The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  As a healer, she’d tended to focus on her patients at her own expense. Pater had chided her for it, but Gael had induced her to take the matter seriously, even though – or perhaps because – it was tally sheets, not the ill and injured, under her care.

  But Gael had been less measured lately. The discovery that someone or some ones were stealing tin and bronze out from under him had unbalanced him a trifle. And then learning that his friend Arnoll was one of the thieves had knocked him further from his sensible ways.

  She’d have felt more comfortable, if she’d seen for herself that his internal injuries were continuing to heal and that he’d been resting properly. Early rising was not a good idea in his present circumstances.

  On her way back up the Regenen Stair, after delivering Martell’s replacement ingot, she chewed the dried cherries she’d wheedled from Barris. Tart and sweet at once on her tongue, they spurred her slowing steps and flagging thoughts. What would she do, if she again failed to find Gael in one of the usual places? Go searching for him, asking all and sundry if they’d seen him?

  As it chanced, Gael was not in the tally room when she arrived there.

  She considered summoning a porter and asking him to question all of his cohorts, as well as the messenger boys, to learn where and when Gael had last been seen by one of them.

  No. She refused to imitate a mother hen, as though the secretarius were her lost chick. Clearly her dip into her old profession of healer had unbalanced her as badly as the ingot thefts had unbalanced Gael. Wrinkling her nose at the absurdity of it, she opened the inner casement shutters. The eastern sunlight streamed in to warm the air as she got out ink pot and stylus, and settled to tallying within the shelter of her cabinet-wrapped desk.

  An indefinite time later, the latch of the tally room door clicked as it lifted.

  The familiar act of transferring the smithy tallies to a master list had restored her usual tranquility. When Gael stepped beyond the cabinets flanking the doorway, she neither demanded to know what he’d been doing, nor that he allow her to examine his injuries. Such tactics had never worked well on Pater, who hated coddling, and they weren’t in keeping with her nature anyway. Senseless to begin unpleasant and needless nagging now.

  “Ah. Keir,” Gael said, as he glanced her way. “Perfect.”

  He looked trim and fresh, color good, moving easily. Buoyed by these observations, she sedately reported her own doings: checking out the metals, supervising Martell, noting the fresh theft, and beginning the day’s usual tally work.

  Gael drew up his chair while she spoke, and nodded when she finished.

  “I’ve tracked down another of our thieves,” he announced, “although this one stole directly from the mines, before ever the metals entered Belzetarn.”

  “The magus?” guessed Keir. Gael had spoken of the magus poking illicitly around the mines.

  “The magus,” he confirmed. “Performing illicit experiments to determine if it were possible to create weapons in Belzetarn that resembled those wielded by our Ghriana foes.” Gael frowned slightly. “Nathiar succeeded in forging a sword energetically and imbuing it with a living heart node. I don’t know if the blade would hold up under the stresses of battle.”

  “Mark of Gaelan,” Keir exclaimed, blankly.

  “Indeed,” agreed Gael. “I’d thought the rumors of extraordinary powers attributed to the Ghriana weapons were just that: rumors.”

  “Hm.” Memories of the warriors of Fiors and the weapons they carried nibbled at the edges of her thoughts. “My people wielded flint knives, threw spears and shot arrows with flint heads.” Why did she speak of them as past? Surely they did those things yet. But they lay in her past.

  “Yes?” said Gael.

  “The flint knappers imbued the flint with nodes and arcs of energea,” she said.

  “Interesting.” Gael’s left eyebrow lifted. “I wonder if secluded tribes throughout the north have developed such methods all unknown to the rest of us. Nathiar observed the Ghriana blades in action via his inner sight and confirms that they are indeed energetically enhanced.”

  “You’ve spoken with him?” blurted Keir, startled.

  “Confronted him at daybreak after I’d watched him at work in the receiving room of my official quarters,” said Gael.

  Sias in paradise! Had Gael gotten any sleep at all? He must have, to look so spry.

  “He admitted his guilt?” asked Keir.

  “He did,” said Gael. “Furthermore, he’ll be admitting it to Carbraes himself. Likely has done so already, as he entered for his audience with the regenen just as I was departing.”

