by James Duncan
Once the smith had four different larger bars, three twisted and one larger and longer folded bar, his juniors pumped the bellows vigorously as Dengir piled charcoal high and brought the fire to its fullest heat. He carefully piled the three twisted bars together in a stack, one above the other. The smith watched the fire intently; Ordulf could feel the tension in the room. There was now a large amount of steel, in three bars, and joining them successfully without cracks or flaws would require immense skill. He could see that the heated portion of the stack was at the highest temperature that steel would allow before it spat fire and crumbled. He was concerned, but he kept silent and waited.
The master suddenly withdrew the pile of three bars from the fire, steel glowing the colour of the sun in that dark space and laid them on the anvil. Then he did something Ordulf had not seen before. He started singing. Gently, the song started, and the juniors struck the blazing bars firmly with their great hammers. Faster and higher his voice went, and the strikes became more forceful and the impacts more frequent. He stopped with a stamp of his foot as the metal went a deep red, and he inspected it for only a few heartbeats before grunting to himself and returning it to the forge fire.
The atmosphere in the room relaxed noticeably. Ordulf watched with interest; clearly that had been the most difficult part.
Then the glowing metal returned from the forge once more, and once more the smith started singing. This time it was a chant, deep and resonant. The hammers fell much slower, harder and with more spacing between hits. They worked the bar from the centre outwards, alternating blows seamlessly without a word, guided by the sound of the master’s singing. Ordulf was deeply impressed. His master in Minden had used a language of grunts and whistles and foot tapping because it was faster than speaking, but it was also slightly inflexible and hard to predict, hard for the apprentices to get into the rhythm of.
This song, this chant that the old Norse smith used, was flowing and almost sensuous. Ordulf found himself anticipating the strength and speed of the hammer blows before they fell. He started to understand the sing-song direction, each note not only depicting the falling blow but also, with its tune and rhythm, helping direct the next one. This was the best hammer team he had ever seen. Ordulf watched, drinking in every detail of this alien skill until the smith set aside the bar and left the forge to cool.
Ordulf didn’t want to go back to the longhouse that night. He wanted to see what would become of that strange, twisted metal billet next. He cornered Otto in the longhouse that evening and described what he had seen in the forge.
‘It was remarkable the way the smith controlled the hammers with a song. I don’t know how to describe it. Have you seen it being done? Do you know why they twist the steel in the blade, or why they use so many different parts of metal of different types?’ Ordulf asked, the questions that he had held simmering in his head gushing forth in a rapid torrent. Otto held up his hands to slow the onslaught.
‘No, Ordulf. I know nothing about swordsmithing. I have never witnessed any sword making, and it’s not part of my job to stand around watching a blacksmith. I will ask Dengir tomorrow when I take you to the forge in the morning, if you promise to calm down and let me eat.’
Ordulf ate his evening meal and slept, mind racing over the possibilities and purpose of the crazed patterns in the metal.
The next day, Ordulf was waiting in the yard for a good while before Otto emerged. He was desperate to go to the forge and get answers. He practically jogged to the smithy, with Otto struggling to keep up and snapping at him irritably to slow down. When they arrived at the forge, Dengir was not even there.
‘Ordulf, I have to return,’ said Otto. ‘I cannot just stand here waiting. I have duties to perform.’
‘Just wait a few more moments. I am sure he will be here soon.’
As he was speaking, Dengir walked into the yard and Ordulf practically shoved Otto into his path with a meaty hand on the smaller man’s arm. Otto shook his hand off, his patience at the limit, and started talking to Dengir. Ordulf tried to catch what words he could understand from the flow. Dengir cut the Saxon slave off and spoke just a few words before walking off towards the forge.
Otto shrugged and turned around to face Ordulf. ‘He says he will not explain it. You will either understand the song of steel or you will not, and you will learn by watching and doing, not talking. Sorry.’ Otto shrugged, turned and left the yard, leaving the frustrated Ordulf standing alone in the morning light, deep in thought.
