“This is going to be difficult for you, Mags, I understand that,” Jakyr said carefully, as the other man took pens, a pot of ink, and a sheaf of clean paper from his case and set them up on a table. “Your condition, and that of the other children I saw at Cole Pieters’ mine is fairly convincing testimony of neglect, if not outright abuse. But I need more than that if I am to be able to take a company of the Guard there and close the place down. I need testimony from you, and as much as you can tell me about the place.”

Mags scarcely heard the last sentence, since the one before it was so astonishing. “Close the mine?” he whispered. “But—what ’bout the rest of th’ kiddies? If ye close th’ mine, Master Cole belike won’ feed ’em!”

“Master Cole won’t be in charge of them,” Jakyr replied, with a certain grim satisfaction. “And Master Cole will have other things to think about. Now, let’s start with something simple. Tell me about your day, just an ordinary day from the time you would wake up. Where did you sleep?”

Slowly, haltingly, still trying to comprehend what it was that Jakyr was about to do concerning Cole Pieters, Mags obeyed, beginning with the description of the sleep-hole and moving on.

And that was where things got . . . odd. It hadn’t really occurred to him before that there was anything out of the ordinary about how Pieters treated his workers. That is to say, he understood vaguely that Master Cole was not treating them well, especially in contrast to how the Guards were treated, but it had not occurred to him that there was anything that other people would see as wrong about it. It was, after all, Cole Pieters’ mine, and they were his workers, and there were all those priests in the place, and how could anyone prevent him from doing what he wanted with them? Well, short of killing people. Would that ever be found out? Would anyone believe the word of the kiddies over that of the Pieterses? He didn’t think so.