Wellspring of Chaos (12 page)

Oneday came, and went, and no one walked in the door, and Kharl finished the red oak slack barrels for Aryl. Twoday came… and went, and so did threeday and fourday. Kharl continued to work, planing, drawing, fitting, firing, toasting… And not a single buyer, or even anyone who might buy, came into the cooperage.

On fiveday morning, Kharl just looked blankly at the planer and the white oak shooks stacked on the carry-cart. Almost five days, and he’d talked to no one except Sanyle, when she had brought him his midday dinner. At night, he’d tried to read The Basis of Order, but the words drifted by and around him, their meaning not reaching him, as though he were a desert isle in the middle of the ocean, unable to drink the water surrounding him.

In less than half a season, he’d gone from being a successful cooper with a good consort and two sons to a man who’d lost both his consort and his sons, and who would soon lose his cooperage, if not more, unless matters changed much for the better. And he saw no way to make that change.

He stepped away from the planer and absently brushed the thin strips of wood off his tunic and out of his beard, a beard that needed trimming.

He walked slowly to the display window, looking out and watching Crafters’ Lane for a time, noting the man in a grayish blue tunic standing on the corner. Over the past few days, he’d seen the same man, more than a few times. Was he one of the Watchmen who were keeping an eye on Kharl?

Why did anyone care? Was Egen that vindictive? Because he’d been thwarted of his pleasure with Sanyle? And because a mere cooper had dared to stand up to the son of a lord? Kharl hadn’t even known who Egen was when all that had happened.

After a time, Kharl walked back to the planer. He still had more than a few staves to shape for the barrels already ordered. His eyes dropped to the cudgel that he’d taken to keeping close by him. Then he began to pump the foot pedal.

Those who do not understand order or chaos say that the two belong only to those with the gift for one or the other, and that those who have such gifts are few. This is a truth, and it is also a falsehood. Many men and women have gifts. Some are more intelligent than others; some are stronger; some are more patient; some have great courage; some have greater understanding. So to say that one has a gift for order or chaos can be a truth. Yet, to suggest that there is something improper about understanding order or chaos because it requires a gift is a falsehood. Each and every great talent, whatever it may be, requires a gift of greater ability. A man may have a gift for letters, and for distilling truth. A woman may have a gift for numbers, and for trading of goods.

A youth may have the gift of song, and another the gift of hands that can shape iron or wood. So it is with order and chaos.

Yet many would claim that the gift to understand order and chaos is different from the gift of understanding other aspects of the world, that anyone can be a crafter or an engineer, but that only a special few can become order-mages or chaos-masters. This is a falsehood, for the great ones in any area of endeavor are few, whether that area be engineering, cabinetry, fishing, or order-magery…

In the beginning, as a child, a boy or girl can have a gift, not for one or the other, but for either, or, if the gift is great enough, for both… So can a man or woman, once grown, if he or she approaches order as might a child. For order is a wonder, and those who can yet wonder as children can have their eyes opened at any age…

—The Basis of Order

After shaping the slope of the barrel chime of yet another red oak slack barrel, Kharl set the adze down and blotted his forehead with the back of his forearm. After almost an eightday of clear and sunny weather, it had rained earlier in the day, and then the sun had come out full force. By midafternoon all of Brysta was enveloped in hot wet air. Even the interior of the cooperage was hot and sticky. Kharl had left both the loading door and the front door open, because there was a slight breeze that seemed to make the cooperage fractionally cooler.

The back section of the shop was filled with barrels—both slack and tight, and Kharl had all of those ordered by Korlan ready, as well as most of those for Wassyt and Aryl. Who would order or purchase more barrels, Kharl didn’t know, but that was a stream he’d ford later. With so few customers, he couldn’t afford not to have barrels at the ready.

He laughed once, a harsh bark, then blotted his forehead again. He didn’t have any choice but to wait and see.

He picked up the adze, turned the next barrel, and began shaping.

He stopped. Had he heard something? He frowned, and lifted the adze once more. Then he lowered it, listening.

