The Fuller's Apprentice (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 1) (7 page)

“So I’ve already had my chance.” Josiah tried not to sound bitter, but it wasn’t easy. “The Mother decided I’m not good enough.”

“It’s not like that.” Elkan put his hands on Josiah’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “There’s a place for you somewhere, Josiah. If at the end of this year you’re sure you don’t want to go back to the fulling mill, I’ll help you find a craft that will allow you to fully use your talents.”

Elkan sounded very sure, but Josiah couldn’t bring himself to share the wizard’s unquestioning faith. He was terribly afraid there was no place he could be truly happy, no craft that called for the peculiar mix of abilities and flaws that made up his personality. He mumbled his thanks to Elkan and turned to pull down the covers of his bed.

* * *

The next morning Josiah joined Elkan in the dining hall for breakfast. He was glad the two of them had the table to themselves.

“Ah, Elkan.” He felt awkward calling the wizard by only his name, but in the midst of the informal way the wizards treated each other it would have been just as awkward to stick with “Wizard Elkan.”

Elkan smiled encouragingly at him. “Yes?”

“I’ve never actually been to a regular Restday service. Just on holidays. Will it be like the services for Harvest or Springtide?” Josiah thought of last year’s Harvest Festival, with the hall packed with revelers, members of the Singers’ and Players’ Guilds presenting their offerings to the Mother, encouraging all those attending to join them in their crafts. A wizard—now that he thought about it, it might have been Master Tivon—had given a speech that Josiah had mostly ignored, all about thanking the Mother for the bounties of the harvest.

“Oh, no, it will be very different.” Elkan grinned a little to himself, and Josiah wondered if the Harvest Festival he had attended in Elathir had been half as fun. “The holidays are times of celebration. Restday services are more about quiet contemplation. People speak to the Mother, and we listen.”

“Oh.” Josiah couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

“As you’re not formally a member of the Wizards’ Guild, you’re allowed to speak, should you feel so moved. However, since you’re with me, I would ask you to remain silent, so no one will be confused.”

Now Josiah was confused. “Wizards can’t speak?”

“Master Tivon, as the senior wizard of this Hall, will call the service to order, and when it’s time for it to end he’ll dismiss us. Other than that we remain quiet.”

“You just… sit there? The whole time?”

“That’s right. There are a few situations in which we speak. But none of them apply to you, so don’t worry about it.”

After breakfast, the wizards filed into the main Hall. Sar paced beside Elkan. Josiah looked around and saw that all the wizards were accompanied by their familiars. They moved into the ring of benches and chairs and chose seats scattered at random around the circle. Only Tivon seated himself in the center ring. Most of the others chose places near the outside of the circle, especially those whose familiars were large. Elkan sat in a folding chair in the outer ring, and Sar settled in beside him. Josiah sat on Elkan’s other side. He squirmed in the hard wooden chair, gloomily certain his tailbone would be sore long before the service was over.

People filtered in through the main doors, taking seats. A quiet buzz of voices built up in the room. Gradually the circle filled, until most of the seats were occupied. An old woman sat down on a bench next to Josiah.

When the flow of people from the door trickled to a halt and most of them were seated, Tivon stood up. The few stragglers hurried to seats. Conversation died away.

When everyone was still, Tivon spoke.

“We are gathered together in the Mother’s name. Let us be still and listen to her voice. Let us speak, knowing she hears us. Let us ponder her mysteries. Let us share together the joy of her presence.”

He sat down. All was silent.

Josiah shifted in his chair. He looked around at the gathered townsfolk. Most had their heads bowed. There were many older people, but also a number of young families. Occasionally a child would speak or make some noise and be softly hushed by a parent. A baby cried, but soon found comfort at her mother’s breast. Someone coughed. Someone else sneezed.

Josiah glanced at Elkan, sitting serenely quiet, calm eyes looking off into the distance. He looked at the old woman on his other side, who nodded in time with some internal rhythm.

Josiah closed his eyes in despair. This was going to be the longest hour of his life.

