The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  Gael sighed. He knew that feeling all too well. His real purpose within Belzetarn was something he avoided thinking about whenever possible. He wasn’t sure he had any reassurance to offer.

  “Some compromises are more difficult than others.” Gael’s words emerged slowly. “Dealing with the truldemagar is one of the most difficult.”

  A strange hurt glimmered at the back of Keir’s eyes. “I’m not sure I should have compromised,” he said. “I thought about dying, when it first happened. And maybe I should have. But I didn’t. I chose something else.”

  “You came here, to Belzetarn,” said Gael.

  Keir said nothing at all in response, just standing there with that peculiar expression on his face.

  A shiver of real worry quivered in Gael’s belly. It was dangerous to think too deeply, to probe too honestly, to plumb one’s conscience . . . here in Belzetarn.

  “Keir” – he had to draw the boy back from this brink – “I cannot think it wrong to choose to live. And if a troll chooses to live, he must come eventually to some place of safehold – to Belzetarn or some other troll-citadel. To live is to compromise. It is only when we are very young that absolutes seem real.”

  Keir’s mouth firmed. “Do you really believe that?” he asked.

  Gael allowed his lips to curl slightly. “On most days,” he answered easily. “If you permit deep moral questions to preoccupy you . . . your daily responsibilities suffer and you forget that the larger picture is mostly made up of small choices. Do the next right thing, whatever it is, and you’ll do right in the end.”

  A glint of amusement flashed in Keir’s eyes. “Is that another version of ‘make each tally mark strongly and the final count will be accurate’?” he asked.

  Gael nodded. “Indeed.”

  Keir’s eyes narrowed. “But surely the direction and results of one’s small choices must sometimes be assessed,” he insisted.

  Gael repressed a sigh. The boy echoed his own concerns uncomfortably, which made it doubly hard to counter him. “As a troll, you do not possess that luxury,” he said.

  “Luxury!” Keir’s voice rose slightly. “Morality is a luxury?”

  “No.” Gael quelled his exasperation. “Taking too broad a view is a luxury, and you do not possess it.”

  “What of the sick hatred in my stomach?” Keir’s tone grew pointed. “Did you ever feel it?”

  Gael nodded. “I did. And, Keir –” he made his stare hard; sympathy would be fatal “– it will pass.” He hesitated, then added, “You’ve only been a troll for, what, two years? Give yourself time.”

  Keir sniffed. “Time to become thoroughly hardened?” he jibed. A gleam of humor in the boy’s face softened his accusation.

  “No,” answered Gael. “To find your balance. As Arnoll did.”

  Keir’s face lightened all the way. “If we could all be Arnoll . . . Belzetarn would be an entirely different place,” he said.

  Gael chuckled, and Keir looked his question.

  “I was just imagining a horde of Arnolls thronging the stairwell,” Gael explained.

  Keir’s laugh rang out. Had the dangerous moment passed? Gael was ready to be done with this conversation.

  “Speaking of our smiths,” said Keir, “do you think Martell could have just lost an ingot? Knocked it off a counter, kicked it under an anvil?”

  Gael allowed himself a silent sigh of relief. They’d moved on. And Keir’s suggestion about Martell’s missing ingot was a possibility. “We’ll have to check,” he said.

  “After the meal?” suggested Keir.

  Gael didn’t relish poking around all the odd corners of the privy smithy by the light of a carried candlestick. “Hells!” he growled, mimicking more anger than he actually felt in the wake of Keir’s atypical perplexity.

  “I’ll do it,” Keir volunteered.

  “No. Arnoll wanted to consult me about something. In his smithy. I’ll get him to help me.”

  Keir looked surprised, in his familiar understated way. Thank Tiamar, the boy was back to normal. “In the smithy?” queried Keir. “Did he say about what?”

  “We were interrupted. Never mind. Do you dine in the upper hall tonight?” As notary to the secretarius, Keir did possess that right, but he rarely exercised it, preferring to join one of his friends in a more informal setting.

  “I’m headed for the hospital mess,” he answered. “Kayd invited me.”

