Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (6 page)

put together by anyone with a minimum of intelligence and the patience to work with his or her hands. The instruction lists were simple and clear as far as the assembly of the motor went.

"Yes, I think I recognize it, Uncle," he said again. He looked once more over the parts that were arrayed on the bench. "You aren't missing too much from what's needed to put it all the way together and get it working. The largest piece missing is the head for the block and the bolts to put it down on the gasket. Or do you already have the gasket here—?" He began searching among the parts on the bench top.

"No," said Henry, "heads, bolts and gaskets are all in short supply. There're a few, but the price is high, particularly for gaskets. I'll get one yet before the year is out, one way or another."

"With that, and just a few more smaller parts," said Bleys, half to himself, "the engine can go together and run." He looked up at Henry. "Can I help you put it together, Uncle?"

"Yes," said Henry, "I think you can. I think you know enough so that your help will be useful, Bleys. But that's something for the future."

He turned away from the block, blew down the chimney to blow out the flame of the lantern, and put the lantern itself back up on the shelf. They stood in the shed, lit now only by the last of the twilight that was glimmering through its windows. Henry led the way back to the house.

When they had stepped inside, the table had been cleared and Will was busily washing the dishes.

"Bleys, help your cousin Will wipe those dishes," said Henry, "then the both of you—to bed."

He turned and left them, going in through the doorway on the other end of the wall from the entrance that led to their bedroom. Obviously that end, Bleys thought, must lead to his personal bedroom.

Bleys walked over to the bench with the washbasin where Will was working, and Will handed him both a dish holding soap and a towel.

"Josh will be in shortly," he said, "he's busy settling down the stock."

"The stock—they're the goats, like the ones pulling the cart?" Bleys asked, as he took dish and towel and began to dry the dish.

"Oh yes," said Will, "but the ones that Father uses to pull the cart and other things like that have to be specially trained. The rest are just for milk and cheese; and meat for us when we can spare one to slaughter for food."

Bleys nodded. .

With Will he finished cleaning up the dishes, washing the pan they had washed the dishes in, drying it, and hanging it up on a peg on the wall. Together they carried out the slop water, which was the dishwater poured out into a bucket, plus whatever other water had been used in making the dinner and cleaning the table both before and after the meal.

"You'd better learn all this," Will said, "because you'll be doing it from now on, I think. Now that you're here, Father will want me outside helping with the rest of the place."

He showed Bleys where the wash water could be dumped, pointed out the privy, and brought Bleys back inside to their bedroom. The single bunk on the wall that must be the separating wall between their room and Henry's still held only the bare mattress. But some blankets, sheets and a pillow had been neatly piled in the center of this.

"Joshua will be in, in just a bit, and show you how to make the bed," Will said, climbing up into his own bunk and beginning to undress. He dropped his shoes from the height of the bunk; clearly, it seemed to Bleys, enjoying the large thump they made as each hit the floor. The rest of his clothes Will put into a net that was suspended from two pegs on the inner wall of his bunk. When he was done he climbed back down onto the floor again, knelt beside Joshua's bunk, and began to pray.

Bleys stood beside the one that was to be his own, uncertain , as to whether he should start to try making the bed by himself. Everything he had met in his life had fascinated him; and the activities of the chambermaids cleaning the hotel rooms they had been in had been equally interesting. He had had one of them teach him how to make a bed and he thought he could duplicate that process now without Joshua's help.

But at that moment Joshua did come in, taking off his heavy outer jacket and hanging it on a peg just inside the wall of the bedroom, rather than one of the pegs by the door.

"Did you ever make a bed before?" he asked Bleys, coming over to join him.

"Yes, I have," said Bleys.

"Well I'd like you to watch me closely anyway," said Joshua. His voice was gentle; and in general since Bleys had first met him, he had seemed pleasant and unusually considerate. "Father wants things done just so. We wash our bedding on Saturday and hang it inside the house to dry, if it's raining outside like it is today. You'll have to take care of your own bedding, usually, but sometimes you'll be washing everybody's bedding. It just depends. Now as far as making it goes, watch me."

Bleys watched. There were apparently no springs to the bed, only the mattress, which was of a heavy cloth stuffed with something that he hoped was soft. Joshua began by first covering this with a sort of bag, which he referred to as the mattress cover, then put on the bottom sheet.

