Aedelbert woke before Caedda and Ehric. He built the fire back to life, and warmed his hands before trying to move. His hip felt no sorer than usual, but his thighs reminded him that there was a reason smart men did not crouch so often if they could avoid it. Well, after today they'd be working standing for the most part, albeit bent over. And he needed to decide if they would use scaffold or ladders to build the chimney. Scaffold took more time and materials to build, but they could reuse it for the other two smelters, and with the clay and the wind, he preferred a more stable work-space. They should only need two ranks of platform unless Winfrith changed his mind.
"Oh, my hands," Caedda moaned, trying to open them. They'd locked into fists, and Aedelbert helped him get closer to the fire so he could warm and ease the joints. "Gripped the trowel too hard for too long." Aedelbert started water heating for tea. Holding the tea-cup would help ease his partner's pain. Fire-seed liniment helped even more, but they'd run out and the cost had risen dreadfully since so many of the healing mages had died. It was a wonder that anyone had magic after that, especially in the south. Aedelbert had endured a slight touch of the poison from Liambruu, as had Caedda, but only a touch. The baker had been unhappy with the grain and had only used a few hands-fulls to test, then gave the rest to the Scavenger's priests. They'd studied the grain and then burned it. The stench had driven half the town outside the walls, or at least as far from the market as they could get. Aedelbert's headache had lasted for five days, and he'd not dared look at rock for an eight-day after that. Caedda hadn't eaten as much but was just as sick, and they'd told people who asked that they had mages in their families, which was true. Several other people with mage-blood but no power also fell ill, as did a healer and a light-mage who ate the poisoned rolls.
"I hope the emperor settles Liambruu and settles them hard," Aedelbert growled as he poured the hot water over herbs and counted to a hundred, then poured it into Caedda's mug and helped him grip it properly. "Healing and good liniments are too dear."
"I hope he takes that crown and rams it up the king's arse sideways, then makes him eat the false grain." The snarl faded into incoherence for a moment. Caedda drank a little. He resumed growling, "Last I heard, magic's not a leb-good save for healing, and even then if the mage says no, she can't be forced."
"You want to eat meat preserved by an angry mage, or be healed by one who's been drained and resents it? Not I." Aedelbert had seen a healer's revenge once. The man had done a very efficient job of taking his enemy apart—literally. The bastard had deserved it, but after that Aedelbert did his best to avoid offending or even upsetting anyone with healing skills. "Think of how their potions would taste."
Caedda did a good impression of someone choking to death. Then he drank more and managed to flex one hand. "Why do joints age faster than the rest of me?"
" 'T bakers say its because they work harder, joints do, than the rest of us, sir," Ehric yawned. "Your pardon."
"Explains why some people don't lose their minds as they age." Aedelbert winked and Caedda winked back. He knew exactly who Aedelbert meant.
That day they did the same thing as the day before, laying more courses, adding clay to cover them, and building the walls. Once the stones reached thigh-high, Aedelbert and Caedda stopped work on the chimney and focused on the "snout" and the firebox. Here they had to begin working the stone into a curved top that extended from the open end of the smelter back to the chimney. It would be two-thirds of a lachter tall inside. "If we mis-measured, who gets to dig out the difference?" Aedelbert inquired as he laid a course, wiggling one stone, turning it over and adjusting it for a better fit between the stones of the lower row.
"Ehric or Turold." Caedda set three more blocks, then stood up. "Mpf. How much of a curve did he want inside?"
"Not too much, just enough to make the smoke run smoothly to the chimney and cool air flow in." Aedelbert straightened up as well and considered what he had. He raised his voice. "Ehric, come here." The boy trotted up, probably happy to stop mixing if his smile was a sign. "Walk into the snout and hold these, please."
"Yes, sir." He took the two stones and eased into the passageway. Caedda took three stones from his pile and added them to the top of his part of wall, overlapping them at the end but leaving the inner face projecting. As he added two more, with care so they didn't overbalance, Aedelbert did the same thing.
