Wellspring of Chaos

LXVII

The morning after the Seastag ported in Valmurl, and after muster, Kharl placed his few belongings into his pack, now mostly full, and, staff in hand, headed up to the main deck to see Hagen. There he waited in the chill air until after the regular deckhands and riggers had been paid. Then he stepped forward to the small table behind which the captain sat.

“You still intent on leaving us, carpenter?” Hagen’s voice was cheerful, but Kharl could catch a sense of worry behind it.

“I don’t know about intent, ser. It’s just that…well…I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t try to be what I’ve spent my life learning and doing.”

Hagen nodded. “When you put it that way, it’s hard not to see it so.” The captain paused and looked down at the ledger before him, turning the pages until he was close to the end. “Your crew share, right now, is fifteen silvers, and I owe you five silvers and three for your wages.”

Two golds? Kharl certainly hadn’t expected that. He’d come aboard hoping to get off with what he’d had in his leather pouch. “Yes, ser. That’s more than fair.”

Hagen shook his head. “It’s fair. No more, no less.”

Kharl sensed the other’s honest feelings and nodded.

“You don’t have to go,” Hagen said. “I’d have you as carpenter second, and carpenter first when Tarkyn decides he’s had enough of the sea.”

“I only asked for passage to Austra, ser.”

“I know, but I’d still have you.” Hagen paused. “Where are you headed?”

“I’d thought Vizyn, but anywhere that I could be a cooper.”

“Coopers…there are more than enough here in Valmurl. You ought to stay on as a ship’s carpenter.” Hagen laughed. “Then, I’d be the last one to tell any man what he should be doing. That I would be.” He fingered his chin. “Three good coopers here in Valmurl. None as good as you, in truth. Oldest one is Dezant. He’s off the Traders’ Square. Then there’s Kundark, and he does mostly slack cooperage, and his place is on the south side of the city, by the Guard Barracks there. You might try Chalart. He’s on the north side, back of the refit yards. He supplies barrels for merchanters, mostly. You can tell any of them that I sent you. It might help, won’t hurt.

“You don’t like Valmurl…go and see Vizyn, but you’d better take a coaster. It’s a good nine hundred kays. Of the ones in port now, take the Norther or the Southshield…tell ’em I sent you. You don’t like it, then turn around and come back. Offer’s open until we leave Valmurl.”

“Thank you. How long will you be here? For refitting?” Kharl added quickly.

“Half a season, I’d guess. Takes longer to refit in winter, but there’s little enough trading to be done, and I’d like to have the engineers go over the engine after that problem off Worrak.”

“Is there anything special I should know about Valmurl?” Kharl asked. “Things that’d be obvious to you, but not to me? If you don’t mind, ser.”

“Valmurl is much like Brysta, save that it is the capital of all Austra, and there is but one lord. Lord Estloch has a good heart, and, unlike many rulers, he would be as fair as possible and still hold order within the streets. Still…dark streets are dangerous…especially harborside, and there are few patrollers past midnight. The wealthy are as they are in any city.”

If those words were not a warning, Kharl wasn’t a cooper. “Thank you.”

“You change your mind, and there’ll be a place for you, if not here, then on one of the other ships.”

“I appreciate that, ser, and I’ll just have to see.”

“That you will. Good fortune.”

After hoisting his pack onto his shoulders and securing his silvers and coppers in his concealed leather pouch, Kharl walked down the gangway of the Seastag, perhaps for the last time, and past the wagons already lined up to receive the cargo being off-loaded. While the pier was not so crowded as those at Swartheld, more than a score of loaders and others swirled around the area opposite the Seastag. Among them, he saw no patrollers, although more than a few men carried blades of various styles and lengths.

As Kharl reached the foot of the pier, he saw a wagon, with a platform. On the platform stood a blond girl, one certainly younger than Sanyle or Jeka. Despite the chill of the morning, the girl wore but the filmiest shift, and in the morning light, it was most clear that she wore absolutely nothing beneath, except for the bronze cuff on her left ankle, a cuff attached to a bronze chain. The chain was bolted to a bronze circlet affixed to the side of the wagon. The girl’s face was pale, and her green eyes carried sadness.

