Litany of Winter

Severin reached the long refectory table just as Paul put a hand on the empty chair beside Martin.

”Hale’s sitting there,” Martin said.

Paul looked at the chair, then at Severin. ”He wasn’t when I got here.”

”He is now.”

Severin pulled the chair out with his foot and sat. ”You two done fighting over me?”

”I was trying to sit down,” Paul said.

Martin tore a piece from the dark loaf in front of him. ”And I prevented a mistake.”

The table was long enough for all nine without anyone having to squeeze. Martin sat on Severin’s left, Rafael beyond him. Thomas had taken the chair on his right, with Madeleine past him. Across the table sat Andreas, Paul, Johann, and Anna. Bowls of thick stew had already been set down, along with bread, boiled roots, and pitchers of water.

He reached for the bread as Martin said something in Vhaldrik without looking at him.

Severin caught the word for bread, the command to pass it, and the insult at the end. He handed him the loaf.

Martin stopped chewing, the piece of bread still between his fingers. ”What?”

”Did you understand what I said?”

”Some of it. Why?”

Paul leaned forward. ”Then what did he call you?”

Severin tore off a piece before Martin could take the loaf back and repeated the insult in Vhaldrik.

Martin laughed through his nose. ”Well, I’ll be damned. Hale’s finally learning.”

”Was the pronunciation any better?”

”Better? That was your best Vhaldrik so far.”

Paul started laughing before Martin had finished, then had to cover his mouth because it was full. Anna pushed his cup toward him.

”Swallow first, pig,” Anna said, smiling.

”Not my fault this time,” Paul managed.

He drank and nearly coughed anyway.

Johann smiled. Martin did too, the first easy one Severin had seen from him since the Vault. Paul noticed it and went still for a moment, then Martin shoved the bread across the table toward him.

”Eat something before Richter has to save you from supper.”

Paul caught the loaf. ”I’m not the one who nearly got strangled by a mask.”

”No. You’re the one who nearly blew the room open.”

”Technically, I disturbed one binding mark.”

Andreas looked up from his bowl. ”That’s a long way to say you fucked it.”

Paul pointed the bread at him. ”You still sound like a watchmaster.”

”Former,” Andreas said, and went back to his bowl.

Severin was glad to leave it there. Paul kept the bread while Martin went back to his stew, and neither of them said anything else about the Vault.

Anna scraped the remaining carrots from one side of her bowl and left them on the other.

Paul noticed. ”You don’t eat those?”

”My daughter does that.”

”How old?”

”Four.”

Paul stared at her. ”You have a four-year-old?”

Anna gave him a flat look. ”I had assumed that was how age worked.”

”No, I mean... you’re here.”

”So are you.”

”Yeah, but nobody was stupid enough to marry me first.”

Johann laughed into his cup.

Anna pointed her spoon at him. ”You’re enjoying this far too much.”

That pulled another laugh around the table. Anna finally ate one of the carrots and grimaced.

Severin had known she was married. He had not known about the child.

Johann turned his cup between both hands. ”My wife would have packed half our kitchen if they let her. She still thinks the Order feeds us broth and stale bread.”

Thomas lifted a piece of the loaf. ”She’s right about the bread.”

Johann tore off a piece and inspected the crust as though checking an account. ”Acceptable depreciation.”

Paul groaned. ”That was terrible.”

Madeleine reached across Thomas for the salt. The silver ring she wore on a chain slipped free of her collar and struck lightly against the edge of her cup.

Paul pointed at the ring. ”You’re married too?”

Madeleine tucked it back against her shirt. ”No.”

”Then what’s that?”

”An Eternal Ring.”

Paul hesitated. ”Oh. You’re religious.”

”I am.”

He rubbed the side of his nose. ”Do you actually believe all of it?”

Madeleine looked at him. ”Of course I do.”

She spooned salt into her stew. ”In Solmara, if we stopped eating with everyone who followed another church, half the tables would be empty.”

Rafael cut a piece of meat with the small table knife beside his bowl. ”People shouting about religion is hardly a Solmaran invention.”

”People shouting about anything isn’t,” Thomas said.

”Especially wages,” Johann added.

Thomas looked across at him. ”Wages are worth shouting about.”

Johann lifted both hands. ”I only counted them.”

Rafael looked over. ”You worked accounts?”

”For a firm in the city.”

Thomas snorted. ”There’s a useful profession. One man does the lifting, another writes down how little he gets paid.”

Johann pointed his spoon at him. ”And when the books are wrong, the man doing the lifting gets nothing because the owner claims the shipment never arrived.”

Thomas considered that for a moment, then nodded once.

The talk moved through their old jobs. Martin said warehouse clerks got blamed for anything that arrived broken, and by the time it reached Rafael, Thomas was already looking at him.

”What did you do?” Thomas asked.

Rafael cut another piece of meat. ”What my family expected. Accounts, contracts. Learning how the works ran.”

