The Blacksmith

by Howe, Barbara;

  She mumbled some rubbish about me being a good lad, and pushed away from me. Freckles handed her a handkerchief, and Granny honked into it.

  Most folk get nervous when I loom over them. Freckles wasn’t even looking at me. She was watching Granny Mildred. I watched Freckles. Her eyes were some funny colour I couldn’t put a name to. Her mouth was begging for a kiss…

  Granny Mildred poked me in the ribs. “Mind your manners, sonny. Be polite to my visitor.”

  I tipped my hat. “I’d be happy to stay and talk, but I’ve got to get to the church.”

  “Looking like that?” Granny Mildred said. “What’ve you been doing, you young scamp? Sleeping on the shore?”

  “Fell off my horse.”

  She snorted. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Uh, nae.”

  Freckles gave me a sharp glance. Mildred brushed at my coat. The sand fell off; the dried salt disappeared.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” I held out my hat. “Can you clean this off, too?”

  “Expect a lot, don’t you?” She scrubbed the brim; my three-year-old hat looked as good as new when she handed it back. “Don’t know why I waste my magic on the likes of you. Now get on with you.” She gave me a swat on the arm. “And don’t worry about being late. They heard you were coming; they’re waiting for you.”

  Master Walter’s lad came running to take Charcoal. The folk in the churchyard shuffled aside to let me through. If they’d known the light off the Crystal Palace had pinned me down, they would have run. I took a deep breath and let it out again before starting up the walk.

  Cousin Ruth met me at the church door. “I knew you’d make it. You’d never let Dad down.”

  Her husband, two inches shorter than his wife and a stone lighter, gave me a broad grin and a firm handshake. “Except you are going to let Dad down. I’m glad I’m off the hook.”

  The pallbearers—three other blacksmiths and two farmers—could have passed for a squad of mountain trolls. We could handle Uncle Will.

  Master Walter stuck out a hand. “I’m glad you’re here, too. It’ll be easier on the rest of us.”

  The pastor said, “Since the mourners won’t all fit in the church, we’re going to have the service out by the grave, instead of in here, so more people can hear.”

  I looked down at Uncle Will, and got choked up. When I could talk again, I said, “Any idea how much weight we’re dealing with?” He’d been huge, even before he’d run to fat.

  “Twenty-nine and a half stone,” my brother, Doug, said.

  “Frostbite,” Cousin Jock said. “Sorry, Reverend. That’s eight or nine stone apiece.”

  Doug gave him the gimlet eye. “Less than five. You can handle that much.”

  Master Hamish muttered, “I’m glad you’re not doing my accounts, lad.”

  I said, “How did you get him here?”

  “Wagon,” Doug said. “Wheels on the bier.”

  “Wheels, eh?” Jock said. “We could wheel him right on out to the graveside.”

  Master Walter glared. “That’s not the way it’s done. Master Will was the most important man in Abertee—”

  The pastor coughed. “After the White Duke, of course.”

  “Let’s say he was the most respected man in Abertee.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  “Fine. We’re not going to let you, lad, or any other fool, trample on his dignity. Got that? Now, when I say ‘heave’, we’re going to lift him up to shoulder height.” Master Walter glanced at me. “My shoulder height.”

  We took our places. “Ready?” Master Walter said. “Heave.”

  Somehow, we got him out of the church and into the ground without any loss of dignity, his or ours. After the service, we had supper—a big spread—on the grounds. Nobody walked away hungry.

  “The duke sent about half of it,” Ruth said.

  “Seems only fair,” I said, “but still…”

  She shrugged. “I don’t blame him for what happened. Dad always called him a decent sort, but dim. It’s that witch he married that’s the trouble.”

  “I’m surprised she let him spend this much.”

  “She doesn’t know. For his sake, I hope she doesn’t find out.”

  Folk began saying goodbyes and drifting away before sunset, but even in the gloom a few groups still gabbed. I’d been with them, jawing with kin I hadn’t seen in months or years, until it started to get dark. The inns and taverns were packed tonight. I’d had invitations to come along, but I wasn’t ready to head indoors yet.