  Gael wished someone would invite him elsewhere. Or, better still, that he could simply dine alone in his chambers. He did so occasionally, but now – when he was scrounging for clues as to the whereabouts of his stolen tin – was not a good time to absent himself from the larger gathering.

  “Do something outdoors after you eat,” he instructed Keir.

  Keir lifted an eyebrow.

  “You’ve had a long day, and the morrow may be longer. Extra sunshine will guard your health,” Gael explained.

  “I thought I might do a preliminary reconciling of the tallies,” Keir said.

  “I know you did,” said Gael. “So did I, but we’ll both be sharper when we’re fresh.”

  Keir nodded, then glanced sharply at Gael. “I should have told you right away. Lord Carbraes does not wish an interim report on the gong. He said to see him when you have anything he needs to know, but not before.”

  Gael had expected that, but it was well to hear it explicitly. The regenen dealt easily with his secretarius, and frequent communication would keep it so.

  Keir returned the coffer keys to their box, and they parted: Keir descending to the yard, Gael ascending to his quarters to change his garb.

  * * *

  Gael thought of the uppermost great hall as Carbraes’ hall, but it wasn’t. Or rather, it both wasn’t and was.

  Only the elite of Belzetarn were invited to dine with Carbraes in his high hall, located just below the regenen’s chambers at the top of the tower. But Carbraes himself was as likely to dine in the main great hall or even the lower one. He believed in mingling with the trolls he led and protected.

  This evening Carbraes had chosen the main hall, so Gael sat at the high table there on a dais below the vast bank of windows in a northern bay carved from the tower’s thick wall. Bright banners hung long on the bay’s sidewalls, which opened into the central space, an immense circular vault with curving balconies rising three high to each side. An ornate stairway curled around a massive central pillar.

  Gael regarded that pillar with proprietary pride.

  The pillar rose from the tower’s foundations through every level, eventually taking the form of a tall, flaring column at the center of the regenen’s terrace.

  High into the air above Belzetarn, the pillar vented the fumes and smokes from Gael’s smithies.

  A carved balustrade guarded the stairs circling around the outside of the pillar, and oil lanterns hung at intervals cast illumination. The stairs did not reach all of the tower’s levels. Only the venting pillar did that!

  Beyond the stairway, a southern bay with another vast bank of windows flooded the hall with golden evening sunlight.

  Altogether, Carbraes’ main hall was thrice the size of Heiroc’s banquet hall in Hadorgol.

  The hubbub of five-hundred trolls feasting rose through the air – voices murmuring or exclaiming, the chink of two-tined fork against copper platter, the scrape of a serving tripod against the stone floor, the footfalls of the scullions carrying food from the kitchens and refilling mead bowls.

  The sharp scent of a mustard sauce and the sweetness of a raspberry compote threaded the aromas of roasted meats and braised fish.

  “Should you care to watch the first gladiatorial contest presented by my brother-in-arms Dreben?” asked Gael’s lefthand neighbor at table, the brigenen of the Ninth Cohort, one of three currently on rotation at the citadel. “I can procure you an invitation.”

  “Bloodshed does not entertain me,” answered Gael, striving for an urbane tone. This was not the place for serious dissent
. “Reserve your invitation –” He pressed his lips closed, before his voice could sharpen.

  “Some will attend for their amusement, no doubt,” said the brigenen, “but Dreben possesses reasons besides entertainment for his enterprise.”

  Gael lifted an eyebrow, skeptical.

  “Our Ghriana foe wield magical weapons,” stated the brigenen.

  “I’ve heard that rumor before,” said Gael.

  “Ah, but it is no rumor. Ghrianan weapons are better than ours: sharper, faster, less prone to breakage, and dealing more damage. While our lord, in his prudence, shields us from the dangers of magery and the making of weapons with that magery, he exposes his warriors to greater danger on the battlefield.” The brigenen’s face held a knowing look.

  “I wholly agree with the regenen and support him in his decree,” said Gael flatly. How dared the brigenen skate so close to criticism of Carbraes, while sitting at Carbraes’ own table, a mere two places down from him?

  “As do I support him,” agreed the brigenen. “But if we are to be deprived of enchanted weapons of our own, we ourselves must be better, stronger, faster, and more ferocious. The gladiatorial ring will push our warriors toward supreme fitness.”

