It was night, and cold for the time of year.
Lu-Tze crept through the gloom of the barn, sweeping industriously. Sometimes he took a rag from the recesses of his robe and polished things.
He polished the outside of the Moving Turtle, which loomed low and menacing in the shadows.
And he swept his way toward the forge, where he watched for a while.
It takes extreme concentration to pour good steel. No wonder gods have always clustered around isolated smithies. There are so many things that can go wrong. A slight mis-mix of ingredients, a moment's lapse--
Urn, who was almost asleep on his feet, grunted as he was nudged awake and something was put in his hands.
It was a cup of tea. He looked into the little round face of Lu?Tze.
“Oh,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Nod, smile.
“Nearly done,” said Urn, more or less to himself. “Just got to let it cool now. Got to let it cool really slowly. Otherwise it crystallises, you see.”
Nod, smile, nod.
It was good tea.
“S'not 'n important cast anyway,” said Urn, swaying. "Jus' the control levers-
Lu-Tze caught him carefully and steered him to a seat on a heap of charcoal. Then he went and watched the forge for a while. The bar of steel was glowing in the mold.
He poured a bucket of cold water over it, watched the great cloud of steam spread and disperse, and then put his broom over his shoulder and ran away hurriedly.
People to whom Lu-Tze was a vaguely glimpsed figure behind a very slow broom would have been surprised at his turn of speed, especially in a man six thousand years old who ate nothing but brown rice and drank only green tea with a knob of rancid butter in it.
A little way away from the Citadel's main gates he stopped running and started sweeping. He swept up to the gates, swept around the gates themselves, nodded and smiled at a soldier who glared at him and then realized that it was only the daft old sweeper, polished one of the handles of the gates, and swept his way by passages and cloisters to Brutha's vegetable garden.
He could see a figure crouched among the melons.
Lu-Tze found a rug and padded back out into the garden, where Brutha was sitting hunched up with his hoe over his knees.
Lu-Tze had seen many agonized faces in his time, which was a longer time than most whole civilizations managed to see. Brutha's was the worst. He tugged the rug over the bishop's shoulders.
“I can't hear him,” said Brutha hoarsely. “It may mean that he's too far away. I keep on thinking that. He might be out there somewhere. Miles away!”
Lu-Tze smiled and nodded.
“It'll happen all over again. He never told anyone to do anything. Or not to do anything. He didn't care!”
Lu-Tze nodded and smiled again. His teeth were yellow. They were in fact his two-hundredth set.
“He should have cared.”
Lu-Tze disappeared into his corner again and returned with a shallow bowl full of some kind of tea. He nodded and smiled and proffered it until Brutha took it and had a sip. It tasted like hot water with a lavender bag in it.
o;And I can't get it to go backward,” he said.
“Don't worry,” said Simony. “It won't have to go backward. What about armor?”
Urn waved a distracted hand around his workshop.
“This is a village forge!” he said. “This thing is twenty feet long! Zacharos can't make plates bigger than a few feet across. I've tried nailing them on a framework, but it just collapses under the weight.”