“Strength of arms? Status? Money? Nothing guaranteed safety in Discord’s Equestria, save distance from the King.”
- Aqua, Master of the Order of Water
The first thing that Celestia had the teams do was build her an office of sorts, really just a large tent on the construction site where she could keep the building plans and organise the work. And where she could stew on the problem of who the saboteur was when she didn’t have anything better to do.
As expected, Capstan had been chosen for the work even without her input, and it had only required a couple of requests to Heavy Heart before Wickerlock and Trinity had ended up in the pool too. She had divided them up between each of the principal teams so that hopefully her eyes would be able to catch anything as soon as it happened. As it turned out, Fastidious had been very correct in his suspicion that accidents would happen, but telling the difference between the mistakes made by unskilled labour and the actual malice had so far been impossible.
In spite of that, though, progress was happening. In only a few weeks she’d got the site levelled off and the foundations almost all laid. The main support beams were going up now, and so Celestia hoped that the lord would be right on his other suspicion too. The closer that the project got to completion, the more desperate, and thus the more overt, the sabotage would have to become.
Regrettably, Fastidious’s predictions about her increasing work-hours had come to pass almost immediately as well. With extra meetings to take at the manor house to deal with supply manifests and negotiating with Fruit’s artisans, as well as the late shifts that were required to keep up to date with her own aggressive schedules, her apartment here at the estate had been seeing regular use. She had hoped that being able to wake up with the Sun in her eyes might have helped make it worthwhile, but every night she only found herself wondering how Luna had got on with her day. At least she still had conversations with the rest of the family to stay abreast of that situation.
Every few days, she’d have each of her friends come into the office for a debriefing, and today it was Trinity sitting across from her on one of the low crates that had to serve as seats in here. The cold winds had only gotten worse lately, but at least the fabric of the tent kept those out. She had a small hearth in here too, just enough to keep her hooves warm when she needed it. They had built her an office, not a luxury apartment. But at least it was enough to keep her mind focused on the work.
“How are you coping?” Trinity asked, relaxing on her crate while she held her hooves to the fire. The piles of parchments that were covering the desk were almost high enough to hide the earth pony’s face from Celestia’s view.
“Well enough,” Celestia answered, tapping her hooves idly on the desk. “We still have a fair amount of the project left to get through. Although I should be the one asking the questions. Have you seen anything?”
Trinity sat back on the crate. “Flashes of suspicion, here and there. I have my eye on a couple of the ponies in my group, but I can’t say anything for certain about them just yet.”
“Who?” Celestia immediately pulled out a list of all the ponies she had assigned to Trinity’s team. Whenever there had been a work accident, she’d been sure to take careful note of everypony involved. Already, the personnel records were awash in red marks. “I’ll keep my eye on them too.”
“Let me think. Hale was one, I believe, as well as Stiff. And Quinn too.”
Indeed, Celestia had already marked off all three of the names, having found them involved in accidents on Trinity’s watch before. “That’s another strike on those three. Worth asking them a question or two perhaps?”
Trinity shook her head. “We still don’t know enough. But maybe you could consider transferring them instead.”
Celestia blinked. “Transfer them? To another team? I wouldn’t want to start treating them differently from anypony else. Whoever the saboteur is, they’re sure to be watching personnel assignments closely. I don’t want them to suspect anything until the day that we catch them with the spanner in their hooves!”
“And they won’t,” Trinity cautioned firmly. “Personnel reassignments happen all of the time, especially on a project like this where there are many different jobs that need attending to. My group is going to be finishing up our segment of the beams soon, and so we need to start forming teams for laying in the floors.”
“Oh, of course, the floors,” Celestia sighed, turning away from Trinity to look at her desk again. Buried under the personnel records and all of her notes and suspicions were the inventories and schedules for the construction itself. “And that means I need to put in more orders with Fruit for supplies. Not to mention, get some more specialists down from Eridian too!”
