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“Are you mad, woman? No… Don’t answer that.”
Brynja had been hustled away as soon as it was clear that there would be no restoring any sense of order at the moot for some time to come. Kern had managed to get her out via a side path so that she wouldn’t have to risk walking through the riot she had caused. And riot it was. Fisticuffs had broken out in more than one spot and, tradition or no, she had no doubt some of those fists would happily have flown in her direction had she tried moving through the crowd.
She had scarcely been home long enough for Isoli to get her dressed for the indoors and seated before a hot meal when she had a visitor. Grib, it seemed, had departed not long after she had, and had evidently made her home his first stop. Knowing how far she had taken things, she had hesitated on allowing him to be admitted, but had decided that refusing him would only make things worse.
Grib’s first words upon her entering the sitting room had certainly implied that making things worse was certainly something that could happen. Instead, she obeyed the injunction against answering on the policy that silence was probably the best thing she could do at the moment.
“It had been my intention to establish that no one with a right to inherit it wanted it. I was then going to tell everyone to mind their own knitting, so long as the steel continued to flow. This is family business, and the moot should never have been involved.”
Brynja sighed. “Do you think it would have worked?”
Grib frowned, then sat down on a settee. “Possibly not,” he admitted. “But even if it hadn’t, it would have tied things up for quite some time. The moot is powerful, but so long as things can be seen as an internal family affair the moot is very cautious. It could have spun on for months. By then I might have even convinced enough of them to let you continue running the factory. Maybe.”
Brynja felt surprised. “Elder?”
Grib glowered up at her from beneath beetled brows. “Make no mistake, Brynja, widow of Blaustrupe. I was not doing it for you. I was doing it for the foundry.”
She felt deflated at the admission, like a heavy weight had dropped down on her.
“Oh, sit down, woman, before you fall down.”
Brynja plopped down onto a particularly plush armchair.
“Now, as I was saying. I was not doing this for you. Blaistrupe’s foundry is one of the richest endeavors anyone in this family has ever undertaken. It happens to be a point of pride for me. Going from a brand new foundry to one of the largest and most productive plants in all the clans in only five years is quite the feather for our cap.
“If Kern had come forward requiring that he inherit, as the law states he should, we’d have lost the foundry. It would have gone to your brother’s family or, worse, would have been sold off. So long as no one pushed the claim, however, it would remain in the family.
“So, young lady, I ignored it. I ignored you. I let the situation linger as long as I could, because it was the only thing I could do under our traditions and laws.” Grib leaned back against the cushioned back of the settee. “I owe you an apology."
The slight slouch in Brynja’s back snapped out of her spine, and she felt her eyes open a bit in shock. “Elder?”
“I underestimated you. I have been underestimating you for six years.” Grib was looking towards her, his face as gentle as it had been at the start of the moot. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand.”
Grib sighed. “When Blaistrupe first decided to marry you I had my doubts about the arrangement. You seemed a bit uppity. Too full of yourself. You did not, in my opinion, have the makings of a good wife. I was certain Blaistrupe was setting himself up with a bit of a harridan, in fact. Obviously I didn’t put a stop to it. Ours is a large family, and Blaistrupe was an unproven young man. I had larger concerns.
“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t. I watch things more closely than most realize. I was fully aware that Blaistrupe was actually consulting with you on the foundry, and not simply keeping you in the kitchen and the bedroom where you belonged. Yet the foundry was growing, becoming larger and richer before my very eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was because Bliastrupe was truly that brilliant, or it was the result of the two of you working together. Either way, I was not going to interfere. I needed Blaistrupe to be happy and productive.
“Well, when he went off to the war and left you in charge I was beside myself. I couldn’t exactly deny him the chance to defend our clan, now could I? How would that have looked? Unpatriotic, that’s certain. I had to let him go, cursing all the while.
“And yet the foundry flourished.” Grib shook his head. “No, it did more than that. You made decisions and quietly negotiated deals with suppliers and customers alike that took full advantage of how greedy the war is for steel. With Blaistrupe in the field I could no longer doubt that you were a force to be reckoned with.
“And yet I was still doubtful. When Blaistrupe died I almost replaced you in spite of what had happened beforehand. The only thing that stayed my hand was a need to avoid drawing any attention to the foundry. Every day Kern avoided pushing for his inheritance was a day the foundry stayed in the family.”
Grib placed his hands on his knee, the wrinkled skin of them pale and spotted with age. “When he finally came to me to tell me he did not want the foundry I was surprised. Had it been me at his age I’d have taken the factory, and then sold it. He’d have been rolling in money. A dozen families in the clan would likely have done all they could to find a way to pay him for so lucrative a money maker. He could have expanded his own factory substantially with such funds.
“Yet he didn’t want it.” Grib shook his head. “I still can’t quite fathom it. A man who turns that down because he is content with what he has? It’s almost beyond belief. But it meant the foundry could stay in the family if I could just find the way.
