“When you do next receive that payroll?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“Good. From now on, each time you do that, we’ll count it here in the study, and we’ll both sign a record showing how much we received.” .;
“Yes, ser. I’ll talk to the enumerators.”
“That’s a good idea. They should know what the Majer-Commander has in mind, too, especially before they provide the next payroll.”
“I would think so, ser.”
“I’ll have to meet with them. Perhaps we should do it together.”
“Ah… yes, ser.”
Lorn smiles again. “I want to make sure that we’re supplying them with the services they need.”
“You said your consort was the head of a trading house, ser?”
“Yes. I’ve learned a great deal from her.”
Helkyt smiles. “I am certain the enumerators will wish to learn that the commander has some understanding of trade and merchanters.”
“You might send them a message to that effect, but I think we should meet with them tomorrow, as early as possible.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn glances at his handwritten list again. “The north wing of the barracks. We’ll need to hire a cart or a wagon and carry all the junk off. Is there a rag-picker here in Biehl that might pay us something for the cloth and the wood?”
Helkyt’s face blanks.
“You need to find out if there is. Also, we’ll need to see about whether there enough cuprite for the coppersmith to pay us…”
Lorn stops as Helkyt’s eyes begin to glaze over. “I’ve offered enough for now. Why don’t you start on working out who can do the training?” He stands. “We’ll talk later.”
Helkyt lurches to his feet. “I will have those names for you shortly, ser. Most shortly.”
The smile does not leave Lorn’s face until the senior squad leader closes the door behind him.
XIV
In the spring evening, sitting at the desk in his quarters’ study, Lorn examines the payroll and expense-draw figures once more. He shakes his head. Without additional golds, he cannot afford both mounts and saddles for two full companies, even if he does not recruit the second new squad until midsummer. He may be able to draw upon the District Guards. He shakes his head once more, then jots an addition to his list. He needs to send a message to the District Guard Commander, and then visit the commander, for another aspect of his duties is to ascertain and verify the numbers and capabilities of those guards-something that has not been done in years. He sets aside his list and picks up the payroll figures again.
After yet another series of mental calculations, he sets aside the reckonings, knowing that unless he can obtain good horses more cheaply or saddles or… something… he will not reach his goals, and so many of those goals are but within his own mind. Knowing what he must do, he tries not to dwell on the audacity required. Yet, without audacity his future is dim indeed. And without knowledge as well, he reminds himself.
He laughs to himself. Still… he assumes that a man can make the times, when it is not at all clear that such is possible, or even that the times make the man. He will see; he must see.
He slips the chaos-glass from the single drawer and sets it on the polished wood. While Lorn knows that he must be successful in using the glass in order to survive and prosper, it has been difficult enough to follow those in the glass with whom he has little connection. Yet a chaos-glass would prove most useful as a battlefield tool-if only to see where the barbarians-or any enemy-might be riding.
Lorn concentrates. This time takes longer, far longer, than when he has sought individuals he has met or known about, before the silver mists clear and display a view of riders. The image displayed is that of a raider band. Lorn’s only problem is that he has no idea where the barbarians might be, or what might be their destination.
After releasing the image, he takes a deep breath. Will he have to use the glass to map the northwest section of the Hills of Endless Grass? Or perhaps if he tries to call up an image of Jera?
He concentrates once more-and is rewarded with the vision of a town that appears much as Biehl must from above-except Jera appears to be on the north side of the River Jeranya. The sparkling in Lorn’s eyes slowly turns into needles, then narrow stilettos that stab at the back of his eyes as he tries to make out individual sections of the town in the glass.
When he finally releases the image, his head is pounding, and tiny knives continue to jab through his eyes and into his skull. He sits with his eyes closed, well into the darkness, massaging his forehead, trying to rub away the throbbing that follows extensive use of the chaos-glass. Finally, Lorn opens his eyes, slips the glass into the drawer, stands, and lights the lamp. Then he takes out the pen and a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write, slowly, carefully. First come the letters to his parents and Jerial, then a shorter one to Myryan, and finally, the one with which he would have preferred to have begun. But had he started with it, the others might not have been written.
When he is finished with the last letter, the one to Ryalth, he looks over the scroll he has written-drafted most carefully, since he has no way to send a scroll through merchanters he can trust and thus must dispatch this scroll through the normal firewagon/courier system.
My dearest,
The trip to Biehl was itself most uneventful, but coming here has been far different from anything either of us could have imagined. To begin with, there was no one to relieve, since the previous overcaptain was an older officer who died over a season ago. As result of his untimely death, even more has been required than I had first thought because much has been neglected. The city, rather more of a large and old town, sits on the west side of the River Behla, to the south of the Northern Ocean… When the winds blow, it can be chill indeed…
It appears as though my duty here will also require recruiting and training young lancers so that I may provide trained men for service elsewhere, as required by the Majer-Commander. This is in addition to refurbishing the compound and providing lancers as necessary for the Emperor’s Enumerators, who have done without such support and presence at least since the death of the previous overcaptain.