She cradled her head in her hooves listlessly, her brain feeling like a lead brick. “Trinity,” she said, “I just don’t know how I’m going to get anywhere on this file. I’m buried up to my knees just keeping the construction straight, let alone following up on all of these leads! I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to wake up months down the line no closer to solving this mystery.”
Sympathetic, Trinity got to her hooves and started stacking the loose parchments that were covering the front of the desk. “Don’t worry, Celestia, we’ll get there.”
Taking a deep breath, Celestia felt the weariness fall away from her heart a little. Enough that she could help getting organised, at least. “How can you be so sure? We’ve been at this for three weeks, and we already have a list of leads a mile long.” She held up the record, with dappled red spots all over its surface. “Our saboteur could be any one of these names, or they could be none of them! Even with you three helping me, we can’t have eyes on everypony at once.”
With the parchment all stacked, Trinity sighed. Her brow was furrowed, an expression that Celestia didn’t see from her often. “I think that’s why we need to keep shaking up the teams. Move ponies around, and don’t let them get too settled.”
Curious, Celestia looked up, resting her head on her forehooves. “Explain.”
“Basically, we expect some random accidents to occur as construction progresses. Low-skilled workers, operating without much training, that sort of thing is expected. True to form, that’s what we’ve seen.” She indicated the parchment that Celestia was still holding up.
“Incidents all over the place,” Celestia agreed.
“Yes. Our saboteur will want to meld into that, so that even the accidents they’re causing are just a few out of many, lost in the background. What we’re looking for, on the other hoof, is a pattern.”
Celestia nodded. “So far, so good. We want to see the same names coming up a few times. But you sound like you’ve got something more in mind.”
“Indeed I do,” the earth pony continued, sounding a little excited now. “Imagine for a moment if you were the saboteur. Difficult I know, but just humour me here. Fastidious and his group aren’t stupid.” She paused, a smile lingering on her lips. “Well, at least they aren’t that stupid. They would have thought of everything I just mentioned. So whoever our saboteur is, they already know how to avoid leaving a pattern for their investigators to follow.”
“That’s not encouraging.” The thought that her quarry would be actively working to frustrate her investigation made sense, but of course that would only make the investigation that much harder. “But how does shuffling up the work groups help us with any of that?”
“By giving them just that extra thing to think about.” Trinity tapped a hoof on the desk to emphasise her point, the sound punctuating the air for a moment before dissipating in the wind. “We have more than enough to keep ourselves occupied, so we need to make it as hard for our friend as we can. Don’t give them the chance to get to know anypony, so that they can set their friends up to take the fall for them. If trouble follows one pony around no matter what team he’s on—”
“Then we’ll have them,” Celestia said, the pieces finally clicking into place for her. Indeed, she should have seen it sooner. It would have been hard enough for the saboteur to keep their story straight through the investigations that Gala would have made through the picking months. Why not make it as hard for her enemy as she could? “And with so many other factors to think about, our saboteur is even more likely to drop us something obvious whenever they do make a move.”
Trinity flashed her a grin, happy they were on the same page. “Exactly. So when each team finishes up their section of the foundations, we’ll split them up again for the flooring work, and again for anything else that needs to come up. Soon enough, we’ll see that pattern.”
It was a good plan, Celestia thought. “Thanks,” she said, feeling some semblance of relief. “Sorry for losing my cool there. You didn’t deserve that.”
Trinity gave her a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry about it. We can all see how much stress you’re under here. But you’re going to make it. You can trust me on that. Because you’ve got something that saboteur doesn’t have.” Trinity fished about in her pouch for a moment, eventually bringing out a small rock clutched in her teeth.
Taking it with her magic, Celestia gave the rock a quick examination. “Is there something special about this rock that you’re not telling me?”
“Not as far as I can tell, but your sister just said that it reminded her of you. Maybe that bit is like one of your ears?” Seeing the sudden quiver in Celestia’s lip, she reached across the desk to put a comforting hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “And that’s what I mean. You’ve got somepony else out there who believes in you. So I’d hate to be anypony who’d want to stand in your way.”
