Chapter 6: Teeth of Wood

Master Woods laid the first clock wheel on his bench beside Jon’s drawing. The pale applewood had been cut cleanly, but the teeth crowded together on one side of the rim. Robb stood on a stool counting them with dried peas from Luwin’s lesson basket.

“Twenty-two.”

“There is one in your mouth,” Jon said.

Robb took the pea from between his teeth and set it on the bench. “Twenty-three. Did Olyver eat the other?”

Olyver looked up from the coffin board he was smoothing. “I had bread, my lord.”

Jon turned the wheel against the parchment. Woods was a square, brown-bearded man, pale with sawdust from brow to boots. He had followed the drawing until the last space proved too narrow to cut. His dividers explained why: the worn hinge slipped as soon as Jon lifted them. Jon had seen sound crews spend a day correcting work laid out from one bad level.

“Tighten that,” Jon said. “Then we will make a pattern for the teeth. Keep this wheel; I can still use it to try the pinion.”

Woods took the dividers to his vice. Jon cleared a place beside Olyver and drew a circle on the parchment. He divided it into quarters, then eighths and twenty-fourths, letting the apprentice make the last few strokes. Olyver bent close enough for his hair to brush Jon’s sleeve.

“Leave room at the root,” Jon told him. “The tip of the other tooth must pass through here.” He drew the mating tooth in its next position and turned the parchment so Olyver could follow it.

The boy traced the gap with a blunt nail. “Then I have been cutting these too narrow, my lord.”

“Two of them. Bring the wheel.” Jon laid it against the drawing and showed him which. They cut their pattern from a thin scrap of horn, broad enough to rest securely on the wooden rim. Olyver tried it on a fresh blank while Jon watched. When Woods returned, his son was already setting out the teeth.

“There is something else, my lord.” Woods brought out his measuring stick and the rule Mikken had sent with the arbor. Laid together, they differed by nearly a finger at the foot.

“Both called a foot,” Jon said. “Yet one has given us an arbor too thick for the hole.”

Robb bent so low his nose almost touched them. “Mikken’s foot is longer.”

“Mikken’s foot is a great deal longer,” Olyver said. “I have seen his boots.”

Jon laid the sticks across the drawing. “I will have copies made from Luwin’s rod. Use those for the clock parts. Tell Mikken I want him here when he has finished shoeing Father’s bay.”

Vayon Poole came into the shop with Jon’s account beneath his arm. The steward wore dark grey wool, dry above the knees and spattered below them from the street.

“The applewood and tools have taken nearly half your purse, my lord. There are the smith’s hours to pay as well.”

Jon read the figures. His allowance would have to last another moon; the carpenter’s seasoned timber cost far more than the wood stacked by Winterfell’s hearths. He put back the larger billet he had been considering. Once he could have ordered a replacement part and had it delivered in a box. Here every failed piece consumed somebody’s afternoon.

“Olyver can cut the next blank from that offcut. I will want a price for the frame before you begin it, Master Woods.”

Woods inclined his head. “This afternoon, my lord, when I have finished the widow’s steps.”

Robb offered Poole the wet pea. “You may have this towards the cost.”

The steward glanced at the bite in it. “Keep it. You appear to have paid already.”

By midmorning the coffin had its lid and the widow’s steps stood pegged and clamped while their glue dried. Olyver bored the next wheel blank. Jon held a square beside the bit and stopped him when it began to lean; the apprentice corrected the angle before cutting through the far face.

A man in a patched riding cloak came for the coffin before Mikken arrived. He stood bareheaded inside the door, turning his cap while Woods showed him the handles. Olyver put down the brace and helped carry it to the cart. The man thanked the carpenter twice and went away sitting very straight beside the driver.

Jon moved the wheel blanks onto the shelf to clear the bench. A coffin, a pair of steps, his clock: Woods fitted them all into the same small room. Beneath the bench lay chair legs waiting to be glued and a child’s little wooden stool with one foot missing. When Olyver came back, he wiped the rain from his freckled face and reached for the brace without being told.

