They travelled for three days, south and east, as far as Berin could tell, although the overcast skies made directions difficult. They were well south of Esparan and ever since reaching Razimir the days had been comfortably warm, even in midwinter. Now they were climbing steadily and already the night air had a distinct bite.
With better food and no fetters, Berin recovered fast. Even Tariska’s leg was improving with the rest and clean water. She seemed to take a vague interest in things about her now, looking at birds when they called or gazing at rivers that rushed noisily by. But she had not uttered a single word since they had left the border post, and if addressed, she would either show no sign of having heard or sometimes put her head down defensively.
Sinkul was kind enough: probably a paragon compared to most slave-owners, Berin thought. He gave them blankets for the night and let Berin tend to Tariska whenever he pleased. At the same time he seemed completely indifferent to them as people, showing no curiosity about their lives or their feelings. In fact he treated them rather as a good farmer did his animals, concerned about their welfare in a practical way because they would be more use to him healthy. He obviously did not expect Berin to converse with him in any normal manner, and the youth soon learned to read the signs when his new owner was taking offence.
One subject on which Sinkul was always ready to talk was the mine. So the youth learned to relate any topic whatsoever to this same line of questioning and became increasingly skillful at extracting information. They were apparently headed for a range of forested hills, one area of which was particularly rich in minerals. The Wicca Ridge Mine yielded a high grade iron ore. The growing demand for steel for the impending war looked set to make Sinkul a rich man, and his general good humour seemed to stem to some extent from this rise in his fortunes.
When younger he had been the owner of a highly profitable gold mine, originally started by his great-grandfather. The Emperor was their main customer. Gold was the basis for the Empire currency and the gold Imperials minted in Karkor were valid for trade across most of the world. Then, some twenty years ago, the Treasury in Karkor had cut its purchases of gold. Not all at once, but over ten years the demand for it had shrunk to a third of normal levels and the price to a quarter. Yet the Treasury were still stamping out a regular flow of gold Imperials!
No one knew the true composition of the new coinage. It looked like gold at first sight, just a little duller and lighter than it should be. Certain that it was adulterated, people had objected throughout the Empire and they were still not happy with the new coins even now. But the only source of Imperials was the Treasury, who steadily substituted the new coinage for the old, until everyone had to use them simply to be able to trade.
Sinkul had been smart enough to see what was coming and had sold out some fifteen years previously at a reasonable price. He had enough money at that point to retire to a life of ease, which he did for a while; but when is enough money enough? As soon as the rumours of war gained any substance, he had bought a mine yielding small quantities of iron ore and began to expand production steadily. Now prices for high grade ore were rising by the month and everything he extracted could be sold three times over.
He was proud of his acumen and pleased to tell the story of his success. Praise or even comment from Berin would have been considered an impertinence; he was in effect telling over a well-known story to himself and he liked to have an audience. Slaves were one stage better that horses for the purpose.
By slipping in oblique questions Berin had also learned that Wicca Ridge was more than three hundred miles from Karkor and about fifty miles to the east of the great highway from Razimir. He stored away all the fragments of information that he could gather, which might be useful for an escape. How many horses there were at the mine, how often wagons went out with the ore, where to, how rugged or how populated were the hills around Wicca Ridge, and so on.
By the fifth day they were well into the densely wooded hills, and far from the signs of human activity being left behind, they were increasing with every mile. Berin had seen blacksmiths at work before; but there was no iron ore in the Rimber valley, so the preparation of charcoal and smelting and forging on the scale they were encountering now was quite new to him. There seemed to be smoke drifting up from another group of buildings round every bend, and as the daylight faded, they could see the furnace-glow and hear the ring of the hammers long before they came to each forge.
A steady stream of massive high-sided wagons were lumbering down the track. Now and again Sinkul would stop one and have a word with the driver, saying proudly to Berin each time, “Another of my wagons.” Sometimes the ore was carried a long way to the smelters, he explained. But it was so bulky to transport that it was usually smelted and forged right here in the hills.
“That’s the next thing”, he said several times, talking to himself again. “That’s where the money is. Do the whole thing on one site. Mine the ore and end up selling steel.” And his body would go tense with excitement at his vision of yet more profit.
**
A couple of days later they reached the mine. It was not a pretty scene. Desolate heaps of spoil covered several acres and pits half filled with discoloured water ringed the site. Crude timber sheds served as the living quarters for a wretched-looking crew of about three hundred slaves. The overseers and mining engineers shared a slightly more substantial building and Sinkul himself occupied a square stone-built house on the forest edge.
“You’d better move into that small shed next to my house. You’ll be working with me and I don’t want you stinking like the rest of them. Keep yourself clean, d’you hear? You can collect food from the overseers’ kitchen.”
Privileged indeed, thought Berin, although he was still very wary of this man. Slaves were obviously a commodity to him, and the youth had little doubt that their situation would quickly turn for the worse if he failed to please. Well, for the time being he had no choice. While Tariska was so helpless, he would make sure that he did please.
