The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  “We should not be overheard,” murmured Gael.

  Barris nodded, infinitesimally.

  “Where can we go without drawing undue attention?” asked Gael, voice still low.

  “Mead cellar,” said Barris, barely audible.

  Gael picked up his goblet of knotberry mead, sipped, and then exclaimed quite loudly, outraged, “Opteon, your mead is vinegar! Has the cellarer failed to store the new barrels at the back, failed to bring the older ones forward?”

  Barris made the expected reply. “Sias forfend!” he roared, voice steady enough despite the anguish on his face. “I’ll see for myself this instant!” Finding enough anger in his pretense, he stuck his head back through the servery hatch. “Lodis, take over for me for a bit, will you? I need to assay the latest opened cask in the cellars.”

  Lodis yelled back, “I have the hearth,” and then Barris led the way down the Regenen Stair to its very bottom, where the last few treads formed a tight alcove beneath their surfaces, sheltering only dust and shadow.

  The servery providing for the bottle scullery and the cellar was dim and very quiet. Barris crossed the narrow space in five swift strides, his clogs clopping on the cold stone as he pulled his fibula of keys from his apron pocket. A quick twist of his wrist, and he had the meadery door unlocked.

  Gael allowed the cook to usher him through. He avoided glancing at Barris’ face – not wanting to see his friend’s likely discomfiture – as he walked into the vaulted space. It reached far, far back, lit by a series of barred, arched openings placed near the top of its outer wall. Great barrels rested in cradles throughout, while smaller casks occupied racks along the edges.

  Barris walked around the first rank of barrels to where a low ledge protruded below one of the barred windows. The fragrance of scythed grass floated in from the artisans’ yard, along with the shouts of an opteon reprimanding a careless apprentice.

  Barris hunkered down in the ledge like a scullion being disciplined, his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Gael lowered himself beside his friend. Now that they were here, now that they could speak freely, Gael found he didn’t want to speak at all, didn’t want to ask any questions, didn’t want to know . . . anything that Barris might tell him. If dwelling in a troll citadel inevitably resulted in broken loyalties, then Gael didn’t want to dwell in one. He rather thought he hated Belzetarn. But, then, he always had, hadn’t he? From the very beginning.

  Reluctantly, Gael shifted sideways to better view his friend.

  Barris still stared at his feet, his back hunched, and his hands clutching his hair.

  “Well?” demanded Gael, his voice hard.

  Barris jerked upright, and started to talk, his words low and dull.

  “Theron threatened to hurt the kitchen boys, if I didn’t get him some tin. He said he needed it for leverage, bribes and such. I didn’t want to do it, but” – his voice cracked – “I couldn’t let the boys be harmed.”

  Gael sighed. Of course Barris would protect his scullions. They were like sons to him, and like a father, the cook admonished them, guided them, pushed them, shielded them, and loved them. Barris knew boys – with all their impetuosity, irresponsibility, eagerness, and unthinking brutality. He understood them, and managed them well, but his care for his underlings had proved the weakness by which the castellanum could snare him.

  Gael sighed again, listening to the hectoring from the yard, still murmuring through the opening in the wall above them. “Why didn’t you come to me?” he asked. “You know I have the regenen’s ear. I could have ensured the castellanum did nothing to the boys.”

  Barris looked back down at the floor. “I couldn’t risk it. He’s too tricky. He’d sniggle through with bits of abuse somehow, you know he would.”

  “So, instead you stole from me?” Gael could hear his pitch rising. Something didn’t add up. That Barris would do much to preserve his boys was consistent with his character, if the threat were sufficient. But that Barris would betray his close friend and his own integrity to save the scullions from a few whippings or overly forceful reprimands . . . that didn’t add up. “Really, Barris? Really?”

  The cook buried his head in his hands. “I know. I know. I’m a ratfink. An arsewipe. A scumbucket. I hate myself.” His voice fell under his self-contempt, ringing true to Gael’s ear.

  Gael abruptly felt very tired. What in Cayim’s hells was he going to do about this, just on the verge of his departure for Olluvarde? He’d have to tell Keir, of course. But the wise course for dealing with Barris eluded him. He heartily wished he’d left the matter until he returned.

  “How did you manage it?” he asked wearily, almost against his will.

  Barris sat back, slumped against the wall. “Jemer was always late, always grabbing a quick bite from me on his way from the vaults to the privy smithy. He would thump his carry sack down on the hatch counter. All I had to do was hold the tray of food over it, and rummage under the flap while Jemer stuffed his face.” Barris shook his head. “Hells, Gael. I’ll understand if you never want to speak to me again.”

  “Don’t steal anymore. Hear me?” said Gael.

  “Theron already said to wait until you were back before I took another ingot,” said Barris, defeat in his voice.

  Gael pursed his lips, thinking. If the castellanum’s scheme – whatever it was – required Gael’s presence, then it seemed likely that its goal must be to Gael’s detriment, not the mere bribes and influence-peddling that he’d told Barris.

  “How many have you taken thus far?” he asked. “And for how long?”

  “Ten,” answered Barris, “starting last year. Theron stepped up the pace just this deichtain. I don’t know why.”

  Hells! This was much worse than Arnoll’s one-time theft, confessed almost immediately after it transpired. Barris had been deceiving Gael for moon upon moon. How many more of his acquaintance would turn out to be stealing from the tally room? The next thing he knew, he’d be hearing Keir confessing. Except that was ridiculous. If it were Keir, the boy need only have fudged the tallies to ensure that Gael never learned there were metals missing at all.

  “Did you only steal tin?” he asked. “Never bronze?”

  “Bronze?” Barris frowned, looking puzzled. “No, never bronze.”

  So. Gael had yet to find every last thief.

  “Barris, I can’t see my way in this.”

  “I’ve made a right mess for you,” said his friend bitterly. Was Barris still his friend? Gael had no idea how he felt about it at this point. He’d have to sort that out later.

  “Don’t steal anymore,” Gael repeated. Barris had said he would not, but somehow Gael felt a need to emphasize that instruction. “Stay away from Theron as much as you possibly can. Just do your cooking. In fact, do even more cooking than you usually do. Plan immense feasts to celebrate . . . anything at all. And wait until I return from Olluvarde.”

  Barris looked stricken. “No,” he said. “Turn me in. I deserve it. Carbraes will order me flogged. Or worse. And then I’ll rot in the brig until I die.”

  Gael huffed an impatient breath. “I’m not turning you in, Barris. You’ve been my friend – a staunch friend – for years before you did this. Just . . . do right while I’m gone, eh. We’ll figure this out.”

  Barris stared back at him, eyes haunted, saying nothing at all.

  * * *

  INTERLUDE

  Olluvarde

  Chapter 14

  Soon after her arrival at Belzetarn, Keir had discovered that the sentry walk atop the curtain wall overlooking the lake was never patrolled. The enemies of the truldemagar had long since been driven out of the lowlands, retreating to their mountain fastnesses. Carbraes feared no waterborne attack on his citadel, and his march posted no lookout over the lake.

  Most evenings Keir climbed a narrow straight stair located between the hospital and the feltmakers in the artisan yard, emerging from the shadows of the crumbling ascent into the sun on the wall top. Sev
eral of the shielding merlons had fallen, yielding a sweeping view of the water and its surrounding hills. Keir would clamber onto a smooth portion of stone and sit cross-legged, surveying the panorama.

  The evening after Gael departed for Olluvarde, Keir sought her usual perch. The stones under her were warm from their day’s exposure, and the air was mild. The rays of the sun, slanting from behind her, shone long and golden. A riffle of clouds curdled white along the range of peaks on the horizon, and the lake – meandering away from her with a multitude of inlets – was very blue. Somewhere in the forest on the nearer shores, a dove cooed, soft and easeful. The scent of the water drifted upward, liquidly mellow and mixed with the aroma of sun-warmed pine.

  She loved this high refuge for its solitude, its peace, and its beauty. The Hamish wilds were beautiful, but altogether different from Fiors, with its inland turf meadows, its coastal salt marshes, and its grass-fringed dunes, all overladen with the tang of the sea. But she didn’t want to think of home – which was home no longer. Not now.

  The afternoon and evening had gone smoothly, despite Gael’s absence and despite whatever anxiety had prompted all his precautions. No additional ingots had gone missing. No one had challenged her authority. No one had threatened her person. Indeed, the castellanum had invited her to partake of an excursion on the lake when the next deichtain’s day of rest came around.

  She’d thought about it, tempted.

  She missed the vast sense of space one experienced at sea, with the waves stretching away forever to the horizon and the distant sky arching above. Even ashore on Fiors itself, the sky was far larger than here in the north with all its hills. Getting out on the water of the lake . . . might be a little like sailing off the coast of Fiors. And . . . even if it were not, she might gain some hint of Theron’s schemes against Gael.

  In the end, though, she’d declined the invitation. What might happen to her out on the lake, wholly within Theron’s power, surrounded only by his hangers-on, out of reach of Arnoll or any other friend? How foolish she would feel to have rendered all of Gael’s safeguards futile.

  She still thought his apprehension regarding the magus unnecessary. She’d managed perfectly well at holding Nathiar at bay long before Gael became aware that the magus required such restraint. As for the idea that the magus would grow more persistent following Gael’s departure, it was nonsense.

  Three times had she almost encountered the magus this afternoon and evening, and each time he – not she – had taken decisive action to prevent the encounter: dodging away into a privy before they could pass one another on the Cliff Stair, turning the opposite way in the artisan yard, and actually leaving the high table when she entered the great hall for her supper.

  A slight breeze arose from the water, blowing cool on her face.

  Gael had asked her to check on Barris over the next deichtain or so.

  The news that yet another of Gael’s friends had stolen from him had shocked her. Even surprised her. Once it wouldn’t have done so. She’d expected trolls to be violent and faithless before she’d ever met any. After living in Belzetarn for two years, after witnessing Arnoll’s unfaltering standards for the armor that would protect his fellows, after benefitting from Gael’s protection herself, she’d come to understand that trolls ranged across the entire spectrum of honor just as did the unafflicted. There might be more brutal trolls than there were brutal men, but trolls who were kind and generous and humane also walked under the sun. What an odd thought that was.

  She’d not wanted to admit that it was so, but she could not avoid the conclusion. She had avoided thinking about it. She did not want to think about it now.

  Gael’s voice had been dispassionate, phlegmatic even, as he reported Barris’ admission of guilt, as though he spoke of a change in the weather from fair to clouded, or the turn of the tide from outgoing to ingoing. Gael usually spoke calmly, and with composure. She expected that. She’d grown to depend upon it. But some tinge of the warmth and caring that lay beneath his rationality was always present. The deadness of his tone as he spoke of Barris made her hurt for him.

  But she’d checked on Barris as he had wished her to.

  The cook had babbled about the amazingly festal meal he planned in honor of the march’s upcoming sixtieth natal day. Almost too buoyantly. Keir couldn’t help suspecting that despondence hid beneath his ebullience. But he seemed to be doing as Gael had instructed him: keeping his head down in the kitchen.

  She knew Gael worried for his friend. Gael might wonder if any friendship remained in his heart for Barris, but she knew Gael. He wouldn’t abandon a friend, even when that friend proved less reliable, less resolute than he’d believed him to be. She knew Gael, and she worried for him.

  But the quick hug she’d given him upon his departure had been foolish. Just the briefest contact, her arms partially around his shoulders, but she shouldn’t have done it.

  She was almost glad that he would be absent for nearly two deichtains. His well-being had come to matter too much, as had his opinion of her. She needed more distance, less feeling not more. Gael’s absence was helpful to that end. If only she did not worry for his safety. Her own memories of Olluvarde were too vivid for her to believe the ruins anything but perilous.

  * * *

  Keiran’s very first sight ever of the truldemagar had come as a shock.

