The boy carried his load without complaint, and showed no distress during the climb down, although the faint thump "Ow," as they ducked through one of the smaller galleries made Aedelbert smile a little in the darkness. He and Wulfric had warned the boy about keeping his head down. Perhaps now he would heed their warnings.
"Did anyone tell you that the fire miners set a blaze for you?" Wulfric asked.
"No."
The miner sighed. "I didn't think so. Not a large one, but enough to do some more cracking. Stithulf's orders."
"Good to know." Otherwise he'd start growing very worried indeed. When rock rotted that quickly, it meant either he'd misjudged the stone terribly, or the men needed to leave the face as fast as possible and wait until after the collapse to resume work, because something had rotted and broken the stone from behind the face. He and Ehric left Wulfric at the main shaft and turned into the unfinished adit.
"Lamp there, please," Aedelbert ordered, gesturing with his chin. "Do not try to read the rock here. You should sense why." The boy left his lamp on the indicated spur of rock and looked around at the tunnel and the mound of charred and shattered stone. "Just watch for the moment." Aedelbert used the torch to study the face, found where his marks were, and jammed the end of the torch into a good crack, then set to work breaking the fractured stones. Some fell, then more, and still more. He jumped backward, watching and wary. After a dozen heart-beats of stillness, one last solitary pebble dropped with a quiet plink and rolled toward him. Silence. He heard a skittering rustle, like little claws on stone, and glanced around. Ehric stood motionless, not even breathing. Nothing else stirred, and Aedelbert let out his own breath. He hated inhaling dust from a face collapse.
"Was it supposed to do that, sir?" Ehric's voice did not quite squeak.
"No, but it can happen if the fire and water do their job properly in cracks through the rock." Probably vinegar or wine lees as well, but water alone could work if the men knew the stone. "Move the waste." He set to work with the small shovel, and the boy joined in, filling carry baskets that had been left for them, as well as the ones they had brought. Flickering light showed jagged edges to the broken stone, as he'd expect from fire-crack, then some rounded stones. "Huh." As Ehric moved more of the debris clear, Aedelbert took the lamp and inspected the face.
No wonder more stone had fallen. He traced a strip of stream rocks, rounded pebbles and sandy, grittier stones, running down into the path of the adit-to-be. Aedelbert sat back on his heels and considered the intrusion. Should he be concerned about water and rotting stone ahead of them? Or had so much time passed that he could proceed with only the usual caution. The steady yellow glow told him nothing. Should he risk reading the stones? No, absolutely not. Great Lord of the Depths, guide me, please. He returned the lamp to the little stone shelf and picked up a chisel and small hammer.
By the end of the shift, he'd started allowing Ehric to work on the face, down low, where any drops would not bring the ceiling onto their heads. The boy had not hit his own hand yet, and moved with hesitation and excess care. Did he not trust himself, or was it something in the stone that bothered him? Aedelbert did not criticize yet, just watching. It was the boy's first time to work inside the living stone, after all, and an excess of caution was greatly to be preferred to wild excitement. The tight space could also be hindering him. He'd grown recently, and that threw everything off until the hands and eyes caught up with the bones. The boy certainly seemed more comfortable with the surrounding rock than Caedda ever had.
After the end of the shift, Aedelbert stopped at the mouth of the entry passage. "Now you may look at the stone, if you wish."
Ehric's eyes unfocused and he started to reach for the tunnel wall with the hand not holding tools. Then he jumped back a foot, blinking and gulping. "Ah, sir, that—" He shook all over. "A good reason not to do that inside the shafts and galleries, sir."
"Yes." Aedelbert waited until they were on the trail and out of hearing by the miners and sorters. "It overwhelmed you, yes?"
"Yes, sir. Too many cracks and pulls, too many tastes, how can miners stand it?" He sounded plaintive and gave his master a pleading look.
Aedelbert nodded in sympathy. "They learn, and they don't see the way we do. Our gifts are not gifts in a mine. They are a danger." He shifted the tools on his shoulder to ease a sore spot. Wearing a hole in his coat shoulder by carelessness was not a good thing. Aedelbert studied the few trees still clinging to the slopes along the road down from the mine. "Different gifts, different strengths. Master Caedda is far better with fine stone work and shaping. I am better at rough work and quarrying. You may have another strength. Miners learn their own ways, see rock differently. Some hear weaknesses before they see or feel them." Aedelbert did not care to learn what a rock-break sounded like from inside the living rock.
"Ah. that makes good sense, Master Aedelbert." The boy drooped a little, but working at a crouch wore on a body. Aedelbert had little desire to do more than wipe off the dust, eat and drink, and then sleep. Not seeing took so much more strength than did just cutting the rock and removing the waste. Perhaps Caedda couldn't not see the stone, and so it clawed at him when the stone surrounded them. Aedelbert did not care to think about what such would feel and look like. Or it could be that Caedda hated small places. He would not be the only one. Some men feared high places, which struck Aedelbert as nothing more than simple good sense run to excess. After all, a body could not fall off a cliff if he stayed back from the edge.
"So, boy, you want to train as a miner?" one of the senior miners asked, catching up with them. The miner prospered, if the fine quality of his hooded coat showed truth. Good, thick material with leather patches on the shoulders as well as the elbows and on the knee-length curved "tail" made the coat stand out, although most men had elbow patches and about half had leather on the outside of the tail as well as inside. The man's long nose had never been bent. Did he fight that well, or had he managed to avoid tavern fights and boy's fisticuffs when he was younger? Brilliant green ribbons decorated braids in the miner's beard, and Aedelbert raised one eyebrow. Did the man also use scents on the Eighth-Day?
Ehric tripped, caught himself, and turned his head so he could see the older man. "No, sir, thank you."
"Why not? Pays far better than cutting rock, you're not out in the weather, and you are guaranteed the Eighth-Day free for rest."
Ehric shook his head again, then looked forward and down, watching his footing. "True, sir, but the rock... It does not like me so well, and I'm already bound to a contract."
The miner straightened up and looked to Aedelbert, head tilted a little with confusion. "Already? You take child apprentices?"
Something under the words put Aedelbert's teeth on edge, but he kept that to himself. "Aye, sir, so long as their guardian or father approves. Ehric has twelve years, almost thirteen, and is Scavenger Born, as Master Caedda and I are."
The miner peered more closely at Ehric, and his expression shifted to one of apology and understanding. "Your pardon. I forget that the boy is so old. In this light, with dust on our faces, we all look younger."
Aedelbert still did not care for the man's assumption, but he wasn't the first one to misjudge Aedelbert or Caedda. "Look younger, yes, but feel?"
The half dozen other men around them laughed, and one called, "What I feel is almost as old as the mountain but not as steady. Dark One bless, Ulfbert, but you don't have to work us so hard, ye ken? The ore's not going to flow away before the morrow."
Ulfbert spat, "So hard? Rats witness my words, you'd not recognize hard work if ye woke up with her beside ye in yer bed."
So Ulfbert was the shift leader. That explained his prosperity. Thank you that I did not speak in haste, Dark Lord. Angering the shift leader could lead to bad things. No man reached that position by being foolish or careless, or by tolerating any disrespect inside the mines.
The other men joined in with both the good-natured complaining and the chaffing
. Aedelbert listened and smiled a little, then said, "Nay, we did na' work. All we did was tidy up after the fire miners and nap. Why should I work, what with Master Wassa and the Bergmeister both snug in town lifting a tankard of good ale? I'm not so foolish as I look."
Laughter followed his words, as he'd hoped. "See anything of value?" one of the men demanded.
"The inside of my eyelids, and the tools I brought in with me." Aedelbert coughed, then spat. "Pardon. Did see a stream frozen in the rock, angles north by northeast and down into the mine, like so?" He held up his free hand, palm down at the rough tilt. "So. Nothing that glittered or shone, and no water yet, Dark One be thanked."
One of the smaller men nudged the questioner with the butt of his hammer. "I told you. Stone cutters can't tell their elbows from ore veins."
