“It was your mother made the deal to bring in her kin,” Jeirran said curtly. He beckoned to the hastening diggers with a smile.
“If we hadn’t wasted so much time on your idiotic schemes, she’d have had no call to do so.” Keisyl bit crossly into a pasty.
Jeirran peered critically up the pitted and ravaged hillside. “This cut is just about worked out. You and Teir between you would have cleared it by the last half of summer. The stupid crone has given away half the paltry pickings.”
“She wanted this working finished before we started a deep mine,” hissed Keisyl. “The shaft paid for with the riches you were going to bring back from Selerima?”
“The old busybody had no business making any deal for labor.” Jeirran was intent on his own grievance. “That should have been Eirys’ decision.”
“Eirys wasn’t here, was she?” Keisyl’s sarcasm was unmuted by his mouthful. “You insisted on dragging her all that way and she hasn’t even got a belly on her to show for it.”
“Is everything all right?” Teiriol was the first to reach them, looking uncertainly between Jeirran’s appearance of good humor and his brother’s scowl.
“The women have been baking.” Jeirran gave the basket over into eager, dirt-speckled hands. “My wife said you deserved better than waxed cheese and twice-cooked bread. Caw, Fytch, Cailean, good to see you.”
“How do, Jeirran.” The rake man, wet to mid-thigh, nodded a greeting. “You look mighty prosperous for a man who wasted half his season being gulled by the lowlanders.”
Jeirran shot a hard look at Teiriol, who returned it with a defiant shrug. “Cailean asked. I wasn’t about to lie to him.”
Jeirran forced a smile. “We made a profit over what we’d have got in the valley bottom but I’ll admit it wasn’t as handsome as I’d been led to hope.”
Keisyl’s contemptuous bark of laughter was lost in a racking cough as a crumb caught at the back of his throat.
“Well, at least you tried, didn’t you?” The one who’d been filling Keisyl’s sorting trough looked around uncertainly. “Can’t hardly blame you if the lowlanders all turned out dishonest dogs, can we?”
Jeirran passed the man a folded pastry with a rich golden glaze. “I thought I could find a fair deal, Fytch, but in the end we were little better than robbed and that’s the truth of it.”
“All thieves, lowlanders,” grunted the man who’d been tending the sluice at the upper level. “We should keep to our own.”
“We may want no dealings with them, but they’re determined to have dealings with us.” Jeirran shook his head. “Did you hear about the Teyvasoke?”
All the men nodded grimly. Teiriol’s workmate took a second pastry. “Breed like rats in a midden, don’t they?”
“I’ve a cousin with kin the far side of the Gap,” volunteered Cailean. “He was saying that when they had to fight for their diggings, they’d lost before a sword was swung. Every one lowlander they sent back bleeding to his mother whistled ten more up and ready inside a day and a half. There’s no use you looking at me like that, Elzer, it’s the truth. Why do you think Kernial and his sons came west to herd goats for the summer, begging work from any fess that they can?”
“That’s no work for a man in his prime,” growled Elzer in disgust. “Kernial’s a waterman nearly as good as me, knows streams and flow better than any mother-poxed lowlander, deep mines as well as surface work.”
“The problem is we’re so spread out,” mused Jeirran. “By the time a messenger bird has flown from one fess to another, the damage is done and the ruffians fled.”
“There’s no helping that in this country,” shrugged Fytch.
“Every soke keeps to its own,” stated Elzer firmly. “That’s the way it’s been from generations back.”
“Generations back didn’t have greedy lowlanders carving up their land like mutton,” retorted Jeirran. “Generations back, Sheltya kept the sokes in touch with each other, passed on news for ordinary folk, didn’t just keep their powers for themselves.”
A wary stillness touched the other men sitting on the heaps of broken stone.
“Just think about the old tales,” Jeirran continued. “Kell the Weaver wouldn’t have stood for lowlanders cutting his snares and stealing his pelts! No more than Morn stood by while thieves drove Isarel’s daughters off their land. True magic defended the sokes in those days.”
“That’s me done.” Keisyl flung a crust onto the coarse turf and wiped the grease from his fingers on the tail of his mud-stained shirt. “I’ll walk down to the path with you, Jeir.” Keisyl picked up the sack of ore and hefted it over one shoulder.
“Yes, I’ve a few things to say to you.” Jeirran followed him out of the gully to a stack of sacks. Teiriol and the others exchanged glances of mingled apprehension and anticipation.
“There’s a flask of dew in there as well,” Jeirran called back, “but don’t mix it too strong or all you’ll be fit for this afternoon is sleeping!”
Laughter echoed around the defile and Jeirran grinned. When he turned back to Keisyl, his smile vanished. “I need you back at the fess.”
Keisyl sat on the dusty sack of ore, scarred leather trews coated with muck. “You can go on needing. I’ve work here.”
“And I’ve work at home,” snapped Jeirran, “with Aritane.”
“I told you I want nothing to do with your schemes,” Keisyl retorted. “I don’t like your sister either, tormenting Eirys. I found her crying her heart out in the scullery, worrying she was barren!”
“Blame your mother. What of all her talk about Ilgar’s problems breeding those red cattle?” demanded Jeirran. “Wondering if the bull or the heifer was at fault? If I’m going to have some Sheltya asking questions about my tool or technique, I’ll have one of my own kindred do it.”
“But she’s no kin of yours, not now, not since Sheltya took her,” Keisyl challenged him. “You’re an idiot, Jeirran. That woman gets wind of your schemes, we’ll all be neck deep and drowning! Her first loyalty is to Sheltya.”
“Aritane is loyal to her powers and to her people,” said Jeirran confidently. “She’s as eager as me to see glory and liberty restored to the mountains.”
Keisyl snorted. “She’d better have something more impressive up her sleeves than those lily-white arms.”
“Oh, she has,” chuckled Jeirran. “And now that your mother has done enough cooking to ensure none of us starve in the next four days, she’s taking Eirys and Theilyn off to visit their uncle over the crag. That’s what I came up here to tell you. Ari can finally get things moving.”
“What things?” demanded Keisyl suspiciously.
“We need allies against the lowlanders, don’t we? Like Noral said, there are just too many of the rat-spawn.” Jeirran’s face was alive with zeal. “Aritane’s found them— powerful allies, Keis, willing to help us.”
A flurry of little brown birds squabbled over pastry crumbs among the tussocks. “Alyatimm?” Keisyl’s voice dropped to a whisper.
Jeirran shrugged. “Their forefathers were, perhaps, generations since. That’s not important. What matters is they are kin, with no more love of the lowlanders than us.”
“Why should they help us?” frowned Keisyl.
“Why not? They share our blood and have been attacked by Tormalin themselves. It’s only the lowlanders who won’t act unless there’s something in it for them!” Jeirran’s words hung in the air. “This isn’t just about me, Keis!” Jeirran gestured toward the diggers. “Half the sokes this side of the Gap are being bled, truth or lie?”
“I won’t be involved in anything that goes against Sheltya.” Keisyl’s tone was uncompromising, but his face betrayed a hint of curiosity.
“All I want is your presence.” Jeirran’s hands were placating. “You don’t even have to speak. But Ari will receive a visitor tonight and I want us both there to show she has men to back her. Someone born to this soke should be present.”