Willum laughs. “Light! I’ll give you three cubits of good material. Roald! He can have the end of that Suthyan turquoise velvet.”
“I take it that the turquoise wasn’t popular.” Dorrin tries to keep from grinning.
“How was I to know that pale blue was the color that they said the devil witch of Recluce wore? Some biddy started the tale, and no one would buy that color. But it will look good lining a solid box, won’t it, fellow…Dorrin, is it?”
“Dorrin.” He waits as Roald appears with a small leather pouch and a bolt of fabric wrapped in ragged flour sacks.
Willum opens the pouch and counts out the three golds. Dorrin puts the coins in his purse.
“How soon before you might have another…curiosity…?”
Dorrin smiles wryly. “As your man pointed out, there’s a great deal of very heavy and practical smith work to be done right now.”
“That might be for the best.” Willum smiles. “Good day, young Dorrin.”
Dorrin inclines his head. “Good day, Master Willum.”
Clouds have begun to build over the northern ocean, clouds that promise cooling later on, but little else. Dorrin fastens the empty saddlebag in place. Meriwhen whickers as he mounts, and he pats her neck. “Good girl.”
In the dust just beyond the end of the stone road, a kay beyond the bridge into Diev proper, rests a tilted hay wagon, bales thrown off the road. The carter is slowly stacking the hay by the roadside as he unloads the wagon bed. The iron tire of the now-shattered rear wheel rests against the side of the wagon.
“Get that mangy team back…”
“You saw us coming…”
Two other carters, the outboard edges of their traces tangled, snarl at each other, even as the two wagons block the road.
Dorrin guides Meriwhen up onto the grass and around the confusion.
XLVIII
The two troopers ride van, half a kay ahead of the squad, their mounts picking their way along the rough road around the south side of the escarpment. The sun hangs low on the western horizon. Neither speaks. Each listens for a branch cracking in the sparse firs to the north or the crackling of dry grass in the seasonal wetland to the south. Above the firs are the half-bare and twisted branches of the maples, partly cloaked in faded leaves.
The blond man reins up, nods to his left. The woman’s eyes follow his gesture to the trail less than fifty cubits ahead. He removes the bow from its case, strings it easily, and opens the closed quiver. The woman loosens the straps on the long sword; the Westwind shortsword is always ready.
With the faint crackling from the lowest clump of firs, the blond spurs his gelding, and both riders charge toward the trees, low in their saddles.
An arrow barely misses the man, and he reins the horse up, nocks an arrow, and looses it, almost before his mount has stopped.
“Oooo…” The indrawn breath and moan are clear enough.
The blond trooper has a second arrow ready.
“Hold your shaft! Hold your shaft! I’m a-coming down.”
The woman reins up farther along the trail. “Better come out, boy.”
“Spidlarian bastards! Let my boy go! He didn’t do nothing.” A bald man with a straggly ginger beard and an arrow through his right arm lurches onto the road.
A youth, not that many years younger than the troopers, stands up, still half-concealed by the browned tall grass.
“Keep your hands up,” orders the redhead.
“You’re a woman.” He looks past her toward his father.
“I’m a trooper.” She flips the sword in the air, then catches it. “I can also throw this hard enough to put it right through you.”
“Bitch…” the youth mumbles.
“I’ve been called worse. Now get up here. Where are your horses?”
“Ain’t got none.”
“The tracks show otherwise.”
The boy looks past her, then bolts uphill. Her arm goes back, and the blade flies. The youth falls, moaning, and the trooper dismounts and reaches him before he can move.
“You killed my boy!”
“I’ll kill you if you move,” snaps the blond trooper. He can hear the clinking and footsteps of the squad behind.
The redhead reclaims the shortsword, yanking the youth to his feet. “The cut on your leg isn’t that bad. If I’d wanted you dead, boy, you’d be dead.”
He writhes, but her hands are like steel, and her shoulders are broader than his, and more heavily muscled. She whips a length of rope from her belt and binds his hands. By the time she has dragged him to the road, the rest of the squad has arrived, and Brede has bound the bald man.
