Black Horses for the King

by Anne McCaffrey

  He nodded his head, eyes still wide. “And you’ve to make sandals for ‘em all?”

  I laughed. “I won’t be the only one, I assure you.”

  I was just about to ask him if there was a Cornovian named Iswy working in the stables when the slender young lad Lord Artos had called Arlo appeared in the stableyard, breathless from the speed of his run.

  “Eoain, Lord Artos and his Companions will ride out on the Libyans to hunt after mass.” Then he noticed me. “You’re Galwyn?” he asked, not quite disrespectful, more uncertain. When I nodded, he added, “Because Lord Artos wishes you to wait upon Ilfor the smith after mass. About those horse sandals.” Then he pivoted on one heel and raced back the way he had come. Arlo, it seemed, rarely walked anywhere.

  “You have a chapel here?” I asked Eoain.

  What with my broken arm and then all the work on the sandals with Alun and Canyd, I had not had the opportunity to get to mass at Deva as I had resolved to in the New Year. At the farm, one of the priests-usually an old one who better understood the peculiar attitude toward religion where most of the inhabitants were inclined toward a familiar semipaganism-made the trip to baptize infants or preside at a burial when needed. But they did not hold services. I was, therefore, almost hungry to attend a proper mass in a real church.

  “Of course,” Eoain said, obviously surprised that I would ask. He pointed to a high slate roof that could be seen from the stableyard, at the other side of the great hall. “Mass will be said shortly, so you’d better hurry.”

  “But if I’m to go to Master Ilfor-“

  “You’d best go to mass first, Galwyn,” he said firmly. “Master Glebus does and I will. Lord Artos and his Companions do.”

  My indecision lasted no longer than his final sentence. So that morning, and every morning thereafter of my stay at Camelot, I stood with the throng of worshipers in a church that was as perfect for Camelot as everything else about Lord Artos’s castle. The church faced east and west, with high slit windows letting in a morning light that bathed the whitened walls in glorious shades of lemon yellow and pure white.

  It was a joy to me to chant the responses, letting my heart savor the beautiful words. For one brief instant as the mass started, I thought I had forgotten the prayers, but then my tongue worked before my mind and the words came from the heart that had not forgotten them. If others merely mouthed the Latin, having learned the British tongue as their first language, I raised my voice-just slightly-to speak the purer sounds that had been drilled into me. The strength of my voice caused Eoain to give me a wondering look, and he sighed as if in relief.

  By the Benedictus, I experienced a profound renewal of spirit, for I had not been aware of how much I had needed the benediction of the mass. I vowed to renew my religious duties with vigor, even if, at Deva, I would have to rise before dawn to attend. At least once a month. I promised that to God, if he would further Lord Artos’s cause.

  WHEN MASS WAS OVER, the lords made their exit first, passing through the lesser worshipers. Lord Artos cast his eyes to left and right as he proceeded, and he caught sight of me, giving his head a slow nod as if pleased to see me in the congregation. I was all the more glad that I had come this first morning in Camelot. I had been a sorry Christian these past few years and was joyous to have my faith also renewed today: another benefit of my service to Lord Artos.

  When we, too, finally processed out of that lovely church into the sunlit morning, it was still early enough.

  Mass evidently did not intrude on the business of the day.

  Eoain pointed out to me the way to Ilfor’s forge. I detoured first to my cubicle and collected my packs of horse sandals and tools. Pausing briefly in the kitchen, I took a handful of the cold meats and bread set out on the trestle tables, and these I munched as I strode to my appointment. The unfinished outer court was already crowded with people and stacks and piles of the supplies which had been among the loads brought in the day before. Workmen were struggling up ladders with tiles; nets of rock were being hoisted to the masons awaiting them on the heights, and carpenters banged merrily away at various other projects.

  Alun’s forge at Deva had been generous in size but Camelot’s was immense: sprawling from one vast cavern to another across the one completed wall of the castle. I don’t know how many smiths there were working metal at their anvils, but obviously Ilfor was an important person to have charge of so many.

