Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible)

by Olan Thorensen

  By this time, the number of workers in ether and ethanol production had stabilized at five, and he used profits from ether and whiskey to start development of other products. He was faced with a steady flow of income, increased numbers of workers, and more complex dealings with tradesmen, and keeping it all in order had become a limiting factor in his daily life. Something had to be done.

  Though the regular Caedelli lessons with Selmar Beynom had ended months previously, Cadwulf Beynom, the eldest son of Sistian and Diera, had found so many reasons to be around that Yozef suspected the abbot had asked his son to keep an eye on the stranger. Whether to help him or to protect others, Yozef didn’t know, although it could be both. The genial Cadwulf was a true convert to the new knowledge Yozef was doling out to the islanders, and whatever the initial impetus of their companionship, it developed into a genuine friendship. The solution came to Yozef’s financial organization, or lack thereof, when he complained to Cadwulf as the two were eating the morning meal at the abbey dining hall.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting with Pollar Penwick in Abersford today to check out the latest batch of soap.” Yozef had been working with a local tradesman who made several products, including soap and candles. “We’ve several new products coming along, but the number of workers I have to keep track of and the coins coming in and going out are taking up time I need to be in the shops and talking with workers and tradesmen.”

  Cadwulf chewed on a bread bite as he eyed his strange friend. “I can see where that can be a problem, since you’re involved in so many different trades. Maybe I can help. I do much of the accounts for the abbey, and yours can’t be any more complicated. Let me have a try at organizing your records.” Cadwulf’s eyes narrowed at Yozef. “You do keep records?”

  “Well,” hawed Yozef, “at first I just gave the workers their pay weekly and coins to buy supplies when needed. As it got more complicated, I wrote things down on paper. I thought I’d organize when I got the chance, which hasn’t happened.”

  Cadwulf shook his head. “For someone so educated and with so much new knowledge, you can be addled at times.”

  Yozef bit back the retort “YOU try to get dumped on another planet and see how you manage it!” He didn’t utter those words; instead, he forced a smile. “You’re right,” he said and meant it, berating himself for getting so disorganized.

  “Don’t let it worry you,” laughed Cadwulf, slapping Yozef on the back. “Considering your circumstance, a little addling is understandable. Why don’t you go over the details with me, and I’ll see if I can organize it all for you?”

  “With pleasure. How about right now?”

  “I thought you had a meeting with Penwick in Abersford?”

  “Shit! That’s right. I forgot.”

  “Addled, as I said.”

  “How about a couple of hours before evening meal? In my room? That’s where I keep most papers.”

  They met that afternoon, and by mealtime, Cadwulf was Yozef’s accountant. In addition, the young Beynom was appalled at the drawers of coins.

  “Yozef, you really do need a keeper.”

  Red-faced, Yozef spluttered, “Well, hell, where am I supposed to keep it all? It’s coming in faster than I can pay workers and start up new trades, and I’m not spending much on myself.”

  “Well, you have to do something. The abbey is normally safe, but having this much coin sitting in drawers is asking for someone to be tempted beyond his ability to resist. There was a robbery in Abersford last sixday, so it can happen here.”

  “Then where can I put the coin?” Yozef groused. “There are no banks here.”

  “Banks?”

  “I don’t know the Caedelli word, but a place to put coin where it’ll be safe, which also lends money. A bank.”

  Cadwulf rubbed a chin just showing the beginnings of a beard. “Bank? We don’t have a . . . bank.”

  “Then where do people keep their coin, and how does someone borrow money?”

  “They keep it anywhere they feel is safe. Most people don’t have much coin. What they have, they carry or keep where they live, hidden if there’s enough to worry about theft. They can also pay tradesmen for future work or purchases, and then the coin is the tradesman’s problem. As for borrowing money, you do it from relatives, friends, or tradesmen. Loans are private affairs arranged between individuals, whether they be related or unrelated to each other. Whatever the terms of the loan are by mutual agreement, including what, if any, interest will be added to the loan, and schedules of repayment. Such transactions are registered with the district for mutual protection, especially if the loan’s not between relatives or close friends.”

