A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Six: Late Night with the Mayor
“Thank you, ma'am,” Denario bowed and took off his hat for the mayor's wife. She was a lovely woman of dark, brunette hair and uneven, swarthy complexion. Her cheeks had a delightful smattering of freckles, he thought. Her smile was shy and her eyes were bright. The grey in her hair was just beginning to show.
He sat in the center of the mayor's many-roomed home for a few minutes. Marie Quimbi served him a hot drink that she said was tea. It didn't taste like it. But he couldn't help noticing that the china cup was fine and the chair she offered him was a well-wrought fiddleback. It wasn't her best chair, either. Two of the others had cushions.
Do they know how wealthy they are? he wondered. Without money, the citizens here had no way to measure. Mrs. Quimbi had thrown furs over a sofa which looked soft enough without them. She wore a least two layers of linen. She kept a tapestry on the wall, not the best artwork but done in red and pink, which would have cost plenty even in Angrili. And Angrili specialized in those colors. Denario happened to gaze up and noticed the wooden beams of the ceiling had been carved with an axe. Someone had cut at least twenty-eight, no thirty-one, no thirty-four, no thirty-six clan markings into a fresco or mural of sorts. As an artwork, it was partly mysterious and all beautiful.
Items made of brass lay about everywhere, mostly in the form of candlesticks and wash basins but also in pieces of armor that had been hung on the wall. Denario got up to inspect a breastplate and was shocked to feel how thin it was. It was ornamental.
“My gods, accountant, you're still working?” said the mayor. Denario spun to find that the genial man had come into the dining area from the hall to his bedroom.
“Oh yes.” Denario found it hard to say anything more. He felt surrounded by stolen goods. How much of this had been taken from the counting house after Bibbo had died?
“How very diligent. I'm impressed.” Jack Quimbi wrung his hands. Denario suddenly realized that the man was nervous. Perhaps I do seem fast, Denario thought, remembering Mistress Clumpi. He felt he was moving at a natural speed but if he seemed hasty, it was because he sensed time slipping away from him, taking his apprentices with it.
“I think you'll be surprised at how much I've learned already,” he said.
“Delightful. And my wife has made tea.” The mayor wrung his hands some more. He sat in a cushioned chair and showed every sign of joyful anticipation. “How lovely!”
Jack poured the steaming liquid into his cup. When he glanced at Denario, he seemed to notice the pendant on Denario's chest. He narrowed his eyes. The blue coin in its setting bothered him.
“Do you mind,” he said, waving his hand as if trying not to see the image on the coin, “putting that away for a little while as we talk?”
“It would be disrespectful to hide it.” Denario did his best to remember how Vir had told him to act. “This is by order of the captain.”
“You're really his man? Even though you're from Oggli?”
“I'm under his protection, yes.” He couched his words carefully. This conversation was proceeding differently than he'd planned.
“And the coin really belongs to Vir? Because it rather announces that he's of royal blood.”
“I think you can't be captain without it.”
“Ah. Yes.” The mayor squirmed in his seat. “That rumor. I'd heard it. But I'd rather thought that a myth of bygone days.”
“Vir doesn't think it's important anyway.” Denario took a seat not far from the mayor. “He says that he's sworn to save the villages from being raided. That's the main thing.”
“And how's he going to go about that?” the mayor wondered. “We pay our monthly goat, you know. We overpay. We sent fourteen of them last year. But we get more and more reports of village raids. They're getting close. Refugees have come in. Some have come right through and kept running. It's got folks around here worried.”
“Yes. The barons and the Raduar are both headed this way.”
“Both?” The mayor's eyes goggled.
“I drew a map of this before. I can show you. Yes, the Raduar chieftans are coming from the north and east. The Ogglian barons are coming from the south and east. Their lines of attack should meet, well, a few miles east of here.”
“I ... I think I'd like to see the map.”
“I'll draw another soon, then, before I go.”
“Go? And that's something I don't understand. You want to head right toward the battles? Walk right through them?”
“I have apprentices,” he said doggedly.
“Yes, but ...” The mayor's hands flopped. “But all the killing ....”
“I understand that Vir has two sergeants out that direction. They're obligated to this coin of the realm, too. They may lend me some assistance.”
“Or they may be dead.”
“They might.” He admitted it and found the possibility to be no deterrent. He surprised himself. “I'll get through anyway. With your letter of transit, of course.”
The mayor sat and held his head for a minute or two. He didn't touch his tea.
“So,” Denario ventured after a sip. The silence was an opportunity he didn't want to waste. “I see that you've been using the counting house as your personal bank.”
A fearful expression, followed by rage, followed by a neutral expression of calm flickered by on the mayor's face in only a second.
“Where would you hear something like that?” he wondered.
“I would read it in the account scrolls.”
“Oh.” The mayor did, at last take some tea. He drank half a cup at once. “Did you see that it's not just been me? The burghers started it. And the mine headman.”
“I know about the worst of the burghers, for sure.” He took a chance on his next statement. “I think the mine supervisor has been more honest than the rest of you.”
“Well, maybe, but ...” At last, Jack lay his hands out on the table. He'd given up trying to justify himself. “You can see all of that in the accounts?”
“In the new ones,” Denario partially lied. “I haven't cracked the old one yet. It'll take a little while. But not as long as you think.”
“Good. At least the old system was honest,” said the mayor. “You won't find much there except who owes what to the town.”
“You mean that Bibbo Clumpi was honest.” Denario started to roll his eyes but he checked himself. “Well, for a given value of honesty. He didn't cheat on deals with the tradesmen for you.”
“Yes. How'd you spot it all? That little man, Hummel, said he had it fixed.”
Denario could already see that Hummel would be the brunt of a lot of anger if his boss didn't put a stop to it. And Denario was his boss right now.
“No more brow-beating the book keepers into falsifying records, right?” Denario folded his arms and did his best to mirror the mayor's neutral expression. “I've been trained to spot them. And I've got a hard enough job as it is working out who owes what without sifting through all the cheating, too.”
“Senli wouldn't do it much anyway.”
“In her own way, she was honest. She put down each loss as theft. Which it was, after all.”
The mayor stared into his cupped hands.
“How did the mine come to be owned by the town, anyway?” Denario said after enough time had passed for him to become impatient.
“Oh, it's belonged to the town for so long that no one really remembers," Jack replied with a sigh. “We only started pulling out tin and copper forty years back. But there's been a granite quarry since … well, since a time when hardly anyone's ancestors lived here. Those who did spoke a language that was older than the Old Tongue.”
The mayor babbled on for a while about town history. He seemed calmer when discussing anything other than his theft, naturally. Why does he think the mine supervisor has to be involved? Denario wondered. The accountant mulled it over for a few minutes while Jack Quimbi continued to explain his grandfather's inspiring rise from slavery. Abruptly, Denario saw it: the economy of the town flowed through the mine supervisor. All of the riches ran through the mine's log books and, at one time, all of the wages must have done so, too.
The cut of wages taken by the town leaders came from the mine's pay logs. They could get no richer than the mine foremen allowed. Since old Bibbo had been honest, the burghers hadn't been able to use the counting house to get out from under the control of the mine supervisor. When Bibbo died, that changed.
“Tell me,” he interjected when the mayor paused in his history lesson. “The burghers felt they had to get out from under the control of the mine headmen. Why was that necessary?”
Jack Quimbi looked up at the question. He'd been avoiding Denario's gaze. But he didn't seem surprised. He merely nodded.
“It wasn't. The mine is sloppily run, I think, but we've been doing well for a long while. I suppose the first burgher to complain that we weren't rich enough was Mark Haphnaught. That was ages ago.”
“Ages meaning how long?”
“At least fifteen years. Haphnaught became a burgher under the last mayor. He always thought that the town leadership should get paid more. Other big towns around here have raised the pay for burghers and aldermen. Our burghers are busy with surveys, trades, supervising construction projects, the water filters, the new aqueduct, and so on. So if they're busy, shouldn't they get something for their work?”
“Sounds fair so far.”
“It made sense to me. And the burghers and I had been making our town richer and richer.”
Denario cleared his throat politely. “Until recently.”
“Yes, there's that.” Jack's cheeks flushed. “We were doing well until Bibbo died. Then there came the news of the wars that were cutting off the caravan trade. But even in the good times, the miners wouldn't agree to our raises.”
“Are the mine foremen elected by the miners?” The slaves might have some rights, he realized.
“What does 'elected' mean?”
“Well, how about just telling me how the foremen are chosen?”
“If a slave earns his freedom, he applies to be a headman or foreman. The other headmen usually let him join. After all, most of them were slaves once, too.”
“And do the mine foremen make as much as you, mayor?”
“The mine supervisor makes exactly what I do. That's by rule. I always thought it was a good rule when I was young. It keeps the mine from dominating the town.”
“But you wanted the town to dominate the mine?”
“Maybe. I don't know. In the end, I wasn't thinking of it like that. Like I said, it started with Haphnaught complaining. But that was years ago. He never approached Bibbo Clumpi about it, not that I ever heard.”
“Because Bibbo would have told him to go to hell?”
“Probably.” The mayor wagged his finger. “But Bibbo was a clever old coot. He had a way of sending people to hell that made them eager to pack their bags, if you know what I mean. After he died, we were in shock. Haphnaught and Dumm tried to run the place but we could tell that it wasn't working. Around then, the caravans started lying to us about what they owed us or didn't. Some of them cheated us on the math. Dumm sent out for a replacement book keeper and he authorized the caravan drivers to bring us the best they could find.”
“Wait, the caravans brought these two? And you weren't worried that they'd feel loyalty to the caravans?”
“Why would they?” Quimbi looked startled by the idea. “I don't think anyone suggested it. Although, come to think of it, Hummel does cut deals with the caravan that brought him. That's the only caravan he deals with, really.”
A puzzled scowl fluttered briefly across his features. Strands of brown hair fell into his eyes. He brushed them back.
“So Vernon Dumm and Mark Haphnaught realized they could give themselves the raises they wanted,” Denario said. “What happened next, from your point of view?”
“I'd better refresh my tea.” The mayor got up and ambled to the hearth. There, a cast-iron pot hung over the fire. He tossed in a couple sticks to stoke the blaze. Then he grabbed the ladle and scooped out more hot water. He re-started his story.
It took him a few minutes to get to the point. As the mayor rambled, Denario noticed that Marie Quimbi had discreetly gone missing. Maybe she didn't want to hear Jack discuss his business. That seemed smart, considering his revelations. Jack interrupted himself fairly often but otherwise seemed eager to tell his side. Denario could almost believe that the corruption had been weighing on his conscience.
The mayor wasn't sure when the first burgher stole something from the counting house. He suspected that Vernon Dumm had started the practice. About a month into his supervision of the area, the burgher acquired a new bed that his wife had been coveting for years. He must have traded something for it, the mayor figured.
Soon after, other burghers followed Dumm's example. Several of them traded for imported foods. Burgher Haphnaught got himself an improved set of false teeth. At some point, the burghers started to feel in danger of being caught by the mayor or the mine supervisor. Haphnaught had been the one to suggest gifts as the answer. They had invited the supervisor and the mayor to dinner. They'd given them surplus furs 'for the wives and kiddies, don't ye know' because it was winter. Haphnaught had given a broach directly to Marie Quimbi as her thirty-fifth birthday present.
Vernon Dumm, in his way, had been more clever. He'd talked to Marie Quimbi about a donation to her church, the South Winds. Marie had been ecstatic. And the priest had been bowing-down grateful, too, for all of the candles, furs, brass, and bits of gold. The church had been openly bought off.
That donation had almost been an announcement that the burghers could take from the warehouse as they pleased. Soon, burghers and friends of the burghers were making gifts to the Quimbi home every week. Jack Quimbi gave up the pretense of being surprised. He started to visit the counting house himself to look at the best trade goods as they came in. He asked around and figured things out. He started accepting inventory directly from tradesmen.
“I gave up trying to stop it,” Quimbi admitted. “I went completely the other way.”
He paused in his confession and stirred his tea. He hadn't taken a drink since he'd poured. Denario didn't feel a need to point that out but he felt he should say something. If he'd been Master Winkel, he would have chided the mayor. But that wouldn't work. It had never worked well for Winkel when dealing with the nobility. That's why he was never a member of the Court of Oggli despite having their respect. Now if Denario had been more like Vir, he would have done ... what? Smacked the mayor? But Jack Quimbi didn't work that way. Who in this town had power over the mayor? Even the mine supervisor was at best a nominal equal.
“Marie, will you please come in to talk with us?” Denario called.
Jack stood up. He seemed startled for a moment. Then he grinned sheepishly, nodded, and sat back down. In a moment, without audible footsteps, his wife's face appeared at the crack in the hallway door. She moved the door without a sound, too. Such perfect hinges, Denario reflected. It seemed like an out of place thought but maybe it wasn't. The town was rich from its craftsmen not just its raw materials.
“I think it's important that we get your views on the rest of our conversation.” Denario rose and held out a chair for her. He made sure it was a cushioned one. “The women in town are pretending that they don't know what's going on. Wouldn't you agree?”
Wordlessly, Marie nodded. Her eyes were wide with fright. After a few seconds of hesitation, she took a seat. She tried to smile politely but failed.
“Right now, you're worried about what your friends will think,” Denario predicted. It was, he hoped, a safe guess. He didn't know anything about her. “And Jack is worried about what some of the craftsmen and farmers will think. But believe me, they're not important.”
That got a surprised laugh from Marie.
“They're not?” Jack asked dubiously.
“No. This is about math again.”
“I don't know much adding.” Marie had donned a pink shawl while she stood behind the door to listen. She pulled it close around her neck.
“Don't worry. You'll follow this much. And while I'm telling you, I want you to do is think of some way to get a message to the town women. Okay?”
She nodded. Then she shrugged hopelessly. Well, he didn't know if she could do it either.
“Your husbands have been cheating the caravan drivers.” Denario leaned back. “I know that some of you must think that's a good thing. But those caravans come an awfully long way and carry heavy loads in order to deal with you. When they feel cheated, they don't come back.”
“Oh!” Marie put a hand to her mouth. She removed it and said, “I know what you mean. No silks.”
“You used to get silks?”
“Once a year for three years. But then only once more after Master Clumpi died. The caravan left mad. We've never had a bolt of silk come through here since.”
“That sounds bad. But there's worse. Now that some of the caravans haven't returned, the local thefts from the warehouse are larger in proportion. The town has been stealing so much from itself, in fact, that it has less to trade with the caravans. So the town drives harder bargains. Then more caravans decide not to trade with the town. That cycle has gone on for a year. More. Now you have fewer items to give. That means you get less in return. Your copper and tin stocks are piling up. But you can't eat those. You can't sleep in sheets of brass.”
