Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 8
1
The manor house of Salt Inspector Castor lay across the
top of the hill like a sleeping cat. Its ivied walls had never
been attacked; the towers that rose behind them had softened
their edges over the centuries, and become home to lichen and
birds’ nests. Next to his parents, this place was the greatest
constant in Jordan Mason’s life, and his second-earliest
memory was of sitting under its walls, watching his father
work.
On a limpid morning in early autumn, he found himself
eight meters above a reflecting pool, balanced precariously on
the edge of a scaffold and staring through a hole in the curtain
wall, that hadn’t been there last week. Jordan traced a seam of
mortar with his finger; it was dark and grainy, the same
consistency as that used by an ancestor of his to repair the
rectory after a lightning storm, two hundred years ago. If Tyler
Mason was the last to have patched here, that meant this part of
the wall was overdue for some work.
"It looks bad!" he shouted down to his men. Their faces
were an arc of sunburnt ovals from this perspective. "But I
think we’ve got enough for the job."
Jordan began to climb down to them. His heart was
pounding, but not because of the height. Until a week ago, he
had been the most junior member of the work gang. Any of the
laborers could order him around, and they all did, often with