Tamlyn

by James Moloney

  ‘You will be such a pretty bride, Silvermay,’ she said, and this time the teasing gleam in her eye was matched by a certainty that dressed me in lace and flowers even as I knelt beside her in the dirt.

  I felt myself blushing at her talk of brides. ‘He hasn’t asked me, hasn’t said anything …’

  And yet he had: not in words that my ears might hear, perhaps, but on the ship from Greystone, on the journey from coast to village, even here after we first arrived, every moment we spent together had shown that whatever lay ahead for us would be faced together.

  ‘I always thought you would be first,’ I said to Hespa. ‘You are the beautiful one.’

  She laughed. ‘Maybe that’s why you’ve always been so determined to beat me at everything.’ Then she reached across to drape her arm around my shoulders and draw my ear to her lips. ‘I’m so happy for you, and I hope it happens soon. Then, with you out of the way, I can have my pick of any man in the district.’

  Soon, she whispered, part tease, part heartfelt wish. It wasn’t a word that I could use as easily, even in my girlish dreams, for there could be no wedding-day flowers in my hair while Tamlyn remained a Wyrdborn, and in recent days he had become more like one than I had ever seen him.

  I wasn’t the only one to notice the difference in him. That night, as we sat down to dinner, he didn’t join us. It wasn’t hard to guess where he was when the pounding of hammer on anvil could be heard all over the village.

  ‘He hasn’t eaten all day,’ said Ossin, and the sigh that came with his words hinted at dismay. ‘A man so obsessed with forging steel can only be making a weapon to fight his enemies with. Go and fetch him, Silvermay.’

  The forge wasn’t far and I was soon standing where I’d been earlier in the day. There was no sign of Mr Stenglass. The only light came from the furnace, where Tamlyn used heavy tongs to hold a length of steel in the fire. He’d donned a leather apron since this morning and wore the gloves I’d seen so often on Mr Stenglass’s hands. In the glow of the fire, his face was red from forehead to chin, his eyes, his nose, his mouth no more than blackened lines that might have been drawn in place by charcoal. Such a serious face it was, too, and, despite the fierce heat, cold enough to draw a shiver from me. A ruby of sweat dropped from his chin and vanished instantly amid the coals.

  ‘It’s late. Birdie has dinner on the table,’ I called to him.

  ‘A little longer,’ he answered without looking up.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Learning to work the iron into steel. It’s important to keep a clean fire. Mr Stenglass insists on it.’

  ‘But fire is always dirty,’ I said, looking at the soot that blackened every surface within reach.

  ‘There are different kinds of fire. Some burn roughly, spitting rubbish into the iron and weakening it. Charcoal is best, but it’s expensive,’ he said, and nodded down so that I would understand what a precious glow he had going. He grasped the lever of the bellows and began to blast air into the furnace, which served to light up his face even more brightly.

  ‘What are you making?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing yet. I have more to learn before I’m ready.’

  But he was determined to make something special, or why else would he be here at this hour? A weapon, said my father, and if I hadn’t agreed with him immediately it was because I knew who Tamlyn’s enemies were. Swords, arrows, a deadly mace — none was any use against the strange magic that kept Coyle Strongbow safe.

  I was about to say as much, when Tamlyn pulled back the tongs and raised the glowing shaft from the charcoal, bringing a wave of heat that hit my face like a slap. An unearthly sound filled the blacksmith’s workshop, as though the steel singed the very air around it. As I turned away to protect my eyes, there was a little fear in me, too, of the savage forces that Tamlyn had conjured in Mr Stenglass’s forge. By the time I dared look again, he had moved to the anvil, where, with the tongs in one hand, he took up a square-headed hammer with the other and began to pound the glowing steel.

  Sparks spat from beneath the blows, most falling immediately to the floor, but some shot outwards into the workshop. They drew arcs through the darkness like fireflies, glowing more brightly as the air fed their burning. As blow followed blow, bringing new sparks, the space around Tamlyn became a night sky of stars, and with each impact the steel doubled its glow, sending an eerie flash of light against my yellow dress.

