Chestnut Shavings and Orange-Blossom Steam

For three full days and three full nights, the Bend Teahouse knew neither rest nor silence. Julián fitted new tie-beams of sessile oak into the main roof trusses, securing each half-lap joint with black-acacia pegs he shaped himself with an axe under the shed. Rosalía, in a work apron, her hands stained with virgin beeswax and purified linseed varnish, cleaned the leaded windows one by one until the whole landscape of the bend, with its weeping willows and clear water, came back into the room like a living picture breathing with the afternoon light.

By dusk on the third day, the terracotta floor was covered in a thick, fragrant carpet of curled chestnut shavings that crunched pleasantly under their work boots. Rosalía put fresh water from the upper spring to boil in a big brass kettle and made a pot full of wild orange blossom, blackberry leaves and green tea, carrying two steaming bowls to the long bench where Julián was carefully honing his chisel on an oilstone.

"Take a proper break, Julián," she said gently, sitting at the end of the plank and holding out the steaming bowl. "You've been ten hours without letting go of that jointer plane, and your fingers are as stiff as dry winter vine shoots."

Julián set the tool down on the oiled rag, wiped his hands on his leather apron and took the hot cup. The fragrant, flowery steam brushed his face, weathered by wind and the sun of the shipyards.

"The main beam of the veranda was completely rotten inside from the leaks under the eaves, Rosalía," he said quietly, looking up at the ceiling, where the new oak joint gleamed gold as honey. "If we hadn't opened it up and reinforced it in time, the whole structure would have come down into the water the moment ten people leaned on the railing."

Rosalía took a long sip of tea and felt the warmth of the orange blossom clear away the weariness of the hours of cleaning. She looked at the golden shavings on the floor and then at the new oak joint, clean and solid, shaped by Julián's hands.

"Planing a rotten beam is like forgiving: it takes effort and dirties the floor, but it leaves the wood ready for another hundred years."

Julián raised his eyes slowly and let them rest on hers. There was no irony in his face, only an undefended seriousness that suddenly reminded Rosalía of the boy he had been six winters before.

"I lied to you the first day, and the cup knew it before you did," he said. "I didn't leave for shipyard wages, Rosalía. I left because my father told me at the forge that a carpenter without a workshop of his own had no right to ask for the hand of a Morán niece. I thought, with a boy's pride, that if I came back with my saddlebags full of silver I'd have something worthy to offer you before the council."

"You're a stubborn idiot with golden hands, Julián Valls," she answered, and a warm tear slid down her cheek before she could stop it. "I never wanted your silver coins or your guild titles. I wanted the boy who waited for me every Sunday afternoon by the waterwheel with baked apples in his coat pocket."

Julián wiped the tear away with the pad of his thumb, very slowly. His fingers smelled of pine resin and living wood.

"That boy hasn't gone anywhere, Rosalía. And this teahouse will never close as long as I have breath left in my lungs to swing an axe."

Close to midnight, after setting the last acacia peg in the main truss, Julián climbed down from the scaffolding and sat on the floor beside Rosalía. She took from her travelling bag a loaf of rye that Elena had given her in Molino Claro and a piece of goat's cheese, and broke it in two. They ate in silence, listening to the water under the stilts of the house. It had been six winters since they last shared a table, and neither of them could remember any more why it had been so important not to.

Before falling asleep, Rosalía counted on her fingers the letters she had sent upriver and downriver: to her cousin Elena's mill, to the bell-ringers of Altasierra, to the apothecary in Puente Viejo and to the bargemen of Puerto Sauces. Four guilds and her own: five witnesses, five cups. Not one had answered by that night. There were three days left until the new moon, and on the council's quay they had already put up the first coal cranes.