Page 10 of Valdemar

Thank the gods I had already made up my mind, or I wouldn’t be able to resist those eyes.How did children, kittens, and puppies all manage to make it look as if half the space in their faces was taken up with eyes when they wanted something?

“Well, then, continue your duties, but as part of those duties tell SerKellan you are to spend time with your pup, and start making things for him. You’ll want a harness to control him at first, and a good collar and leash. You’ll need a big bowl for water and a smaller one for food. Since he’ll be indoors, he’ll need a bed.” Unless he sleeps in yours, pup, which I more than half expect to happen. But those tasks would send Hakkon to the harnessmakers to learn leatherwork, to the potters to learn how to make a simple, rough vessel, and to his mother to learn handsewing. More good, worthwhile manual labor. It hadn’t been a dog when he’d been a boy, it had been a pony; the same for Restil and Jon. Jon shared Sydney-You-Asshole with Jonaton. Astonishingly, Sydney-You-Asshole was still alive, although peppered in gray hairs; he hardly left Jonaton’s rooms anymore except on good days when he made the trek to the royal suite and spent all of his waking time observing life from a high, sunny window in good weather, and in his special bed on the hearth in bad. Yet, on occasion, he still turned up in unexpected places, and he had trained the humans and other cats to glance around for him inside the manor.

The Great Hall was somewhat quieter than usual for the evening meal, probably because people were far more focused on their meal than on the extremely thin gossip of the Court. The most exciting thing that had happened of late was that Lord Astelon’s eldest daughter had defiantly announced that she was pregnant, that the father was the manor blacksmith, and that they were going to marry whether her parents liked it or not. There had been something of a riot about that, with the parents threatening to send her into a religious order, the blacksmith equally (but more quietly) as defiant as his beloved, and strong demands that Kordas Do Something.

Leaving aside the fact that the few religious orders in the Barony were all too busy getting their houses established to have time to take in a pregnant girl, even if they wanted to (which they didn’t), the girl herself wasn’t actually a “girl” at all. She was fully adult—in her twenties—and had been used as a pawn in her father’s negotiations ever since she was old enough to be considered marriageable.

Well, Kordas had done something. He’d issued a new law that anyone above the age of majority was allowed to wed whom they pleased, and granted the blacksmith an upgrade in his quarters—a set of four rooms in the wall, where he’d been living in a lean-to next to his forge. “You can disown her all you like,” he’d told the stunned and irate parents. “That’s within your rights. But she’s not a child anymore, so she has all the rights of an adult. If she chooses to forgo the manor for the equivalent of a cottage, and life with servants for life without, that’s her choice. But I’ll remind you, love overcomes hardship like nothing else, and to young people in love, what it costs them is cheap.” He’d paused then, and added, “On a personal level—you might want to think twice about disowning her. There’s no going back on that, and it will be painful for you to see a mob of happy grandchildren you are not allowed to interact with.” Speaking on a personal level was not unknown for Kordas, but the Court interpretation was that he uplifted Court esteem by speaking personally, as a near equals. This immediately had the knock-on effect that nearly every noble wanted a crisis to get wisdom about, to gain more of Kordas’s attention, so they would gain the prestige. He’d left himself open for that. Well, the family hadn’t disowned her after all . . . though she had moved into those rooms with her love.

There had been some interesting fallout from that, completely unexpected. A baker’s dozen of new adults (that he knew of) had declared that they were breaking off with their families and petitioned Kordas for separate quarters. He’d granted the petitions, not bothering to ask for details. There were probably a lot more than the thirteen he knew of; those had all been among his Court, which meant they actually needed to petition to get a place to live. They got their rooms—individual rooms in the “living clusters,” which they shared with other singles in the wall. And they wouldn’t starve; they continued to have rights at the Court table. But if they wanted clothing for their backs and shoes for their feet and anything else that didn’t come with those rights, they’d have to learn or use a skill they could trade to others. That wasn’t his business either. Meanwhile, outside the manor wall, word had spread, and he presumed there were others who had also broken off and gone elsewhere. If there were irate parents coming up from the farms and the city to demand that he Do Something, he never heard about it, because he had given orders to Beltran that he flatly was not going to hear those petitions. The law had been decreed, and that was the end of that.

