The Skystone

by Jack Whyte

  “Well,” I mumbled, “let me think about it for a minute. I’ve tried to explain this before — to Caius — and it isn’t easy. I don’t want to confuse you, and I don’t want to bore you.” I collected my thoughts into an approximation of logical sequence. “For a start, I don’t know much more than you do about the subject… nobody does. You know the story of the skystone, but do you know that my grandfather almost gave up on trying to melt it down?”

  She nodded. “I do. It seemed strange to me at the time that anyone should try to melt a stone, but I didn’t want to parade my total ignorance to Caius, so I let it pass. What about it?”

  “Well,” I went on, “almost all metal comes originally from stone, but not all stone contains metal. The stones that do contain it are called ore-bearing stones, the ore being, if you like, the raw metal.”

  “You mean raw, as in uncooked?”

  I nodded. “Exactly. Iron ore is red. Have you ever seen hillsides in your travels that looked as though they were rust-stained?” She dipped her head in acknowledgement.

  “Well, that’s exactly what they were. The rock that produces that red-stained effect is iron ore. We take that stone and we crush it and wash it thoroughly, and then we dry it over heat. The washing gets rid of the ordinary soil and other soluble material. What’s left we burn at great heat in a tall kiln, or oven furnace, for a long time. In the course of the burning, or smelting as we call it, the metal melts from the ore and drips down into a crucible in the bottom of the kiln. We finish up, when the kiln has cooled, with what is essentially a lump of pure iron mixed with slag, the residue from the furnace. Then we go to work with our hammers, and by simply beating this mass— which is like a big, dirty sponge — we hammer out as much of the slag as we possibly can. It just falls out. and we are left at the end of the process with a lump of iron. We call it wrought iron, because it has literally been wrought out of stone by the sweat of our bodies and the pounding of our hammers. You follow me so far?”

  She nodded again, wide-eyed and obviously interested.

  “Good. Now, here’s where it gets complicated. This wrought iron is solid iron, and good for all kinds of purposes. It’s easy to shape and it’s easy to work with. But it’s too soft to hold an edge. A mediocre hammered bronze edge is much keener and longer lasting than a wrought-iron edge. Of course, iron is almost impossible to work with when it is cold. You have to heat it to a red-hot state to be able to shape it.” She nodded, acknowledging this well-known fact.

  “Right,” I continued. “Next step. Somebody, somehow, long ago. nobody knows when, made a momentous discovery. Everyone who worked with iron had known for centuries that to keep an edge on an iron blade you had to hammer the edge and then allow it to cool slowly. If you cooled it too quickly, the edge wouldn’t hold. But somebody, one day, must have decided to re-edge a blade, and by accident must have left the blade in a charcoal fire for longer than was necessary at the time. He might even have hammered the edge into the blade and then reheated it. When he realized what he had done, he may have thought he had wasted his work, and then plunged the blade into water to cool it quickly, so that he could start all over again. Nobody knows how the discovery occurred. It was an accident. But the fact remains that iron, reheated in a charcoal fire and then plunged into water to cool quickly, takes on an edge that is unbelievably hard, whereas the same iron, heated without the charcoal and then plunged into the same water, will not hold its edge.”

  “That sounds impossible.”

  “I know it does. But it’s true.”

  “Is there some kind of magic in the charcoal?”

  “There must be.” I shook my head, as I had done so many times over the same puzzle. “It must be magic, of some kind. But I don’t believe in magic. And I refuse to believe that, with all the things in the world that are supposed to be magic but are not, there is only one thing, charred wood, that is not supposed to be magic and is. No, Luceiia, it isn’t magic. It’s just something that we don’t understand yet.”

  She smiled at me, a marvel-laden smile of warmth and admiration, and I almost stretched in the joy of it like a cat.

  “No wonder, Publius Varrus, that you spend all your time over a furnace! That is absolutely fascinating. It can’t be the water that softens the edge, so it has to be the charcoal.”

