Seventh Son

Chapter Fifteen—Promises

The blacksmith listened as Taleswapper read the letter from beginning to end.

"Do you remember the family?" asked Taleswapper.

"I do," said Makepeace Smith. "The graveyard almost began with their oldest boy. I pulled his body from the river with my own hands."

"Well then, will you take him as your prentice?"

A youth, perhaps sixteen years old, walked into the forge carrying a bucket of snow. He glanced at the visitor, ducked his head, and walked to the cooling barrel that stood near the hearth.

"You see I have a prentice," said the Smith.

"He looks like a big one," said Taleswapper.

"Getting on," the Smith agreed. "Ain't that right, Bosey? You ready to go on your own?"

Bosey smiled a bit, stifled it, nodded. "Yes, Sir," he said.

"I'm not an easy master," said the Smith.

"Alvin's a good-hearted boy. He'll work hard for you."

"But will he obey me? I like to be obeyed."

Taleswapper looked again at Bosey. He was busy scooping snow into the barrel.

"I said he's a good-hearted boy," said Taleswapper. "He'll obey you if you're fair with him."

The Smith met his gaze. "I give honest measure. I don't beat the boys I take on. Have I ever laid hand on you, Bosey?"

"Never, sir."

"You see, Taleswapper, a prentice can obey out of fear, and he can obey out of greed. But if I'm a good master, he'll obey me cause he knows that's how he'll learn."

Taleswapper grinned at the smith. "There's no fee," said Taleswapper. "The boy will earn it out. And he gets his schooling."

"No need for a smith to have letters, as I should know."

"Won't be long before Hio's part of the United States," said Taleswapper. "The boy's got to vote, I think, and read the newspapers. A man who can't read only knows what other folks tell him."

Makepeace Smith looked at Taleswapper with a grin half-hid on his face. "That so? And ain't it you telling me? So don't I only know this cause other folks, namely you, is telling me so?"

Taleswapper laughed and nodded. The smith had shot the head clean off the turkey with that one. "I make my way in the world telling tales," said Taleswapper, "so I know you can get much with just the sound of a man's voice. He already reads above his years, so it won't do him harm to miss a bit of school. But his ma is set on him having letters and ciphering like a scholar. So just promise me you won't stand between him and schooling, if he wants it, and we'll leave it at that."

"Got my word on that," said Makepeace Smith. "And you don't have to write it down. A man who keeps his word doesn't have to read and write. But a man who has to write down his promises, you got to watch him all morning. I know that for a fact. We got lawyers in Hatrack these days."

"The curse of civilized man," said Taleswapper. "When a man can't get folks to believe his lies anymore, then he hires him a professional to lie in his place."

They laughed together over that one, setting there on two stout stumps just inside the door of the forge, the fire smoldering in its brick chimney place behind them, the sun shining on half-melted snow outside. A redbird flew across the grassy, trampled, dunged-up ground in front of the forge. It dazzled Taleswappees eyes for a moment, it was such a startlement against the whites and greys and browns of late winter.

In that moment of amazement at the redbird's flight, Taleswapper knew for certain, though he couldn't say why, that it would be a while yet before the Unmaker let young Alvin come to this place. And when he came he'd be like a redbird out of season, to dazzle folks all hereabouts, them thinking he was just as natural as a bird flying, not knowing what a miracle it was every minute that the bird stayed in the air.

Taleswapper shook himself, and the moment's clear vision passed. "Then it's done, and I'll write to them to send the boy."

"I'll look for him the first of April. No later!"

"Unless you expect the boy to control the weather, you'd best be flexible about the date."

The smith grumbled and waved him away. All in all, a successful meeting. Taleswapper left feeling good—he had discharged his duty. It'd be easy to send a letter with a westbound wagon—several groups passed through the town of Hatrack every week.

Though it had been a long time since he passed through this place, he still knew the way from the forge to the inn. It was a well-traveled road, and not a long one. The inn was much larger now than it had been, and there were several shops a bit farther up the road. An outfitter, a saddler, a cobbler. The kind of service traveling folk could use.

He hardly set foot on the porch when the door opened and Old Peg Guester came out, her arms spread wide to embrace him. "Ah, Taleswapper, you've been away too long, come in, come in!"

"It's good to see you again, Peg," he said.

Horace Guester growled at him from behind the bar in the common room, where he was serving several thirsty visitors. "What I don't need here is another teetotaling man!"

"Good news, then, Horace," Taleswapper answered cheerfully. "I gave up tea as well."

"What, do you drink water?"

"Water and the blood of greasy old men," said Taleswapper.

