Chapter 23 — Before Breakfast

Chapter 23: Chapter 23 — Before Breakfast

Chapter 23 — Before Breakfast

Joan woke when Meg kicked her in the shin while fighting for space beneath their shared blankets.

Around them, the hall remained dark except for the red glow of the banked fire. Families covered most of the floor. Someone snored near the door, and a baby began to fuss, quieted, then started again.

Joan sat up and found her shoes by touch. Martha would be awake soon, and more than two hundred people expected something hot after sleeping on stone.

She stepped over bedrolls and went outside.

The rain had stopped. Water dripped from the roofs and gathered between the courtyard stones. Dawn had not reached the eastern wall, but two lamps burned near the inner castle.

Christopher Drake stood between them with a sword in his hand.

Joan stopped beneath the doorway.

Godfrey Hales walked around the young lord, tapping his shoulder and elbow with a wooden practice blade.

"Again."

Christopher raised his sword, stepped forward and cut. His rear foot slid on the wet stone.

Godfrey’s practice blade struck him across the ribs.

"Dead."

"You hit me before I finished."

"Most men will."

Christopher returned to his starting place, his shirt clinging to his back despite the cold. Joan had put that shirt aside for washing yesterday; she watched him ruin it a little more, then continued toward the kitchen.

Martha was already there, crouched beside the hearth with a bundle of kindling.

"Does Sir Godfrey strike him with that stick every morning?" Joan asked.

"He only started training him today," Martha said.

"Then you cannot call it something he does every morning."

"Godfrey says it will be." Martha blew into the hearth. Smoke rolled into her face. "Bring the dry basket."

Joan found it beside the flour bins. The kitchen roof had been repaired first, but damp still found its way through the western wall. Nothing stayed dry unless someone watched it.

By the time the first pot hung over the fire, the courtyard had begun to fill. Workers carried tools toward the gate and the damaged houses. Two apprentices brought the six prisoners from their locked room and tied them in pairs. Walter inspected the collars of the fifteen slaves before dividing them between Owen Wren and Wat Cooper.

Christopher was still training.

Godfrey made him repeat the same cut, correcting his feet and grip with sharp taps from the wooden blade.

Meg appeared in the kitchen doorway with Elsie behind her.

"He is bad at sword fighting," Meg said.

Joan handed her a bucket. "Water."

"I thought nobles trained with swords."

"Water, Meg."

Meg took the bucket. Elsie followed with a smaller one that remained empty until they reached the well.

Joan watched them cross the courtyard. She had spent years in a merchant’s household and knew how men looked at servant girls, but Christopher did not look at Meg that way. That should have eased her mind.

It did not.

He had noticed Meg in a street crowded with beggars. He had followed her to the laundry yard and offered work to the entire family after speaking to her for less than a minute. Nobles did not make decisions that way unless they wanted something.

Christopher lowered his sword and bent with his hands on his knees.

"Was that enough for the morning?" he asked.

"That was only the warm-up," Godfrey said.

Joan almost laughed. Christopher turned toward the kitchen, saw her watching and straightened.

"Good morning, Bram. Did you sleep in the barracks?"

"Yes, my lord. It was warm."

"Is breakfast ready yet?"

"When Martha says it is ready. Until then, Godfrey wants to look at you."

Martha struck the side of the pot with her spoon. "There is not."

Godfrey sent Christopher running around the inner courtyard.

Bram joined them before the second pot went over the fire, carrying two roof beams, one under each arm, with Wat following behind him and telling him to slow down before he struck someone.

Christopher stopped running when he saw him.

"Put those where Master Wren wants them," he called. "Then come back."

Bram halted. "Am I in trouble?"

"No. Sir Godfrey wants to see how you move."

Bram eyed Godfrey. The Silver Knight rested the wooden sword against one shoulder.

"No sword," Bram said.

"No sword," Christopher agreed.

Bram accepted the answer and carried the beams away.

