The Blacksmith

by Howe, Barbara;

  My boots had gotten me into this fix. My left big toe had poked out a hole before Blacksburg, and other stitching had been coming loose, so it wasn’t a surprise when I caught the left sole under a root and ripped it apart. I’d tied it up as well as I could, but didn’t have the tools to fix it proper. I limped along through forest for a few days, but after a sharp rock sliced through both the leather thong and the side of my foot, I went looking for help.

  The old charcoal burner I met in the woods acted like I was doing him the favour by asking him for help. Don’t go to the nearest cobbler, he’d said. That greedy bastard would sell out his own mother. But the old man’s nephew’s sister-in-law’s cousin was a cobbler. His son-in-law had had an arm frozen off for poaching. He’d help.

  So here I was, lying in a wagon, sacks of turnips and beets and onions and garlic hemming me in and a wool blanket covering me on the hottest day of the hottest August in memory. I’d been riding for a day and a half, handed off from charcoal burner to nephew to sister-in-law’s son like a load of firewood. I hadn’t given out my name or where I was going, but they all seemed to know.

  As grateful as I was for their help, having to trust strangers stretched my temper to the limits. If the ride on this ball-busting wagon didn’t end soon, I’d go berserk.

  The clacketa-clacketa gave way to clickety-clickety. A gap in the floor­boards showed the smoother stone of a bridge. I held my breath until we were back on the cobbles.

  The driver said, like he was talking to himself, “Almost there. That was the last bridge.”

  We might get there before I drowned in my own sweat. More than once over the past two days I’d thought freezing to death didn’t sound so bad. I’d considered turning myself in to the Water Guild and being done with it all. Collecting the reward myself and having them send it to Doug and Maggie would mean it went to somebody who deserved it. Even while thinking that, I kept riding in the wagon until my teeth rattled, because I didn’t want to disappoint that charcoal burner and his relations.

  The wagon stopped. The driver climbed down. With my eye against the gap, I watched his feet disappear into an open door. I fought down the urge to stand up and heave sacks of turnips after him. In a few minutes, he came out, climbed back on, and drove the wagon into an alley. We stopped in the shade. The smell of leather made its way past the sweat and garlic that had been in my nose for hours.

  The blanket was yanked off me. I sat up, and blinked at a face that reminded me of Uncle Will. “Whew,” he said, “you look like a drowned rat. Smell pretty ripe, too. Mary!” He bellowed over his shoulder. “Bring us a pitcher of ale. We’ve got a man dying of thirst here.” He turned back to me. “Let’s see those boots.”

  In a short while I was sitting on a bench in the cobbler’s garden with a cold pork pie in one hand and my second pint in the other. A high wall and trees blocked out nosy neighbours. The wagon was gone—the driver had waved goodbye and set out for home, looking pleased with himself. Mary, the cobbler’s daughter, eyed me from the door and giggled.

  The cobbler’s apprentice shambled over, measured my feet, and walked away grumbling about the cost of leather. I would have paid the cobbler for fixing my old boots, but not only wouldn’t he hear of it, he insisted I spend the night with them, so he could make me a new pair. “You won’t get as far as South Frankland with these. I’ll sew them back together, but next time the leather will give out.”

  He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know. I finished the pie and pulled the map out of my pack. Too far east, I needed to plan a new track. Honeybees buzzed around the garden. Butterflies danced across the flowers. Squiggles danced across the map.

  I gave up and put it away. Feeling more at ease than at any time since leaving Mildred and Hazel, I pulled my hat brim down and lay down on the bench.

  “Wake up.” Mary shook my shoulder, hard. “Please, Master Duncan, wake up.”

  “Huh? What—”

  She shoved my old boots into my hands. “You’ve got to go. There’s a wizard looking for you.”

  Persuasion

  I jammed my feet into the re-stitched boots and snatched at the laces. The sun had fallen halfway down the sky. I’d been asleep for hours.

