Then, he stepped away from the cold forge, back toward the planer.
His eyes fell to the black staff, still where he had left it under the bench. He bent down and pulled it out. Once more, the wood felt warm, comfortable, in his hands. After studying the staff for a long moment, he leaned it against the wall. He still had barrels to do…if he ever wanted to pay the tariffs.
XXIII
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.
XXIV
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
XXV
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.