Recluce Tales

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Those miners died because they did not listen,” replied the middle factor.

  “You are using brands as miners because you can pay them less,” declared Father.

  The youngest-looking of the factors—maybe that was because his beard was blond and short—was the one who answered. “It is true. That’s because many miners have left for the mines in Certis. The Viscount pays exorbitant wages to lure our miners away.”

  “Exorbitant?” asked Father mildly.

  “As much as three coppers a day and lodging. He can do that because he can set the price for his copper for all the factors, and all of Candar pays more for copper because of it.”

  “All of Candar?”

  “All Candar east of the Westhorns … and some traders are bringing copper ingots from Lornth because they can make a profit with prices so high.”

  “Perhaps it would be best if I came to the mines and made an inspection myself,” said Father mildly.

  “Perhaps…” One of the factors started to speak, then abruptly closed his mouth.

  “We would welcome you, Your Mightiness,” said the center factor. “We will meet you there whenever you wish.”

  “Let it be so. My seneschal will send word.”

  With that, the factors bowed and left the audience hall.

  “I’m going, too,” I told Heldry.

  “That’s up to Father, Shaeldra.”

  “I know … but you can tell him I should…” I smiled as winningly as I could. “Will Klyanna be there?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “She should be.”

  Heldry sighed, but he didn’t say she wouldn’t be.

  More than an eightday passed, and I heard nothing. So I cornered Heldry after breakfast before he could go anywhere. “When are we going to Hrisbarg?”

  “I don’t know. Father said it will have to wait.”

  “He doesn’t want me to go.”

  “It’s not about you, Shaeldra. I haven’t had a chance to tell him you should go.”

  “Why not? You promised.”

  “Because … You wouldn’t understand.”

  I glared at him. He was the one who didn’t understand.

  “If you could wield chaos, little sister, I’d be ashes right now.” He grinned.

  “You … Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t say wrong. Something else has come up. The Duke of Hydlen is sending an envoy.”

  “For what?” I was getting tired of pulling everything out of him.

  “His daughter…,” admitted Heldry.

  “He wants you to consort his daughter?”

  “His younger sister. She’s about my age.”

  “And she’s not already consorted? She can’t be very pretty.”

  “Her portrait shows her as attractive.”

  “Portraits lie.” They did when someone was trying to get a relative consorted, especially a sister. “Besides, why do you want to consort someone you don’t even know?”

  “I told Father that. That’s why the envoy is escorting Chelynn. Father doesn’t know exactly when they’ll arrive. That’s also why he doesn’t want to set when we go to Hrisbarg. The trip takes several days.”

  I knew that, but I didn’t like it.

  I was right not to like it because almost an eightday passed before the envoy arrived from Hydolar with the Duke’s daughter. Even before Chelynn entered the palace, Aunt Ealdra arrived. She was there to “accompany” me. I knew what that meant. She was there to keep me away from that wench who wanted to consort Heldry except when it was unavoidable.

  When I was finally allowed to meet Chelynn, it was just before the official welcoming dinner in the receiving room off the dining hall. She was one of those pale, thin women with breasts too big for her shoulders, a waist better suited to a wasp, and shimmering black hair. The kind all the older men, especially, kept staring at when they thought their consorts weren’t looking.

  “Shaeldra,” said Aunt Ealdra, giving me a warning glance that no one could see but me, “this is Lady Chelynn.”

  “I’m so pleased to meet you, Shaeldra.” Chelynn gave me a smile that was as false as a Pantaran silver. Her voice was just as deceiving. She spoke like a little girl, with that husky sound that scheming women use to sound appealing. I’d heard those voices around Father ever since Mother died.

  “I’ve so wanted to meet you.” I could be just as sweetly false as she was.

  “Your brother has said so much about you.” Another nothing smile followed her words.

  “And I’ve heard nothing but compliments about you.” Of course that was true. No one was going to say anything nasty about the Duke’s daughter, at least not where anyone could hear.