Thomas raised one finger. ”There it is. You never had to stand outside a gate hoping some bastard hired you.”

”No.”

”And men would’ve worked for you because your father owned the place.”

”My older brother is the heir.”

”Same family.”

Rafael leaned past Martin to reach for the meat platter, the table knife still in his other hand. ”You make it sound like ownership means sitting back while everyone else works.”

”Often does.”

”Then you’ve known bad owners.”

”I’ve known rich ones.”

Martin shifted back to let Rafael pass the platter.

”If you run a works, you keep the machinery going, fill the contracts, and make sure there’s money for wages.”

Thomas gave a short laugh. ”How generous.”

”It’s the job.”

”A job nobody working there gave you.”

Rafael took a bite. ”If I can run the place, being born into the family doesn’t make me useless.”

”Doesn’t make you competent either.”

”Never said it did.”

Thomas leaned forward. ”Workers decide the pay’s shit and walk out. What then?”

”They can.”

Thomas paused.

Rafael swallowed. ”Doesn’t mean the works can give them whatever they ask for.”

”That’s not much of a bargain when you own the gate.”

”And shutting the gate costs everyone.”

Thomas looked past Martin at Severin. ”You’re from Blackhaven. Tell him.”

Severin swallowed. ”Tell him what?”

”That men should be able to stop work when they’re being fucked.”

”They can.”

”That’s not what I mean.”

”I know.” Severin wiped a smear of stew from his thumb. ”Three days without wages can cost you your bed. Sometimes one.”

”Exactly.”

”And the man paying you can still throw you out next week because he doesn’t like your face.” Severin looked at Rafael. ”Owning the place doesn’t mean you know how to run it.”

”No,” Rafael said.

Severin looked back at Thomas. ”Being right doesn’t pay for those three days either.”

Thomas tore at the crust in his hand.

Andreas broke a piece of bread between both hands. ”Most workers never see the numbers. They get told what the owner can afford and have to guess whether he’s lying.”

Johann nodded. ”That part’s true.”

Rafael tapped the handle of his knife against the table. ”Then show them the accounts.”

Thomas looked at him. ”You would?”

”If it stopped a strike over bad information.”

”All of them?”

”The relevant ones.”

Thomas gave him a look. ”There it is.”

”Of course there is. I said show them the books, not hand over the treasury keys.”

”You think I couldn’t read them?”

”I think you could. Your handwriting’s probably terrible, though.”

Thomas laughed.

The argument loosened after that. Johann asked whether telegraph clerks were charged for private messages, and Paul admitted he had sent two without paying.

”What did you send?” Madeleine asked.

”First one told a clerk at the next station I’d be late.”

”And the second?”

Paul looked down at his bowl. ”Told him not to put the first one in the log.”

Even Rafael laughed.

Severin reached for the central bowl at the same moment Paul did. Their spoons struck.

Paul pulled his spoon back. ”Go on.”

”You were first.”

”You look hungrier.”

”I always look hungry.”

”That is true,” Martin said beside him.

Severin took the last spoonful and pushed the bowl toward Martin.

Martin leaned closer. ”Almost generous.”

”Don’t spread it around.”

”I’ll protect your reputation.”

Someone asked for the bread, and several hands crossed the table at once. Paul kept talking through another mouthful while Madeleine reached for the loaf, her ring catching the lamplight before falling back beneath her collar.

Thomas was still arguing that a worker could not eat responsibility. Rafael said he could not eat a closed factory either, and Andreas raised both hands when they started talking over each other.

Severin looked up while the bread was passing and saw all eight of them at once. Martin was beside him, Rafael leaned forward beyond him, Thomas had one finger up again, and Madeleine was smiling.

Across the table, Paul reached over Johann’s dish while Anna told him to watch his sleeve, and Andreas sat back as the argument started again.

Then Paul knocked his cup with his sleeve.

”Fuck.”

Anna grabbed it before it tipped.

”I had it.”

”You absolutely did not.”

Supper broke up not long after. Anna and Madeleine left together, with Andreas following. Thomas and Rafael headed for the door still arguing, though neither sounded as worked up as before. Paul lingered near the far end of the room, still talking.

Severin stood as Martin began stacking the bowls.

”You working here now?”

”No. If I leave these, Peters will sort them by size and Weber will try carrying all nine.”

Across the room, Paul called, ”I heard that.”

”Good.”

Severin could have followed the others, but picked up four cups instead.

Martin looked at them, then at him, and said something simple in Vhaldrik.

This time Severin understood all of it.

”Your side,” Martin had said.

Severin shifted the cups into his left hand and answered in Vhaldrik.

Martin stared at him.

”That bad?”

”Worse.”

Severin bumped the refectory door open with his shoulder. ”Fuck you,” he said in Vhaldrik.

Martin followed with the bowls, laughing. ”That part you pronounce perfectly.”