  I glanced around the workshop. There were no walls to hang things on, so Mr Stenglass hooked his tools over the beams above his head. There were other shapes among them, illuminated in rhythmic bursts by Tamlyn’s hammering — strange curves and lines that I couldn’t make out. Some looked like hands reaching down towards him, and towards me bringing a moment of fear.

  No wonder I jumped when a shout came from Mr Stenglass’s house. ‘That’s enough hammering, young man. Children can’t sleep with the racket you’re making. Go home and I’ll teach you more in the morning.’

  Mr Stenglass succeeded where I had failed. After taking off the gloves, then the leather apron, Tamlyn finally fell into stride beside me for the short walk home.

  ‘You’re making a weapon, aren’t you?’ I said, since he didn’t offer any other conversation.

  He knew why I’d asked. ‘Yes, a special one. To do its job, it must be made in just the right way.’ And that was all he would tell me.

  In the morning, I hauled myself out of bed for a day that would be no different from yesterday. And since yesterday had been no different from the day before, my restlessness grew worse. I was as far away as ever from rescuing Lucien, with no plan to take even the first step.

  My father helped Ryall with his buttons so he could join us at the table without worrying that his pants would fall down. I held the loaf for him, but rather than use a knife he simply ripped off a piece and munched away like an animal, determined to degrade himself in front of us. When you have two hands, you don’t understand how well they work together. One alone is often useless. If I could have, I would have given him one of my own.

  Tamlyn went again to the forge and showed every sign that he would stay there all day. When my own jobs were done (most of them, anyway), I went along to watch him. He didn’t ignore me as completely as yesterday, but all he talked about was the steel and the fire.

  ‘Gone too cold to work,’ he explained, thrusting the metal into the charcoal and sending a spray of sparks into the shimmering haze above the forge. A shaft was taking shape already; the weapon was a sword, no doubt about that.

  I stood further back this time, where I could take in more of Mr Stenglass’s workshop. The ghostly shapes of last night held no fears in daylight: I could see that the axe that had hung over my head was, in fact, the blade of a windmill, and the curve I’d taken for an arm was a trap made of wire and thin strips of iron.

  In the long minutes while I waited for a word from Tamlyn, my eyes wandered to that trap more and more, until I barely saw anything else. An idea was forming in my head. Soon my head wasn’t big enough to contain it and I moved out into the sunlight, searching for a stick and a patch of ground to draw on. I went back to examine the trap a couple of times, but there was only so much it could teach me; the rest I would have to invent on my own.

  When I was ready, I called Mr Stenglass over to ask his opinion. I don’t mind admitting I was excited by my idea, and once I explained to him what it was for, he seemed as eager to make it as I was.

  Pointing to the line I’d gouged in the dirt, he said, ‘These parts here I could secure with rivets to hold them firmly in place, but here it needs to be flexible. A hinge of some kind. There is a way to do it, I think, although we might have to experiment.’

  I liked the way he said we. I didn’t want him to take over my idea and do the rest himself, even if he was the one who would heat the metal and shape the parts of my contraption. That’s what I was already calling it in my head, a contraption, and if together we could make it work — out of my ide
as and Mr Stenglass’s skill — there were going to be smiles on the face of a certain young man who hadn’t smiled for too long.

  ‘I haven’t had a challenge like this in a donkey’s age. Makes me feel young all over again,’ said Mr Stenglass. ‘You know, I think it would work better if …’ And away he went.

  We fiddled with the lines, argued over tiny details, with me giving way once or twice and him doing the same in return. We were still staring down into the dirt when Dinny Grentree appeared at the edge of the workshop. He watched a while in awe, and a little fear, as sparks flew wildly wherever they pleased.

  Finally, the hammering ceased long enough for him to call, ‘My dad needs you in the field, Piet. And you, Silvermay,’ he added, turning towards me, ‘your mother said if you were here, I was to say she has more jobs for you.’

  ‘Tell her I wasn’t here.’

