The Reformer

men go through the rigors of the palaestra? Now it was like his appearance, something he noted with cold objectivity, a tool to be used. And some of them will have heard about the war on the mainland, too.

'You know-or you should, if you're paying any attention to anything besides booze, dice and pussy-that there's war coming. Probably with the Confeds.' Another low murmur. 'I've fought them myself, not too long ago; so have these men with me.' He indicated his own followers with a toss of his head. 'They're tough, yes, but they're not ten feet tall, and they bleed as red as any man when you stick 'em. The King wants this unit ready to fight, and by the Gods, it will be-or we'll all die trying.'

He nodded at the last murmur. No use saying anything more; they'd be waiting to see if he was real, or all mouth.

'For starters, we're going on a little route march. Fall out in campaign order in twenty minutes. Dismissed!'

* * *

'Faugh, this stinks,' Enri Lowisson said.

'Think of it as the smell of money,' Adrian said, chuckling with delight.

The cave was halfway up the side of Gunnung Daberville, the main volcanic peak that loomed over the port of Chalice. From the entrance you could see down past jungle and orchard to the city itself, the bastioned wall, the near-circle of the drowned caldera that made up the harbor, and over miles of sail-speckled water beyond. It was what lay within that interested him, however, down into the depths of the fumarole that twisted like a frozen intestine into the depths of the mountain.

Thirty feet overhead the ceiling of the cavern was not of the same pockmarked gray-green rock as the rest of the cave. It was brown instead, lumpy. . and it moved as the chitterwings nesting there for the day stirred uneasily at the light and heat of the party's torches. A soft pattering left gloppy white stains on the floor, adding to a layer that was probably four feet deep at least. That was the source of the rancid, ammonia- harsh stink that had several of the party breathing through pieces of their tunics.

'The stuff we need, the saltpeter, will be concentrated in the lower levels of this,' he said, kicking at the hard dried surface of the chitterwing dung that covered the ground. 'We'll dig it out, cart it down lower, then leach out the saltpeter in a system of trays and sluices.'

'That will cost,' Enri warned.

He looked backward, and Adrian nodded. The way down was near-as-no-matter roadless; if it had been easier, farmers would have come to dig the dung out for fertilizer, as they had with several caves lower down. The chitterwings went out in huge flocks at night, to feed at sea on tiny phosphorescent fish. At dawn they returned, to sleep, and to breed and nest in season-most of the females had tiny young clinging to their belly fur with miniature claws right now.

'It'll be worth it; there's more here than we'll need in a generation.' He looked downslope as well, and suddenly a tracery of drawings was overlaid on it.

so, Center said. and so.

Adrian started and came back to himself, conscious of the curious stares Enri and his men were giving him.

'There's a way to make it easier,' he said. 'See how this ridge curves away down to the foothills?'

'Building a road?' Enri said. He shook his head. 'I don't think that's practical.'

'No, what we'll do is build a trackway,' Adrian said. The words tumbled over themselves at the series of silent clicks just behind his eyes; suddenly Center's drawing made sense. In fact the principle. . Why haven't we thought of this before? he wondered. It would make so much easier.

The problem was he knew the answer to that. 'Thought was not to be sullied with the base, contemptible concerns of men whose lives were warped away from virtue by cramping labor. .' Which, in effect, means anyone who isn't an absentee landlord; not something that would have come to him before Raj and Center took up residence in the rear of his mind, but it was his own thought.

'We'll lay down two rails of hard wood, spiked to cross-ties,' he said. 'Carts will run down it, on flanged wheels. When they're empty, they can be hauled up easily.'

Enri winced. 'Oh, that will cost. Sawyers, carpenters, the metal for spikes, all that cordage. .'

'No, it'll turn a profit,' Adrian said. 'What we extract will still leave the sludge good for fertilizer, and think of what that fetches in the gardens around the city.'

Enri brightened. 'And, of course, the King will pay. . eventually.'

* * *

'Interesting!' the blacksmith said.

Well, thank the Gray-Eyed Lady for that! Adrian thought to himself. At least I'm not getting 'but such a thing was never done in the days of our fathers' so often here.

The smithy occupied the lower story of a house near the docks, with the quarters of the smith's two wives, his children, the two apprentices and the three slaves to the rear, on the other side of the courtyard. It held a large circular brick hearth built up to about waist height, the bellows behind that, and a variety of anvils. The front entrance could be closed by a grillwork that was now hauled up, a little like a portcullis; the walls held workbenches, racked tools, vises and clamps, and more anvils of different shapes and sizes. It was ferociously hot- the smith wore only a rag-twist loincloth under his leather apron and gloves, and the slave working the bellows less than that. The smells were of hot oil from the quenching bath, burning charcoal, scorched metal, sweat.

'Interesting, the Lame One curse me if it isn't,' the smith said. 'This tube you want, now, it's to be sixty inches long?'

'Sixty inches long, and an inch and a quarter on the inside. I thought you could twist the bar around an iron mandrel, red-hot, and then hammer-weld it.'

'Hmmm.'

The smith went over to a workbench and brought back a sword. It was nearly complete except for the fitting of the hilt and guard; a curved weapon with a flared tip, more than a yard long, the type of slashing-scimitar that the Royal bodyguards carried. Adrian whistled admiration as he peered more closely at the metal; it had the rippled pattern work of a blade made from rods of iron and steel twisted together, heated, hammered, doubled back, hammered again. . and repeated time after time until there were thousands of laminations in the metal.

'Look,' the smith said.

He braced the point of the blade against the floor, placed his foot against it, and heaved. Muscle stood out like cable under the wet brown skin of his massive, ropy arms and broad shoulders. The blade bent nearly double. . and then sprang back with a quivering whine when he released it.

'That's good steel,' Adrian said sincerely; tough and flexible both.

The smith gave him a quizzical look, out of a face that looked as if it had been pounded from rough iron itself, with one of the sledges that stood all around the big room.

'You're not the common run of fine Emerald gentlemen,' he said. 'Never a one of them I've met who thought how a thing was made.'

Adrian smiled. 'I have unusual friends,' he said. 'Can you do what I ask?'

'Oh, certainly: Lame One be my witness. The thing is, friend, it'll take time. Three weeks to make a good sword blade-not counting grinding, polishing, and fitting; I contract those out. I'm not one for fine work with brass and ivory, anyway. . say the same for one of these. . what was the word?'

'Arquebus barrels,' Adrian said helpfully.

'One of these tubes, then. And it'll cost what a good sword blade does, too.'

'If I paid you extra, to take on more labor, could you do more?'

A decisive shake of the head. 'No, sir. Guild rules.' At Adrian's expression he went on: 'But see here, sir, I like gold and silver as much as the next man, and I like to do something new now and then. What I can do is contract out. There are dozens of mastersmiths in the Brotherhood; not many as good as I am, if I do say so myself, but nearly. And there are plenty of journeymen we could hire away from their regular work, and who could do the simpler parts. Say. . thirty in three weeks, with as much again every week after that. It'll go faster once we're used to it.'