Sword of the Bright Lady

by M. C. Planck

  “Pass the butter, please,” Svengusta said.

  “I see your mark,” Lalania snapped at the old man, tears in her eyes. “Your Saint has declared for him, so who am I to question? What matter is the opinion of a foolish young troubadour?”

  “I keep trying to pay for your opinions,” Christopher said, “so obviously they matter to me.”

  “I just want the butter,” Svengusta protested. “I don’t need to argue the Pater’s case. If you’d stick around long enough, you’d see for yourself. Like your man has.”

  Gregor hung his head in silence. Apparently Christopher had won the man over, passed his tests, without even knowing it.

  “I’ll argue it then,” Karl said. “Who are you to question the Saint? He carries twenty thousand on his shoulders. If he thinks the Pater can ease that burden, who are you to object?”

  “Peace,” Helga said, “there’ll be no more politics at the dinner table.”

  “Lalania, what can I do to prove myself to you?” Christopher said earnestly. “Ask me any test. Let me show you what I’ve spent the money on. Heck, you can go over my books. In fact, could you go over my books for me? I don’t want to make Fae feel slighted, but I’d sleep a lot better at night if I had an independent audit once in a while.”

  “Tell me where you are from,” she said, but instinct made her cloak this dangerous repetition, and she spoke in Celestial. Christopher was impressed, again, with her staggering array of skills. One of which was keeping secrets. The mere knowledge that she wanted the answer to this particular question above all else would naturally draw undue attention to the question.

  “Anything but that,” he said sadly, in the same beautiful language. Krellyan had told him not to reveal his origin, and nothing that had transpired since that first day had given him any reason to doubt the Saint’s wisdom. “But I promise you this, someday I will tell you. When the Saint gives me leave to, then I will tell you.” A promise made in Celestial felt terribly binding, like he’d just sworn on his mother’s grave.

  “Pass the butter, please,” Svengusta said in the same musical language. It sounded rather silly in that holy tongue. But he made his point. They were not the only two in the world who could speak it.

  “I’m sorry,” Lalania said to the table, in the common tongue. “That was rude of me.”

  “I don’t mind,” Helga said. “I’ve always loved the sounds. Pater used to sing to me, when I first came here and could not sleep.”

  “You should hear how he sings to the widows in town,” Karl smirked.

  Helga blushed, Gregor chuckled appreciatively, and Lalania rolled her eyes.

  Svengusta put his hands up in defeat. “What in blazes does a man have to do around here to get the butter?”

  The first day of summer crept toward them. Christopher was busy, riding into Knockford most every day of the week. He couldn’t believe he had an hour commute, but that was the price of living in the suburbs. Royal needed the exercise anyway.

  Building the new machinery went a lot faster with the lathe. Jhom had it running full-time, using his father’s men. Technically, everybody still worked for Jurgen, but the lure of machine tools was stronger than family loyalty. Christopher could see the men getting into the habit of walking to his shop every morning. Any day now, Jhom was going to make his move. It would have to be soon. The tension was becoming ugly.

  Christopher had the rest of the town on his side, though. He spent a lot of money on buildings, so the masons and carpenters were happy. He had to buy food and beer for his army, so the farmers and brewers were happy. And he was a local hero, so everybody else was happy. The strain between the still-prestigious but out-of-work smiths and the rest of the town threatened to tear the community in half.

  Finally, the deadline for giving out the armorers’ contracts lay before them like a snake in the path. It could no longer be put off until tomorrow, because it was today.

  “Do we take an army or not?” Christopher asked Karl, only half-joking.

  “The Vicar would not thank you for doing her police work,” Svengusta said, but Karl ignored the question as unimportant.

  They rode into town, just the two of them, eschewing Christopher’s normal escort. Word of their arrival spread quickly, and by the time they left the stables, there was a crowd of angry men waiting for them at the church steps.

  They tried pity first.

  “Goodman Karl,” said an independent smith, “I have had no real work for weeks, only making nails. I cannot feed my children on nails.”

