The Mage-Fire War

by Modesitt. Jr. , L. E.

  Tulya mock-slapped her consort.

  Lhadoraak grinned, then asked Beltur, “What are you going to tell Gustaan and the others?”

  “They can stay here under the same arrangement for a while. I asked about that vacant building that once had a cabinet maker. It’s close to the Council House. The man who owned it died years ago, and relatives took everything and left Haven. No one knows where. It’ll take work to turn it into rooms for those working for the Council. It should be suitable for single town patrollers as well.”

  “Gorlaak and Jaegyr would like the work.”

  “Just Gorlaak. We need Jaegyr to craft furniture. Besides, he’s better at that. You’d mentioned that Turlow had a feel for wood and building. Do you think he’d be interested?”

  Lhadoraak shrugged. “We can ask him.”

  Beltur turned to Jessyla. “What about Therran?”

  “He’s been dependable, but he doesn’t really have the talent for healing. He borrowed some tools from Torkell and shored up that staircase.”

  “In other words, he’s handy, but was that because he was trying to look good or because he likes that sort of work?”

  “He doesn’t know what he likes, like too many men,” said Jessyla, adding quickly, “unlike you two.”

  “Thank you for that quick recovery,” said Beltur, smiling. “What do you suggest we do with him?”

  “Ask him, just like the others.”

  Beltur turned to Lhadoraak. “What do you think about Gustaan as a patroller?”

  “He keeps his temper, so far as I can see. He was a squad leader once. Whether he’ll want to stay … who can say? Are you going to ask him?”

  “Not yet. I thought I’d put him more in charge with the fixing-up of the old cabinetmaker’s shop … the one that I’d thought might have been Jaegyr’s and wasn’t.”

  Lhadoraak frowned. “I thought…”

  “You’re in control, but … I don’t think things are going to stay quiet much longer. They’ve been too quiet for too long, and I’m still seeing and sensing Hydlenese patrols.”

  “You said that they avoided you.”

  “They do, but they’re not going away. It’s as if they’re waiting for reinforcements … or something.”

  “Couldn’t they just be checking to see if we’re going to leave?” asked Tulya. “Montgren forces have always left before.”

  “That’s possible,” conceded Beltur, “but it doesn’t feel that way.”

  “Is that why you’re wearing the patrol uniform? I don’t like it when you get those feelings,” said Lhadoraak almost dourly. “You’re too often right.”

  “Would it help if I said I don’t have any bad feelings about moving into the houses?”

  “Some.” Lhadoraak smiled.

  After breakfast, Beltur walked to the small study and paid Bythalt. “We’ll be leaving. We’re moving into our houses today.”

  “That is good for you.” The innkeeper’s words were delivered in a doleful tone.

  “You know where the Council House is … and if we’re not there, where we live. Send Aaskar for us if you see trouble coming. If Duurben or someone else gives you trouble, just agree with them, but as little as possible and then let us know.”

  The innkeeper nodded. “And the workers, the ones who were prisoners?”

  “We agreed on keeping the arrangement,” Beltur pointed out. “You’re getting eight coppers a day for them.”

  “How will I pay for everything?”

  “You’ve gotten more than twenty golds from me, and close to twenty-five from the captain.”

  “Twenty-three and eight,” said Bythalt mournfully.

  “Almost fifty golds. Those should last you for a while. I doubt any of the traders paid you anything like that.” Beltur looked hard at the innkeeper. “Did they?”

  “No, ser. But I owed everyone, because what they paid was not enough.”

  “I can’t help that. We’ve paid more than our share, and you’ll be able to charge enough to cover your costs.”

  “No one will stay here.”

  “You think Phaelgren is going to lose silvers when he doesn’t have to?”

  For a moment, there was hope on the innkeeper’s face. Then he sighed. “He will ask for less.”

  “If you want to ask less, be my guest,” said Beltur dryly. He was more than a little tired of Bythalt’s moroseness.

  “What will be, will be, and order and chaos will decide.”