  “And I’ve heard only the best about you.” She smiled again.

  After we traded more sentences saying nothing except—by lack of meaning—that neither of us happened to like the other, I returned to being the naïve little sister and said, “After you leave, we’re going to Hrisbarg.”

  Chelynn smiled that smile that Mother would have called a pleasant nothing. “Oh? That’s a mining town, isn’t it? Why might you be going there?”

  “To see why miners are dying.” I wasn’t supposed to say anything like that. Well-bred young ladies were to keep their opinions to what could be shown in tone and look. I’d never be able to do that.

  “Miners and men who work at hard labor do die at times, Shaeldra,” Chelynn replied. “That’s not something a ruler can change.”

  “Even when they shouldn’t die?”

  “Who can say when they should or shouldn’t?”

  “A healer.”

  “Healers should confine themselves to healing.”

  I hoped that Heldry had heard that. Before I could bait Chelynn into saying more … or revealing how insipid she was, the end table nearest to her tottered. The large decorative urn slid off and then fell to the marble floor. The crash was so loud that Chelynn couldn’t have heard a word I said. Even if she could have heard, she was too busy moving those long skinny legs to avoid the porcelain fragments skittering toward her feet.

  “Oh … dear…” That was Aunt Ealdra. She looked at me, as if it had been my fault.

  It hadn’t been, not directly. I did know how it had happened, though. I looked toward where Heldry stood in the archway.

  He didn’t just glare. I felt the gold choker I wore tighten around my neck. For a moment, I couldn’t even swallow. That’s what happens when your brother is part-mage. I gave him my most evil look, but the choker just tightened. So I swallowed—or tried to—and turned back to Chelynn, offering a sympathetic smile I didn’t feel in the slightest. “Are you all right?”

  Before she could say a word, Heldry moved into the room. He offered a winning smile, the one that warmed you, even if you knew it was all too practiced. “It wasn’t a totally priceless urn.” He managed to convey dismissal while acknowledging that the urn might have had some value. “Perhaps we should join the others before we repair to table.”

  At table, Chelynn sat at Father’s left, across from Heldry. I sat beside him, and the envoy from Certis sat beside Chelynn. He was a round-faced man with a big belly and a square beard. His eyes were small and bright, like a rat’s.

  Once everyone was seated, and their goblets filled with the deep red wine from the hills, Father stood and lifted his goblet. “To our most honored guest, the Lady Chelynn, and to her father the Duke of Hydlen, for sharing one of his most prized possessions with us for this short period of time.”

  As Heldry raised his goblet, his left hand reached out under the table and squeezed my knee in a grip like iron. “Do nothing here,” he murmured in a voice lower than a whisper.

  After that, both Heldry and Aunt Ealdra watched everything I said and did. So I was utterly charming. I could do that. I’d been trained well.

  When the dinner was over and Aunt Ealdra escorted Chelynn and Heldry away to the salon, Father beckoned to me. I smile
d and joined him in the corner of the dining hall.

  He looked down at me, sadly but kindly. “Shaeldra … your dislike for Chelynn was all too obvious. Do you think I would allow Heldry to consort with a lady with … attributes … you and others might find less than attractive—unless such a consorting were absolutely necessary?”

  “Why is it so necessary?”

  “There are reasons … very good reasons.”

  “So that you don’t have to go to war with Hydlen? Or because Chelynn will bring thousands of golds.”

  “It’s simpler than that. There are no other suitable young women in Certis, Vergren, or Hydlen.”

  “What do you mean by suitable? Heldry doesn’t have to consort a ruler’s daughter, does he? There’s nothing to stop him from consorting someone else, is there?”

  “No…”

  That told me Father wouldn’t be pleased if Heldry tried to consort with the healer Klyanna … and that meant it wouldn’t happen. I hadn’t met the healer, but she was a healer, and that was something. Chelynn was nothing except a duke’s daughter without a thought in her head except keeping her position or bettering it. Her heart would go to the fullest strongbox.