  Christopher had put off buying anything metal, trying to make the market collapse, but the carpenters always needed nails.

  “Making nails is Apprentice work,” complained another one.

  “So is digging ore, but you complained when I took that away from you,” Christopher said. “Do you want me to make my own nails now?”

  That shut up that line of questioning, but perhaps not in the best possible way. Christopher wished Svengusta was doing this, or even Tom, while the crowd glared at him. But that attitude was a tactical error on their part. Pity was the one argument that would have worked.

  “If you do not hand out the contracts today,” another smith demanded, “then how can we finish the work by year’s end?”

  “I have not yet decided on the contracts,” Karl said.

  “What do you mean?” the smith shot back. “They’re the same as always. What’s to decide?”

  “This year they may be different. Pater Christopher suggests he might have some ideas, which I am considering.” Karl was unflappable.

  “Pater Christopher isn’t a smith!” The man was outraged.

  “No, but I am a priest of War, so weaponry is in my domain,” Christopher countered, and it worked. These people were too used to trusting priests. He’d have to work on that.

  “But Pater, you don’t have a shop,” said another man.

  Christopher looked to the north, where his buildings were, although you couldn’t see them from here. “Hmm . . . what do you propose we call that big building full of machinery and forges?”

  “A shop is not tools and buildings; it is men,” Palek said, and the skirmishing was over. Now the big guns were engaged.

  “Are you saying I need men? Then I will hire them. You all know my working conditions. Anybody interested?”

  The crowd muttered, uncertain of its cohesion, but it did not break. His offer was tempting but not overwhelming. Smithing was an elite craft, and these men had a guild, even stronger than a union. Just money wouldn’t be enough. He needed political support. He needed an inside man.

  Slowly, reluctantly, moving like he was stuck in molasses, Jhom stepped out in front of the crowd.

  “I’m interested,” he said.

  The crowd shook, stunned at this betrayal. Christopher tried to read Jurgen’s face but could not decipher it. Then he realized that the lack of outrage meant he’d already won.

  “You’ve all seen Pater’s machines,” Jhom told the crowd. “I want to work on them. I want to make more.”

  “But how can you leave your father’s shop?” someone asked. Jurgen had the best shop in town, and Jhom would inherit it. How could he turn his back on his family and his fortune?

  “I’m not,” Jhom said. “Senior Jurgen and Senior Dereth have agreed to form a partnership, with Pater’s money. I will oversee the shop as Master of Novices.”

  “Then there are no jobs after all?” the first man said.

  “There are. Even if all my father’s men join us in the new shop, we still have more work than they can do. We have need of another Senior, and his trained men. Senior Palek, will you not join us? We will offer you an equal share.”

  Christopher hadn’t been sure about this open-air bargaining, but Jhom had chosen it anyway. The young smith felt that the public knowledge that they had offered Palek a fair deal would be worth more than anything they could gain by secrecy.

  “I’ll not dance to another man’s tune,�
� Palek spat out. “You’ll not get away with this scam, awarding yourself the contracts. The Saint won’t stand for it.”

  “You doubt my authority?” Karl said, and his voice almost had emotion in it, if ice-cold steel was an emotion. “I’ll give the contracts to whomever the Dark I please.”

  And that was that. The argument was instantly over.

  Palek boiled, but he did not burst. He turned and walked away. The crowd dispersed, escaping the dangerous Karl, but soon re-formed around Jhom, clamoring at him for attention. They wanted the jobs that Palek had just turned down.

  Christopher was happy to abandon the young smith to the wolves. That was what he was getting paid for, after all.

  They waited a few days, but soon enough Karl and Christopher had to make a call on Palek. The smith met them with a glare.

  “Why do you darken my door, priest?” he growled.

  “I’ve come to eat crow,” Christopher said. “We want to give you the contract for the helmets.”

  “So my methods are good enough now?” Palek’s fury was undiminished.

  “They always were, Senior. I hoped to use your skills in a different way. But we each serve the cause as best we can, and you make helmets.”

  “I’m thinking of raising my prices.” Palek just didn’t accept apologies.

  “Go ahead. But if you do, you’ll find the price of iron goes up, too.”

  “You’ve won,” Karl said. “You get to keep your shop and your old ways. What are you still fighting for?”

  “Will he change nothing else?” When neither of them could say yes, Palek continued. “Then I will keep fighting.”

  “Well, as long as we understand each other,” Christopher said, accepting defeat. “I’ve got this absurd suit of armor everybody wants me to wear. But it’s too large and it’s too black. Can you fix it?” Before the smith could answer, a number of Christopher’s boys hauled Bart’s clinking plate into the shop.

  “I did not make this.”

  “No, but you are the only one I trust to fit it to me,” Christopher said quite honestly.

  “It is fine work.” Palek fondled the dented helmet. “Masterwork from Kingsrock. I cannot do this kind of work,” he said sadly. The smith’s eyebrows twitched when he saw the breastplate, torn like a piece of paper. Christopher had used his magic to patch all the holes from the nail bomb, but he couldn’t twist the metal back into shape by hand to weld it down.

  “But can you fix it?” Christopher didn’t care about the stupid armor, although everybody else did. He was just trying to find a way to give the man some business. He felt bad for all the independents who hadn’t been hired into his shop. They were still hurting financially. Making helmets for Palek would help, but not if Palek took his anger out on them.

  “Yes, I can repair and resize it,” Palek answered. “The standard charge is one hundred fifty gold.”

  That seemed cheap, given the amounts he dealt with these days. No, wait, it didn’t. That was a year’s pay for an ordinary smith.

  “Can you fix the color?” Christopher was going to pay, anyway.

  “Yes. What color would you like?”

  “White,” Karl said.

  “You presume much,” Palek said sourly. “White won’t stay white in a war.”

  Privately, Christopher agreed, feeling bad for whatever recruit would wind up polishing the stuff, but Karl reacted like he’d been slapped.

  “For your own sake, pray you are wrong.”

  The two men glared at each other, and Christopher decided discretion was the better part of valor, since he had no idea what they were going on about.

  26.

  BULL BY THE RIFLE

  “Cannan and Niona have gone into the Wild again,” Lalania told them when she breezed back in at the end of the week. “He overstayed his welcome. A fellow Bright took exception to his manner, and they dueled, which is common enough, but Cannan killed him, which is not common. People began to question his devotion to the cause. And when rumor began to circulate that your sword was mundane, and merely a device to entrap Black Bart, then other people began to blame Cannan for his part in the deception. So they stepped out for a while.”

  Christopher was torn between relief and sadness. “I’m worried about Cannan, too.” Actually, more about Niona. “But I am happy to hear my sword is no longer an issue.”

  Lalania smirked. “As long as you were merely ignoring the rumors, that seemed to confirm them. But now that people have an alternative explanation, that it was all a jape at Bart’s expense, they can believe it. The fact that their alternative explanation is itself false only helps.” They shared a grin at the madness of crowds.

  “What about the ring? Did you find out anything?”

  She sighed. “Not yet. It is low on the list of the Loremasters’ priorities. They have other more pressing topics to research. Or more personally interesting, I suspect.”

  She made it sound like they had a supercomputer they had to budget time on. Well, heck, maybe they did.

  “I’d really like to see this college of yours.”

  She studied him, searching for sarcasm. “Traveling out of your own lands seems rather too dangerous for you at the moment.”

  Unfortunately, he had to agree with her. And he didn’t have the time to waste. There was plenty of work to do before the end of the year.

  The smiths had finished the other machines in much less time than the first one had taken, the lathe already proving its worth in increased productivity. Jhom’s men now stood idle, watching while Christopher handed Jhom his prize creation, a sheaf of papers he had labored over for many days.

