"You look happy today," the master smith commented. He grunted when the iron bar struck the forge's edge.
Bequet smiled, and pulled the bar toward her, getting the end into the hot flames. When the bar was turning red, she rolled it away from her, back to her master.
"I know... I've found pieces for the knife. Even if I won't be using it the way I originally thought to."
Collins snorted, and grunted out a laugh. "Good. I was worried. You get distracted like that and you might wind up getting hurt. And that won't do you any good, if you're to use that blade for your journeymanship."
With that, Collins pushed the bellows on the forge, and the sound of the flames and hissing iron blotted out any hope of a response from Bequet. Collins knew she'd be surprised, but she was ready, and if that blade was even half the beauty it seemed, she'd deserved the badge long before. He knew it was not even her best work -- and if this was her worst, all he had to do was wait for the good stuff.
Bequet on the other hand stood with a very slightly slack jaw, fingers numbly wrapped around the warm iron bar. She jerked her hands away from it when Master Collins tugged on it.
"Now, let's get this into shape, shall we?" He said, leaning it out of the hot area, and onto the anvil. There, they both worked the metal in turns, and it quickly formed into the angular wedge-ended bar which had been requested.
Bequet looked distracted, but even then she always had time in her mind and on her hands for her work. She could be in another dimension far away, as far as Collins was concerned, but if she could make a fork, a wedge, a wheel or a blade with that distant look in her eyes, she was as close to a smith as anyone he'd ever met.
They plunged the bar into a larger barrel of runoff water, letting it harden and cool. While it did so, Bequet finally said, "our hearth fire went out again," and looked toward the bucket of forge coal.
"Then I'll be getting this to the miners," Collins said. "You... keep up appearances, while I'm gone..." He left the forge area to Bequet, no one else around. She smiled and placed enough lumps of coal into her work sleeves that her mother wouldn't worry for at least a week.
She remembered to take the last coin that she had, carefully remembering that she mustn't spend it any other way or else she'd never finish her blade. One coin gone already, one left, and nothing at all left in the family's chest.
That stung her more than any shock from the anvil and hammer could. But... If she became a journeyman, she'd be able to work for pay, instead of remain as an apprentice and make only little things to take home.
Perhaps ... what if she could even set up a shop in town?
Wouldn't that be spitting in Amarast's eye?! Chuckling to herself, she strolled up to the wood crafters shop and opened the door. There were a couple others in the store as well, but they paid her no heed. They were locals, just chatting it up. When she arrived, the craftsman looked up and his face brightened.
"Ah, lass! I've finished that work you needed done. Why don't you lot go back to the klah store where you belong? Can't you see I've got a paying customer!" They laughed at him and left, moving across the narrow dirt road and back to the little sharp-smelling drinks store. Everyone seemed to pass by that store at least once in the morning, sometimes on their way home too. Bequet had never had coffee, so she didn't know what it was that made it all so special. She concentrated on her commission.
The man unwrapped the work, and Bequet immediately liked it. She almost told him so, but thought the better of it. He'd try wheedling out more money from her, and she just didn't have it. So she settled for approving of it carefully. She examined it, deciding that the bars she'd need to set through the tang to secure the wood could go at such and such a place, then the wrapping could be gently nailed in ... here. The scabbard parts were just as fine, perhaps a bit thin but then the blade wasn't heavy.
"Yes, this will do. I can see you're quite the dedicated workman," Bequet announced, while handing him the coin she had reserved for this. "I know that he'll just love it. It will work nicely."
Bequet was about to leave with her prize, but then remembered, "ah, sir... Might I have that parchment back? You know how hard it is to find good writing paper, and if I clean the outline off it, I could re-use it."
"Thrifty, aren't you?" He asked, and grudgingly handed the paper page back to her. She subtly examined it, made certain that it didn't look like he'd tried copying anything from it, and folded it carefully back into her shirt.
"Yes, sir, but one can't be too careful about funds and supplies, you know. I'm sure you know that." She left, hoping that she wasn't being too over the top.
Bequet did not see two men watching her from the cafe's table just inside the building across the street. She was in a good mood, and had the rest of the day to assemble her prized weapon.
"Master," she said, distracting Collins from his lunch. "I need some assistance getting this started. Do you have any illustrations I could use?"
"To reference for that? Hmn..." He vanished into his cramped office which was the sole clue that he was actually a well educated smith. He could read and write, add and work figures, unlike many of his apprentices and other smiths. Certainly unlike most of the poor miners who slaved away still, nearby.
He produced a book which had been in his family for generations -- before that Bequet couldn't begin to guess where they'd gotten it. It was written in a language that even Collins didn't know, but the illustrations in it were clear enough for her to follow.
She looked at the long, beautiful blades which this book showed off. And the armor... How odd it looked, how fierce. Horns from a helmet, laquered bamboo layers over hard leather... Silk and studs... Bequet's fingers found the right way to fold the hard cloth, once she'd cut it into the proper sized strips for wrapping. She would use two pieces, braiding them around one another for the covering.
