Icevein: Chapter 36
Peridot and Onyx sat in Chargrim’s Reception Chamber, but he was not there. He was at Sledge Rock. They had left his seat empty; they both sat on the same side of the table.
“Is there no way to know if any more will come?” Peridot asked. She already knew the answer. Onyx must have been aware that Peridot already knew the answer, but she answered anyway.
“No. It has long been your father’s practice that any who wish may speak. He thinks it makes the folk feel heard.” Onyx shrugged. “Of course, that was before there were four thousand souls in Glint.”
Peridot had attended her father’s most recent arbitration, and it had dragged on for over ten hours. Even though she found the many matters brought before him fascinating, it was difficult to stay focused for so long. Her father had been exhausted after, and it was then that Peridot and Onyx had made their suggestion. In truth, it was Onyx who had told Chargrim that it was time he shared the burden of arbitration, for even after ten hours there were more who wished to be heard, put off for another sitting. It was not just those in Glint, but the concerns of claims throughout the Gold River Range and beyond.
Ever since Peridot had set out upon this drift, it was as if something had awoken in her mother. Even before her rhundal, Onyx had ceased requiring Peridot to work in the wirery. Often, her mother spoke with Peridot about arbitrations she had witnessed, difficulties in the law traditions, and the importance of claim law for the stability of their folk. Peridot had never realized how passionate Onyx was about arbitration, but so it was, and they had drawn closer over the past years than they had ever been before.
That wasn’t to say she hadn’t spent time with her father. She had spent more than ever now that she was not required in the wirery. She was increasingly a match for him in Ingots, and it was not certain who would win, but more and more they had left the game aside, choosing instead to discuss the law, the content of books from Auntie Tourmaline’s archive, and the various arbitrations under Chargrim’s consideration. He would debate her for hours on the finer points, until he was satisfied she understood. This and her rhundal garments had occupied her time.
Someone knocked on the chamber door.
“Enter,” Peridot said.
Uncle Greal leaned inside.
“It’s time.”
Peridot took a deep breath. She wore her rhundal garments: her veil, silver vambraces, her cloth-of-gold, her circlet—everything she had worn at her rhundal. She felt the weight of it as she stood. No one outside the holds of the Owners had seen her without her magnificent apparel since the rhundal feast. She had not gone out into the mine more than twice, and only with an escort of dwarves. It was intentional.
In contrast, Onyx wore even plainer garb than usual, with a heavier, more matronly veil than she was usually want to wear, and she followed behind Peridot. The two Ridge Wardens waiting outside the chamber door fell into step behind her. When they came to the rear passage of the Judgment Hall, Onyx placed a hand on Peridot’s shoulder without a word. There, Onyx and Uncle Greal left her, following the drift to the main entrance of the hall.
She had planned for this day for years, but now that it had arrived, she was more nervous than she had thought possible. Her father had decided to leave, not because he needed to see Sledge Rock or East Spire, but to give her this opportunity. Steadying her breathing, she stepped toward the narrow door. One of the Ridge Wardens opened it, and she entered the rear passage of the Judgment Hall, the wardens following at a respectful distance. She heard the hubbub of voices—many voices. Ahead, the hall was packed with the folk. It looked like the day of Icevein’s trial, though there was nothing so interesting about the arbitrations that she anticipated. That meant they were there to see her, to gaze on the exquisite craft of her garments and to see what sort of wisdom or foolishness this daughter of Chargrim might possess. As she moved out of the darker shadows and into the glow of the brazier-light, a hush fell over the hall.
She did not halt but stepped onto the raised dais and sat upon her father’s stone seat of judgment. The two Ridge Wardens took up positions a few strides to either side, planting their spears on the stone. Other wardens stood on the edges of the open space at the center of the hall, their long staves in hand.
As soon as she had seated herself, she realized why her father always held onto Treadfoot; it was not just a symbol, but it was something to do with his hands. She tried to look calm as she placed both hands onto the stone arms of the chair, sitting erect. Never had she been so conscious of her posture—at least, not in the months since her rhundal feast, and certainly not before that. Thrushbeard was not in the mine, having gone south with her father, but a warden rinlen called Heelgrip was present, and he slammed the butt of the iron rod of judgment into the stone three times, once for each of the principals of claim law.
