“You aren’t from near here, are you?” She asked, tucking a strand of her blond hair up into her serving hat. She knew that the dresses Amar provided his serving girls were tight on purpose, but she didn’t mind, at least not right now. She widened her eyes just bit, to give herself an air of friendly innocence, but not too much.
“No.” There was something round in his vowels, an accent from out east. Zoric, perhaps. “Come down from Arker way. It’s a tinsmith I am, and so I’m called. Yender Tinsmith. Come to work in Elderest, mayhap.”
“Elderest.” She said with a smile. “I know Elderest. I’ve been there many a time.”
“Ah, have ye now. Well, t’was with the duke I was to be employed, but now he’s gone for king, and I’m not sure he’ll be needing me. Mayhap I can find work at yonder castle.” He nodded vaguely northward, toward D’root Keep.
She shook her head. “The castle’s closed. Locked up and shuttered near a month, likely for a while.”
“Whoever heard of such a thing?” The man asked, leaning back to look at her. “Closing the castle in a nice town like this? Seems there’d be a laird a’waiting his chance at it.”
“The Lord Regent won’t hear of it.” She said. “Maybe once the war is over the good king will give it out to one of his generals or some such. That’s who had it last, one of the old king’s generals.”
“Is that so? Life estate, like, then. Passed back to the crown when the old general died, did it?” L’nelle looked about the tavern. It was late, and it was Beggarsday, so this Yender was likely their last customer. She gave Rook a cool look and sat.
“You know, I used to work up at that castle. I was a first class maidservant.” This was only a little bit of a lie. She’d been a third class hireling for cleaning only, but there was no harm in embellishment if you didn’t get caught, as her mother used to say.
“Ah.” He nodded. “Them lairds and ladies and such, hard to work for I guess.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Yender.” At his puzzled look she told him her story of woe. She described years of faithful service cut short by the son of an ungrateful lord, then returning when he was kicked out, then the castle closing down altogether about a month ago, when Lord Regent Adkel took over the town. He was an attentive listener, and he seemed quite interested. “So here I am working as a tavern maid, that once slept in a fine bed with linen sheets.”
“Well, why don’t this Laird Regent fellow go live in the castle, and take ye back on then?” Yender inquired in a friendly way, as if agreeing that she’d been wronged. “I mean, if he runs the town and all, shouldn’t he ought to live up there?”
“Not him.” L’nelle whispered conspiratorially. “He’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“The Black Duke’s get.” She said in a deliciously sinister voice. “The lord he kicked out was Lord D’root, straight descended from the Black Duke.”
Yender made a skeptical face. “Bah, that’s an old story, even in Arker. There’s nothing to that business. The Roots is a fallen house. Besides, how does a regent kick out a laird in the first place? It don’t make sense.”
“Have you heard of the Privy Lord?” She asked him, leaning close so that the top of her bosom was displayed prominently.
“That fellow up Northcraven way?” Yender asked. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“He’s the very same lord that Malli kicked out of his castle, that’s what. The Lord Regent has been looking over his shoulder ever since word came that Lord D’root was a famous general or a captain now. He’s afraid Lord D’root is going to want to take back his castle and seek revenge.”
“All over this Black Duke nonsense?”
“Yes.” L’nelle was excited to tell what she knew, for she loved gossip perhaps more than anything else. “He’s hiding in town, afraid to leave and afraid to stay.”
“Well, why’s he afraid to leave, then? I mean, if he’s worried about this Root fellow, seems he’d be better off somewhere else.” Yender’s face was inscrutable.
“He can’t.” L’nelle opened the lid of her secret knowledge like a merchant displaying his best wares. “He’s the new king’s man. Before the king got his crown, he had Malli Adkel in his pocket. He is going to make Malli lord here, but first the Privy Lord has to return.”
Yender shook his head. “That don’t make no sense. If’n the regent is scared of the Root Laird, why would they want him to come back?”
“To do him in.” She said, her voice barely a whisper, but it was a whisper of delight at the prospect. He had discharged her, after all, and she hoped to see him on a gibbet.
