Liedral—how can a woman seem so much like a friend, and so solid a person, and yet…? He knows he does not lust after her, as he has after Kadara, or even after the comely tavern singer, but he was glad to see her, in the way he is glad to see the dawn, or the sunlight after a cold rain. Is that friendship?
He pulls off his shirt and trousers and lies down upon the pallet, pulling the worn and somehow comforting quilt over his bare shoulders. Outside, a bullfrog’s burrruppp…echoes through the darkness, underscored by the sighing of the leaves in the oak trees beyond the barn.
XLIV
The sun has not fully cleared the eastern lowlands when Dorrin steps into the barn. Liedral is already harnessing the cart horse.
“Here’s the letter.” He hands her the letter and a half-silver. “Is that enough?”
“That should be more than enough.” She holds the harness in her left hand. “Do you ever sleep? Reisa says some nights you work until midnight.”
“I don’t need that much sleep, and Yarrl lets me use the worst of the scraps, but they take a lot of effort. Sometimes I have to actually melt them, and that’s dangerous.”
Liedral frowns.
“Iron burns when you get it hot enough…if you’re not careful.” He lifts the bag.
“What do you have there?” She brushes the silky hair back off her forehead. Dorrin glances at the broad-brimmed hat upon the cart seat.
“Yes. I’m headed back to be the young trader—presumably male—that no one really wants to look too closely at.” She places the sealed letter inside a leather case under the seat and turns back to the horse.
Dorrin sets the bag on the cart seat as she buckles the harness. He extracts the miniature sawmill blade and wheel. The black steel blade glints in the light through the barn door, and the red oak is smooth and polished.
“It’s beautifully done.”
“You turn the handle and the blade turns. It won’t really cut much. You think you could sell it for something?”
“I won’t sell it unless I can get what it’s worth.”
“How much is that?”
“I don’t really know, except that Palace toys for Sarronnyn go for as much as four golds. This is as good as some. Why are you giving it up?”
“It didn’t work the way I wanted.”
“How can you tell?”
Dorrin looks toward the door before speaking. “Once it’s built, and I work with it, I can sort of sense the sticky spots, the points where the design isn’t right. This one…it doesn’t transfer the force from the handle to the blade very well. I have a new idea, using an angled gear and little iron balls. They’re hard to make. Might just be easier to make them bigger.”
This time, Liedral shakes her head. “You just might change the world…if the White Wizards don’t find you first.”
“Me? An apprentice smith and sometime healer?”
“You.” She takes the model, a half cubit long and less than a span high, and puts it inside the case with the letter. “It does fit. Good.” Then she turns back to the smith. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. If you need me, you know where I am. Jarnish can also get me a message.”
“You’re leaving now?”
“I have to make up lost time.” She leads the cart horse toward the door.
Dorrin takes his leather bag and opens the door wide enough for the cart.
“Remember, Dorrin, there has to be a reason. You see that with your machines, but it’s true of people and countries as well.” Liedral leads the horse and cart clear of the barn.
“I suppose so.” He purses his lips, not knowing what else to say.
Liedral slips up onto the cart seat. “Take care, Dorrin.” She flicks the reins, and the cart lurches forward over the hardened clay.
He watches until she is on the road, but she has not looked back. He heads toward the smithy, not feeling like eating. Not on this morning.
He begins the day’s work by breaking up the longer lengths of charcoal to the proper size for the forge and by bringing in what will be needed for the morning. As he completes his efforts, Yarrl appears and unbanks the forge, the coals still hot enough to smoke sawdust as he begins laying in charcoal.
“Get the heavy stock, Dorrin…the big bar on the top end.”
Liedral’s words still run through his mind. “Why are things the way they are? There has to be a reason, doesn’t there?”
He fingers the length of wrought iron in his hands. What makes iron different from copper, or tin? They are different, but why? And how is cast iron different from steel or wrought iron? And why did ordering wrought iron make it stronger than steel, yet less brittle?
