Sulun dropped his hand and turned away. "Bad beginning," he muttered.
Then he saw the workmen watching him, trying not to look at the body on the ground being bundled into a stretcher improvised of cloaks. He could read their faces clearly enough, see why no one had dropped the ropes off the settled block, guess why no one now was working the crane. Time to say something. Sulun gritted his teeth, pulled his robe around him, and marched up the scaffolding to the top of the unfinished stretch of wall.
"Carelessness," he intoned, "exacts a heavy price. Carelessness can slaughter more than armies. Carelessness is our enemy here—and we dare not drop our guard against it, not for a moment, not out of anger or impatience or distraction. Not ever." One quarter of his mind coolly approved the balanced shape of the speech; another cringed at its grotesque irrelevance. "You see now what harm even a moment's carelessness can do. Be warned, then. Learn the lesson well. Let us never have to learn it again."
The workmen below him nodded solemnly, accepting the words.
Sulun tried to find words to send them back to work, but couldn't think of any. The sound of the crane's ropes slapping the wood made him think of corpses hanging on gallows. No, no more of this, not today.
"Bear that poor man to his home," he said, struggling to get the words clear. "The rest of you, secure the crane, the stones and the tools, and take the remainder of the day—at full pay—to ponder this matter. Er, dismissed." He strode hastily off the stone and down the scaffolding, trying not to hear the amazed murmurs of the crowd as he passed, and headed for the new house. Somewhere among all the food stocks there had to be some strong berry wine, and he needed a few cups of that.
Behind him, the work gang rumbled in amazement.
"Did ye hear that?" said the senior workman. "All of half the day off, and at full pay!"
"What generous folk they be," agreed the nearest. "And wise, too. His talk of carelessness be good sense."
"Aye," noted his neighbor. "Have ye seen, this is the first sore accident since the building work began? The first life or limb lost, in all these moons."
"And that on a new fellow, first day here, who didn't know the workings," another added. "'S'truth, I think he was a stranger here."
"'Tis sure, I don't know him," commented one of the men at the stretcher. "Does anyone here know where his house lies?"
"I do," rumbled Biddon, coming up on them. "'Tis far off north, by the caravan road. Yotha House, and none other."
The workmen stared at him, then at each other, then nodded knowingly.
An hour later, two riders on mules set out from Deese House. Before dusk they reached Ashkell Villa, meeting Eloti on the way and taking her back with them. Gynallea invited them in and set dinner for them at the upper end of the table, calmly as if she'd been expecting them. Wotheng, after his usual custom, asked no questions and discouraged all talk until the meal was finished and the dessert drinks brought out.
"You did say, m'lord," Sulun began, "that if any local wizards tried to harm us, we should bring our complaint to you."
Wotheng glanced sidelong at his wife, then shrugged. "Aye, so we did. What wizards have troubled you folk, and in what way?"
Sulun looked hopefully at Zeren, not certain that he could carry off this little plan. The big soldier launched into the story as smoothly as if he were giving a standard military report.
"Shortly after noon today there was an accident at the construction site on the new Deese House outer wall. A stone slipped from its cradle, crushing a workman. Upon inspection, the wall was found to have been temporarily ill-wished. The injured workman was found to have been a resident of Yotha's estate. Apparently he was attempting to set a curse on the walls when our own protective spells deflected it, causing it to discharge upon the sender."
Wotheng looked calm, mildly interested; his eyelids barely fluttered at the name of Yotha. Still, Eloti noted it.
"We wish to know," Sulun took up the complaint, "just who these people are, why they tried to ill-wish our house, and whether we may expect more of this."
Wotheng puffed at his pipe, harrumphed a few times, glanced again at his wife. "Well, Yotha's some imported fire god," he began. "Came from off to the east somewhere, no place we ever heard of. These priests of his, now, they've some sorcerous powers they claim he gives 'em; came here about eight years ago and set up to the north, maybe five leagues up along the caravan road. They say that Yotha came first, and the priests were only following where he led. What I know is that fires were seen running along the hilltops—running in lines and curlicues, dancing, like. Didn't harm any but stretches of turf; stampeded some sheep, scared some folk out of their wits, and everyone came hollering to me about it."
Wotheng tapped out his empty pipe, refilled and relit it before going on.
"Next day it was, I clearly recall, these priests of Yotha showed themselves in the village. Very fierce and solemn, they were. Proud, too, as if they held themselves too high to speak to the common run of folk. Came asking to see 'the lord of this place,' which was myself, saying they knew the 'source and nature' of the fires. To be sure, I gave 'em audience."
"It was Yotha, they said," Gynallea sneered, pouring herself another berry cordial. "Their triple-damned fire god."
"Oh, aye. They said they'd been following their god's trail for moons, and now they'd found him here. They said they could entice him into a shrine, keep him appeased, keep him from doing mischief, but 'twere best if they did it quickly. Best, in truth, if they could find some empty building already standing—like the old burned mansion up by the north road. Yotha'd be drawn to that, they said, since fire had 'already frolicked there.'"
"And what of all the poor folk living there?" Gynallea added. "Hah, never mind! Go they must, so the priests could set their god trap there."
"Now what was I to do?" Wotheng shrugged. "Here's the people all afrenzy over these fires, here's these priests saying they can put an end to it, and here's only a few poor folk in the way." He sighed and tapped out his pipe.
"What became of the poor folk who were moved out of the mansion?" Eloti asked.
"Oh, many of them weren't moved out at all—just became builders, then servants, at Yotha House. The rest, well, I granted them some sheep and some help building cottages elsewhere. Tricky juggling with land rights that was, too."
"So Yotha's priests took the house, and its lands, I presume," Eloti considered. "And the mysterious fires stopped?"
"Not entirely, no." Wotheng reached for his cup. "Now they danced all over the altar at his ceremonies there. Folk came from leagues about to attend. At other times the fires would scamper out on the bare hilltops and dance a while, and the priests would go out and chant at them a while, and they'd stop. Then the priests took to saying where fire would strike next—this one's house, that one's barn . . ." Wotheng half-turned, frowned at his fireplace and the innocent flames therein. "Folk took to paying good prices to the priests to discourage Yotha's games. See you where that led?"
Zeren, Eloti, and Sulun nodded slowly. "So, Yotha's priesthood soon became rich," Eloti finished. "Now that we've come, they fear a rival for people's attention—and money."
Wotheng smiled sourly. "Be not surprised, friends, if Yotha's fire comes running up to your gates some evening soon."
"We'll not be surprised at all," Zeren growled. "Is the god truly there, think you, or is it only the priests' sorcery?"