A Dirge for Sabis

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Nay, I've no time for such, and these tallies suit me well enough. I'll send my boy, though." Feggle stroked rapidly through the rods, not even looking at them. Abruptly, his fingers halted. "There, m'lord." He shoved the stick forward, displaying the notches and mark. "There're five sacks of rye, and from Pibben's farm. They were the last of rye I've done. Pibben 'twas, but I know his grain's good; his grain's always been good, and I'd surely've noticed if 'twasn't."

  "Pibben . . ." Wotheng's eyes narrowed in thought as he studied the tally stick. "Tell me, did he bring the grain himself or have it sent?"

  "Why, he brought it himself, m'lord. He always does that."

  "But did he take it away himself?" Sulun asked. "Did he wait here while you ground it and carry it off afterward?"

  "Gods, no!" Feggle laughed, waving his thick hands. "Grinding takes a bit of time, it does, and there be so many wants grinding after first harvest, how should I do it all at once? No, m'lords, they bring it and leave it in the store-barn here, with their marks on the sacks, and I grinds it when I can. I barrels it after—or bags, if it be small enough—and puts it in t'other store-barn, and then the farmers come fetch it and pay me and take it home, or more likely they go straightaway to Tygg and sell t'him, and he sends his man to fetch it and pay me for the grinding."

  "Tygg?" Sulun asked.

  "Our baker," said Wotheng. "Would you remember, Feggle, if Pibben came and fetched his own rye or if Tygg's man came for it?"

  Feggle ran his thumb over the tally stick again. "All this shows—see yonder cut in the middle?—'tis that the grinding was paid. But I know well enough Pibben sold it; his wife's a wonder at spinning and weaving, but she doesn't bake at all, no sir. He sold yonder rye to Tygg, be sure."

  "I'll send a man to Pibben's just to be sure," Wotheng promised. "Now would your pretty stick tell us just when the rye was bought and carried away?'

  Feggle shook his heavy jowls. "Nay, only when 'twas brought in, but I'll swear, m'lord, I don't keep grain overlong, lest it spoil. Yonder rye flour would've been ground within two days, no more, and gone no less'n a day later." He counted the sticks on the sting, then counted further on his fingers. "It would've gone to Tygg's no more nor three days ago, and no less than two."

  Wotheng and Sulun exchanged another look.

  "Back to the villa, then, and to Tygg's," said Wotheng. "Let's see if his tallying is as good."

  "And we'll pick up Eloti," Sulun added. "I'll guess she's learned much from Gynallea's medicine texts."

  * * *

  " . . . these herbals to open the veins, the beer to flush the poisons out, and the raw bean mash to counter the effects of the poison." Gynallea wrapped up the bundle of packets and handed it to Eloti. "How are the workmen doing?"

  "When we left they were resting quietly. What simples we had did them some good." Eloti hefted the bundle, face abstracted. "This won't be the end of it, I suspect."

  "No," Gynallea sighed. "You will have to settle with High Priest Folweel, in some permanent fashion, and that soon. Have you any plans?"

  "Several, none of them sure." Eloti took a small polished disc of obsidian from her belt pouch and weighed it thoughtfully in her hand. "In any case, we must get into Yotha House and confront that man."

  "Daughter, even my Wotheng must walk soft there! Be utterly careful of words with the high priest."

  "It's not words I have in mind, dearest Gynna."

  "A wizard's duel, then? At the very center of Yotha's power? Is that wise?"

  "Not a duel, not there," Eloti admitted, sliding the disc back into her pouch. "We are, as you've doubtless guessed, not precisely nor entirely wizards."

  "Ah, some help from your mechanical knowledge will be needed, then?" Gynallea smiled knowingly. "Choose your ground with care, my dear. Have many alternative tactics in waiting, and let everyone know their part well."

  "That, unfortunately, is the problem. Sulun wants no such battle; he'll not attack."

  Gynallea pursed her lip. "Commendable, but . . . difficult. Plan elaborate defenses, then. And . . . try to shape, in advance, the attack your enemy will make."

  Eloti grinned humorlessly. "That," she said, "is the difficult part."

  * * *

  Tygg the Baker looked and spoke much like his counterpart at the mill. "Of course I inspected the flour, m'lord!" he huffed, absently patting his nearest oven. "I always inspect it myself when it arrives, if not before I buy. Great gods assembled, d'ye think I'd pay good silver for bad flour?"