The sound of somepony banging a pot came into the tent, the signal for the next shift. “Anyway, that’s my cue. We can talk more about Luna when I get off tonight.”
“Sure,” Celestia replied, her eyes still fixed on the stone. Indeed, it took a bit of turning her head about to see the resemblance, but maybe there was just a little of her profile held in there, when viewed from the right perspective.
Her focus and confidence restored, she put the stone down in its own spot on the desk, and cleared all of the stacks of parchment away from it. Then, she got all of the personnel lists together. Trinity’s logic made a whole lot of sense, after all. She was going to need some dice.
Later that afternoon, just as Celestia was finishing off the new set of teams for the flooring project, there came a rustle of fabric at the front of the tent. She looked up to see one of the guards from the estate wall crouching down to get through the flap, a sharp spear slung from his shoulders. Gala, in a well-lined overcoat, followed by only a few steps. The old earth pony’s mane was completely tousled from his time in the wind, but he was still looking chipper in spite of it.
Celestia immediately got to her hooves when she saw the estate boss. “It’s a pleasure to see you, Mr. Gala,” she said, offering him a stately bow.
“Likewise,” he returned gruffly. He gave the guard a quick look, and the big pony shuffled out of the tent without a word. “Grim will keep an eye on things for us,” Gala said, stepping forward straight to the hearth. “I wouldn’t be surprised if our mutual friend thought to eavesdrop on us here.”
“Of course,” she said, throwing a new log onto the fire. “I’m afraid that I can’t offer you much of anything to sit on.”
He waved her off. “Not to worry, I won’t be here long. I’m only here for a little update on how things are progressing.” He offered her a wink with that. Celestia did of course send the household regular progress reports with regard to the construction project, but as with everything about the investigation, it would seem that the reporting for that would be done under wraps.
“Well, I’m afraid that there isn’t all that much to say just yet,” she said. “We have a list of ponies that we’re watching, but not enough information to form any conclusions just yet. I just had a little idea, though.” Celestia picked up the new team manifest from her desk, ready to tell the lord everything there was to know about the new assignments, then she hesitated for a moment. This whole thing had been Trinity’s idea, and she had been about to say as much. But Gala probably didn’t even know who Trinity was, and wouldn’t care regardless. All that he wanted was to know that things were progressing along.
“Something the matter?” the old earth pony asked.
Celestia coughed and shuffled the parchments together. “Nothing at all, my Lord. As I said, I had this little idea that could speed up our efforts. Essentially, I want to shuffle the teams up, to stop our mutual friend from being able to settle into any sort of rhythm.”
Gala leafed through the parchments quickly, muttering to himself as he did. “Staffing considerations are wholly under your purview, Miss Celestia, so naturally you may do with the workers as you please. Though notably there is something about that which you could perhaps explain.” He swept his eyes over the documents on the desk, marked all over with her ink now, and settled for a moment on Luna’s rock. For an instant Celestia wondered if he was going to ask about it, but then Gala blinked and carried on. “I do have Grim and some of the other guards keeping an eye on things as they make their rounds. While they haven’t seen anything that we believe would help you in your investigations, they have seen these little debriefing sessions that you’ve been getting from the workers.”
She nodded proudly. “Trusted eyes, sir. With them I can stay abreast of everything going on in the project at once.”
Outside, the wind gusted, whistling as it wound through the rows of trees. This late in the season, that had likely knocked a few dozen apples off of their branches. The fire on the hearth crackled as the new log fully caught. “I understand,” Gala said, sounding grave. “But allow me one word of advice, from a pony who’s learned what can happen if trust is given where it’s not due. Whether it was Quill, or Screw, or countless others before them: the worst are always the ones that you think you shouldn’t have to watch.”
