The Skystone cc-1

by Jack Whyte

  VI

  My grandfather's smithy—now my smithy—was empty when I arrived. There were no fastenings on the doors, which hung limp and weary-looking in their frames. I inspected the premises and found nothing — no anvils, no tools — nothing. The forge itself lay cold, its grill thick with rust. Around the walls, dilapidated wooden shelves hung limp and empty, sagging wearily under a heavy coating of dust. The place hadn't been used in years, it seemed, although it had been my understanding that one of my mother's brothers had taken it over after my grandfather's death, just to keep it safe for my return. I closed the doors and made my way to my grandfather's house, where I found a family of cousins in residence. To say that they were surprised to see me would be an understatement. To say that they were glad to see me would be an outright lie. They had thought me safely dead in the invasion, as were my uncle and his wife. Now here I was on the doorstep, alive and reasonably healthy, expecting to take possession of my house, which meant that they were dispossessed. Thinking back on it now, I might have been disposed to let them stay had they shown me any sign of welcome on my arrival, but they lacked even the civility to hide their disappointment at my survival; they seemed to go out of their way to antagonize me. I admit, however, that with the pain in my leg, the disappointment of finding the smithy abandoned and the long journey I had made, I was not difficult to anger.

  Anyway, they moved out. Quickly. And I was home. The house was filthy, but I had good memories of the place. It was fairly spacious, in the Roman townhouse style, and I decided to hire a couple of servants the next day to clean it up and maintain both it and me in return for their keep. I presented myself the next morning at the home of the local magistrate and quickly established my identity and my bona fide rights to the property left me by my Grandfather Varrus. I had taken the precaution of having Britannicus write a letter on my behalf in his official capacity as commander of the legion. Then, my identity and character legally established, I went back to the deserted smithy, to find it occupied now by three urchins, who were playing in the darkness inside the building. They fled at my approach, looking back over their shoulders at the limping deformity who had frightened them.

  Deserted and abandoned as it was, I fancied that the walls of the place still held traces of the smells that had made it a magical place to me as a small boy. The sooty, smoky odour still lingered in the stones, and I leaned close to the wall behind the forge and sniffed deeply, recapturing scenes and images of my long-ago childhood. The very back of the smithy was floored with massive stone flags. One of them was a door, and beneath it was a room dug out of the earth. Within that room, whose existence was, I believed, known only to myself and my grandfather, were stored the treasures that he wanted me to have after his death. Deep in my soul, I was afraid that the secret room might have been discovered while the place lay abandoned.

  I crossed slowly to the fire-pit of the forge. Only a few cinders lay forlorn on the bottom, fragments of the last embers of a fire that had once melted a skystone.

  "Who's in there?"

  The voice came from the doorway. I turned and saw the shape of a big man silhouetted against the bright light. Even without seeing any features, I recognized him and felt my heart lighten within me.

  "I said, who's there? Who are you?"

  I answered his question with one of my own. "Whose smithy is this?"

  "What's that to you?" He took a step into the shop.

  "I am curious. Whose smithy is this? Or was this? Is it for sale?"

  "No. It's not for sale. It belongs to the family of Quintus Varrus."

  "And where is the family of Quintus Varrus?"

  I could see him now. My grandfather had always called him Equus, because he was strong as a horse. He had been a good friend to me as a child.

  "Who wants to know?"

  "I do, obviously."

  "And just who in Hades are you?" He was starting to get angry.

  "My name is Publius. Publius Varrus. Hello, Equus."

  "Publius!" He was across the floor in one leap and had me lifted high in the air, into the light where he could see my face to be sure it was really me.

  "Publius, by Minerva, it really is you! Where have you come from?

  When did you get here?"

  I was laughing at his gladness. "Put me down, Equus, put me down. I'm not a child any longer. Think of my dignity — the dignity of Rome. I'm an officer in the imperial legions!"

  "I piss on the dignity of Rome!" He stopped spinning me around. "But you are right. You have grown up. So I will put you down, and preserve your dignity and my own back. Publius! How are you? Are you well? Are you here to stay?" And on and on he went with a list of questions until I had to put my hand to his mouth to stop him.