  “No, quite the opposite. It’s the lack of charcoal that makes iron soft.”

  “Yes, the lack of it… that’s what I meant. So the charcoal holds the secret of the hard edge. And nobody knows why. That is fascinating.”

  “Isn’t it?” I hurried on, revelling in her approval. “Of course, you understand that nobody caught on to this quickly. The hardening was a hit-or-miss process for ages. But gradually, a method for making hardened iron came into general use, and as smiths learned how to increase the heat of their fires, the quality of the iron increased from black to the pale grey colour of our iron of today.”

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean, they increased the heat of their fires? What can be hotter than fire?”

  “Hotter fire.” I laughed at the expression on her face. “That’s why we force air into our coals with bellows. The air blast increases the heat of the coals. No one knows how or why. And some fuels bum hotter than others. Some burn more slowly. That’s why we use charcoal. It burns hotter and more slowly than ordinary wood. It can build up to fierce temperatures. My grandfather almost gave up on smelting the skystone, as I have said. He had tried a number of fuels, different kinds of charcoal, and increased the flow of air to his furnace to an extent that he’d never tried before, but none of it had worked. And then, finally, when the furnace cooled after what he’d sworn to himself would be his last attempt to smelt the stone, he noticed that, although he had achieved no melt, the surface of the stone did look different somehow, almost as though it had started to change. So he resolved to try one more time, and to find some way of really increasing the heat in his furnace. By this time he had spent seven months fooling around with the thing, but it was his hobby, and he considered the time well spent.”

  Again I noted the rapt expression on her face. She was far from being bored, I felt, but then I thought that perhaps she was merely pretending interest. I allowed my voice to lapse into silence, giving her the chance to change the subject if she so wished.

  “Well? Then what? I know he was successful, but how did he do it?” The eagerness in her voice was genuine. I smiled and continued.

  “He mentions in his notes that an associate of his — a merchant of fuel and oils — had found a deposit of coal that he couldn’t use. Apparently, this coal he had found was too brittle. It broke up into tiny little pieces and it wouldn’t flame. My grandfather remembered this. The man had not said that it would not burn, you understand? Merely that it would not flame. My grandfather knew that charcoal wouldn’t flame, either, and yet it burned hotter than the wood it was made from. He became curious. He asked his friend to sell him some of the coal. The fellow snorted in disgust and told Grandfather where he could find it for himself, and wished him luck.

  “Grandfather Varrus collected some of the coal and mixed it with some of his highest-grade charcoal to see if it would burn hotter. It did. It burned hard and clean, and by the time he had experimented with the proportion of coal to charcoal, he had evolved a furnace fire hot enough to smelt the skystone. The rest you know. He had enough metal to make the sword for my father, and this dagger for me.”

  “But he mixed the sword blade with ordinary iron?”

  “No,” I said. “It wasn’t ordinary. It was his best. But Theodosius’ sword is nowhere near as brilliant as the skystone dagger.”

  Luceiia had a strange and thoughtful expression on her face. I waited to hear what she would say. When she did speak, however, she asked a question that surprised me.

  “How long ago was this, Publius?”

  “No idea. It must have been just after I was born. My father left for the last time shortly after that. Thirty-three years ago? Th
irty-four? Something like that. I suppose I could pinpoint it exactly from the old man’s notes.”

  “He was that meticulous a note-keeper, was he?”

  “He was. He wrote notes on everything available, from waxed tablets to papyrus and scraps of parchment.”

  She smiled again, a quiet, mystical smile. “He was a wise man, your grandfather. Could you find out exactly when all of this happened? Would that be possible?”

  “I suppose so. Why? Is it important? For what reason?”

  She shrugged my questions off. “Oh, I don’t know. But there has been something niggling at me, something I heard about quite recently. I don’t want to say anything until I have checked it out, but it might be very interesting. It was something I heard, or I think I heard, last time I was in Aquae Sulis. You know the people there believe in dragons?”