Joan filled bowls while the workers lined up. The slaves received the same porridge, though they ate together beneath Walter’s watch. The prisoners ate with their wrists tied and an apprentice standing behind them. Everyone accepted the arrangement as fair enough and ate.

Christopher ate half a bowl before Godfrey called Bram into an open part of the courtyard.

"Stand there," Godfrey said.

Bram stood where he was pointing.

Godfrey corrected Bram’s stance three times, then pushed against his shoulder, and Bram learned to hold his ground without leaning forward.

Several workers had stopped eating to watch.

"We do the same work again tomorrow," Godfrey said.

Bram frowned. "That was all?"

"If you remember it tomorrow, we do something else."

"You still will not make me use a sword?"

"No sword. We will find another way for you to train."

Bram seemed satisfied. He collected another bowl from Martha and sat beside Meg and Elsie.

Christopher came to the kitchen table while Joan sorted the clean cloth from the cleaning rags.

"Does Meg have enough work?" he asked.

Joan’s hands stopped.

"She helps me here and follows her mother when Joan needs her."

"I know. I meant—" He nodded toward the girl. "Is she managing?"

"Managing which work, Young Master?"

Christopher took too long to answer. "Dragonwatch."

"The roof leaks. She sleeps on the floor, and we may be attacked by bandits or orcs."

"Yes. I wanted to know whether the work was too much for her."

"Then she is managing as well as the rest of us."

He nodded and left without asking anything more.

Martha waited until he crossed the courtyard. "You could speak more gently to your lord."

"I thought I spoke gently enough."

"You consider that a gentle question?"

"For me, it was very gentle."

Beyond the kitchen yard, the family caring for the captured warthogs pushed a barrow of roots toward the old stable. The five young crowded the feeding trough while the three adults struck the repaired gate with their snouts. None of them had become tame.

The hunting party left soon after breakfast.

Aldwin stood beneath the gate while Perrin checked a bundle of cord and three small traps. The hunter’s palms remained wrapped, preventing him from drawing a bow properly, so he had drawn a rough map on a piece of old board instead.

"Follow the stream south until the split rock," he told Ivo. "The deer cross above it. Do not follow tracks west if you find them. The ground rises into thick trees, and something large has been marking there."

Ivo examined the charcoal lines. "A bear?"

"Perhaps. The tracks were too old to be certain."

"Do you think it was another Magical Beast?"

"Perhaps it was. I would rather return with deer than test the guess."

"You’re proving more useful every morning."

"I am alive, which helps," Walter replied.

Perrin hid a smile. Adam Fletcher carried his bow, while Simon had a short spear and enough experience tracking men to know when he did not understand animal signs. Two other apprentices led a mule for whatever they managed to bring back.

Christopher came to the gate before they departed.

"Do not search for a magical beast," he said.

Ivo raised an eyebrow. "Disappointed with the last one?"

"I liked it better after Godfrey killed it."

"Then hunt ordinary deer and leave anything dangerous alone."

"And everyone returns before darkness, whether you find game or not."

Ivo gave the order to move, and Perrin led them down the old road.

Once they disappeared, Christopher joined Walter and Owen at the gate. Joan could not hear everything they said from the kitchen, but she saw Christopher point to the water lying beside the base of the wall. Owen answered, then drew a line through the mud with the end of his hammer.

Christopher fetched a length of cord. He and Gilbert stretched it between two stones while Owen measured the ground with a marked rod, and after several minutes they began arguing about which direction a drainage ditch should run.

Joan returned to her work.

The day settled into the noise of hammers and axes. Prisoners cleared rubble while the slaves stripped tiles and moved usable timber under cover.

By midday, the repaired forge produced a steady column of smoke. Barlow’s older son shaped iron straps for the temporary gate while his father worked on a replacement hinge pin for one of the storehouse doors.

Outside the walls, the farmers continued clearing the three higher fields. The ground remained too wet for proper ploughing, so they cut brush, pulled shallow roots and opened the old drainage channels. Christopher visited them twice; the second time, he carried the marked rod.