Four huge men with cudgels stood there-one at each corner of the wagon.

A man in a rich deep blue jacket stood on the stones of the street, his voice pitched to carry. “Beauties for indenture…young, beautiful girls…” His eyes took in Kharl’s staff, and there was the slightest hesitation before he continued. “Girls for every taste and pleasure…”

Kharl glanced down the pier toward the Hamorian merchanter tied up beyond the Seastag. A blonde beauty-and the girl was attractive-would be welcome in Swartheld. The girl’s eyes did not meet Kharl’s or any other’s.

“Blonde…redhead…any kind of beauty you’d like…”

Kharl turned abruptly, his lips tight together as he walked away from the slaver. Indenture or not, the process was slavery. He’d hoped for better in Valmurl. His eyes moved from side to side, taking in the handful of people out so early. Most seemed well-dressed, and he saw no one in rags or begging.

He thought over Hagen’s words. “Lord Estloch has a good heart…would be as fair as possible.” He understood the message beneath. Lord Estloch was either weak or having troubles in holding on to his land. Or perhaps those beneath him had too much power. Whatever Hagen had meant exactly, it was clear enough that matters were not as Hagen would have had them, and that troubled Kharl, for he knew Hagen to be a fair and more than decent captain and man.

Should he seek passage to Vizyn, and seek out Taleas, the scrivener whom Tyrbel had written? Or first check with the coopers that Hagen had mentioned? After a moment, he decided to visit the coopers in Valmurl. Why travel to a destination where the prospects were unknown until he exhausted the possibilities nearer at hand?

As he walked along the cobblestoned streets, avoiding the too-frequent potholes holding ice and mud, and the gutters that needed cleaning, he studied the shops and the narrow-faced brick dwellings squeezed tightly together. For the number of dwellings, he saw few enough men and women on the streets, although he still saw no beggars or peddlers or tinkers.

Trader’s Square was six long blocks west of the harbor, but it was still early when Kharl reached the square. Despite the winter chill, the air was still, and he had unfastened his jacket to keep from getting too warm. He stood at the edge of the square for several moments. The square was a good twenty rods in length and ten in width, with the center simply an open, paved space. A handful of carts had been pulled into place in the center of the square, but some of the shops and factor’s buildings were yet shuttered. The cooperage was on the far south side of the square, not exactly on it, but on the corner street leading into the square. The building was perhaps another ten cubits wider than Kharl’s had been, and featured double doors in front, with a front loading dock to one side. That suggested that there was not a usable alley behind the cooperage.

Kharl shrugged and stepped through the open doors and into a workroom nearly as deep as his own had been. He noted more shavings and sawdust than he would have preferred, but the cooperage was still relatively neat and clean, and the brick walls had been swept and cleaned recently. As he glanced around the shop, Kharl could see four figures working. One was slighter and smaller, probably an apprentice.

A young man, perhaps four or five years older than Arthal, stepped from the workbench at one side to meet Kharl. “Ser?” His eyes flicked across the staff and came back to Kharl.

“I’m looking for Dezant,” Kharl said.

“Yes, ser. He’s at the miller’s right now. Is there anything that I could help you with? Are you interested in tight or slack cooperage?”

“Are you his son? You seem to understand…”

The young man smiled. “I’m Elont. There are three of us working with Father.”

“He’s fortunate, indeed. There must be quite a demand to keep you all so busy.”

“Valmurl does require many barrels,” replied the young man cautiously.

“But not quite so many as you would like?” suggested Kharl.

“It’s always better to sell more than less. What kind of cooperage would interest you, ser?”

“I’m afraid my interest is a shared crafting. I’ve been a ship’s carpenter, and my father was a cooper. I wanted to see your shop.” All of that was true, if not telling the entire story.

Elont smiled politely, disappointed. “It’s the best in Valmurl.”

“So I had heard, and I’m glad to see it.”

“You’d be better off, ser, to remain as a ship’s carpenter these days, than to open a cooperage here.”