  “You refrained from telling Carbraes?” questioned Keir.

  Gael’s lips stretched in a wry smile. “I permitted Nathiar that honor,” he said.

  Ah. No need to ask if the magus would follow through. With that smile, Gael was very sure that he would.

  “The tally room was always so peaceful.” Keir sighed. “Now it feels like it’s under attack.”

  “It is. It has been,” said Gael. “We just did not realize it until the day before yesterday.”

  Keir bit her lip. That was true, of course, given that the magus had arranged to steal his metals at least a moon before, but she didn’t like accepting that her prized peace had been an illusion. Or admitting that she made her own contribution to disrupting that peace. But she wasn’t going to think about that.

  “Which is why,” continued Gael, “I should particularly prefer not to be away from Belzetarn right now.”

  A sinking sensation pervaded Keir’s middle. “You’re going to Olluvarde,” she said.

  Gael nodded. “I must. Carbraes insists on all speed in resolving the risk presented by the cursed gong.”

  “But did you tell the regenen of the ingot thefts?” asked Keir shrewdly, guessing that he had not.

  “I did,” said Gael, surprising her. “He’s concerned, naturally, but feels the gong to be the higher priority.”

  “He’s so certain you’ll sort out the thefts, he’s not worried,” Keir speculated.

  Gael’s lips quirked upward. “Exactly.”

  “Don’t you find the thievery disturbing?” she probed. “Too disturbing to let it be?”

  “Were it my own choice, I’d settle the thieves before I departed,” Gael conceded. “But I’ve always preferred my tallies to match, whether in the tally room or in life. I don’t like anomalous loose ends.”

  Keir frowned. She agreed with his personal assessment. His calm and ordered way of proceeding was one of the things she liked so much about him. Especially within the aggressive milieu that was the troll citadel of Belzetarn.

  Gael continued, “I suspect that any sovereign – whether he rules over a kingdom of men or a stronghold of trolls – possesses more loose ends than resolved situations.”

  Keir’s lips pressed together. “In other words, Carbraes is used to it,” she said, “and expects you to take it in stride.”

  “Perhaps not quite that,” said Gael, “but he certainly expects me to attend to the more dangerous issue rather than the one that makes me personally uncomfortable.” Gael smiled at her, his expression unforced. “Which means, Keir, that I’ll need to get clearance to travel from either you or the physicians in the hospital. I do intend to guard my health.” His eyes warmed as he repeated her advice from the previous evening. “Do you have a preference as to which?”

  And so she had her reward for fending off the lure of mother-henning that had assailed her so oddly.

  Did she have a preference? Silly man. Of course she wanted to examine him herself and assure herself with direct evidence that he was healing well.

  She led him into the room beyond the tally chamber – a generous space where they compounded inks and glues, as well as adhering the edges of individual parchments together to form scrolls – and gestured for him to lie on one of the large work tables.

  She checked his innards with touch and sound first, auscultating his chest and abdo
men carefully, relieved that her firmer taps produced no winces in him. Opening her inner sight, she noted that while his arcs still shivered a hint too rapidly, the pulsing of his nodes was steady and strong. Good. She sent a trickle of energea into his pale green plexial node and along the arcs radiating from it, before she closed her inner vision.

  “So?” asked Gael, swinging his legs around so that he could sit.

  Keir nodded. “Don’t fall off your horse, and you’ll be fine,” she said. “No jumping, running, or fisticuffs, of course.”

  “Of course.” Gael smiled. “I’ve arranged to leave today, shortly after noon,” he said. “The scullions are packing for me now.”

  Keir gulped. She’d been envisioning the morrow for his departure. “Taking things a bit for granted, aren’t you?” she chided.

  “I felt good,” he answered simply.

  Keir’s lips twitched up. “You’ve healed more swiftly than I thought you would,” she admitted. “You’re tougher than I realized.”

  “Or you’re a more skilled healer than you realized,” returned Gael.

  Keir sniffed, disdaining the compliment.

  “The regenen has named you Secretarius pro tempore while I am away,” said Gael, “and Arnoll to serve as your opteon in potestas. You may choose your own messenger to accompany you about your duties.”

