Pattern

'I can't see what you're making such a fuss about,' Elja told him as she rubbed his back with some singularly horrible-smelling embrocation. 'I mean to say, it's all going to get pulled down in forty years or so, and I dare say it'll manage to stay put till then. It's only a barn, not Polden's temple. You've still got two more barns to do, remember, and that's before you start on the small houses. If we're going to have all this agonising after each one, I think I'll leave you and go home to Daddy.'

'You do that,' Poldarn replied, 'and take that disgusting mess with you. What do they put in that stuff, anyway?'

'You're better off not knowing,' she told him cheerfully. 'And if you think it's nasty, what about me? I've got to put my hands in it, and sleep next to it.'

He pulled a face, though of course she couldn't see. 'I think that'll do,' he said. 'I feel a whole lot better now.'

'You do?'

'Yes. Or at least, I will as soon as you stop putting that stuff on me.'

More by luck than judgement, the other two barns weren't nearly so much trouble; they'd been rethatched more recently and so the damp hadn't swollen the joints, which meant that the wedges and pins came out cleanly and there were fewer breakages. That was just as well; they were almost out of new split and sawn lumber, and the last thing Poldarn wanted to do was send anyone to put an axe to the last few growing trees that had survived the volcano and the black ash. He'd already been putting out feelers about a logging expedition into the unsettled woods of the north and east, a project that would mean joining forces with three or four other households besides the two he was currently responsible for. The initial reactions weren't encouraging.

Lyatsbridge desperately needed timber, of course; they had a house to rebuild from the ground up, and no materials whatever. But unless Poldarn undertook to feed them through the winter, which he was in no position to do, they were going to be far too busy scraping together enough food to live on, and had already resigned themselves to camping out for the foreseeable future, or else packing up and moving away. Eyvind had sent home to Bollesknap to see if his father and brothers were interested in coming in on the project, but he didn't think they would be-they had more than enough timber for their own needs, but not quite enough that they could afford to spare any. Braynolphscombe was too far away to send a message to-it'd mean having a man away from the house for two weeks when they needed all hands for the rest of the buildings. It was a good idea, was the general consensus, but completely impractical.

So it was just as well that they seemed to have got the hang of taking apart the old houses without causing too much damage. The work was getting done, slowly but surely, and gradually Ciartanstead was starting to look like a farm, rather than a house that had got picked up by a freak gust of strong wind and planted down in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, they'd taken far too long about it. Planting season would be on them before they knew it, with its entrancing prospect of a future that didn't involve porridge and leeks for every meal, but it seemed hopelessly inefficient to abandon the building works when they were nearly finished, and then go back to them several weeks later, when the pattern had faded from their minds. Unfortunately, 'nearly finished' proved to be an alarmingly imprecise and elastic measurement of time and quantity. Eventually, they had to face, the humiliating reality of the situation and split the workforce into two; half to build and half to plant, which meant there were now two jobs that weren't getting done instead of just the one.

Poldarn had hoped that the coolness between Eyvind and himself following the wedding games debacle would gradually thaw as they worked together and made progress, but it didn't. There was no overt hostility; Eyvind was always polite, superficially friendly and unfailingly helpful and hard-working, but it didn't take a mind-reader to see the resentment behind his eyes, or hear the reserve in his voice. At first Poldarn pretended nothing was wrong, in the hope that it'd all sort itself out. Next he tried the direct approach and asked Eyvind if something was the matter or if he'd done something (something else) to upset him. In return he got a chilly assurance that everything was fine, whereupon Eyvind abruptly changed the subject and started talking about wall studs, wind braces and half-lap joints. In spite of himself, Poldarn couldn't help finding this annoying, and he told himself that if Eyvind wanted to sulk, that was his right as a free man and the heir to a fine house. His counter-sulk lasted two days, at the end of which Eyvind announced that he was going home.

'Just for a few weeks,' he added, looking away. Poldarn knew he was lying. 'I really ought to see how things are going at home, before they forget what I look like and all the dogs start barking at me.'

'Of course,' Poldarn said. 'I really appreciate all the time you've spent here and all your help, but naturally you've got to think about your own household.' He sounded like a diplomat, he realised, an experienced ambassador skilfully making an invasion sound like a routine patrol and fooling nobody, because both sides knew the truth. 'As and when you can see your way to dropping by again, we'll be delighted to see you, of course.'

Eyvind smiled weakly. 'I expect that by the time I get back, you'll have finished the outbuildings and made a start on the fencing; I won't know the place, probably.'

'We'll do our best,' Poldarn said. 'And remember, you're always welcome here. I want you to treat this place like your own home.'

Poldarn wasn't there when Eyvind finally took his leave; he was up at the top pasture, where they were building a small linhay for storing winter fodder. He felt Eyvind's absence long before anybody mentioned his departure; apparently he'd said something about starting off early so as to make Nailsford by nightfall, which was why he hadn't wanted to wait till Poldarn got back. He'd taken the horse he'd had sent up from home and the clothes he'd brought with him, but he'd left behind everything Poldarn or the Haldersness household had ever given him, from the fine brass oil lamp Halder had brought back from the Empire to the new pair of working shoes that had been made for him when his old pair fell to pieces. To Poldarn's mind, that only made it worse; all Eyvind's things were there, in their usual place, and he couldn't get it out of his mind that his friend would walk in through the door at any moment. At the same time, he knew that it was highly unlikely that Eyvind would ever come back. This made him feel more isolated than ever before, his last link to his previous life severed. In a way, this should have been a good thing, but he found it hard to see it in that light.

Two days after Eyvind's departure, just as they were about to tackle the dismantling and relocation of the forge, a thin feather of black smoke appeared on the side of the mountain. The first Poldarn knew about it was when he came out of the old forge building at Haldersness and found virtually the entire combined household standing in the yard, their faces turned towards the mountain as if they were taking part in a religious ceremony. Nobody said a word-he was reminded of that night in Cric when he'd been the god in the cart, facing just such a wall of silent, staring faces from the other side of the curtain.

Once he'd found out what was going on, Poldarn's first reaction was to load the carts with everything they could cram on board, and set off for the east. If he'd suggested it, the household would almost certainly have agreed; they were all quite obviously terrified, and it was probably only their strange unspoken communion that kept them from panicking. Somehow, though, he knew that it would be the wrong thing to do; it'd be like running because your shirt was on fire, pointless because wherever you ran to, the fire would go with you. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a better alternative.

'Well,' somebody said at last, 'here we go again.'

'Maybe it won't be so bad this time,' someone else suggested hopefully. 'It's only a little bit of smoke, less than last time round.'