Sword of the Bright Lady (38 page)

“Having fun?” Christopher asked them.

“Not really, Pater,” said one of them. “We know you're crazy and all, but even you should have known the answer to that one.”

Another apprentice commented on the men and equipment being unloaded. “So you've found recruits for your church of night-soil?”

“Ah, you're a witty lot,” Christopher said. “Such verve and intelligence is wasted digging dirt. Go home.

“No, seriously,” he said, when no one moved. “Go home. You're done. You'll dig no more ore today or any day.”

“We're going to argue with a priest?” said one young man, tossing down his shovel. “When he tells us to stop breaking our backs?”

“With all due respect, Pater,” the first apprentice said, “Palek is unsurpassed as a smith, but even he cannot smelt without ore.”

“If he wants ore, he can buy it from these men here.” He pointed to his team. “I've the legal right of it.” He showed them the deed.

They couldn't read either, but they knew he wasn't lying.

“They'll kill you,” the apprentice said simply.

“They'll have to go through this paper first,” Christopher said, “and it's signed by Krellyan himself. Now look, whose side are you on? Do you want to be out here digging dirt, or do you want to be in your shop working metal?

“Go home, and tell your masters that I've cut the price of ore in half. It's now ten coppers per wheelbarrow, delivered to their door. Not the twenty they pay you to waste a day digging it.”

Tom whistled as the men trundled off disconsolately. “I only charged three, Pater. It looks like you'll be getting rich off us.”

“Not really, since I'm paying you five times as much as you were making.”

“But we don't know how to dig iron ore,” one of his men objected.

“It's not so hard. The sharp end goes into the ground.” Christopher pointed at the blade of the shovel. “And then you kind of scoop it into the wheelbarrow.

“I'm sorry,” Christopher immediately apologized. “I'm just nervous. It's true there are some craft secrets to mining, but let me let you in on one. The smiths don't know them either. I do, and I'm going to teach them to you. Once you understand them, you'll double production, and I'll be able to give you a raise. Now let's get started.”

Tom knew a lot more about ore than he'd let on, showing the men how to identify good from bad and where to dig for the best results. He didn't explain where he got the knowledge, and Christopher didn't ask. It was an easy guess that, on the sly, the man had done his share of digging before but was sticking to his promise of secrecy. Even more discreetly, he didn't point out to everyone that Christopher, who had just represented himself as a master miner, was as clueless as the novice diggers. Christopher decided, for the hundredth time, that he was underpaying the man.

Now he couldn't do anything but stand around uselessly and wait. He hated that. At least he didn't have to wait long.

A crowd of angry men flowed back out of the town to the bog. On a positive note, they weren't carrying torches and waving pitchforks.

“Welcome,” Christopher cried. “Come to buy some ore?”

They ignored him as the senior smiths stiffly greeted each other and then briefly noted the lesser smiths. Only after that did they acknowledge his existence.

“What is the meaning of this?” Palek demanded, already lapsing into hostile.

“Can you read?” Christopher politely asked.

“I can, Pater,” said a younger man.

Christopher showed him the deed from the Saint. The man read it slowly, carefully, and then read it a second time.

“It is true,” he told the crowd. “The Saint has given him this right.”

“Not given, exactly,” Christopher corrected him. “I paid four thousand gold.”

“And now you mean to make it back out of us? Did you not take enough of our money for your pretty lights?” Palek asked.

“You shouldn't be digging iron, you should be hammering it. Paying smith's wages to dig dirt is ridiculous. And you're no good at it. These men can dig twice as much for half as much. We all win.”

“They cannot dig without training,” Palek said, shaking his head. “Let us see their guild certificates.”

“Ore is ore,” Christopher said. “You don't need a certificate to dig it.” Luckily for Christopher, Palek had blundered directly into his trap, making the argument about skill rather than law or tradition. “See these two piles? One came from a wheelbarrow left by one of your men. The other was just dug by mine. Can you tell me which is which?”

Palek sniffed in disgust, but the young smith bent down and fingered the piles.

“This is no adequate test,” Palek said, when the younger man did not immediately declare an opinion.

“Then what is?” Christopher asked. “Give me a test, and I'll pass it.”

“You cannot carve ore out of the ground willy-nilly!” Palek complained. “It must be dug in the right frame of mind, with the appropriate obeisance to the gods.”

“You're telling me what the gods want? Because they told me different.” It was, in a sense, true. The hallucination of Ostara had told him to be true to himself, and this ridiculous industrial inefficiency was the sort of thing he would have to be dead to ignore.

The argument stalled there, as the crowd tried to decide which authority had more weight.

“This one,” the young smith said, standing up and pointing to a pile. Christopher had no idea which was which. He'd turned his back while Tom had arranged the piles so he wouldn't accidentally give it away by an unconscious reaction.

“Tom?” he asked, and the young man stepped forward, unable to conceal a smirk.

“Journeyman, you say that pile is of quality adequate to your needs?” Tom asked, sweetly innocent.

“He is only a journeyman,” Palek snapped, suspecting the worst. “He is not qualified.” He bent over the piles, made a cursory inspection. “This one is clearly the correctly dug ore.” Of course, he picked the other pile.

“Thank you, Senior,” Tom said, now smiling openly. “Though the Pater ordered it otherwise, both piles came from my shovel. This I swear on the Lady's breast.”

Christopher decided he was
seriously
underpaying the man.

“Anybody can get lucky once,” Palek growled.