With quarters far larger than I ever could have imagined, and even suitable for a consort-at least to visit, although they are ornate in the old style, I do have some space in which to think, and to read in quiet. And I have a serving woman, consorted to one of the older lancers, who cleans and also cooks my evening meal. Although her meals are simple and plain, they are far better than the food at my earlier duty assignments… Because all has been so busy in dealing with the unsettled situation created by the untimely death of the previous overcaptain, I still have not had a chance to spend much time in the town itself or to determine what wares might be unique… but I have not forgotten that such is necessary…
I do miss you, and trust that all continues well with you.
He sets the scroll aside to dry, and sits back for a moment in the ancient and not terribly comfortable chair. Somehow, the quarters remind Lorn of the silver-covered book, almost as if they call up the time of the ancient writer. Biehl is an old town, and it is possible that the compound walls may date from the early years of Cyador, but the quarters date back perhaps three generations, certainly no longer.
With the scrolls still drying, Lorn picks up the slim silver volume, as unmarked as when Ryalth had first pressed it upon him, despite its being carried back and forth across Cyador. He opens it and fingers his way through the pages, until he reaches one of the more enigmatic verses.
I hear the lonely Magi’i
imprisoning their chaos-souls
in the corridors of their quarter,
forging firewagons, ships, and firespears
to ensure an old world never reappears.
I hear the altage souls lifting lances
against what the future past advances,
while time-towers hold at bay
the
winters of another day,
what we would not face
what we could not erase…
until those towers crumble into sand
and Cyad can no longer stand.
Lorn frowns as he pages through the book and finds the other verse, the one that shows Cyad as far more. He reads the first two stanzas out loud.
In this season, the stones are sharp and clear,
from decisions once made in hope and fear,
those traditions grafted from stars long lost,
distant battles fought without thought of cost
lands wrenched from the grasp of order’s dead hand,
that refugees could build a fruitful land.
Cyad, from your green and streets of white stone
will come the first peace this poor land has known.
From the Rational Stars and the three ways
will follow hope and justice for all days…
Lorn murmurs the rest of the poem’s words to himself once. The same writer, and in one case he has written of the greatness of Cyad, and in the other, of its inevitable fall. Lorn frowns. Cyad must not fall-not in his life.
He closes the book slowly. The writer had felt all those years ago that the towers would fail, and yet he had persevered. Lorn frowns. Had he? The book offers no guarantee of such. There are no verses saying what became of the writer, nor any hints as to how the slim volume came into the hands of Ryalth’s mother.
Lorn glances out the window into the darkness that has fallen on the compound. He is trying to rebuild the garrison and compound. Can it be done? Can Cyad be re-formed to retain its greatness without firewagons, without fireships, without firelances? Will it remain Cyad?
And what is Cyad? He wonders, still without an answer to his father’s question, not one that satisfies him. All those questions, and the melancholy words of the ancient writer, bring up once more the other question, simple enough, yet also without a simple answer. Do the times make a man, or can a man make the times? Was the ancient writer produced by the pressures of creating Cyador, merely reacting to those pressures? Or did he direct them? Since Lorn knows not who the man was, he has no answers, and the words of the writer offer no absolute assurances of either.
Lorn shakes his head, ruefully, yawning. Such philosophical speculations will not help in accomplishing what he must. He yawns once more, then stands and turns out the light. He has much to do on the morrow, as he does on every morrow.
XV
The two men stand on the end of a white stone pier at which no vessels are tied. Under the heavy clouds of a chill spring day, the wind creates small whitecaps on the choppy gray-blue waters of the harbor of Cyad. Halfway toward the shore are two groups of guards, each by a separate bollard. One set of guards is clad in green uniforms, with gold trim, the second and smaller group in shapeless blue. All the guards watch the two merchanters who face each other.
Both men are beardless and wear blue shimmercloth. One is ponderous, tall, heavy, and his brown eyes seem almost hidden by heavy lids. His dark brown hair, though trimmed carefully, is thinning and lank and flops in the wind. The second merchanter is of average height, and trim. His hair is sandy-colored, tinged with silver-gray, and his eyes are hazel.
The heavy merchanter looks down at the smaller man. “Most honored Clan Head Tasjan, I have heard that there are those in the Dyjani Clan who murmur about the need for change among the merchanters.”
“There are always those who wish change.” Tasjan’s voice is a mellow and deep bass, surprisingly for one so slender.
“The words are for more than change. There is talk about who will be Emperor.”
“There have always been some who ask, ‘Is it not time for a merchanter Emperor? Can we not support with our blades and golds someone who will live in the years to come? Can we not do away with those who revere the cracked and failing vase of the past?’ ” Tasjan laughs. “I have heard such questions since I was a boy. So have you.”
“Such questions are dangerous now,” Bluoyal observes. “Because the Emperor is aging, Bluoyal? Or because he is less than satisfied with his Merchanter Advisor?”
“Remember, Tasjan, I was the one who calmed Fuyol when he wo have hired blades to dismember you and your heirs, and the one who counseled patience.”
“I appreciate your efforts, my old and valued friend.” Tasjan shrugs. “Yet none would accept his golds, and now he is dying, and all look the other way.”