  The cobbler’s wife dropped a basket of wet laundry onto the grass. “Too late, he’s here.” She pushed at me with both hands. “Lie down, and don’t move.”

  I lay down on the bench and brought my feet up. The two women snatched a sheet from the basket and flung it onto a line overhead. A breeze caught it, and slapped me across the eyes with the wet corner. The women pulled darned socks out of the basket and hung each one like it was a treasure. The wind played with the sheet. Slap, slap, slap. My eyes stung. I didn’t move.

  The cobbler’s heavy stomp said he was pissed off even before he growled, “See for yourself. I’m not harbouring any murderers.”

  The lighter voice fit the lighter tread. “I didn’t say you were. All I said was, someone had seen the swordsmith here, and—”

  “That someone should be ashamed of himself. If that smith was here, I’d not turn him over to Her Iciness. She could freeze me, and—”

  “I don’t want the Water Guild to get him, either. Get that through your thick skull. The Fire Guild is trying to save him from her clutches. We won’t turn him over to the king, either.”

  In the silence that followed, Mary whispered to her mother, “He’s just a boy. What’s the Fire Guild doing, sending a boy out after a man his size?”

  Her mother whispered, “He can’t be on guild business. He must be trying to collect the reward himself.”

  The cobbler said, “Nice try, but I don’t believe it. You wizards are all in it together.”

  The boy’s voice rose. “The hell you know. When has the Fire Guild ever been that tight with the Water Guild?”

  “I thought the point of that big bash a couple years ago was to tell us you weren’t fighting anymore.”

  “Oh, for… We’re wasting time. If you do know where that swordsmith is, warn him there’s a water wizard on the way. He’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

  The light footsteps retreated. A door slammed. I rolled upright and yanked at my laces. Before you could say, Freeze my arse, I was out through the garden gate and following Mary through the alleys at a run. She was out of breath and looked like she had a stitch in her side when we reached the edge of town. I snatched a kiss by way of thanks and left her grinning as I ran for the woods.

  I slowed down when the path led uphill through a field of boulders. Slipping into the boar magic made scrambling over them on all fours easier. I was almost to the top when a voice above me said, “About time you got here. Took you long enough.”

  A skinny, bareheaded lad of about fifteen sat on the highest rock, a wand in one hand and a peach in the other. I growled at him.

  “Hey, cut that out,” he said. “I’m trying to help.” He waved the wand, and I was jolted out of being a boar.

  “Frost you. Who are you, and what do you want?”

  He took a bite of the peach and wiped juice off his chin with his sleeve. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Not with a water wizard on my tail.” I climbed past him.

  “He’s not that close. You can give me a few minutes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m a warlock, you ass. You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t warned you he was coming.”

  I turned around and took a good look at the lad. If he was a warlock, I was the tooth fairy. “You knew I was in the cobbler’s garden?”

  “Of course I did. Don’t hide behind a sheet again; it doesn’t work. I nudged you out of there so we could talk without having to explain it all to them, too.”

  “Is there a water wizard?”

  “Well, yeah. He picked up your trail a few minutes ago, and—”

 
“Frostbite.” I scrambled over the top of the hill and started down the other side.

  He yelled after me, “Hey, stop. Come back here, drown you.”

  I barrelled down the hill, jumped the stream at the bottom, and started up the next. I came to a clearing about halfway up. He was waiting for me, and not out of breath either.

  “Stop,” he said, “or I’ll burn you.”

  “Better than being iced.”

  I’m not a master smith for nothing. I warded off the fire shooting out of his wand and kept going. He bounded after me, shouting, “Frostbite, Master Duncan. I’m trying to help. What am I supposed to tell the Fire Warlock—that you’re too thick to know what’s good for you?”

  I took another good, hard look at him. “The Fire Warlock sent you?”

  “Yes. He’d come himself, but he’s busy.”

  “All right then. I’m listening.”

