With a sigh of resignation, he opened the copybook.
At least in the summer, there was some light after he finished at the mill and supper, although even without lighting his stub of a candle, he could see perfectly well. As he’d gotten older his night vision, or sense of things, had continued to sharpen. In pitch darkness, he had trouble reading, but it would be a while before that occurred, and long before that he would be too tired to continue his self-taught lessons in letters.
XVIII
CERRYL STEPPED OUT of the warmth of the kitchen into the comparative cool of the porch, his stomach almost feeling distended from the amount of mutton stew he had eaten. His arms and legs and back all ached. He’d spent most of the past eight-day up in the higher woods with Viental and Brental, learning how to judge when a tree could be felled and whether it should be. That part had come easily. Not so easy had been working with the ax and the two-man saw.
The ax bothered him, in the same way the mill blade did—the darkness of the honed iron feeling both like fire and ice at the same time. The oiled and honest iron of the ax even felt hot to his touch, nearly hot enough to burn his fingers, calloused or not.
Perhaps Erhana would come out on the porch after she helped her mother clean up after dinner. Cerryl hoped so. He walked to the north end of the porch and looked toward the higher hills, where he’d spent most of his time lately. The low buzz of insects and the scattered chirps of crickets rose out of the growing dusk.
“Dylert’s got lots of woods up there,” said Rinfur from behind him. “They say the family patent goes back to his great-grandsire.”
“Too many woods,” puffed Viental, standing on the top porch step. “Too long a day. Too much logging. I need to lie down.”
“That’s not because of your logging,” laughed Rinfur. “It’s your eating. You swallowed enough stew for three of you. And one of you is more than enough.”
“Most funny,” said Viental. “We should make you saw the trees. Your horses do all the hard work.”
Rinfur laughed, a good-natured tone in the sound. “That’s ’cause I’m smarter than they are.”
“Not much,” answered the stocky laborer as he started down the porch steps.
“Just enough,” admitted Rinfur, stepping up beside Cerryl and standing there silently for a time. Behind them, in the kitchen, the sounds of voices and crockery and pans continued.
To the north, the sun that had dropped behind the hills backlit a low cloud into a line of fiery pink.
“Like this time of day,” said Rinfur. “Quiet . . . not too hot, not too cold, and the work’s done, the belly full.”
Cerryl nodded.
“Think I’ll walk over to the stable, see how the gray is doing. Worry about that hoof still.” With a nod, Rinfur turned and crossed the porch, leaving Cerryl alone at the railing.
The youth ran his hand through hair still slightly damp from a quick rinse before dinner. He watched as the cloud slowly faded into gray.
The door from the kitchen opened, and he turned.
“Oh . . . I didn’t know you were out here, Cerryl,” blurted Erhana, her hands around a book.
“I was waiting for my lesson,” he answered with a careful smile.
“This is the more advanced grammar.”
“I can try.”
Erhana shrugged and sat on the bench. Cerryl sat beside her, careful not to let his leg touch hers. She opened the book, and Cerryl followed her as she slowly read aloud.
“. . . the cooper fashions barrels from staves of wood. Barrels are used to store flour and grains. Some barrels hold water and wine . . .”
Cerryl wondered if all grammar books said things that people already knew, but he said nothing and tried to match what Erhana read with the letters on the page.
“It’s getting dark,” Erhana said after a while. “Can you even see the book?”
“I can still see it,” answered Cerryl. “What’s an ‘acolyte’?”
“That’s not in the copybook.”
“I know, but I wondered.”
“I can’t help you if you ask me about things that aren’t in the books.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why do you want to learn your letters?” Erhana asked abruptly, closing the grammar book and letting it rest on her trousered legs.
“I need to learn things,” Cerryl answered, shifting his weight on the hard surface of the bench.
“They don’t write about sawmills in books, silly boy.” Erhana laughed. “Not about how the mill works, anyway.”
“They should,” Cerryl offered. “Everyone knows about coopers and fullers and smiths.”