Pattern

Elja took the cup from him. 'It's not really our river,' she said.

'From here to the mouth of the combe it is,' Poldarn said. 'All right, from the spring head to here it belongs to Haldersness, and from the mouth of the combe as far as Swartmoor it belongs to your father, and after that I'm not sure; but for the minute or so it takes for the water to get from here to there, it's ours. Don't be so damned literal all the time.'

Elja sipped; then she pulled a face and spat it out. 'It's all muddy,' she said.

'Yes, well,' Poldarn admitted, 'probably I stirred it up a bit while I was washing the cup out. But I'll put in a gravel bed to filter it, and then we'll have the sweetest water this side of the mountains.'

'If you say so,' Elja said. 'And now, if it's all the same to you, I really would like to go back, because I'm getting married in a couple of days, and I don't want to say my vows with a streaming cold.'

'Don't fuss,' Poldarn said sternly, and kissed her; and although she knew she wasn't supposed to, she kissed him back. 'Anyway,' he said, 'I think it looks better that way.'

'What does?'

He nodded his head towards the house-frame. 'The copse,' he replied.

'Oh,' Elja said. 'That. I think it's a very nice house, even if it's still a bit bald in patches. But I really would like to go back now, if it's all the same to you.'

'Yes, it's all the same to me.' Poldarn sighed, feeling slightly ashamed of his petulance. 'Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped. I just thought you'd like to see it, that's all.'

'Thank you,' Elja replied gravely. 'But I'm going to be seeing it every day for the rest of my life, and it's late, and I'd like to get some sleep now. I'm sure it'll be a really nice house,' she added, 'when it's finished.'

Next day they started splitting the shakes for boarding in the walls. There was no easy way to go about it. Each felled log had to be carefully examined to see where the split-lines ran, and then it was a simple but tedious and exhausting matter of hammering in the froes, freeing them, driving them in a little further up the line, until the log cracked open lengthways to form two half-round planks. That was the theory, at any rate; but one log in three refused to split clean, leaving the chore of salvaging what material they could for filling and patching. As the day wore on, the hammers and axe-polls grew steadily heavier and more erratic, sometimes missing the froe altogether and landing a full-weight blow on the neck of the handle-whereupon the axe or hammer head would snap off and fly fast and wild through the air, adding a spice of danger to the monotony of the day's labours. By nightfall, the best that could be said was that half the job had been done and nobody had been killed yet; and when the Colscegsford people set to washing the dust out of their throats, Poldarn began to wonder how the beer could possibly hold out till the house was finished.

Another day to split the rest of the shakes and shingles, another two days to nail and peg them to the frames; then, quite suddenly early one afternoon, Colsceg stood back, looked at the house and said, 'Right, it's finished.'

Poldarn, who'd been fussing over a tight shutter, looked up in surprise. 'Are you sure?' he asked.

'Well.' Colsceg shrugged. 'It all needs sealing with pitch, of course, and that blacksmith of yours said the latches'd be ready two days ago and I haven't seen any sign of 'em so far, and there's a few bits and bobs that need sorting out, same as you get on any new building. But yes, it's finished.'

'Oh.' Poldarn took a few steps back. 'So it is,' he said. 'You know what, it isn't bad.'

'Seen worse,' Colsceg conceded. 'And so long as it keeps you dry and doesn't fall on your head in the night, who gives a damn?' He leaned on his axe and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. 'You're right, it's not so bad, though I say so myself. 'Course, if we had the job to do all over again, I'd use birds' mouths for the rafter seats instead of step laps and I'd probably stop the splayed scarfs with double wedges, but it's too late now to worry about that, not unless you want to tear the whole lot down and do it again.' He sighed. 'It'll get the job done, that's the main thing. Should see you out, anyway.'

'I like it,' Poldarn replied. 'You know what, I think I could get to know who I really am in a house like that.'

Colsceg frowned, as if to say that he didn't know what to make of a remark like that, and probably just as well. 'Let's just hope the mountain doesn't brew up again and flatten it,' he said. 'That'd be a choker, after all the work I've put in.'

Poldarn smiled. I dedicate this monument to my future father-in-law Colsceg, he said to himself, without whose dedication, hard work and helpful suggestions, this house would've been completed two days ago. 'I couldn't have done it without your help,' he said. 'Thank you.'

Colsceg seemed genuinely surprised by that; he frowned, and muttered that it was a job that needed doing, so he'd done it. 'Besides,' he went on, 'it's not just you that'll be living there, it's my daughter as well. Don't worry about it.'

Making Colsceg feel uncomfortable was almost as pleasant as building the house. 'No, honestly,' he said, 'I can't tell you how grateful I am. It was really kind of you to spare the time, especially when things have gone so badly for you. Most people in your position would've been far too preoccupied with their own business to have mucked in the way you did.'

'No, they wouldn't,' Colsceg protested, as if Poldarn had just said something outrageous. 'Look, it's no big deal, so let's not say any more about it, right?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'That's very generous of you,' he said, unable to resist a final twist of the knife before drawing it out of the wound. 'And the least I can do by way of thanks is to insist that you move into Haldersness, as soon as we're settled in here. After all,' he went on, barging through Colsceg's protests like an impatient carter running down chickens in the road, 'it's just standing there empty, and your people need a roof over their heads. Please, I want you to treat it as your own for as long as you like.'

'But-' Colsceg was now so bewildered that Poldarn almost felt sorry for him. 'Well, for one thing, it's a good day's ride from our farm, we'd spend more time trekking back and forth than working. And there's a hell of a lot to do-well, you know that, you were there. If we moved into Haldersness, it'd be a nightmare.'

Reluctantly, Poldarn decided to let him off the hook. 'I suppose you're right,' he said. 'But at the very least, I want you to have all the timbers and the thatch, so all you'll have to do is take it down, cart it over to your place and put it back up again. I mean to say, where else are you going to find enough lumber to build with?'

There he had a point. Not long ago there had been a very fine wood at Colscegsford-Barn's wood, for building his house when Colsceg was dead-and another, rather smaller and less well looked after, for Egil; but both of them had been scooped up and smashed into kindling by the mudslides, and the nearest stands of unclaimed timber were weeks away to the south-east. Cutting and carting so far from home would require the entire household to move out there for the best part of six months, during which time they'd have to fend for themselves as best they could by hunting and gathering. Or else they'd have to leave half the household camped out at Colscegsford to raise whatever crop they could grow in the mud, while the other half took twice as long to do the cutting and hauling. Poldarn fancied that he could see all these arguments tracking painfully across Colsceg's mind.

'Can't argue with that,' Colsceg said at last, a trifle resentfully. 'Guess we'll be taking you up on your offer. We're obliged to you.' He said the word obliged as if he'd just given his first-born as extra security on a mortgage of his entire property. 'We'll get started on tearing the old place down straight away.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'No hurry,' he said. 'You've all put in so much hard work here, you need a day or so to catch your breath before you start on that. Why don't you just hang around and take it easy for a while? You'll do much better work if you aren't exhausted.'