Old Nathan looked back at him with an expression suddenly as blank as a board. “No, boy,” he said, “hit was et King’s Mountain, en they didn’t wear red coats, the most uv thim.”
He paused and then added in a kindlier tone, “En I reckon thet when I was yer age en ol’ fools wuz jawin’ about Quebec and Cartagena and all thet like, hit didn’t matter a bean betwixt them t’ me neither. And mebbe there wuz more truth t’ thet thin I’ve thought since.”
“I don’t rightly foller,” said Bowsmith.
“Don’t reckon ye need to,” the older man replied. “Throw a stick uv lightwood on the fire.”
Holding the sheet he had just removed from the case, Old Nathan stood upright and squinted to be sure of what he had. It seemed to be one of his brother’s last letters to him, a decade old but no more important for that. It was written on both sides of the sheet, but the cuttlefish ink had faded to its permanent state of rich brown. The paper would serve as well for the cunning man’s present need as a clean sheet which could not have been found closer than Holden’s store in the settlement—and that dearly.
He sat down on the chair and donned his spectacles, using the letter as a placeholder in the book in their stead. The turkey quills were held together by a wisp of twine which, with his glasses on, he could see to untie.
After choosing a likely quill, Old Nathan scowled and said, “Turn yer head, boy.” When he felt the movement of Bowsmith behind him, obedient if uncertain, the cunning man reached out with his eyes closed and brought his hand back holding the jackknife.
Some of Old Nathan’s magic was done in public to impress visitors and those to whom they might babble in awe. Some things that he might have hidden from others he did before Bowsmith, because he knew that the boy would never attempt to duplicate the acts on his own. But this one trick was the cunning man’s secret of secrets, and he didn’t want to frighten the boy.
The knife is the most useful of Mankind’s tools, dating from ages before he was even human. But a knife is also a weapon, and the sole reason for storing it—somewhere else—rather than in a pants pocket was that on some future date an enemy might remove a weapon from your pants. Better to plan for a need which never eventuated than to be caught by unexpected disaster.
“Ye kin turn and help me now, Eldon Bowsmith,” the cunning man said as he trimmed his pen with the wire edge of the smaller blade. “Ye kin hold open the book fer me.”
“Yessir,” said the boy and obeyed with the clumsy nervousness of a bachelor asked to hold an infant for the first time. He gripped the volume with an effort which an axehelve would have better justified. The shaking of his limbs would make the print even harder to read.
Old Nathan sighed. “Gently, boy,” he said. “Hit won’t bite ye.”
Though there was reason to fear this book. It named itself Testamentum Athanasii on a title page which gave no other information regarding its provenance. The volume was old, but it had been printed with movable type and bound or rebound recently enough that the leather hinges showed no sign of cracking.
The receipt to which the book now opened was one Old Nathan had read frequently in the months since Spanish King had won his last battle and, winning, had died. Not till now had he really considered employing the formula. Not really.
“Boy,” lied the cunning man, “we cain’t git yer horse back, so I’ll give ye the strength uv a bull thet ye kin plow.”
Bowsmith’s face found a neutral pattern and held it while his mind worked on the sentence he had just been offered. Usually conversations took standard patterns. “G’day t’ ye, Simp.” “G’day t’ ye Mister/Miz. . . .” “Ev’nin’, Eldon. Come en set.” “Ev’nin’ Mar’ Beth. Don’t mind effen I do.” Patterns like that made a conversation easier, without the confusing precipices which talking to Old Nathan entailed.