Chapter 171 - 117 : Year 25 - 31 Mind Of A Great Artisan

Chapter 171: Chapter 117 : Year 25 - 31 Mind Of A Great Artisan

That interest became most noticeable whenever servants or workers came to the castle to repair or replace something. The boy would linger nearby, watching their hands as they worked and asking what each part was meant to do. Sometimes an explanation satisfied him, and he returned to whatever had occupied him before.

At other times, he would come back later to observe the work again, quietly checking whether what he had been told matched what he saw. He rarely demanded much attention, so people often failed to notice how closely he had been following their work until he asked a question that revealed he had watched the entire process from beginning to end.

Recognizing that his son’s curiosity was more than a passing interest, Lucian began looking for a master craftsman who could teach him properly. He wanted someone whose skill had been tested over many years, a man respected for the quality of his work and capable of teaching more than the repair of ordinary household objects. After making inquiries among his officials, Lucian found an experienced travelling craftsman whose work took him through the towns, villages, and settlements of Veymont territory.

The man specialised in building and repairing the machines on which ordinary life depended. He understood waterwheels, gears, winches, lifting frames, and the devices used to raise ore from mines. Years of work had taught him how wood and iron behaved under strain, how moving parts could be made to work together, and how to direct force where it was needed.

Though his hair had turned grey and age had left lines across his face, he remained broad-shouldered and strong enough to handle the demands of his trade.

His skill, however, was not the only reason Lucian considered him suitable. The craftsman had spent decades travelling between towns, villages, and settlements, earning the trust of those who employed him.

He was known for keeping his word, charging fairly, and refusing to pass off poor work as good merely to please a customer. More importantly, he was patient with those who knew less than he did. He would explain a mistake rather than humiliate the person who made it, but he expected anyone learning from him to listen carefully and take the work seriously.

Several of House Veymont’s officials had dealt with him over the years and could speak to both his character and his ability. Lucian made his own inquiries before entrusting his young son to the man’s guidance.

Lucian valued these qualities as much as the man’s skill. His son would spend long hours beside the craftsman, observing not only how he worked but also how he treated others, kept his word, and conducted himself when things did not go as planned.

The Veymonts placed great importance on character, believing that a person could shape a child’s understanding of the world as much through his example as through his teachings. Lucian therefore wanted his son to learn from a man whose conduct was worth emulating, someone who could pass on more than the knowledge of a craft.

The craftsman’s work also carried possibilities beyond ordinary repairs. The same knowledge that kept mill wheels turning and lifted ore from deep shafts could, in skilled hands, be applied to the construction of stronger fortifications, more efficient lifting devices, and machines for military use.

Lucian did not choose the man with any particular future in mind for his son. He simply wanted the boy to learn from someone who understood his trade thoroughly and could be trusted to guide him well. He therefore arranged for his son to apprentice under the craftsman, accompanying him on his journeys through Veymont territory and learning first by watching, then by gradually taking up the tools himself.

Lucy supported the decision, but the thought of their young son travelling beyond the castle troubled her. Their eldest had begun accompanying his father on certain duties, but he had never been away from the household in quite the same way.

Though the territory was safer than it had been in the years immediately after the war, yet danger remained on the roads and in the forests between settlements. Lucian understood her concern and arranged for a small escort of trusted, capable retainers to accompany the boy and his master.

They would protect them on their journeys and ensure that the boy’s training remained suited to his age, rather than allowing the demands of the craftsman’s work to become a burden he was too young to bear. The family’s agents would also keep track of their movements and report any trouble that might require the Count’s attention.

With those precautions in place, Lucy accepted the arrangement, though her concern did not simply disappear. She wanted their son to have every opportunity to discover what he could become, but he was still a child, and no amount of preparation could make a mother stop worrying when her child began spending long periods away from home.

She and Lucian agreed that he would continue his martial lessons as well. His limited aptitude did not make physical training worthless; it would strengthen his body and give him some means of defending himself. There was no need, however, to force him to pursue the same path as his elder brother when another interest had begun to take root.

For now, they would let him learn. Neither parent could yet know where that curiosity would lead, but the knowledge he was beginning to acquire was not limited to the repair of carts, mills, and farm tools. The principles behind such work could be applied to far greater things, given the right mind, experience, and opportunity.

At first, travelling with the craftsman was not as easy as the boy’s curiosity had led him to imagine.

The journeys brought new sights and places to explore, but they also took him away from everything familiar. He missed his mother, the company of his elder brother and younger siblings, and the comfort of the castle, where he had always known what to expect and rarely needed to worry about his daily needs.