“I had no thought of opening a cooperage,” Kharl demurred. “Certainly not now, but one must think of the future as well.”

“You’re certain we couldn’t sell your vessel some cooperage?”

“The captain is well aware of your work, and he would be the one to order it,” Kharl replied politely. “I appreciate your kindness.” He inclined his head.

“Thank you, ser.”

Kharl eased out the door, grateful at least for the momentary warmth in the shop. Outside, he looked around, trying to gain his bearings. According to Hagen, Kundark was on the south side of the city, by the Guard Barracks. Kharl readjusted his pack and turned southward, his breath still steaming in the chill air.

Ahead, he glimpsed two children in rags, the first ones he had seen so shabbily dressed. One-a girl-went to her knees before a man in a solid gray cloak of warmth and style. Kharl could not hear the words, but her pleading position was all too clear.

The man glanced around, twice, stiffened, then shook his head, walking away.

A shrill whistle sounded. The boy vanished into an alley or serviceway, and the girl scrambled to her feet, but too late and too slowly to avoid the patroller who grasped her roughly by the shoulder. As Kharl moved closer, he strained to hear the patroller’s words.

“…begging, you were…”

“…wasn’t beggin’…wasn’t…”

“…off to the indenturer’s…Begging’s against the Lord’s Law. You know that.”

“…no…not that…”

“…pretty little thing like you…fetch a good price in Hamor…won’t be cold there, either…”

Kharl winced at the thought of the beggar girl ending up like the girl on the dock, but he did not try to interfere, much as he would have liked to, and he only watched as the patroller dragged the child down a side street. His guts churned, much as he imagined Charee both telling him he’d done what was wise and asking him why he hadn’t done so earlier.

He kept walking, but it was a while before he felt any calmer. A good half glass later, he stood across the street from the stone walls surrounding the Guard Barracks. He had completed a circuit of the streets facing onto the Barracks, but had not seen anything resembling a cooperage to the Barracks. Two uniformed figures stood as sentries outside the gate. One was scarcely more than a boy, and the other looked to be at least as old as Kharl.

The younger sentry looked at Kharl.

Kharl looked back and, after a moment, the youthful guard dropped his eyes. Kharl turned and started down the narrow lanelike street that angled northwest from the corner of the barracks. Fifty cubits or so down the lane, in front of a seamstress’s shop, a white-haired woman in a patched coat swept dust and old snow away from the doorway of the shop.

“I’m looking for-” Kharl began.

“Speak up. You looking for something, fellow?”

“A cooper named Kundark. I’d heard his cooperage was here.”

“It was. Over there.” The woman pointed to the burned-out shell of a building a hundred cubits farther along the narrow lane.

From what Kharl could see, the cooperage had been about half the size of Dezant’s shop, and the blaze had not been all that recent. “What happened?”

The woman shrugged. “No one knows. No one’s seen Kundark. Consort and son died in the fire. Terrible blaze it was.”

“How did it start?”

“No one knows.” The woman looked away from Kharl and resumed sweeping, muttering to herself, “Stupid question…outland blackstaffer.”

After a long look at her, and a longer one at the burned ruins, Kharl turned and retraced his steps back northward in the general direction of where he had understood the refit yard to be.

Valmurl stretched much farther to the north than Kharl had thought, and it was close to noon before Kharl reached the workshops on the ancient street opposite the refit yard and the three dry docks-all empty. The three largest structures facing the harbor and yards were shuttered and locked, large barnlike buildings whose exterior planks and timbers had weathered into faded gray. Grimy powdered snow lay drifted into the corners where the plank walls met the frozen ground or the worn and cracked cobblestones of the street.

Kharl’s face and hands were numb from the chill, even though he had periodically thrust his hands up under his jacket.

Between the two shuttered and larger structures on the northern end of the block was a smaller building, one with unshuttered windows and a half barrel displayed on a bracket to the right of the front loading doors. Kharl made his way to the cooperage and, with a shrug, opened the door and stepped inside.

A single gray-haired man straightened from where he stood over a machine that looked to Kharl as though it were a combination planer and router of some sort.

