He found the armoury as the guard said he would. It was closed up and silent, but four guards sat at the entrance, and rose when Ralph approached them. When he explained his business, one of them produced a ring of keys and opened the door, telling Ralph that the blacksmiths did not usually begin their work so early in the day. Following Ralph inside, he began pushing open louvres in the roof with a long pole, to let in light, and later to let the heat of the forges escape.
The forges were actually in a separate stone building, attached to the side of the armoury. The building housing them was very narrow; there were six forges all in a row along the west wall, each with its own chimney built into the outside wall. It was cold, dark, and very dirty, the inside walls, floor, and furnaces blackened with soot. Everywhere were barrels full of blackened iron objects and piles of slag, with implements hanging from the beams overhead, held there by grimy leather thongs and dirty twine.
Ralph grinned at the sight, took off his shirt, grabbed a shovel, and began heaving coal into the furnace of the forge he’d chosen to use.
By mid-afternoon the smithy was fairly busy. Three other blacksmiths and their young helpers were hard at work making various implements of war. All took time to watch Ralph as he fashioned arrowheads, and marvelled at the uniform quality of his work. They were mystified, too, at his use of baromiène, the rock-crystals he used to give his arrowheads their lustrous sheen, their indestructible hardness, and their impossibly keen edge. Several tried using the crystals, only to be left scratching their heads in bafflement when they merely burned off as slag.