Master Woods, the carpenter, laid the first clock wheel on his bench beside Jon's drawing. The pale applewood had been cut cleanly, but the teeth crowded together on one side of the rim. Robb stood on a stool counting them with dried peas from Luwin's lesson basket.
"Twenty-two."
"There is one in your mouth," Jon said.
Robb took the pea from between his teeth and set it on the bench. "Twenty-three. Did Olyver eat the other?"
Olyver, the carpenter's son, looked up from the coffin board he was smoothing. "I had bread, my lord."
Jon turned the wheel against the parchment. Woods was a square, brown-bearded man, pale with sawdust from brow to boots. He had followed the drawing until the last space proved too narrow to cut. His dividers explained why: the worn hinge slipped as soon as Jon lifted them. Jon had seen sound crews spend a day correcting work laid out from one bad level.
"Tighten that," Jon said. "Then we will make a pattern for the teeth. Keep this wheel; I can still use it to try the smaller gear."
Woods tightened the dividers while Jon and Olyver made a tooth pattern from a thin scrap of horn. The apprentice tested it on the rejected wheel and found two gaps too narrow for the smaller gear to pass through.
"I can open those," Olyver offered.
"Try it. I would rather save this one than pay for another." Jon passed him the wheel. The boy bent over it at once.
"There is something else, my lord." Woods brought out his measuring stick and the rule Mikken had sent with the clock's iron shaft. Laid together, their marks for a foot differed by nearly a finger's width.
"Both called a foot," Jon said. "You used yours to measure the hole, and Mikken used his to make the shaft. No wonder it will not fit."
Robb bent so low his nose almost touched them. "Mikken's foot is longer."
"Mikken's foot is a great deal longer," Olyver said. "I have seen his boots."
Jon laid the sticks across the drawing. "I will have copies made from Luwin's rod. Use those for the clock parts. Tell Mikken I want him here when he has finished shoeing Father's bay."
Vayon Poole came into the shop with Jon's account beneath his arm. The steward wore dark grey wool, dry above the knees and spattered below them from the street. He surveyed the rejected wood with a frown before opening the account.
"The applewood and tools have taken nearly half your purse, my lord. There are the smith's hours to pay as well."
Jon read the figures. His allowance would have to last another moon; the carpenter's seasoned timber cost far more than the wood stacked by Winterfell's hearths. He put back the larger billet he had been considering. Once he could have ordered a replacement part and had it delivered in a box. Here every failed piece consumed somebody's afternoon.
"We will use the offcut for the next one." Jon put the account beside Woods's drawing. "What will the frame cost?"
"I can reckon it this afternoon, my lord. The widow's steps must be finished first."
Jon glanced at the half-built steps against the wall. "Then this afternoon."
Robb offered Poole the wet pea. "You may have this towards the cost."
The steward glanced at the bite in it. "Keep it, my lord. The smith will want silver."
By midmorning the coffin had its lid and the widow's steps stood pegged and clamped while their glue dried. Olyver bored the next wheel blank. Jon held a square beside the bit and stopped him when it began to lean; the apprentice corrected the angle before cutting through the far face.
A man in a patched riding cloak came for the coffin before Mikken arrived. He stood bareheaded inside the door, turning his cap while Woods showed him the handles. Olyver put down the brace and helped carry it to the cart. The man thanked the carpenter twice and went away sitting very straight beside the driver.
Jon moved the wheel blanks onto the shelf to clear the bench. A coffin, a pair of steps, his clock: Woods fitted them all into the same small room. Beneath the bench lay chair legs waiting to be glued and a child's little wooden stool with one foot missing. When Olyver came back, he wiped the rain from his freckled face and reached for the brace without being told.
Robb watched the bow saw with increasing interest. Arthur gave him a loose pine shaving to break instead. When Robb snapped it across his knee with a grunt, the knight handed him another.
Mikken arrived smelling of hot hoof and burnt horn, one corner of his apron scorched stiff against his knee. His rule had come from the armoury, Woods's from the men who built the east granary. Jon set Luwin's brass-capped oak stave beside them.
"Use this for the work you make here. Horseshoes may still be fitted to horses." Woods gave the smallest grunt of laughter.
At Jon's expense, they marked copies from Luwin's stave and fitted the shaft to its sleeve. Mikken saved the rejected iron by filing it down. The wheels still ran unevenly: cut by hand, they pressed together on one side and scarcely touched on the other.
Jon drew a foot-powered lathe that would spin the wood while they shaved its rim into a true circle. Woods bent beside him, rubbing sawdust from his beard as he studied the frame.
"I could make that," the carpenter judged. "Not today."
"How long?"
"Four afternoons, if Mikken can spare the ironwork. The widow's steps still need fitting, and those chairs are promised." He pointed beneath the bench. "I cannot leave her climbing a ladder to her own door."
