Authors: Nathan Lowell
Jakey shrugged but Ethan nodded an affirmative. “It should. I don’t think stone weighs as much as clay. Six horses should be able to haul it easy on the open road.”
William looked at Ethan. “Alright then, you know what we need. In the mornin’ I want you to head up to Arletton and arrange for them to cut it for us. Can you do that?”
Ethan shrugged. “Sure. I think so.”
“Good. Tell ’em we need it by Hunter’s Moon and we’ll send Frank to pick it up in the lorry, but they’ll have to load it for him.”
Ethan nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Jakey stuck his chin up to get their attention. “Do we need stones for the hearth or ovens?”
William shook his head. “I had Frank order oven brick from Megan’s father while he was in town. It should be here in a couple of weeks. They’re sending a shipment down to Easton and they’ll drop it off on the way by.”
Jakey grinned and whistled in appreciation. “Well, my goodness. Ain’t we gettin’ fancy now. Oven brick and ever’thin’.”
Ethan snickered. “Well, from what I heard, we get an inn out here and Harry’s gonna be seein’ more of his in-laws than he might like.”
Jakey’s smile got broader. “What? They can’t come live like common folk?”
Ethan shrugged. “Somethin’ about grandkids and not wantin’ to sleep on the ground.”
William laughed at that. “How do they think they’re gonna get here? Fly?”
Ethan grinned good naturedly. “Dunno. But Harry was spittin’ all the way back so apparently it’s not just noise.”
When the chuckling died down, William refocused the discussion. “So, we sink the posts on the corners, the middles and one in the center? Run footers and build from there?”
Ethan looked back at the empty lot, and Tanyth could practically see him measuring with his eyes. “Yea. Should be ’bout right. You gonna put a chimney up the middle?”
“’Bout two thirds back. We got stone and mortar enough for that and I got a hearthstone all picked out for it.” William turned to Jakey. “You still think you can make two fire places and the oven into one chimney?”
Jakey pursed his lips and nodded. “Oh, ya. Easier to do that than make two chimneys. Bigger base to work on. It’ll be heavy, but we can put that on the ground, give it it’s own foundation of packed rock and gravel. The All-Father knows we got enough rock and gravel.”
They chuckled and William dusted his hands together. “Guess that’s it for now.” He turned to the younger man. “See me in the morning before you leave, Ethan, and I’ll give you some coin for down payment.”
He nodded and headed off down the path toward his house.
Jakey knuckled his forehead, nodded politely to Tanyth, and followed Ethan.
William turned back to her. “You still think it’s a good idea, mum?”
She laughed. “I better. You’ve already bought the brick.”
He grinned. “We can always use the brick.” He stopped grinning and looked her in the eye. “Seriously, mum. Do you think we should?”
She leaned on her staff and raised her head, drawing a full breath of the musky fall air in through her nose. The sun was going down behind the trees and the village fairly vibrated with life. She blew the air out through her mouth. “Yes.” She turned to him. “But why is my opinion so important, William?” She jerked her chin in the direction of the houses. “This is your village. These are your people. Why does what I think matter so much?”
He smiled. “Mum? You have the benefit of age and wisdom and you’ve traveled from one end of this land to the other.” Tanyth started to snicker and waved her hand dismissively but William pressed on, his voice low, steady, and earnestly serious. “You killed to protect us and you bled from the battle. You’re a gift from the All-Mother. Your opinion matters because if you believe in us, we can believe in us.” He smiled down at her. “And if we believe we can, we will.”
His words sent a rush of embarrassment through her but everything he said was true, except possibly about her wisdom. She was caught speechless and just looked into his very serious and very young face.
“So, do you believe in us, mum?”
She smiled, then, and nodded. “Yes, William. I do.”
He nodded back. “Thank you, mum. And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure that Frank’s got the saw ready for us and then go grab some dinner.”
The evening closed in fast with the shorter days of autumn. He headed for the storage room, leaving her standing there for a few more moments admiring the view.
The thickening dusk masked the colors but here and there a brilliant yellow still reflected enough light to stand out of the dusk. She listened to the wind through the treetops and her eyes searched the tall fir to see if she could spy the raven looking down. She couldn’t and she wondered if the episodes had been nothing but her imagination after all.