"Yes, I can. My elbows ache in the cold," Aedelbert retorted. More laughter followed the sally, and talk turned to safer things.
By the time the days began growing longer and the snow turned to chilly rain, Ehric proved himself more than capable of working on the adit. Just before spring-turn, he and Aedelbert broke through the last stone, half-way into a shift. The sound of the rock had changed, growing lighter and more hollow. "Go easy," Aedelbert warned. Ehric nodded and tapped more lightly, with a firmer grip on the chisel. Four blows later, his chisel-hand slipped forward and he stopped. He pulled his hand and the chisel back, set the tool down and ran a finger through the hole. "It goes through, sir."
"Step back," Aedelbert warned. Once the boy moved clear, the stone-cutter risked looking for cracks. He found one that ran the height of the remaining face, and he set his chisel, then hit two firm blows, then retreated. The rock cracked, cracked again, and a hole the size of his two fists opened at shoulder height. "Hammer work from here on, and don't worry about debris falling into the shaft. There's no one in it." Well, there should not be anyone in it. Anyone stupid enough to look up a long shaft in the mountain to see what or who was falling never lasted long in the mines or quarries. "But once the hole is as large as you are, go slower."
"Yes, sir. I don't want to find out how far it is to the bottom." The two set to work with a will, and Aedelbert could feel air moving where it had not stirred before. The lamp and torch flickered, bowing away from the shaft and into the adit. Aedelbert felt his shoulders loosening even as he worked. The air moved as the miners had hoped, at least with the wind as it moved that day. "Do we clear the entire space, sir?"
Good question. Aedelbert considered as he smoothed some sharp places to prevent stress cracks and neaten the cut. "No, just down to knee high. The miners can clear the rest if they need it, and a knee-wall should prevent people from falling too easily." And if miners ever decided to close the adit, they had a good place to set the bottom of the door or to include into a wall.
Wassa himself inspected the adit the next day. "Good. Very good. Adits for air, shafts for depth, and tunnels and galleries for ore," he recited.
The mine supervisor paid them in full, and Aedelbert indulged in a shave as well as long bath and buying a pair of trousers for Ehric. The boy seemed to be growing yet again, and Aedelbert wondered what the innkeeper was feeding him. Aedelbert ventured into the corner of the main market frequented by clothes-and-rag sellers. The second seller, a worn-out old man with one cloudy eye, showed him a pair of sturdy breeches that looked to fit. "These look very good," Aedelbert observed, making a little hand sign. If they were stolen, he did not want them.
"Aye, sir, boy outgrew them, or so I was told." The old man returned the Scavenger's sign. "My woman bought them from the family."
Aedelbert wondered a little, but if the young man had been the only boy in the family and no cousins of close age or size, it could happen. Aedelbert parted with more coin and gave the breeches to Ehric, leaving them at the boy's inn with instructions that he'd best be wearing them the next day when Aedelbert and Caedda collected him to look at the quarry site.
"Ah, fresh air and no talking," Caedda announced happily as they strolled to the work area the next morning. The air nipped their fingers and noses, but the warm, damp scent of growing things suggested that winter's grip had loosened. "Dunstan and Boernrad talk from dawn to dark, Dark One's rats as my witness."
"That would grow tiresome." Aedelbert hadn't noticed, but he'd been doing his best to avoid notice during the brief while that he'd worked with them. He and Caedda hadn't spoken much over winter, since they spent most non-working time sleeping or eating at one of the inns or taverns.
Ehric stayed quiet as they walked the rest of the way, looking left and right and taking in the signs of spring. Either that or he was stretching his neck to make up for lost time. Aedelbert had to admit that walking upright and working upright held great appeal. No wonder most miners seemed shorter than other men—they had to be. Having a distance to rest his eye on also appealed, at least for now. He'd probably enjoy it less when rain caught them, as it always did.
