Chapter 3

Corec was one of the last to arrive in the great hall for the midday meal.

“Where’s Bobo?” he asked. “I thought he was supposed to cook today.” Everyone had been taking turns as cook since the group returned from Cordaea.

Treya rolled her eyes. “He found something in the old records that he insisted was too important to wait, so he asked me to take his place.” She handed over a bowl.

“Fish stew? We have fish?”

“Leena brought back some lake trout from Four Roads this morning.”

“I don’t like fish!” Ditte exclaimed, pushing her bowl away.

“You liked it just fine before you knew what it was,” Katrin said.

The little girl crossed her arms and shook her head.

Katrin sighed. “Will you eat it if we take out the fish?” She gave Corec a pointed look.

He got the message. He and Treya had taken on the responsibility for the children, then left them alone with Katrin for over a month.

“Here, Ditte,” he said. “Sit with me. I’ll eat your fish.” He scooped enough out of the bowl that the girl would start eating again.

Bobo rushed in then, a sheaf of papers clutched in his arms and a wide grin on his face. “Guess what I found?” he asked.

“A work ethic?” Corec said.

“Very amusing, but you’ll like this.” He laid the papers out on the table. Some were roughly drawn maps of the area while others were full of notes in cramped handwriting.

Ellerie looked over one of the pages. “What is it?” she asked. “Numbers ... numbers by the week? Cartloads?”

“Two coal mines, about twenty miles west of here. They’d only been open for a year when the dragon came, but the miners estimated that the seams run for miles. We should do something before someone remembers they’re there.”

“What were they doing with the coal?” Corec asked.

“Selling it to the caravans that came through,” Bobo said.

Corec nodded. “We’ll have to hire miners, I guess.”

Their decision to stay at the fortress seemed to get more complicated every day. Bobo was right—they couldn’t leave the mines unclaimed—but it was an added complication. The plan depended on being able to evacuate any non-combatants if Rusol’s armies invaded the area, and the mines were far enough away to make that difficult.

“It’ll give us something to export,” Ellerie said. “The numbers aren’t big, but it’s enough for twenty freight wagons each month. We could let Varsin Senshall handle it.”

“We should keep some for ourselves, too, so we don’t need as much firewood,” Bobo said.

Corec frowned. “You want to use it indoors?” he asked. “I don’t know about that.”

“This is hard coal,” Bobo said. “There isn’t much smoke. It’s not like the kind they use for smelting iron or burning lime. We’d have to get some of those new coal stoves, but it’d still be cheaper than the amount of firewood we’d need for this place over the winter.”

“If you think it’s better, we can try it.”

“They sell the stoves in Matagor,” Bobo said. “I’ll write to a friend there to try to arrange something.” He slid another sheet of paper over to Ellerie. “There’s also this, an old copper mine to the south. The notes say they think it was just about played out, but it was still producing when the area was abandoned.”

“We’ll need miners for that, too,” Corec said. “I don’t know where we’ll find that many.”

Ellerie said, “There are plenty of young men looking for work. We just need an overseer to train them—someone who knows how to run a mine.”

“Mother Yewen can probably find someone who’ll know what we need,” Treya said. “Or Mother Vera down in South Corner.”

“We should talk to them first before we hire anyone else,” Ellerie said. “I don’t know anything about mining, and we can’t afford to be paying people to sit around doing nothing. Money will be tight until we have traders coming through.”

Corec nodded. “When Nedley’s back, we can send him out to post notices on the mines. It won’t keep anyone out if they’re determined, but at least it’ll warn them we’re making a claim. His squad can start establishing patrol routes to make sure there isn’t any trouble.”

“I thought we’d have both squads helping to clear the roads,” Ellerie said. “That has to be our first priority.”

“No, our first priority is making sure we can defend this place from Rusol. How long will it take to repair the walls? I’d rather have the workers do that before we start on the roads.”

