Chương 116: Chapter 113 - Royal Request

The copper looked impressive until one knew what it was for. At first glance, the sheets stacked along the wall of Stromni's forge suggested progress. They caught the light in warm bands, duller where they had already been worked, brighter at the edges where the metal still remembered being clean.

Some had been hammered flat again after transport, others leaned against a trestle marked with charcoal lines, and two larger plates lay across the main bench beneath a scattering of tools that seemed to have been placed with no order at all. Stromni stood near the far side of the bench, sleeves rolled, beard tied back, one hand resting on the edge of a plate while the other held a short marking punch.

He had not looked happy when Alric arrived, but Stromni rarely looked happy in a way that could be distinguished from readiness to argue, so Alric had waited for the metal to explain. It did not take long.

"This is not enough," Alric said. Stromni grunted. Alric walked closer, careful to avoid stepping on anything that looked both sharp and expensive.

"How not enough?" Stromni set the punch down and gave him a look.

"Right," Alric said.

"That bad."

"Aye." The forge was warm, though the main hearth had been banked low. Most of the heat came from work already done, from plates that had been annealed, hammered, checked, and moved aside, from the lingering smell of coal and metal and oil, and from the sense that several large things had been forced to change shape here recently and had not enjoyed it. Copper scraps lay in one crate, too small to be useful for plates and too valuable to discard.

A second crate held rivet stock, neat bundles of short lengths that Stromni had clearly counted more than once. Alric looked at the larger plates again. They were beautiful, in the way unfinished things could be beautiful when they had passed from raw material into something workable. The curve hammered into one of them was shallow but visible, the beginning of a belly that would one day belong to the still. It should have reassured him. It did not.

"How much do we have?" he asked.

"Enough ta start," Stromni said.

"That is not a number."

"No," Stromni agreed, picking up the punch again.

"It's a mercy." Alric rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Stromni waited just long enough to let that land, then went back to marking a line along the edge of the plate.

"I bought what I could. Everything the artisans had loose. Everything the merchants were willin ta part with without askin questions they knew they didn't want answers to."

"And then?"

"And then they started askin questions." The punch tapped once against the copper. Not hard. Just enough to leave a mark. Alric glanced toward the stacked sheets again.

"What kind?"

"The kind that come before no." Stromni dragged the punch along the line by half a finger width, checked it, then nodded to himself.

"Where's it going, who's payin, is it for roofin. Is there a guild order, Is there a noble name behind it." Alric folded his arms. He had expected copper to be expensive. The still would require more than the neat drawings suggested, because drawings were liars by profession and tools only became honest once they had weight. He had expected Stromni to complain, possibly for sport. What he had not expected was the way the problem felt less like buying metal and more like asking permission.

"How much did prices go up?" he asked. Stromni snorted.

"Depends who's lyin."

"That much?"

"The first man said copper's tight. Second said barges are late. Third said the road from Trade Town's bad. Fourth said everyone's suddenly building roofs."

"Everyone?"

"Aye. Whole city woke up and realised rain exists, apparently." Alric looked at him. Stromni's mouth twitched, but only briefly.

"Prices are up a fifth in some places. A third if they think I'm desperate."

"Are we?"

"Aye," Stromni said.

"But I'm not payin like it." He moved away from the plate and crossed to another bench where several small samples had been laid out. Alric followed, already disliking them. None matched properly. One was too red, another too pale, another carried a faint greyish cast along the cut edge.

"They offered these," Stromni said. Alric leaned closer.

"Copper?"

"That's what they called it."

"That is not the same as copper?"

"No." Stromni picked up the first piece and held it between two thick fingers.

"Recovered. Melted down from old fittings, roof scrap, kitchen bits, whatever else some fool threw in the pot. Might be fine for a gutter. Might be fine for a hinge if ya don't like the door." He dropped it back onto the bench with a small, final sound. The second piece followed.

"This one's got somethin in it. They said strengthening. Wouldn't say what."

"That sounds bad."

"That sounds like a man sellin trouble by weight." The third piece he did not pick up at all. He only tapped it.

"That one's worse." Alric looked at it.

"How can you tell?"

"I can smell it."

"You can smell bad copper?" Stromni gave him a flat look.

"No, lad. I can smell a merchant hoping I don't ask." Stromni picked up the marked plate again, turning it to catch the light.

"Copper ain't just copper, not for this. Roof can leak and ya swear at it. A pot can warp and ya hammer it back. A still splits, ya get hot wash, fire, and men too close ta all of it." Alric's eyes moved to the plate.

"No bad copper," he said.

"No bad copper," Stromni agreed.

"No clever bits. No old roofin unless I know where it's been, what's in it, and who's swearin to it."

"And if no one wants to swear?"

"Everyone wants ta swear. No one wants ta be responsible." Alric walked back toward the larger plates, studying them with a slower eye now. He had been imagining the still as one thing. A great copper body with a neck and arm and coils, huge and difficult but singular. Standing near the worked sheets made that seem childish. It would not be one thing. It would be many things forced to like each other. Plates shaped separately. Edges made to meet. Holes punched. Rivets driven. Seams sealed.

