Cael turned the brass collar on Mrs. Drayton’s enchanted reading lamp. The light brightened, trembled, and went out. He waited a moment, then turned the collar back. A small amber glow returned to the glass shade, barely enough to light the tools beside it.
“That’s what it does,” Mrs. Drayton said. “I can find my book by it, but I can’t read anything once I’ve opened it.”
“How long has it been happening?”
“About a week. I thought it might need a new crystal.”
Cael loosened the screws beneath the base and lifted away the brass cover. The quartz inside was clear. He held the lamp nearer the window, following the fine silver line from the crystal to the collar. One contact had worn thin where the turning ring brushed against it. At the brighter setting, the two pieces barely met.
“The crystal’s sound,” he said. “It’s losing contact here. I can replace this strip.”
The workshop door stood open to the mild afternoon. Beyond it, someone was rattling an empty handcart over the stones, and the smell of bread came across from the bakery whenever the breeze turned. Cael had spent the morning with both sleeves rolled up. The fire in the hearth had dwindled to a few glowing coals, and Whiskers had abandoned the rug for the broad patch of sunlight beneath the front window.
Cael cut a short length of silver from the spool beside his elbow and seated it where the worn contact had been. With the tip of his probe he joined it to the existing inscription, feeling the faint warmth return beneath his fingers. He replaced the cover and turned the collar. Amber light filled the shade and spread steadily across the bench.
“Try it now.”
Mrs. Drayton turned the light down, then up again. Cael put an open repair manual beneath it. She leaned over the page, moving the lamp a little farther away before she nodded.
“That’s better. I was beginning to think it was my eyes.”
Cael left the lamp at full brightness while he put away the probe and reached for the cloth he used to clean his tools. Rowan had gone to Millbrook that morning, leaving him a list of the work she expected to find finished on her return. The reading lamp was on it. So was the repair to a lantern bracket that he had managed to put off through two cups of tea.
“Cael Ashford?”
The voice came from the open doorway.
Cael turned with the cloth still in his hand. A man stood just outside the shop, one shoulder lowered beneath the weight of a traveling pack. His beard was shorter than Cael remembered, with gray in it now, and his coat was a different color. But he had the same crooked way of smiling, one corner of his mouth moving before the other, as though he had thought of something he was deciding whether to say.
“Hugh?”
“They told me to ask for the enchanter. I thought there couldn’t be two of you.”
Cael put down the cloth and went around the bench. Hugh shifted his pack to offer a hand, and Cael caught it, then pulled him into an embrace that left the buckle digging into his shoulder. Hugh laughed against his ear. The sound brought back a damp canvas tent so clearly that for a moment Cael could smell the wet wool inside it.
“Let me get this thing off,” Hugh said. “You’re hugging half the straps.”
They separated just far enough for Hugh to slip out of the pack. Cael kept a hand on his arm, absurdly reluctant to let him go. It had been years. There ought to have been something to say that accounted for them, but all he could manage was Hugh’s name again.
“Still me,” Hugh said. “A little less hair.”
“You had too much.”
“That’s a kind thing to say to a visitor.”
Mrs. Drayton cleared her throat. She was standing beside the bench, where her reading lamp still shone over the open manual.
“Before you go on, how much do I owe you?”
Cael had entirely forgotten her. He apologized, named the small charge, and took her coins to the counter. She turned off the lamp and studied Hugh with open interest.
“You’ve come a fair way,” she said.
Hugh glanced down at his boots. Dried mud had worked into the seams and flaked across the threshold. “I’m bringing some of it indoors. Sorry.”
“This floor’s seen worse than that. You should see the miller’s shoes.”
Cael handed her the change. “Mrs. Drayton, this is Hugh Dyer. We used to work together.”
“Before you came here?”
“A good while before.”
She took another look at Hugh, then smiled at Cael. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Thank you for fixing that.”
She gathered the lamp against her coat. Hugh stepped aside to let her pass, then watched her make her way down the lane.
