CHAPTER ONE
If there had been a nicer mid-summer, late afternoon in Swanford, then Rowan couldn't remember it. The sun was warm, and very nicely so, but there was enough of a western breeze, off of the ocean and the lake, to keep even the hot forge from being a sweltering place of misery. Off and on all day, he had been hearing sounds of laughter and play from the river, probably from the region of the Lily Lake, but for awhile yet Rowan had some last remaining duties to perform before he could think about a little bit of play time for himself.
His Master, Gorge, had built this smithy well over thirty years ago; upon a slight hill, just off of the river road, near the docks. In the summer the smithy was faced openly into the wind to help cool the workers, and more easily fan fresh air into the furnace. In the winter, a pile of carefully pre-cut boards could be mounted onto the northern exterior framework of the smithy, to block the biting, damp, and hard northern winds. It was a good smithy, and Rowan had never regretted a day of his fifteen years of service and training here.
"A comfortable smith is, by far, a more productive smith!" Gorge often commented. He was a strict taskmaster, who expected nothing but the best work from his various apprentices and journeymen, and had a sharp tongue that cut steel when any of his workers didn't exceed his expectations of them. He was also a very fair Master, who taught his students well, and tried to prepare them properly for the future day, when they would be masters of their own forges. It was the rare apprentice that didn't learn to do their tasks in the exact proper manner Gorge instructed, or at least by the second time they faced his wrath. A third identical mistake was absolutely unthinkable.
Rowan was Gorge's most senior journeyman; duly licensed as such by the Guild in Tellismere City, and now ready, at any future time of his choosing, to forge his 'master's piece' for Gorge's final certification and concurrence, to achieve Master's status. This would mean leaving Swanford, to build up a forge of his own elsewhere. That, in fact, was still quite a scary thought to Rowan, who, as of yet, hadn't quite amassed all of the silver that he would need, to buy out an existing smithy elsewhere or to construct and buy all that he would need, to set-up a new operation somewhere else.
The idea of leaving Swanford, probably for good, just hadn't set deeply into his mind despite the amount of time that he had been considering this eventual necessity. It was almost the only home that he could ever remember having, and life here was still good and sweet to his eyes and heart. He was not quite twenty-and-four, so he was still young and had time to wait and save his meager earnings awhile longer. As a journeyman smith, Rowan didn't quite receive any sort of regular salary from his master Gorge. Instead, since he had seniority over the other journeyman smith, Ignold, Gorge's nephew, Gorge offered a minimum guarantee of three shillings a month (about thirty-six bronze pence) to supervise the younger smiths. On the half and free days at the end of a week he was also free to accept any private commissions and could even delegate the younger apprentices to actually complete these orders. Anything he earned beyond the guarantee during the month was his to keep, but, frankly, such windfalls were unfortunately not common.
Being Gorge's nephew, albeit not an especially esteemed one, Ignold had the satisfaction of knowing that his own future was secure, and that some day that young lad would be the one that would inherit this smithy from his uncle. Eventually, once Rowan had completed his master's-piece, he would have to leave the village to make his fortune elsewhere. Swanford village certainly had no need for two master blacksmiths.
For the moment, Rowan decided once more with a sigh, that he wasn't at all ready to leave his home and make his fortune elsewhere in the world.
*********
Being a village smithy, most of the work involved mundane tasks such as making horseshoes and nails, or repairing common farming equipment. Payment was, as often as not, local produce, fresh fruit or even fish from the river given in trade for service. This usually meant that they ate rather well at Gorge's table, but Rowan didn't feel the weight of good silver or even small gold being pressed into his hands nearly often enough. The Duke's men on his castle on the small nearby island in the river had their own armor and weapon smith. He didn't remotely have Gorges skill, but he still made most of the other necessities for the Duke's household anyway. Once in a great while they paid for a commission, but not often. The Duke was accounted by all to be a cheap and parsimonious bastard and his local steward never parted with good coin if it could possibly be helped otherwise.
To earn hard coin, they usually relied upon the traveling factors, merchants, and sailors of the river trade, either from the caravans bringing cargo up and down the Emerald River road from the docks of Haldyne, the nearest large town about twenty-five miles further downstream, where the river met Crystal Lake, or from the sailors of the river that took those cargos east. Haldyne was the furthest place east where cargos from the Duchy of Tellismere and other places on the Crystal Lake could travel along the Emerald River. From Haldyne up to Swanford, the river was too shallow for anything but a rare occasional flatboat pulled by horses to travel. This method was slow and awkward and only used for the heaviest bulk cargos. Instead, usually most cargos were transferred to wagons for the relatively short day-long transit between the town and the village. Once at the docks just past the Lily Lake, the river deepened enough to allow shipping to continue for several hundred miles further east, nearly to the very borders of Duchy of Everdun.
This journey upriver, against the usually slow and placid current of the deep and wide Emerald River, was well aided by the strong winds that normally blew from either the northwest or southeast, depending upon the season. Small relatively shallow bottom merchant ships cleverly rigged by sail could normally tack into these seasonal winds and make good progress to the various towns and settlements far up the river and its bigger tributaries, most months of the year. Naturally, their return trips west, heavily loaded with grain, produce, sheep skins, sides of beef, and copper and silver ingots from Everdun, were usually a simple matter of just sailing along with the currents back home to Swanford.
