If only he were so important!
‘Administrator, I am not trying to trick you. It is important now to think to the future. You would find that everyone in the See House feels the same way, right to the very top.’
The Administrator smiled nervously. ‘Well, you know what people say, other lands across distant seas, and all that. Better to be careful.’
‘Indeed.’
Silence reigned again. Eventually the Administrator bent over and lifted a bell, which he raised in the air and vigorously shook, creating a cacophony that made Aranfal want to throw the thing into the flames, along with its bearer. Before long a servant came scampering through the main door of the hall, wineskin in hand, and ran to the Administrator’s side, delicately refilling his drink before once again rushing out to some other part of the castle.
The Administrator did not once make eye contact with the servant. Aranfal despised this type of behaviour. It was something he had seen many times, especially among Administrators and other middling sorts. Funny, he spent his days with the most powerful people in the Plateau, but he never saw them act this way. It seemed that those with the real authority never felt the need to put it on display. It was just there, for the entire world to see, whether handed to them by the Machinery or not.
Aranfal was growing very tired of this little man.
‘Administrator,’ he said softly, ‘I want to get my work done up here as fast as possible, and go home. Have your men found anything suspicious?’
The Administrator leant forward, glancing theatrically into the shadows.
‘Do you mean … Doubters?’ he whispered.
‘Yes.’
The Administrator nodded. ‘Well, as you know, Watcher Aranfal, we humble servants lack your skills in such matters. Indeed, we do not even possess your beautiful masks, so we must look into people’s souls with only our own eyes—’
‘Please, just tell me how many.’
‘Hmm. Well, we have not yet found the ones the King mentioned, I am afraid. Perhaps you have had better luck on that front?’
‘No.’ The King was probably lying. People will say anything, sometimes. Perhaps I should visit him again.
‘But we have found three others.’
‘Three? That’s quite good, Administrator.’
‘Yes, well, you know …’
Aranfal leaned forward. ‘They made themselves quite easy to find, didn’t they?’
The Administrator cleared his throat. ‘Well, you may say that, but really I think we deserve some credit—’
‘Where did you find them?’
The Administrator cringed. ‘Uh, well, one of my men found them when he was out for a walk, you know, with a lady, as it were. They had just taken themselves up to the Bony Shore, and there they were, as bold as you like, three of them, on the sand, huddled around a little fire, and talking openly about the Machinery breaking. Strange-looking creatures, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘And