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  Ciartan nodded dutifully. 'I'll remember,' he said. 'Now can we go to the hot springs, please?'

  Grandfather smiled. 'Well, that's what we came for, isn't it?'

  The hot springs were great fun; there was a great big pool, as big as the long barn, and the water was a strange light green colour. It was so hot Ciartan didn't dare get in it to start with, but once he'd got over the shock it was the most glorious feeling, and he wished he could find the god Polden and thank him for such a wonderful birthday treat. Then there was the waterspout, a hole in the ground out of which a great column of boiling water spurted just when you were least expecting it; and a dozen more hot pools, some of them green like the big one, some of them yellow (Grandfather said it was yellow because of something called sulphur; anyhow, they smelled horrible, and if you dipped your hand in, the smell got into your skin and wouldn't wash off when you went back in the green pool). Also, the noise was cheerful, the gurgling of the springs and the gruff whooshing sound the water made as it came huffing up out of the rock; if he closed his eyes he could imagine that he could hear words in those noises, as if someone jolly and cheerful was chattering away to himself, a long, long way under the ground. It was sad that they had to leave so early, but Grandfather wanted to be home by nightfall, and they had a long way to go. As they left the hot springs, walking carefully because of the hateful black rocks, Ciartan couldn't help turning his head and looking back one more time, just in case he caught a glimpse of old Polden, who he was almost certain did exist and did live there; but the mountain was deserted, just himself and Grandfather. Never mind, he thought, I know you're here, I can feel you; and you'll always be here when I need you, all I'll have to do is come back here and there you'll be. And then he happened to look down, and caught sight of a little pool of the nasty yellow water, and saw his reflection in it.

  Chapter Three

  Poldarn opened his eyes. He was alone in the hall, and daylight was streaming in through the open door. Damn, he thought, I'm the last one to wake up again. It was embarrassing, though nobody had said anything yet; it made him feel sluggish and worthless, at a time in his life when his self-esteem didn't really need any further deflation.

  The hall was empty because everyone else-those diligent, hard-working early risers-had gone off to the day's first chores. In a few hours they'd be back for the grand communal breakfast. Of course, there was nothing to stop Poldarn turning over and going back to sleep, or hauling his carcass out onto the porch, where he could wrap himself in three blankets and idle away the time till the next meal. He was tempted to do just that, as a protest against not being given a job to get on with.

  But, quite apart from the self-worth and image problems involved, sitting on the porch would be very boring, so Poldarn got up, folded his blanket neatly, put it on the pile by the door, and went out into the yard. Properly speaking, of course, he ought to have headed over to the forge and watched Asburn getting ready for the day's work; it was what Grandfather would have expected him to do, though that was a long way removed from a direct order or even an explicit request. But he felt even more useless than usual hanging round the forge, because the house already had a smith, maybe the best on the island, and it seemed singularly pointless to learn the trade purely and simply with a view to supplanting him; the best he'd ever be, Poldarn knew perfectly well, was indifferent-competent, churning out mediocre hardware while Asburn went back to patching up kettles and mending fork handles. Crazy.

  Still, it was either the forge, back to sleep or a rug and a chair on the stoop. It would be nice and warm in the forge. No point in being bored, useless and cold.

  The smithy door stuck. It had dropped on its hinges shortly before Poldarn had been born, and when you pushed it, the bottom of the boards dragged along the ground like a prisoner being hauled off against his will; there were deep semicircular ruts in the yard clay to show how long it'd been since anybody had bothered about it. (Meanwhile, inside the smithy, Asburn was accustomed to make for other people the finest leaf-pattern door-hinges in the district, with forge-welded pintles and punched decoration.)

  Inside, it was dark, as of course it should be in a smithy, and there was the usual smell of rust, filed steel and coal smoke. Asburn wasn't there, so Poldarn unhooked an apron from the wall and rummaged through the pile of tools and junk on the bench, looking for his gloves. Needless to say, the smith didn't wear gloves, since his hands had long since been cooked, pounded and rasped to the point where you could bend a nail on them; but Poldarn's skin hadn't reached that state yet, and he objected to pain. Visitors to the forge pretended not to notice.