Now he had to keep pace on long roads, help carry tools and lighter materials, and spend hours on his feet. Evenings in unfamiliar lodgings could feel especially strange after a tiring day. The guards offered protection, and the craftsman gradually became a familiar presence, but neither could replace the family he had left behind. Being quiet by nature, the boy seldom spoke of how much he missed them.

Sometimes, however, when the day’s excitement had faded, he found himself thinking about home and wondering when he would see them again.

Adjusting took time.

He grew accustomed to the demands of travelling, learned to manage his belongings, and became more comfortable staying in places far removed from the rooms and people he knew. The work could leave him tired, and there were days when he would have preferred the ease of his old life, but his curiosity gave him a reason to keep going.

Each journey brought something new to observe, and each visit offered another chance to understand things he had previously seen only from a distance. Little by little, the unfamiliar became less daunting. He still missed his family, but he was beginning to find his own place in a world that extended far beyond the castle.

As the years passed, the boy grew more familiar with the craftsman’s work. He learned to measure timber, examine worn gears, judge whether a damaged wheel could be repaired, and understand why certain materials were better suited to one task than another. At mills, he watched how the turning wheels worked together, while visits to mines showed him how winches and lifting frames could raise loads too heavy for a man to move alone.

He rarely interrupted the craftsman with questions, preferring to watch until he had gathered enough understanding to ask something specific. Sometimes, he would remain beside a half-finished piece of work long after the explanation was over, studying it from different angles as though trying to see the thought that had gone into its construction.

The craftsman gradually allowed him to help with simpler tasks, though the boy soon discovered that understanding a design was far easier than bringing it to life with his own hands.

His measurements were not always precise, and his fingers lacked the strength and control needed for more demanding work. When a piece failed to fit as he expected, he would grow quiet and examine the mistake rather than immediately ask for help. The craftsman taught him to correct his work patiently, reminding him that even a sound idea could be ruined by careless execution.

The boy took those lessons seriously. Given a task, he could remain absorbed in it for so long that he sometimes needed to be reminded to eat or rest.

It was not long before he began filling spare sheets with sketches of his own ideas. At first, they were rough drawings of familiar objects, altered in small ways he thought might make them work better.

Later, he started combining things he had observed in different places, trying to imagine whether a lifting frame could be improved or whether the moving parts of a machine could be arranged more efficiently.

Some of his ideas were impractical, and others showed how much he still had to learn. Yet every so often, a drawing made the craftsman pause. The boy had noticed a weakness in a familiar design or arrived at a useful solution through reasoning that seemed unusually natural for someone his age.

When materials were available and the idea was simple enough, his master sometimes helped him make a crude model so they could see whether it worked.

Those moments gradually changed how the craftsman regarded his young apprentice. The boy did not yet possess the hands of a skilled artisan, and his small stature limited what he could manage himself, but his mind often reached beyond the work he was currently capable of performing.

He noticed relationships between parts that others might accept without question, and he was willing to reconsider an arrangement simply because he wondered whether it could be improved. The craftsman knew that clever ideas alone did not make a great artisan. Patience, experience, and years of practice were needed to turn an idea into something reliable.

Even so, he began to suspect that his apprentice’s greatest limitation was not a lack of ability, but the time and training required for his hands to catch up with his thoughts.

His martial lessons, meanwhile, revealed a rather different side of him. The retainers entrusted with his protection also oversaw his physical training, gradually teaching him balance, coordination, endurance, and the basic movements he would need when he was old enough for more demanding instruction.

The family provided whatever equipment and supplies they required, while the retainers sent regular reports through the household’s agents. They took their duty seriously, but keeping the boy engaged proved more difficult than keeping him safe. He could spend hours absorbed in a drawing or a half-finished model, yet his attention seemed to wander the moment his martial exercises began.

On one occasion, he even hid to avoid a training session, forcing the retainers to search for him before they could bring him back. The incident became an amusing reminder that a child capable of remarkable concentration in one pursuit could show very little enthusiasm for another.

Lucian and Lucy allowed him to continue along both paths. His martial training remained important, strengthening his body and teaching him discipline even if he never advanced far, while his apprenticeship gave him room to develop an interest that seemed to come naturally to him.

For the boy, however, the difference between the two was already clear. He endured his martial exercises because they were expected of him, but when he encountered a machine he did not understand or an idea he wanted to test, a quiet excitement came alive in his eyes.

He would return to it willingly, often without needing anyone to remind him, eager to discover whether the thing he had imagined could actually be made to work. He was still young, with much to learn and little ability to put his more ambitious thoughts into practice.

But beneath his shy manner, a mind was beginning to take shape that was never content simply to accept how things were when it could search for how they might be made better.