Out of the Darkness

“Good.” The instructor smiled. “I told him I thought you were diligent. I see I am right. His name is Valamo. His shop is near the center of town, not far from the hostel called the Principality. Here-let me draw you a map.” She did, quickly and competently. “Where are you staying now?” she asked. When Talsu told her, she nodded. “I thought you dwelt in that district. There is a ley-line route that will take you close to the shop. Valamo says he would like you to be there by an hour after sunrise.”

This far south, the sun rose very early in the summertime: one more thing Talsu was getting used to. Even so, he nodded. “I will.”

And he did, though he missed the caravan stop closest to the tailor’s shop and had to get out at the next one and then go running back up the street. People stared at him. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to be late, not on his first day.

“Greetings. You must be Talsu,” Valamo said in classical Kaunian when he came in out of breath and sweaty. The tailor wasn’t young. Past that, Talsu had trouble guessing. Kuusamans seemed to show their years less than his own countrymen did.

“Aye, sir,” Talsu answered in the same tongue. “Thank you for taking me in. I shall work hard for you. I promise it.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.” Despite a Kuusaman accent, Valamo was more fluent in the old language than Talsu was himself. Talsu found that distressing, as he had with other Kuusamans who knew more classical Kaunian than he did. Valamo said, “Come here behind the counter, and I will show you what wants doing.”

The first jobs he gave Talsu were simple repairs. Talsu handled some of them with no more than needle and thread, others with the craft tricks that were sorcery but hardly seemed like it. Before long, he was done. “Here you are,” he told Valamo.

“Thank you.” His new boss was polite enough, but inspected the work with a knowing eye before nodding. “Good. You have some notion of what you are doing. One can never tell beforehand, you understand. I speak without intending to cause offense.”

“Of course,” Talsu said. “What else have you for me to do?”

“I have the pieces of an outfit here,” Valamo said. “Join them together, if you would be so kind.”

“Of course,” Talsu said again. He examined the pieces, got needle and thread to sew small parts of them together, and then used the sorcery an Algarvian mage had taught his father to finish the joining. All told, it took about an hour. He brought Valamo the finished garment.

This time, the Kuusaman tailor gave him a very odd look. “How did you get done so fast?” he asked. “Did you use one of those basting spells that will not last?”

“No,” Talsu answered. “Judge for yourself.”

Valamo poked and prodded at the tunic and leggings. He examined the stitchery, not only with his bare eyes but with a jeweler’s loupe and with spells. At last, he said, “This looks to be good work. But how did you do it so well so quickly?”

Talsu explained, finishing, “I shall be glad to teach you the charm.”

“You have earned your pay, by the powers above,” Valamo exclaimed. “You have more than earned it. Please do teach me that spell. Before long, I am sure you will use it in a place of your own.”

“A place of my own,” Talsu echoed dreamily. Could he ever find such a thing in this foreign land? Slowly, he nodded to himself. Maybe I can.

Ealstan looked at his father. “Aye, of course I’ll help you with this business,” he said. “I have my doubts you really need any help from me, though.”

“Well, that depends,” Hestan answered. “Two can often do a job quicker than one. I suppose I could manage it myself, but I know for a fact it would take me longer. And the town officials have said they’d pay for an assistant. I’m hoping you recall that nine comes after eight and not the other way round.”

“I still have some notion of how to cast accounts,” Ealstan agreed. “I made a living at it in Eoforwic. You taught me well, Father-I knew more than most of the men who’d been bookkeepers for years.”

That teased out one of his father’s rare, slow smiles. “You make me proud of myself,” Hestan said, “and that’s a dangerous thing in any man.”

“Why is being proud of what you’re good at dangerous?” Ealstan asked. “Most ways, Eoforwic makes Gromheort look like a provincial town, and-”

“It is,” his father broke in.

“But you would have made any of the bookkeepers there ashamed to call himself by the name,” Ealstan went on, as if the older man hadn’t spoken. “You could have gone there and got rich, Father. It makes me wonder why you stayed here.”

“Don’t forget, up till about the time I was your age, Gromheort was in Algarve and Eoforwic was in Unkerlant,” Hestan replied. “Forthweg didn’t get its freedom back till after the Six Years’ War. And then, not much later, I married your mother and settled down. And I never truly wanted to be what you’d call rich. Enough is enough. Too much?” He made a face. “If you go after money for the sake of money instead of for the sake of being comfortable, it has you-you don’t have it any more.”