No wonder they’d been watching her. Gala did have a point, and Celestia owed most of her fortitude here to the misfortunes of the ponies who had betrayed the lord’s trust. Still, the insinuation was hardly called-for.
“Mister Gala, if you have reason to suspect that Trinity, Wickerlock, or Capstan has anything to do with the sabotage, then I would like to hear your suspicions.”
He shook his head. “Rest assured that if I knew anything concrete, I would have had the perpetrator apprehended by now. We’re in the process of running down the backgrounds of everypony on staff as far as the manor is concerned. If I were you, I would make sure that you have done the same. Our foe is wily, Miss Celestia.”
“I understand that,” she replied evenly. “But this is my investigation, is it not?”
He nodded without a word.
“Then I would appreciate it if you allow me to conduct it properly.” Levelling a hoof at him, she took a step inward, for once appreciating the height difference between them. “And if you or the guards want to run some extra patrols around the work site, then you may, so long as I know what’s going on. I’ll run the staffing as I want to, and I’ll get this saboteur of ours, but if I’m to do that I have to know that I’m being given the latitude to do what I think is necessary. I do have that latitude, don’t I?”
Gala didn’t wilt under the force of her words. Instead he bore them as a rock would bear a rushing river. “To a point,” he returned calmly. He glanced over his shoulder at the tent entrance, before walking a few steps over to it. “But just remember what I’ve said,” he said over his shoulder. “We are keeping all of our employees on a tighter leash these days, and it would be a real shame if we found another traitor amongst the ranks of those we thought we could trust. Eliminating the threat is always so much harder in those cases.” At the entrance, the guard outside lifted the flap for the lord. “As always, let me know right away if you find anything solid.”
Celestia gave him another respectful bow as he left into the afternoon light. The implications of the conversation were relatively straightforward. First, that soon enough Gala would find out everything there was to know about her own background, if he was running all of the estate employees’ files. That wasn’t so concerning, even if she had originally applied under the guise of being a member of the upper city. Her work would speak for itself by now.
It was the second implication, though, that gave her pause. Pulling out the personnel records again, Celestia flipped through the stack until she reached the page that had Trinity’s entry on it. Even besides the fact that she knew Wickerlock and Capstan personally, the three of them had come in halfway into the season, and the sabotage had started long before then. Trinity, though, had been around long enough to fit the bill. In fact, the records showed that she had arrived just as the harvest was starting up.
She caught herself, halfway through scanning the stub of cursive that marked Trinity’s entry, and then roughly tossed the parchment back into its pile. What was she thinking? Not only had Trinity been her friend for all of her time here at the orchard, but the white earth pony had been her most valuable asset in gathering new leads about the workers. Surely she would never be so helpful if she was actually the saboteur herself.
Celestia shook her head. Whatever Gala said, there were some ponies that she just had to trust. Looking once more at the mess of suspects that she and Trinity had already identified, she knew that without her friend’s help, she would have been lost on this file. The lord would just have to get used to the fact that she had her methods. When she gave them the saboteur, they would have to accept that.
She was just getting into the heart of a memo to Fruit requesting another day of work for his stonemasons when suddenly from outside there came a shout and a crash of solid timber. Celestia was on her hooves and out into the blazing afternoon sunlight in seconds, and she saw the source of the sound immediately.
With the main support beams going up, all of the ponies working on the construction would normally be clustered around the three big cranes that had been brought in for doing the lifts. Each of them required four strong stallions working in concert, but together they could hoist the solid logs that would be the main posts into position.
Two of the cranes were idle at the moment, with posts on the ground ready to be lifted, but the third was commanding the attention of every pony on the site, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why that might be the case. Celestia didn’t bother trying to push her way through the crowd, instead letting her wings catch the breeze and taking a moment to survey the scene from the air.
This crane also had a post lying on the ground next to it, but at an awkward angle, out of the usual spot that it would have been lifted from. From the way that it was sitting, it was clear that the log was propped up on something, and as Celestia landed, she could see that the something was Mister Hale Stone, a unicorn from Trinity’s crew. His square features were screwed up in obvious pain, little surprise given that his right hind leg was caught under the log. The rest of the crew was all standing around him, looking about nervously.