  Master Ilfor, however, broke off the orders he was giving two underlings and whirled on me as if I had lost an entire day’s work. I had not seen him at mass and somehow did not think I ever would. Later, I would learn that religious tolerance was a part of Lord Artos’s way of dealing with diverse people and attitudes.

  “I want to see these sandals of Canyd’s,” he said, scowling. He had not seemed so critical the night before. But then, Lord Artos had been present. Now I was in the smith’s own domain, and considerably inferior to him in rank. When I went to remove some sets from my packs, he shook his thick hand. “No, not ones you brought. Show me how you make them.”

  ‘I made,” and I stressed that word slightly because Ilfor had the look of a bully and I would no longer let myself be a victim, “all those.” I was also feeling extremely charitable after the cleansing effect of hearing mass.

  “Show me,” he repeated, and he gestured peremptorily at a handily empty anvil at the nearby fire. Then he folded his heavily muscled arms across his chest, obviously skeptical.

  I shrugged; diffidence is a good defense against men of his temperament. I knew, as I withdrew my leather apron from my pack and laid out my tools on the anvil’s pedestal, that I did not look as much a smith as he. I had neither his bulk nor his sinew. Nor could I fold metal for a sword and hammer the blade into shape, nor make arrows and lanceheads or shields and breastplates as he could. But horse sandals I could fashion quickly, deftly, and have them fit the horse that needed to be shod.

  “Where is the horse?”

  “Horse?” he asked, widening his eyes. “Why would you need a horse?”

  “To fit the sandal to, of course,” I replied, undaunted.

  “Make the sandal!”

  There was no evasion from that command. I shrugged and, walking to where his store of iron was kept, selected a length that would be suitable for a pony sandal. No, not a pony! I realized I had the gray stallion in mind. Why not sandals for Ravus? Lord Artos rode him often.

  I had acquired the habit of checking the feet of any horse I rode, assessing how wide, or narrow, a sandal would be to fit the beast. I had done so the day before with Ravus. That trick of observation stood me in good stead now.

  I nodded to the bellows boy to stoke up the fire, and I thrust the metal into its reddening coals. I turned it until the center was bright orange and, grabbing it with my tongs, began with my hammer to curve a sandal out of the shapeless length.

  There is a joy in working metal, in watching it take the shape you have in your mind-as if you have been able to translate form from mind to matter. I heated and bent the metal several times to obtain the appropriate semicircle. I then heated and flattened it within that form to match the gray’s feet. I heated it again to make the nail holes, hammering the iron spike through the pliant metal. Then I thrust it into the water butt and began the second sandal.

  All the while Ilfor watched with narrowed and suspicious eyes. But for the fact that I had been accustomed to the constant appraisal of both Alun and Canyd, the doubt and challenge in his face and stance would have made me nervous. Of course, once engrossed in the making of the sandals, I actually forgot him in the rhythm of the work.

  When I had finished the set, I looked up at him questioningly. He reached in among the sandals I had brought with me and took out a pair, tied by a thong. These he compared to the ones I had just finished, and snorted.

  “Much too small if these are for those Libyan blacks,” he said almost contemptuously.

  “They have all the sandals they’ll need for the
year,” I said calmly. “I made this set for that gray desert stallion Lord Artos rode yesterday.”

  “You did?” And his brows went up. At his imperious gesture, the bellows lad came quickly to his side and was told to go ask Master Glebus at the stableyard to send up the gray.

  Once again he folded his arms across his chest and waited with the patience of someone who is confident of success in humbling a braggart. And something more. It was as if he knew something about me: something to my discredit. He was waiting to see if I could do what I had so glibly described to the Companions.

  I thought suddenly about the young man I had seen last night who had seemed so familiar. Could it have been Iswy after all, putting a word in the smith’s ear? I had grown taller; why not Iswy? I hadn’t known his age but possibly he was old enough now to have grown a beard, too. But surely a man of Master Ilfor’s standing would pay no attention to snide remarks by a groom.

