Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “For God’s sake!” His father turned and started—or resumed—pacing. Graegor clenched the quarterstaff in his left hand.

  Johanns took a drink from a heavy mug, put it back down on the table, rubbed his elbow. “Just tell us what happened,” he suggested calmly.

  It was easier to direct his story to Johanns than to his father, and he recounted it as concisely as he could. Neither interrupted until he told them about Hask and Selbey, at which point his father stopped his pacing to stare at him. “You were riding around with the duke’s horsemen all night?”

  “There were lots of places to search.”

  “Did you find any?” Johanns asked curiously. “Any heretics? I can’t imagine that you did, they must have scattered to the four winds.”

  “Just one. The horsemen let me come back here after I identified him.”

  “Good heavens.” Johanns shook his head. “Good heavens.”

  “Was anyone searching this street, sir?”

  “Our street? Oh, no. No refuge for heretics around here! No, all we heard was the crier, not too long after we got back. All about the curfew and the gates closing.”

  “They’d better open in the morning,” Graegor’s father muttered, pacing again.

  “What did they say about the fighting?” Graegor asked.

  “Just that a heretic had killed a horseman. Killed him!—Was that true?”

  “I don’t know if he killed him. I just saw him hit him with his shovel.”

  Johanns shook his head again. “Unbelievable, just unbelievable.”

  “What’s that?”

  In his pacing, Graegor’s father had come closer and had finally noticed the staff. Graegor turned it horizontally in both hands and extended it. “It’s a quarterstaff.”

  “Did the horsemen give it to you?”

  “No, I bought it.”

  “You bought it?” This seemed worse to his father. “Why?”

  “I ... want to learn to use it.”

  “You said you were saving what you were earning.”

  “I am.” He was. Just not all of it.

  “Then why spend your savings on a purple stick?”

  “It’s purpleheart. The merchant said it only grows in southern Toland.”

  His father stared at him, then asked quietly, “How much did you pay for that?”

  Graegor turned the staff back upright, still holding it with both hands. He’d just had one of the strangest and most unsettling nights of his life, he had been gone for hours without anyone knowing where he was, and what was his father on about now?—the quarterstaff. It was so ridiculous he couldn’t speak. His mouth started to twist in a grimace of laughter.

  “I asked you how much you paid for that staff.”

  “Four.”

  “Four what?”

  “Four silver ounces.”

  “Silver—” His father stopped, shut his mouth, stepped back, paused, shook his head. He spoke again, through clenched teeth. “I could have easily made you a staff, boy. You needn’t have wasted your money.”

  Graegor realized that it had never for a moment crossed his mind to ask his father to make him a staff. The impulse to offer to take the staff back was strong, but he resisted it. He liked the purpleheart. His father wouldn’t buy purpleheart for him. He’d make a staff out of oak or elm and pronounce it “better” for this reason or that.

  “Which merchant sold you that? He should be ashamed of cheating a boy.”

  Boy. Thanks. The shopkeeper had treated him like a customer. “He was doing his job, getting the best price he could. If I paid too much, that’s my problem.”

  “Don’t defend him. Which one was he? Do you remember where his stall is?”

  Graegor met his eyes. It always surprised him when people said he looked like his father. He didn’t think that he would ever hold himself so stiffly, scowl so easily, squint so badly. Right now he found it incredible that the two of them were related.

  “Graegor,” his father said in a voice that he probably thought was reasonable, “you have to take it back tomorrow. It’s one thing to spend your money on a trinket for a girl, but to spend four silvers—you wasted your money, money you earned with hard work. I’ll make you a quarterstaff if that’s what you want. I’ll paint it purple if you really need it to be purple. I even know how to make a purple stain so the grain of the wood will show. It’ll be just as good. All right?”

  Graegor took a deep breath and said, “No.”

  They faced each other for a long moment. Then his father’s lip curled in disgust and he turned, waving his arm in surrender. “Be ready to leave at first light.”

  “Yes sir.” He didn’t mention that the city gates probably wouldn’t be open yet.

  His father just waved his arm again. Graegor looked at Johanns and opened his mouth, ready to ask now, ready to start the conversation that he had kept missing the whole week he’d been here, but now he realized he didn’t have anything to ask.

  Johanns tilted his head, glanced at Graegor’s father, back at Graegor. “What is it, son?” His voice was more subdued than Graegor had ever heard it.

  “Nothing,” he said finally. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Elbin was fixing him a plate of dinner, so when the counting-room door closed behind him he headed for the good smells coming from the kitchen, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. The unfairness of his father’s reaction burned him. How had they gotten into an argument about a staff? After he had been gone for hours? After a religious riot had put the whole city under curfew? Would it have killed him to say that he was glad Graegor was all right? Would it have killed him to have been interested in Graegor’s story? Interested in anything beyond his mean, narrow self?

  Six more months. Six more months and he would be fifteen and out of his father’s house. He didn’t know what he’d be doing, or where, but he would be out.

  Chapter 3

  Jolie was passing through the gate between the baker’s and the potter’s shops when Graegor left Jarl’s, and he waved to her from across the street. She waved back, then set down the big empty milk jug and held her egg basket over her arm as she waited for him.