"I have not asked you to." Jon turned the drawing so they could both see it. "Give the upright a brace here. We can make the teeth while you finish the frame."
Woods moved Jon's mark clear of the treadle. "Behind it, or you will strike your shin every time you push."
Jon followed the imagined movement with his hand and nodded. "There, then."
They were pricing the timber and iron centres when Wylla arrived with a covered basket, rain dark on the shoulders of her green cloak. She moved the drawing beyond the reach of the pie dish and looked at Jon.
"You have an hour before Ser Rodrik expects you. Eat."
The onion pie was still hot. There were two apples, hard white cheese and brown bread spread with bacon fat. Robb reached for the larger apple; Wylla took it first and cut both into pieces.
"I wanted that one," he said.
"You may still have half."
They ate on overturned buckets while glue warmed beside the brazier. Jon's hands smelled of iron and resin. He gave Woods leave to buy the timber, then sat with the warm pie balanced on his knees and listened to Robb describe what he meant to do when Rodrik finally allowed them to fight one another.
Wylla picked a curl of applewood from Jon's dark hair. It had caught around the pale strands at his left temple. He bent his head for her, still chewing, and she rubbed the sawdust from his cheek with her thumb.
Jon finished the last of the onion pie and let Wylla wipe his hands before he followed Arthur to the yard.
* * *
The lathe took four afternoons to build between Winterfell's other orders. Woods and Olyver made the timber frame; Mikken forged its iron fittings from a broken hinge strap. Jon came after lessons and adjusted the treadle so it would work with a shorter push.
On the second evening Jon carried the drawing upstairs with a smear of glue on his cuff. Wylla found him kneeling on his chair, trying to reach the far edge of the parchment without putting his sleeve in the ink. She turned the page for him and brought the lamp closer.
"The bath is ready."
"One line." He drew it, then another to show where the treadle should hang. Wylla waited until he laid down the pen before unfastening his collar.
Later, warm and clean beneath the blankets, he tried the shortened stroke with one foot. His heel nudged the mattress. He could still smell the applewood in his hair. Wylla was sorting his stockings beside the fire when he fell asleep; in the morning the drawing lay flat beneath two books, and she had found the missing button from his cuff.
At the first trial the tool rest crept under Woods's hand. Jon called a halt while the carpenter drove its wedge home; then a long, pale shaving peeled from the blank. Applewood scented the shop. Olyver found a steady pace at the treadle, and the rim ran true between the iron points.
The handle was too long for Jon. Woods shortened a spare, and Jon skimmed the last strokes from the rim with it. Robb picked up a shaving and held it to his upper lip.
"Ser Rodrik," he announced.
"His whiskers are wider," Arthur said from the door.
Robb found a second shaving. Jon and Olyver laid the tooth pattern over the finished circle. Every space fitted.
Woods ran his thumb around the smooth edge, then glanced at the waiting chair legs. "I could finish a pair alike on this, my lord."
"Aye, with a pattern and a longer rest. Try it when we have our wheels."
Woods turned Jon's shortened handle in his large hand.
"Have you watched a turner work, my lord?"
"I knew what I wanted the wheel to do."
Woods glanced towards Arthur, then back at Jon. "At your age my father would only let me work the treadle."
Jon took the little tool from him. "Olyver has a good hand. Let him finish the next."
"Aye, my lord." Woods chose another piece of applewood for his son, leaving the chair leg within reach for later.
They assembled the gears behind a slatted screen and tied a small stone to the cord wound around the drum. As it descended, the drum turned the wheels. The first trial pulled a joint loose and sent the cord slipping towards the edge. Jon lowered the stone to the floor. Woods added a brace and raised rims to the drum while Mikken fitted collars to keep the shaft in place. They spent the rest of the afternoon making the frame bear a steady pull.
By dusk the little stone descended without catching. The wheels ran much too fast, but they ran.
Robb put the spare parts in his box of enemies, adding the crooked first wheel with satisfaction. A few days later Pate, the bellringer, came with his arm still bound from the fall at the gate and a cracked rope guide in his good hand. He peered through the screen.
"A box of wooden teeth. I shall still be ringing by hand for a while, then."
"For a while," Jon said. "What have you brought?"
They had lifted the bell rope clear of the guide until it could be smoothed. Wet hemp had bitten into its rusted mouth. Jon suggested bronze, which would not rust against it, or a wheel at the turn to spare the rope.
"A wheel needs an axle and a cover against rain," Mikken said. "I can smooth this one today. With grease it should serve."
Jon looked at Pate's bound arm. "Mend the guide now. Round the mouth, and let him have it before the evening bell. We can fit a wheel when the other work allows."
"Before sunset, my lord." Mikken laid it beside his tool roll. Pate thanked Jon and went to his apprentice.
The bell rang by Pate's hand that night. It came a little late, but the old man had no need to wrench at the rope.