  Cadwulf paused, giving Yozef a thoughtful look. “To be fair, I suppose I have to acknowledge your circumstance isn’t normal. The flow of coin to you has happened so suddenly. Still, something needs to be done.”

  Thus was born the First Bank of Abersford, or B of A, as Yozef couldn’t resist referring to it. Cadwulf had jokingly suggested First Bank of Yozef. A structure was built into a rock face jutting from the ground just outside the village and in full view of both the village and the abbey. Coinage was stored in a vault carved out of the rock, with frontage and offices merging into the rock face. Coinage flow increased, as did the number of employees, starting with Cadwulf alone and rising to three assistants within a year.

  This first primitive bank also changed local custom. A Keelan Clan registrar recorded all important records and transactions in the Abersford area. The man in this role, Willym Forten, owned a clothing shop, with registrar duties carried out in a side room. With the establishment of the bank, overlapping activities and the need to transfer all important bank transactions to the clan registration system led to the registrar spending half of each day at the bank, at a dedicated part of the main room. Local citizens, merchants, and craftsmen arranged loans and could deposit their funds in the bank once convinced it was secure.

  The building itself was literally a fortress. It would have taken cannons of significant size to breach the outer walls, not to mention the vault sealed with locking mechanisms built by Abersford metalworkers. Records of all transactions were kept in ledgers, and a duplicate set of ledgers put into the abbey’s library storage area. Relevant records were transferred to clan journals and copies sent to the main registrar in the clan capitol of Caernford.

  There were no dedicated guards at the bank, but Cadwulf’s assistants were men with varying handicaps from accidents or violent encounters with raiders, clan rivalries, or criminal activity, and all worked armed and were pleased to have employment to support their families. Moreover, the bank was visible from the office of the Abersford magistrate, Denes Vegga, a combination sheriff and local militia leader.

  Cadwulf Beynom, Financial Manager and Mathematician

  Cadwulf’s assumption of accounting duties for Yozef’s enterprises and his operating the Bank of Abersford initially perplexed his theophist and medicant parents. They had assumed, practically from the baby’s birth, that their precocious child would enter one of the three orders at the abbey. The only decision left for him was which one: theophist, medicant, or scholastic. In Cadwulf’s mind, he had long ago dismissed following his father’s path. Not that he didn’t believe in God, but the theophist life path wasn’t for him. As for the medicant option, while he recognized helping others was a noble calling, and he had enormous respect for his mother, his dealing daily with others’ body fluids, cutting off limbs, and telling families about loved-ones passing on wasn’t going to happen.

  That left scholastics. Fortunately for Cadwulf, learning, books, and even lessons were not a chore, but something to look forward to. As an adolescent, he raced through all of the basic studies the abbey’s teachers could provide, including extra lessons and projects designed especially for him. Thus, at eighteen Anyar years old (sixteen Earth years), he possessed the broadest knowledge of anyone at the abbey, but no depth of knowledge in any one area, with one exception. He foun
d numbers endlessly interesting. His parents either ignored or misunderstood this fascination with numbers, even the first evidence when a happy four-year-old Cadwulf told them of counting 627 butterflies that day. Sistian and Diera each had the same two reactions—pride that their four-year-old son could count to 627 and confusion over why anyone would bother counting butterflies.

  By age thirteen, Cadwulf was led by his love of numbers to do most of the abbey’s accounting. For him, counting up columns of numbers was almost a meditation. The solution to Yozef’s problem of increasing in- and outflow of funds for workers and projects was a perfect fit for Cadwulf’s vocation need. Within a month, Cadwulf’s life without focus had changed forever. By then, he was bank manager, was the accountant for Yozef’s sundry enterprises, and was helping revolutionize Anyarian mathematics.