“So I badgered you. I pushed you at the moot. I thought if I could demonstrate no immediate heir could be found that wanted it, and that you had backbone, child, then I could see to it you were appointed caretaker over it, and I over you. It never occurred to me to talk to you first, and so I pushed you too far. If only I had told you my plan this might have been avoided, but I was sure that, in the end, you were merely a woman.”
Grib rose from his seat and bowed. “I am sorry for underestimating you.”
“Elder, I…” she struggled for words. It was a lot to take in, and she was uncertain exactly what to think of all of it. She felt her jaw flop a bit, unable to do anything worthwhile without guidance, but then she smiled. “I am merely a woman.”
Grib laughed a bit, and sat back down. “A remarkable one, I will say.” He turned serious once more. “However, remarkable or not, you have made quite a mess of this one.”
“Now it is my turn to apologize.”
“Don’t,” Grib said. “If I had given you the respect your abilities deserved and consulted with you about the moot before hand this could have been avoided. You did what you had to. In fact, it may well have been a gift in disguise, that outburst of yours.”
“Elder?”
Grib leaned forward, waggling a finger at Brynja. “You have upset things quite a bit at the moot, young lady. The elders are beside themselves with outrage, and a very, very large audience heard every word of what caused that. It is, frankly, the most entertaining and scandalous thing to have occurred around here in my century and a half long life. Everyone will be watching you like a hawk just to see what happens.”
Brynja blanched. That was a bit more scrutiny than she cared for. “But how does that help?”
“Because they will be watching the Elders just as closely.” Grib laughed. “You defied that entire body of self-righteous old men to their faces, and you did it very publically. They have no choice but to respond. Ordinarily I would not want to be in your shoes, or even in the same general region of that, but your parting shot has, very publicly, put them on notice. If they shut you down, they will be doing it in the view of every single person who is watching the spectacle you have created. If they handle it wrong, the fallout will be remarkable. It could even result in a major shift in power among the families. Speaking as one of the Elders, we like the power right where it is, thank you very much.”
Brynja shook her head. “I don’t quite understand how my actions could disrupt things that badly.”
“Of course you don’t. We try to keep things very carefully in check. Allow me to explain.” Grib sat back, steepling his fingers and closing his eyes as though he were organizing his thoughts. “The moot of every clan is, as you know, made up of the Elders of every family. We elders are, of course, chosen from among the oldest and wisest members of the family. The idea being that this means that the moot will have the collective wisdom of the entire clan to guide them in large matters that impact more than one family.
“What never occurs to most people is that, in fact, most of the families at the moot are dominated by a few. It is the wealthiest few who truly run the moot. After all, if you are the elder of one of the poorer families, the promise that your vote will earn favorable deals on necessary goods and services from one of the wealthiest families can drastically change the family fortune. And, of course, a suggestion that your own goods and services could find themselves being replaced after an ill chosen vote makes for a heavy stick indeed.”
Brynja leaned forward. “That’s why you wanted to show them I could do it. You could then threaten them with bad deals if they tried to take the decision out of your hands and force Kern to inherit.”
“Yes. But you have just polarized things amazingly. The most powerful families, by and large, will want to cut you off at the knees and make an example of you. But by very publicly daring them to do just that, everyone will be watching for it. If they go ahead and do so then the entire clan… no, the entire world will know that they have accepted that dwarven women, and by extent all dwarves, are inferior.
“You have no idea how shaky things are for the most powerful families. For the longest time, the wealth and status of families have been their largest concerns. But now the smaller families are losing their sons to a war no one wanted. War has always fallen far more harshly on the poorer families than the wealthy ones. Trade concessions and embargoes are no longer the largest concern they face, and there is quite a bit of anger focused on the powerful families. If those powerful families make a move that looks like they are conceding that they don’t consider their soldiers to be the equal of the foe…”
Brayve nodded. “There are a lot more of them than there are of the wealthy families, aren’t there?”
“Yes. And if one of the wealthy families throws in with them, one that owns more than half of the steel in the clan, the stick might start seeming mighty anemic.”
“They could bond together and take us straight out of the war.”
“A war that is making the privileged few top families very rich.”
Bravye felt a welter of hope. “Then I can keep it. I can keep the foundry. My husband’s legacy…”
“No,” Grib interrupted sadly. “Unfortunately you can’t.”
“But, why not?”
“Because right now the elders are certain that your challenge to them is a bluff. That you wouldn’t actually attempt to raise a unit of women. I assure you, someone is going to call your bluff.” Grib shook his head sadly. “You’ve given them no choice, but you gave yourself no choice at the same time. If you succeed in this madness, then we can talk about the foundry afterwards. But for now, you are going to have to devote all your time to raising a military unit no one wants and make certain it can pass the hardest unit preparedness test in history.”
Grib stood up and turned towards the door. “Good luck.”