* * *
With the clock's wheels turning, Jon examined the lower-yard pump with Harwin, Hullen's son. Its handle needed several strokes before water reached the spout. The leather seal had worn thin. Jon remembered his father repairing much the same thing on the farm and showed the saddler how a wider lip might hold the water.
They tried a new seal in a short elm barrel Woods had bored. Robb worked the handle while Jon held the jug and Pate watched. At first it gave only a hollow gulp. Woods stopped a leak with flax and pitch, and a thin stream followed.
Jon bent to look down the pump just as Robb gave another pull. A spurt struck him across the chin and soaked the front of his tunic.
Robb stared at the dripping tunic, then began to laugh.
"Not another stroke." Jon wiped his face with his sleeve.
"I had stopped."
Jon laughed too. He set the jug down and drew out the piston. The unsupported edge of the leather had turned inside out. Woods cut a wider backing disc at Jon's direction, and the saddler trimmed the lip until it flexed without folding.
This time the stream filled the jug and went on flowing.
Jon raised his hand before the jug brimmed over. Robb stopped, and Arthur put a bucket beneath the spout for the next trial.
Robb grinned at the filled jug. "That is enough to wash in."
"You may begin with the bench." Jon gave him the rag. Pate held his free hand under the little stream while the bucket filled; water ran over his knuckles without his having to lift a full pail. He flexed them, looking from the spout to the handle, then asked Woods how soon he might see it working at the well.
By morning the elm had swollen and the handle had stiffened. Woods scraped the barrel once more; Jon left it standing full so they could test it again before fitting one at the well.
Poole brought the week's account while Wylla was mending Jon's wet tunic. The new frame, the lathe and the ironwork had left too little for the sheet of Myrish glass he wanted over the clock's face.
"The glass can wait." Jon crossed it from the order.
"Shall I ask Lord Stark for more?"
"No. Have a piece of horn cut to fit. I have spent what he gave me."
The steward entered the change. Jon had liked the thought of a glass face for his clock. He watched Poole rule through the price, then went back to the drawing.
Wylla folded the mended tunic. Robb held up the discarded pump leather and peered through it at his brother. Jon took it away before he could fit it over his head.
Back in the workshop, Jon turned to the gears. They moved freely now, but too fast. He returned to his drawings of the escapement to slow them. He remembered such movements from museums; making this one work took much of the next week.
Mikken forged the crown-shaped wheel. Olyver made the rocking bar with two small blocks to catch its teeth. At first it locked. Jon shaved one block where it caught, adjusted the bar and raised the driving weight again.
Tok—tok. Tok—tok.
Robb stopped swinging his legs beneath the stool. The little bar rocked from side to side. For twenty-seven beats the wheel advanced a tooth at a time; then the sound grew uneven and stopped.
"That is the longest yet," Olyver said.
Jon leaned close without touching it. One block had shifted on the rocking bar and caught a tooth. He lowered the driving weight, put the block back and tightened its wedge.
"Put a pin through this joint," he told Woods. "That block must not move on the bar."
The carpenter fetched his small drill. When the joint was pinned, Jon raised the weight again and let the others listen. The uneven wooden knock was a poor sound beside Pate's bell outside, but it was the sound he had come to the shop to make.
Robb tried to imitate it all the way back to the keep.
That night Jon began a small book with the blank leaves Luwin had given him for drawings. Wylla had stitched them between covers of plain black leather, leaving the back broad enough for more leaves. There was no title upon it. The black book would do.
He wrote in English. The first few lines came slowly, his cramped hand making an ugly job of letters he had once written without looking. He set down the tools needed for another clock, then the forge and waterwheel he would build when he could afford them. Against the forge he wrote the first expense: a smith whose time he could command. Mikken had Winterfell's work to do.
Halfway down the page he stopped to read it. For the first time since waking in this body, there were sentences before him that belonged wholly to his former life. He could almost feel the broad desk beneath his elbows and the weight of the pen he had kept long after cheaper ones worked as well. He had used that pen to check drawings, answer his children's letters and complain to a company that had sent him the wrong pump twice. Now he had to shake the ache from five-year-old fingers before he could finish a page.
He kept even the small notes beside the drawings in English. Anything a craftsman needed would be copied onto a separate sheet in the Common Tongue. Luwin and Arthur could not read this language, though either might recognise a drawing. He would keep the book locked away.
Two leaves went to ships. In the larger hull he marked the space for water casks and worked the framing round it. A second drawing had a finer bow; he left both unfinished, with the sails sketched lightly about the masts.
On a fresh leaf he began setting down the people and events he remembered from the other books, the ones whose names he now heard across a supper table. The first attempt filled less space than he expected. He knew the great disasters far better than the quiet years leading to them. A name might return while he was thinking about something else, then elude him when he wanted it. He would put down what he could now and leave room for the rest.
He let the ink dry, placed the black book in the locked casket beneath his clothes and kept the key himself.