Jon woke with his right hand caught beneath him.
Pain went through the knuckle as he pulled it free. For a moment he lay still, listening to the sea beyond the window, and waited for the ache to settle. Yesterday's ride had left mud upon the boots beneath his chair. The clean clothes Wylla had laid out smelled faintly of the herbs she kept with the linen.
There was no blood upon them. He looked away from the folded shirt.
Lorren came while he was eating. The healer unwrapped his hand without asking whether it hurt, examined the split skin and made an irritated sound.
"You have opened it twice."
"I know."
"Then stop leaning upon it."
Jon put down his bread. "How is Tomas?"
"Better at obeying me than you are." Lorren wound fresh linen between his fingers. "He sat by the window yesterday. Not for long. If he tells you that means he is fit to ride, you did not hear it from me."
"And the man who went into the sea?"
"His breathing is easier. I shall keep him here."
Lorren reached for the last of his linen, then stopped. "One of the men from our lessons is going with the quarry party. I've given him dressings. If someone is hurt, he can do something while they send for me."
"Can you spare him?"
"Denner is staying. And it is no use teaching the others if we never let them out of this room." He tucked the linen away. "I have told him what he must leave to me."
Jon nodded. He remembered Hennet hauling at a wet sleeve between the grinding hulls. There had been moments upon that deck he could scarcely separate from one another, yet he could remember the pressure of Tomas's blood beneath his fingers with a precision he did not want.
Lorren tied the bandage and caught him testing his grip.
"Leave it."
Jon left it. He finished his bread with the other hand.
In the lower yard the nineteen prisoners stood ready for the road. The garrison serjeant was checking their irons while another man counted them. One pirate watched Jon cross the stones, then looked towards the place where the block had stood.
Jon saw where he was looking. He walked past without speaking.
Ethan waited at the gate with Otho's directions for the escort. He had slept little; the skin beneath his eyes looked bruised.
"The guards have their orders. Cinderwell and back before the gates are shut."
"No straying into the village."
"The serjeant understands."
Alasdair brought Bucephalus forward and held him while Jon mounted. He had taken Tomas's place among the escort. Twice he glanced back to count the men, as though Tomas might appear to ask him whether he had remembered.
"Voss is going along the western shore," Ethan said. "The mate gave him enough to find the inlet."
Jon turned in the saddle. "The one beyond the smokehouse cove?"
"Aye. There is meant to be a store above the tide. He will search it with men who know the coast."
The collector's first mate had offered more than Drennan's name when he thought he could buy his life. Until Voss found the store, Jon had only the prisoner's word that it existed.
"Have whatever they find brought here," Jon said. "The maester and Abel are to see it together."
"And the mate?"
"He stays where he is."
Ethan nodded. Neresso was already in Monford's hands. Soon the merchant would be here to answer the same questions, without knowing which lies his sailors had told first.
Arthur rode up on Jon's left. Beyond the gate, the road to Cinderwell lay pale between walls of dark stone. There was still much of the morning ahead of them.
Jon looked once towards the prisoners. "Send word if Voss finds people, or anyone guarding that store. Do not wait for me to return."
* * *
At Cinderwell the women washing linen heard the horses first.
They straightened over the troughs as Jon rode past, sleeves rolled above reddened elbows. Wet cloth snapped against stone. A little farther up, bean vines straggled across the lane and caught at Bucephalus's bridle until Jon pushed them aside. Smoke rose from the houses into a pale morning sky. Jon drew Bucephalus to a walk. He had spent so much of the previous day among barley and river mud that the sound of hammers upon stone seemed a change of country.
Merren met him beside a stack of dressed stone. He had put on the coat he wore to the castle, though dust already whitened its cuffs.
"My lord." Merren's eyes went to the fresh linen about Jon's hand. "My son was at the castle yesterday."
"Then he will have told you why those men died."
"He did."
The headman kept looking at the bandage. Jon could feel Arthur beside him, waiting. He had no wish to carry yesterday's executions from house to house like a threat.
"I have come for the spring and the quarry," he said. "Is the mason ready?"
"Aye, my lord. He has been waiting for you."
Beyond him Otho's assistant was setting a measuring rod against the upper end of the stone stack. Otho had come ahead with Bennard and Master Woods. A cart stood near the spring with dressed blocks for the permanent repair; the props beneath the damaged wall were still in place.
Jon dismounted. "Show me what the mason has done."
They climbed past the gardens. Two women waited at the basin with jars, talking over the sound of water. The village branch ran steadily. Beside it, the second outlet fed the covered channel carrying water towards the castle.
Otho knelt near the wall, scraping loose earth from a stone with the point of his trowel. He looked up when Jon approached.
"The wall can be rebuilt a little at a time. We will keep it propped while the mason works."
"And keep both outlets running?"
"With a wooden trough past the work. The mason has the boards."
