by K. J. Parker
‘Not bad,’ Colsceg admitted, frowning. ‘Mind you, when I was your age—’
After that, things went well. The rafters dropped into their pockets in the plates, the pegs slid home and tightened in their tapers with a few light taps of the mallet and the collar ties lay sweetly in their blind mortices.
‘Finished,’ Poldarn said, taking a step back. ‘Well, apart from the thatch and the doors, and planking up the sides. But the frame’s up, anyway.’
Later, when the rest of them were well into their beer, he lit a torch, called Elja down from the loft and took her down the river path to see it. ‘Of course,’ he pointed out, ‘it’ll look different when it’s got walls and a roof—’
‘I imagine so, yes. A bit more waterproof, for a start.’
‘– But you get the general idea.’ He hesitated and looked away. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked.
‘I think it’s very nice,’ Elja replied solemnly. ‘Can we go back inside now, please? It’s freezing, and my feet are all wet.’
‘In a moment,’ Poldarn replied. ‘Wait there a moment, will you?’ He disappeared out of the light, and came back a minute later with a wooden cup in his hand. ‘I just remembered I left this out here,’ he explained. ‘Go on, have a sip. It’s water from our river.’
Elja took the cup from him. ‘It’s not really our river,’ she said.
‘From here to the mouth of the combe it is,’ Poldarn said. ‘All right, from the spring head to here it belongs to Haldersness, and from the mouth of the combe as far as Swartmoor it belongs to your father, and after that I’m not sure; but for the minute or so it takes for the water to get from here to there, it’s ours. Don’t be so damned literal all the time.’
Elja sipped; then she pulled a face and spat it out. ‘It’s all muddy,’ she said.
‘Yes, well,’ Poldarn admitted, ‘probably I stirred it up a bit while I was washing the cup out. But I’ll put in a gravel bed to filter it, and then we’ll have the sweetest water this side of the mountains.’
‘If you say so,’ Elja said. ‘And now, if it’s all the same to you, I really would like to go back, because I’m getting married in a couple of days, and I don’t want to say my vows with a streaming cold.’
‘Don’t fuss,’ Poldarn said sternly, and kissed her; and although she knew she wasn’t supposed to, she kissed him back. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I think it looks better that way.’
‘What does?’
He nodded his head towards the house-frame. ‘The copse,’ he replied.
‘Oh,’ Elja said. ‘That. I think it’s a very nice house, even if it’s still a bit bald in patches. But I really would like to go back now, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘Yes, it’s all the same to me.’ Poldarn sighed, feeling slightly ashamed of his petulance. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. I just thought you’d like to see it, that’s all.’
‘Thank you,’ Elja replied gravely. ‘But I’m going to be seeing it every day for the rest of my life, and it’s late, and I’d like to get some sleep now. I’m sure it’ll be a really nice house,’ she added, ‘when it’s finished.’
Next day they started splitting the shakes for boarding in the walls. There was no easy way to go about it. Each felled log had to be carefully examined to see where the split-lines ran, and then it was a simple but tedious and exhausting matter of hammering in the froes, freeing them, driving them in a little further up the line, until the log cracked open lengthways to form two half-round planks. That was the theory, at any rate; but one log in three refused to split clean, leaving the chore of salvaging what material they could for filling and patching. As the day wore on, the hammers and axe-polls grew steadily heavier and more erratic, sometimes missing the froe altogether and landing a full-weight blow on the neck of the handle – whereupon the axe or hammer head would snap off and fly fast and wild through the air, adding a spice of danger to the monotony of the day’s labours. By nightfall, the best that could be said was that half the job had been done and nobody had been killed yet; and when the Colscegsford people set to washing the dust out of their throats, Poldarn began to wonder how the beer could possibly hold out till the house was finished.
Another day to split the rest of the shakes and shingles, another two days to nail and peg them to the frames; then, quite suddenly early one afternoon, Colsceg stood back, looked at the house and said, ‘Right, it’s finished.’
