The meal drew to a close and children were shepherded through a far door to sounds of protest and washing. The aged men and older women drew chairs up around the hearth, now clear of cooking pots. A few had needle and thread or some small craft in their hands, but work was desultory at best. Doratie fetched a flask of clear liquor from a cabinet high on one wall and Kethrain followed with tiny crystal goblets. The atmosphere was warm with good humor and tolerance.
Merial passed me a stack of plates. “The scullery is through there.” Sorgrad shared a smirk with Usara, which Merial soon wiped away. “You two can help with the firewood.”
As I headed for the scullery, I saw ’Gren disappearing up the stairs with an adoring covey of children, clamoring for more entertainment. I wondered if Damaris knew what she was letting herself in for.
Othilfess,
14th of For-Summer
Teiriol yanked at the recalcitrant mule’s bridle. “I’ll stake your hide out for the fork-tails to peck at,” he told the black and tan face. The mule set its ears back and lifted its gray muzzle sharply, nearly banging Teiriol on the nose.
“Get on!” Cailean cut at the animal’s hocks with a switch and it jumped forward. Teiriol hauled on the reins, giving the beast no chance to dig its hooves in. With three others jostling behind it, the mule yielded, ears pricking at the prospect of water and fodder as it recognized its stable.
Teiriol gaped at the activity all around the compound. Both forges, the small one he’d always considered his own and the larger one cold since his uncle’s death, were red hot and blazing, molten scale flying in brilliant sparks as hammers pounded iron into submission. One smith quenched his handiwork in a hiss of steam and, as he raised the tongs, Teiriol recognized a spearhead. Satisfied, the man laid it beside a line of others and stood for a moment to watch his colleague deftly shape the tang of a sword blade.
The mules all balked at the commotion and Teiriol’s charge threatened to buck as a lad chased a frantic goose past them, a cleaver in his hand showing the bird its fate only too clearly. Jeers came from an open workshop, a drift of bark and shavings blowing all around as a gang of men turned rough poles and narrow wands into shafts for spears and arrows.
“Catch it, Nol,” urged one, laying his knife aside with an air of finality. “That’s a quiver’s worth of flights and a good roast dinner getting away from you!”
“He couldn’t get work as a whorehouse handyman, that one,” sneered another, cursing as his blade snagged in the wood he was shaping.
A dull, repetitive thud penetrated Teiriol’s bemusement; the ore mill was working. “You see to the animals. I’m going to talk to Keis.”
Cailean’s indignant protest went unheard in the general hubbub. Teiriol hurried to a long building set against the far wall beyond the rekin. The steady beat was being driven by a weary mule pacing a circular track and harnessed to a pole that turned a pillar driving a shaft running through the wall of the building. Teiriol looked in vain for anyone tending the sweating animal and shoved open the door.
The rhythmic noise was redoubled inside the stone shed. Iron-shod timbers lifted in sequence as lugs on the rotating shaft caught matching spurs in their sides. Released as the shaft turned, they dropped to crush tinstone against a granite mortar. Keisyl was sorting unhammered ore, his concentration complete. Fine sandy dust hung in the air, coating Keisyl, the mill and a large tub of water with pale scum.
Keisyl coughed and noticed Teiriol. “Outside. Can’t hear myself think in here!” Wiping his face clean of muck and sweat, he pulled the door to behind them. “When did you get back?” Keisyl took a deep breath of fresh air.
“Just now.” Teiriol pointed to Cailean who was unloading bulky sacks of ore from the mules with mumbled complaint.
Keisyl knuckled his red-rimmed eyes. “I’ll start crushing that lot tomorrow. We’ve plenty stamped fine enough for dressing. You and Cailean can make a start on that. The assay looks good and rich. When are the others due back?”
“Tomorrow but—”
“I’ll boil his arse for axle grease!” Keisyl hurried over to the mill mule and brought it to a halt, no great task since the animal was fit to drop. “Get some water, Teir.”
Teiriol hesitated, mouth half open, but took a bucket from beside the door. Going down a passage built into the thickness of the massive wall, he filled it from a rock-cut cistern, working in the darkness with the ease of familiarity. He counted the stairs down to the water out of old habit and frowned as he registered how far down the level had fallen. So many questions clamored to be asked that he could not frame a single one.
“Will you just look at this?” Keisyl raged, carefully easing harness from a bloody gall. “I told him I needed the boy out here. Have you seen Nol, that beggar boy from the valley bottom?”
“What’s going on, Keis?” demanded Teiriol, perplexity threatening to turn to anger.
“It’s nothing to do with us,” snapped Keisyl. “I’m keeping well clear and you’ll do the same.”
“Clear of what?” Teiriol asked, exasperated.
“Jeirran reckons he’s going to take on the lowlanders,” spat Keisyl, voice thick with contempt and dust. “Drive them out, reclaim the land, get reparation for ten generations of loss!”
Teiriol looked at the purposeful activity on all sides. The lad had managed to corner the goose and was now inexpertly stripping the twitching corpse, fluff clinging to his hair and face. An elderly fletcher was busy with the long feathers, oblivious to the banter all around.
“It might be time to make a stand,” said Teiriol slowly. “Remember Teyvasoke.”
Keisyl snorted. “You think Jeirran’s the man to do it? His brave words are the same as his promises of riches in Selerima. Follow him and you’ll end up worse off than just empty in the pocket! No, when he runs himself over whatever precipice he’s headed for, we have to be here to take care of Eirys and Theilyn.”
Keisyl led the mule out of the jinny-ring and into the stable. Cailean was busy bedding the other beasts down with old straw, clicking his tongue over the poor hay left in the racks. “Who’s had all the forage?”
“Who do you suppose?” snarled Keisyl.
Cailean began to groom the mule he was tending. Teinol took a stiff-bristled brush to the next and they worked in tense silence, broken only by the whickers of the mules and the occasional scrape of a hoof on the cobbles of the floor.
“So, what does Eirys think of all Jeirran’s plans?” Teiriol asked at length.
“She thinks he’s run mad. Her home is filled with strangers eating the table bare without so much as a by your leave.” Keisyl’s savage tone was at odds with his gentle fingers salving the jinny-mule’s galls with unguent from a small green-glazed pot. “They’re halfway to drinking the cellar dry and Theilyn’s already been offered more insult than I have time to settle if I fight a man a day from now until Solstice. I tell Jeirran to get his sorry crew of scavengers in hand and he just says he has weightier matters in hand.”
Teiriol frowned. “Perhaps we should talk to Eirys about repudiating him, if he’s fallen that far short of the marriage compact—”
“She won’t.” Bafflement outweighed scorn in Keisyl’s reply. “She says she loves him. Whether that’s the truth or she’s just plain scared of him, I couldn’t say, but all she does is make excuse after excuse for him.”
“Perhaps we should act for her,” suggested Teiriol dubiously. “I mean, Sheltya—”
Keisyl’s laugh was a hollow bark. “Sheltya are already here, my lad, and dug in as deep as any.” He wiped his fingers clean on the mule’s woolly back and stoppered the jar with a sigh. “They’re taking their lead from that whey-faced bitch Aritane. I’d say she’s planning her own little campaign among the keepers of wisdom.” He looked sharply over to Cailean. “And you keep that to yourself, do you hear? In fact, you keep clear of the whole mire, if you’ve got any sense.”