Would they need a support inside the passage or not? "Hold your stones as if they would rest on ours." Ehric put the two light brown blocks over those resting on the wall. They'd need one more to cross the gap, if they set it as a key-stone, which they could not do unless the Scavenger or Radmar had visited in the night and had left a set of iron brackets beside the shelter. Aedelbert looked to Caedda. "What say you?" They might be able to avoid using a support.
"I'd rather have something until we see just what we can do without the stones tipping and falling in, sir." Caedda stomped heavily. Nothing moved. "You can back out, Ehric, thank you. Carefully, please." Ehric eased his way backwards out of the snout and set the stones onto Aedelbert's pile. Without being told he hurried away, returning with a basket of blocks and adding them to the heap, then making as second trip before resuming the clay work.
"He likes clay as much as you do," Caedda said, taking a drink from his water skin.
Aedelbert turned west, letting the sun's heat ease his shoulders and arms as a little breeze tickled his face under his cap. Blessed Rella, thank You for the gifts of light and heat. "Form first or first row of the arch?"
"First row. We can use that to see how far each course can project, if I cut the blocks right. And we'll need to sort through for the thin stones." He drank again, then squinted up-slope. "After we eat dinner."
By dark, they had sorted through the stones and had gathered enough to make the arches for the first half-lachter along the snout. Turold joined them at the evening meal, as did several other men. Judging by their look and the dark in their hands and faces, they were charcoalers. One had brought fresh flat bread. "M' wife just made it," the senior charcoaler said.
Caedda took a bite. "Good bread."
After they had eaten most of the bread and some of the stew Turold had prepared, the men sat back and exchanged news. "Winfrith's here tomorrow or the next. Lord Heinrik's stopping traffic into the lands, demanding staple right for himself." The charcoaler spat to the side. "You know how much the traders like that."
"Heinrik's got fewer brains than a schaef if he thinks he'd prosper that way. 'Sides, with the Emperor on th' roads, he just might end up like t' former count of Harnancourd." Turold's smile would chill red iron.
Caedda leaned forward. "What you mean, 'former,' sir?"
The smile spread as far as the scars permitted. "Emperor broke th' wall he built 'cross th' trade road and killed the count for protestin'. Heard one of the early traders tellin' a priest. He thought it was a good start, the trader did."
Caedda sat back on his heels, shaking his head with wonder. "Maarsdam and Radmar be praised, that was far overdue. The Wheel turns slow but it turns."
All the men nodded and Aedelbert made the horns with his left hand.
" 'Bout time someone made the lords follow the law." The senior charcoaler rubbed under his chin. "Heinrik's not goin' t' like the track up here, either."
"Why not?" Aedelbert and Caedda exchanged puzzled looks. "Priests said he has no timber claims or hunting land on this side of the mountains."
"Just because we didn't ask 'im. Like the walls." The bent man wrinkled his nose. "Be good to have a better, faster way up. Even better if we could get a road, but great-haulers'll fly first."
"If they do, I'm buying a bigger hat," Caedda averred.
Turold drank some of whatever he had in his water skin. "We'll still have to carry the metal down by hand. Ground won't take a wagon road without more work than it's worth right now, with magic so spendy and trade slowed."
There was that. Aedelbert drank tea and thought about the pa
th. That one place, where they'd have to cut the side of the mountain to make a way, or drill holes in it and put logs in to make one of those hanging roads the stories talked about... No, not worth the cost or the danger. A cart-way would be good enough if they could manage that.
"Heh, Turold, why not train schaef to carry sacks? They can manage the path and they'll take their own fleeces to market from the high pastures." The younger man winked, one finger beside his nose.
Laughter swept the listeners, including Turold. Schaef in a pack train? Tears filled Aedelbert's eyes as he laughed. The picture in his head of all those wooly beasts scattering with heavy sacks draped over them...
