Wellspring of Chaos

VII

In the early afternoon, somewhat to Kharl’s surprise, a lanky man ambled into the cooperage, an unpleasant odor clinging to him, for all of his neat and clean appearance, although his leather trousers bore stains that had clearly resisted all efforts at fullering. His heavy boots thudded on the floor.

Kharl set down the drawing knife and went to meet him.

“You Kharl?”

“That I am. How might I help you?”

“I’m looking for slack cooperage that’s close to tight. Heard you were the best at that.” The man gestured at the range of barrels on display. “Those look to be tight.”

“They are, but I’ve just finished a few slack barrels out of red oak. They’re here in the back.”

“Be pleased to see them.”

The two men walked to the back of the cooperage, past Arthal, who was slowly, as always, hollowing a red oak stave, and Jenevra, who was almost invisible against the wall and had drifted back into sleep.

“Good slack work…you see?” Kharl gestured to the red oak barrel, open-topped, but otherwise completed.

“Might I handle it?”

Kharl nodded.

The other man inspected the barrel carefully, paying particular attention to the joints and the iron hoops. Finally, he straightened. “How much?”

“A silver a barrel.”

“Mallamet sells them for eight coppers.”

“He does. They’re not as tight.”

“For ten, nine silvers,” offered the man.

“Nine and five coppers,” countered Kharl.

“Nine and four,” offered the other.

“Done.”

“You have three here, I see. When could you have the other seven?”

“I have eight ready now. The others are on the other side.”

“Better yet. Five now, and five in two eightdays? I’ll pay you six silvers and four now, and the rest when I pick up the others.”

“That would be good.” Kharl paused. “I must apologize, ser, but since we have not done business before…”

The man laughed. “We have not. I had thought you might have guessed. I’m Werwal.”

“The renderer? I have heard of you.”

“And I you. That is why I am here.” Werwal counted out the coins. “My wagon will be here shortly for the five barrels.”

“They’ll be ready.”

With a smile, Werwal bowed slightly and left.

Kharl was smiling as well. The copper he’d given Jekat had been well spent, even if that had not been his intention. He’d have to remember to slip another to the cheerful urchin. Jekat had probably given him more business than his own sons.

The cooper shook his head, sadly, and headed back toward the staves he’d been fine-drawing.

Arthal coughed. “Da…he smelled.”

“That’s not surprising. He’s a renderer.”

“Shouldn’t let him in…”

“He bought ten barrels, Arthal. He can’t help the smell. That’s what he does. Someone has to do it.”

“Stinks…”

Arthal’s mutter was so low that Kharl decided to ignore it as he went back to work. If he corrected Arthal on every word his son said, these days, he reflected, he’d do little enough coopering and Arthal would get even more angry than he always seemed to be.

By late afternoon, Werwal’s man Sikal had arrived with a small-and smelly-wagon and collected the barrels, and Arthal had gone with Charee to the market square. Kharl was getting the forge ready to set some hoops when the door to the cooperage opened.

He did not know the man who stepped into the shop, but the cooper stopped pumping the bellows in the small forge and stepped forward past the planer. He skirted Jenevra, who looked up silently, and moved to the sharp-featured figure in the rich brown tunic.

“Might I help you, ser?” asked Kharl, trying to determine what sort of merchant the man might be.

“You might be Kharl, the cooper?” The man’s muddy brown eyes flicked up to the racks of billets, then toward the stairs in the rear, before settling on Kharl.

“That I am. And you might be?”

“Let us just say that I have an interest in barrels. Special barrels.” A faint smile appeared on the slender but muscular man’s lips.

Kharl smelled scent on the man, more than even a wealthy man should use. Lavender, he thought. “Large or small, slack or tight?”

“I was thinking of large slack barrels, for winter transport of seasonal game, and I understand such barrels could hold ice above the game, that would keep the game cold.”

“That’s possible, but only for an eightday in harvest. In winter, the ice would keep for a season, or longer.”

“I would be interested in a…large barrel.” The man gestured toward the hogshead in the window. “Could you make one a third smaller than the largest there?”

“That is possible.”

“Good.” The man in brown flashed a smile, then slipped around Kharl and studied the shop, moving toward the tool rack. His eyes took in the tools, implement by implement, then the forge and the open hearth that held the fire pot. His eyes passed over the blackstaffer on the pallet against the wall and returned to Kharl. “You have a well-laid-out cooperage.”

“Thank you. When would you like the hogshead?”

“I will have to think about that. When I return, we’ll talk about the details. I needed to know whether it was possible.” He bowed, then turned.

Kharl watched as the other left. He shook his head. For all his words, the man hadn’t felt like someone who bought barrels. The lavender scent suggested a bravo of some sort, but Kharl hadn’t the faintest idea why a bravo would find a cooperage of interest. It wasn’t as though Kharl had large stocks of coins stashed away.

“That man,” said Jenevra, “he was evil.”

“Is that something blackstaffers can tell?” Kharl asked.

“Not always,” she replied. “I wouldn’t be here if we could. But that one, he carries the white of chaos around him like a cloak.”

“He’s a white mage?”

“No. It’s not the same. His is the chaos of murder and destruction.”

Why would one such as that, if Jenevra were indeed correct, be visiting a cooper? He hadn’t even really looked at the blackstaffer, or at Kharl. “You think he’s an assassin? Or a thief?”

Jenevra shrugged, then winced. “He carries chaos. He could be an assassin or an armsman, or he could be an outland merchant who sails close to the wind. Or he could be a thief, or anything else. He is evil, whatever else he may be.”

“That’s not much help.” Kharl paused. “You speak well. You speak too well for a peasant’s daughter or for someone who works at hard labor.”

“I do? That may be because the Brethren want us prepared when we travel elsewhere.”

“The Brethren?”

“The Council of Recluce. They decide how we are prepared. That is, if your family can pay for the training.”

“Yours could,” Kharl said.

“It was difficult, but they did not wish me ill prepared.” She laughed, ironically, a hint of bitterness behind the words. “Much good it has done me-or them.”

“You were trained with the staff?”

“I was. Some are trained with blades, or axes, or other weapons for self-protection.”

“Are all women trained with the staff?”

“No. It is…what weapons are in accord with what we are.”

“In accord?” The woman’s words were more than a little puzzling. How could a weapon be in accord with a person?

“Every person grows-or comes to be ordered-in a certain fashion. Edged weapons make some uneasy with them. So a staff is better. It is not good to fight your weapon when you are trying to defend yourself.”

Although her explanation was strange, the last words made sense to Kharl. He certainly could not fight his tools if he wanted to make good barrels, and he had no trouble seeing that it could apply to weapons as well. While he would have liked to talk longer, talking would not help get the barrels done, and those needed doing so that, if other business arrived, he would still have the slack barrels for harvesttime.

Kharl nodded, then turned back to the forge. He still needed to finish shaping and riveting the hoops for the remaining oak barrels that Werwal had ordered and for the ones that Wassyt the miller would be wanting, sooner or later. If the harvest were really good, Rensan might even buy a few if Mallamet couldn’t supply them-which was certainly likely, since Mallamet was neither that good a cooper nor that productive. He was cheap, though, Kharl had to admit.

The cooper also hoped that Jenevra felt much better in the morning.

If she did not…Kharl pushed that thought away. He had worries enough.