By late afternoon, Werwal’s man Sikal had arrived with a small-and smelly-wagon and collected the barrels, and Arthal had gone with Charee to the market square. Kharl was getting the forge ready to set some hoops when the door to the cooperage opened.
He did not know the man who stepped into the shop, but the cooper stopped pumping the bellows in the small forge and stepped forward past the planer. He skirted Jenevra, who looked up silently, and moved to the sharp-featured figure in the rich brown tunic.
“Might I help you, ser?” asked Kharl, trying to determine what sort of merchant the man might be.
“You might be Kharl, the cooper?” The man’s muddy brown eyes flicked up to the racks of billets, then toward the stairs in the rear, before settling on Kharl.
“That I am. And you might be?”
“Let us just say that I have an interest in barrels. Special barrels.” A faint smile appeared on the slender but muscular man’s lips.
Kharl smelled scent on the man, more than even a wealthy man should use. Lavender, he thought. “Large or small, slack or tight?”
“I was thinking of large slack barrels, for winter transport of seasonal game, and I understand such barrels could hold ice above the game, that would keep the game cold.”
“That’s possible, but only for an eightday in harvest. In winter, the ice would keep for a season, or longer.”
“I would be interested in a…large barrel.” The man gestured toward the hogshead in the window. “Could you make one a third smaller than the largest there?”
“That is possible.”
“Good.” The man in brown flashed a smile, then slipped around Kharl and studied the shop, moving toward the tool rack. His eyes took in the tools, implement by implement, then the forge and the open hearth that held the fire pot. His eyes passed over the blackstaffer on the pallet against the wall and returned to Kharl. “You have a well-laid-out cooperage.”
“Thank you. When would you like the hogshead?”
“I will have to think about that. When I return, we’ll talk about the details. I needed to know whether it was possible.” He bowed, then turned.
Kharl watched as the other left. He shook his head. For all his words, the man hadn’t felt like someone who bought barrels. The lavender scent suggested a bravo of some sort, but Kharl hadn’t the faintest idea why a bravo would find a cooperage of interest. It wasn’t as though Kharl had large stocks of coins stashed away.
“That man,” said Jenevra, “he was evil.”
“Is that something blackstaffers can tell?” Kharl asked.
“Not always,” she replied. “I wouldn’t be here if we could. But that one, he carries the white of chaos around him like a cloak.”
“He’s a white mage?”
“No. It’s not the same. His is the chaos of murder and destruction.”
Why would one such as that, if Jenevra were indeed correct, be visiting a cooper? He hadn’t even really looked at the blackstaffer, or at Kharl. “You think he’s an assassin? Or a thief?”
Jenevra shrugged, then winced. “He carries chaos. He could be an assassin or an armsman, or he could be an outland merchant who sails close to the wind. Or he could be a thief, or anything else. He is evil, whatever else he may be.”
“That’s not much help.” Kharl paused. “You speak well. You speak too well for a peasant’s daughter or for someone who works at hard labor.”
“I do? That may be because the Brethren want us prepared when we travel elsewhere.”
“The Brethren?”
“The Council of Recluce. They decide how we are prepared. That is, if your family can pay for the training.”
“Yours could,” Kharl said.
“It was difficult, but they did not wish me ill prepared.” She laughed, ironically, a hint of bitterness behind the words. “Much good it has done me-or them.”
“You were trained with the staff?”
“I was. Some are trained with blades, or axes, or other weapons for self-protection.”
“Are all women trained with the staff?”
“No. It is…what weapons are in accord with what we are.”
“In accord?” The woman’s words were more than a little puzzling. How could a weapon be in accord with a person?
“Every person grows-or comes to be ordered-in a certain fashion. Edged weapons make some uneasy with them. So a staff is better. It is not good to fight your weapon when you are trying to defend yourself.”
Although her explanation was strange, the last words made sense to Kharl. He certainly could not fight his tools if he wanted to make good barrels, and he had no trouble seeing that it could apply to weapons as well. While he would have liked to talk longer, talking would not help get the barrels done, and those needed doing so that, if other business arrived, he would still have the slack barrels for harvesttime.
Kharl nodded, then turned back to the forge. He still needed to finish shaping and riveting the hoops for the remaining oak barrels that Werwal had ordered and for the ones that Wassyt the miller would be wanting, sooner or later. If the harvest were really good, Rensan might even buy a few if Mallamet couldn’t supply them-which was certainly likely, since Mallamet was neither that good a cooper nor that productive. He was cheap, though, Kharl had to admit.
The cooper also hoped that Jenevra felt much better in the morning.
If she did not…Kharl pushed that thought away. He had worries enough.
VIII
When Kharl hurried down to the cooperage after his breakfast, he found that Jenevra had turned so that she was sitting with her back against the wall. She was dressed, and wearing her boots once more, although her face was still pale.
“You’re going to have to move today-” Kharl began.
“Charee told me when she brought me breakfast and my clothes. She repaired them. She’s very good with a needle.” Jenevra smiled wanly for a moment before the expression faded. “I’m much better. Your consort does not like my being here.”
Kharl didn’t reply.
“It is clear. She thinks I will hurt your business. If I stayed, I probably would. No one likes having blackstaffers around. They told us that, but I did not believe it then.”
“In a few moments,” Kharl finally said, unable to refute her words, “we’re going to take you out to Father Jorum’s-”
“One of the one-god priests? He will not be that pleased.”
“They preach kindness to all-”
“Except to those from Recluce.”
“I have never heard him say anything against Recluce,” Kharl protested, although he seldom accompanied Charee to the end-day services.
“What is not said-”
Both Jenevra and Kharl looked up at the sharp cracking sound, followed by the tinkling clank of glass falling on stone. His eyes darted toward the front window of his shop, but all the leaded glass panes were in place.
He frowned.
A muffled low boom rumbled past him, shaking the walls. One of the shooks left on the workbench fell to the floor with a flat, slapping sound.
Jenevra started to rise, then put her hand down to steady herself. Her face paled even more, until it was sheet-white.
“Stay put!” commanded Kharl. “You’re still weak.”
“Fire! Fire at the scrivener’s!”
“Fire!” The second voice was that of Tyrbel.
Kharl looked at Jenevra. “You just stay there, unless the fire spreads here, and then you get out as fast as you can.”
“Yes, master cooper.”
Kharl didn’t argue that he wasn’t a master cooper, because he’d never had enough golds to pay the Crafters’ Guild. He didn’t have time to explain as he rushed out of the cooperage. Outside and to the west a line of men had formed up, passing buckets from the fire barrel some forty cubits farther west from the door of Tyrbel’s scriptorium. Kharl could see that there weren’t enough buckets, not to stop the fierce flames darting from the broken glass of Tyrbel’s display window. From the jagged-edged hole in the display window, along with the flames, came lines of thick black smoke, oily-smelling smoke.