He came inside and stood for a moment taking in the benches, the jars of wire and crystal, the little drawers with their labels, and the rows of waiting work. His attention stopped at a pair of iron hinges laid out on Rowan’s bench, each wrapped at one end to protect a new inscription. He leaned nearer without touching them.
“Yours?”
“Rowan’s. She works with me. She’s in Millbrook today.”
“Nice clean work.”
“Tell her that when you meet her. She’ll point out something wrong with it. Then she’ll remember you said it.”
Cael fetched the customer chair and set it near his bench. Hugh lowered himself into it, stretched one leg, and let out a small breath as the weight came off his feet. Cael had seen him sit down like that outside inns, on fallen trees, once in a farmer’s wheelbarrow while they waited for a wheelwright. He found himself smiling at the sight of it here.
They had traveled together through three long seasons, with shorter jobs between. After the last of them, Hugh took a contract north. Cael went south, and there always seemed likely to be another inn, another hiring yard, another table at which Hugh would already be sitting. By the time Cael returned to Harrowmere, nobody he asked had seen Hugh lately. Eventually he stopped asking whenever he met someone from the road.
Now Hugh was resting his heels on the workshop floor and examining the chair’s arm, where generations of customers had worn the wood smooth.
“How did you find me?” Cael asked.
“A carrier I used to work with had brought a box of fittings here. Ashford’s Workshop, Thornhaven. He mentioned the name, and I thought I’d come and see. I was passing this way.”
Cael wanted to ask about the northern contract, the intervening years, the people Hugh might have seen. Instead he went to fill the kettle. Hugh had walked in with a pack on his back, and Cael had spent several minutes grinning at him without offering so much as a cup of water.
“The whole place is yours, then?” Hugh asked.
“My uncle left it to me.”
Hugh’s fingers stopped on the chair arm. “Your uncle died?”
“Yes. Not quite two years ago.”
“I’m sorry. I remember you talking about him. You always meant to go and see him.”
“I kept meaning to.”
Cael set the kettle on the stove. He had polished the copper that morning, and a distorted Hugh looked back at him from its curved side: a long face, an enormous boot, the familiar hand resting on a knee. He wished Aldric could have met him. Hugh would have liked the old man’s tools, and Aldric would have wanted to know exactly how he kept a pack dry through three days of rain.
“He left me rather a lot to do,” Cael said, turning back. “I’m still finding things.”
“That sounds like the uncle you described.”
“Yes.”
Hugh eased forward to unfasten his coat. He had put his pack beside the window, across the edge of the sun patch. Whiskers rose from the floor and approached it, stopping to inspect a hanging strap. After a thorough sniff, he stepped over it and stood between the pack and the wall.
“You’ve got a cat,” Hugh said.
“He came with the workshop.”
“Does he bite?”
“Have you brought sardines?”
“No.”
“Then I wouldn’t make promises.”
Hugh held out his fingers. Whiskers looked at them, looked at Cael, and set one paw on the pack. Finding the canvas agreeable, he climbed onto it and began turning in a slow circle, pressing the contents into a more suitable shape.
“There’s a buckle under you,” Hugh told him.
Whiskers settled with the buckle beneath his chest.
“I’ve slept on worse myself,” Hugh said. He left the pack where it was and hung his coat over the chair.
Cael made tea. He put the cups on a clear corner of the bench and moved the lantern bracket out of the way. Through the open door, the last of the afternoon loaves were arranged behind Miriam’s bakery window. She had set aside a round loaf for their supper. There was soup as well, and cheese in the cupboard. Enough for another person without sending her back to the oven.
“You’ll eat with us tonight,” he said.
Hugh accepted his cup. “Who’s us?”
“Miriam and me.”
“Miriam?”
“My wife.”
Hugh paused with the cup halfway to his mouth. Then he put it down carefully.
“Your wife.”
Cael nodded. He was enjoying this more than he ought to.
“You’ve been busy,” Hugh said. “I should have asked that carrier a few more questions. He said you’d settled here, but I thought he meant you’d found regular work. How long have you been married?”