  "Enough, Equus, enough! I am here, I am well, although crippled by a barbarian axe, and I will be staying, at least until I can find out what happened to the smithy."

  "Crippled? What happened? Show me!" His face was full of concern now.

  "There's nothing to show. I stopped an axe with the wrong part of me. It nicked my leg, but I can still walk."

  "Show me." He was frowning. I showed him.

  "That's nothing! So you limp a little! You had me worried, then." He took my shoulders in his hands and grinned with delight into my eyes, almost devouring me with the welcome in his gaze. "By the combined crotches of the Vestal Virgins, you look wonderful, Publius! You're the double of your grandfather when I first met him, though he was a lot older than you before his hair turned grey. You're still not thirty, and your head is as silvered as an old fox! What have you been doing, boy? Where have you been since I last saw you? Minerva's nipples! Do you realize it's been eleven years?"

  By this time we were outside in the bright sunshine. I looked back into the interior of the building. "How long has the place been shut up, Equus?"

  He looked me in the eye. "About two years."

  "Why?"

  "Why not? The whoring Saxons were everywhere and your uncle was dead. I didn't see any point in leaving such a tempting target for looters, so I shut it down."

  " You shut it down?"

  "Who else?"

  "And what happened to all the tools and equipment?"

  "I removed them. Hid them. I didn't know if you'd be coming back, but I decided to give you five more years. If you hadn't returned by then, I'd have dug the stuff up and used it myself. I didn't think you'd mind, since you'd be dead."

  In spite of the sudden lurch in my stomach, I felt a smile forming on my face.

  "You'd have dug them up? You mean you buried them? Iron tools? In the ground?"

  Now it was his turn to smile. "Publius, when they call me Horse, they're referring to my muscles, not to my resemblance to the rear end of the animal. I hid them. Underground. In your grandfather's secret vault."

  "Under the floor?" I was incredulous.

  He nodded his head, still grinning. "Under the floor. I couldn't think of any better place. Could you? I knew that if anything happened to me, and you came back, you would look down there sooner or later. And I knew that nobody else knew the room was there."

  "How did you know it was there? Did my grandfather tell you?"

  "Tell me? I helped him dig it out in the first place. We had to do it at night so no one else would ever guess it was there. When I decided to hide everything, I just packed all your grandfather's treasures more carefully and piled everything else in front of them. If you want to get down there now, we'll have to unload everything from the door inward, because the place is crammed full of stuff." He was almost hopping with excitement.

  "It's all there, every bit of it. If you're really here to stay, we can haul it all out tomorrow and be in business within the week. Come! See for yourself."

  He lumbered over to the back of the smithy and crouched, fingers feeling for a hidden groove in the floor, scraping the dirt out of the crack, and then he heaved mightily and straightened his legs. The concealed stone door swung upwards easily on its c
ounterbalanced hinges. I crossed to him and looked down. The hole in the floor was full of tools, anvils and assorted paraphernalia — the entire contents of a smithy. I grinned my delight.

  "Equus, you're a genius and an honest friend!" I punched him on the shoulder. "Now, where's the nearest tavern? We have a double occasion to celebrate — my homecoming, and your partnership in the smithy!" His face clouded in puzzlement. "Partnership? Was that what you said?

  How can that be? I have no money, Publius. I can't afford to buy half a smithy."

  "Who said anything about buying? You've earned it, by keeping this safe for me. Haven't you heard the story of the faithful steward? Let's go drink some wine, Partner!"

  We got gloriously, happily drunk together that night, and the next day we started unpacking the cellar. It was all there, everything we needed. By the afternoon of the third day, the fire was ablaze in the forge again and my spirits were soaring with the sparks from the red-hot iron under my hammer. The smell of the smoke set memories running and jostling in my head like boys released from their tutor, and I rediscovered the almost sexual tension that had once been commonplace in my life as I shaped living metal and made it bend to my will and my skill. The feel of tongs in my hand brought back knacks, mannerisms and old habits that had lain unused and forgotten for years, and the love and lore of my grandfather's craft brought his presence and his voice back into my head.

