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In the end, I didn’t eat with them, instead persuading Destrin to let me get Gairloch and work on the stable.

Unlike the shop, the stable had simply been closed. Destrin had clearly never had enough extra wood to use it for storage, and it didn’t take long with the old broom I found to make one of the two stalls suitable for Gairloch, at least for the night. Finding time to get him exercise might be a greater problem, but that worry would have to wait.

XL

DESTRIN HAD SO many problems that it was hard to know where to begin, and that didn’t even count Deirdre. Some of them were easy enough to correct, just given a little time and effort, like reorganizing the shop back to its original and functional pattern.

Some took my own funds, because Destrin didn’t see any use in them, like having the small saws sharpened by a good tinker. For Destrin there wasn’t any use. He knew he couldn’t produce small work—not good enough to sell in the market. But I could, and I needed to sell things to avoid spending myself out of the last few golds I had.

Even though Deirdre looked longingly at the little white-oak box I had made to show that I knew woods and wood-working, Destrin agreed that I should sell it on the following eight-day’s-end market.

I didn’t intend to sell only one box. That meant going to the mills to find woods, preferably scraps.

The first miller, Nurgke, was blunt. “Scraps? Not even for sale, not to you or to Destrin. The scraps go to Perlot or Jirrle. They’re my best customers, and they need them for their apprentices.” He had silver hair and hard brown eyes, arms like tree-trunks, and an open if unsmiling, face.

Nurgke’s mill had two big saws, run by waterwheels from a diversion of the Gallos River. In spite of his bluntness, his mill conveyed a sense of order. Even the stones in the millrace were set precisely, and the grease for the waterwheels was set in measured dollops for application by his apprentices.

“Impressive,” I told him as I surveyed his operation. “You prize order highly.”

“I praise profits, woodman. Order brings profits.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Who else might have wood scraps or mill ends for sale?”

Nurgke pulled at his long chin, then frowned. “Well…Yuril doesn’t have any arrangements, but he does mostly firs, stuff for poles and fences, farm uses, not much in the way of hardwoods. Then there’s Teller…but he’s almost under indenture to the prefect. You might try Brettel. He used to mill for Dorman.” He saw my blank look and explained. “Dorman was Destrin’s father. Best cabinetmaker in Candar. Some said he was as good as Sardit in Recluce, maybe better.” The mill-master shook his head. “Destrin’s a good man, been through a lot, but he doesn’t have the touch.” He looked at me. “Brettel might help you, but don’t sell him a song. He never forgets.”

With Nurgke’s admonition fresh on my mind, I rode Gairloch back around the perimeter road of Fenard, the wide and cleared granite-paved way just inside the fifteen-cubit-high stone walls, until I got to the north gate and the north road leading out to Brettel’s mill.

The wind whipped around us, and the light dimmed as the clouds darkened. By the time we reached the mill, light crisp flakes were falling upon the frozen ground, leaving a lacy finish over the fields of stubble behind the wooden rail fences.

I had to wait for Brettel, who was wrestling with the replacement of a saw.

So I studied his mill. Like Nurgke’s, his radiated order, but with an older and longer-standing sense of presence. His millrace was also perfectly stoned and mortared, but some of the stones had been replaced. The stream dammed for his high pond had to be the one that joined the Gallos River on the east side of Fenard.

The lumber and timber storage warehouse radiated an age greater than the stone walls of Fenard, yet there was no debris and the roof timbers were more recent and carefully varnished.

The warehouse was chill—no fires or hearths with that much lumber