Hidden Ability (Book 1) (8 page)

“A moment, just a moment,” says Darla as she clears away some papers from the little side table usually reserved for her meal trays.
Perhaps mother is right. I really could use an assistant. Even Mistress Dahlia has one. I’ll have to give it some thought when there is time.

Juna places the tray on the cleared tabletop and scurries from the room. One more source of Darla’s irritation and delay vanishes into the hall as the girl leaves.

After a sip of watered wine and nibbling some bread and cheese, Darla settles down to read Guri’s letter. She has just flattened out the pages when yet another knock comes at the door. She takes a moment to set down the little pot of jam she was about to hurl at the closed door and breathes once, slowly and deeply, before saying in as calm a voice as she can command, “Yes?”

The door opens and Lady Shara enters with a pleasant smile on her face. “I was wondering if now might be a good time to discuss Lord Brace’s proposal? I saw the cook’s girl returning to the kitchens and I thought you might have time for me while you eat your meal.”

Grateful that she had not actually thrown the jam at the door, Darla is equally grateful that Lady Shara, someone she actually wants to see, has unexpectedly arrived. Standing, Darla walks over and ushers her mother into the room before closing the door. “I always have time for you, mother. I am reading a letter that just arrived from Guri. She had her man, Steward Vimler, deliver it directly to me. The truth is that I would have sent for you if I’d only had the time to wait. May I continue to read and pass the pages to you as I finish them? I am certain we will want to discuss whatever Guri feels is so important.”

Lady Shara readily agrees and Darla goes back to reading the letter. At first her sister goes to some length to assure Darla that everything is well with her and her family and that writing Darla is prompted by a happy circumstance and nothing of grave concern.

Nothing about the letter indicates the need for a personal messenger until Darla reads the word “however”. It is Darla’s least favorite word because “however” indicates that one may now ignore all information given ahead of that word. Good news, gone. Happy tidings, forgotten. And as she reads further, Darla starts to get a headache. The headache intensifies as each word of Guri’s letter makes clear the real message. Darla lays down the page she is reading, unable to continue. She places her face in her hands and waits for her mother to finish reading.

“What is it, dear?” asks Lady Shara.

“You’ll see,” mumbles Darla as she massages her forehead.

“Oh,” says Lady Shara a moment later. And then, “Oh no. It can’t be.”

“It is,” says Darla as the pounding in her head grows even stronger.

Lady Shara starts laughing. Darla fails to find any humor in it. “Oh yes, mock me in my time of misery,” she says as she lifts her aching head to look at her mother. Lady Shara tries to stop, but only laughs harder. Darla puts her face back in her hands.

Still laughing, Lady Shara leans over and starts to rub Darla’s back and then stands behind her to massage her shoulders.

Darla, who is on the verge of either depression, anger or both, notices that her mother’s work on the knotted muscles in Darla’s neck seems to relieve some of the pain in her head.

“Dear,” says Lady Shara, “I don’t mean to laugh at you. It is the absurdity of our situation that leaves my head spinning too. You’re tired. You have been working so hard. Go lie down and rest for a bit.”

“But...”

“Hush. I won’t let you tell me no. You will feel much better after a little rest.”

“I’m already so far behind,” says Darla.

“I’ll help you. And, we’ll start looking for your new assistant. Your exhaustion makes it plain that you need one,” says Lady Shara.

“More than I need a husband,” says Darla. “What am I supposed to do, mother?”

“You have time to think about that later. The formal proposal has not arrived yet. Guri is just trying to help prepare you for it. She knows her little sister well. I imagine this is not far from what she thought might happen.”

“But, the messenger, he is waiting for a response,” says Darla.

“I’ll write one and send him off with it. Right after I walk you to your room.”

Darla let her mother guide her down the hall and see her to bed. It is like being a little girl again. If only she could recapture that feeling of knowing all is well because her parents love her. She drifts off to sleep. When she wakes, her head feels much better even though her thoughts are still in turmoil.