  Keir felt her eyes widening. “This is all very official,” she murmured, resisting the sensation of uncomfortable responsibility descending. She didn’t want to rule Belzetarn’s metals. Someone who hated trolls shouldn’t rule Belzetarn’s metals.

  “You’ll be fine,” said Gael.

  “Do I really need a messenger?” she protested. “By my side at all times?”

  “Couldn’t you have used one yesterday?” asked Gael.

  She had to admit it would have spared her a few trips up and down the Regenen Stair.

  “I’ve had you to run my errands and carry my messages. You’ll need someone. And we should probably keep him, even after I’ve returned.”

  Keir nodded. “I’d best choose carefully then,” she quizzed, “if we’re to be stuck with him.”

  “You’ll do fine,” repeated Gael.

  “I suppose the regenen believes too many trolls are likely to step on my toes or crowd my prerogative. Thus Arnoll,” she said.

  “You’re quite skilled at exerting authority, Keir. I’ve watched you,” said Gael. “And the regenen sees it too.”

  Keir’s face heated.

  “But I requested Arnoll for you, because I’d like you to have immediate recourse, should you need it.”

  Keir straightened her shoulders and looked Gael directly in the eyes, pushing down a thread of unease. “I’ll keep the tally chamber sacrosanct for you,” she promised.

  * * *

  Gael had one more thing to do before he departed for Olluvarde. Something he had to know.

  Descending the Regenen Stair, he barely noticed the clear morning light making bright rectangles on the treads where it shone in through the arrowslits. He navigated the clumps of messengers, porters, and scullions thronging the steps almost carelessly. He even failed to perceive that his ankle gave not one single click in his determined plunge toward the kitchens.

  The joint should have clicked after his full descent from the top of Belzetarn to his tally room.

  He’d met with the regenen on the uppermost battlements, the breeze stirring their hair, the sun warm on their shoulders, and all the Hamish wilds spread out below them: the pine-cloaked hills, rounded and cradling the shining blue of the long lake, with its myriad inlets; the snow-topped Fiorsmarn peaks to the east; the vast forest spreading across ever flattening terrain to the west.

  He’d felt free on the battlements, beguiled by the light and the air, persuaded by Carbraes’ effortless authority and composure that all was well, as though they were sovereign and secretarius over a realm of unafflicted men and women and children. As though the truldemagar were nought but an evil nightmare.

  If only it were so.

  Diving into the traffic on the Regenen Stair – increasingly heavy as the day advanced – dispelled his illusion of freedom immediately.

  Curved and elongated noses, line-bracketed eyes, and large cupped ears marred every last troll in the stairwell. Some possessed crooked shoulders, others crooked thumbs. Some pushed their way aggressively through the crowd, others went cringingly.

  Gael saw them all afresh, as though he’d just come among them to live, pity and revulsion combined in his breast. Did he descend into one of Cayim’s hells, to be surrounded by gnarled imps?

  No. He was one of them himself. This was home. And he wished it were not.

  Nor did his errand – unsavory in nature – ameliorate his milieu any.

  But he had to know.

  He turned into the servery for the Regenen’s Kitchen, as Barris was setting a large tray of mussels – freshly winkled out of their shells – on an adjacent work table. Drifting through the hatch between the kitchen and the servery, the warm scents of roasting hazelnut scones mingled with the dense sweetness of dried cherries stewing and the sharp aroma of vinegar-soaked onions.

  Barris looked up from his clams.

  “Gael!” he shouted.

  An instant later, the cook hurtled over the hatchery counter to grasp Gael by both shoulders, look him up and down, shake him, gasp “Thank Sias you’re okay,” yank him into a rough hug, cuff him on the upper arm, and demand, “What in Cayim’s hells happened to you?”

  Gael couldn’t help laughing, in relief as much as surprise. Surely his suspicions were wrong. Unjust, too. How could he possibly accuse Barris of stealing? He would never have accused Arnoll. It had taken seeing Arnoll with a stolen ingot in hand to make Gael doubt him. Barris should be beyond his suspicion too. In fact, Gael never would have doubted Barris, if Arnoll had not proven . . . fallible.