Poldarn, who’d been fussing over a tight shutter, looked up in surprise. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Well.’ Colsceg shrugged. ‘It all needs sealing with pitch, of course, and that blacksmith of yours said the latches’d be ready two days ago and I haven’t seen any sign of ’em so far, and there’s a few bits and bobs that need sorting out, same as you get on any new building. But yes, it’s finished.’
‘Oh.’ Poldarn took a few steps back. ‘So it is,’ he said. ‘You know what, it isn’t bad.’
‘Seen worse,’ Colsceg conceded. ‘And so long as it keeps you dry and doesn’t fall on your head in the night, who gives a damn?’ He leaned on his axe and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘You’re right, it’s not so bad, though I say so myself. ’Course, if we had the job to do all over again, I’d use birds’ mouths for the rafter seats instead of step laps and I’d probably stop the splayed scarfs with double wedges, but it’s too late now to worry about that, not unless you want to tear the whole lot down and do it again.’ He sighed. ‘It’ll get the job done, that’s the main thing. Should see you out, anyway.’
‘I like it,’ Poldarn replied. ‘You know what, I think I could get to know who I really am in a house like that.’
Colsceg frowned, as if to say that he didn’t know what to make of a remark like that, and probably just as well. ‘Let’s just hope the mountain doesn’t brew up again and flatten it,’ he said. ‘That’d be a choker, after all the work I’ve put in.’
Poldarn smiled. I dedicate this monument to my future father-in-law Colsceg, he said to himself, without whose dedication, hard work and helpful suggestions, this house would’ve been completed two days ago. ‘I couldn’t have done it without your help,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
Colsceg seemed genuinely surprised by that; he frowned, and muttered that it was a job that needed doing, so he’d done it. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘it’s not just you that’ll be living there, it’s my daughter as well. Don’t worry about it.’
Making Colsceg feel uncomfortable was almost as pleasant as building the house. ‘No, honestly,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am. It was really kind of you to spare the time, especially when things have gone so badly for you. Most people in your position would’ve been far too preoccupied with their own business to have mucked in the way you did.’
‘No, they wouldn’t,’ Colsceg protested, as if Poldarn had just said something outrageous. ‘Look, it’s no big deal, so let’s not say any more about it, right?’
Poldarn shrugged. ‘That’s very generous of you,’ he said, unable to resist a final twist of the knife before drawing it out of the wound. ‘And the least I can do by way of thanks is to insist that you move into Haldersness, as soon as we’re settled in here. After all,’ he went on, barging through Colsceg’s protests like an impatient carter running down chickens in the road, ‘it’s just standing there empty, and your people need a roof over their heads. Please, I want you to treat it as your own for as long as you like.’
‘But—’ Colsceg was now so bewildered that Poldarn almost felt sorry for him. ‘Well, for one thing, it’s a good day’s ride from our farm, we’d spend more time trekking back and forth than working. And there’s a hell of a lot to do – well, you know that, you were there. If we moved into Haldersness, it’d be a nightmare.’
Reluctantly, Poldarn decided to let him off the hook. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. ‘But at the very least, I want you to have all the timbers and the thatch, so all you’ll have to do is take it down, cart it over to
your place and put it back up again. I mean to say, where else are you going to find enough lumber to build with?’
There he had a point. Not long ago there had been a very fine wood at Colscegsford – Barn’s wood, for building his house when Colsceg was dead – and another, rather smaller and less well looked after, for Egil; but both of them had been scooped up and smashed into kindling by the mud-slides, and the nearest stands of unclaimed timber were weeks away to the south-east. Cutting and carting so far from home would require the entire household to move out there for the best part of six months, during which time they’d have to fend for themselves as best they could by hunting and gathering. Or else they’d have to leave half the household camped out at Colscegsford to raise whatever crop they could grow in the mud, while the other half took twice as long to do the cutting and hauling. Poldarn fancied that he could see all these arguments tracking painfully across Colsceg’s mind.
