L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“…few morns woke up thinking I shoulda had more in my wallet…now I know…”

“…smart…only took a few…”

“Not smart enough.”

Kharl finished and left the mess.

Immediately after muster, and before reporting to the carpenter shop, Kharl made his way to the bow, on the port side, the side where he could look out northward over the Great North Bay. He leaned on the railing, thinking. He’d been lucky that most of the crew had already suspected Asolf, but he’d come close to giving himself away. He frowned. What exactly was he afraid of? That somehow he was able to sense chaos and when people told lies? Or that people would think he was a mage, when he scarcely knew anything about it?

He’d always had a feel for wood, and often Vetrad had complained when Kharl had refused certain lengths of wood, but the ones he’d refused hadn’t felt right, and he’d seldom ever found himself with bad billets in the cooperage. Idly, thinking about the wood, he looked down at the solid oak hull, angling toward the gray water of the bay.

He frowned. About ten cubits aft of where he stood, just above the waterline, on the port side, he could sense an overtone of white.

“What are you looking at?”

Kharl straightened at Hagen’s question. “Ser, I mean, captain. I think there’s something wrong with the hull, the wood, that is, down there, right at the waterline.”

“Well…you think so, and you go down on a bosun’s chair and look real close.” Hagen gestured.

Furwyl appeared.

“Bosun’s chair,” Hagen said. “Kharl’s worried about the hull down there. Like to have him take a look. Can’t leave until tomorrow anyway.”

“Those are new planks and timbers…”

“Can’t hurt to have him look.”

Kharl almost wished he’d said nothing, but he remained silent until Hodal appeared with the rope-slung chair. The two of them attached the ropes and pulleys, then swung the chair over the railing. There Kharl climbed into the chair and was lowered.

The chair stopped two or three cubits too high.

“A little lower,” Kharl called.

The chair lurched down.

“That’s good.”

Up close, Kharl could feel that the damage was worse than he’d thought, although the hull looked normal. An entire patch of hull going at least three cubits below the waterline was rotten-or something like it. He touched the wood and could feel some give.

“Well?” Furwyl called down.

“You got a whole section of hull here. I could drive a maul through it.”

Furwyl laughed. “That section’s only a year old. Come on up.”

“It’s rotten.”

“Can’t be. It’s new oak.”

Kharl took the hammer from his belt. “Watch.”

“Be glad to.”

The carpenter who’d been a cooper took one swing, and buried the hammer in the wood just above the waterline. Splinters and chunks of rotten wood flew. Kharl pulled away a fist-sized chunk, holding it in his left hand. “Pull me up. You can see for yourself.”

Furwyl’s mouth hung open.

Then the first mate and Hodal pulled up the chair, and Kharl scrambled out, handing the chunk of oak to Furwyl.

Furwyl looked at the wood, taking in the strawlike parallel tubes in the fragment. “Shipworms…frigging shipworms. That Jeran swine…paid for coppered wood…” He looked up. “Captain!”

Hagen reappeared.

“Carpenter’s right. Shipworms. Bet all those timbers we replaced in Biehl are no good.”

Hagen’s jaw tightened.

“I’m sorry, ser,” Kharl said. “I don’t claim to know ships…but I know something about wood…”

“Not your fault, man.” Hagen shook his head. “We hit a bad blow…might lose the ship.”

“Leave the chair there,” Furwyl said.

Kharl stepped aside, sliding down the railing as the two officers talked in low voices.

“…not the best place to refit and retimber…”

“…put that hammer through that like rotten cheese…”

“…any kind of storm…go down by the head…quicker ’n a lead barrel…”

Kharl looked out across the harbor, not really seeing anything. What had happened to him? He’d known wood, and once he’d touched the hull, he’d known it was weak, but he’d never before been able to see or sense something like that from ten cubits away before.

The single dry dock at Lydiar was old, and the steam engine that powered the pump groaned and wheezed as the water gushed in surges over the stone walls of the dock and out into the harbor until the Seastag rested on the wide keel blocks. The crew had already moved the cargo in the forward hold, and much of it was under tarpaulins on the aft section of the main deck.

Kharl-still sweating from that effort-stood on the stone rim of the only dry dock in Lydiar, with Tarkyn beside him, looking down at the exposed hull.

“Hamorian merchants soak their planks in copper solution,” Tarkyn said. “Then they sheathe the hull in thin copper plates. Costs more to begin with, but they claim that it’s cheaper over the life of the vessel. ’Course their warships are iron-hulled steamers. Don’t worry about worms with those, but cost of coal will kill a trader…”

“Lot of things are like that,” replied Kharl. “Most folks want things cheap as they can get them. Cooperage was like that. Good tight white oak cooperage costs two coppers more a barrel, four if it’s something as big as a hogshead, but a good barrel’ll outlast a poor one by half again as long.” He shrugged. “For some folks…makes no difference, but for most…after five years they’ll spend silvers, sometimes even golds, more for what they thought they’d saved…” He cleared his throat. “Is there any way the captain can get recompense from the Jeran?”

“Not so as I’d know.” Tarkyn laughed. “Revenge, though. That he can get. Just tell every master he meets. In a few years, none’d be dealing with the Jeran. Folks forget that there’s a balance to life. Things come back. Not so as the black ones in Recluce say, always prating on about the Balance, but in life. Do a man good, and most will return good. Do a man ill, and few will forget.”

“Too bad that doesn’t apply to rulers,” mused Kharl.

“It does, cooper. We just don’t see it. The white wizards of Fairven…they got too mighty and proud. Where are they now? Whole city’s a ruin. Nothing’ll ever live there again. The Prefect of Gallos-he’s got more problems than a lathe has shavings. Most ’cause he treats all but a few like serfs.” Tarkyn gestured back toward Lydiar. “Lydiar goes through rulers like…” Tarkyn stopped to grope for a comparison, then looked at Kharl.

“I suppose so. It just hasn’t happened where I’ve seen it.”

“It happens. Trust me.” Tarkyn cleared his throat again. “Friggin’ frog. Get older, and you spend more time clearing your throat than talkin’. Then, could be, gettin’ paid back for talkin’ too much when you’re young. Anyway…you see the captain? He does right well. Know why? ’Cause he treats his crews right. Makes sure his captains on the other ships do, too. Word gets around.”

Kharl recalled the third mate talking about staying as a third rather than becoming a second on another ship. “I had that feeling, even when I was a cooper.”

“’Course, sometimes a fellow’s got to help matters along. Got to stand up and do the right thing, not wait for others to do it. Captain’s like that. When he found out that fellow been lifting coppers, he booted him off just like that, and he took his crew share, divided it among the hands who lost coins.” Tarkyn laughed. “Some probably said they lost a copper or two more ’n they did, and some probably lost some they didn’t recall, but a lot of skippers, they’d just pocket that share. Not the captain.”