  “What kind of machine is this?” the young smith asked.

  “This,” Christopher said, “is the whole point. This is a sky-fire weapon.”

  The men had been curious; now they were electrified.

  “Now let me explain something: I’ve gone for broke. I decided to start at the top. If you can’t make this device, then I’ll simplify it.”

  He was hoping they were motivated by the challenge. If they couldn’t make a decent breech-block, he’d have to fall back onto muzzle-loaders.

  Jhom studied the pictures carefully while his men waited in respectful silence. Nobody even thought to remark on what a change that was from just a few weeks ago.

  Finally Jhom announced his verdict. “We can make this. A Senior will have to do this particular step, and that one, but we can make this.”

  Christopher bowed to his shop manager. He’d taught the man as much as he knew about operating a machine shop or running power tools. From here on out, Jhom and the men would have to figure it out themselves.

  “I am prepared to be impressed,” he told them.

  And he was. He and Karl stood together in the shop, looking over Jhom’s creation. It had taken a dozen smiths ten days to make the first gun, but only because they were still learning how to work in an assembly line.

  He ran his hands sensuously over the rifle. It was absurdly heavy, since he hadn’t been sure of the strength of his steel or his powder, but it was beautiful. It was clean and smooth, straight and even. It was machined.

  It made him think of home.

  “Excuse us, Pater,” Jhom said. “Now that we’ve made it, perhaps you can explain it. Dereth says it’s a kind of pipe, but we don’t understand what the grooves are for.”

  After they had milled the tube from its raw casting into a precise diameter, they’d carved out six grooves that made a complete twist from beginning to end inside the barrel.

  “That’s what makes it a rifle,” Christopher said. “Rifle,” he pronounced for them. “You all might as well get used to the word.” He opened the breech and closed it again with a smooth click.

  “How does it work?” Gregor asked, always interested in weaponry.

  “I don’t know,” Christopher said. “I mean, I don’t know if it does. We’ll have to test it. You need to make a bench to hold it and a string to pull the trigger. If the
tube fails, it will blow up in your face like a stick of dynamite.”

  They all knew that word, now. Tom had a new nickname, from all his mining. They called him Booming Tom.

  Karl took the rifle. “Have a little faith in your smiths. Give me a charge.”

  Christopher had explained the basic theory of firearm operation to Karl many times now. He was trying to write a manual, and Karl was the one who could tell him if his instructions made any sense to a farm boy.

  “Karl, it’s dangerous,” he objected, and then sighed. That comment guaranteed the young man would go through with it. In defeat he handed over the small box of rounds that Fae had manufactured.

  Everybody filed outside. Christopher couldn’t help himself—he told Karl to pick a safe backdrop, despite the fact the veteran was a crack shot with a crossbow. He already knew how to safely handle a missile weapon.

  “It’s gonna be loud, isn’t it,” said one of the apprentices as Karl loaded the rifle. Christopher grinned and the crowd laughed. Everything Christopher did was loud.

  “That stump,” Karl said, pointing. He raised the gun to his shoulder as the crowd backed up a few steps and covered their ears.

  “Pull it tight,” Christopher warned. “It kicks a lot more than a crossbow.”

  Karl sighted down the barrel and squeezed the trigger. As usual, Christopher was shocked when it actually worked. Fire and smoke and deafening noise came out of the barrel, and dirt kicked up a foot to the left of the target.

  Karl was displeased.

  “The sights are off,” Christopher told him. “No surprise there. We’ll need that bench to zero them in.”

  Christopher could tell Karl was slightly mollified because he changed the subject. “It seemed louder,” he said. “The sky-fire is loud enough and makes lights besides. Why is this one louder?”

  Christopher decided not to try to explain the concept of sonic booms. The good news was the sharp crack meant his bullet had broken the sound barrier.

  “That means it’s working,” he told Karl.

  “But how much damage does it do?” Gregor asked as Karl, like all young men everywhere, reloaded the rifle while glaring at the stump.