Beltur checked the mold again, but the order/chaos net or mesh, finer than any he had done so far, held firm.
Jorhan reappeared, closing the smithy door behind him and extending coins. “Here’s your pay—a gold and three for your share of the mirrors and a silver for the day’s work.”
“I appreciate that, especially after what you’ve told me, and the fact that my time as a patrol mage will end in early winter.”
“Winter could be long and hard. I’m thinking about closing up here and taking a sledge to Axalt.”
“Thinking about?”
“If this Trader Alizant can keep me from getting copper, I can’t forge anything at all, and you can’t make cupridium without copper. So neither of us would make anything.”
“How does that benefit him?”
“Oh … after he made his point, he’d let me have the copper, on the condition I sell to him for a fraction of what the finished piece is worth. That’s what he did to Tylert.”
“Tylert?”
“The silversmith. None of the traders bothered with a coppersmith before. Not enough golds involved. But with cupridium…” Jorhan shook his head.
“What about your lands and everything?”
“One of Johlana’s boys likes the place. He says he’d rather be a herder here. All the land in Axalt is rocks and trees. One of her boys would get the lands and house, anyway.”
“I’d hate to see you have to leave the lands.”
“They’d still be in the family, and I’d be able to smith without bending my neck to another frigging trader. That’s if this Alizant does what it looks like he’s going to do.”
“Do you really think he will?”
“If he can find a way, he will.”
“When do you want me back here?”
“Fiveday, if that’s agreeable.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Good. Likely be more small fine work.” Jorhan offered a crooked smile. “We need to make the copper last.”
With a nod, Beltur turned and made his way to the line of wall pegs, from which he removed his coat and scarf and put them on. Once he left the smithy, he walked as quickly as he could back to the southeast gate and from there to the Council building, where he hurried inside and toward Raymandyl’s table desk.
“You’re cutting it close again.” The clerk shook his head as he took out the ledger.
“I know. I was working with Jorhan today.”
“I thought you worked with him every day you weren’t patrolling.”
“Not anymore. Copper’s hard to come by these days.”
“Copper? That’s hard to believe. There’s always copper.”
“Not if people don’t want to sell it,” rejoined Beltur.
Raymandyl frowned, almost as if he didn’t want to say anything about the copper, and pushed the ledger across the table for Beltur to sign. “Do you have any tokens?”
“Not this eightday. I doubt I’ll have any for quite a while.” Beltur signed and returned the book, watching as the clerk sealed the entry and then retrieved two silvers.
“Here you go. One eightday’s pay.”
“Thank you.” Beltur paused, then asked, “Can a trader just keep people from selling copper to Jorhan?” He slipped the silvers into his belt wallet.
Raymandyl sighed. “It doesn’t work that way. The Council believes every trader, every person, has the right either to sell or not to sell a good or service. Likewise, a seller cannot refuse to sell a physical good to the highest bidder, but may refuse to provide services for good and valid reasons.”
Beltur had to think about what the clerk said for a moment. “Then Jorhan should be able to obtain copper if he pays more.”
“It doesn’t always work that way. If someone offers copper for sale, they’ll offer it to the traders first. Also, there are arrangements, sometimes options of first refusal. Once a trader has an amount of copper, he can refuse to sell it at all. Only if he offers it for sale does he have to sell it to the highest bidder.”
Beltur was certain that there was more involved, but the gist of the matter was simple enough—Jorhan wasn’t going to get copper from anyone in Elparta unless the traders permitted it, and possibly not from anyone outside Elparta if that person was known to the traders. “I see.”
“I don’t make the rules, Beltur. Thankfully, I don’t even have to enforce them.”
“But you know them.”
“I just listen. I tell people what I know, but I don’t advise anyone.”
“I appreciate the information. Thank you.”
“It’s better if you don’t try to cut things too close, you know? I’ll see you in an eightday.”
“If it doesn’t snow.”
“You’ll be here.”
Beltur smiled ruefully, knowing that was true, then left the building, thinking about Raymandyl’s advice about not cutting things too close. He didn’t think the apparent repetition had anything to do with his getting to the Council building in the last moments before half past fourth glass. It had to be advice, despite Raymandyl’s statement that he didn’t give advice.
But what might you be cutting too close? What had he been putting off that he should already have been doing … or preparing to do?
XV
The next three days were uneventful, in that Beltur patrolled on threeday amid intermittent snow flurries, with no sign of lawbreakers; worked around the bakery with Meldryn on fourday, learning about how to judge the heat in the ovens and what heat was best for different types of breads; and then went back to work at the smithy with Jorhan on fiveday, where the two turned out two highly elaborate scrolled cupridium mirror castings.
“These will be the best yet,” declared the smith, after having paid Beltur a silver for the day, and as he prepared to leave.
“You haven’t heard anything from the traders, have you?”
“Not a thing. Like I told you, I wouldn’t be expecting that for a while. Traders wait until you really need something. Then they make an offer you can’t refuse.” Jorhan snorted. “Unless you’re thinking of dying or leaving.”
