Page 4 of Valdemar

“East to Inglenook Hall, then onward,” Kordas replied. “We haven’t seen the Young Squire in far too long.”

They rode along the windowless side of the wall until they came to the road going eastward. A proper road, this was, and all thanks to Pebble, the young Earth Elemental, who would somehow lay down a resilient yet impervious surface anywhere you put a line of the sorts of things he liked to eat. Fortunately, two of those things were manure and iron tailings from the nearby iron mine. Sometimes Kordas felt terrible about taking advantage of the Elemental, but Pebble seemed to enjoy it-her-himself, and certainly Pebble could leave at any time and absolutely no one would be able to stop them.

There was something like a city spreading all around them, but one in which every single part was still under construction. Roads were there. Wells everywhere, and aqueducts bringing water from the river. Houses—not so much. Quite a lot of people were still living in their barges on the plots they had staked out as their homes, if they weren’t living in the wall. Not the highborn—they were living in the manor. And when they complain about the lack of space, I point out that there is plenty of room in the tunnels and in the wall. But everyone from tradesmen on down to hired farm laborers was still making use of the barges. For the farm laborer, first came work for their master. Then shelter for their own chickens and other small personal stock and storage for their garden harvest, then a “proper cottage.” For the trades and craft folk, the priority was on the workshop, then the place to hold and sell what was being made. And with an entire population competing for labor with a limited labor pool and limited supplies, most people were forced to build their own homes in their spare time.

So spread out before them was a strange sight indeed: plots of land along the roads with barges lined up jammed together, next to (in this part of the city) workshops from which came the sound of hammers on anvils, large and small.

At least we planned this much properly by centering the escape around the barges,Kordas thought with a sigh. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the barges as dwellings—there had been cottages on his estate that were smaller, and people seemed happy enough in them. And there was the wall. But living in the wall might mean a long walk to the workshop, since the highborn had staked out their plots nearest the manor. And it would mean a very long walk to a farm, far too long to make it worth a farm laborer’s while.

Expansion could be aided by employing wagoneers to travel in a circuit, in light-duty, single-animal setups, giving rides to and from the hard-walk destinations. They could stop for anyone who would join them. It would also be a good source for monitoring rumors and domestic issues, since the passengers would talk. Also a good way to spread news, if the wagoneers carried briefings with them.

If only I’d thought of that years ago, I could have had passenger wagons made in the old country, and stacked on a barge.

“You have that look on your face again, Father,” Restil said, interrupting his thoughts.

“What look is that?” he asked, fairly certain that years of dicing with the Empire had given him a highly inscrutable face, and not one his son could easily read.

“The one that means you’re feeling guilty because you couldn’t somehow manage to transport an entire city here, ready-made, and pick the one spot that has metals and minerals all within easy reach,” his son replied, startling him so much that Aura felt it and kicked up her heels. “Instead, you should be congratulating yourself on getting as much here as you did.”

“How did you—” Kordas paused, and narrowed his eyes. “Has your mother—”

“Of course she has,” Restil replied with amusement. “And you aren’t as hard to read as you think.”

“Then I’m slipping,” he muttered, chagrined, as people paused in their work to bow to him. Gah. I hate that. I wish they’d stop doing it. There had been altogether too much bowing and scraping in his life in the Empire, and damned if he liked seeing other people doing it to him. They meant well . . . but it made him squirm inside.

“You don’t need to hide things anymore,” his son pointed out. “Not from your family, anyway.” He nudged Stanzia with his heels, and the stallion moved off. “Come on. It’s a bit of a ride to the Young Squire’s, and I know we both want to get there in time to have a good chat.”

Aura didn’t like that Stanzia was getting ahead of her, and picked up her feet to move before he could urge her. Restil was right, of course. He didn’t need to hide anything from his family.

And now it’s come to this, getting good advice from my child.He found himself smiling. Not a bad sign, actually.