‘Can’t argue with that,’ Colsceg said at last, a trifle resentfully. ‘Guess we’ll be taking you up on your offer. We’re obliged to you.’ He said the word obliged as if he’d just given his first-born as extra security on a mortgage of his entire property. ‘We’ll get started on tearing the old place down straight away.’
Poldarn shook his head. ‘No hurry,’ he said. ‘You’ve all put in so much hard work here, you need a day or so to catch your breath before you start on that. Why don’t you just hang around and take it easy for a while? You’ll do much better work if you aren’t exhausted.’
‘All right,’ Colsceg said reluctantly. ‘And I guess there’s the wedding to see to, that’ll take a couple of days if we’re going to do it properly. And if we don’t get it done and out of the way now, while we’re slack, it’ll be awkward fitting it in later.’
He made it sound like a more than usually dreary chore, like forking out the poultry sheds. Charming, Poldarn thought, but then, I’ve never seen a wedding in these parts. Maybe it is a dreary chore, the way they do it. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. ‘What a splendid idea,’ he said. ‘And, like you say, no time like the present. How would the day after tomorrow suit you?’
Colsceg rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘Sure, why not?’ he said stoically. ‘After all, everything’s pretty well screwed up with the volcano and all, so the best thing would be to get it done as soon as possible – no point letting it drag on.’
Poldarn nodded. ‘Assuming that’s all right with Elja,’ he put in.
‘Huh? Oh, she won’t mind. I mean, it’s not like we’re springing it on her out of the blue. Anyway,’ he added, with a slight frown, ‘she seems to like you all right, and a couple of days, you can get most of the furniture and stuff in. That’ll be just fine.’
The two households were gathering up their tools, searching for lost froes and wedges, sorting the leftover timber into useful oddments and firewood. There was a general air of grim weariness, like the feel of a week-old battlefield when the scavengers are out gleaning the last pickings of useful property from the dead; all the good stuff having been taken already, and only torn clothes, worn-out boots and broken metalwork remaining. ‘We could announce it straight away,’ Poldarn pointed out. ‘After all, everybody’s here.’
Colsceg sighed. ‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Save having to call a meeting later on.’
Luckily, Poldarn hadn’t been expecting wholesale rejoicing and mirth, so he wasn’t disappointed; but even so, he wasn’t too pleased by the dogged resignation that greeted the announcement. The best that could be said of it was that both households took it like men, with fortitude and without any undue display of protest or disgust. One damn thing after another, their attitude suggested, but it can’t be helped, so what’s the good of whining about it? Poldarn made a mental note that they were miserable bastards, every last one of them, and carried the slabbing rail back to Haldersness. It felt much heavier than it had done a week ago.
Chapter Thirteen
For once, the mind-reading thing turned out to be a blessing. If Poldarn’d had to break the news of the wedding to the combined Haldersness and Colscegsford households – calling a meeting, standing up in front of them, with their blank, bewildered faces glaring at him in the firelight – he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to find the courage to do it. But they all knew without having to be told, and by the time the housebuilders arrived back at the middle house, Rannwey and the other women had already made a start on various nameless and inscrutable preparations, most of which seemed to involve tired, dank-looking vegetation in huge wicker baskets. Whether these would turn out to be things to eat or things to wear or things to hang on walls, Poldarn couldn’t ascertain and didn’t really want to know. Mostly, he got the feeling that it wasn’t really anything to do with him, and his role in the forthcoming event would be both minimal and a considerable nuisance to everybody else.
He wanted to talk to Elja, if only to make sure that she didn’t mind, but when he asked where she was, he was told by word, gesture and facial expression that even being in the same building as her before the wedding would constitute an unmitigated abomination; she’d been moved to the trap-house, and wouldn’t be coming out until the actual day of the wedding, if then. Meanwhile, it was suggested to him, if he was at a loose end with nothing to do, wouldn’t it be a good idea if he looked in at the forge and did some work, for a change.