  “We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Beltur eased out of the study and went to join Lhadoraak, who had remained in the back hall, waiting for Beltur.

  From there, the two made their way to the tack room.

  They’d barely stepped inside when Gustaan stepped forward. “The houses are finished. Are we done? Are you sending us off, or is there more work?”

  “There’s more work, if you want it,” replied Beltur. “We’d like to rebuild an old shop into rooms for single men who work for the Council.”

  “At the same pay?”

  “Until the rooms are finished. Then you’d get a room and slightly more pay, but we wouldn’t feed you.”

  “For now … just for now, that’s fine with me.”

  Turlow and Dussef nodded.

  Therran frowned.

  “What do you want to do, Therran?” asked Beltur.

  “I don’t know. Can I work with them for a while?”

  “If you’ll listen to Gustaan,” said Lhadoraak. “He’ll be in charge when I’m out on patrol or not there.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Good.” Beltur cleared his throat. “You have the morning off, with pay. Meet us at the Council House at noon.”

  Gustaan nodded once more.

  From the tack room, Beltur headed up to the chamber where he and Jessyla had slept for the past eightdays to help with packing up the last items. A glass later, all the mounts and the mule were ready, with the captured arms and tack on the two horses taken from the mages. The five set out for the houses. With so little to move, comparatively, Beltur and Jessyla were finished within a glass, and the weapons were in the dry root cellar, with the tack in the barn.

  The two stood in the kitchen, before the wide hearth that held the stove. Beltur studied the kitchen cistern that he and Jessyla had filled the day before, using order to make sure that the water contained no chaos and that there were no leaks—which there weren’t.

  “We don’t have the furnishings we did in Axalt,” said Jessyla, “but it’s ours.”

  “We’ll have good furniture before that long. And it will match.” That’s going to be the least of our problems. “There’s one other thing I need to take care of.” Beltur gestured to the small metal strongbox he’d earlier set on the slightly warped, if sturdy, main kitchen table, the unidentified wood a grayish brown.

  “Where?”

  “In the bedroom.” Beltur picked up the box and headed into the bedroom, where he concealed it in a hidden space in the wall between their bedroom and the washroom and jakes, using a light order concealment on the box, before sliding the plastered panel that looked like all the others back into place. The box held the majority of the remaining golds from his own small stash, those from the Duchess, and those he’d claimed from the renegade white. He worried about what had seemed to be an all-too-rapid spending, but they still had more than three hundred golds remaining. Three hundred and forty-one and some silvers. But over a hundred of those had been taken from the white mage, and that meant they’d already spent almost a fifth of what Korlyssa had provided, in less than half a season.

  “You’re worried about the golds, aren’t you?” said Jessyla from where she stood looking down at the new mattress, one that Beltur had paid extra for to have it stuffed with wool, rather than straw or hay, although it hadn’t cost as much as it would have in Gallos or Spidlar, most likely because of the number of sheep in Montgren.

  “We’ve done well, when you think about it. We have two solid houses, with stove
s and kitchen cisterns. What worries me the most is paying people. Just the four men cost almost two silvers a day, for their lodging, food, and pay. That would amount to almost a hundred golds a year. Jaegyr and Gorlaak cost more than the other four together, and we’ll likely need them for several more eightdays.”

  “But we’re already two seasons into the year,” replied Jessyla. “Tariffs are due after harvest and before winter. So we only have to cover two seasons, twenty eightdays. That’s less than forty golds.”

  “Only forty? Do you remember what Tulya calculated for tariffs due the Council?”

  “Between thirty and fifty golds for all the houses, maybe another twenty to thirty for the inns and shops, depending … well … on a lot of things…”

  “That means we can’t keep all of the workers, especially when we start paying more, not if we’re going to pay them for the entire year.”

  “Once you have that shop turned into a barracks, won’t that help?”

  “We can give them lodging, but they’ll have to buy their own food. That means we’ll need to pay them a little more.”

  “We should have asked the Duchess for more.”

