Ordermaster

XLI

By the end of another two eightdays, Kharl had the cooperage working the way he wanted, in most fashions, although he needed a better hollowing knife, and he was short on charcoal for the toasting and the forge. He’d ordered coal, because he didn’t want to turn his few hardwood trees into charcoal, but coal came by ship from Colton, a good hundred kays north of Valmurl, and he had no idea when it might arrive.

He had already turned out a score of white oak barrels, as well as several of red oak and spruce. The red oak and spruce were for slack cooperage around Cantyl.

Glyan, the estate vintner, was looking over the white oak barrels, turning them so that the morning light from the open door illuminated the insides of the staves. “Good barrel, ser. I’d not be saying that because you made it, either.”

Kharl could tell that Glyan mean it. The barrels were good, not his very best, but that would come, once he got back into better form.

The gray-bearded Glyan looked up from the barrel he had been examining, his deep brown eyes fixing on Kharl. “Ser … we’d make more golds by selling your barrels and buying from Dezant, even counting the shipping costs.”

Kharl shook his head. “We wouldn’t. People won’t pay for the best barrels. They say they will, but they don’t. They buy barrels that are just good enough.”

“I forget. You’ve been the cooper.” Glyan scratched his head. “I’ve been thinking, ser. I’d like to try a few barrels that are toasted different-like, a touch darker for the Rhynn, and lighter for the red.”

“You think it will make a difference?”

The vintner nodded. “Don’t know as what the difference will be. Know that the vintners in the Cetarn Hills like their barrels that way. Might not work here. Grapes, soil, sun, they’re all different, even on different sides of the same hill. That’s why I want to see.”

“We can do that. I can toast some scrap oak first, and you can tell mewhat darkness you want.” Kharl paused. “Maybe I should make them half barrels or kegs, if you’re going to try something new.”

Glyan furrowed his brow. “Half barrels’d be better. Keg might be too small.”

Kharl could see that. “How many?”

“Just four, I think.” Glyan offered a slow smile. “Doesn’t beat all. Finally get a real say on the barrels, and that’s cause the lord’s making’em.” He laughed.

So did Kharl.

Once Glyan had left, humming under his breath, Kharl began laying out the billets for some smaller kegs. He’d planned to do one for Speltar anyway, who asked if it were possible because his consort had a weak arm and had trouble with a full-sized flour barrel. Then Dorwan had mentioned that three of the smaller kegs would be useful. That was as close as the forester would ever come to asking. So Kharl would be making kegs for the next day or so, not that he minded.

He’d already discovered that he couldn’t spend all his time in the cooperage-not if he wanted to learn about Cantyl. He’d spent two full days walking the southern boundaries of the estate with Dorwan and half a day for an eightday trailing Glyan, watching and listening as the vintner explained everything from the stone troughs that fed just the right amount of water to the grapes in times of no rainfall to the need for Rona to inspect the leaves of every plant and use a fine brush to sweep away the webs of the brown spider-just the brown spider.

Kharl doubted that he would ever learn all that was necessary, but the more he learned the better.

After checking the oak billets, both with his eyes and order-senses, he moved to the planer and began to rough shape the staves.