  I gave her my version of the Britannican eyebrow. “Dragons, Luceiia?”

  She nodded.

  I grinned at her. “I see. I have travelled across Britain to find people who believe in dragons.”

  Her grin matched my own. “Scoff not, friend. Accept them as they are. I think they are your dragons.”

  I could tell from the expression on her face that she had something she was not telling me, but I had no idea what it could be. I did not want to feed her a line to tease me with. My mind raced as I tried to guess just what she was referring to, and why these dragons should be mine, but it was hopeless.

  “Very well, you have me beaten,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “I don’t know what you are talking about. How and why are these my dragons?”

  “Because you will adopt them as soon as you hear about them, and you will hear all about them tomorrow. The fire is almost out, and I find I am tired, quite suddenly.”

  The fire was indeed almost dead; I had not noticed it dwindle. I rose to my feet reluctantly, unwilling to let her go, even to sleep for a few hours.

  “Pardon me,” I said. “I had no knowledge of the time passing.”

  “I know. No more did I, and I enjoyed every minute of it.”

  She rose as she spoke, and again I noticed how tall she was. She was standing close enough for me to be aware of the warmth and the scent of her. I could have hooked my arm about her waist without even leaning forward. But of course I did not. She looked me straight in the eye for a long moment and my mind screamed to me how soft and delicious those lips would feel against my own. Then she smiled again, softly and somehow knowingly, and adjusted her stola more warmly around her shoulders. She started to turn away from me and then caught herself, as though with an afterthought.

  “What is it?” I asked her. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  Again the same smile. She reached out her right hand and touched me, very gently, with the backs of two of her fingers on my right cheekbone. I barely felt the pressure, but it burned. “Good night, Publius,” she whispered. “Thank you.” And then she turned to go.

  I stopped her with a touch of my hand on her elbow. She turned back, her chin cocked as she looked half over her shoulder, and I was abruptly tongue-tied again.

  “Yes, Publius?”

  I had to say something. “Tomorrow.” I stammered. “I will see you? Before you leave?”

  “Before I leave?” There was a question in her laugh. “Aye. and after. You are coming with me. Don’t you remember? We discussed it at dinner. The Villa Britannicus is your home from now on.” I had no recollection of the dinner-table conversation at all. She laughed again, obviously at the expression on my face. “Don’t worry, Varrus.” There was delicious mockery in her voice. “It’s big enough for both of us.”

  It was almost completely dark now in the enclosed courtyard, but I watched the glorious sway of her hips as she moved until the blackness swallowed her up. She could not have heard my whispered, “Good night, my love.”

  I stared into the dying fire for a while, my thoughts in a turmoil, and then I went to my own bed in a daze.

  XVII

  I slept little that night, tortured by fantasies and lust and guilt. This woman was the sister of my best friend, my mentor and my commander. My family ranked as Equestrians, but hers was Patrician of ancient blood, having won their nobility before the time of the Caesars, descended directly from the founding families of Rome itself. She was wealthy in her own right, and she was wealthier still through her family’s riches. I owned one small smithy. She was a noblewoman of high mind and values, while I was an artisan, a smith with dirt beneath my nails and the smell of smoke and soot in my clothes, my grandfather’s hoard of gold coins notwithstanding. It was true that she deigned to speak sincerely with me and to show an interest in my welfare, but I knew in my heart of hearts that she did so out of gratitude to the man who had saved the life of her beloved brother. It was true, too, that she had showed keen interest in my iron lore, but only because Caius had been fascinated by it. and his retelling of it had sparked her unusual mind and its thirst for knowledge.

  But I knew that I was damned to love her forever, and I was afoot before the larks began to sing, waiting impatiently for my first glimpse of her that day.

  I had long to wait. Luceiia slept late, and then, after only a smile and a greeting to me, she disappeared into the depths of the house with Veronica and some of the children. I broke fast with Quintus before dawn and talked with him about what he had to do that day, and then he, too, disappeared about his business, leaving me to my own affairs.

