Twelve Small Furnaces

Riben's most expensive silver candelabra never went to the royal auction. Of the twelve pieces meant to be divided from it, only the first four bases became small hand held furnaces. One of them was already burning under the ward's soup pot. Noah ate two spoonfuls of soup and asked, "What about the night shift slot for the second house?"

Ten hours before that question, the candelabra was still hanging on the banquet hall wall.

Every silver branch, taller than a man, bore the duchy's crest. It was the thing that once held a hundred candles when the winter ball was held. Now the banquet hall floor held nothing but scraped up ash and cold pipe water. The stove Cassian had put out made a metal groaning sound all through the night.

Serena folded up the auction list that lay beneath the candelabra.

"How long to melt it down?"

The blacksmith rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. It was the eye of a man who had spent the whole night fixing furnace stands for the ward.

"Half a day to get the furnace up. Longer to strip the lead out of the silver. If we rush it, the smoke gets bad."

"What we need today isn't silver coin. It's containers to hold fire."

"We don't have to melt the whole thing down."

Marie Bell, standing at the banquet hall door, wiped the moisture from her apron. Serena looked first at her hands, which resembled Lisa's from the day before, the one who had taught the ward how to boil bandages. Soot was caught under her nails and her wrists were swollen.

"If we take off the bases and cut the branches, we can use them as heat reflector plates. But we'll need to attach new handles. And don't ask anyone to carry something hot in a maid's apron."

Cassian picked up the auction list.

"Once it's dismantled, the collateral value drops to less than half."

"The auction house comes in five days," Serena said.

"That's when it becomes the funds to buy coal."

"Who's buying tonight's fire for the ward?"

Cassian's mouth closed. Marie looked between the two of them, then flicked a finger against one of the candelabra's branches.

"One of these holds up three small furnaces. If we push to make all twelve in one night, the blacksmith goes down first. Four today, rest tomorrow, four the day after. The rest the day after that."

The blacksmith lifted his head.

"Even four today, I can't do alone."

"No one said do it alone," Marie said. "But don't just stick any hands on it either. Put someone who's never swung a hammer on this and you lose a hand, not gain one."

Serena split the work into three lanes. Dismantling the candelabra: the blacksmith and one apprentice. Handle wood: scraps left over from the repair crew, but a separate person in charge of it. Carrying the finished pieces: two soldiers who'd finished their fuel shift. At the end of each lane she wrote the stopping time and who would take over next.

"We stop once four are done."

Cassian asked.

"Even if the barrier drops further?"

"If the blacksmith's hands start shaking, the fifth one won't be a container for fire. It'll be the cause of an accident."

"So you're saying we accept the loss."

"I'm saying I'll write down exactly which loss we're accepting."

Before taking off the auction seal, the blacksmith wrote down his own rest time first. Marie wrote the wages underneath. She didn't leave the number blank just because it was called emergency work.

"If a duchy person carries duchy property, there's still a justification left standing," Cassian said.

Marie answered without smiling.

"Does that justification make two more hands?"

Instead of answering, Cassian loosened the screw on the lowest silver base. His gloved hands couldn't get a good grip on the small screw. He slipped three times before handing the tool to the blacksmith.

"What should I do?"

"Carry the finished pieces to the kitchen. Now, not after they've heated up."

Serena didn't record that short exchange. Instead she wrote Cassian's name on the first line of the transport lane. A place the next person could confirm mattered more than what had been said.

Even as the base bearing the banquet hall crest was taken apart, the crest itself remained. The blacksmith didn't melt the metal but folded the edges to make a plate that wouldn't let coals spark out. The apprentice drilled the handle hole wrong twice. The first plate tilted. The second had a loose handle.

Cassian asked while waiting for the third plate.

"Are the two failures thrown out?"

"One becomes parts. One becomes a cooled ash tray."

Even a failed piece got a new use. It was easier than throwing away a person as a failure.

By noon, four were finished. The blacksmith set down his hammer in front of the fifth candelabra. Marie scraped the coal dust off the workbench with her finger to check whether his hands were shaking.

Serena didn't count the remaining eight as finished pieces. She posted a work schedule on the wall: the fifth through eighth would start after the blacksmith had a day off, and the ninth through twelfth would start only after confirming that the apprentice's first four had run a full day without needing repair. A condition was attached too: if the metal cracked or a handle loosened, the following work would stop.

Beside the candelabra count on the collateral list, Cassian wrote "dismantling in progress." If unfinished furnaces were recorded as successes, both the auction value and the number the ward could actually use would become a lie.

"What if the trading house arrives before the remaining eight are done?" he asked.

"The four finished ones and the leftover parts get appraised separately."

"The price will drop further."

"That loss also gets written down next to the room warmed by today's four."

