Isphet will allow me the privilege of showing you about our small world.”
Then he walked away.
My father looked at Yaqob’s retreating back, looked at me, and grinned.
I settled in quickly. For two days my father and I ground glass to use for the manufacture of enamels, and then, as promised, Yaqob rescued us, and set us to more demanding tasks.
This was Isphet’s workshop, but she seemed content to let Yaqob keep an eye on us for the first week or two. I saw her often enough at night, anyway, when she always questioned me on my day’s work, but I think that while the guards still kept a keen watch on us she did not want to be too closely involved with my work.
Besides, like my father, Isphet’s own speciality was in the mixing and firing of glass, and she stayed by the furnaces. Not only to supervise the blending and firing, but also to make sure Raguel did not throw herself in after her sad, cloth-wrapped bundle. Raguel hardly spoke, and while she physically recovered from the birth of her daughter, her spirit sickened and died further each day.
Three days after I arrived, Yaqob took my father to the corner of the workshop where the glass was mixed and moulded, leaving him in Isphet’s hands, then he came over to me and smiled. “This way.”
He led me up to the next floor where two men sat at a table in a shaft of sunlight that fell through glass panels in the ceiling. The area was clean and airy, and I took a deep breath, enchanted. Both men were caging.
They looked up from their work, and grinned at my delight.
“The guards rarely come here,” Yaqob said. “You will enjoy the work, and I can hardly wait to see how good you are. The tale of what you did in Setkoth has spread about most of Gesholme.”
He was surely lying, but he did it well and my smile widened. “Is it normal to have such close guard in the workshop?”
“No. Ta’uz is punishing us for trying to hide Raguel’s pregnancy from him. He will soon tire of the sport and withdraw the guards. The Magi generally keep the guards around the perimeter of Gesholme, and in and about Threshold itself – where we must sometimes be ‘encouraged’ to work. The Magi occasionally visit us, but they too prefer to linger about Threshold.”
“Yaqob…” I looked outside. An open doorway led to a balcony, and I could see a great shadow spreading over Gesholme.
I had not taken more than a glimpse at Threshold, but it dominated my dreams every night.
“Soon, Tirzah.” Yaqob’s voice had darkened with my mood. “But first, come see what Orteas and Zeldon work at.”
Neither man seemed discomforted that he would be joined by such a young woman – perhaps the story of the cage work I had done for Gayomar and Boaz had spread. We chatted politely for some minutes as I ran curious eyes over their work.
The men were working on flat sections that were designed to fit into a large panel. The glass shone gold – it had been beautifully mixed and fired.
“Isphet’s work,” Yaqob murmured, running his fingers over Zeldon’s glass. “No-one can match her skill at mixing the molten glass. She has a sweetness that can cajole the most stubborn mixing.”
There was silence as Orteas and Zeldon stared at Yaqob, then dropped their eyes hastily back to their work.
Although I noted their reaction, for the moment I preferred to ignore it, more fascinated by the design itself. I moved closer to Zeldon and pointed at his work. “Yaqob, what is this?”
His face hardened. “This is part of Threshold’s wrongness, Tirzah. See? These curves form pieces of numbers, and this section here, is the lower segment of a portion of writing.”
“Why wrongness?”
Yaqob took a deep, uneasy breath. “You know of the Magi and their fascination with mathematics?’
“Yes, Isphet has explained some of it.”
“Some of it is too much of it, but you need to know. Tirzah, can you read or write?”
“I can figure a little, and write numbers. All glassworkers need to be able to do that, especially for measuring powders and metals. But alphabets and words are beyond me.”
“Then be grateful. The Magi control the power of numbers and form, but in doing so they have subverted the alphabet. For them, each letter of the alphabet is mated with a number, so that when they write, when they form words and then sentences, the writing