Robb watched the bow saw with increasing interest. Arthur gave him a loose pine shaving to break instead. When Robb snapped it across his knee with a grunt, the knight handed him another.

Mikken arrived smelling of hot hoof and burnt horn, one corner of his apron scorched stiff against his knee. His rule had come from the armoury, Woods’s from the men who built the east granary. Jon set Luwin’s brass-capped oak stave beside them.

“Use this for the work you make here. Horseshoes may still be fitted to horses.” Woods gave the smallest grunt of laughter.

At Jon’s expense, they marked pearwood and iron copies with the foot, halves, quarters and fingers. Poole entered the cost while Luwin waited for his stave. The old measures had served each man well enough until a piece from one shop had to fit a piece from the other.

Woods held his copy edgewise. “This settles length. It does not tell me how loose you want the arbor.”

“Fit the bush to a pattern pin. It must turn freely without rocking. Keep the pin for replacements.”

Mikken examined the rejected arbor. “I can file this one true and save the iron, my lord.”

“Do that. Bring it to me before Woods fits the bush.”

The wheel itself still ran unevenly: one side pressed hard against the pinion while the other scarcely touched it. Jon drew a pole lathe, with two iron centres and a treadle beneath a springy ash pole.

“Bore the blank first, then turn its rim about the hole.” He showed Olyver how the cord reversed the work when the treadle rose. “Lift the tool then. Cut on the downstroke.”

Woods took the charcoal at Jon’s nod and thickened an upright. “A brace here would keep it from racking, but the treadle needs room.”

Jon moved the treadle pin. “Put the brace behind it. That leaves your foot clear.”

They were pricing the timber and iron centres when Wylla arrived with a covered basket, rain dark on the shoulders of her green cloak. She moved the drawing beyond the reach of the pie dish and looked at Jon.

“You have an hour before Ser Rodrik expects you. Eat.”

The onion pie was still hot. There were two apples, hard white cheese and brown bread spread with bacon fat. Robb reached for the larger apple; Wylla took it first and cut both into pieces.

“I wanted that one,” he said.

“You may still have half.”

They ate on overturned buckets while glue warmed beside the brazier. Jon’s hands smelled of iron and resin. He gave Woods leave to buy the timber, then sat with the warm pie balanced on his knees and listened to Robb describe what he meant to do when Rodrik finally allowed them to fight one another.

This text was taken from NovelPhoenix. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Wylla picked a curl of applewood from Jon’s dark hair. It had caught around the pale strands at his left temple. He bent his head for her, still chewing, and she rubbed the sawdust from his cheek with her thumb.

Jon finished the last of the onion pie and let Wylla wipe his hands before he followed Arthur to the yard.

* * *

The lathe took four afternoons to build between Winterfell’s other orders. Olyver cut the mortises; Woods fitted the bed and braces; Mikken forged the centres from a broken hinge strap. Jon came after lessons to check the work and altered the treadle so a short stroke would still turn the blank well.

On the second evening Jon carried the drawing upstairs with a smear of glue on his cuff. Wylla found him kneeling on his chair, trying to reach the far edge of the parchment without putting his sleeve in the ink. She turned the page for him and brought the lamp closer.

“The bath is ready.”

“One line.” He drew it, then another to show where the treadle should hang. Wylla waited until he laid down the pen before unfastening his collar.

Later, warm and clean beneath the blankets, he tried the shortened stroke with one foot. His heel nudged the mattress. He could still smell the applewood in his hair. Wylla was sorting his stockings beside the fire when he fell asleep; in the morning the drawing lay flat beneath two books, and she had found the missing button from his cuff.

At the first trial the tool rest crept under Woods’s hand. Jon called a halt while the carpenter drove its wedge home; then a long, pale shaving peeled from the blank. Applewood scented the shop. Olyver found a steady pace at the treadle, and the rim ran true between the iron points.

The handle was too long for Jon. Woods shortened a spare, and Jon skimmed the last strokes from the rim with it. Robb picked up a shaving and held it to his upper lip.

