"A wretched, dusty place," Vari was grumbling. "Nowhere to dry the laundry save up on the roof, and I fear the mildew will get at it. So little light gets in through those miserable, tiny windows, one can barely see to clean. And the dust! Dust everywhere, especially near those storerooms, where cleaning is just impossible. I said as much to Mistress, when she came up on me in the hallway, and she said there was no help for it and I must do the best I can."
"The Old Man seems to like his house dark and musty," Doshi muttered. "I fear to think how we'd fare if plague came through the city. Plague demons could thrive here."
"Keep out in the sunlight whenever possible," Yanados advised. "We've excuse enough, with the workshop here."
"Speaking of workshops," Sulun cut in, frowning over the figures on his waxed tablet, "we'll earn enough to keep the workshop by the river, but that won't leave us much money else."
"None for the bombard, you mean?" Omis laughed bitterly. "Easily answered; add to the list of expenses for the steam engine."
"That, at least," Sulun agreed. "How much iron will you need to make another bombard? How much will that cost us?"
"We can always do a bit of work outside," Arizun offered. "I can go back to telling fortunes in the market, and Yanados could always work as a hired sword." He dodged fast as Yanados aimed a swat at him.
"I don't suppose we could spare a few coppers for parchment," Doshi sighed. "Those beautiful maps . . . I wonder how the old country has changed."
"Just take the damned maps," Arizun snorted. "If the Old Man ever remembers and wants them, he'll send one of the servants to get them—and the folk in this house tell each other if they find anything missing, long before they'll tell him. You'll have plenty of time to sneak them back."
"True." Doshi brightened.
"And we have the sulfur now," Sulun went on, noting how the others pricked up their ears and Yanados grinned. "Five full sacks of it, lying unnoticed in Entori's storehouse for enough years to collect a thick furring of dust. I doubt he even knows what it is, let alone what its properties are."
"Rest assured, he'll notice if any of it goes missing," Doshi commented. "From what the servants tell, he keeps a tally of every ounce of straw in a bale."
"But recall the servants' trick with the wine," Sulun reminded him. "Do we replace any sulfur we take with some other yellow powder, and he can be persuaded that the 'mineral salt' has gone bad—soured, like the wine."
Omis guffawed. Vari shushed him, casting nervous glances back at the near doors and windows.
"So we have sulfur," Yanados agreed. "But how shall we purchase charcoal and saltpeter? Can we pad our budget enough to cover that?"
"And flux, for my ironworking?" Omis added. "Most probably, we can ask for it outright. Do we say we need it for making the steam engines, he'll agree to the purchase."
"In any event," Omis considered, "we'll need to show him good progress on the steam engine. We'll not have the shop ready to work for a few days yet. What shall we tell him tomorrow morning?"
"I'll rehearse my speech tonight," Sulun promised, "rather than stay late after dinner again."
Everyone else chuckled at that.
"Another way to cut our actual expenses . . ." Sulun pulled the two brass valves out of his robe and held them up. "Be certain the Old Man doesn't know what these are. Do we ask for time, money, and good brass to make valves for the steam engine, we can apply it to other things—and then use these."
Doshi and Yanados recognized the objects, and laughed agreement. The others looked puzzled. Omis took one of the valves and turned it over and over in his hands, studying its construction. Sulun handed him the ball-and-socket joint as well.
"If you can drill that out and attach a sizable funnel, we'll have a means to keep the steam engine steadily supplied with water."
"Aha!" Omis caught on, peering closer at the brass joint. "If I need to excuse all my ironworking for the bombard, I'll make the funnel for this out of iron. She'll rust, of course, but the Old Man won't know that until later."
"We can do it, then." Doshi actually grinned. "Entori will have his engine-driven ship and Zeren will have his bombard. How long will it take, think you?"
"Oh, that reminds me," Arizun put in, "I took your message to his house. He should give us some answer by tomorrow."
Vari, Sulun noticed, wasn't listening; she was watching Ziya, hitching closer to her, reaching tentatively for a bowed shoulder. Now that he looked, Sulun saw that the child was crying silently, face hidden under the raised hood of her robe. Sulun recalled, with a twinge of remorse, that he'd barely spoken to the child in the past two days.
"Eh, Ziya," he offered, clumsily patting the girl's nearer shoulder, "I hadn't meant to neglect you. What did you wish to say?"
Ziya pulled a deep breath, which caught and then rushed out again bearing a ragged spool of words. "Ohhh, it's all so -shameful!"
"Huh?" Sulun couldn't imagine what she meant.
"Shameful!" Ziya gulped again. "All of you plotting lies and tricks to rob your master. Did you serve my father so?"
The others gnawed their lips and looked at each other. Yes, in truth they had played a few such games on Shibari. Not many, not so many as this, but they had done it.
"Not at all," said Vari, sounding utterly sincere. "Your father was a good master, not at all like this one."
Ziya hiccupped, rubbed her nose, and sat up a little straighter.
Sulun gave Vari a quick look of guilty gratitude, which she barely acknowledged. He understood. It wasn't the first time, nor would it likely be the last, that they'd used well-meant lies to give the child some hope, some reason not to roll over and die of misery. If ever she learned the truth, would she forgive?
For that matter, Sulun wondered with a shiver, did the gods do the same to men? If so, could mankind ever forgive the gods?"
Then Ziya sniffed and spoke again. "Do bad masters always make their people bad?"
Even Vari couldn't answer that one; she threw Sulun a look of silent appeal. He could feel the weight of everyone else's eyes, and Ziya's question, fall on him.
Well, hang it, couldn't he justify himself in words so simple that a child could understand them?
"No, child. Bad masters only make it difficult for their people to be good."
There. Chew upon that, you gods.
Ziya turned wide, wet eyes up to him. "But not impossible?" she asked.
"No, not impossible. Just . . . difficult."
The child nodded acceptance and went back to munching on her bread and cheese, sorrow passing like a quick summer storm. The others dug into their food, as if determined to finish fast and get back to work.
Sulun pulled up the hood of his robe and glanced suspiciously at the half-clouded sky, wondering why he felt as if he'd just made a pledge before heaven.
CHAPTER NINE
Early next morning Sulun stood in line with the other yawning and bleary-eyed servants, awaiting the audience of accounting with Master Entori. Omis stood behind him, the apprentices in a cluster beyond, after them Vari and the children. They'd all been up long after dinner, rehearsing their lines. Sulun and Omis carried waxed tablets scribbled with lists and figures, Vari would rely on her excellent memory, the apprentices and children would merely look respectful and nod agreement with their elders. The other servants apparently used a similar method, for Sulun noted all three of the house-guards entering the master's office together, just ahead of him.