Colours in the Steel (57 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ Loredan said. ‘I can’t have expressed myself clearly enough in my letter. You said you’d make a sword for me. I need one rather urgently. It’s as simple as that.’

‘I see.’ Temrai scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘What sort of sword are we talking about?’

‘A law-sword,’ Loredan replied promptly. ‘Do you know the design? It’s a bit specialised.’

Temrai nodded. ‘I know the general principle,’ he said. ‘But wouldn’t you be better off buying one in the city? Old ones are the best, I gather, but there are supposed to be quite a few current makers turning out first-rate products. I’m sure you’d get a much better sword from them than from me.’

Loredan shook his head. ‘I have this problem,’ he said, ‘with the wretched things breaking. It’s something to do with the way the steel gets heated up when the cutting edges are being brazed to the core; the way we do it makes them brittle, and I suppose there’s something in my fencing style that must put an unusual amount of strain on the weak part of the blade. I used to have quite a collection, but all the good ones have snapped on me over the last six months or so. The last one went yesterday, in fact, while I was practising. You see, I shall be fighting for my life in the courts very soon, and I have rather a bad feeling about the outcome. It’s to do with who my opponent’s going to be; it’s all rather complicated, and I won’t bore you with details. The point is, your technique with the silver solder makes a much less fragile blade, and I don’t know anybody in the city who can do it. ‘So,’ he concluded, folding his arms, ‘here I am.’

Temrai nodded again. ‘And what makes you think I’d put myself out for you, of all people? You’ve got to admit, this whole business is extremely bizarre.’

‘Oh, I thought you might,’ Loredan replied equably. ‘It was worth asking, anyway. My old commanding officer—’

‘General Maxen?’

‘That’s right, General Maxen. He always used to say,
When you can’t trust your friends, try your enemies
. He wasn’t usually wrong.’

Temrai took a deep breath, held it and let it go. ‘You could be mad,’ he said, ‘or extremely tired of your life. Or you could have come here to save your ruined honour by killing me, as my advisers have suggested. I was rather hoping you’d come to get your revenge on your city.’

‘What, do a deal with you and open the gates?’ Loredan raised an eyebrow. ‘Another thing Maxen used to say was,
I like treachery but I don’t like traitors
. I’ll be honest with you,’ he went on, ‘the thought had occurred to me, too. But I don’t think I will, thank you all the same.’

Temrai looked at him for a while, then said, ‘Fair enough. From what I gather, you’re no longer in a position to do anything about it, so I won’t press the point. For the same reason, I can’t be bothered to have you killed. I suggest you go away before I change my mind.’

Loredan shook his head. ‘I asked you to do something for me,’ he said. ‘As an enemy, and because you owe me. It’s embarrassing to have to admit this, but I think my life may depend on it.’

‘Really.’ Temrai studied him for a while. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,’ he said. ‘I keep expecting to wake up and find it’s all a dream.’

‘Have you been suffering from headaches recently?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Just asking. It’s a long story.’

‘We have a fairly effective cure for headaches,’ Temrai said. ‘Bark from a willow tree, boiled in water. When it’s cool, you drink the water.’

Loredan nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Well?’

‘Do you know, I’m almost tempted to do it,’ Temrai said. ‘It’s obvious that your habit of excessive drinking has finally undermined your wits, but it’s got the makings of a very fine legend. A great chief ought to do unexpected and flamboyant things. Meghtai, get a forge heated up and find me about a dozen old horseshoes and some solder.’

 

Loredan watched Temrai through a curtain of fire as the young man mixed the flux, occasionally glancing sideways to watch the colours change in the steel. The wire that held the billets of hard steel to the core glowed bright orange, but the blade sections were still a dark purple.

‘The trick,’ Temrai observed, ‘lies in tempering the edges while letting the core cool slowly. It’s important to do everything in the right order,’ he went on, spitting into the flux to make it smoother. ‘First, solder the joints; then we pack the blade with bonemeal and dried blood while it’s still cherry red, and we hold it there for as long as we dare, to let the hardness seep in through the pores of the steel. Then we’ve got to temper the blade, as far as possible without cooling down the core. That’s difficult.’

Loredan nodded appreciatively. ‘It’s cooling it suddenly that makes it brittle, then?’ he asked.