Lord Merk Shrift, Guri’s husband’s cousin, is going to propose marriage to her. They have been introduced of course. It was at one of Guri’s parties last year or perhaps the year before. The year before it seems to Darla because she recalls speaking to him on at least three occasions. Darla is always careful to suppress any whims of fancy. She does not indulged in speculation about whom she might marry. The children of landed houses rarely marry for love. It is all about alliances and the mutual benefit of both families. She has no desire to enter an arranged marriage with a broken heart or unrealistic expectations. Although, as the third daughter of a middling house, she never thought she might marry a lord. Even four years after her father’s death she has difficulty accepting that she is the head of House Yen. That is why a lord would marry her. Not because she is Darla, but because she is Lady Darla Yen.

The Training Hall is a large open rectangular structure. A series of wooden trusses with interlocking posts supports the roof. Jalan finds the symmetry of each truss marching in line down the length of the building fascinating. The walls are only framed. There is no siding or interior paneling in place. It is possible to look at the entire skeleton of the building. The floor planks are all laid. Master Enmar says Lady Darla must have spent a good deal of silver to get all the glass paper he and Jalan use to smooth the floor. The interior is huge. Six men could easily stand in a row with their arms outstretched between them and not touch each other or the walls. And, that is only the width of the building. The length would be ten men at least. From the floor to the bottom of a roof truss is nearly the height of two men. Jalan could not understand why the room needs to be so tall, but when he mentions it to Master Enmar his teacher simply gives him a knowing smile and leaps up to touch a roof truss. Jalan thought he imagined it. Surely no one can jump that high. Master Enmar simply turns to him and says, “That’s why.”

When Jalan is not training, he watches the workmen build the Hall. It is a much larger effort than repairing the windmill. The list of materials and plans are far more complex. Men start by leveling the site. Then wagon after wagon of large stone blocks arrive from the quarry. They are laid as the foundation for the building’s walls and floor. Framing is done in sections and once one end of the structure’s wall frames are standing the work begins on raising cross beams, and each triangular roof truss is constructed using a cross beam for its base. The skill needed to cut post joints and assemble, wedge and pin the trusses together is amazing to see. In less than a month the building is proclaimed structurally sound and the toil of smoothing the floor begins.

The first day of rubbing the glass paper carefully back and forth is not bad. Jalan has some soreness over the next few days, but his shoulders and arms become use to the work. Then only Jalan’s knees ache. Although today even his knees seem to have toughened enough to take another day of crawling across the plank floor.

Smoothing is tedious. Jalan can see that some of the floor planks were planed better than others. They require less work on his part. He would like to thank the craftsman that took more care with the lumber, but he has no idea who it was. The glass paper is very coarse. It is a parchment like sheet with ground sand glass glued to one side to act as an abrasive. Jalan has to be careful not to spend too much time in a small area because he can rub away too much material and add to any unevenness in the surface of the floor plank.

After another day of rubbing the floor, Jalan, Master Enmar and Cress, one of the Carpenter Doon’s apprentices, finish. Masons are infilling the lower third of the exterior walls with stone and mortar. The upper sections of the walls that are not left open for windows and doors are filled with panels of woven sticks that are covered with a material made from all kinds of things. Jalan watches as men mix clay, limestone dust, dirt, sand, straw, flax fiber and even some horse dung together. They tell Jalan that this mixture will be spread over the lattice of woven sticks to finish each wall panel. It is hard to imagine the men’s churned up glop could ever be part of a wall, but as he sees the men fit the lattices and apply the daub, the real name for their glop, Jalan realizes that many of the buildings he sees everyday have walls made this way.

Jalan has to be satisfied with learning about these various building techniques bit by bit. He is back to a regular training routine now that his work on the floor of the Training Hall is done. Master Enmar adds a new exercise. It involves squatting down and then jumping up. It reminds Jalan of how a frog hops. The frog hops are difficult. It does not take long before his legs give out and he has to rest. Master Enmar assures him this is the secret to jumping high. It does not seem likely that Jalan will be touching the roof truss in the training hall any time soon. He will not even enter the training hall for some time yet. The walls need to be completed. And, after the walls, a legion of furniture finishers will apply wax and burnish the flooring until it shines. Or so says Master Enmar. All Jalan cares is that he will not be one of them. Finishing wood is a skill he does not have time to learn.