Marie wrote the blacksmith's next shift time and the apprentice's inspection duty below the work schedule. No one got to claim tonight's eight pieces of labor in advance just by saying "making twelve."

"Done."

"If we do just one more, we could get the dining hall too."

"If there are hands tomorrow, we do one more tomorrow."

She hung the tool box key at her own waist. Even while insisting others rest, she didn't let go of the most important key. Serena noticed that contradiction too. Not something to fix today, but something to remember.

The first furnace went under the ward's soup pot. The second went in the middle of the communal dining hall. The third was placed by the wall where wet gloves and bandages were dried. The fourth was set aside, cooled, as a spare. Cassian carried the base bearing the duchy crest across the kitchen threshold with both arms.

"It's upside down," the kitchen child said.

Cassian turned the base around.

"The crest has to face up."

"But the fire's underneath?"

"That's exactly why the duke is the one holding up the fire."

Several people laughed at the child's remark. Even Cassian's mouth moved, just slightly, at the corners. But after setting the base down, before the laughter, he wrote down the end time of the transport shift.

Marie counted heads in front of the soup pot. Twenty three patients, seven children from the communal room, eleven elders, four kitchen staff. They didn't use noble dishware. Bowls of different sizes meant different ladle amounts, which started fights. She gathered wooden bowls of the same depth, and anyone short a bowl had their name added to the second line.

"Give it all out at once and the bottom of the pot burns."

"There's more water," Serena said.

"Water isn't soup. Only call as many people as there are beans and root vegetables left to serve."

Serena asked if she meant to cut down the number being served.

"No. I mean split the line in two. Those who eat first, and those who wait by the furnace. Count the waiting time as part of the shift too."

The dining hall got loud as a market. Someone touched the noble silver base with their hand, someone else brought their own firewood from home and asked to be served first. Marie didn't trade the weight of firewood brought in for a bigger portion of soup.

"Soup isn't payment for firewood. It's today's one meal. Claim the firewood wages separately from the ledger."

One bowl of soup didn't fix the economy. But it put the person who'd brought firewood and the person who hadn't in the same line. Settling that difference was a fight to have in tomorrow's ledger.

Noah didn't appear at the dining hall door until evening. The physician had wrapped a blanket around him, and Serena asked whether he wanted to walk or sit in a chair.

"I'll eat in bed."

When people's eyes turned toward him, Noah stepped back.

"If I eat here, everyone watches."

Marie immediately transferred the soup into a small pot.

"Then we go to your room. We just need to decide whose name goes down for returning the bowl."

Noah said he'd return it himself. Serena settled it: if he felt well enough tomorrow, he'd return it himself, otherwise it would be left outside the door. She didn't ask for thanks.

The temporary bedroom still held the lukewarm heat of the flue. His back wasn't burning hot the way it was on the hearth stone, but his fingertips weren't freezing either. Noah sat on the bed and ate a spoonful of soup. He chewed the bean skins for a long time. After the second spoonful, he set the bowl down.

The physician told him to eat more.

"It's fine to leave some," Serena said.

"If I get hungry, can it be warmed again at night?" Noah asked.

Cassian offered to bring the spare furnace, but Noah shook his head.

"That one belongs to a different room."

Serena explained the options: use the soup pot's remaining heat, or eat it cold once it cooled, or wait until morning. Noah decided to eat half now and leave half.

"What about the night shift slot for the second house?"

Serena unfolded the record sheet she'd brought along. The workers' quarters inside the castle were above the baseline. Bern's house was still under shutter repair, and one night shift slot on the record was still empty.

"Who's missing?"

"It's the slot waiting for a volunteer."

"So it hasn't started yet."

"That's right."

Cassian started to say the barrier reading had gone up a little, then closed his mouth. What Noah had asked about wasn't the barrier. It was the empty name.

"Tomorrow I want to see Bern's house."

"If the physician allows it," Cassian said.

Noah's lips tightened.

Serena corrected him.

"We'll check your condition and how you'd travel together, then you decide. You can also turn back partway."

Noah set his finger down on the blank slot on the record sheet. He neither agreed nor refused.

Before sleep, Serena set the soup bowl covered on the table. Cassian checked the window latch but didn't lock the door. The physician wrote down the time for the night temperature check and left.

Under the blanket, Noah slowly stretched out his feet. On the hearth stone, the ankle chain would pull tight and he'd have had to bend his knees. Here, his toes didn't even reach the end of the bed.

"Leave the sheet here."

Serena set the paper down where the empty night slot faced him.

Noah pressed a finger against that blank space once, then closed his eyes. The nights for both houses hadn't started yet. But tonight, the name of the child sleeping in a bed instead of on a hearth was not one of the blanks.