The Blacksmith Page 7

  “Uh, maybe not.”

  He laughed. Sam said, “Duncan can make it balance.”

  Master Paul said, “I didn’t mean what I just said. If you make that, whether it balances or not, you’ll get certified. If it balances as well, I’ll be impressed. Mighty impressed.”

  I spent a week making detailed sketches before starting on the ram’s head, but I’d known while still on horseback what to do. The horns took shape almost by magic, and as soon as the first one was done, I hung it on the smithy wall where it caught my eye every time I pulled an iron from the fire.

  That first week, I worked so many hours in the evening, that by Satur­day night everything ached. I slept half the day away on Sunday, and Annie slammed the door in my face for not speaking to her all week.

  Sam usually stayed late with me. So I wouldn’t have to walk back to the boarding house by myself, he said. Maybe so he wouldn’t have to walk home by himself. I didn’t care. He made himself useful, pumping the bellows and juggling irons in the fire, and I told stories I’d heard from Uncle Will about famous smiths in Frankland’s early days.

  We were in the smithy one evening when Jack stuck his head in, a big grin on his face. “Master Randall kicked Glenn out of his smithy. Told him he never wanted to see his ugly face again, and to get his iced arse out of Blacksburg because he’d see to it the guild wouldn’t ever promote him to master.”

  Sometimes, Blacksburg wasn’t such a bad place, after all.

  Towards the end of January, the Black Duke tripled the taxes on luxury goods. “To drive the cloth merchants out of business,” Richard Collins said.

  “It’s affecting everybody,” I said. “Master Paul’s not going to hire another journeyman to replace the one that left. His commissions are drying up.”

  “That is unfortunate. I do hope the other guilds don’t pressure us to give in. If we do it will make things worse for everyone in the long run.”

  “Aye. Have you ever thought about leaving Blacksburg and taking your business somewhere else? London, maybe, or Edinburgh?”

  “Many times, but I’ve spent twenty years building my business here, and from the rumours I hear conditions aren’t much better anywhere else. Some of my fellow merchants must think it worth a try, though. Several are talking about moving away.”

  “That ought to help you. Less competition.”

  He shook his head. “A smaller group is easier for the duke to pressure. If we are too few in numbers, the duke can revoke our charter, and rewrite it as he sees fit.”

  “Frostbite. And forget about complaining to the king that it’s not fair.”

  One bone-chilling day in February, Master Paul said Master Randall asked him to come to the guildhall for a meeting, and to bring me along.

  I asked, “What’s the meeting about?”

  “Taxes, I think. Some merchants are trying to get them lowered.”

  “Well, hell, I’m in favour of that. I’ll come.”

  The cursing in Blacksburg about the Black Duke and his taxes had been worse than anything I’d ever heard in Abertee, even before he tripled the luxury tax. I was making good money, and being tight with it, but between the taxes, room and board, and two attempts at a masterpiece, I would leave Blacksburg with less money in my pocket than when I’d arrived.

  How a man with a family to support could manage was beyond me. Many weren’t managing. Beggars camped on every street corner, and journeymen were bailing. Rumours flew that this craftsman or that shopkeeper would leave as soon as they had a buyer for their shop.

  The guild council and a few other smiths—a dozen total, all regulars at the Hammer and Anvil—came to the guildhall that night. I was the only journeyman. We were talking amongst ourselves, guessing what it was about, when Master Randall arrived without his usual smile, trailed by a couple of merchants.

  “I’m glad all of you could come tonight,” he said. “I asked you here because I know you are honest, hard-working men. You don’t fly off the handle, but you don’t fold when pushed, either. I want you to listen to what these men have to say.”

  One of the merchants said, “My colleague and I deal in luxury goods. I trade in gemstones; he imports spices. Luxury taxes and bad credit extended to the aristos have hit us hard.”

  A smith on the guild council said, “Hey, now, just because we don’t handle those goods doesn’t mean we aren’t suffering. It’s getting harder every week to pay my journeymen.

