Once they reached the inn and stalled, but did not unsaddle, the horses, the five waited for almost a quint before Gorlaak appeared. Then they all walked over to the far side of the square where the old Council building still stood, a two-story structure some seven yards wide and close to ten deep. The door was locked or bolted from the inside, something Beltur had sensed earlier. The two narrow windows on each side of the door were also shuttered.
Beltur inspected each of the sets of shutters, then used a wedge of order to slide the bar behind one of the shutters enough that he could open them. The window behind had no locks, and he swung it open and stepped inside, where, after he took two steps, he began to sneeze from the dust raised by his boots. Despite the dust, the building didn’t look that bad, although it appeared that all the furniture, if there had been any, had been removed. Beltur walked to the front door and after a struggle removed the heavy bar and opened the door. Then he sneezed again.
“It’s dusty.” Tulya wrinkled her nose as she stepped inside.
Beltur followed Gorlaak as he went from the front room, which extended the width of the building, but was only five yards deep, into the narrow hall flanked by two smaller chambers and then up a steep staircase. There were two rooms on the upper level. One of them held two table desks, scratched but seemingly sturdy, and two straight-backed chairs.
Gorlaak inspected the ceiling and the walls and then stood on one of the table desks to pry open the entrance to the attic above. After a time, he climbed down from the attic and looked at Beltur. “Roof’s sound except for one corner. Wouldn’t take much to fix it. Stairs are also sound. Looks like they just closed it up and left it after the traders killed Coront. He was the last councilor.”
“Why did they kill him?”
“He collected tariffs and didn’t do anything. Tried to order the traders around.” Gorlaak shrugged. “You got another building to look at?”
“The old healing house next door and then two houses that need some hefty work.”
“Healing house was shut down years and years ago.”
“So we heard,” replied Jessyla.
The three walked downstairs, and everyone but Beltur walked out to the square while he closed up the building. From there they went to the healing house, also shuttered, but the door was not barred or locked.
Jessyla opened it and stepped inside, followed by Beltur.
Unlike the Council House, there was a foyer, with two small rooms on each side, and an archway leading to a hallway. Two more small rooms were located on each side of the hall, and at the end of the hallway was a staircase to the upper level.
Gorlaak studied the rear staircase, then shook his head. “Need to replace the top timbers that hold the risers. See all that sawdust? Carpenter ants. Might need other timbers done, too.”
“Can you get the timbers?” asked Beltur.
Gorlaak smiled. “I’ve got more seasoned timbers than you’ll ever need. Figured someday someone would come and put Haven to rights.” He shrugged. “Even if that didn’t happen, people need timbers.”
“Then you have a mill?”
“What passes for one in these parts. Got into replacing timbers and floors because not many folks were building.”
“What do you think of Jaegyr’s woodworking skills?”
“Better at cabinets and finishing than barrels.”
“I’d think it would be the other way.”
Gorlaak shook his head. “His father was a cabinetmaker. That was back in the day. Jaegyr ended up doing barrels and the simple carpentry because no one needed furniture. He’s good at that, but … that’s not where his heart is.” The big man shrugged. “We all do what puts food on the table.”
“Speaking of that,” said Beltur, “what does a day of your work cost us?”
“Five coppers a day, in addition to the wood. Doesn’t matter whether the day’s long or short.”
After a brief inspection of the healing house—with only one person on the staircase at a time—the four began to walk the five blocks to the two brick houses.
“I can still use the first floor of the healing house, once I get it cleaned up and can round up the supplies I need,” said Jessyla.
“Supplies might be the hard part,” suggested Beltur.
“I’m sure I can find herbs that will do. I could check with Julli. I thought I saw burnet and brinn there.”
“She strikes me as someone who’d know where everything is,” said Beltur wryly.
As they approached the two houses, Gorlaak cleared his throat. “I can remember when these were nice places. They just up and left, went to Lydiar, they said. Must have been a good ten years ago.”
It took Gorlaak almost a glass to inspect both the houses. As he was walking back toward Beltur and Jessyla, she said, “My thought is that we need to get Gorlaak and Jaegyr to work on the houses first. We can clean the Council building or get someone to clean it and use it right now. I can use the lower floor of the healing house.”
Beltur nodded. He’d had the same thought.
“Fixing both of them will take a fair amount of work,” declared Gorlaak.
“How long would it take you and Jaegyr to make them livable?” asked Beltur.
“Just livable? The one that’s gutted … two, maybe three eightdays. Walls are sound. So’s the roof, mostly. Need to replace some tiles and repoint some of the bricks. Shutters mostly need to be replaced. Re-plank some of the inside walls.”
“But there’s nothing there,” said Taelya.
“That means we don’t have to tear out as much, little woman.” Gorlaak smiled.
“We’ll need them more than livable,” declared Jessyla, “but we’ll start there. When can you begin?”
The big man grinned. “Seeing as no one else is building and you’re paying, how about tomorrow?”
“Does Jaegyr work for the same pay as you do?” asked Beltur.