Celestia landed next to Trinity. “What are we all waiting for?” she shouted. “Get that log off of him!”
A few of the ponies on the crew started making their way, but the others held them back. Trinity shook her head. “Sorry, Celestia, but we can’t. It’s unstable here. If we rocked it the wrong way, it might roll back on top of him, never mind the rest of us.”
“What about the crane then? If we can’t roll, then we’ll lift!” She glanced at the large wheel where the crane’s operators normally walked, and saw that Quinn and Stiff were in there, anxiously looking out at their fallen comrade. Mentally, Celestia checked off the three names that Trinity had given her before. Time enough for an investigation later, though. “Somepony get the ropes up! And we need two more on the wheel! Quickly now ponies, stop standing around and get on this!”
With the whole work crew there, Celestia expected there would be a little confusion as everypony tried to do their best in getting the ropes attached and the lift started. But maybe it was the crisis at hand that drove them to coordination. And maybe it was the sight of Hale clearly doing his best to hold back from screaming his head off. Capstan and another brute stallion joined the other two in the wheel, and very shortly they had the log lifted up just high enough for Trinity to get Hale out to safety. Trinity looked to his leg right away.
“Well, that one’s broken for sure,” she said. “Not surprising at all given the situation. We were in the middle of the lift when the log came down. Right down onto the three of us. Hale here just didn’t leap out of the way in time.” She gave him a gentle pat on the head. “I think his days here are probably done.”
Celestia nodded, though she couldn’t help but feel bad for him. His file said that he’d been a hard worker, if a little suspect, but now he’d be out of a job on top of having that nasty broken leg. The estate couldn’t afford charity work on top of everything else that was going on. At least that was one name that she could strike off of the list. “What went wrong?”
“Hard to know,” Trinity said, still unsettled by the grim sight. “We all heard something snap just before the log fell, though.” The rest of the team nodded at that.
Leaving them, Celestia flew up to the crane. Clearly the log itself hadn’t been damaged in all of that, and it was just the same as all of the others that had been brought in for the job, cut from the trunks of a few older native trees that had been growing at the south end of the orchard.
Grasping the length of rope that was dangling off of the crane’s pulley, she followed it down to its end. Sure enough, rather than the sturdy knot that should have been tied there, this one ended in a frayed twist, the ends of its braid splayed out like the strands of a mop. She called Trinity over.
“Well, there’s your snap,” Celestia said. “I can’t tell if this was cut or just worn out naturally, but you’d best have the rest of them checked, just in case.” She took a look over her shoulder, to see that the rest of the crew was still tending to Hale. For now, she and Trinity had a moment to themselves. “What do you think, Trinity? All three of your stallions were here for this one.”
The earth pony was startled for a moment. “Huh? Oh, that business. You’re quick to get back to that, aren’t you?”
“While the details are fresh!” Celestia snapped. “I told you to keep an eye on them, after all.”
“Sure, sure,” Trinity replied, waving a hoof apologetically. She took a glance back toward the crane, concentrating. “You saw that Stiff and Quinn were on the wheel, and they didn’t touch the ropes. Hale was actually the one who fastened them on.”
“Caught in his own trap, then?”
“Maybe,” Trinity admitted. “We’d certainly be lucky if that was the case.”
Celestia shook her head. “I don’t know. We know that our friend is smart. I don’t think he would have gotten this far if he wasn’t careful too. But I’ll tell the lord to keep an eye on old Hale just in case things do clear up on our end. Then the broken leg would be the least of his troubles.”
She gave Trinity a quick pat on the shoulder, and the earth pony returned it. Trinity looked shaken by the whole ordeal, but who could blame her? By the sounds of it that had almost been her leg under the log. And Celestia couldn’t think of how she’d fare on this project without Trinity’s help.