The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  The receiving room was richly appointed with textiles – so rare in the north – and intricately carved furniture. Wool carpets worked to resemble flowery meadows covered the floor, brocade tapestries depicting a magus at work hung from the walls, and divans upholstered in turquoise satin or yellow velvet or spring green damask provided seating. Delicate bronze figurines rested on low, red-lacquered tables. Spatters of colored light, cast by the stained-glass ornament edging the paned casements, dotted the surfaces erratically.

  Gael’s lips tightened. All this wealth could only be spoils of war or pirate booty. Belzetarn’s artisans had little wool or linen or leisure for luxury work at their disposal.

  “Have a seat,” said Nathiar. “The boys will be here with food soon. We shall break our fast together.”

  Gael remained standing and proffered the rose-riveted pouch he’d brought with him the previous night. “I understand this is yours, Magus. I wish to return it to you.”

  A gleam of humor sparked in Nathiar’s eyes. “S-o-o-o, where did you find it?”

  “Tucked into the pack straps of the mule from the tinworks,” said Gael levelly.

  “Goodness! How ever did it get there?”

  “I’ll mention that it has tin dust within it,” said Gael. “I’ll further mention that I’ve been next door – in my chambers – and have seen what you store there.” Gael unclenched his jaw. “You have some explaining to do.”

  Nathiar started to laugh.

  “Well?” said Gael.

  Nathiar’s laughter grew louder. The magus fetched out a purple handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his eyes. “W-e-e-l-l, this is awkward,” he said, subsiding.

  “For you,” said Gael. “I’m waiting, Nathiar.”

  “Yes, I see you are. Dear me. Won’t you sit down? We may as well be civilized while we converse.”

  Gael let his hand fall, the pouch still in its grip. “How is stealing the least bit civilized?” he inquired.

  Nathiar started to laugh again, but repressed his merriment. “Very well, I’ll admit that I’m not the least bit civilized, but I do prefer comfort. You need not sit, if you do not wish to, but I shall!” He strolled over to a turquoise divan and lowered himself onto it, leaning one elbow on the upward slanting end.

  Gael followed him, deliberately coming to stand too close, forcing Nathiar to crane his neck uncomfortably, should the magus wish to meet his eyes. Nathiar chose to study the nails on his left hand instead.

  “How much do you know?” queried the magus.

  “Assume I know it all, and you’ll be close,” grated Gael.

  “And, yet, I’d rather not confess any small detail needlessly,” said Nathiar. “Why accept needless guilt?”

  Gael shifted his stance impatiently. “Lannarc stole tin for you before it was weighed. You fashioned a covert ore tap in the oxhide furnace at the copper mines. You’re storing your stolen tin and your stolen copper and your stolen forging tools in my chambers.” Gael refrained from emphasizing ‘stolen’ and ‘my,’ just barely.

  “I see,” said Nathiar. “No doubt you wonder what I am doing with all that?”

  “No.”

  Nathiar’s brows jumped again. “No?”

  “I saw you hardening the edges of the enchanted sword you’d no doubt forged from the fruits of your thefts,” said Gael.

  “W-e-e-l-l, my dear Secretarius.” Nathiar chuckled. “It would appear you do indeed know it all. I am in your hands, as they say.”

  “I suppose I need not ask why.” Gael had expected to grow more angry once the magus had admitted to stealing. Instead, he felt merely jaded, his anger ebbing.

  Nathiar sniffed. “Carbraes permits me magery on the battlefield. He encourages my magery when we besiege a Ghriana stronghold. He beseeches my magery whenever the tides of war turn against us. But he will not allow me to improve the weapons with which our warriors fight.”

  “Is it so necessary?” asked Gael.

  “You saw my work last night?” Nathiar looked up from his nails.

  Gael nodded and took a step back, having mercy on Nathiar’s craning neck.

  “With your inner sight as well as the outer?” asked the magus.

  “Yes. I perceived the living heart node.”

  “All the Ghriana warriors wield blades like that,” said Nathiar.

  “I’d heard rumors . . .” said Gael slowly.

