He has closed all the doors and hatches on the Black Diamond, and checked and pumped the bilges. The leaks around the shaft remain small, but the ship will still have to be pumped periodically, at least until he can design and build a better seal.
“Cleanest harbor I’ve seen,” observes Yarrl.
The stone pier is swept, and all the joints between stones are tightly mortared. Even the wind whipping in off the Eastern Ocean smells fresh. The roofs of Land’s End form an orderly mosaic on the hillside, and above them rise the stones of the old keep, under the replica of the Founders’ original ensign—the crossed rose and blade. The current banner of Recluce—the starker black ryall on a white background—flies from the staff before the single-storied harbormaster’s building between the two piers.
“Where’s this inn?”
“To the left of the harbormaster’s. Up that lane. The two-storied building is the inn. Then come the stables where Styl and Intar put the horses. The guest houses are on the hill to the left of the stables.” Dorrin squeezes Liedral’s hand.
Outside the inn, a youth in clean brown leathers, wearing a black armband with a white ryall, jumps up as they approach.
“Master Dorrin.” He bows. “If you and your consort would enter the inn, Mistress Barla will escort you to your quarters. I will show the others to their guesthouse. The bells will announce the evening meal in the inn.”
“Is there room?” snaps Kadara.
The youth bows. “Each guesthouse has four separate bedrooms, magistra, and more than adequate water and showers for everyone.”
“…heard they believed in a lot of washing here…” mumbles Yarrl.
“Do you good,” Reisa replies.
Dorrin opens the inn door for Liedral, clumsily, with his splinted right hand. The thumb twinges as he bumps it against the iron latch.
“Greetings,” offers the silver-haired older woman who rises from a small desk. “You are master Dorrin and trader Liedral?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Barla. Let me show you to your quarters.”
A stone staircase to the left of the door circles the open foyer and brings them to the second-story landing, where there is a single door with a brass handle. A corridor stretches the length of the inn, but their guide halts by the door and opens it.
“These are your rooms. You also have a washroom beyond the bath. If you wish to bathe, I would suggest a little haste, because it will not be long before dinner.” She smiles an apparently genuine smile.
“Thank you,” Dorrin says.
“Enjoy your rooms,” Barla turns.
“Rooms?” asks Liedral, stepping through the door. “Oh…”
Dorrin closes the door behind him. They stand at one end of a sitting room that opens to a small balcony with a pair of carved wooden armchairs. In the sitting room are a table, with four matching armless chairs, a half-filled bookcase, and two large wooden armchairs before the fireplace, in which a fire has been laid.
Liedral steps into the second room, containing a triple-width bed with a large but simple red oak headboard, a dressing table, and two matching wardrobes. Beyond the bedroom is a bathroom, with a shower, but no tub, and a doorway that presumably leads to the washroom mentioned by Barla. The coverlet is a repeating design of green and gray, without lace, and the bed has real sheets.
“I suspect your bargaining position is better than you think,” Liedral says dryly.
“You can have the first shower,” Dorrin says.
“Shower? Are they all freezing like yours was?”
“Oh…That was just mine. Let’s see if this one is warm or cold.” Dorrin steps into the bathroom. There are two other doors. He opens one, to a simple jakes, and closes it, then peers into the ceramic-tiled shower, turning the single handle and feeling the water, before turning it off, and wiping his hand on one of the large towels hung on separate pegs.
“Lukewarm,” he announces. “Sunwarmed from a roof cistern. You take off your clothes—”
“Very funny. I could understand that much.”
“—and stand under the water. There’s some soap there, and you wash. If you don’t like cool water, you just get wet and turn the water off, and lather up, and then turn it on to rinse off.”
“I’ll take the first shower,” Liedral announces, dropping her pack on the floor. “I haven’t been clean in days.”