  “I cannot approve something that pits troll against troll,” grated Gael. “We have enemies enough without bringing enmity into Belzetarn itself.” His urbanity was decidedly failing. He’d best change the subject.

  “I am sorry you disapprove Dreben’s innovation.” The brigenen managed the necessary urbanity with no difficulty, but turned away to address his lefthand neighbor, one of the castellanum’s stewards.

  Gael raised a spoonful of raspberry compote to his lips. The burst of strong flavor – sweet and floral with a hint of tartness – soothed his distaste. He was here to take the pulse of Belzetarn’s denizens, and news of Dreben’s gladiatorial ring had clearly spread.

  To Gael’s immediate right sat the march, Dreas, commander of every warrior in Carbraes’ legions. Beyond the march sat Carbraes himself. The contrast between the march and the regenen was sharp, even while their similarities were strong.

  Carbraes had changed his garb for the feast, donning gray suede sewn with sea pearls, but he projected his usual aura of calm power and confidence. His icy blue eyes were direct in their gaze. His ears lay neatly below the short, silver-threaded curls of his hair. Carbraes’ troll-disease rested lightly upon him.

  March Dreas wore beige suede ornamented with bronze rivets and brown embroidery – simple garb in natural colors, like that of the regenen. His thinning white hair was clubbed back in a shoulder-length braid. His gray eyes looked straightly, and power flowed easily from him – also like the regenen.

  But troll-disease bore hardly upon Dreas. A deathly pallor underlay the chapped redness on the surface of his skin. Deep furrows bracketed his eyes and his mouth. The flesh of his neck lay slack and folded. His ears were very large and deeply cupped.

  The personality of the march must be immense to convey mastery – as it did – in the face of such physical infirmity.

  Carbraes leaned forward slightly to address Gael across the march. “May I hope you will resume the use of your rightful quarters?” he asked. “Surely their greater comfort would be a solace in the present time.”

  He was referring – if obliquely – to Gael’s new responsibility for the accursed gong, which not all here would know about, and to the fact that Gael’s chambers above the tally room were not his proper quarters. Carbraes’ four principal deputies – the castellanum, the march, the magus, and the secretarius – received luxurious apartments near the regenen’s own. But Gael had declined his, preferring the modest chambers convenient to his tally room and much nearer the smithies than the lofty tower top.

  Carbraes had respected his wishes. And everyone did know that.

  “Theron here” – Carbraes nodded at the castellanum seated beyond the magus on his farther side – “could order your suite freshened and furnished in a trice. By tonight, I dare say.”

  Theron, garbed in brilliant robes of sky blue suede embroidered with shining copper thread, and engaged in close converse with the magus, caught both his name and the gist of Carbraes’ remark. He looked up, turning his disdainful face with its thin lips and elongated, but narrow nose toward Gael. His silver hair – straight and falling below his shoulders – added to his patrician mien. “The rooms should not go empty,” he said courteously. “Such a shame to waste their merits. Perhaps, if the Secretarius continues to scorn them, another might enjoy their benefits.”

  The magus, attending to the castellanum, slewed around to face Carbraes.

  Nathiar’s olive complexion was the same as when he, Erastys, Heiroc, and Gael had been friends in their youth. But his hair, now plaited in a myriad of thin braids, shone silver, his always-broad nose had grown broader still under the onslaught of his troll-disease, his green eyes were muddied, and his fleshy lips drooped unpleasantly.

  “Knock a doorway through the wall of my receiving room,” he said flippantly. “I could use the additional space.” Despite the flippancy, his voice was deep and melodious.

  The castellanum sniffed. “I had my principal steward in mind. He’s excellent and deserves to have his efficiency and his loyalty rewarded.” Theron’s voice chilled. “If you need a workroom, Nathiar, surely a less sumptuous chamber would be more suitable.”

  The real issue – Gael knew – was that if Nathiar were granted the apartment of the secretarius in addition to his own, then the magus would possess quarters more grand than those of the castellanum. Theron could never abide it.

  “No stairs to climb,” quipped Nathiar. “No need to dress, no need to shave. I like it!”

