L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“Twelve…golds?”

Kharl nodded.

“Like a fortune. Egen musta wanted to hurt you bad,” said Jeka. “Don’t know which is worse, lord or tariff farmer.”

“Lord,” suggested Kharl. “Tariff farmers do as they’re told. May be greedy, but that’s what the lords want.”

“Justicers aren’t much better.”

“Not from what I’ve seen,” Kharl agreed. “My father, he said they were better in the old times, when Lord West’s grandsire was lord.”

“Can’t go back. Past doesn’t come again.”

“No.” Kharl swallowed, a lump in his throat at the words, sitting on stone rubble on the ruined northern side of the harbor, realizing again all that he’d lost. “It doesn’t.”

For the next eightday, every morning Kharl woke up listening, wondering whether that day would be the one that the Watch would find him, or whether another set of beggar-brigands would track and attack them. Neither happened-not in the space between the walls nor on their journeys down the shadowed sides of streets, alleys, and serviceways, but he was all too aware that either could-and still might.

After two days, he’d found a length of cast-off timber, and, over the next several, managed to use his belt knife to carve a grip on it, so that it could function as half staff or cudgel, while looking like a walking stick for a creaky old man. Since Kharl felt it was unwise to take the black staff with him, the makeshift stick and weapon offered some reassurance.

On sixday-at least, he thought it was sixday-Kharl woke early, almost shivering in a morning that verged on frosty. Jeka was still asleep behind her canvases. He wondered how long it might be before Hagan returned, but he knew that was eightdays away, maybe a half season at best, even with the so-called short voyage the Austran captain was making. If matters got too bad, perhaps Kharl could find another ship. Too bad? He nearly laughed out loud, but that would have wakened Jeka. He wasn’t certain how things could get much worse, not unless Egen caught him and tortured and hanged him. Had he been wrong just to leave the cooperage? He frowned, thinking. He couldn’t have sold the building and the business for enough golds even to pay the tariffs due. That was clear. But he still wondered.

The canvas shivered, and before long, Jeka appeared.

“You look as if someone was goin’ to hang you.”

Kharl almost burst into laughter at the cheerful tone of her voice expressing such dour thoughts. “Sad to think I don’t dare show my face to buy food.”

“You do, and the Watch’ll be lookin’ for you, quick-like. They keep asking for you.”

“You haven’t-”

“Haven’t told no one. Vaskal-one of ’em sorta nice to me-get a copper from him now ’n then, he told me if I ever ran across you-said the cooper Kharl-be a gold in it for me…”

Kharl shook his head.

“I wouldn’t take no gold. Wouldn’t turn anyone over to Egen.” Jeka’s voice turned dark.

After a moment, Kharl spoke. “I was thinking about the cooperage. Was my da’s and my grandsire’s. Thought I’d be able to pass it on to my boys.”

“Not with pisser Egen after you. They say…” Jeka broke off her words.

“What?”

“…just things. He’s mean, a lot meaner ’n he should be.”

Kharl could agree with that. “I thought I’d go out for a bit.”

“If you want…best be careful…still don’t know the alleys well as you should…”

Kharl stood. “I’ll be careful. Can’t always ask you to do everything.” After taking his makeshift stick and weapon, and gathering the ragged cloak that was far from warm enough around him, he eased his way up the wall. Once he was certain no one was in the serviceway, he clambered over and scuttled out of the serviceway and onto the street.

It was early enough that there were few about, just servants headed down to the fish market, and dockers and laborers. No one looked at the ragged beggar moving uphill toward the crafters’ section of Brysta, and when he began to ask for coppers, most moved well away from him.

As he neared his cooperage, Kharl moved from the main street into the alley that ran behind the Tankard, an alley likely to be empty in the morning. He kept his eyes open, and listened carefully, as he neared the rear of the cooperage. Both the rear door and the loading dock doorway had been carelessly boarded up. He watched for a time, but neither saw nor heard anyone.

He edged past the cooperage to Fifth Cross, where he turned back toward Crafters’ Lane. There he turned and limped slowly past the tinsmith’s, then Derdan’s woolen shop, and finally past the cooperage, as slowly as he could. The display window of the cooperage was covered with boards, and what he could see of the glass was streaked with dirt and a few pigeon droppings.

On the door, also boarded shut, was an oblong of parchment with a blue wax seal and a blue ribbon. Both parchment and ribbon showed signs of water spots and dust. Kharl peered and squinted at the parchment.

…know all by these present that the premises and contents will be presented at public auction on sevenday, the tenth week of fall…all may bid, save any related by blood to the former owner, the cooper Kharl…

Kharl caught sight of someone walking up the far side of the lane and looked away, slowly limping toward the square. From what he’d glimpsed, the rest of the notice had declared that no bid under fifteen golds would be accepted and had then merely spelled out the need for the winning bidder to be prepared to pay in gold at the conclusion of the auction.

The signature had been that of Reynol, Lord Justicer.

That didn’t surprise Kharl in the slightest, nor did the minimum price. Lord West wanted his tariffs, one way or another.

Kharl kept limping past Tyrbel’s scriptorium. The door was closed, but not boarded up. He wondered if Sanyle still lived there, or if she had gone to live with one of her older sisters-or if, horribly, Egen had taken her for his own purposes. The cooper’s lips tightened as he limped downhill toward the upper market square, the one now too good for him, where a beggar would be run off.

Sevenday came and went, as did eightday and oneday. Kharl’s stomach growled most of the time. The end-days had been lean, with fewer places for Jeka or Kharl to cadge or buy food cheaply. Thin clouds promised a brisk and cool day, but one without rain, and one suited for what Kharl needed to do. He opened his pack and took out a tunic.

Jeka looked at Kharl, quizzically, but not speaking.

“I’m going to leave for a few days,” he said. “You want to come?”

“Where?”

“Out to the southeast, a hamlet called Peachill.”

Jeka cocked her head. “No. Better that you go alone.”

“You be all right?”

She laughed. “I was fine ’fore you came…be all right if you go.”

“I’ll be back in a day or so.”

“That’s what-”

“I will,” Kharl said.

“I’ll see you then.” Jeka turned her head away.

“I’m going out to see my boy.” Kharl didn’t know why he had to explain to Jeka, but he did. “I want to know if he’s all right.” He knew that, in some ways, going to Peachill was dangerous. Dangerous or not, he had to know that Warrl was all right.

“Why’d you leave him?”

“I didn’t. I told you. He left me. He was afraid I’d lose everything, and that somehow it was all my fault, and he wrote his aunt, and she came, and he left with her.”

Jeka looked up at him.

Kharl wasn’t sure how to read the darkness in her eyes. “I knew they were right, but how…how could I have just given up the cooperage?”