Yender smiled and nodded, as if with sudden understanding. “I see. A trap, then. Interesting. You tell interesting stories, girl. I bet ye know a lot of interesting things. Mayhap you’ll fetch me another flagon of ale and we can talk about you, though. You’re far and away the most interesting thing I’ve encountered, all the way coming from Arker. Are ye a married woman?”
She smiled and considered the silver she’d seen in his hand. “I’m not, Yender. Never once.”
“Now that’s really interesting.” He smiled.
Malli Adkel looked over the field of stumps that had been the Oaken Grove and let a small smile creep across his face. Hambar D’root had come to Root’s Bridge twenty-odd years ago, and the Oaken Grove had been one of his favorite places. He had hunted there, a private stock of large deer imported from Northcraven, and many times Malli had gone with him, helping to skin out the animals and pull the broad head points from their bodies after Hambar or Aelfric killed them. Little Levin had been too squeamish for the hunt, and as he had been set aside for the clergy, as it were, Hambar had excused him from the duty.
The deer had been captured by foresters over the summer and sold to the Baron of Pulflover, and the last of the oak timbers had fetched a nice bit of coin from the river traders. Malli had sold all of the riverside estates to new owners, and the freemen who tenanted there now had new landlords, but the rent was not much increased, so they did not complain. It made little difference to the rivermen where their monthly coin went, up to the castle or down the river into the hands of new owners, so long as they continued to live on as tenants.
Maldiver D’Cadmouth, once the Duke of Elderest and now the King of Mortentia, had sent Malli two letters. The first came to him in Dire and told him to use his position as Lord Regent of house D’root to liquidate all of the D’root holdings and convert it to coin, theoretically holding the coin against the return of the D’root family to Root’s Bridge. The coin went into a bank owned by Maldiver, and Malli was certain it was being neither held nor invested, but spent. The second letter had been written on the twenty-second of Kastanus, barely a week after Maldiver had taken the crown of Mortentia, and it instructed Malli to continue liquidating the D’root holdings. Additionally, it rescinded Falante’s order restoring Root’s Bridge to the D’root family, and reinstated the accession of the freehold to Elderest.
When King Byroth awarded Root’s Bridge to Hambar D’root, the award carried with it a great deal of land, but Hambar had not taken nearly enough rent from the freemen farmers, traders and craftsmen who tenanted that land. His idea was that the less they had to pay in rent and taxes, the more they would have to spend in town, making everyone better off. Malli had managed the rentals, and here and there, whenever a tenant had a particularly prosperous year, he ensured that the excess found its way into either his own hands or the coffers of the church, and not into the accounts of his erstwhile lord. Although he had profited nicely from this embezzlement, its true purpose had not been to enrich him, but to impoverish his lord, forcing him to take credit from Maldiver.
The terms of the credit, arranged by Malli himself, were actually quite easy, and it would have been a simple matter to set aside the excesses from the rentals and the ferry and pay it off, but Malli had altered the accounts and creatively added obscure but heavy debts here and there to offset it, ensuring th
at the D’roots lost money every year. Gullible Hambar may have been a good general but he was far too trusting. Malli doubted he’d been much of a general really, for he could not see how anyone who was so helpless with an account book could possibly keep an army supplied in the field.
Malli’s own designs included a title for himself and his descendants, and the king could supply those things whereas the Lord of Root’s Bridge could not. His twenty years of service had garnered him the gold to purchase an estate, but what he wanted was to put ‘lord’ or ‘earl’ before the Adkel name, and he had worked hard and long to see it done. Now his secret patron was the king in Mortentia City, and his dreams were on the brink of fruition.
In the month since receiving the king’s second letter Malli had been busy, and this harvest of fine oak timber was just one of many of his projects to cull the excess wealth from Root’s Bridge. He had reopened the quarry, importing peasantry from Dunwater for the work because they hardly needed to be paid more than subsistence wages. Lord Hambar had been against the ownership of peasants, insisting that freemen who negotiated their own wages would do better work, but Malli had no such scruples. He had installed a whipping post and a gallows in the town beside the stocks, and the people of Root’s Bridge were finally discovering what it meant to work.
