L. Modesitt: The White Order

“Long walk, was it not?”

“We left well before dawn.”

“I’d imagine so.” The millmaster extended a pair of boots, brown and scarred. “You be trying these.”

“Yes, ser. Thank you, ser.” Cerryl slipped on the worn leather boots, one after the other, wiggling his toes inside.

“Those were Hurior’s ’fore he left. They fit?”

“Yes, ser. I think so, ser.”

“Good. One problem less.”

A dark-haired girl peered from where she stood in the doorway over at Cerryl. She wore a tan short-sleeved shirt and matching trousers, with a wide leather belt that matched her boots.

“Erhana, this be Cerryl, the new mill boy.” Dylert laughed. “Don’t be distracting him while he works.”

Erhana stepped onto the porch, and Cerryl could see that she was taller than he was, and possibly older. She had her father’s brown eyes and square chin, but dark brown hair, cut evenly at shoulder length. “He’s thin.”

“Your mother’s cooking will help that.”

“He’ll still be thin,” prophesied Erhana.

“Maybe so,” said Dylert. “You can talk at supper. I need to get him settled and show him the mill.”

“Yes, Papa.” Erhana slipped back into the house.

Dylert led Cerryl back down to the nearest of the lumber barns to the west-or uphill-side, where three doors had been cut into the siding and rough-framed with half-planks. “These are the hands’ room. The far one-that’s Rinfur’s.”

Cerryl nodded.

“You know Rinfur?”

“No, ser. Uncle. . Syodor. . offered him a good day. He was driving the wagon.”

“Your uncle said you listened.” Dylert pointed to the second door. “That’s Viental’s.” Dylert grinned. “You know him?”

“No, ser.”

“He’s the one does stone work and helps with the burdens. You’ll know Viental when you see him. Let him go off and help his sister with the harvest. He’ll be back in an eight-day. Now,” continued the millmaster, opening the door nearest the mill, “this be yours.”

Cerryl glanced around the bare room, scarcely more than four cubits on a side, and containing little more than a pallet, a short three-legged stool, and three shelves on the wall to the right with an open cubicle under them on the wall.

The bottom of the window beside the door was level with Cerryl’s chin and a cubit high and half a cubit wide. It had neither shutters nor a canvas rollshade, just a door on two simple iron strap hinges with a swing bolt on the inside.

“Nothing fancy, but it be all yours. Put your stuff in the cubby there, boy, and I’ll show you around the mill. You need to know where everything is.”

Cerryl stepped inside and slowly eased the sack into the cubby, his eyes going to the bare pallet on the plank platform.

“Be sending down some blankets for you after supper. Mayhap have some heavy trews, too. Yours are a shade frail for mill work.”

Cerryl swallowed, then swallowed again. “Yes, ser.”

“Don’t be a-worrying, boy. You work for me, and I’ll see you’re fitted proper. ’Sides, I owe your uncle. Little enough I can do. He be a proud man.”

Cerryl kept his face expressionless.

“Not so he’d talk of it, but when he was the masterminer-that was years back, mind you-he was the one. Insisted that the timbers be right, and no shaving on their bearing width. Saved many a miner, I’d wager. Saved the mill, too.” Dylert shrugged. “I offered him a share here. He’d have none of it.” The millmaster looked at the youth. “Be ready to see the mill?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Said, he did, that someone had to look after the mines, old or not, and that was his duty.” Dylert led Cerryl around the back corner of the lumber barn and toward the mill.

A brief shadow crossed the hillside. Cerryl glanced up, but the small cloud passed the eye of the sun, and he had to look away quickly as the light flooded back.

Cerryl glanced toward the second lumber barn. The oxen stood placidly, still yoked in place, without their driver.

They stepped through the wide door to the mill. The entire mill was floored with smoothed stone, worn in places, cracked in others, but recently swept. An aisle of sorts-wide enough for the oxen and lumber cart-led to the far wall, where a raised brick-based platform stood.

Dylert gestured to the racks on either side of the cleared space. “Holding racks. Be where we sort the planks and timbers after cutting. Use some of the racks for special cuts. Special cuts-that’s for the cabinet makers or the finish carpenters. Takes special work; charge ’em special, too.”

Cerryl waited.

“There be the brooms. When the blade’s cutting, you sweep, unless I tell you otherwise. Have to keep the mill clean. You know how fast sawdust burns? Goes like cammabark-faster maybe. Poof! Helps sometimes if’n you dip the end of the broom in water-specially if we’re cutting the hardwoods. The dust there, it be specially fine.” Dylert strode toward the platform.

Cerryl followed.

“This be the main blade, boy.” The dark-bearded man pointed to the circle of dark iron. “Don’t you be touching it. Or the brake here, either.” His hand went to an iron lever.

Cerryl looked at the iron blade, barely managing to repress a shiver at the deep blackness within the iron that almost felt as though it would burn his hands. “No, ser.”

“Good. Now. . see. . this drops the gear off the track, so the blade stops even if the mill turns. Up there, that’s the water gate. Most times, the blade’s on gear track when the gate opens. That way, we fret less about breaking the gears.” Dylert fingered his beard. “Cost my father more coins to have the drop gear put in, but it’s better when a house has two doors. That’s what he said, and it’s saved me a blade or two along the way-and blades, they’re dear. Black iron, you’d best know.”

Cerryl nodded. “That’s hard iron?”

“The hardest. Not many smiths as can forge it, even with a black mage at their elbow.” He laughed harshly. “Good smith and a black mage-few of either, these days, or any times.”

Cerryl managed not to frown. Why couldn’t white mages help a smith? Why did it have to be black mages?

“Here. . the entrance to the sawpit. You’ll be cleaning that.” Dylert frowned. His voice hardened. “You never go under the blade, less the water gate’s closed and the drop gear’s open. Stay away from the blade even so. You understand that?”

“Yes, ser.”

“No one but me tells you to clean the pit. Understand? Not Rinfur, not Brental, not Viental. No one but me. You understand?”

The gray-eyed boy nodded.

“First time, I’ll show you how. Not today.” Dylert smiled. “Be taking you a mite to get used to us. Let’s go to the barns.” He turned and started toward the big door. “Good days, we open the swing windows on the west. More light.”

Cerryl’s eyes went to the iron blade, and he shivered. Black iron? Why did it feel so. . dangerous? Then he turned and followed Dylert out of the mill and toward the first of the two barns.

Dylert slid back the door, the same kind as the main mill door, and stepped inside into the middle of an aisle between racks of wood that stretched the length of the barn. “Some mills-like in Hydlen-they just put a roof over their cuts and say that’s enough. Lucky if the mill lasts from father to son. You want wood to last. . then you have to season it right-lots of air, but you don’t let it get too hot or too cold. Our cuts are the best. Last season, a mastercrafter sent a wagon all the way from Jellico for my black oak. Something for the viscount. . suppose that’s all he does now that Fairhaven. .” Dylert shook his head. “There I go, woolgathering again.”