  “Stop. I can’t keep up with you.”

  I stopped. “Fine. One minute. Talk.”

  He talked so fast he would have beat a squirrel chittering. “In a few days the magic guilds are going to fix the Water Office. We’re going to take it apart and re-forge it, and when we’re done we’ll need test cases to prove it’s been fixed, and the Fire Warlock said yours was the best, so we’ve been looking for you for weeks, and I only found you because after the king posted the reward Granny Hazel told us where you were going and that she’d taught you mindwarping. So now you know, I’ll take you to the Fortress and you won’t have to worry about the Water Guild until it’s time for your trial and I’d’ve taken you there already, but Quicksilver said it was better if you volunteered. See?”

  He reached for me. I swatted his hand away. “Keep your paws off me.”

  “I can’t take you to the Fortress without a hand on you.”

  “You’re not taking me anywhere.”

  “You’ll be safe there.”

  “Not if you’re turning me over to the Frost Maiden.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You said Hazel told you how to find me.”

  “Yeah, after the king offered the reward. She figured—”

  I didn’t stay to listen. “She can go to hell.”

  “Hey! Didn’t you hear—”

  “And you can go kiss the Fire Warlock.” I didn’t look back. Thirty miles later and close to dawn, I went to earth in the lee of a hill. There’d been no sign of wizards for hours, but I kept running, weaving in and out of field and forest, and switching back and forth between boar and human, until I wasn’t sure which I was. Maybe I could have stopped earlier, but running was easier than thinking about what the fire lad had said—that the Fire Warlock wanted to hand me over to the Frost Maiden and Hazel had turned on me for the reward. The rest of the rubbish he’d spouted hadn’t made any sense, but I’d understood that much. If I’d lost Master Randall and Uncle Will and Charcoal all on the same day, it wouldn’t have hurt as much.

  The early sun stabbed me in the eyes, and I came wide awake, snarling at the entire human race. Within seconds I was scrambling through the underbrush, intent on getting away from people. Thinking like a man again didn’t come for more than a hundred yards. I sat down on a tree root, blowing hard.

  I had never before gone to sleep thinking like a boar. That was far too close for comfort to that place I shouldn’t go, where I couldn’t get back to human. I shivered. If I couldn’t think straight, I’d be a sitting duck.

  Maybe the gossip was true, and the Water Guild wasn’t working hard at following me. The fire lad might be working harder, but he was inexperienced. There was a chance I’d shaken them.

  Even if I had lost them for a while, they now knew what district I was in and could make a good guess where I meant to go. They knew about the boar magic now, too. This might be my last day as a warm body.

  Not that I cared, when even Hazel had turned on me.

  After climbing a hill to get my bearings, I angled southwest, and stumbled across a shady path threading between fields and the edge of the woods. I followed it, keeping my eyes moving, my ears open. The only noises besides my own footsteps were the rustle of leaves, birdsong, and the sound of a stream off in the distance. A few famers were picking peas and melons before the sun got too hot. Rounding a bend in the path, I caught up with a townie, ambling along with his head down and his hands together behind his back, like he was thinking hard, feet moving out of habit.

  He glanced over his shoulder, smiled, and nodded. He should’ve been nervous—I made people nervous before looking like a tramp—but if he was he didn’t show it. A wizard? Frostbite. Too late now not to speak. Short, skinny, and early thirties, he wasn’t carrying a wand, and was dressed like an ordinary craftsman. Ten years ago I’d have called him a lightweight and not paid him any more attention, but I’d learned better since then.

  He picked up his pace, and something about the way he walked, light and surefooted, reminded me of a cat. He said, “Are you in such a hurry, friend? If you slow a bit I will walk with you.”

  Not doing a good job of looking like I was out on a carefree holiday, was I? If I acted like a boar and he was a wizard, I was dead. I slowed. “Where’re you headed?”

