Dahrena gritted her teeth and pressed on, ignoring her. “His service to this land has been unmatched. The lives he has saved . . .”
Vaelin rubbed at his temples, suddenly weary. “I’m sure I can forgive the drunken outburst of a grieving man.” He met her gaze. “But it can’t happen again.”
She nodded, forcing a weak smile. “My lord is kind. And there will be no repetition of this, you have my word.”
“I’m glad.” He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “My thanks for all your attention today, my lady. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I find myself sorely in need of rest.”
“The Eorhil named him He Who Trails Fire When He Runs. On account of his mane.” The stable master smoothed a hand over the horse’s flank. It was a handsome beast, thickly muscled though not so toned as a well-bred Realm mount, but tall at the shoulder, his coat a dark russet brown save for his mane which had a tinge of red to it. “Not ones for short names the Eorhil. I just call him Flame.”
“He’s young,” Vaelin observed, checking the horse’s teeth and noting the absence of grey in the hairs on his snout.
“But smart as a whip and well trained, my lord,” the stable master assured him. He was a broad man in his thirties, Nilsaelin judging by his accent, sporting a patch over his left eye and naming himself only as Borun. He had greeted Vaelin’s early-morning appearance at the stables with brisk affability, absent any of the resentment the Tower Lord was becoming accustomed to.
“He was traded from the Eorhil when still a colt,” Borun said. “Was to be Lord Al Myrna’s next mount. Lady Dahrena thought it fitting he should come to you.”
Vaelin scratched Flame’s nose, receiving a contented snort in response. At least this one won’t bite. “I’ll need a saddle. And a mount for my sister.”
“I’ll see to it, my lord.”
Alornis appeared as the horses were being led into the courtyard, yawning and swaddled in furs. Even in summer the Reaches retained a chill for much of the small hours. “How far is it?” she asked. There was a redness to her eyes that made Vaelin suspect she had partaken of more wine than she should the night before.
“A few hours’ ride, usually,” Dahrena advised, climbing onto her own horse. “But we have a call to make first. I should like to show you one of the mines. If you are agreeable, my lord?”
“Certainly.” He inclined his head at Alornis, then at her horse. She yawned again, muttered something and hauled herself into the saddle with an audible groan.
As well as Orven’s guardsmen, they rode in company with Captain Adal and two of his men, taking the north road into heather-covered hills. The road had a well-maintained surface of hard-packed gravel and proved a busy route; they had to make way for several heavily laden carts along the way.
“When my father first took on the Lordship it was just a narrow dirt track,” Dahrena said when Vaelin commented on the quality of the road. “The stone had to be carried to the dock on packhorses. He used the King’s coin to build the road and the King’s Word to make the merchants pay towards its upkeep.”
They rode together at the head of the column. The mix of rigid neutrality and anger from the previous day seemed to have abated, but he could still sense a guardedness in her demeanour. Probably still worrying over the drunken healer, he thought.
“You don’t intend to stay, do you?” he asked.
She gave him a sidelong glance and he knew she was wondering what his song had told him, although his words came from nothing more than careful observation. “I had thought I might return to the forest,” she said. “For a time.”
“A pity, I should have liked to bestow a title on you.”
She arched an amused eyebrow at him. “Aren’t titles within the gift of the King?”
“And in this land I exercise his Word. How does First Counsel to the North Tower sound?”
She laughed then sobered when she saw his serious intent. “You want me to stay?”
“I’m sure the people of these Reaches would greatly appreciate it. As indeed, would I.”
She rode on his silence for a time, brows drawn in thought. “Ask me again when you’ve seen the mine,” she said, then spurred on ahead.
The mine was a gaping wood-braced maw torn into the side of a squat mountain, around which a number of wooden buildings were clustered. The miners were mostly stocky, pale-skinned men with candles pressed into leather straps worn about their heads. They offered cursory bows to Vaelin and deeper ones to Dahrena, ignoring a barked command from the mine foreman to gather in ranks to properly greet the Tower Lord.
“Insolent hill-born dogs!” he shouted at them, although Vaelin had a sense his anger was a little forced. The foreman was somewhat taller than his charges, with a cleaner face and a thick Renfaelin brogue. “Ye’ll have to forgive them, m’lord,” he said. “Don’t know no better.” He raised his voice. “Been shagging goats and smoking five-leaf their whole lives, the scum!”
“Oh, fuck a rock ape, Ultin,” called a tired voice of unseen origin.
Ultin flushed and bit down on his anger. “My own fault, m’lord. I’m too soft on ’em. Anyhow, welcome to Reaver’s Gulch.”
“Lord Vaelin would like to see the workings,” Dahrena told him.
“Of course, my lady, of course.”
He lit a lamp and led them to the mine entrance. Alornis gave the inky blackness of the shaft a brief glance and promptly announced she would prefer to remain above ground, taking her ever-present parchment and charcoal off to find something interesting to draw. Dahrena and Vaelin followed Ultin along the shaft, the damp walls shining in the lamplight. They passed a pair of miners pushing a wheeled barrow laden with rock to the surface. The descent couldn’t have covered more than two hundred yards but the rising heat and musty air stirred a sense that they were descending to the very bowels of the earth. Vaelin was starting to wish he had followed Alornis’s example by the time they came to a halt.
“Here we are, m’lord.” Ultin lifted his lamp, illuminating a cavernous space where a dozen or so miners were chipping at the walls with picks, others roaming the cavern floor to heave the hewn rock into barrows. “The richest seam in the Reaches. Finest quality stone too. Despite what that liar at Myrna’s Mount might tell you.”
Vaelin moved closer to the wall. He was surprised how clearly the bluestone stood out in the rock, small azure beads shining in the grey stone. “I once owned one as big as my fist,” he murmured. “I used it to hire a ship.”
“And the other matter, Ultin,” Dahrena said. “Lord Vaelin needs to see that too.”
Vaelin turned to find him giving her a questioning glance. She responded with a nod and he led them towards a small side tunnel leading off from the cavern. They followed him along the increasingly narrow passage for a good quarter hour, eventually coming to the end where Ultin’s lamp revealed a sloping length of rock about twenty yards long. At the foreman’s expectant look Vaelin moved closer to the slope, seeing something there besides bare stone, a thick yellowish vein running through it from end to end. He turned to Dahrena with a questioning glance. “Is it . . . ?”
“Gold,” she confirmed. “And Master Ultin assures me, for well he knows such things, it’s of the purest quality.”
“That it is, m’lord.” Ultin ran a hand along the yellow vein. “Grew up working the gold seams in west Renfael, and I’ve never seen so much of it in one place, nor so pure.”
Vaelin squinted at the seam. “Doesn’t look like so much.”
“You misunderstand me, m’lord. When I say one place, I mean the Reaches, not just this mine.”
“There’s more?”
Dahrena touched the foreman on the arm. “Master Ultin, if you could give me a moment with the Tower Lord.”
He nodded, lighting the candle in his head-strap and handing her the lamp before making his way back along the passage.