He looks at the metal, again, letting his senses enfold it.
“Dorrin? Is it hot enough?”
The apprentice smith lays aside the iron. “Almost…” He takes the overhead lever of the bellows and begins to pump, evenly. Later, he will have to make nails, a tedious job at best. Before that, though, he will certainly have to get out the files and smooth out whatever Yarrl forges.
XLV
“No sooner do we take action against Recluce than traitors here in Candar steal the livelihoods and the coppers from our people…” The words of heavy-set and black-haired wizard garbed in white rumble across the chamber.
“Proud words, Myral…”
“I stand with Myral.” The wizard who speaks is soft-spoken, with short brown hair, frail in appearance. “The renowned Jeslek and the noble Sterol have done their best to improve the lot of our people. Can we do any less?”
“What’s in it for you, Cerryl?”
Cerryl smiles softly, letting the clamor die down before speaking. “With such imposing figures as Jeslek and our High Wizard Sterol already expressing their concern…how about survival?” He grins.
A patter of nervous laughter circles the chamber as he steps off the low speaking stage and edges into a corner.
“While I would not be so direct as gentle Cerryl…” begins the next speaker, a man with white hair, but an unlined and almost cherubic face.
Cerryl pauses next to the redhead in the corner.
“Most effective, Cerryl.”
“Thank you, Anya. I presume the effect was as you and the noble Sterol wanted.” He smiles softly. “Or as you wanted, should I say.”
She returns the smile. “You flatter me.”
“Hardly. With your ability…” He shrugs. “Perhaps you will someday be High Wizard.”
“Being High Wizard in these times might require rather…unique skills.”
“That is certainly true, a point which Jeslek is certainly not adverse to making—repeatedly. I would prefer your approach, I suspect.”
“A woman as High Wizard?” Anya’s tone is almost mocking. “You do me high honor, indeed.”
“I recognize your talent, dear lady.” His smile is bland.
“You are…sweet…Cerryl.” She tilts her head. “Would you like to join me for a late supper—tomorrow evening?”
“Your wish is my desire.”
“You are so obliging, Cerryl.”
“When one is limited in sheer power of chaos, one must be of great service, Anya.”
“I am so glad you understand that.” She turns and steps toward a broader wizard with a squared-off beard.
Cerryl smiles faintly, nods to his colleague, and continues toward a seat on the back bench.
XLVI
Dorrin whistles as he rides. In the rain, even under the oiled leather waterproof, he is damp. On the east side of the road, he sees the golden grain bending under the water that has fallen for days. His notes are off-key, but whistling is better than complaining. Besides, so much rain has fallen that a continual sheet of water now lies around the smithy, and Yarrl is almost out of charcoal because the roads from Tullar’s forests and charcoal camps are impassable to the heavy wagons.
Dorrin casts his senses into the heavy clouds in the west. He smiles as he finds that the rain will break before long. He
stops smiling when Meriwhen tosses her head and sprays his face with horse-scented water droplets.
In the pouch at his belt are the three golds sent from Liedral through Jarnish and then through Willum, at the chandlery in lower Diev, for the model sawmill. His hand strays to the pouch. Three golds? For a model? Or is Liedral sending him more than she received for it?
He has several others that he could sell. Would Willum offer one for sale? Then he could get some idea of what they might be worth, although people in Spidlaria could certainly pay more. He guides Meriwhen along the grassy edge of the road leading down off the main road and into Hemmil’s mill.
He has barely entered the covered area when Pergun greets him.
“Ever see such crappy weather? The vintners are claiming it will ruin the grapes; the farmers can’t get the grain out of the fields; we’re having to slow down because no one can pick up anything because the side roads are impossible. And here you are.”
“Why not? This hit just before we were due to get charcoal; and Yarrl wants to save some just in case.”
“What do you want? More scraps?”
