The Blacksmith

by Howe, Barbara;

He snarled, with his face a foot from mine, “That you have no respon­sibility to the friends you’ve made here—”

  “Nae, sir, I—”

  “And the people you’ve worked with, just because they’re not your family. Just because—”

  I leaned in until my nose was two inches from his, and yelled, “Nae, sir! You asked a question, sir. You want an answer? Shut up and listen. Sir!” He rocked back on his heels. I leaned forward, still nose to nose. “I tried to ask for your help, but I’ll be iced if I know how. I went to the top fire wizard here, and he brushed me off, saying you wouldn’t listen to a journeyman.”

  “Son of a bitch.” The Warlock turned away and stared into the bonfire. The rest of the group had edged away from me—getting out of blast range, probably—except for one little woman who was poking me and whispering.

  The oldest woman said, “I went to him, and he threw me out, too. Sir. Said not to bother my silly, little head about important matters a housewife couldn’t understand.”

  I said, “If you’re so concerned, you should’ve shown up sooner. Some of these bodies might still be alive.”

  The woman beside me grabbed my shirt and yanked. I looked down and she hissed, “Call him Your Wisdom.”

  “Don’t bother.” The Fire Warlock’s voice barely carried over the crackle of the fire. “Calling me Your Wisdom tonight would be a joke. I’ve made so many mistakes lately you might as well start calling me You Dunce instead.” The fight had gone out of him. His ring had dimmed, too.

  He said, “You want to know why was I so late. I was down south, dealing with the riot that erupted after the Green Duke had a starving man’s arm frozen off for stealing a loaf of bread.”

  I swallowed a couple of times, and cleared my throat. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know about the other riot. If I’d known…”

  “You couldn’t have known. Riots don’t happen back-to-back. Riots don’t happen at all in Frankland.” He turned away from the fire and looked at us again. “Wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. You had a right to expect I would come and stop it. The Frost Maiden and I had both warned the Black Duke not to arrest anyone over the charters, so I thought things here would keep for a day or two. My mistake. When I did get here, things were so far gone I had to burn people right and left until nobody was left standing. I hate it, but nobody asked for help in the way the Fire Office recognises, so it presumed the rioters were all no-good troublemakers.”

  He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’d rather burn the nobles for their arrogance and greed, but the Fire Office won’t let me. The Great Coven was full of nobles who didn’t want it interfering with their control of their subjects. I can’t step in on my own initiative until a revolt or riot is in full swing. Until then, about all I can do is talk. Been talking so much lately you’d think I was in the Air Guild.”

  I said, “You could take their swords away.”

  “I took the Black Duke’s sword away, twice. But I have to hand it over to the king, and the king handed it right back to him. Fat lot of good that did. My hands are tied until the nobles lose control and people are getting hurt. Unless one of the chartered bodies has asked for my help.” He rubbed his eyes again. “You should’ve listened when they said, ‘Take care of the guild, and the guild will take care of you.’”

  We all eyed each other. Nick said, “Sir. Your Wisdom. We’ve all heard that, but…”

  “But you didn’t know what it meant, eh? If you come to me on your own, complaining about your ruler, I can’t do anything, but if a chartered guild asks for my help, that’s good enough. I can revoke exorbitant taxes, pry people out of the Frost Maiden’s clutches—whatever’s necessary to calm things down. And if it does get violent, the Fire Office gives that guild the benefit of the doubt, and is less brutal to its members.” He turned back to me. “There must’ve been other smiths who wanted my help. You could’ve asked them to back you.”

  “Rounding up the guild council for a vote would’ve—”

  “Wasn’t needed. If two smiths came together and said it was on behalf of the guild, that fool hothead would’ve had to send you on to talk to me. You know, respond first in an emergency, and ask for credentials later—and I won’t ask. Doesn’t have to be members of the guild council. Two journeymen would have done. But I guess you didn’t know that.”