  The coming of Yozef was a gift from God to Cadwulf. The mathematics on Anyar overlapped most of Earth’s classical geometry and elementary algebra and the beginnings of trigonometry and determinants. Cadwulf had absorbed all of the mathematics the abbey’s teachers understood and moved beyond them to texts on his own. To go further, he would have to move to another province to one of the two abbeys with mathematics scholastics. That was until Yozef realized mathematics was an obscure-enough field of study on Caedellium that he could risk transferring what he knew.

  Although not grounded in theoretical mathematics, Yozef was able to give Cadwulf leads to establish or advance analytic geometry, linear algebra, the rudiments of probability, combinatorics, game theory, infinite series, and both differential and integral calculus. Cadwulf was in ecstasy. Whole new fields of mathematics opened up to him. Granted, while Yozef’s knowledge of those fields was limited to the equivalent of the first college course in each, they were either novel to Caedellium and Anyar or a logical coalescence of existing mathematics. What helped was that once again, Yozef found himself able to visualize entire pages of texts from courses he had taken. The explanations, the examples, and the proofs were more than enough to keep Cadwulf busy.

  When the day came that Cadwulf asked Yozef to confirm a new extension he had developed of a combinatorics theorem, it convinced Yozef he would make a difference to Anyar.

  While pretending to listen to Cadwulf’s explanation, Yozef mused, You know, while the ether helps people, it’s the mathematics that will have the biggest long-term impact. Cadwulf is already writing to other Scholastics around Caedellium. Within months, it’ll start to be all over the island. And even if the worst happens to the Caedelli from these Narthani, it’s likely the new mathematics knowledge will spread to the rest of Anyar. And I did this, no matter what else happens.

  Chapter 19: A House of His Own

  “It’s past time you find a place of your own, instead of living in that small room in the abbey complex,” chided Cadwulf one day, soon after beginning to organize Yozef’s finances.

  “I know,” said Yozef. “I’ve thought about it, but with everything else to keep me so busy . . .” What he didn’t say was that the room served as a sanctuary, a place where he could close the door and feel a degree of peace, as if for those moments he could put all of the months since boarding the United flight out of mind. Cadwulf was right. He needed to move on.

  “With all the coin you’re accumulating, I assume you’ll want a house, probably small to begin with.”

  “Yes,” said Yozef, “but not too far from either the abbey or Abersford, since I spend so much time in both places. I think I’d like it to be not too close to other houses and with a view of the ocean, if possible.”

  “Why would you want to see the ocean?”

  “I find it calming. I see myself sitting on a porch and just relaxing.”

  “Hmmm,” murmured Cadwulf. “I guess everyone’s different. When I want to think about something or relax, I like to lie at night and gaze at the stars. Anyway, let me ask around to see what property might be available. Inside Abersford is ruled out, if you don’t want to be near others.”

  In the next three days, Cadwulf identified four available houses and cottages. The third possibility caught Yozef’s fancy. The house itself was nothing remarkable—a medium-sized cottage with a thatch roof and three fair-sized rooms with high ceilings. It sat on a small knoll about a mile west of both the village and the abbey and overlooked the ocean a half-mile away. A much smaller, single-roomed hut lay about forty yards away, behind a screen of trees, and the land contained abandoned and overgrown garden plots and several Anyar and Earth fruit trees. There was no information on the original builders and inhabitants or how long it had been unoccupied. Cadwulf suspected it had been empty some time, since the surrounding land was poor for farming—too much slope and too many rocks—although stone fences, rusting tools, and piles of rocks showed someone had made the attempt. There was also a dilapidated barn, but, unlike the two housing structures, the barn was well along the road to kindling.

  Cadwulf and Yozef examined the frame, the walls, and the floors of the main cottage and found it solid, though needing a new roof. A dilapidated porch faced the sea, too small for Yozef, who envisioned adding an expansive veranda to sit in every type of weather. From the easterly face of the house, he would see the sunrise over the ocean.