His tasks were several-fold. The overseers kept simple tallies of the number of baskets of ore which came up out of the mine on every shift, and it was Berin’s job to keep a record of these figures. He was also responsible for recording the departure and destination of each of the huge ore wagons and for preparing a brief Bill of Sale for the driver. When the wagons returned, the money had to be counted in against the Bill. Sinkul also wanted a record of all the people working at the mine, slaves, overseers, engineers, everybody; he was uninterested in names – the slaves were branded with WRM and a number which served as identification – only statistics.
There were also many other minor duties, such as being Sinkul’s messenger boy, so that Berin found himself busy from dawn to dusk, and sometimes at night too when the mine was operating a late shift. He realised that he had been put straight into a position of considerable responsibility and not a little trust. When he asked his owner rather nervously, how long he would be allowed to learn everything, Sinkul replied with a smile, “Don’t worry about it,” and then continued in the same affable tone, “Just don’t make any mistakes. You’ll be flogged for the first one and after the second you’ll be put to work on the fire team, along with your girl.” Berin swallowed in silence, chilled by the casual threat.
As he began to take part in the life of the mine, he became slowly aware of another menace also. The slaves were only chained at night, not while they were working. They were kept docile by near starvation, exhausting work and sharp-eyed overseers. One morning he happened to catch one of them eyeing him with real hatred. It was the first expression he had seen in days of watching their blank defeated faces, and he was so startled that he asked one of the engineers who spoke Shattun what it could mean.
The man shared a quick joke with one of the overseers, then turned back to Berin. “No one told you about Czinzi? The last clerk we had here doing your job? Czinzi Chinzi we call him now. That’s Belugins for ‘Czinzi the diver’. Not v
ery funny really. He fell head first down the mineshaft one night.”
He looked pensively at the youth. “A word of advice. Watch your back. Slaves don’t live very long in the mine. In a year there won’t be one of this lot left alive. And they don’t like anyone who has an easy life while helping to oppress them. They hate us all. Most of all they’ve got it in for any slave who doesn’t suffer as they do.”
“But what I do doesn’t cause them any harm.” Berin was puzzled. “I just keep count of things.”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to eat the thin slop they get. You don’t break your back carrying baskets that weigh more than you do. You’re not choking for twelve hours at a stretch in the dust and the smoke that are eventually going to kill you. And to cap it all you’ve got your girl living with you, though she does seem a bit wrong in the head. No, mate, you can take it as certain. You may not do them any harm, but they hate you. Take care. Accidents happen easy in the mine.”
Although the engineer clearly meant what he said, the youth found it hard to believe that he himself could have aroused such feelings. The next day he had cause to change his mind.
Instructed to make one of his frequent trips down the mine to deliver a message to an engineer, Berin was halfway down one of the ladders fixed to the wall of the forty foot shaft when something made him look up. A great dark mass was hurtling towards him out of the pale circle of sky above. Without an instant’s pause he leapt for the next ladder, six feet away behind his left shoulder. Something struck him heavily on the right leg, then even as he grasped the wooden rungs, a resounding crash signalled the arrival of the missile at the foot of the shaft.
He clung there panting while his mind quickly sorted out what had happened. By the noise and the dust he realised that a load of ore had fallen straight down the line of the ladder he had been descending. Several rungs had been broken by the impact.
An accident? It was just possible, but very unlikely. That carrier, who had just been reaching the top of the next ladder with a full basket, must have taken the few steps to the top of Berin’s ladder and simply tipped his load over the edge. There were shouts from below now as people came to investigate. The youth closed his eyes and hung on trembling for a moment or two longer, before taking a deep breath and going on down to deliver his message.
Thinking about it that night, Berin came to the conclusion that the dropped load had definitely been aimed at him. Caught unawares, he would have been killed or maimed. It made him shudder to speculate on Tariska’s fate in either case. The engineer was right. He would have to be very careful.
From that point his reflections took a strange course. The actual load of ore intended to knock him off the ladder had been massive. What must it be like to carry such a weight along the tunnels and up the shaft? The carriers used two shoulder loops and a broad head-band, but however good the carrying system human legs and backs had to take the strain. No wonder the slaves didn’t last long. Climbing the ladder must tax them to the limit.
Why didn’t Sinkul use horses? He was always complaining that the work of bringing the ore to the surface was going too slowly. They could split the rock quickly enough and the wagons could haul it away. Getting it from the face-workings to the surface was the problem. Well, there were plenty of horses and mules at the mine, and with a large pulley over the shaft they could drag up far heavier loads than any slave. In fact they could probably use horses to pull cart-loads of ore along the tunnels to the bottom of the shaft as well.
The ideas excited Berin and he could hardly wait to put his brilliant scheme to the mine-owner next day. He wouldn’t be interested in trying to save his slaves any labour, but he must see that it would increase production and therefore his profits.
Berin was more cautious in the morning. Viewed in cold blood, there were several gaps in his plan, and more important, he had never approached Sinkul on anything before, accepting that the role he was fulfilling at the moment was purely submissive. He was decidedly nervous then, when he took advantage of a lull after the departure of two ore wagons to broach his new ideas.
