Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [87]
Cauvin started shivering before he was standing. He pulled a thick wool tunic over his head. That helped, or it would once his body warmed it. There was nothing he could do for his bare feet. If he touched his boots, Grabar would see the parchment. Better to froggin’ freeze than have that discussion.
“I’m awake, all right? I’ll be down. There’s no froggin’ need to stand here watching me.”
Grabar hesitated. He truly did move like an old man—older than the Torch—when the weather got cold: the price of a lifetime working stone. Cauvin watched him creak down the ladder and wondered how he’d feel in another twenty years. Wouldn’t be any froggin’ worse than he did this morning with bruises the size and shape of a froggin’ cat curled up on his flank.
Somewhere, though, three red-handed puds felt a froggin’ lot worse.
Cauvin stamped into his boots and slid the creased parchment between the leather and his shin. He shoved past Grabar, who crowded the foot of the ladder. This wasn’t like his foster father; the man usually knew better than to froggin’ hound him. The whole sheep-shite city knew Cauvin had a temper and woke up crossgrained.
“Where are you off to today?” Grabar asked while Cauvin put his fist through the ice in the trough and splashed frigid water on his face.
The question caught him off guard. He answered, “The froggin’ redwall ruins,” without thinking.
Grabar responded with another froggin’ question: “Why?”
Cauvin’s hands fell to the trough rim. “Why?” he muttered. Bec was the family storyteller. Words failed Cauvin when he had to answer a question with an excuse. He stood there a moment, sheep-shite foolish, with water dribbling off his beard onto his shirt.
“Yes, why? We’ve got enough brick until Tobus shows up for business. For all I know, he won’t show up until the spring.”
“‘Til spring.” Cauvin wracked his mind while he chafed feeling back into his cheeks. “’Til the froggin’ spring. Well, the mortar’s gone rotten in some of those walls out there. We get froggin’ freezes and heaves this winter and sure as shite if we wait until spring to smash the rest of the bricks out, the froggin’ walls’ll be down and everything’ll be froggin’ cracked to bits. Figured I’d smash all the bricks out now and cover them up with straw …”
It was a good plan … if the mortar were flaking away. And maybe the mortar was; Cauvin hadn’t paid much attention while he was smashing yesterday. He’d had other thoughts churning through his head.
Grabar clapped him soundly on the back. “Good. Good! You’re thinking ahead. That’s good. I’ve got half a mind to give you a hand myself. Not going to be anything worth doing here today.”
Cauvin’s sheep-shite gut turned over. He stood flat-footed and staring at the ice floating in the trough.
“Got plans, eh?” Grabar clapped him again. “A mite cold, but that doesn’t so matter much when you’re young and making your own fires.”
“What?”
“You and that woman of yours from the Unicorn—Leorin? How often does a young man get a chance to pass the time with his woman and no one’s in earshot, eh? Smash out a few bricks …”
Grabar let the rest go unsaid. Cauvin did the same.
“Never could have gotten out of here anyway,” Grabar said into the silence. “The wife’s beside herself. There’s no breakfast—we’ll all be going hungry ’til the funeral feast.”
“She said she wasn’t going to light the fire,” Cauvin said, eager to talk about something else.
“Oh, she never meant that, but this morning, the boy ups and trips over himself getting out of bed—must’ve been growing while he slept. Me—I didn’t hear a sound, and more’s the pity: Somehow that makes me to blame for the boy’s bruises. Sweet Shipri! You’d think he’d lost a fight with his own fists by the look of him. And the wailing when the wife tries to tend to them! Not since he was cutting his first tooth. The wife’s got him back in bed. She’s talking apothecary