The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  “Gael!” came the shout again from the Regenen’s Kitchen.

  Gael entered the servery, a spacious chamber that grew crowded and chaotic only when the scullions clustered there, intent on grabbing the multitude of dishes they would deliver to the great halls for the morning meal or the evening feast. Between meals, the servery remained empty, its peace disturbed only by echoes from the adjacent kitchen.

  A wide hatch with a broad stone sill that served as a counter occupied the wall to Gael’s left. The scullions loaded their trays at this hatch. Right now, a lean troll – with short, straight brown hair and brown eyes – perched on its sill, apparently unworried that his clogs sullied its cleanliness. His nose possessed the characteristic elongation and upward turn, but his ears – revealed by his cropped hair – remained small and well-formed. Like those of their overlord Carbraes.

  Various food stains marked the apron that swathed him.

  “Barris!” Gael greeted him.

  Barris’ brown eyes lit, and he swung himself down from the hatch to stand leaning against its sill.

  “Ha!” he exclaimed. “I hoped you’d climb out of your tally room before it buried you! Where’ve you been, you slacker?”

  Gael suppressed his grin. “Slaving in my tally room, of course. Mule-horse! Missed me, did you?” It was true that Gael usually exchanged at least a few words with Barris after the metals check out. Like Arnoll, Barris was his good friend.

  This morning, he’d been determined to track down the error in his tallies. The error which had proved to be no error.

  “Have you heard that Carbraes has caved at last?” said Barris.

  What?

  “Dreben’s getting his gladiatorial ring as soon as he cares to organize it.” Disapproval laced Barris’ usually insouciant tone. “Probably yesterday, knowing Dreben.”

  “From whom did you learn this?” asked Gael.

  Dreben was brigenen – first in command – of the First Cohort of Belzetarn’s First Legion. He was a short, tough troll with a mean streak. Gael had disliked him ever since he’d found the brigenen’s bastan huddled outside the armory, bruised and sobbing. Evidently Dreben had needed a punching bag as an outlet for his temper and decided the bastan would do fine. Gael gathered that it wasn’t so much the bruises as Dreben’s caustic tongue that had upset the boy, who refused all aid, scuttling away from Gael’s offers.

  “From the castellanum’s prime notary to the kitchens’ notary to me,” said Barris. “Doubt it’s merely rumor.”

  “Hells.”

  Carbraes believed that drill kept the warriors fit, spit-and-polish duty kept them busy, and sparring kept them ready to fight. Dreben, continuously agitating for sparring with live bronze in addition to inert wood, claimed that only the risk of serious injury during practice bouts would keep a troll sharp. Why had Carbraes given in to him?

  Barris shook his head. “Notarius Prime says –”

  A scullion appeared on the kitchen-side of the serving hatch. “Sir? Opteon?” Unlike Keir, he was servile in getting his superior’s attention.

  “What is it, lad?” Despite the interruption, Barris answered the boy kindly.

  The scullion bobbed an anxious bow. “Sir, I’m to start the butter sauce, but I can’t remember if I add the dried sage with the flour, or if it goes in later. And I don’t hardly like to ask Fayn, sir.”

  “No, no. I understand.” Barris smiled. “You’ll be using dried sage? Not fresh?”

  “Yes, sir. The dried powder from the larder, not fresh leaves from the garden. Fayn said that especial.”

  “No doubt he prefers the stronger flavor,” Barris explained. “Very well. Mix it in well with the flour, and be careful not to overcook the roux after you’ve added the flour mixture to the butter. Pour the milk the instant you smell that toasting scent coming off it.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The scullion scurried away. Just before he left earshot, Barris called, “Be sure to swing the pot well to the side of the hearth once the sauce is done! It needs to stay warm, but shouldn’t be cooked past the finish!”

  The boy nodded anxiously as he passed around the corner.

  “I should be on my way,” said Gael.

  “Stay a minute.” Barris’ geniality with his underling shifted to uneasiness. He lowered his voice. “Do you think Carbraes could be slipping?”

  “Do you?”

  “No. But – no.” Barris studied his clogs, then looked up again. “If Carbraes ever goes down, Belzetarn won’t be a reasonable refuge anymore. You know this.”