  “Well, what do you think of this one?” asked Cadwulf.

  “It’s the best of the ones you found, although it needs repairs and is a little farther from the village and the abbey than I’d planned. However, it’ll do me good to get the exercise. How do I buy the house?” Yozef’s growing income provided the funds, but he had no idea of what the land was reasonably worth or how to carry out such transactions.

  Cadwulf rubbed his hands together. “The current owner of the land is Heilyn Tregedar, a horse breeder and the owner of an Abersford blacksmithy. The cottage was one of several pieces of land his customers exchanged for horses or blacksmith work. I’ll talk with him, and we’ll see how many krun he wants for the house and the land. Then we’ll get into the bargaining to see what his real price is.”

  The house, flat land on the knoll crest, a hundred yards of down slope, and upslope covered with trees, all came to 2,300 krun. Tregedar insisted he was being robbed and that he agreed on the price only because he sympathized with Yozef being a castaway, apparently a solid citizen, and a friend of the abbot.

  “Sorry, Yozef,” said Cadwulf. “The final price was a little high, but I got tired of negotiating with Tregedar and gave in. We should have had father do the bargaining.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Yozef. “I appreciate your help and would’ve paid a lot more if I’d had to talk to Tregedar by myself. Now I’ll have to figure out how to repair the house, furnish it, and learn to cook on my own.”

  Again, Cadwulf provided the solution.

  “That’s not a problem. Once we deal with the transfer of property at the registrar’s office, you’ll hire help to take care of the property, since you’ll be spending most of your time at work. And you need someone to care for the house and cook. Given how well your enterprises are progressing, you can easily afford a couple of workers, and I think I know just the ones for you.”

  Thus did Yozef meet Brak and Elian Faughn, a weatherworn couple of sixty-plus years. The husband was short, with a solid body from a lifetime of physical work. He still had most of his hair, but it was gray, along with his beard. Brown eyes bored with the sense of someone proud of his independence and asked for no charity. The wife was a good physical match, though with a more approachable face. Cadwulf brought them to the house, walking with them the mile from the village. Brak eyed the houses and ran off a list of needed repairs, all of which he happened to know exactly how to do. Elian was less obvious, but thought the insides of both structures could be made livable in short order and that they’d be very comfortable in the tiny worker’s hut.

  After meeting them and giving them a tour of his property, Yozef drew Cadwulf aside.

  “What’s their story?”

  “Story? Why should they have a story
?”

  “Sorry,” said Yozef. “I mean, why do they need a place to stay? I get the impression they are trying not to appear too anxious, but the wife’s longing look at the worker’s hut makes me think their current conditions aren’t good.”

  “They owned a small farm nearby until about two years ago. When the Narthani began blocking trade, the price of grain went so low many smaller farms had no markets. They had food, of course, but as they got older, they needed more temporary workers, even for their small farm, something they couldn’t afford. They finally sold the farm for very little money and moved into town. All of their children live some distance away in Keelan and, I believe, one in Gwillamer. Brak is too stubborn live with them. He’s prickly, especially when the topic is about taking care of himself, but he is as honest as they come and will work to the absolute best of his ability.”

  “Where are they living now?”

  “They have a small lean-to behind the candle works. Brak works part time there when there are tasks needed, and Elian washes clothes.”

  Cadwulf’s statement of the Faughns’ situation was so matter-of-fact that Yozef stared at his young friend in consternation.

  Yozef was appalled. That was it? An older couple had to sell the farm they’d probably worked most of their lives and raised a family on, then moved into a lean-to and supported themselves by whatever small work they could find?

  Clearly, there was no such thing as social security here. The land itself appeared idyllic—green fields of crops, fences, quaint village, abbey complex, ocean setting, and hard-working people. It reminded him of Amish country. He’d have to keep remembering this wasn’t colonial New England or the Pennsylvania Dutch country. It was a harsher-cored society, no matter the outward attraction. Any safety net depended on family and charity.