Horace gestured to his wife. "You keep that man away from me, Old Peg, you hear?"

Old Peg helped him strip off a few layers of clothing. "Look at you," said Old Peg, sizing him up. "There ain't enough meat on you to make a stew."

"The bears and panthers pass me by in the night, looking for richer fare," said Taleswapper.

"Come in and tell me stories while I fix up a mess of supper for the company."

There was talk and chatter, especially once Oldpappy came in to help. He was getting feeble now, but he still had a hand in the kitchen, which was all to the benefit of those who ate here; Old Peg meant well and worked hard, but some folks had the knack and some folks didn't. But it wasn't food that Taleswapper came for, nor conversation either, and after a while he realized he'd have to bring it up himself "Where's your daughter?"

To his surprise, Old Peg stiffened, and her voice went cold and hard. "She ain't so little no more. She's got a mind of her own, she's the first to tell you."

And you don't much like it, thought Taleswapper. But his business with the daughter was more important than any family squabbles. "Is she still a—"

"A torch? Oh, yes, she does her duty, but it's no pleasure for folks to come for her. Snippy and cold, that's what she is. It's got her a name for being sharp-tongued." For a moment Old Peg's face softened. "She used to be such a soft-hearted child."

"I've never seen a soft heart turn hard," said Taleswapper. "At least not without good reason."

"Well, whatever her reason, she's one whose heart has crusted up like a waterbucket on a winter's night."

Taleswapper held his tongue and didn't sermonize, didn't talk about how if you chip the ice it'll freeze up again right away, but if you take it inside, it'll warm up fresh as you please. No use stepping in the middle of a family squabble. Taleswapper knew enough of the way people lived that he took this particular quarrel as a natural event, like cold winds and short days in autumn, like thunder after lightning. Most parents didn't have much use for a halfgrown child.

"I have a matter to discuss with her," said Taleswapper. "I'll take the risk of having my head bitten off."

He found her in Dr. Whitley Physicker's office, working on his accounts. "I didn't know you were a bookkeeper," he said.

"I didn't know you held much with physicking," she answered. "Or did you just come to see the miracle of a girl who does sums and ciphers?"

Oh, yes, she was as sharp as could be. Taleswapper could see how a wit like that might discommode a few folks who expected a young woman to cast down her eyes and speak softly, glancing upward only now and then under heavy-lidded eyes. There was none of that young ladyness about Peggy. She looked Taleswapper in the face, plain as could be.

"I didn't come to be healed," said Taleswapper. "Or to have my future told. Or even to have my accounts added up."

And there it was. The moment a man answered her right back instead of getting his dander up, why, she flashed a smile fit to charm the warts off a toad. "I don't recollect you having much to add or subtract anyhow," she said. "Naught plus naught is naught, I think."

"You've got it wrong, Peggy," said Taleswapper. "I own this whole world, and folks haven't been keeping up too well on the payments."

She smiled again, and set aside the doctor's account book. "I keep his records for him, once a month, and he brings me things to read from Dekane." She talked about the things she read, and Taleswapper began to see that her heart yearned for places far beyond Hatrack River. He also saw other things—that she, being a torch, knew the folks around here too well, and thought that in faraway places she'd find people with jewel-like souls that would never disappoint a girl who could see clean into their heart.

She's young, that's all. Give her time, and she'll learn to love such goodness as she finds, and forgive the rest.

After a while the doctor came in, and they chatted a bit, and it was well into the afternoon by the time Taleswapper was alone with Peggy again and could ask her what he came to ask.

"How far off can you see, Peggy?"

He could almost see wariness fall across her face like a thick velvet curtain. "I don't reckon you're asking me whether I need spectacles," she said.

"I just wonder about a girl who once wrote in my book, A Maker is born. I wonder if she still keeps an eye on that Maker, now and then, so she can see how he fares."

She looked away from him, gazing at the high window above where the curtain gave privacy. The sun was low and the sky outside was grey, but her face was full of light, Taleswapper saw that right enough. Sometimes you didn't have to be a torch to know full well what was in a person's heart.

"I wonder if that torch saw a ridgebeam failing on him one time," said Taleswapper.

"I wonder," she said.

"Or a millstone."

"Could be."

"And I wonder if somehow she didn't have some way to split that ridgebeam clean in twain, and crack that millstone so a certain old taleswapper could see lantern light right through the middle of that stone."

Tears glistened in her eyes, not like she was about to cry, but like she was looking into the sun straight on, and it made her water up. "A scrap of his birth caul, rubbed into dust, and a body can use the boy's own power to work a few clumsy makings," she said softly.