Gold was flowing from the former freehold in a way that it had never flowed before, a stream of wealth that Malli barely touched on its way into the King’s Town. But still he was nervous.
Amar Stoneholt was the source of his nervousness, if not the cause. Malli respected the wizened little man, for like Malli, he was a cunning opportunist with a keen eye toward anything that might make him a profit. He ran his brothels through intermediaries and blinds so that although everyone suspected he was the true owner, it was difficult to gather evidence against him. His little fishing boats had secret compartments for moving goods across the river without payment of the ferry fees or inspection, and that had been a nice little business for him too. Amar had bribed Malli generously over the years to keep Hambar’s eyes off of him, although he paid the occasional small fine or penalty here and there when he was fairly caught. He had a gift for talking his way out of trouble.
But Amar had come to him a month ago, in mid-Kastanus, just prior to his receiving the king’s second letter with a story of dreadful import. Some men had been sniffing around in his affairs, wild-eyed freemen in poor man’s clothes who walked with proud steps and were not intimidated by any of Amar’s bully boys or jagtooths. There had been two of them, and they had been asking questions in Zoric accents all over the freehold, questions that touched closely on matters that Malli was desperate to keep concealed. “Where does your rent money go now?” One of them had asked riverman O’Yoli, and O’Yoli had talked about it in the Ferry’s Landing. Amar’s man Rook had relayed the story to Amar, who had passed it on to Malli.
Root’s Bridge was a small place, with no connection to any other towns except the ones in its close vicinity, and there was nobody here with any interests in Zoric. The only connection the place had ever had to Zoric was Hambar’s, for the D’roots hailed from there. Amar had dispatched four of his tougher jagtooths to give the two strangers a proper beating and send them on their way, but the jagtooths had simply disappeared.
The following morning the Zoric men were gone, too, but one of Amar’s river whores had been given a message to deliver to Amar. The message was simply five words: ‘Ware the Black Duke’s get,’ but those five words had been enough for Malli. He’d discharged all of the castle staff and moved into his estate in town, a place that no one knew he owned. He kept his comings and goings secret from that point on, and only his coachman knew where he lay his head at night. Still, he had business to conduct, and that meant occasionally he had to go out and manage affairs like overseeing the liquidation of the Oaken Grove.
“You are doing a fine job.” He said to the timber man. “Now we must clear the stumps and make the land fit for planting. Go and see the overseer at the quarry, and get some peasants for the work. I believe he’s been giving them half of every Marketday free from work. They can pull the stumps out then.”
“Yes, milord.” The timber man said. The timber man was about fifty, he was a large man, bald and worn, and he had a bit of a whipped look about him, and well he should. He’d been late on his rent in Kastanus, and Malli’d put him to the post for four lashes. Malli didn’t remember his name, but he remembered the account and the delinquency.
Later that evening the Dulcimer was quiet, with two men drinking hard, sitting at tables as far apart from each other as they could be. One of the men was the timber man, and he was thinking of days long past, days of glory. Present times didn’t bear thinking on. The other man was Yender Tinsmith, or so they called him, and he drank as if he had a hollow place in his body where the brandy might go and disappear, leaving not a bit of drunkenness in its wake. After two full jacks of the stuff he stood on steady feet and walked over to sit at the table occupied by the timber man.
“You’re Dwennon Woodwright, are ye not?”
The timber man looked up at the stranger, with his oddly wide eyes and his bulldog face. “Who wants to know?”
“Yender Tinsmith.” The man said, holding out a calloused hand. When Dwennon took it he felt skin so thick the man might have been wearing leather gloves. “Come of late from Arker. Heard tell you was on the whipping post last month.”
Dwennon’s face darkened and he sat back angrily, dropping the man’s hand. “Don’t see how that’s your business, Arker man.” He’d come into the Dulcimer, the town’s second tavern and by far the least busy, to drink and to forget, not to have his shame thrown into his face.