“Have you talked with the caravan drivers?” Marie asked.
“No, not a one. I don't need to. I can see that, at this rate, it's not just Mistress Clumpi who'll go hungry next winter. A lot of other folks here are going to do the same. Your food mostly isn't grown around here.”
“Food comes in from all sorts of places,” pointed out the mayor.
“Right. But it can't come by boat because you've got a hands-depth of water in your creek. Who brings it?”
“Caravan drivers and tradesmen.”
“And who have you been cheating?”
“The caravans. Oh!” He smacked his own forehead.
“And what have you got least of in the warehouse?”
“Food. All of the smoked meats are gone. There's a bit of fish, though, and we have a few oats.”
“Enough for the town to last a winter?”
“Oh, not at all. We've got enough for about a month. Even in the best of times, we've never held enough to last a whole winter.”
“So the caravans have to keep coming in or the town starves?”
“They bring the firewood, too. We can get that ourselves easily enough but … the food, well, probably not. This isn't good farmland, you may have noticed. Even the nearby towns that do some farming can barely support themselves.”
“We don't know how to farm,” said Marie. “We're all miners or descendants of miners.”
“My gods … the borrowing is in the accounts, the missing caravans are in the accounts …” Jack's hands had gone to his hair. “Is our starving in those numbers, too?”
“Yes, it's all there.” Denario looked at their bewildered, frightened faces. “All of it is on record for someone who knows how to look. But you still have time. You can change your future. You don't have to starve next winter.”
“How?”
“First, start by planting more gardens. That's just practical. At the same time, you should pay higher prices to all sorts of traders. Give away more skins to the farmers. Give them more brass tools, too. You don't keep enough of those in stock, by the way, which means that folks are getting their finished tools elsewhere.”
“The mine provides raw materials, not finished tools.”
“But you trade the raw materials to craftsmen in return for good tools. You could increase that to the town's profit. You can re-trade those tools. It's something to consider.”
The mayor rubbed his jaw.
“Why are you telling us?” Marie asked. “Why should you care about this town?”
“Vir thinks you're important or he wouldn't have dropped me here. He took his troops out of their way for this. And he spent a long time after we arrived just talking with me about the place.”
“I noticed that,” remarked the mayor in what was probably supposed to be a dark tone. But no one could talk darkly the way Vir could. Denario hardly noticed.
“I think Vir gets his best weapons from you. What's more, this is a place where both armies will attack.”
“What armies?” Marie dropped the hand from her lip. She sat up straighter.
“The Ogglian and the Raduar ones. The Raduar combined force has veered off at the moment but they'll be back. And I doubt very much that the Ogglians know about you. Otherwise they'd head straight for your town right now."
"Why?" she breathed.
"From the Mundredi army information, it seems that the Ogglians loot villages each time they raid. Then they follow the fleeing villagers. Of course, the villagers follow the caravan roads.”
“And the caravan roads lead back to us,” concluded the mayor.
“So we're going to die?” Marie didn't seem as worried as Denario expected. It must not seem quite real to her. The armies were still a long ways off.
“No, your leaders will take appropriate action,” Denario prompted. “They'll keep the town in business. They'll raise more taxes. They'll gather a fighting force.”
“The burghers will never go for that,” said Jack. Next to him, his wife fidgeted with her copper necklace.
“Can't you talk them into it, Jack?” she said. She glanced from her husband to Denario. Clearly, she wanted one of them to reassure her.
“Maybe I can help a little,” Denario allowed.
“Haphnaught has been a major opposition leader for years,” said the mayor. “I think half of the border guards are loyal to him, too. That's a roadblock to progress.”
“Send Vernon Dumm and John Haphnaught to me in the morning," Denario said. At the moment of those words, he felt full of bravado. Then he heard what he was saying and, suddenly, he wasn’t.
Next: Chapter Eleven, Scene One
Stories on life, death, enlightenment, zen buddhism, religion, philosophy, stoicism, meditation, daoism, kindness but not meekness, and samsara.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Not Even Not Zen 63: A Bandit Accountant, 10.5
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Five: Broken Chains
Armed with three different sizes of knitting needles, Denario opened the main door to the counting house. He'd seen the lights on through the shuttered windows. He knew at least one of the book keepers was working. That made him feel guilty for being so well fed. For all he knew, he was supposed to arrange for the slaves' dinners now. Well, he hadn't asked to be their master. That wasn't what he'd bargained for.
At their desks, Hummel and Senli sat. They faced away from each other, as usual.
“Where's the guard?” Denario wondered as he stepped in. At the opposite corner of the room, Senli rose. He knew she could hear him. “I was told there was a guard at night. Hells, I met him yesterday. Not a tall man but burly enough and he had some armor.”
“They send him away on gate duty, most nights now,” answered a voice from behind. That was Olga Clumpi. She felt obligated to tag along with him to watch after her needles, she'd said. Anyway, she wanted to satisfy her curiosity. He was counting on that part of her although he still wasn't sure what he hoped to achieve by bringing her here.
“Damn it, look at this place!” He waved his hands at the piles of copper plates and ingots of tin. There was a new stack of otter furs in the middle of the floor, too. A tradesman had stopped by in the afternoon. “Anyone can just walk in at night and take what they want?”
“It's not ... it's a small enough town.” Olga sounded like she didn't quite accept the explanation herself. “We would know ... eventually.”
Senli approached in silence. Her wary gaze seemed to avoid even seeing Olga Clumpi. She bowed her head.
“I reviewed the tallies, master accountant,” she said. Denario opened his mouth to correct her – he was a still just a journeyman – but she continued. “The thefts are all reconciled with the inventory.”
“And now I understand them, too,” mentioned Denario. He led her back in the direction of her desk. “Have you and Hummel taken your evening break?”
“No, sir.” Her lips got tight as she pondered his understanding of the thefts. “Can we go? I have dinner waiting at Small Gods.”
“Not quite yet. You should see this.” He marched to the space between the desks. “Hummel, turn this way. Rise. No, wait, sit back down on your stool. Just prop your legs up on my knee.”
“Master?” Hummel tried to do everything at once and ended up confused. He missed resting his leg on Denario's knee. He nearly fell off his seat.
“Just one heel up, like that.” Denario went down on his right knee with his left one higher to act as a workbench.
“Have you ... did the mayor ...?” Once Hummel saw the knitting needles, he started to panic. It wasn't that he didn't understand Denario's intentions. He did.
“Shut up, Hummel. That's an order. I have some things to explain to all three of you. I'm glad you're here together.” With the largest needle, he dug into the primitive key lock on the shackle. It took only a few seconds to be sure that this device had two pins on springs inside. The springs kept the latch inside closed; the latch kept the shackles locked around the slave's ankle. Two pins were all that kept Hummel in chains. Denario grinned when he was sure. He switched needles and shifted his grip. “You'd better take a look at one another now and think about trust. You'll need to rely on those around you. Because it's going to be the whole town against the three of you for a while.”
“Not the whole town,” Olga said. She struck her fist against her thigh. “Not the whole town, by the gods.”
“The town leaders, then. The ones who've been running this place like their private piggy bank.”
She nodded. Denario could feel one of the pins giving way under pressure from the mid-sized knitting needle. He rolled the biggest needle in his hand and decided it was too thick. He set it down as he held the first pin back and got ready to tackle the second pin in earnest.
“You leave them to me, understand?” He paused as he picked up the smallest needle. He checked their faces. The slaves looked stunned. “If any of the town burghers or the mayor or a priest or priestess or foreman ... if any town leader at all gives you any trouble, you just send them to me.”
“Yes, master,” said Senli.
“But what if they won't go to see you? What if they're afraid of you?” Hummel asked rather sensibly, if oddly to Lamero's ears. It was hard to imagine anyone being afraid of him even if he did walk around with a short sword these days.
“I'll be here in the counting house most of the time. If something bad happens when I'm not around, well, there are three of you now. Someone should always be able to slip away and tell me. I'll stop whatever I'm doing to return.” He rocked on his heels and thought harder.
“Honestly, who are the ones who are going to cause trouble?”
“Burgher Dumm,” said Senli. “And Burgher Hapfnaught.”
“And Mayor Quimbi,” added Hummel.
Denario felt the second pin click. The manacle popped open a little in his hand. Rust on the hinge kept it from opening all the way. He yanked out his baselard and used it as a wedge. Hummel jerked for a moment when he saw the blade leave the sheath. But then he held still for Denario to continue.
“I said I'm going to pay you. All of you. So I am.” He wrenched the manacle open or close enough. Hummel's leg was a mess of sores beneath the iron but he had to ignore that. He pushed the man's right foot off his knee and pulled up the left. “Now look around at the bins and shelves. Because you're going to be paid out of this stock. This is yours to care for. It's part of your job to protect it.”
He liked giving this part of the job to them. No one would understand the details better than these folks.
“Tell me,” he said to Senli and Olga. “Do we need a guard?”
Senli shook her head. She gazed uncertainly at Hummel and at Mistress Clumpi. Neither of them spoke up, so she continued.
“I think ... not yet. We sleep close by. And things aren't bad enough in town for any real trouble. If we close late and open early, we'll be all right. When the Raduar troops get close enough, that's when we'll have to fight looters.”
“When the Raduar or the Ogglian troops come, inventory will be the least of the problems.” Denario shrugged. The first pin of the second lock was nearly rusted solid. He switched to the biggest needle. “So, no guard. What's our next biggest problem, aside from theft?”
“The tiles,” murmured Senli. The other two nodded in agreement.
“That's the other part of your job, Olga. It's not a big part. But at times when you're not negotiating with fur traders or caravan drivers, I need you to return the tile system to the state it was in when your husband died. I'll take it from there.”
“You will?”
“Oh, you'll all help. You're smart. And this kind of work is always interesting.” His voice was much more confident than he was. He listened to himself sounding positively fearless and wondered how much of that was true. “I'm sure you'll have ideas and you can work on it in your spare time as much as you like. But I won't be decoding in spare time. I'll be devoting myself to it entirely. It'll take a week or two.”
He could almost hear Olga Clumpi shaking her head. Senli's hands were trembling, he could see. But he was right. It would take two weeks at the outside or it wouldn't get done.
Just then, the second manacle clicked. The hinges were even rustier than on the first one but he could leverage them with the edge of his sword.
“I ... well ...” stammered Olga. “I don't know about fixing up those tiles but I know the burghers well. They never set Hummel free before. Aren't ye afraid he'll run?”
Denario hardly had to look up. He knew it was the unspoken question in Senli's eyes, too.
“Well, Hummel?” He couldn't help giving the little man a smile as he put the man's leg down. He rose. With a jaunty air that was nearly real, he sheathed his baselard. “You must have a dozen plans for getting away. But you don't look well suited to travel. Do you have a store of dried food? Prepared snares? Canteens? Have you ever lived off the land before?”
“No. No, none of that.”
“You're going to earn your freedom for real, if you stay. You may even like it.” Denario surveyed a corner of the room where he thought he was most likely to discover a problem. “But in exchange, you're going to return the material you've stolen from the warehouse.”
“Sir?” Hummel nervously licked his lips. His eyes, sure enough, drifted to the problem corner, as far from Senli's sleeping corner as was possible.
“I know how it goes, Hummel. They weren't paying you. It's no problem to set a few things aside. That's what people do. So I'm not going to go dig it out. But, in time, as your pay comes in, I expect you to return whatever seems appropriate, whatever makes you honest again.”
“Yes, sir.” He bowed his head.
After a moment or two, the little man started hiccuping. It took Denario another half minute to realize that Hummel was crying. He had to see the tears plopping on that big beard.
“Never been free of shackles in these past six years, sir.” The man raised his arm to cover his face. “Not in any place what owned me.”
Denario felt a lump in his throat. But he wasn't going to give in to it.
“You're good at what you do, Hummel,” he said. “So is Senli. So is Mistress Clumpi. You three have always been able to run this place. The only difference now is that we'll to make sure that everyone knows it. That starts now.”
He couldn't stick around the bearded book keeper another moment without succumbing, so he turned his back. It was getting late. And he still had work to do.
“Are you looking for loyalty from Hummel?” Olga whispered in his right ear. “Because I don't think you're going to get it. He's not a strong man.”
“Everyone gets treated decently while I'm here.” This time, Denario wasn't acting. He wasn't pretending to be like Vir or Alaric. This was him. “Everyone.”
He caught Senli's eyes, too, to make sure that she understood he was including her. Then, with a nod to them both, he took his to leave. He reached the door before Mistress Clumpi called out.
“The mayor goes to bed early,” she said “Not that it's a bad time to see him. Get him while he's tired.”
“Are you a mind reader, Mistress Clumpi?” he stopped and turned to see her smile at him. It was a turtle-ish expression with her head poked forward on her long neck. Her hands were fists on her hips.
He couldn't help returning her war-like grin. Am I enjoying this? he asked himself. Yes, he decided, despite his fear. He was looking forward to confronting the mayor. How odd.
“You're moving awfully fast,” Mistress Clumpi replied. The words were reproachful but her tone radiated approval. Next to her, Senli wrung her hands. Hummel kept his face covered. Watery droplets spilled from his beard. They splashed onto the dirt floor by his feet.
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Six
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Five: Broken Chains
Armed with three different sizes of knitting needles, Denario opened the main door to the counting house. He'd seen the lights on through the shuttered windows. He knew at least one of the book keepers was working. That made him feel guilty for being so well fed. For all he knew, he was supposed to arrange for the slaves' dinners now. Well, he hadn't asked to be their master. That wasn't what he'd bargained for.
At their desks, Hummel and Senli sat. They faced away from each other, as usual.
“Where's the guard?” Denario wondered as he stepped in. At the opposite corner of the room, Senli rose. He knew she could hear him. “I was told there was a guard at night. Hells, I met him yesterday. Not a tall man but burly enough and he had some armor.”
“They send him away on gate duty, most nights now,” answered a voice from behind. That was Olga Clumpi. She felt obligated to tag along with him to watch after her needles, she'd said. Anyway, she wanted to satisfy her curiosity. He was counting on that part of her although he still wasn't sure what he hoped to achieve by bringing her here.
“Damn it, look at this place!” He waved his hands at the piles of copper plates and ingots of tin. There was a new stack of otter furs in the middle of the floor, too. A tradesman had stopped by in the afternoon. “Anyone can just walk in at night and take what they want?”
“It's not ... it's a small enough town.” Olga sounded like she didn't quite accept the explanation herself. “We would know ... eventually.”
Senli approached in silence. Her wary gaze seemed to avoid even seeing Olga Clumpi. She bowed her head.
“I reviewed the tallies, master accountant,” she said. Denario opened his mouth to correct her – he was a still just a journeyman – but she continued. “The thefts are all reconciled with the inventory.”