The mason showed him the boards ready beside the wall. The trough would carry water around the repair and back into the basin. Jon checked where it would stand.
Merren's daughter stood there holding a narrow board. Cuts along its edge showed how high the water usually rose. She fitted it between two stones and waited for the water to settle.
"It hasn't fallen below that one," she said, showing Jon the lowest mark.
"Even when they draw at the castle?"
"Not since the leak was turned aside."
Her father looked pleased. "She checks before she takes the goats out. Again when she comes home."
Jon crouched beside her. A strand of weed caught upon the board and trembled in the current.
"Keep checking while the wall is rebuilt. If it falls, tell the mason at once. He is to stop and find out why."
"Will he listen?"
The mason gave an offended grunt. Merren opened his mouth, but Jon answered first.
"He has heard me tell him."
She glanced at the mason. He nodded towards the board, and she put it back against the stone.
Jon took the plan Otho held out and laid it across the cart. Cords marked the new house rows below the spring. The road from the quarry would lead straight to the stone-cutting sheds, leaving the women filling their jars clear of the carts.
Merren followed Jon's finger until it reached the wider space below the houses.
"That is more road than we have houses for."
"You will have more houses. And carts meeting upon it."
The headman looked down the slope. "Men will build their sheds against it."
"They will build where Otho marks. I will not clear a street only to have it choked with lean-tos in a year."
"If someone wants more ground, he comes to you," Jon said. "You bring the request to Otho. No one takes land simply because it stands empty."
Merren nodded, less readily this time.
A murmur rose from the lane below. The prisoner party had arrived from the castle.
The men walked in pairs between garrison guards, their ankle chains striking against the stones. One had wrapped cloth around the iron at his shin. Another stared at the spring until a guard told him to keep moving. The escort led them down the quarry approach, away from the waiting jars.
Merren watched them pass.
"Those are the men from the ships?"
"The nineteen fit for work."
"You mean to keep them here?"
"They work here under guard, and go back to the castle at dusk."
The headman waited until his daughter had gone back to the basin.
"Our men have been asking after the wages. I told them you needed hands."
"I do."
"These won't cost you any."
Jon folded the edge of the plan flat. "They must be fed and guarded. And none of them knows your quarry as your own men do."
"A man needn't know much to carry stone."
"The hands Otho has hired keep their places," Jon said. "I am setting the prisoners to clearing the old iron mine. They will shift the fallen rock and the waste choking its approach. Your people keep their paid work."
"And the men who only have their backs?"
"Will still be needed. The new works will need men to haul fuel and ore every day, besides those building them."
Two men beside the stone stack had stopped to listen. Jon spoke loudly enough for them to hear.
"I mean to take far more stone and iron from Cinderwell than you have ever sent out before. In time I shall have to bring workers here because your village cannot supply enough." He looked back at Merren. "We must build the works first, and the harvest still needs hands. Do not promise everyone a wage tomorrow. But nineteen prisoners will not leave your people idle."
Merren's shoulders eased. "Then the men I called for should still come?"
"Every man Otho has hired. At the wages agreed."
He handed the plan back to Otho and went down towards the quarry road. Merren followed, calling to one of the men at the stone stack to pass the word.
The guards had halted the prisoners beside an old loading platform. One of the pirates lifted his head as Jon approached and spoke with undisguised contempt.
"Slave work, then?"
Jon stopped in front of him.
"You boarded my ships with steel in your hands. You served men who kept chains ready for people they could sell."
"I never sold—"
"Two years upon the works, then the Wall. I gave you your sentence yesterday." Jon stepped closer. "Take a shovel."
The man glanced at the guards and lowered his eyes. The accusation stayed with Jon as he turned away. He had sentenced these men for their crimes, and he meant to make them work. He would also have to see that their guards did not use the sentence as leave to do whatever they pleased.
He called the escort's serjeant aside.
"Water and food while they work. If one is ill, Lorren sees him. If one refuses an order, bring the matter to me. If one tries to run, stop him. You are here to guard them, not find sport."
"Aye, my lord."
"And keep them on the ground Otho has allowed. No one goes down to the flooded quarry floor or into the mine until he says it is safe."
Beyond the platform, a man sat in the shade of a cart, with two wooden sticks he used as crutches propped beside him. His left boot had been slit open around his swollen foot. A younger miner waited at his shoulder, the same man who had guided Jon into the ravine during the survey.
"You asked to hear Caddoc," Merren said.
The seated man began to rise. Jon put out a hand.
"Stay there. Which part did you work?"
Caddoc pointed uphill with one of his crutches. "The stone quarry first. The iron mine in the northern face after. Near twenty years between them."
Jon sat on a squared block beside the cart. "Show me."
Caddoc had brought a piece of roofing slate. He drew upon it with a pale chip of stone, turning it towards Jon each time he added a line.