  "You inspected Pibben's rye, then, at the mill?" Wotheng asked. "When was that?"

  "Nay, not at the mill," Tygg admitted, clenching his broad fists in his coarse bleached apron. "I've bought from Pibben these many years, and never had complaint. I looked at the barrelful when it came here, and 'twas good then, as always 'tis."

  He ambled down the crowded bakery hall to a side room, which he opened with a heavy iron key. Within lay shelves of stacked tablets, a writing table and chair, and a large money chest bolted to the floor. He poked through the tablets, pulled one out, and shoved it in front of the questioners. "There, yon's the mark for Pibben, and this for rye, and this for the amount. If 'twere bad, I'd have marked it other."

  Sulun, hoping to find a literate accounting, was disappointed to see more tally marks cut in the wax. "Do you recall," he asked, "when the flour arrived? Or when it was baked? Or where you sold it?"

  "Oh, aye." The baker pointed his thick finger at further marks on the tablet. "See here: that means it came two days agone. I couldn't say when 'twas baked or sold, but it must've been right soon after. I—I bought it to bake for your work gang, m'lord wizard. . . ." Tygg wilted a little. "They like the rye bread, they do, and the price is . . . well, quite fair, sir."

  "Buy cheap and sell dear, I know." Wotheng grinned, making his moustache bristle. "I've no complaint with honest profit."

  "Nor I," said Sulun, seeing where this led. In truth, grain prices here were astonishingly low compared to what he remembered in Sabis. "I only ask, did you send any other bread to my work gang these four or five days past?"

  "Oh, no, m'lord wizard." Tygg waved his big hands in denial. "I bake and send to them but once a seven-night. My wagon man'd be too busy else for my other work. I send all around the vale, y'know, m'lord."

  "So this was the load that was . . . tainted, and no other?" Eloti asked, stepping forward.

  "M'lady, I'll swear on a dozen gods the flour was good!" Tygg wailed, almost tiptoeing a step back from her. "I looked when I bought it, and 'twas clean!"

  "And how long between the time you bought it, and inspected it, and when you baked it?' Sulun asked, looking for the sequence, the timing.

  "No more nor a day, I'll swear." Tygg rubbed his sweating forehead, then automatically wiped his hand on his apron. "I bought the flour specially because 'twas time to bake for the work gang again. One can't be late with food for that lot, y'know."

  "I know." Eloti smiled, considering the uproar a gang of hungry workmen would make if their bread didn't arrive. "You bake for them once a seven-night, then, and send it out how soon after?"

  "Wh-why, soon's 'tis out of the oven. It must go soon, d'ye see, for it's got to last seven days, and for all that rye bread stales but slow, in seven days 'twill be a bit stiff, so the sooner 'tis delivered, the better." The baker shrugged eloquently.

  "Sir Baker," Eloti purred, well knowing the answer, "is there any means by which the ergot could have entered the bread after it was baked?"

  Tygg struggled mightily with his fear and conscience, finally had to admit, "Nay, couldna," in a defeated voice. "If it struck then, 'twould only dot the crust with black spots, easily seen and cut off."

  "So the ergot entered the flour sometime between the hour when you inspected it and when you baked it?"

  "Aye," Tygg almost whispered, "while 'twas here, in my storeroom . . ." Then he brightened, seeing a possibility. "'Twas there almost a day. Anyone could have come in and traded it for bad flour
while I wasn't looking."

  "But wouldn't you have noticed the change when you went to bake it?" Wotheng cut in. "Surely you'd have seen, or smelled, if something were wrong when you went to measure it out."

  "But—but—" Tygg bounced on his wide feet in agitation. "I confess, I didn't bake that load! I've so much to bake, y'know, m'lord, I can't do all at once. 'Twas only common rye bread, if all be told, and I'd the more dainty breads an cakes to do, as I can't trust to 'prentices, y'know." He waved a dusty hand toward the bake shop, where easily half a dozen assistants were measuring flour, rolling dough, and tending the ovens. "I left the rye bread baking to . . . gods, who was it? Ey, 'twere Meep and Higgle!" he stomped to the door and bellowed, "Meep! Higgle! Get your lumbering feet in here, and be quick!"

  A fat boy and a stout woman jumped as if they'd been stabbed, pulled their hands out of huge basins of flour, and came hurrying in.

  "Aye, Master, what's the matter?" the woman asked, shifting from foot to foot as if her arches pained her.