“…hellcat got another…”
“…so’d the big fellow…”
“…you want to get in their way, Norax?”
“What you got here, Brede?”
“I’d say the two who tried to take that Certan merchant. Their horses are somewhere back up behind the grove. If you’ll take over this one, I’ll see if I can get them.”
“…let him take the risk…”
The squad leader nods, and Brede eases his mount into the narrow trail. Kadara looks down at the youngster standing on the hard clay, then rummages in her saddlebags and takes out a short length of cloth. She dismounts again, and lifts away the ragged trousers, binding the long slash in his leg.
“…first human thing I seen from the she-cat…”
“He’s just a bandit, Kadara. They’ll just hang him.”
“Don’t hang him…he’s just a boy,” pleads the bald man.
“He helped you rob a peddler and try to take that Certan trader. That’s enough to hang for.” The squad leader’s voice is tired, cold.
Kadara straightens and swings back into the saddle.
At the sound of hoofs, the troopers look toward the trail. Brede leads back two bony horses, both bearing packs. “Looks like some of the peddler’s copper work.”
“Good. Set them on their mounts. If you can call them that.”
Brede dismounts, hands his reins to Kadara, heaves the older highwayman onto one horse, almost effortlessly, and then sets the youth on the second.
“…demon-damned ox he is…”
The wind, picking up as the sun touches the horizon, moans softly.
“Let’s head back. We can leave them for the magistrate in Biryna. He’ll hang them nice and proper.” The squad leader turns the black gelding around. “Kadara, Brede, you can have the rear.”
The two drop back behind the squad.
“As for you two, try to stay in your saddles. Rather have you hang than be a target for Shenz here. Not much difference in the end, I suppose.”
“You damned Spidlarians! Bleed us friggin’ dry.” The bald man with the ginger hair twists in the saddle of his gaunt horse. Both the animal and the would-be highwayman show their ribs clearly. “You bastards and the damned wizards. The wizards burned all the sheep, and you take our last pennies for wormy grain. Can’t afford shit, and—”
“Shut up,” snaps the squad leader.
The younger captive looks back, in the general direction of Gallos.
“You won’t see that again,” mumbles a trooper with one arm in a sling.
Brede and Kadara exchange glances and slow their mounts until a wider gap opens between them and the eleven horses of the main body.
“They’re starving.” Brede’s voice is low.
“That’s what Fairhaven wants. We’ll see more as the winter wears on.”
“The more we hang….”
“If we don’t, no one on the roads will be safe.”
Brede shakes his head, and the horses carry them westward toward Biryna, toward their tents—and the magistrate.
XLIX
White light flares from the tall slender man as he strides across the central square toward the tower.
“He’s come to claim the amulet, Sterol.” A red-headed woman in the white of chaos looks at the High Wizard. “So I will leave this to you.”
>
“You don’t want him to know you were here, I take it?”
“If he bothered to check, I couldn’t keep it from him, but he’s not concerned. He knows he’s the most powerful White.” Anya’s tone is ironic. “And, after all, I am only a mere woman.”
“A mere woman? Now, Anya…I doubt many here would call you—”
“Unlike Jeslek, who believes himself clever and powerful.”
“He is very clever, and exceedingly powerful.”
“You’re going to give him the amulet?” Anya steps toward the door.
“How could I keep it from him?” Sterol sighs. “I promised it to him, and he shall have it. Whether he can keep it is another question.”
Anya nods, turns, and departs.
Sterol glances at the mirror on the table, thoughts not totally focused, but wondering about the next challenge posed by the forces of order. He finds a vague picture emerging from the white mists—a young redhead hammering iron. Then the image dissolves, almost simultaneously with the sound of a rap on the door of the tower room. The High Wizard purses his lips—a young man forging iron? A second rap on the door reminds him of his situation, and he turns to greet his successor.