  “We should have, but we’re not exactly experienced in running a town and collecting tariffs. We may be able to increase the tariffs in the future if we can make Haven more prosperous.”

  “From your calculations, we have to.”

  “That’s a worry I’ll put off for now. If need be, we can use some of the golds we took from the white. After Lhadoraak and I and the men look at the shop, I’ll need to do a patrol. I worry about both traders and troopers. What are you going to do?” Beltur turned and motioned for her to precede him from the bedroom.

  “Go shopping for food and some herbs. Julli has some vegetables and gave me ideas of where I could find a few other things. After I come back here and store what I get in the cold cellar, except for what I need at the healing house, I’ll go there. I may stop by the square. While I’m making up some ointments, I can keep an eye on the Council House in case Tulya and Taelya need any help.”

  “That’s why you’re shopping first?”

  “Trouble’s more likely to arrive in the afternoon.” Jessyla looked down at the mattress, smiled, then turned and left the bedroom. Beltur followed.

  The locks on the doors weren’t all that good, but Beltur added a second lock on each door, one made out of order, showing Jessyla what he’d done and how she could undo the order lock. Then he handed her an iron key to the physical lock. “If you work at it, you’ll be able to use order rather than the key to unlock the doors.”

  “Is that a challenge?”

  He grinned, but didn’t answer.

  “For that, I’m going to have to come up with a healing puzzle.”

  “That’s fair.” He paused, then said, “You and Taelya need to learn concealments next. We really should have started on those earlier.” Except there didn’t seem to be enough time to do everything.

  “I wondered about that.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

  “Don’t apologize. There’s been so much to do.” Jessyla smiled. “I’ve been watching you. I think I might be able to do one with a little help from you.”

  “Good.” Beltur certainly hoped so.

  After giving both mounts some water, they rode back to the square together. From there Jessyla kept riding in the direction of Julli’s house, while Beltur rode to the Council House, where he tied Slowpoke.

  Lhadoraak came outside. “I sent them over to the cabinet shop with Gorlaak. They all want to stay and work … at least for now.”

  “They need the coins.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Beltur laughed softly, then said, “You still have the golds and silvers you earned on the trip, don’t you?”

  “No.” Lhadoraak smiled wryly. “Tulya does.”

  “I have the twenty-five golds that the Duchess provided for your first year’s pay. Do you want me to keep them for now? Or would you like some at the beginning of each season?”

  “I’ll wait until we need them. Where do we stand on the golds for the houses?”

  “I used twenty-five of them to pay for everything at the inn, and another fifteen or so for the workers and the materials to repair the houses. That leaves sixty. We’ll need to pay Jaegyr for the furnishings out of that. That’s likely to take another ten golds, maybe more.”

  “Tulya was wondering.”

  “I’ve kept track.”

  “We’d better see what Gorlaak and the others have discovered,” said Lhadoraak, stepping away from the Council House door.

  When the two mages reached the building that had held the cabinet maker, Gorlaak and the others were standing in the large open room that took up the front half of the building, a space roughly possibly eight yards wide and almost as deep. A square archway in the left end of the rear wall of the chamber showed a narrow staircase leading to the upper level. In the middle of the rear wall was an open door to a hallway that seemed to lead straight to the back of the building.

  Beltur looked to Gorlaak. “What do you know about the building?”

  “This was Bartolyn’s place, years back,” said Gorlaak.

  “How many years back?” asked Turlow. “Before Westwind … or before Cyador?”

  “Maybe just before there were sheep in Montgren,” suggested Dussef.

  Gustaan gave the smallest of headshakes, but did not speak.

  “When I was still running errands for Torkell’s father,” replied Gorlaak good-naturedly. “Bartolyn just dropped dead as he was working his pedal lathe. Never consorted. His brother stripped the shop, sold what he could, and moved to a town somewhere in Hydlen. Been empty ever since.”

  “Can it be repaired without rebuilding everything?” asked Beltur.

