Tuesday Tidbit: Stone Cutter

Master Wulfgar arrives.

Harald bowed to the grey-clad man. Then he stood and extended his right hand. Master Wulfgar took it and they half-embraced. “I was paying my respects on the Eighth Day and avoiding another man’s trouble.” Harald spoke clearly, shaping the words with care as Wulfgar watched his lips.

A grunt greeted his words. “Who’s yer wood smith?”

“Ceol. His wife’s from a family,” he waved to the south and west. “Break bread with me?”

“Aye.” Wulfgar followed him into Goodman Skelly’s farmyard. They touched their forelocks to the statues of Gember and Yoorst. Harald opened the door to his room, and Wulfgar wiped his boots, then went in. Harald closed and barred the door behind them. As he did, Wulfgar shed his cloak and hung it on an empty peg. He removed a leather tankard from his back sack. Harald set the bread on the small table, then poured fresh cider for both of them as Wulfgar watched. As always, the stone cutter lifted his tankard and tipped a little of the drink onto the stone hearth and murmured under his breath. Harald waited. Rushing turned the stone cutter into a stone himself, unmoving, silent, and hard.

Wulfgar sat on the stool, so Harald leaned against the wall as they ate. “Stones are two days behind me,” Wulfgar stated after two bites of the cheese-filled bread. “Radmar and m’ Lord Scavenger willin’.” He made the Horns. Harald did as well.

“Good to hear. Everything’s ready for you when they arrive. Do you want to look today, or in the mornin’?” The sausage bun had a good weight to it. Someone had given full value on the meat weight.

“Mornin’. Want to read th’ land first, look at th’ stream. Full year?”

“Aye. Summer peak, but we get none it. Half the flow the full year, should be good for all but midwinter.” Between the ice and the lower flow, winter mills were rare this far north. He’d seen two, and one of those drew from a stream warmed underground by the Scavenger’s ovens.

Wulfgar drank from his tankard. “Lift th’ wheel or close th’ gate?”

“Close th’ gate. No pond, temples forbade it.” He still wasn’t sure why, but asking would probably answer nothing. He preferred not to know the gods’ reasons.

A grunt, then Wulfgar had a sausage bun. They’d need proper supper later, but this served. The stone cutter leaned back a little and pushed a few grey hairs back from his forehead. “Temple says no, it’s no. I rough cut the stones. I want to see the local wheat afore I do more dressin’. Just wheat?”

“Aye. And a little dinkel. The malting mill’s only twenty year?” He looked up at the ceiling as he tried to remember. “Twenty years old. Someone didn’t keep the gears greased, an’ it was a dusty summer.” The gears got too hot as they rubbed, and they had smoldered, then caught grain dust on fire. That was the end of the mill. He’d built two mills after the same thing happened in different places. The eich beams and other big wood tended to resist flame, but once the grain caught …

A snort and Wulfgar nodded. If he said twenty words in a working day, it meant he had a new apprentice, or someone was about to get a clout to the ear. Stone work and mill work had taken part of his hearing, and the master didn’t chat. Some found him hard to work with because of that, and for other reasons. He’d been born to Radmar, for the Scavenger, a restless and heavy pairing.

“I’ll see th’ mill tomorrow, then visit th’ temple. Any trouble yet?”

Harald folded his arms after drinking more cider. “Not for us. “Prentice fight didn’ quite turn riot but I’m keepin’ em’ outside the walls ’til the watch settles down. Ceol’s mindin’ his batch, smith likewise.” Should he mention Kal? Probably should. “Butcher an’ schaef raiser Kal Yarfeld thinks I’ve got an eye on his wife. If ye buy from her, don’ touch palms, ye ken?” He raised his eyebrows.

Dark grey eyes narrowed, and Wulfgar’s face folded into a deep frown. “I ken. Ye think—?”

“Aye. Me ‘n half th’ town.” It was one thing to keep order in the family, but no man had the right to terrify his womenfolk.

For a heartbeat, the stone cutter resembled one of the creatures the miners said lurked in the deep galleries, where they punished the disrespectful and unwary. The moment passed. “Stay here tonight?”