"You laugh, but some mines use dogs to move gold and silver," Turold said once everyone had settled down and recovered their breath. "The dogs learn to give the metal only to one man or woman, and no man tries to stop 'em after the first time." He pointed at the charcoaler. "Dogs aren't schaef, and can't carry so much 's a great-hauler, but they can learn. Unlike schaef and nobles."
"How about Lord Heinrik's hunting dogs? Teach 'em to work for a livin'?" Caedda's idea brought more laughter.
"We can use those little ratters for out-walkers to keep th' big ones from getting distracted," the senior man announced. "What could go wrong?"
While the Scavenger had a strange sense of what He found funny, Aedelbert suspected that having rat-chasing dogs carrying metal from the smelters down past the mine might cause offense.
Two days later, after Aedelbert and Caedda had built the frame they needed and had laid the first double hand-width of arched top on the smelter, Winfrith arrived. He brought food and news. "Yes, Lord Heinrik is stopping merchants and demanding staple right, but only for himself. Two groups of traders turned around and left rather than deal with him, so I heard and saw." The smelter designer spat toward the east. "Fool and double fool, because they took a different road and reached Garmouth anyway.
"The farmers are more of a worry. They side with the lord, saying that Garmouth has no right to walls or to any waters that don't flow through without being changed. The water from the mine that's in the moat is not as brown as it started, but it's still brown, and the farmwomen are sayin' that the cresses and other plants in the stream have died."
"Upstream of the moat or downstream of it, sir?" Ehric set down the basket of clay.
"Downstream of the moat and the ponds for catching the rock powder for paint. Town women use other streams for gatherin'."
That meant the water had turned sour or bitter and would not be good for drinking until more sweet waters joined it and diluted the bitterness. All the more reason to get the job done and leave before the farmers decided that they needed to "do something." Aedelbert picked up two rocks and set them into place, then added a little clay to remind them not to move after he added more stone. Winfrith left them in peace as he went to talk to Turold and look at the charcoal and wood the others had brought in.
"Ready?" Caedda asked later that day, after they finished that hand-width of arch.
"Scavenger willing, I am." The two bent over the wall and each took a steady grip on the wooden frame supporting the roof of the smelter. "One, two, three." The men pulled the frame out from under the arch, scooting it along the inside of the wall. Aedelbert held his breath. The stones settled as he watched, shifting a little until their weight balanced again. The clay held, the arch remained solid. The weights travelled smoothly down the arch's sides and into the walls, then into the earth below. He breathed again, then again. "It's stable."
Thus encouraged, they worked the rest of the day and two more days until the roof met where the chimney wall should be. That brought them to the Eighth-Day. "I want to fire it," Winfrith announced late that afternoon. He'd supervised putting the clay along the interior of the arch, a task Caedda and Ehric happily gave him. "We'll build a fire at the mouth to see if it draws and what the heat does. No point in putting fire where it's not needed until the chimney's built."
Because it would not draw properly without the chimney, and might ruin the work. That made excellent sense to Aedelbert, and he helped stack the wood for a respectable fire at the mouth of the smelter's snout. Then he got out of the way as Winfrith lit the fire, talking to it and encouraging it into the smelter. After a while, the smoke appeared, trickling out the far end where the chimney should be. "Take the Eighth-Day," Winfrith ordered. "I'll watch it and then mark out the other two."
The stone-cutters wasted no time coming down the mountain and joining the pay line with Winfrith's token in hand. Wassa gave them their due and they bathed. Ehric returned to his home inn. The men found benches at the Ore Cart and devoured real, hot food followed by fresh spring beer.
I'm getting old. I like the bed better than a blanket on the floor. They'd left their bedding with the wash-women at the Black Pump, not that it really needed much. The men slept well that night. They'd also left orders for Ehric's guardian not to work him. He'd done a man's labor and had truly earned an Eighth-Day of rest.
"Ladders or scaffold?"
Aedelbert glanced down, making certain that he'd stepped over the root that poked out of the trail. Although far better than before, nothing larger than a small cart would come along it, and even then he'd not trust the path in the rain or snow. The afternoon sun lit their way, but also cast false shadows and a man had to go with care. The shade from the trees around the track helped ease the heat. Not that they'd have much shade for the next stretch. And where was the wind? He didn't feel any air moving, but they moved from west to east, so perhaps it paced them.