"This is God's corner," Joshua said, folding the end of the overhang from the sheet neatly and tucking it in under the bed so that it made a right angle triangle where the side turned into the end. "You'll make God's comers on all four comers of the bed with everything that needs to be tucked in."

He went on to put down and tuck in a top sheet, fold it back, lay the pillow on top and then cover it with several thick blankets, that looked as if they might have been home-knitted. They were all of a dark gray-black color. On these, too, he made God's comers. Bleys looked at them with pleasure. Their neatness and regularity appealed to him, and the hint of a solid, makable thing through which their God could be touched struck a resonant note in him.

"The first two or three days for sure," said Joshua, "Father'
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be in to see whether you made your bed properly. After that he may just look in at any time. So you want to make sure that the bed is properly made, always."

CHAPTER
5

The day after
his arrival, when Bleys woke up, he saw everyone else getting into what were better clothes—and could well be their best clothes. By the time Bleys was awake enough to fully understand the situation, Will was already dressed, his bunk made, and he was out of the room. Joshua, looking remarkably adult in black jacket and trousers made of rather stiff, but obviously not very expensive material, was finishing up his own bed-making.

Bleys clambered out of his own bunk, still wearing his pajamas (the other two boys had worn nightshirts) and went over to Joshua.

"What is it?" Bleys asked, "what's going on?"

"It's church day," said Joshua briefly.

"I don't have anything black with me," said Bleys. "What should I wear? I'm supposed to come with you too, aren't I?"

Joshua paused, straightened up from his bed and looked at him with a strange look that matched his clothes.

"That isn't for me to say," he answered, briefly; and,

turning away, pulled the top blanket of his bed tight, then went out the door.

Not for Joshua to say? Bleys could only guess that must mean it was for Henry alone to say. Hurriedly he put on the darkest trousers, shirt and jacket he owned, in equal haste went outside. Henry and the others were already climbing into the goat cart, which had its animals already waiting in harness.

Bleys came up to the cart and stood waiting to get Henry's attention. But Henry merely glanced at him briefly, walked around the cart, and got in. The reins flipped and the goat cart turned out of the yard heading for the road and leaving Bleys behind.

He stood, watching them go. He had expected that if there was to be any going to church, he would automatically be taken along—commanded to go with them, if anything. But instead they had left him behind without explanation.

He felt curiously ignored. The last thing he had thought of wanting to do was endure a service in a Friendly church. But at the same time, it was almost as if he had been rejected by Henry and his family.

It made no sense. Plainly, Henry was the one to give him an explanation. But also, Henry had made no effort to do so and Bleys had no idea of whether he had been supposed to ask his uncle or not.

He turned slowly back into the house and found some porridge had been left in the all-purpose cooking pot, set to one side of the morning fire to keep warm. There was one place still set at the table. He sat down at it to eat his porridge, wonderingly.

What should he do? He could simply ask Henry, or he could wait for some cue from the other before asking; or he could wait until Henry chose to tell him in a time of Henry's own choosing. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that in his situation it was best to do nothing but wait and see what would develop. Even the boys, clearly, did not want to be asked.

He cleaned up after his breakfast, washed his dishes and the pot and did whatever other things seemed to need doing about the main room of the house. In the process he managed, finally, to put the whole matter out of his mind. A little more than three hours later, Henry and the boys returned and life took up as if this day was no different from any other.

During the next few days Bleys came as close to liking Joshua and making a friend of him as he ever had with anyone in his life. The older boy was always pleasant, certain but easy
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going. He apparently knew his way about the various tasks and duties of the farm as Henry did himself; and he never seemed to get impatient or tired of explaining these to Bleys. For that matter Joshua never seemed to get upset over anything.

Bleys had had almost no acquaintance with other children his own age. What few he had met from time to time were so inferior to him in knowledge and intelligence that he had nothing in common with them; and they soon perceived this difference and resented it.

On the other hand, the few older children he had run into, were from Bleys' point of view apparently cut-down adults. They were neither as bright nor as knowledgeable as the adults that Bleys had to do with generally; and it seemed that he could not even try to talk about the things in which they were interested without somehow making it plain to them that although he was younger he was far more capable than they were. They, too, were quick to sense this difference, and resent it.