  "I'm hurrying with the barley bread," the boy whined. "Gods' truth, I'm hurrying, Master Tygg, it's just that—"

  "Never mind you that," Tygg snapped. "Which of you baked the rye bread that went out yesterday morn?"

  The two bakers assistants looked at each other, Meep woeful, Higgle smirking. "'Twere he done it." Higgle pointed triumphantly to the cringing fat youth. "I lost the toss, so's I had to haul the wood and light it off and sweep out the oven and tend the fire and such—while he made the bread."

  "Aw, Master," Meep whined. "I ain't never made rye bread before. The loaves looked right when they came out t'oven, crusts dark like she said. Hows I t'know they weren't right?"

  Tygg heaved a mountainous sigh—of relief? Exasperation? "And what was wrong with them?" he asked.

  Meep's jaw dropped, flapped a bit, quivered. "I—I don't know, Master. Did I make the dough too heavy? Not baked long enough? Ye said t'leave 'em a bit moist, as they was t'last awhile. . . ."

  Tygg was trying to say something, probably explosive, but Eloti touched his arm and he jigged away in silence. "Listen, boy," she crooned hypnotically at the young lout, "you know who we are, do you not?"

  "Y-yes, m'lady. Ye're one of the new wizards as serve Deese." His plump cheeks quivered as he tried to edge away, but Eloti caught his face neatly between her hands.

  "Think, boy," she murmured, fixing his eyes with her own. "Remember well, from the beginning. When did you come to work that day?"

  "T-two hours afore dawn, like always," Meep whimpered, staring.

  "Where you first in the shop?"

  "I came in . . . after Higgle. She'd the key."

  "And what next?"

  "She said t'make the rye bread, and I said—"

  "Never mind what was said. What did you do?"

  "I—we argued, and then we tossed a copper, and she lost . . . so she went t'get the firewood and I went t'get the rye flour, and—"

  "How did you know which was the rye flour?"

  "'Twas in the barrel Master Tygg showed me the day afore, the one with the half-moon scratched in the wax."

  Eloti shot a quick glance at Sulun, who nodded. "You went to get the flour," she said. "So you opened the barrel?"

  "Nay, m'lady. 'Twas already open."

  "You mean, the lid was loosened or the lid was off?"

  "'Twas off. I thought Higgle'd been there first. I took up the scoop and filled the big measure—"

  "I'll fetch't," said Tygg, hurrying off.

  "And did you notice anything different about the flour?" Eloti went on.

  "N-no m'lady. How would I? I'd never made the rye bread afore." Meep wrung his hands in unconscious imitation of his master.

  "So you took up the measure full of flour. What did you then?"

  "I brought it back t' the shop room and poured it into yonder big mixin' pot, and put in the sweetenin' and the leavenin' and then the butter and eggs, and last the milk, and then I stirred it with the big paddle, and then I let it sit and rise."

  Tygg came back in, holding a measure cup the size of a half barrel. "This be the big measure, m'lady," he said, then halted as he saw the odd interrogation wasn't finished.

  "And what did you do while the bread rose?" Eloti asked.

  "Ate some buns. They were left over from the day afore, would've gone t'waste, else . . ."

  "And crackin' jokes at me, while I warmed up th' oven," Higgle added.

  "And then what did you?" Eloti bored on.

  "W-went back t'see how it'd risen, and it had."

  "And did you notice, then, anything strange about the dough? Did it look right? Smell right? What?"

  "Nay, it looked right enough—risen right well, good and high. It smelled sour, but rye bread always does, far as I know."

  "So what did you next?"

  "I patted it in loaves."

  "You didn't punch it down and leave it to rise again?" Tygg fumed. "Ye lazy lout, I should clout yer head!"

  "Hush," Sulun restrained him. "Let's hear the rest, first."

  "And what then?" Eloti insisted.

  "I put the loaves in the oven, and bade Higgle watch 'em."

  "That he did," Higgle volunteered. "Left me t'watch, and went off t'stuff his face on more sugar buns."

  "And were you alone in the shop all this time?" Eloti asked.

  "Oh nay, m'lady. Swarp and Dirrot and Buj and Master Tygg came in a bit after us, and they was workin'."

  "Aye," Tygg muttered. "I should've seen him nippin' the leftover buns. . . ."

  "But did anyone go to the storeroom before you?" Eloti insisted.

  "Nay, we was first there, afore the others came in."

  "That's true," Higgle agreed. "We come earliest."

