Memory Read Online Free PDF

because he’d lost his way in the woods. ‘How soon do you think you can spare someone?’ he asked.
    â€˜Difficult to say,’ Basano replied. ‘Four should be burnt out to blue in four or five days’ time, but by then we’ll have fired up two again, unless it rains, in which case we’ll need all hands to rake out four before the whole lot spoils; and three’ll be ready for sifting and bagging up some time in the next week.’
    â€˜Oh,’ Poldarn said. ‘No offence, but you make it sound like I’m going to be here for the rest of my life.’
    Basano frowned at him. ‘Don’t talk soft,’ he said. ‘For a start, we’ll be sending three wagons down the road before the end of the month. You could hitch a ride with them, then get the post back to Scieza, it’s only a couple of days.’ He looked up, sniffed, and disappeared back into the lodge, emerging a moment later with a frying pan in his hand. ‘Sure you don’t want some?’ he said. ‘Fried oatcakes and wood mushrooms. Speciality of the camp.’
    Poldarn was about to ask what wood mushrooms were; but then he caught sight of the strange black objects in the pan, carbonised versions of the repulsive-looking growths he’d seen on the boles of rotten ash trees. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘I don’t usually eat breakfast. Indigestion.’
    â€˜Ah,’ Basano replied. ‘Know what you mean.’ He stabbed one of the charred fungi with the point of his rusty knife, and Poldarn looked away. ‘Alternatively,’ Basano continued, ‘you could stay here till the new moon and catch the Chestnut Day party. Well worth hanging on for, that is.’
    â€˜Oh? What’s Chestnut Day?’
    Basano shrugged. ‘Once a year, we all give each other a bag of chestnuts. It’s a tradition,’ he explained, ‘very old, very important in the collier community. Actually, it’s just an excuse for a really good piss-up. And at midnight, we roast the chestnuts in the embers of Number Two and sing songs and stuff.’
    Poldarn invented a smile from somewhere. ‘Sounds really good,’ he said. ‘But I really had better be getting back, or else they’ll start getting antsy and sign up for their charcoal with someone else.’
    Basano pulled a face. ‘Impatient lot, you are,’ he said. ‘Well, in that case you’d better go off with the wagons.’ He paused, as if he’d just remembered something. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘tell you what. It’d be quicker, if you don’t mind roughing it a bit.’
    Roughing it a bit, Poldarn repeated to himself, looking at the contents of the frying pan. No, I don’t think I’d mind that terribly much. ‘No problem,’ he said.
    â€˜Well, in that case,’ Basano said with his mouth full, ‘Corvolo – you know, the old geezer you came in with – he’s going up to collect the mail; straight over the top, mind, it’s a pig of a walk, but you’ll come out on the road halfway between Iacchosia and Velny, and you can hitch a ride with the mail right into Scieza. How’d that be?’
    Poldarn nodded enthusiastically. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said. ‘When’s he leaving?’
    Basano thought for a moment. ‘Now, probably,’ he said, ‘or else he’s already gone. Come on, we’ll see if he’s still here.’
    It turned out that Poldarn wasn’t the only one going with Corvolo to get the mail; they were joined at the last moment by a tall, thin young man with short, spiky hair and an enormous burn scar on the left side of his face. He hadn’t said why he was coming with them, and Corvolo hadn’t asked. The young man hardly said a word all the way, though it could have been the steepness of the climb, which didn’t leave much spare breath for talking, or the difficulty of