“Ser Rodrik,” he announced.

“His whiskers are wider,” Arthur said from the door.

Robb found a second shaving. Jon and Olyver laid the tooth pattern over the finished circle. Every space fitted.

Woods ran his thumb around the smooth edge, then glanced at the waiting chair legs. “I could finish a pair alike on this, my lord.”

“Aye, with a pattern and a longer rest. Try it when we have our wheels.”

Woods turned Jon’s shortened handle in his large hand.

“Have you watched a turner work, my lord?”

“I knew what I wanted the wheel to do.”

Woods glanced towards Arthur, then back at Jon. “At your age my father would only let me work the treadle.”

Jon took the little tool from him. “Olyver has a good hand. Let him finish the next.”

“Aye, my lord.” Woods chose another piece of applewood for his son, leaving the chair leg within reach for later.

The clock train grew from two applewood wheels, a horn pinion and an iron arbor in a softer brass bush. Woods fitted the bush to Mikken’s finished pin; Jon turned the assembly under the wheel’s weight. It ran freely.

Behind a slatted screen they tried it with a small stone, a sack of shavings and sand beneath to catch the weight. The teeth caught cleanly, but the cord climbed the barrel’s bare edge. Jon stopped the trial and turned the frame. One fixing peg moved in its hole.

“Cheeks here to hold the cord, and a brace across the frame. The weight is pulling that joint apart.”

Mikken tested the arbor. “Iron collars would stop this shifting sideways.”

“Fit them,” Jon said. The train would run; now he needed to govern its speed.

Robb put the spare parts in his box of enemies, adding the crooked first wheel with satisfaction. A few days later Pate came with his arm still bound from the fall at the gate and a cracked rope guide in his good hand. He peered through the screen.

“A box of wooden teeth. I shall still be ringing by hand for a while, then.”

“For a while,” Jon said. “What have you brought?”

They had lifted the bell rope clear of the guide until it could be smoothed. Wet hemp had bitten into its rusted mouth. Jon suggested bronze, which would not rust against it, or a wheel at the turn to spare the rope.

“A wheel needs an axle and a cover against rain,” Mikken said. “I can smooth this one today. With grease it should serve.”

Jon looked at Pate’s bound arm. “Mend the guide now. Round the mouth, and let him have it before the evening bell. We can fit a wheel when the other work allows.”

“Before sunset, my lord.” Mikken laid it beside his tool roll. Pate thanked Jon and went to his apprentice.

The bell rang by Pate’s hand that night. It came a little late, but the old man had no need to wrench at the rope.

* * *

While the new clock frame was being fitted, Jon turned to the lower-yard pump. Harwin had to work its worn piston several times before water reached the spout. Jon remembered his father’s old hand pump, its leather spread across the kitchen newspaper long after the farm had a powered one. He had no newspaper here, but he could show the saddler the cup that would seal against the bore, the valve below it and the flap that let water through on the downstroke.

Woods made a short elm barrel for the trial. After soaking it, the saddler found a ridge where the two auger holes met; Woods scraped it smooth. They fitted the leather to a wooden backing disc, leaving a narrow lip against the wet bore.

Two days later Robb worked the handle while Jon held the jug and Pate watched. The first pull brought nothing; the second, a hollow gulp; the fourth, a few drops of brown water. Woods stopped a leak with flax and pitch. A thin stream followed, then stopped when Robb heaved harder.

Jon bent to look down the bore just as Robb gave another pull. A spurt struck him across the chin and soaked the front of his tunic.

Robb stared at the dripping tunic, then began to laugh.

“Not another stroke,” Jon said, wiping his face.

“I had stopped.”

Jon laughed too. He set the jug down and drew out the piston. The unsupported edge of the leather had turned inside out. Woods cut a wider backing disc at Jon’s direction, and the saddler trimmed the lip until it flexed without folding.

This time the stream filled the jug and went on flowing.

Jon raised his hand before the jug brimmed over. Robb stopped, and Arthur put a bucket beneath the spout for the next trial.