“On something like this he will.”
“Is there any way to get clean water anywhere close to the house?”
“There are some fired-clay water pipes that run from the north hill spring. Have to trace them.”
“I can probably trace them,” said Beltur, “if you can show me where they start. Can you do piping as well?”
“I could, but you’d do better with old Faastah. I’ll have him come by and see you in the next day or so.”
By the time Beltur had worked out arrangements with Gorlaak and the six had walked back to the East Inn, it was well past midafternoon, and Beltur was more than ready even for the passable ale offered by Bythalt.
VIII
By sixday afternoon, the Council House was clean, and the two table desks and chairs had been moved down to the front room of the first level. Tulya had managed to buy paper and even an old ledger from Torkell’s chandlery and was busy creating the basis for a tariff ledger. Both Jaegyr and Gorlaak had begun work on the house with the sound roof, and Lhadoraak was helping them, since he’d been an apprentice cabinet maker for a short time before being discovered to have magely talents.
Jessyla had cleaned the healing house, but it was still empty. Beltur had traced out the main water pipes and gotten Faastah to repair the pipe to the fountain and the fountain basin. The fountain now offered water. Beltur had also hired two local youths to dig a trench from the nearest water pipe to the two houses under repair. Because Torkell had never even heard of a kitchen cistern, Beltur needed to figure out how to create the equivalent of the kitchen cistern that he and Jessyla had enjoyed in Axalt, since he didn’t want either of them lugging water any farther than absolutely necessary.
At that moment, while Jessyla was at the chandlery trying to see what Torkell had that could be used as healing supplies, Beltur was standing beside the house under repair, waiting for Faastah, when Karch rode up.
Beltur turned and walked toward the captain. “Any more sightings of Hydlenese troopers?”
“Not this morning. Everything’s quiet, just like I
told you it would be.” Karch paused. “Except we’re seeing more folks than we usually do.”
“That could just be that they’re taking advantage of what they think is the calm before the storm.”
“There’s that, too.” Karch frowned. “What are you going to do when the traders come back?”
“Not a thing so long as they behave themselves and pay the innkeepers and everyone else.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Take what they owe from them and send them on their way.”
“They’ll likely strike back at the townspeople.”
“That’s a good point. We’ll need to watch for that. If they do … then we’ll deal with it as well.” Beltur kept his voice pleasant.
“How much longer are you intending that we should stay in Haven?” asked Karch.
“Your presence has allowed us a good start on what we need to get done. The Duchess and Lord Korsaen had suggested two eightdays, I believe?”
“Somewhere in that neighborhood, give or take a few days.”
“That would be next fiveday morning. I think we should both plan on that, unless something changes drastically.”
Karch nodded. “That’s what we’ll plan for, but I think we should keep that to ourselves. That might give you a few more days of quiet.”
“That would be good.”
After the captain rode off, Beltur only had to wait a few moments more before Faastah appeared, suggesting that the mason had just stayed out of sight while Karch and Beltur were talking.
The white-haired mason ambled up to Beltur. “I saw you were talking to the captain. I haven’t seen that one before.”
“He’s posted out of Vergren, not Weevett.”
“That’s a long ride to do a patrol in Haven.”
“His company was escorting us.”
“They say all of you mages came a long way.”
“Two of us are originally from Gallos, and three are from Elparta in Spidlar. What about the pipes?”
“It’ll take me a couple of eightdays to fire enough pipe to run along that trench to your houses.”
While the distance was only a little over a hundred and fifty yards, Beltur could unfortunately understand the limitations of Faastah’s comparatively small kiln. “I understand, but the sooner you can do it the better. There’s something else … well, two something elses.”
Faastah offered a snaggletoothed smile. “So long as you’re paying and so long as it’s something I can do.”
“I’d like to put a stove in the hearth on the kitchen side. Do you have any ideas about how best to do that?”
“I’d need to be thinking about that, ser.”
“The other thing is that I’d like you to build an indoor cistern in the corner of the kitchen.”
Faastah frowned. “Out of what?”
“Brick and mortar.”
“It’ll leak, sooner or later. Make a terrible mess. You don’t want that, ser. Also, it’d be too heavy for the floor.”
“Not if we put a brick and stone foundation under it in that corner. It wouldn’t take that much space out of the root cellar.”
“It’d still leak.”
“Even if it were glazed?”
“I can’t glaze it in place, and if I glazed pieces and mortared them in place they’d come loose and it would still leak.”
“Let’s walk over and take a look at what might be possible.”
Gorlaak looked up from where he was reinforcing the wall by replacing a timber, then nodded as Beltur led Faastah into the area that would be the kitchen.
Beltur pointed to the southeast corner of the room. “Couldn’t you build two brick walls up from the cellar right there?”
“I could do that. I’ve got plenty of good brick from some of the old places. It won’t match, but you don’t care, I take it, since the only place you could see it would be in the root cellar?”