  His shoulders had slumped after I yelled at him. My own sagged now. “I didn’t want to get anybody else in trouble. And that wizard…”

  “Was a nobleman who didn’t want to acknowledge the power you do have.” He nodded at the woman who had said she’d gone to see the fire wizard. “You’re not a member of a guild, but your husband is, and you have friends and neighbours who are. Spread the word, and you’ll all know more about important matters than that ass. It’s poetic justice the mob killed him. I’m glad I don’t have to torch a member of my own guild for incompetence. I’m going to light a fire under all four magic guilds to do a better job of telling you commoners what the nobles don’t want you to know.”

  He doffed his hat and bowed to us. “And now, I apologise to you for yelling at you, and I do commend you for your actions. Blacksburg would be in even worse shape without your help. Now go home.”

  My feet stuck to the cobbles. The others disappeared, mumbling thanks, leaving Nick and me standing.

  Sam pulled on my arm. “Duncan, come on. What’s the matter?”

  The Warlock said, “Sorry, Sam, I have something else I need to say to your friend Duncan, and to Nick.” He looked back and forth between us. “You two probably think the worst is over. It’s not. In some ways the next few days and weeks are going to be even worse. The city will have to hunker down and lick its wounds, and it’s going to be a long time—years, decades even—before it fully recovers.

  “You two are newcomers. You’ve both gotten reputations for speaking your minds, and you’ve angered some people. Neither of you have been marked by the fire, even though many people saw you here tonight. You will both be in serious danger if you stay here, and I have enough else to do that I don’t want to have to keep an eye on you.

  “Go back to your rooms, pack, and leave. Tonight. Don’t sleep again in this city, unless one of you keeps watch for the other. Understand?”

  We looked at each other, and nodded. Nick said, “The exit tax?”

  “Revoked.” He cocked an eye at Sam. “You got any family outside of Blacksburg?”

  Sam said, “An uncle, five miles upriver.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt for you to leave, too. Go stay with him awhile.”

  I said, “The grandmasters. Are they… I guess Master Randall’s dead.”

  The Warlock turned back to the fire and stared into it. “Yep, he’s dead. Crying shame. He’s over there.” He pointed towards the downed fence. “The other one—Master Clive—is home, and likely to stay there.” He turned and looked at me. “There’s something else on your mind.”

  I gulped, and pushed my luck. “The merchants the duke handed over to the Frost Maiden. Can you do anything for them?”

  “Ha. Them. Lucky bastards. If they’d been here they’d probably be dead, too.”

  “They will be, when the Frost Maiden’s done—”

  “No, they won’t. Drafting a new charter’s not a crime. She’ll turn them over to me and I’ll give them a slap on the wrist for keeping secrets. That’s all. I’m glad I don’t have to pick a fight with her over them—I don’t feel like losing. Losing on too many fronts already. Now get going.” He walked into the fire and disappeared.

  We saw only Earth and Fire wizards out on the streets, but none of us felt like taking chances. We walked together to Sam’s mum’s boarding house—undamaged, thank God—and left him there, then Nick and I went to fetch our horses and the pack mule I’d bought a week earlier to carry my tools. The stable door was unlocked, with a couple of hands inside nursing burns. When t
hey saw we weren’t burned, I thought for a moment they would pick a fight, but we outweighed them, and they settled for cursing at us.

  I was more than ready to take the Fire Warlock’s advice and get out, but we had a few things to do first. We went back to the square, and began a job that will give me nightmares for the rest of my life. We pulled bodies from the heap by the broken fence and laid them out in a row. My clothes were as blood-soaked as Nick’s before we uncovered Master Randall. If he hadn’t been such a big man with a bald head, we wouldn’t have been sure which one he was. The bodies had been gored, hacked, burnt, and trampled on. A team of oxen couldn’t have done a better job of making a mess of them.

  The stench of blood and death made both the horse and the mule skittish, and we had a fight getting Master Randall slung on the mule’s back. We picked our way through the rubble and bodies, but hadn’t gone more than fifty yards when Nick tripped and fell. I swung the lantern around, and set it on the cobbles because I couldn’t hold it steady. What I had seen was, in a way, as bad as the heap we’d pulled Master Randall out of.

