Chapter 14: The Problem of a Dwarf Maid

Yorvig sat carving on a piece of pine. He was cutting out the fitting on the underarm rest for his crutch, preparing it to fit atop the peg he’d carved on the end of the pine staff. Pine was not the ideal wood, but at least it was light, and hopefully it was just until he healed. He wiggled his toes. He’d been doing that a lot. They still felt numb, though he could feel them. It was more like a persistent cold and the occasional uncomfortable tingling. He’d taken off his boot and examined his foot. The toes had a slight dusky color, and they felt cooler to the touch than the other foot.

In the back of his mind, he’d been listening to the sounds of pick and hammer rising up the mine shaft. One of the picks had stopped, and the ladder behind him creaked. Yorvig sat on a three-legged stool—also carved of pine—near the open adit door. He was keeping an eye out for anything that might come around the tailings pond and disturb the hive smokers that nested against the rockface to the left of the adit. Occasionally, a drift of smoke floated across the opening.

Before Sledgefist even spoke, Yorvig knew it was his brother who came and stood still beside him, even though he didn’t look up from his carving. He tried to fit the peg into the hole. It need a bit more reamed away. It would have been easier with a small spiral drill, but then, they didn’t even have stone drills yet.

“It’s no Kara-Indal, but it’s a good life, prospecting,” Sledgefist said, his tone calm and observational.

“What makes it a good life?” Yorvig asked.

“What?”

“What makes it a good life?” Yorvig knew he was being difficult, but he also wondered it. Or why his brother thought so.

“To work for yourself and your kin alone. To forge your own stonehold. To labor beneath the stone for treasures never seen before. This is what Auntie Tourmaline taught. You know this.”

“And is that enough? When we go to meet our fathers and stand before the judgment of the creator, is that enough?”

“Of course it’s enough. What else is there?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“What has come over you, Char?” his brother asked.

Yorvig didn’t answer. He didn’t know. Yorvig had gone through his life always moving on to the next obvious thing. Starting a formal apprenticeship, following his brother in prospecting. These had been obvious choices that, in truth, Sledgefist had made for him more than not. That wasn’t Sledgefist's fault; the older dwarf had always tried to include his younger brother in his life, without ever questioning that Yorvig should be a part of his life and not vice versa. But Yorvig had never gone against him or stepped out into his own.

That had changed. He no longer saw his brother as a pillar of strength. Strong he was, but some of that strength was foolish stubbornness.

“I’ll tell you this, Chargrim,” Sledgefist said, his tone darkening. “I did not come here to be lorded over. It would not be a good life then.”

Yorvig finally looked up at him, and the glint in Sledgefist’s eye was a glint of fear and anger mixed. It was the first time Yorvig had ever realized that his older brother feared, mighty in build and unshakable in purpose.

“Chargrim, won’t you be reasonable?” Sledgefist went on.

“If you can reach no agreement, then you must part ways.”

“The claim is mine as much as his.”

“And Warmcoat’s, and Savvyarm’s. . .”

Sledgefist sighed and leaned his back against the rock, his body toward Yorvig and his arms crossed. But his head was turned to look out into the dell.

"I may be able to use that. If I promise that all shares will be equal, the others might support me."

Still Yorvig didn't answer.

“This is our chance at something great, something worth our labor," Sledgefist pleaded.

“It makes no difference to me where.”

“But this is the spot. I feel it. And I’m your elder brother.”

“And I’m the younger. And while we’re stating facts, you can’t work with Hobblefoot unless you reach agreement.”

“Have you ever been to the Hardfell hold?”

“No,” Yorvig answered, wary at the sudden change in topic. He knew the Hardfells, of course, but he was not close to them like his brother and Hobblefoot were. In truth, he found the Named of Strength sect to be a bit. . . off putting.

“You never met any of their kin?”

Yorvig shook his head. Sledgefist hesitated, and sighed again, staring out at the passing smoke.

“You may as well say it,” Yorvig said at length.

“They’ve a sister.”

Yorvig looked up from his knife-work again. Sledgefist was still staring determinedly out into the dell, but his face had flushed.

“Ah.”

They were both quiet for a time.

“Their mother is old, very old, and unsound. Their father was older and has passed already.”

“And I take it the maid seeks no trade?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

“Except.”

“Ay?”

“Hobblefoot.”

This time Yorvig leaned back against the stone, leaving off carving. Shit. Shit, shit, shit .

“Have either of you made known?”

“No. No. I don’t think so.”

“And you still joined together on this claim?” Was his brother daft?

“I learned only since we’ve been here. I didn’t know. We never spoke of it.”

“And does Hobblefoot know that you?”

“No. . . I couldn’t.”

“And she. . . she doesn’t know? About either of you?”

“I said I don’t think so.”

Yorvig had heard the answer before, it was just. . . he shook his head.

“Then perhaps she has already married.”

“She is three years past rhundal.”

That was odd. That was odd, indeed.

Only one out of every three or four dwarves were born a gilna, a girl. Which meant that only one of every three or four dwarves who reached rhundal—the age of accountability, the age of adulthood, the age of marriageability—was a dwarf-maid. And some of those maids chose to forgo marriage to pursue a craft. There was a saying for it — glüsht-na-fen. It meant “married to craft.” The plain numbers of it meant that most dwarves would never marry, never had children, never have posterity. That alone meant that often dwarves thought poorly of maids who chose to dedicate themselves to their craft and not to bearing babes, even though some did.