Joan took bread and watered beer to the house crews during the afternoon. One of the approved buildings had gained half a roof. Inside the other, braces supported the damaged floor while two prisoners pulled out rotten boards.

"Will people sleep here tonight?" she asked Owen.

The mason looked offended. "Not if I can stop them."

"Will the house be ready tomorrow?"

"Not if I can stop them. The roof still needs another brace."

"Then maybe the day after tomorrow?"

Owen considered the roof. "Six people, if the rain stays away."

Joan carried the news back to the barracks, and one family began bundling its bedding before she finished speaking.

The hunters returned shortly before sunset.

Simon entered first and called for space near the gate. Behind him, the mule carried a young deer with its legs tied over the saddle. Adam had three rabbits hanging from his belt. Perrin carried a fourth and looked embarrassed when Elsie cheered like they had returned with a dragon.

The blood on Ivo’s sleeve came from the deer. Adam had cut his thumb while dressing it, and Christopher sent him to Mabel.

Aldwin inspected the deer before allowing it near the kitchen, checking its mouth, eyes, belly and organs as Perrin opened it. Only when he was satisfied did Martha begin telling people where to carry the meat.

Martha promised to stretch the deer across three meals.

The rabbits went into a separate pot for the wounded and younger children. Bertram took the deer’s hide.

Christopher stood beside the gate while the hunting party reported. He looked tired. Mud covered his boots, his shirt had dried stiff from the morning training, and a bruise darkened one side of his ribs where Godfrey had struck him.

He did not look much like the young noble who had entered the laundry yard in Griffin City.

Joan still did not know why he had chosen Meg.

She carried the bread inside before he could catch her watching him again.

Godfrey struck Christopher across the same bruise he had given him the previous morning.

Christopher lost his breath and lowered his sword.

"Was that strike necessary when I was already moving?"

"You left the same opening as yesterday. An enemy would use it."

"You could have chosen the other side."

"So could an enemy, and he would not stop after touching your ribs."

The sky above Dragonwatch was still gray. Frost silvered the edges of the courtyard stones, though water continued dripping from the southern roofs. Christopher tightened his grip and returned to his mark.

He had hoped the body would remember more than he did. Years of borrowed training memories showed him where his feet belonged, but they still moved too slowly when Godfrey attacked.

"Again," Godfrey said.

Christopher stepped and cut. Godfrey turned the blade aside, but this time the wooden sword stopped short of his ribs.

"Better. You closed the opening before stepping back."

It was the first encouraging word Godfrey had offered since they began.

"Again."

Christopher’s arms were trembling when Bram arrived. The large youth carried no weapon and stood at the edge of the practice space until Godfrey pointed to the mark beside Christopher.

"Show me yesterday’s stance."

Bram put his feet apart. One was too far forward.

"Look down," Christopher said.

Godfrey tapped his boot. "Let him remember."

Bram stared at his feet, moved the front one back, then bent his knees slightly. Godfrey walked around him and pressed a hand against his shoulder.

Bram shifted but did not stumble.

"Again tomorrow," Godfrey said.

"Do I learn something else today?" Bram asked.

"Carry this stone to the wall and bring it back without dropping it."

Godfrey handed him a stone block that two workers had left beside the steps. Bram took it with both hands and waited.

"Around the courtyard. Do not run. Do not drop it. Keep your back straight."

Bram began walking.

Christopher watched him pass. "Is that training?"

"It is training if he listens and controls how he moves."

"And what is it if he simply carries the stone?"

"Then it is only carrying a stone, and the wall still benefits."

Godfrey raised the practice blade again.

Breakfast was deer broth thickened with barley. Martha had stretched the meat exactly as promised. Christopher found only three pieces in his bowl, but the broth was hot and nobody complained.

Robert Miller waited near the kitchen with his trouser legs still stained from the river. Perrin stood beside him carrying a coil of old netting. Three farmers and half a dozen older boys had gathered behind them.