Heat invited in and then told very firmly where it was allowed to go. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The copper stacked along the wall was no longer impressive. It was a beginning pretending to be an answer.

"You said there were other demands?" Alric asked. Stromni's expression changed in the smallest possible way.

"Aye."

"Who?"

"Don't know."

"Stromni." The dwarf scratched at his beard, eyes narrowing toward the forge door as if the answer might be listening from outside.

"Official works," he said eventually.

"That's the word. Road repairs. One merchant said barracks roofs. Another said wagon braces. Another didn't say military, which means military." Alric let out a slow breath.

"We can't challenge any of that." Stromni looked at him for a long moment.

"No," Alric said, answering himself.

"No," Stromni agreed.

"Ya don't outbid the king's walls and expect no one ta notice. Not with copper."

"I'm not trying to build weapons." Alric said with a sigh glancing at the plates.

"Nobody asked if ya were." Stromni said following his gaze.

"It seems relevant." Alric said looking at Stromni again and tilting his head.

"It's relevant if the man askin trusts ya." Stromni picked up the punch again, then set it down without using it.

"When I buy enough copper for kettles, I'm a smith. When I buy enough for this thing, I'm stockpilin." Alric did not answer. Outside, somewhere beyond the forge wall, a wagon passed slowly enough that the wheels clunked at each stone. The sound dragged through the pause and faded. Stromni leaned one hip against the bench.

"Small orders respect reputation. Large orders ask who owns ya." Alric clicked his tongue at that. He looked down at his hands, at the faint stain of charcoal still caught along one finger from the last time he had been drawing plans. He had spent the morning thinking in lines. Cooling water, drainage, heat stones, access, the new house Seren was still arranging, the old inn that was no longer going to be an inn. Every problem had a physical answer if looked at long enough. Copper did not.

Not this copper and not at this amount. At small scale, copper was a material. Useful, workable, expensive, but still a thing a craftsman bought and shaped. At this scale, it had begun to gather people around it. Merchants, guilds, city works, official orders, military needs no one named aloud. It had crossed some invisible line, and on the other side of that line the metal stopped being metal and became capacity. Grain had done the same. A sack of grain fed a family. A wagon fed a tavern.

Twelve wagons became taxes, soldiers, storage, gates, and reports thick enough to ruin a king's morning. Copper, apparently, had been waiting its turn. Alric closed his eyes briefly.

"I hate this."

"Aye," Stromni said.

"Good."

"How is that good?" Alric kept his eyes closed as he rubbed them.

"Means ya see it." Stromni said with a small grin. Alric opened his eyes again and looked at the plates.

"So what do we do?"

"I keep buyin." Stromni moved back to the bench.

"Quiet where I can. Loud where I must. Moreen is gettin me ore without ta many questions. He reckons ya just buildin more big pots. We just build as we can."

"Not quick though." Alric said with a frown.

"Aye." Stromni picked up the punch and placed it carefully against the copper.

"But I can start. Plates first. Rivet stock. Tooling. I'll shape what I have and know better what I need after. No point waitin for all of it unless ya want me ta die of boredom." Alric looked toward the line marked on the plate.

"You have already started."

"Aye."

"Without knowing if we can get enough?" Stromni struck the punch once. A clean mark appeared.

"If we wait until every part is safe, lad, we'll never build anythin worth the trouble." He shifted, then remembered the wand at his belt. It had been pressing against his side since he arrived, forgotten beneath the copper problem and the smell of the forge. The fire wand was wrapped in cloth, partly to protect it and partly because Alric had not yet decided how he felt about casually carrying something that could make a dragon's opinion about heat available indoors.

"I did bring something," he said. Stromni did not look up.

"Aye?"

"It might help." Alric untied the cloth and set the wand on the bench. Stromni stopped. He looked at it. Then at Alric. Then back at it.

"No."

"You don't even know what it is."

"It's a wand."

"Yes."

"So no." Alric frowned.

"It makes a steady flame."

"Well done."

"A focused flame."

"Still no."

"It might help join the plates." Stromni stared at him for a long moment, expression emptying into something almost serene. Then he said, with the care of a master craftsman choosing not to throw the nearest hammer, "Lad. Ya are an idiot."

"It gets very hot though."

"So's a house fire. I don't build kettles with one." Alric looked down at the wand.

"It worked at the magery. I can show you?"

"I'm sure it did. Did the magery ask it ta join copper that'll be heated, cooled, strained, cleaned, run, repaired, and cursed at by men who still want their eyebrows after?" He held out a hand for the wand. Stromni took the wand between thumb and forefinger, holding it as one might hold a decorative spoon presented as a solution to famine. He turned it once, examining the stone set into the handle.

"Good tool, maybe," he admitted.

"Wrong thought." Alric folded his arms.

"Explain." Stromni set the wand down and dragged one of the smaller plates toward them. He took another scrap, overlapped the edge, and pressed them together with his palm.

"Copper ain't iron," he said.

