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Brettel sipped, delicately for such a broad man, from the tumbler, waiting.

“You know Destrin’s failing…” I began.

“He doesn’t look well.”

“I can’t maintain the business too much longer.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” His face darkened.

“Hold it. I’m not walking off soon…but I need a favor, and not for me.”

He took another sip as his expression slipped back to neutrality. “Why are you asking me?”

I decided to blurt it all out. “I need to train an apprentice for Destrin. He has to understand or feel woods, and he has to be older than the normal apprentice, and I really want him to be suitable for Deirdre.”

“That’s a big order. Who appointed you Destrin’s keeper?”

“I guess I did. No one else was helping him. Now that I’ve made things profitable. I can’t just leave it. But the time will come…” I shrugged again.

“Why can’t you stay?”

“For now, I can. The time will come, probably before too long, when…”

“You’re awfully mysterious, Lerris. Why should I do this?” The man was pressing, but he had been good to me, and I could tell he embodied order.

I looked around the parlor, let my senses expand. No one was within hearing distance. “What do you know about Recluce?”

Brettel just nodded, not even looking surprised. “There’s always been something more about you. Are you helping Destrin?”

I knew what he meant. “As I can, but there’s nothing anyone could do.”

“You’d do this for him?”

“He’s a good man. Not a terribly good crafter, but a good man. And he fights each day because he feels he can offer Deirdre nothing.”

Brettel scratched his left ear, then took a long pull. “Do you have any ideas where such an unusual apprentice might be found?”

“How about the younger son of one of the woodlot owners or the farms where you log? You might have a feeling…”

“I might…does he have to be older?”

“No…but not too much younger…gentle at heart, but stubborn, if that’s possible…” I closed my mouth, realizing I was revealing far too much.

“You worry about me?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“You should.” Then he smiled. “But I told you I was Deirdre’s godfather, and whether you came from hell itself, something needs to be done. Let me think about it. There are a couple of youngsters that just might do.” He chuckled and added, “And their parents would believe we were doing them a favor.”

I finished the redberry while Brettel thought.

“I’ll get back to you,” he told me while ushering me out.

An eight-day later Bostric arrived.

So did a commission for a red-oak chest for Dalta’s dowry, with instructions to take my time and do it right…as if I ever would have done it any other way for Brettel.

Bostric was gangly, red-haired and freckled, initially as shy as a spooked quail, at least when I was around, and stubborn as a cornered buffalo. But he listened, and he could feel the woods. In his work on the woodlot, he’d even used a saw and tried his hand at carving. His figures of people and animals were artistically better than mine.

Destrin just humphed, between coughs and when he had the strength to do so, and Deirdre made larger portions of the ever-present barley soup. Boring it might be, but she smiled more, when she wasn’t fussing over her papa, and that was about all I could expect.

I still sometimes dreamed about golden girls, and sometimes about a black-haired woman, and woke up sweating and worse. I wondered why I dreamed of Krystal, but had no answers. All the time, Bostric slept soundly in the pull-out pallet we had built for him in the shop.

XLIV

BRETTEL’S COMMISSION GAVE me another idea. I decided to make two of the chests, keeping the pieces for the second red oak dower chest in the stable when I wasn’t working on it. If I didn’t do it, no one else would, and Destrin really never looked at what I was working on until it was close to completion.

He was usually wrapped up in his benches and plain tables and fighting out the coughing attacks. When he wasn’t, he worried about Bostric or me.

“He’s all right, Lerris. He’s just not you.” If I heard them once, I heard