"Aye." He couldn't hide his talent for long around them. "If you want to work with the masons, take Ehric with you. The work is similar, and he can learn some more things, refine what he already has. Unless you think he'll have the same problem I do."
Caedda glanced left and right for listeners, then leaned forward. "He might. And he's young enough not to keep his mouth closed if one of the seniors pushes him. He told me that Master Eonric Schneid was leaning on him to tell him what we had been doing and how we broke the stone so quickly."
"Damn," Aedelbert hissed, so quietly that he almost didn't hear himself. "Schneid should have more than enough to keep his nose in his own business."
"I think there's snake on his mother's side," Caedda growled back, then straightened up. "It might be better if we divide duties. I'll take him with me the first few days so he can see the difference between what the master masons do and what we do, then he can work with you."
That brought another risk, Aedelbert realized as he tossed a nut shell into the fire. What if the boy could not close down his abilities? So much rock might break him. Aedelbert and Caedda had both tried to teach him how to close his stone-worker's eyes, but could he with so much stone around him? All the more reason for him to start with Caedda, then change over. "First we have to finish moving the blocks."
"Aye that. Work before pleasure." Caedda leaned off the end of the bench and eyed the passing kitchen-maid's curving lower leg.
"You'll be wearing that beer if you keep it up."
A lascivious grin, and "Keeping it up is no problem at all. Just ask Cwen at the Red Schaef."
"That's Wassa's foster-daughter you're eyeing." Aedelbert scowled. "You want a rock hammer to both your heads?"
Caedda sat up and behaved. She did have a lovely turn of ankle and lower calf, Aedelbert had to admit, although that could just be how her boots were made and laced.
Another Eighth Day passed before they got all the stones shifted, stacked, and covered. Turold had moved himself up to the smelter site full time, winter or no, and had made a snug cabin. The wood cutters too worked through winter, as did the charcoal burners, and stockpiles of both fuels had begun growing, sheltered from the weather. "Rather be here than down there." Turold said as the men and boy rested after the last trip. "You'll have more help come spring. Wassa and Sithulf both gave word."
"Good." Otherwise they'd be moving rocks for far too long.
Task done and work reported, Wassa paid them for their labor and the materials. Aedelbert made his offering, then paid the landlady, the wash-women, the bathhouse, and Mistress Godgifu. That left less than half the funds to get them through winter. Well, the Scavenger provided, if a man did his share.
Blue Cliff mine came by the name honestly. The shadows on the face turned the stone faintly blue, and the ore and waste rock also bore a blue-grey color. "Silver and lead, as you'd expect, with some copper." Leofwine picked up a basket. Aedelbert did likewise, juggling things so he had his tools over one shoulder as they ducked into the mine opening. No one came or went empty-handed into the mines, that was the Scavenger's law. Leofwine also carried a torch. "This part fell in of its own long before we looked here for ore."
That did not fill Aedelbert with happiness. However, these were safe mines compared to some. No one had been stricken by miasmas, and no waters breached the shafts and galleries, drowning all below ground before a man had time to realize he was wet. Aedelbert kept his gift close and closed, not reading the rock other than with his eyes and experience. "We go down one shaft to the adit that needs to be opened. Mind the rope."
A rope hung down the center of the shaft, where a man's basket of torches or tools could catch and tangle in it. As they descended someone shook a rattle below them and they heard, "Load coming up." Aedelbert pressed himself against the ladder as a leather bucket full of rock creaked past them. What fool thought that was a good idea?
"We're working around a drusy vein," the voice below him sighed. "Lots of waste but easy to move."
Aedelbert didn't say anything until they got to the proposed gallery. Someone had already marked the directions in the floor, and he studied them. He'd be working east by north. The rocks should be cool. Wassa said a shaft had already been dug and measured, but they needed to get through the rock quickly without stopping to look for veins of congealed metal. Since he was not a member of the miners' brotherhood, Aedelbert couldn't touch the veins if he found something. However, as a stone cutter and Scavenger Born, he certainly could move rock and tunnel. Someone had also stocked some timbers here for when they were needed. If they were needed. If they were facing drusy rock, well, he'd just see. Aedelbert found the unlit lamps and used iron and fire-stone to light one. Great Scavenger, Lord of the Darkness and Underground, guide me, show me Your paths if it is Your will.
