"Even the outer building could be fortified," Zeren noted, "which is nothing to ignore in times, hmm, and places, like these."
"Those side rooms were shops," Yanados added. "One of them houses a mill that once turned by that stream. The stones are intact, though much of the wooden gear needs replacing—"
"Omis's ironwork would do better," Vari cut in. "We'll have to ask our host about sources of iron."
"—and we'd have to replace the paddle wheel, but once we have the mill running—"
"We could fix the house with stones from the others," Ziya piped up, surprising everyone. "Make the whole house out of stone, so it won't burn."
"Yes, good thought," Eloti answered quickly. "But where would we put the forge and the larger tools?"
"That big central room, once the roofs on—or even before," said Yanados. "We could use the other side rooms for kitchens and sleeping cubicles."
"Hmm, only with much work," Vari grumbled. "I think we'll need to add more rooms, sooner or later. And a kitchen garden. Hmm, and a surrounding wall."
"Should we bother trying to raise sheep on the surrounding land?" Zeren asked. "We'll need some animals for food, in case of . . . hmmm, siege, famine, other disasters."
"Goats, more likely," Vari sniffed. "They give less wool, but more milk. A few pigs, some poultry . . ."
"How would we feed them? How much of this grudging land must we plant and coax into yielding?"
"Just a little for the birds, I think. Goats can feed themselves well on almost anything, and a few pigs could made do with slops from the kitchen, and perhaps a bit of grain."
"Is it decided, then?" Eloti asked. "Are we determined to settle here?"
Sulun looked at everyone in turn. "Do any oppose the thought?" he asked.
No one did.
"So be it, then." Eloti smiled, a little grimly. "If we bargain well, we may get the land cheaply. Restoring the buildings, however, will be more of a task than we can manage ourselves—and it will cost dearly." She patted the thick oak chest she sat on. "I suspect that our Sukkti treasure will be largely used before we're done."
"Wherever we can manage for ourselves, Lady—" Sulun began.
"No, no regrets, my friend. If we succeed, I'll count it as well spent." Eloti's smile changed to something slightly more wicked. "Now, shall we discuss tactics for bargaining with Wotheng this evening?"
Dinner that evening was a whole roast suckling pig stuffed with apples, boiled green beans with bacon, thick wedges of sheep-milk cheese, roasted grain sweetened with berries, sweet pears pickled in honey, fresh rye bread with new butter, cider, perry, beer, and berry cordial. Everyone in the household, with the exception of the two outer guards, ate at the same huge trestle table. Sulun, remembering his days in Entori House, noted that the only division between the masters' and servants' sections were the bowls of salt, pepper, nutmeg, and vinegar formally arranged in the middle of the table. The servants, he noted, were well and warmly dressed—if in much plainer cloth than Wotheng and his wife—and all seemed healthy and well fed. They also talked freely, laughed loudly, and showed no particular fear of the personages at the high end of the table.
I've known worse masters, Sulun thought, stuffing himself with a clear conscience. The food was well cooked, if a trifle short on spices, and the assorted drinks were superb.
After the dishes were emptied and cleared, Wotheng dismissed the lower table diners with a brief hand clap. Sulun noticed that a few of the servants chose to stay, and that this was not remarked upon.
Wotheng called for more jugs of beer and cordial, and for his pipe: a tiny wooden bowl with an attached hollow stem, filled with some resinous chopped leaf which he lit with a spill of burning wood from the fire. The apprentices watched, wide-eyed, as Wotheng calmly inhaled the aromatic smoke and seemed to enjoy the taste. Sulun guessed that the leaf was some manner of medicinal incense, and the pipe arrangement was certainly more efficient than a Sabisan-style incense burner.
"So, my friends," Wotheng began comfortably, pipe in one hand and full cup in the other, "did you find your shrine today?"
"Ah, yes," Sulun agreed with a mournful sigh. "It's in most wretched condition: all the images gone, the building all a wreck, half buried in rubble. Simply restoring would take, oh, moons and moons."
"Ah, but it could be repaired?"
"Oh yes, and the priest house as well, but . . ." Sulun rolled his eyes, "Good gods, the work! The expense! We wondered most seriously if 'twould be worth the trouble, or if we should just continue north to the next shrine."
"Ah, how sad." Gynallea cast a quick look round the cluster of guests. All of them looked mournful. Yes, they might truly consider moving on. "But how can you be certain that the next shrine will be any better? The gods know, all the lands north of here suffered far worse in the wars."
"True, true." Sulun shrugged expansively. "But what can we do?"
"Ah, well." Wotheng waved expansively. "The rent there would be very cheap—oof!" He threw a quick glare at his wife, and rubbed his ankle.
"Rent?" Sulun rolled his eyes piously. "Ah, 'tis hopeless, then. By our most ancient tradition, the land dedicated to the god must belong to the god—of whom we priests are but servants. We were hoping to purchase the land outright, but seeing how much work must be done there, well, the expense . . ."
"Now, now, it need not be so costly as all that." Gynallea seized Sulun's nearer hand and patted it warmly. "Much of our custom hereabouts is done by barter. I'm sure that we could arrange a fair trade for the purchase price—" she glared at her husband "—of the land. Your smithy work, for example. Perhaps you might purchase title to the land in exchange for, say, forging goodly blades for our household guard, or some such work, in perpetuity. 'Twould be easy enough, for folk of your skill."
Sulun was about to say yes, enthusiastically, when his memory snagged on the words "in perpetuity." While he was thinking that over, Omis spoke up.
"Ah, good Lady, how could we serve your own blacksmith so? Biddon is a fine workman, and an honest fellow. How, then, should we take his custom away from him? 'Twould be a poor service to a fellow smith."
Wotheng and Gynallea blinked over that, momentarily set back.
Eloti seized the moment to speak up. "Good hosts, 'tis true we have more of smithcraft than poor Biddon does. But how, then, if we were to repay your kindness by teaching the fellow our skills? Then you would have a smith upon your villa who could work iron as well as we, and you'd not have to journey ten leagues every time a horse threw a shoe."
"Oh, aye," Wotheng muttered. "Well for Biddon and his household, and we'd make some little gain thereby, but to purchase a whole stretch of land . . . And how much, said you, that you wished?"
There was momentary confusion while Doshi produced the pertinent map and unrolled it on the table. Wotheng raised his bushy eyebrows and peered closer.
"I've never seen a chart so fair," he commented. "What, be there towns, cities, all that hereabouts, and I never heard thereof?"
"This is a copy of a much older map," Doshi explained, surreptitiously scattering a pinch of salt over certain items on the chart. "This is how the land lay before the great invasions. Many towns and villas you see marked herein be long gone, cast to the winds of fate and war. I suppose there are many new towns now, built in the years since, that this map's makers never knew."
"A well-made copy of that chart could help make up the price of the land," Gynallea purred.
"We are always willing to share learning," Eloti smiled sweetly, "for that too is part of our trade."