From the cart Jon could see both workings. The stone quarry was an open pit, its lower floor hidden beneath a dark pool. Farther north, above the water, a narrow path led to the iron mine's entrance. A short stretch of tunnel remained visible before fallen rock blocked it. Splintered roof props jutted from the rubble.
Caddoc marked the tunnel upon his slate. "The roof fell just inside. Buried the way through to the iron. We got everyone out, but no one would pay for new props and men to clear it."
"That is the prisoners' work," Jon told Merren. "Once Otho and your miners have secured the roof, the prisoners can carry out the fallen rock. Until then, they clear the path to it."
The old man drew a second line, lower down. "The quarry flooded because its drain was buried. Used to carry the rainwater out beneath the loading place."
The younger miner shook his head. "There's nothing there."
"Under the heap," Caddoc said. "I crawled in to clear it often enough. You were still carrying wedges for your father."
Jon looked towards the nettles growing over the dumped stone. They could search for the drain without entering the flooded pit.
"Show Otho where to look."
Caddoc glanced at his crutches. "Can't get over that heap."
"Stay here and direct him."
Otho took the younger miner down to the heap. Caddoc called directions until they reached the brambles beneath the platform. Jon gave them two prisoners to dig there. The other seventeen began clearing the mine path under guard, carrying the loose stone away in baskets.
A broad-backed villager beside the loading platform watched them take up their baskets. He had his coat under one arm and had not joined the other loaders.
"Did you hear what Lord Jon said?" Merren asked him.
"I thought you'd brought them for our work."
"They're clearing the mine. You're loading building stone, as we agreed. Put your coat down. The cart is waiting."
The man looked towards Jon, who nodded. He laid his coat aside and joined the village loading crew. Merren helped them draw a rope beneath the next block. Beyond the platform, the prisoners carried baskets between the mine path and the waste heap.
At the drain, one of the two prisoners began hacking at a buried slab. Caddoc struck the side of the cart with his crutch.
"Easy with that! You'll bring the drain's roof down."
Otho heard him and stopped the man. They cleared with their hands instead, drawing out roots and damp leaves until a gap beneath a flat stone appeared.
Jon went down to look. It was too narrow for a man to stand in, a drain built from flat stones and roofed with slabs. Water seeped between the rubbish blocking its mouth. Behind it, darkness extended farther than he could see.
"No one crawls in," he said.
Otho nodded. "If the quarry water is behind that rubbish, it may come out all at once."
"Then have everyone clear of it before you open it."
Jon stayed while Otho checked where the water would run. It would pass below the cart road, well away from the village spring. Only then did he let the digging resume.
On the way back he passed one of the prisoners who had been clearing the drain. A sharp piece of stone had cut his palm. Lorren's pupil knelt beside him, his sword pushed back out of the way, and took a clean dressing from its wrapping. A guard stood over them. The prisoner watched the man's hands without speaking.
Jon remembered two spearmen practising bandaging each other in the northern infirmary, one groaning until Lorren told him to save his breath. Here the pupil was speaking quietly to the prisoner while he worked. Jon watched for a moment, then went on.
When he returned to the cart, Caddoc was pretending not to watch him.
"You were right about the drain," Jon said.
"Aye."
"Why wasn't it kept clear?"
The old man rubbed dust from the slate with his thumb. "The lower stone cost more to lift. Fewer men came for it. Then the mine roof fell, and there wasn't coin to put either right."
"You told them about the drain?"
"I told Merren's father. He knew it as well as I did." Caddoc looked towards the prisoners. "He couldn't pay a gang to dig it out."
Jon glanced at Merren. The headman had heard. He was watching a block being levered onto the cart, his hands clasped behind his back.
"Can you come here while they clear the approach?" Jon asked Caddoc. "You need not climb. Otho will need what you remember."
"I can come if there's a cart."
"There will be. You will be paid for the day."
For a moment the old man said nothing. Then he turned his slate over.
"There's another place you'll want to look. Above the mine entrance. They threw ore in with the waste when they cleared the deeper seam. Might be some worth taking yet."
Jon shifted nearer on the block.
Caddoc marked the heap upon his slate. When Otho returned with the younger miner, Jon had them mark the places they could reach safely for samples. Reaching the deeper workings would take longer.
A shout from the loading place made them look round. The carter wanted the next block turned before they loaded it onto the cart. Four local loaders eased it back upon its wooden runners while the stone worker shifted a plank. They knew their work; no one hurried until he had taken his bar clear. Even so, by the time the stone lay where the carter wanted it, the men were breathing hard.
Jon watched them return for another.
"We will need lifting frames here, Otho. A crane at the loading place first."
"Like the one we used for the barrack roofs?"
"Woods can build from that pattern. It will need firm ground and room for the carts."
He remembered Theon working the handle in the North, astonished by the weight it raised. These loaders could use the same help. Caddoc pointed out a level place above an old wall, and Otho went to examine it. Jon sketched the crane beside the road while they waited.