“I’ll be on the balcony. Let me know when you’re done.” Dorrin carries his pack into the bedroom and pulls out his clothes. He only has three outfits, and the one he is wearing and the smithing clothes are filthy. He leaves those in a pile on the smooth stone floor, and folds his few clean underclothes and good brown outfit, setting them on a shelf in the wardrobe. He pauses and draws in the faint scent of the trilia oil used to treat the wood. Then he tucks the battered pack into the bottom of the wardrobe, and walks through the sitting room and onto the balcony, where he sits facing the harbor.
A light breeze ruffles his hair, bringing the tang of seawater. To the north, a scattering of clouds hugs the ocean horizon. Dark green water, with but a tinge of white, ebbs and flows against the dark stone of the harbor breakwater, while the harbor waters bear only the faintest of swells.
The Black Diamond sits alone at the pier, the only time Dorrin can recall the harbor so empty. Where are the Recluce ships? Must they spend their time at sea now that all trade with eastern Candar is blocked?
Watching a gull sweep down toward the Diamond, as if hoping for a meal, sweeping and rising, sweeping and rising, he loses track of time, and his eyes close.
“Dorrin…”
He starts in the chair. Liedral, towel wrapped around her, stands in the open doorway behind him. “I think I heard a bell of some sort.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“You’re tired.”
He rises and stretches, but his eyes go from the damp brown hair to the uncovered shoulders above the towel to the unclothed legs beneath the towel.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that, yet.”
“I know.”
Liedral leans toward him and brushes his lips with hers. Dorrin steps closer and embraces her for a long moment before letting go.
“I need a shower.” He steps around her and does not look back. It will only hurt. Damn Jeslek! Damn all the Whites!
Before he showers, he washes the dirty clothes and hangs them out in the washroom next to those Liedral has already washed. Then he takes off the splint before getting into the ceramic stall.
The shower water remains lukewarm, but Dorrin enjoys it, shaving, and scrubbing himself thoroughly twice. He doubts that he has been so clean in seasons, and he has missed such luxuries. Is this just to tempt him to renounce his engine and what it stands for? He turns off the water.
The second set of bells rings. He dries and dresses quickly and rejoins Liedral on the balcony, where she watches the shadows lengthen across the small harbor.
“It is peaceful…orderly…here. I can see now why your cottage was the same way. How could anyone raised here not be that way?”
“There are some who find it boring.”
“Did you?”
Dorrin shakes his head. “I just wanted to build my engines.”
“Was that just because they decreed the engines were wrong?”
“It’s not that simple. But we need to go down for supper, I mean, it’s dinner here.”
They walk through the quarters and out onto the landing.
“No locks. Just bolts for privacy. That says a lot right there.”
“It does. Now…about the engines. To make one work, you need to burn coal at high temperatures and turn water into steam. When coal burns that hot you have chaos. Also, steam is a form of controlled chaos.” Dorrin guides Liedral from the foot of the staircase to the right and the public room. “That’s not the only problem. Engines take a lot of iron and a lot of coal. That could create a lot of slag rock and lot of ashes and mine leavings, and all those create pro
blems, possible chaos, with the streams and the land.”
They stop inside the public room. Tyrel raises an arm. “They must like you, master Dorrin. They have great beer, and they know how to cook fish.” His rough voice carries across the high-ceilinged room.
“Master Dorrin, I have a big bed all to myself. And it’s soft.” Frisa’s excitement brings a smile to Dorrin’s face.
He bends down as he stops by the table where Merga, Pergun, Rylla, and Frisa sit. “I’m glad, Frisa.”
“A healer named Rebekah is going to see Pergun tomorrow,” Merga says.
“Keep tongull a-gettin’ mess up,” slurs Pergun.
“And mommy said that we might get to have a house like where we’re staying. Will we, master Dorrin?”
“I don’t know yet, Frisa.”
“You’ll get us a house. I know you will.”
Dorrin tries not to wince at Frisa’s faith, instead patting her shoulder. Merga just smiles, and Pergun watches as a serving woman sets a plate down.