  Gael didn’t nod, studying his own foot gear: soft leather, knotted thongs, the shoes of a troll who needn’t worry about cooking knives dropped or swords slashing in battle.

  Barris touched Gael’s arm. “As secretarius, you see Belzetarn from the top. I don’t. Do you think Carbraes is weakening?”

  Gael thought of Carbraes as he’d just seen him at noon: relaxed, powerful, and fully in control.

  “No. Not at all.”

  Barris’ breath whooshed out in a loud sigh. “That’s a relief.”

  Gael’s mouth twisted up. “You know I’d warn you, if ever real risk approached.”

  Barris stared at Gael. “Huh. You would, wouldn’t you?”

  “Bet on it.” He clapped Barris on the shoulder.

  “Oh, I do!” Barris was grinning again.

  Time to change the subject. “Listen, I’m trying to track down an anomaly.” This was the real reason he’d stopped at Barris’ hail. “Maybe nothing serious; maybe serious, but only in my purview. If it’s what I suspect, there should be a string or two that leads under other doors.

  “You’re an observant fellow, Barris. The other opteons in the regenen’s kitchens and the castellanum’s kitchens and all the other kitchens can’t see beyond their cook pots and menus. But you recognize that changes in orders to the kitchens reflect the concerns of the castellanum and of the regenen himself. All Belzetarn is reflected in the kitchen annex.”

  Barris nodded, looking pleased.

  “Have you observed anything unusual lately? Maybe something small or innocuous, but something different.”

  Barris’ brows tensed. “There is one thing . . .”

  “Yes?” said Gael.

  “You know how we ‘peons’ are given various dainties as reward and incentive?” Barris’ sarcastic tone on the word ‘peon’ reflected his opinion of the practice. He was no peon, being one in the trio of chief cooks in the Regenen’s Kitchen.

  But patronage was how the entire troll society within Belzetarn operated.

  Gael had heard tales about the previous regenen, who preferred thrashings to motivate his followers. Carbraes granted extra sauna privileges or a cup of mead or an afternoon of rest when he was pleased, and his officers followed his lead. Much more effective, surely, and certainly more civilized.

  Barris might not like being condescended to, but most trolls were happy to receive a treat. Gael lifted an eyebrow. “Was Theron especially gracious to you?”

  The castellanum had learned that Barris gave only dignified thanks for presents and snarky backchat in response to a superior’s haughty disdain. Barris would never have kept his position, if he’d cooked in the Castellanum’s Kitchen instead of the Regenen’s.

  Barris snorted. “Oh, it’s nothing to do with me.” His amusement faded. “But the castellanum is scattering his dainties with greater abandon than usual. He’s granted several trolls from the Hunters’ Lodge dining privileges in the lower great hall.” The hunters ate their meals in the Hunters’ Lodge not in the tower proper, just as the physicians ate in the dining hall of the hospital and the leatherworkers in the Artisans’ Lodge. Barris shifted impatiently. “Hells! He even invited Martell to join him at the high table.”

  “The privy smith?” That startled Gael. A smith was no peon either. Indeed, a smith received honor equal to that of a brigenen of the legions. Or an opteon in the kitchens. But neither of those were candidates
for dining at the regenen’s table with the castellanum, the march, the magus, and the regenen himself. Gael dined there. But he was the regenen’s secretarius, one of the four officers through whom Carbraes governed his troll horde.

  Barris bit his lip. “Theron’s up to something.”

  And that was the tip Gael was looking for.

  * * *

  Gael paused in the passage at the bottom of the Regenen Stair.

  Well, it wasn’t the uttermost bottom. The lowest levels of the kitchen annex, slabbed onto the southeast side of the tower, lay a few twists below the forges. But the smithies – his smithies – occupied the foundations of the tower proper.

  So he stood a moment, listening to the roaring of the furnaces, the clang of hammers on metal, the shouts of the smiths, and the hissing of quenched bronze, all of it echoing off massive stone piers and heavy stone groins.

  This was his realm as much as the tally room. His tally room governed these vast, dark, hot vaults, lit only by the white orange glow escaping the forges and the whiter orange incandescence of the molten bronze.