  Not to let Ilfor’s regard or my own suspicions unnerve me, I took out my sack of horse sandal nails, wedged ones I had made myself to Alun’s design. I put hammer and rasp where they would be easily to hand, and then I likewise waited, hands tucked into the ties of my leathern apron.

  Master Glebus himself led the gray to us, the bellows lad trotting behind him. The boy’s eyes were avid with anticipation of my downfall.

  “Sa-sa-sa,” I murmured in Canyd’s way to the gray, for he didn’t like being close to the fire. He twitched his delicate ears back and forth nervously at all the loud clangings and hangings. I stroked his neck and withers, working my hand down the near leg to the fetlock, which I then tugged up. He had a strong deep hoof that needed only a little trimming. But I had something to prove first. I picked a sandal out of the water butt and laid it on the hoof.

  I admit to a smile of triumph when I heard a quick gasp of surprise from the lad. I did not look at Ilfor, but Master Glebus certainly noted the excellent fit.

  “However did you do that, lad?” he asked. “Why, they fit as if they were made for him.”

  “They were,” I said, letting the hoof down as I confronted Master Ilfor.

  He scowled and gestured for me to fit the other front hoof. I changed sides and showed that the second sandal was as close a match to the horse’s hoof as ever the first had been.

  Ilfor gave one grunt.

  “Shall I put the sandals on?” I asked Master Glebus, for he had charge of the horses and it was wise to get his permission.

  ‘Tes, I should like to see how it is done,” he said without so much as a glance in the smith’s direction. He knew, without being told, what had occurred here in the smithy. His attitude toward me was so positive I began to think that I really hadn’t seen Iswy last night. So, with some relief, I threw the first sandal back into the fire to heat, for nailing it on hot made for the best fit.

  The gray was not as easy to work on as the Libyans, who had grown to trust me. In fact, he was completely rebellious, despite my best efforts at soothing him. It looked for a while as if he was more likely to leave here sandalless, which made nothing of my gesture in making so perfect a rim for his feet.

  But Master Glebus was an old hand at dealing with fractious horses. He wound a stout rope about the end of the gray’s nose and twisted it hard. The twitching gave Ravus something to think of other than his feet.

  I worked as swiftly as I could with the hot sandals, placing each nail and measuring how it would enter the hoof at the correct angle so as not to prick the tenderer part of the foot. I clinched the nails, pinched off all but enough of the metal to bend down in the clinching, and hammered the ends down into the outside of the hoof. With a final application of the rasp to the nail end, I smoothed the hoof so that no one’s hands would be snagged on a jagged metal edge.

  Released from the nose twitch, the gray snorted in relief, shaking his head, until he became aware of the extra weight on his hooves. The sandals sent sparks flying from the cobbles and clanged with the energy of his movements, but he could not dislodge them. Gradually he walked into the feel of them.

  “Any more you’d like shod, Master?” I asked, more to the horsemaster than to the smith.

  Ilfor grunted again. Then suddenly, like the sun appearing on a gray day, a smile appeared on his soot-grimed face, showing large white teeth crooked in a full mouth. He also extended his large hand.

  “You do know what you’re about in a forge, lad, for all there’s little brawn to you,” he said. “Neat, tidy, quick.” He gave his head a decisive nod, as if he had been reserving his opinion all the while I worked. He took my hand, pumping it and squeezing my fingers in his powerful ones: obviously a man who did not know his own strength.

  I caught the sympathetic expression on Master Gle-bus’s face, as if he well knew what pressure my hand was experiencing, and so I endured the clasp without wincing. But Master Ilfor’s wording-that suggested something had been said to him about me and he had been weighing judgment. Perhaps Eoain could tell me. Now I felt it wiser to reinforce the goodwill where I had it.

  “I only do sandals, Master Ilfor, but those I do well,” I said with the same simple authority with which Canyd would speak, “serving the Comes Britannorum to my utmost. Just as you do.”

  Master Ilfor gave another of his grunts but his manner suggested that I had made the right reference: that we both served Lord Artos in our different ways.

  “I’ve a gelding,” Master Glebus said, raising one finger tentatively, “badly crippled with seedy toe. Would those iron rims …”

  “Just what the sandals are for, Master Glebus,” I replied, smiling my willingness.