  “I trust you understand, Daughter.”

  I smiled as sweetly as I could. “I do understand, Father.” I just didn’t like it.

  “Good. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  With that, I was dismissed. I couldn’t even go to the salon and think evil thoughts at Chelynn. It was so unfair. It was even unfair to Heldry.

  I didn’t see Chelynn again. Father and Aunt Ealdra saw to that. She and the Hydlenese envoy left two days after the banquet.

  Then, three days after that, on threeday morning, Heldry had me awakened early and told to make ready for a trip to Hrisbarg. That was another thing I hated about him. He was always telling me things at the last moment … or not telling me at all, and letting me find out through surprise.

  The trip did take two days, a day and a half, really, and the weather was good, not too hot, and there was a cool breeze. I enjoyed riding Shadow. I called him that because his coat was dark gray. Heldry said it fit him because he was a gelding and a shadow of what he could have been. Once we rode outside of Lydiar, though, two healers joined us. One was Klyanna, and the other one was Vaerel. She was older, but I got the feeling she was there more as a chaperone than because she knew that much more about healing. Heldry made sure I didn’t get to talk to either one by myself.

  So … on fiveday afternoon on the last eightday of spring, we arrived at the mines. I thought an iron mine would have tunnels into the side of a mountain with huge wheeled carts rumbling out of those tunnels. Instead, what I saw was a bowl-like depression in the midst of low hills. There were two tunnels that didn’t look to have been used in a long time. One of them had a wooden wall, more like a fence, in front of it. There were two tall wooden towers … well, they were timber frameworks with heavy ropes going down into holes in the ground. The holes had to be the mine shafts. Beside each tower was a circular pen that held oxen in yokes. The yokes were attached to heavy poles, and the poles ran to a big wheel.

  After I dismounted, while I was waiting, I watched for a time. The wheel turned, and that turned gears attached to other wheels, and those had the ropes attached to the big baskets that came up out of the shaft filled with rock. When a basket came up, the oxen stopped, and a team of men swung the basket to the side and tipped it somehow so that the rock, I guess it was the ore, slid down a ramp into a stout wagon.

  Over the hill to the west, I could see smoke rising. That had to be where they were using the furnaces to smelt the iron.

  “Shaeldra!” hissed Heldry.

  I jumped.

  He glared. He was good at that. I understood and hurried to catch up with him and the two healers as he followed Father toward the nearest of the shaft towers. Three men stood several yards from the shaft. Because they had guards behind them, they had to be factors.

  I’d almost caught up with Heldry and the healers when Father stopped. The rest of us halted behind him, and the guards stopped behind us.

  “Where are the factors Nebliat and Yoraln?” Father asked, his voice hardening as he looked at the three who stood before him.

  “I cannot say, Your Mightiness,” replied the blond-bearded factor. “They said they would be here.”

  “We will see.” Father paused. Then he asked, “How deep are those shafts?”

  None of the three replied.

  “Do you know, Alurn?” Father looked at the young blond factor.

  “Around two hundred yards, they say.”

  “You don’t know? Have you ever been down those shafts?”

  “No, ser. I’m not a miner.”

  “Pultrun … Mocoza … have either of you been down those shafts?”

  After a long moment, both of the other factors shook their heads.

  One of the big baskets coming up out of the shaft halted, and several men, smudged with reddish dirt or grime, slowly clambered out. One of them staggered. Father gestured, and Klyanna stepped forward and stopped beside him.

  Father glanced at Klyanna, nodded, and spoke again. “I would talk to those miners there. Oh … and I will have the healer with me.”

  Even I could see the factors stiffen, tiny as their reactions were. I’d have wagered most people wouldn’t have seen that. Most people weren’t raised in a palace. What I didn’t know was why they were worried, unless they worried that the healer could tell which miners had been injured in the past and how.