Kharl stepped forward. “You’re Chalart?”

“That’s me.” The cooper’s eyes raked across Kharl. “You another cooper looking for a place?” Before Kharl could reply, the wiry man went on. “Not enough orders for me and my boy, and certainly not enough for another mouth.”

“How did you know?” asked Kharl.

Chalart snorted. “You got that look and a pack on your back. Buyers don’t wear packs. Seen more…” He shook his head. “Wager you’re a good cooper, too.”

“One of the best,” Kharl said.

“Then…why are you here?”

“I’m from Nordla. The lord’s son didn’t care that I stopped his pleasures with my neighbor’s daughter.”

“Think things be different here?”

“I’d hope no one would want to kill me,” Kharl replied ruefully.

“You might get that.” Chalart studied Kharl. “What have you been doing?”

“Ship’s carpenter.”

“Keep doing it. I know a half score of coopers that’d jump for your position.”

“How did things get so bad?” Kharl asked.

“Ask the Emperor of Hamor…or Lord Estloch. I’m just a cooper, trying to hang on till things get better. They might, someday. Never know.” Chalart looked down at the wood in the planer.

Kharl took the hint. “Thank you. The best of fortune to you.”

“And to you.”

Once outside, where the wind had shifted and now blew, colder and icier, out of the northeast, Kharl studied the refit area, seemingly almost abandoned, from the empty dry docks to the cold gray harbor waters with an increasing chop-and not a single vessel tied to the one pier adjoining the dry docks. After several moments, Kharl turned back toward the harbor. Should he spend good silvers to get passage to Vizyn to find Taleas and see if the scrivener could help him? If he didn’t go, how would he know if there might be a place for a cooper? Nine hundred kays might make a difference. And it might not.

The walk back south and east was long, but Kharl found the coaster pier by midafternoon. Standing at the foot of the pier, he studied both the Norther and the Southshield, then decided on the Southshield, a smaller version of the Seastag-twin-masted with midships paddle wheels.

He walked down the dock to the ship, and up the gangway to the sailor on watch, who could have been Tarkyn’s younger brother, gray-haired rather than white-haired, but square-faced and grizzled. The sailor watched, but did not speak as Kharl neared.

“I was looking for passage to Vizyn,” Kharl said.

“Let me get the second.” The watchstander rang the bell twice, but said nothing more.

Kharl did not wait long for the second mate, a narrow-faced woman within a few years of his own age, with gray eyes and short hair.

“We’re not hiring,” she told him bluntly.

“I was looking for passage to Vizyn.”

“You a blackstaffer?”

“No. I grew up in Brysta. I’ve been the carpenter second on the Seastag.”

“Don’t take deadheads.”

“I’ll pay passage, if it’s not too much. Captain Hagen said to tell you that he sent me.”

“Why’d he say that?”

“The Seastag’s going into refit. I’ve been his second carpenter, but I’d heard there might be a need for my skills in Vizyn…”

The second laughed. “Four silvers. Three more for return passage if you decide to come back on the same trip.”

“Is Vizyn that bad?”

“It’s cold. Snow everywhere. Everyone knows everyone else. Don’t care for outsiders.”

Kharl thought. He wasn’t going to be a cooper in Valmurl, not when no one would take him on and when he didn’t have the golds to set up his own shop. The same might be true in Vizyn, but would he always look back and wonder if he didn’t go there and see? “When do you leave?”

“In about a glass.”

“What sort of quarters? Food?”

“Four gets you a bunk in a space for two, and meals with the crew. We just run two meals a day at sea. You’re the only passenger this run, so you get more space. If you need more gear, be back here in a glass. You can pay then.”

Kharl smiled wryly. “Got all the gear I’ll need. You the one who gets the silvers?”

“Me or the captain.”

Kharl eased the silvers out of his wallet and tendered them.

“Welcome aboard. Name’s Herana.”

“Kharl,” he replied.

“I’ll show you your spaces and then have you meet the captain.” She turned.

Kharl followed, noting that the deck was clean and that what he saw of the vessel looked shipshape. Then, Hagen had recommended the Southshield.