  "Beware black iron!" he had told me, and it had seemed a pointless warning until the first time I picked up a piece of ordinary-looking metal lying beside the forge and discovered, painfully, that the redness had just left it. Recalling that day so long ago, I inhaled deeply, savouring the charcoal, the metal-flavoured smoke, enjoying the familiar, acrid bitterness of it, the stinging in the eyes and the pleasurable grittiness between my teeth.

  I began by making nails, aware of the need to do something about the sad shelves that lined the room. The wood was dried and warped and split around the original nails, many of which were completely consumed by rust. I was struggling and grunting, biting my tongue between my lips as I concentrated on holding two angled pieces of wood together so that I could clamp them when I heard footsteps behind me. Assuming it to be Equus, who had gone to buy lamp oil, I did not even look around.

  "Here, " I grunted. "Hold this while I get this cross-piece in place." A pair of hands materialized beside me, doing as I had bidden, but they did not belong to Equus. Surprised, I started to straighten up, but the stranger had already taken the strain of the load and nodded for me to go ahead. I acknowledged him with a half-smile of thanks, pulled the cross wedge into position and nailed it solidly with two big spikes.

  "There!" I said. "That ought to do it, for a while, anyway." I straightened up and held out my hand to my helper, who gripped it. "My thanks, " I said. "I didn't see who you were, or I would not have put you to work. I thought you were my partner, Equus. I'm Publius Varrus."

  He smiled briefly and nodded. "They call me Cuno. Short for Cunobelin. I'm married to Phoebe, Equus's sister."

  "Phoebe's husband? Then you are a king indeed. Cunobelin was a king, wasn't he?"

  "Aye, long ago. Or so they say." His eyes were moving around the smithy, taking everything in. "So you're the grandson. Equus told us you were back and that you'd opened up the old place again." He did not look back at me, so I took the opportunity to examine him. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, wearing a leather apron over work clothes, rough tunic and cross-wound leggings. His hair and beard were thick and blond — unusual in this part of the country — and filled with sawdust and tiny, tightly curled wood shavings. His clothes were thick with sawdust, too, and he had a way of blinking his close-set eyes rapidly, as though to keep them clear of flying wood chips.

  "Did you know my grandfather?"

  "No. I only came here about two years ago. That's when I married Phoebe. This place was closed down by then."

  "What are you? A sawyer?"

  He laughed, briefly baring his long, narrow, brown teeth. He was not a comely man, and he seemed to have difficulty meeting my eyes.

  "No! Not by anybody's gauge. I'm a wheelwright. A wheelwright and a wagon-builder." That explained the small wood shavings; they were from turning spokes.

  "A wheelwright, eh? You must be a good one. Judging by the shavings in your hair, you have work."

  "Aye." The smile remained on his face. "I'm good. I have to be. Square wheels are hard to sell."

  "I would think they are." In spite of wanting to accept this man as Equus's brother-in-law, I found myself instinctively disliking him, and I felt vaguely guilty, since he had offered me no harm. I have always been a believer in first impressions, and he impressed me as being untrustworthy, for some reason. I tried to dismiss the feeling, attributing it to the ill cast of his features, which were not his fault, and made a determined effort to be friendly.

  "Look here, you are our first visitor, and I was thinking just before you arrived about a pot of ale. Will you have one?"

  His eyes stopped roving the smithy and came back to me. "That's a fair offer. I will."

  "Good." I poured two flagons from Equus's pitcher and we toasted each other silently before taking a good pull at the yeasty brew. I wiped some foam from the tip of my nose.

  "Welcome to our smithy. Is there something I can do for you, or did you just wander in here by accident?"

  "No, I came in on purpose, to say hello and see what you are doing."

  I indicated the forge. "Not much, as you can see."

  "Aye, but you have not had much time." He crossed to the forge and picked up some of the new nails that lay there in a pile. "You made these?"