  Carbraes raised a hand, stemming Nathiar’s gibes. “The chambers belong to Gael, whether he chooses to inhabit them or not.” His voice hardened. “I shall not bestow them elsewhere.”

  Nathiar hid his smirk behind the sleeve of his robe, a garish scarlet ornamented with orange embroidery and copper rivets resembling rose blossoms.

  Theron inclined his head graciously. “As you wish, Regenen. Naturally.”

  Carbraes turned his back on them.

  On an ornate saucer beside the regenen’s drinking horn, nested within green leaves of ground-elder, were two spoonfuls of rare fish roe – globules of glistening orange reserved for Carbraes alone.

  The regenen scooped up half the minuscule heap on one of the leaves and offered it to the march. “Take this, my friend, it will do you good.”

  Dreas demurred. “No more than it will nourish you. I cannot deprive you.” His voice was gravelly.

  Carbraes said nothing, but his eyes smiled and his offering remained before the march. The pair locked gazes. Then Dreas gave way, accepting his regenen’s gift, conveying it immediately to his mouth. Gael noticed that the tremor in the march’s hand was larger than heretofore.

  Carbraes ate the remaining roe simultaneously with Dreas. “Delicious, no?” he said.

  “Surely it feeds something essential within the body,” answered Dreas. “How else could it satiate so uniquely?”

  “You must share it with me every time my cook serves it,” declared Carbraes.

  The corners of Dreas’ lips curled slightly, but he shook his head. “Did you know,” he asked, “that the poorest of the poor in the great city of Imster – those who survived on the leavings in the midden – sometimes ate earth? Especially the children.”

  “No,” said Carbraes.

  “I have seen it,” said Dreas. “It seemed that the food remnants could not nourish them sufficiently, and that the earth slacked some craving within.”

  “We are not poor here in Belzetarn,” said Carbraes.

  “No, but the affliction brings its own poverty, does it not? And its own cravings,” answered Dreas. “The roe heals, methinks.”

  “Perhaps so. Perhaps so,” murmured Carbraes. Was that sorrow in his eyes? Or pity? Gael could not decide if it was either or neither.

&n
bsp; Carbraes and Dreas had come to Belzetarn as young trolls, serving under a series of regenens in succession, always guarding one another’s backs, until they attained such rank as to make them unassailable. And even then they persisted in their mutual allegiance. Or so the rumors claimed.

  Gael saw no reason to doubt it. It seemed likely that troll-disease would finish the march first. But not yet. And, meanwhile, Carbraes sought ways to delay the affliction’s hold on his friend.

  This conversation between the two, conducted in lowered voices, had diverted its participants from the other conversation adjacent to them. Gael, however, heard both.

  The castellanum had chosen to vent his further grievances against the secretarius into Nathiar’s ear.

  “Always, he favors him!” Theron whispered. “He grants him two residences. He trusts his word in every particular. Even against my own testimony. Even in the face of contradictory evidence.”

  Yes, well, there was reason for that. Carbraes knew perfectly well that Gael wanted nothing beyond what he already possessed: security in his office, control over his tally room, oversight of the smithies and weapons lodges, and the assurance of the regenen’s continuing regard.

  Theron wanted much more. Control over the provisioning and maintenance of Belzetarn did not content him. He wanted leverage in the supply of Carbraes’ legions. He wanted a voice in the decisions that directed Carbraes’ military endeavors: which Ghriana strongholds to attack, which battlefields to hold, which camps to abandon. Theron wanted Gael’s own smithies under his purview.

  Theron was willing to be unscrupulous in his means.

  And Carbraes knew it.

  “When Keir arrived in custody of the Fourth Cohort’s scouts,” continued Theron, “he should have been mine!”

  Nathiar gave an encouraging grunt.

  “I needed a new notary. Mine had succumbed to his affliction, and his successor had such a clumsy hand. Keir’s hand is so neat,” Theron mourned. “He would have added elegance to my office. He could have served me tea and berated the impudent scullions. But Carbraes refused to transfer him from the tally chamber. He should have been mine, and I still mean to have him.” Theron positively hissed.