  “Nowhere in particular. I do my best thinking while walking, and today I have to talk to an important man—a highly respected and influential man—asking him to undertake a difficult task. I have been pondering how to approach it.”

  At least he wasn’t looking for me. Thinking about somebody else’s problems would be better than thinking about Hazel or the Frost Maiden. I kept my eyes moving across the fields while listening with half a mind.

  He said, “My protégé already broached the subject with him, and made a hash of it. He dismissed the boy out of hand. I had intended to speak to him at the first opportunity, but now my task is doubly hard.”

  “The lad could tell the fellow he’s sorry.”

  He shrugged. “Yes, but at the moment it seems unlikely the man would listen. He is a forceful individual of heroic stature, not overly tolerant of foolishness or incompetence, but he has proven himself generous and willing to put himself at risk in the defence of others less capable.”

  “That sounds like a man I could look up to, like a hero out of an old story.” Uncle Will had had quite a store of tales. Get him started, and he’d tell one after another, long after we should have been in bed. We’d be bleary-eyed the next day, and he’d chew us out for not letting him get enough sleep. The memory made me smile.

  I said, “I used to love hearing those stories. Maybe you noticed a lot of the heroes were blacksmiths. I was real proud to be apprenticed to a smith.” I rubbed my eyes. Shouldn’t have said that. “I was a young fool. Thought by being a smith I’d get a chance to be a hero. Life doesn’t work like that. Not anymore.”

  “Suppose this man had an opportunity to save others’ lives by risking his own, but would not take it. Would you still consider him a hero?”

  “Nae.”

  “Even if he did not believe he could?”

  The sound of running water was getting louder. I searched the woods for signs of water wizards. “Somebody ought to rap him up the side of the head. Knock some sense into him.”

  “But those he trusts do not believe either. Only a few, myself among them, believe he has the power to save those lives. He does not know me, nor has any reason to trust me, and the story I must tell him is so far out of his experience he would be justified in laughing in my face.”

  I scratched at my beard. “Hard problem you’ve got there. Can’t expect a man to be a hero if he doesn’t see any point to it. What are you trying to get him to do?”

  “Avert a civil war.”

  I whipped my head around and stared down at him. “Eh?”

  “Surely you have felt the tensions rising, the rage against injustice, the desperation of families for
ced to leave their homes.”

  “Aye. Kind of hard to miss. Like Blacksburg before the riot.” Frostbite. Shouldn’t have said that either.

  “Indeed. When it breaks, it will be worse than a riot. If the Frost Maiden executes that fugitive swordsmith, Frankland will erupt into full and open class warfare.”

  Great. Something else to add to my guilty conscience. “You can’t know that. That’s never happened in Frankland.”

  “That it has never occurred before does not prove it cannot occur. Let me introduce myself.” He held out his hand. “Master Jean Rehsavvy, historian. You need not give me a name in return. Better to keep silent than to lie.”

  I eyed his outstretched hand. After a moment I shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Master Jean.”

  “I have studied the conditions leading to war in many times, many places. Frankland is long overdue for corrective measures. The four Offices are too rigid to allow the gradual, non-violent corrections that should have taken place centuries ago, but if changes are not made, Frankland is doomed. We cannot continue on the path we are on, and hope to avoid violence.”

  I put one foot in front of another, not watching for wizards. Not watching where I was going, either. Nothing ever changes in Frankland. How many times had I heard that? “A lot of people could get hurt.”

  “Many will be hurt.”

  “If the Frost Maiden ices the swordsmith, you said. You’d better pray, then, that she doesn’t find him for a long, long time.”

  He shook his head. “The Water Guild will find him soon, but his life is not in immediate danger.”

  “The hell you say. With the king offering that reward, he’s got no chance.”

  There was no snicker, no chuckle, but something about his eyes made me think he was laughing. “He should have been captured weeks ago. That reward was a stroke of genius. The most extensive manhunt in Frankland’s history has been sabotaged by the king himself.”