The Occasional Diamond Thief

by J. A. McLachlan

  “I think I’ll do that. I’ll go talk to her. At her house.” I add the location just to be sure.

  The woman nods. “You’re a good girl. A bit headstrong, but then a woman has to be.”

  Agatha isn’t in the house on Prophet’s Lane. I check every room to make sure she left no sign to suggest Tira was ever here. Before leaving, I bury the tool kit and put on the robe with my father’s diamond sewn into it. If Agatha’s in trouble, the house might be searched again.

  Everyone I meet on the way back to the inn is full of praise for Agatha, but no one can tell me where she is. She’s a saint, they all agree. Great. Cultural history 101: saints end up martyred.

  “Prad Gaelig is waiting for you,” the innkeeper’s wife tells me when I get back to the inn. “I’ll show you to his room.”

  Prad Gaelig invites me in and pauses, looking at the innkeeper’s wife. After a moment the woman blushingly declares she has to get back to work. Prad Gaelig nods politely.

  “A good woman,” he says when she’s gone, “but blessed with too much curiosity and too little discretion.” He closes the door.

  “Where is the Select?”

  “I told you. She chose to stay at the fever hut for her quarantine.”

  “Why would she do such a—thing?” I prevent myself just in time from calling the hero of the day ‘stupid’.

  “She asked that a message be taken to the Queen and the High Priest: if she dies in the fever hut we are to send you back on the next ship to carry her ashes to the Order; but if she survives her fourteen-day quarantine, no one else will ever be sent to the fever hut.”

  I sit down. She wasn’t forced to stay there. No, what Prad Gaelig said sounds just like her. I wish I hadn’t withheld the word ‘stupid’. “What did they say?”

  “Nothing, yet. A guard was sent to the palace to deliver the message and receive her Majesty’s orders. I myself took her message to the High Priest.”

  “Will they agree?”

  Prad Gaelig’s expression is not hopeful. “I haven’t heard whether there’s been an answer. I’ve delivered her message. The rest is speculation, and I’ve been warned not to speculate again on things that don’t concern me.”

  “Why is she doing this?” I’d like to pound my hand into something again, but Tira’s asleep on the other side of the room.

  “You’ll have to ask her. I’ve done what I can. It’s only natural that a grateful father would make no secret of who had saved his child. If I know the innkeeper’s wife as well as I think I do, half the city already knows what the Select did, and the rest will by tomorrow.”

  For a moment I don’t follow him. Then I think of Hamza’s unexplained disappearance and gasp. “You’re afraid this will be hushed up, that she’ll be left there to die in secret.”

  Prad Gaelig returns my gaze without comment.

  “Has the King come back yet?”

  “No.”

  “What if I talked to the High Priest?”

  “He is very busy,” Prad Gaelig says carefully. “He may not be able to see you for a couple of weeks.”

  “Would they let her be quarantined in Prophet’s Lane? If she changed her mind?”

  “Does she do that?”

  I sigh. “Do you really have an errand for me?”

  “I’d like you to let my wife know Tira is well. If I take Tira anywhere near our apartment she’ll cry to see her mother. Show my wife this, so she’ll know it’s true.”

  He turns. Lying on the table behind him is a Malemese diamond. He lifts it tenderly, the concrete proof of his daughter’s recovery, and brings it over to me. “It’s Tira’s heart stone.”

  I can see it more clearly today. It’s slightly smaller than mine, but just as stunning. It appears softer, warmer this afternoon than it looked when Agatha showed it to me in the night, catching the brittle lamplight.

  “Why do you call it that?”

  “A heart stone? It’s part of our faith. Our heart teaches us compassion, hope, endurance. It’s the path to wisdom and self-knowledge. Therefore it’s the path to God.”

  “That’s the path to God?” I stare at the glittering gem. Sodum would love this.

  “Not this.” He closes his hand around the diamond, making its light blink out. “This is only a symbol. Like the cross and star the Select wear round their necks.”

