Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

"Anyway, here are the dimensions of the thing, this list along the edge, as exactly as I could measure them. The angle of the taper, two ways, length and thickness. The length of the tang—it has a triple tang, did you know that?" He checked himself, glancing at me. "Of course you did— it was you who showed me how and why. Anyway, as you know, one piece of that tang, the central strip, looks like a normal tang, but the other two are bent at right angles, to form the bracing—skeleton might be a better word—for the poured cross-hilt, here. Then there is the length and the thickness of the cross-hilt itself, the length and diameter of the hilt, the size of the pommel, and of course, in the case of Excalibur itself, the binding and securing of the covering on the hilt—silver and gold wire intertwined above this blackish, rough material that I guess to be some kind of leather." He stopped speaking and moved around the table to where he could face both of us.

'That brings me to the reason for making two sets of drawings. I could have used Excalibur itself to highlight the differences in the two, but in the preparation for this meeting, I chose to make two sets of drawings, so we will be comparing like to like. Look here."

His index finger swooped to touch on the drawing of the ornately carved and decorated bar of Excalibur's cross- hilt. "This workmanship is superb. Unique and pure Celtic. Loops and twining branches, thorns and leaves, with every detail perfect. Whoever did this was a master. But I see no need to have anything resembling that on the new sword. A plain crossbar is all we need for that one—a functional guard against accidental dismemberment, as I remember you described it, Ambrose. Plain, simple, straight bar of metal—fundamentally an abnormal, lateral extension of the standard boss with no adornments at all, that's what's called for here.

"Same thing with the hilt and the pommel. We'll pour the whole thing, of course, so the pommel will be poured as part of the mould and it won't look anything like the cockleshell on the real one. But there's a problem there, perhaps minor, although it could be major. Either of you have any idea what I'm talking about?"

I glanced at Ambrose, and both of us shook our heads. "What is it?" I asked.

"Weight, and perhaps balance, since the one affects the other. Weight is the one that concerns me. We've weighed the sword, as it is, but I've no idea of the individual weights of the various elements—the blade itself, minus the hilt, for example—but most particularly the weight of the cross- hilt. That is a big, heavy cross bar, functional and solid, built to be a strong protector against other blades, but the decorations on it there are deeply graven, almost as if they were incised, although we know that's not so and they were simply poured into the shaped mould. There's a profusion of them, and it doesn't take a sorcerer's eye to see that. Not an unused thumb pad's width on the whole thing, front and back. Replacing that with a plain bar of iron's going to throw the weight right off, because all those deep grouts between the upraised figures will now be filled with solid metal."

I raised a hand to stop him. "It doesn't have to be a perfect duplicate, Joseph. There's no need for that degree of nicety."

"Isn't there, Master Cay? You told me you required a duplicate. A duplicate is a perfect replica. Besides, if it's too different, the balance is likely to be as ill bestowed as in a drunken man. If this new weapon is to do the job you want it to, then it behooves us to make the damn thing as close as possible to a perfect twin of the original. And we want to get it right the first time, because it will take long months to make, and months again to remake, starting from the basic elements, if it's wrong. That would mean a complete re-start—we can't make modifications to correct errors. D'you take my meaning?"

"Aye, I do, and there's no doubt you're absolutely right. But all we require is a working replica, not necessarily a perfect duplicate. Is your brother capable of doing this?"

Joseph looked squarely at each of us in turn. "I'll tell you true, I would rather make this sword than anything else I could ever think of, and I believe I could make it as easily here as my brother can in Camulod. But common sense says differently. The forges at Camulod, built as they were by Publius Varrus and my father, are well established and the best equipped I've ever seen. Besides that, the iron statue's there, not here, and you, Ambrose, will be returning there tomorrow, so the work could be in hand within the week. Having said all that, I'll state my opinion on my brother. Carol is the only other man in Britain I would trust with such a task."

"Excellent! Then I am satisfied. Have you any other questions? Anything further you wish to discuss?"

"Aye, one thing. The colour of the blade. It's like polished silver, it's so pure, How was that achieved?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, with any kind of certainty. Publius Varrus did not write of that stage of the sword's development. But I have always assumed it worked the same way as the shine on the skystone dagger."

"On the what?"

"The skystone dagger. That was what Publius Varrus called the knife that launched him on the search for his skystone, the mysterious rock that fell from the heavens, the one from which he smelted the metal of the statue we call the Lady of the Lake. His grandfather, Varrus the Elder, had made it from the metal smelted from another, smaller skystone he had found when Publius was a mere child. That was more than a hundred years ago. Publius buried the dagger, eventually, with Caius Britannicus—his parting gesture to his finest friend. Anyway, in his writings Publius Varrus mentioned that he had asked your own father, Equus, how his grandfather had made the metal of the blade shine so brightly, and Equus responded that the brightness was already there, within the metal. They had merely had to polish it to bring it out, and the more they burnished it, the brighter it grew. That is all I can tell you."

"Hmm, Then if you're right, and if the same holds true of the metal in the statue, all we need do to keep it dull is simply to refrain from polishing or burnishing the blade. I've never seen this statue. Does it shine like the sword?"

"No, not at all, and yet it is lighter in colour than all other iron I have seen, and it does not rust—well, I suppose I can't really say that. It has never been exposed to any risk of rust. It has been sitting dry and well maintained in Publius Varrus's own Armoury since the day it was first made. The only time he removed it was when he melted it. down to obtain the metal for Excalibur, after which he resculpted it and returned it to its place in the Armoury. Is that important?"

Joseph shrugged. "Only you can answer that. You are the one who will be using the new sword. How important is it to you?"

"It isn't, but I suspect, if our conjectures prove true, that the blade will have a brightness all its own. Even so, we should warn Carol not to make it mirror-bright, like its twin, here. Our purpose in making it is not to draw attention to it—quite the opposite, in fact." I turned to Ambrose. "Will you remember all of this when you speak to Carol, Ambrose, or should I write it down?"

He shook his head. "No need. The drawings are all I will require. I won't forget a word of this discussion or the ones that went before. My head works well, in such matters."

"One more thing I have to ask," Joseph resumed. "Perhaps the most important. How big is this statue, this Lady? I mean, is there enough metal in it to make another sword?"

I gazed at him, speechless and suddenly filled with apprehension. "I have no idea," I said. "I mean, I know how big the statue is now, but I never saw the original, so I have no way of knowing how much metal Varrus took from it to make Excalibur. I've always presumed he took half, but that is sheer presumption. What will we do if there is not enough metal?"