She sighed and was surprised to feel disappointment. She would have liked to feel like she were special, magical. “Somethin’ other than an old fool,” she muttered to the setting sun before starting off down the path to find a cup of tea.
She worked herself into a high dudgeon as she strode along, ignoring the twinges from the cut down her belly and striking the earth with her staff harder than she needed to. She knew she was being pouty but she didn’t care and vented her frustration on the night by stomping along like a five-year-old told she couldn’t have a sweet before dinner. The image delighted her and she screwed up her face the way she remembered her own Robert used to and pretended she was a pouting child for no other reason than her own amusement. The silliness of it washed over her and she laughed aloud at herself. Her stride loosened and she stopped stabbing the ground with her staff on every step. By the time she got to her house, she was in pretty good spirits, thinking about which tea she’d like to have and what she’d like for dinner.
She got almost to her door before she realized that Thomas had been there and left a fine fat hare hanging on the peg at the edge of the roof. The shape swung gently in the soft night air. She looked up at it and smiled. He was such a thoughtful man. A familiar soft croaking sound drew her eyes upward even further and she looked into the golden eyes of the raven perched politely on the ridgepole of her roof.
“Well, there you are.” She looked at the rabbit and then back to the raven. “Come for dinner have you?”
The raven croaked again.
“Well, give me a minute, and I’ll find you a piece or two.”
Chapter 34
Room and Boards
Tanyth woke with the sunrise and crawled out of her bed roll. It promised to be a busy day and she didn’t want to miss a minute of it. It felt good to be up and about. She stirred up the fire, and added a couple of small sticks before pushing the tea kettle closer to the heat. Her porridge was cool but she slopped a little warm water on the top and gave it a stir, too. It would warm and the apple she’d cored and put in the night before gave it a lovely smell.
She pulled warm clothes out of the bed roll and slipped baggy pants on over her naked–and now chilly–legs. A pair of warm socks covered naked toes and her worn boots slipped easily onto her feet. She stamped them down and grabbed a wrap before bolting for the privy. “Shouldn’t have waited so long.” It was a good natured grumble and almost made her giggle. Only the thought that giggling might have damp consequences kept her from doing it.
Taking the return trip a bit more sedately, she noticed that frost had touched the grass in some of the sheltered areas. She knew it wouldn’t be long before every morning would be a frosty one. She marveled that this would be the first winter in her life that she wouldn’t be stuck in a cottage with somebody else. For the past twenty winters, she’d lived with her teachers. Each of them asking only her help during the coldest months and, in return, feeding her and letting her stay warm by their fires. She’d whiled away long dark hours in discussions over this or that preparation, how to best get the goodness from some herb or other, and the most useful ways of combining beeswax and oils to make salves and balms. This winter, she was the “old woman” and it amused her to think that others valued her as more than just an extra pair of hands or a strong back. She wondered if she should give up her plan of finding Mother Pinecrest and stay in the village for a while.
In the forest, the raven cawed loudly.
“Perhaps not,” she muttered to herself.
By the time she got back to her hut, the water was boiling, the oatmeal was warm, and the sun peeked over the tree line across the way. She made short work of her breakfast and cleaned up the pots before refilling the tea kettle, banking the fire, and dressing for a walk up to the saw pit. She’d never seen planks being cut and she found the idea interesting. It seemed almost incomprehensible that the men would be able to saw the length of those logs, not just once, but several times, in order to turn them into boards. She knew, in her mind, that they would but in her heart the labor seemed prodigious.
When she got up there, hat on her head and staff in her hand, the crews had already assembled. Jakey, William, and Frank would be on top of the logs, pulling the saw up and keeping the line straight. Harry, James, and Matthew would be in the pit, pulling the saw back down again. They’d work in pairs, only one pair at a time but trading off regularly to keep fresh.
The men treated the saw–a long band of toothed steel–with all the respect due a poisonous snake. The teeth could bite flesh as easily as wood and nobody wanted to get a bite taken out of them. Tanyth could relate to that.
