The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [14]
“Very well, but if he says you nay, there’s naught I can do about it.”
“I know. But he lost his mam and da, didn’t he? I bet he’ll understand.”
“We’ll see about that. Now help me find the woodpile and an ax.”
They found the woodshed behind the cookhouse and an ax as well, hanging inside the door. Neb took the ax down and gave it an experimental swing. In one corner lay some pieces of rough-hewn planks, all of them too wide and most too thick, but Neb couldn’t find a saw. He did find a short chunk of log, some ten inches in diameter, that had the beginnings of a split along the grain.
“Here!” A man’s voice called out. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Neb turned around and saw a skinny fellow, egg bald, hurrying toward them. Above his bushy gray beard his pale blue eyes were narrowed and grim.
“My apologies, sir,” Neb said. “But I’m about Lady Galla’s business.”
“If she wanted a fire,” the fellow said, “she could have sent a servant to ask me. My name is Horza, by the by, woodcutter to this dun.”
“And a good morrow to you, sir. I’m Neb, and this is my brother, Clae. I’m the new scribe, and I need wood for tablets. Writing tablets, I mean. They need to be about so long and—”
“I know what writing tablets look like, my fine lad. Hand me my ax, and don’t you go touching it again, hear me?”
“I do. My apologies.”
Horza snorted and grabbed the ax from Neb’s lax grasp. For a moment he looked over the wood stacked in the shed, then picked up a short, thin wedge of stout oak in one hand. He set the thin wedge against the crack in the log and began tapping it in with the blunt back of the ax head. His last tap split the dry pine lengthwise. He let one half fall, then flipped the ax over to the sharpened edge and went to work on the other half. A few cuts turned it into oblongs of the proper length and thickness.
“I’ll make you two sets, lad.” Horza picked up the remainder of the log. He treated it the same while Neb watched in honest awe at his skill.
“These’ll have to be smoothed off and then scoured down with sand,” Horza said. “That’s your doing.”
“It is, and a thousand thanks!” Neb took the panels with a little bow. “You’re a grand man with an ax.”
“Imph.” Horza tipped his head to one side and looked the boys over. “Scribe, are you? What sort of name is Neb, anyway? Never heard it before.”
“Well, it’s short for somewhat. My father was a man of grand ideas. He named me Nerrobrantos, for some Dawntime hero or other. And my brother’s name is truly Caliomagos.”
“Or Neb and Clae, and the shorters are the betters, true enough. Now run along, lads. I’ve got work to do.”
“My thanks. I’ll take these back to the great hall and work on them there.”
As soon as Horza was out of earshot, Clae turned to Neb. “He’s got his gall talking about our names,” he said. “What kind of a name is Horza, anyway?”
“A very old one,” Neb said, smiling. “His ancestors must have been some of the Old Ones, the people who already lived here when our ancestors arrived.”
“Well, it sounds like a lass’s name.”
“Their language must have been a fair bit different from ours, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Clae considered this information for a moment, then shrugged. “Can I go play White Crow with the pages? Coryn asked me.”
“By all means. I’ll not need any help with this, anyway.”
Neb took his tablets to a table by the servants’ hearth, where a bucket of sand stood ready to smother any sparks that found their way onto the straw-covered floor. He fetched some water in a pottery stoup, helped himself to a handful of sand, grabbed some straw from the floor, and set to work. He sprinkled the sand on the wood, then wet down the straw and used it to scour the splinters away.
As he worked, he found himself wondering about this lass, Branna, whose life was going to be decided by the letter he would write on these tablets. Would anyone ask her opinion about being packed off to the rough border country? No doubt she’d have no more choice about it than he and Clae had had about Uncle Brwn’s farm. He felt a sudden sympathy for her, this lass