That was about as exciting as things got now, up here in the manor. Which was a vast relief, and much preferable to contagious diseases, insect plagues, blights, and the occasional Pelagirs monster. He bit his cheek, riding out the shower of bad memories and visualizations of what all had gone wrong since the last sight of the Empire. And of the awfulness that came with being human; they’d lost roughly a thousand souls since the escape to rivalries, revenge, drunkenness, crime, and foolhardiness. A quarter of that number were not involved with the crises at all; they were simply in the way at the time. Regrettably, he knew some people on both sides of the crimes, and it kept him mindful of how far badly someone could go under the right circumstances. In quiet moments, memories he would be better off forgetting forced him to feel vigilant about himself. If they could do such things, so could he—but with far more power behind it. Kordas closed his eyes for the duration of a long sigh, only marginally better at dealing with those instants of pain from plentiful practice. He hoped the day would come when he wasn’t consigning criminals to life forever at hard labor—or re-evaluating himself, overly vigilant that he not become like them. Immense self-control was a duty to his people, even when it was prompted by trauma and the human cost of failure.

By the time he opened his eyes and shook off the morbid direction he was headed, someone had begun playing a single gittern somewhere in the place. Only half of a single song, as if to prove they could play it at all. Since the conversation from the others nearby was nothing but conversation rather than a courtly machination, he deemed it a good time—once he was full—to stand up to make an announcement.

He got everyone’s attention; anxious faces relaxed when they saw his expression was a pleasant one. “Thanks to our miners!” he announced. “We now have copper and tin! The copper shortage is over. We’ll also be able to make bronze as well as iron and steel, and I’ll be transitioning in copper pennies, half-pennies, quarter-pennies, and bronze ten-copper pieces to make trading easier again!” He looked around at his Court. “Those of you who have silver and gold, the Council will be working out a worth scale, so you’ll be able to use that, too.”

There wasn’t a cheer, but there were murmurs of relief and approval. If things had been difficult for the farmers, trading-wise, the highborn had had it worse. Most of them had needed to assign a member of their household to the full-time duty of trading, and that was not even to live in abundance.

“And even before we start minting coins, I am putting a priority on creating bronze needles and pins, and sewing scissors,” he continued, and smiled when a female voice cried out, “Oh, thank the gods!” “Sempsters, seamstresses, if you are not familiar with the care and handling of bronze implements, and what you need to take care with, Restil will be gathering that information and will have it for you before the first ones are created for use.”

He glanced over at Restil, who greeted him with a broad grin and a two-fingered salute. Good, sounds like this is work he is ideal at handling.

“There are, of course, many other things that bronze is better at than iron and steel, and Restil will also be in charge of notifying all the metalworkers so those who can make various useful items in bronze can start posting their expertise on their booth boards. Do you have anything to add, Restil?”

“I’m already working on a city map that has all the craftsfolk on it. I’ll make sure to add the bronze and coppersmiths to that as well, and what items they can make. I intend to have large signboards constructed and placed in each crafting district that echo the information on the map for that particular district.” Restil grinned again at his father’s look of surprise. “Jon’s been helping me, and so have some artisans. I expect we’ll have the signage up as soon as we add the copper and bronze-smiths to our list.”

“Oh, thank the gods,” someone else said, in more of a groan than an exclamation. Kordas sympathized. Right now, finding out who made what was a matter of wandering around and asking directions. Well, not that he would know that; when he was looking for something, people tended to fall all over themselves helping him to find it, but that was what some of the people in his personal household were telling him.

Well, that gave people something to talk about besides each other, which was a blessing. The meal ended without any of the usual suspects sniping at each other or looking daggers across the room.

Kordas was irritated with people who made trouble over the pettiest of petty things at a time when—no matter what was going right now—this settlement was still in a very precarious position. What would have been famines were averted only by adopting local crops. Green beetles, churgles, and nimworms savagely undermined Valdemaran-brought crops, and the local large fauna brutalized the rest. Arrowclick swarms had killed almost as many people as wyrsa packs, and allergic reactions among the populace felled more than a few. They might have carved out a settlement, and the Hawkbrothers had certainly cleared out and cleansed the most dangerous areas, but as today’s boar hunt had shown, that didn’t mean life was as peaceful as it had been in the old Duchy of Valdemar, and “cleansed” didn’t mean “safe” at all.

People too easily forget that we’re the interlopers here, andnature in general wants to kill us without a care. The only social order is what we brought with us, and wolves don’t petition.

The entire family left dinner as a group, while many of the members of the Court were still lingering over their jam tarts. Dessert generally was fruit, fresh or dried; baked goods happened only once or twice a fortnight. Delia, Alberdina, and the mages—Ceri, Sai, and Koto—also remained behind at the head table, all of them with their heads together over something. Whatever it was, Kordas reckoned to leave them to it.

