Pattern

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 standing 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. Poldarn 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.

'Ciartan,' Grandfather said without looking round. 'Perhaps you'd like to come over here.'

Now they all turned to face Poldarn, though it wasn't until he was much closer that he could make out any degree of detail in the dim light. Understandably, he looked at the daughter first, and was pleasantly surprised. She was young-half his age, quite likely-and pleasant enough to look at; an oval, slightly flat face with a solemn mouth and round blue eyes, and she wasn't fat or bow-legged or anything. Colsceg was extremely broad, almost square, with a small nose and a stretched-looking white scar from his ear to his beardless chin, an affable-looking type. Barn or Bran was extremely tall, blank-faced, slightly gormless. Egil, if Poldarn had got them the right way round-Egil he recognised.

And Egil recognised him, because as soon as he came forward out of the shadows, Egil's face twisted with sharp, instinctive panic. It only lasted a moment, but so does a sudden loud noise; Poldarn knew that all of them had felt it, and were choosing to ignore it.

Here we go again, Poldarn thought.

Yes, he recognised the face (and it was a very nondescript sort of face, the kind you couldn't begin to describe, if you were asking someone if they'd seen him); but he couldn't remember him at all. There was just a picture in his mind-the same face, twenty years younger, little more than a boy, but staring at him in bleak horror. That was all. No backdrop, no words or movements or associations, nothing but a portrait, Young Man Horrified.

'Ciartan,' said Colsceg. 'Haven't seen you for a while.'

(If he tells me I've grown, Poldarn thought, so help me, I'll strangle him. And as he thought that, Colsceg's lips tweaked into a tiny smile.)

'I'm very sorry,' Poldarn replied, 'but-'

'You don't recognise me.' Colsceg nodded a couple of times. 'Halder's told me about all that. These are my sons, Barn and Egil; and my daughter, Elja.'

At least Poldarn had got the brothers the right way round. Egil's face was completely expressionless now, like plaster after you've smoothed away a blemish. They're all five of them as nervous as cats, Poldarn realised. Curiously enough, that made him feel a whole lot easier. Watching someone else getting twitchy made a pleasant change. 'Pleased to meet you,' he said, thinking sincere as he said it.

Elja smiled at him. She had a nice smile. That was good.

'Thirty years ago,' Halder said abruptly, 'Colsceg and I agreed that, as and when he had a daughter, it would make good sense for you to marry her.' He hesitated. It would be nice, Poldarn reckoned, if he'd paused because he wished he'd put that another way, but he felt sure that wasn't the real reason. 'But you left before Elja was born, and to be straight with you, nobody knew when or if you'd be coming back. Naturally, we both reckoned the deal had lapsed. As it turns out, though, Colsceg hasn't made any other arrangements, so there doesn't seem to be any reason why the original deal shouldn't go through.'

He's leaving something out, Poldarn thought. More than that, he's hiding something, and whatever it is, it's important enough that hiding it is almost the same thing as telling a lie; and Grandfather doesn't really know how to do that. They all know it's a lie.

'That's wonderful,' he heard himself say. 'And of course I'm deeply honoured. Assuming Elja will have me, of course.'

Now I'm talking gibberish, as far as they're concerned. Might as well ask the plough's permission before sticking its nose in the dirt. But they're going to be polite and pretend I didn't say anything. Elja's still smiling, though it's a reasonable bet her jaw's going to start aching if she has to keep it up much longer. Poor kid, he thought; in her shoes, I'd be dead with embarrassment by now.

Anyway, that seemed to conclude the meeting. Colsceg and Halder nodded to each other and walked out of the building, Barn and Elja following as if there was a string tied to their collars. Egil went with them as far as the door, then hesitated.

(I definitely know him from somewhere, Poldarn thought. Question is, do I really want to know the details? Probably not-)

'Ciartan,' Egil said; then he glanced nervously over his shoulder.

'Hello,' Poldarn replied.

The invisible string was pulling Egil hard; he staggered, slightly but perceptibly. 'You're back, then.'

'Yes,' Poldarn replied. 'Obviously we know each other, but I'm afraid I just don't remember you-'

Egil stared at him; curious expression, as if they were fighting and Poldarn had passed up an easy opportunity for a finishing cut, leaving himself wide open. 'Is that right?' Egil said.

