aFireFist
A Life in Westeros
Chapter 16 - Part 1
A week had passed since the raven from the south. The compound had not waited for anyone to mark the time. Greywater View woke the same way it always did—smoke from the kitchens, boots on the raised paths, the river moving past the docks with that low, steady rush that never quite left a man's ears.
Adian took the boy down to the water before the hall filled.
The child was still small enough that the walk from the tower to the landing needed a hand on his shoulder when the boards were wet. Dark hair stuck up at the back. He wore a thick wool tunic that had already picked up a smear of tar near the hem. He did not complain about the cold. He asked questions instead.
"Which boat is that?"
"The long one with the green stripe. That's Harys's river crew. They run grain south when the water's high enough."
"And that one?"
"Local. Timber and wool. Stays on the upper stretches."
The boy pointed at a stack of crates near the first warehouse. "How many?"
Adian stopped with him. "Count them."
The child went down the line with one finger, mouth moving. He lost the number once, started over, and finished at twelve. Adian nodded.
"Twelve. That's a day's load if the carts come in on time."
"Will they?"
"That's the work."
They walked the length of the expanded dock. New posts stood in the shallows where the second landing was supposed to go. The old pier was already crowded—two boats tied off, a third waiting mid-river, men shifting sacks by hand because there was nowhere else to put them. A leak in the near warehouse roof had left a dark stain down the inner wall. Someone had set a bucket under it. The bucket was half full from last night's rain.
The boy sat on a coil of rope and watched a man hammer a wedge into a piling. "Why new posts?"
"Because one dock is not enough," Adian said. "Grain and wool come in at the same time. They stack. Then they sit. Sitting costs coin."
The child thought about that with the same seriousness he used for counting. "More posts. More boats."
"That's the idea."
Harys came up from the far end with a slate under his arm and mud on his boots. He nodded to the boy first, then to Adian.
"Roofs still leak on the north warehouse," he said. "We patched twice. Hard rain finds the same seam. Smithy's frame is up. Stones for the dry store are stacked behind it, but the timber for the walls is short by a third. Second landing's marked. That's as far as it goes until we decide the bank and the pile count."
"Labor?"
"We've got the men if we pull them off the upper paths for a stretch. Paths flood in spring anyway. Better to finish something that earns before we rebuild the walk that only gets walked."
Adian looked at the crowded pier again. A boatman was shouting at a loader over a wet sack. The loader shouted back. Nothing dangerous. Just too many bodies on too little wood.
"Show me the bank."
They left the boy with one of the dockhands who knew to keep him off the edge. The stretch Harys had marked sat thirty yards downriver, where the ground rose a little and the current ran slower. Reeds had been cut back. Stakes stood in a rough line. The soil underfoot was dark and soft.
"This side holds in a normal year," Harys said. "Spring flood's the question. If it takes the first season's work, we pay twice."
"What's the pile count if we sink them deeper?"
"Eight extra. More timber. More days."
"Do it. I'd rather pay now than rebuild in the mud later."
Harys marked it on the slate. "And the men?"
"Take them off the upper paths for ten days. Leave a pair walking the worst stretch so it doesn't look abandoned. After that we rotate."
They walked back. The boy had not moved from the rope. He was watching a gull fight another gull over a scrap of fish. When he saw Adian he stood up and took his hand without being asked.
Inside the main hall the air smelled of woodsmoke and ink. Barbrey had the ledgers open and a cup of something that had gone cold at her elbow. Her dark hair was braided back. The practical wool gown sat close across her chest and hips the way it always did. She looked up when they came in, eyes going first to the boy, then to Adian.
"He counted the crates," Adian said.
"Twelve," the boy told her.
Barbrey's mouth moved, almost a smile. "That's more than yesterday." She nodded toward the stairs. "Nurse is waiting. Go on. You can come back down after you've eaten."
The child went without a fight. When the stair door shut, Barbrey turned the ledger so Adian could see the columns.
"Smithy expansion is eating more coin than the first estimate," she said. "The dry store beside it makes that worse. Pitch, nails, axles, hinges, boat fittings—none of that is cheap if we stock it properly. We can keep sending repairs downriver and save the silver this season."
"And lose days every time an axle splits or a hinge rusts through," Adian said. He sat. "If the western routes get ugly later, we won't have time to wait on some smith in Seagard. I want it here."
"Ugly later is not a number I can write."
"No. It's a season we don't get back if it happens."
She studied him for a moment, then tapped the page. "Second landing first, then. If we're spending, spend where the boats actually sit. The smithy can rise beside it. I won't authorize both at full speed unless the timber shipment comes in whole. It's already short."