That the relatively small village of Swanford was the single weakest link between the trade routes east and west into the Duchy of Everdun and also south, to the northern border of the Duchy of Broadmore, was of much concern to the long line of Dukes of Tellismere. Even the current Duke, who was quite wont to cut Duchy expenses any and every place he could, had been grudgingly made to recognize the strategic importance of the village and he kept the full allotment of soldiers stationed there and at the nearby river guard towers, and he also kept a small force of guards at his small private island and castle nearby. The northern forests and mountains were always unsafe, even at the best of times, and recent scouting reports were even more pessimistic than usual. Banditry was always a popular enterprise in this remote and under-settled wilderness, and the goblin night-folk, the
nihtgenga
, were becoming unusually bold and active. There were even unsettling rumors of
Eorfleode
, the boar-men, raiding south from their wilderness settlements across the northern barrier of the Brittle Mountains.
No one would disagree that these were very unsettled times!
***********
With another deep sigh, Rowan gently encouraged one of his more reluctant apprentices to keep banging away at the horseshoes. It had been a fairly dry summer, so far, and the coastal dirt road to and from Haldyne was hard and rocky, at the moment. Yesterday's caravan had come into town with the loss of five horseshoes and, undoubtedly, when tonight's caravan arrived, in a few hours, yet more would be needed. During the good weather of the summer, caravans travelled the road to and from Swanford almost daily. His friend, Boyle, had come over from the stables earlier in the morning to place an order for another dozen horseshoes to replenish their stock, even bringing along the two shillings to cover the twenty-four pence expense. His own boss, Cegred, the stable master and master farrier, could rarely be bothered to run his own errands... usually due to the fact that he often had his nose stuck too deeply into a pot of beer. Cegred was also much too unreliable to trade needed goods with; for him it was strictly cash and carry.
Probably, he thought, this extra work would keep Boyle late at the stables again this evening, and not give them enough time to share a pint or a meal together at the Goblin's Head. Just as well, since he was hoping that Cedany might be available later to join him for a drink or two and maybe a bit of a pleasant moonlight stroll, perhaps even to some quiet, deserted, and comfortable spot, suitable for snuggling together on a blanket. That would be rather nice, he thought to himself with a grin.
He and Cedany didn't
quite
have an absolute formal understanding that they would wed sometime in the fairly near future, but nearly everyone else in the village took it as a given certainty. Several years ago the other village lads had quickly admitted defeat and had given Rowan a free hand with her. Even most of her girlfriends as well thought that the match would be a good and happy one. As a skilled craftsman, he was certain to be able to provide them with a good living anywhere they might go, and it didn't hurt in the slightest that Rowan was considered the tallest, strongest and handsomest young man in the village, and he had a quiet but pleasant personality to match. In fact, the other young women of the village had made it quite plain and stated, in no uncertain terms to her, that the moment Cedany ever rejected Rowan as her future husband, there would be a stampede of other young women determined and more than eager to make him their own.
As Cedany was undoubtedly also the top beauty of the village, the moment Rowan released any and all claims to her as well, there would undoubtedly be an equally sized rush of ready male admirers also eager to claim her attentions. Not a chance! Rowan thought with a laugh and a smile.
Still, their courtship had progressed rather slowly, and together they had not quite ever fully consummated their love for each other, although some partial remedies had been taken lately, and with more regularity. Cedany was more than willing to offer her final token of love, but there several other, quite considerable roadblocks against the happy couple publically declaring their troth together -- primarily her father, Vainard the Miller.
The sullen miller, who was also the Headsman of the village, was a rather pompous ass that was wont to put on airs of insufferable superiority to everyone around him. As the town miller, he had no shortage of coins crossing into his palms (his business was strictly cash as well) and he viewed himself as the local aristocracy, especially whenever the Duke was visiting his castle. As a matter of course, he kept his nose so far up the Duke's ass, kissing it, that it was alleged he hadn't had a fresh breath of air up his nose in years. It was not yet at all certain in his mind when and whom his daughter ought to in fact marry, but he took it as a given assumption that, given his wealth and lofty station, the hand of his only daughter ought to be worth more than a callous-handed, young craftsman for a son-in-law. She was worthy of ever so much more, he believed. Perhaps a squire or even a young knight in the Duke's service from a baronial family, or other minor nobility.
Cedany's budding romance faced another and different sort of dampening spirit, in the form of the Duke's only daughter, the young Lady Ayleth. Since the ducal family came for their annual summer visits on their nearby private island, across the river from Swanford, the young girls, being of nearly identical age, naturally had begun to play and spend time together since they were children. Now that both women had grown to maturity, their friendship continued, but had transformed into more of a mistress/servant relationship, since Cedany had become the Lady Ayleth's favorite attendant during her seasonal visits. There were even some rumors that, soon, Cedany might even be given the formal rank of a lady-in-waiting and offered year around employment, back at the Duke's castle, in the great walled city of Tellismere itself. It also appeared that the Lady Ayleth was quite a jealous sort of mistress, and she made freely known of what her displeasure would be should any of her private attendants marry before she herself had selected a husband. She expected her companions to remain maidens, like herself, and frowned with great severity upon any young woman foolish enough to disobey her in any manner, either great or small.
As the Duke's only child, the Lady Ayleth had kept a tight hold on her father's affection, and she possessed more than enough resolve to block any unfortunate match offers that had been made in the name of politics alone. She felt that she was more than worthy of any Duke or Earl... or even most Kings, but, alas, the offers from these sorts of suitors had been few and far between recently. No matter, she was more than willing to wait... and make her attendants wait for their own future marital happiness, as well.