Closer to the Heart

by Mercedes Lackey

  They were into the village now; Mags kept looking around himself to verify that he was seeing what he thought he was. The cottages were set pretty close together, but they were all two stories tall with plenty of room for a family. Each one had a bit of garden in the front, more garden in back, and they were all constructed sturdily of stone with thatched roofs. It looked positively idyllic.

  Tiercel waved a hand to the right just ahead of them, where men were laying the stone walls of a new one. “I say we helped build it, because Father supplies the stone from the mine, and everything needed to finish each cottage, but the villagers themselves do the building. When a couple wants to wed, if there isn’t a cottage vacant because of a death, we give those who want to work on it a day off every sennight besides their regular day off to build it. That way everyone has some stake in the building, and the families will make sure it’s done properly. After all, who wants to have to dig your son and daughter out of the ruins of their home if you did it wrong?”

  “Most enlightened,” said Keira, with admiration.

  Mags couldn’t see their faces, but it sounded as if Tiercel was pleased with her reaction. “Servants from the Great House are given cottages to live in when they’re too old to work, too,” he continued cheerfully, seeing that she appeared to be interested. “We give the miners the option of building those cottages for the same pay as they’d get without bonuses in the mine, and they almost always take us up on that. It’s a whole, real working village. No one has ever left.”

  “It seems like a logical scheme to me,” she agreed. “My father runs his estate the same way, more or less. We have our manor village as well. But I confess I never considered the same applying to mines.”

  No more had I, Mags agreed silently.

  Even though he was looking for trouble, he wasn’t finding it. No sign of hunger, no sign of mistreatment. The cottages were clean, young children were busy at chores; usually baby-watching as their mothers did laundry or worked in the garden, or cleaned or cooked. There was one fellow sitting out in front of his front door in a willow chair, dozing in the sun, lacking a leg—obviously a victim of a rockfall. But he was here, alive and well if not whole, and clearly was being cared for. Mags could not help thinking of all the victims of accidents in the Pieters’ mine who had been left to lie until they died or freed themselves, or someone took pity on them. And then there was no medical attention for them, so they generally died anyway. If they didn’t, they eked out a miserable existence, dragging themselves about with no help, and more often than not, wasted away and died later.

  No one ever helped them, much less gave them a decent place to live in.

  Then Mags did notice one thing. There was no child older than about ten to be seen—

  “Children ten or older work the sluices,” Tiercel was continuing, as if he had read Mags’ mind. “Of course, they can be at school, and some families choose that if their child is especially intelligent or not suited for the work. But most prefer the extra income, in case of things like Jake Dawe’s accident.” He nodded at the drowsing man. “His two youngest are at the sluice, and his oldest is in the sorting house. He’ll likely go back to work in the sorting house himself once we are sure he is thoroughly healed, but that doesn’t pay as well as the mine, and in any case, he’s not fit to go back to anything yet. So the extra money coming in from the littles is welcome.”

  “When do they go down in the mines?” Keira asked. “The children, I mean. You say they tend to follow in their fathers’ footsteps after all.”

  “There’s no set age. We’ve got a height test and a strength test. If they pass those, and their parents are willing, then they go down. One young giant in Father’s time went down at eleven, if you can believe it! Most go down at fifteen or thereabouts.” They were out of the village now, and the Great House and all the mine buildings spread out before them. “In general we prefer not to have girls down there, because most of them simply don’t have the strength in their upper limbs that the job requires, but there are a few girls as well as young men working the shaft. Now, would you like to be entertained at the House, or would you care to see more of the mines?”

  Keira dimpled. “I’m sure you’ll think it most unladylike of me, but the mines, please. I have never seen a mine, and I am most intrigued to discover where the stones come from.”

  Tiercel laughed. “Well, my lady, you won’t be seeing exactly that. It’s far too dirty and dangerous for you to go underground, and in any event, you wouldn’t see much. It’s a dark hole, the only light comes from very small lanterns, and the lads work close to the rock face. But I can show you the rest, and the mine-head, at least.” He guided his horse toward the mine-head going into the hill that rose behind the mine buildings. Already it was clear this was to Cole Pieters’ mine as a dove was to a snake, because rather than overworked mine-ponies coming out dragging overladen carts, men were going into the mine-head carrying shoring timbers. Pieters had scanted on those as he had scanted on everything else. It mattered to him not at all if the shaft collapsed, as long as he could get miners back in to clear the debris away—but installing supports took time away from the mining, and it took money to buy the timbers.

  Tiercel gestured at the mine-head. “It’s not shift change yet. We don’t work a night shift, and we don’t work the lads before dawn or after sundown. The lads just opened up a new area though, so mostly what we are doing on this shift is putting in supports so nothing comes down on them.”

  Mags was aching to ask why they didn’t work a night shift—after all, night didn’t make any difference to men who were working in the darkness of underground.

  Keira asked the question for him, again, almost as if she could hear his thoughts.

