The Blacksmith

by Howe, Barbara;

  “Shut that snake, Reverend Angus, up before I go and torch him.”

  “The hell you say. I told him to get out of Abertee.”

  “You botched it. You should have sent someone you trusted with him to Edinburgh. He left Crossroads with a group headed there, but two hours north he left them and doubled back. Been preaching against witches and wizards ever since. Hey, don’t hit me.”

  I pushed a fist against the wall. “Sorry, lad. I’m not pissed off at you. That good-for-nothing is nothing but trouble. What has he got against you magic folk anyway?”

  “Envy,” Master Sven said. “He’s a disappointed air wizard. You’ve heard him talk. Nothing he says makes sense afterwards, but he’s persuasive while he’s talking. For a few minutes, he almost had me convinced we’d be better off without the Water Guild. That’s air magic, and strong, too.”

  “If he’s an air wizard, why isn’t he in their guild?”

  “They wouldn’t take him. He can’t stir up a breeze, and that’s their minimum requirement. As far as they’re concerned, he’s nothing. Fools. Not that the Fire Guild is any better. We won’t accept anyone who can’t light a candle.”

  “So now he hates all wizards because they wouldn’t admit he’s one.”

  “Yes. Does that surprise you?”

  “Nae. I’ve seen it before. So he’s still in Abertee. Are folk listening to him?”

  “Not many in Abertee,” the fire lad said. “Not after you told them about Blacksburg. He’s been staying at an inn on the Roman road, preaching to people passing through. The Fire Warlock’s had me keeping an eye on him, and after listening to him a couple of times, I was ready to shove him in the volcano.”

  “The Fire Warlock ought to do something about him.”

  “He’d love to,” the mage said, “but he and the king are already nose-to-nose on too many other issues, and the king’s protecting the son-of-a-bitch. Claims he has a right to express alternative views. Ass!”

  “Stirring up trouble like he does… Encouraging folk to riot ought to be a crime.”

  “It is. Sedition. Incitement. Sorceress Lorraine—the Frost Maiden, that is—would love to sink her claws in him. But until the Water Office is fixed, it won’t do any good.”

  “And if you think I can do something about him, you’re nuts.”

  The fire lad said. “Maybe you can keep people from going to hear him.”

  The mage flipped through the stack of papers. “Unlikely, and we’re wasting time. As you reminded me, we have work to do for tomorrow. Master Duncan, wait!”

  “Aye?”

  “I will put a spell on the kitchen fire tomorrow morning so everyone here can see the proceedings at the meeting in Paris. You should watch.”

  “Thanks, but nae. I know what happened. I’ve no stomach for seeing it again.”

  “Yes, I understand that, but there are surprises in store for the nobles. For the commoners, too.”

  I shrugged. “Fine, but not interested. It won’t affect me.”

  “I beg to disagree. It will affect you.”

  The fire lad added, “You’ll be sorry if you don’t watch.”

  Maggie and the Frost Maiden

  The forge was cold, the alleyway empty. The guards—every single one stationed in the Fortress, as far as I could tell, except for a lone man at the main gate—had gone to Paris. I set to work at the grindstone, putting an edge on a battle-axe, but kept sneaking glances over my shoulder at the empty smithy, and before long set the axe down and rode the stairs to the kitchen. Might as well see what the surprises were. I didn’t have a good excuse not to.

  Officers’ wives, the Fire Warlock’s lackeys, and several dozen others crowded around the fire. I looked over their heads, and through the fire saw a ballroom packed with aristos.

  Mrs Cole counted stragglers. “Good, that’s everybody. It’s time, and Master Thomas has something to say before they start.”

  The man beside her waved a folded paper. “Master Sven asked me to read this to you. I don’t know what it says either; he bespelled it so no one could read it too early.”

  He unfolded it and read, “No man in Frankland, royal, noble, wizard, or commoner, can force himself on an unwilling woman and hope to evade justice. We learned this at our mothers’ knee, and we learned a lie. Nobles can, and do, rape without penalty.”