“No. A small lorkin sapling, log, about this big around.” He uses his hands to indicate a diameter slightly less than a double thumb span.
“Hemmil’ll want to charge you dear for that.”
“I thought so. Where are they?”
“At the far end on the side toward his house.” Pergun shakes his head. “I’m cleaning out the saw pit. Let me know when you find what you want.”
The smith wanders down the center of the warehouse. After a time, Dorrin finally touches one of the black logs. One end is useless, with fractured heartwood, but the remaining six cubits are certainly straight and strong enough. He eases it out and walks back to the saw pit.
Pergun climbs out, covered with sweat and dampened sawdust.
“This one? How much might it be?”
“A silver, at least. Lorkin takes years to grow,” explains Pergun.
Dorrin pauses, regretfully looks back toward the end of the warehouse. “Perhaps a copper I might spare…but a silver, Pergun?”
“Half a silver, and you won’t find a better bargain anywhere in Certis. Hemmil doesn’t like to sell the lorkin.”
“Two coppers, and that’s if you trim it to my measure.”
“You may know plants, Dorrin, but timber is heavier and worth more,” observes the black-haired mill man, winking and nodding toward the office. “Four coppers, but only because I’d not want ill will from any healer.”
Dorrin scrabbles in his purse. “I’d not do you in,” he says firmly, “but three and a bit is all that I have, save a single other copper with which to eat.” His head throbs slightly as he speaks, for Reisa does indeed have some of his purse.
The mill hand frowns, then shrugs. “Like as I’d rather not, but if it is all you have, it’s all you have. You carry the scraps to the bins, though.”
“That I can certainly do, and a few others as well, if that would help.”
The dark-bearded man grins. “I should have held you to that earlier.”
Dorrin laughs ruefully. Now all he has to do is trim the heavy wood—which will take days with his knife—and, once he has earned a few more coppers, spend more time at the forge. All for an idea he is not even sure will work—but ordered wood and ordered black steel should make a better staff.
XLVII
Dorrin sets the box on his writing table, plain enough red oak, except for the butterfly hinges that, once again, he had been forced to make twice before getting correct.
“Aye, and you can do butt hinges, but any apprentice can do that.” That had been Yarrl’s view. So Dorrin forged butterfly hinges. He also had to make a second set for Yarrl, in return for the iron and the screws for the hinges. Iron, that was the kicker. Dorrin had never realized, not fully, how expensive and heavy it was. A cubit-long rod as thick as his thumb weighs a stone and a half and costs nearly three pennies—more than a meal at some inns. The smith’s scrap pile makes a lot more sense in that light.
Dorrin runs the oiled rag over the oak again, lightly. Inside—resting on the quilted padding Reisa and Petra contributed in return for a small iron flower—is the model spring-driven wagon. As usual, the unusual—the spring engine—had been the hardest, difficult enough that Dorrin knows that a larger machine driven by springs will not work. Still, he is learning, after his own fashion.
After slipping the box into an oversized and battered saddlebag recovered from a corner of the smithy, he walks out into the early fall haze—and sneezes from the dust of the threshing from the fields. He sneezes again, and again. His nose waters profusely by the time he reaches the stable.
It will be a long day. Yarrl’s hammer rings in the background with the harvest-related repairs to mower bars, horse rakes, and wagon tires and braces. Dorrin has promised to work as long as necessary to make up for the time he takes in Diev. Unlike smiths, chandleries close before sunset.
After saddling Meriwhen and lashing the extra saddlebag in place, he leads the mare out into the warm and dusty morning. Reisa waves from the porch, where she has been checking the netting over the fruit-drying racks before reentering the kitchen. Even between sneezes and mowing dust, Dorrin can smell the pearapples and late peaches being jellied.
Once on the road, Dorrin finds himself riding up behind two hay wagons in a row. Each creaks, and the rear right wheel of the trailing wagon sways out of true. As he passes the driver, he calls. “’Ware the back wheel.”