“And now I understand them, too,” mentioned Denario. He led her back in the direction of her desk. “Have you and Hummel taken your evening break?”
“No, sir.” Her lips got tight as she pondered his understanding of the thefts. “Can we go? I have dinner waiting at Small Gods.”
“Not quite yet. You should see this.” He marched to the space between the desks. “Hummel, turn this way. Rise. No, wait, sit back down on your stool. Just prop your legs up on my knee.”
“Master?” Hummel tried to do everything at once and ended up confused. He missed resting his leg on Denario's knee. He nearly fell off his seat.
“Just one heel up, like that.” Denario went down on his right knee with his left one higher to act as a workbench.
“Have you ... did the mayor ...?” Once Hummel saw the knitting needles, he started to panic. It wasn't that he didn't understand Denario's intentions. He did.
“Shut up, Hummel. That's an order. I have some things to explain to all three of you. I'm glad you're here together.” With the largest needle, he dug into the primitive key lock on the shackle. It took only a few seconds to be sure that this device had two pins on springs inside. The springs kept the latch inside closed; the latch kept the shackles locked around the slave's ankle. Two pins were all that kept Hummel in chains. Denario grinned when he was sure. He switched needles and shifted his grip. “You'd better take a look at one another now and think about trust. You'll need to rely on those around you. Because it's going to be the whole town against the three of you for a while.”
“Not the whole town,” Olga said. She struck her fist against her thigh. “Not the whole town, by the gods.”
“The town leaders, then. The ones who've been running this place like their private piggy bank.”
She nodded. Denario could feel one of the pins giving way under pressure from the mid-sized knitting needle. He rolled the biggest needle in his hand and decided it was too thick. He set it down as he held the first pin back and got ready to tackle the second pin in earnest.
“You leave them to me, understand?” He paused as he picked up the smallest needle. He checked their faces. The slaves looked stunned. “If any of the town burghers or the mayor or a priest or priestess or foreman ... if any town leader at all gives you any trouble, you just send them to me.”
“Yes, master,” said Senli.
“But what if they won't go to see you? What if they're afraid of you?” Hummel asked rather sensibly, if oddly to Lamero's ears. It was hard to imagine anyone being afraid of him even if he did walk around with a short sword these days.
“I'll be here in the counting house most of the time. If something bad happens when I'm not around, well, there are three of you now. Someone should always be able to slip away and tell me. I'll stop whatever I'm doing to return.” He rocked on his heels and thought harder.
“Honestly, who are the ones who are going to cause trouble?”
“Burgher Dumm,” said Senli. “And Burgher Hapfnaught.”
“And Mayor Quimbi,” added Hummel.
Denario felt the second pin click. The manacle popped open a little in his hand. Rust on the hinge kept it from opening all the way. He yanked out his baselard and used it as a wedge. Hummel jerked for a moment when he saw the blade leave the sheath. But then he held still for Denario to continue.
“I said I'm going to pay you. All of you. So I am.” He wrenched the manacle open or close enough. Hummel's leg was a mess of sores beneath the iron but he had to ignore that. He pushed the man's right foot off his knee and pulled up the left. “Now look around at the bins and shelves. Because you're going to be paid out of this stock. This is yours to care for. It's part of your job to protect it.”
He liked giving this part of the job to them. No one would understand the details better than these folks.
“Tell me,” he said to Senli and Olga. “Do we need a guard?”
Senli shook her head. She gazed uncertainly at Hummel and at Mistress Clumpi. Neither of them spoke up, so she continued.
“I think ... not yet. We sleep close by. And things aren't bad enough in town for any real trouble. If we close late and open early, we'll be all right. When the Raduar troops get close enough, that's when we'll have to fight looters.”
“When the Raduar or the Ogglian troops come, inventory will be the least of the problems.” Denario shrugged. The first pin of the second lock was nearly rusted solid. He switched to the biggest needle. “So, no guard. What's our next biggest problem, aside from theft?”
“The tiles,” murmured Senli. The other two nodded in agreement.
“That's the other part of your job, Olga. It's not a big part. But at times when you're not negotiating with fur traders or caravan drivers, I need you to return the tile system to the state it was in when your husband died. I'll take it from there.”
“You will?”
“Oh, you'll all help. You're smart. And this kind of work is always interesting.” His voice was much more confident than he was. He listened to himself sounding positively fearless and wondered how much of that was true. “I'm sure you'll have ideas and you can work on it in your spare time as much as you like. But I won't be decoding in spare time. I'll be devoting myself to it entirely. It'll take a week or two.”
He could almost hear Olga Clumpi shaking her head. Senli's hands were trembling, he could see. But he was right. It would take two weeks at the outside or it wouldn't get done.
Just then, the second manacle clicked. The hinges were even rustier than on the first one but he could leverage them with the edge of his sword.
“I ... well ...” stammered Olga. “I don't know about fixing up those tiles but I know the burghers well. They never set Hummel free before. Aren't ye afraid he'll run?”
Denario hardly had to look up. He knew it was the unspoken question in Senli's eyes, too.
“Well, Hummel?” He couldn't help giving the little man a smile as he put the man's leg down. He rose. With a jaunty air that was nearly real, he sheathed his baselard. “You must have a dozen plans for getting away. But you don't look well suited to travel. Do you have a store of dried food? Prepared snares? Canteens? Have you ever lived off the land before?”
“No. No, none of that.”
“You're going to earn your freedom for real, if you stay. You may even like it.” Denario surveyed a corner of the room where he thought he was most likely to discover a problem. “But in exchange, you're going to return the material you've stolen from the warehouse.”
“Sir?” Hummel nervously licked his lips. His eyes, sure enough, drifted to the problem corner, as far from Senli's sleeping corner as was possible.
“I know how it goes, Hummel. They weren't paying you. It's no problem to set a few things aside. That's what people do. So I'm not going to go dig it out. But, in time, as your pay comes in, I expect you to return whatever seems appropriate, whatever makes you honest again.”
“Yes, sir.” He bowed his head.
After a moment or two, the little man started hiccuping. It took Denario another half minute to realize that Hummel was crying. He had to see the tears plopping on that big beard.
“Never been free of shackles in these past six years, sir.” The man raised his arm to cover his face. “Not in any place what owned me.”
Denario felt a lump in his throat. But he wasn't going to give in to it.
“You're good at what you do, Hummel,” he said. “So is Senli. So is Mistress Clumpi. You three have always been able to run this place. The only difference now is that we'll to make sure that everyone knows it. That starts now.”
He couldn't stick around the bearded book keeper another moment without succumbing, so he turned his back. It was getting late. And he still had work to do.
“Are you looking for loyalty from Hummel?” Olga whispered in his right ear. “Because I don't think you're going to get it. He's not a strong man.”
“Everyone gets treated decently while I'm here.” This time, Denario wasn't acting. He wasn't pretending to be like Vir or Alaric. This was him. “Everyone.”
He caught Senli's eyes, too, to make sure that she understood he was including her. Then, with a nod to them both, he took his to leave. He reached the door before Mistress Clumpi called out.
“The mayor goes to bed early,” she said “Not that it's a bad time to see him. Get him while he's tired.”
“Are you a mind reader, Mistress Clumpi?” he stopped and turned to see her smile at him. It was a turtle-ish expression with her head poked forward on her long neck. Her hands were fists on her hips.
He couldn't help returning her war-like grin. Am I enjoying this? he asked himself. Yes, he decided, despite his fear. He was looking forward to confronting the mayor. How odd.
“You're moving awfully fast,” Mistress Clumpi replied. The words were reproachful but her tone radiated approval. Next to her, Senli wrung her hands. Hummel kept his face covered. Watery droplets spilled from his beard. They splashed onto the dirt floor by his feet.
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Six
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Not Even Not Zen 62: A Bandit Accountant, 10.4
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Four: The Turtle
Denario turned the corner from Mine Street to Birch Street and saw Mistress Clumpi's home two houses down. He paused for a moment and tried to remember what he was going to say. Vir had tried to give him advice, hadn't he? Yes. But 'Have ye won a contract with someone what don't know ye?' were the words that echoed in Denario's head. He hadn't and this was why. Loud people scared him. It was as simple as that. His legs were locking up at the thought of confronting this old woman.
Amidst the birches, he could see that her house had been painted pink about three years ago. That was an expensive color. Now the top coat of paint had begun to peel but it revealed a similar shade of pink below. Above, the roof tiles had begun to warp. A few of them needed replacing. Still, the yard looked neat. The windows were shuttered, not open like those of the neighbors, but maybe Mistress Clumpi didn't like to feel a draft. She tended to her roses and to her back yard garden, he noticed. She had a crop of spring onions started. And the woodpile that had been large at the beginning of the winter had diminished to half a cord of sticks. The missing wood left a trail of brighter paint up the side of the house where it had been.
Denario resumed his walk but he was slow about it. The warnings from the mayor, burgher, and the book keepers stuck in his mind. Mistress Clumpi was difficult, apparently, and there was no escaping her. He needed her. But now he thought of her as a bit of a monster. Approaching her house felt akin to creeping up on the lair of a dragon. He told himself that he was being irrational. His legs didn't believe him.
“Ma'am?” he cleared his throat. He knocked.
When she opened the door a few seconds later, Denario couldn't help jumping backwards. Her face loomed like snapping turtle's. She had a bit of that turtle-ish expression, too. Her jaw stuck out. Her neck looked long. Her shoulders were as wide as Denario's.
“Now what?” she said. Her mouth shut like a clamp. She studied him through puffy slits.
“Are you Mistress Clumpi?” he asked. He took off his hat. It seemed more polite.
A scowl darkened her features immediately.
“I'm a traveling accountant,” he continued. “I've got some questions about ...”
She slammed the door before he could finish. He could hear her on the other side, though, as she snorted with either laughter or disgust. It was hard to tell which. Maybe she felt a bit of both.
He stood for a long while, hat in hand, thinking. A cool breeze made him shiver. But he couldn't just leave. Mistress Clumpi surely knew more about the old records keeping system than anyone else. She'd helped to dismantle it. Therefore, he reasoned, she would remember what it should look like.
“The burghers have made a mess of things,” he spoke through the door. He hadn't heard any footsteps walking away, at least. It was worth a shot. “I can see that much. You're the only one in town who stands a chance of setting the records straight.”
“So what?” she shouted. He was surprised the shutters didn't flap off the windows. She had a powerful voice. “What has this town ever done for me?”
“Um, I don't know.”
“No one cares if I starve,” she hissed. “Master Clumpi never got me any children. He saved enough to get by for a year or two and that's running out.”
Aha, thought Denario. It isn't just that she hates everyone. She has a reasonable fear of not living through the next winter.
“What did the mayor offer you for fixing the tile counting system?” he wondered.
The brass latch rattled. It was quiet for a second. Then it rattled again and clicked. A knobbly arm pulled open the thin, wooden door.
“What do you mean by 'offered?'” Mistress Clumpi still looked a bit suspicious. That was her default expression, Denario realized. Something to do with the squint. This time, though, her countenance was softened by curiosity.
“I mean, it couldn't have been money.” Denario waved his arm as if that would help keep the conversation going. “This land doesn't seem to have any. So did he offer a few shares of the copper? Of the dried fish, maybe?”
“They just ordered me to do it, them burghers.” Her massive shoulders relaxed.
“Ah. And you told them to go to hell?”
“I let them know what I think. I always do.” The woman glanced down to straighten her long, floral-print dress. Where did she get the material? he wondered. Come to think of it, Denario had noticed other women on the street wearing similar printed fabrics. But that made them as fancy as most of the dresses worn by the merchant class wives in Oggli. Truly, this town had wealth. They had no money here but they possessed ample riches. “Then I took a look through what old Bibbo had done. They're important men and they would have tried to make me miserable if I hadn't.”
“But ...” Denario didn't want to give voice to his worst suspicion, which was that she couldn't reconstruct or even remember the damage. She was elderly, after all. “You took it apart.”
“Hah!” There was that snorting sound again. It was definitely amusement. “I only told them that they could if they wanted. I knew they'd destroy it.”
“Couldn't you have just read the tiles for them?” And wouldn't that have been better than sabotage?
“Not really.” She put her hands on her hips. She looked less turtle-ish that way. “Old Bibbo told me a lot about what he done. But he didn't tell me the all of it. He didn't want me to know his whole system.”
“Really? But why not?”
“Because I'm so good at counting.” She folded her arms. Her expression got very smug. “And I let him know it.”
“You always do.” He was beginning to see the pattern.
Her head bobbed solemnly. “Of course.”
He glanced at a pair of children to his right as they played in the street. It was evening, after all, and they didn't have to work any more, if they ever did. Next to the children, two mothers watched Denario intently. One of them whispered in the ear of the other, who laughed.
“May I come in to talk?” Suddenly, the notion of sitting down behind the shuttered windows seemed appealing.
“No.”
“I'm hungry,” he said, trying to think the way Vir or Alaric thought about people. They wouldn't give up in this situation. Even Master Winkel wouldn't have given up. He'd have made an offer. “Can I treat you to dinner? Maybe you know somewhere I can eat even if you don't want to go.”
Her sudden grin scared him as much as her scowl.
“That's more like it,” she said. “Them's as needs a favor should do one first. I take dinner at the South Winds Church when I can. They'll accept pig's ears or fish in trade if you have enough. I know the counting house has a stock of both.”
“It does.” He nodded to himself. So that was how it worked. He would make a note of it in his accounting journal tonight. In other places, he'd seen dried fish, eggs, and pigs' ears used as substitutes for money. There was the ever-present standard of 'goat' as well. That made at least four barter standards. “Will you walk with me?”
For her answer, she grabbed a short coat. She threw a shawl on over it.
The stroll to South Winds wasn't long. In fact, they ended up across the street from the Church of the Small Gods that Senli frequented. The major differences in the religious buildings seemed to be that South Winds was taller by at least two stories and a tremendous steeple. It had oil-soaked torches burning out front, too, making the gentle blue dusk seem brighter. This was a place for people of means who worshiped something high above the mundane world.
A rough-bearded priest in a brown frock greeted them at the door. He held a torch in his left hand as if he'd just lit up all of the candles and torches, inside and out. The torch simmered.
“Joining us tonight, Mistress Clumpi?” he said almost eagerly. It was good, Denario reflected, to see that this intimidating old woman did have friends or at least acquaintances who didn't immediately duck away upon seeing her. “Me mam made a barley chowder, lamb drippings on the side. Got some biscuits too.”
“Sounds delightful.” She removed her shawl in the doorway. “The counting house will pay for me tonight. This man is an accountant them burghers got to works miracles there. Or so they think.”
The priest's smile immediately disappeared. Nevertheless, he made to shake Denario's hand.
