The Iron Revolution in a Magic-Scarred World

The figures from the past days filled three pages of the ledger, and Beorn had already gone through them twice before Lewin arrived that morning and took up his own notation work at the side table.

The marks from the seized operations ran in a column down the right margin of the first page. Six figures total from the strongboxes, ranging from what Cenwulf’s had to a smaller amount from a grain merchant’s private office. His funds were better than the days before the seizures, though not by enough to make him comfortable. Beorn recorded it that way and moved on to the next page.

The goods inventories were harder to evaluate in marks because their value depended on how they fed back into the city’s supply.

The food stocks from Cenwulf’s warehouse had gone into the district at protectorate pricing, which was lower than what Coss’s network had been charging, and that was drawing the kind of attention in the residential district that the audit had predicted. Whether that attention would be of use was a question for a later date.

He turned to the account books from the seized operations. Two of them were illicit, as Cenwulf’s. The manifests that did not match the actual throughput. He wrote the discrepancy figures beside each entry and closed the accounts.

The sketch in the margin had been taking form since before Lewin arrived. It was organized, a rough grid of storage allocation across the operations, with columns for goods categories and rows for the contributing seizures.

Lewin was writing something at the side table, some sort of intelligence notation. He had come in with three pages of compiled observation notes from the week’s drill-ground monitoring and had been working through them since the first hour. He did not speak unless he had something worth saying.

The knock came from the corridor outside.

"Come through," Beorn said.

The man who entered was one of the runners, young, somewhere in his early twenties, with the build of someone who had grown up without steady food and had been filling out since the citadel post gave him access to the cook’s kitchen.

His name was Stig. He had been carrying messages between the records office and Godric’s post for several days without trouble. He came in with his hands at his sides and his expression already firm.

"I need to leave the position," Stig said. "I’m giving you notice now."

Beorn set the quill down. "Why."

Stig’s lips moved once before he answered. "Personal reasons."

"That’s not an answer," Beorn said. "Try again."

Stig looked past Beorn’s shoulder at the wall for a moment. "My brother is in the slums. He was found beaten up in the morning outside his building." He looked back. "He’s going to be all right, but the people who spoke to my mother afterward made it clear why it happened."

"What did they say."

"That the work I was doing was causing difficulties. And that there might be more difficulties ahead if the work continued." He paused.

Beorn observed him further.

"Your brother," Beorn said. "How bad."

"Two ribs, he couldn’t get up on his own. His face is a mess."

"Where does he live."

"With my mother. Three streets south of the south entrance to the slums."

Beorn stood and came around the desk. He went to the door, looked into the corridor, then came back in. "Come with me," he said.

He went through the working section of the citadel, past the kitchen and the records room, and through the door at the far end of the corridor that led into the oldest part of the building. The sconces here were unlit, grit and dust lay underfoot, untouched for months. The stone was cold, and the air smelled stale, with old timber underneath.

The first wing ran for thirty feet before splitting into individual rooms. Beorn pushed open the nearest door and stepped inside. The ceiling was high, built to the same standard as the east wing. The floor was sound. The walls were sound. The window at the far end still had its frame, though the glass had gone opaque under accumulated grime. He walked to the far wall and came back, counting the floor area as he went.

He went to the next room and did the same thing.

Lewin had followed without being asked and was standing in the doorway to the corridor, watching.

Beorn came back out and walked farther into the wing. Four rooms on the left, three on the right. He checked two more. All of them were the same. He opened the book he had brought with him and wrote a short series of numbers in the margin. Staff count across the full household and garrison. Family members of the core staff whose situations he had some record of. Floor space available in the two sections he had just walked.

He compared the figures and added a note beneath them. It was workable.

He went back to the office. Stig stopped near the door.

"The unused wings in the north and west sections of this building have enough rooms to house additional people," Beorn said. "If your brother and your mother are willing to move, there is space for them here. They can stay as long as you are here. It ends if you leave."

Stig looked at him for a moment. "My brother’s not going to want to move. He’s owns the apartment in that building."

"The apartment is not going anywhere," Beorn said.

Stig took that in.

"My mother has been in that neighborhood for most of her life," he said. "She’s not the type to pick up and go somewhere else on short notice."

"She does not have to decide today. But if she decides yes, there is a room."

"And if I decide to leave in a month."

"Then they leave when you do." Beorn met his eyes. "I’m not imprisoning anyone. I’m telling you the problem you came in here to solve has a different solution than quitting."

Stig was quiet. His eyes moved across the floor without settling.

"I’d need to talk to them first," he said.

"Talk to them. Then talk to Godric about the logistics of moving."

Stig nodded once. He had arrived with his answer ready and was leaving with a problem he had not expected. He went out and pulled the door shut behind him.

Lewin had not moved from the side table. His eyes were on the notation page in front of him.

"My mother and my sister are in the slums," he said. "My sister’s older now. She’s been doing work in the residential district. My mother doesn’t go far."

Beorn wrote a line in the margin. "The same applies to them if they’re willing. I’ll do the same to most staff and officers."

Lewin picked up his pen and returned to the notation.

Beorn sat back down at the desk and opened the accounts page. He looked at the page for a moment, then at the wall.

His hand started moving.

A series of connected nodes with lines running between appeared in the margin.

Coss couldn’t easily touch him, but that wasn’t the same for his subordinates, much less their family members. Now, what Coss would do when the family pressure failed was the question sitting at the bottom of the page.

The supply disruption was still ongoing, but the transit contracts were in the record and the legal ground was established. The foundry was still under operation without trouble. Wynn’s crew traveled between the warehouse wing and their homes each day.

His hand kept moving. The nodes multiplied at the edges of the diagram and the lines between them ran into the margin where there was no more page.

He turned to a fresh page. He wrote one word at the top of it.