When Otho returned, he approved the ground but asked for a wider approach. Jon assigned that work to the village building crew.
"Will it take the larger blocks?" Merren asked.
"That is what Woods will build it for. We will test it before your men use it."
Merren looked back at the loaders. One had sat down to pull a stone chip from his shoe; the others were waiting for him.
"And someone who knows how to work it," he said.
"I have men who can teach them."
Jon turned from Caddoc's drawing to Merren. "Find the miners who used to work here. Otho will need their help making the tunnel safe. They will be paid."
"They'll ask if there is more than a few days in it."
"Tell them what we intend to build at the mill. If that seam is worth working, I shall need their sons taught as well."
Merren asked the younger miner how many of the old hands were still in the village.
"Four who've worked the northern cut," the man said. "Perhaps six, if the brothers come back from Hull. There are some of the old miners from the lime pit, too."
Jon turned towards him. "Lime pit? Where?"
"West of the castle, my lord. Above the cove. The upper path goes past it."
Jon remembered the hollow beside the path, seen through rain on the night they took Borren. He had been hurrying towards the smokehouse then.
"They quarried stone there?"
"Limestone," Caddoc said. "For burning. Some of our men worked both places. My father did."
"Is there still stone to take?"
"Aye. They stopped paying for it long before they ran out. The face is under gorse now."
Jon looked at Otho. "Have someone who worked there show your assistant the pit. I want samples brought to the castle."
Merren frowned. "Eastcove already burns shells."
"They should keep doing so. We will need both." Jon turned back to Caddoc. "Who remembers the burning?"
The old man gave Merren two names. One had sons still living in Cinderwell; the other, he thought, had gone to Hull with his daughter. Merren knew which house to ask at.
In his first life, Jon had walked beneath Roman vaults built with lime and volcanic ash. Dragonmont might supply the ash he needed; now there was limestone close to the castle. He had to test both, but the discovery made him look again at the heaps of broken stone.
"I mean to use it for a stronger mortar," he told Otho. "One that will harden even in wet ground. Mixed with broken stone, it could give us foundations much faster than dressing every block."
Otho looked towards the village's marked house rows. "And Eastcove will supply the bricks above them."
"Yes. If we can make enough of both, we can build far faster. Have the lime burner try the stone. We will test small batches of the mixture before trusting a wall to it."
Merren had been listening closely. "You mean to use stone we throw away?"
"Some of it. Your masons will still be needed."
The headman glanced back at the quarry. "I'll find those men."
The first laden cart went towards the village as they took the path east. Its blocks were for the spring wall. Behind them the prisoners' shovels struck earth, and Caddoc called another warning from his place beside the cart.
* * *
Nettles grew thick against the burned mill's walls.
The fire had left black marks above the doorway. The old roof had fallen inward, and young ash trees had rooted among its charred timbers. Bennard's men had cleared the lower end since Jon's survey. A new trench ran beside the surviving wall; lengths of timber lay ready above it. Below them a separate stream, well away from Cinderwell's drinking spring, hurried through the abandoned mill channel and spilled into the wheel pit.
Master Woods stood beyond the doorway with two carpenters, measuring a span the new roof would have to cross. He lowered his end of the cord when he saw Jon, then gave it to his man and came over. The master carpenter had built Jon's first workshop in the North. Here the fire had left him little he was willing to trust.
Bennard stood in the pit up to his calves, arguing with a carpenter on the bank. Ewan's furnace man had worked the northern hammer long enough to know what its shaking could do to a poor foundation.
"The stones where the wheel will stand are loose. This end has to come down."
"There's good wall above it. We could shore it up."
"We'd still be building on loose stone."
Jon crouched on the bank above Bennard. The furnaceman pulled a loose stone out with one hand. Behind it, water had washed the mortar into a gritty hollow.
"Take this end down to sound stone," Jon said. "Save the good blocks for rebuilding."
The carpenter looked from the stone Bennard held to the wall above it.
"It is more work, my lord."
"And we would have to do it all again if that wall gave way."
Jon stood and took the drawing. Bennard had altered the waterwheel's design to make better use of the stream. Until the wall beneath it was rebuilt, the water would be diverted past the work.
"The hammer first," Jon said. "We need tools while the rest is being built."
Bennard nodded. "I've told them."
The timber cart arrived while they were measuring the hammerhouse. Ewan rode beside it with Noll, who had brought the smaller iron fittings from the castle forge. Henly and Emrick followed on foot, their coats over their arms. Jon had sent for both that morning; the acolytes had left their engine men cleaning and checking the legion's equipment.
Ewan dismounted and went straight to the load. He pushed one timber aside to examine the length beneath it.
"You have the best of them, Bennard."
"I asked for the best."
"So did the carpenter at Eastcove."