“I can see ye didn't bring anything with ye. But yer good fer it, I suppose.”
“I'm Denario.” He'd anticipated a bone-crushing grip from this fellow but instead the grip felt pleasantly firm. “I'm thinking I might like to pay for a few meals in advance, next time. Can you start a tab?”
“What's that?”
“Oh, it's ...” He did a quick mental readjustment. They didn't have much written math here or else old Bibbo Clumpi would have been using it instead of his homegrown tile-moving method. “It's a way of tallying if I owe for a meal or if you owe me a meal instead.”
“Like breaking a stick? Over just a few meals, that sounds a bit complicated.” The priest extinguished his smoking torch in a bucket of sand. “Can't I just remember?”
“That works, too.” All the same, Denario would write it down in the counting house. Some priests were not to be trusted.
The priest's mother seemed nice enough. She was a short, heavy-set woman with grey curls of hair. She pushed an awful lot of food on Denario. It was more than he could eat. When he slowed, she talked to him as if he were a child. Denario didn't take offense. She did the same for her son, the priest, who was nearly thirty. The four dinner tables in the church were populated mostly by older women and their unmarried sons. All of the women had advice for Denario, most of it about food. He felt grateful for the few grandchildren who ran about and made nuisances of themselves. At least they attracted the occasional kiss or hearty slap, which meant a pause in the conversation.
There weren't any young mothers here. Denario supposed they ate at home with their families. Nevertheless, in less than half an hour he grew alarmed at learning of the numbers of women who died in childbirth. Didn't they have any witches or midwives in town? That's what they were for. It seemed that the town refused to support them. Years ago, he heard, the churches had refused to let a traveling witch settle down inside its city walls.
“This young man thinks he's going to pay me,” Mistress Clumpi told the grandmother next to her. That got snorts of derision from several folks within earshot.
“What's wrong with that?” Denario demanded. “Everyone's got to eat. Everyone needs to get something for their work.”
“The burghers,” said Clumpi's neighbor at the table.
“They're against paying women.”
“If they want my help, they'll have to accept the way I work. People have to be treated decently. Even the slaves need cared for.”
Suddenly, everyone was looking at him. The other conversations had stopped. Denario became aware that he'd raised his voice. He was standing, too.
“Look, Olga,” he implored. He'd learned from the other women that her full name was Olga Clumpi and he found himself feeling less formal with her now. He had to stop himself from reaching out and taking her by the wrist. “I've seen the log books. I know that the copper mine is doing less and less trade. It's not just the fault of the Raduar and Oggli armies. It's the burghers and mayor. They're too greedy. They don't know how to do business.”
“You don't know the half of it,” said Olga darkly. Several folks nodded.
“Your husband must have kept them under control before. Maybe it was him together with the mine headman. Did Bibbo do the negotiating with the caravans?”
“He negotiated everything with everyone.” Her expression turned almost wistful.
“The town leaders are hurting the business. Or … this is just a thought ... maybe they're really clever and they intend to form their own caravans. They could eliminate the tradesmen. Could that be it?”
She waved off that idea. “Those idiots wouldn't know where to go or what to take for trading, even if there was a one of them who could make a donkey walk uphill with a load of tin.”
“Then ...” Denario returned to his place on the stool. He rested his elbows on the table and his head in his hands for a moment. “Then they really are fools.”
In the silence after that comment, Denario wondered who was going to report this.
“How did ye get that head wound?” asked the priest. Perhaps mayhem and murder were safer topics than the quality of town leadership. “Was it a Raduar chief? That's what I heard. I was told by the mayor hisself that the Raduar chieftains have come all the way out here.”
“Yes, that's true.”
There were groans from around the tables. No one liked the news but they were soon on the edges of their seats to hear it. Denario had to re-tell the saga of his journey from Hogsburg to Phart's Bad. It was an awful experience. He came off as a fool even in his own version of events. That was partly because he found himself retelling it all from the Mundredi army point of view.
The diners at the church laughed and clapped at the right places. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to feel he'd done justice to the fight scenes. The men and the boys dragged all of the bragging out of him about the tripwire. Then they followed up with questions about the combination locks, knock codes, poisons, and maps until they finally sat back, satisfied.
“Good on ye,” the priest murmured. He patted his belly. “Good on ye.”
Two of the boys took to re-enacting the spear fights with sticks.
As the dinner ended, Denario caught Olga Clumpi watching him with a suspicious eye.
“Do you know how to write, Olga?” he whispered.
“My name, yes. Not much else.”
“Are you willing to learn? It would keep you in food, clothes, and firewood, for sure.”
“You have two book keepers already. How could you pay me on top of that?”
“You'll earn your wage.” He smiled in the face of her scowl. “I'm going to pay Senli, too, you know. It won't be just you.”
“But Senli's foreign. Anyways, you might get away with that because all of her wages will go back to the counting house to buy her freedom. Everyone knows that. But when she's free, will they pay her? That's the question.”
“It's not a question. Look, I understand that it's not normal for a woman around here to hold a book keeping job. But about a third of the book keepers in the Ogglian county are women. Sure, it'll be hard work. It'll be hard learning at first, too.”
“Bah.” Olga brushed off imagined hardships with a sneer. “There ain't nothing like that what's so hard for me. I've always been able to figure things out.”
It took a while for the rest of what Denario had said to sink in.
“Other women is allowed to be book keepers?” she said. “In other lands?”
“Out to the east, yes. Definitely in the small towns along the borders of West Ogglia. By reputation, also in the Raduar and Kilmun tribes. Why not here?”
She pulled her shawl up tight to her throat and didn't answer.
“You can do a part of Bibbo's job that Senli and Hummel can't.”
“What's that?” she snapped.
“Negotiate with the fur trappers and tradesmen. I think you can do it honestly. That's badly needed. Senli is honest, yes, but she gets pushed around. Other people break her bargains and she doesn't stop them. She's admitted it.”
“Well, I'm not standing for that.”
He smiled. “I know you aren't. That's what's going to make you invaluable, Mistress Clumpi.”
She rose. There was a troubled scowl on her face. He hadn't completely sold her on the idea. Well, he knew he wasn't much of a salesman. He'd have to keep working at it.
“Would you like me to walk you back home?”
“Where else do you have to go?” There came that snort from her again.
“I'm going to visit Hummel and Senli. I'm going to shock them this time, I'm afraid.” Denario ignored her attitude. He understood it better now. “But it doesn't have to do with you.”
“It doesn't? What is it then?”
“Maybe I'd better not say unless I can find the right tools. I need an ice pick, one that's like a needle. But a needle won't do.”
“What do you have in mind?” she said, curious.
“Come along for the laugh, if you like. Maybe I'll just look foolish.”
“You've been foolish so far.” She glanced to the scar on his head where the Raduar axe had grazed him. “But I suppose you've come through it well enough.”
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Five
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Four: The Turtle
Amidst the birches, he could see that her house had been painted pink about three years ago. That was an expensive color. Now the top coat of paint had begun to peel but it revealed a similar shade of pink below. Above, the roof tiles had begun to warp. A few of them needed replacing. Still, the yard looked neat. The windows were shuttered, not open like those of the neighbors, but maybe Mistress Clumpi didn't like to feel a draft. She tended to her roses and to her back yard garden, he noticed. She had a crop of spring onions started. And the woodpile that had been large at the beginning of the winter had diminished to half a cord of sticks. The missing wood left a trail of brighter paint up the side of the house where it had been.
Denario resumed his walk but he was slow about it. The warnings from the mayor, burgher, and the book keepers stuck in his mind. Mistress Clumpi was difficult, apparently, and there was no escaping her. He needed her. But now he thought of her as a bit of a monster. Approaching her house felt akin to creeping up on the lair of a dragon. He told himself that he was being irrational. His legs didn't believe him.
“Ma'am?” he cleared his throat. He knocked.
When she opened the door a few seconds later, Denario couldn't help jumping backwards. Her face loomed like snapping turtle's. She had a bit of that turtle-ish expression, too. Her jaw stuck out. Her neck looked long. Her shoulders were as wide as Denario's.
“Now what?” she said. Her mouth shut like a clamp. She studied him through puffy slits.
“Are you Mistress Clumpi?” he asked. He took off his hat. It seemed more polite.
A scowl darkened her features immediately.
“I'm a traveling accountant,” he continued. “I've got some questions about ...”
She slammed the door before he could finish. He could hear her on the other side, though, as she snorted with either laughter or disgust. It was hard to tell which. Maybe she felt a bit of both.
He stood for a long while, hat in hand, thinking. A cool breeze made him shiver. But he couldn't just leave. Mistress Clumpi surely knew more about the old records keeping system than anyone else. She'd helped to dismantle it. Therefore, he reasoned, she would remember what it should look like.
“The burghers have made a mess of things,” he spoke through the door. He hadn't heard any footsteps walking away, at least. It was worth a shot. “I can see that much. You're the only one in town who stands a chance of setting the records straight.”
“So what?” she shouted. He was surprised the shutters didn't flap off the windows. She had a powerful voice. “What has this town ever done for me?”
“Um, I don't know.”
“No one cares if I starve,” she hissed. “Master Clumpi never got me any children. He saved enough to get by for a year or two and that's running out.”
Aha, thought Denario. It isn't just that she hates everyone. She has a reasonable fear of not living through the next winter.
“What did the mayor offer you for fixing the tile counting system?” he wondered.
The brass latch rattled. It was quiet for a second. Then it rattled again and clicked. A knobbly arm pulled open the thin, wooden door.
“What do you mean by 'offered?'” Mistress Clumpi still looked a bit suspicious. That was her default expression, Denario realized. Something to do with the squint. This time, though, her countenance was softened by curiosity.
“I mean, it couldn't have been money.” Denario waved his arm as if that would help keep the conversation going. “This land doesn't seem to have any. So did he offer a few shares of the copper? Of the dried fish, maybe?”
“They just ordered me to do it, them burghers.” Her massive shoulders relaxed.
“Ah. And you told them to go to hell?”
“I let them know what I think. I always do.” The woman glanced down to straighten her long, floral-print dress. Where did she get the material? he wondered. Come to think of it, Denario had noticed other women on the street wearing similar printed fabrics. But that made them as fancy as most of the dresses worn by the merchant class wives in Oggli. Truly, this town had wealth. They had no money here but they possessed ample riches. “Then I took a look through what old Bibbo had done. They're important men and they would have tried to make me miserable if I hadn't.”
“But ...” Denario didn't want to give voice to his worst suspicion, which was that she couldn't reconstruct or even remember the damage. She was elderly, after all. “You took it apart.”
“Hah!” There was that snorting sound again. It was definitely amusement. “I only told them that they could if they wanted. I knew they'd destroy it.”
“Couldn't you have just read the tiles for them?” And wouldn't that have been better than sabotage?
“Not really.” She put her hands on her hips. She looked less turtle-ish that way. “Old Bibbo told me a lot about what he done. But he didn't tell me the all of it. He didn't want me to know his whole system.”
“Really? But why not?”
“Because I'm so good at counting.” She folded her arms. Her expression got very smug. “And I let him know it.”
“You always do.” He was beginning to see the pattern.
Her head bobbed solemnly. “Of course.”
He glanced at a pair of children to his right as they played in the street. It was evening, after all, and they didn't have to work any more, if they ever did. Next to the children, two mothers watched Denario intently. One of them whispered in the ear of the other, who laughed.
“May I come in to talk?” Suddenly, the notion of sitting down behind the shuttered windows seemed appealing.
“No.”
“I'm hungry,” he said, trying to think the way Vir or Alaric thought about people. They wouldn't give up in this situation. Even Master Winkel wouldn't have given up. He'd have made an offer. “Can I treat you to dinner? Maybe you know somewhere I can eat even if you don't want to go.”
Her sudden grin scared him as much as her scowl.
“That's more like it,” she said. “Them's as needs a favor should do one first. I take dinner at the South Winds Church when I can. They'll accept pig's ears or fish in trade if you have enough. I know the counting house has a stock of both.”
“It does.” He nodded to himself. So that was how it worked. He would make a note of it in his accounting journal tonight. In other places, he'd seen dried fish, eggs, and pigs' ears used as substitutes for money. There was the ever-present standard of 'goat' as well. That made at least four barter standards. “Will you walk with me?”
For her answer, she grabbed a short coat. She threw a shawl on over it.
The stroll to South Winds wasn't long. In fact, they ended up across the street from the Church of the Small Gods that Senli frequented. The major differences in the religious buildings seemed to be that South Winds was taller by at least two stories and a tremendous steeple. It had oil-soaked torches burning out front, too, making the gentle blue dusk seem brighter. This was a place for people of means who worshiped something high above the mundane world.
A rough-bearded priest in a brown frock greeted them at the door. He held a torch in his left hand as if he'd just lit up all of the candles and torches, inside and out. The torch simmered.
“Joining us tonight, Mistress Clumpi?” he said almost eagerly. It was good, Denario reflected, to see that this intimidating old woman did have friends or at least acquaintances who didn't immediately duck away upon seeing her. “Me mam made a barley chowder, lamb drippings on the side. Got some biscuits too.”
“Sounds delightful.” She removed her shawl in the doorway. “The counting house will pay for me tonight. This man is an accountant them burghers got to works miracles there. Or so they think.”
The priest's smile immediately disappeared. Nevertheless, he made to shake Denario's hand.
“I can see ye didn't bring anything with ye. But yer good fer it, I suppose.”
“I'm Denario.” He'd anticipated a bone-crushing grip from this fellow but instead the grip felt pleasantly firm. “I'm thinking I might like to pay for a few meals in advance, next time. Can you start a tab?”
“What's that?”
“Oh, it's ...” He did a quick mental readjustment. They didn't have much written math here or else old Bibbo Clumpi would have been using it instead of his homegrown tile-moving method. “It's a way of tallying if I owe for a meal or if you owe me a meal instead.”
“Like breaking a stick? Over just a few meals, that sounds a bit complicated.” The priest extinguished his smoking torch in a bucket of sand. “Can't I just remember?”
“That works, too.” All the same, Denario would write it down in the counting house. Some priests were not to be trusted.
The priest's mother seemed nice enough. She was a short, heavy-set woman with grey curls of hair. She pushed an awful lot of food on Denario. It was more than he could eat. When he slowed, she talked to him as if he were a child. Denario didn't take offense. She did the same for her son, the priest, who was nearly thirty. The four dinner tables in the church were populated mostly by older women and their unmarried sons. All of the women had advice for Denario, most of it about food. He felt grateful for the few grandchildren who ran about and made nuisances of themselves. At least they attracted the occasional kiss or hearty slap, which meant a pause in the conversation.