“That’s right. Then Gorlaak could use two or three extra timbers across the top of the walls and under the floor planks, and you could begin with a stone base…” Beltur explained more what he had in mind.
“I could do that,” Faastah said in response. “But before long it’s still going to leak.”
“What would happen if there happened to be several layers of glaze over the mortar lining the cistern?”
“Can’t glaze it in place.”
“Can you mix up some glaze, the kind that would line a pitcher or a cistern, and bring it here tomorrow?” Beltur grinned. “Before you start work on the support walls. You work on building the cistern, and we’ll work on a way to glaze or seal the inside.”
“You think you can glaze it with magery?”
“That’s what I want to discover.”
“What about getting the water out?”
“They have taps for kegs of lager and ale, don’t they? You might have to fire and glaze a small length of pipe to go through the bricks and mortar.”
“Iron or copper pipe might be better.”
“Is there a coppersmith here?”
Faastah shook his head. “As for iron, I wouldn’t trust Woffurd or Torkell to forge it, either. Poor excuses for a smith.”
“Then we’ll have to work with fired clay.”
“You’ll pay me each day?”
“If that’s what you want.” Beltur understood the mason’s doubts—that the troopers and the mages might not be around long, one way or the other.
The two walked back out of the house, and Beltur watched as Faastah headed for the main street. Then he untied Slowpoke and mounted.
IX
After dinner, Beltur sat on the end of the lumpy inn mattress in the dim light reading, and occasionally paging through The Wisdom of Relyn, the volume given to him by the mage and councilor Naerkaal just before Beltur and Jessyla had left Axalt. Given all that they had been through, Beltur hadn’t done much reading, but he was feeling more than a little discouraged. The more they did, the more it seemed that there was to do.
“Are you finding anything useful there?” asked Jessyla.
“Not exactly useful, but reading it reminds me that we’re not the first to try to build something in a difficult place. At least we’re not on the top of the Roof of the World where everything is frozen for a third of the year.”
“The angels were lucky that it was hard for their enemies to get to them, and they had that black tower.”
“They had to build it first, and they faced attacks all through the first year.”
“Do you think Relyn could have been exaggerating?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. Or not much. In one place, here, he asks, ‘How could four exiles of Heaven—Ryba, Nylan, Saryn, and Ayrlyn—how could they and a handful of women, many of whom were penniless wretches who fled Gallos, how could they vanquish the armies that swarmed into the Westhorns bent on their destruction?’”
“That’s a good question, but does he answer it?” asked Jessyla wryly.
“Here’s the answer he gives.” Beltur pointed to the lines that followed:
It was not just their power that achieved victory, nor their vision. Rather it was the understanding that nothing else mattered. I watched Nylan labor over his forge long beyond the glasses anyone would deem possible. Saryn drilled and trained mere lasses, glass after glass, into warriors who could and did destroy men twice their size. Ryba watched over all, and let nothing lapse. Even Ayrlyn the singer went out and traded for any scrap, any item, that might prove useful …
“‘The understanding that nothing else mattered…’ That’s frightening,” said Jessyla. “Is that what we’ll have to do?”
“What do you think?” countered Beltur.
For several moments, Jessyla did not reply. Finally, she said, “What else did he write about that?”
Beltur read the next section aloud.
“Many have said that Tower Black and the other buildings that followed were what enabled the angels to survive and prosper, as if creating
structures fostered that power. That was not so for Westwind nor has it ever been so. The great structures are the reflections and symbols of a great person or a great people.
Such buildings last beyond the greatness of the people who built them. When this happens, those in that land, as well as in other lands, often come to believe that building great structures is the way to eternal glory. They forget that the light of glory is fed by the deeds of the living and not by the cold stones and fired brick of massive structures.
Nor does building a structure to a deity or a cause create greatness in a people or a land. The most vital structures are those that serve a people, just as Nylan’s cisterns and drains made it possible for the angels to survive and even prosper in winters that no other people could endure…”
He stopped and waited for Jessyla to say something.
“We haven’t built much, and repairing things isn’t building.”
“We’ve only been here less than two eightdays. We’ve got the fountain working and before long the Council building and the healing house will be usable. We’re paying people to do things, and that helps. If we do more things like that, maybe we can draw more people, the way the angels did.”
“We aren’t the angels,” Jessyla pointed out.
“No … but we aren’t on the Roof of the World, either, where everything freezes solid for a good part of the year.”
She bent forward and kissed his cheek. “Optimist.”
X
First thing on sevenday morning Beltur and Jessyla inspected the wounds of the five armsmen. After that, he brought Taelya with him to the house where they waited for Faastah. Gorlaak, Jaegyr, and Lhadoraak were already hard at work on reinforcing and replacing the weakened internal timbers.
“You said you’d explain why you wanted me here,” prompted Taelya.
“I’m hoping that I can teach you how to use chaos carefully and precisely while also getting you ready to do something to help us prepare the houses. You remember the big kitchen cistern in the house in Axalt?”
The Mage-Fire War (Saga of Recluce) Page 8