“Aye.”

#

The next morning, after both men had taken care of their needs, Harald showed Wulfgar the mill site. Mak and the other apprentices stared a little, then found things to do when Ceol and the journeymen glared. As always, Wulfgar ignored the apprentices. He’d trained a few, but how many Harald never could recall. It wasn’t his business. They started with the millwheel and shaft for the wheel and the imperial gear. Wulfgar inspected the stones of the millrace, nose almost touching the joints. Then he straightened up and nodded. They passed his judgement. Harald felt a little weight off his shoulders, then made the Horns under the cover of his cloak. One of the main beams would probably break and drop something on their heads instead. Wulfgar stomped out of the dry channel and around the building. Harald followed.

The interior had begun to look more like a mill than a barn. Mage lights provided light beyond what came in through the window openings and the doors. They’d divided the space into two levels. The top held the grain bins and storage for tools, plus a little resting space, and the pulleys and lifting gear for the stones. Under the warm scent of eich Harald caught the sharper smell of sendal and water root. They’d lined the bins with planks of water root to keep out more vermin, in case a preservation mage or beast mage could not renew the charms on the bins quickly enough. Hard sendal served for the bin lids, backed by white needle leaf. The main floor took the weight of the millstones, gears, and ground flour. It didn’t have storage for the flour beyond one day’s milling. Harald had shrugged at the request. The town had its reasons.

Black charcoal on the floor marked the space needed for moving the mill stones and mounting them. The door that gave access to the main shaft and imperial gear stood open, and the men skirted it with care. Wulfgar crouched and peered in. Harald took a mage lamp from the wall and lowered it into the space. The main shaft connected the millwheel in the stream to the imperial gear. The sleeve of the iron gudgeon strengthened that end of the shaft and kept the imperial gear from rubbing wood if something sagged. It also protected the end of the shaft from rubbing too hard on the oak mount. They’d mounted the flawed gear for now, to balance the weight of the millwheel. A heavy eich drum gear sat on the floor beside the opening. It would connect the imperial gear with the gears for the wheels, speeding the rotation of the stones. “Speed still same?” Wulfgar asked.

“Aye. Eighty stone to twelve wood.” One turn of the water wheel spun the stones six and two-thirds times. It was a good start for wheat and dinkle flours, and could be adjusted by the miller, within reason. It was only a three-stone mill, and one of those could be lifted out if that fine of a grind wasn’t wanted.

“Good. Gears and shaft?”

Harald led the way back to the carpenters’ domain. He and Wulfgar eased past men working on the big end doors and found the gears, spare gears, and stone shaft. These were of bech, durable, hard, and preferred for gears. The shaft was castana to withstand twisting. Wulfgar ran his hands over the roughed out shaft, frowning. Harald half held his breath. The stone cutter rapped the wood with his knuckles up and down the length, other hand resting on the top of the shaft. “Good.”

Harald exhaled. Ceol did as well. Castana wasn’t needle leaf to have pitch-filled voids hidden in the trunk and larger limbs, but they’d been surprised before. Like the hole in the main shaft.

Wulfgar studied the gears, lifting them and confirming the fit of the teeth. “Bech?”

“Aye.” Ceol, now standing beside Harald, folded his arms. “Fit tested with a load.”

“Huh.” The stone cutter sighted along one gear, then rested it on the work table and tried to rock it. “Huh.” It didn’t move. “Good.” He turned to Harald. “Temple.”

Harald nodded. “Aye. Avoid Coldwater Lane. Account’s at The Empty Barrel.”

“Huh.” With that, Wulfgar stomped out of the carpenter’s work area. He moved stiffly, as if he had stones for limbs, until he didn’t. A shaft had cracked while being mounted, and Wulfgar had swung it, and the stone, out of danger before the rest of the men had started to shift their feet.

Ceol unfolded his arms. “Still talkative,” he observed, one finger beside his nose.

“Heard a story once that he met a law speaker who charged a quarter-ring per word, and Wulfgar decided that a silver per word was better trade.” He shrugged. “Stones get here tomorrow or next day, Marsdaam and Radmar willin’.”

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