  Barris’ urgent concern for his friend was thoroughly reassuring.

  And yet . . . despite his surety in Barris, Gael was not quite sure.

  He opened his inner sight. Tiamar be praised! Neither of Barris’ hands bore the energea lattice that Gael had deployed in the hidey-hole of the clogged latrine.

  “Sias in paradise!” Barris babbled. “We heard you’d picked a fight with the First Brigenen. We heard he’d picked a fight with you. The castellanum’s notarius said you’d been tapped as the first combatant in the brigenen’s gladiatorial ring. The scullions said you’d been pushed over the balustrade of the top balcony of the high great hall and killed. The march’s notarius said nothing had happened at all. The hospital scullions reported you’d been gravely injured. Sias, Gael! I’ve been worried!”

  “I should have sent a messenger, of course,” said Gael. “But I was out of my senses at first, then being treated – most competently, I assure you – and then asleep. I do apologize.”

  Barris jutted his chin. “The bruises on your neck tell me it wasn’t nothing,” he said.

  “No,” Gael agreed. “We did fight, and I was injured. Rather badly, I’m afraid, but Keir fixed the damages. The boy was training for a healer before he came here, did you know?”

  Barris started to reply, stopped, then said, “Wait right here.”

  The cook nipped back into the kitchen through the door beside the hatchery, placed a decanter, a goblet, a covered dish, and a soup spoon on a tray, grabbed a tall stool, and returned to the servery with them. He set the tray on the hatch counter, placed the stool beside it, and gestured Gael to sit.

  “You should still be resting, not clomping up and down the tower stairs,” he said almost angrily.

  “I’m very well, Barris. Truly,” Gael assured him.

  Barris just glowered, his brown eyes smoldering.

  Gael smiled ruefully and sat. “You’re quite right, of course. I am healing well.”

  “Um hm,” said Barris, pouring from the decanter into the goblet – was that knotberry mead? at this hour of the morning? – and removing the cover fr
om the dish to reveal minced parsnips, celeriac, and tidbits of fish in a light broth. The fragrance of the steam rising from the chowder made Gael’s mouth water. He dipped his spoon full, inhaled blissfully, and brought the spoon to his lips. The first mouthful was delicious, warm and soothing, earthily sweet, and mellow.

  “Dreben picked no fight with me,” Gael explained. “And I picked none with him. It was a mutual craving. I think.”

  “Sias! What got into you?” breathed Barris, leaning against the hatchery side wall.

  Gael considered his answer. He had no desire at all to describe the original provocation for his rage against the brigenen. If Barris had never seen the execution of a Ghriana spy, better he remain ignorant of the reality. And if he had, better he not be reminded.

  Truly, it was the theft from the tally room that had Gael more vulnerable to his emotions – worry, discontent, wrath – than usual. And that theft was why he sat here now, sipping Barris’ wonderful fish chowder.

  “Someone is stealing my tin,” he said abruptly.

  Barris paled, his skin suddenly bedewed by a sheen of moisture, his eyes shifting and full of guilt.

  Gaelan’s tears. It was Barris, after all.

  Gael swallowed his mouthful, paused a moment, and then asked, very gently, “Barris, what really happened yesterday morning, when you fed smoked fish to me, to Keir, and to the privy smithy scullion?”

  The cook seemed to be tongue-tied.

  “It is best you tell me,” said Gael softly.

  Barris moaned. “Thea, Iona, and all the handmaidens of Sias in paradise,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Gael. I’m so sorry.”

  “Say it,” Gael directed.

  “I took it, so help me, I took your tin,” said Barris lowly.

  “Why?” asked Gael. Gaelan’s grief, but he couldn’t imagine what might have provoked his friend to such an act, any more than he’d been able to understand Arnoll’s motivation before the smith had revealed it. What other secrets of Belzetarn was he about to uncover?

  Barris choked, again speechless.

  Gael glanced hurriedly around the servery. It was deserted at the moment, but a scullion was sure to enter soon, pursuing some errand. And if a scullion failed to materialize, one of the other cooks would poke his head through the hatch with a question.