  I sat on the cemetery wall watching the sky turn purple, then black. With Uncle Will gone, Abertee was in trouble. He’d been head of the Blacksmith’s Guild in Abertee for thirty years, and there wasn’t anyone who could take his place. A few wanted to, but they were just members of the local chapter. No other master smith had earned a certificate signed by a member of the Royal Association of Blacksmiths and Swordsmiths.

  We could promote our own journeymen, and call them masters, but without a certified master we wouldn’t have the royal guild’s backing. The duke and duchess could demand our services and pay us whatever they wanted, and we would have to take it and say, Thank you, sir, Thank you, ma’am. A man could have more work than he could handle that way…and starve.

  I’d spent the summer trying to get certified. Just as well I didn’t have to explain to Uncle Will why I wasn’t yet.

  If I stayed out any longer, I’d trip over a gravestone in the dark and bash my head. I trudged towards the Shepherd’s Arms, wondering why I was so tired. All I’d done for hours was talk. I’d be happy to sit in the corner and listen for a while.

  The smell of Master Hamish’s pipe met me before I saw him. He leaned against the tavern wall, in the shadows. “You look beat, lad,” he said. “Come in with me, and I’ll buy you a pint.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that. I’m glad the day’s over—I’ve had too many nasty shocks for my comfort.”

  I ducked under the lintel, got a good look inside, and would have backed out if Master Hamish hadn’t slammed the door shut behind me.

  Mildred Lays Down

  the Law

  The tavern went quiet. Every head turned to stare at me. Master Hamish gave me a shove towards the big table in the middle, where Granny Mildred crooked a finger at me.

  “Ah, hell, Granny, what’d I do now?”

  “This time, sonny, it’s what you’re going to do. Sit down.”

  The crowd at the table—Granny Mildred, Doug, and half a dozen smiths I’d worked for since leaving Uncle Will’s—jostled around the table with a racket of scraping chair legs, making room. Somebody at another table shoved a chair at me, and I squeezed in. Granny Mildred, the crown of her head no higher than the shoulders of the two men on either side, gave them each a shove. “You’re crowding me, lads. Give me space.” They crowded Cousin Jock out, but Mildred got elbow room.

  Master Hamish handed me a pint, and sat down behind me. A gaggle of lasses waved at me from a table across the room. My sister Maggie’s head stuck up higher than the rest. Her friend Fiona sat next to her. I craned my neck, but couldn’t make out the others.

  “We were discussing,” Mildred said, “how we’re going to fill the hole Will Archer left in Abertee—”

  “And it’s a big hole,” Master Walter said, to groans all around.

  I saw what was coming, and tried to back away from the table, but they hadn’t left room to move.

  “Right,” Mildred said. “We need a spokesman. Someone who can stand up to the duke and tell him—”

  “Fine,” I said, though it wasn’t. “If somebody has to tell the duke off, I’m the man for it.”

  “Whoa, lad—”

  “He would, too,” Master Walter said. “He’s told off everybody else in Abertee.”

 
Everybody, including me, laughed, except for Granny Mildred. She glared. “You think that would help? Forget it. We need somebody with authority. One of you master smiths is going to have to tell the duke he has to rebuild that bridge. He won’t listen to a journeyman.”

  “Why’s it have to be a master smith?” Master Hamish said. “Duncan’s an Archer. That ought to do.”

  “Or Doug,” the smith beside him said. “He thinks twice before he says something.”

  “And sometimes Douggie thinks three times,” Mildred said, “and doesn’t say anything at all.”

  Doug gave her a long look over his pint. Took a swallow and shrugged. I gave him not quite a wink. He gave me not quite a shake of the head in return.

  “An Archer by himself won’t do,” Mildred said. “You’ve forgotten it’s the smiths’ guild charter that gives your guild head the right to tell the duke what he’s doing wrong in Abertee, and he has to listen, even if he doesn’t like it. Nobody else has that right. With Will gone, we need an Archer to get certified, so he can take over as head.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be an Archer.”