Even widows could hardly re-marry, for it was said that dwarf-wifs who became widows carried their lost dwarf’s seed in them for years, even decades. The patronage of a gilke or gilne could not be assured. This was not so much based on any wif's falling pregnant after the deaths of their dwarfs as it was on tradition. Yet that tradition was heeded.

Nothing in this world was more important to their folk than children. It felt selfish for Yorvig to think that he should be one of those blessed few to have posterity. Most dwarves resigned themselves early in life, born as second or third sons in a family without great wealth or status, or even first sons of poorer holds in many cases, like Sledgefist. To break free from that fate, some chose to venture out of the mine in search of fortune.

The number imbalance meant that maids could choose to their great advantage. Centuries or millennia before, a bride price would have to be paid. That went out of practice during the years of human subjugation, as maids and wifs led the caravans while dwarves were forced into servitude for the human king of Laith. The practice had returned to some extent, except instead of a payment to the maid's parents, the maids looked out for dwarves of exceptional quality—the finest crafters, the most skilled. . . and often the wealthiest. Mostly, it was the eldest dwarf of a stonehold who commanded the wealth of the family to gain a bride.

And three years past rhundal? Most maids were inundated with offers within months. Looks didn’t matter much. A dwarf wanted posterity. Beauty could be found in the jewels of the deep, if needed.

“You’ve met her?”

“Twice. . . I mean, I saw her twice in the Hardfell hold.”

No doubt heavily veiled and robed. Though some maids still kept to Tourmaline’s practice of leaving the face exposed, many more veiled, preferring to avoid the scrutiny of many strange eyes.

“So your fight with Hobblefoot. . . You hope to win her by having rinlen?”

“The rinlen of the claim her brothers work. . . Who else would she choose? And a wealthy claim. Chargrim, I need your support, not your animosity.” Yorvig met his brothers eyes. Never before had Sledgefist entreated him—certainly not with such a look and air of need. A year ago, if his brother had made such an entreaty, nothing could have hindered Yorvig from lending aid however he might. Yet since he’d come to this claim, since his battle with the ürsi, and since his sickness, something had gone out of Yorvig. He felt different, though it was hard to know how. One thing he did know. If he was going to die, it would not be because of foolish arguments—or because his brother and cousin wished to vie for the same maid.

“I will think on a solution,” Yorvig said. Striper jumped up on his lap, digging her claws into the pine that lay forgotten in Yorvig's hands. Yorvig hadn’t even seen her approach.

Sledgefist sighed, but then he nodded and headed back down the drift.

Now that the problem was presented to him, Yorvig realized how tricky the situation truly was. Again and again over the next two days, he mulled over the problem while sitting at the end of the adit and watching over the smoking of the meat. He returned to the same traditional options. Select a rinlen and maintain order—which was what Hobblefoot and Sledgefist couldn’t manage—or part ways.

It had taken centuries for the dwarven population to return to its current levels after the exodus from the Laith and the other human kingdoms. Most of the remaining tribes and caravans had gathered to Auntie Tourmaline in Deep Cut, and slowly they had grown as one folk. Murder and bloodshed was not totally unheard of among the dwarves, but blood-guilt was brutally recompensed, the horror of it deep among those who still carried the memory of when their folk had nearly ceased to be. So parting ways to avoid conflict was not seen as dishonorable or cowardly. On the contrary, starting off to make one’s own fortune in the wilds was a noble thing. For these reasons, the Waste and to a lesser extent the western parts of the Red Ridges were full of hundreds, if not thousands of small claims and stoneholds varying in size from single families to some that could almost be called colonies. There would have been even more, if humans or ürsi or worse did not cling to all the arable lands, making hunger a perennial problem.

The tailings pond had grown even deeper, with many more cubic yards of material hauled out of the drifts and added to the dam. Yet that did not change that someone—an ürsi for example—could have hugged the rockface and slunk up to the adit from the side, where someone sitting within could not have seen. And there was no reason to believe that ürsi could not swim. So Yorvig sat with his dagger handy. Over the next days, he also sat just outside of the adit where he could observe the whole approach. Shineboot had told him that he should just leave the door shut and stay within, but Yorvig felt he needed to guard the meat. They had eaten some, but the majority still smoked, as it had been for nearly a week and a half now.

Sledgefist and Hobblefoot had not argued—at least not that Yorvig had heard. Neither had they come up with a solution. Yorvig hadn’t sought out Sledgefist, because all he could think was that one set of the brothers must part from the claim.

But there was something else. A lode of gold just up the rockface that only Yorvig knew about. To try to persuade Hobblefoot and Shineboot to leave without knowing of its existence felt like rank treachery. Thievery. But to leave it willingly felt like madness. Surely there was enough there for more than one bride price. . . If only they didn't have their hearts set on one maid.

Perhaps Hobblefoot would forswear a claim to the maid in exchange for being named rinlen. But Yorvig’s gut told him trouble lay along that drift. Or they would agree to part, but only after they had mined out that gold lode. This could be the best answer, though what if the lode was extensive? What if this whole dell was rich? Or maybe one of them could pursue a different maid.

He needed them bound by oath before he revealed the gold's presence. To reveal it now, before any decision was made would set the claim afire. To reveal he had hidden it would be thought treachery.

So Yorvig sat with his dagger, watching the smoke-fires and staring back and forth across the dell, half-expecting the approach of ürsi, and all the time ruminating on problems.