“Don't your apprentices dig ore, too? Men without a guild certificate? Do they succeed through luck?” Christopher demanded.

“They are supervised by a certified smith,” Palek objected, falling back to what seemed like solid ground.

“That's a good point,” Christopher admitted. “So I'll have to hire one to oversee our operations. That way you'll know the quality is up to standard. The job pays a hundred and sixty gold a year, and requires eight days a week of supervisory capacity. Dereth, did you speak? Why of course, I'd be delighted if you would take the job.”

Dereth coughed, the first sound he'd made.

“He is not qualified to teach others! He is not a Senior!” Palek said, dragging anchor in the winds of unfamiliar logic.

Christopher had done quite enough surrendering. “Then I'll promote him,” he snapped back.

The crowd collectively blinked.

“He must pass the test,” Jurgen objected with surprising venom. “We would not want anyone to think his rank was merely bought.” Inexplicably, the young, literate smith blushed at the older man's words.

“What's the test?”

Dereth answered. “The test, Pater, is to produce an item that shows one is worthy of advancement.”

“And Senior grade is when you can make weapons, right?” Christopher said. Jurgen's face started darkening. “So if you had a made a weapon of superior quality, then that would show your potential.”

Carefully, slowly, Christopher drew the katana from its sheath. “May I present Dereth's senior thesis.”

“He is not licensed to make weapons,” Palek said.

“He is not licensed to sell weapons,” Christopher corrected. “He did not sell it. He gave it to me.” But this story was already well-known to the audience. “Go on, take it,” he urged Palek.

The smith reluctantly accepted it, examined it carefully. He turned to Jurgen, who only shook his head, his face black, but younger smith took the sword and considered it.

“This is not the time or place.” Palek was backpedaling as fast as he could. “We have not done the rituals. We cannot approve this blade without questioning its maker, and that means discussing guild secrets.”

“That's fine, Senior,” Christopher said. “I'm not trying to disrupt your rituals. You can take your time, schedule whatever you need. My point is only that Dereth has both the tael and the skill to be advanced to Senior. And thus, can oversee my mining operations. And make weapons, too, I suppose.” He had to struggle not to gloat over that last bit. Two birds with one stone, and all that. He was planning on making a lot of weapons.

“It's a very good sword,” the literate smith said softly, before handing it back to Christopher. Even more inexplicably, Dereth blushed furiously.

“Well, I'm very happy for all of you Seniors,” said a different man. “But what about us independents? What about the ore?”

“Half-price ore means twice as much product,” Christopher repeated. “You'll all thank me later. And if it doesn't work out, the Saint has the right to revoke my charter. He's not going to let you starve, and neither am I.”

An apprentice raised the important point everyone else was interested in. “Who is going to pay for Dereth's advancement party? And are they going to stint on the ale?”

“I will pay,” Christopher sighed, “and I promise no stinting will be allowed.” Money really was the answer to everything.

“Then three cheers for Dereth!” another man yelled, and the crowd took up the cry. It wasn't until later that Christopher realized the cheerleader had been Tom.

The crowd dispersed, leaving behind a red-faced and confused Dereth.

“I've got something that might help you understand,” Christopher explained, producing a sketch of a primitive Bessemer furnace. “It's not just digging I need you for.”

“So I'm not to spend my days cracking a whip over apprentices mucking in the dirt?” Dereth was not particularly saddened by this twist of fate.

Christopher grinned. “You'll do your share of that, too, at least enough to keep the other smith off our backs. Speaking of which, what was the deal with you and that other guy?”

Dereth blushed, a different color of red.

“I need to know, Dereth. I just pissed off virtually every smith in town. I need to know why they're angry at you, too.”

“I can answer that, Pater,” Tom said. “Dereth has a penchant for speaking unpleasant truths.”

“Understand,” Dereth pleaded, arguing to someone other than Christopher and Tom, to some invisible audience that had never let him speak before, “Jhom is a good man. I like Jhom. Everybody likes Jhom. But he is not a good smith. I voted against his promotion when the smiths were assembled to judge his test. But his father Jurgen is a Senior smith, so others voted to curry favor instead of their conscience. It angered me to see a poor smith elevated when there were other good smiths held back only by lack of tael. And my anger moved my tongue.” He hung his head in shame.

“Jurgen's tongue was no less moved by spite,” Tom said.

“It is true,” Dereth agreed. “He spoke ill of me, and for a year I got only enough work to survive.”

“Jhom is the one who could read, who blushed when the topic of bought ranks came up,” Christopher confirmed.

“Yes, and in the gods' own way, I have been punished for having broached that word, for now you buy my promotion and I will spend the rest of my days defending my skill against that very charge.”

“Should I hire someone else?”

“Oh, no,” the smith said, “I want the advancement. It means wealth and prestige for my family. It means I can do more with metal. It is the achievement of a lifelong dream. The sniping of petty tongues is a small price to pay.”

“Don't you think Jhom felt the same way?” Christopher said as gently as he could.

“Of course. But he is still no decent smith. He is an embarrassment to the craft, a waste of tael. He means well, but his hands are unfeeling and he does not have the art.” Dereth was contrite but still unwilling to retreat from the truth. “He should have followed his mother, not his father.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jhom should have become a priest,” Dereth explained. “He trained for it as a boy, but when he came home from war, he chose his father's work instead.”

“Jhom's mother is a priest? Who is it?” Christopher tried to think of all the appropriately aged female priests he'd met but came up short.

Dereth raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“But how can you not know this? It is the Vicar Rana.”