“Peridot Chargrim’s Daughter is seated,” he called. “She arbitrates with the authority of the Irik-Rhûl and of the Owners. Heed her.” Then, in a lower and less intense voice, he added: “The petition of Bentkettle is to be heard first.” Heelgrip motioned for a dwarf to come forward.
The dwarf she must assume was Bentkettle shuffled into the open space alone. He stared at her with wide eyes, clearly unsettled by her appearance. He was a plump dwarf, and his rate of breathing was abnormally fast. It looked as if he had been at a brisk walk for some time, and he had a high blush. He made a short bow.
“My—” he paused, his mouth open. Peridot waited. She wasn’t sure whether she was more nervous or he. “Someone stole my griddle,” he said at last. Peridot waited, but he just stood there. At last, she realized he was waiting for her to speak.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
There was another pause.
“What is it that you want?”
“I want a new griddle.”
“Then seek a smelter to cast it.”
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“You should give me a griddle.”
“Me?”
“Ay, yes.”
Peridot glanced to where Onyx and Uncle Greal sat upon the shelf but caught herself and returned her gaze to the dwarf before her.
“Why is that?”
“It was stolen from a mine kitchen, and there is a warden who stands guard there. He shouldn’t have let anyone steal my griddle.”
“The mine kitchen is used by many. Shall the wardens memorize each article left within?”
“The kitchen is part of the Owners hold. That which is stolen within the hold of another should be recompensed by the owner of the hold. That is the law.”
“That is the law when the owner of the hold borrowed it. The Irik-Rhûl has ruled before that those who use the communal workshops must attend to their own tools.”
This was well enough known that Peridot was surprised that the dwarf would petition such a thing, unless he merely hoped to use her inexperience. It would not be so easy.
The dwarf’s face had grown steadily redder during this exchange. Now his voice rose.
“Then how am I supposed to ply my craft without my griddle?”
Peridot tilted her head, forgetting her erect posture. There was a note of desperation in his tone that did not ring of manipulation, but actual fear. She felt the collective gaze of hundreds of souls watching her closely.
“Do you come to petition for justice or to petition for mercy?” she asked.
The dwarf opened his mouth but hesitated. He glanced over at the gathered folk.
“Mercy,” he said, almost in a whisper.
“How long have you been in Glint?” she asked.
“These seventeen years.”
Now it was Peridot’s turn to hesitate. Her father had warned her about precedents. What was gifted to one would be expected by another. Seventeen years in Glint and dependent on a griddle. It was not a vote of confidence in the enterprise of the dwarf. She hoped he could at least cook.
“You may serve as yowgan for one month, cooking for our cadres, in exchange for your keep and a new griddle. Accept or don’t, but if you do, you may speak with Second Cyprine.” Peridot looked over at the warden rinlen, who received the signal and slammed his rod into the stone three times. Bentkettle understood his dismissal and slipped away into the crowd, heading for the drift.
Meanwhile, two new dwarves stepped forward, standing on either side of the open ground.
Heelgrip announced:
“A claim dispute between Forehand and. . .” the rinlen hesitated before pronouncing the second dwarf’s name, “. . . Egnaber.” Heelgrip was clearly displeased to speak the true name, and he put little enough effort in veiling his feelings. Most dwarves still found the use of true names by the adherents of the Named of Strength to be distasteful. Nevertheless, her father had warned her against treating such a one unfairly in arbitration.
“Speak, Egnaber,” Peridot said. “What is the dispute?”
The dwarf appeared startled at being addressed so directly, but he rallied and answered.
“There is a spur between our claims in the manner of a crosscut off the main ridge, and it is wealthy in quartzite. We come to request it be settled.”
There were more nuances to the division of claims than any other aspect of Claim Law. In most cases, the law declared that the division of a claim was the division of the watershed. This was a near useless aspect of the law in Deep Cut, where claims were measured out, but no one had surveyed and registered the whole of the ridges.