Poldarn shrugged. 'Afraid so,' he said. 'Bits and pieces of my memories about this place drift back from time to time, but that's all.'

There was a scar on the back of Egil's hand; Poldarn knew that, though he was sure he hadn't seen it. Only a little one, a patch of smooth white about a thumbnail's width long. No big deal.

'I see,' Egil said. 'And none of these bits and pieces have got me in them.'

'That's right. Not so far, anyway.'

'Good,' Egil said. 'You've changed since you've been away.'

Almost impossible to figure out what he meant by that. 'Have I?'

A short nod. 'You've changed a lot,' Egil said.

'For the better, by the sound of it.'

'Maybe. I'm in no position to judge.'

Poldarn couldn't help grinning. 'That makes two of us,' he said. 'You know, since I've been back, everybody's been trying to make me feel like I was only away for a week or so, not twenty years. But it stands to reason I'll have changed, people do.' He paused, trying to make a decision, then went on: 'Were we friends, then?'

Egil's face had gone dead. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'Very good friends.'

'We used to knock around together? Do things?'

'At one stage.'

A picture formed in Poldarn's mind. 'I think we went crow's-nesting once,' he said. 'I've got this image of us walking across a meadow towards a wood; you were about ten, eleven years old. We're carrying long, thin poles, for pushing the nests out of the trees with.'

'Fancy you remembering that.'

It's not what they say, these people, it's the way they say it. 'It happened, then?'

Egil nodded. 'It was Grather's wood,' he said. 'You know, for his house. A big mob of crows had built in it, and they were flighting in on our spring wheat. Grather was supposed to come with us, but he couldn't make it. You remember Grather?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'Another friend of ours?' he said.

'My cousin.'

Well, that wasn't much help. 'And what happened?'

Egil didn't answer straight away. 'We did a good job,' he said. 'At least,' he went on, 'you did most of it. You and crows, it was like you couldn't bear to see the buggers. Every time one flew past you'd scowl at it, or throw a stone.'

'Grandfather's told me that, too,' Poldarn replied. 'Sounds like I had a real thing about them.'

'Meaning you don't, any more.'

Poldarn shrugged his shoulders. 'They don't seem to bother me particularly,' he said. 'I can see they're a major pest, after planting or when the corn's starting to sprout.'

'Well,' Egil said, 'I'd best be getting along-they'll want to know where I've been. Are you back for good now, then?'

For good, Poldarn thought; it's just an expression. 'Can't see why not,' he said. 'I've got no idea what sort of a life I had back over there, but it's no use to me if I can't remember it. Like buried treasure, if you've lost the map.'

'Buried treasure,' Egil repeated. 'Anyway, I'd better go. Expect I'll be seeing you around, now you're marrying Elja.' He laughed. 'Welcome to the family.'

'Thank you.'

'That's quite all right,' Egil said, and walked quickly away into the light.

Poldarn didn't follow. It was quiet and peaceful in the middle house, now that everybody had gone. He sat down on a broken sawhorse and rested his chin in his hands.

Whatever it was, he thought, it can't have been too bad; not if I'm going to marry his sister. If it was something dreadful, he'd tell his father and stop the wedding from happening.

Could be anything; something trivial from when he was a kid. If I'd done something dreadful here, everybody wouldn't be so annoyingly glad to see me all the time.

Poldarn pushed the thought out of his mind, like a host at daybreak shooing away the last overstaying guests. More important stuff to mull over: the future, rather than the past. Yes, on balance she seemed a perfectly nice girl And perfectly nice wasn't the sort of thing lovesick poets crooned under balconies. It wasn't so long ago that he'd arrived at the conclusion that he was in love with Copis, the lady con artist who'd saved his life, given him his name and briefly made him into a god. She hadn't been perfectly nice; she'd turned out to be a spy working for the monks of Deymeson, and hadn't she tried to kill him at one point? But that didn't necessarily change anything; and Poldarn had thought about her more than once since he'd been here, wondering if she was all right, what she was doing, whether their child had been born yet… Well, that was one relationship he did know about. There was also this wife of his, Tazencius's daughter, who'd married him for love, against her father's express wishes-probably not your 'perfectly nice' type either, by the sound of it. Bloody hell, he reflected, I'm old enough to be her father; what kind of life is that for a perfectly nice young girl? But she doesn't seem to mind the idea.