  I swung around from the fire and gave him a hard look. He stopped reading and stared at the paper.

  “That’s nonsense,” someone said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “It would explain a few things. Keep reading.”

  Master Thomas cleared his throat, and read about the magic the aristos were using that let them get away scot free with doing what any man who’d ever loved his mum or his sister ought to be ashamed of thinking about. He read on, giving dates for Lord Edmund’s crimes.

  It hadn’t taken much brain power to figure out he’d helped himself to Fiona, and what he’d had in mind for Maggie. I’d wanted to believe it wasn’t so. Hearing it from a mage put paid to that forlorn hope. When I hit the brat, I swear I didn’t intend murder. If that blow hadn’t killed him, I’d go after him now, with intent.

  I left the kitchen and went back to the barracks, where I took an axe to a pile of firewood and made matchsticks. I was still swinging when Master Thomas and Mrs Cole came down.

  “You haven’t heard, have you?” she said.

  “Heard what?”

  “Your sister’s on trial for slander.”

  Maggie was part of the counter-magic, they’d said. She’d wanted every Frank to know that earl’s whelp deserved what he got, they’d said. She’d made her accusation, that Lord Edmund had raped five women, in front of the king to make sure the aristos’ dirty laundry got a good airing, they’d said.

  What they didn’t say was how Maggie came to be in the counter-magic, rubbing shoulders with warlocks and mages, but I could guess. Maggie was friendly with Hazel, and Hazel was friends with the Locksmith. When they needed a dupe to stand trial for them, they had picked an Archer. Naturally, given what fine, upstanding suckers we are.

  I stayed by the fire all that long, hot day, shelling walnuts from a sack an officer’s wife handed me. Needed for pastries, she’d said. Keep my hands too busy to break the crockery, she’d meant. No doubt Mrs Cole could snap her fingers, the shell would crack open, and the nutmeats would throw themselves wherever she wanted them.

  Men and women drifted through the kitchen, stopped for a few minutes to listen to the lawyers wrangling, and drifted out again. Late in the afternoon they trickled back in and gathered around the fire. Mrs Cole inspected my work and offered me a venison pie. My belly rumbled, but I turned it down. I had no stomach for it.

  The royals paraded back into the ballroom, and the trial began. I kept on shelling walnuts. I couldn’t bear watching the filth on display. Listening made me glad I’d turned down the pie. Several watchers ran, heaving, from the kitchen.

  When the Frost Maiden summoned Maggie, I moved closer to the fire and watched my baby sister kneel at that unfeeling witch’s feet.

  “The Water Office finds you guilty of slander,” the Frost Maiden said. A roaring drowned out anything else she said before everything went black.

  I lay flat on the floor beside the kitchen fire. “What the—”

  “Quiet!” Mrs Cole snapped. She pinned me to the hearth with her wand, without looking down. I couldn’t roll over or sit up, or make the slender rod budge. I turned my head to the fire and stared. A riot was in full roar in the ballroom, under the Fire Warlock’s nose. Boots and cabbages flew. The mob howled. The Fire Warlock bellowed. Flames shot across the room. An aristo burned like Glenn Hoskins.

  Mrs Cole waved a hand at the fire. The noise died. “That’s enough. Out of my kitchen, all of you. Find something useful to do. They’ll be brin
ging wounded guards home soon.”

  When the kitchen was quiet, with only Mrs Cole and Master Thomas leaning over me, she said, “You can talk now. I’ll let you up if you promise not to go berserk again.”

  “My sister’s in that mob.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s here in the Fortress. Warlock Quicksilver is grabbing everybody who can’t protect themselves and bringing them here.”

  Master Thomas said, “Did you hear the sentence?”

  “Nae. Just that she’s guilty. Guilty, my arse! She told the truth.”

  “Yes, and after today it will be impossible for anyone, even the king, to argue the Water Office isn’t broken and needs to be fixed.”

  “Is that why she was there? As whipping boy? So the magic folk in this re-forging nonsense could get the king’s approval?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe they think they’re clever, but it isn’t fair to my sister.”

