In the meantime, he’d given me another worry. He’d made it worthwhile for someone—Glenn came to mind—to bribe an earth wizard to break the spells on the gate. If the baron laid his hands on it, I’d never see the gate or the money again. If I complained to the duke, the baron would claim he’d negotiated a better price with me. The duke would take his word against mine, and horsewhip me, to boot, for my gall.
I spent the rest of my money, plus a week’s advance on my wages from Master Paul, on a Fire Guild spell.
July would be hot. Sleeping rough on the way home wouldn’t hurt me. I’d worry about feeding myself when the time came.
“Finished it, eh?” Master Clive’s face split in a grin. “About time we heard some good news for a change. Let’s see it.”
We headed outside, everyone in his smithy following, to where Sam waited with the wagon. Clive and a journeyman helped wrestle the gate out of the wagon bed. The wide eyes and silent whistles when I unwrapped it made me grin. The apprentices and journeymen crowded around, stepping on toes and shoving each other, until Clive roared at them to back up and give him breathing room. “Take turns, you young fools. Duncan’s not in a hurry. He’ll let you have a good look.”
An apprentice said, “I’d heard the ram was charging straight at you, but it’s going off to the side. How come?”
I said, “You’re looking at it straight on. Go unlatch it.”
“It ain’t latched.”
Clive’s eyes rolled. “Pretend it is. What would you do?”
The lad moved to the side and leaned forward. “Why, I’d—” His hand landed on the latch, inches from one horn. His chin was no further from the other horn—the one that had broken through the warped uprights. “Frostbite,” he said, and backed up, to jeers from the other apprentices. “He is coming straight at me.”
Clive’s wife, at my elbow, said, “That would be unnerving if you weren’t sure of your welcome.”
“That was sort of the idea, ma’am.”
Clive took his time inspecting it, running his fingers over everything, testing the sharpness of the thorns, the strength of the welds. Every time he yanked at something Sam winced. I didn’t. I’d tested them myself. If they didn’t give for me, they wouldn’t give for Clive.
He found the touchmark, and squinted at it. Sam sucked in his breath. He hadn’t wanted me to use it. Bad luck claiming to be a master before I was one, he’d said.
“Be proud of your work, lad,” Uncle Will had said. “Never make something you’re not willing to put your mark on.”
“My cousin gave me the punch after my uncle died,” I said.
“Thought it looked old. A new punch would leave sharper edges. Although it’s still clear enough.”
“Aye, sir. I don’t know how old the punch is, but the Archer family sign is almost as old as Frankland.”
“Why’s the bow only half drawn?”
“Because we don’t go looking for trouble.”
“Then why nock the arrow at all?”
“Because trouble could come looking for us, and we always need to be ready.”
He flashed me a look from under his bushy eyebrows, before going back to studying the gate. “What do you think?”
“About trouble?”
“About the gate.”
“Oh. It’s…” It was the best thing I’d ever done. It was better than anything in the guildhall, excepting the thicket. If getting certified was a race, I was cantering home while the lathered pack was still rounding the last turn. I was one of Frankland’s best smiths, certificate or no certificate, and nobody could steal that certainty from me.
But say that in a yard full of journeymen and apprentices, when too many in Blacksburg already thought I was too big for my boots?
“It’s good,” I said.
Clive flashed another look at me. “Good, he says.” He snorted. “All right. Back to work. I’m not paying you lot to stand around half the day and stare at another man’s work.” We wrapped it and loaded it into the wagon while the gawkers shuffled back into the smithy.
“It’s more than good,” Sam said. “It’s the best. He won’t have any trouble with the guild, will he?”
Clive leaned against the side of the wagon and stared past Sam towards the river. “If life were fair, the Blacksmith’s Guild would’ve recommended that we certify him a couple of months ago. But life’s not fair. We’ve seen plenty evidence of that lately.” He pushed away from the wagon and trudged towards the smithy door. “Better keep that arrow nocked.”
We parked the wagon behind the guildhall. Sam went in to fetch the clerk, and I let the tailgate down, then shifted the blankets to get a good grip.
“I’m turning my masterpiece over to the guild,” I said. “Where do you want it?”
The clerk wiped sweat off his upper lip. “Carry it into the meeting room and leave it there.”
“Do you want me to describe it to you for your ledger, or will you do that yourself?”
“Um, that’s not necessary.”
I turned my head to stare at him. “Eh?” He tugged at the neck of his shirt and didn’t answer.
Sam said, “Uh-oh. Duncan.”
I looked up. Glenn and Master Hal stood in the guildhall door, grinning.
Flashpoint
The smith I’d called a cheat and several of his friends from the Three Horseshoes leaned out the window of the guildhall.
“Sam,” I said, under my breath, “climb back on. Get ready to drive, without making a fuss about it.”
Master Hal staggered down the stairs. “Heard you finished it. We’ve been waiting for you—figured you’d need help carrying it in.”