Yender nodded briefly. “It stings, the lash does. I’ve tasted it myself a time or two.” His voice was sympathetic. “Still, not the worst thing ye’ve ever faced, I’d warrant.”
“What do you know of me?” Dwennon demanded. “And just who do you think you be, coming up and jumping me with it?” Dwennon’s arms were thick, but not as strong as they used to be. Still, he didn’t have to put up with this kind of thing, not in his own town, he didn’t.
“Relax.” Yender said, settling into the chair. “I’m a friend. Ye were at Maslit, were ye not?”
“You’re too young, boy.” Dwennon answered, still angry. “Don’t you go playing cards you don’t have in your hand. You was in nappies time of Maslit, I’d say.”
“Aye, and I’ll not deny it.” Yender replied, holding up his hands soothingly. “I’m just letting ye know that there’s some who remember your history. Your honor.”
“There’s no honor on the whipping post.” Dwennon’s voice was bitter. “Half the town looking on and half of them laughing behind their hands to see me brung to it. Nobody here remembers Maslit, nor would they care.”
“That’s the truth.” Yender said. “That’s the honest truth and ‘tis as ye say. But like I said, I’m not from here. I heard many a story of Maslit from men who were there, and ye were remembered to me as a man who could get his lord’s will done.”
“My lord is gone.” Dwennon said, staring down into his empty wooden cup. When had he finished it? He didn’t have the coin for another, and this stranger had taken the solace from the last cup he could pay for. “My lord is gone, my coin is gone and the brandy’s gone. I’ll shortly be gone too, I guess. Gone home for the night. Friend.” He said the last word sarcastically, for the man had ruined his quiet time, and now he had to go home and explain where his day’s wages had gone to his sweet and patient Geta, who needed the coin more than he’d needed the brandy, truth be told.
When Dwennon looked up at Yender the man held a gold coin in his hand. Dwennon blinked, certain he was dreaming. “Is that a gilder?” He asked stupidly, for obviously it was.
“Aye.” Yender said quietly, sliding the coin across the table and into Dwennon’s shaking hand. “Tis a gilder just for this conversation, Dwennon. But there’s another two behind it, and ten silver p
ennies besides, and for nothing more than doing your lord’s will. I’ll be needing all five of your Maslit men, though.”
“You shall have them and their blades as well.” Dwennon said, still astounded at the sight of the gold, even though it was in his pocket now and out of sight. “You shall have them so long as you can prove it to me that we do Hambar’s will.”
Yender nodded and smiled grimly. “By the black griffin, tis a certainty that I can.”
The man sitting at table with Amar Stoneholt hadn’t offered a name, but Amar knew who he was. L’nelle Waggoner had been gabbing like she always did, and Rook had come and told Amar all about this so-called Tinsmith from Arker. Rook had seen silver, and Farros, over at the Dulcimer, had sworn that he’d seen gold. The man was no tinsmith, that was plain enough, or at least that wasn’t all that he was. Moggs had watched the man leave L’nelle’s shack in the early hours yesterday, and he’d laughed out loud when Moggs told him. L’nelle was pretty as a little brass button, and she liked nice things, and Amar knew that soon enough, maybe not this month, but certainly by the end of winter, she’d be installed in one of his riverside cribs, getting certain silver and not the speculative gains she was hunting for now. Amar could make sure she didn’t marry, of course, for this was his town. Well, it was his town and Malli’s town, but he could make the regent dance when he needed. He had the man’s secrets, and so he had him in his pocket.
This fellow now, he was a bit of a puzzle. He wore poor man’s clothes and he spoke like a tinsmith from Arker ought, but he carried gold and silver like he knew it wouldn’t get stolen. That meant he had people behind him of course, and maybe he truly was a tinsmith, but that was like saying Amar was a weaver because he had a market stall with baskets in it. Men like Amar carried one trade to see and practiced another, or several others, for their living. He looked at the sharp eyes of Yender from Arker and he saw a kindred soul. The fact that Yender had sought him out told him that Yender was of like mind.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 101