Taking heart from Sinkul’s signal that he was willing to listen, the youth plunged ahead and explained. He was at once relieved and disappointed, when, before he had finished, the owner cut him off with a shake of his head and an ironic smile.
“We have already considered that, birabi.” Birabi was Belugins for clerk and as near to a name as Berin had. “Even small horses couldn’t work in the tunnels. They’re too low for top-loading and too narrow for side-panniers. And as for hauling loads up the shaft, we actually tried it for a while. Some mines do use the system, but it ends up slower than doing it by manpower. Only one horse can work at once, and it takes longer to hitch on a basket, pull it up, unhitch it, and take the horse back to its starting point than it does for a slave to carry the basket up. It’s a lot more expensive too. Do you realise that a good horse costs as much as fifteen slaves? And it needs more attention.”
He gazed quizzically at his young slave. “It is not your task to devise how to run this mine or to waste my time with wild ideas.” Berin grew cold at the thought that he might have gone too far with this unpredictable man. “However I am not displeased that you have my interests at heart. Keep your tongue silent, continue to work well, and I might consider setting you free in a few years time.”
This was not the first time Sinkul had made this offer, which he clearly considered to be the height of generosity. It had previously evoked a bitter silent laugh in Berin. Free in a few years? With the Talisman about to appear in Karkor within a few weeks, his friends scattered to the four winds, and Tariska in urgent need of proper attention.
On this occasion, he reacted quite differently. His mind had suddenly jumped back several months and over two thousand miles to one of the deep wells in the desert. The picture was clear in his head, as he watched an ox plodding round in a circle raising an endless chain of water buckets. The system had intrigued him by its simple efficiency and every detail of the mechanism was sharp and definite in his recollection. Should he speak? He hesitated, and then decided to gamble.
“I have seen a horse-powered system that works much faster, honoured sir.” Berin knew he was more likely to be believed if he did not claim the invention for himself. With a glance at the owner’s frowning face, he hurried on, “In fact, sir, it hauled loads continuously. It would bring up several times the amount the slaves can manage now.”
There was a moment’s silence, while Sinkul digested the fact that the slave he had just told to hold his tongue and not to waste his time on ideas about mining was in fact defying him. It was as unthinkable as his horse advising him on the style of cloak he should buy. Then his brain registered what he had just heard. ‘Hauled loads continuously’? If such a thing were possible, the rewards to be reaped from increasing production at this time were limitless. His mouth went dry with anticipation. If it was nonsense, he could use this clerk’s fate as an object lesson to the overseers and engineers that even those in privileged positions should not take liberties with him; a few weeks with the fire crews would finish him. But if he had truly seen what he was describing now, then Sinkul’s profits could treble overnight.
“Tell me about it,” he said curtly. Sinkul was no fool. Almost as soon as Berin had started to describe the circular winding system, he saw that it could work. With mounting excitement he plied the youth with questions, giving himself scant time to wonder at the assuredness of the answers, so dazzled was he at the prospect of success. Berin changed and embellished his memories so that they became a mine working with a large winding mechanism which could use the power of two or more horses at once. When the owner’s queries finally ran down, another silence, much longer than before, ensued.
“It may work. By all the gods, it may work.” Sinkul’s face had turned red, suffused with blood. He sprang to his feet, shouted for any engineers above ground, and began to issue orders in quick succession. A frantic three days of activ
ity, during which Berin found himself consulted several times to check doubtful points against his memory, resulted in a crude winding mechanism using two horses, which began to pull baskets out of the mine much more quickly than they could be delivered to the bottom of the shaft.
For a day or two Berin felt highly satisfied with the outcome. Sinkul should value him more now and that might mean more privileges, more freedom. The slaves did not have to make the exhausting climb up the ladder any more, and they should feel at least a little grateful to him for that. And there was a definite pleasure in seeing something which he had instigated succeed.
By the third day disillusion was setting in. The new system was still performing wonders. The owner, however, seemed to be completely ignoring Berin’s part in the operation. It was clear that he believed it was a slave’s duty to serve his owner in any way he could. If he performed an unexpected service, well, that too was part of his duty. Why would anyone consider it even worthy of mention? Of course, in addition to being endowed with this traditional slave-owner’s viewpoint, Sinkul was obsessed with his new toy and far too busy to even think about his clerk.
Disconsolately Berin reassured himself that at least the slaves had benefited. The only way to confirm this of course was to ask them, and to do that he had to find a carrier who spoke Belugins of which he was fast acquiring a working knowledge or even Shattun. The first men he spoke to down in the tunnels looked at him with shut faces and walked on. He had almost given up when a huge bearded fellow, returning with an empty basket, responded.
“Yes, I speak Shattun.” The bear-like figure, his eyes gleaming in the torch-light, the sweat running from his tangle of wild hair, towered over the youth. Remembering the attempt on his life, Berin felt uneasy, but the man’s tone was mild.
The Tears of Sisme Page 56