  First things first; he was earliest in, so he'd have to get the fire lit. That wasn't good. Asburn hadn't insulted Poldarn by showing him how to do such a simple, elementary job, and Poldarn hadn't been able to bring himself to ask. Accordingly the drill was that he'd make two, sometimes three rather fatuous attempts, wasting good kindling (but there was no shortage, so it didn't matter); and then he'd make some remark about the coal being wet or the tue-iron not drawing, and maybe Asburn'd have more luck with it; and a few minutes later there'd be a fat red fire drinking the air out of the bellows, and they'd be able to get on and do some work.

  There was coal in the barrel-good stuff, shop coal from the mine on the other side of the island, clean enough to weld in, unlike the garbage they scooped out of a wounded hill two days to the west-and some split wood, dry twigs and straw for kindling, even a tuft of parched moss and some grain chaff for the tinderbox. No excuse, in other words. Poldarn frowned and began raking the trash out of the duck's nest, carefully piling up yesterday's half-burnt coals around the edge. First a little pyre of straw spanned by twig rafters, overarched by splints of split wood; a few turns on the tinderbox crank produced smoke, and a few gentle breaths coaxed a red glow. Getting somewhere; wouldn't last, of course. He dumped the tinder onto his little wood-and-straw house, then reached for the rake with his right hand and the bellows handle with his left. The first few draughts had to be smooth and gentle ('like you're blowing in a girl's ear,' Asburn had put it once, rather incongruously) until the red glow woke up into standing flame. Then there was no time to hang about: rake yesterday's leftovers around the base of the splint frame and start pitching the choicest nuggets on top, while at the same time gradually increasing the force of air from the bellows (longer arms would probably help). Once the splints were lightly covered with coals, both hands on the bellows and give it some strength, watching the smoke getting squeezed out in plump fronds through the gaps between the coals. The result should have been a crocus-head of flame sprouting up in the middle. In theory.

  As was only right and proper, the bellows was a big double-action, two goatskins closely stitched together and fitted with a valve; pumping it hard made Poldarn's shoulders and neck ache, probably because it had been fitted out for a shorter man. As he dragged the handle down, he watched the smoke. Predictably, depressingly, it was getting thinner with every blast of air, gradually sparser, like an old man's hair. Little yellow tendrils of fire were flaring out at the base of his coal-heap, but that was just the kindling burning up.

  (Screw economy, he muttered to himself, I'm the smith here and I say from now on, we're using charcoal. Anything short of pissing on it lights charcoal; this stuff wouldn't burn if it got struck by lightning.)

  Poldarn sighed, and raked out the mess he'd made, uncovering a little nest of grey ash and charred splinters where the kindling had been, buried under undamaged coals. Wonderful, he thought; everybody tells me I was born to make fire, and I can't do it for nuts. At least I'll never burn the house down.

  He heard the door scrape, and looked round. 'Asburn?' he called out.

  'Sorry I'm late. Got the fire in?'

  At Haldersness, sarcasm was like charcoal; they knew about it, but they didn't seem to use it much. Accordingly, it was safe to assume that Asburn wasn't trying to be funny. 'Not having much luck with it, I'm afraid,' Poldarn replied. (He remembered st
anding on the black ash of the middle range of Polden's Forge; but it seemed he was doomed not to have much luck with fire.) 'Here, you know this layout better than me, you have a go. No point wasting good kindling.'

  'Sure,' Asburn replied, and a minute or so later, the little cone of heaped-up black coals was shooting out jets of flame, just like a miniature volcano. 'It's the damp,' he said apologetically. 'Gets into everything. I keep meaning to do something about it, but you know how it is.'

  Poldarn nodded; but of course there wasn't really any need for Asburn to waste his time curing the damp problem, since Asburn could make fire just by looking at a half-full scuttle. Imagine how embarrassing it'll be when I'm the smith here, Poldarn reflected; and every day of my life it'll take me half an hour and a barrelful of kindling just to get the bloody forge lit.

  'Right,' he said briskly. 'Is there anything I can be doing to help?'