“The mountain wall now runs complete from south of Passera all the way to the Westhorns, and the great road is protected on all sides.” Jeslek steps into the room and bows, but the inclination is minimal.
“I understand that a section near the central ridge of Analeria was somewhat disturbed,” Sterol murmurs mildly.
“I recall that the only stipulation was that I stand upon the road and complete the work. If the mountains were to remain stable, some minor redirections were necessary.” Jeslek smiles.
“Was it necessary to incinerate all those Analerian herders?”
“I warned them. Most of them left, and those that didn’t—well, accidents do happen, Sterol.”
“You realize that the price of mutton will rise considerably, just as you’re placing another surtax on Recluce goods?”
“I doubt there were that many sheep involved.”
“Not that many, but what will the rest eat? You did turn several thousand square kays of high grassland into rather warm rock that won’t support much vegetation for several years, to say the least.”
“We’ll pay for the extra through the surtax.”
“As you wish.” Sterol removes the amulet and offers it to Jeslek, who bends his head to allow Sterol to put the golden chain around his neck. “If you don’t mind,” Sterol continues, “I will be removing my works to the lower room. Derka will retire to Hydolar. He came from there, you may recall.”
“How convenient.”
“Yes. It was.” Sterol smiles blandly.
L
After Dorrin finishes currying Meriwhen, he saddles the mare, patting her neck. “Hard to believe you and I have been around Diev this long.”
When he leads Meriwhen out of the barn, Petra waves from the porch. “Will you be late for supper?”
A hail of red-golden leaves flies from the oaks behind Dorrin like a momentary veil flung by the fall winds between them. “I hope not.”
While he needs to meet Quiller, the toymaker, he scarcely looks forward to the encounter. He touches the staff, then nudges Meriwhen with his heels. With a soft whinny, the mare sidesteps, then carries Dorrin toward the road. They turn right, toward the Northern Ocean, which lies beyond the single line of rolling hills, and down the hard-packed clay.
The small cottage with the one-room shed off the sagging porch stands less than a hundred rods down a muddy side road from the kaystone where the stone paving begins on the north military road as it makes its last wide arc to head west into upper Diev.
Dorrin guides Meriwhen onto the brown-grassed shoulder of the side road to avoid the water and cold mud. The sign outside the shed displays a spinning top in flaking red and black paint.
Dorrin wipes his boots on the fraying rush mat before stepping into the shed. The man on the stool looks up, dull brown eyes focusing on Dorrin from under a mop of brown and gray hair. “Don’t have much today.” His face screws up before he continues. “Who are you? I don’t know you, do I?”
“I don’t think so. My name is Dorrin. I’m a smith apprentice to Yarrl.”
“You’re the nasty one with the fancy toys! I heard about you!” Quiller slams his knife on the workbench top, then grasps the bench to keep himself, and the stool, from toppling.
“No. I’m not a toymaker.” How has Quiller heard about the models? Dorrin has only sold two.
“Why do you make those wonderful toys?” Quiller wipes his forehead, squinting. The single half-shuttered window admits little enough light, and the oil lamp on the wall is dark. “Willum just laughed at my wagon, and he showed me yours. Why did you do it?” The man’s voice almost breaks.
“To solve problems, mostly,” admits Dorrin. “I came to talk to you about toy-making…”
“I knew it! You want to steal my secrets! You want my customers!”
Dorrin takes a deep breath. “No. That’s why I came.”
“To take my customers? You admit it?”
“No!” protests the healer. “I don’t want your customers.”
“But they’re good customers. Why wouldn’t you want them?” Quiller reaches down and massages his ankle. Quiller’s right foot is twisted, splayed somehow, larger than the left, and encased in a type of soft leather moccasin. A heavy-handled cane stands in the corner behind the toymaker.
“Because,” Dorrin explains patiently, “I am not a toymaker.”
“Then why do you make toys?” Quiller straightens, exhaling loudly.
“I make models of things I want to build. But I came to explain that I’m not a toymaker, and I don’t want to sell anything like what you make.”