"The water is lower this morning," Robert said. "If you want to see the channel, come now."

Christopher checked with Godfrey first.

"You have Walter," the Silver Knight said. "I will inspect the western wall."

Walter chose Thomas and Gilbert to accompany them, and Perrin led the group through the gate and down the road toward the river.

The spring runoff had spread beyond the ordinary banks in several low places. Brown water moved quickly around grass and half-submerged stones. The ford used by the convoy lay farther upstream and could not be seen from Dragonwatch.

Two women were already working near a quieter pool with baskets tied to poles. They lifted one together as Christopher approached. Water poured through the weave, leaving weeds, two finger-length fish and a snapping black beetle inside.

One woman threw the beetle back. The fish went into a covered bucket.

"Is that all the fish you caught this morning?" Christopher asked.

"It is the third basket, my lord. The other two are already with Martha."

"I meant whether the river holds more fish than this."

The woman looked into the bucket. "Nine since dawn."

They were small. Nine of them would barely fill one cooking pot.

"There are more in the deeper water," Perrin said. "We need lines or a better net. These baskets work where the current pushes them in."

The old netting over his shoulder had holes large enough for a rabbit to pass through. Two settlers had found it in a shed outside the walls. Perrin thought parts could be cut apart and rewoven, but he wanted finer cord.

Christopher asked Barlow to make fishing hooks from scraps whenever the gate work allowed it.

Walter nodded to Gilbert, who wrote it down.

Perrin walked along the bank while the others followed. He pointed out three places where fish gathered away from the strongest current. One was shallow enough for children under supervision. Another lay beneath a steep bank where the mud had already collapsed once.

"Nobody fishes there," Walter said.

"The larger fish will be there," Perrin replied.

"Then they can remain large."

Robert left them near a line of alder trees and climbed toward a low ridge covered in brush. On the other side, Christopher found the old channel.

It had once been nearly six feet wide. Stone lined both sides, although roots had pushed several sections inward. Mud, fallen branches and years of dead leaves filled most of it. A narrow stream of water still slipped through the center.

Robert pointed upstream. "It branches from the river beyond that bend. There was a wooden control gate. Nothing remains except the slots."

"Where does the channel go after it leaves the old mill?"

"Toward the old settlement, then along the southern side of Dragonwatch. I lost it beneath two collapsed buildings."

Christopher crouched beside the channel. The water moved slowly here. Farther ahead, it disappeared beneath a mat of branches and black leaves.

"If we clear it, will it drain the fields?"

"It could water some of the nearest fields if we clear the branches and silt."

Robert explained that a mill would require a sound channel, enough water, a proper drop, a wheel and millstones. They first needed to learn where the water went.

One of the farmers stepped into the channel and pushed a stick into the mud. It sank past his ankle.

"Clearing this will take days," he said.

"Longer," Robert answered. "Unless you want the banks falling in afterward."

"Can we clear enough to help the three fields?" he asked.

Robert scratched his cheek. "There may be a blocked branch below them. Find that first. No reason to open the whole channel before we know."

That sounded cheaper in both labor and time.

They followed the old stonework south until it vanished beneath brush near the eastern fields.

Near the edge of the eastern fields, one farmer found a line of flat stones running away from the main channel. The shallow branch between them had disappeared beneath weeds and soil.

Men began digging with spades. Christopher joined them until Walter took the tool and sent him to inspect the walls.

The branch was blocked less than twenty paces from the channel. Roots held a thick mass of leaves, sticks and river silt against two fallen stones, and when the men pulled the first stone free, trapped water pushed brown foam through the opening.

It ran downhill toward the main channel rather than into the fields.

Robert watched it for several minutes.

"That helps," Christopher said.

"It flows," Robert replied. "We see what the ground looks like tomorrow."

Perrin left two men preparing fishing lines and led Christopher toward the higher bank. Small green shoots grew beneath the trees where frost had not reached.