  Dinny smiled as only mischievous little boys can. He had no big sister and I had no little brother, so we had joined up long ago and become good friends.

  With Tamlyn gone, the forge was ours and whatever Mr Stenglass had been going to work on that day became tomorrow’s job.

  ‘Work the bellows for me,’ he said as he searched among the piles of metal scraps for pieces he could use.

  To my relief, it wasn’t as hard as I remembered. It was sweaty work, though, so close to the heat. Mr Stenglass soon had four strips of metal in the fire, and watching them grow hotter and change colour soon chased all fear of the fire and the grime out of my head. Later, he found an old leather apron for me, which was just as well because my yellow dress was starting to show smears of black here and there.

  ‘Take that last piece out of the fire, Silvermay,’ he called while he was busy at the anvil.

  I needed the heavy tongs — not an easy tool to master — but I managed. It wasn’t so hard being a blacksmith’s apprentice, I decided, and before long I was having the time of my life as I learned how to punch holes in sizzling metal. I almost set my hair alight with the sparks that flew up when I bent too low over the anvil.

  I don’t know what lies Dinny Grentree told for me, or whether Birdie simply gave up waiting, but there were no more calls to return home for the rest of the day. I ate lunch in the Stenglasses’ kitchen — Mr Stenglass’s wife was as cheery and level-headed as he was — and worked at the blacksmith’s side until the light began to fade. By then, the struts along the sides of my contraption were welded together, the hinge we’d argued over and redrawn a dozen times was in place, and we got down to the delicate business of attaching the wires that would make the whole thing work.

  ‘That’s it, I think,’ Mr Stenglass said finally. ‘Time to test it out.’

  I hefted it up and down. ‘It’s heavier than I thought it would be.’

  ‘It won’t be a girl who carries it around, though, will it?’ he replied with a wink. I’d acquitted myself well in a man’s world that day and he knew it.

  ‘Shall we go and find the young man it’s meant for?’ he asked.

  I’d been looking forward to this moment all day, yet now that it was here, butterflies had suddenly gone wild in my stomach. ‘I suppose we should.’

  ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Ryall.’

  ‘Well, your Ryall is in for a big surprise.’

  Ryall was sitting outside, soaking up the last of the afternoon’s warmth, when Mr Stenglass and I approached along the lane. My mother came out when we were still a few paces away and stood staring, not at what dangled from Mr Stenglass’s hand, but at me.

  ‘Silvermay Hawker, what on earth have you been up to? Look at yourself, girl.’

  I looked down at the pretty yellow dress Mrs Wenn had given me in Greystone. Some of it was still yellow — a patch that perfectly matched the apron that had shielded it all day — but where the apron hadn’t stretched my dress was grey. In fact, around the hem it was more than grey, it was black, and the shoulders and sleeves were much the same.

  ‘Ruined,’ Birdie cried. ‘Whatever got into you? Mr Stenglass, aren’t there enough boys in the village to work your bellows?’

  ‘None as clever as this one, nor as hard-working,’ he shot back at her. ‘This is her doing.’ And with a flourish, he raised our contraption and held it out across both hands as though presenting a gift before the king.

  ‘What in the name of the gods is that?’ asked Birdie, who wasn’t ready to forget the damage I’d done to my dress just yet.

  The commotion brought my father from the house and a few other pairs of eyes besides. They all looked at me first, astonished, and only then at what we had made.

  ‘It’s for Ryall,’ I said. ‘To help him do things for himself.’

  I was looking at him as I spoke, but he didn’t seem very curious. Despite what I’d said, he didn’t stand up, didn’t even look at what Mr Stenglass held out so grandly.

  Others were interested in the contraption, though. Ossin came closer, inspected it from either side, up and down, and eventually took it out of the blacksmith’s hands. ‘Bit like an arm,’ he said, fascinated.

  ‘That’s exactly what it is,’ I announced in triumph. ‘A new arm, with a hand at the end, see, that can open and close. We’ve brought it for Ryall to try out.’

