The Wheelwright's Apprentice

3

3

Wilson was extremely quiet for the whole of the next day. He was wrestling with the fact that he seemed to have caused the cart to mend, break and mend again. It was a lot for his young mind to handle, and it wasn’t really something he felt he could talk to the carter about. He felt alone and confused. He had no explanation, and was very happy when the carter stopped for the night at the next inn.The carter again offered him the cart to sleep in, and he now knew why the carter had extended this courtesy. He accepted, as he didn’t want to tell the carter what had happened. This night thankfully was uneventful, but he had to part company with the carter after an hour or so the following morning, as that was when their paths separated. Holding his thin pack, Wilson waved goodbye to the carter and started on his lonely trek towards Horseford.

It was a long hard lonely walk. He saw no one except a farmer with a wagonload of turnips going the other way. “That’s what life is all about, turnips,” he thought. Then his thoughts changed focus and he remembered the cart. “If I can fix carts, can I do anything else?” That was the unbidden idea that filled his mind. He trudged metronomically down the road, lost in his thoughts. “Perhaps I can try something, but what?” He walked along through an essentially flat and featureless landscape wondering, “What?” Later on that day, as he got close to Horseford, he saw more signs of farming, and people began to be in evidence on the road.

Horseford was a much larger place than Wilson could have imagined. There were houses with four floors, and the market square was so big he was amazed. He had of course traveled very little, so he wandered about the town in a daze until he noticed a sign saying ‘Constable’. Wilson knocked on the door, and a man much older than the Constable of Joman’s Crossing came to the door. He looked very fearsome, with a full black beard and a cudgel that was long and thin hanging from his waist. Wilson took an involuntary step backwards and asked, “A...are you the Constable?”

The man gave a gruff laugh, and replied, “Well I am a Constable, but here in Horseford we have a Sergeant, so I guess you want to see the Sergeant. Come on in and sit down.” Wilson was shown into a hall with a bench on each side. He sat down to wait.

Some few minutes later, another man came along, and said, “Follow me.” Wilson was led into another room where a man, not in uniform, was seated.

“I understand you want to see me?” the man asked.

“Yes. I have been tasked by the Constable of Joman’s Crossing to deliver a letter to the Count. I was hoping to get directions from you.”

“Fine, I am the Sergeant here, give me the letter.”

Wilson fished out the letter from where he had been keeping it, and told the Sergeant, “Delivering it is my job!”

The Sergeant smiled back, and said, “That’s as may be, but it is also my job to look at any letters in case they get lost.” The Sergeant opened the letter and started to read. He took his time, and after a few grunts he looked up.

“You were the only survivor of a raid on Dane’s Hamlet?” Wilson nodded. “You must have been very lucky.”

Wilson looked down, and said, “I guess so. I was terrified.” The Sergeant grunted again. “This is important news. You can come with me tomorrow to make sure it gets delivered. Meanwhile you look like you could use dinner, bath and a bed. One of the Constables will arrange it.” Wilson was dismissed.

Very early the next morning, he was awoken by the gruff Constable who was shaking him quite hard. “You don’t have to do it that hard,” Wilson moaned.

“Yes I did, you didn’t want to wake up! Breakfast will be in ten minutes, be ready.”

He dragged his face to a basin and washed himself fully awake in ice cold water. Outside it was still pitch black. He eked out a crooked smile and thought, “At least I am alive, things will improve eventually.” That was a thought that didn’t past last the revelation that he was to ride a horse, something he had never done before. The cold breakfast that followed, although filling, did nothing to lift his already depressed spirits.

Two hours later, Wilson found out that things tend to get a lot worse before they get better. He was in agony. His thighs were on fire, and his backside was totally numb. Pride, and the fact that he had acquired a certain dislike for walking long distances, were the only things that kept him on the horse. After enduring another half hour of agony, Wilson was mightily relieved when the Sergeant called a halt by a small stream.

“Ten minute rest stop,” the Sergeant called out. “Let the horses drink and rest.”