  “No, of course not. It doesn’t seem like something Warlock Quicksilver would do. He’s subtle, and devious sometimes, but fair.”

  I lay with my arm over my eyes and took long, slow breaths. “Tell me the sentence.”

  “She has to pay a whopping fine, and serve the earl for the rest of her life.”

  After a long silence, Mrs Cole lifted her wand from my chest. “When you’re ready to see her, she’s in the ballroom.”

  The ballroom was ablaze with lights. I tiptoed from one shadow to another on the walkway outside, looking for Maggie. I held my breath passing the knot of people around the king, but they watched the riot in the magic mirror on the far wall, and no one turned to look out the window.

  Maggie sat on the floor, crying, beside a glass door. Hazel was on her knees beside her, stroking her hair.

  I put my hands flat on the wall between the door and the last window, and leaned against it, breathing hard. If I dared show my face to the king, I’d walk in and tell Hazel off. It was bad enough she’d turned on me. She had no right to ruin Maggie’s life, too.

  Maggie scrambled to her feet. I peeked around the doorframe; an old woman and the new earl—Lord Edmund’s brother—were coming.

  Be damned if another highborn lout would get his paws on my sister. My carcass was due to be iced anyway. I grabbed the door and drew in a good breath, getting ready to roar.

  Green light flashed, and I couldn’t move or make a sound. I was off-balance, and should have fallen over, but stayed upright, unmoving, with my fist gouging splinters from the doorframe. All I could do was swear in my head like Old Nick, while the bastard ordered my sweet baby sister to…

  While he ordered her to go home, do whatever she wanted, and not bother him again.

  How was I supposed to know a louse like Edmund could have a brother that acted like a…well, like a nobleman?

  Green light winked from the old woman’s hand. The Earth Mother, that’s who it was. Her magic held me still. The yank I’d given the door would tear if off its hinges if I didn’t stop it when the magic let me go. The green flash came again. I leaned in, and caught the door full in the face.

  I rested my head against the door and felt for my nose. The Earth Mother tut-tutted, and waggled her fingers. My nose snapped back into place, and the blood pouring out disappeared.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I mumbled.

  Great. The king wanted me dead, and I’d made a fool of myself in front of three of Their Wisdoms. If the head air wizard showed up, no doubt I could make it a full slate.

  Nobody besides the Earth Mother seemed to have noticed. She walked away with the earl and his mouth-watering wife. Hazel whispered to Maggie, who spun around and threw herself at me. She laughed and cried on my shoulder. I held her, kissed her hair, and watched Hazel walk away without turning to look at me.

  When Maggie’s sobs dwindled to little hiccups, I said, “What are you doing, mixed up in this mess?”

  “I hated what that miserable aristo did to Fiona. What he almost did to me. Hated people laughing when I said you were trying to protect me. I hated all the lies. I—we—thought getting rid of the lies would make things better.”

  “Doesn’t look like it did.”

  “No, it didn’t.” She mumbled into my shoulder. “I don’t know why not.”

  “Guess I can’t give you grief—much, anyway—for trying to help. I’ll save it for Hazel.”

  Maggie straightened up. “Are you out of you mind? Why?”

  “For talking you into it. Those witches shouldn’t have dragged a no-magic lass like you into their mess.”

  “They didn’t drag me. You think I can’t poke my nose into trouble on my own? I’m an Archer, for God’s sake. You, of all people… Hazel tried to talk me out of it. Said our family had already lost too much. But I insisted—I wanted to help.”

  I patted her hair. “Sorry, sorry. I’m proud of you for telling the truth. You did fine. It’s just that…I don’t know what to think. I’ve been wondering for days now why Hazel turned on me, and then you get mixed up in this. You know—you piss off a witch, and things go to hell…”

  Maggie pulled away. The light from the ballroom lit up one angry eye. “Turned on you? What gave you that idea?”

  “She told the Fire Guild how to find me.”

  “Aye, but—”

  “And the runes said she’d be happy there, so it must not have bothered her much.”

