Seventh Son

Tears glistened in her eyes, not like she was about to cry, but like she was looking into the sun straight on, and it made her water up. “A scrap of his birth caul, rubbed into dust, and a body can use the boy's own power to work a few clumsy makings,” she said softly.

“But now he knows something of his own knack, and he undid what you did for him.”

She nodded.

“Must be lonely, watching out for him from so far away,” said Taleswapper.

She shook her head. “Not to me. I got folks all around me, all the time.” She looked at Taleswapper and smiled wanly. “It's almost a relief to spend time with that one boy who doesn't want a thing from me, because he doesn't even know that I exist.”

“I know, though,” said Taleswapper. “And I don't want a thing from you, either.”

She smiled. “You old fraud,” she said.

“All right, I do want something from you, but not something for myself. I've met that boy, and even if I can't see into his heart the way you can, I think I know him. I think I know what he might be, what he might do, and I want you to know that if you ever need my help for anything, just send me word, just tell me what to do, and if it's in my power I'll do it.”

She didn't answer, nor did she look at him.

“So far you didn't need help,” said Taleswapper, “but now he has a mind of his own, and you can't always do for him the things he'll need. The dangers won't come just from things that fall on him or hurt him in the flesh. He's in as much danger from what he decides to do himself. I'm just telling you that if you see such danger and you need me to help, I'll come no matter what.”

“That's a comfort,” she said. That was honest enough, Taleswapper knew; but she was feeling more than she said, he knew that too.

“And I wanted to tell you he was coming here, first of April, to prentice with the smith.”

“I know he's coming,” she said, “but it won't be the first of April.”

“Oh?”

“Or even this year at all.”

Fear for the boy stabbed at Taleswapper's heart. “I guess I did come to hear the future after all. What's in store for him? What's to come?”

“All kinds of things might happen,” she said, “and I'd be a fool to guess which one. I see it open like a thousand roads before him, all the time. But there's precious few of those roads that bring him here by April, and a whole lot more that leave him dead with a Red man's hatchet in his head.”

Taleswapper leaned across the doctor's writing table and rested his hand on hers. “Will he live?”

“As long as I have breath in my body,” she said.

“Or I in mine,” he answered.

They sat in silence for a moment, hand on hand, eye to eye, until she burst into laughter and looked away.

“Usually when folks laugh I get the joke,” said Taleswapper.

“I was just thinking we're a poor excuse for a conspiracy, the two of us, against the enemies that boy will face.”

“True,” said Taleswapper, “but then, our cause is good, and so all nature will conspire with us, don't you think?”

“And God, too,” she added firmly.

“I can't say about that,” said Taleswapper. “The preachers and priests seem to have him so fenced up with doctrine that the poor old Father hardly has room to act anymore. Now that they've got the Bible safely interpreted, the last thing they ever want is for him to speak another word, or show his hand of power in this world.”

“I saw his hand of power in the birth of a seventh son of a seventh son, some years back,” she said. “Call it nature if you want to, since you've got all kinds of learning from philosophers and wizards. I just know that he's tied as tight to my life as if we was born from the same womb.”

Taleswapper didn't plan his next question, it just came unthought-of from his lips. “Are you glad of it?”

She looked at him with terrible sadness in her eyes. “Not often,” she said. She looked so weary then that Taleswapper couldn't help himself, he walked around the table and stood beside her chair and held her tight like a father holds his daughter, held her for a good long while. If she was crying or just holding on, he couldn't say. They spoke not a word. Finally she let go of him and turned back to the account book. He left without breaking the silence.

Taleswapper wandered on over to the i

On the meadow around the millhouse were a half dozen farm wagons, watched over by farmers who had come a good long way to get high-quality flour. No more would their wives sweat over a mortar and pestle to make coarse meal for hard and lumpy bread. The mill was in business, and everyone for miles around would bring their grain to the town of Vigor Church.

The water poured through the millrace, and the great wheel turned. Inside the millhouse, the force of the wheel was carried by interlocking gears, to make the grindstone roll around and around, riding on the face of a quarter dress millstone.

The miller poured out the wheat upon the stone. The grindstone passed over it, crushing it to flour. The miller swept it smooth for a second pass, then brushed it off into a basket held by his son, a ten-year-old boy. His son poured the flour into a sieve, and shook the good flour into a cloth sack. He emptied what stayed in the sieve into a silage barrel. Then he returned to his father's side for the next basket of wheat.

Their thoughts were remarkably alike, as they worked silently together. This is what I want to do forever, each one thought. Rise in the morning, come to the mill, and work all day with him beside me. Never mind that the wish was impossible. Never mind that they might never see each other again, once the boy left for his apprenticeship back in the place of his birth. That only added to the sweetness of the moment, which would soon become a memory, would soon become a dream.