"But now he knows something of his own knack, and he undid what you did for him."

She nodded.

"Must be lonely, watching out for him from so far away," said Taleswapper.

She shook her head. "Not to me. I got folks all around me, all the time." She looked at Taleswapper and smiled wanly. "It's almost a relief to spend time with that one boy who doesn't want a thing from me, because he doesn't even know that I exist."

"I know, though," said Taleswapper. "And I don't want a thing from you, either."

She smiled. "You old fraud," she said.

"All right, I do want something from you, but not something for myself. I've met that boy, and even if I can't see into his heart the way you can, I think I know him. I think I know what he might be, what he might do, and I want you to know that if you ever need my help for anything, just send me word, just tell me what to do, and if it's in my power I'll do it."

She didn't answer, nor did she look at him.

"So far you didn't need help," said Taleswapper, "but now he has a mind of his own, and you can't always do for him the things he'll need. The dangers won't come just from things that fall on him or hurt him in the flesh. He's in as much danger from what he decides to do himself. I'm just telling you that if you see such danger and you need me to help, I'll come no matter what."

"That's a comfort," she said. That was honest enough, Taleswapper knew; but she was feeling more than she said, he knew that too.

"And I wanted to tell you he was coming here, first of April, to prentice with the smith."

"I know he's coming," she said, "but it won't be the first of April."

"Oh?"

"Or even this year at all."

Fear for the boy stabbed at Taleswapper's heart. "I guess I did come to hear the future after all. What's in store for him? What's to come?"

"All kinds of things might happen," she said, "and I'd be a fool to guess which one. I see it open like a thousand roads before him, all the time. But there's precious few of those roads that bring him here by April, and a whole lot more that leave him dead with a Red man's hatchet in his head."

Taleswapper leaned across the doctor's writing table and rested his hand on hers. "Will he live?"

"As long as I have breath in my body," she said.

"Or I in mine," he answered.

They sat in silence for a moment, hand on hand, eye to eye, until she burst into laughter and looked away.

"Usually when folks laugh I get the joke," said Taleswapper.

"I was just thinking we're a poor excuse for a conspiracy, the two of us, against the enemies that boy will face."

"True," said Taleswapper, "but then, our cause is good, and so all nature will conspire with us, don't you think?"

"And God, too," she added firmly.

"I can't say about that," said Taleswapper. "The preachers and priests seem to have him so fenced up with doctrine that the poor old Father hardly has room to act anymore. Now that they've got the Bible safely interpreted, the last thing they ever want is for him to speak another word, or show his hand of power in this world."

"I saw his hand of power in the birth of a seventh son of a seventh son, some years back," she said. "Call it nature if you want to, since you've got all kinds of learning from philosophers and wizards. I just know that he's tied as tight to my life as if we was born from the same womb."

Taleswapper didn't plan his next question, it just came unthought-of from his lips. "Are you glad of it?"

She looked at him with terrible sadness in her eyes. "Not often," she said. She looked so weary then that Taleswapper couldn't help himself, he walked around the table and stood beside her chair and held her tight like a father holds his daughter, held her for a good long while. If she was crying or just holding on, he couldn't say. They spoke not a word. Finally she let go of him and turned back to the account book. He left without breaking the silence.

Taleswapper wandered on over to the inn to take his supper. There were tales to tell and chores to do in order to earn his keep. Yet all the stories seemed to pale beside the one story that he could not tell, the one story whose end he didn't know.

On the meadow around the millhouse were a half dozen farm wagons, watched over by farmers who had come a good long way to get high-quality flour. No more would their wives sweat over a mortar and pestle to make coarse meal for hard and lumpy bread. The mill was in business, and everyone for miles around would bring their grain to the town of Vigor Church.

The water poured through the millrace, and the great wheel turned. Inside the millhouse, the force of the wheel was carried by interlocking gears, to make the grindstone roll around and around, riding on the face of a quarter dress millstone.

The miller poured out the wheat upon the stone. The grindstone passed over it, crushing it to flour. The miller swept it smooth for a second pass, then brushed it off into a basket held by his son, a ten-year-old boy. His son poured the flour into a sieve, and shook the good flour into a cloth sack. He emptied what stayed in the sieve into a silage barrel. Then he returned to his father's side for the next basket of wheat.

Their thoughts were remarkably alike, as they worked silently together. This is what I want to do forever, each one thought. Rise in the morning, come to the mill, and work all day with him beside me. Never mind that the wish was impossible. Never mind that they might never see each other again, once the boy left for his apprenticeship back in the place of his birth. That only added to the sweetness of the moment, which would soon become a memory, would soon become a dream.