The song of steel? How can I understand without being told?
He remembered the rhythm and the flow of the song, how he had started to anticipate the strokes of the hammer team without explanation despite not knowing the words or understanding the rules. He sighed and followed Dengir into the forge building, hoping they would once again be working on the twisted billet.
He was not disappointed. Once the fire was set and the hammer team ready, the master smith brought the bigger, folded bar out and put the half-finished billet on the anvil with it. The large bar was stacked with the billet from the previous day, and the song started again. Ordulf watched enraptured as Dengir directed the forging of the billet into a rough sword blank. They forged the folded bar onto the outside of the twisted billet, wrapping it around the tip, and then forged it along the other side until it almost completely encased the one within.
The finished billet was then forged into a sword in much the same way as Ordulf was used to, except it was broader and flatter, and it had a less pronounced fuller. The work took all day and most of the next, then the song was finished for the last time. After a long period of inspection by the master, the rough blade was set aside to cool as another, simpler blade billet was brought out to be worked on.
Ordulf had hoped to be involved but was instead given a piece of what he recognised as plain iron the thickness of his thumb and the length of his hand. He was then given a small knife, which he thought was probably a skinning knife. The smith pointed at the small billet, then towards the other forge and then back to the skinning knife. The message was clear: make this from that.
A simple enough task. Ordulf was a little disappointed. He had not made such a simple thing as a test since he was a lowly apprentice. The Ordulf from a month ago would have bridled, been sullen and resented the banality of the task. But that Ordulf was gone. Instead, he decided to take the opportunity to learn about the forge and work out how best to maintain and move the heat around, how strongly to work the bellows and how long to heat the unfamiliar metal. He was glad to be finally doing his first piece of forging at the unfamiliar smithy.
In previous days, he might have tried to show off and make something more than asked, something better or more elaborate. Instead, he simply made the best copy he could, focusing on the fine details of the upcurve towards the tip of the blade, the way the profile varied along the length, the thicker spine and wickedly sharp edge. By the end of the day, it was forged, finished, sharpened and fitted with a simple wooden handle, burned onto the tang and held in place with an unfamiliar glue that an apprentice produced and that smelled sour and sickly. He inspected the finished knife at length, giving it more time than the simple item really deserved, noting whether its finish was correct, eyeing the profile and straightness of the edge, testing the firmness of the handle’s fit before leaving the glue to set overnight.
The old master smith inspected his work in the morning, passing it back and forth between himself and the junior who had been watching Ordulf, grunting and talking in low tones. The conversation was short; the smith nodded approvingly at Ordulf. He found himself desperately hoping that the smith really was pleased; he desired approval of the old master. He tried to shut the feeling out as it had no utility to him or his goals, but it remained nonetheless. The smith beckoned Ordulf to follow him, and they went back through to the forge.
Inside, he saw the smith was preparing to work again on the strange sword blade. The fire burned low and hot between the wa
lls of the forge. Two apprentices stood by, hammers in hand, eyes on the old master. The master settled himself on his little stool by the forge. Ordulf had found the forge heat unbearable that close for extended periods. It made the wool of his trousers singe and smoke, so he had worked the forge standing and leaning over, despite the uncomfortable low height of the anvil. But Dengir simply bore it, a resilience born of decades of exposure, his lower height and better position allowing him to crouch right down low over the anvil as he carefully directed the strikes and laid his own blows.
Dengir started the heating at the tip of the sword blank and began working in the central fuller. On this blade, which was already quite thin, the fuller was not made very deep. There was only a slight depression in the metal, and the process was quickly worked from tip to tang. Next, he carefully formed the bevels, sometimes hammering on his own when some detail needed correcting, other times merely singing the song of steel softly to the juniors as he let them work bigger sections with lustier blows.