The fire-miners had been there, and had already fired the wall. Bits of fire-shattered stone lay on the floor. The rocks ahead of him had crazed, and he could see the hollow pieces that looked like wood rotten to punk. Aedelbert was not pleased about working alone on the face, but he shrugged. He was not far from the shaft, moving toward a gallery, and men would come by to remove the waste. That had been part of the agreement—he was not going to work and move rubble alone. Someone had to help with the waste rock. He found a little ledge and set the lamp there, out of the way. Then he used it to light a torch. He wedged the torch between two rocks and put out the lamp. No point in wasting oil.
Aedelbert tugged and adjusted his padded half-gloves, hefted his pick, and brought it down against the face. He struck half-way down the face, where the rock seemed softest, and he used only part of his strength. The rock chipped and flew, and a chunk half the size of his fist fell to the ground and rolled a foot-width. Yes, this bit had dry rotted and started turning drusy. He dug and chipped carefully, working on the sides, then back toward the center, then up. The miners wanted the adit shoulder high. Aedelbert considered that stone and decided that a slight curve in the ceiling would not be amiss. Even without using his stone senses, he could tell that the rock did not care to be shaped flat. Probably had to do with the rot.
After a while he stopped and took a sip from the water-skin that he'd brought. He listened to the mine. The Scavenger's Gift had breathed hard a few eight-days before, fresh air rolling in and the old, miasmatic air gusting out. Would Blue Cliff breathe as well? Aedelbert seemed to recall someone saying that not all mines did, and some had to have wind-fans to keep the miasmas from growing too thick. He lit a second torch and wedged it beside the first one.
He heard the wood burning, and could see the flames standing straight. No air moved here yet. Or did it? The smoke had not gotten too thick yet, so perhaps it moved a little. Water gushed far away, if he strained to listen, and the faintest of hints of the thunks of men laboring on the vein. " 'Ware, basket," came to his ears, so quiet it might have been from outside the mountain. Something else, a delicate scraping, skittering, like claws on stone. The Scavenger's rats? Or zwurge? That reminded him. Aedelbert removed a fresh bun with a bit of dried fruit in it from his meal sack and backed away from the face. He left the token just outside the torch's light, tucking it into a little depression in the stone. A wise man made and kept peace with those who lived around him.
Aedelbert moved four baskets worth of rock from the face before the shift ended. The dark became almost familiar as he worked, eyes part-shut against the flying chips. He'd had to use chisel and hammer a few times, and sensed the cracks spreading beyond the metal edge, even though he kept himself "closed."
"Not bad," Leofwine said as they packed the loaded baskets out. An apprentice took the basket from Aedelbert once they reached clear air, and added the contents to a sorting tip. "Anything shiny?"
"Just the knees of my breeches."
The miners snorted, rolled their eyes, or nodded at the ancient joke. Aedelbert turned the pockets of his coat inside out and the shift-lead nodded once. A proper miner's coat had no pockets, so that a ma
n couldn't steal or smuggle things into the mine. The long leather-reinforced flap in the back reached to a man's knees to protect him as he crouched, and the conical hood contained padding for his head as well as keeping rock dust and chips out of his hair and ears. Unlike the others, Aedelbert carried his tools with him. A few of the miners gave him odd looks, but they knew by sight he wasn't a member of the confraternity, and didn't have their protections. Some men claimed that zwurge borrowed tools from men outside the confraternity. Aedelbert suspected that those same men also claimed the Scavenger's protection when they got caught with those "borrowed" tools.
By the Eighth Day, Aedelbert was glad of a rest. He'd forgotten how little he liked laboring at a constant stoop. Or he'd have to kneel, and even with leather and rag pads on over his breeches, the rock chips found ways to get even. He also missed having other men around. They distracted him from the rock, and as he grew more tired, he had to work harder to keep the rock out of his awareness.