There weren't any young mothers here. Denario supposed they ate at home with their families. Nevertheless, in less than half an hour he grew alarmed at learning of the numbers of women who died in childbirth. Didn't they have any witches or midwives in town? That's what they were for. It seemed that the town refused to support them. Years ago, he heard, the churches had refused to let a traveling witch settle down inside its city walls.
“This young man thinks he's going to pay me,” Mistress Clumpi told the grandmother next to her. That got snorts of derision from several folks within earshot.
“What's wrong with that?” Denario demanded. “Everyone's got to eat. Everyone needs to get something for their work.”
“The burghers,” said Clumpi's neighbor at the table.
“They're against paying women.”
“If they want my help, they'll have to accept the way I work. People have to be treated decently. Even the slaves need cared for.”
Suddenly, everyone was looking at him. The other conversations had stopped. Denario became aware that he'd raised his voice. He was standing, too.
“Look, Olga,” he implored. He'd learned from the other women that her full name was Olga Clumpi and he found himself feeling less formal with her now. He had to stop himself from reaching out and taking her by the wrist. “I've seen the log books. I know that the copper mine is doing less and less trade. It's not just the fault of the Raduar and Oggli armies. It's the burghers and mayor. They're too greedy. They don't know how to do business.”
“You don't know the half of it,” said Olga darkly. Several folks nodded.
“Your husband must have kept them under control before. Maybe it was him together with the mine headman. Did Bibbo do the negotiating with the caravans?”
“He negotiated everything with everyone.” Her expression turned almost wistful.
“The town leaders are hurting the business. Or … this is just a thought ... maybe they're really clever and they intend to form their own caravans. They could eliminate the tradesmen. Could that be it?”
She waved off that idea. “Those idiots wouldn't know where to go or what to take for trading, even if there was a one of them who could make a donkey walk uphill with a load of tin.”
“Then ...” Denario returned to his place on the stool. He rested his elbows on the table and his head in his hands for a moment. “Then they really are fools.”
In the silence after that comment, Denario wondered who was going to report this.
“How did ye get that head wound?” asked the priest. Perhaps mayhem and murder were safer topics than the quality of town leadership. “Was it a Raduar chief? That's what I heard. I was told by the mayor hisself that the Raduar chieftains have come all the way out here.”
“Yes, that's true.”
There were groans from around the tables. No one liked the news but they were soon on the edges of their seats to hear it. Denario had to re-tell the saga of his journey from Hogsburg to Phart's Bad. It was an awful experience. He came off as a fool even in his own version of events. That was partly because he found himself retelling it all from the Mundredi army point of view.
The diners at the church laughed and clapped at the right places. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to feel he'd done justice to the fight scenes. The men and the boys dragged all of the bragging out of him about the tripwire. Then they followed up with questions about the combination locks, knock codes, poisons, and maps until they finally sat back, satisfied.
“Good on ye,” the priest murmured. He patted his belly. “Good on ye.”
Two of the boys took to re-enacting the spear fights with sticks.
As the dinner ended, Denario caught Olga Clumpi watching him with a suspicious eye.
“Do you know how to write, Olga?” he whispered.
“My name, yes. Not much else.”
“Are you willing to learn? It would keep you in food, clothes, and firewood, for sure.”
“You have two book keepers already. How could you pay me on top of that?”
“You'll earn your wage.” He smiled in the face of her scowl. “I'm going to pay Senli, too, you know. It won't be just you.”
“But Senli's foreign. Anyways, you might get away with that because all of her wages will go back to the counting house to buy her freedom. Everyone knows that. But when she's free, will they pay her? That's the question.”
“It's not a question. Look, I understand that it's not normal for a woman around here to hold a book keeping job. But about a third of the book keepers in the Ogglian county are women. Sure, it'll be hard work. It'll be hard learning at first, too.”
“Bah.” Olga brushed off imagined hardships with a sneer. “There ain't nothing like that what's so hard for me. I've always been able to figure things out.”
It took a while for the rest of what Denario had said to sink in.
“Other women is allowed to be book keepers?” she said. “In other lands?”
“Out to the east, yes. Definitely in the small towns along the borders of West Ogglia. By reputation, also in the Raduar and Kilmun tribes. Why not here?”
She pulled her shawl up tight to her throat and didn't answer.
“You can do a part of Bibbo's job that Senli and Hummel can't.”
“What's that?” she snapped.
“Negotiate with the fur trappers and tradesmen. I think you can do it honestly. That's badly needed. Senli is honest, yes, but she gets pushed around. Other people break her bargains and she doesn't stop them. She's admitted it.”
“Well, I'm not standing for that.”
He smiled. “I know you aren't. That's what's going to make you invaluable, Mistress Clumpi.”
She rose. There was a troubled scowl on her face. He hadn't completely sold her on the idea. Well, he knew he wasn't much of a salesman. He'd have to keep working at it.
“Would you like me to walk you back home?”
“Where else do you have to go?” There came that snort from her again.
“I'm going to visit Hummel and Senli. I'm going to shock them this time, I'm afraid.” Denario ignored her attitude. He understood it better now. “But it doesn't have to do with you.”
“It doesn't? What is it then?”
“Maybe I'd better not say unless I can find the right tools. I need an ice pick, one that's like a needle. But a needle won't do.”
“What do you have in mind?” she said, curious.
“Come along for the laugh, if you like. Maybe I'll just look foolish.”
“You've been foolish so far.” She glanced to the scar on his head where the Raduar axe had grazed him. “But I suppose you've come through it well enough.”
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Five
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Not Even Not Zen 61: A Bandit Accountant, 10.3
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Three: Lost Children
Outside the mine entrance, Denario met Senli. The short, brown woman only came up to Denario's chin. Her hair had been cut carefully an inch below her shoulders. It looked like it was combed daily but Denario couldn't really tell about that sort of thing. Some people just had nice hair. Her robe was plain, as was her shawl. In general, she seemed to keep herself fastidiously clean. Her sandal straps were polished.
He tried to remember the point that Vir had made over and over in their discussions about this town. 'It's not just about the math. It's the people.' Senli was one of the important people, at least to Denario.
“You were looking for me?” she said, hands folded in front of her. She seemed alarmed.
“Yes.” Small talk had never been his best skill, as Pecunia had pointed out several times. He liked discussing math. He tried to concentrate on the other things about this book keeper that he should know. “What's the rest of your name, Senli?”
“That's it.” Her expression calmed. She felt more comfortable knowing the answer.
“No last name? No town or profession name?”
“I was born a slave, sir. Not taken.”
“Ah.” That explained some things about her mannerisms, then. Both her wariness and a sullen sort of subservience had been beaten into her throughout childhood.
“You heard that the head foreman isn't your supervisor anymore?”
She nodded cautiously.
“But you went to see him. Do you like working for him? Do you get along?”
Her expression got even more neutral. She wasn't giving away anything.
“That's fine. But if I'm in charge of you two in the counting house, I need to make sure you have everything you need. I'd say that one of those is separate rooms. I saw the hut they've given you behind the counting house. The town is trying to room you together, aren't they?”
Senli's nose wrinkled. “Hummel smells. And he has lice.”
“I'm not surprised.” Denario sighed. “Where do you really sleep, then? In the counting house behind the goat skins?”
The book keeper gasped.
“There's a wool blanket folded nearby. It's not hard to figure out.”
“Yes.” Her lip trembled as if she were about to cry.
“That must have been awfully cold in the winter. Where would you rather sleep?”
“In the winter, I have other arrangements.” Her gaze flickered back to the mine house.
“Ah.” Denario understood. There was a man involved, possibly the head foreman himself. “And are those arrangement acceptable to you? To everyone?”
“They won't last.”
“So it would be good to have a place of your own, then, or at least one with other women who would be friendly. And what else? You're doing a good job. I can see that in your books. What do you need? And what more do you want?”
“What I really want to do is to find my sons.” She put her hand over her mouth as soon as she said it. She hadn't meant to trust him with that thought, apparently.
“We'd better sit down and talk for a while.” He sighed to himself. These problems beyond the decoding looked more complicated than he'd thought. “Is there an inn around here?”
She hesitated. “Yes, but it doesn't allow women.”
“One of the temples, then?”
“Oh, good.” At that, she gave him her first smile. “I go to the Church of the Small Gods every day. The priestess will serve us tea if I ask.”
It wasn't far to the temple. But it took three servings of tea to hear the entire story. The priestess was suspicious of Denario at first. Only near the end of the session, after overhearing as much as she politely could, did she favor him with a loaf of sweetened bread and a pile of butter. He wondered if he should offer a donation to her church. Given his current situation and the lack of money around here, he'd have to give something from the counting house inventory. And then he'd record the transaction, of course.
It turned out that Senli had only lived in one other place, a town called Bumpili, far away in Wizard Valley She had grown up as a Kilmun tribal slave. Her grandparents had been captured along the borders of Wizard Valley and the magical lands directly to the east. They'd been either impressively brave or desperately foolhardy because they had taken their wagon without any guards through those hills. Denario guessed they'd been more to the foolhardy side since they'd been taken within a week of the natives realizing that their little caravan had no weapons.
The merchant tradition of book keeping had passed down through the generations. Her grandparents had done the job for their new town. So had her parents and uncles. All the while, they'd been tattooed as slaves and traded between the neighboring towns whenever such arrangements suited the Kilmun leaders.
That was how Senli had lost her children. They'd been traded away from her about a decade ago when they were seven and four years old. They'd been growing so tall and so strong that a traveling farmer decided he wanted them for field work. The town had obliged him.
“Four donkeys,” she sighed. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “That's all it took. Because one of the burghers wanted breeding pairs.”
“Senli,” said Denario after some thought. “Your official last name must be Keeper.”
“Or it could my owner's name. What's yours?”
“Oggli. I would never use a former master's name.”
“Is this important, your thing about names?”
“Probably. I've seen the pay records for the mine slaves. Everyone in it has a full name.”
“That's different. Lots of folks in this town are descended from mine slaves and most of them still work around the mine. The mine shift foremen are all free men descended from mine slaves. The head foreman is only a generation removed.”
“They get respect. And you don't.”
She nodded. That wary look had come out again. She didn't want to give away her thoughts. He didn't blame her.
“Slaves get paid. But you didn't get paid because you're a woman, right?”
She leaned closer.
“And then Hummel didn't get paid because ... I'd guess because you weren't getting paid and because, well, he's Hummel.”
That twisted a wry grin from her lips.
“I'm going to enter you in the slave mine log sheet. And I'm going to pay you from our inventory.”
She opened her mouth. It was a long time before she made a sound.
“I thought I had the mine supervisor to do that for me,” she confessed. She must have worked hard to get that concession out of him. “But when he asked the burghers, there was an argument. His wife didn't like it, either. So he backed down.”
If she was bedding with the mine supervisor, as Denario suspected, that man's family would go against Senli when they saw the chance. It was foolish of them, though, as they'd have known if they'd ever thought about the economics of Senli's situation. The best way to get her away from the mine supervisor was to pay her well and set her free.
“I'm not going to ask permission,” he said as he realized it.
“But ... can you just do that?”
“Yes.” Suddenly, he was sure. This is what Vir had been talking to him about, in his weird, gruff way. He'd said that Denario shouldn't stand in awe of the mayor or anyone here. He had to take care of his people. Vir hadn't meant Senli, of course. She barely qualified as human in the captain's eyes. But to Denario, right now, Senli was his best book keeper. She was an important person. “They pay other slaves. So they're going to pay you. If they want my help, that's how it's going to be.”
“But you said you're going to solve the tile system.”
“Yes.”
“It can't be done.” She echoed his thoughts exactly but they were the ones to which he didn't dare give a voice. “What will they do to you when you fail?”
“It only can't be done without Mistress Clumpi,” he corrected. If there was any hope, it lay with the old tile keeper's wife.
“That's why it's impossible.” Senli clenched her fists.
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Four
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Three: Lost Children
Outside the mine entrance, Denario met Senli. The short, brown woman only came up to Denario's chin. Her hair had been cut carefully an inch below her shoulders. It looked like it was combed daily but Denario couldn't really tell about that sort of thing. Some people just had nice hair. Her robe was plain, as was her shawl. In general, she seemed to keep herself fastidiously clean. Her sandal straps were polished.
He tried to remember the point that Vir had made over and over in their discussions about this town. 'It's not just about the math. It's the people.' Senli was one of the important people, at least to Denario.
“You were looking for me?” she said, hands folded in front of her. She seemed alarmed.
“Yes.” Small talk had never been his best skill, as Pecunia had pointed out several times. He liked discussing math. He tried to concentrate on the other things about this book keeper that he should know. “What's the rest of your name, Senli?”
“That's it.” Her expression calmed. She felt more comfortable knowing the answer.
“No last name? No town or profession name?”
“I was born a slave, sir. Not taken.”
“Ah.” That explained some things about her mannerisms, then. Both her wariness and a sullen sort of subservience had been beaten into her throughout childhood.
“You heard that the head foreman isn't your supervisor anymore?”
She nodded cautiously.
“But you went to see him. Do you like working for him? Do you get along?”
Her expression got even more neutral. She wasn't giving away anything.
“That's fine. But if I'm in charge of you two in the counting house, I need to make sure you have everything you need. I'd say that one of those is separate rooms. I saw the hut they've given you behind the counting house. The town is trying to room you together, aren't they?”
Senli's nose wrinkled. “Hummel smells. And he has lice.”
“I'm not surprised.” Denario sighed. “Where do you really sleep, then? In the counting house behind the goat skins?”
The book keeper gasped.
“There's a wool blanket folded nearby. It's not hard to figure out.”
“Yes.” Her lip trembled as if she were about to cry.
“That must have been awfully cold in the winter. Where would you rather sleep?”
“In the winter, I have other arrangements.” Her gaze flickered back to the mine house.
“Ah.” Denario understood. There was a man involved, possibly the head foreman himself. “And are those arrangement acceptable to you? To everyone?”
“They won't last.”
“So it would be good to have a place of your own, then, or at least one with other women who would be friendly. And what else? You're doing a good job. I can see that in your books. What do you need? And what more do you want?”
“What I really want to do is to find my sons.” She put her hand over her mouth as soon as she said it. She hadn't meant to trust him with that thought, apparently.
“We'd better sit down and talk for a while.” He sighed to himself. These problems beyond the decoding looked more complicated than he'd thought. “Is there an inn around here?”
She hesitated. “Yes, but it doesn't allow women.”
“One of the temples, then?”
“Oh, good.” At that, she gave him her first smile. “I go to the Church of the Small Gods every day. The priestess will serve us tea if I ask.”