  “Well, we discovered something—or rather, Father did. It seems that when you ask people to sleep during the day, they don’t do as well, and you get less work out of ’em. So we don’t work the mine after dark.” He shrugged. “Father says by his calculations, because the lads are working at their peak all the time, and come to work well-rested, they don’t make as many mistakes, don’t get injured as often, and don’t get sick, so in the end, you make as much money out of them as you would if you had the mine going the full day and night.”

  “Your Father sounds intriguing, reducing such things to numbers. I didn’t realize one could do that with people and their work so exactly.” Keira raised an eyebrow as her horse shifted under her.

  “You can when you have four generations of insanely detailed record-keeping, my lady,” Tiercel told her with a smile. “My family seems to have the head for such things. But come along, let’s go to the sorting rooms, and then the sluice-rooms.”

  Sorting rooms, Mags was prepared for. But . . . sluice rooms? In Pieters’ mine, the sluices had been out in the open, and it had been bitter work in the winter. . . .

  There was a long, low building they were heading straight for, stone-built, like everything else here, but with enormous windows. Glass windows! Made up of many, many small panes yes, but still—more glass than wall!

  “Good gracious. . . .” said Keira, staring at them.

  “Yes, yes, I know, more glass than most have in their manors,” Tiercel chuckled. “But this, my lady, is the heart of our operation. We obtain the best prices because we grade our stones ourselves. And for that, we must have light, and plenty of it. But if we left the walls open, without windows, our people would freeze in winter and make mistakes. It is better to pay once for improvements, than to pay many times for mistakes.”

  He tied his horse to a post outside the door, and Keira waited while Mags dismounted, tied his up, tied hers, then helped her down. He followed them at a discreet distance, and saw what he expected to see; long white tables at right angles to the windows, with people sitting at them, sorting the rough gemstones, sometimes carefully freeing them from their matrix with small pick-hammers. This was just like Co
le Pieters’ sorting room, except that here the people looked perfectly healthy, not at all work- or careworn or looking nervously over their shoulders. They looked well-fed too.

  “This is an amethyst mine, my lady,” said Tiercel, waving at the first table, which was covered in rough, purple stone. “But we bring all our stones from all our mines here to be sorted. Pol, is there a particularly nice piece on the table today?”

  The man at the table full of amethyst looked up and smiled. “Oh, aye, Tiercel. Sorted this handsome bit out not moments afore you come in.”

  He handed Tiercel a beautiful, deep purple crystal as clear as water and dark as wine, about the size of the end of his little finger. Tiercel handed it to Keira, who took it and exclaimed over its beauty, then handed it back to him.

  Tiercel beamed at her. “This is the finest quality of gemstone, my lady. Not a pennyweight in a hundredweight is of this quality. Most are like this.” He fished a piece out of one of the sorted piles. Larger, paler, and cloudy. “These are beautiful in their way, to be sure, and will give someone a great deal of pleasure. But this—” he held up the flawless piece “—this is what our reputation is made on.”

  Keira took it from him again and held it up to the light, then once again handed it back. “Truly beautiful, even without anyone forming it into a stone for setting. I had no idea.” She nodded at Pol. “You, sir, must be very talented.”

  The man blushed a little. “Well, my lady, it do take a good eye and a mort of experience, I like to think.”

  “Now, a rare piece like the one you showed me—that is obviously going to the cutters. But what of the rest? Like this one?” Keira asked, touching, but not picking up, a clear, pale lilac stone.

  “Clear ones go to the cutters. Cloudy we cut into cabochons—those are the domed gems you see in inexpensive jewelry.” Mags noticed that he had not said “cheap” or “common,” and appreciated the nuance. “Generally, the deeper the color, even cloudy, the more it is worth.”

  He took Keira on to another table, where a woman was sorting citrines. Mags examined the room itself without bothering to hide his interest—Keira might be the one getting the tour, but there was no risk in looking about curiously himself. There were a lot of things he noted about this place. The fireplaces at either end that would keep it warm in the winter . . . the jugs of water and a tumbler to drink out of beside each sorter . . . the fact that several of the sorters were clearly victims of accidents in the mines. This was nothing like Cole Pieters’ sorting sheds. This was a good job, in a good place. Perhaps it didn’t pay as well as doing the mining itself, but it wasn’t as dangerous and difficult either. The sorters all looked contented—and again, healthy when you ignored their missing limbs or other healed injuries—and most of all, not in the least intimidated by the presence of their Master’s son.

  After Keira had seen several more sorts of stones being sorted, they left, and moved on to the next low, long building. Outwardly it was like the one they had just left—except for the waterwheel, being turned by a small donkey, lifting water up to a sluice at the top of the building.

  And except for the fact that the building was narrower, much narrower.

  They went in. And there were the fireplaces at each end, and rows of children on either side, sorting through the gravel washed down the sluice. Dozens of sharp eyes and clever little fingers at work in the water.

  But these children had pink cheeks, and weren’t showing bones through their skin. They were well clad in soft canvas smocks over their shirts, and canvas trews, and wooden clogs. Mags stared at those clogs for a moment, as he fought down a sudden surge of envy. What wouldn’t he have given for a pair of clogs and the nice, thick, handknit woolen stockings these children were wearing! His feet ached with the memory of the painful chilblains he’d suffered in winter . . .