  "I did."

  "You intend to make more?"

  "I do." I was smiling, wondering where he was headed.

  "Where will you store them?"

  Now I was intrigued. "Store them? I'll sell them. No intention of storing them."

  "No. Of course. What will you sell them for? Money?"

  "What else? Isn't that normal?"

  He flashed me his brown-toothed, rabbity grin again, tossing the nails he held into the air and catching them in one big hand. "I was thinking I might take some of them off your hands. But not for money."

  It was my turn to smile, though I felt my eyes grow narrow. "For what, then?"

  "For the good I'd be doing you, relieving you of the need to store them on these shelves." He was moving again, one hand stretched out to grip the edge of the nearest shelf. He tugged, and the old, dry wood creaked noisily and dangerously.

  "Hey, careful! They're not that strong."

  "So I see." He turned back and almost looked me in the eye, but his gaze slid away again, back to his flagon, just before contact was established. "I have a bargain for you, " he said. "I have an order for six heavy draft wagons. For the army." The grin again. "The army still pays with money, but only on delivery."

  I found myself smiling back at him. "So? What's your bargain?"

  "Nails, and metal parts. I need good ones, and I need them fast. My supplier died a month ago, kicked by a horse he was shoeing. His two sons couldn't make a horseshoe between them. You fill my needs, on trust, and I'll rebuild all of your woodwork in here. Then, when the army pays me, I'll settle any difference with you, in cash."

  I didn't even quibble. He was married to the sister of my partner. We spat on our hands and slapped palms to seal the bargain, and I had my first customer.

  Equus himself walked in a few moments later and seemed surprised to see Cuno there. We made small talk for a while, and I was gratified to see that even Equus was not too fond of his brother by marriage. There was no overt hostility between the two, but Equus's distaste for Cuno was obvious. I mentioned the bargain I had struck with Cuno, and Equus merely nodded, neither approving the bargain nor condemning it.

  Later, when Cuno had gone, I asked Equus about him and learned that he had drifted into town a few years earlier and worked for several months with t
he old wheelwright whose business he now owned. The old man had died without heirs, and Cuno had assumed the position of wheelwright to the town, marrying Phoebe shortly after that. He was good at what he did, Equus told me, but he drank too much and had beaten Phoebe cruelly on several occasions. Equus had posted warning, he said, of what would happen next time his sister appeared with a bruise on her fair skin. It was then that he told me directly that he could bring himself neither to like nor to trust Cuno. I asked him immediately if I had made a foolish bargain with the man, but Equus assured me that the bargain would be met and honoured. Money was scarce, he explained. Only the army dealt in cash. Equus believed that once Cuno had spoken to his neighbours about our arrangement, we would find more barter offers coming our way. He was correct. The word spread quickly. Within the week we had a guarantee of a month's supply of fresh bread in return for four long-handled oven shovels; the bellows-maker down the street provided new bellows in return for short-shafted nails; and several local farmers had promised fresh produce and grain in return for iron tools. Business grew brisk, and within a surprisingly short time we found ourselves having to think and talk about hiring helpers.

  In the interim, until such time as we could find suitably skilled workers and apprentices, Equus brought his sister Phoebe to help us out in the day-to-day running of things. She cooked for us at first, and devised a method of keeping inventory of our bartered goods, recording the goods and the services we tendered in exchange. Then, as she became familiar with our work and our requirements, she began to take a more active role as an intermediary between us and our growing network of customers. In a matter of mere months, she had made herself indispensable. When Cuno had first mentioned Phoebe's name, I had not been able to recall her face. I knew instantly who she was, of course. I remembered, too, that I had liked her.

  She was much younger than Equus — close to my own age, in fact, and even slightly younger — and she and I had shared much of our growing up. I remembered that she had always been able to make me laugh as a boy, no matter how black my mood. I also recalled quite clearly that, while not unpleasant to look at by any means, she was no great beauty. The casual association we shared in those days had been based on liking and a mutual, once-in-a-while need for companionship, not sexual attraction under any guise.