  The late-winter afternoon was cloudy, and the wind ruffling his hair was still cold. There weren’t many people out. Jolie’s dress and wrap were brown, but around her dark hair she wore the blue scarf he’d bought in Farre last autumn, the one that matched the pearl she wore. That made him smile as always—not that he wasn’t smiling already. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes dancing, and she started to say something when he reached her, but then gasped and giggled when he enfolded her in a hug that lifted her off the ground.

  He hadn’t had a chance to see her in three days. She smelled good—she always did—but this lilac scent was new. As he set her down, he pressed his cheek to hers to breathe it in, and she lost hold of her basket.

  “Do you have time?” he asked as he bent to pick up the empty basket and the milk jug. “I have good news.”

  “My mother’s still making the rounds,” she gestured up the street. Her mother had moved the family from a town on the other side of Lakeland to the old dairy farm outside Graegor’s village a year ago after Jolie’s father had died. Now they had more customers in the village than the other two dairies put together. He saw Jolie two or three times a week when she helped her mother or sisters with deliveries, and the result was that over the last few months he’d seen his resolve to leave town weaken. A lot. Especially when she smiled like she was doing now. “Did Master Jarl say he’d take you?”

  “He did. Come on, I’ll show you.” He led her to the tavern, and the far end of its porch, which offered some screening from the wind and any curious eyes. When they got there her arms went around his neck, and his went around her middle, and there were kisses, some light and sweet and some deeper and more serious, only interrupted when the tavern door opened. Whoever it was didn’t see them, but it was a good time to stop kissing and start talking, since the kissing was doing things to
Graegor that were a little too interesting.

  He pulled the folded parchment out of the pocket of his raincloak. “Look! Signed and sealed.”

  Jolie unfolded it to inspect the pair of signatures and the seal of the saddlemakers’ guild between them. She knew what that meant, even if she couldn’t read well enough to understand the actual contract. “So he sends a copy of this to the guild house, and it’s real then?”

  “Yes. Once they get it, I’m officially apprenticed.”

  She was as happy about that as he knew she’d be, and as she kissed him again, he found that he was even happier than he thought he’d be. Staying here would be all right, now that he had something and someone to stay for. He should probably tell her the catch, though.

  He waited until she finished the kiss and pulled back from him, smiling, before he said, “Master Jarl told me that it’ll only be two years, but he’ll help me sign on with someone else after that.”

  Now she frowned. “Why only two years? Why not all four?”

  “He doesn’t like taking apprentices.”

  “But he’s a master, he has to.”

  “Well, he’ll only take one at a time, and he’ll only keep that one for as short a time as he can before passing him to someone else in the guild.”

  “But he’s the only saddlemaker here,” she said, as if he hadn’t realized that.

  “I know. But there are saddlemakers in Big Mill and Daviton, and they aren’t too far from here.” He’d known that she wouldn’t like that part, but it was two years away. And although it was too early to seriously plan, by then he and she might ... well, have an understanding. And when he became a journeyman and started earning a wage, that understanding could be formalized.

  Her head was tilted thoughtfully. “You’re right, they’re not too far,” she concluded, and changed the subject. “If he doesn’t like taking apprentices, what made him decide to take you?”

  “I think the guild’s been pushing him to take an apprentice. It’s been a long time since he’s had one.” Which was what he’d been counting on when he’d approached Jarl. He’d spent some time over the past few weeks on forays to nearby villages and towns, in search of any master who needed a new apprentice in a guild that worked with horses. But neither horse training nor breeding were guilds represented anywhere in this area—or, he’d come to find out, anywhere in Lakeland outside Farre. So in the end he’d focused on Jarl, and saddlemaking, which was at least related to the horse trades. If he learned to make fine saddles, that could open possibilities for other work with horses—in Farre, in Naben, or even in Khenroxa.

  “When do you start?” she asked.

  “Next month. As soon as I turn fifteen.”

  They kissed some more, and laughed and talked in low voices, until they heard her mother’s wagon approaching. Jolie kissed him one last time, grabbed up the milk jug and her basket, and hurried down the steps to the street. Her mother saw him and waved. He waved back, and Jolie gave him one last smile over her shoulder as the oxen plodded away.

  It felt good, telling Jolie about the apprenticeship, having a plan. Having the means to make his living. Today was a good day.

  He went into the tavern to tell Pritchard that he was there. Pritchard hailed him heartily. “You’re earlier than you said you’d be,” he added, putting a plate of potatoes and baked fish fillets in his hands. “No errand after all?”

  “I finished early. Thanks, this is really good.” It wasn’t the dinner hour yet, but Pritchard always fed him when he walked in, and it was always delicious.

  “We put more garlic on it this time. Eat up! We have a couple extra horses for you today.”

  Graegor already knew, but he let Pritchard tell him about the two guests from Volney who had arrived in town that day. They were brokers, here to appraise, buy, and maybe contract for more of the town’s crafts, and since the two of them had been riding for over a week, they wanted their horses brushed, fed, and pampered. Graegor swallowed the fish in a few bites, then headed through the kitchen to the yard, waving to the cook, who waved back but didn’t stop singing The Lady of the Lilies at the top of her shrill voice as she banged the pots around.

