At last her feet drew her to a small, isolated shop tucked into the shadow of the southern wall. Inside, a black man labored, his back uncovered and rolling with sweat. Bald on top, he’d let the rest of his hair—as well as his beard—grow long and wild; they swayed as he pounded hot metal. Under a leather apron, the top of his red habit hung from its rope belt, gathering soot as it brushed the anvil.
“Kirel!” he called over the chime of hammer-blows. “I need the top full—Hakoi bless me, I sent him out.” Glancing around, he saw Daja. “Girl, a favor? I need my top fuller.” He pointed to a long counter, where a number of metal and wood tools waited.
She leaned her staff on the wall and went to the counter. “What’s a top fuller?”
“Like a hammer, but the head’s rounded—”
For a moment she saw nothing but hammers. Then she found one that looked like his description. “This?” she asked, picking it up. It had weight in her hands, and authority. Her skin prickled with excitement. She’d never touched a smith’s tools before.
“That’s it!” She thrust the fuller into his grasp. He struck the hot metal with the rounded end, flattening red-hot iron to one side. “ ‘Prentice—had to—get a bucket,” he explained between blows. “Should be back by now.”
“What are you making?” she asked, watching the pattern of his strikes. He pushed the metal with the top fuller’s rounded head, until it bulged in back of it like pie crust under a rolling pin. The metal glowed a dull, sullen red, its smell sharp and bitter.
He lifted the piece. “A strap for a door, when I’m done with it.”
Daja raised her eyebrows. The metal was already three feet long. “It must be a dreadful big door.”
The smith grinned. Not once did the steady blows of his fuller lose rhythm. “It is—the duke’s treasury,” he explained. “There’ll be eight straps all told—two of the finished ones are over there.” He nodded toward the counter. Next to it she saw a pair of long, thin pieces of black iron leaning against the wall. “Take a look, if you wish.”
Daja obeyed. The finished strips were four feet long. Something under the surface of the metal moved as she looked at it, like the muscles that flexed under the man’s skin. Were there letters in the iron? Frowning, she reached out, then yanked her hand back.
“You can touch them,” called the smith. “They won’t bite.”
Daja smiled and ran her fingers over the beaten metal. The iron was cold, but warmed quickly when she rested her hand on it. “I thought I saw letters here a moment,” she commented, as much to herself as to the man.
“Letters, is it?” It was hard to tell what he thought from his breathless voice. “Well, you’re right. Not everyone sees them, I have to tell you.”
“I can’t see them—not anymore.” She rubbed her fingers over the metal. The sound of feet approaching at a run made her flinch and grab her staff.
“Frostpine, you wouldn’t believe how slow they were!” A huge young man with braided fair hair and blue eyes came into the forge, a bucket in each hand. His run had tossed both hair and a soot-streaked white habit out of order. “If I was the Duke’s grace himself, they still would have taken forever!” He looked at Daja as he set his burdens down. “So I made them give me two buckets.”
“Don’t fret,” the smith replied, thrusting the metal that he worked back into the forge fire. “This lady helped me.” Going to the water barrel, he lifted out a dipper full of liquid and drank it all. The second dipper he poured over his head; the third went down his throat. “What’s your name, youngster?” he inquired.
“Daja.”
“Well, Daja, would you mind standing by to mop my fevered brow? Then my friend here can put three more bars in the forge to heat, and check our coal supply—”
“Hakoi scorch me, the coal!” cried the youth, and ran outside.
His master winked at Daja. “You may have gathered that I’m Frostpine. That was Kirel, my apprentice.”
She ducked her head to hide the grin until, peering at him, she saw that he grinned, too. She took the handkerchief that he offered her. Frostpine shook the water from his hair and beard, much as a dog might, then drew a cherry-red piece of metal from the fire.
Tris was half-drowsing on her bed when someone banged on her door and opened it. With a shriek, she sat up. “How dare—” Her throat seized on the rest. It wasn’t the thief-boy, as she expected, but Niko.
“Come on. Let’s take a walk. It’s time to sort a few things out.”
She scowled at him. “I don’t want to.”
“Now, Trisana.”
There was a hint of steel in that clipped voice, and more than a hint of it in the man’s black eyes. Dared she refuse? Traveling with him, she had to obey, but now? He wasn’t temple—he was a guest. Could she ignore the fact that he was a guest who worked for the temple and spoke comfortably with Honored Moonstream?
“Did you ask Lark? Maybe she wants me to learn the house rules—”
“Lark has already given permission. Up, young lady.”
Grumpily she descended the stairs behind him. She was not beaten yet, however. Seeing Lark in the weaving room, she put her head in and said, “Lark, Niko wants to take me somewhere.”
Lark was sorting through skeins of colored thread. “That’s right, Tris. Obey Niko as you would Rosethorn or me,” she replied, her mind plainly somewhere else.