The silence stretched on. Josiah ran his hands through his hair. He chewed at a hangnail. He studied the patches of light cast on the floor from the windows high overhead. One fell near his feet. He scooted his foot over to the edge of the light surreptitiously, and lined it up just inside the shadow. The sunlight crept imperceptibly until it brushed the edge of his boot.

Across the circle, there was a rustle. A woman stood up. Her voice was low and soft, but in the quiet it was clearly audible. “Thank you, Mother, for guiding my sister safely through labor and birth, and for the gift of a new niece.”

She sat down. Silence settled over the assembly again.

After a while, a man rose. “Mother, I ask your protection as I embark on my journey to Elathir.” He resumed his seat.

Quickly, a little boy jumped to his feet. “Mother, please take care of Shaggy and help me find him, ’cause he’s the best dog ever and I miss him and he’s never stayed gone this long before, and please don’t let him be dead or have found some other family he likes better—”

The child’s father laid a hand on his arm. The boy looked at him and blinked. “—well, anyway, please send him home.” He sat and looked down at his hands clenched in his lap.

It went on like that for a while, with people rising and speaking their gratitude or requests to the Mother. At first Josiah diverted himself listening to them, but soon they blurred together into a haze of sameness and he lost interest. He looked at his boot. The light had crept a finger-width up his toe. He abandoned his timekeeping attempt and shifted around in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position.

He looked around the circle. He spotted a few apprentices he’d met the day before and tried to catch their eyes. Eventually one of the girls glanced his way. He mouthed, “How much longer?”

She frowned and shook her head, looking pointedly at Elkan. Josiah looked at the wizard too, but he seemed oblivious. He tried to get her attention again, but she stared off in the other direction.

Josiah gave up and began to study the familiars he could see from his position. Not far away a goat lay on the floor next to its wizard’s chair, chewing its cud. Across the circle a rabbit rested in its master’s lap. Her hand rhythmically stroked it between the eyes. Windsong perched on Kaniel’s shoulder, shiny black eyes focused intently on the center of the circle. Beside them, a wizard held a mouse on his knee. Josiah entertained himself for a few minutes with the thought of the hawk swooping down on the mouse and enjoying a messy meal right in the middle of the service. But the two animals ignored each other, and Josiah’s attention drifted again.

The floor of the Hall was laid out in intricate marble tiles. Josiah noticed a network of lines in subtle blacks and grays, like a spider’s web, radiating from the mosaic of the Mother’s hands at the center of the room to the farthest corners of the hall. Here and there in the pattern were round medallions with what Josiah at first took to be abstract designs. He studied the one nearest his feet. Was that a fish, and the suggestion of a net? Intrigued, he searched the floor until he found another. He wasn’t quite sure, but that one might be a spiraling thread and a spindle. And there, around the curve of the circle, but still visible, was a symbol that could only be a millstone and an ear of grain.

A woman had risen and was speaking. “…as I was kneading the dough, I thought about the yeast in the bread, how it just takes a little bit, but it spreads through the bread, and changes what would be heavy and dull into something light and fluffy and good. And I thought about how that is like the Mother’s gifts to us, how only a little can spread through the world, doing her good…”

Josiah tuned out the speaker, hunting for references to more crafts among the stones of the floor. He succeeded in spotting a carpenter’s square and hammer, a cooper’s barrel, and a knitter’s needles. He was puzzled by one that depicted an oddly shaped tool he’d never seen before, and another that had to be more than a random pattern of lines, although he couldn’t make out what it was supposed to represent.

He wondered if the emblems continued throughout the hall. He twisted around to look behind him. Yes, there was a vintner’s grapes, and a player’s harp and flute, and a herder’s crook…

A man’s voice droned on. “…as it says in the Law, chapter three, line ninety seven…”

Was that a design hidden in the shadows under the bench next to him? Josiah leaned back. He could barely make out a curving line that just might be the edge of a bolt of cloth. He craned as far as he could, but the design was too far under the bench for him to make out the rest.

Up on his knees he could see better. Yes, it was definitely cloth, and was that the beam of a fulling stock? If he stretched just a little more, he could glimpse the head and know for sure…

He hung half over the back of his chair. It creaked under his weight. A little further…

The chair tipped over and crashed to the floor.

