A few taps closed the legs around the insert; then a generous sprinkle of flux and back in the fire and some hard labour on the bellows handle, until the fire was so hot it frizzed his eyebrows. It took a frustratingly long time to get the work to a uniform welding heat, but Poldarn knew better than to be continually hauling it out and fiddling with it; he was listening for the sound of the iron starting to melt, even though he hadn't got a clue what that sound was supposed to be like. But, he figured, that was where his ignorance would come in useful; as soon as he heard a sound he couldn't identify, that'd be it.
It proved to be a soft, kittenish purr. He had the hammer in his hand all ready, a light dusting of flux on the anvil, loose firescale all carefully swept and blown away. As the work emerged from under the coals it was dripping fat white sparks like tame indoor stars, and as he started hammering the weld together the metal seemed to explode like a volcano, throwing out white-hot hailstones in every direction. Two of them settled on his bare skin and hurt like hell, but he knew he didn't have time to waste on pain; the iron and steel would only be half-molten together for a few precious heartbeats, and if he screwed up the weld this time, he'd probably have to start all over again with a new strip of tyre and another scrap of steel. He could see the brief opportunity in the hot metal, feel it squirming under the hammer, like a boot squelching in boggy ground (he imagined that it would feel like this to wade across the surface of the sun; something a god could probably get away with, though a man would be incinerated before his foot touched down).
The last few sparks went out, allowing Poldarn to feel the ferocious heat of the metal roasting his skin and flesh, though his hands were a hammer shaft and a pair of tongs removed from it. He stopped hammering and held the work up as close as he dared bring it to his face, trying to see if the weld had taken, but all he could make out was a glaring white hole burnt into his vision, which stayed there when he shut his eyes. He put the work back in the fire; after the trauma of taking the weld, pumping the bellows felt almost pleasant in comparison.
He concentrated this heat on drawing out the shape of the blade, tapering it on the flats and sides, first on the horn, to move it, then on the flat, to straighten it out. To Poldarn's joy and stark amazement, the weld seemed to have taken, right the way up to a point a fingernail's width under the eye. He was very impressed. He had no idea how he'd managed to do that.
The rest of the job-shaping, bevelling, smoothing, plenishing-he did in a sort of a daze, without really thinking about it, since his hands appeared to know what to do and his head didn't; they were remembering, just as they'd remembered how to draw a sword and slash through a neck vein. They'd remembered, because they were a blacksmith's hands, even if the blacksmith himself had seen fit to forget what he'd once been, who he was.
Damn, Poldarn thought, I was wrong and Grandfather was right, he said I was the Haldersness smith, it's who I've been all along and I wouldn't let myself admit it. I must have learned this trade-well, of course I learned it when I was a kid, that's what the heir apparent would do in a place like this. He looked round at the walls, at all the obscure and arcane tools roosting there on their hooks and brackets, and suddenly he knew them all by name, the way a leader knows his men, or the head of a household knows his family: the hardies and the swages and the flatters and the fullers, the stakes and setts and drifts and headers, straight-lip tongs and box tongs, wedge, hammer and side tongs, bicks, forks and scrolls. There you all are again, he said to himself, I've been away but I'm back again now, and here you all still are, just where I left you.
Asburn was coming over to him, smiling. 'How're you getting on?' he asked; then, 'Oh, that's really nice, you've got that just right.' For some reason, Poldarn felt patronised, insulted; and what was this stranger doing in his shop anyhow, using his tools, like he owned the place?
'Thanks,' he said sullenly. 'It isn't going to look much, but it's close enough for country music' He leaned over the finished axe head, examining it with exaggerated interest, so he wouldn't have to look Asburn in the face. 'Bloody great scale pits there and there, look, they'll have to grind out, which is a pain.'
'That's a bloody good weld, though.' Asburn was genuinely pleased for him, but that was an unpardonable liberty, as though he needed anybody's praise or approval. 'I can never get the heat back up that far,' Asburn went on, 'I always end up peening over the tops just to cover up where it hasn't taken.'
Poldarn shrugged; the interloper's praise was almost physically irritating, like an itch or a cramp. 'I suppose it's not so bad, for a first effort,' he conceded unhappily. 'Not much of an axe, though, with no poll. Should've done it your way, but no, I had to know best. I reckon this ought to go back in the scrap, it isn't fit to give to anyone.'
'Oh no, really' Asburn shook his head emphatically. 'A touch on the wheel here and there and a bit of buffing soap, it'll be right as rain. Have you hardened it yet?'
Poldarn shook his head. 'It's all right,' he added, 'I can manage all right, thank you. Orange heat, then quench in water and draw it back to purple just going on blue. Right?'
Asburn nodded. 'That ought to do it,' he said cheerfully. 'Well, I'll let you get on with it, then, while I just finish up this latch tongue.'
No, you can just pick up your junk and get out of here. 'Thanks,' Poldarn said. 'Thanks, I appreciate it.'
'Oh, no bother,' Asburn replied, with the surprised awkwardness Poldarn had come to expect from these people when he said thank you for anything. 'Anyway, well done. Nice piece of work, really. Halder'd have been proud.'
When he'd done the hardening and tempering, Poldarn retired to the far corner of the smithy to do the grinding. Well, he thought, as the stone spat up yellow sparks, so that's what I used to do when I wasn't killing crows. No big deal, of course, it's just a skill, something you learn, something anybody can learn. It's not like finding out your name, or who your parents were. It can't matter very much, can it? Certainly can't do any harm; and it's kept me out from under their feet indoors. That's just as well, or I'm sure they'd have taken the meat-cleaver to me.
It's not like I've done anything clever or unusual. Bloody hell, if Asburn can do it, it can't be difficult.
After he'd ground up the blade and set a good edge, Poldarn went out to the woodpile and found a piece of seasoned straight ash branch as long as his arm, which he turned up on the rickety old pole lathe to make a reasonably functional handle (tapered, with a knob at the end so the head couldn't come off, and every blow would fix it on tighter). As a finishing touch, he served the grip with twine, right up as far as the head. Then he went to look for Boarci.
'Yeah, it's all right,' Boarci said, waggling it up and down in his hand. 'Ugly as hell, but who cares so long as it cuts and doesn't bust on me first time I use it. I liked the old one better, though. And this bloody string'll give me blisters.'
'Tough,' Poldarn said. 'It's like that so it won't get slippery with sweat and fly out of your hand.'
Boarci shook his head. 'My hands don't sweat,' he said. 'But it was a nice thought, I guess. Still, I'll strip that off when I've got a moment. A useful bit of string's worth having.'
Poldarn wasn't unduly impressed by that; so he retreated to the hayloft over the stables, where he could be sure of being out of the way for a while. It was dark there, but pleasantly warm, and he liked the smell of hay. He lay down with his hands behind his head, and tried to make sense of what had just happened in the forge.