  More often than not, the smiths blanketed the deep embrasures of the tower arrowslits with leather hides, not needing sunlight because of the brightness of the heated metals; not wanting sunlight, because the darkness allowed them to better judge the precise moment when the molten metal had reached the right color – and heat – for pouring; or when the annealed metal grew ripe for tempering.

  The Regenen Stair debouched at the back of the blade smithy.

  Gael could see the scullion at the twin bellows. The inflating and deflating leather sacks pulsed like beating hearts, pushing air over the forge coals at just the right rate to produce the right heat. The smith and his sergeants were checking the blade mold, assuring themselves that the straps holding it closed were tight and assessing its temperature. The mold required heating to ensure that the molten metal would flow into it properly and would come out of the mold – once solid – without damaging it.

  The heat of the smithy had not yet penetrated Gael’s suede robes, but the dry air baked the skin of his face and hands.

  Yet he was not here to question the bladesmith. Not this time.

  To the left of the blade smithy lay the tin smeltery and the grinding smithy, the smeltery close to the center of the vault where the furnaces for refining the tin glowed, the grindery at the perimeter of the tower’s foundation.

  The mighty piers holding up the ceiling arches and the waist-high walls separating the different smithies hid much of the tin smeltery from Gael’s gaze. The grinding smithy was entirely veiled by curtains of leather hide. Perhaps Keir stood within them now, talking with the notary there. Gael did not see the boy elsewhere.

  The grinding smith needed all the sunlight pouring through the embrasures on his side of the tower, so that he could be sure each blade was polished to perfection, its edge sharp and perfect, without flaw. The leather curtains contained the sunlight which would otherwise overwhelm the white orange glow of the forges that every other smith depended upon.

  To Gael’s right, the fully walled storage rooms blocked his view of the copper smeltery and the privy smithy where he was headed.

  He took a moment more to savor the smoothly working operation that the smithies had become. The smiths, their sergeants, and their scullions moved with assurance. The ring of hammer on bronze formed a sort of music. And, most important, the metal ingots entered the smithies, moved through them, and exited in the controlled flow that Gael had introduced.

  When Gael took over their management at Lord Carbraes’ behest, each smithy had used a different tallying system – not one of which matched the other. Each smith had requisitioned ingots haphazardly, and sometimes a smithy went dark for an entire waxing moon merely because the tin vault lay empty.

  Gael knew that the sure supply of the metals they needed generated the calm demeanor of the smiths, which flowed in turn to their underlings. Despite the heat and the din – the roar of the fires, the ring of pounding hammers, the shouted orders – these smithies were as much a haven for the workers of metal as the tally room was a refuge for he who counted.

  Gael edged along the side wall of the blade smithy – the wall dividing the smithy from the storage rooms – and then along the back wall of the copper smeltery. He reached the privy smithy as Martell flourished a bronze ewer overhead.

  “Ah! Ha, ha! Look at it! Look! Is it not fine?” Martell turned, his beaky nose with its small ornamental ring gleaming, and caught sight of Gael. “Look at the scrollwork where the handle meets the vessel! And these – the flourishes at the top where the spout attaches!” The smith strode toward Gael to hold the ewer for his close inspection. “Say I do good work!” he demanded, grinning. Sweat stood out on his brow and dewed the frizzles of his hair, escaping from its braid.

  Gael smothered the smile on his lips, but let it reach his eyes. “You do good work,” he agreed.

  “This ewer! The serving platter I completed this morning! And this! This, too!” Martell rummaged in a heap of utensils – kitchen knives, roasting spit jacks, awls – seized on a graceful bowl, and drew it out. “Magnificent! All of it! And to you I owe it all!” he exclaimed. “Before, it was always Martell who went short when the tin lacked, when the bronze was insufficient. But now – now Martell makes beauty to soothe the soul, and all Belzetarn is better because of it!”

  Gael laid a hand on the smith’s arm. “That is true, my friend. May I have a word?”

  Martell looked surprised. He shrugged, handed the bowl and ewer to one scullion, and turned to issue instructions to another. The afternoon was getting late, but evidently the privy smithy would be pouring at least one more item before they put their forge to bed.