  Nick had caught his foot under a pickaxe handle. The point was buried in a man’s back. I squatted down beside the dead man, but couldn’t bring myself to touch him.

  Nick said, “You know him.”

  I nodded. Nick yanked the pickaxe out. After a little while I lifted the man’s head out of the dirt and turned it to see the face. Nick brought the lantern close, but there hadn’t been any doubt in my mind.

  Neither of us said anything, just got on with loading him onto Charcoal. The horse was as ornery as the mule had been, but I wasn’t in a mood to put up with it, and he gave in before I did. “Don’t know why you’re complaining,” I told the fool horse. “He doesn’t weigh as much as I do, and you’re supposed to be a war horse.”

  Nick said, “How many children does he have?”

  “Six, and another on the way.”

  Nick shouldered the pickaxe. “She can sell it. She’s going to need every penny.”

  We left Master Randall with a blubbering journeyman, and walked into Master Paul’s yard in the first grey light of early morning. Mrs Hammer came running.

  “Paul? Oh.” Her face fell. “Have you seen…”

  “We brought him back, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “Oh, dear God.” She clapped a hand over her mouth and swayed. I steered her into her kitchen and made her sit down. She whispered, “Was he…was he burned?”

  “No, ma’am. The riot killed him.”

  “Thank God for that.” She covered her face with her apron and sobbed. I told her what the Fire Warlock had said and that I was leaving. I thought she hadn’t heard, but after we had laid Master Paul on a bench in the smithy and were loading my tools onto the mule, she came out and thanked us for bringing him home. “I’m sorry you’re going,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.

  After that we went to collect Nick’s tools. The sun wasn’t fully up yet, but the master cutler was already in his workshop. He had a burn down one arm. After one look at us, he yelled, “Get out, and don’t come back.” He threw Nick’s tools out after him, trying to hit him.

  Nick said, “I have to admit, I’m glad you’re with me.”

  I said, “Didn’t anybody in this frostbitten city go to bed last night?”

  Blacksburg, mid-morning on a workday, should have been a noisy place. Hooves striking cobblestones, wheels squeaking, hammers ringing on anvils, hawkers selling their wares—the din would sometimes make me stuff my fingers in my ears. Not so that morning. The quiet clink, clink of coins in my saddlebags was as hard to ignore as one of Granny Mildred’s scoldings.

  Three days ago, I’d been expecting to leave Blacksburg with less in my pocket than when I’d gotten here, and glad to get out.

  Clink, clink.

  I’d been lucky. Damn lucky.

  Clink, clink.

  After collecting Sam from his mum’s, our path to Master Clive’s smithy went past the Earth Guildhall. They, far more than the duke, would shoulder the burden of caring for the families that had been hurt. They would feed the widows and orphans. The duke wouldn’t care if they starved.

  Clink, clink.

  A line of quiet people with makeshift bandages and blank faces stretched halfway across the square from the guildhall. One of the livelier sufferers was sweeping up glass from broken windows.

  Clink, clink.

  I yanked the bag of gold out of my saddlebags, fished out enough to get home to Nettleton on, and stomped into the guildhall. The healers were as battered and washed out as their patients. I couldn’t tell one from the other except by who was doing the bandaging.

  “Who’s in charge here?” I said.

  “Mother Astrid.” A wizard waved without looking up from the lad he was tending. “Over there.”

  A witch straightened up, and wiped her hands on a bloodied apron. A witch with a splash of freckles across a darling of a face. I’d seen that face before.

  “What is it?” she said.

  Nae, not that face, but one thirty years younger. If she looked that good in her fifties…

  “Speak up,” she said. “I don’t have time. If it isn’t urgent, you’ll have to wait in line—”

  “Nae, ma’am.” I shoved the bag into her hands. “This is for the Blacksmiths’ Guild’s widows and orphans. Make sure Paul Hammer’s family gets a good share, and don’t tell them where it came from. Wouldn’t want them to know how soft I am.”