Only once had he tried looking at the rock while in a mine. He'd nearly gone mad. So many cracks and seams and splits, so many different flavors and qualities of stone, some ripe, some rotten, some dry, some harder than cast iron... The sheer mass of stone nearly drowned him. Never again. If he hadn't still been within sight of the world above, he'd have fallen into the stone and never returned. Aedelbert felt his mouth twisting into a false smile. No, thank you, never again. Aedelbert would quarry, or dig a plain tunnel or shaft, but he'd never be a miner. The Scavenger made men as they were and that was that—he'd not been created to mine.
Speaking of the Scavenger, Aedelbert counted out three coins and dropped them into the offering box as he and the others passed the chapel. He wasn't the only one. "They're firing the east face as well as the new adit," one of the older men said.
Two or three shivered and made warding signs, and one spat through the horns. "They know about the seam?"
"Oh aye, Wassa and Sithulf both warned them, and a priest is going in before they work, to inspect it and confirm if that's really what it seems to be." The old man also made the horns, throwing the gesture toward the mountain. "Brother told me about a burning mountain. Don't care to see one myself."
"But think what your wife'd save on fuel," one of the youngsters protested, resting one dirt-packed finger beside his nose. "She could send the bread dough and roots with you to work, and spare the cooking fuel."
"Aye, and you want to pay for stone cribbing and timbers to replace wood?"
A chorus of loud denials answered his questions. Aedelbert nodded his agreement. Truth be told, no one wanted a fire of that sort in the mine. Aedelbert had not seen the blaze himself, but had seen the ground above a burning earth-coal seam. That had scared him enough. The soil had felt warm, no plants grew, and the rocks had baked red. The man with him had claimed that they glowed some nights, red like iron in a forge. Some places over the fire, the earth slumped into the burned-out veins without warning, pulling any man or beast into the flames below. No one knew how that fire had started, if it were by man or by the gods. Aedelbert did not care to be around if a man accidentally lit one of those ever-burning earth-coal seams.
The bath felt more welcome that evening than usual, and Aedelbert opted to have a shave as well. He preferred to keep his beard short, even in winter. Short hair discouraged seam creepers. Some men might not object to sharing their clothes with other creatures, but the thought repulsed him. One of the journeymen he'd trained with had claimed that the men of the eastern grasslands didn't bathe at all in winter. Well, if he lived under the sky for his only roof, then that was one thing, but a civilized man needed to bathe if only so other men didn't throw him out of the inn or the mine.
"No. What now?" Two men came into the soaking room and eased into the tub.
"Widow Leoflaed been tellin' my woman that the farmers have the right of it, and that the city and the mines have gone too long without a lord protecting other people from us." The speaker's grey-streaked hair hung almost to his waist, and Aedelbert wondered if there was some northerner in the family or if he was under a vow of some kind.
The others present groaned or muttered. "Ugh."
"She'll never let it go, will she?"
A wiry man with clerk's stains and callouses on his hands declared, "She needs a man to settle her."
"Eh," a fourth man lifted his left hand out of the water and wagged it back and forth. "Her man died of miasmas from opening the Silver Thorn mine down south. His lungs never recovered, killed him slow over years, 's why he shifted to trade and tools. If she's scared of miasmas corruptin' the water, least wise she's got more reason than most."
The long-haired man shrugged, head back, eyes closed. "Eh, point. But my woman thinks Leoflaed's fight with Wassa's brother over the castana trees is part to blame."
"Oh Korvaal have mercy," a carpenter snapped as he stood up from the tub and held his modesty cloth in front of himself. "That was twenty years and more!"
Aedelbert had to ask. "Castana trees?"
Several men sighed. "Old, dead story," Wulfric said at last. "Wassa's brother bought the grove for timber prices. Leoflaed wanted to be paid for orchard price, since castanas have to be planted and tended, even if they are in a wildwood. Since their nuts can be ground for flour, imperial law is that they are crops and rank as an orchard, even in a wildwood. Her man's brother didn't know the law, didn't listen to her, and Wassa's brother got the parcel for cheap. She's been angry at Wassa and his family ever since."
"She's probably the only one in the city who wants the lord of Aldread to run the place and put the farmers over us," the man with long hair grumbled. "Or at least the only one who will say their thoughts aloud."
One of the others tossed, "And when did an angry woman ever keep her thoughts to herself?"