  “Happy, my arse. When Granny Mildred found out, she sent her packing. Between that and fretting over you, she’s making herself sick, crying.”

  “Serves her right for ratting on me.”

  Maggie slapped me. “Duncan, you are an idiot sometimes. Here you are in the Fortress, where the Frost Maiden can’t get you, and the Fire Warlock willing to take you to the border and save you God-knows how many months and pairs of boots, and you’re pissed off at Hazel for helping you get here? When the fuss started, with the king ordering everybody in the Water Guild out on the hunt for you, and offering a reward big enough to buy half of Crossroads, we were sure you were icicles. When Hazel told us she’d taught you mindwarping, and asked for Doug’s advice, he said she should tell the Fire Guild.”

  My own family had turned on me? Nae, I couldn’t believe that. “Doug what?”

  “He said you’d be safer with the Fire Guild than on your own. I had a hard time at first believing he said that, but he was right. I don’t know what he would have said if he’d known what she didn’t tell us.”

  “What didn’t she tell you?”

  “I heard it today from a water witch. Teaching you mindwarping magic counts as aiding and abetting a fugitive. Hazel has to stand trial, too.”

  I reeled backwards. “Nobody told me… She didn’t say…”

  “Of course she didn’t, you halfwit. If you’d known, would you have let her teach you?”

  “Hell, no.” I ran along the line of windows. Only a few people were left. I charged in and grabbed the fire lad by the collar. “Granny Hazel—where is she? She was here.”

  “She left for the tunnels a while ago.”

  “Which way?”

  He jerked a thumb. “By the Fire Warlock’s study.”

  The magic stairs had seemed slow, but they sped up as I ran, taking them three at a time. Near the top I was almost flying. I yelled, “Hazel, wait. Granny Hazel.”

  The landing at the top was empty, and cold. A knock on the Fire Warlock’s door brought no answer. The breeze made no noise. The only light came from stars and a quarter moon. There was no sign an earth witch had been through only a little earlier. It would have been easier to believe no one had set foot there in a hundred years.

  Stepping onto the stairs to go back down felt like falling off the edge of the world.

  Maggie and Mrs Cole were waiting at the ballroom. Mrs Cole promised to have Warlock Snorri take Maggi
e home in the morning, and they left together, to find Maggie a room for the night. My footsteps echoed in the empty ballroom, but the magic mirror was just a mirror. When I walked out onto the terrace, the lamps blew out behind me. Other lights glowed, here and there in the Fortress, and down in Blazes, but they were far away. Even sleeping rough in a forest or hedgerow, with the Water Guild after me, I’d not felt so alone. There were always small bodies—foxes, field mice, rabbits—making soft sounds in the night. Here there was nothing, not even a breeze.

  I sighed, and turned away from the ballroom. A woman, silver in the moonlight, waited by the stairs. I froze.

  “Grandmaster Duncan Archer,” the Frost Maiden said, “I beg the favour of a word with you.”

  September First

  That fool Fire Warlock said I was safe in the Fortress. I backed into the wall.

  “Do not fear,” the Frost Maiden said. “Even if I wished you harm, which I do not, I hold no authority here. The Fortress shields you, as it has shielded other men, far more wicked than you.”

  The Frost Maiden I’d heard stories about would have iced me, Fortress or no. I edged towards a door. “I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am. Your Wisdom. What do you want? Er, sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

  A flick of her hand sent blue light dancing along the walls. “The current and former Fire Warlocks have both asked you to be the test case when we demonstrate for the king the soundness of the re-forged Water Office. On the Water Guild’s behalf, I add my voice to theirs, and ask you, nay, beg you, to reconsider your refusal. You are Frankland’s best hope for a verdict that will satisfy all classes.”

  Her face was in the shadows. Maybe she meant it. Maybe she wanted another crack at icing me. I felt behind me for a latch. “Why me?”

  “We have identified few other test cases fit for the purpose and, in comparison to the lives of the other accused men and women, yours is head and shoulders above the rest.”