‘That’s partly it,’ Temrai replied, ‘though there’s more to it than that. Some grades of steel don’t harden at all. Also, you don’t want the edges too brittle either; you actually want to soften them just a little after you’ve quenched off the original heat, and you do that by heating it up and quenching it a second time, except you take it to a much lower heat. You can tell the right heat by watching the colours; somewhere between reddish brown and purple’s what you’re after. The simplest thing to do is quench the edges only after the first heating - that’s when we’ve got it red-hot and smothered it in bonemeal - so that the heat left in the core passes out into the edges (which we’ve just cooled) and brings them up to the right temperature. There, that ought to do,’ he added, giving the flux a final stir. ‘Are you interested in all this,’ he added, ‘or am I boring you?’

‘Not at all,’ Loredan said, ‘it’s fascinating. And knowledge is never wasted.’

Temrai grinned. ‘Another time I’ll show you how to build a siege engine,’ he said. ‘Here we are, look, that deep, rather attractive orange colour.’ He nodded to the men working the bellows; they stepped up the rate of pumping, so that the metal glowed in the flame. ‘The flux’ll cool it, of course,’ he added as he drew the billet out with a pair of tongs, ‘so it’ll have to go back in again before we can start soldering. Patience is a virtue in blacksmithing just as much as in siegecraft.’

The flux hissed and bubbled as it drew down into the joint, leaving dull grey flecks on the orange metal like clouds in a sunrise. When he judged that it was ready, Temrai pulled it out again and touched the solder stick to the sides of the joint, watching the silver disappear into the fine line between the parts of the blade. ‘It only flows if it’s hot enough,’ he said, ‘and if it doesn’t flow, you’re wasting your time. The flux helps, but it’s the heat that does it.’

In the glow of the fire, Temrai’s face shone a bright orange, like the steel he was working. Loredan mopped his forehead with his sleeve.

‘It’s taken,’ Temrai said. ‘Now we pack it with the hardening stuff and bring it back to cherry red.’ He raised his head and looked Loredan in the eye. ‘If the smell of burning blood and bone makes you feel ill, now’s the time to stand well back. It can turn your stomach if you’re not used to it.’

He sprinkled the bonemeal and dried blood, making sure the edges of both sides were evenly covered. Loredan remembered the smell, but stayed where he was. As soon as the steel glowed red through the grey and brown crust, Temrai lifted the billet off the anvil and called for the quenching tray, a long wooden trough half-filled with water.

‘A bit of salt in it helps,’ he said. ‘Fortunate that we’re so near the sea, really. In fact, this is an ideal spot for this sort of job. Now then,’ he added, as he dipped the edges carefully in the trough, moving his head away as the steam rose up (the meeting of fire and water, after the burning of blood and bone), ‘here’s a useful tip. When you’re quenching, keep moving the metal up and down in the water, or else you’ll find you get tiny cracks which’ll ruin the whole thing. There,’ he concluded, holding up the billet. ‘Quickly scrape off this crud from the edges so we can see the colours, and there we are.’

Loredan watched the colours change, straw to mud, mud to purple; then Temrai swung the blade dramatically through the air and held it up, examining it carefully. ‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘Now we cool it for the last time, using oil because it cools more slowly than water, and that’s the job done. It isn’t all that difficult to understand,’ he added, ‘once you know why it’s got to be done that way. Like so many things in life.’

‘Indeed,’ Loredan replied. ‘Thank you, it’s been quite an education.’

Temrai smiled as he wiped sweat from his face. ‘Amazing what you can pick up just by listening to people while they’re working. By the way,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t make this thing out of old horseshoes just because I’m a cheapskate; it’s the best material I know for blade steel. There’s something about being continually bashed about and trodden on that makes the stuff remarkably tough and hard. You’ll have to provide your own hilt,’ he said, wrapping a scrap of rag round the tang. ‘It’s too late at night to go drilling bone and messing about with skin and wire. Here you are.’

The swordsmith handed the sword to the swordsman, holding it by the blade and offering him the rag-bound tang. Loredan took it and felt the balance, then held it up and looked down it to check the straightness. Along the narrow ribbon of steel he could see Temrai watching him, as if he were the other man in a matter of justice. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘it’s a neat job. For a first attempt, it’s very good indeed.’

