The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [153]
Although Brettel’s mill was nearly a kay farther down than anyone else’s, he offered better prices, at least to me. He also knew what was happening. Few of the other crafters talked to me, for I was only a journeyman working for an excuse for a woodcrafter.
“Lerris! What now? Some seconds on green oak? Perhaps some red oak limbs?”
“Actually, I was looking for something else…green oak twigs for baskets!”
Brettel shook his white-and-silver thatch. “That bad, now?”
I raised my shoulders. “Black oak.”
“So…the rumor was true. You did underbid Jirrle and Rasten on that chair set. Jirrle was livid. He said that Destrin couldn’t make one straight spoke, let alone enough for a single chair. I agreed.” Then the mill-master grinned. “I didn’t tell him that his journeyman was probably going to do it all.”
“Me? A broken-down excuse for a woodworker?”
“Is that what he called you?”
“Not to my face…”
Brettel’s face dropped the joviality. “Black oak’s expensive, Lerris.”
“I know. We can cover it, and what choice is there?”
“Didn’t the tavern benches help? Those were better than anything Hefton ever turned out.”
“They helped, but the quarterly assessment is coming due.”
“Deirdre?”
“Unless we can deliver on the benches…”
Brettel shook his head. “Old Dorman feared this, but what else could he do?”
I shrugged. “I owe him something.”
“What if the prefect finds out you’re a craft-master?”
“Brettel. I’m scarcely a master. I never even technically finished my journeyman training…”
Brettel’s eyebrows raised, and I realized my mistake.
“…but there’s no requirement in Fenard for guild certification…”
“…so that’s why you chose Destrin…”
“I had a problem with the mastercrafter…”
The mill-master nodded to himself, as if I had cleared up a minor mystery. “What do you need?”
“Black oak. I’d like to look at the logs.”
Brettel frowned again, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to see the wood before it was shaped. We couldn’t afford any wastage.
He turned and headed toward the racks at the back of the brick stacking-warehouse.
I followed, glancing around and noting again how orderly Brettel kept his milled timbers and planks.
“Here you are. Graded in size down. The ones with the two red grease slashes are a gold per log, the single reds are five silvers, the blues are two silvers, and the yellows are one silver.”
I’d figured it out already, how to use the heartwood for the spokes and braces and the wood around the heart for the backing and seat plates. Now all I had to do was find four logs that met the measurements.
“How much more if I ask for the cuts?”
Brettel shrugged. “Nothing, if you stay and they’re normal straight runs through the saw.”
I began checking the blue logs, sensing them as well as looking, but only two were right, and that meant I needed two reds.
After a time, I pointed. “These two, and this one.”
“I’ll give you the bigger one there for five silvers.”
I stared again, all too aware of my double sight as I studied the log Brettel had fingered. On the outside it looked generous, but the heartwood was not old and hard and dense, even brittle, but soft and spongy. When you bought black oak, you were paying a premium for the heartwood, so dense it rarely decayed, and so tough that the best in edged steel was barely good enough to cut and shape it.
“That’s not quite right,” I told Brettel.
“It’s fine,” the mill-master insisted.
I shrugged. “It’s not what Destrin needs. Either this one—” I pointed to the smaller log to the right “—or that one.”
Brettel raised his shoulders, obviously thinking I was crazy, turning down the larger prime log for the smaller ones. “Then it’s still five silvers each for the two single reds.”
“That’s what I’ll need.”
Brettel didn’t quite shake his head as he greased the stump end of the four trunks with Destrin’s mark, a large “D” with a half-circle over the top of the letter. “Who’s paying?”
“I’ll take care of it.” I had the coins in my belt. While Brettel was honest, he wasn’t about to cut black oak on my word. I scrambled around to come up with the coins.
He checked