Supper, under the arrangement with the village, meant dark whole-wheat bread, smoked meat, a bowl of thick mushroom soup or vegetables, and a large ale. Garrik served generously, perhaps in deference to the size of the man he was feeding. Oliver was halfway through it when Kellan appeared on the stairs, still rubbing his eyes.
He waved the boy over and ordered another meal.
Afterward, they walked through the village in the last light. People were coming home from the fields. Smoke rose from chimneys, and children ran between the houses until their parents saw them edging after the strangers and sent them home with cuffs and sharp words.
By now, Grayfold had heard that Oliver had killed more than a dozen pirates single-handed. The story was improving as it traveled. People were curious, but most preferred to examine the fearsome stranger from a distance. Oliver was content to let them. It gave him a chance to speak privately with Kellan.
When the street grew quieter, he asked, “What do you want to do now?”
“Sir?”
“We've found a village. Do you want to go home? Back to the Fingers?” Oliver paused. “I didn't find your uncle's body. But I think he probably died in the wreck. Getting to the Free Cities without him won't be easy. You're fourteen, Kellan. Perhaps you should be with your parents.”
The boy's face changed.
“Have I done something? Tell me. I'll learn. Whatever it is, I'll do better. Please don't send me away.”
“That's not what I meant.” Oliver considered how to put it. “Having you here makes things easier for me. You're clever, you work hard, and you want to learn. But I'm a very long way from home, and I don't know where I'll end up. It could be a long time before I settle anywhere. Where I come from, boys your age are still asking their parents for pocket money. I'm not sure it's fair to drag you around with me.”
Some of the panic left Kellan's face.
“I stopped having a home when Father sent me away with Uncle. That house in Saltmead belongs to him and Lannard. It isn't mine.” He spoke more firmly now. “Uncle said you don't find glory by staying in a little village. I don't mind wandering. I mind dying before I've done anything.”
Oliver laughed, but without malice. “There it is. Always good to hear a lad with ambitions like that.”
Kellan flushed. “Sir, I wasn't—”
“It's all right. I was much the same. Nothing wrong with it.” Oliver let him recover, then asked, “Is there a ceremony here when somebody takes an apprentice? Do you know how it goes?”
The boy stopped walking.
“You'd take me as your squire?”
That was what the offer meant to Kellan. A knight taught a squire as a craftsman taught an apprentice. For years, the boy served without wages, did the work required of him, and followed his master into battle. Any earnings passed through the knight's hands, and the squire received whatever reward the man thought fit. In return, the knight fed, clothed, sheltered, and taught him, taking responsibility for his conduct as well as his training.
Proper knights did not make that commitment lightly. Two or three squires at a time were enough for most. When a young man was ready, often in his early twenties, his master could make him a knight in turn. A servant might perform much of the same labor without ever being offered that future.
Until now, Kellan had hoped only to remain as a servant long enough to learn something useful. He had privately considered almost every possible rank for Oliver short of king, and none quite seemed to account for him. A man like that might never consider a village knight's younger son as a true pupil.
Now the offer was before him, and he couldn't find an answer.
“I need to explain something first,” Oliver said. “You call me sir, but I've never been a knight. I don't worship the Seven, and I haven't sworn myself to any lord.”
Kellan listened.
“I have beliefs of my own. Rules I try to live by. They may be very different from the ones you're used to. I won't force you to share them. So I'll ask properly: do you want to be my apprentice? Will you accept my teaching and my protection?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation this time. “I've never met anyone more like a true knight. You're brave, and strong, and you do what's right. If your beliefs made you that way, I want to learn them. I want to be your squire.” He corrected himself quickly. “Your apprentice.”
He started to kneel. Oliver caught his arm and helped him up.
“We'll have a ceremony. It matters.” He put a hand on the boy's shoulder. “Give me a couple of days. There's something I need to get ready.”
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* * *
A gift, for one thing.
Oliver had never been through a formal apprenticeship himself, but he had seen enough ceremonies in stories and on television to understand their purpose. A promise of service and teaching, something shared to mark it, a gift from the master to the student. He could make something of that.
There was a practical reason too. If pirates attacked Grayfold, Kellan would be there. He needed suitable equipment. Oliver had noticed a smithy at the edge of the village, and if he couldn't buy what the boy needed, he could try making it. He had wanted to test the smithing knowledge in his head since the day he'd caught that first fish.
After breakfast the next morning, they took the weapons and armor they had collected from the pirates to the shop. A stocky young man was bent over a table, cutting leather. Oliver waited until the piece had been divided neatly before speaking.
“Morning. Have you any weapons for sale?”
“Farm tools, mostly. I don't—” The smith looked up. “Oh. Ser Oliver.”
Oliver recognized him beneath the untidy curls. Without the horned helmet, Brenner looked younger: fine stubble on his face, thick muscle softened by enough flesh to give him a round appearance.
“Oh, it's you.” Oliver picked up the large hammer beside the anvil and tested its weight. “Heavy thing. This is the one you tried on me yesterday?”
