The wind came down from the top of the wall, steady and sharp.
Beorn had been standing in it long enough that the cold had faded into background noise. What mattered now was the test.
He raised the crossbow and pulled the draw back.
The mechanism moved smoothly through the entire motion, from rest to full tension without catching. That was good. A consistent pull meant the parts had seated correctly, at least in this unit.
He held it there a moment, evaluating the balance through his grip. The stock rested firmly against his shoulder.
He lined the sight along the straw frame propped against the far wall, exhaled slowly to steady his aim, and fired.
The bolt struck the center of the frame.
He lowered the crossbow and observed the impact point, then turned the weapon slowly in his hands.
The stock was fitted timber, molded to a uniform pattern using the jig. That ensured repeatability.
The limbs were cast iron, which were heavier than wood, and more demanding to produce, but they solved a different problem. Cast limbs meant identical curvature from the same mold.
A wooden bow depended on the judgment of whichever smith worked on it that morning. This eliminated that variable. The draw force should remain consistent from one unit to the next.
That had always been the goal.
"Ledger," he said.
Tam stepped forward from the wall where she had been standing with the bolts and the ledger held together against her chest.
She handed both across without speaking.
She had said almost nothing all morning, which was typical for her. But something about the way she moved had caught his attention twice already. He had noticed it, though he had not yet decided what it meant.
He opened the ledger and wrote along the margin.
Then he added a note about the balance point. Slightly forward of where he preferred it. The iron limbs added front weight compared to a wooden bow.
He marked it with a question, indicating the next step. Test accuracy at distance before deciding whether it was a real problem.
He handed the ledger back and picked up the second crossbow.
This one pulled harder. A measurable difference from the first unit, and both had come from the same batch.
That ruled out the jig as the primary cause.
He drew the string again. Then a second time. Slowly, paying attention to where the resistance appeared in the motion.
"Assembly," he muttered, rotating the mechanism slightly in his hands.
"The jig casts the components to spec," he said. "But the assembly is still done by hand."
He turned the crossbow slightly, examining the joint where the mechanism seated.
"Whoever puts the pieces together isn't following a proper work routine"
He pulled the string once more.
"The result is variation in draw weight."
He measured the tension again through the pull.
"These two differ by roughly ten percent," he said. "Across the full batch, the spread could be worse."
He called out for Tam.
"Write that down. Assembly sequence needs to be standardized the same way the jig is."
He paused, considering the wording.
"Every step performed in the same order so the parts seat the same way every time."
She shifted the ledger against her arm, found the line he meant, and began writing.
Her hand moved steadily across the page.
Something else caught his attention.
She looked pale.
She had been pale earlier when she arrived in the courtyard that morning. He had noticed it then and continued working.
Seeing it again now made it harder to ignore.
He set the thought aside for the moment and picked up the third crossbow.
The bolts presented a separate issue.
He loaded four and fired them into the straw frame from close range. The grouping was tight, exactly where it should be. Good baseline performance.
Then he stepped farther back and repeated the test with another four bolts.
This time the grouping shifted slightly to the right.
At short range that amount of drift meant nothing. At distance it would reduce accuracy enough to matter.
He walked over to the frame, pulled one bolt free, and turned it in his hand.
The fletching was slightly too long.
The difference was small, but small differences compounded over distance. The extra length acted like a rudder in flight and pushed the bolt off axis by a degree or two.
Every bolt in the batch matched because they had been cut from the same template.
Which meant the template was the actual problem.
"How difficult is it to adjust the template compared to a crossbow jig?" he said, mostly thinking out loud.
"I wouldn't know," Tam said.
"No, I mean whether it's the kind of change Wynn could turn around in a day, or whether it would take a week."
He rotated the bolt again, checking the cut of the feathers.
"The fletching length is only off by a few lines."
"I really wouldn't know," she said.
Then she added, as if clarification might matter, "I've never been inside a foundry."
He looked at her more carefully. She was doing the job as instructed.
But her eyes looked dull, as if her attention sat somewhere deeper than the surface.
During his fourth shot she had set the ledger down on the ground and left it there a moment longer than she should have before picking it up again.
"Are you alright," he said.
"Yes, my lord."
The response came quickly, almost automatic.
He watched her for a moment without speaking.
"You look ill," he said.
She opened her mouth to answer.
"Go home," he said. "Take the morning. Take the afternoon as well."
She started to object. He continued before she could.
"Yes, you do. You're fourteen, and you look like you haven't slept in two days."
He gestured lightly toward the gate.
"Take the rest of the day. Tell your sister."
Tam closed her mouth again.
Her eyes moved over the equipment still laid out in the courtyard. Her thoughts were obvious in her face. Leaving meant abandoning work she would be paid for.
"Come back when you're better," he said. "The bolts will still need counting."
She set the ledger and bolts down with more care than the moment required.
Then she said, "Thank you," and walked toward the gate.
He watched her leave.
Something about the way she moved bothered him.
He turned back to the bolt still in his hand.
The fletching problem was a minor fix.
The assembly sequencing issue would take a few days of standardization work in Wynn's workshop before the next batch improved.
The balance point still required testing at longer range before he could draw a conclusion.
He picked up the ledger where Tam had left it.
Aestrith would be in the foundry that afternoon.
The mold question from the last pour still had not been answered, and he preferred to observe the next run directly rather than wait for a written report.
He could address both problems in the same visit.
He tucked the ledger under his arm and stood in the courtyard a moment longer.
His thoughts returned to the way Tam had placed her feet on the stone.