  “What has the heart got to do with diamonds?”

  “Vivid symbols make difficult concepts memorable. It’s not always easy to remember the heart is valuable, especially when life has bruised it. So we use diamonds. Despite how backward we may seem to the Alliance, it has occurred to us that these gems are valuable.”

  He opens his hand to reveal the diamond again. “This one was my mother’s. I hope Tira will acquire her wisdom one day.”

  “Does Tira share it with her sister, Liat?”

  “Liat has her own heart stone. They’re passed down through families. When someone dies, the next child born receives his or her heart stone. If there are none available within a family, the High Priest issues a new one to the family. That is a joyous occasion; it shows our population is increasing again. Liat was born second, she received a new diamond.”

  “Why give a child so young something so valuable?” And why is it just sitting on your table? I want to ask. My father wouldn’t have had to know anything more about stealing than Agatha does, to walk off with one of these gems. Perhaps I’m wrong: he wasn’t a thief, he just found it lying somewhere, left in the dirt by a child after her play.

  “It’s only valuable because it’s Tira’s,” Prad Gaelig says. “Otherwise, what is it? A pretty stone. We have lots of stones on Malem. Dirt is more valuable than stones here.”

  “It may not be valuable here, but it would be on other worlds. If someone sold theirs, they could make a fortune.”

  He stares at me with a look that makes me wish I could take back my words. “If that happened,” he says, pronouncing every word distinctly, “the off-worlder who bought it would be beheaded and the Malemese who sold it would be stoned to death. That’s the punishment for desecrating a heart stone.”

  I stare back at him, wishing even more that I’d kept my mouth shut. And I’d been worried about losing two of my fingers!

  “However, it’s never happened,” Prad Gaelig continues. “Not in my lifetime, and not that I’ve ever heard of. And what good would it do anyone? They’d give themselves away if they spent the money their sin brought them.”

  I want to drop it, but that word, ‘sin’, gets to me.

  “Your Triumvirate could sell the diamonds. Malem could be a rich world. You could all live better.”

  “We like the way we live. How could we live better?”

  I open my mouth to name a couple dozen ways that come to mind, but then I hesitate. I’ve been trained to view different cultures objectively. Despite their lack of luxuries and leisure, the Malemese, as far as I’ve seen, are content. Underneath the complaints and worries I’ve heard them share with Agatha, is a deep sense of community. They’d be shocked if she suggested any real change. They like her because she doesn’t. Still, there’s always the issue of farmable land.

  “You could buy food. You wouldn’t have to scrimp on coffee and jam and sweets and worry about having so little farmland.”

  “Yes. We do miss not having more of those tempting, unhealthy foods. But nobody on Malem is hungry. And we like being self-sufficient. When you become dependent on others, you have different things to worry about.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Nothing truly important can be bought. It has to be earned. That is what we believe.”

  “If you believe there isn’t any value in possessions, why chop off a thief’s hand? I saw you cut off a boy’s fingers for taking something that belonged to someone else.”

  Prad Gaelig’s face changes. I was prepared for anger after calling him on his hypocrisy, but instead it’s grief that twists his features. “You don’t understand. His crime was that he wanted what he hadn’t
earned, what he had no right to. Not because it was someone else’s; because he wanted to get it effortlessly, undeservedly. I talked with him about it, how everything he got that way would be meaningless, until eventually nothing would have any value for him. I wouldn’t punish him until he understood this about himself. Until he asked me to.”

  “He asked you to cut off his fingers?”

  “He wanted to show publicly that he’s changed. That he’s no longer a thief. I was proud of him; he’s begun to know himself, to decide who he wants to be.”

  I remember the boy’s sharp bleats of terror and pain. My thoughts must show on my face because Prad Gaelig says, “There is no easy way to extricate yourself after you’ve done something wrong.”

  I wonder for a second if he can have guessed why I’m here. But that’s impossible. Still, he’s made me uncomfortable. “What about the man? Did he ask to have his head chopped off?” I ask sarcastically.

