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CaveLeather Third day.
[Quest: Miners’ Loyalty — 47%.] [Timer locked: three days.
Fail and the bar falls back.] Lyonel looked at the clock.
Twelve hours gone.
The number had not moved.
The crew had cut like they meant it.
Fourteen carts in the night.
Two more than the day before.
The book was fat.
Coin coming up the shaft on schedule.
The quest did not care.
Money was not the same as men.
He pushed out of the tent.
Work already live.
Clef handing picks at the mouth.
He saw Lyonel and put some lung in it.
“My lord.
Morning.” “Morning.” Lyonel took the lip.
They were swinging.
A tune here.
A laugh there.
Hard work.
Good color.
Laborers.
Not his.
“Merrick.” Hellstone came out of the clerk tent with a quill still in his fist.
“My lord.” “No cutting today.” The quill dipped.
“What.” “Bring them up.” “All of them.” “All of them.
I want the ground.” They came out of the hole looking cheated.
Fifty in three ranks.
Looking at each other for a crime.
Clef first.
“My lord.
Trouble.” “No trouble.” Lyonel walked the front.
Short.
No one looked over him.
They looked at him.
“You know what yesterday spent.” “We know.
Over a thousand,” a man called.
“How much of it is yours.” Silence.
The split had not been read out.
Some of them had done the sum in the dark.
Twelve carts.
Ten the hundred.
A hundred twenty-four among fifty.
A little over two dragons a head.
Half a year of Silverhill pay.
Until it was said in the open, no one would put a hand on it.
Lyonel drew the sheet from his coat.
Hellstone’s hand.
The cut written clean.
“Twelve carts.
Ten parts in a hundred.
A hundred twenty-four dragons for the crew.” He turned the page.
“Fifty men.
Two dragons and half a dragon each.” Noise went through them.
“True.” “Two and a half.” “I swing half a year for three.” He put the sheet in Clef’s hands.
“Read it.
Nail it to the post.
Anyone with eyes can check you.” Clef took it.
The paper started to shake.
“My lord—” “There is more.” Lyonel looked at him.
“From today the pit feeds you.
Morning.
Noon.
Night.
Hot soup.
Hot bread.
Meat on the plate.” The bed went quiet.
Fifty mouths shut together.
Clef’s voice came thin.
“Say that again.” “Meals.
On the house.” “No charge.” “No charge.” The first man did not drop his pick.
He passed it to the next and went down on his heels and put his face in his hands.
The shoulders did the rest.
The second stayed up.
His mouth moved and found nothing.
The third was the boy who had sung loudest in the dark.
He turned and used a sleeve.
The sheet left Clef’s fingers and hit the dirt.
He did not pick it up.
“My lord.” Sand in the throat.
“Thirty years in this hill.
Hellstone never put a pot on.
The Tooth never put a pot on.
There is not a pit in the West that feeds the men who open it.” “This one does.” “Why.” The panel ticked.
[Clef — 68% → 72%.] “Because you cut for me,” Lyonel said.
“Men who work for me do not do it empty.” Clef’s mouth moved twice.
What came out was not the sentence he had started.
“And a sickhouse.” “We build it.” “You mean that.” “Tomorrow.
Hurt men get a bed.
I pay for the milk of the poppy and the rest.” Clef shut his mouth.
He pulled himself up into a shape thirty years of a hill had never asked him for, and started to go down.
“Don’t.” He stopped.
Lyonel looked at him.
“No theatre.
You work.
You take coin.
You eat.
That is the arrangement.
It is not a hymn.” Clef did not kneel.
When he stood again he was larger.
Not in the body.
In the room he took.
He turned on the ranks and put the rest of his air into it.
“You heard him.” “Food.
No charge.” “Wounds.
No charge.” “Ten the cart.” “What are you standing there for.” Fifty picks went up.
No one shouted a title.
No one found a song.
They just stood there with iron in the air and looked at him.
Quiet.
Not the old quiet.
The bar jumped.
[Miners’ Loyalty — 47% → 71%.] Twenty-four points for bread.
Lyonel shut the glass.
“Grain is on the road.
Blum pulled it out of Lannisport.
It hits at noon.
Get back in the hole until then.” They went over the lip like men who had a meal waiting at the other end of a swing.
The iron came back crisper.
More weight in it.
Eighteen years of empty stomachs trying to catch up in an hour.
Bronn was on a post when Lyonel turned.
“My lord.” “Mm.” “Your father hears that and he calls you a leak.” “He’s old.” “And if he asks.” “The pot comes out of the take.
He still holds ninety.” Bronn’s thumb.
“I like your books.” “Stop liking them.
Meet the carts.” “Blum’s here?” “Soon.” Bronn went.
The flap fell.
Lyonel sat.
Heels on the table.
[Westerlands Expansion — Stage One: 35%.] [Miners’ Loyalty — 71%.
Tomorrow: the sickhouse.] A third left.
Clinic tomorrow.
Rules the day after.
Three days and fifty men would not be hired backs.
They would be a line.
He closed his eyes.
The picks thickened.
The morning tune came back three times louder.
Clef from the floor, raw: “Hit it.
Hit it like it pays you.
Because it does.” The crew answered him.
Lyonel’s mouth moved.
Food was cheap.
If he had known how cheap, he might have put a pot on the first morning.
He had known better.
Feed them day one and it is what a lord owes.
Feed them day three and they remember who put the bread in the hand.
Timing spent cleaner than coin.
[Timer: 58 hours.] Enough.
Bronn outside.
“My lord.
Three wagons.
Meat on the second.
Blum says he’ll send again next week, the fat bastard.” The pit went up louder than noon.
Lyonel did not go out.
He smiled at the canvas.
The pot was earning.
CaveLeather