“He might make an offer you can accept.”
“He might. Then he might not. We’ll have to see.”
“Sixday?” ventured Beltur.
“That would be rushing things. There’s only so much copper that Barrynt brought, remember?”
How could I forget? “Next oneday, then?”
“That would be what I was thinking.”
“Until then.” Beltur wound his scarf in place and headed out.
As he walked westward toward Elparta, he kept thinking over what Jorhan had said, and what he hadn’t. It seemed clear enough that the smith wasn’t about to stay in Elparta if Alizant wanted him and Beltur to work for almost nothing. That left Beltur in a very difficult position, because without either being a patrol mage or working for Jorhan, he’d go back to making nothing, and the golds he had stockpiled would dwindle away, slow bit by slow bit. If he followed Jorhan to Axalt, then he’d be leaving Jessyla, and there was no way, not that he could see, that he could ask her to follow him when he had no sure way of making a living. And, if he left her, then she’d be even more subject to pressure from most of the blacks and from Grenara to consort Waensyn.
You don’t even know for sure that it will happen that way. Except he couldn’t help but worry that events would turn out exactly that way.
A gust of wind whipped out of the north, cold, but without the sting that he’d felt on previous days, and without lifting loose snow off the expanse of white that covered the ground and fields bordering the road, an indication that there had been just enough warmth around midday to melt the loose flakes into the slight crust on top of the longer-standing snowfall.
Given all his concerns, once he passed through the southeast gate, he took the east wall road all the way to Crafters Lane and then headed west to a certain house with a green door lintel. Once there, he rapped on the door—firmly.
Beltur stepped inside. “Thank you.” He looked around, but all he saw was Growler, sitting on the steps to the upper level, pointedly ignoring the interloper.
“Jessyla’s not here. After we got back from the healing house, she went with Grenara to visit Grenara’s old friend Almaya. I actually sent her. In all this cold, I worry about Grenara. They left only a quint before you arrived. I don’t expect them back any time soon.”
Disappointed as he was, Beltur just nodded. “I would have liked to see her, but that wasn’t the reason I came by. I’d like to know if I might accompany you tomorrow, that is, if you’re going to the Council Healing House.”
“We are going tomorrow. I’m certain that Klarisia will be pleased. I doubt you will be.”
“Are matters that bad?”
“They’re likely usual for Elparta, but the early cold…” Margrena shook her head. “We can’t do enough. The Council doesn’t provide enough food for those who are hurt or violently ill, and when they can’t work…”
“I’ve seen how hard they work the young men from the workhouses.”
“They’re more fortunate than those in the Council Healing House.”
“You’re not trying to discourage me, are you?”
“No. Just to warn you.”
“Then I stand warned.” Beltur paused. “Have you heard about what happened on oneday night?”
“About the creation of a black mages’ council of Elparta, you mean?”
Beltur nodded. “And that Cohndar was unanimously selected as mage-councilor?”
“Unanimously?”
“When all but four of us immediately insisted on Cohndar, Meldryn quickly suggested we join in.” It hadn’t been quite that way, Beltur knew, but that was what Meldryn had meant, and describing exactly how it came about wouldn’t have made sense.
“You, Meldryn, and Lhadoraak, I would guess. Who else?”
“Mharkyn.”
“Most likely because he follows Lhadoraak.” Margrena frowned. “I trust Meldryn’s judgment, but that still worries me.”
“It worries both him and me,” admitted Beltur. “More than a little. Especially since Cohndar has the traders and the Council behind him.”
“Is there any difference between the two?” asked Margrena dryly.
Beltur could feel himself flush, although with his face reddened by the cold, he doubted that his embarrassment was obvious. “Not really.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No. Half before seventh glass tomorrow?”
“We’ll see you then.” Margrena moved to the door, then smiled as she opened it. “I will tell her that you came.”
“Thank you.” Beltur stepped back out into the late-afternoon sunlight, light that was beginning to show a slight pinkness as the white sun dropped in the western sky. At least the walk back south on Bakers Lane wouldn’t be that cold.
XVI
On sixday morning, Beltur reached Grenara’s house just before half past seventh glass. He didn’t even have to knock, because Jessyla immediately opened the door, offering a warm smile as she did.
“I’m so sorry I missed you yesterday, but I’m glad you’re here now.”
“He may not be so glad as you are by the time he leaves this afternoon,” cautioned Margrena.
“Mother, Beltur’s already seen much worse than at the healing house.”
Margrena looked as if she might reply immediately. Then she nodded and said, “Sometimes, I forget that.”
“In battle, I was too busy trying to do what needed to be done that mostly I didn’t have time to dwell on the injured.”
“You felt every death, didn’t you?” asked Jessyla.
“I did.” Beltur couldn’t very well lie about that, not when the cold black mist of every death had washed over him.
“Now that we’ve established that,” said Margrena gently, “perhaps we should leave. Before the rest of the cold air outside gets into the house.”