It was not easy for him to dismount. In the end, the Sergeant helped him off, as the pain was so bad. Once he could stand, Wilson dutifully led his horse to the stream, and waited while it drank its fill. He then tethered his horse by the Sergeant’s, and collapsed on the ground.

“D’you think you’ll be able to get up from there?” The Sergeant quipped dryly. Wilson didn’t reply. He was happy just to be temporarily pain free. He wasn’t worried that it wouldn’t last. The respite was enough.

Getting back onto the horse was as bad as he could have anticipated. The Sergeant had to virtually lift him up. His muscles screamed with protest, but he soon found himself alive and astride. He couldn’t speak as they rode on. It was only moments of agony before he was fervently wishing that the pain would stop. Suddenly it did. It was as if it was a new day. Suddenly he could see the scenery, he could hear the birds singing, and he could find a rhythm in the horse’s movement that was soothing.

“What did I do this time?” he asked himself. “I wished the pain away, and it went. Thank you this ability of mine!” His horse had simply been following the Sergeant’s, but now that he was feeling a bit better he urged it forward to be alongside.

The Sergeant grunted, and said, “About bloody time, I expect you’re feeling a whole lot better.”

Wilson smiled and replied, “Yes, thank you. I seem to have the hang of it at last.”

The Sergeant muttered under his breath, “I’ll bet you have!” Then more loudly, “Do you think you could go a bit faster now?”

Wilson said he could, so they started a routine of canter, walk, and trot that ate up the miles a lot faster than just a walk. At midday, the Sergeant called another halt by a river crossing. Wilson dismounted easily this time, and was in a good mood.

“Come and sit over here, and have lunch.” The Sergeant offered, once the horses had been looked after. It was obviously a popular stopping place as there were a few rough and ready stools and a table. Eating their rations was done in relative comfort.

The Sergeant looked at Wilson, and said, “You’ve just had a very interesting couple of days, haven’t you.”

Wilson looked at the Sergeant in shock. “I wouldn’t call seeing almost everyone I knew in the world, including my mother, killed, as ‘Interesting’.” Wilson said indignantly.

The Sergeant laughed. “I meant, since that happened. You have to be wondering what has happened to you. Well, aren’t you?”

Wilson looked down. “I suppose so.”

“Do you know what the Constables do?” the Sergeant asked.

Wilson shrugged. “Keep the peace I suppose, help the country run smoothly.”

“We do all that of course, but we also have another task for which we are very well trained.”

“And that is...?”

“Looking out for people like you.”

Wilson stood up, “People like me?”

“Yep, people just like you. People who have the Will.”

“What’s that?” Wilson asked, at last realizing that he is getting some useful information about how the world worked, and how he in particular was going to manage.

“That, sonny boy, is how you stopped the pain in your legs and bum. I deliberately gave you the most uncomfortable saddle I could find, as I wanted you to be in agony before our first stop. I needed you to cure yourself real early, as we had a long way to go, and we couldn’t trot or canter until you had.”

Wilson turned white. “How did you know I could? I didn’t even know I could.”

“Look boy. You were the only survivor of a m******e of over six hundred men, women and children. How did you do that? By being lucky? No, by having the Will. What did you wish for? Invisibility? That they stayed away from your hiding place? That they simply went somewhere else? They all would have done the job! You just had to be terrified enough that your ability to use the Will would kick in.” He tapped the pocket containing the letter. “All in this letter you know! Now another aspect of our job is that whenever we come across anyone who has use of the Will, we have to take them to the Count. Can’t have boys like you running around untrained doing all sorts of stupid and foolish things, can we?”

Wilson stuttered, “I s-s-suppose not.”

“That’s right kid, you need training to use what you have without killing yourself, or more importantly, other people! Fortunately that’s someone else’s problem. Mine is to get you to the Count. You do realize that the package you were carrying was never the letter, but you yourself!” The Sergeant laughed.

Hours later, a huge, almost featureless fort came into view. It seemed very forbidding and spare. From a distance, and Wilson believed that they were still over two miles away, the only sign of life was a flag of indeterminate pattern flying from a lone flagstaff above what he later found out was the front gate.