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"What's this then?" Hordle said, flicking a sausage-thick finger at the inside of the stave just above the riser. "I thought you didn't hold wi' laminations?"
"I don't," Aylward said, using the rag to wipe his hands clean of the linseed oil he'd used on the yew; it rasped a little as threads caught on the heavy callus on his hands. "Those fillets of horn are pegged into the riser and working free against strips of hardwood glued on the stave, ten inches either way of the grip. It gives it just that extra bit of"-he snapped his fingers out and back- "flick."
Chuck Barstow gri
Aylward snorted. "Bollocks," he said. "There's many I've trained who make bows as good as mine, and plenty more who're good as needs be, and I weren't the only bowyer around here to start with. Bowmaking isn't a master-craftsman's trade, you can learn it well enough in a few months if you're handy and have the knack, and God knows we've plenty of good yew in this part of the world. For that matter there's better shots than me among the Mackenzies, and no doubt more elsewhere."
"You could still make a good living selling your bows," Barstow said. "Those two you taught do it in Sutterdown, full-time. They've had clients come from as far away as Idaho."
"I like getting my hands into the dirt, when I'm not off on Lady Juniper's business," Aylward said stoutly. "And growing what I eat. Reminds me of growing up on the farm with Mum and Dad back in the old country." He jerked a thumb at Hordle. "Not far from where this great gallybagger idled his youth away."
John Hordle gave a theatrical shudder. "Now, my dad owned a pub," he said to Chuck. "That's a man's life, I tell you. Chatting up the totty and tossing back the Real Ale, and none of that shoveling muck into the spreader on a cold winter's day."
"Then why didn't you stay on at the Pied Merlin instead of going for a soldier?" Aylward asked.
"Because of all the ruddy lies you told me about being in the SAS while I was still a nipper," Hordle said good-humoredly. "Ended up humping a full pack over every sodding mountain in Wales doing the regimental selection, I did. Which probably saved me life come the Change. Otherwise I'd have starved or got et, like most, instead of getting out to the Isle of Wight with the colonel."
"Oh, I don't know," Aylward replied. "Sir Nigel always looked after 'is own. You told me he got my sisters and their kids out, didn't you? And he'd not seen hair nor hide o' me in years. From what you said, he had them set up with their men on their own farms afterwards, too, when things settled down a bit. He'd have seen you right."
Hordle nodded. "Might be, though things were just a bit hairy right then. Want to go and have a try with this?" he asked, flourishing the bow.
"Always a pleasure to watch you overshoot and miss, mate. You still pluck on the release, after all these years."
The men already wore their homespun wool jackets; the workshop wasn't exactly cold, but it wasn't shirtsleeve-comfortable either. Over those the two clansmen draped and pi
"Heel, Garm, Grip," he said, and two big shaggy dogs rose from curled-up sleep to follow them.
Dun Fairfax was busy outside, in a relaxed winter way. There were a dozen homes inside the earth berm and log palisade, besides the century-old original Fairfax farmhouse and barn, along with a fair collection of lesser buildings: henhouses and storage and pens. A chanting came from the Dun's covenstead, where the coven and the year's crop of Dedicants practiced a Yule ritual; a half dozen more stood and admired the big, carved wooden mask of the Green Man they'd just fastened over the doorway. From homes and sheds there was a clatter of tools: the rising-falling moan of spi
A hammer rang on steel as well in a brick-built smithy with the face of Goibniu painted on the door, and Sam Aylward grunted satisfaction.
"Glad we finally got our own smith," he said. "Pain in the arse, it was, always going up to Dun Juniper or sending for someone when something needed fixing. I tried me hand at it, but it's fair tricky."
Melissa Aylward stuck her head out of a second-story window before the three were out of hailing distance: "Sam!"
"Yes, love?" he said, pausing and looking upward.
Melissa was a comfortable-looking woman in her late thirties, with a frizz of yellow hair surrounding a round blue-eyed face; she held their youngest in the crook of one arm, and Fand kicked her arms and legs with a determination that had increased notably as she neared ten months. Her other hand held toddler Richard Aylward back from the windowsill with practiced ease. Melissa's first husband had been on the East Coast at the time of the Change, and Aylward had met her in the summer of the first Change Year.
"If you're off to shoot, remember the chicken stew will be ready by dark, and the dumplings won't keep," she warned. "If you want to eat them, not shoot them at a castle with a catapult."
"We'll be there," Sam said, waving.
"Not me, sorry, Melissa," Chuck called up. "Judy's expecting me back at Dun Juniper."
He waved northward up the slope of the low mountain that overhung Dun Fairfax; the Mackenzie headquarters was a mile in that direction, on a broad ledge that nature had cut back into the hillside.
"The two of you, then," she said. "Full dark and not later!"
"I should say we will be there," Hordle said, smacking his lips as they turned away. "Your missus can cook a treat, Samkin."
He winked at Barstow. "Sam, he could burn water, himself, unless he's changed over here."
Chuck shuddered. "Tell me. I've been on hunting trips with him these ten years past, not to mention campaigning. We learned to put him on woodchopping detail fast enough."
Hordle shook his head. "Hard to remember Sam's had a life since the Change. Back in England we thought he'd be dead somewhere, and then seeing him here, a father three times over no less-gave me a turn, it did."
"Which is why you've been hanging about down here at Dun Fairfax, catching up with your old mate," Aylward said with heavy sarcasm. "And not doing your best to chat up Lady Juniper's daughter, eh?"
"And studying Sign until the brains ran out of his ears to do it," Chuck Barstow added. "Eilir's charmed. Though not as charmed as she was with young Alleyne."
"Don't know what the 'ell you grizzled old farts are talking about," Hordle said. "I was just being friendly, like."
"Hullo, Sam." A woman nodded to the men as she drove half a dozen Jersey milkers towards the old Fairfax barn, which held the cream separator and barrel-churn and the precious galvanized milk-tins all the households used.
"Kate," he replied.
A man did likewise as he pushed a wheelbarrow of straw and manure, steaming slightly in the damp chill, in the other direction. More greetings came from children who played whooping ru