Bennard grinned. Ewan shook his head, but helped him slide the timber down beside the others.
"Can Eastcove spare you?" Jon asked.
"For today. Their carpenter has the mould and the first bench to work from. He made the last joints himself, and I've left him one of our men. He'll send if he needs me." Ewan looked through the mill's broken doorway. "I wanted to see this before anyone set a hearth."
Noll unfastened his leather roll upon a timber and spread out the iron fittings. His men were still making Saltcliffe's pieces at the castle forge. Here, Ewan set him to checking what the carpenters would need first.
Henly and Emrick joined them. Both acolytes knew forge work as well as the legion's war engines; Jon had brought them to help turn his drawings into working machinery. Woods called Emrick over to settle a fastening, while Henly fetched Bennard's drawing.
"The iron we ordered in the North should be here," Jon told Ewan. "Ask Marrec what has arrived. I want the forges working while the mine is cleared."
Ewan glanced at the road they had come by. "Is there better ore than the last lot?"
"Caddoc thinks so. He has shown us where to take fresh samples."
The old samples had given them poor results. Bennard would test the new ones before Jon committed men and money to the great furnace. Until then, purchased iron would keep them working.
Merren came closer as the carpenters unloaded. They laid two great timbers beside the marks for the hammer frame. The headman looked from them to the mill doorway.
"It won't fit."
"The hammerhouse is larger than the old mill," Jon said.
"I understood that. I did not think you meant the hammer itself would need all this."
Ewan squatted beside the frame marks. "A head that heavy needs sound timber to hold it, and sound ground beneath the anvil."
"How many men to lift it?"
"The waterwheel lifts it and lets it fall," Jon said. "The smith turns the hot iron beneath the blows."
Merren bent over the drawing. Beside him, a young man with a mason's mallet tucked through his belt frowned.
"It would beat the iron flat before he could move it."
"He learns when to turn it and when to draw it back," Ewan said. "No man works the hammer until he has been taught."
"Can he stop it himself?" the young man asked.
"From where he stands," Jon said. "That is part of the design. Ewan will choose and train the men who use it."
The young man did not look reassured. Jon knew enough injured workmen from his first life to take the question seriously. He told Henly to keep a barrier between the moving machinery and anyone walking through the shop. He would be there for its first trial.
The young man looked at Ewan. "You've seen one work?"
"I helped build one in the North."
The men beside the cart set down their wedges to listen. Ewan told them about the northern hammer: the heavy beating it spared his smiths, and the work that still needed a skilled hand. When one of the loaders asked whether he could learn, Ewan told him to come and watch the first trial. Merren moved closer to hear, and Jon left the questions to the smith.
Merren looked across the marked ground again.
"All this for your soldiers."
"Picks for the quarry," Jon said. "Fittings for Gella's works. Tools for the men making bricks at Eastcove. Nails, hinges, wagon tyres. We need those before I can arm another century."
"And then?"
"Then armour. Weapons. Work for the ships. And iron to sell when our own needs allow it."
Woods came over when Jon opened the quarry sketch. He recognised the lifting frame they had used in the North.
"You will build the cranes, Master Woods," Jon said. "Begin with the quarry. We will need another here for the heavy pieces, and more at the building sites. Blackburn's harbour will need them most of all; I want ships unloaded quickly."
"I'll need more carpenters for that."
"Begin with your own men. When Ethan, the maester and I go through the census, we will assign you more. Your deputy can keep the clockwork going with William."
Woods glanced at Ewan. "I'll need your ironwork."
"Send me what you need tonight," Ewan said. "Noll and I can go through it at the forge."
Henly and Emrick knew windlasses from their work on the legion's war engines. Jon set them to helping Woods with the cranes and teaching the first crews. Woods beckoned them over and spread the quarry sketch upon a timber. Jon left the three of them there and took Merren farther into the yard.
Beyond the planned forges, a cord enclosed the ground reserved for the furnace. Merren walked its length, then stopped.
"That whole square?"
"For the furnace, and room for the men working it."
Merren looked up the slope as though he might see the height of the thing in the air.
"The smoke will come into the village."
"The ridge will shelter you from most of it. That is why we chose this ground." Jon pointed out the fuel road, which would keep the carts away from the spring. Waste from the furnace would be kept clear of the stream as well.
"I've never seen a works built with so much empty ground about it."
"It will not remain empty."
Jon could almost hear the hammer pounding over the rush of the wheel. He looked back at the roofless mill, impatient to have it working.
In his first life a builder could buy the tools he needed. Here, Jon had to establish the workshops that would make them. Eastcove could not turn out bricks fast enough without better equipment; Saltcliffe needed its boilers; every new roof would need nails.
Behind him, the carpenter who had wanted to keep the old footing went back to the wheel pit with a crowbar.