Jessyla flushed. “We should.” She finished draping her scarf across her face and ears and stepped out the door.
Beltur moved with her.
The two stopped and waited for Margrena to close the door before turning west. Beltur noticed that the older healer carried a small bag in her left hand, although he couldn’t determine what might be in it.
The air seemed colder to Beltur than it had been even on the walk to Grenara’s, and, if anything, on a clear day with little wind it should have gotten warmer once the sun cleared the eastern city wall. He glanced to the north, but there were no clouds visible.
Three blocks later, they walked along the south side of the northwest market square, less than a quarter of which was cleared, and without any vendors, not surprisingly, given how early in the day it was. Before that long, they reached the two-story, oblong, gray stone building, its narrow blue shutters all fastened tight. Only two of the five chimneys showed smoke.
Once inside the modest foyer, Beltur was so assaulted by the amount of wound and sickness chaos that he had to steady himself on the wide white plank floor. In the main hallway just beyond, between the foyer and the door to the chamber that Senior Healer Klarisia used as her study and headquarters, sprawled two gaunt men with dirty white hair and garments more like rags than clothing, lying end-to-end on thin pallets on the left side, twitching in the chilly air as they lay in an approximation of sleep or stupor.
Beltur could sense no direct wound chaos, only very low levels of basic order and chaos, as well as tiny points of chaos spread throughout their bodies. He looked to Margrena, questioningly.
“They’re starving. I told you. There’s not enough food here. We all bring what we can.” She held up the bag. “I’ll leave this with Klarisia, but…”
… you don’t have that much to spare. Beltur glanced farther down the hallway, only to see more pallets, one empty, and one on which a tiny older woman sat, her back propped up against the wall, looking blankly at the other side of the hall.
Margrena entered Klarisia’s study, as did Jessyla. Beltur stood in the doorway.
The dark-haired senior healer looked up past Margrena for a moment before saying, “You brought help today.”
“He asked to accompany us. He’s at least half healer already, as well as mage.”
“You’re welcome here, Beltur, but I can’t pay mages, you know?” Klarisia looked evenly at Beltur.
“I didn’t come for pay.”
“I thought not. You can hang your coat and scarf on the pegs there.” Klarisia looked to Jessyla. “Make sure you take three baskets.”
Beltur immediately took off his coat and scarf, as did Jessyla, after which she took a basket off the side table and handed it to Beltur, then took two more.
Klarisia went on. “I’d appreciate it if you three would go upstairs first today. There aren’t any children here yet.”
“Is there anything we should know?” asked Margrena.
“Nothing you don’t already.”
“Then we’ll start.” Margrena turned and nodded to Jessyla.
“No children here yet?” murmured Beltur once Margrena had stepped into the main hall.
“In the cold weather, women wait until later to bring their children to the healing house. Few have anything warm to wear, except layers of rags.” Margrena led the way past the empty pallet, then stopped by the old woman half sitting, half slumped against the wall, reaching down and handing her a small chunk of bread. “Here’s a little something for you.”
The woman took it, almost fearfully, as if she thought Margrena might snatch it back. “May the Rational Stars bless you, Healer.”
“Just eat it and rest,” Margrena said gently.
At the next archway, she turned and started up the narrow staircase to the second level. Beltur let Jessyla go next
and then followed her. On the second level, Margrena walked back to the last door on the east end of the corridor, which she pushed open.
Once inside, Beltur realized that he’d been in the room before, but now, there were five pallet beds where there had been four … and he didn’t think any of the men who lay in those beds were the same as those who had been there less than three eightdays before. Since none of the previous four could have recovered in that time … He managed to keep a pleasant expression on his face as he stepped into the room behind the two healers.
“Good morning, Healers,” began the legless man in the first bed, who started to smile before subsiding into a fit of coughing, a fit that added a bloody froth to the cloth he put to his mouth.
Margrena moved forward, letting her fingers rest on the top of the coughing man’s shoulders for a moment.
Even from where he stood, Beltur could sense the points of wound or flux chaos in the man’s lungs and chest, but there didn’t seem to be that many. He stepped up beside Margrena.
She raised her eyebrows.
Beltur motioned for her to step back, set down his basket, then rested his fingertips on the consumptive’s back just above the shoulder blades. From there he directed small amounts of free order to the points of chaos. He ignored the tiniest points, feeling that if the worst flux or wound areas healed, the body would take care of the others. You hope. He also knew he had to be careful with what he did, because it was going to be a long day, a very long day.
Margrena moved on to the next pallet bed.
When Beltur finished, not all that much later, he picked up his basket and stepped back.
Margrena was blotting the forehead of the man in the third pallet bed, who was fevered and flushed, but from what Beltur could sense, not saturated with flux or wound chaos.
Jessyla was cleaning a deep wound in a younger man’s thigh, and he was gazing at her in rapt attention, for a moment, when he almost convulsed. Beltur immediately joined her, and realized that the bone beneath the wound was also broken.
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