He lurched into me, and grabbed at the wagon. I got a good whiff. If he helped unload, the gate would land on somebody’s foot—his own, odds were—and crush it. He poked at the gate with a finger. “Why didn’t you paint it? Need to be careful with something like this, out in the weather. Be a shame if it rusted.”
Sam started to say it would be hanging in the guildhall, but I rode over him. “Can’t see why you would want me to sell it. You must’ve heard what that baron was willing to pay.”
He snickered. “You don’t know how much. We negotiated a better price. Three-quarters what you asked for, you arrogant bastard. It’s mighty generous of you to make such a big donation to the guild.” His cronies laughed, like he’d said something clever.
The clerk edged away. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I said, “You’re a bunch of cheats, the whole lot of you, but you won’t cheat me out of that certificate. I’ll take this away and bring it back for the meeting.”
“No, you won’t,” Master Hal said, tugging on the gate. “It’s the guild’s now.”
I had kept a firm grip on the gate ever since pulling the blanket off. It was still cold iron. I took a deep breath, and said, “Like hell it is. Take your dirty, thieving paws off my masterpiece.”
He laughed. The iron flashed red hot under his hands. He screamed and fell backwards, knocking Glenn down.
I bellowed, but Sam was already swinging the whip. The wagon jolted over the cobbles. I ran after it. A glance over my shoulder showed Glenn and Master Hal sprawled on the stairs, blocking the way.
Sam kept up a brisk pace for a couple of blocks, but they were too drunk to give chase. We turned the corner, out of sight, and came to a stop as Master Randall jogged towards us.
He leaned against the wagon, wheezing and coughing. “Fifty-seven. Too old for this.”
“You’re too late.” My voice wouldn’t stay steady. I set my jaw and nudged Sam. “You tell him.”
While Sam related what had happened, Master Randall hung onto the side of the wagon with clenched fists, staring off into nothing.
Sam said, “Why did they think they could get away with stealing it? The duke�
��s hung thieves who’d only stolen a loaf of bread, and that gate’s worth a lot more than that.”
“They were playing me for a sucker. I haven’t got anything worth enough—not even that gate—to see a man swing for. They knew I’d not complain to the duke.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Master Randall came back from wherever he’d been wandering. “The story I heard was that they meant to wait until you’d handed it over to the clerk, and then spring their little surprise on you. You were lucky, son. If you’d let go, or carried it into the guild hall, you’d’ve been screwed. Sounds like they let the drink make idiots of them.”
“But that’s still stealing,” Sam said.
“No, son,” Master Randall said. “Once he’d handed it over, the guild could do whatever they wanted with it. I guess they figured they’d add enough to the guild’s coffers, even after each taking a share for himself, that the guild would take their side instead of Duncan’s. Especially since there’d be no getting the gate back once that baron had it in his garden.”
I said, “If the guild council went along—”
“They wouldn’t. The council takes the guild’s reputation seriously, and they’ll be furious. But the guild’s fractured, and when the fight about this comes, and there will be one, I don’t know which side will win. The guild could be in even worse shape than it is now. Just think, Master Hal could be on the guild council.”
“Oh, God. If he is, they’ll never accept my masterpiece. Then what the hell do I do? I need to be certified.”
“That’s not…” He stopped, stared, and bent over, laughing. He pounded the wagon sideboard with his fist, and howled.
I stared at Sam; Sam stared at me. I said, “Tell me what the hell is so goddamned funny about being cheated out of one of those frostbitten certificates?”
Master Randall straightened up and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Do you want to see our friends at the guildhall get what they deserve?”
“Does the Frost Maiden like ice?”
“I don’t need the Blacksmiths’ Guild to recommend you be certified. I can give anyone I want a certificate.”
I blinked at him. “Eh?”
“The guild’s recommendations filter out men who can’t do the work, so we swordsmiths aren’t run ragged by every journeyman coming through town trying to get certified. I don’t know if this has ever come up before—the swordsmiths deciding to certify someone the blacksmiths haven’t recommended—but we’re free to use our own judgement. Clive and I have both seen the work you can do. Hell, Clive was about ready to certify you last autumn, just on the basis of the guild in Abertee having sent you.”
“Then why the hell didn’t he? Would’ve saved me a boatload of trouble.”
“He wasn’t sure, then, that you were telling the truth. And I figured there were a few things you still needed to learn. Weren’t there?”
“Aye, I suppose so. About balance. And what being certified really means.”
“And about when to speak up and when to keep your mouth shut?”
“Still working on that one.”
“Ha! Me, too. But one of the times we have to speak up is when the guild is in trouble. I’m going to kick up a fuss at the guild meeting next week. I’ll sign your certificate then, with or without their recommendation, and tell them why you earned one and they didn’t. In fact, I’ve decided, don’t turn over your masterpiece to them. Don’t give them an opportunity to take the wind out of my sails.”
I must’ve been grinning. “So I can do whatever I want with it?”
He grinned back. “Whatever will put their noses out of joint the most.”
On the way back to the city from the baron’s estate, Sam’s eyes kept wandering down to the bag wedged between our feet. “Keep your eyes on the other travellers,” I said. “Staring at it will just draw attention to it.”