Ellerie frowned. “I promised Duke Lorvis we’d ... Never mind. Let me think.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’ll need help hauling the fallen stone back up on the wall, but we can’t do that until the carpenters build the frames. It’s like using a mould for metal-shaping—it’s easier if there’s something holding it all in place so I can focus on the smaller details.”

“How many men will you need for that?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to use ramps and ropes to get the larger blocks back up on the wall. It’ll take a while.”

Bobo held up a finger, looking thoughtful. “Did you ever see the windlass cranes Senshall uses to load their larger ships? There are plans for one in the library in Matagor. If the carpenters build one of those first, it’ll be easier and faster to lift the pieces up to where you need them.”

“That would work,” Ellerie said. “The carpenters could handle that on their own, maybe with some help from Nedley’s squad when they aren’t out patrolling. That would leave the second squad free to work on the roads.”

“All right,” Corec said, “but leave the Larso road alone until we’re ready. No sense in giving Rusol an easy way to reach us.”

“We’ll start with the Matagor branch.” She turned back to Bobo. “Any more surprises?”

He gave her a self-satisfied smile. “As a matter of fact, yes. There’s an old sawmill just two miles east of here—or there was, at least. I haven’t gone out to look.”

That would mean even more people they would need to hire, but if the sawmill was still there and still operational, it would be faster than hauling cut lumber from Four Roads. And if it was to the east, it would be away from any potential attacks by Rusol’s forces.

Before Corec could respond, Leena appeared from out of nowhere. She blinked and looked around as she got her bearings.

She greeted everyone, then said, “I went to check on Boktar and the others since I’ll be gone for a while. They’re two days out from Four Roads. They’re escorting some of the refugees home along the way.”

“Was he able to hire everyone we need?” Corec asked.

“The road crew and the carpenters, but not all of the servants. He said your friend—Mama Wenna?—was able to find a cook for us, but she didn’t know of any housekeepers looking for a job.”

“We might have to look in Tyrsall for that,” Corec said. “There aren’t too many people around here with the right experience. What about the others?”

“Boktar says he hired two sisters as maids, and one of the soldier’s mothers will cook for the barracks, but he only found one woodcutter willing to make the trip and he hasn’t found any kitchen maids yet.”

“Maybe the other men have family looking for jobs,” Corec said.

Ellerie nodded. “And once the roads are clear and caravans are coming through, it’ll be easier to find workers willing to come here.”

“What was this place called, anyway?” Corec asked. “We can’t just keep calling it the old keep.”

“The Free Lands Trade Keep of Matagor,” Bobo said, “which is why no one ever used the name even before it was abandoned. The village was called Hilltop.”

“Hilltop Village is fine. I guess we’ll need to come up with a new name for the keep.”

Leena woke before dawn, kissing Ellerie’s forehead and slipping from the blankets they’d laid out in front of the fireplace. The room had a wooden bedframe, finally cleaned up and even polished, but it was still waiting for Boktar to return with straw, wool, and canvas to make new mattresses.

As the group had cleaned the keep, they’d had to throw out much of what had been left behind when Matagor abandoned it—not just the mattresses but also clothing, bedding, rugs, and woven wall hangings. After five decades with no fires being lit in the place, the dampness had gotten into everything. While Leena had been busy in Sanvar or running errands for her friends, Ellerie and the others had spent their time scrubbing away mold and mildew and getting rid of the musty smell which pervaded every room.

They’d cleaned the residential apartments first—six on the second floor and six more on the third, all set in the front half of the building so they could have small windows with a view of the bailey. Leena and Ellerie’s suite was on the third floor, overlooking the stables. The apartments were simple, consisting of just a sitting room and bedchamber. They hadn’t been designed for noble lords and ladies, but instead for the administrators, clerks, and military officers Matagor had stationed in this distant location.

Leena went out to the sitting room to get dressed, trying not to wake Ellerie, but the elven woman joined her before she finished.

“You’re leaving in the dark again?” Ellerie asked, her face illuminated by the mage light they’d left out overnight.

“The sun’s already up in Sanvara City,” Leena told her.