“Your table seems to be there.” Liedral points to the only table set for two.
As they sit, Yarrl, Reisa, Petra, and Kadara enter and take places at a square table for four. The tables are polished red oak, smooth, and the cutlery seems to be of pewter, with cloudy-blue glass tumblers on the table.
“Would you like wine, beer, or redberry?” asks the older, but dark-haired serving woman who has delivered the meal to those at Merga’s table.
“Wine, I think,” says Liedral.
“Redberry for you, ser?”
Dorrin nods, and the woman leaves.
“How did she know?”
“I guess it shows.”
“What? That you work in order? Why does that affect what you drink?”
“Very few Blacks can handle any form of alcohol. It’s really a subtle form of chaos, I guess.”
“I’m glad I’m not that orderly.”
Even as Liedral speaks, the serving woman has returned with two pitchers. “Here you are. Dinner tonight is whitefish, with fried quilla on the side, and we do have honeycakes as a sweet.” She is gone with the last of her words.
“She’s quick.”
“Advantages of order, I think.”
“You’re nervous, aren’t you?” Liedral sips the wine. “This is good.”
“It should be. There are advantages to order.” Dorrin sips the redberry slowly. “And yes, I am nervous. Wouldn’t you be if your father—the man who threw you off Recluce—was one of the Council that would decide your fate?”
“I suppose so. But isn’t he just one of them?”
“It doesn’t help to have one of three against you before you start.”
“Why is he against you?”
“I suppose because I didn’t accept his word unquestioningly. He was right sometimes, but I didn’t even want to give him that because he’d never admit when I might be right.”
“Can you afford that now?”
“No.” Dorrin laughs. “But that doesn’t make it easy.”
The fish dishes arrive. “I’ll bring the honeycakes later.”
“How can they have honeycakes with a trade embargo? Honey is expensive.”
“Not here. It’s a trade item. Honeybees thrive on order. So do crops and flowers.”
Liedral shakes her head, then cuts a slice of fish and lifts it to her mouth. Dorrin swallows, realizing that his mouth is watering and his stomach growling. He can’t remember when he last had a meal other than bread and cheese and fruit or roots—or cold mutton. For a time, they eat silently. Except for those at Tyrel’s table, so does everyone else in the room.
“No wonder everyone hates Recluce,” Liedral says finally.
Dorrin raises his eyebrows, afraid to open his mouth. The quilla is still as crunchy as he remembers. Now it only grows in the highest southern hills, although old tales mention when it was once common.
“Orderly, calm, rich—and with good food.”
“I put a higher value on running water.”
“I noticed that before I got here. And I thought you were so clever with the running water in your house.” Liedral sips the wine.
“I was. I was clever enough to figure out how to install it. You know, just dreaming about something or knowing it can be done is the easy part. Doing it is what’s hard.” Dorrin savors the redberry, glad to have it again, then eats the last slice of the delicate whitefish.
Their plates disappear, to be replaced with smaller light brown dishes, each containing a large honeycake.
“Such luxury…” murmurs Liedral.
“Such temptation,” snorts Dorrin as he picks up the cake, sniffing the aroma of fresh-baked pastry and warm honey and carna nuts.
“You’re so cynical.”
“Perhaps.” He bites off half the pastry.
“You think they’re actually tempting you?”
Dorrin slowly chews and swallows. “More like reminding me.”
Liedral, her mouth full, nods in turn, then swallows. “How good order truly is?”
“Something like that. They’re also putting on a show for everyone else.”
“So you’ll think about the fate of the others?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe it’s more like a bribe? Maybe, just maybe, they need you.”
“You really think so?”
Liedral makes a motion with her hand to indicate her mouth is full.
“And you clearly like the bribe?” Dorrin grins.
“I intend to enjoy it fully.”
The serving woman passes, and Dorrin raises a hand. “How much for the supper?” He reaches for the leather purse at his belt.
“Nothing, ser. The Council is paying for your stay.” The serving woman smiles, and refills the glass tumbler.
