Fissure and fracture, is she so attached to the boy already?
Cinnabar blew on the cup nestled in his big hands. “As long as he breaks none of the laws of Funderling Town, you could guest a badger for all it matters to me.” He turned his keen eyes on Opal. “But people do talk, and they are slow to welcome change. Still, I suppose it is too late to reveal this secret more delicately.”
“It is no secret!” said Opal, a little sharply.
“Obviously.” Cinnabar sighed. “It is your affair. That’s not why I’m here tonight.”
Now Chert was puzzled. He watched Cinnabar snuffle at his tea. The man was not only head of his own family, but was one of the most powerful men in the Guild of Stonecutters Chert could only be patient.
“That is good, Mistress,” Cinnabar said at last. “My own lady, she will boil the same roots over and over until it is like drinking rainwater.” He looked from her expectant, worried face to Chert’s and smiled. It cracked his broad, heavy-jawed face into little wrinkles, like a hammerblow on slate. “Ah, I am tormenting you, but do not mean to. There’s nothing ill in this visit, that’s a promise. I need your help, Chert.”
“You do?”
“Aye. You know we’re cutting in the bedrock of the inner keep? Tricky work. The king’s family wants to expand the burial vaults and stitch together various of their buildings with tunnels.”
“I’ve heard, of course. That’s old Hornblende in charge, isn’t it? He’s a good man.”
“Was in charge. He’s quit. Says it’s because of his back, but I have my doubts, though he is of an age.” Cinnabar nodded slowly. “That’s why I need your help, Chert.”
He shook his head, confused. “What…?”
“I want you to chief the job. It’s a careful matter, as you know—digging under the castle. I don’t need to say more, do I? I hear the men are skittish, which may have something to do with Hornblende’s wanting nothing more of it.”
Chert was stunned. At least a dozen other Funderlings had the experience to take Hornblende’s place, all more senior or more important than he was, including one of his own brothers. “Why me?”
“Because you have sense. Because I need someone I can trust as chief over this task. You’ve worked with the big folk before and made out well.” He flicked a glance at Opal, who had finished her tea and was again measuring the child, although Chert knew she was listening to every word. “We can speak more of it later, if you tell me you will do it.” How could he say no? “Of course, Magister. It’s an honor.”
“Good. Very good.” Cinnabar rose, not without a small noise of effort. “Here, give me your hand on it. Come to me tomorrow and I’ll give you the plans and your list of men. Oh, and thanking you for your hospitality, Mistress Opal.”
Her smile was genuine now. “Our pleasure, Magister.”
He did not leave, but took a step forward and stood over Flint. “What do you say, boy?” he asked, mock-stern. “Do you like stone?”
The child regarded him carefully. “Which kind?”
Cinnabar laughed. “Well questioned! Ah, Master Chert, perhaps he has the making of a Fundering at that, if he grows not too big for the tunnels.” He was still chuckling as Chert let him out.
“Such wonderful news!” Opal’s eyes were shining. “Your family will regret their snubs now.” “Perhaps.” Chert was glad, of course, but he knew old Hornblende for a levelheaded fellow. Was there a reason he had given up such a prestigious post? Could there be something of a poisoned offering about it? Chert was not used to kindnesses from the town leaders, although he had no reason to mistrust Cinnabar, who was reputed for fair-dealing.
“Little Flint has brought us good luck,” Opal purred. “He will have a shirt, and I -will have that winter shawl and . . and you, my husband, you must have a handsome new pair of boots. You cannot go walking through the big folk’s castle in those miserable old things.”
“Let’s not spend silver we haven’t seen yet,” he said, but mildly. He might have been a little uncertain about this surprising good fortune, but it was good to see Opal so happy.
“And you would have left the boy there,” she said, almost giddy. “Left our luck sitting in the grass!”
“Luck’s a strange thing,” Chert reminded her, “and as they say, there is much digging before the entire vein is uncovered.” He sat down to finish his tea.
Kendrick had convened the council in the castle’s Chapel of Erivor, dedicated to the sea god who had always been the Eddon family’s special protector. The main chamber was dominated by the statue of the god in green soapstone trimmed with bright metal, with golden kelp coiling in Erivor s hair and beard and his great golden spear held high to calm the waters so Anglin’s ancestors could cross the sea from Connord. Generations of Eddons had been named and married at the low stone altar beneath the statue, and many had lain in state there, too, after they had died the echoes that drifted back from the chapel’s high, tiled ceiling sometimes seemed to be voices from other times.
Barrick had enough difficulty with unwanted voices as it was he didn’t like the chapel much. Today a ring of chairs had been set up on the floor just beneath the steps that led to the low stone altar. “It is the only chamber m this castle where we can close the door and find any privacy,” Kendrick explained to the nobles. “Anything important said in the throne room or the Oak Chamber will be spread across Southmarch before the speaker has finished.”
Bamck moved uncomfortably in the hard, high-backed chair. He had been chewing willow bark since supper but his crippled arm still ached miserably from Shaso’s blows. He darted a sour look at the master of arms. Shaso’s face was a mask, his eyes fixed on the frescoes that, with so many lamps lit, gleamed daytime-bright, as though the birth and triumph of Erivor was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. Barrick had not attended many of these councils he and Briony had only been invited since their father’s departure, and this was his first without her, which added to his discomfort. He could not shake off the feeling that a part of him was gone, as though he had woken up to find he had only one leg.
Gailon of Summerfield was talking quietly into the prince regent’s left ear Sisel, Hierarch of Southmarch, had been given the position of honor on Kendrick’s other hand. The hierarch, a slender, active man of sixty winters or so, was the leading priest of the rnarchlands, and although in some things he was forced to act as the hand of the Trigonarch in distant Syan, he was also the first northerner to hold the position, and thus unusually loyal to the Eddons. The Trigonarchy had been unhappy that Barrick’s father Olin had chosen to elevate one of the local priests over their own candidate, but neither Syan nor theTrigon itself wielded as much power in the north as they once had.
Ranged around the table were many of the other leading nobles of the realm, Blueshore’s Tyne, Lord Nynor the castellan, the bearlike lord constable, Avin Brone, and Barrick’s dandified cousin Rorick Longarren, who was Earl of Daler’s Troth (strangely matched with those dour, plainspoken folk, Barrick always felt) as well as a half dozen more nobles, some clearly sleepy after the midday meal, others indifferently hiding their irritation at giving up a day of hunting or hawking. That sort would not even have been present were it not for their interest in seeing some relief from the royal levy, Barrick felt sure. The fact that his sister was the bargaining chip bothered them not at all.