Brenner began twisting a rag between his hands.
“I was in a hurry. I thought... I'm sorry, ser. I do know right from wrong.”
“So what are you offering to make up for it?”
The young man looked around his shop. “I haven't much. I could service your weapons? Your armor? No charge.”
Oliver wasn't especially tempted. The equipment had come from Azeroth, and he'd used a repair bot before the last disastrous pull. In game terms, he still thought of it as having most of its durability, perhaps eighty or ninety percent. In any case, he had only meant to tease.
“Never mind. I need equipment for Kellan. We're staying to help defend the village. You've heard?”
“Warrin told us.”
“Then show me what you've got. Surely you've made a weapon or two.”
Brenner thought, then went into the back. He returned with two sheathed short swords and a mace, laying them carefully on the table.
“Practice pieces. I mostly make tools. But if you like one, take it. A gift.”
That was generous. Oliver drew the nearer sword, ready to appreciate the gesture.
Its edges wavered. One side was thicker than the other, and the whole blade had a slight bend. Carrying it into battle would save an enemy a certain amount of work. Oliver put it down without comment and drew the second.
Much the same, except that the tip was rounded. A merciful sword, perhaps. Difficult to hurt anyone by accident. Or on purpose.
He caught Brenner's hopeful eye and looked away.
“Good work. But I can't take advantage of you, and we're not looking to spend that much.”
He hadn't asked a price. Brenner plainly noticed.
“What I did bring is scrap,” Oliver continued. “Would you let me use the furnace and tools? I'd like to make something for my pupil. And can you alter this leather armor to fit him? We'll settle the costs together.”
Brenner put his swords away with less enthusiasm than he had brought them out. He crouched over the bundle Kellan set down and examined the leather.
“Decent material. Badly made. I can take it apart and make him a breastpiece and bracers. Not enough left for a helmet, but I can add some.” He considered the pile. “Fifteen silver moons. You can use the forge. I can spare the charcoal.”
Oliver had no idea what fifteen silver moons amounted to. He took a silver coin from his purse and handed it over.
“Will you take this?”
Brenner weighed it in his hand, then bit it gently.
“Never seen one before. Good silver, though. Ten of these will do.”
“Done.”
The smith took Kellan into the yard to measure him. Oliver turned to the workbench. Large and small hammers, tongs and pliers in different sizes. Charcoal stacked against the wall. A furnace about thirty centimeters across held a crucible over a bed of cold ash.
A passage of mud brick joined an opening in its side to the bellows. Oliver tried them. The leather bag sat between two boards, the lower one fixed to the bench. Lifting the upper board drew air in through a little hole. To send that air into the furnace, he had to close the inlet with one hand and press down with the other.
The blast was weak. Not enough for what he wanted.
When Brenner came back, Oliver pointed to it. “What do you call this?”
“Bellows.” Brenner looked from the apparatus to him. “You work the handle, it blows air into the fire. Are you sure you know how to forge?”
Oliver laid his dagger on the table.
“Made that myself.”
Brenner picked it up skeptically. He examined it, tried the edge on a scrap of leather, and grew much more serious. When he returned it, he used both hands.
“I've never seen a little blade so sharp. I couldn't make one.”
Oliver did not mention that it had dropped from a raid boss.
“These bellows aren't strong enough. I'll make a different sort, with a piston. Let me have the materials, and we'll add them to the bill.”
He needed a wooden chamber, a fitted piston and handle, and valves to admit air. Pushing and pulling would produce a steadier flow, a useful piece of equipment in smithies long before industrial machinery. He drew the required boards on the ground and set Brenner and Kellan to preparing them while he worked on the piston and its rod.
The morning was gone by the time the parts were ready. Kellan fetched lunch from the tavern. Oliver ate a little, assembled the chamber, and tried the piston.
It stuck almost at once.
He reached inside and felt along the wood. “These surfaces need to be smoother. It has to slide, but fit closely. No gaps.”
Brenner planed and polished the interior until Oliver was satisfied. Oliver bored an opening about two fingers wide in one side and attached the leather air pipe from the old bellows. He fitted the piston, closed the ends with their valve assemblies and the openings for the operating rod, then tested the movement again.
A few adjustments. Nails to secure the pieces. Wet yellow clay pressed into the joints wherever air might escape.
“Try it.”
Brenner wiped his hands on his shirt and worked the handle. The leather tube filled with a steady rush of air. His mouth fell open.
Kellan took his turn as soon as the smith let go. It blew on both strokes, and he could work it with one hand. With two, he could drive it harder.
Brenner seemed to regard it as another marvel from the southern Fingers. Kellan knew better. At home in Saltmead, the smiths still fanned their fires. Neither these bellows nor the man who had made them belonged to anything he knew.
He looked from the new apparatus to Oliver. Skill with weapons, knowledge like this, the bearing of a lord who could still speak easily to a village smith. Who was he?