They ate in the shade of the ruined wall. Merren had brought bread, cheese and onions; Noll cut his onion with a knife too broad for the task and offered half to Bennard. Arthur took the place from which he could see both approaches. Jon noticed it now in a way he had not before the fight aboard the collector.
Over the meal Bennard warned him that the island's charcoal would not supply the works he intended. Jon told him to give Marrec the quantities he needed. They would have to buy regular cargoes, and build somewhere dry to keep them.
Merren tore a piece from his bread. He watched a carpenter sight along one of the wheel timbers.
"Will you keep coming?"
"Yes."
"Lords say that."
Arthur looked at him. Merren swallowed the last of his mouthful.
"My lord. My father took men up to that drain twice. Once he had to turn them away without their pay. They remembered it every time he asked for anything afterwards." He brushed crumbs from his coat. "Caddoc makes it sound as though we all stood watching the water rise."
"He said your father knew what needed doing."
"He did. He couldn't make the coin come."
Jon looked down at the men still eating in the shade. Some would have worked for Merren's father. They would remember being sent home without their pay.
"I will be here when Bennard raises the frame, and again when the furnace is lined. If the spring falls while Otho is away, send to the castle." Jon leaned forward. "But I will not be here for every cart and every quarrel. You are the headman. I expect you to see that your people come when they are wanted. If there is trouble, I expect to hear of it."
Merren nodded slowly, then looked towards the carpenters still at their meal.
After the meal Otho found a better place for the hammer, where its weight would rest on firm ground and the smiths would have room to work. Jon altered the drawing with Bennard and Ewan beside him, while Woods measured for the new roof. By the time they agreed upon it, Jon's bandaged hand was aching again.
By late afternoon the burned timbers had been dragged out of the first bay. Fresh pale wood lay across the grass where the carpenter was setting out his joints. Upstream, men were opening the temporary channel that would carry the water past the wheel pit while its footing was rebuilt.
Jon left Bennard in charge at the mill. Woods and Otho went back to the quarry with the acolytes, while Ewan and Noll took the revised drawings to the castle forge. There was still work waiting for Saltcliffe. On the way through Cinderwell, Jon stopped once more at the spring.
The mason had diverted the flow into the wooden trough. It ran around the propped section with a hollow, rushing sound and fell back into the basin. Merren's daughter held her marked board at the village outlet. As Jon watched, she moved it a little, checked again, and nodded to the mason.
The women were still filling their jars below.
* * *
Voss was waiting when they reached the castle.
Salt had dried white upon his boots. One sleeve was torn at the elbow, and black grit had lodged in the seams of his hands. Behind him two garrison men were carrying a chest through the lower door.
"We found it, my lord."
Jon dismounted carefully. "Anyone there?"
"No one. Nor any sign that people were kept in that chamber."
"Show me what you brought back."
Voss led them towards the lower hall. The store lay beyond the smokehouse landing, he explained, behind a shoulder of rock that hid the inlet from the path. At low water they had been able to reach it along a ledge. Loose stones concealed the entrance, with a gap just wide enough for a man to squeeze through.
"The mate said it was dry," Voss continued. "That much was true. There are shelves cut into the back. Planks above the floor for the bales."
"Enough room for what came off one ship?"
"More than one, my lord. Some of the racks were empty. We found spare oars and cordage as well as the goods."
Arthur looked at Jon. Spare gear, empty racks, room for more cargo: the gang had expected to keep using this inlet.
"Did you leave a watch?" Jon asked.
"Four men on the path above. Out of sight from the water. The rest are bringing the last of it up."
"Keep them there. No fires after dark."
The recovered goods filled a room off the hall. It smelled of damp wood and old sailcloth. Abel stood beside the maester, weighing silver from an open chest. A second chest held plate and jewellery wrapped in cloth. Copper ingots lay near the door, and a guard was helping unfold a woollen bale to check it for rot.
Jon stopped beside the open chest.
They had been doing this on his own shore. Long enough to cut shelves in the rock, to learn which ledge stayed dry, to trust that someone would carry their goods away before an honest patrol came near.
"How much can we use?" he asked.
"The coin is still being weighed," Abel said. "Some is clipped. Some I must have valued before I give you a sum."
"And the copper?"
"Sound enough, by the look of it. Noll should see it."
Jon nodded. Noll could judge what they ought to keep and what to sell. Useful as the copper might be, it would not supply the hammer with iron.
Ethan came in behind them. "We should ask Drennan whether he knew about this store."
"Ask him. Separately from what he did at the smokehouse."
"He has asked whether the galley has been found."
"Give him no answer."
The castellan stopped beside the second chest. Jon followed his gaze to a woman's comb caught in the wrapping. Teeth were broken at one end. Beside it lay a pair of small bracelets tied together with thread.
He thought of the woman Drennan had shut behind a door because her crying could be heard from the path.
"Keep those apart."
The maester looked up from the scales.