  In Olluvarde’s broad underground passage of bas relief murals, she’d just finished scrutinizing the last panel, her silvery blue magelight glowing about her, when the trolls burst around the far corner by the stairs. They saw her at once and gave a great shout, charging.

  She stood paralyzed a moment – in horror. She’d planned to await their approach, but her plans were not what held her motionless.

  The truldemagar’s war gear was famous. All the north-land peoples spoke of its beauty and excellence. Keiran had heard the tales, of course, and knew bronze to be superior to the leather coats and flint knives of Fiors’ warriors. But the ferocious glint and clink of shining scale mail surmounted by gleaming helms gave these trolls a presence more alarming than anything she’d imagined. With their forearms and shins encased in bronze greaves, they seemed monsters of metal, alien and terrifying, as they stormed forward.

  Heart in her throat – pounding, pounding, like the trolls’ booted feet hammering Olluvarde’s marble floor – she stared.

  The tales waxed eloquent on the grotesque faces and warped bodies of the afflicted. She’d known to expect the curving and elongated noses, usually strangely blunt, sometimes cruelly pointed; the enlarged, cupped ears; and the sallow, sagging skin framing watery, bloodshot eyes. She’d imagined the hunched shoulders and crooked arms. But the reality of their deformities combined with the vast power in their muscled limbs and the battle rage twisting their faces unnerved her wholly.

  The oncoming scent of their sweat rolled over her.

  She turned and ran.

  Her pursuers gave another mighty shout, their voices deep and growling.

  And her feet responded with a burst of speed.

  What are you doing? What are you doing? she asked herself. You meant to stand and await them. You meant to turn yourself over to them.

  But she could not make herself stop. Not here underground, hidden from the sight of the sky, where unspeakable things might be done to her, unwitnessed. And how foolish was that? Thinking the presence of the day eye over her might offer any protection.

  No matter her panicked logic, she raced along the curving passage like a hare fleeing before hounds, darting around a piece of fallen wall like a startled minnow, vaulting over clumped rubble like a leaping deer, her magelight still illuminating her way, the troll horde pounding at her heels.

  Sias! Oh, Sias! she prayed as she panted.

  What in Cayim’s hells did she think she was doing? Where in Gaelan’s grief did she think she was going? She’d entered this passage by the stairs far behind her, the stairs behind her troll pursuers. Did she think to burst ou
t through some crack in the earth to feel the free air on her skin along with warm sunshine? Almost certainly she’d be cornered instead in some caved-in dead end, severed from any escape to daylight and freedom.

  But she ran, and ran, the passage curving always to her right.

  Were the trolls farther in her wake? Was she faster in her sandals and suede tunic with its fringed hem? Were they slower in their mail and boots, with their terrible swords out and weighing their arms?

  The passage turned an abrupt corner, slamming into a smaller hallway, on the left a tunnel plunging down narrow stairs into darkness, to the right – oh, blessings! oh, blessings! – a level scrap of corridor running toward a ragged opening in the hillside and cool sunlight.

  Keiran whirled right, diving for the light like a seal caught too long underwater and diving up for air.

  Six pounding steps later and she was out, carried by her momentum across cracked flagstones to the edge of the terrace, where a tree-studded slope slanted down toward the woodlands.

  She doubled back, hurtling up broken steps before the truldemagar could emerge. Fleet as a mountain goat, up and up, she fled out of sight through the forest of columns at the top of the steps, and then ducked behind a crumbling statue into its niche in a fragment of wall.

  She crouched there panting and panting, heart slowing from its frantic beat, and knowing she was safe.

  The trolls roared, angry and puzzled, as they stumbled onto the empty terrace and saw their quarry nowhere in sight.

  She was safe. They’d never find her. She was safe!

  And her plans had all gone wrong.

  She’d hacked her hair short with the flint knife tucked into her belt. She’d bound her breasts tight, thanking Iona that she was slight, that her facial features were clean cut, not soft, and that she could pass for a boy.

  She’d been ready to be taken peaceably. But that mob had been no sane scouting party. They’d have hacked her to pieces, not taken her prisoner. She’d had to run, as her body had known, even while her head argued.