“That makes it very expensive,” Dorrin remarks to Liedral.
“Perhaps,” Liedral says. “On the other hand, maybe other members of the Council are less against you and your machines than your father.”
“You may have something there.” Dorrin rubs his chin. “So long as it were just me, they’d defer to him…but if it affects all Recluce…”
“Keep that in mind.” Liedral looks toward the door where three figures in black stand. “Here they come.”
Dorrin stands and waits until the three are near. “I’d like you to meet Liedral. She’s the trader to whom you and I owe my success in building the Black Diamond.”
Liedral has also risen. She inclines her head and half-bows.
“Dorrin, Liedral, Magistra Ellna, and Magister Videlt,” Oran says. The two other Councillors both incline their heads to the couple.
Dorrin inclines his head in return.
“I am honored to meet you,” Liedral offers. “I was just leaving—”
“We would also be pleased if you would join the discussion,” offers Oran. “Your views would be helpful.” He nods to a large table in the corner.
As the group walks toward the table, Merga’s and Rylla’s eyes follow, and Dorrin can catch the whisper from the old healer.
“…them’s the real mighty of the world…”
Pergun eats slowly with Merga and Frisa, while Tyrel eats with several of his crew, their fare spiced more with frequent refills from tall bottles of a green brandy. Dorrin sees the brandy bottles and shudders. The green brandy of Recluce is powerful. Besides the three Council members, none of the tables holds anyone who was not on the Black Diamond.
Once the five have seated themselves, Oran begins. “We understand that you and Brede and Kadara made a valiant effort to save Spidlar.”
Valiant—that is one word, Dorrin thinks. How about doomed, stupid, and bloody? “We did make an effort,” he concedes. “At times, I doubt that it was wise.”
All three Blacks look at the table. Finally, Oran looks up. “You feel that building your engine was unwise?”
“No. Building the engine, I still believe, was necessary and wise. Using what I learned to try to defend Spidlar
was unwise.”
“Would you like to explain that?” asks the magistra, her eyes even darker than her black tunic and trousers.
“The Whites don’t do much harm to most people. They do maintain better order than would exist without them. They have good roads, clean cities, and not much crime or theft. But they’re caught in a trap. Their power rests on chaos, but to maintain their power they also need order. Too much order would destroy their power; so will too much chaos.”
Videlt nods; Oran watches; Ellna puts both hands on the table.
“That’s really beside the point,” Dorrin says. “I’m sorry about wandering, but my mind isn’t as clear as it should be. Anyway, by introducing better tactics and some combat engineering, all we succeeded in doing was killing a lot of innocent, or relatively innocent, people, a handful of White Wizards, and ensuring that a lot of people will go hungry this winter. We forced the traders to relocate, which will improve the trading abilities in places like Sarronnyn and Suthya and which will hurt eastern Candar.” His eyes turn on the three. “Part of this is your fault.”
Oran’s mouth opens, but the black-haired Ellna extends a hand. “Let him finish.” She looks again at Dorrin. “Go on.”
Dorrin clears his suddenly dry throat. “You pushed me out, and the Whites didn’t like what I was starting to do. Blacks—especially not male Blacks—aren’t welcome west of the Westhorns. So…I tried to defend Spidlar. A lot of people died, and where am I? Back here, being judged again. I don’t claim to be wise. But that sort of foresight is supposed to be what a Council is for.”
“There is that.” Videlt’s hand strays to his short-trimmed and dark brown beard, a beard darker than his lank light brown hair.
“You have shown that the White blockade can be broken,” says Ellna.
“But only with Dorrin’s ship,” interjects Liedral. “That won’t encourage either the Bristans or the Hamorians.”
“In any case,” says Dorrin, trying to steer the conversation back where he wants it, “because we share this responsibility, I think we should try to work out something that will benefit everyone.” He smiles grimly. “Unless you’ve already made a decision.”
The Magic Engineer Page 58