Doesn't seem to mind wasn't a standard phrase in love poetry, either. Maybe they didn't have love over here, or at least not that variety of the stuff. Thinking about it, Poldarn couldn't call to mind any examples of it that he'd observed (and you'd have thought you'd have come across at least one pair of starry-eyed young idiots while you'd been here; they weren't hard to spot when they were in that condition, after all). Maybe they made do with the sort of absent-minded affection he'd noticed between his grandfather and grandmother, for example, or Terwald and his wife, or whatever his name was who looked after the ewes, the one who was married to the fat woman. In a set-up as profoundly organised as this was, he could see where something as unruly and messy as genuine love wouldn't really fit in: it'd cause all sorts of problems with people missing shifts or even dodging off work altogether. Then there'd be quarrels and jealousies and fights, adulteries and girls kicking up a fuss about being married off to the wrong man, general disorder and disruption of agriculture. The likeliest explanation was that it was just one more of those charcoal things; they knew about it but had made a decision not to use it, probably for some good commonsense reason that everybody else on the island knew about but him.

Not that it mattered, since Poldarn couldn't remember ever having been really in love-Copis didn't count as that; for the short time they'd been together, their relationship had been more of a military and diplomatic alliance, offensive and defensive, against a mutual enemy consisting of the whole world. More than that, it was the next best thing to impossible to imagine being in love at Haldersness. In these parts, perfectly nice and doesn't seem to mind were probably about as ardent as it ever got.

Anyway; it could all be far worse. He could easily have been slated to marry someone twice his weight, with no teeth. He wasn't sure he'd have chosen those particular inlaws, but it was a safe bet that there was some kind of worthwhile property transaction in the background, and it was high time he started thinking like an heir apparent and giving such considerations their proper degree of weight. Mind you, that wasn't easy when nobody was prepared to tell him what was going on.

Which reminded him; at some stage this morning, Grandfather was supposed to be taking Poldarn to see the wood, the one they'd be building his house out of (like Grather, whoever he was). When the time came, Grandfather would expect to find him in the forge, getting on with his lessons. He sighed; but he knew perfectly well that hiding in the middle house wasn't going to solve anything.

By the time he reached the forge, Asburn had finished drawing down the scythe blade on his own, and shaping it was very much a one-man job, for which Poldarn wasn't the right one man. So he found the nail sett, fished a strip of wire out of the scrap and set to making nails-couldn't have too many nails, after all, and it was so easy even he could do it. True, Asburn could turn out a bucketful in the time it took him to make one, and the nails Asburn made were straight. So what; it was the thought that counted.

But the fire was hotter than usual, for welding the iron to the steel, and Poldarn contrived to burn more wire than he shaped; his mind wasn't on his work, which wouldn't do at all in a forge. Egil, he thought, and killing crows. Why had he hated them so much, he wondered? It was hard to imagine himself feeling that strongly about anything, let alone slow-moving black birds. It seemed likely that, at some point, he and Egil had got up to some kind of mischief, and Egil was warily delighted to find that Poldarn had forgotten all about it. For the reasons he'd already considered, he was fairly sure that it hadn't been anything too bad, and whatever it was, they'd never been found out. So that was probably all right, too.

Poldarn pulled his strip of wire out of the forge and dropped it into the sett. Before he could start peening over the head, the door scraped open, and a face he recognised but couldn't put a name to appeared round it.

'You two,' said the newcomer, 'you want to come and take a look at this.'

Asburn was just about to take a weld on a complicated joint; the metal was glassy white and sparkling, it'd be a devil of a job to get it right again if he let it cool. But the newcomer's tone of voice was enough to make him lay the piece down on the anvil and hurry to the door. What the hell, Poldarn thought, and followed him.

Outside in the yard, most of the farm people were gathered in a tight group. They were staring up towards the mountain, and it didn't take Poldarn long to figure out why.

A column of crow-black smoke was rising out of a red gash in the mountainside, just to the right of the rather crooked summit.