Melody of the Fates

Chapter 2.1

They set off for the south end of the village where the smithy was located. The problem with live sparring was that you inevitably got a few notches in your blade. And a few scratches on your body. Parents generally frowned on the young adults coming home with wounds.

As Werim walked back through the village alongside his friend, he tried to appear as if on an errand, walking with presumed purpose. Bud’s mother was the village seamstress, so he didn’t have to sit around and learn her trade in the same way that Werim didn’t have to help carve figurines. In that respect, the pair was a source of envy among the other boys in the village, who were pressed into service daily by their parents. Still, if caught lounging around, they were not immune to being sent to fetch this or that as a favor, something both of their mothers would encourage them to do. Werim’s blisters were still healing from a month of sweeping bakery floors. He wasn’t in a hurry to pick up more chores.

An absent father was another thing the two youths shared. Bud’s father had run off when Bud was very young. At least Werim had gotten to know his father. Another bit of worry knotted itself in his bowels at the reminder. Maybe ignorance was bliss. Bud never seemed to have stomach cramps.

They found the stream and turned to walk alongside it. The village was quiet during the day, as most of the men were out tending the vineyards. Women could be seen sweeping out doorways, hanging clothes to dry, or just generally minding the other chores of a household. A strong smell wafted from the tannery as they passed the Peau house, and the boys paused to wave at Andree, another boy their age, who was busy beating a stretched hide with a large paddle. A glare from his mother in the doorway put both boys’ heads down, and sent them quickly away. Andree frowned and beat all the harder.

The dual chimneys of the bakery crowned a house on the far side of the stream, the aroma of fresh bread enticing both boys to consider another small theft as they passed by, even if it meant another month of sweeping. Several young girls came out of the store with packages in their hands, giggling at the two boys and running back upstream.

The distant ping of hammer on anvil began to fall on their ears as they neared the smithy. They could see the top of the building behind the wooden houses sitting along the stream, its large chimney pouring black smoke. Scrontle Marteau, the blacksmith, was obviously working on something. Werim followed Bud away from the stream and in between two houses, ducking under a line of laundry and hurrying across the dirt path toward the large, stone building.

The smithy was the one structure that was made more of river rock than wood in the village. The peals of the hammer were much louder here, interrupted every now and then by a whooshing sound as the bellows were worked to fan the forge. Two huge, steel doors barred entrance to the structure, and the boys stepped up the stone stairs to stand before them.

A large iron ring was held in a loop to the doors, and Werim reached up, pulling the ring back and letting it fall with a loud clank. He repeated the sound twice more and then hesitated when the sounds of metalwork dropped off. They were replaced by heavy footsteps as the blacksmith approached the door.

The heavy doors were balanced on well-oiled pinions, and they flew apart as the burly blacksmith yanked them open to peer down at the two boys. He was a huge bear of a man with dark, curly hair that covered him like fur. Silver tinged the hair at his temples and brown, almost golden eyes bored into the boys before a wide smile cracked across his sweaty face.

“Master Suppe! Master Swift! Good to see you,” he boomed. “Come in, come in.” He turned and motioned them across the threshold.

“Hey Scrontle,” the boys responded in unison, smiling broadly. Most of the adults in the village still treated them like children, but not the blacksmith. He had started using the honorific master for them the same day he’d finished their swords, and they had begun calling him by his first name. It was sort of an inside joke between the three of them.