  I took the contraption from my father’s hands and stood in front of Ryall. ‘Come on, let me fit it on your elbow. There are straps, with a buckle.’

  He still didn’t rise, and when I tried to hold the contraption close so he could raise his shortened arm towards it, he pulled away instead.

  ‘Stupid idea,’ he muttered. ‘How can bits of iron and wire do what my own arm could do?’

  I was ready for disappointment if the new arm didn’t work properly; in fact, I was expecting it to need adjustments. But he had dismissed the whole thing with barely a glance. I hadn’t expected that.

  ‘Have a go with it. You might be surprised,’ I appealed to him.

  He folded his arms across his chest, an action he could still perform reasonably well. I was starting to feel dejected and quickly told myself to buck up.

  ‘I’ll show you how it works,’ I said, and went to Mr Stenglass so he could help fit it to my own elbow.

  But, of course, our contraption wasn’t meant for an arm that stretched all the way down to fingers and a thumb. My arm fitted inside the struts without any bother, but my hand was in the way of the claw that we’d made to close when the wires were tweaked in just the right way. My demonstration was an utter failure.

  The little crowd dispersed in disappointment and it was left to Mr Stenglass to undo the buckles to free my arm. The metal had cut into my flesh, and trying to fold my hand out of the way had strained my wrist. I soothed it with my other hand, yet the real pain came from Ryall’s rejection. He really was in a bad way. I couldn’t be angry with him, but all the enthusiasm, all the energy that had seen me work beside the blacksmith all day, evaporated like a thin morning mist.

  ‘Don’t feel too bad. Some men have to come up with an idea themselves before they can think it’s any good,’ Mr Stenglass whispered in my ear. ‘What you did today was wonderful, Silvermay, and not just for the thing we made together. I’m sure more will come of it than you’re thinking right now.’

  He went back to his forge. The contraption lay at my feet; stooping, I picked it up. The only one left to see me do it was Ryall, who hadn’t budged from his chair since we’d arrived and even now kept his arms folded.

  ‘I just thought … I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wanted to help, and I thought this thing might make it easier for you.’

  At least he looked at me while I spoke. His eyes dropped from my face to my damaged dress. ‘Will the dirt come out, do you think? Seems a pity that …’ He didn’t seem to know how to finish. Rather than return to my face, his eyes lingered on the yellow area that had been protected by the apron. ‘You helped the blacksmith — worked the bellows for him,’ he said, part question, part fact.

  ‘More than that. He let
me work the metal, punch holes.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have, Silvermay.’

  ‘Why not? Don’t you think you’re worth doing things for?’

  ‘I don’t want people feeling sorry for me.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of sympathy, Ryall. We care about you, even if you don’t seem to care about yourself any more. I’d make this contraption all over again tomorrow, and I don’t care how many dresses I ruin.’

  ‘I owe you something, though, don’t I? I have to be grateful.’

  ‘That’s up to you. I don’t expect gratitude; none of us do. What you feel and how you behave isn’t something anyone can force on you.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said, standing up for the first time since I’d come in such excitement from the forge.

  I thought he was heading inside, and if he was going to think any more deeply about what I’d said, it would be overnight, while he lay alone in his misery.

  I turned away myself, then a sound drew me back — the sound of metal touching metal. Ryall had picked up my contraption, causing the buckles to swing against the struts.

  ‘Will you help me try it on?’ he asked.

  I don’t think he had deliberately planned it that way, but I was pleased the first real attempt to make the mechanical arm work took place with just the two of us to see it.

  ‘If you move your elbow, these wires will tighten,’ I explained. ‘And if you tense the muscles below your elbow, these wires here will move instead.’

  He tried it, but the collar that fitted around his stump was too tight and he couldn’t make the hinges in his new ‘hand’ open and close any better than I’d been able to. In that sense, the test was another failure, yet I don’t think this mattered to either of us. Ryall had given it a go because he owed me something and he wasn’t going to let me down. That brought him closer to the young man he’d been than a clever jumble of steel and wires could have done.