It wasn't far to the temple. But it took three servings of tea to hear the entire story. The priestess was suspicious of Denario at first. Only near the end of the session, after overhearing as much as she politely could, did she favor him with a loaf of sweetened bread and a pile of butter. He wondered if he should offer a donation to her church. Given his current situation and the lack of money around here, he'd have to give something from the counting house inventory. And then he'd record the transaction, of course.
It turned out that Senli had only lived in one other place, a town called Bumpili, far away in Wizard Valley She had grown up as a Kilmun tribal slave. Her grandparents had been captured along the borders of Wizard Valley and the magical lands directly to the east. They'd been either impressively brave or desperately foolhardy because they had taken their wagon without any guards through those hills. Denario guessed they'd been more to the foolhardy side since they'd been taken within a week of the natives realizing that their little caravan had no weapons.
The merchant tradition of book keeping had passed down through the generations. Her grandparents had done the job for their new town. So had her parents and uncles. All the while, they'd been tattooed as slaves and traded between the neighboring towns whenever such arrangements suited the Kilmun leaders.
That was how Senli had lost her children. They'd been traded away from her about a decade ago when they were seven and four years old. They'd been growing so tall and so strong that a traveling farmer decided he wanted them for field work. The town had obliged him.
“Four donkeys,” she sighed. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “That's all it took. Because one of the burghers wanted breeding pairs.”
“Senli,” said Denario after some thought. “Your official last name must be Keeper.”
“Or it could my owner's name. What's yours?”
“Oggli. I would never use a former master's name.”
“Is this important, your thing about names?”
“Probably. I've seen the pay records for the mine slaves. Everyone in it has a full name.”
“That's different. Lots of folks in this town are descended from mine slaves and most of them still work around the mine. The mine shift foremen are all free men descended from mine slaves. The head foreman is only a generation removed.”
“They get respect. And you don't.”
She nodded. That wary look had come out again. She didn't want to give away her thoughts. He didn't blame her.
“Slaves get paid. But you didn't get paid because you're a woman, right?”
She leaned closer.
“And then Hummel didn't get paid because ... I'd guess because you weren't getting paid and because, well, he's Hummel.”
That twisted a wry grin from her lips.
“I'm going to enter you in the slave mine log sheet. And I'm going to pay you from our inventory.”
She opened her mouth. It was a long time before she made a sound.
“I thought I had the mine supervisor to do that for me,” she confessed. She must have worked hard to get that concession out of him. “But when he asked the burghers, there was an argument. His wife didn't like it, either. So he backed down.”
If she was bedding with the mine supervisor, as Denario suspected, that man's family would go against Senli when they saw the chance. It was foolish of them, though, as they'd have known if they'd ever thought about the economics of Senli's situation. The best way to get her away from the mine supervisor was to pay her well and set her free.
“I'm not going to ask permission,” he said as he realized it.
“But ... can you just do that?”
“Yes.” Suddenly, he was sure. This is what Vir had been talking to him about, in his weird, gruff way. He'd said that Denario shouldn't stand in awe of the mayor or anyone here. He had to take care of his people. Vir hadn't meant Senli, of course. She barely qualified as human in the captain's eyes. But to Denario, right now, Senli was his best book keeper. She was an important person. “They pay other slaves. So they're going to pay you. If they want my help, that's how it's going to be.”
“But you said you're going to solve the tile system.”
“Yes.”
“It can't be done.” She echoed his thoughts exactly but they were the ones to which he didn't dare give a voice. “What will they do to you when you fail?”
“It only can't be done without Mistress Clumpi,” he corrected. If there was any hope, it lay with the old tile keeper's wife.
“That's why it's impossible.” Senli clenched her fists.
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Four
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Not Even Not Zen 60: A Bandit Accountant, 10.2
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Two: The Old System
By that evening, the Mundredi troop had been hours gone and Denario had talked with everyone of importance in the town except for Mistress Clumpi.
First, he'd found out why the second book keeper hadn't dashed over to greet him when he entered the main doors of the counting house. The fellow wasn't capable of running because the burghers had slapped him in leg irons.
His name was Hummel and he was the quiet, resentful sort. Denario saw it immediately; he'd met many middle-aged men like Hummel among the accountants, physicians, priests, soothsayers, hand-servants, and noble attendants in the Court of Oggli. They were the folks who felt keenly every slight or insult although they never said a thing about it. They just got more quiet, more surly, and slower to offer assistance. This was a classic case made worse by slavery.
Hummel had been an unlicensed accountant in Muntar, the old capital city of all places, before he'd been kidnapped and sold to pirates. They'd shipped him all the way to Angrili, where it was legal to sell him at auction. Fixed up with a haircut to look presentable, he’d fetched a fair price. That had been six years ago. Now he had a thick, curly brown beard, bushy eyebrows, and a mop of tangled hair. His clothes had been nice last year, probably. He'd allowed them to go shabby. Denario suspected that Hummel would do that to anything, even silks. He simply didn't care. He neglected his body, too, which is why he had even less muscle than Denario and a good sized pot belly to carry around.
The man liked to suck on candies at his desk. Gods knew where he got them but the licorice flavors had stained his teeth nearly black.
“This is for otter. This is for yeti. This is for cow.” Hummel's accent was thick. To make it worse, he mumbled. He pointed to his rows of numbers without much interest. Despite how he'd taken charge of the fur and skins trade, he'd clearly done as little work as possible since then. He'd listed twenty-two different types of pelts on the scroll in his tiny, nearly illegible scrawl. “Got another page for the skins. Alligator, giant frog, snake ...”
“You're using the Yullamar accounting system, I see.” Denario tapped the scroll in approval. It was too easy to criticize the man. He needed to find something good to say.
Hummel's eyes opened fully for the first time.
“You know Yullamar?” he said.
“Yes, it's a very sophisticated framework, excellent for valuations. Of course, it shows comparative debts, which is nice. I see that we owe considerable sums to a few of these fur traders.”
“Yes, sir,” said Hummel in a voice approaching enthusiasm, albeit from a long distance. “I told the burghers about that. But they didn't want to hear it. They won't pay the traders because they remember some of them owing us furs under the old system.”
“Got it.” Denario would have to solve that quickly. The town could bankrupt itself if the burghers drove away the caravans who bartered with them.
“Now a few of the ones we don't owe have stopped showing up.”
“Uh-oh.” The town's bad reputation was spreading already.
“That's what I said, too.” Hummel sighed. He'd had time to understand how poor the town could get without traders.
They spent a few hours on the sheets of fur counts and those of the skin counts. Denario gave himself a tour of the corresponding inventory and noticed a few oddities. Most of the bins and stacks were short by a count of one or two. A few small boxes had extra pelts from rabbits or squirrels, which made the problem seem less serious. However, one of the bear skins had been split in an attempt to make reality match the false tally of skins. Denario tried not to suspect Hummel. The culprit could have been a fur trader who was responsible for slipping that one by the miners. But Hummel's vest looked like bearskin. And the bearded, shabby man had not shown interest in checking his inventory. In fact, he'd seemed alarmed to have anyone look through it.
After Denario verified the Yullamar system, roughly, minus those few items, he helped himself to one of the shoulder-high tubes used by the old tile master. At that point, Hummel decided it was safe to join. They sat on the floor to take one apart. The ends were sealed with wax plugs. Denario knifed one out. A few beans spilled onto the dirt floor. Immediately, he saw there were a wide variety of beans, peas, and berries. He sifted through until he'd found thirty types. That was more than enough for Bibbo Clumpi to match the contents to furs and skins.
Reaching a conclusion about the man's private accounting system took longer.
“Is Senli still at the mine?” Denario rubbed his jaw and looked around.
“Yes, sir,” said Hummel.
“She and Mistress Clumpi said these tubes were part of the old master's system, didn't they? But I don't think are.”
“Sir?” Hummel put his hands down on the floor like a drunk trying to regain balance. “What else can they be, sir?”
“They can be temporary count holders, parts for a manual math system, or raw pieces held in stock for a hidden bean-based system somewhere else. But they aren't used for the fur or skins systems themselves. Didn't the women open these and count the beans? Didn't you?”
“They did, sir. And me too, yes. We all spent quite a long time on it.”
“Well, there are too many beans. I just noticed another type, so that makes thirty-one kinds of beans, berries, and peas here. That's a good number for what you do, isn't it?”
“That's what made me believe it was the old master's count of furs, sir.” Hummel's tone was cautious. He seemed to doubt Denario's quick conclusion.
“Right. But the total numbers are wrong. There are thousands of these little brown bean, these little spheres. No trader has got a thousand skins here.”
“Could mean something else, then. A super-total? A weight owed? Senli thinks it's a weight.”
“No, I don't think that's right. The scales and the stacks aren't that big. What's worse, with the number of counters a factor of a hundred too high we could spend a lot of time trying to decipher this when there's nothing to decipher.”
“We already have, sir.” Hummel slumped, visibly depressed.
“That's okay. Time spent getting into the mindset of old Master Clumpi isn't wasted. But I'll need to talk to his widow.”
“Better you than me, sir.”
“Really? Maybe I'd better talk with Senli again first. She's using the Tomaru system, a single-entry tally. But she's put her own spin on it or she learned it a bit differently than I did.”
“About Mistress Senli ...” The curly-haired man shook his head. “Be careful, sir. She's got them bewitched. The burghers, I mean.”
Denario thought about his earlier interview with Senli. She seemed quiet and introspective. She clearly knew her business but she had a just-doing-the-job attitude that was much like Hummel's. That was part of being a slave, Denario knew. If Senli had seemed to bewitch anyone, it was by explaining things better than Hummel could.
“Why are you in leg chains, Hummel?” Denario asked.
It took a long time for the little man to respond. That's interesting, Denario noticed as he gave Hummel time to think, I'm acting like he's shorter than me. He's taller. But he's acting like he's small. Maybe that's why he keeps crouching and hanging his head.
Given that thought, Denario had no more doubts about who had crudely mis-counted and rearranged the fur inventories.
“They might say I tried to run away, I guess,” said Hummel. “But I didn't, not really. I had chains on from the beginning. Never been out of them for more than a few minutes at a time. I just sort of ... wandered around at times.”
“More than once?”
Hummel played with the dirty ringlets at the top of his head.
“No,” he said after the pause. “I go down to the creek now and then. But I'm allowed.”
“Who's responsible for you?”
“The mine headman. Except, this morning, the mayor said no, not anymore.”
“Not the mine foreman? Who, Senli?”
“Of course not!” He looked at Denario as if he couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid. “She's a slave, like me. But the headman can't order us around now. It's you.”
“Me? I'm responsible for you?”
“Of course, sir.”
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Three
Chapter Binary Two
Scene Two: The Old System
By that evening, the Mundredi troop had been hours gone and Denario had talked with everyone of importance in the town except for Mistress Clumpi.
First, he'd found out why the second book keeper hadn't dashed over to greet him when he entered the main doors of the counting house. The fellow wasn't capable of running because the burghers had slapped him in leg irons.
His name was Hummel and he was the quiet, resentful sort. Denario saw it immediately; he'd met many middle-aged men like Hummel among the accountants, physicians, priests, soothsayers, hand-servants, and noble attendants in the Court of Oggli. They were the folks who felt keenly every slight or insult although they never said a thing about it. They just got more quiet, more surly, and slower to offer assistance. This was a classic case made worse by slavery.
Hummel had been an unlicensed accountant in Muntar, the old capital city of all places, before he'd been kidnapped and sold to pirates. They'd shipped him all the way to Angrili, where it was legal to sell him at auction. Fixed up with a haircut to look presentable, he’d fetched a fair price. That had been six years ago. Now he had a thick, curly brown beard, bushy eyebrows, and a mop of tangled hair. His clothes had been nice last year, probably. He'd allowed them to go shabby. Denario suspected that Hummel would do that to anything, even silks. He simply didn't care. He neglected his body, too, which is why he had even less muscle than Denario and a good sized pot belly to carry around.
The man liked to suck on candies at his desk. Gods knew where he got them but the licorice flavors had stained his teeth nearly black.
“This is for otter. This is for yeti. This is for cow.” Hummel's accent was thick. To make it worse, he mumbled. He pointed to his rows of numbers without much interest. Despite how he'd taken charge of the fur and skins trade, he'd clearly done as little work as possible since then. He'd listed twenty-two different types of pelts on the scroll in his tiny, nearly illegible scrawl. “Got another page for the skins. Alligator, giant frog, snake ...”
“You're using the Yullamar accounting system, I see.” Denario tapped the scroll in approval. It was too easy to criticize the man. He needed to find something good to say.
Hummel's eyes opened fully for the first time.
“You know Yullamar?” he said.
“Yes, it's a very sophisticated framework, excellent for valuations. Of course, it shows comparative debts, which is nice. I see that we owe considerable sums to a few of these fur traders.”
“Yes, sir,” said Hummel in a voice approaching enthusiasm, albeit from a long distance. “I told the burghers about that. But they didn't want to hear it. They won't pay the traders because they remember some of them owing us furs under the old system.”
“Got it.” Denario would have to solve that quickly. The town could bankrupt itself if the burghers drove away the caravans who bartered with them.
“Now a few of the ones we don't owe have stopped showing up.”
“Uh-oh.” The town's bad reputation was spreading already.
“That's what I said, too.” Hummel sighed. He'd had time to understand how poor the town could get without traders.
They spent a few hours on the sheets of fur counts and those of the skin counts. Denario gave himself a tour of the corresponding inventory and noticed a few oddities. Most of the bins and stacks were short by a count of one or two. A few small boxes had extra pelts from rabbits or squirrels, which made the problem seem less serious. However, one of the bear skins had been split in an attempt to make reality match the false tally of skins. Denario tried not to suspect Hummel. The culprit could have been a fur trader who was responsible for slipping that one by the miners. But Hummel's vest looked like bearskin. And the bearded, shabby man had not shown interest in checking his inventory. In fact, he'd seemed alarmed to have anyone look through it.
After Denario verified the Yullamar system, roughly, minus those few items, he helped himself to one of the shoulder-high tubes used by the old tile master. At that point, Hummel decided it was safe to join. They sat on the floor to take one apart. The ends were sealed with wax plugs. Denario knifed one out. A few beans spilled onto the dirt floor. Immediately, he saw there were a wide variety of beans, peas, and berries. He sifted through until he'd found thirty types. That was more than enough for Bibbo Clumpi to match the contents to furs and skins.
Reaching a conclusion about the man's private accounting system took longer.
“Is Senli still at the mine?” Denario rubbed his jaw and looked around.
“Yes, sir,” said Hummel.
“She and Mistress Clumpi said these tubes were part of the old master's system, didn't they? But I don't think are.”
“Sir?” Hummel put his hands down on the floor like a drunk trying to regain balance. “What else can they be, sir?”
“They can be temporary count holders, parts for a manual math system, or raw pieces held in stock for a hidden bean-based system somewhere else. But they aren't used for the fur or skins systems themselves. Didn't the women open these and count the beans? Didn't you?”