The result was that Bleys had never actually had a friend, in the ordinary sense in which youngsters have them. He was conscious of this as he was conscious of the fact that he was different from the adults; even though they might be entertained by him, and consent to give him at least a little of their time. There was a phrase he only chanced to come across in his reading; but it fitted so well he thought of it frequently. He felt like "neither fish nor fowl."

He was condemned by being unique, and off by himself at a distance where no one else seemed to have any real reason to be concerned with him. The single person who might have been concerned had been the very one who was so glaringly not—his mother.

Therefore, Joshua's acceptance of him and lack of jealousy or resentment took Bleys unawares. It was a little while before he figured out that from Joshua's point of view there was no competition between them because Joshua's place in the family was already fixed—he was the oldest, and certain things came to him by right.

Bleys, also from Joshua's point of view, was fixed. He was the cousin who had been taken into the family, and placed in a sort of probationary position between Joshua and Will. In short, there was no way that Bleys could supplant him, or infringe on Joshua's territory, because God had ordained that their respective spheres should be separate ones; and Joshua's father, as God's nearest representative, would enforce that separateness.

To his own surprise, Bleys found a measure of contentment in this fixed order, that tied in with his appreciation of the general order he had found here. From only being determined to become a Friendly to reach his own goal, he found he was beginning to desire to be one for the way it fitted with his own dreams. Now, it was even a certain type of Friendly he wished to be. It seemed that those much admired by other Friendlies were called by them "True Faith-holders." A True Faith-holder was supposed to have given all of himself totally to his religious beliefs, setting them above all things, even life itself.

As Will had predicted, Bleys was given the duties of taking care of the inside of the house. This involved making the meals—which were almost invariably the same simple stew, only varying in ingredients as these became available—and cleaning everything in the house that was not the responsibility of some other individual to keep clean.

This meant that the table, the benches, the chairs, the floor, the walls and floors in both the boys' bedroom and in Henry's, were to be scrubbed daily. The windows were also to be kept clean, and all the tableware and household tools.

In spite of these chores, Bleys had free time on his hands; and in that free time, both Will and Joshua introduced him to the duties that they, themselves, were concerned with outside. Will, now freed from the house, had been given the responsibility of the farmyard itself. This included the cleaning of the goat barn, the daily examination of the goats for signs of skin diseases, illness, or hurt that might be affecting them; and the minor repairs that needed to be done to any of the buildings.

Joshua had the responsibility for everything beyond Will's area. This included taking the goats out to pasture each day, the milking, the cheese-making, and the repair and upkeep of the split-rail fences that enclosed outside areas on the farm, such as the pasture. The heavier maintenance and repair of all structures was his responsibility.

Over and above all this, Joshua had a general responsibility to pitch in and help or substitute for any of the two younger ones, if they needed help or ran into difficulties with the work they were doing.

Altogether, he put in a long, hard day, every day.

Henry spent his time checking to make sure everything was right about the farm, and doing the things that could only be done with a man's strength. For example, they cultivated several acres; and while goat teams pulled the plow or the harrow, it was Henry who muscled the implement itself, and made sure the work was done. He also made almost daily trips in to the small, nearby store where necessities could be bought; and, occasionally, day-long trips to Ecumeny for more important and rarer things, such as added parts for the motor.

Through all this daily pattern of existence ran a thread of extreme regularity. They got up at daybreak, prayed and had breakfast; as soon as their beds were made and their rooms were cleaned they went about their daily duties until prayers at ten; then again about eleven-thirty in the morning, which was lunch time and prayer time once more, and the largest meal of the day.

Following lunch they went back to work and worked until near sundown, when Henry would go around and call a halt to everybody's labors. Bleys was quick to join in the motions of kneeling where he happened to be, and praying. But although he tried desperately, he could not seem to manage to bring either his mind or his heart to accept the idea of religion or any belief in the idea of a deity.

On the fourth day they were eating lunch, when over their conversation, a roaring sound could be heard approaching closer and closer to the farm.

"It'll be your brother," said Henry, looking at Bleys.

