Arvid had never worked with building stone or brick in his life. Regar handed him a chisel and hammer and showed him a rough block. “This needs to be square. I’ve made a chalk line for you. Knock off anything outside the line; don’t knock off anything inside it.”

“What if it breaks?”

Regar snorted. “It won’t, not with that chisel.”

Arvid put the chisel to the stone and hit it with the hammer. Ting. He couldn’t see that any stone had gone. Again. Ting. And again. Ting. Ting. Ting. He lifted the chisel and saw a pale line in the rock, no more.

“Slant the chisel more. Like this.” Regar had come up beside him; he put his own chisel on the mark Arvid’s had made, slanted it toward the bulge, and hit it four times quickly. Ting-ting-ting-tonk. Three little chips and a larger one flew up. “Like that,” Regar said. “A little bit at a time.” He moved off to the other men, more than an armslength away, but Arvid didn’t remind him of the Marshal’s words.

Arvid tried again. At a slant, the chisel hopped when hit, and he banged his knuckles on the stone. He kept going. His hands cramped, and his shoulders hurt.

“Good day to you,” someone said at the yard entrance. Arvid glanced aside. Invarr stood waiting, and Regar walked toward him, brushing the stone dust off his hands. The other men did not stop their work. “How is your apprentice, Regar?”

“Making a start,” Regar said. “Never used a chisel in his life, but he’s learning. I’ve had worse.”

“Good, good.”

Arvid went back to work. Now and again he had to stop and flex his hands, but the next time Regar came to see, he had a row of grooves, a total of a handspan wide, and the bulge was noticeably less. “That’s it,” Regar said. “Keep at it. After lunch we’ll take some stones to the building site and do the finish shaping there.”

By midday, Arvid had bruises and scrapes and an ache in his back to go with the ache in his shoulders, arms, and hands. Regar’s wife appeared with a large pot of beans. She went back to the house and returned with a platter piled with flat round loaves of bread. One of Regar’s workmen brought back a large pitcher of ale from the nearest inn.

They broke the loaves open and scooped up beans and shreds of goat meat. To Arvid’s surprise, the beans were tasty. A half-glass later, a wagon and team showed up—Regar must have ordered them, he realized—and Arvid helped load stone onto the wagon. The stones were just as uncooperative that way, unrelenting in their weight and bulk. Then it was off to the building site, walking alongside the wagon.