Eventually he was satisfied, and he carefully set the nearly finished sword to one side. Ordulf recognised the next preparations. They let the fire between the forge walls die down to a medium heat, raking, covering and working the bellows more slowly until Dengir was satisfied. He started heating the front portion of the blade in the coals, moving it slowly back and forth, getting an even heat into the blade. He pulled it out when it had reached a warm, orange glow and let it cool, the ring of blackness moving down the steel to the point and then dissipating. Ordulf smiled to himself. Chasing the shadows. Some things were always the same.
Then, once the blade was cooled a second time, the smith rebuilt the temperature in the coals and went to work, sawing the blade back and forth through the heat, standing for this part, eyes never leaving the forge. He heated the entire length of the blade, ready for quenching.
Then, when Ordulf became sure that something must be horribly wrong, as the blade was glowing almost at the heat he would hammer it, Dengir whipped the blade from the forge and, twisting, plunged it into the water trough. Steam burst from the water and Ordulf waited, straining his ears for the telltale crack or clicking that would surely show the blade failing.
No such sound came to him. The forge died down in the background. Sweating, charcoal-stained apprentices stood back or mopped their brows on their aprons, bellows abandoned, glowing coals left to cool. Dengir withdrew the still-steaming blade from the water and looked it up and down. It had curved slightly to one side. He jammed the point into a wooden block embedded into the floor at his feet, wrapped his leather-clad leg around the still-sizzling blade and bore down on it with his own weight. For three or four heartbeats, he rapidly flexed the blade under his wiry thigh and then released it, raising it once more into the air to inspect. One more rapid flex under his thigh and he was satisfied. The blade was arrow-straight and uncracked.
Ordulf longed to inspect the blade, to test its hardness, but the smith did no such test, and Ordulf was sent to continue his work.
Days passed with Ordulf helping around the forge. The strange blade was ground and finished by one of the junior smiths on a grinding wheel, which he powered himself via a footplate and a cunning wooden mechanism.
His lessons with Otto were progressing much faster now that he regarded them as beneficial to him, not a chore. During the mornings and evenings, he tried as much as possible to speak to his fellows in the longhouse, pointing at things and making an inquisitive face. Some of them were not interested in this game and ignored him or brushed him off. Some of them, particularly the old woman and one of the young women, were delighted to help and found his brutalising of the words he tried to repeat hilarious. More and more, Ordulf started to notice the gaze and amused expressions of the young woman who, he learned with a stumbling attempt at asking, was called Brunhild.
Ordulf was tempted to explore this further, but he knew that the woman was the partner of one of the other slaves, a surly man whose name he did not remember. They usually slept together in the longhouse. It would not benefit him to make enemies, so he pushed that desire away and was merely polite and distant with Brunhild. It was not as though he could have a secret liaison with her. There was nowhere to go.
The longhouse offered very little privacy, and one of the things that Ordulf had become accustomed to was their almost complete lack of modesty or sense of shame. On the colder nights when he first arrived, no one was taking their clothes off in the open for practical reasons. The longhouse was never bitterly cold, but it wasn’t warm either. People tended to change clothes infrequently and under the covers. Washing them was as hard as drying them. Space around the fire was limited.
The main indicator of their disinterest in modesty came at night. One evening, early in Ordulf’s captivity, he was shocked when, before most of the occupants had returned from the day’s work, he walked back from collecting food to find that the slaves in the bed next to him, the other young woman and her bed mate, were vigorously rutting. They paid him no attention whatsoever, and not knowing what to do, he went to the far side of the house and sat, wide-eyed, next to the old woman who appeared utterly oblivious to the goings-on just the other side of the house.
He soon learned that this was commonplace. The warriors were even more brazen, as befitted their station, he supposed. They would couple with their wives at night with the entire longhouse full, uncaring of the dozing or sleeping people around them.