Frank took the first turn on top and Harry clambered down into the pit. The log itself was held in a clever arrangement of cross bars and supports that could be moved to allow the saw’s passage. Before he began, Frank took a ball of heavy cord and unrolled it along the length of the log. He rubbed it with a block of chalk and, with Jakey’s help, snapped it along the length of the log leaving a clean white line about an inch in from the side.
Frank lifted the saw off its supports and lowered the end down into the pit very carefully. “You ready, Harry?”
Tanyth watched the bending steel straighten and line up as Harry took the handle on his end and Frank kept the tension on top.
“Ready, Frank.” Harry’s voice sounded muffled.
“Easy does it then.” Frank placed the saw on the mark where it crossed the end of the log and slowly pulled the handle upward. When he got to the end of his stroke, he paused before Harry started pulling from the other end. Frank kept just enough tension on the handle to keep the steel level and straight. They moved cautiously at first, getting a feel for the saw and the wood and the rhythm of the movement. Within ten strokes, they moved rapidly up and down, the saw ringing almost musically as it rasped through the wood. They sawed steadily for nearly a quarter hour before Frank and Harry traded off to Jakey and Matthew. The sawing continued. Tanyth watched for maybe half an hour more as the pairs traded off after each short shift.
Amber, Sadie, and Megan came up the path and smiled at Tanyth watching the sawing.
Amber smiled brightly and nodded at the men. “Good morning, mum. Pretty amazing isn’t it?”
Tanyth shook her head in amazement. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Sadie took her by the arm and continued up the path to the barn. “Well, come on, mum. They’ll be there for days cuttin’ logs. We got work to do.” She grinned and leaned in close to whisper. “Besides if you’re standin’ there watchin’, Frank’ll be so busy showin’ off he may hurt himself.”
Amber overheard and her laughter trilled through the woods even over the sound of the whipsaw.
Megan walked up beside them and tutted Sadie. “You stop being rude.”
“How do you know I was bein’ rude? You didn’t hear what I said.”
She sniffed. “Amber only laughs like that when you are and Mother Fairport is blushin’.”
Sadie and Amber both laughed at that and continued on their way through the barn to the storage area in the back.
Amber took charge as they entered the workroom. “Alright, we need the worktable set up, a fire laid, and a kettle put on for tea.” With surprising efficiency, Tanyth found herself lighting the fire while Megan ran a bucket to the pump and Amber and Sadie wrestled some of the horses and planks into place to form a work surface.
In addition to the food supplies, Frank also brought back bolts of winter weight fabrics and skeins of yarn for knitting, along with spools of heavy thread and three cards of needles. So while the men worked in the saw pit, the women moved into the workroom and set to work outfitting the village in winter clothing. The adults only needed to have their winter gear checked and patched, but each child in the village needed to be outfitted anew for the coming season. In most cases that meant passing the heavy clothes from older child to younger, but need outnumbered the available hand-me-downs and everybody needed something. Tanyth needed something warmer for outer wear and some warmer shifts and leggings. The houses were snug, and the winter snows served to insulate them even more, but the temperatures were frigid and, even inside with the fire going, they were never as warm as a summer day.
Amber, Sadie, and Megan–having spent so much time helping Tanyth with her recovery–took to having her join their sewing circle with a ready familiarity. When Charlotte and Bethany joined them in the workroom, they treated her with a shy reserve at first, even seeming to be shocked by the lack of propriety shown by the others. Over time, as they became more comfortable, the six women relaxed in each other’s company and got on with the tasks of stitch and hem.
The days took on a rhythm that was as much driven by the rasp-rasp-rasp of the saw as the passage of the sun through the sky. It became common for the men coming off the saw to walk into the workroom for tea, or just water, and to chat for a few moments before returning to their labors. Even lunch was done in shifts with the work not stopping for food but with the men grabbing bites between their turns at the handles.
The days grew steadily shorter and the harder frosts pinched off the softer plants. The leaves all turned to festive colors and then fell to the ground, leaving bare branches stark against the sky. Dark green pine, spruce, and hemlock stood out in patches among the drab grays and browns. Migrating birds filled the sky with wings as the Axe Moon gave way to Hunter’s.