The potter had obeyed half her instructions.
His mule’s ears were free. Its head was tied so high to a post that it could neither lower its nose nor turn away from the yard entrance.
Ysabet stopped outside the gate.
“I said you didn’t need to prepare him.”
“He bites people who come through.”
The mule showed her his teeth.
“I see that.”
“There. You’re seeing it already.”
The potter stood beside a cart loaded with unfired storage jars, each nestled in straw. Clay dust whitened his apron and the hair on his forearms. He had sent an apprentice home early so that Ysabet would not have to work with an audience. She appreciated the thought. She would have appreciated it more without the rope.
“Let him lower his head.”
“He’ll bite the knot.”
“Then start at this end.”
She pointed to the post. He unwound the rope until its loop slipped free. The mule dropped his nose at once and stood breathing hard, his ears moving separately.
Ysabet remained outside.
She had been thinking about Pip all the way to the pottery. Mara was in the yard; the mouse had eaten; the enclosure had a proper lower board. It was not reasonable to imagine a fresh catastrophe each time a bell rang somewhere in town.
Now there was a mule in front of her who deserved her whole attention.
“What’s his name?”
“Soot.”
“How long has he been doing this?”
“Always had opinions.”
“Biting at people entering the yard.”
The potter rubbed his chin. “A month. Less, maybe.”
“Same people?”
“Anyone. My apprentice. My brother. Me, last week.”
“What happened last week?”
“He bit me.”
Ysabet looked at him.
“Before,” she said.
“I was getting the harness on.”
Soot’s left ear turned toward them. His tail switched once. The rope hung loose, but he did not move to the far end of it. He stood with his right shoulder close to the cart’s shaft.
“Can you lead him into the open?”
The potter took a careful step and raised his hand. Soot snapped at it before it reached his cheek.
“That’s the sort of thing.”
“I gathered.”
Ysabet went through the gate with her shoulder toward the mule. His head followed her. She stopped by the water barrel, where she could see him without coming within reach of his teeth.
The right shaft of the cart pressed his shoulder even though he was not harnessed. A padded strap lay across the cart’s front board, one edge rubbed dark and smooth.
“Back the cart a little.”
“It’s not attached to him.”
“It is touching him.”
The potter set both hands against the load. The cart shifted backward with a low scrape. Soot moved away so quickly that the man nearly fell over the shaft.
Ysabet caught the near end before it struck the post. Her right fingers closed badly around the wood; pain traveled up her wrist. She transferred the weight to her left arm.
The cart leaned.
“Put a block there,” she said. “Under the axle. No, the other side.”
By the time they had it supported, the potter was sweating. Three jars had tipped in their straw nests. None had broken.
Soot stood at the far end of his rope, head low, looking perfectly willing to bite somebody who came to ask what the fuss had been about.
Ysabet examined the cart.
The left wheel had been repaired. New spokes met a hub that sat closer to the frame than the one on the right. The wheel itself was sound enough to her eye. The axle bedding, packed with fresh wedges, was holding the loaded cart at a slope.
“Who worked on this?”
“My brother.”
“Last month?”
He looked from the wheel to the mule.
“It rolls.”
“Unevenly.”
“Road’s uneven.”
She lifted the padded strap from the board. One underside seam had worn almost through. Along that edge, the stuffing was compressed into a hard ridge.
“Which side do you load first?”
He pointed without speaking.
She put the harness down and went to Soot. This time he watched her hands rather than her face. She stopped out of reach and waited until his head lowered again. Then she offered the back of her left wrist, keeping her fingers clear.
He sniffed it. His upper lip moved, searching for something she did not have.
When she touched his neck, the skin twitched. Lower down, along the line where the strap lay, he moved away before she pressed. She followed for half a step, saw his ears flatten, and stopped.
He stayed where he was.
The hair beneath his right shoulder was dull and rubbed short. No open wound. Enough tenderness to make her own shoulder tighten in sympathy.
“Your cart needs a wheelwright,” she said.
The potter’s expression closed.
“My brother fixes carts.”
“Then ask him to look at it loaded. And replace this padding before you put it back on.”
“That’s it?”
“I’ll check his feet and the rest of the fit. But I won’t have him pull that today.”
“The jars are for the north kiln.”
She glanced at the pale rows of vessels. A few had begun to dry lighter around the rims. They needed firing, and the potter needed the space beneath them. Behind him, another batch waited under cloth.
“Can the kiln take them tomorrow?”
“It fires tonight.”
For a moment neither said anything.
Ysabet had come for an animal examination, not to decide which part of a potter’s income he should lose. She could not fix the wheel. She could tell him what she had found and leave him with the choice.
“The handcart outside,” she said. “Could you move some of them in that?”
“Three trips.”
“With help?”
“Still three trips.”
He stared at Soot. The mule had found a dry leaf lodged against the wall and was working it free with his lip.
“My brother owes me a favor,” the potter said at last.
“Does he know?”
“He’s about to.”
The rest took longer than Ysabet expected. Soot did not immediately revise his opinion of people holding harness straps. She checked his feet one at a time, with pauses to let him put them down. The left hind hoof needed attention from the farrier; she marked its uneven edge with a little chalk and showed the potter where to look. She could not see a reason to cut it herself.
They replaced the hard padding with folded felt and stitched a temporary cover over the ridge. Ysabet’s iron needle caught in the fabric. She tried to pull it through, felt it bend, and stopped.
In her mind she could see the long, polished shank of the needle Darr had handed away.
“Pliers?” she asked.
The potter fetched them.
She drew the cheap needle through with the pliers, straightened it as well as she could, and finished the seam. It would serve until the proper repair. The potter took the harness and put it on a high peg, away from Soot.
“Clean the skin with plain water,” she told him. “Let it dry. If he gets worse without this touching him, send for me.”
He nodded. Then he fetched her sack.
It held clean clay trimmings wrapped in a damp cloth, less gritty than the brick Pip had been eating. Beside the door he had put two more empty sacks for future scraps.
“That enough?”
“For the examination.”
“And the sewing?”
“You lent me the pliers.”
He smiled a little, then went to see whether his brother was at home.
Ysabet remained long enough to see Soot drink. When the potter returned carrying a small wooden block, the mule watched him approach and did not move. The man set the block under the cart’s other side. He kept his hands away from Soot’s face.
It was a useful beginning. Ysabet gathered her sack before she could turn it into another unpaid afternoon.
Outside, the road was warm enough to soften the dried mud on her boots. The sack dragged at her left arm. She shifted it against her hip, feeling its considerable weight with some resentment. Winter money ought to be easier to carry than clay.
At the bathhouse gate she heard Mara arguing.
“You have a whole basket,” Mara said. “A whole perfectly good basket.”
Ysabet opened the gate.
The mouse was asleep in Pip’s pouch. Pip occupied the basket.
Mara pointed at both of them.
“That’s how the afternoon’s gone.”