“There was the matter of a Dyjani trade plaque,” Bluoyal points out. “And a Brystan sabre refinished in cupridium. And the Dyjani are the ones who trade most in sabres from Brysta-the only ones, as I recall.”
“Everyone knows we alone trade in such arms, excepting, of course, Bluyet House, which also does, but we know that the Emperor’s Merchanter Advisor is far above suspicion,” Tasjan replies. “That is why it was meaningless. It was an easy way to cast suspicion.”
“And why,” asks Bluoyal with a laugh, “would anyone wish to cast suspicion upon the most honorable Dyjani Clan? Because you are all so beloved?”
Tasjan returns the laugh. “We are most beloved, for we are the most successful at competing with the Hamorians in all that they do.”
“Beloved or not, most honored and ancient friend, now is not the time for merchanters to raise questions. Time favors us more than action. Rynst grows older by the day, and without him, the Mirror Lancers will not know which way to point their blades. Chyenfel holds to life by sheer force of will against chaos, and when Kharl succeeds him, chaos will meet chaos, for the Second Magus will not support young Rustyl as a successor to the Malachite Throne-nor anyone supported by Rynst.” Bluoyal shakes his head. “The Second Magus would be Emperor, and yet he cannot see that few even within the Quarter of the Magi’i will support him.”
“He is a powerful mage, as is his son,” Tasjan counters. “The fourth magus, who has balanced all, is failing, many say, and his daughter is consorted to Kharl’s son. Many would support Kharl because he has a son, and for the sake of the daughter of the fourth magus, and to ensure that there would be an heir. The Empire cannot stand another Emperor without heirs, not in these times.”
“And when the Second Magus fails… then what?” asks Bluoyal. “Will you then offer yourself as the man of the merchanters-or of the people?”
“I cannot imagine that happening,” Tasjan replies.
Despite the cool wind, Bluoyal blots his forehead with a pale blue square of cloth that momentarily covers his entire visage. His brown eyes are hard as he studies the slender, sandy-haired merchanter. “You have talked of the failure of the Magi’i to others. Why will you not admit it to me?”
“Because you meet too often with Chyenfel and Kharl.” Tasjan shrugs. “I will not admit such even now. I do believe, as do you, that there will come a time when a merchanter must sit upon the Malachite Throne. When that time will be, I do not know. Nor do you.”
“You wager that time will be soon, and you are the merchanter, and your guards under Sasyk will make sure that at least some will make you such an offer.”
Tasjan smiles. “While I would scarce refuse such, who would ever offer that to me-the head of the oh-so-beloved Dyjani Clan? As for Sasyk, you know that he is but to protect the interests of the House.”
The older and heavier merchanter shakes his head ponderously. “You play with chaos-flame, my friend.”
“You will be burned by such flames sooner than I, Bluoyal, for you are far closer to them, and Cyad is less than kind to those who cannot balance the chaos of chaos and the chaos of man.”
“You seem most concerned for my welfare.”
“I am, indeed, for if you fail, who will be Merchanter Advisor?” asks Tasjan. “I would not wish it to be Veljan, for reasons we all know. Nor Vyanat, who is all that you claim I am. And beloved as I am, who would wish me? Does that mean we would see someone like Kernys? Or the lady trader, the one who makes us look magnanimous in our petty revenges? No… I would much prefe
r you not fail.”
“For now,” suggests Bluoyal.
“But, of course.” Tasjan laughs. “Would you have me lie outright?”
Bluoyal laughs as well, even as he lifts the wide blue cloth to blot his perspiring face once more.
XVI
In the early-morning light that brightens his overcaptain’s study, Lorn pores over the map of Biehl before him, trying to link what he has seen so far in the town with the old cartographic information. Some material he can see is outdated, for the map shows four piers in the harbor, and several structures that may have been warehouses that exist no longer.
His earlier perusal of the records in Helkyt’s study also shows that at one time, the commandant of the compound had been a majer or sub-majer, and that there had been three companies quartered in the compound. He straightens and shakes his head, knowing he must act quickly and decisively, even before he knows enough to do so. He also knows that such actions must show as little as possible, for an intelligent officer who is young for his rank is already suspect.
“Ser?” Helkyt peers in the study door. “Have you been here long?”
“Since around dawn, I think.” Lorn laughs. “Come on in and tell me about the Emperor’s Enumerators. Close the door.”
Helkyt closes the door and takes the seat nearest the wall. He brushes back a thin and long strand of blond hair, unconsciously swirling it over the top of his scalp where most of his hair has already vanished. “Mayhap… mayhap, ser, as you said, best you know about the Emperor’s Enumerators here in Biehl, afore you visit such.” Helkyt’s brow is perspiring, despite the cool air in the study.
“Tell me,” Lorn says easily.
“There be three enumerators-Flutak, Neabyl, and Comyr. Senior Enumerator Flutak,” Helkyt says, “he is in charge of administering and collecting the tariffs here. Neabyl inspects the vessels to ensure they carry no contraband, and Comyr is the most junior. He will do whatever the elder enumerators request.”
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