Dream d1843-s: Long Tables at Noon

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the noon sun came down hard and flat on the long tables of Nettlesquare, bleaching the boards where they were not covered in tools and chalk-marks. We had been assigned to the south table by the Bridgekeeper, a compact woman who spoke in numbers when she could and in short declarative sentences when she could not. The Builder had taken out her measuring rod at dawn and had not put it down since.

"That joint there," the Builder said to the apprentice across from her, pointing. "See how it seats? It'll walk under load. Pack it now."

The apprentice picked up a mallet without arguing. I wrote it down in the book of readings, because this was precisely the kind of knowledge that does not appear in any survey: the correcting hand, the thing you learn by watching it go wrong before it does.

Lano moved under the tables with the quiet of a dog who knows work is happening around her. I could see her small white shape threading between boots and tool-bags, nose down, pausing where a crate of green timber sat fragrant and new. Her ears were up. The wood smelled of where it had come from, and that was information she was taking seriously.

The Weather Reader returned from the far end of the yard sometime around noon, folding her instruments away with efficient hands. "Testing grounds are running again," she said, settling beside me. "Two groups, measured paces, steady returns. The tracks from two weeks back line up with the gate section they have been reinforcing."

I recorded it. The footprints had told us the same thing on the first day, but corroboration is its own kind of reading - the settlement saying the same thing twice, in different languages.

Rurik appeared on the wall above the table sometime after noon, sitting in full sun. He had been at the testing grounds that morning; I had seen him cross the yard at a purposeful angle that told me nothing and told me everything. He marked a threshold by sitting in it. Today the threshold was here.

The Bridgekeeper came to stand behind my shoulder and looked at the open book. She did not ask what I was writing. That told me she already knew. Nettlesquare took its own measure. They understood what readings were for and they let us do ours.

Quieta, Lano came out from under the table and sat against my boot. Her tail moved once. The Bridgekeeper permitted herself a brief smile, and I put the pen down long enough to scratch behind Lano's ear.

Four of five. We worked until the wall shadow came back in.