"The personal things," Jon said. "Let Wylla show them privately to the people we brought out. No one is to drag them in here to pick through a heap before the guards."
The maester set the comb upon a clean cloth. Ethan moved a cup to make room.
"Some may have come from other ships," Abel said.
"Then we keep them until we know. Count what can be spent without that."
He had felt relief when he saw the chest. He still felt it, and hated that the money should make any part of this easier to bear.
Jon looked again at the bracelets tied with thread. Someone had kept them together through all this. He hoped Wylla would find their owner among the people they had rescued.
Abel waited until he looked back.
"This will help with the first purchases. I cannot yet tell you how many."
"Set aside the wages already promised. Then what Noll needs for the hammer, after he and Marrec have checked the iron we have."
"The furnace?"
"Not from money you have not counted."
Abel inclined his head.
At Cinderwell, Jon had stood upon empty ground and seen the buildings that belonged there. He could still see them. He could also see the fittings Noll had brought in a small leather roll, every one taking a man's time at the forge. The larger works would consume this silver long before the island earned it back.
The expedition remained necessary. Nothing upon this table changed that.
He took Voss aside before leaving.
"The people who used that inlet may not all have heard what happened. If a boat comes to the store, I want to know where she came from and who meets her."
"Take them, my lord?"
"If you can do it without losing the men. If she has a fighting crew aboard, send word and keep her watched. Do not let four men try what needed two galleys."
Voss glanced at the bandage on Jon's hand. "No, my lord."
* * *
The door to Lorren's room was half open. Jon heard Olyver before he reached it.
"Does your mother need to know what you had for breakfast?"
"I haven't written that."
"There's still room at the bottom."
Tomas sat propped against the pillows with a board across his knees. A sheet of parchment lay upon it, covered nearly to the bottom. Olyver had taken the stool nearest the window. His own hand rested around an inkpot so Tomas could reach it without turning.
Aries stood at the foot of the bed with Geth and Nibs. Patch had claimed the space beneath Olyver's boots and was refusing to move when the man shifted.
"Lorren allowed all of you?" Jon asked.
"He allowed them," Tomas said. "Olyver came to help."
"And has he?"
"He has opinions."
Olyver lifted the inkpot. "He would have spilt this without me."
Jon came nearer. Tomas tried to put the pen down and left a short black mark beside the last word. His face tightened with annoyance.
"You can copy it tomorrow," Jon said.
"I would rather finish. I've started it twice already."
Jon looked at the sheet, then away before he read anything Tomas had not offered him.
"Have you told her about the wound?"
"I've told her."
"How much?"
Tomas was quiet. Olyver stopped moving the inkpot.
"Enough that she won't hear the worst of it from someone else," Tomas said at last. "I told her Lorren says I'm mending. And that I can see properly."
"Good."
"I've told her about Ser Arthur. About what you mean to give me." He looked down at the parchment. "That took longer."
Aries had been peering around Geth to see the letter. At the change in Tomas's voice he became still.
"I keep writing it as if I have to persuade her," Tomas admitted.
"You needn't."
"I know. I only..." He lifted his eyes. "She'll think I've misunderstood."
"Finish it. I will put my seal upon it when you're done."
Tomas stared at him.
"Then she can blame me for the unlikely parts."
The smile came slowly. He looked down before Jon could see much of it, but his fingers had relaxed around the pen.
"Thank you, my lord."
Olyver cleared his throat and asked whether that meant Jon would take responsibility for whatever arms Tomas chose. The question drew the others in at once.
"A sword," Geth suggested.
"Every knight has a sword," Nibs said.
"Not upon his shield."
"They might. You haven't seen every knight."
"What would you choose, then?" Tomas asked Nibs.
Nibs considered. "A horse."
"Every knight has a horse," Geth said promptly. Tomas laughed, then winced and put a hand to his side.
"Neither of you is painting anything yet," he said. "Let me finish my letter." Olyver moved the inkpot within reach again. Aries stayed at the foot of the bed while Geth and Nibs began discussing colours.
When Lorren appeared in the passage, Jon sent the pages out ahead of him. Olyver stayed long enough to take the board off Tomas's knees.
Outside, Aries waited while Geth and Nibs went towards the stairs with Patch following.
"What is it?" Jon asked.
The boy glanced back at the sickroom.
"Will he have to leave us when he gets his land?"
"No holding has been chosen."
"But when it is."
Jon had thought of what he would give Tomas. He had spent less time thinking of what the promise sounded like to the boys who wanted him at the next meal.
"In time he may have duties elsewhere. He will still be one of us."
Aries rubbed a thumb along the seam of his cuff.
"For now, Lorren will scarcely let him reach the window," Jon said.
That brought a small smile. The boy asked whether he could bring him another sheet tomorrow. Jon told him to ask Wylla for it, but Aries lingered.
"Has Lord Arryn written?"
"Not about the children."
