Tylywoch 4b

Tylywoch 4b  ~  Gyri – A good week’s work

By mid morning, Weilla was gliding over treacherous, half submerged, moss covered rocks, and wading through fast white waters.   Her body was warmed as much by her exertion as by the mid-morning sun.   Her bare feet had long been numbed by the foaming, snow melt, waters thundering down from the rugged mountain peak; it failed to repress her spirits or impede her progress in any way.   Occasionally she glanced over her shoulder, before ploughing relentlessly onwards, and upwards she was at home in the dizzy heights of the Sabre Tooth mountains.  In contrast the Meyam, and their string of eight mules, puffed and floundered fifty to a hundred yards below.  Even Terrek, who looked to be fitter than the others, was breathing hard, with a lifetime of living at this altitude, Weilla was simply exhilarated.   She rested her arm on a stunted over hanging tree limb, looking down at them bemused, feeling like the empress surveying her empire, laid out below her like patchwork.

 “Come on you Donkeys,” she yelled, at the top of her lungs, bubbling over with irrepressible high spirits.

“We can’t all be mountain goats!” Terrek yelled back, a broad grin on his face.

Gardon scowled whilst Spass simply wheezed, conscious of his mortality.

“We’re almost there now.”   She assured them, before continuing her gallop up the mountain stream bed.

Fifteen minutes later, Gardon and Spass were spread-eagled on their backs, gasping for air, lips blue and faces pale. 

Terrek, hammer in hand, was already tapping loose rocks from a vertical face. 

“We need timbers you two.”  He yelled in Meyam, in order to be heard over the constant roar of a nearby water fall.

“What say you?” Weilla asked in Meyam.

“I was talking to those two, don’t want them to get too comfortable, there’s work to be done,” he said, “I pay them to work not to lie on their backs.”

“I wanted to know what the words mean. ‘Timber’?”

“You want to learn Meyam?”

She nodded “Yes”.  From then on, whenever he spoke he repeated what he’d said, in Cheilinese, for her benefit.  They set-up a permanent camp and completed their sluice.   By the end of the second day they were separating gold and carbon from the sludge – neither being soluble in water.  The gold, being heavier sank.  The carbon could then be floated off and captured in a sieve of fine muslin then laid out in the sun to dry.  They pulverised the rock with picks and hammers, whilst Weilla shovelled the dust onto the aqueduct, carrying water redirected from the waterfall.   She laid out and washed the muslin sieves, helped Terrek bag the fine powder.  She discovered a means of picking out the small particles of metallic gold from the sluice bed, with twigs from a nearby tree, the resinous gum exuding twigs captured the metal on contact, building up a golden shell that could be easily snapped off to reveal fresh sap.  The others were not slow in copying her.

 On the third day, Terrek gave Weilla a letter of authority, addressed to the Inn-keep, instructing him to release fresh mules to her charge and add her expenses to his account.  They loaded the mules with sacks of carbon and she set off down stream, just after the mid-day meal.   Within half an hour she spotted the lightning blaze sign on the ground next to a mountain ash, tying the mules nearby, she followed the trail to rendezvous with Galyx and her fellow quad members.

She passed on all the information she’d gleaned.   Galyx informed her that Fire quad were observing the camp in her absence.   

“This note also requests the Inn-keep to hire an additional helper to return with you.   Touching, he is concerned with your welfare, take Mynach with you, he can learn mule husbandry, and you can teach him the new words you have learned.   Tell the Inn-keep Mynach is to assist you, on the return trip, to save depleting his staff.

  Early next morning, they began the return trip.   They stoped briefly to check in with Galyx, and pass on a note from the inn-keep, they tackled the final few miles to the camp, and a nourishing hot meal, they finished day five filling sacks.

.-…-.

Weilla and Mynach made two further trips down the mountain, before Terrek decided they had enough.

  “It’s time I returned to my forge,” he said but Gardon and Spass declared they were staying, and no manner of inducement would sway them.  

Terrek was annoyed.   “You were paid for the return trip, now I will have to hire more help to get my cargo home.”   Carbon was a worthless commodity, to all but himself, its value becoming evident only after he’d turned his steel into blades.   Only then could he realise a return on his considerable outlay; by selling his product at a premium.

“How will I get it all home when I only have sufficient funds to settle the reckoning at the Inn,” He railed.

Mynach smiled, ”I have friends who would help you, and not require immediate payment.”