“They did, sir. And me too, yes. We all spent quite a long time on it.”
“Well, there are too many beans. I just noticed another type, so that makes thirty-one kinds of beans, berries, and peas here. That's a good number for what you do, isn't it?”
“That's what made me believe it was the old master's count of furs, sir.” Hummel's tone was cautious. He seemed to doubt Denario's quick conclusion.
“Right. But the total numbers are wrong. There are thousands of these little brown bean, these little spheres. No trader has got a thousand skins here.”
“Could mean something else, then. A super-total? A weight owed? Senli thinks it's a weight.”
“No, I don't think that's right. The scales and the stacks aren't that big. What's worse, with the number of counters a factor of a hundred too high we could spend a lot of time trying to decipher this when there's nothing to decipher.”
“We already have, sir.” Hummel slumped, visibly depressed.
“That's okay. Time spent getting into the mindset of old Master Clumpi isn't wasted. But I'll need to talk to his widow.”
“Better you than me, sir.”
“Really? Maybe I'd better talk with Senli again first. She's using the Tomaru system, a single-entry tally. But she's put her own spin on it or she learned it a bit differently than I did.”
“About Mistress Senli ...” The curly-haired man shook his head. “Be careful, sir. She's got them bewitched. The burghers, I mean.”
Denario thought about his earlier interview with Senli. She seemed quiet and introspective. She clearly knew her business but she had a just-doing-the-job attitude that was much like Hummel's. That was part of being a slave, Denario knew. If Senli had seemed to bewitch anyone, it was by explaining things better than Hummel could.
“Why are you in leg chains, Hummel?” Denario asked.
It took a long time for the little man to respond. That's interesting, Denario noticed as he gave Hummel time to think, I'm acting like he's shorter than me. He's taller. But he's acting like he's small. Maybe that's why he keeps crouching and hanging his head.
Given that thought, Denario had no more doubts about who had crudely mis-counted and rearranged the fur inventories.
“They might say I tried to run away, I guess,” said Hummel. “But I didn't, not really. I had chains on from the beginning. Never been out of them for more than a few minutes at a time. I just sort of ... wandered around at times.”
“More than once?”
Hummel played with the dirty ringlets at the top of his head.
“No,” he said after the pause. “I go down to the creek now and then. But I'm allowed.”
“Who's responsible for you?”
“The mine headman. Except, this morning, the mayor said no, not anymore.”
“Not the mine foreman? Who, Senli?”
“Of course not!” He looked at Denario as if he couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid. “She's a slave, like me. But the headman can't order us around now. It's you.”
“Me? I'm responsible for you?”
“Of course, sir.”
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Three
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Not Even Not Zen 59: A Bandit Accountant, 10.1
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Binary Two
Scene One: A Token of Affection
Denario woke up in a panic. He'd had a dream that Pecunia and Curo had seen him trapped in a giant fishing net. They'd looked right at him and turned away. Then he lifted his head in real life and found he couldn't move. It took him a second to remember that he'd dozed off in a feather bed. The mattress was pinning his arms. He was fine. With a grunt of effort, he kicked up his legs and rolled out of the linen-covered pile of feathers.
The fact that he'd remained in armor made the job difficult. It was good, he realized, that the mattress wasn’t thicker. The bedding was too lavish. It was as well constructed as any he'd slept on, even the best in Oggli, even the cushions in the Marquis' palace. Barter and slavery worked well enough for this sort of thing, he supposed, although the idea of slaves being forced to stuff the pads of his room made him sad. He rubbed the quilted cover and hoped it wasn't true.
The depression he'd felt at being left alone in this strange, violent land left him as tiptoed across the chilly floor to unshutter the window. He looked down from his apartment atop the mine warehouse onto a crossroads below. There, in the pre-dawn light with an ox-led cart and crates of new baggage piled in the back, stood the Mundredi army.
Well, it was fourteen men. To Denario, that seemed more like an army than it would have three weeks ago. Vir hadn't joined his troops yet. There was just sergeant Alaric, his battle-tested platoon, and the new recruits.
Last night, Vir had hunkered down to a long discussion with the mayor of Pharts Bad. At the conclusion, he'd traded Denario's services “as an accountant until yer records get fixed” in exchange for supplies, two healthy slaves, and “a criminal to be named later.” That gave Pug some men to tease or at least a couple of draftees to deflect the worst of the army's abuse. There was no one lower in status than a slave recruit.
Now that he looked closer, Denario saw that there were only thirteen bodies milling around on the frost and dirt. Someone was missing. Behind him, he heard footfalls on the staircase. A floorboard creaked.
“You're up?” a second later, the Mundredi corporal opened the door without knocking. It was a real door, too, with a metal hinge. It reminded Denario of how well the whole town was built. “Good, the captain wants you. Come on.”
Denario turned and took in Gannick's new apparel. Phart’s Bad had given the bandit army a pile of cast-off clothing. It was quality stuff. Under his chain mail, Gannick wore a heavy linen shirt. He'd laced on a pair of new breeches, too, dyed black.
“Just let me get my hat.” Denario was in his armor but this seemed like a good time to put on a red cap with gold braid. He wanted the men to think about who he was. “My snares on the staircase didn't bother you?”
“Neh. There's light.”
“Oh.” Vir had insisted that the accountant set snares to guard himself. Apparently they wouldn't do much good here in town.
“Good that ye keep in practice. They look well pegged.”
Near the bottom of his pack, Denario found his accounting gear. His hat had taken a beating in recent weeks but the dye was bright. It told everyone that he was a professional. He felt he needed some prompting in that way himself. His guilt over leaving the dangers of bandit life to work in the counting house made him feel like a traitor. He wasn't even one of the Mundredi. He was an accountant. The mark of his guild, a yellow number eight stitched diagonally across his hat brim, reminded him of the duty to his apprentices.
The corporal nodded in approval as Denario put it on. He was familiar with the idea of a uniform. Good.
“Did ye understand the captain's advice last night?” the corporal asked as they descended the narrow staircase. They stepped over the loops of leather cord and the snare pegs.
“I think so.” There had been a lot of it. Denario couldn't absorb it all at once. For instance, he doubted that he was going to use his hunting bow or his non-existent trail-reading skills. He sure hoped he never needed his armor. He had every intention of wearing it, though. It took no expertise and therefore, he'd decided, it was perfect for him.
About the only survival skill he'd picked up from Vir and Alaric was the making and setting of snares. But none of his traps had caught anything. He couldn't light a fire. That last failing was his own because he hadn't dared to tell anyone that he didn't understand how it was done. He'd only ever used pre-packaged alchemy and magic fire-starters before.
Despite the frost on the hard dirt this morning, the wind whipping in from the south felt warm. Spring was a tangible force today. Denario smiled and waved to the soldiers as he approached.
“Do ye remember which towns?” a gruff voice bellowed in his right ear.
Denario spun. The captain stood a few feet away dressed his armor and a fur overcoat given to him personally by the mayor of Pharts Bad.
“Vir!” he exclaimed. He gave the big man a hug and then belatedly realized that these Mundredi didn't do that sort of thing. He had to back away.
“Well, accountant.” Vir gave him a stern look but there was a twinkle in his eye, too. He wasn't mad.
“Yes, sir,” Denario remembered. “I mapped out all of the towns you mentioned last night.”
“Good man.” Vir reached out to clap him on the arm.
Suddenly, all the Mundredi swarmed up to Denario and began whacking him, good-naturedly, on his shoulders and back. Someone plucked off his hat to ruffle his hair and, a second later, someone else jammed it back on. How strange, Denario thought, it's as if they like me.
He heard well-wishes from everyone, he thought, even Moritz and Reinhard, who had openly despised him. It was hard to respond to all of the kind phrases, they came so rapidly. In half a minute, he was left with nothing more coherent to do than saying, 'Thanks, thanks,' over and over again.
“Hush, now,” Vir said eventually. His men turned to him, even Pug and the former slaves.
“The accountant won't get to go home until he straightens out this mess in Pharts Bad.” Vir reached under his armor with his right hand. He fumbled through the layers of shirts beneath. “When he does leave here, though, he's got instructions from me on what to do.”
“Send three recruits!” Denario blurted.
“Yeh. If ye can. No slaves or children, of course.” Vir found a leather cord between the layers of his shirts. With his index finger, he worked it out into the open. “I meant what to do to survive, though. There's one last thing I didn't tell ye. Ye'll need to send this back to me.”
Off from around his neck, the captain pulled a pendant attached to the cord. It was a coin, really, but cast in the strangest of ways. For one thing, it appeared to be made of glassy, blue stone. The surface glowed faintly, as if from magic.
“Now, this isn't magic,” Vir warned him, maybe for the last time showing off his ability to read Denario's mind. “This is one of the tokens of Muntabar that Prince Robberti carried with him from his home in the outside lands to his new home here in the valleys. They were cast in a furnace, so I'm told. I've no idea why they're all blue but there aren't many left.”
“My gods!” gasped Alaric. He stepped between Denario and Vir and stopped just short of grabbing the coin. He touched the cord and then barely restrained himself, it seemed, from falling to his knees in worship. “I had no idea! Your family managed to preserve your coin? They're just a legend anymore.”
“Yeah, well, my family had three, once. I don't know where the others are. I think one's under my grand-dad's shed.” Grasping the cord with both hands, Vir held it aloft for a moment, away from his sergeant's touch. Then he lowered it around Denario's neck. “This is a powerful sign, see? People know about these. Oaths have been passed down from father to son about them. So if ye use this token wisely, other Mundredi tribesmen, even those in distant villages under waldi control, will help ye. They'll hide ye. They'll feed ye. But don't show it off. Hide it until ye have a real need.”
“Yes, sir!” Confused, Denario saluted. He quickly whisked the hand down to his side and stood at attention.
“Vir!” cried Alaric.
“What?” The captain raised an eyebrow, as much as to say, 'What could you possibly have to add, Sergeant?'
“It's just that ... that's an important thing, sir. You can't just give it away. It's your proof of your inheritance.”
“What inheritance?” Vir snorted at his younger relative's simplicity of mind. “Me family was poor. I walked away from our lands. I'll not return. And the coin isn't proof of rulership of the valleys. Even if it ever were, so what? I'm Chief of the Mundredi right now and of all the clans of our tribe. The job isn't doing me any damn good. It's nothing but a duty. No one pays their taxes to me. But somehow I've got to protect ye lot anyways.”
“Well, that's true,” Alaric admitted. “You do it well, too. But I'd bet you'd get more respect from the town mayors and the other chiefs if you showed that around.”
“Only for a few hours. Then they'd go to bed and wake up thinking, 'Why the hell did he have to show me that? Don’t he deserve no respect without it?' That's the way it works, see. Besides, there must be twenty of these left just in the Mundredi plus more in the other valleys. They were common once.”
"Not any more, sire. I mean, sir." Alaric caught himself. It was an interesting slip of the tongue, Denario thought. Did the blue coin mean that much? The disc was inscribed with the sign of the Mundredi tribes, a crown crossed by two spears.
He took at moment to lift it closer. As a coin, it seemed fairly ordinary, if ceremonial. It couldn't have been meant for spending because there was no denomination stamped on it, no number. Above the crown, between the crossed spears, were five stars. Denario had no idea what they signified. There were two inscriptions, both of them hard to read in the bluish glass. The top edge said, quinque procer unus imperator which meant in the Old Tongue, he thought, five of something under one emperor. On the bottom, there was just semper promptus pugnare. The old word pugnare meant 'fighting' or 'to fight,' he was pretty sure.
On the reverse of the coin there appeared the parapet of a castle and, over it in large letters, eternus regnum. That phrase meant 'eternal kingdom.' They must have thought so at the time, the forgers of this coin. Their empire had lasted for twenty years. That wasn't much. It was better, though, than any other force that had attempted to establish itself all the way around the Complacent Sea. In smaller letters underneath the castle, the coin-makers had inscribed, usque ornamentum in unus pars, which Denario thought translated roughly as 'all the weapons on one side.' Our side, they meant, Denario realized. That must have looked like a prescription for an empire to last forever. All the weapons had been owned by one side, sure enough. But that side had divided into factions. The empire had fought itself.
“It's beautiful,” he breathed.
“Priceless,” added Alaric.
“I'm not worth this.” He started to remove the cord. His arms were met by the unmoveable force of Vir. Just the touch of the big man's fingertips was enough to prevent him from lifting. “I don't deserve this much trust.”
“Could be,” Vir allowed. His face had that guarded expression he got when something was important enough. “Maybe ye'll never amount to anything. I don't trust slaves, even if they've been set free. But a debt is a debt. I'll honor it.”
“You've saved my life more than once ...”
“After I took ye from Hogsburg. And who knows if I would have gotten out alive if ye hadn't decoded the Raduar knocks or memorized the cell door combinations? So never mind about all that. With my folks and within my towns, this token will make ye safe. People will take ye into their homes.”
Denario turned his eyes to the coin again. With a smile, he decided to give Vir's mind-reading one more try. He couldn't resist.
“Which towns?” he asked.
Vir's face passed through a range of emotions. He'd spent all the night before giving advice and making Denario memorize the towns. And for what? Yes, Denario had never seen the captain's thoughts quite so visibly before. For a few seconds, Vir's ears turned bright red. Then, when he figured out that Denario was joking, he stopped holding his breath. He roared like a lion.
The captain gave Denario such a shoulder slap that, if Denario hadn't been standing so close to Moritz and Reinhard, he would have been knocked to the ground. The two men caught him. Everyone laughed.
“All right, accountant,” said Vir after he finished chuckling. “Stand smart.”
Denario did his best. He only came up to everyone else's chin level, though, even at his straightest.
“Ye came from a big city, sure enough. The fancy tooth brushing and baths and all spoiled ye. But we made a start on fixing ye up for valley life. Ye'll have to do the rest for yerself. If ye don't, ye won't make it back to yer apprentices.”
The words were grim. But they had to be correct. Denario bobbed his head.
“Five boys, sir,” he said.
“That's right.” Vir raised a massive fist. “Don't forget yer mission. Don't let anyone get in yer way. Ye take care of yer own. That's what ye do. Whether yer a low-down bandit like me or a sissy accountant, well, ye got take care of yer own.”
“I will.”
“Even if they're just boys, just apprentices like ye say. I respect that. We Mundredi troops ain't got no use for ye. But maybe, just maybe, that's because yer a good man.”
“Sneaky,” someone said.
“Yeh, sneaky. And that's good.” Vir nodded to himself.
Denario was so surprised that he saluted again. It was a day for that mistake, it seemed. He was doing everything slightly wrong. But Vir smiled at him in a not unkind way.