“Help! Thieves!…” The yell died out.

As he recognized Tyrbel’s voice, Kharl grabbed the cudgel that he had kept handy and, still holding the adze in the other hand, dashed to the front of the cooperage and out through the door, elbowing it full open, onto Crafters’ Lane and into the full sunlight. In a handful of long steps, he was just outside the scrivener’s door, still blinking as his eyes struggled to adjust to the afternoon glare.

A wiry figure in brown darted from the scriptorium, dodging away from Kharl.

The cooper recognized the man, and, without thinking, threw the adze full force and straight into the man’s shoulder and chest. The man lurched back, one hand grasping, then pulling at the adze wedged in his shoulder. Annoyance and pain flashed across the man’s face.

Kharl stepped forward and brought the cudgel around in a short arc, with all the force he’d developed over the years at the bench and forge. The heavy cudgel head crashed into the smaller man’s temple, and his eyes widened, as if he could not believe he had been struck. He pitched forward, hand still on the haft of the adze. He shuddered once and was still.

Kharl stood there, cudgel still in his hand, looking blankly down, realizing that he had killed the man who had visited the cooperage the afternoon before Jenevra had been killed. While the cooper could not have proved anything, he knew the dead man at his feet had been her killer.

From inside the scriptorium came a long piercing scream that seemed to go on and on.

Kharl turned. Sanyle was screaming. Tyrbel was dead.

A squat laundress coming up the lane staggered as she saw the body on the stones and Kharl and his cudgel, then put up her hand to straighten the basket balanced on her head before crossing the lane away from the dead man and Kharl. The Watchman in blue—the one who had been watching the cooperage—sprinted down Crafters’ Lane.

Gharan appeared and ran across the lane. So did Hamyl.

“Kharl! Get a pack and leave!” Gharan ordered. “You’ve got to run. Now.”

“What?” Kharl couldn’t believe the weaver’s words.

“You think you’ll walk out of the Hall of Justicers’ this time?”

“Lord West’ll have you hanging from the scaffold by tomorrow night,” added Hamyl. “Unless the Watch get you first.”

“We’ll tell everyone what happened,” Gharan promised. “We will, but it’ll be too late if the Watch gets you.”

The words finally broke through to the cooper.

He could not speak, but nodded. Then he hurried back into and through the cooperage, dropping the cudgel as he took the steps upstairs two at a time. Once into the bedchamber, he threw his best trousers, a good tunic, and underclothes into the pack, then another pair of boots and a winter jacket. He took the bag of silvers from the strongbox, hung it around his neck under his undertunic on the leather thongs. He scooped all of the coppers into the pack. As he straightened up, he saw the book on the table and stuffed it inside his still unfastened pack. Then he tied the pack shut.

He’d taken the book because, if the Watch found that, there was no telling what lies they might spread. He hurried down the steps, swinging the pack onto his back. Once on the shop floor, he started for the loading door that was still open to the alley.

He stopped as he saw the staff still leaning against the wall, then dashed to the far side of the shop and grabbed it. No one questioned staffs, and it was something else he didn’t want to leave, although he couldn’t have said why.

“Hurry!” hissed a voice from the loading door. “The Watch is almost out front.”

Kharl whirled.

Jekat gestured through the partly open loading door. “This way, ser! You got to run! Watch’ll get you otherwise.”

Should he follow the urchin?

Who else could he trust—who knew the alleys and the back streets?

Kharl ran, straight through the loading door. Abruptly, he stopped but for an instant to close the loading door behind him, before sprinting to catch up to the urchin who had begun to run, if slowly, toward the northeastern end of the alley.

“Can’t catch me!” Jekat yelled as he ran out of the alley and turned on Fifth Cross.

“I’ll get you!” Kharl yelled back. “You miserable urchin!” Some of those on the cross street looked scandalized, others amused, and only one man tried to grab the elusive Jekat as Kharl raced after the urchin, trying to counterfeit the rage of a man robbed by a light-fingered boy.