Bleys felt a coldness in him, suddenly, that was almost panic. He had forgotten entirely about this older sibling, who had been sent away by his mother to Henry, years ago—in fact, shortly after Bleys' birth. Not seeing or hearing anything of him around the farm, Bleys had assumed that the other was either dead or gone. He had ceased to think of the possibility of an older half-brother; as if no such possibility had ever existed.

Now, suddenly the possibility was reality, and the reality was approaching—obviously by hovercar, to judge by the roaring sound of the fans that would be holding it off the unpaved road that led to the farm. That road must be barely wide enough for it to slide through.

A current of excitement seemed to have run through the two other boys. Henry looked at them reprovingly.

"Your older cousin has come during meal time," he said pointedly. "He may join us, or he may wait until we are done and everything is taken care of. There will be no changes simply because we have a visitor."

The roaring sound grew very loud, moved into the yard and stopped. Lunch was almost over. But Will and Joshua were eating a little faster than normal—not enough to earn their father's reproach—but as fast as possible without doing so. Bleys, as usual, had taken less than any of the rest, and his bowl was nearly empty anyway, as a result.

But, he reflected, he was the one who would have to clean up and wash up after the meal.

There had been silence outside for a few moments. Now came the sound of heavy steps mounting the three stairs outside, the door opened, and Bleys' older half-brother, Dahno, came in.

Bleys had heard Dahno, as a boy, described to him by various friends of his mother's; but mostly by Ezekiel, Henry's older brother. He had heard it from Ezekiel, who had taken responsibility for the fathering of both boys and arranged to have Dahno—and Bleys later—sent off to Henry.

Bleys, therefore, had expected someone outsized in the way of height and width. Somebody with large bones and a great deal of muscle. But he was not expecting what came in the door.

Dahno had to duck his head to get through the doorway itself; and, standing just inside, it seemed that his head was within a few inches of touching the saplings that made the ceiling. He was dressed in a black business suit of soft cloth, and ankle-high black boots brightly polished, except where the mud from the yard had splashed on them. He bulked to the point where he seemed to overshadow all of them, dominating the room.

He was like a thick-set man of ordinary height, blown up to half again his original size. His arms and legs bulged the clothes that covered them. His face was round and cheerful under a cap of curly, jet-black hair; and he had a merry, warm smile for them all.

"Don't let me disturb your lunch," he said in a voice as warm as his smile, a light baritone that did not echo the outsize elements of the rest of him.

"You would not in any case," said Henry.

But Henry, Bleys noticed, was smiling back at Dahno, that wintry smile that was the most Henry could achieve. "You know our customs. You'll wait until we're done."

"Fair enough," said Dahno, with a wave of one large hand. "By the way, I brought you some parts for your motor."

"I thank God for your kindness," said Henry formally. "If you will sit, that chair of yours is there in the corner."

Bleys had wondered about that one extra-large chair; but assumed it was for Henry on special occasions.

"Thanks. But I'd just as soon stand," said Dahno.

Whether it was intentional or not, his looming over them had the tendency of speeding up the lunch. Even Henry, indifferent as he appeared to be to Dahno's size and presence, seemed to finish his bowl of stew faster.

"I came to see my little brother, actually," said Dahno, looking at Bleys.

"Did you so?" said Henry, laying his spoon down at last beside his empty bowl. "In mat case, Bleys, you are excused from the normal cleaning up after lunch. Will, you take over for your cousin."

Bleys sat staring at the large man.

"Bleys,"—there was a slight edge to Henry's voice— "you're free to go. Rise, therefore, and go with your brother."

Bleys pushed back his chair, stood up and then pushed it back into position again at the table. He walked around it, approaching Dahno, feeling smaller with every step, by contrast with the enormous bulk he was approaching.

"Come on then, Little Brother," said Dahno.

He turned and opened the door leading outside. Bleys followed, carefully closing the door behind him, as even the few days he had spent here had taught him to do.

"We'll walk off a ways," said Dahno. He took the strides of his long legs slowly, so that Bleys did not have to run to keep up with him. They walked around the now dirt-spattered white body of the brand-new looking hovercar squatting on the muddy ground; and Dahno led the way off and around the goat barn, so that they were out of sight of the house. Once behind the barn, he turned and faced Bleys.