L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“Well…seeing the way things are…I’ll try twenty at nine each. Be needing them the end of next eightday.”

Kharl waited.

“Five silvers now; four on oneday, and the other nine when I pick up the barrels.”

Kharl thought. Usually, Aryl paid half with the order, but oneday was less than an eightday away, and he did need the orders. “Seeing as it’s you, Aryl, that’d be fine, and your barrels’ll be ready an eightday from sixday.”

“That’d be good.” The grower reached for his belt wallet and laid out four silvers and ten coppers.

“They’ll be ready. Good slack barrels.”

“That’s what I’m payin’ for.”

“And what you’ll get. What you’ve always gotten.”

Aryl nodded, glancing around the cooperage. “Seems a little light on billets.”

“Got a full rack of seasoned oaks out at Vetrad’s. Wanted ’em seasoned well. Coming in before end-days.”

“Glad to hear it.” Aryl did not look particularly glad, but merely speculative as he turned and left the cooperage.

After slipping the coins into his belt wallet, Kharl returned to planing the shooks into staves, although he had to stop and rest a bit more often than was his wont.

Before too long, Warrl reappeared, easing his way back to the barrel whose rims he’d been smoothing.

“What was that you took with you?” Kharl asked. “It looked like a good piece of paper.”

“Ah…I owed Hergan some sheets from when I didn’t have any. I begged the paper from Sanyle. You always said I should repay what I owed.”

“That you should.” Kharl was convinced Warrl wasn’t telling the whole truth, and he wasn’t so sure begging from Sanyle to pay back Hergan was the best, either. But he didn’t want to press it, not when his younger son had been so good about helping and doing his chores, and not so soon after his mother’s death.

Before Kharl could say more, Warrl looked at his father, and asked, “Did Aryl order any, Da?”

“We’ll be doing twenty for him.” Kharl didn’t mention that he’d be making ten percent less than normal on the barrels, and he hoped that the cut in price wouldn’t prove too costly, when others found out. But he hadn’t been getting that many orders, even before the killing.

“You worried, Da?”

“That I am. Orders are slower than I’d like. Mayhap it’s the times. Gharan says that he’s not doing so well, either, and even Hamyl’s been fretting.”

“Ma…she wasn’t getting so much, either…Fyona said she wouldn’t have had…” Warrl looked down.

“Could be that times are getting harder for everyone,” Kharl said quickly. But he had to wonder as he turned back to the planer.

That evening, after Sanyle had left and Warrl had climbed into his bed in the corner of the main room, Kharl sat at the table, with a pen in hand, looking at the paper before him. Only two words were on the paper-“Dear Merayni.”

What could he write? That Charee had been hanged for a murder she didn’t commit? That he’d been unable to do anything about it? That because he’d prevented Egen from raping Sanyle and taken pity on a beaten blackstaffer, the lord’s son had tried to destroy Kharl, and failing that, had taken his vengeance out on Charee? Merayni would blame Kharl no matter what had happened.

Finally, he folded the paper and tucked it away. He stood and glanced to the corner, but Warrl seemed to be sleeping. With a faint smile, Kharl took the lamp and The Basis of Order into his bedchamber. There he stretched out on his stomach-on the left side of the bed, where he had always slept.

He turned his head, and for a moment, with the faintest scent of rose, he thought he could almost feel Charee. And then the sense of her presence was gone. He still had trouble, especially at night, when he lay in the bed alone, accepting that she was gone. And for what? No matter what the justicer had said, Charee had not killed anyone.

He blinked several times, then blotted his eyes.

Finally, he opened the book and forced himself to look at the words on the page. He had to think of something else. He had to. For a moment, he could not make out the print. He blotted his eyes once more, then concentrated on the book.

All physical items-unlike fire or pure chaos-must have some structure, or they would not exist…

Because all wrought iron has a grain created from the forging of its crystals, the strength of the iron lies in the alignment and length of the grain. Using order to reinforce that grain is the basis of black iron…Its strength lies in the ordering of unbruised or unstrained grains along the length of the metal…

The cooper nodded. Those words made sense. Even with his limited work in forging the hoops from iron blanks, he could see where what the book said would make sense-except for one thing. How could a mage actually infuse iron with order? What he had read so far gave no hint of how such might be done. Yet he had seen the bands on Jenevra’s staff and the warship from Recluce in the harbor. Even from a pier away, there was no doubt that it had been constructed of black iron, and that it was a deadly vessel.

Yet he had never seen more than one warship of Recluce at a time, and those most seldom. Why did Lord West fear the demon isle? Or did he? Had he used the isle as an excuse? Kharl frowned. Lord West had used the law-or his youngest son had-to increase his power over Kharl and those in Brysta and the western quadrant of Nordla. He had no need to mention Recluce.

Kharl’s eyes dropped to the book once more. What was it about Recluce? Would the book tell him more? He flipped back several pages, more toward the beginning of the first part, and reread a section that had bothered him.

The purpose of order is to support that life which can order chaos; and without chaos to be ordered, there can be no purpose to life.

The function of chaos is to destroy order. Without order, no structure can exist-no man nor woman, no plant, not even an earth upon which to walk…

He frowned. Was Egen the kind of man who was like chaos, destroying order even as he talked of maintaining it? What did maintain order in Brysta? Justicers? The armsmen under Lord West?

Those questions and thoughts were more than Kharl wanted to contemplate, and he closed the book, setting it aside as he prepared for bed. He still had more barrels to finish in the days ahead, and he needed the sleep. He just hoped he could.

On fourday, dark gray clouds, wind, and heavy showers buffeted Brysta, and no one came to the cooperage. Fiveday dawned cloudy, but without rain. No one came into the shop through the morning. Finally, in midafternoon, with the sun promising to burn away the clouds, Wassyt lumbered into the cooperage. The miller was a good half head taller than Kharl, one of few men in Brysta who clearly overtopped the cooper. Wassyt was also considerably broader, his girth cinched in by a tight leather vest. Although he was a good ten years older than Kharl, his hair remained the same light brown that it had been since when Kharl had met him as a youth, and it still fell across the left side of his forehead.

“Good afternoon,” Kharl offered.

“Same to you, Kharl.” Wassyt glanced toward Warrl, who was rough-hollowing some white oak staves.

“Warrl, you can take some time outside,” Kharl suggested.

Warrl nodded, set down the hollowing knife, and left, quietly.

Wassyt stopped short of the fire pot, where Kharl had been checking the coals before toasting one of the white oak barrels for Korlan, and began to speak. “You know I’d never put anyone else’s barrels against yours.”

“I’d like to believe that they’re that good.” Kharl managed to keep his expression pleasant, although he knew what would follow would not be something he wanted to hear.