Chapter 6 The Dull Edge

The boy came back at dusk with Hobb's knife and no coin. He had the knife in the case and the case in both his hands, and he stood at the foot of the wheel and said, "I have brought it back," and then, "I have not brought the coin." He did not say why. He did not have to. His boots were black with the mud of the smithy floor, his collar had flour on it, and the case was heavier than it had been when he carried it out. Kessin sat on the wheel and took his card from her pocket and read it again. "Half a crown," she said. "I have half a crown," said Peth. "Then give it to me." "I did not." "Why." "He told me to do it instead." The boy's voice came out flat and level, the way a boy's voice comes out when he has done a thing he does not know how to explain. "Hobb. He said it is the knife. He said the knife is worth more than the coin. He said to bring it home and put it on the board and let the hall decide. He said if the hall wanted a coin he would come and get it. And he said I was to tell the keeper that the smith remembers the old woman's hands, and that he would rather owe her hands than pay her coin. I did not know what he meant. I said yes to everything he said. I have brought the knife. I have not brought the coin. I am sorry." Kessin took the knife from the case and turned it in the last of the light. It was long and dark and had been made by a hand that had been steady for thirty years. She ran her thumb along the edge and found it dull. "Show me the steel," she said. "It is in the case." He put it out and she took the steel and drew the knife along it, six times, then six more, and the edge came out with a sound like a man clearing his throat, and she put the point down on the iron of the wheel and the wheel rang. "There is the coin," said Kessin. "It is not the coin," said Peth. "It is the coin." She put the knife in the case and gave it to him, and took the bread from the shelf, which was Turrel's bread, and gave him that, and took a coin from the chest of drawers, which was the coin she had paid Turrel for the first bread, and gave him that, and gave him his card back. "Tomorrow the lane. Five o'clock. Do not be late." He took the bread and the coin and the card and went out through the gate. The donkey watched him and did not say anything. Kessin watched the donkey watch him and thought about the ledger she would have to write. Turrel came in at ten with a lamp and a cloth and a look that said the night would be long, and she saw the line Kessin had set down, and she did not say anything, and she put the bread on the shelf and lit the lamp and went to the stove and put the coffee on. Kessin drank the coffee. It was hot and bitter and made by a woman who had been making it for forty years. "The boy did not bring the coin," she said. "He did not," said Turrel. "He brought the knife." "I saw the knife." "I have taken it as the fare." "You have taken it as the fare." Turrel sat down at the table and put both her hands flat on it and looked at the line. "Then you have learned something." "What have I learned." "You have learned that the fare is not always a coin." Her finger went down the line and came back up. "The hall takes in work. It takes in a dull edge and four corners of a lane and a night of watching and a wagon guarded at the right place. It gives out bread and a coin and supper and a bed and a name on a board. It gives out what it has taken in. That is all it does, and it is all it has ever done, and the old woman did it that way, and the man before her did it that way, and the third keeper who tried to make it ask for coin lost the hall, and the fourth who tried to make it pay coin lost the hall." "Then I will give out the knife," said Kessin. "The smith keeps his knife. He gave it to me." "No," said Turrel. "You give it back to the boy. The boy is the one who carried it. The fare is on his card, and the card is on the board, and the board is the hall. You do not put the knife on the ledger. You put the knife on the boy." "Then I will put the knife on the boy," said Kessin. "Yes," said Turrel. "And you will put the boy on the board, and the boy will be the second name on the board, and the smith the third, and the miller the fourth, and you, my lady, the fifth, and Turrel the sixth, and there will be a seventh, and the seventh will be blank until the hall gives out a seventh name." "I will write it," said Kessin. "You will write it," said Turrel. "And tomorrow the boy will walk the lane, and you will walk with him, and you will not teach him, and you will not correct him, and you will walk beside him, and that is the whole of the morning. If you do that he will learn, and if you do not he will not." Kessin wrote the line, then a line under it, then a line under that, and sat with the lamp and the bread and the coffee, and the boy was gone, and the smith had a dull knife back on his bench, and the coin was in her pocket, and the board had three cards on it, and the road behind her was two miles long and empty, and the hall had taken in its first fare of the season. ---