“Can’t we go any faster?”
“Nae. We’d draw more attention.”
“Don’t you want to get to the Earth Guildhall as fast as we can?”
I patted my pocket. The Air Guild charm was still there. “I want to get to the Earth Guildhall as fast as we can with this bag just the way it is right now. It won’t matter how fast we get there if we lose it on the way. That’s why I’m driving and you’re keeping watch.”
He grumbled, but soon we would have been forced to slow down anyway. A work crew was building a barricade across the road. They waved us and the other incoming traffic through, but the duke’s guards were crawling over the wagon at the head of the outbound queue, ignoring the curses the red-faced driver threw at them.
A cart further back pulled out of line. We had to wait while he turned around, Sam mumbling curses the whole time. We stopped alongside a wagon loaded with household goods, four children perched on top. A woman with another child on her lap sat next to the driver, giving him grief.
I said, “What’s going on?”
The driver hawked and spat. “That son-of-a-whore duke. He’s kicking beggars out, but from now on, anybody else leaving Blacksburg, except for aristos, has to pay an exit tax.
“Why the hell?”
He shrugged. “Too many craftsmen and merchants leaving. The aristos are having trouble getting what they need.”
The woman said, “I told you we should have left last week.”
I said, “How much is the exit tax?”
“A month’s wages, or half the money you’re carrying, whichever one’s greater.”
“Frostbite. Freeze his—”
“Watch your language, you lout,” The woman had clapped her hands over the squirming child’s ears. “There are children listening.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
The cart finished its turn and we drove on, cursing under our breaths. Gran used to lecture me about fortune’s wheel, warning me not to get too full of myself when I was riding high, because soon enough I could be at the bottom. The reverses were coming so fast it didn’t feel like a wheel to me. More like a whip snaking through the air—a whip that hadn’t finished cracking yet.
“Done,” the earth witch said, waving her wand over the bag of gold. “Done, that is, as well as I can. No thief’s going to creep into your room and take it from you, but the spell can’t stop the duke from dipping his frostbitten fingers in and taking what he wants.”
“Don’t see why it can’t. It’s robbery, pure and simple.”
“I know that, and you know that, but when he calls it taxes, the spell doesn’t work.”
I paid her and we left. “Good luck,” she called after us, “on getting that out of Blacksburg.”
We hid the bag in the safest place we could think of between the two of us—Sam’s mum’s root cellar—and I sent Sam back to Master Paul’s with the wagon. I had another errand to run before going back to work.
My way passed the house where the head of the local Fire Guild branch lived. A couple weeks ago, Sam had suggested asking him for the Fire Warlock’s help. Master Paul had said it wouldn’t do any good—Blacksburg’s fire wizard was an aristo, who always took the duke’s side. Other people said the same, but so many stories had fire wizards locking horns with aristos it was hard to believe.
Maybe I spent too much time listening to the old stories, but I couldn’t help it that they had better endings than the ones from recent times.
The map of North Frankland that had been in the bookstore window was gone. “Sold that months ago,” the shopkeeper said, “but I have another copy. Let me find it for you.”
He unrolled the map, and I traced the road from Blacksburg to Abertee, through Crossroads and on to Nettleton. It was June twenty-seventh. The next guild meeting was on July first. Just a few days more, and I would be on my way home. I paid him and left.
A lot can happen in a few days. Yesterday, that gate had left me poorer by a year’s wages. I would’ve be
en glad to get the certificate and go home. Even losing half the gold I had now, I would come out ahead. I had enough to buy the map without making more than a token fuss about the price. Giving some gold away to someone in need would’ve made me feel good, but having it yanked out of my hands by a rich aristo pissed me off.
Without selling the gate, I could’ve been stuck in Blacksburg for months, trying to save a month’s wages. That thought sent shivers down my spine, and cooled my temper. Some other journeymen in town would never save enough. Especially since few masters were taking anyone new on.
With money in my pocket and a place to go, I was better off than most, and I had been pissed off. How angry would I have been if I couldn’t get out?
The fire wizard’s house was right in front of me. I climbed the steps and hammered with the knocker before I could change my mind.
“All supplicants have to walk the challenge path.” The fire wizard waved a lacy cuff in my direction, without looking up from his book. “Talk to the guards at the gate.”
“I’m not a supplicant. I don’t want—”
“I’m not a supplicant, sir.”
“Yes, sir. I’m not a supplicant. Sir.”
“You said you wanted the Fire Warlock’s help. Do you, or don’t you?”
“I do, but—”
“Then you’re a supplicant. Go away.”
“Not for me. For all of Blacksburg.”
He looked up then. It wasn’t a friendly look. I wiped sweat from my forehead. The wizard’s hat sported three flames. Granny Mildred had three trees on hers, and Granny Mildred could knock me flat on my back if she wanted to.
The wizard said, “And just what do you expect the Fire Warlock to do?”
“Talk some sense into the duke. Get him to drop that exit tax before somebody attacks him in the street.”
The Blacksmith Page 9