  “Our trolls do not look with their inner sight, of course. They merely see the impossible agility with which those Ghriana blades strike. Thus the rumors. But when I take the battlefield, my inner sight is open, perforce. There is a reason why we lose more battles than we win.”

  Gael had never expected that he might find himself at sympathy with any of his old enemy’s views. But if Belzetarn’s Ghriana foes all bore enchanted blades . . .

  “Have you discussed this with Carbraes? Really sat down with him? Not merely flung your half-jesting insults at him in passing?”

  Nathiar snickered. “Oh, yes.”

  “You couldn’t convince him?” Gael wondered what Nathiar was not telling him. If Carbraes still believed Nathiar to be wrong about the need for improved weapons, the regenen would have good reasons behind him.

  “Gael, think,” said Nathiar.

  Hearing his name on Nathiar’s tongue took Gael aback. It had been so very long ago, but in his boyhood, he and his closest friends had been ‘Erastys’ and ‘Heiroc’ and ‘Nathiar’ and ‘Gael’ to one another. Only within Belzetarn had Nathiar and Gael become ‘Magus’ and ‘Secretarius.’ Longing for that earlier time pierced him. If only . . . if only . . . but neither youth nor health returned when the years and the truldemagar had claimed them. Nor did trust or good will.

  “How many swords do your smithies complete each day?” demanded Nathiar.

  “Eight. Sometimes ten,” answered Gael.

  “And I could create but one in that time,” said Nathiar. “Would you have me train your smiths in weapons magery?”

  “Few of them have skill enough with energea to be so trained,” admitted Gael. “Even were Carbraes willing.”

  “Which he is not,” said Nathiar.

  “But blades enough for the brigenens? The preceptorii? The bellatarii? Made by you alone?” suggested Gael.

  Nathiar sighed, and Gael sat on the lemon velvet divan across from Nathiar.

  “What do you imagine our battlefields are like?” asked Nathiar.

  “I’ve stood on battlefields,” said Gael.

  “Yes, you have. In Hadorgol.”

  “Are the battlefields in the foothills of the Tahdfiarns and the Fiorsmarns so different?” asked Gael.

  Nathiar flared the nostrils of his fleshy nose. “The march insists on drill and more drill, and it is well he does. The trolls devolve into a mob on the battlefield in spite of it. Without it . . .” The magus shook his head. “Without it, they’d fight each other as often as they fought their enemy.”

  Gael followed this to where Nathiar was leading him. “With some trolls bearing superior weapons and others not, those-without would fight those-with to gain the better weapons for themselves.”

  That was the curse of the truldemagar. Unafflicted men varied all the way from the supremely self-controlled to the utterly undisciplined. But most men occupied some middle ground. Among trolls, the disciplined were fewer, the unruly more numerous, and the middle ranks more heedless.

  “Why bother with your secret experiments then? When there’s no use to them?”

  “R-e-a-l-l-y, Gael. Why do you think?” drawled Nathiar. “I like energetic experimentation. Isn’t the sheer fun of it reason enough?”

  Gael repressed a sniff, refusing to rise to the bait. Nathiar had always loved catching his acquaintances off balance. Gael couldn’t imagine why Nathiar hadn’t tired of it long since, but the magus hadn’t.

  “Is that your only reason,” Gael inquired mildly.

  Nathiar’s thick lips twisted. “I had some hope that showing Carbraes what is po
ssible might persuade him to alter his position,” he admitted.

  Gael sat back, concealing his surprise at hearing his old enemy confess to good intentions. As a youth, Nathiar had loved playing pranks a little too much, but he hadn’t been truly bad. After he’d reached manhood his predilection for mischief seemed to grow nastier, and his concern for his victims – always slight – grew less. He wouldn’t expect Nathiar, as a troll, to possess interest in anyone’s well-being save his own.

  Could Gael have misjudged his colleague? It seemed unlikely.

  Questions from the past – the distant past – stirred within him. “Why did you do it? Cast that mean-spirited glamour?” he blurted. It had been the glamour that brought the truldemagar upon Nathiar, hadn’t it?

  The magus recovered his sardonic mien. “Really, the rumors were endless, my dear Gael. Which ones did you hear?”