She nailed in the end, and tucked the other end into the hilt's blade end when she was finished. When she realized that the blade -- no, the knife now -- was finished, she sprang to her feet. She immediately went back to the forge to begin that shell for the scabbard. It would have to be narrow, and that was a challenge. The blade was so thin that it might need padding on the inside of the scabbard so it wouldn't be nicked by being jostled.
Bequet took a light metal sheet from a discarded pile, used tongs to place it within the heat of the forge. She didn't want to do too much with this, it wouldn't be needing much. When it was hot enough she struck it with the larger hammer and was pleased that it folded just the way she wanted it to. Instead of making two pieces and welding their seam, she decided to place a shim in the middle of the metal, and pound around it until the two sides were one piece, then flatten it.
Collins stood by and watched this, like a cat watching a butterfly. The woman was brilliant with her work, when she was duly inspired. The eighteen year old was better at designing things than most adult masters he knew of. Perhaps she should open a shop -- she'd brought that up to him the day before, and he commented that he wanted to keep her on here a bit longer, but that he thought she would make her share of coin from any venture.
When Bequet was mostly finished with the scabbard, while it was still a bit warm, she cleared out the wood from it and scoured it with a scrubber. Then she placed the blade within it. Fitting it only took half an hour more of slight fiddling and pounding with the smaller hammer.
She folded the edges of the scabbard up, added enough of a lip that the wood would be fit into it easily. When she put the wood to it, she found that the carver was indeed quite talented. She found it easier to re-fold the edge around the wood while maintaining the interior, than to hope that she could whittle the small unmatched edge of wood to the metal.
"Done," she sighed, "finally."
"Ah, what do you mean finally, girl?" Collins said, the happiness in his voice making Bequet turn. "You only started working that piece three days ago, I've worked on swords more than a year!"
"Yes, but you've more patience than I do," Bequet said. The round cheeks of the man made her wonder -- oh - she was--
"Well, Bequet of Faston Hill, I want to bestow on you the official title of Journeywoman Smith. You've earned it." He dug around in his smock, "ah, and this," he held out a pin which had the journeyman's symbol and the anvil and hammer design below it, something which he'd made while she wasn't looking. It was a poured piece, she noticed, made from very expensive metal. Metal this mine did not provide.
"I ... I thank you sir!" She said, and threw her arms around him in a happy embrace. "Thank you so much!"
"Now, go show off to your parents. I'm certain they'll both be very proud of you. I am. And when you come back tomorrow, we'll work out a pay scale."
"If those rats in the Hold don't try and kick me out. They have the final say of who gets hired in the mine, Master Collins."
"Journeywoman Bequet," Collins said, leaning his head down, "if they want their miners to continue having the good quality work we put into their tools, they'll keep you on. If they don't, then I will retire. I'm just about ready to, as it is. In fact--"
"Don't say it!" Bequet said, loudly. "I ... I can't run this place. Not yet... I'm not ready for that."
"Not yet," Collins insisted, then he shooed her out of the forge. He helped her wrap up the knife in its sheathe and tucked in a small pouch of coins which he'd been saving for the event. "Go into town and get yourself whatever you need to, you've earned this."
Though she was outwardly trying to keep tough and steady, there were tears of joy brimming in Bequet's eyes. She hurried out, so that he wouldn't see her burst into tears.
On her way out, she saw a guard caravan trundling toward the mine. Since she was headed up the hill on her private path, and they were coming down along the road, they did not have to meet. Her vision obscured by happy tears and her bursting smile, Bequet neglected to notice that the guards who got out of the wagon's cab wore very fine gear, good swords and black over coats. They did not stop at the mine, they went directly to the forge.
Bequet made her way into her family's house quietly but with the wide smile still on her face. "Father? Mother!" She called, and to her relief she found them both sitting over by the warm fire they'd been keeping. Two pots dangled over the low flames, one was obviously stew, the other was filled with the herbs and remedies which Bequet bought from the herbalist.
"Knee acting up again?" She said, putting her bundled goods down. Her father grunted. He was obviously in great pain, still, and her mother drew a cloth from the smaller pot. She draped the sticky rag over his shattered knee, and he sighed with relief.
"Mother, you shouldn't spare your own foot." Bequet announced. She bent over and took another rag from the pot, and insisted on treating her mother's wounds. Their open sores indicated a deeper infection, one that wouldn't go away, no matter how much soothing the skin was given. She'd have to call a healer to the house, when she went to town.
She said little, merely working until both her parents seemed in better spirits. Then, when Bequet leaned back and drew her hand across her brow to cool herself, her father looked up to see the gleaming pin on her collar.
"Ah, Bequet... Look Quian, we've a Journeywoman in our midst."
Gasping, the woman's shaking hands pawed at her daughter's shirt, she got a good look at the pin and grinned wider than Bequet did. "My baby... I'm so proud of you!"
They spent the evening chatting about what they would need from town, this week, and what they wouldn't really need, but what they wanted and would have.
***
The forge went cold, with no one to tend it that night.