“Thanks, fellow, but tell it to Ostrum—dumb bastard. Can’t wait to get this to the Guard barracks—while the price is good. Not your problem, but thanks be to you anyway.”
Dorrin urges Meriwhen past the two-horse team. The road traffic is heavy, and dusty, and Dorrin sneezes more. Ash and soot and charcoal do not bother him, but harvest time and road dust do.
The dust diminishes once he rides on the stone road into lower Diev. Passing the rebuilt Tankard, he sees the beggar woman who continues to plead for coppers. But there are no troopers there, not this early.
Willum’s chandlery is a long block shy of the trading compound and the piers of lower Diev. The crossed candles of the sign have recently been repainted, and the wood has been revarnished. So have the wooden floors, and new hangings cloak the entrance to the back room of the establishment.
A single man stands behind a counter on the right side. Opposite him is a polished iron and brass stove, unneeded in the harvest heat.
“I’d like to see Master Willum, if possible.” Dorrin smiles politely.
“It’s always possible, but I don’t know as it’s likely unless you got business planned with him.”
“That’s what it’s about.”
“No charity, no begging for alms for the poor, healer?” The man looks over Dorrin’s brown clothing.
“I’m also a smith, and I work for Yarrl.”
“Can’t be working hard if you’re here now.”
“I’ll be working well past your supper and bedtime.” He forces a smile. “But if one wants to do business with a chandler, one must do business when the chandlery’s open.”
“True enough, true enough, young fellow,” interrupts a heartier voice from the end of the counter. “And what might you be interested in selling?” The speaker is blond, with a belly that flows over a wide brown belt and almost submerges the heavy brass buckle. His shirt is brilliant green, and his brown trousers match both belt and boots.
Dorrin walks to the end of the counter. “You might say that it’s a curiosity, but you are known for having strange and unusual items…”
“That I am, fellow. That I am. And I travel all the northern ports to get and to sell. That’s my business. So what is this curiosity?”
Dorrin sets the box on the counter.
“A box? Nice enough, especially the hinges, but Petron the cabinetmaker does better, and certainly not a curiosity.”
Dorrin opens the top to show the wagon.
>
“Hmmmm…a wagon, but it has no horses.”
The smith takes out the model and sets it on the flat counter, twisting the crank a half turn. The wagon rolls toward the far end.
“Magic…” whispers the first man from the corner.
Dorrin shakes his head. “No. Just an ingenious little spring. It’s all mechanical.” He tries not to smile as Willum closes his mouth.
“Who did you say you were?”
“Dorrin. I work for Yarrl.”
“The foreign smith fellow—does work for Honsard and Hemmil and types like them?”
Dorrin nods.
“How come you wear healer brown?”
“I’m also a healer.”
“A healer-smith. A smith-healer with a curiosity! That’s worth a silver just to say I saw one.” Willum’s voice is hearty, but his eyes are cold.
Dorrin retrieves the model wagon and replaces it in the box, but leaves the top open for the moment.
“Curiosities draw business, young fellow, but not many people buy them. I’d buy it just to let people know the great Willum has another one. But who could I sell it to?”
“I’d suggest it to one of the Spidlarian Council members as a unique present to a son. Or perhaps as a gift to the Sarronnese court.”
“Fine words.”
“It’s good work. Worthy of a fine trader and chandler—especially one with all the contacts that you have, Master Willum.” Dorrin closes the box. “I’d rather you…”
“Let’s not be hasty, young fellow. It might be worth five silvers.”
“The last one sold in Tyrhavven for more than three golds.”
“You don’t bargain much,” Willum says, a trace sourly.
“No, ser. I’m not a bargainer. I don’t make many, and each one is different.”
“Each one?”
Dorrin nods.
“I’ll give you three golds for it—if the box comes with it.”
Dorrin frowns. “Three golds and the box—if I also get a few cubits of fine material to line the next box.”
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