K Parker - Pattern

Asburn found a smashed-up wagon wheel in a ditch; he and Poldarn wrenched out one of the spokes, and Poldarn cracked a flint with the hammer head to make a sharp edge. While Asburn was fussing round his new forge, checking the bellows-leather for tears and sorting through the scrap pile, Poldarn patiently whittled down the spoke until it fitted into the eye of the hammer head; then he made a wedge out of a scrap of oak he found on the woodshed floor, split the top of the handle, slid in the wedge and slammed it down on the anvil a few times to drive it home. The weight and balance of his new hammer felt just about right, unlike the hammers he'd used back at the old place, which had never sat comfortably in his hand. By the time Poldarn had got that far, Asburn had lit the fire and found a couple of thick stakes that'd do for the makings of a pair of tongs. With tongs they could hold their work; they could make another hammer, another set of tongs, a set and a hardie and a punch, and with those they could make anything they chose, from an earring to a warship. Suddenly, there was nothing in the world they couldn't make or do.

'What do you think of the name?' Asburn asked, as they waited for the metal to get hot.

'What name?'

'Bollesknap,' Asburn replied. 'That's what they said this place is called.'

'I think it sucks,' Poldarn replied. 'I think we need a new name, don't you?'

Asburn nodded. 'How about Ciartansdale?' he suggested.

But Poldarn shook his head. 'Too confusing,' he said. 'Ciartanstead and Ciartansdale. Besides, I never liked that name much.'

'Fair enough.' Asburn drew the bar out of the nest of red coals; it was orange going on yellow, almost hot enough but not quite. He reached up for the bellows handle. 'You got anything in mind?'

'I have, as a matter of fact,' Poldarn said, lifting the hammer. 'I was thinking of Poldarn's Forge.'

Asburn looked at him. 'Funny choice,' he said. 'That's the old name for the mountain.' He drew the bar away from the fire, tapped it on the horn to shake off the scale, and laid it on the anvil. Poldarn fixed his gaze on the place where he wanted to strike.

'I know,' he said.

In spite of Boarci's enthusiastic recommendation, they didn't eat earwigs for dinner that night. By a pleasing coincidence, the first of the migrating geese appeared in the sky a few hours before sunset, and two plump but stupid specimens dropped in on the flood in the yard. They never knew what hit them.

By another pleasing coincidence, Asburn had already made spits to roast them on and a knife to carve them with. It was, everyone agreed, the best meal they'd had since before the volcano erupted, though Hand, one of the men who'd come from Ciartanstead with Poldarn, said they'd have been better for a bit of cabbage and a few leeks. Meanwhile, Elja had found five elderly but serviceable blankets in a mildewed trunk in the trap-house; she cut four of them down the middle and kept the fifth intact for Poldarn and herself. That left them short by two blankets, but Raffen and Boarci said they weren't particularly cold anyway, and if they were they weren't sleeping under anything that had come from the back of an outhouse. They smashed up the trunk and put the bits on the fire.

Poldarn woke up well before dawn and realised he had no chance of getting back to sleep. He felt as full of energy as a child on a holiday, so he crept out of the bedroom through the hall-it was dark, but he seemed to know the way, because he got through without treading on anybody-and across the yard to the forge. When he opened the door he found that Asburn was already there, nursing the beginnings of the day's fire with gentle nudges from the bellows.

'That's good,' Poldarn said. 'You know, I never dared admit this before, but I haven't got a clue how to start a fire. Not without plenty of hay and charcoal, anyhow.'

Asburn grinned. 'I'd gathered that,' he said. 'But it didn't seem right for me to say so, you being the smith by right of birth and all that. Here, I'll show you if you like.'

When the fire was full and hot, they started work. By alternating, they were able to share the anvil and the hammer, one man striking while the other took a heat. Asburn started by making a spearhead, 'so Boarci can go and kill things up the mountain.' Poldarn made three chisels, welding steel tips to iron bodies, since their stock of hardening steel was distinctly limited. The welds took first time without any trouble. Next Asburn made another hammer, a twelve-pound sledge, and once they'd fitted it on a stem carved down from a wheel-spoke with one of Poldarn's chisels, they used it to draw down and flatten out two broken sword-blades: one into a scythe, the other into a saw. The latter had to wait until Poldarn had made a file so that the teeth could be cut; he used a snapped-off halberd point, which already had the right degree of taper. Once he'd forged it triangular, he took a good heat, clamped it in the vice and used his new chisel to score in the cutting ridges. It was slow work; the heat in the metal kept drawing the temper of the chisel, which had to be rehardened over and over again before the job was done. Finally it was ready; he caked the file in mud before hardening it, so the fire wouldn't burn the ridges off as it came up to cherry red. The saw was filed and finished by nightfall, by which time Asburn had also made a sett, an axe head and a drill bit.

'It's getting late,' Asburn said, cutting a trail through the layer of black soot on his forehead with the back of his wrist. 'We ought to stop now, I suppose.'

'I guess,' Poldarn replied. The day had gone unbelievably quickly, and for once it had left behind tangible and valuable accomplishments. 'I was going to make a start on a shovel. That stream in the yard needs banking up straight away, before we get any more rain.'

'That's a long job,' Asburn replied. 'You'd be better off running up a couple more knives for the house.'

'We haven't eaten anything all day,' Poldarn remembered. 'We'd better do that, before we get weak and fall over.'

The treasures they brought with them ensured them a hero's welcome back in the house. Each piece of work was handed round and admired as if it had been dug up from a king's grave. In turn, they had to admire the achievements of the rest of the household. Raffen had been out gathering firewood, picking out bits and pieces from the charred mess of Eyvind's plantation. Boarci had spent the day waiting for the geese, and one of them had come home with him; they'd have to eat quickly and well to get through all the meat they had on hand before it spoiled. Hand and the other hitherto nameless loyalist, Reno, had filled half a blanket with apples, pears, quinces, chestnuts and various evil-looking varieties of fungus. Rook had scooped clay out of the seam in the yard and squidged it into cups, plates and bowls, which were drying in front of the fire. Elja had found a bed of osiers and was weaving them into something, though it wasn't big enough yet to tell what it was going to be.

'It's a shame Rannwey isn't here,' Poldarn said. 'She's very quick at basket-weaving.'

They turned their heads and looked at him. At last, Elja said, 'You don't know?'

'Don't know what?'

She took a deep breath. 'Rannwey's dead, I'm afraid. On the way down the mountain-we think it was her heart. I'm sorry.'

Poldarn froze, the basketwork still in his hands. 'Oh,' he said. 'Well, that's a shame. I'd assumed she'd gone to Ciartanstead with the others. I don't think she liked me very much.'

They were staring at him, that uncomprehending stare he'd seen so often. This time, it didn't bother him so much. The fact was that he felt nothing, except in an abstract, almost theoretical way. Rannwey had been his grandmother, his last living blood relative, and apparently she'd died. To him she'd been a pair of piercing eyes and a blank stare that he'd done his best to avoid; he'd always seemed to bewilder her more than he bewildered the others, and it had made him feel painfully embarrassed. The fact that he'd had no trouble in believing that she'd sided with his enemy was surely eloquent enough. He hadn't wanted her to die, but he was very glad she wasn't here, even if she could weave a good basket.