  “Adults are punished when they are guilty. We have criminals and dissidents like any other world. We are a small community on a hard world, Kia, and by circumstance we’re forced to live very closely together. Our resources are few and we must rely on one another. We can’t afford to allow the self-indulgent to tear us apart. Nevertheless, I take no pleasure in what I had to do.”

  “What if he was sorry, too, and promised to change?”

  “Some words and actions can’t be taken back.”

  I think of Owegbé. It isn’t her death that hurts.

  “You think we are cruel and unforgiving,” Prad Gaelig says, interpreting my silence as dissent. “But our laws are clear, unambiguous and they apply equally to everyone. That is justice. And we have no unfair division of wealth on Malem. Everyone must earn what they get, and everyone gets what they must have.”

  “How did Tira earn that?” I nod at the gem in Prad Gaelig’s hand. Politics is interesting but what I really want is more information on the diamonds.

  “I told you, this has no value except what Tira herself puts into it. That’s how she will earn it.”

  On the bed Tira gives a deep sigh. “Mama,” she murmurs from that dark, capricious place between waking and sleeping.

  Prad Gaelig picks up a little pouch from the writing table and slips the diamond into it. He hands the pouch to me. “Thank you, in advance, for the comfort this will bring my wife.”

  Across the room, Tira stirs fitfully. Her father bends to wake her from her troubled dream.

  I have no choice but to take the message for Naevah and leave.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I get about three blocks from the inn before I see two men approaching me. My first thought is, how could I have been so stupid? I watched him cut off a man’s head and still I let him convince me to walk out of his room carrying a Malemese diamond? Prad Gaelig is very convincing. Even when I see the insignia of the High Priest on the men’s robes, even when they ask me to come with them, I have trouble believing he deliberately set me up.

  “I’m delivering a message for Prad Gaelig,” I say, and show them the pouch. They’d find it soon enough anyway, and I don’t want them searching me for it; they might find my father’s diamond sewn into the hem of my robe.

  They look at each other, frowning and pursing their lips as though they have no idea what I’m talking about.

  “I’ll be happy to come with you as soon as I’ve honored my promise to the priest,” I add, pushing my advantage. “You can come with me and see it done.” Hah! If they refuse, they’re refusing the request of a priest, and they can hardly claim I resisted arrest now. While they hesitate, I wave my arm in the direction of Prad Gaelig’s apartment building and say, “We’re almost there. He said it was urgent. If I can’t deliver it, I’ll have to return it and tell him so before I can go with you.”

  “Quickly, then,” one of the men says. I set off at once. The sooner Prad Gaelig’s diamond is out of my foreigner hands, the better.

  Naevah cannot open the door so I announce my name as soon as I hear her knock back on her side of the door. “Prad Gaelig sent me.”

  “Is it true?” she says before I can tell her about Tira. I hear the catch in her voice.

  “I saw her myself at the inn with your husband. He gave me this for you as proof.” I slide the pouch under the apartment door, relieved to be rid of it. Naevah’s cry of joy when she sees it is audible even to the guards, as are her sobbing words of gratitude. “I have to go now,” I tell her, looking at the two men. I’m gratified to see their embarrassment.

  “Where are we going?” I ask as they march me between them through the city, taking mostly back streets.

  “The High Priest wants to talk to you.”

  They escort me to a building that looks like any other housing complex in the city. It has nothing of the opulence of the royal palace, even though the High Priest is apparently of equal stature in the ruling triumvirate. However, it is separated from the other buildings by cobbled streets on all four sides, giving it a measure of privacy rare here.

  Privacy. Once I’m inside that building, anything could happen to me and no one would ever know. No one will even ask about me if Agatha dies in the fever house. As we approach the building I falter, looking around desperately. Two women are walking toward us. If I can catch their attention, they might remember—

  We make eye contact and with a shock I recognize them. Mehda’s mouth forms the word ‘Kia’ before Kaline nudges her quiet.

  The guard grabs my arm and hurries me through the door.