  Asburn looked at him uncomfortably, as if he was talking a foreign language. 'Well,' he said, 'I was going to make a start on a scythe blade for Seyward-he's been on at me since the spring for one; and they want a new andiron for the kitchen, and the hay wagon needs a couple of tyres before the month's out.'

  All that was undoubtedly true, but it didn't constitute an answer to a fairly simple question. 'How do you make andirons?' Poldarn asked.

  'Oh, it's quite straightforward,' Asburn replied. 'You want something about two foot long, couple of fingers wide by a finger thick; I usually start with a scrap cart tyre. Make your ring at the top, split the bottom with the hot set, spread and shape the legs; then punch your hole, bend up your dog and swage down the end, take a welding heat, stuff the dog in the hole and weld it up. Simple as that.'

  Poldarn nodded slowly. 'Supposing you showed me,' he said.

  'Sure,' Asburn replied, and he disappeared into the scrap pile like a terrier diving down a rabbit hole. He emerged a few moments later with a long strip of rusty metal.

  'Wonderful stuff, tyres,' he said. 'All your work's done for you, almost.'

  Of course, Asburn didn't look anything like a smith; he was short and skinny, with little-girl's hands on the ends of thin, scrawny arms, and he had a plump, heart-shaped face nestling into a weak chin. Poldarn, by contrast, looked every inch the part. But when Asburn picked up the four-pound hammer and started swinging it, the hot iron moved; he seemed to be able to make it go where he wanted it to be by sheer force of personality, like an old sheepdog who can't be fussed with too much running about directing a flock of sheep into the pen. Poldarn watched in awe as the flat strip changed shape in front of him, curling like a snake or spreading like flood water, joining seamlessly as Asburn clouted the sparkling, incandescent joint, spraying white-hot cinders in every direction. Above all, what impressed him was Asburn's total lack of doubt or hesitation once the hot metal left the fire; here was someone who knew exactly what to do and how to do it in a very short, valuable space of time. Here was someone who knew who he was.

  Having completed the weld, Asburn grabbed the finished piece and dunked it in the slack tub, vanishing for a few breathless seconds behind a white curtain of steam (Ah, Poldarn realised, that explains the hot springs)

  – before fishing it out and attacking it vigorously with a two-handed wire brush, to scour off the firescale It was, of course, a superb piece of work; and after all that, Poldarn still didn't have a clue as to how to go about making one himself.

  'And that's all there is to it,' Asburn said.

  Poldarn took a deep breath. 'I see,' he said. 'Now, is there something I can be doing to help?'

  The worried look again. 'Well, there's the scythe blade,' he said. 'Do you fancy having a go at that?'

  'I'm not sure. What's involved?'

  Asburn perched on the horn of the anvil. 'Depends. I usually use a busted sword-blade or something like that. First job is drawing it down.'

  Poldarn knew what drawing-down meant: you started with something short and fat and made it long and thin. It was usually a two-man job, the role of the second man being to wield the ten-pound sledge; hard work, but any bloody fool could do it. 'Fine,' he said. 'I'll strike, shall I?'

  Asburn nodded. 'If you don't mind,' he said.

  Poldarn didn't mind striking. All he had to do was hit a certain spot on the anvil very hard with a big hammer; and the noise was such as to make conversation impossible, no bad thing as far as he was concerned. Asburn was one of those people you have to make a special effort not to like, but Poldarn found him difficult to talk to.

  Nevertheless, it was a great relief when Asburn, who appeared to have strange and occult powers where the detection of food was concerned, announced that it was getting on for breakfast time. While Asburn was banking up the fire and putting the tools away, Poldarn wandered down to the washing-hole and tried to get his hands clean. That was another aspect of the blacksmith's art that he hadn't mastered yet, which was unfortunate; his face cleaned up quite easily, but ever since he'd started in the forge, he'd never been able to shift the black marks from his palms, where the soot was ground into his skin by the hammer handle. No wonder everything he ate these days seemed to taste of coal.

  They'd already set out the tables by the time he reached the house, and he went straight to his place. Oatmeal porridge, bread still soft and warm from the oven, and a slab of cheese large enough for a tombstone; you couldn't go hungry at Haldersness if you tried.