“Only since the winter. We were married here in the village.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it. I’d have liked to see that.” Hugh picked up his tea again, smiling over the cup. “You used to cross a room to avoid speaking to a woman you liked.”
“I didn’t cross the room.”
“You went out a window.”
Cael’s ears warmed. “That was a separate difficulty.”
Hugh leaned back, pleased with him. “Well. I’d like to meet her. Does she know about the window?”
“She does not.”
“I’ll let you tell that one, then.”
He took a drink of tea, and Cael had the sudden, foolish urge to fetch Miriam at once. He wanted to see these two people together, to hear what she made of Hugh, to let Hugh see her look across the table at him. Instead he sat down and let Hugh finish his tea while it was hot.
They talked of the last job they had shared, hauling equipment for an expedition whose leader had spent most of his money on a map and very little on food. Hugh remembered the provisions in greater detail than Cael did. There had been dried peas, a sack of them, and a cookpot with a loose handle that Cael had promised to repair each evening until it finally came away in Hugh’s hand.
“I repaired it afterward,” Cael said.
“You did. A lovely job. I remember you sitting up with it after everyone else had gone to bed. We couldn’t get you to stop until you’d fixed both sides, even though the other one was sound. I only wished you’d done it before I put the peas in.”
“You ate most of it.”
“I was hungry.”
Cael laughed hard enough to set his cup down. He had forgotten how much time they had spent laughing on that journey. The rain and the aching legs had survived more clearly in his memory, along with the miserable sensation of putting on damp socks. But Hugh had been there, telling the expedition leader that peas could not be counted as both the main course and the vegetable, and somehow they had got through the days.
The kettle clicked as it cooled. A customer paused outside to read the opening hours, saw Cael occupied, and carried on toward the square. Cael let him go.
“And you?” he asked. “What have you been doing?”
Hugh turned his cup between his palms. “A bit of this and that. Mostly carrying somebody else’s things to somewhere they can’t manage without them. The last lot finished up at the end of winter. We had a wagon with a cover that leaked along every seam. I spent the last week sewing patches onto patches.”
“Any of them people I’d know?”
“I don’t think so. A decent enough crew. They’ve gone their own ways now.”
“Where are you heading?”
“I’ve a few things to sort out first. I thought I’d stop for a day or two, if there’s somewhere to put up. You can show me what you’ve been doing to the place.”
“Of course there’s somewhere. We’ll ask Hazel.”
Cael stood to collect their cups. He had more questions, but Hugh was looking around the workshop again, interested in the green growth visible beyond the back doorway and the shelves of tools above Aldric’s desk. There would be time at supper. They needn’t spend the whole afternoon finding ways to summarize years.
“Give me a moment to finish this bracket,” Cael said. “Then I’ll take you over.”
“Take your time.”
Hugh stayed in the chair while Cael fitted the bracket in the vise. He asked about the work as Cael cleaned the old solder from the joint, ordinary questions, easy to answer with his hands busy. By the time he had seated the new pin and tested the hinge, Hugh knew why two children had drawers of their own, and that the small clay housing beside the fern could send a parcel to Bridgewater.
“A parcel,” Hugh said. “What size?”
Cael indicated the space with his hands.
“Useful. Somebody always forgets a tool.”
Cael had heard many responses to the waypoint. He liked that one.
When he put his tools away, Whiskers was asleep on the pack, his chin on the folded edge of its flap. Hugh crouched beside him and eased a strap from beneath his foreleg. One amber eye opened.
“I do need it,” Hugh said.
The cat made no effort to assist. Hugh worked the pack free by degrees, supporting Whiskers until all four paws were on the floor, then lifted it before it could be occupied again. Whiskers sat in the remaining sunlight and began washing the paw Hugh had touched.
“I’ll know better next time,” Hugh said.
“Probably not,” Cael told him. “Come on.”
Outside, the afternoon had cooled enough for Hugh to put on his coat. Cael turned the workshop sign, and they crossed the alley to the bakery. Miriam was taking a tray from the oven. He waited until she had set it down before calling her name.
