White Order
V
A pair of pine logs lay on the three-axled timber wagon. The six draft horses, their breath like steam in the chill afternoon, stood facing south. The ox-drawn log cart faced north, toward the open mill door. The bed of the log cart was nearly a cubit lower than that of the timber wagon. Broom in hand, Cerryl stepped to the side of the mill, well away from the door, and back far enough that he would not be in the way of drovers or the loaders.
“The first log, Viental,” said Brental.
“First it be.” Viental half-dragged, half-lifted one end of the huge log, its girth more than two cubits, and swung the end from the timber wagon onto the ox-drawn log cart. Then he walked to the front end of the wagon, where he and Brental lifted the weight-bearing end and struggled to ease it onto the cart.
The log cart groaned as the full weight of the pine log came to rest on it. Cerryl watched the rear axle bow ever so slightly, a stress that less-fine eyes and senses would not have discerned.
Brental slipped the log wedges in place on the side closest to Cerryl, knocking them solid with his long-handled hammer. Then he walked around the oxen and, standing where the beds of the cart and wagon nearly joined, placed the forward wedge. The redhead had to walk around the cart again to place the rear wedge. Viental released his hold on the log. Brental reclaimed his goad. “Ge-ahh!”
The log cart creaked forward and into the mill, and Cerryl stepped back into the doorway to try to finish getting the sawdust out of the door tracks before Brental brought the cart back.
Viental half-shrugged, half-flexed his broad shoulders, swinging his arms. “Heavy, that one.” He grinned at Cerryl, yellow teeth flared out of the ginger beard braided below. “Ever think you could lift that, mill boy?”
Cerryl shook his head.
“Best you know that. Not one in a score dozen be lifting as I do,”
“Not one in score of scores as bald, either,” called the lumber wagon driver from where he stood beside the lead horse.
“Rinfur ... I don't see you handling the logs.”
“I don't see you handling the teams. You have to be smarter than the horses.”
“Someday I be strangling you with that tongue.”
The teamster grinned. “Not while I run faster and ride better.”
Viental shrugged, then grinned. “And talk longer.”
“Go see your sister,” suggested Rinfur amiably. “You do whenever you feel like it anyway.”
“So? No one else lifts as I do.”
Cerryl and Rinfur exchanged glances. Viental disappeared for days on end, always returning with the explanation that he had had to help his sister. Dylert refused to pay for the missing time but said nothing.
“That right? Even the mill boy knows that. Right, Cerryl.”
“No one lifts like you do,” Cerryl agreed.
“See?”
Rinfur continued checking the harnesses.
Cerryl's eyes flicked up to the house and then to the trees beyond, gray-leaved, almost brooding under the hazy clouds and waiting for winter and the snows and cold rains. A gust of wind stirred the leaves that had fallen, lifting a handful, then dropping them.
The mill boy frowned. Why did the trees drop but half their leaves every fall? No one had been able to tell him-just, “That be the way it is, boy. Always been so.”
There was too much that had always been so.
With a gust of wind, Cerryl shivered, not because of the chill but in anticipation of the cold rain he felt would fall before night. His eyes went uphill once more.
Behind the house, Erhana dipped a bucket into the well. Cerryl smiled. Close up, after all the practice with the scraps of mirrors and the flat sheets of water, he could do without either and catch glimpses of people just beyond his sight.
He watched, first with his senses, then with his eyes, as Erhana carried a bucket of water from the well up the steps and onto the porch, each step precise.
“Better start sweeping,” said Viental. “Dylert be coming from the second barn.”
Cerryl picked up the broom.