  “These are the sluices!” Tiercel shouted over the splashing water. “We bring out the rough and the obvious gems to send to the sorters. Then, we bring out all the rest, break it into gravel, and take it here, and the children look for the smaller stones. Even the smallest piece can be valuable if it is clear and of good color. Say hello to Lady Keira, children!”

  The children all looked up at once and smiled, or waved, or even called out a hello according to their natures. Mags was shocked to the bone. Cole Pieters would never have so much as acknowledged that the children who worked his sluices were there, much less that they were living beings, much less that they were children. As for asking them to say hello to a visitor?

  :Mags, you cannot fake this sort of thing. You cannot force children to look happy. This is . . . a good place, and good people in it. Whatever else you discover, keep that in mind.:

  Mags was still feeling dazed as he followed Keira and Tiercel to the Great House. They all paused at the front door, and it was only then that Mags found his voice and was able to think of the proper thing to say. “My lady,” he managed. “Would you prefer me to serve you, or remain with the horses?”

  “My good fellow, go and take your ease in the kitchen,” Tiercel said, kindly. “The grooms will get the horses. If you wish, feel free to roam about the village. I’ll send a boy to fetch you when your lady is ready to leave.”

  Mags bowed. “Very good, my lord,” he said, and held the door for Keira. Then he pondered his next move.

  The kitchen I think. That is where the gossip is. . . .

  Even Cole Pieters had not been able to stop that.

  The only kitchen that Mags had ever been in that was better run than this was the one serving the Palace. And this one was a tie with the Collegium’s for second place. The Collegium was not quite as well organized, in no small part because it was partly staffed by Heraldic Trainees who often had no more idea of what to do with a strange vegetable, or how to clean and stuff a chicken, than Mags had of how to make lace.

  There was one hard and fast rule in every kitchen run like this one: find a place to stand that was out of the way until the head cook acknowledges you. Because until then, and until he or she decides what to do with you, you are an obstacle and a nuisance getting in the way of the important business of preparing food.

  The room itself was all of the same stone as all the other buildings here, although, as in the sorting and sluicing sheds, there had been no effort at making the walls and stone-faced floor “pretty,” just smooth. Enormous pillars made of entire tree trunks spaced at intervals along the wall held up the huge beams supporting the second floor. Pots and pans and utensils hung from hammered iron racks suspended from those beams, a clever way of keeping them out of the way but always accessible. It was a good thing that the hooks holding those racks were half as thick as his wrist; if one fell, there would be carnage.

  The Head Cook here was a man, a surprisingly small but very nimble man with a head like a sheared sheep, in a bleached canvas smock and trews, who danced about the preparation tables like someone in an acrobatic troupe, admonishing, directing, stirring, scolding, and always tasting.

  The very first thing Mags had noticed, was, of course, the heat. It was always hot in a well-run kitchen, even in the dead of winter. Your choice was to leave windows open for air but get flies in enormous quantities, or close them and close in the heat. Most cooks closed them, only opening them again when the cooking was over for the day.

  The only kitchen Mags had ever been in that wasn’t hot had been Cole Pieters’. It went without saying that Pieters had skimped on wood for cooking the way he skimped on everything, so that things were often burned on the outside and raw on the inside—or burned on the bottom of the pot, and cold on top.

  There was lots of light here, though. Like the sheds, there was good glass here in the windows. Easy to see, easy to keep clean. That was what Cook at the Collegium said, anyway.

  He found a good place to stand just to the left of the door and took it all in; one of the things that Nikolas had told him was t
hat no matter what, the kitchen was the real heart of the household, and if anything was amiss in that household, it would show in the kitchen.

  So, once he got past the heat and the controlled chaos that seemed to be the norm in any good kitchen, the second thing that struck Mags was the aromas. In Pieters’ kitchen, they had been “smells.” Burning smells, stale smells, the smells of food that was past its prime or even starting to rot or mold. Nothing could rid that kitchen of those smells, and Mags suspected they lingered even to this day, when someone else was running the mine. But this . . . these wonderful, wonderful aromas were enough to waken the dead. He hadn’t been hungry when he stepped in the door, but he certainly was now.

  Baking bread, that was the first thing that struck his nose. The loaves for the staff would have been baked overnight, but the “better” loaves, or smaller trencher-rolls for those that still used such things, of sifted white flour for the family were always put in just in time to come out hot for the meal in question and were just about ready now. Then came the hint of spice and sweetness that meant that desserts were also being prepared—given that it was strawberry season, he suspected it would be a white, lightly spiced cake to be covered in sliced berries, then “frosted” with beaten cream. Over in what would be a “cooler” corner of the kitchen he could see someone working with some small red objects with a bowl and a trimmed white cake next to her, confirming his guess.

  Then there was the savory scent of roast fowl of some kind with sage and thyme—he couldn’t tell if it was game bird or chicken, duck or goose. There was roast onion in the air as well; there would likely be other vegetables cooking, but the seasoned bird would overpower their scents completely at this point.