It was indeed a fulling stock, Josiah saw. His position sprawled on the ground gave him a clear view under the bench. He wished he could crawl beneath it and hide. Face burning, he climbed to his feet. Every eye in the hall stared at him. He rubbed his bruised shoulder and unfolded his chair as quickly as he could. The old woman glared at him. He sat, meekly bowed his head, and folded his hands in his lap.

He dared a glance at Elkan. The wizard regarded him with exasperation and a thread of doubt.

Josiah ducked his head again, stomach churning with shame. After another long moment of silence, the man began to speak again. “As I was saying, if you compare that with what it says in the second volume of the Histories, in the account of Nachmanke the Foolish…”

For the rest of the service Josiah suffered in frozen silence. Speaker after speaker rose and shared their insights, whether trite or profound, into the nature of the Mother. He was sure at least a week had passed. His shoulder ached, but he dared not move it.

At very long last, silence again settled over the hall, stretching unbroken for many minutes. Eventually Tivon rose, pausing a moment to give any stragglers a chance to speak. When no one did, he said, “In your name, Mother, and for your sake, we offer these, the cares of our hearts and the thoughts of our minds. Be with us in the week to come, as we serve you with the work of our hands, continuing your unfinished work of creation.”

Clothes rustled as people stood and made their way towards the door, gradually beginning to speak with each other again.

Elkan rose, and Josiah hastened to follow. “Master, I’m sorry…”

“You should have known better,” Elkan snapped. “And I’m not your master.” He took a deep breath and composed himself. “I am, however, in charge of you at the moment. You realize, don’t you, that if you’re going to come with me, I have to be able to depend on you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know the service isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but as long as you’re with me, we’ll be attending every Restday. You’ll have to learn to control yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want to realize a month from now that you’re more trouble than I can cope with, and have to find someone to bring you back to Korisan. But I won’t let you disrupt my work, either. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, Josiah, was I mistaken? Can I trust you not to repeat this sort of thing in the future?”

“I’ll do my best, Mast—sir.”

Elkan studied him for a long moment, head cocked to one side. He turned to Sar, who regarded Josiah with much the same look. Wizard and familiar looked into each other’s eyes. Elkan turned back to Josiah with a sigh.

“If you don’t want to be late for Restday dinner with your family, you’d better hurry up.”

“Yes, sir. Am I… Do you want me to come back this evening, sir? And leave with you in the morning?

Elkan ran a hand through his hair. “Yes. Although I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. We’ll have to assume the Mother knew what she was doing when she brought us together. Run on, and be sure to get back before too late. We leave at sunrise.”

Five

B
efore dawn Josiah made his way to Elkan’s room. The wizard was already up, flickering yellow candlelight spilling out his open door.

Elkan tightened the girth of a pack saddle on Sar’s back. He fastened the buckle and tugged at the frame to make sure it was tight enough. “Comfortable, Sar?” The donkey flicked one ear at the wizard. Elkan began picking up bundles and fastening them to the saddle. “Josiah, give me a hand with this, please? If you could get the tent and bring it over here…” He gestured at a bundle of canvas, poles and ropes.

Josiah hoisted it onto the donkey’s back and held it in place while Elkan strapped it down. For a few more minutes they worked to get everything loaded. When they finished, Sar seemed only lightly laden, from what little Josiah knew about donkeys.

Elkan rummaged among the remaining items. “I have a few things for you to add to your pack, if you don’t mind.” He handed Josiah several small wrapped packages.

“Couldn’t Sar carry more?” He’d assumed the donkey would carry all their belongings.

“He could. But we all do our share.” Elkan picked up his own pack, which was larger than Josiah’s. “There’s breakfast waiting for us.”

In the kitchen a small fire burning in the hearth gave a soft orange glow. Tivon sat by the fire, stirring a small pot of porridge. He raised a hand in greeting and ladled portions into bowls.

Josiah and Elkan took their bowls to the table by the far wall, where a fresh net of hay awaited Sar. Tivon came to join them. Josiah ate hungrily, only half paying attention to the conversation.