The last thing Poldarn wanted to do was stand in front of a raging fire in a dark shed mangling a strip of hot iron; but, since there wasn’t really anywhere else for him to be, he went. Asburn seemed genuinely pleased to see him.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Asburn said, wiping a pink furrow across his soot-blackened forehead with the back of his hand, ‘but I’m just finishing up these latches for the new house. They should’ve been done by now, but if I can get really stuck into them they’ll be ready for when you move in.’
Poldarn frowned. ‘Why should I mind?’ he asked, but Asburn didn’t answer.
There still didn’t seem to be anything for him to do; making latch components was clearly a job for one skilled man. He could always make a few nails, of course, but even now that the house was finished there was still a full barrel of nails in the corner, probably enough to last a decade, so there didn’t seem to be any point. Then he remembered the promise he’d made to Boarci, to make him an axe to replace the one he’d lost.
‘Asburn,’ he said, ‘how do you make axe heads?’
‘Piece of cake,’ Asburn replied promptly. ‘All you do is, you get a bit of square bar about a thumb-length broad and about a foot long, you leave a square in the middle alone, because that’s going to be the poll, for hammering wedges and stuff, but you draw down both ends to about the thickness of a tooth; then you fold these down at right angles round a mandrel – that makes the eye for the handle to go through – wedge a piece of hard steel between them, forge-weld all three layers together, and then you just work it to shape, take a good orange heat and quench in water. And that’s all there is to it.’
‘Ah,’ Poldarn said. He’d followed that as far as the square in the middle, but the rest had soared over his head like a flock of startled teal. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it a try.’
Asburn went back to his work; he was measuring something with a pair of calipers, over and over again from a bewildering variety of angles. To Poldarn it looked like a little piece of bar, flat and straight and entirely uncomplicated, but obviously there was more to latchsmithing than met the eye. Piece of cake, he muttered sourly under his breath, as he rootled around in the scrap for inspiration.
What he’d been hoping to find, of course, was an axe head – a genuine one, made by a real smith, which he could grind and buff and pass off as his own work. There were halberds and glaives and bardisches and bills, both broken and intact, enough to fit out a regiment, but nothing as mundane and useful as a small hand-axe. But he did find half a heavy-duty cart tyre and the stub end of a broken rasp; and as he looked at
them, it occurred to him (why, he had no idea) that he knew what to do.
First, he took a yellow heat and cut off a foot of the tyre with the hot sett, taking care not to let the glowing steel land on his foot or go flying across the forge when he severed it. While the cut-off section was still orange, he popped it back into the fire with the help of the offset-jaw tongs – undoubtedly not the right tongs for the job, but the only ones he’d figured out how to manage without trapping a blood-blister on the ball of his middle finger – got it as hot as he dared without burning it, and folded it into a U with a few smart taps over the anvil table. Back it went into the fire, while Poldarn rummaged in the heap of rusty tools under the bench until he found a tapered steel pin as thick as the axe handle needed to be. On this he hung the yellow-hot steel U, quickly clamped it in the vice, and tapped all round the pin with a light, well-crowned hammer to knock down the metal where the bend had flared it. That formed a nice, even, round eye, with two equal-length legs coming down on either side. Before the iron cooled, he hammered these together until they touched, then gripped the eye in the vice with the legs pointing upwards, and used the hot sett to open them up just enough to allow him to slide in the finger-length of broken rasp that would form the hard cutting edge. But he didn’t do that yet; first he brought it up almost to a white heat, so the iron legs wouldn’t burn before the heat soaked through into the middle. He was really proud of himself for thinking of that.
A few taps closed the legs around the insert; then a generous sprinkle of flux and back in the fire and some hard labour on the bellows handle, until the fire was so hot it frizzed his eyebrows. It took a frustratingly long time to get the work to a uniform welding heat, but Poldarn knew better than to be continually hauling it out and fiddling with it; he was listening for the sound of the iron starting to melt, even though he hadn’t got a clue what that sound was supposed to be like. But, he figured, that was where his ignorance would come in useful; as soon as he heard a sound he couldn’t identify, that’d be it.