  Master Randall said, “Hold on, he didn’t say you weren’t. But you’re still making a living. They’re not.”

  The gem merchant said, “We know you’re hurting, too. Everybody in Blacksburg is. We’re watching the cloth merchants feud with the duke, and it’s making everybody nervous. We’re talking to you because the duke has hired an air wizard, an aristo, to write a new charter that he wants to force on the cloth merchants.” He paused, and we looked at each other.

  “If he gets what he wants from them,” Master Paul said, “who’s next?”

  “That’s the question,” Master Randall said. “Probably not the Blacksmiths’ Guild, but it will be, sooner or later.”

  “That’s why we’ve come to you,” the spice merchant said, “hoping you’ll back our idea. The only way we see to protect ourselves from the duke forcing charters we don’t want on us, is for all the craft guilds and merchants associations to band together and present a united front to the duke.”

  “Safety in numbers.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hold on,” a council member said. “Our charter was written centuries ago, and some parts are way out of date. I don’t want the duke forcing a new one on us, but I don’t want the one we’ve got now enforced, either, because it would set rates that would beggar all of us.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” the spice merchant said. “I bet your charter has parts in it that the duke doesn’t like either. He doesn’t want to enforce it, any more than you do, does he?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “My cousin in the Air Guild is willing to help. We’re asking him to draft updated charters for all the craft guilds and merchant associations, without telling the duke what we’re about. When they’re ready, we’ll present them to the duke all at once. If we all stick together, and agree ahead of time what parts matter most, he’ll have no choice but to give us some of what we ask for.”

  “No choice, my ass. He’ll call in the Fire Warlock, and he’ll burn Blacksburg off the map for our insubordination.”

  “No, he won’t, and this is the beauty of it. He will, if the rabble attack the palace with pitchforks and torches demanding relief from taxes. But if we ask the Air Guild for help updating the charters, there’s nothing wrong with that. If we ask the duke politely to approve them, and he refuses, the Air Guild will tell the Fire Warlock we’ve been reasonable, and the duke hasn’t. The Fire Warlock will light a fire under him, not us.”

  “Says who?”

  “My cousin and his friends in the Air Guild. Those charters date from the days when ‘fair as the king’ still meant something. The kings insisted on them to make sure the duke treated us fairly, and the Fire Warlock respects that, or so they say.”

  “I believe it,” Master Randall said. “When has the Fire Warlock ever sided with a duke? My friends in the Earth Guild say he’d love to set the Black Duke’s tail on fire, and if we gave him an excuse, well…”

  Nobody said anything for a bit. I eyed the other smiths. They eyed me, and each other. Master Paul cleared his throat a couple of times, but shook his head when faces turned towards him.

  I said, “It might work. The magic folk say there’s power in the guilds, and the bigger the guild, the easier it is to draw on that magic.”

  Heads nodded. “I’ve heard that often,” Master Paul said. “And that if we take care of the guild, it’ll take care of us.”

  I sa
id, “Maybe somebody here could talk to the air wizard and see what he would do to fix our charter.”

  “And what they’d do to the other guilds’ charters,” the smith next to me said. “Without letting the duke know.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Magic,” the spice merchant said. “My cousin says he can use magic to keep it a secret. If the duke finds out before we’re ready, we’ll be in trouble.”

  “No joke,” someone else said. “But we need to do something, and I’ve not heard any better ideas. What about the Swordsmiths’ Guild, Brother Randall? Are you in?”

  “I wish, but our charter’s from the king, not the duke. But we’ll back whatever the Blacksmiths’ Guild decides.”

  “We’d like you to pick one smith,” the gem merchant said, “to talk to our air wizard, and come to meetings with the other guilds. It’ll be safer if we can keep the meetings small.”

  “It would need to be a man,” Master Randall said, looking up at the ceiling, “who’s not afraid of speaking his mind.”

