Wellspring of Chaos

XVII

By the beginning of the next eightday, Kharl was almost back to feeling normal, except that too much bending still sent shivers of pain through his back. He was only slightly slower than usual, but he’d seen few of his normal customers. Some, like Korlan, he didn’t expect to see for several more eightdays, although he’d begun work on the vintner’s white oak barrels, after finishing the five for Senstad.

About midmorning on threeday, as Kharl was planing white oak shooks into staves for Korlan’s barrels, Aryl eased through the door of the cooperage.

Kharl glanced at Warrl, who had been working with the chiv to smooth the rims of a red oak slack barrel. “You can take a break, if you’d like.”

“Thank you, Da. Might I go outside?”

“If you don’t go too far.”

With a nod and a smile, Warrl turned, sliding something thin and white and oblong into his tunic, like a folded sheet of paper, better than the kind Warrl had used for his lessons. Kharl wondered what it was, but didn’t want to ask when Aryl was headed toward him.

The boy slipped to the side away from Aryl, waiting until Aryl was farther inside the cooperage before easing behind the brown-bearded and stocky man, then out the door.

“How you doing, Kharl?” asked the square-faced apple grower.

“Been better…been worse. You ready to order some barrels?” Kharl set the stave he had just finished aside and took his foot off the drive pedal of the planer.

“Depends…you wouldn’t talk much when I was offering seven coppers apiece.”

“Still wouldn’t,” Kharl said. “Not much sense in selling something for less than the iron and oak cost. Told you that the price was ten coppers each.”

“I don’t know, Kharl…A silver a barrel…that’s a lot…Mallamet offers slack barrels for eight coppers.”

“You get what you pay for, Aryl,” Kharl replied.

“Doesn’t matter that much for slack barrels when you’re shippin’ apples, and two coppers a barrel adds up when you need twenty. That’s four silvers.”

“What about the ones you used for the apples you dry and put on Nenalt’s ships?” asked the cooper.

Aryl fingered his beard. “You’d have the right of it there. But I’d be needing just ten of those.”

“What about twenty for nine coppers each?” suggested Kharl.

“Hmmm…eighteen silvers, that’d be.”

“You’d be getting more than two silvers’ worth in the better barrels.” Kharl didn’t like cutting his prices. That led to ruin, but he’d also checked the strongbox, and he needed more coin, or at least the promise of it, in order to claim the seasoned shook billets from Vetrad.

“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.