No single claim should cross between two high-peak watersheds, though they might between secondary watersheds. An ore deposit found on a spur or along the crest of a ridge must be arbitrated. Such requests were common enough, and there were customs.
“Have either of you transgressed it?” Peridot asked.
Both dwarves shook their heads.
“It is untouched,” Egnaber said.
That made it easier.
“Would you accept a division of length or breadth?” This was a division of the spur into parts.
Both dwarves shook their heads to indicate they would not.
“Where is your claim?”
“It is eleven days to the northwest,” Egnaber said.
Each year, the claims stretched further away from Glint, yet still they came for arbitration. No wonder her father was over-busy. She looked at Heelgrip.
“When will the next patrol be through that region?”
“Not for another two months,” he answered.
“Then neither Egnaber or Forehand are to mine that ridge until the wardens have settled it with the ochre.”
A common and traditional settling of such a dispute was for a neutral party to survey the spur and make division by watershed. One method employed blocks of dried ochre dye placed at the prominences. This was best done in a rain, or if in a drought, water could be bucketed, a hardship if there was no spring at hand. This helped to mark how the spur shed the water, aiding in division. Peridot found it to be a needlessly complicated and questionable procedure. Casting lots may have been preferable, but her father had told her that it was not always the sense, but the tradition that held folk to the arbitration.
Her answer would have been expected; clearly the dwarves had come seeking just such a resolution. The wardens often made such surveys.
Peridot looked from one of the two prospectors to the other. “Is there aught else?”
Forehand shook his head.
“No. . .” Egnaber began, but stopped. He should have addressed her by title, and yet she saw him searching for some honorific. Were he speaking to her father, he would have said “No, Irik-Rhûl,” but she was not an Irik-Rhûl. He might have called her Chargrim’s Daughter, and no doubt he knew that, but clearly he wanted something more. “No, Tuk na Oron,” he ventured. It meant “Jewel of Glint.” Oron was an endearment often used by fathers to refer to their gilna, but it was clearly not meant with such familiarity, here. She nodded and turned to the Heelgrip. He slammed the rod into the stone thrice more, and the two dwarves departed.
If Peridot was worried that no one would come to her for arbitration, she was wrong. There were many who came to stand before her, but the disputes were not complex. Like the dispute over the ridge, the supplicants merely sought the application of traditional resolutions overseen by Glint. There was another claim border dispute, and a goatherd with a grazing dispute that should have been settled by Crookleg, and Peridot told him to submit to the Irik-Rhûl’s rinlen of herders. A dwarf appealed a refusal by the Steward of Stone to grant him a hold on the upper levels for a workshop with venting, but Peridot did not deem his mastery sufficient to warrant a spot in the cliff-face or the channeling of a new vent.
“Let your skill grow for fifty years more, then seek such a place.”
“My skill is sufficient, and my age is yet greater than yours,” the dwarf snapped. Peridot did not condescend to answer him, but motioned to the Heelgrip, who slammed the iron bar into the stone with extra strength, taking a step toward the disrespectful dwarf.
A caster named Sharpmold sought to travel with his son in one of Glint’s pack trains, taking a bride price to East Spire and then Deep Cut in search of a maid. It was not unusual for others to travel with the pack trains; it was far safer than journeying in the Ridges alone, but her father was wont to require any traveling with a pack train to work as yowgan during the journey. It was reprieve from this requirement that Sharpmold petitioned, as part of the bride price was in cast goods, which would take them enough labor to transport. This reprieve she granted.
These, and others like them, occupied her for a few hours. Before the fourth hour was spent, Heelgrip rapped the stone thrice more. He called for any who wished to present themselves for arbitration to come forward, but none did. The hall had remained full of onlookers, but it was clear they were more curious about Peridot than in the minor disputes brought forward. She suspected that no one with a difficult matter who could wait for her father’s return would bring to before her. She could hardly blame them. They had no way of knowing how reliable her judgment might be. This was only a first taste.
“The next arbitration will be held in one week,” she said, keeping to her father’s usual sittings. On the shelf of rock, Onyx’s veiled face and grey eyes betrayed nothing. Peridot rose and left the hall, followed by the warden guards.