  I explored the buildings of the farm as daylight grew and the place began to come to life. There I found the smith who looked after the farm equipment, and I introduced myself. He was a taciturn man, friendly enough but too busy to be distracted from his tasks. I hung around the forge long enough to satisfy myself that he knew what he was doing, and then I checked my belongings and my horses, making sure I would be ready to leave when Luceiia decided to do so.

  After that, still at loose ends, I took my African bow and some arrows and walked away from the buildings, looking for a place to practice my marksmanship. To my great surprise, I found not only a place but a well-used target. In a trampled area behind one of the stone-walled sheds that formed the outer wall of the courtyard, I found a man-sized, roughly human-shaped figure of straw bound with twine and wrapped in an old tunic that was pierced with circular holes. After looking around and seeing no one, I accepted the gift of the unknown archer and strung my bow.

  My first shot showed me that there was a log hidden beneath the straw that formed the trunk of the target. My arrow lodged in it solidly and I had a hard time removing it. From then on, I used only practice arrows without metal points.

  After a while, I grew used to the substance of the target and found that I had no need to draw my bow with anything like the strength I was accustomed to using. I was concentrating so hard, eventually, on piercing the target accurately with a minimal draw that I did not notice the approach of the man whose voice startled me.

  “There’s a big bow for a little target! Looks to me like a lot of wasted time and effort!”

  I turned in surprise to find myself looking at a small man with enormously broad shoulders and a humped back, The hump pushed his head forward and to one side, so that his whole body looked twisted, though only one side, the left, was actually deformed. He looked hugely strong, in spite of his deformity, and there was no mistaking the scornful disdain on his dark-browed face as he looked at my great bow. I smiled at him, noting the smaller bow he held, already strung, in his right hand.

  “A waste?” I asked. “How can there be waste if the arrow finds the mark every time?”

  “Pshhaw!” The sound was loaded with scorn. “Hit the mark, is it? If a mark is big enough, a boyo could hit it with a rock, he could. That mark you are shooting at is my boy’s plaything. Come here, then. I’ll show you a mark.”

  Without waiting for any sign from me, he turned on his heel and strode away with a curious, bobbing gait that I recognized ruefully as being not too differen
t from my own. I followed him for about a hundred paces until he stopped and gestured forward with a wave of his free hand.

  “There’s a mark.”

  I looked. About a hundred and twenty-five paces from where we stood, a large conifer had been blown down by a high wind, and the flat base of its root-pad formed a huge, brown, circular patch against the trees behind it. Just in front of it, I could discern a white, upright staff.

  “The white stake? What is it?”

  As I spoke, he hoisted his bow and loosed an arrow. The shot grazed the white upright and angled off to the right; I saw the bright scarlet of its feathers lodge in the earth of the root-pad that served as a backstop.

  “It’s a shovel. Lodged in the earth. Let’s see you hit it, then, with that great thing you have there.”

  My first arrow missed, although not by much, and so did my second. The little man said nothing, contenting himself with the silence he knew must irritate me. I stifled my anger at myself and thought about what I was doing wrong. And the answer came immediately: I was still shortening my pull, concentrating on delicacy rather than strength. Bearing that in mind, I made some mental adjustments and drew again. My arrow nicked the edge of the white upright and, deflected, landed close to his first shot. I said nothing.

  “There’s better,” he said, hoisting his bow again and letting loose without seeming to aim. This time his shot hit square on target and we both saw the white stake split. He grunted. I was amazed. It was either an incredible shot or an equally incredible piece of luck.

  I forced myself to sound non-committal. “Not bad,” I said. “Could you do it again?”

  He did, immediately, and I was left without a word to say as his previous arrow, which had been held in the cleft of the split shaft of the shovel, spun through the air and fell to the ground. The target was destroyed. To have attempted to hit it would have been foolish, and I said so.