Three women and several children moved slowly through them with baskets. An older farmer’s wife inspected everything before it was kept. Most of what the children brought her went onto a discard cloth.

Meg and Elsie were among them. Elsie held up a handful of pale leaves.

"Do not pull those shoots," the woman said.

"Why should we leave them?"

"They’ll empty your belly from both ends."

Elsie dropped them immediately.

Meg had collected young nettles using a piece of cloth around her hand. Her basket also held curled green shoots Christopher did not recognize.

"Fiddleheads," she said when she noticed him looking.

"You know which plants are safe to gather?"

"She showed me." Meg pointed to the farmer’s wife.

Christopher did not touch them. His knowledge of wild food began and ended with the idea that some mushrooms were dangerous.

The farmer’s wife checked every plant before it entered a basket.

Walter coughed into one fist.

They returned to Dragonwatch before noon with two small baskets of fish, nettles, edible shoots and several handfuls of roots. Martha accepted all of it without opening the grain store.

Godfrey waited on the western wall with Owen Wren.

Christopher climbed to join them after changing his muddy boots. From the walkway, he could see the old settlement, the river and the dark line of the Frozen Wastes beyond the northern ridges. Wind moved over the wall without anything to slow it.

Owen had marked cracks with pieces of white chalk. Some followed the joints between stones. Others ran through the blocks themselves.

"Which ones will fall?" Christopher asked.

"None of them should fall today," Owen said. "That’s the most honest answer I can give."

"I asked which walls are dangerous, not whether they will fall today."

"It is the answer I have until the loose stone is cleared away."

Owen showed him a section where rainwater had entered behind the outer stones. Freezing weather had widened the gaps. The wall remained thick enough to stand, but loose facing stones could drop into the courtyard.

Christopher crouched near one chalk line. "Can we mark across the crack?"

"I already marked the dangerous stones with chalk."

"Across both sides. Measure the distance. If it widens after rain or another frost, we know it is moving."

Owen considered that. "With what?"

Christopher took the marked rod from Gilbert. "Smaller marks. Or fix a thin patch of mortar across it. If the patch breaks, the stones moved."

"A warning sign. Fresh dust means something shifted above us."

Christopher understood the idea and nodded.

Owen called his younger brother over and explained the idea like it had always belonged to masons. Christopher approved.

They spent the next hour walking the western and northern walls. Gilbert drew a rough copy of Dragonwatch on two joined sheets while Christopher marked the damage. The proportions changed whenever the wall turned, but every breach appeared on the page.

Godfrey marked places where a climber could enter unseen. Walter added the sections visible from each watch position. Owen ignored both of them when they discussed stonework and interrupted whenever they suggested putting men on an unsafe walkway.

By the time they reached the northern tower, they had listed eleven serious problems.

"We can’t repair all of these," Christopher said.

"Not this month," Owen agreed.

Godfrey tapped three marks on the drawing. "Block these from inside. A watch at the northwest break. The gate remains first."

Christopher looked over the wall toward the northern road. "And the rest?"

"We patrol them until we have stone and men."

Christopher looked along the damaged wall once more, then assigned the extra watch.

That evening, Martha added chopped greens and tiny pieces of fish to one of the cooking pots. The children complained about the nettles until she threatened to serve theirs without deer broth.

Near the gate, Barlow gave Perrin twelve rough iron hooks. He had made them from scraps too small for the hinges. Perrin tested each point with his thumb and asked for six more whenever the smith had time.

Robert sat beside the fire drying his boots. The old channel had begun running more clearly by sunset, though nobody yet knew whether the field would dry faster.

Christopher ate with the wall sketch spread across his knees. Eleven marks had become thirteen after Owen remembered two damaged stairs.

Godfrey looked down at the page. "You missed training."

Christopher surveyed the dark courtyard. "We trained this morning."

"Come back tomorrow morning before the workers enter."

"I have not missed a morning of training yet."

"Then make certain tomorrow is not the first."