  “Is this whole building just for the High Priest?” I ask as they lead me toward the stairwell. I wish I’d done more research on the triumvirate, but I didn’t think I’d need it in the short time I expected to be here.

  “Priests and their families live here. The High Priest occupies the top floor.”

  Good. I’m not alone here. There’s some comfort in that, even if he has hand-picked his neighbors. I’m used to climbing stairs by now, and the lower gravity helps, but by the time we reach the eighth flight I’m wondering why the High Priest didn’t take over the first floor.

  We step out of the stairwell into a large open foyer and take the door on the left. It opens onto a long, dimly-lit hallway. Several of the doors along the hall are open, showing meeting rooms furnished with a table and chairs. My guards escort me into one of the smaller ones.

  The walls are gray metal, unadorned. Under the low, gray ceiling the room appears closed in, a room of secrets. There’s a table in the middle, with a cushioned chair at one end—the only sign of luxury—and another plain metal chair.

  The guards leave me standing inside the door, which they shut on leaving. I slump against it in relief. They didn’t search me. The High Priest certainly won’t. Nevertheless, it’s only a matter of time before they find my father’s diamond. Whatever the High Priest wants to know, I have to satisfy him quickly and get out of here.

  It’s a long wait. By the time the High Priest comes in I’m too indignant to be frightened. I look at him from my seat, not bothering to stand up.

  “I have kept you waiting,” he says in formal Malemese. “It could not be avoided.” He sits on the cushioned chair.

  “It is my pleasure to wait on the High Priest of Malem,” I say, equally formal. “It could not be avoided.”

  The skin around his eyes crinkles. “Is it also your pleasure to wait on the Select?”

  “I was hired to teach the Select to speak Malemese during the voyage here. I expected to return with the spaceship.” He knows as well as I why I didn’t.

  “Were you curious to see the planet your father visited?” His voice is smooth, his expression relaxed and pleasant, but his eyes are as cold and hard as the gray metal walls. He sits watching me like a reptile preparing to strike, while his voice implies shared confidences.

  “My father visited many planets. It would take me a lifetime to see them all.”

  “Did your father teach you the language of every world he visited?”

>   “I know many languages. Would you like to continue in Edoan, Coralese, Salarian? Perhaps Central Ang?” This last is an insult. I regret it; I’m not here to antagonize the third most powerful person on this planet. Either he doesn’t get the snub, or he pretends not to, though.

  “I hope your father is well,” he says.

  “He died of CoVir. Which he caught here.”

  “I thought he had recovered.”

  “My father suffered recurring fevers after he left here. Eventually they killed him.”

  “So you did not want to come here,” he says slowly. “Then you were sent. I wonder why the Order wants you here?” He appears to be talking to himself and I almost fall for it, because I’ve wondered the same thing myself. Which is, I realize, exactly what he wants me to be thinking.

  “I told you. I was paid to teach the Select Malemese.”

  “Either you know or you don’t.” He ignores my interruption. “But you are a clever girl, so I shall assume for now that you do. You see, I am being honest with you. It is a shame you are not being honest with me.”

  Does he think I’m part of some O.U.B. conspiracy against Malem? Or against him, personally? I meet his stare as calmly as possible.

  “Why did the Order send you here?” he demands, his voice less friendly now.

  “If the Order wants anything, it is only for the good of Malem.” But I realize I’m no longer certain of that. Am I being used without knowing it? Agatha is a Select. Her first loyalty is to the Order, as Hamza reminded her when I was being dragged off to jail. And Agatha stopped protesting then…

  The High Priest sits very still, his cold gray eyes watching me. Crazy and dangerous. That’s what Hamza called him: dangerous. And where is Hamza now?

  “Do you know why the Select insists on staying at the fever house?”

  “No. I don’t know.” Some of my real feelings come out with that, sharper than I meant. This wasn’t what we planned. Because Agatha only thought of it while waiting with Tira? Or because there had always been more to the plan than I knew?