“I’ll get them,” Nuella offered, hastily leaving the room.
Margit followed her departure with a penetrating look, saying to Jenella, “You’ve got a good lad there. Usually it’s only the daughters that know where the baby things are kept.”
“Dalor’s been talking about this for a while,” Kindan said, improvising quickly. “Although I think he was hoping for a brother.”
“He’ll be pleased with a sister, I’m sure,” Natalon said. He gazed happily at Jenella. “I know I am.”
Dalor returned, sweating visibly, with the baby things and passed them on to Margit, who wrapped up the newborn and passed her to Jenella.
“I don’t know what the Harper thinks,” Margit said with a nod to Master Zist, “but I think she’s perfect.”
Kindan was surprised to see that Master Zist’s face was flowing with tears.
Margit’s face fell when she noticed. “Oh, Master Zist, I’m sorry, I’d forgotten you’d had one of your own.”
Master Zist nodded, wiping his eyes. “I did,” he said after clearing his throat. He looked to Jenella. “I’m sorry, but your lass looks the same as mine did when she was born.”
“What was her name?” Kindan asked softly.
“Carissa,” the Harper murmured. He forced a smile on his face and looked toward the proud parents. “And what are you going to name this bouncy one?”
Natalon and Jenella exchanged glances. “We don’t know yet.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that,” Margit agreed. “Now why don’t you leave while I help Jenella and her babe get settled in.” And she backed up her words with determined shooing motions with her hands. “Milla, you can stay and help.”
By the time the others had collected downstairs, the early morning light was showing. Natalon bit back a curse. “I’m late for my own shift!”
“I think they’ll understand,” Master Zist told him.
“I had Swanee send word, Father,” Dalor added.
Natalon gave him a grateful look and let out a big sigh of relief.
“It’ll be a long day for all of us,” Master Zist said to Kindan as they made their way back to the Harper’s cothold. “But that’s the way things go, sometimes.”
Kindan nodded in agreement but was robbed of words by a huge yawn.
“Some klah will help you start the day,” Master Zist said.
Kindan had a great tale to tell as he set the watch. It was still bitterly cold in the watch-heights so he stayed on to gather kindling and firewood as the first watcher got settled in. He was back down the hill in time for classes with Master Zist and back up again at lunchtime, when the morning mist was finally lifting, to spell Renna, Zenor’s eldest sister, while she got her lunch. So it was he who first saw the trader caravan approaching.
Chapter V
Being the first to spot the trader caravan, Kindan quickly sought out the Harper who was handling, between yawns, a class of busy younglings.
“Natalon’s in the mines,” Master Zist said when Kindan told him. “You’ll need to send someone to let him know.” He paused consideringly. “Do you know what else to do when a caravan arrives?” Kindan nodded. “Well, you’d best get it done, then.”
“But I’ve only Turned eleven,” Kindan complained, wondering how he would get such oldsters as Swanee and Ima to do his bidding.
Master Zist looked down his nose at him. “Then it will be an interesting challenge for you.”
“Right,” Kindan said, catching on at once. “I’ll figure something.”
By the time he met Ima, the camp’s butcher, Kindan knew what to say. “There’s a caravan coming in. Master Zist sends his compliments and asks if you could prepare enough extra meat to feed another twenty.”
He used the same strategy with Milla and Swanee. It worked every time. Finally, having set everything in train, he decided that he was the right one to deliver the message to Natalon in the mines.
He had kept Kaylek’s second set of coveralls, but as he hurriedly put them on, he discovered that he was still a bit too small and had to roll up both the sleeves and the legs. Kaylek’s hard hat fit once he adjusted the headband—perhaps, he thought ruefully, Kaylek’s teasing about his big head had had some measure of truth in it. Properly attired, though without good work gloves, Kindan made his way to the mine entrance.
Inside the mine, he was pleased to recognize Zenor. Zenor was tired and grumpy. “All I ever do is work topside,” he groused. “Honestly, Kindan, I saw more of the mines when you and I had to change the glows.”
“Natalon has you working the pumps?” Kindan asked rhetorically. When Zenor nodded miserably, Kindan clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, he must trust you a lot, putting his life in your hands like that.”
Zenor brightened a bit at the thought. “Really?”
“Really,” Kindan replied. “You’re what keeps him breathing.”
“And it’s hard work, too,” Zenor agreed. He was on a rotation, resting from the constant work of the pumps but on call for running the lifts. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“I’ve got to deliver a message from Master Zist,” Kindan said. “Can you lower me down?”
“A message?” Zenor repeated, leaning in toward Kindan, curiosity shining in his eyes.
“There’s a trader caravan approaching,” Kindan told him confidentially.
Zenor’s eyes widened as he turned to look at the other five working the top of the mine on his shift, contemplating how this inside bit of gossip would go over with them. “I hope they brought apprentices,” he said fervently. “I could trade places and get down the mines myself.”
Kindan grinned. “There’s an idea,” he said. “But Natalon needs to hear this, too. Can you lower me down?”
“Sure,” Zenor said, heading to the lift controls. “Hop in.”
Before lowering the lift, Zenor made a careful check of Kindan’s gear and changed the glow that was strapped to the front of his hard hat. He thrust a heavy sack at him, too. “Bring these glows on down with you; they’ll be calling for them soon enough anyways.”
At the bottom of the shaft, Kindan climbed off. He was met by Toldur, one of the miners.
“I was just about to go for those,” Toldur told him, nodding approvingly at the sack of glows Kindan had brought.
“I’ve a message for Natalon from the Harper,” Kindan said.
“I’m going back to him,” Toldur replied, throwing the sack over his back with the ease of long practice. He double-checked Kindan’s gear, muttered about the too-long coveralls, and motioned for Kindan to follow him.
The solid rock of the mine shaft immediately gave way to the soot black of coal. Kindan had been in the mines before, but he always took the chance to examine the changes and take in more detail. And this was the first time he’d been in the mine since the cave-in.
“We’re taking a different road from the one your father was on,” Toldur commented.
Kindan studied the shoring along the way. The trees nearest the campsite would have to be cleared long before Thread came again, so there was no shortage of timber to support the roof of the mine, but there was a shortage of labor to cut the trees. Kindan had been on many work parties that had trimmed the branches off felled trees, or had helped to cart the finished beams and planks to the supply shed up by the mine entrance.
He measured distance by counting glows along the way. Toldur paused a few times to replace dim glows with new ones from the sack Kindan had brought. Glows were placed every three meters, Kindan knew, so he knew that they’d gone sixty meters before they saw Natalon’s work party.
Toldur had to shoulder his way into the group to carve a path for Kindan. The rest of the crew took the opportunity to take a quick break from their labors. There was a line of carts on the track that they’d filled with coal.