“That is enough to wash in,” Robb said.

“You may begin with the bench.” Jon gave him the rag. Pate held his free hand under the little stream while the bucket filled; water ran over his knuckles without his having to lift a full pail. He flexed them, looking from the spout to the handle, then asked Woods how soon he might see it working at the well.

They left the pump standing in the rain barrel overnight. By morning the elm had swollen enough that Robb needed both hands to work the handle.

Woods scraped the swollen bore once more. Jon left the pump working beside the rain barrel so they could see whether it tightened again before making one for the well.

When Poole brought the week’s account, Wylla was mending Jon’s tunic beside the hearth. The steward put the bill on the bench without comment. Jon crossed the Myrish glass from his own order; the new frame and ironwork had left too little for it.

“Horn will do for the face,” he said. “Have it cut when we know the size.”

Wylla folded the mended tunic. Robb held up the discarded pump leather and peered through it at his brother. Jon took it away before he could fit it over his head.

The clock still needed its escapement. Jon drew the toothed crown and the upright bar that would rock against it, catching one tooth as it released another. A crosspiece bearing small lead weights would govern the beat. He remembered seeing such movements opened in museums; getting the clearances right with hand-filed iron took much of the next week.

Mikken forged the crown. Olyver cut a wooden pallet bar for the first trials, and Jon fitted it in the frame. At first it locked. He shaved the contact face, adjusted the bar and raised the small weight again.

Tok—tok. Tok—tok.

Robb stopped swinging his legs beneath the stool. The little bar rocked from side to side. For twenty-seven beats the wheel advanced a tooth at a time; then the sound grew uneven and stopped.

“That is the longest yet,” Olyver said.

Jon leaned close without touching it. The lower pallet had shifted on the bar; its edge now caught the crown instead of releasing it. He lowered the weight, returned the pallet to the position he had marked and tightened the little wedge.

“Put a pin through this joint,” he told Woods. “The pallet must not turn on the bar.”

The carpenter fetched his small drill. When the joint was pinned, Jon raised the weight again and let the others listen. The uneven wooden knock was a poor sound beside Pate’s bell outside, but it was the sound he had come to the shop to make.

Robb tried to imitate it all the way back to the keep.

That night Jon began a small book with the blank leaves Luwin had given him for drawings. Wylla had stitched them between covers of plain black leather, leaving the back broad enough for more leaves. There was no title upon it. The black book would do; he had no intention of lending it to anyone who needed to ask what it contained.

He wrote in English. The first few lines came slowly, his cramped hand making an ugly job of letters he had once written without looking. He set down the tools needed for another clock, then the forge and waterwheel he would build when he could afford them. Against the forge he wrote the first expense: a smith whose time he could command. Mikken had Winterfell’s work to do.

Halfway down the page he stopped to read it. For the first time since waking in this body, there were sentences before him that belonged wholly to his former life. He could almost feel the broad desk beneath his elbows and the weight of the pen he had kept long after cheaper ones worked as well. He had used that pen to check drawings, answer his children’s letters and complain to a company that had sent him the wrong pump twice. Now he had to shake the ache from five-year-old fingers before he could finish a page.

He kept even the small notes beside the drawings in English. Anything a craftsman needed would be copied onto a separate sheet in the Common Tongue. Luwin could not read this language, nor Arthur; there was no English speaker here from whom either could learn it. A stranger might still recognise a wheel or puzzle over a name. He would not leave the book lying open merely because its writing was private.

Two leaves went to ships. In the larger hull he marked the space for water casks and worked the framing round it. A second drawing had a finer bow; he left both unfinished, with the sails sketched lightly about the masts.

On a fresh leaf he began setting down the people and events he remembered from the other books, the ones whose names he now heard across a supper table. The first attempt filled less space than he expected. He knew the great disasters far better than the quiet years leading to them. A name might return while he was thinking about something else, then elude him when he wanted it. He would put down what he could now and leave room for the rest.

He let the ink dry, placed the black book in the locked casket beneath his clothes and kept the key himself.