“I’m not some silly AI from those books you read. Verden is a real world. If you want to learn the languages, you will have to do it the old-fashioned way. But from what I saw of your memories, you have something of a gift for that.”
Kyle couldn’t be bothered to focus on what she was saying any longer. He was too busy reading the body language of the foreman. It was obvious the man was angry. Beneath that was fear. But there was more there. Jay could see the sparkle of greed in his eyes. It was always like that when he was negotiating contracts. Except he was used to having an agent help him through those.
That made him laugh, which apparently was not the reaction the foreman had been expecting. It looked like Ild’engel was going to be his agent here. He just needed to make sure that he was valuable to them.
The foreman was yelling at him and his inner voice was translating for him. Apparently, he was angry because now he was going to have to pay the families of the men who’d been killed or crippled. Kyle definitely got the impression that the foreman, whose name was Dannor, didn’t care one whit about the lives of any of his workers. That was a good thing to keep in mind.
On the other hand, the foreman kept demanding to know how Kyle had done what he did. He repeated what Ild’engel whispered into his mind, trusting her because there really wasn’t anything else to do. Thinking of her as his agent made him feel a bit better about it. He’d often had to do what an agent recommended, though he’d certainly never trusted any of those snakes.
They were attorneys. Everyone knew you couldn’t trust an attorney.
As Dannor calmed down, he sent some men to go around and measure the rock that had been knocked down. Then he appeared to be doing calculations on what passed for a clipboard. Before yelling at another man who went running. Ild’engel translated for him.
The gist of it was that he was going to be paid for the amount of limestone he had broken. Apparently, a laborer was normally paid five copper per day. The translation included the idea that this was about the equivalent of $50. No wonder Lucas and Freja lived in a dump, if that was all he could earn.
It was then explained that pay was based upon productivity. The lowest job was the rock haulers, the next lowest the rock breaker, and finally then there were the ones who handled the animals. They had calculated that he had broken down the equivalent of four years of limestone, after the costs of paying the families of the men he had injured or killed.
Kyle felt bad about that, but also knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He hadn’t intended it. A teammate of his had once hit a fly ball that cracked the skull of a kid. The guy hadn’t been able to put it behind him, and it ended up ruining his career. So, it might be callous, but Kyle didn’t believe in accepting blame for things he hadn’t intended. Yes, results mattered, and he would make amends if he could, but he had no time for feeling bad about this.
“You know he is robbing you. There is no way that a mortal worker could have done that much work in ten years, let alone four,” Ild’engel said.
“That’s fine, but how many days are there in a year here?”
“Three hundred and fifty. Thirty-five weeks. Nine days of work each week, and the mines work all nine of those days. The first day of each week is set aside as a holy day for the various worshippers of the gods, although just as often people spend it at the coliseum,” she replied.
About that time, the man who Darron had sent running off came back with a hand cart. In it were what appeared to be three bags of coin. Two much larger and one smaller one. All were made of leather with drawstrings. Kyle learned that he was being paid the equivalent of $63,000 in the form of three hundred copper and two hundred silver in the larger two bags and forty gold in the final bag.
Darron seemed to think that he was being generous, and before he handed the money over extracted a promise from Kyle through the words of Ild’engel that he would return the next day. Greed just oozed off of the man, and Kyle assumed it was because he was seeing dollar signs behind having a worker who could produce so much in one day.
Kyle asked Ild’engel, “So how do I say that this is worth ten years wages, not four?”
“Oh good, so you don’t want to let this mortal worm rob you?” she asked back.
“We likely won’t get ten years’ worth, but never, ever take the first offer. My first agent told me that. Good rule to live by.”
“Ah, I understand. Very well.”
Kyle then began to haggle with Darron using Ild’engel as a translator. He just tried to play off the time that he was waiting for a translation as though he was lost in thought. The more he paid attention to Darron, though, the more he realized that the man wasn’t very worried about the negotiation. In the end, he agreed to pay him another four years wages as long as he would show up the next day. It was suspicious, but since he needed money to start his life here, Kyle decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He and the rest of the one hundred and forty-two rock breakers who could leave under their own power were told to leave and return the next day. They grumbled at first about not getting a full day’s pay, but Kyle was proud of himself for