  I stomped out before the open-mouthed witch could ask questions, and gave the mule a hard slap on the rump. “Let’s go, before I come to my senses and ask for it back.”

  Tools, pig iron, and charcoal lay scattered across the yard and trampled into the dirt. Looters had ripped the smithy door off its hinges and left it lying on the ground. One of the shutters was gone; the other swung open, creaking in the breeze. I poked my head through the window. The looters had stripped the smithy bare. Only the two-handed sword lay in the dirt. Some fool had kicked ashes over it.

  “They came for the swords,” Master Clive’s wife said, from the kitchen door. She held a broom handle like a quarterstaff athwart the door. “They had a wizard with them.”

  “Master Clive couldn’t stop them?” Sam said.

  “He wasn’t here, and I didn’t try. I bolted the doors and thanked God they left the house alone.”

  “You were lucky,” I said. “He couldn’t have stopped them, either. Is he here now?”

  “Why do you want to see him?”

  “I meant to ask him for a favour.” I kicked a few bits of charcoal into a pile. “Never mind, ma’am.”

  She gave me a long, narrow-eyed look as I walked into the smithy. I wiped the sword clean with my shirttail and hung it on the rack. When I came out, she said, “Come on in, Duncan. You other two, stay in the yard where I can see you.”

  She lowered the broom handle to let me in, and bolted the door behind me. Grandmaster Clive sat in the shadows at the far end of the kitchen. I tossed my hat on the table and started around the end to sit across from him, but his wife blocked my way. She pointed to the bench on the same side of the table as the master, and I sat down next to him. She poured me a cup of coffee without speaking, and backed into a corner where she could see out the window.

  Glare from the window made it hard to see Master Clive. I raised my hat to block the sun, for a better look. His hands were clenched around a mug, and he stared straight ahead without looking at me. A muscle in the side of his face twitched.

  I sipped the coffee, enjoying every hot mouthful. We sat for several minutes, and I wasn’t sure he knew I was there, until he said, “Any news about Brother Randall?”

  “He’s dead. We carried him back to his smithy.”

  “I was afraid of that. I’ll see to his funeral. He deserves a good sendoff.”

&nb
sp; We sat for a while longer. Finally, I said, “Damned shame about your smithy.”

  He didn’t move, but the muscle twitched faster. After a while, I said, “They couldn’t have got far with the anvils. There’s lots of stuff scattered in the square and in the streets. If you ask a witch or wizard for help, you might get most of your tools back.”

  He snatched up his mug, and flung it against the side of the fireplace. “I don’t care about the goddamned tools.” He dropped his head into his hands. “All I ever wanted, since before I can remember, was to make swords. What the hell do I do now?”

  His wife brushed past him and picked up the pieces of the mug. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn’t make any noise.

  I said, “You can rebuild the smithy. What’s to stop you from making swords?”

  He turned to stare at me, and showed what his wife hadn’t wanted me to see. The other side of his face sported a burn, starting inside the hairline and running down his cheek to his mouth. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. His eyes slid away from mine.

  He said, “You weren’t burned.”

  “Nae, sir.”

  He turned away from me. Dark red rose from his throat until his whole face was the colour of a brick.

  I said, “The royal guild wouldn’t kick a man out if he says he’s sorry, would they?”

  “They’ve done it before.” His mouth worked without saying anything, then he croaked, “And if they didn’t kick out a smith who’d disgraced them, I don’t know that I’d want to be a member.”

  Out in the yard, Charcoal kicked at the smithy wall. The other beasts stamped and rattled their tack. Nick cursed at Charcoal, telling him he was an impatient bastard. Sam asked Nick what was taking so long.

  What was taking so long? I hadn’t been home to Nettleton in close to a year. Going to London and making another masterpiece for another grandmaster would cost me another six months or more. The White Duchess would be making trouble, and I wasn’t there to speak up for our rights.

  But I couldn’t kick a man when he was down. I just couldn’t do it.