  “That the ambassadress of Solmundia was prudish. That Erastys fancied her in spite of that. Or because of it. That you coveted her amulet from ancient Navellys. That you attempted to gain your way with the lady – for the both of you – by magical force, and it ruined you.”

  “Ah.” Nathiar straightened and glanced at the carpet, more uneasy than Gael could remember ever seeing him. “That was the version we encouraged to spread.”

  “But it was not true,” said Gael quietly.

  Nathiar swallowed, pursing his lips. “No. It was not true.”

  The receiving room’s door swung open before Nathiar could say more.

  * * *

  The scent of mint tea, the fragrance of toasted almond scones, and the sharp bouquet of pickled eggs entered with three tray-laden scullions. Nathiar leaned again on the slanting end of his divan, gesturing for the boys to serve him and his visitor.

  As the scullions pulled various low tables into position and set out the dishes, Gael realized he was hungry. Too angry to be hungry earlier, he’d intended to spurn the suggestion that he break his fast along with Nathiar. Now . . . he decided he preferred to be sensible. He took a sip of the tea, enjoying its warmth and the contrast of its cool flavor against its temperature.

  “The pepper sauce that accompanies the eggs is particularly good, my dear Secretarius,” said Nathiar. “Not overly spicy. Do try it!”

  Suppressing a smile, Gael ladled sauce over his eggs. No doubt Nathiar wished to intimate that he would delay his story, hoping to irritate his audience. Nathiar loved irritating . . . everyone. Gael refused to be irritated. Nathiar would not have admitted that the old rumors were false, had he intended to remain silent about the truth.

  The scullions filed out, closing the door behind them.

  Nathiar spooned lingonberry jelly onto his scone and took a bite.

  Gael permitted himself a smile, while Nathiar chewed.

  “The ambassadress was indeed proper and prudish. She disliked Erastys on sight, and he reciprocated the sentiment,” said the magus.

  Gael nodded. That fitted Erastys’ character much better than the story that he’d fallen in love. Or even in lust.

  “It would have been better if the lady had simply left the day after she arrived, but she was determined to do her duty and stay for the full four deichtains as planned. Her disdain for Erastys grew with each passing day, and she troubled very little to hide it. The king devised a retaliatory prank to which I lent myself.” Nathiar’s lips curved. Apparently he still found the prank amusing, despite what must be its codicil.

  “The lady was tricked into entering the king’s bedchamber – as though seeking amatory adventure – and infuriated when the court jester leapt up from Erastys’ bed while the courtiers emerged laughing from behind the wall hangings. She stormed out, encountered Erastys doubled over with mirth in the hallway, and . . . cursed him. Energetically.”

  Oh. That was a far different tale. A far more dreadful tale.

  “We’d thought the lady dabbled in the manipulation of energea, but we were wrong.” Nathiar’s eyes were uncharacteristically shadowed as he gazed into the past. “She was a most accomplished enchantress.”

  Gael could see where this was going. “You tried to lift the curse,” he said.

  “I had to,” said Nathiar. “I could not leave my king to suffer . . . that!”

  Gael felt as though he heard himself recounting the events from the battle on the plain between the rivers. He, too, had felt that he could not suffer his king to go down to defeat and dishonor.

  “What was the substance of the curse?” Gael asked.

  Nathiar swallowed. “That he would lose potency whenever he lay with a woman.”

  Ah. The ambassadress had chosen an exemplary revenge. Gael could think of nothing else that would punish Erastys so aptly.

  “I brought every ounce of energetic strength to bear on the lifting of the lady’s evil scourge. And tore my nodes from their anchorages in the doing. And failed nonetheless.” Nathiar’s voice was low.

  “You failed?” Gael had expected . . . a different result. “Erastys is cursed even now?”

  “Unless he located a magus more powerful than I. Or persuaded the lady to recant.” Nathiar shook his head, forcing the bleakness from his gaze and a scornful smile onto his lips. “Don’t look so sorry, Gael. Much you ever cared for Erastys.”

  “He was my friend. Before we all left boyhood.”

  Nathiar chuckled. “Our boyhood was long ago, as are the years when Hadorgol and Pirbrant fought so bitterly. Leave it be.”

  “Why did you stay with him?” asked Gael abruptly. “After the truldemagar came upon you?”