  Martell drew Gael around the massive pier separating the privy smithy from the armor smithy to the deeper shadows. “You have trouble, my friend. I sense it, I, Martell. But tell me!”

  This was awkward, but Gael had been dealing with Martell’s enthusiasm for years.

  “The trouble, my friend, is you.”

  Martell looked more surprised yet. “But, no! How could this be? Martell is your most ardent supporter.”

  Gael let a dry chuckle escape him. “Well do I know it, my friend. But this is the old trouble. The trouble with the tallies from the privy smithy.”

  “Ah! Yes! The ingots coming in to the privy smithy are not matched by the weight of the beauty leaving it! Ah! I know this trouble, I, Martell! But I have explained, my friend. Art is not precise! Art requires passion! The tallying – it is anathema to the creativity. You understand this, my friend! Yes?”

  Gael suppressed another smile. The issue was serious – missing tin, so precious tin – but Martell always amused Gael, even gave Gael joy. For Martell was one of Gael’s successes. The privy smith had been morose when Gael first arrived. Now he was ebullient, even while he made absurd claims. Martell might say that art needed precision less than it needed inspiration, but his art – made in metal – required great precision and care in the percentages of tin versus copper and in the heat applied to both.

  Martell might be sloppy with the tallies he permitted his notary, but he was not sloppy with his medium.

  “I do understand, my friend, but your tallies have slipped further from true yet again. I can allow you a few ounces, even up to half an ingot. But a full ingot’s worth is too far.”

  Martell’s mouth, mobile beneath his beaky nose, drooped. “But, no, my friend! Surely not!”

  Gael nodded firmly. “It is so, my friend. And I will need your good will to set it straight.”

  Martell’s eyes brightened. “Ah! Then, trouble there is none, for you have my best will and always will! Tell me, and we solve it all!”

  “I hope so,” replied Gael. “Will your good will extend to my notarius? To Keir?”

  “But of course! Keir, he is your right hand. Courtesy to Keir is naught but courtesy to you!”

  “Good. Because Keir will come down to your smi
thy in the morning after all the smiths have received their metals, and you must not start until after Keir has counted and tallied your ingots after their arrival. Can you do that, my friend?”

  Dismay crossed Martell’s face. “Keir shall count my ingots?”

  There was no point in adjuring Martell’s notary to tally more carefully. Martell had him utterly subjugated and would snatch the metal away before the notary was half done. But Keir was more than a match for Martell.

  “Will you let Keir be my hands? For me, my friend?”

  “Ah! For you, yes! For you I will do any and all! Ah!”

  Gael patted Martell’s shoulder. “Good. And then again in the evening, when the scullion is ready to carry the finished implements, the residual metals, and any unbroken ingots away, you must send another scullion to fetch Keir from the bronze vault. And Keir will weigh the exiting material.” Gael overrode the smith’s voluble response. “For me, my friend. Will you do it?”

  “Ah, ha!” broke in Martell. “I see it now! You doubt my notary!”

  Gael shook his head. “I doubt your notary not at all. It is your own enthusiasm and haste that is the culprit, my friend. And those will not be stemmed by your devoted notary. You know it is so.”

  “Ah, ha, ha! It is so. You know me, my friend, you do!”

  Gael took Martell’s hand and grasped it. “I do know you, Martell. Will you help me thusly? Will you hold to your promise tomorrow, even in the rush of your artistry?”

  Martell’s hand returned the pressure of Gael’s. “I will do it, yes. I make you my promise!”

  “Good!” Gael patted the smith’s shoulder once more, withdrew his clasped hand, and moved back around the sheltering pier toward the copper smeltery. Behind him, Martell burst into voluble instructions to his underlings.

  * * *

  In the copper smeltery, the sergeants were dusting the now-emptied ingot molds with chalk powder, while the scullions scattered the charcoal in the forge with their rakes, preparing it for the overnight cooldown.

  The smith, a practical fellow with none of his neighbor Martell’s flamboyance, was examining the stack of copper ingots one by one, no doubt checking that they contained no inclusions where the metal had failed to penetrate the mold completely or where air bubbles had tainted the pour. Copper gave far more trouble than did bronze, although both required care and precision in their handling.