‘An’ whut might yer name be?’
Darral grinned at him. ‘Well, it might be “Belgarath” or maybe
“Kal Torak”. Would you be inclined to believe me if I offered you
one of those?’
‘Not hordly,’ the old fellow chuckled.
‘Oh, well,’ Darral sighed. ‘It was worth a try, I guess. Actually,
my name’s Darral, and this is my wife Alara. The lady driving the
other wagon’s my Aunt Pol, and the little boy sleeping beside her
is my son, Geran.’
‘I’m proud t’ make yer acquaintance, Darral,’ the old fellow said.
‘My name’s Farnstal, an’ I’m usual th’ one as greets strangers
mostly on accounta I’m a nosey old coot. Th’ inn’s on down th’
street a piece, an’ y’ kin settle in thar till y’ makes more permanent
arrangements. What might be yer trade, Darral?’
‘I’m a stone-cutter – from over near Sulturn. I used to spend all
my time chiseling tombstones, but that’s gloomy work, so I decided
to find something more cheerful to do.’
‘If Y’ knows yer way around a hammer an’ chisel, y’ve come t’
th’ right place, Darral. Th’ menfolk hereabouts bin choppin’ stone
blocks outta that mounting over thar since about three weeks afore
th’ earth wuz made, an’ we’ll prob’ly keep on achoppin’ until a
couple months after it comes to an end. Why don’t we drift on down
t’ th’ inn an’ git you folks settled in? Then we kin all git acquainted.’
Darral was very smooth, you’ll note. His easy manner slipped us
into the society of Annath with scarcely a ripple. You’ll also note
that he was just a little imprecise about our point of origin. It wasn’t
exactly an out and out lie. Medalia and Sulturn aren’t really too far
apart – ninety miles or so is about all – so you might say that Darral
was only ninety miles from the truth.
We went on down to the tiny inn with most of the townspeople
following along behind us. Small towns are almost always like that.
We took rooms, and several of the townsmen helped Darral unhitch
the horses. The women of the town, of course, homed in on Alara
and me, and the children immediately absconded with Geran. By
the time the sun went down, we weren’t strangers any more.
Nobody owned the mountain where the local stone-quarry was,
so the villagers had formed a ‘share and share alike’ cooperative
venture to gouge granite blocks from its side. Farnstal told Darral
that ‘a stone-mason feller from Muros comes by in th’ fall t’ take
em off our hands every year – which sorta keeps ’em from pilin’
up an’ gittin’ underfoot. That way we don’t hafta build no wagons
er feed no oxen t’ haul ’em all down t’ civilization an’ git rid of ’em.
I ain’t never bin real close friends with no ox, personal.’
‘You know, I feel much the same way,’ Darral agreed. ‘To my
way of looking at it, the proper place for an ox is on the supper-table.’
‘I’ll float my stick alongside yers on that score.’
Darral took his tools to the quarry the next morning and started
cutting stone blocks almost as if he’d always lived there, and the
women of the town took Alara and me to the upper end of the
single street and pointed out a vacant, seriously run-down house.
‘Who does it belong to?’ I asked a plump lady named Elna.
‘Why probably to whoever moves in and fixes the roof,’ Elna
replied. ‘The family that owned it all died of the pox about ten years
ago, and it’s been standing empty ever since.’
‘It doesn’t really belong to anybody, Pol,’ another matron assured
me. ‘I live two houses down, and the place is an awful eyesore the
way it is. We’ve all asked our menfolk to tear it down, but you
know how men are. The best we’ve been able to get out of them is,
we’ll get around to it – someday”. I haven’t been holding my
breath.,
‘We can’t just move in,’ Alara objected.
‘Why not?’ Elna asked her. ‘You need a house, and we need
neighbors. The answer’s sitting right there growing moss.’ She
looked around at the other ladies. I got the distinct impression that
she was the local social lioness. ‘Why don’t we all talk with our
husbands this evening, ladies? If Alara here wants formal permission
to move into the place, we’ll just tell our menfolk to take a vote on
the matter and we’ll let them all know that they’ll get a steady
diet of boiled tripe if they vote wrong.’
They all laughed knowingly at that. Never underestimate the
power of the woman who runs the kitchen.
Since it was summer and the evenings were quite long, it only
took Darral – and the rest of the men in town – about a week to
repair the roof and the doors and windows. Then the town ladies
joined Alara and me in a day of furious house-cleaning, and it was
all done. We were home, and that’s always very nice.
I don’t know that I’ve ever known a town as friendly as Annath.
Everyone there went out of his way to help us get settled in, and they
were always dropping by ‘just to visit’. A goodly part of that was due
to the isolation of the place, of course, and the hunger for news – any
news – of the outside world. Then, when Darral chanced to mention
the fact that I was a physician, our place in the community was secure.
There’d never been a physician in town before, so now the villagers
could go ahead and get sick without the danger of having home
remedies rammed down their throats. A lot of home remedies actually do
work, but the one thing they all have in common, whether they work
or not, is their universally foul taste. I’ve never quite understood
where that notion, ‘if it tastes bad, it’s good for you’ came from. Some
of my remedies are actually quite delicious.
I didn’t care much for the stone-mason from Muros who came to
town that fall followed by a long string of empty wagons. He
behaved as if he were doing us a favor by hauling away our stone
blocks. I’ve known a lot of businessmen over the years, and
businessmen don’t do anything unless it’s profitable. He arrived
looking bored, and he sneeringly appraised the neat stacks of stone
blocks at the mouth of the quarry. Then he made his offer with a
note of finality.
Darral, who knew quite a bit about business himself, was wise
enough to hold his tongue until the fellow had left with his plunder.
‘Was that about what he usually offers?’ he asked the other
townsmen.
‘It’s purty much what he alluz pays, Darral,’ old Farnstal replied.
‘It seemed a little light t’ us, fust time he come here, but he wint on
an’ on ’bout th’ expense o’ freightin’ all that stone back to Muros
an’ sich, an’ then he ups an’ sez “take ‘er or leave ‘er”, an’ thar
warn’t no other buyers handy, so we tuk ‘er. It’s gotten t’ be sorta
like a habit, I guess. I’m a-ketchin’ a hint that y’ might think we jist
got ourselves stung.’
‘I’ve bought granite blocks before, Farnstal, and that wasn’t the
price I had to pay.’ Darral squinted at the ceiling. ‘Do we cut stone
in the wintertime?’ he asked.
“Tain’t hordly a good idee, Darral,’ Farnstal replied. ‘Th’ snow
piles up fearful deep up thar on th’ top edge of the quarry, an’ a
good sneeze is all she’d take t’ bust ‘er loose. A feller whut’s roped
t’ that stone face could wind up apickin’ a avalanche outten his
teeth if somebody happens t’ git hisself a itchy nose at th’ wrong
time.
‘Well then.’ Darral said, ‘when winter comes, I think I’ll take a
little trip on down to the low country and ask a few questions
about the going price of granite. We’re cutting very fine stone here,
gentlemen. Are the other faces all of the same quality?’
‘There’s a layer of slate up near the top of the east face,’ a hulking
stone-cutter named Wilg rumbled in his deep voice. ‘We don’t waste
our time with that, but the man from Muros is good enough to haul
it away for us.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he is,’ Darral said sardonically. ‘And he doesn’t even
charge us for the hauling, does he?’
‘Not a penny,’ Wilg replied.
‘How charitable of him. I believe I’ll take a small block of our
granite and a few slabs of that slate with me when I go. I think I’d
like to shop around for some prices. It might just be that next year
there’ll be two or three other bidders for our stone. A little
competition might teach the man from Muros the value of being truthful