“How far away are they?” Terrek’s asked immediate.

“I should be back in a day,” Mynach replied.   “You will need to negotiate payment with my brother, who you met at the Inn?”

“Ah!   The man with no name,” he said with a grin, “so be it!   Go find your friends, we’ll wait.”

Mynach returned with Galyx, Soren and Hildi.

“They seem a little puny to me, can they do a days work?” Terrek asked.

 Hildi answered him by lifting a full sack above her head and depositing it on the back of the nearest mule.

“Ok, so what about payment?”

“We work on a quid pro quo basis” Galyx explained.   “We do something for you and you do something for us in return; Gyri.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” said Torrek  “let’s get on…”

“Aren’t you concerned that you don’t know what we might want from you?” Galyx asked.

“Would you ask for some exorbitant sum or make unreasonable demands?”

“No.” Galyx replied.

“Then let’s get to work,” said Terrek. 

.-…-.

Gardon and Spass were not around when they left, at midday, and neither was the gold.   The return journey was easier than the climb so they were back at the Inn before sunset quaffing ale in the common room; sampling, with their olfactory senses, the fine aromatic meal being prepared by Mistress Karpe.  

Terrek sat back nonchalantly.   Turning to Galyx he asked “Have you decided yet what your preferred means of payment will be?”

“Yes, we would like you to teach our local blacksmith how to make that fine steel you boast of…”

“What?” he said incredulously choking on his ale.   “That’s impossible!”

“How so?” said Galyx mildly, “I thought we had a deal?”

“No you don’t understand.   What does he produce?   Horse shoes, plough shears, tools, hardware, furniture?   A sword-smith’s apprentice will spend ten years learning his craft.   He will do little more than observe and make notes for the first five years.   The preferred starting age would be ten; how old is your smith?”

Galyx turned, and looked askance at the Inn-keep.

“HURRUMPH, Grazzek is umm, about my age, forty?”

“And the rest laughed Terrek, he’s fifty if he’s a day, I have spoken with him, he would be dead before he finished training, and who will tend his forge whilst he’s gone?”

“We thought you might be able to teach him here before you go?” said the Inn-keep hopefully.  

Terrek and Galyx both laughed uncontrollably.  

 “Is there no, good for nothing, ten year old you could spare for a few years?"  Galyx asked.  

“Some lazybones who isn’t worth his keep?” the inn-keep replied looking towards the fire with a twinkle in his eye, gazing at the ever present boy apparently asleep, but listening in on their conversation.   “Jax!” he yelled, the boy jumped to his feet.   “Come here boy, you’re to be apprenticed to a sword-smith.”

Terrek viewed the soot smeared boy, “your face is black,” he said with a smile that broadened, when the boys attempted to rub it off, with his cuff, and succeeding only in making it worse.   “Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of that working for me,” he tousled the boys’ hair playfully.

“You’ll take him?” asked the inn-keep hopefully, surprise and joy mingling on his features.

“Aye, he’ll do if he’s half as intelligent as he looks.”   He turned to Galyx with a quizzical look, “this was your plan all along, so why are you doing it for them?”

 “Gyri!   We owe them for past services; he requested that we help his stepson to learn a trade.   When I learned of your need it seemed an appropriate time to repay the debt.

“Ten years is a long time to be apart from loved ones,” said Terrek.

“The Inn-keep thinks Jax is worthy of the opportunity, he does a man’s job, and never shirks his duties; I’d say he’s earned it” said Galyx.   “How long will this black powder last you?”

“A year, a year and a half,” Terrek replied.

“There will be a similar quantity awaiting collection in twelve months, and there-after, in return for its worth in good honest workmanlike blades if your of a mind.

Terrek looked into Galyx’s eyes and knew that he spoke true.   “Accepted,” said Terrek.

“A done deal,” said Galyx, and they shook on it.

Galyx Smiled.   In one transaction, he’d secured a supply of top quality weapons, and a means of payment.   The gold accumulated by Terreks’ helpers, would pay local labour to mine process and transport the carbon.   Even as they were speaking, Fire and Flood were preparing to mine the next shipment.   The Inn-keep would warehouse it for collection later when Jax returned with up to twenty good serviceable blades.

‘A good week’s work,’ Galyx thought, smiling again.

I'll finish this story in a dedicated blog (if your interested) it's :~

http://tylywochlm.blogspot.com‎

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