Jekat darted into a serviceway, and Kharl followed, panting heavily.

He might work hard in the cooperage, but he had not run so fast nor so far in years. The urchin slowed some and turned westward into the alley, again downhill. Kharl lumbered after him, down another road and up Fourth Cross, finally catching up with the beggar youth near the intersection of the alley off Fourth Cross and Old Mill Road, some five blocks southwest of where the chase had started behind his cooperage. Jekat ducked into another serviceway, moving into the shadows. “… give it to you, ser… can run…” panted Jekat. “… give it to you… good idea… counterfeiting… theft…”

“No one… heeds… man… chasing a beggar lad…” Kharl took some more deep breaths, half-bent over. He was still panting and soaked in sweat. “How… did you know?”

“… was watchin‘. I saw the Watch run off. Coward.”

“So… now what do I do to keep out of Lord West’s hands?” asked Kharl. “Or Egen’s.”

“Same as I do,” replied Jekat. “You’ll learn.”

In the twilight of early evening, Kharl leaned against the stones, trying to get comfortable in the narrow space between the two walls, one ancient brick and the other even more ancient stone, while attempting to ignore the greater stench from beyond the stone wall and the lesser from beyond the brick. Overhead was a roof of sorts, composed of odd pieces of timber and wood and covered with layers of discarded fabric and molded leather, but there was open space on each end of the makeshift roof. To the east the space ended in a wall of yellow brick. At the west end was a jury-rigged partition of woven branches and cloth. The ground had been scraped smooth and clean, but it was still hard.

“No one’s going to come here,” Jekat said.

“With the rendering yard on one side and the tanner on the other… and with no one knowing this space is here… I can see why,” observed Kharl.

“Even Werwal doesn’t know.” The towhead brushed back ragged-cut hair.

“You sure about that?” asked the cooper.

“Maybe… he does. But he wouldn’t say. Him and Sikal, they understand. Drenzel, he doesn’t know, never even comes back behind the dumping vats.” After a moment, the urchin looked at Kharl. “Suppose you don’t have many coppers?”

“I have a few,” Kharl replied. “I could only grab a handful or so before I got out of the cooperage. Didn’t have long.” For some reason, the deception bothered him, necessary as he felt it was.

“You give me a pair… I can get us a good chunk of fowl. Clean and hot. Tasty, too.”

“How will you manage that?”

“Enelya—she’s at the White Pony. Long as I got coin, they’ll get grub for me.” Jekat grinned. “Won’t do ale. She says Durol watches the barrels too close. See… what she does is put the fowl or whatever on the tab for someone. Slips it off to me then. Durol doesn’t care, so long as the coins match.” Jekat frowned in the dimness. “Mayhap, need three to get enough for us both.”

“You’re still a thief,” Kharl said, ruefully.

“Watch what you say. Without me and yer friends…”

“I know. I’d be dead or laid out in a gaol chamber, waiting to be hung.”

“If you were lucky. They took Quelyn and flogged him, then poured salt and tanning acid across his back—that was before—”

“Don’t think I need to know that, young fellow.”

“You should… Egen don’t like you. Never seen him put so many men after a fellow.”

“It’s enough to know he’ll do his worst if he catches me.”

“Real pissprick… girls at the Bardo say he doesn’t get excited ‘less he thinks he’s hurtin’ ‘em. Likes ’em young, too. Some of ‘em cry real quick… real tears… They have to…”

Kharl winced. How could a lord accept that kind of man as his son? The more he learned about Captain Egen, the more despicable the image of him became in Kharl’s mind.

“You got those coppers?” questioned Jekat. Kharl fumbled with his belt wallet and handed three to the boy. “Good. There’s not a clipped one there.”

“You don’t think it’d be better for me to come with you?”

“Nah. Egen’s still got the Watch lookin‘ for you, and you don’t know the alleys and the serviceways. Maybe we can find you some rags tonight.” Jekat eased along the uneven stone wall until he came to what seemed the dead end of yellow brick. There, after putting his foot up on a projection of stone, he climbed over the wall and vanished.