“Go to it,” he whispered in his voice that carried just exactly far enough.
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Two
Chapter Binary Two
Scene One: A Token of Affection
Denario woke up in a panic. He'd had a dream that Pecunia and Curo had seen him trapped in a giant fishing net. They'd looked right at him and turned away. Then he lifted his head in real life and found he couldn't move. It took him a second to remember that he'd dozed off in a feather bed. The mattress was pinning his arms. He was fine. With a grunt of effort, he kicked up his legs and rolled out of the linen-covered pile of feathers.
The fact that he'd remained in armor made the job difficult. It was good, he realized, that the mattress wasn’t thicker. The bedding was too lavish. It was as well constructed as any he'd slept on, even the best in Oggli, even the cushions in the Marquis' palace. Barter and slavery worked well enough for this sort of thing, he supposed, although the idea of slaves being forced to stuff the pads of his room made him sad. He rubbed the quilted cover and hoped it wasn't true.
The depression he'd felt at being left alone in this strange, violent land left him as tiptoed across the chilly floor to unshutter the window. He looked down from his apartment atop the mine warehouse onto a crossroads below. There, in the pre-dawn light with an ox-led cart and crates of new baggage piled in the back, stood the Mundredi army.
Well, it was fourteen men. To Denario, that seemed more like an army than it would have three weeks ago. Vir hadn't joined his troops yet. There was just sergeant Alaric, his battle-tested platoon, and the new recruits.
Last night, Vir had hunkered down to a long discussion with the mayor of Pharts Bad. At the conclusion, he'd traded Denario's services “as an accountant until yer records get fixed” in exchange for supplies, two healthy slaves, and “a criminal to be named later.” That gave Pug some men to tease or at least a couple of draftees to deflect the worst of the army's abuse. There was no one lower in status than a slave recruit.
Now that he looked closer, Denario saw that there were only thirteen bodies milling around on the frost and dirt. Someone was missing. Behind him, he heard footfalls on the staircase. A floorboard creaked.
“You're up?” a second later, the Mundredi corporal opened the door without knocking. It was a real door, too, with a metal hinge. It reminded Denario of how well the whole town was built. “Good, the captain wants you. Come on.”
Denario turned and took in Gannick's new apparel. Phart’s Bad had given the bandit army a pile of cast-off clothing. It was quality stuff. Under his chain mail, Gannick wore a heavy linen shirt. He'd laced on a pair of new breeches, too, dyed black.
“Just let me get my hat.” Denario was in his armor but this seemed like a good time to put on a red cap with gold braid. He wanted the men to think about who he was. “My snares on the staircase didn't bother you?”
“Neh. There's light.”
“Oh.” Vir had insisted that the accountant set snares to guard himself. Apparently they wouldn't do much good here in town.
“Good that ye keep in practice. They look well pegged.”
Near the bottom of his pack, Denario found his accounting gear. His hat had taken a beating in recent weeks but the dye was bright. It told everyone that he was a professional. He felt he needed some prompting in that way himself. His guilt over leaving the dangers of bandit life to work in the counting house made him feel like a traitor. He wasn't even one of the Mundredi. He was an accountant. The mark of his guild, a yellow number eight stitched diagonally across his hat brim, reminded him of the duty to his apprentices.
The corporal nodded in approval as Denario put it on. He was familiar with the idea of a uniform. Good.
“Did ye understand the captain's advice last night?” the corporal asked as they descended the narrow staircase. They stepped over the loops of leather cord and the snare pegs.
“I think so.” There had been a lot of it. Denario couldn't absorb it all at once. For instance, he doubted that he was going to use his hunting bow or his non-existent trail-reading skills. He sure hoped he never needed his armor. He had every intention of wearing it, though. It took no expertise and therefore, he'd decided, it was perfect for him.
About the only survival skill he'd picked up from Vir and Alaric was the making and setting of snares. But none of his traps had caught anything. He couldn't light a fire. That last failing was his own because he hadn't dared to tell anyone that he didn't understand how it was done. He'd only ever used pre-packaged alchemy and magic fire-starters before.
Despite the frost on the hard dirt this morning, the wind whipping in from the south felt warm. Spring was a tangible force today. Denario smiled and waved to the soldiers as he approached.
“Do ye remember which towns?” a gruff voice bellowed in his right ear.
Denario spun. The captain stood a few feet away dressed his armor and a fur overcoat given to him personally by the mayor of Pharts Bad.
“Vir!” he exclaimed. He gave the big man a hug and then belatedly realized that these Mundredi didn't do that sort of thing. He had to back away.
“Well, accountant.” Vir gave him a stern look but there was a twinkle in his eye, too. He wasn't mad.
“Yes, sir,” Denario remembered. “I mapped out all of the towns you mentioned last night.”
“Good man.” Vir reached out to clap him on the arm.
Suddenly, all the Mundredi swarmed up to Denario and began whacking him, good-naturedly, on his shoulders and back. Someone plucked off his hat to ruffle his hair and, a second later, someone else jammed it back on. How strange, Denario thought, it's as if they like me.
He heard well-wishes from everyone, he thought, even Moritz and Reinhard, who had openly despised him. It was hard to respond to all of the kind phrases, they came so rapidly. In half a minute, he was left with nothing more coherent to do than saying, 'Thanks, thanks,' over and over again.
“Hush, now,” Vir said eventually. His men turned to him, even Pug and the former slaves.
“The accountant won't get to go home until he straightens out this mess in Pharts Bad.” Vir reached under his armor with his right hand. He fumbled through the layers of shirts beneath. “When he does leave here, though, he's got instructions from me on what to do.”
“Send three recruits!” Denario blurted.
“Yeh. If ye can. No slaves or children, of course.” Vir found a leather cord between the layers of his shirts. With his index finger, he worked it out into the open. “I meant what to do to survive, though. There's one last thing I didn't tell ye. Ye'll need to send this back to me.”
Off from around his neck, the captain pulled a pendant attached to the cord. It was a coin, really, but cast in the strangest of ways. For one thing, it appeared to be made of glassy, blue stone. The surface glowed faintly, as if from magic.
“Now, this isn't magic,” Vir warned him, maybe for the last time showing off his ability to read Denario's mind. “This is one of the tokens of Muntabar that Prince Robberti carried with him from his home in the outside lands to his new home here in the valleys. They were cast in a furnace, so I'm told. I've no idea why they're all blue but there aren't many left.”
“My gods!” gasped Alaric. He stepped between Denario and Vir and stopped just short of grabbing the coin. He touched the cord and then barely restrained himself, it seemed, from falling to his knees in worship. “I had no idea! Your family managed to preserve your coin? They're just a legend anymore.”
“Yeah, well, my family had three, once. I don't know where the others are. I think one's under my grand-dad's shed.” Grasping the cord with both hands, Vir held it aloft for a moment, away from his sergeant's touch. Then he lowered it around Denario's neck. “This is a powerful sign, see? People know about these. Oaths have been passed down from father to son about them. So if ye use this token wisely, other Mundredi tribesmen, even those in distant villages under waldi control, will help ye. They'll hide ye. They'll feed ye. But don't show it off. Hide it until ye have a real need.”
“Yes, sir!” Confused, Denario saluted. He quickly whisked the hand down to his side and stood at attention.
“Vir!” cried Alaric.
“What?” The captain raised an eyebrow, as much as to say, 'What could you possibly have to add, Sergeant?'
“It's just that ... that's an important thing, sir. You can't just give it away. It's your proof of your inheritance.”
“What inheritance?” Vir snorted at his younger relative's simplicity of mind. “Me family was poor. I walked away from our lands. I'll not return. And the coin isn't proof of rulership of the valleys. Even if it ever were, so what? I'm Chief of the Mundredi right now and of all the clans of our tribe. The job isn't doing me any damn good. It's nothing but a duty. No one pays their taxes to me. But somehow I've got to protect ye lot anyways.”
“Well, that's true,” Alaric admitted. “You do it well, too. But I'd bet you'd get more respect from the town mayors and the other chiefs if you showed that around.”
“Only for a few hours. Then they'd go to bed and wake up thinking, 'Why the hell did he have to show me that? Don’t he deserve no respect without it?' That's the way it works, see. Besides, there must be twenty of these left just in the Mundredi plus more in the other valleys. They were common once.”
"Not any more, sire. I mean, sir." Alaric caught himself. It was an interesting slip of the tongue, Denario thought. Did the blue coin mean that much? The disc was inscribed with the sign of the Mundredi tribes, a crown crossed by two spears.
He took at moment to lift it closer. As a coin, it seemed fairly ordinary, if ceremonial. It couldn't have been meant for spending because there was no denomination stamped on it, no number. Above the crown, between the crossed spears, were five stars. Denario had no idea what they signified. There were two inscriptions, both of them hard to read in the bluish glass. The top edge said, quinque procer unus imperator which meant in the Old Tongue, he thought, five of something under one emperor. On the bottom, there was just semper promptus pugnare. The old word pugnare meant 'fighting' or 'to fight,' he was pretty sure.
On the reverse of the coin there appeared the parapet of a castle and, over it in large letters, eternus regnum. That phrase meant 'eternal kingdom.' They must have thought so at the time, the forgers of this coin. Their empire had lasted for twenty years. That wasn't much. It was better, though, than any other force that had attempted to establish itself all the way around the Complacent Sea. In smaller letters underneath the castle, the coin-makers had inscribed, usque ornamentum in unus pars, which Denario thought translated roughly as 'all the weapons on one side.' Our side, they meant, Denario realized. That must have looked like a prescription for an empire to last forever. All the weapons had been owned by one side, sure enough. But that side had divided into factions. The empire had fought itself.
“It's beautiful,” he breathed.
“Priceless,” added Alaric.
“I'm not worth this.” He started to remove the cord. His arms were met by the unmoveable force of Vir. Just the touch of the big man's fingertips was enough to prevent him from lifting. “I don't deserve this much trust.”
“Could be,” Vir allowed. His face had that guarded expression he got when something was important enough. “Maybe ye'll never amount to anything. I don't trust slaves, even if they've been set free. But a debt is a debt. I'll honor it.”
“You've saved my life more than once ...”
“After I took ye from Hogsburg. And who knows if I would have gotten out alive if ye hadn't decoded the Raduar knocks or memorized the cell door combinations? So never mind about all that. With my folks and within my towns, this token will make ye safe. People will take ye into their homes.”
Denario turned his eyes to the coin again. With a smile, he decided to give Vir's mind-reading one more try. He couldn't resist.
“Which towns?” he asked.
Vir's face passed through a range of emotions. He'd spent all the night before giving advice and making Denario memorize the towns. And for what? Yes, Denario had never seen the captain's thoughts quite so visibly before. For a few seconds, Vir's ears turned bright red. Then, when he figured out that Denario was joking, he stopped holding his breath. He roared like a lion.
The captain gave Denario such a shoulder slap that, if Denario hadn't been standing so close to Moritz and Reinhard, he would have been knocked to the ground. The two men caught him. Everyone laughed.
“All right, accountant,” said Vir after he finished chuckling. “Stand smart.”
Denario did his best. He only came up to everyone else's chin level, though, even at his straightest.
“Ye came from a big city, sure enough. The fancy tooth brushing and baths and all spoiled ye. But we made a start on fixing ye up for valley life. Ye'll have to do the rest for yerself. If ye don't, ye won't make it back to yer apprentices.”
The words were grim. But they had to be correct. Denario bobbed his head.
“Five boys, sir,” he said.
“That's right.” Vir raised a massive fist. “Don't forget yer mission. Don't let anyone get in yer way. Ye take care of yer own. That's what ye do. Whether yer a low-down bandit like me or a sissy accountant, well, ye got take care of yer own.”
“I will.”
“Even if they're just boys, just apprentices like ye say. I respect that. We Mundredi troops ain't got no use for ye. But maybe, just maybe, that's because yer a good man.”
“Sneaky,” someone said.
“Yeh, sneaky. And that's good.” Vir nodded to himself.
Denario was so surprised that he saluted again. It was a day for that mistake, it seemed. He was doing everything slightly wrong. But Vir smiled at him in a not unkind way.
“Go to it,” he whispered in his voice that carried just exactly far enough.
Next: Chapter Ten, Scene Two
Sunday, December 4, 2016
A Nerd in a Warrior Culture - Nine Chapters
Chapter Thirty-Two Minus Thirty-One
- Scene One, Fired
- Scene Two, Something Does Not Add Up
- Scene Three, One to the N Ponies
- Scene Four, A Tip on Poison
- Scene Five, A Desperate Game
Chapter Root Two Squared
- Scene One, Going Fourth
- Scene Two, Speak to the Point
- Scene Three, Fallen
- Scene Four, Friends Like These
- Scene Five, Another Plan
- Scene One, A Bargain Purchase
- Scene Two, New Shirts
- Scene Three, Lucky Find
- Scene Four, Lucky Miss
- Scene Five, Holy Larceny
- Scene Six, Strange Footprints
Chapter Two Pair
- Scene One, Deadly Aim
- Scene Two, Fair Trade
- Scene Three, Space to Breathe
- Scene Four, Familiar Words
- Scene Five, A Foolish Gamble
Chapter Full Hand
- Scene One, Arrested Developments
- Scene Two, New Locks
- Scene Three, Interview with the Butcher
- Scene Four, Hidden Message
Chapter Half Dozen
- Scene One, Revealing Dawn
- Scene Two, A Well-Informed Captain
- Scene Three, The Attack
- Scene Four, An Escape
- Scene Five, Another Escape
Chapter Fourth Prime
- Scene One, A Pleasant Stroll
- Scene Two, Lessons from the Butcher
- Scene Three, Lessons from the Master
- Scene Four, A Token of Affection
- Scene Five, Precise Aims
Chapter Two Cubed
- Scene One, Wrong Darts Again
- Scene Two, Imprecise Aims
- Scene Three, Pudding Nap
- Scene Four, More Lessons from the Butcher
- Scene Five, That's the Job
- Scene Six, Archer's Lament
- Scene Seven, End of a Short Trip
Chapter Three Quarters of Twelve
- Scene One, Rich for Bandits
- Scene Two, Deadly, Playing Chicken
- Scene Three, Bathing in History
- Scene Four, Lowest on the Totem Pole
- Scene Five, Nearly at Liberty
- Scene Six, A Funny Kind of Freedom
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Being Geek in a Warrior Culture - Ninth Chapter
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Three Quarters of Twelve
Chapter Three Quarters of Twelve
- Scene One, Rich for Bandits
- Scene Two, Deadly, Playing Chicken
- Scene Three, Bathing in History
- Scene Four, Lowest on the Totem Pole
- Scene Five, Nearly at Liberty
- Scene Six, A Funny Kind of Freedom
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