The manor had been “grown” in the modern style, with corridors and rooms coming off them. Technically a waste of space, but if it came to sheltering the populace here, those corridors could certainly house a lot of people on bedrolls without sacrificing anyone’s privacy. The Hawkbrothers had consulted him closely—indeed, had conducted what had almost been an interrogation!—when directing the “Mother Below” in its task, and he and his family had a suite that was actually superior to the one in his old manor. This one was all on the same floor, and had a schoolroom that Jon still used, several currently empty rooms, and two of the sanitary closets, which was a blessing with five people and three servants living there. Delia didn’t share it; she had her own room now—she certainly didn’t need anyone’s supervision, much less his.

Delia had come a very long way from the lovestruck adolescent that he’d had to avoid. Although she wasn’t a Healer, she and Alberdina had been managing most, if not all, of the Healers that had come along with the exodus. They’d gotten the Mother to grow them a separate building for the Healers, with quarters and “infirmaries” that could be isolated from each other. They’d begged, borrowed, cajoled, and sometimes outright confiscated everything they needed to fully stock and supply those infirmaries. They’d consulted with the Hawkbrothers on the local medicinal herbs, written up how to use them, created multiple copies, and distributed those copies across the breadth of the Barony. They’d made copies of every healing reference book that had come with them, and made libraries in each of the infirmaries—libraries where the books were quite literally chained into the bookcases so they couldn’t “grow legs and walk off,” as Alberdina had put it.

That had not been all; indeed, putting all the Healers on an organized footing had only taken Delia and Alberdina a fraction of the last ten years, and despite the number of casualties and strange surroundings, Valdemaran medicine had actually advanced from the Healers’ efforts. With Alberdina now in charge of what they were calling “the House of Healing,” Delia had combed through the populace, found literate folks who were unable to do physical labor, and put them to work as copyists, starting with copying those books—and any other books that seemed especially useful. Certainly they were slower than trained scribes, but any copy of a book was better than no copy of a book, and her efforts had saved many books that were fading, falling apart, or had been water- or insect-damaged, and would certainly have been lost otherwise. It also put food on those people’s tables, gave them useful work to do, and raised them in their neighbors’ eyes from “useless” to “productive.” After all, if this was something the Baron wanted, then it must be important to all of them. Paper, at least, was something they could make in relative abundance, since the Hawkbrothers had shown them water-tub slurry-screening and pressing. Polished metal plates, well glued and mounted on backboards, became surface plates for the presses.

And as if that was not enough, Delia had gone from storage barge to storage barge, looking for books, making sure they were still kept safe from vermin, asking for permission to take books for copying, and returning those books to their rightful owners when the first copy had been made. The romantic, book-loving girl had become a fierce protector and disseminator of knowledge, all on her own recognizance, and Kordas could not have been more proud of her. And this was in addition to all the ways in which her Fetching power had been useful, from births going wrong—both animal and human—to their defenses when attacked by outre creatures, and even putting out fires by dumping several barrels’ worth of water on them at a time from afar. Everyone knew Delia. Everyone valued her.

Some members of his Council had wondered aloud if the book copying was really necessary. Kordas had pointed out that it was none of their business. “It’s all being done without troubling any of you, taking a single grain out of a storehouse that isn’t mine, or depriving anyone in any way,” he’d said, in tones they had come to recognize as meaning, “It’s none of your business if I choose to endorse it. Just let it be.” Given Delia’s record in helping to establish the House of Healing, most people elected to let it go at that. And if some people ridiculed his choices, well, they didn’t do so in his hearing, or Delia’s.

“Kordas, wait!” he heard her calling behind him, as if thinking of her had summoned her. She came pelting up to him, dressed, as Isla was, in a simple tunic and split skirt that allowed as much freedom of movement as any male had, and was, except for the most stubborn and hidebound of the ladies of his Court, now the standard of female everyday dress. They all stopped and waited for her to catch up.

“What were you and the others so intent on over at your end of the table?” he asked with a smile. “Did Ceri find you a husband?”

She rolled her eyes. Ceri was an insatiable matchmaker, and was always trying to find Delia a partner among the mage apprentices. “I can’t imagine why he persists. If I wanted a husband, I am perfectly capable of finding one for myself. No, he was telling me that there’s a problem with some of the younglings he and Alberdina are getting for apprentices.”

“Sounds like something you need to talk with us about,” he replied—not terribly concerned, but concerned enough, given how important those apprentices were to the welfare of the Barony.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she replied with satisfaction.

There was a guard on the door to the Baronial suite, a new posting, something that Kordas himself was not particularly comfortable with, but which his Councilors had insisted on. Even the Old Men had agreed with them. “All it takes is one outsider wanting to throw us into chaos, or one of our own who is particularly disgruntled,” they had pointed out. “You can’t defend yourself if you’re asleep.”