Kharl wondered if Jekat would ever return, but looking toward the cavelike area in the stone wall, where there were items like candle stubs, a rough pallet, and even a battered chamber pot, he had the feeling that the youth had nowhere else to go.

Like Kharl himself, the cooper reflected.

As the oblong of sky that Kharl could see to the west dimmed, he wondered how long before Jekat would return.

He looked from one wall to another, a space narrower than the gaol cell he’d been thrown into, if longer, and then back up at the patch of evening sky. He still had to ask how so many people accepted the evil around them. He shook his head. Most were like Charee. So long as things seemed orderly and life went on, they didn’t care about what didn’t affect them. After a moment, he laughed. He’d been no better. The sky darkened into full night, and still Jekat had not returned. Kharl frowned, more worried about the boy’s safety than about whether he would return.

Then there was the faintest of scraping sounds, a scuffing, and a muted thump, and the small figure in shapeless gray reappeared out of the darkness.

“It took Enelya a while tonight. White Pony was busy, but the bird’s good.” Jekat handed a bundle to Kharl, a goodly chunk of fowl wrapped in two huge slabs of bread.

“I take it back, Jekat,” Kharl mumbled after a large mouthful. “Couldn’t manage this… ‘less you’re very good.”

“Wasn’t my doin‘, not all the way, leastwise. Some sort of party. Had extras. Durol was probably happy to get the coppers. Or Enelya was.”

Even through the darkness, Kharl could make out a grin as the urchin raised a crockery mug without handles. “Have a swallow.”

“Ale?” asked Kharl as he carefully took the chipped and handleless mug.

“First time in a season, but a fellow won’t turn that down.”

Kharl took a sip to make sure it was ale, then a swallow. “Good stuff.” Was it good because he was so hungry? Probably.

“Durol told Enelya he’d look the other way if the serving girls wanted some. Some fellow paid for the whole keg.”

“I thank you and Enelya. Greatly. How did you work out this… arrangement with her?”

“She’s from Sagana. That’s where I come from. She was a friend of my sis. When Sis and Ma died, I came here, heard she’d found work at a tavern. Found her. She helps as she can. Sometimes I can help her. Got to find folks who will. That’s… the only way…” Jekat yawned.

Kharl handed back the mug.

“Mosta that’s for you. Drank half a mug there.” Jekat took a small swallow and handed the mug back, then chewed on something. “You know… won’t be this good most nights. You need to get outa Brysta.”

“I need to get out of Nordla,” Kharl said tiredly. “To Austra, if I can.”

“How you goin‘ to do that?”

“Know a ship-master. Calls here every season, sometimes more often. Think he might take me.”

“How long afore he calls again?”

Kharl shrugged. “Don’t know. He was here, maybe half a season ago, maybe a bit longer. Said he’d be back late fall, early winter.”

“It’ll take some doing to stay away from the Watch for that long.”

“You have.”

“No one cares about a beggar boy. You pissed off Egen good. He still has people looking for you. What you going to do?”

“Wait… listen to you. Then… if the ship-master from Austra comes back, I’ll try and get aboard. Could be a while, though.”

“Better lie low till then. Egen’s mean.”

“Why are you helping me?” asked Kharl.

“Why not? You always treated me good as you could. Most don’t. Also, you stood up to Egen. Most don’t.” Jekat yawned. “‘Sides, you’re strong. Might need that.”

Might need that? Kharl wondered as he took another swallow of the ale. With it and the fowl, he could almost ignore the stenches from the renderer and the tanner.

After they finished eating and drinking the last of the ale, Jekat took back the mug and crawled into his cubbyhole and curled up under a tattered and soiled cover that looked to have been a drapery or hanging many long years before, doubtless before the boy had even been born.

Kharl made himself as comfortable as he could under the makeshift roof between the two walls, using his pack for a pillow. He looked upward into the darkness. Eventually, he did drift into sleep, a sort of restless dozing.