Tomac’s voice pulls Jalan from his thoughts of the new Training Hall. “What are you doing?” says Tomac.

“Training,” says Jalan.

“But you’re just standing there,” observes Tomac.

“How long have I been here?”

“About an hour.”

“Must be time to switch legs,” says Jalan.

“What? Are you going to just stand here on your other leg for another hour? I could do that!” says Tomac.

“Try it then. But, stand over there.” Jalan points to a patch of ground well away from him.

“Why over there? Why not right here?”

Jalan tries to think of a nice way to say Tomac will fall over and Jalan doesn’t want Tomac to bump into him. “We need room. If one of us starts to fall, we might bump into each other and then we’d both have to start over,” says Jalan.

“Oh. All right,” says Tomac and moves to the spot. “Which leg should I stand on?”

“You’re right handed. Start with your right leg.”

“What difference does being right handed make?”

“Maybe none. But, maybe, your right leg is stronger just like your right arm.”

Tomac frowns in concentration and raises his left foot off the ground. He attempts to emulate Jalan’s stance. Jalan is barefoot and has his right foot resting in the crook of his slightly bent left knee. After three tries, Tomac is able to rest his booted foot in the crook of his right leg.

“Why are we doing this?” asks Tomac.

“Endurance and balance,” says Jalan.

“This doesn’t seem like much exercise,” says Tomac.

“You’ve only just started. It gets harder.”

The two boys stand in silence for a short time while looking like poor imitations of resting cranes.

“Is your leg starting to burn?” says Tomac.

“No,” says Jalan.

A moment later Tomac asks, “Are you sure?”

“It’s just your leg getting tired. You can try to bend or straighten your knee a little so the muscles can move around.”

Jalan watches Tomac gently bob up and down in very small increments.

“That feels a little better,” says Tomac.

Jalan closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of the workman performing their tasks at the Training Hall. He feels the light breeze across his exposed skin. He hears Tomac breathing hard and the rustling of cloth. He opens his eyes in time to see Tomac windmilling his arms for balance as his booted left foot touches the ground. Even with both feet back on the ground, Tomac stumbles sideways for a few steps. “You can switch legs if you want,” says Jalan.

“I think you’re cheating,” says Tomac.

“How?”

“Well, you don’t have boots on. That makes it easier.”

“Take your boots off then,” says Jalan.

Tomac sits on the ground and pulls off his boots. He gives Jalan a defiant look and stands. With only one attempt, Tomac mimics Jalan’s stance. Tomac is now standing on his left leg with his right foot tucked into his left knee.

Jalan closes his eyes again.

“Why do you close your eyes?” says Tomac.

“I’m relaxing.”

“Resting?” asks Tomac.

“In a way. I am relaxing all the muscles I don’t use for standing. You probably have your shoulders and neck tense, and your stomach is tight. All your muscles are working harder than they need to. It makes you tired faster.”

Tomac is silent. Perhaps he is thinking about what Jalan just told him.

“Whaw!” says Tomac.

Jalan hears him fall to the ground.

“I know. I know. Don’t relax so much.”

“That and your leg started to shake,” says Jalan.

“How do you know? Your eyes are closed!”

Jalan does his best to smile like Master Enmar.
Is that how the master does it? He makes a good guess?

“Humph. Fine, don’t tell me.” Tomac sounds angry.

“If you’d like I will ask Master Enmar if you could train with me sometimes.”

Jalan only hears Tomac breathing for a moment and then Tomac says, “Well, um, that might be all right.”

Tomac does not sound enthusiastic, but at least he didn’t still sound angry. “I’ll ask him. I’ll see what he says.”

“He says keep your eyes open.”

Master Enmar’s voice is right next to Jalan’s left ear. At the same time he hears his master’s words he feels a push on his left shoulder that tips him off balance along with pressure against his right foot and the back of his left knee. His left knee bends forward. He cannot get his right foot to the ground and ends by landing hard in the grass on his right side.