The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 52 The Price of Another Week

Iven laid the last full grain measure on Daren's table and set an empty one beside it.

“This is the argument,” she said. “Everything else can wait until somebody answers it.”

It was the twenty fourth morning. After that day's portions were set aside, thirty three pounds remained. Rusk's notice gave them six more days. Hunger had offered less.

Daren put down the examiner's drawing.

Across the yard, Berrit and Brida were finishing Rovan's first two hoops. Daren had marked their curves, but his blistered palm had kept him from the mallet. The sound of other people doing work he owed grated more than the pain.

“They agreed to that payment,” Iven said, following his glance. “You didn't promise their hands.”

“I know.”

“Then stop looking as though you own the debt.”

Rovan arrived near midday with his porter and a mule that stayed outside the repaired gate. His ear had scabbed into a dark crescent. He inspected both hoops around his measuring cask before accepting them.

Daren waited while the trader tested the second twice.

“It fits,” Rovan said.

“There's another question.”

“There usually is when people are hungry.”

He had dried field peas at a store below Rillmarket. Four sacks, thirty five pounds each. Enough to turn the empty measure into several days of meals. He wanted iron, and he wanted repairs finished before the mountain claimed every useful road.

Brida took him to the salvage stack beside the ruined stable.

Two broad iron plates lay beneath a rotted cart bed. They had once covered its underside. Both were pitted, neither cracked. Berrit had kept them for possible straps and brackets. They were not holding up a wall or hiding a broken beam.

Rovan struck one with a small hammer and listened.

“The plates and twenty hours at the bench.”

“Twelve,” Brida said. “Cold fitting. No furnace work.”

“Eighteen.”

Berrit rubbed the edge of a plate with his thumb. “We've already got your braces and two hoops to finish.”

“Those were paid for.”

“Yes. Which is why you can't buy the same hours twice.”

Daren almost offered his own labor before Pella's voice, from three paces away, saved him from it.

“Seated marking and measuring,” she said. “Nothing that opens that hand again.”

Rovan looked between them. “Does anyone here have authority to agree to anything?”

“The people doing it,” Iven answered. “And I can tell you whether we have somewhere dry to put the food.”

The trader sighed, but he stayed.

They settled on twelve hours: four each from Brida and Berrit, four of measuring and marking from Daren. Rovan would supply the workpieces. No extra task could be added to the account without another agreement. Delivery would be tomorrow at the Cinderbank approach, with the plates exchanged there.

“Not after the work?” Daren asked.

“The iron covers most of it. I've seen your hoops.”

Trust, then. Small enough to weigh, and still more than Daren had expected.

The twelve hours would be completed by the thirty sixth evening. If Rovan delayed bringing his workpieces, the lost days would be added to that date. Iven insisted on that line after remembering the waiting around other people's promises. The trader made her repeat it, then agreed. Daren watched Nera write the terms twice, one copy for each side. There would be no harvest to rescue a misunderstanding, and no spare iron to pay for one.

Rovan refused a promise of future grain. He could offer this load because he possessed it. His next purchase depended on roads, prices, and whether the Summit's guards continued deciding that a trader's mule belonged to their work.

The settlement would spend useful metal for time. Daren could not pretend that was prosperity.

After Rovan left with the two accepted hoops, Brida stood over the plates for a while.

“We'll miss these when a hinge tears.”

“We'll miss breakfast sooner,” Iven said.

Neither sounded pleased to be right.

They measured both plates before moving them, recording what they were giving away. Berrit uncovered the remaining scraps. Thin strips, bent nails, one short length of sound iron. Their fortress contained less treasure each time they tried to live in it.

Daren returned to the examiner's drawing. Its red line crossed beneath the place where they milled grain. Closing the mill would cost time and tired hands. Leaving it running filled their waste tubs faster.

He called Tovin over and asked how much space remained in the containers.

The boy started to answer, stopped, and went to measure.

When he returned, he had chalk dust on his nose.

“Two watched milling periods at the present flow. Perhaps less if the seep rises.”

Brida heard him from the doorway.

“Then we stop after one and check again.”

Daren looked at the peas promised for tomorrow. Dried peas needed longer soaking and more work than the barley. Food could arrive in time and still fail to become food quickly enough.

He asked Berrit to inspect the hand querns before supper.

That evening, Orin found him drawing small circles beside the watercourse. The boy asked whether they were places to put soldiers.

“Places to hold water.”

“Is water fighting us?”

Daren considered the clean cup by his son's elbow, the poisoned seep, the men above them who drew a single red line through both.

“Someone thinks it can.”

He turned the drawing so Orin could see the blank spaces around the line.

“We need to find out where it goes before they do.”