  Curiously enough, Grandfather didn't show up for the meal. Having speculated as to the possible reason for this and failed to come up with any plausible explanation, Poldarn screwed up his courage and asked Rannwey where he was.

  She looked at him patiently. 'Visitors,' she said.

  Poldarn nodded. It didn't really answer his question, but since he found it almost impossible to talk to his grandmother, who terrified the life out of him, he was happy to let the matter drop. Unusually, though, she continued the conversation, actually volunteering information for the first time since he'd known her.

  'Important visitors,' she said. 'From Colscegsford.'

  Well, the name was vaguely familiar; it was one of the neighbouring farms, somewhere away down the valley, three or four days' ride in good weather. It was a fair bet that three-quarters of the household had never been there.

  'Ah,' he said.

  'Colsceg,' she went on, 'and Barn, that's his middle son, and Egil, his youngest. And Elja.' He could feel Rannwey's eyes skewering into his brain. 'That's his daughter.'

  Oh, Poldarn thought. And then he thought, Well, why not? True, according to Prince Tazencius, who had no real reason to lie to me about the subject, back in the Empire I'm married to his daughter, with at least one child. But this isn't the Empire, and I won't be going back there again. So, yes, why not? No strong views on the subject, one way or another.

  'So,' Rannwey went on-far and away the longest speech he'd ever heard her make-'probably a good idea if you went over to the middle house after breakfast.'

  'That's where they'll be, is it?'

  Rannwey nodded, bringing the dialogue to a definite end. Well, well, Poldarn thought. If it means I can skip another session in the forge, why not indeed?

  Accordingly, as soon as breakfast was over, he stood up to leave. Rannwey stopped him with a firm pressure of her fingers on his wrist. He was surprised at how cold her hands were.

  'Better wait a bit longer,' she said. 'Probably still talking business.'

  No point even wondering how she knew that; she was bound to be right. As to what the business was, Poldarn could probably guess if he wanted to, but he didn't. 'All right,' he said. 'Maybe I should get a clean shirt.'

  'That would be a very good idea.'

  At Haldersness, clothes were there for the taking; you went over to one of the big linen-presses at the far end of the hall, and poked about till you found something that looked like it'd fit. Clothes for the wash went in a big open-topped barrel in the opposite corner. Who washed them-and why-was just another of the mysteries of the place. Polda
rn found a plain grey shirt, thick and comfortable, soft with age and washing but perfectly sound, clean and unfrayed. He put it on and carefully tied the neck-laces, taking his time; then he took a comb from the brush-and-rag box under the window and dragged it through his hair, using the blade of his knife as a mirror. Not that it mattered, of course-business was business-but he felt it showed willing.

  The middle house was where things ended up when nobody had any immediate use for them. It had a high roof, half-boarded to form a gallery-come-loft, where the apples were spread out on racks and the onion-strings hung from hooks driven into the rafters. There wasn't a middle-house crew as such-people only went there to dump something or collect something-which made it one of the more peaceful places on the farm, somewhere to lurk when you didn't particularly want to be found. If only there was a bit more light in there, Poldarn thought, it'd be a good place to come and read a book, if only I had a book.

  He couldn't hear any voices as he walked in through the door into contrast-induced darkness, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, given his people's tendency to long, solemn silences. Sure enough, when he located them, they were standing in front of a neat pile of scrap metal-mostly brass, with some copper and lead-staring at it without moving or speaking. If they noticed him come in, they didn't give any sign. He could only see their backs; Grandfather was easily identified, needless to say, and the older man would have to be Colsceg. Of the other two men, he took an arbitrary guess and assumed that the taller one was the middle son-name, name: Barn or Bran, something like that-which would make the shorter one Egil, the youngest. All Poldarn could see of the daughter was a hank of very long light brown hair, with a pair of heels poking out underneath. Still, he thought, at least she's not bald.

  For what seemed like an insufferably long time, nobody moved or spoke. Then the man who was presumably Colsceg dipped his head, meaning Yes, and held out his hand. Grandfather took it and shook it, the inference being that a deal had been struck.