She glanced over her shoulder, then turned to face them. The oven cloth was tucked over one wrist, and a strand of hair had worked loose beside her cheek.
“Miriam, this is Hugh Dyer. We worked together years ago. He’s just arrived.”
Her eyes moved from Hugh to Cael, and her smile widened. “I can see that. Come in.”
Hugh remained on the clean side of the doorstep. “I’m shedding mud.”
“Then stay there a moment. I’ve only just swept.”
She put down the cloth and came to shake his hand. Hugh gave his name again, more formally this time, and said he was pleased to meet her. Cael found this unfamiliar care with his manners almost as enjoyable as the earlier surprise.
“I’ve asked him to supper,” he said. “Will there be enough?”
“Yes. Seven?”
Hugh looked at her. “If you’re sure I won’t be in the way.”
“I’m sure. Do you eat onions?”
“Gladly.”
“Then you’ll be all right.”
She reached for Cael’s sleeve and rubbed a dark mark between finger and thumb. “You’ve got oil on yourself. Change before you come back.”
“I will.”
He kissed her cheek before she turned back to the tray. Hugh stepped aside as Cael came out, and they walked toward the square together. For several paces he said nothing, plainly turning over what he had just seen.
“What?” Cael asked at last.
Hugh shook his head. “Nothing. You look well.”
It was said plainly enough that Cael had no easy answer. He looked ahead to the bridge, where the afternoon sun lay on the parapet and someone had stopped with a basket to talk to a neighbor.
“I am,” he said.
The Hearthstone was quiet between meals. Hazel was polishing glasses behind the bar, with a pot warming near the hearth and the smell of cooked onions still hanging in the room. She set down her cloth when Cael introduced Hugh and explained that he needed somewhere to stay.
“I have a room,” she said. “It’s small, but the bed’s good. How many nights?”
“Two to start with,” Hugh said. “What do you charge?”
She told him. Hugh considered, then nodded and took out his purse.
Cael pulled a chair away from the nearest table while Hazel fetched the key. Through the window he could see the workshop’s upper windows above the roofs between them. It was strange to sit here with Hugh and look across at the place where he lived. On their travels, they had often watched other people’s windows light up while they argued about whether to pay for another night indoors or save their coins for the road. He wondered what Hugh would make of his rooms, of the books beside the bed, of the things he could leave on a shelf knowing they would still be there when he wanted them.
Hazel returned and set the key on the bar. Hugh counted out the payment, then bent to lift his pack. Cael reached for it at the same time, and their hands met on the strap.
“I’ve got it,” Hugh said.
Cael let go. “I’ll show you up.”
“I’ll do that,” Hazel said. “You’ll put him in the linen cupboard.”
Hugh picked up the key. “As long as the bed’s good.”
Hazel gave him a look over her shoulder as she led him toward the stairs. He followed her, keeping the pack off the wall. Cael stood at the foot and listened to their steps overhead, then a door opening and Hazel pointing out where to find water.
Oil marked the cuff, and now that Miriam had drawn his attention to it he could see a streak along the front as well. He brushed at it uselessly, then looked up as Hugh came to the stair rail.
Without the pack and coat, Hugh looked more like himself. He had unfastened the collar of his shirt, and one hand rested on the rail while he leaned down to speak.
“Seven, you said?”
“At the bakery. I’ll come and fetch you.”
“I can find it.”
“I know. I’ll come anyway.”
Hugh smiled. “All right. Give me time to wash some of the road off.”
He went back into the room. Cael could hear him moving the basin, then the dull sound of boots being set on the floor. He had meant to ask again where Hugh was going after Thornhaven, but they had talked about so much else. Two nights would give them time to catch up properly.
Cael went home to change his shirt. He was halfway across the square when he began thinking of all the things he’d left out: the wedding preparations, Miriam’s shawl, standing with her on the bridge while half the village tried not to cry. He would have to let the man eat before he started.