"How short?"
"A third, if Harys counted right. Barrowlands again. They send what they send and call it weather."
Adian rubbed a thumb along the edge of the table. "I'll walk the site with the crew after midday. If the bank holds the way it looks, we sink the deeper piles. I'll write the Barrowlands man myself about the short timber. Not a complaint. A price."
Barbrey closed the ledger on one finger. "And the river watch?"
"Reed ford stays as we set it with Martyn. I want a second post toward the Fever. Rotating. Written rules. Extra silver. One man I trust running it. Not a garrison. Just eyes that don't wander."
"That's more mouths."
"It's cheaper than a lost train."
She didn't argue that. She had seen the margins when a shipment sat or vanished. "Write it down. I'll put the silver in the next count."
They went through the rest the way they always did when the day still had work in it. Which captains to keep on the upper run. Which warehouse got the next tar. Whether the spring path work could wait until the landing had posts in the water. Half of it was already decided before either of them finished the sentence.
Outside, a hammer started up at the smithy. The sound carried through the hall, steady and thin.
After midday Adian walked the marked bank with the crew. Eight men, two of them carpenters who had worked the first dock. He had them drive a test stake. The soil took it. Water seeped in around the wood but did not swallow it. He had them mark the deeper line with cord.
"Eight extra piles," he said. "You don't guess the depth. You sink them until they stop. If a man tells you it's good enough before that, send him to me."
One of the younger ones wiped mud off his hands. "And if the flood takes it anyway?"
"Then we learn what the water actually does and we build the next one lower or farther in. We're not guessing twice."
They started cutting reeds back farther than the first mark. Adian stayed long enough to see the first hole dug. Then he went to the smithy.
The frame was up, raw timber still pale. Behind it the stones for the dry store sat in a square, waiting for walls. A smith named Cole was already working the existing hearth, the ring of the hammer skipping when he changed tools. He nodded at Adian and kept at it.
"Walls first," Adian said. "Then the roof. I want the store dry before the next hard rain. Pitch and fittings don't help anyone if they sit in a puddle."
"Need the rest of the timber," Cole said. "What we've got frames the smithy. Store's short."
"I know. It'll come or we'll pull from the path work. One or the other."
By late afternoon the second landing was more than stakes. Two piles were in. The bank looked uglier for it, mud and cut reeds and men standing in water to the knee. That was fine. Ugly was how these things started.
Adian found Barbrey again in the solar with a fresh page and a different cup. She had already written the labor rota for the ten days off the upper paths.
"You're pushing the landing harder than the store," she said.
"Boats are the thing we see every morning. The store matters when something breaks. Both get done. Landing first because it's already costing us."
"And if the short timber doesn't arrive?"
"Then the path work waits. I told Cole the same."
Barbrey sat back. The gown pulled across her breasts when she folded her arms. "You're building like someone who thinks the next few years won't stay this quiet."
"They won't." He didn't dress it up. "Not because of anything happening this week. Because quiet years end. I'd rather the place can feed itself and fix itself when they do."
She held his look, then nodded once. "I'll keep the counts tight. You keep the men from sinking piles in the wrong line."
A horn sounded from the outer path—nothing urgent, just a rider coming in at an ordinary pace. Harys put his head through the door a minute later.
"Letter from the Fever side," he said. "And a note from the Barrowlands steward about the timber. He's asking for patience."
Adian took both. The timber note was what he expected: weather, wagons, a promise of the rest "as soon as the roads hold." The Fever letter was shorter. Polite. They had noticed the new posts in the water. They wanted to know whether landing fees on a second pier would be shared "as a courtesy to houses that have used that bank for years."
Barbrey read it over his shoulder. "There it is."
"There it is," Adian agreed. "They can have an answer when I have a dock. Not before."
He set the letters down. Outside the hammer kept time with the river. The boy's voice carried faintly from the stair, asking the nurse something about boats. Greywater View was already larger than the morning. It was not finished. That was the point.
He stood. "I want the deeper piles in before the week's out. If the Fever man wants a conversation, he can come here and look at the mud himself."
Barbrey pulled the rota back toward her. "I'll have food sent up when you're done walking it again. You will walk it again."
"I will."
He went back out into the damp air. The second landing was a scar of turned earth and raw wood against the water. Men moved in it with the slow care of people who knew the river could take a day's work in one night. Adian watched them set the next pile, then put his shoulder to the line when they needed weight on the post.
The wood shuddered, then bit. Water welled up around it and settled.
"Again," he said.
They drove it down until it stopped.
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