  “It nearly always is. The head has to be somebody in good standing—”

  Master Hamish guffawed, and pounded on the table. “Good standing, eh? You got that right. Nobody here with more standing, even sitting down, now that Will’s gone.” He kept cackling, until Jock cuffed him on the side of the head.

  Mildred looked pained. “I meant, somebody whose family is respected, and has been for a long time. The Archers go all the way back even before the Fire Office, to when Charley the Great gave a third of North Frankland to the White Duke for his services to the crown.”

  Master Hamish said, “And the White Duke gave the Upper Tee Valley to that company of bowmen. Aye, we’ve all heard the story. The Archers could get away with needling the duke, because they were his strongest supporters.”

  “Being a duke’s man meant something, then,” I said. “Not now. Today we’re the biggest thorn in his side.”

  “Aye,” Master Walter said, “but he’s used to it, and he’ll take from the Archers what he won’t take from anybody else.”

  “There’s Archer blood all over Abertee,” I said. “We’re cousins with every family that’s been here more than a couple generations.”

  “But they don’t all have the Archer name,” Mildred said.

  “Or the Archer size,” Master Walter said. “That’s why we need you, lad, to get certified by the royal guild, so you can deal with the duke the next time he lets us down. That’s when, not if. Will had been saying for years you should get certified.”

  “Aye, but I don’t—”

  “He only ever said that to a handful of journeymen. Jed McAllister went on his own to Edinburgh to get certified, and the grandmaster smith there told him to go home and stop wasting his time. That he wasn’t good enough and never would be good enough.”

  “And he was right,” I said.

  “Aye. You wouldn’t have appreciated Jed acting high and mighty as guild head when he’s not as good as you are. We’re all agreed you’re the best choice. You’ve already been journeying longer than most, and it’s time you settled down. If your head gets any bigger—”

  Granny Mildred said, “It’s already two sizes too big.”

  “—Doug will knock it down to size, and you’re the only journeyman we’re sure can earn a certificate.”

  Granny said, “If you can keep your mouth shut.”

  The tavern wasn’t as hot as a forge, but I wiped sweat from my face. “Maybe I could, if I got the chance to prove myself, but getting that chance isn’t easy. When I left here in April, I went to Edinburgh. The grandmaster there said that after Jed, he’d take on a water wizard before anybody else from Abertee. I went to Newcastle next. That one said he had all the journeymen he could handle lined up for more than a year. He sent me to Leeds.” If I clenched my fist any harder I’d break the mug. I let go and cracked my knuckles. Better not tell them that grandmaster had ordered me out after I called him a disgrace to his guild for trying to sell me a certificate. “Things didn’t work out there, either. I was working my way back home when Uncle Will died.”

  There was a long silence. Granny chewed on her thumb. The master smiths studied the bottoms of their mugs. The tavern got noisier as folk at the other tables went back to talking to their neighbours. We ordered another round.

  Master Hamish said, “You could go to Blacksburg. With two grand­masters there, you’d have a better chance.”

  “Forget it. This summer convinced me I never want to spend another day in a city, ever.”

  “Why the hell not? Lots to do there, I hear.”

  “You can’t sleep in a city for the din. Cities stink. They’re dirty, they’re crowded, there’s not enough grass and trees and birds—”

  “Lots of pretty girls.”

  “We’ve got pretty girls here in Abertee. Fiona, for one.” I grabbed my beer and shoved Master Hamish out of the way. “And she doesn’t give me grief like some people I could name. I’m not going to Blacksburg, and that’s final.”

  I wandered over and sat down between Maggie and Fiona. From the other side of Maggie, Freckles smiled at me. My head fizzed like I was on my fourth round instead of my second.

  “What was that, Fiona? Noisy in here.”

  “I said, don’t you want to be certified?”

  I took a pull at my mug to buy a little time. Maggie said, louder than usual so everybody at the table could hear, “He does, if he has to be a master, but he’d rather keep on being a journeyman.”