Aries looked down the passage. The others had gone around the turning.
"I thought we would know by now."
Jon had written again when they reached Dragonstone, asking after the wounded boy at Rilla's neighbour's house and the children made to fight beneath the city. Aries had carried that letter to Perkin himself. Each day since had brought some new demand upon Jon; the boy had been waiting through all of them.
"Come with me," he said.
They found the maester in his chamber. Jon asked him to send another letter to Lord Arryn that night. He wanted to know whether the children had been found, where they were being cared for, and to whom he should send the money he had promised.
"Have Abel set aside a purse for their food and lodging," Jon added. "When the answer comes, I want it ready to send."
The maester drew a fresh sheet towards him. Aries stood beside the table.
"Rilla, too," the boy said. "Ask if she's all right. She was afraid they would find out she'd told us."
"I will ask," the maester said.
Jon stayed until the letter was written. Aries watched the maester fold it, but had no more questions.
At the stair Patch came back for them, nails clicking upon the stone. Aries crouched to meet him and let the dog push his nose beneath his hand. Geth called from below. This time Aries went to join him.
* * *
Arthur found him in the little room beside the western postern after supper.
Hugin and Munin were upon the wall beyond the window. One had a scrap of meat; the other kept hopping nearer in the hope of stealing it. Jon waited until the quarrel was settled before sitting upon the stool.
Arthur put water within reach. "Where are you taking them?"
"Munin along the shore. Hugin over the ridge."
"Both out of sight of one another?"
"That is what I need to practise."
The birds had given him warning of the ambush. Without it, Denys would have had less time to ready his men, and the first boarders might have found them with their shields still stacked. Jon had thought often enough about what his gift could become. Now he had seen what a few moments' warning were worth.
He closed his eyes.
Cold air caught beneath Munin's wings. Through Hugin, he felt his claws leave the stone and the sea wind lift him. For an instant the two movements confused him. He held Munin level while Hugin climbed, then let the higher bird turn inland.
The castle fell behind them.
He had learnt to move from one bird's sight to the other without losing either altogether. Holding them upon different courses was harder. Munin followed the broken edge of the coast; Hugin crossed grass and the dark line of a wall. When Jon attended too closely to the wall, the shore vanished from his awareness.
He let Hugin circle while he searched for Munin's view again. Bloodraven had warned him about confusing one bird's senses with another's. He had to feel where each of them was.
He returned his attention to Munin: the wind rising from the water, the pull along the coast, the dark shapes caught among the rocks below. The shore came back. He held to that sense of her place while Hugin climbed farther inland.
Beyond the ridge, a cart was crawling along the Cinderwell road. Two men walked beside it. The bird's eyes found the pale load, the shadow beneath the axle, a hand raised to point up at him.
Stone for the castle. Men he might have passed a few hours ago.
He wanted to follow the road farther. Instead he turned Hugin home while Munin continued around the headland. As she flew farther from the castle, keeping hold of her grew harder. He nearly lost Hugin's view again.
Munin saw a narrow beach and a tangle of weed left by the falling tide.
Enough.
He turned Munin home and guided both birds back towards the castle. Only when he was sure of their course did he withdraw.
His left hand was gripping his knee. He loosened it.
Arthur waited while he drank.
"Well?"
"I lost the coast for a moment when Hugin crossed the ridge."
"But you brought them both back."
"Yes."
"Then remember that part as well."
Outside, one crow landed with a scrape of claws. The second took longer. Jon watched the empty stretch of wall until Hugin settled beside his companion.
The expedition would take him beyond familiar coasts. He would need to work at greater distances, to follow one creature without abandoning another, to return to his own body with strength left to act. Birds were a beginning. They were not the most dangerous things that might live in the country he meant to enter.
He had no certainty that a firewyrm's mind would yield to him at all.
He did not mention that to Arthur.
"Again tomorrow," he said.
"After sleep."
Jon was tired enough not to argue.
In his chamber the covered trays had been moved to make room for Otho's drawings. Wylla had kept the cloth over every fragment. Jon lifted a corner and turned the gold-coloured piece of dragonshell into the candlelight.
The broken edge pressed against his thumb. He loosened his grip before it cut him.
He still had no use for it. Yet he could not bring himself to put the shells away in a chest. They had lain among bones beneath the mountain while kings fought over the island above them. Now they lay beside his plans for the island.
Jon set the fragment down and drew the Cinderwell plan closer.
He added the old lime pit beside the western path, leaving room for Otho's measurements when they came. Beneath it he wrote the names of the men Merren was to find. He wanted the samples soon. If the stone and ash proved suitable, the builders could start using the new mortar while the mine was still being cleared.
Blackburn waited for him in the morning. Beyond that were the labour allocations, the lords coming to hear him, and Neresso.
He moved the candle nearer and finished the alterations while he could still remember exactly how Bennard had placed the hammer frame.