  “You know me,” the smith next to me said. “You know I speak my mind. But I’ve got a houseful of mouths to feed. I can’t risk it.”

  “I’ve got a family to support, too,” Master Paul said, looking out the window. “We need a young man, who hasn’t settled down yet.”

  Don’t draw attention to yourself, Granny Mildred had said. Especially not from the Black Duke. Don’t mess around with wizards or witches, she’d said. Especially not the Air Guild. They’re trouble, she’d said.

  “We need a man with good sense,” another smith said, looking at me. There were all looking at me.

  Good sense, my arse.

  I said, “I guess you better give me a copy of that charter.”

  When we raised an elbow at the Hammer and Anvil after the meeting, I said to Master Randall, “Some things have been bothering me for a long time, and you might know.”

  He shrugged. “There’s lots I don’t know yet, but go ahead and ask.”

  “That old riddle: ‘How is a king like a swordsmith? He has a hammer as well as a sword.’ What the hell does that mean?”

  He laughed. “Ice me if I know. Been puzzling over that for years. Grandmaster Henry—the head of the Swordsmiths’ Guild—maybe he knows, but if he does, he hasn’t told me.”

  “Shame. And why don’t the aristos’ swords break anymore? What would it take to make one shatter?”

  His face darkened. “I don’t know. Wish I did. My guess is it’s our own fault. We’ve gotten weak and lazy. In the early days, there were powerful wizards in the guild. Thorvald the Mighty was a warlock, for God’s sake. Now…”

  “Now everybody with talent thinks they’ll have an easier life in the magic guilds.”

  “Yeah, and they’re probably right. And then, too, since no swords have broken in so long, too many of us think, why bother. If Grandmaster Henry ever found a sword without the spell on it, he’d rip the smith a new arsehole, but most just give lip service to it. I haven’t made a sword in years—I’d have to go to Brother Clive and get him to remind me how the spell goes. Clive’s one of the few that make them as a normal part of their business, and he’s the only one I know that beats the spell in with every hammer strike, the way it’s supposed to be done.”

  “His swords are good, then.”

  “The best. He’s made several for the king. Damn, wouldn’t the king be surprised if one of his shattered some day? I’d laugh myself silly.”

  “Master Clive would be pissed off over one of his beauties being ruined.”

  “Well, yeah, there is that. A crying shame, that would be, but it would be worth it.”

  “If it ever happened.”

  “And it probably never will.”

  The Luck of a

  Seventh Son

  I flipped through the papers the wizard, a small man with thinning hair and a cleft chin, handed me, leaving sooty fingerprints. I handed it back. “Read it to me. I can’t make heads or tails of your handwriting.”

  “Admit you can’t read,” the clerk said, “and be done with it.”

  “I can read, when the letters look like what I’m used to, and I know most of the words. But charters written by you air wizards have got to be full of long words I’ve never seen before.” Even when I could read something, it always made more sense to me if somebody else read it aloud. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  He rolled his eyes, but read. When he finished, I said, “I can see why the duke doesn’t want to enforce that any more than we do. That bit about us having the right to make charcoal in the duke’s forests…”

  “As big as the guild is now,” he said, “you’d strip them bare in a couple of years.”

  Some words in the charter were old-fashioned, but it was plain language I understood. I said as much to the air wizard.

  “That’s the way it should be,” he said. “A charter is strongest when everyone involved understands what’s been agreed to. Your guild, like most craft guilds, has given up power by not requiring all new members recite it from memory on induction.”

  “Huh.” I’d have to remember that. Uncle Will had drilled pieces of the Abertee Blacksmiths’ charter into me, but maybe even he hadn’t known the whole thing. “It’s missing something.”

  “What’s that?” he said, without looking up. He was scribbling notes in green ink along one side.

  “The Abertee charter gives the guild head the right to tell the duke off whenever he does something that isn’t good for Abertee.”