"Scaffold if I get to choose. I don't know why, but something about ladders this time...I just don't care for it." Caedda stretched his arms out in front of him, then adjusted the straps on his pack, lifting them off his shoulders for a moment. "Ladder makes me wary for some reason."
A voice from behind them asked, "Sir, does the rock care if you use ladder or scaffold?"
The question itched Aedelbert's mind and he considered how to answer it. Caedda got the jump on his words. "Not here, but there are times it does, and then we use scaffold if we can. Opening a new quarry face is scaffold work, then ladders down if you can build a scaffold."
Aedelbert would rather not work on either a ladder or a scaffold if the wood looked bad. Both could drop a man on his head.
They arrived in the clearing where the smelters would stand just before full dark. Winfrith met them and glared. What had gone wrong? "Open the holes for the tuyeres." He stormed away in the twilight and Aedelbert though he heard swearing under the sound of bird calls. No wind stirred the gentle slope. Ah, that explained both the smelter expert's temper and his command. Now it was Aedelbert's turn to smirk a little.
The smirk faded quickly. The chimney rose well, and took only another eight-day to build, plaster in, and then test. While the men labored on the first smelter's chimney, Ehric sorted stone and piled it beside the second smelter site. He also made certain that no one accidentally took the roof-arch support for firewood. That was, when he wasn't mixing clay. Then he set out some of the stones for the second smelter, putting them into their places for the first foundation course. He did not set the foundation of the chimney—Aedelbert didn't trust his eye just yet.
Winfrith surprised the men. "No, the pit is not for coals and fuel. The pit catches the baked gangue and slag, then we sort them. The fire goes on the crucible stone. Like so." A load of crushed ore had been delivered, and Winfrith made a heavy layer of ore on the crucible stone, then charcoal, then other ore, more charcoal, and some wood. He lit the pile, and waited. As the stone-cutters built the foundation for the second smelter, Winfrith tended the first smelter, spelled by Turold. A clay pot caught shimmery grey liquid after the second mid-day, and the newly-arrived workers pulled the baked ore out of the smelter's snout using wet wooden rakes and wooden hoes. "For lead you don't use a second crucible. The copper we will, but we also need great-hauler dung to bind the charcoal and hold it together. The dung drives the lead o
ut of the copper, so we get pure metal. For black copper we use clay crucibles."
Aedelbert blinked, and Caedda opened his mouth, closed it, and then admitted, "I'd no idea that the great-hauler dung was so useful."
"Night soil's too wet and might be tainted with miasma. If it dries enough, it's too dry. So great-hauler—or schaef if you have no choice otherwise." The old man sighed a little. "Be nice if we had a great-hauler or two up here, but we don't so I'll have men bring some dung." He sounded less than happy at that. Aedelbert suspected the porters would charge quite a bit to bring great-hauler dung up to the smelters.
He glanced over, and saw Ehric staring, then blinking, then looking thoughtful. But the boy stayed quiet and resumed his assigned task. He'd probably decided that whatever it was, it would not work and so was not worth mentioning. Working in an inn or tavern did teach people to keep their mouths shut. Well, most people. That wench in the Two Trees, the only time she was quiet came when she slept, or so it had seemed to Aedelbert.
And that would not build the second smelter, now that they had things to smelt. Aedelbert picked up some stones and began setting them on the wall as Ehric smoothed on clay under Caedda's supervision.
8
Fire and... Feathers?
The first smelter had indeed gone too well, and had attracted Radmar's notice. At least the problem happened before the chimney rose too high, Aedelbert told himself as he studied the collapsed bit of wall and scattered stones. Two of the stones had cracked, and Caedda picked up some of the fragments. His eyes relaxed, then snapped back into focus. "Problem's not in the stone."
Miners and Empire Page 10