One day when summer was in full bloom and the weather could be described as almost stifling, he came back from working at the smithy to the longhouse to find one of the warriors’ wives stark naked, facing the door not two paces in front of him, working on a plait in her hair with the help of Brunhild, who was likewise free of her clothes, although hidden behind the freewoman. Even used as he was to the lack of modesty in the house, Ordulf was flustered and, for an agonising moment, wasn’t sure if he should turn around and leave or just carry on as normal. His indecision left him simply standing there, eyes flicking around, looking flushed and nervous like a boy who has been caught stealing food.
The freewoman just gave him a confused look and carried on with her plait. Ordulf couldn’t help looking her up and down. She was delicately built, fit and lithe with narrow hips and a slim chest. He suddenly saw Brunhild was locking eyes with him, an amused smile on her face. She had moved around slightly, her hands still helping the warrior’s wife work her long brown hair into the thick plait. Moving around had exposed the whole left side of her body to Ordulf, who was still frozen to the spot, trying to maintain eye contact. Her smile became broader. She raised an eyebrow and glanced down, indicating her body with her eyes. Ordulf’s restraint cracked, and he snuck a quick glance down as he started walking forward past the naked pair. His eyes lingered on the side of a full, round breast, half-hidden behind the end of her hair, before she laughed. He snapped his eyes back up to see her laughing at him, eyes full of mirth. The freewoman, exasperated, removed a hand from her hair to shoo him away. Chastened, he hurried off to busy himself with food.
The door opened again, and Otto walked in, barely even glancing at the women. Brunhild spoke to him as he passed and laughed again, nodding her head at Ordulf. Otto shook his head and tutted as he walked over to Ordulf, who was still flushed with embarrassment.
‘Brunhild doesn’t think you have ever seen a naked woman before. She wants to know if she should come over so you can have a proper look.’ Otto was washing his hands and face next to the basin as he spoke. Brunhild had finished plaiting the freewoman’s hair and was now helping her dress, her body moving and swaying while she did it in a manner Ordulf found impossible to ignore. She spoke to Otto again over her shoulder. The freewoman had taken up her thin cloak and walked out of the door, leaving the three of them alone.
‘She is now certain that you have never seen a real woman naked before,’ said Otto, in a dry, almost bored, voice. Brunhild was now striding over to them, eyes still flashing with mirth. She hopped down fr
om the raised side platform to the dry earth below, hair flowing, body lithe in motion.
Ordulf forced himself to look away. He scolded himself internally. He was here only to survive and not to cause trouble. He didn’t need this. Brunhild came across and stood next to Otto, arms crossed beneath her breasts, and spoke to Ordulf, words full of teasing, half that he understood, half that did not cross the language barrier.
Otto rolled his eyes. ‘She suggests you are too old to be so shy around a woman. She suggests you take her now so that your shyness is cured.’ Otto finished drying his hands on the hem of his tunic and turned to leave. ‘Whatever you want to call it, I think you two can take care of the rest. I’ve taught you enough words to deal with this alone – I have to go to the main hall.’
Otto strode away towards the door, leaving Ordulf standing in the corner, Brunhild looking at him with her mocking expression. She slowly paced over to him, languidly, confidence and mirth radiating from her, bright eyes teasing him. His temper and caution overcame the other feelings that were stirring uncontrollably in his body. He wanted to neither cause trouble nor be mocked, but he wanted her more strongly than he could believe. She was a vision of beauty in that half-light, staring at him with her mocking eyes. He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Perhaps I should… He shook his head free of the thought and, pushing gently past her, walked off to the far end of the house and the promised seclusion of the latrines.
His intent to avoid causing problems backfired badly. That evening, he found himself the target of much mocking from the younger women, both slaves and wives, that he did not understand. Assuming they were merely making fun of his embarrassment from earlier, he tried to ignore it. What he couldn’t ignore were the clouded looks and hostile glances from the men. He had done nothing to wrong them. He had resisted the temptation to cause trouble, yet as he sat by the fire eating, Brunhild’s man was gazing at him with what looked like anger or contempt.
