K Parker - The Belly of the Bow

Dry, uncompromising words that all students were required to know by heart; not something to believe, since belief presupposes scope for doubt – rather something to accept, in the same way one accepts the fact of death, which does not need to be believed in. So much for the preface; she pictured herself bobbing an awkward curtsey before a stone image standing in front of an archway, waiting uncomfortably for a moment before being allowed to proceed.

And then she was through the gate and into the open air, with no roof or walls crowding around her; she always pictured the contemplation of the Principle as a garden (how foreigners laugh at the Shastel people for their obsession with little patches of organised nature, regimented grass and troops of well-drilled flowers that stand to attention and present petals at the word of command!) where she was free to sit or walk, to work for the benefit of the garden or to cut whatever she wanted without fear of spoiling the display. Sometimes she came here to weed out errors and false conclusions, to dig and mulch and flick out stones, to mow and prune and break off the dead heads of redundant enquiries. At other times she came with a basket over her arm to gather what she wanted and take it home, although it wasn’t quite as straightforward as that – the garden gave her what it wanted her to have…

She opened her eyes and saw a workshop. It reminded her of the cooper’s yard where her father used to work, because she could see a long bench with a heavy wooden vice clamped to it, and on the wall hung familiar-looking tools, the drawknife and the spokeshave and the boxwood plane, the H-framed bowsaw, the heavy rasp and the wooden blocks inset with pads of sandstone, the bundle of horsetail rushes, the chisels, the gouges, the hickory mallet and the small copper hammer. The floor was carpeted with curled white shavings, and on the crossbeams that braced the rafters of the roof rested billets of rough-sawn green timber, adding the sweet smell of sap to the more delicate scent of newly sawn cedarwood. Light slanted into the shop through an open shutter, and fell across the back of a man crouched over a billet clamped in the vice, which he was working down with a large block plane, his arms and shoulders moving with an oarsman’s rhythm. She could only see the back of his head; but the old man who was sitting just outside the light was facing her, although the shadows masked his features.

‘And then what happened?’ he said.

The other man stopped working and straightened his back with a little grunt of discomfort. ‘Oh, it was all anticlimax after that,’ he said. ‘It turned out that my confounded sister had sent the ship to pick me up – if I’d known that, I’d have taken my chances swimming. But I didn’t, and they delivered me here like a parcel, FOB as per the bill of lading, and I was marched up the hill to pay my respects and be properly grateful.’ The man picked up his plane and fiddled with the set of the blade for a few moments. ‘Kept me hanging about in her damned waiting room for best part of an hour, which didn’t improve my attitude.’

‘And were you?’ the old man asked. ‘Properly grateful, I mean.’

‘I don’t think our old friend the City Prefect would have approved of my manners,’ the craftsman replied. ‘I can’t say that I behaved terribly well. And no, I wasn’t. On the other hand, I did manage to get out of there without hitting anybody, which was probably just as well. There as an awful lot of professional muscle lounging about in there along with the pen-pushers. I have the feeling that if I’d lost my temper, I’d have left there in a sack.’

‘It didn’t strike me as a particularly friendly place,’ the old man said. ‘So then what did you do?’

‘I wandered down to the harbour, that place where everybody takes their evening stroll, and sold my mailshirt. Got a reasonable price for it, too; enough to buy some tools and have enough left over for the makings of a fine hangover the next morning, which was when I started walking. When I got tired, I stopped, and here I am.’

The old man nodded and lifted a wooden cup to his lips. When he put it down again, the craftsman topped it up from a tall terracotta tub that stood on the floor in a pail of water to keep it cool. ‘And the boy,’ the old man went on. ‘What about him?’

The craftsman laughed. ‘I’ll be honest with you,’ he said, ‘once we’d reached Scona and I’d made my duty-call on my sister, I’d more or less forgotten about him. Pets, waifs and strays, charity cases – I’ve never had much time for that sort of thing. I’d gladly dump my loose change in some poor devil’s hat if I felt sorry for him, but my rule was always that charity ended at home, and if a stray dog follows me in the street, it’s asking for trouble. No, I reckoned I’d done enough for the kid pulling him out of the bonfire, and the rest was up to him.’ He sighed. ‘No such luck.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘He turned up one morning looking all lost and sorry for himself, and as luck would have it I was trying to put in a gatepost, which is an awkward job to do single-handed; so without thinking I said, “Grab hold of that,” and he held the post while I knocked it in, and then he held the crowbar while I dug the hole for the other post, and then he helped me get the lintel up and held one end while I closed up the dovetails. And then, when the job was done and I realised he’d been helping me and never said a word except, “Like this?” and, “Where d’you want this to go?” I hadn’t got the heart to tell him to get lost, so he’s been here ever since. I’m teaching him the trade, and on balance he’s more help than hindrance. It’s funny, though,’ the craftsman went on with a chuckle. ‘When I’m trying to teach him something and for some reason he just can’t or won’t get it, and I stop and listen to myself, all patient and reasonable to start with and finally losing my temper and bawling the poor kid out – it’s like I’m the kid and I’m listening to my father, back in the long barn at home. And that makes me stop shouting, at any rate. I remember it all too well myself.’

‘Ah,’ the old man said with a grin. ‘The son you never had, then.’

‘Never had and never wanted,’ the craftsman replied with a grunt. ‘Company doesn’t bother me, but it’s never been something I need, the way some people can’t live without it. And give the lad his due, he works hard and tries his best, even if he does chatter away all the time. The hell with it, I’m not complaining.’

‘I can see that,’ the old man said with a smile. ‘If you ask me, you’re beginning to mellow.’

‘I’d rather call it seasoning, like that wood up there. Which is just a way of saying I’m beginning to act my age. One thing about killing people for a living, it kept me from getting middle-aged. This is a different way of life entirely.’

‘Better?’

The craftsman gave that some serious thought before answering. ‘It’s bloody hard work,’ he replied. ‘But yes, much better. I wouldn’t go back now, not if they made me the Emperor and gave me the whole upper city to live in. It’s possible that this is what I’ve always wanted to do; in which case, I must remember to buy young Temrai a large drink next time I see him.’

The old man laughed. ‘I’m sure he had your well-being at heart all along,’ he said.

‘What’s a burnt city among friends so long as you’re happy? Quite.’ The craftsman lifted the plane and slid it across the face of the billet, producing a clean slicing noise. ‘I tend not to think about that side of things very much,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing how much better life can be if you manage to lay off the thinking.’

The old man drank some more, put the cup down and covered it with his hat to stop the sawdust getting in it. ‘Business is good?’ he asked.