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“You? Who are you, and what do you want?” Brettel, like a broad and bandy-legged dwarf, stood shorter than to my shoulder, and his voice was a clear tenor. For all the abruptness of his words, the tone was pleasant.

“I’m a new journeyman for Destrin, the woodworker. My name is Lerris.”

“Destrin? What are you running from, young fellow?”

I grinned. “I’m not, at least not exactly. I worked for my uncle, but he said I was too unsettled and told me to see the world and to come back when I could settle down.” I shrugged. “You can’t see much of the world when you run out of coppers. So I agreed to work for Destrin as a journeyman. He supplies tools and lodging and gets a large share of what I produce.”

The mill-master looked me over. “No sign of chaos. The worst you could be would be an honest scoundrel, and that’s the least of Destrin’s problems. What do you want from me? My best-cut timbers without paying a copper?”

I shook my head. “I’m not that ambitious. I prefer smaller pieces for now. Scraps and mill ends, if you can spare any.”

Brettel pursed his lips.

“I can pay a little,” I offered, not wanting to seem too eager, but not wanting to appear as a beggar, either.

He shook his head with a rueful grin. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re neither a thief nor of chaos, and anything would help Destrin, I think.” Then he fixed his eyes on mine. “But leave his daughter alone. She’s my god-daughter, and while his pride won’t let me foster her, she’ll have an honest man of Fenard for a husband.” The last words were like light iron, and I stepped back.

“I didn’t know…”

He laughed, and the laugh was deeper, not at all like the tenor of his voice. “You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say anything, except you’re good-looking, probably talented, and will leave her sooner or later. There are plenty of others…now, about the scraps…”

I waited, trying not to hold my breath.

“Follow me. You can take anything you want from the burn bin, but don’t leave a mess. The mill ends are in the other bin. Those we sell. You get out what you want into a pile, then either Arta—he’s the skinny fellow with red hair—or I will talk about how many coppers it’s worth.”

In the end, I gathered one bag full of red and white oak scraps, enough to do three or four small boxes, and enough mill ends for three coppers to do a breadboard or two and a small chair.

Brettel watched as I carefully packed the woods into the old basket I had taken from Destrin’s stable.

“Good luck, young fellow. You seem to know woods.”

“Thank you. What I do with them is what counts.”

He nodded and was gone, and I chucked the reins.

Wheeee…eeeee.

“I know. I know. You don’t like carrying wood. But if you want to stay dry and get fed, you’re going to have to carry wood.”

Gairloch carried me out into the wind and the swirling snow that had covered not only the fields, but the perimeter road, with a light white blanket.

Destrin “hhhmmmmpphed” as I brought in the wood and stacked it in the unused bins on what had become my side of the workroom. He had a fire stoked in the side hearth and a ragged sweater on under his apron.

“What’s that for, boy?”

“Some boxes, breadboards, and a small chair.”

“Do a good chair, and it will sell. Boxes don’t do so well these days.”

“If they don’t sell, I’ll make other things in the future.”

Deirdre just watched until I began to measure. Then, as if the details bored her, she slipped through the back door and upstairs.

The hardest thing was not to hurry. Even though I knew nothing was going to happen immediately, I felt like every moment counted, that I should be working all the time, and I did work under the lamp some nights.

Destrin was wrong. I finished two boxes, and with the white oak one, took them to the market on eighth-day. Getting in cost me a copper, but I found a spot by the dry fountain, next to a flower seller, and set out the three boxes on a tan cloth I had borrowed from Deirdre.

The snow had half-melted, half blown away,