  “Walls are mostly solid, except around the back door,” offered Gorlaak. “Some planks upstairs could use replacing. Most of the windows need tightening.”

  “How many rooms could we have up there?” asked Beltur. “Just big enough for one man and his bunk, and a wall table and chair, maybe a narrow cabinet for clothes.”

  “A fellow might go cooped-in-crazy like that,” said Dussef.

  “I’d thought we’d have a common parlor down here, washroom in back with a separate jakes.”

  “Five, maybe six,” replied Gorlaak.

  “How long would it take to get it ready?”

  “Be ready before you’d get mattresses and beds for here.”

  “That doesn’t tell me much,” said Beltur dryly.

  “There’s not enough hemp left here in Haven to make the cording for mattress ticking. Julli got the last of it for your mattresses. Take a while to get it. It has to come from Lydiar or Renklaar.”

  Gorlaak’s comments reminded Beltur that Haven seemed to be one of those small towns where nothing remained secret for long, except possibly what occurred behind closed bedroom doors … and he wasn’t sure even about that. “Can’t we just use woolens?”

  “The mattresses won’t last as long.”

  “How long to repair the building and change the upstairs to rooms?”

  “Two, three eightdays, depending on what we find under the floors. Could be longer.”

  “What about your son?” asked Beltur. “I heard he worked with you sometimes.”

  “He’ll be busy for a while. Bythalt hired him to repair the burned part of the inn stable.”

  Beltur nodded. He’d almost forgotten about the damage. He’d been more concerned about Duurben.

  “When can you start?” asked Lhadoraak.

  “Tomorrow morning. The same terms?”

  Lhadoraak looked to Beltur. Beltur nodded.

  “I’ll be here. With some timbers.”

  After Gorlaak left, Lhadoraak turned to Gustaan and the others. “We need to clean out all the rubbish and start getting rid of anything that’s broken or rotten.” Then he looked to Beltur. “You’re going on patrol?”

&nbs
p; “I’d thought to.”

  “Then I’ll see you later.”

  In short, you’re not much use here, and you’re more valuable patrolling. Beltur didn’t disagree. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  When he left the empty shop, he glanced up at the clear green-blue sky, then out into the square where the tinker had once more set up near the fountain, not too far from Ennalee and her cart, and another cart, a dull gray, beside which stood an older man. He decided to begin with the tinker, making his way there. “Seeing as this is the third time I’ve seen you and you look to be staying for at least a bit, might I ask your name? Mine’s Beltur.”

  “Ennalee told me. I’m Worrfan. Leastwise, that’s the name I’ve used for the last twenty years.”

  “Since you left Worrak?”

  “A bit after that.”

  “How are you finding Haven?”

  “Pleasant enough town right now. Might be a tad warm for me by midsummer. Might even get hot in other ways.”

  “What have you heard that makes you think that?”

  “Haven’t heard anything. But when a ruler gives a town to a bunch of mages, it just might worry other rulers.”

  “Even a poor and struggling town?”

  “Three or four mages might change that, and a strong town here … well … that might worry some.”

  Beltur frowned. “I’d be curious as to your thoughts on why. We’re not raising a fighting force. We’re not collecting trade tariffs. We’re not blocking the road.”

  “You might make it … more difficult for certain ambitious rulers.”

  “Which ones?”

  Worrfan shrugged. “The dukes of Lydiar aren’t what they were in the time of Heldry. Renklaar isn’t the port that Lydiar is.”

  “Have you been to Jellico or Hydolar recently?”

  “No tinker in his right mind enters Certis. The Viscount isn’t fond of those he can’t control.” Worrfan smiled innocently. “Gossip and maps only suggest.”

  “How long have they been suggesting?” asked Beltur dryly.

  “Might be a year. Might be less. Time’s different for a tinker.”

  “All that’s suggestive, but what have you heard that would confirm that?”

  “Nothing,” admitted the tinker. “It’s all feelings. You’ve been around as long as I have, and you get feelings about people and places, even lands.”