‘I like getting things right first time,’ Temrai replied. ‘And doing things I haven’t attempted before. Does that make us all square, do you think?’

Loredan nodded. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he said. ‘I expect you’re glad not to be beholden to me any more.’

‘It was the least I could do for an enemy,’ Temrai said. ‘Now get out of this camp before I have you crucified.’

 

 

‘It can’t be,’ said the wheelwright’s wife.

‘It is.’

‘It
can’t
be.’ She frowned, and peered. ‘He’s bedridden, never leaves his palace—’

‘Lodgings,’ her husband corrected her. ‘The Patriarch’s house is called his lodgings.’

‘Whatever. Still can’t be him, surely.’ She peered again. ‘It looks like him,’ she conceded.

‘Well, there you are, then.’

‘Doesn’t mean it actually is him. I mean, what’s the Patriarch doing getting out of bed when he’s seriously ill to go watching a lawsuit?’

‘Ah.’ The wheelwright lowered his voice. ‘He’s a friend of this Loredan, by all accounts. Great friends, they were, during the emergency. They do say,’ he added in a furtive whisper, ‘that he’s implicated.’

His wife looked shocked. ‘Get away,’ she said. ‘Patriarch Alexius?’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Don’t believe a word of it.’ His wife scrutinised the figure on the opposite side of the spectators’ gallery for a minute or so, hardly noticing the honeycakes she was munching as she did so. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

‘Well, there’s no hard and fast evidence, of course, though I’ve heard it said—’

‘And there he is, bold as brass,’ his wife muttered, scandalised. ‘How he’s got the nerve to show his face in public—’

Once every so often, the fixture lists pinned to the door of the lawcourts produced what could only be described as a dream ticket; a combination of issues and participants so perfect that they could hardly have been better if they’d been chosen by popular demand. This was just such an occasion; the gorgeous and enigmatic girl fencer who had recently been appointed Attorney-General versus the notorious Colonel Loredan on a treason charge - which meant the City Prefect would be presiding in person, dressed in all his traditional finery, with a platoon of guards in parade armour standing by and, to crown it all,
free admission
. . .

Needless to say, all the city dignitaries were present; the Lord Lieutenant, entitled by virtue of his rank to sit in the Emperor’s own box, surrounded by the heads of all the offices of state and a buzzing swarm of magnificently costumed clerks and functionaries; the upper hierarchy of the Order, including the Patriarch himself (but where was the City Archimandrite, late Deputy Patriarch, until recently the Patriarch’s inseparable companion? Rumour had it he’d either fled the city or been forced into exile on the pretext of an overseas appointment because of what he knew about the Patriarch’s clandestine involvement in whatever it was Colonel Loredan was supposed to have done; the plot thickened.)

To the people of the city, whose morale had recently been so sadly depleted by the indignities of the emergency, this display of civic pomp and gratuitous justice was just what they needed to remind them of the awesome majesty and splendour of Perimadeia, the strength of her institutions and the unquestionable rightness of her cause and proceedings. At a time when it was of the utmost importance to make the citizens feel good about themselves and the city, the perfect event had suddenly materialised, almost as if it had been planned that way by some public-spirited deity.

‘What’s her name?’ whispered the wheelwright’s wife. ‘You know, the Attorney-General.’

‘Don’t ask me,’ replied her husband. ‘Presumably she’s got one but I can’t remember ever having heard it.’

In the entrance hall trumpets blared, a signal for everyone in the courthouse to stand. While the magnificent domed roof was still reverberating with the sound, like a lover of fine wines savouring a special vintage, the main doors swung open and the Prefect entered the court at the head of a procession. In honour of the occasion he had ordered a brand-new set of official regalia; a flowing robe of gold tissue trimmed at the collar and cuffs with ermine and otter, and a tiara embroidered with gold and silver thread. In one hand he carried the lavishly embellished sword of state, while the other held the book of ordinances. He walked with a slow, measured dignity towards the place reserved for him, tucked the skirts of his gown around his knees, and sat down. Around him, his entourage filled the rest of the dais like a quart slopped into a pint jug, not quite pushing and shoving for the few available seats, while the Prefect and the Lord Lieutenant exchanged poisonous looks and the rest of the spectators plumped up their cushions and made themselves comfortable.