  "Then what became of the dough left in the big mixing pot?" Eloti asked.

  Meep looked blank. "I don't know, m'lady," he blubbered.

  "I cleaned that out." Higgle wrinkled her nose. "'Tis the job for whoever's tending the fire. I lost the toss, as we said."

  "Where did you wash it?" Eloti asked, releasing Meep and turning to Higgle. "And what did you do with the washings?"

  "I washed it in the backyard," said Higgle, righteously holding her ground. "I threw the washings in the slops bucket, for t'take t'Mistress Tygg's pig, after."

  "Ay, gods!" Tygg slapped a hand to his forehead. "So that's what ailed the pig yester'en!"

  "You didn't eat any of the dough yourself?" Eloti insisted.

  "Nay, m'lady," said Higgle, wrinkling her nose again. "Why eat sour old dough, when I could have leftover cakes later?" Abruptly she blushed, and looked sidelong at Tygg, who rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered about greedy apprentices eating up his profits.

  "So," said Eloti, turning back to Tygg. "Meep says he used one large measure of rye flour. If that's the measure, there must still be more flour left in the barrel. May we see it, please?"

  Without a word, Tygg led them to the storeroom at the other end of the bakeshop. The room was stone, windowless, with only one other door that led—as Sulun confirmed with a swift look—out to the back alley where the wagons were unloaded. The doors were stout, tight, and well barred. There was no sign of rats, though a plump cat patrolled there, and the floor was quite acceptably clean.

  Tygg pointed to a barrel in the near right corner, one marked with a simple half-moon cut into a splash of wax. "That be the one," he said, keeping his distance.

  Sulun and Eloti approached the barrel cautiously, as if it might bite. Wotheng stayed back by the door, watching both of them and the baker. Eloti lifted off the barrel lid and peered in.

  "Is it customary," she asked, "for your rye flour to be so grey in color?"

  Tygg jumped as if stung, and ran to the barrel. "No, by all the gods," he said, staring into its half-filled depths. "'Tis supposed t'be faintest hint of brown, no more." He reached in, pulled up a pinch of the flour, spread it on his palm, and looked closely. "I'd be sure in better light," he whispered, "but I think I see fine
flecks of black in this. He sniffed cautiously at the thin spread of flour. "It doesn't smell bad, though."

  "Let us test further." Eloti scooped out a handful of the flour and walked back toward the shop room. "Please fetch me a small bowl and a bit of sweetening and milk."

  Tygg practically fell over his feet, running to comply with her wishes.

  It took but a moment to mix the ingredients in the right proportions. Tygg asked if she wanted oil, leavening, and eggs too, but Eloti assured him it wasn't necessary.

  "If this is indeed the mould I think it is," she explained, pouring out the mixture on a small plate, "then water and food is all it needs. Now let us put this in a warm place for . . . how long does it usually take for rye bread to rise, Master Tygg? Half an hour? Good. Let us take our ease for so long."

  Tygg obligingly brought bench seats, cups of his own beer, and a dish of his best sweet rolls, and did his best not to look at the suspect mixture in the bowl near the oven. His staff worked furiously at their business, not daring to look lest Tygg's eye and wrath fall on them.

  Wotheng drank his beer in leisurely fashion, wiped off his moustache, and calmly asked. "Goodman, who was present in your shop between the time you first opened the barrel of flour and the time it was baked?"

  Tygg paused, half-turned to watch his underbakers, his eyes unfocused with the effort of memory. "Hmm, ah, everyone here, of course—all my help. Also the wagoner who brought it. Many of the villa folk came in and out to buy . . . Ah, gods, I can't remember how many came and went!"

  Eloti gave Wotheng a brief nod of respect, then asked. "How many of your customers came into this room, let alone the storeroom?"

  "Ey, why, none." Tygg looked relieved for a moment, then sobered as he guessed the implications. "I swear, I'd never believe any of my lot would poison their own bread!"

  "I find that hard to believe, also," said Sulun. "How many of them went into the storeroom that day?"

  "Gods, I can't recall!" Tygg rubbed his sweating jowls in distress. "All of them, I don't doubt, for I had them all at work mixing and baking. I do try, m'lord, t' make 'em knowledgeable at all stages of baking."

  "But then . . ." Wotheng sat up, moustache bristling. "None of them could be sure that another 'prentice wouldn't walk in on them while they were putting the mould in the four. Most risky work, that."