  Once inside the stable he shed his raincloak and draped it over a post, then lit the lamps affixed to the beams. The guests’ horses were in the first two stalls, while the horses Pritchard boarded for some of the village folk were in the last six. He spoke to the two horses in low, nonsense words to accustom them to him, and, like every horse he had ever met, they were content to let him work on them. They were short, tough animals, not beautiful but very practical, and he could well believe from the state of their manes and hooves that they had been at it for days and days. Pritchard had given them hay and water already, so Graegor treated them to sugar lumps and carrots before getting out the brushes and starting on their coats—one brown, one grey.

  He would miss this when his apprenticeship started. He liked the hours he spent here between school and dinner. He’d started back in the autumn, after Farre, when the stickball field had turned to slushy mud, the rabbits were too thin and scarce to trap, the lake was too rough for canoeing, and the arguments and the silences between him and his father had become too much.

  His father didn’t like him working as a lowly stablehand. But he’d admitted it was solid and honest work, a good way for a boy to earn a little money. Pritchard needed the help, and was generous enough to give Graegor a silver ounce each month and a meal each day, so everyone benefitted. Most importantly, it allowed Graegor to work with horses.

  After giving each one a thorough brushing, he pulled over a stool and started on their hooves. The grey would need re-shoeing soon. He would tell Pritchard to tell the guests that they should stop at the smith’s at the other end of the village on their way out. Frank did good work.

  Pritchard’s son Lien came in and stood on a stool to help him untangle the horses’ manes. He was a thin child with a pinched face, but he was bright and liked to pepper Graegor with questions. “Are you going to be Master Jarl’s apprentice?”

  “How did you know?” So Pritchard had figured out what his “errand” was.

  “My dad. Is it a secret?”

  “No, but I just found out, so I’m surprised that you know about it already.”

  “I know lots of things,” Lien told him solemnly.

  “No doubt.”

  “Master Jarl is kind of scary.”

  “Is he?”

  Lien nodded. “The girl who cooks for him comes in sometimes. She says he yells at her.”

  “I’ll try to make sure he has no reason to yell at me.”

  Lien wasn’t convinced, but his eyes fell on Graegor’s quarterstaff in the corner near the tool racks. “Can I try it?” he asked—he always did—so Graegor got it for him. He kept it here because he had the time, space, and privacy to practice with it—and because he didn’t want to irritate his father any more than necessary, since it upset his mother. A former infantryman who had passed through a couple of months ago had shown Graegor a basic set of defenses and attacks, and those two sessions comprised his entire formal instruction. He had no idea if waving it around every day made him better with it or just sillier; the fact that it impressed Lien wasn’t a good barometer.

  Lien took it with both hands, grinning hugely, and held it over his head and spun it around. This time he managed three complete revolutions before his hands got tangled and the staff clattered to the stone floor. “I’m getting better!” he crowed as he bent to pick it up again. But then his mother called to him from the kitchen door across the yard, and he gave the staff back to Graegor and ran off.

  Graegor stepped outside the door and looked up. Clouds still covered the sky, blocking out the stars, the moon, everything, and the wind was kicking up. He idly pushed the quarterstaff from hand to hand as its end rested on the ground. He wondered if Master Jarl would let him practice with it. But it wouldn’t surprise him if he didn’t; the general consensus was that the
man was contrary and irritable. Graegor was under no illusions that the next two years would be easy. But that was all right. He knew how to work hard.

  He went back inside, shut the door, and put the staff back in the corner. He got out the oil and rags, and he set each saddle on the bench under the lamp near the first stall. As he worked, he studied the stitching and the way the pieces fit together, as he had started doing a few weeks ago when he had first considered the apprenticeship. The Volney brokers’ saddles were of good quality, not the best but certainly better than what he usually saw. The leather was old but tough and the rivets showed no sign of breaking. Each tree was in good shape, with no obvious give. Both sets of stirrups were iron, and Graegor spent some time patiently sanding away spots of rust with a polishing stone.

  He looked up when the rolling door opened and four figures came in from the street. Thinking they were travelers, he stood up and opened his mouth to greet them politely, but stopped when he recognized them. Two were cousins of Ted’s from Fisher Row, and the other two, Lukas and Craig, were apprentice furriers. All of them were older and bigger than he was. They ranged themselves in the open space before the first stall, and Graegor watched them, his arms folded over his chest, waiting for someone to say something. What was going on?

  It was Craig who finally spoke. He wore a winter cap of black bearskin, which blended with his hair to make his head look huge. “Everyone’s talking about how you signed on with Jarl today.”

  Graegor nodded, and when nothing more was forthcoming, drawled, “And ... ?”

  “And you knew that my brother was going to be his apprentice next year.”

  “Why would I have known that?” Craig’s brother was too young—only twelve.

  “Everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows it.”

  “Master Jarl didn’t say he had contracted with anyone else.”

  “He and my father had an understanding.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Apparently you like pushing in where you don’t belong.”

  “That’s Master Jarl’s to say, not yours.”