Quiller rests his game leg on the rung of the stool. “Why should I care, exactly, young master Dorrin? This here’s a pretty free city, and who would I be to tell you that you couldn’t be a toymaker?”
“I’m not a toymaker. I do make toys, but that’s just to learn how things work. But it costs me time, and I have to buy the materials.” Dorrin pauses. “I know you have a family to support.”
“Not a family—just a widowed sister and her boy.”
“That’s family.” Dorrin shrugs. “I don’t know how things work here.” He pauses with the distractions of the older man’s eyebrows and the pain from the twisted ankle. Once again, Dorrin has started trying to smooth the way for his machine-building, and he has to worry about healing again. He wipes his forehead. Quiller twitches again.
“Your foot? Has it always been like that?”
“Don’t know about always. Got crushed under a wagon when I was working for Honsard, younger ’n you. Started carving, ’cause I couldn’t do much else.”
“Would you mind if I looked at it?”
“Looked at it? Thought we were talking toys. You’re still a toymaker.”
“Please…” Dorrin is almost pleading, so clear is the man’s pain.
“Rylla couldn’t help, you know.” Quiller’s left hand squeezes his work table. “Pain still comes and goes.” His face clears for a moment, although his forehead is damp. “You Yarrl’s apprentice?”
“Yes.”
“The one who’s a healer? Why are you here? You’re a smith.”
“Could I look at your foot, first?”
“Don’t see as why not. One quack’s like to another.”
Dorrin touches the ankle, frowning at the near-permanent reddish-white. As he senses the foot, he touches and somehow changes a few small patterns.
“What did you do?” asks the toymaker, squinting.
Dorrin shakes his head. “The bone’s healed all wrong. I can’t fix that, but most of the time, from now on, it won’t hurt so much.” He slumps against the table, taking a deep wracking breath, then another.
“Can’t pay you,” snaps Quiller.
“I didn’t ask you to,” Dorrin snaps back. “I
didn’t fix the bone, and I can’t. I’m not a master healer.”
Quiller rubs his forehead. “Hard to remember what it’s like without the ache. But I get along.”
Dorrin rubs his forehead and then the back of his neck.
“Suppose your making a few toys makes no mind…” muses Quiller.
“Not the kind you make,” ventures Dorrin.
“There be one thing, healer.”
Dorrin shifts his weight from one foot to the other and looks at the miniature wagon in front of Quiller.
“You might be thinking about joining the guild.”
“The guild? Is there a healers’ guild?”
“Don’t know of such a thing for healers. I mean the guild. That’s what they call it. The people who make the odd things—like my toys, or Thresak’s coats, or Vildek the cooper. Don’t know as it helps much, but it’s only a few coppers a year, and the Spidlarian Council does investigate their grievances.”
“Do you belong?”
“Sometimes, when I can pay the coppers. Now, times are hard, and the winter was cold. Have to pay for wood with this foot.”
“I appreciate the information.”
“Talk to Hasten, if you can get in a word.” Quiller looks down at the block of wood that will be an ox or a horse to go with the cart. “You might as well be on your way, young master. Not much as I have to offer you.”
“Good day,” Dorrin says quietly, inclining his head.
“A better day than in a time. Aye, a better day.” Quiller picks up the knife, and Dorrin steps out into the breezy twilight.
Meriwhen whinnies as he swings into the saddle.
LI
Using the tongs, Dorrin slips the first iron band into place one-third of the way down the staff, using his order skills to bleed the heat away from the lorkin. The clamps slide into place, and the iron fasteners. Sweat oozes from his forehead as he repeats the operation with the second band, and as he struggles with iron, and heat, and order.
After releasing the clamps, he eases the staff into the slack tank, bathing wood and iron in liquid and in order. With the two middle bands in place, he takes a deep draft from the mug of cold water. Then he takes the first end cap in the tongs and sets it in the forge. Once it is nearly straw-yellow, he slips it over the end of the staff and repeats the quenching.
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