  Nathiar’s brows lifted. “Have I not bored you enough with old history?”

  Gael met Nathiar’s eyes steadily.

  Nathiar sighed. “He begged me to.”

  Ouch. Seeing his own loyalty to Heiroc in Nathiar’s loyalty to Erastys was painful. And a bit strange. He and Nathiar shared so few traits – or so Gael hoped – but loyalty to their respective sovereigns they held in common.

  Gael finished his meal in silence, thinking. Perhaps Nathiar thought as well, for he did not speak either. The sunlight through the casements brightened, the spots of color on the carpets and furnishings intensifying.

  “I cannot allow the regenen to remain in ignorance of your escapade with my tin and copper,” said Gael at last.

  Nathiar’s mouth twisted with his typical humor. “Of course not, my dear Gael. What do you take me for?”

  “But I will leave the telling to you, if you wish it.”

  Nathiar went very still. “Will you now,” he said softly.

  “I will tell him that you have something to inform him of,” said Gael sharply. “And –” he subdued his sharpness “– I’ll tell him that I perceive the force of your arguments.”

  “I wish I may see it,” chided Nathiar. “Really, Gael, you know you’ve disliked me from even before I supported Erastys against Heiroc. Nor have I supported him so selflessly as you always supported your own king. I was always in it for my own gain. You can’t possibly like me now. Or agree with me.”

  “I don’t,” snapped Gael, already regretting his rash pledge. “Understanding the issue need not reach so far as liking or agreement.” The horror was that he wanted to protect trolls such as Keir and Arnoll and Barris – and Carbraes himself – while also wanting to protect the unafflicted, such as that poor Ghriana boy who’d died just yesterday. And he could not do both.

  Nathiar vented a loud bray of laughter. “That’s better,” he said.

  Gael interrupted him. “I’ll be absent from Belzetarn for two deichtains on an errand for Carbraes,” he said abruptly.

  “And?” said Nathiar, very much at his ease.

  All Gael’s suspended anger returned. “While I am absent –” his gaze bored into Nathiar’s “– you will not even enter a room, if Keir is present within it.”

  Nathiar broke into chuckles. “I thought I saw you eavesdropping on my conversation with the castellanum at the high table the other evening.”

  “I
could hardly avoid it,” said Gael drily. “We did share a table.”

  “True, true,” replied Nathiar. “Why so protective of your notary?” he inquired. “One would think he were a maiden, not a lad, the way you go on.” Nathiar’s gaze held a knowing look.

  “He is my notary, mine to protect. And he is young,” said Gael, hanging onto his calm demeanor with effort.

  “Not so young as you think,” said Nathiar slyly.

  “What in Cayim’s hells do you mean by that?” demanded Gael.

  “Merely that the boy’s already given me a civil setdown.” Nathiar snickered. “Quite effectively, too.”

  “Don’t make him give you a second one,” growled Gael.

  “Oh, I won’t,” promised Nathiar. “Once was embarrassing enough, my dear Secretarius. I assure you.”

  Gael’s lingering sympathy evaporated.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  Keir woke early and went immediately to check on her patient, but Gael had already departed his chambers.

  This was a good thing, she decided, indicating that his recovery was proceeding well. She wondered if she would encounter him during the routine of checking out metals to the various smithies and lodges supplied by the tally room, but she did not.

  Another ingot of tin went missing from the carry sack of the privy smithy’s scullion somewhere between the vaults and the forges. Keir had almost expected it, especially as she didn’t keep the boy in sight for every moment of their descent down the Regenen Stair.

  She darted aside to the tally room, hoping to find Gael – where was the man?! – and only caught up with the scullion just in time to supervise the unpacking of his sack. She fetched Martell another ingot of tin to replace the missing one – he needed it for the work he had planned – and tallied it properly on her parchment, making a note of the new theft.

  By the time she finished ensuring that Martell gave his notary the chance to make his own tally of the privy smithy’s disbursement, she was . . . not truly worried about Gael, but concerned. Ordinarily, she’d trust him to be sensible, more sensible than she herself would be in like circumstances. He was the one who’d taught her that prudent rest and nourishment ensured accurate work, well done.