"How long has it been since that doxie tried to knife you?" came the retort, followed by laughter. "I don't recall her saying much before the blade appeared in her hand." Aedelbert rose and retreated to the drying room. He preferred women who talked and men who didn't. Women who kept silent tended to knife men in their sleep, or poison their food, the way that scentless bad air seeped into mines and low places and grew deeper without men knowing until they died of it. Even if they only spoke to other women, it kept them from holding their anger in until it corroded.
"The masons are trying to poach our apprentice," Caedda informed him that night when they met at the Ore Cart. "Thank ye," he added, moving his elbows out of the way of a platter with chunks of scheaf, root vegetables, and other things on it. Two more men settled down beside Caedda and Aedelbert on the long benches. One of the newcomers was Jens, so Aedelbert didn't complain. Jens he could trust.
Aedelbert gestured with his belt knife. "Paying him more or promising him something?"
Caedda stabbed a chunk of meat and put it in his bowl, then sawed a slice of bread to go with it. "Worse. One of 'em's got a daughter bout his age, and is looking for a man for her. Not tomorrow, but eventually, and he doesn't want her marrying an older man."
Jens and his companion both boggled, and Aedelbert had to blink to make certain his own eyes weren't bulging fit to fall out of his face. Jens ventured, "Wait. Father doesn't want his daughter marryin' someone already settled with an income and prospects?" Jens turned his head to the side, as confused as a great-hauler trying to read a mine diagram.
Caedda held up the hand not holding the knife. "I don't try to make sense of other men, I just repeat what I hear."
"My head just broke," Jens' companion stated. He stabbed a piece of meat for himself and set to eating. That seemed the best thing for the matter, at least for the moment, and Aedelbert too speared a piece of schaef. It tasted odd, not rotten but... He chewed and thought. It tasted like spring, for lack of a better word. Not bad, just unusual. The roasted roots had a good, rich flavor. Someone had done them properly, rubbing them with fat before putting them over the fire. Yet another reason the miners favored The Ore Cart over other inns, Aedelbert
guessed.
"Trader from west of here came in with a load of fine cloth and leather," Caedda reported after the four men had put a good dent in the meat and tubers. The inn master came past their table with a huge log, and all fell silent. They waited quietly out of respect for the fire and their host while he added the log to the big fire in the fireplace, re-set the pots holding tisanes, spiced wine, and spiced sweet cider, and nudged the coals around the new wood.
Once the fire had begun consuming the log and all appeared well, talk resumed. Caedda continued, "The Emperor is real, and he is in Rhonari for the season."
"Trader see him?" Jens's companion demanded.
"No, but the man's cousin had, and sent a letter describing him. Says he's very tall but not skinny, broad shoulders, wears blue and white, has white-blond hair and beard. Travels with an enormous cat." Caedda held his hand waist high, "So enormous, not just fat on mice and milk. He's a mage, the Emperor is, but can do more than just one kind of spell. Or so it seemed. The trader believed his cousin."
Jens drank some of his hot cider, then sat back on the bench and nodded. "That's a man of the north. My mother said that they are all pale and taller than most, and some have big hunting cats like our heavy hunting dogs. At least that part fits."
"Wonder what's so bad as to bring him south?" Aedelbert hoped whatever it was, it would stay far away.
"Probably Liambruu," Jens said after another drink.
"Sounds right," his companion grunted.
6
Spring and the Smelters
After two eight-days working with Caedda and the masons, Ehric joined Aedelbert on the walk up to the mine. He carried his own tools and a flask of lamp oil. Aedelbert could work with only a single lamp or small torch, but two on the work face required better light. Especially when one of the two had never been in the mine. Caedda preferred to stay with the masons. From what little Caedda'd told his partner, Aedelbert didn't fault the man. Caedda would return if he had to mine or starve, but the sense of pure fear Aedelbert had caught... No, fearful men in mines led to bad things. Some said that the zwurge enjoyed teasing such men, just to further intimidate the unwilling and reluctant. Would Ehric have a problem? Aedelbert had tried to warn him about the rocks and not trying to sense anything from them as he did with quarry stone, but lacked the proper words.
Miners and Empire Page 7