Birds trilled and whistled as they passed, and the flash of scarlet and jewel green warned Aedelbert that a screamer bird pair nested near the road. Yoorst had made the birds beautiful to look upon and painful to hear. Further proof that the Lord of Beasts possessed a strange sense of humor, in Aedelbert's opinion. That the birds sang boded well for not encountering any hunting animals, like the pard that preyed on schaef in the hills. Were pards and the long-dead pherd related? Or did they just sound alike, the way ovsta and ovstrala sounded? He still had difficulty believing that giant schaef could pull wagons, as foolish as schaef-sized schaef tended to be. He didn't doubt the man who told him of the beasts, but to hear was one thing, to see quite another.
"It appears that no one needed to borrow our stones," Caedda observed as they reached the quarry site. The brush over the two slabs seemed flatter, and one corner of the second slab stood open to the sun, but otherwise the stones remained as they had been left. Or were they? Ehric unhitched the great-hauler from the cart and settled the gelding out of the way, then joined the men as they uncovered the slabs. Caedda heaved brush with wild abandon.
"Ugh, easy," Aedelbert cautioned after getting a face-full of dried leaves and dirt. "No need to dig like you need a dust wallow."
"Sorry. Just want to touch good stone. Some of what the masons have to work with..." Caedda made a face, tongue sticking out. "Should have been left to ripen longer."
Ehric's vigorous nod sent his cap to the ground. The boy grabbed it up and jammed it onto his head once more, then heaved and hauled a large limb off the stone. Aedelbert got a broom from the cart and swept the slab clean. "Donwah be praised, Scavenger be praised," he chanted. The slab had cracked beautifully. He rested one hand on the still-cold stone and looked at it. The strains had eased precisely where they needed, and the cracks went the depth of the slab. Cutting the smaller blocks loose would be so simple compared to some other contracts he'd worked.
Caedda and Ehric cleared the second slab's covering off as well. "Someone borrowed the larger branches, sir." Ehric crouched and looked at the bad corner of the slab, running his hands along the crumbling material. "The rock feels better, like it scratched an itch?"
Caedda fought hard not to laugh, and turned away, ostensibly to get a broom. Aedelbert grinned a little. The boy's description fit, but he'd not have said it that way. "The tension in that part of the stone flowed out when the cracks broke the stone, a bit like water leaving curd before it hardens to cheese."
"Oh, that makes good sense, sir. I wasn't feeling the stone wrong." The boy's relief prompted Caedda into a coughing fit. Aedelbert studied the sky until he stopped all the crude comments that threatened to emerge. No, he most certainly would not phrase it like that.
Once both slabs had been cleaned and the loose bits of brush and dirt swept away, Caedda and Aedelbert considered the next step. "This one," Aedelbert decided, thinking aloud. "I don't want to lose any more from that corner, and there are some cross cracks that need to be dealt with before they grow to the breaking point."
Aedelbert closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun, letting the warmth soften his thoughts and loosen the stuck memory. He could see the drawing, and there was a shelf over the fire... No not a shelf, but a fixed stone with a depression cut into it, for the crucible to sit in. And something about the crucible burning as well, so that was why they had to have the grooves and trenches for the slag and the metal both. "Yes, so there has to be an arched slab with a basin for the crucible and the two drains."
"Look at this, sir." Caedda stood and stepped out of the way of the sunlight, and Aedelbert crouched. "If we can cut it from the top, how it curves already..." He moved again and used the shadow of his finger to show what he meant. "That's one we don't have to shape ourselves."
Aedelbert measured the thickness of the slab. "Aye, and it's the right length, a little long actually." This was a very good omen. "We take two pieces here. I'll cut the second one thick so we can shape it to fit once Turold and Winfrith tell us what they need for the second smelter." The lead smelter had a flat slab in it on the plans. He stood from his crouch.
"I'll start on the other end with Ehric. He can see about the larger cuts, and I'll do the fine work for now." Caedda bared his teeth in a false-smile, and Aedelbert knew exactly what the boy would be doing—pry-bar work and heavy hammering to free the blocks before finer shaping. Lucky him.
Miners and Empire Page 8