"It doesn't behave like you want just because you found hotter fire. These plates get shaped. Edges worked. Overlapped here. Rivets through. Tight, but not so tight you tear it. Then seams cleaned and soldered where they need it." Stromni took a deep breath before continuing.

"Tin. Proper. Carefully. Too much heat and you make more trouble than you solve. Too little and it won't take. Bad fit and solder's just expensive hope." He reached beneath the bench and pulled out a half-finished tool Alric had not noticed. It looked like a heavy jaw on a handle, with one side still rough and a narrow guide channel worked into the head.

"What is that?"

"Rivet tool."

"You're making a tool to make the tool?"

"Aye." Alric stared at it. Stromni's eyes narrowed.

"That surprises ya?"

"No," Alric said.

"That's clever thinking is all." Stromni set the tool beside the copper.

"Normal rivet set won't do for some of these joins. Too awkward. Too much curve. I need the head clean, same pressure each time, or we'll chase leaks until one of us dies old beside a puddle." Alric picked up the wand again, unable to keep the disappointment from his face. The thing had seemed so promising at the magery. A clean flame. Immediate heat. A problem solved by being made hotter and more controllable.

He had been looking forward to presenting it, perhaps not triumphantly, but with the quiet confidence of a man who had brought a useful modern idea to a forge.

"So the wand is useless?"

"Didn't say that." Stromni reached for the plate again.

"Might help with small work. Heatin a spot. Freein a join. Maybe solder in tight places if ya learn not ta cook the thing like stew. But it won't build the still for us." Alric wrapped it again with more force than necessary, then put it in his item box. Stromni watched him, visibly enjoying just enough of this to be irritating. Alric had only just returned to the inn when the knock came. He had made it as far as the common room, which had not been common for some time and was becoming less room by the hour.

Barrels occupied the walls, the corners, and several places that had once been useful for walking. A chair near the hearth had disappeared beneath a folded cloth and two ledgers, which suggested Seren had either been working there or had claimed it by administrative conquest. The knock came again. Alric looked at the door. For one brief moment, he considered not answering it. The inn had become complicated enough that ignoring a door felt less like rudeness and more like self-defence.

Then the knock came a third time. He sighed, wiped his hands against his coat, which did very little for either his hands or the coat, and opened the door. The Voice of the King stood outside. Alric knew him before his mind had quite finished arranging the evidence. No one else dressed like that unless they carried royal authority or had suffered a serious misunderstanding with a tailor and balloons.

The man was not wearing the full trumpet-and-street-theatre arrangement from the previous summons, but even reduced, he looked formal enough to make the inn's doorway seem underprepared. Behind him waited a royal carriage, dark lacquered and quiet in a way that only expensive things could manage. Two guards stood beside it. The driver sat very straight.

There were no trumpeters this time, though several people in the street had discovered sudden reasons to linger near walls, carts, and entirely uninteresting patches of air. The Voice smiled. It was wide, careful, and pleasant in a way that suggested it had been practised against mirrors and weaker men.

"Master Alric," he said. Alric blinked once, then remembered himself and began to bow.

"That will not be necessary," the Voice said smoothly. Alric stopped halfway, which left him in a position that was neither respectful nor upright and therefore achieved very little for everyone involved. The Voice behaved as though nothing unusual had happened. That was probably part of his training.

"Please accept this on behalf of His Majesty." He held out a rolled scroll sealed in dark wax. The royal mark sat pressed into it cleanly enough that Alric found himself staring at the seal before taking the thing. It was heavier than it looked.

"Thank you," he said. The Voice's smile deepened by the smallest degree.

"His Majesty looks forward to your attendance." Alric's grip tightened on the scroll.

"Attendance?" The Voice bowed.

"All details are within." Then he stepped back. The kings voice withdrew with the exact pace of a man removing himself from a room where someone else had been handed a lit fuse and etiquette forbade comment. He reached the carriage, climbed in with practised grace, and the door closed behind him. The driver snapped the reins. The carriage began to move. Alric remained in the doorway, scroll in hand, watching it go. Alric had only just returned to the inn when the knock came, that felt unfair.

By the time the carriage turned the corner, the street had begun pretending it had not been watching. A woman adjusted a basket that had not needed adjusting. A man inspected a wall as though masonry had suddenly become urgent. Someone further down the road resumed walking with the careful pace of a person who had absolutely not stopped to listen. Alric looked down at the scroll. The first summons had involved trumpets, public announcement, and a man dressed as though fabric itself had received a minor title.

This one had come quietly. Somehow, that felt more alarming. He closed the door behind him and had taken perhaps three steps into the common room when Seren entered from the stairs carrying a small stack of papers. She stopped. Her gaze moved from his face, to the scroll, to the seal. She didn't even need to say anything, she just held out her hand. Alric handed it over with a sigh. Seren inspected the seal first, then opened it with the sort of care that suggested tearing royal paper might create extra work.

Her eyes moved down the page once. Then again. The second reading was slower, which Alric had learned was rarely an improvement.

"Well?" he asked. Seren lowered the scroll.

"We have very little time."

"How little?"

"Two weeks."