  “Don’t worry. I have never met her before now. I have asked the healers to provide one of their number that I had never met,” Father added, almost as an afterthought.

  That didn’t seem to cheer any of the three, but none of them said a word as Father and Klyanna walked toward the shaft and the miners. I could see that one of them had fallen, or maybe he’d fainted. I wanted to go with them, but the look Heldry gave me was more than enough to keep my boots planted where they were.

  All Heldry and I could do was watch as Father and Klyanna and all the guards but one walked to the nearer shaft. I looked to the gray-haired healer who remained with us and the guard. Her eyes were fixed on Klyanna. I didn’t say anything, but looked back to the shaft. I tried to hear what Father was saying or asking, but he was too far away. Then I looked at the factors. They had turned and were watching Father.

  After more than half a glass of talking to the miners, Father turned, gently, and so did Klyanna. He started to walk back toward us. His steps were determined. Heldry avoided looking at me. That told me that he was worried. The three factors also watched silently as Father walked away from the miners and the shafts.

  When he neared us, he turned and looked at the factors. “Close the deep shafts. If they are not closed in the next two eightdays, you will all lose your leaseholds.”

  “But … Your Mightiness…,” protested one of the factors.

  “But what, Factor Mocoza?” asked Father.

  “We cannot pay rents if we cannot mine, and we cannot mine without using the shafts.”

  “You five share the leasehold rights that extend a kay on a side. You can dig shallower shafts in other places. If you are not interested in doing so, I imagine there are others who will be.”

  “It takes time to dig such shafts … and two eightdays are not enough.”

  Father did not speak for several moments. Finally, he said, “You have four eightdays.”

  The three exchanged glances. After a time, the third factor spoke, “We will do what we must.”

  “Pultrun … you will convey those terms to the other factors who did not see fit to join us. I will hear if you do not, and you will lose your share of the leaseholds even if the shafts are closed.”

  “Yes, Your Mightiness.”

  “And you will inform me when the shafts are closed.”

  Pultrun nodded. His forehead was sweaty, and it wasn’t that hot.

  “Let it be done.
” Father nodded brusquely, then turned.

  We followed him.

  I waited just a bit before I said anything to Heldry. “They didn’t like Father having a healer when he talked with the miners. Why not?”

  “Because some healers can tell when people don’t tell the truth. Or when they are telling the truth.”

  “Can Klyanna?”

  He nodded.

  “Will you tell me what the miners said? When you find out?”

  “I don’t know that Father will tell me.”

  “Klyanna will.” I knew that.

  “Not if Father asks her not to tell anyone. She won’t break her oath as a healer.”

  “Not even for you?”

  He shook his head.

  I could tell he meant it. Even if I wouldn’t find out, that made me respect Klyanna more. A lot more than that twit Chelynn.

  Father looked tired when we got back to the palace. I didn’t see much of him for several days. By the next fourday, though, he was cheerful at breakfast. He even told me that I’d ridden well on the journey to and from Hrisbarg. But he was tired by that evening, and I thought his face was a little gray.

  He died three days later. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t cry. Not then. Not until I was alone that night. How could it have happened? Father wasn’t that old. Some of the palace servants were white haired, and they could do their duties. Father’s hair only had a few streaks of gray.

  The next morning I went looking for Paetyk. He was Father’s healer. It took me two glasses to find him. He was in a tiny room on the lower level, just sitting there and looking at the wall. He looked as sad as I felt, but that didn’t stop me from asking, “Why couldn’t you save him? You’re a healer?”

  “Your brother asked me the same question.” He sighed. “When a man’s heart stops beating, I know of no way to get it to beat again.”

  “But why? Why did it happen?”

  “Sometimes it does. Especially when a person has been very sick in the past, with something like the red flux. You know your father had that, didn’t you?”

  “I knew he had the flux. But he got well.”