  “That’s unusual.” He chewed on his lip. “But an excellent idea. God knows somebody needs to get past the duke’s flunkies and tell him some hard truths. I’ll add that to the draft. The right to—”

  “Right and responsibility, Uncle Will always said.”

  His pen stopped in mid-stroke. “Right and responsibility, both? That’s odd. I wouldn’t have expected your guild to accept responsibility for concerns outside your own craft.”

  I shrugged. “Well, we do. Everybody in Abertee looks to us to deal with the duke.”

  “I won’t add that. Too big a burden. Not that this clause will be in the final version anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? The duke will never accept it, that’s why not. But it’ll be a useful bargaining point. We always throw in extras we’re willing to drop, to protect the clauses that really matter.”

  I glared at him, but he had gone back to scribbling. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Eh?” He looked up again.

  “I thought the Air Guild was full of aristos, except for the ones pretend­ing they can predict the weather when they can’t even stir up a stiff breeze.”

  He winced. “Sometimes, being an air wizard is embarrassing. I wish we could kick out those yahoos, but they’re not as bad as the aristocrats. The Air Guild has a higher proportion of aristos than the other magic guilds, and I, for one, am damned tired of those rotters, like the one working for the duke, lording it over the rest of us, even in the guild, where we’re supposed to be judged on our talent, not where we came from.”

  “Sounds like it’s personal.”

  “I’d do this for my cousin anyway, but, yes, it is. That lordling has blown dust in my face too many times. If I can blow some in his for a change, it’ll be worth it.”

  The days lengthened and my masterpiece began to take shape. The fight between the duke and the cloth merchants widened when the other merchant associations voted to join the cloth merchants in refusing to give the aristos credit. The duke vowed to see them all bankrupt.

  The first warm Sunday afternoon, I ran into Richard Collins and his family in a park. We talked for a long time about the duke and the state of the city, and all the while we talked, he watched his children play with worry in his eyes. He still managed a cheery gr
eeting in the mornings, but the lines in his face deepened.

  Worried and angry faces were everywhere. The grumblings and mutterings grew louder and more constant, especially from Reverend Angus’s admirers. Nick and I and a few others hounded him out of the bigger halls and churches, but he was still welcomed in some homes and taverns. I would have bet a week’s wages the duke was paying him.

  Don’t draw the duke’s attention, Granny Mildred had said. Too late now.

  Leaving the preacher alone would have been smarter, but he scared me. If the fight with the duke went from words to fists and pikes, more folk could get hurt than the Earth Guild could handle. God help us if the fools listening to that preacher lost their senses and attacked the healers.

  Glenn Hoskins scared me, too. He’d gone to work for one of Master Hal’s friends from the Three Horseshoes after Master Randall threw him out. Gossip said he kept spouting off about the guild’s unfairness, and the self-importance of the crowd at the Hammer and Anvil. We shouldn’t stand for it, he’d say. We’ll take control of the guild and show them a thing or two.

  Other troublemakers were saying dark things to anyone who would listen. Some of them lived hand-to-mouth, and I couldn’t blame them for being angry. With the Black Duke and his cronies living high on the hog off our taxes, breaking into his palace and eating his food must’ve seemed like a pretty good plan, even if it wasn’t one I could agree with.

  But some, like Glenn, were stirring up trouble out of pure meanness and spite, or so they could grab stuff that didn’t belong to them rather than working hard to earn it for themselves.

  If I’d had time to think about the damage they could do, I would’ve been sick with nerves, but I was so busy that, for a while, even homesickness had to wait its turn. Annie threw me over for a wheelwright who mooned around her every day. I wasn’t surprised—I hadn’t done more than wave at her for three weeks.

  I don’t know how much I helped in revising the charter for the Blacksmiths’ Guild. I felt like an errand boy, shuffling between meetings with guild council and meetings with the air wizard and men from the other guilds. But I listened, and learned, and stored up ideas for the Abertee guild charter, if we ever got the chance to rewrite it.