  I choked on my beer. Several pairs of shocked eyes stared at us. Freckles cocked her head.

  Maggie said, “When he’s a master, he’ll have to settle down and run his own smithy, and the only people he’ll get to talk to will be the few dozen nearby doing business with him. Being a journeyman, he can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants. He’s been sticking his nose into other people’s business and flirting all over the north end of Frankland. Don’t tell me he wants to give that up.”

  Fiona looked like I’d slapped her. Freckles reached across and patted her hand. “There’s truth to that, but she’s teasing you. Don’t take it so seriously.”

  There was truth in it, more than Maggie knew. I wanted to be my own boss, and for the other smiths to stop acting like I was still a green apprentice, but maybe I’d never be ready to settle down.

  I said to Maggie, “You’re going to get me in trouble with their mums and dads.”

  Maggie leaned over and talked into my ear. “If they stopped pushing their daughters at you, would you mind? You keep complaining you haven’t met a lass yet who didn’t bore you silly sooner or later.”

  “Oh, aye, but still…”

  Fiona said, “If you got certified, couldn’t you go on to be a swordsmith?”

  I overturned my mug. The beer dripped onto her skirts, and she flailed and yelled. The barmaid came running with a towel. Heads turned to see what I was bellowing about. The barmaid had mopped up and brought another beer before I stopped laughing. I said I was sorry, but it served Fiona right for asking such a fool question.

  I said, “If it would help, sure, I’d jump at it, but I’ve got no chance of getting in the royal guild. None. I don’t have enough magic to be a swordsmith, and even if I did, the only way to get in is to be the son or nephew of somebody already in it. Forget it.”

  She pouted. “Dad said you’d—”

  “He ought to know better. Nobody from Abertee has ever been in the royal guild, so nobody from Abertee will ever be in the royal guild. That’s how things work in Frankland.”

  “At least if you don’t get certified it’ll be because you don’t want to. Hazel said—”

  “Hazel?”

  Freckles said, “That’s me.”

  Aye
, hazel. That was the colour. Not that I could tell now. In the dark corner her eyes were black, and as big as a calf’s.

  Fiona glared at her. “Hazel said the duke scares you. I don’t believe it.”

  Time to leave and go to bed. I’d had enough nasty surprises for one day.

  Freckles said, “I said it would be foolish for any commoner to not fear his overlord.”

  Maggie added, “And I said you were no fool.”

  I squeezed her shoulders. “Thanks, sis. So, Hazel, just visiting? How long?”

  “Till the end of the week, then I’m off to another district. Granny Mildred’s one of several healers wanting to retire, and I’m spending the summer considering where I’ll go when I finish my training.” Her voice was as soft as Maggie’s. Funny that I could hear her fine, even though she was further away.

  “Seems it a little early for that. Don’t healers have a long apprenticeship, and you’re, what, sixteen?”

  She laughed at me. “Twenty-three. I only have one more year.”

  “Forget I said that. Tell me what we have to do to convince you to stay here.”

  She smiled. “Keep talking.”

  Later, on the walk to Ruth’s, Maggie said, “You’d better watch what you say around that one. She knows when somebody’s lying.”

  I said, “You sure? She caught you out about teasing Fiona, but that wasn’t hard to guess.”

  “I’m sure. I saw her hat—it had a whole forest of those little trees on it.”

  “More than the three on Granny Mildred’s?”

  “Aye. Five.”

  Doug whistled. I sucked my teeth, and thought back. “I didn’t tell any outright lies.”

  Maggie said, “You exaggerated how pretty Abertee is—”

  “Did not.”

  “—and how friendly we all are—”

  “Maybe a little.”

  She said, “Maybe a lot!”

  “They weren’t lies, exactly.”

  “Won’t make any difference,” Doug said. “A witch that powerful won’t stay in a backwater like Abertee.”

  “Don’t see why not,” I said. “Anybody with sense can tell this is a great place. And she’s got sense. Enough, anyway, to see that the duke, milksop though he is, is dangerous.”