  I SPENT THE ENTIRE DAY in the forge, after first formally requesting permission from Forgemaster Ilfor to use his facilities. I made sandals for cracked, damaged hooves so that the ponies might stride out again pain free. Master Ilfor having made a tactful mention of how much iron he needed to continue his own work, I merely trimmed hooves that were not in such immediate need of sandals.

  By the end of the week, I had worked my way through all the horses and ponies connected with Camelot, for many that were not needed on a daily basis were pastured nearby. I even did some of the farm animals that were hauling the carts up the road to the castle. They needed such rims as protection, perhaps more than the riding horses. And I willingly trimmed the feet of oxen, for they had problems as well, treating such puncture wounds and bruises as I discovered.

  I was aware that, while I worked, one or another of the other blacksmiths turned up to watch the sandal making and were especially attentive during the fitting. Such scrutiny amused me, for I realized that Ilfor was making sure all his men would know how to fit the sandals. But there was more to it than watching someone else work. Nor would I be here much longer, for I would soon be returning to the farm at Deva.

  Ilfor’s men, no matter how carefully they watched, needed special training. Lord Artos might have mentioned that he wanted me to stay on, to continue to practice my skill, but I knew how much more I had to learn. When I felt myself to be truly competent, then I would return here.

  However, I was very much aware that we all served Lord Artos. Therefore, on the third morning, I approached Master Ilfor and suggested that he might like to have one or two of his smiths work along with me in making and fitting the sandals.

  Ilfor at first expressed surprise at my suggestion, as if his men had only been “watching,” not memorizing the steps. Then he smiled, rubbing one large ear with two fingers as he realized that I had realized what he was about.

  “We both serve Lord Artos,” I reminded him, allowing him that much leeway. “We are still learning how best to protect the feet. No foot, no horse!”

  He nodded soberly at the saying and immediately delegated four of his apprentices to my tutoring. None of them were at all skeptical about the merits of the sandals, having seen once-lame horses walk, sound, out of the smithy with the fitted sandals.

  By chance I heard from Master Glebus that a horse had been put down for a broken le
g. So I begged to prepare one hoof so that the students would learn, as I had, from a close examination of a horse foot. A gory task, but essential if I was to be a proper tutor.

  I TALKED MORE FOR the next three days than I had ever talked in my life. I sent the apprentices out to find unshod horses to practice on. Although I tried to avoid such a problem, it turned out that the one nail-bind that occurred-from a nail sunk too close to the tender part of the foot-made my four students more conscious of the damage inattention to detail could wreak.

  I talked, I explained, I demonstrated. The metal fabrication was never a problem with men already skilled at forge work, nor was making the special tools required to do the actual fitting. But metal is dead; a horse is living. They had to learn how to cope with the horse, the hoof, the hammer, and the nail. Gradually, though, I could see confidence building as they acquired a certain knack in the doing.

  Since I was free to move about Camelot, I did so, looking for another glimpse of the man I thought was Iswy. I had none, but then he could have been there and gone: Camelot had constant visitors, each with attendants.

  “Don’t know anyone by that name,” Eoain told me when I got a chance to ask him. “Not among the stable lads.”

  “Anyone new here-“

  Eoain’s laugh interrupted me. “New? With all the comings and goings right now? If you’re worried about Cornix and your pony, don’t. Master Glebus is real careful about who he lets work our horses,” he added, pushing out his chest pridefully.

  I certainly hadn’t seen anyone remotely resembling Iswy since that first glimpse.

  “Any Cornovians?” I asked.

  Eoain shrugged. “I don’t ask such questions.” Then he had a thought. “Plenty of people coming in to work out there …” And he waved at the outer courtyard.

  “Iswy would work with horses.” Unless of course, I added to myself, Bericus had seen to it that no one hired him to care for animals ever again.

  Eoain shook his head. “We’ve had half a dozen lads coming in and out with our guests’ horses over the past few days. If he was here, he’s gone now.”