The forge is hot. I'm sweating through the cotton shirt and leather pants I'm wearing. My feet are slowly seeping into the muddy ground of my father's open forge, and I squelch my toes around as I prepare to pull down on the rope attached to the bellows. As I pull I can feel my body strain against the counter weight and push of the heat from the heart of the forge as the coals flared to a hot bright orange. The heat of the coals slowly leeches into the metals, pushed deep into the coals. A deep red and brighter orange slowly claws its way up the metal, and the temperature of the room climbed with it. I continue working the bellows, and feel a slow burn building in my back and shoulders. I felt that anyone watching my back would see the reds and oranges of the forge slowly glowing on my back.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and a furry hulking shape move up to my side. It dumps a load of wood and kindling next to the forge feeder and moves to the iron anvil where it sheds layers of fur until the form of my father resolves itself. Indeed most of the bulk was my father. He radiates strength with his every movement. He is methodical as he take a huge stretch unlimbering his back and then moving to take tools from the support beams of the overhang of the forge. He wraps a thick leather strip around the palms of his hands and then hefts a great hammer in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other. He flexes his grip around the hammer and spins it in his palm. The hammer he places with great care on the anvil. I'd seen him take the same care with my younger siblings in the few instances when he'd been forced to carry one of the infants.
He uses the tongs to grab one of the nearly molten pieces of metal from the forge and then slams down the piece into the anvil as he hefts the hammer back into the grip of his right hand. The next few hours are filled with the ringing of hammer on metal and the occasional deep sweltering breaths of the bellows. I watch my father working as the sun moves first high into the sky and then lower to the falling horizon. I watch his muscles flex and flare like huge ropes under his skin. I see his great mane of straw colored hair swing with the rest of his bulk as hammer meets metal again and again. I look at my own body as I worked the bellows, not really seeing the resemblance of my ancestors.
My own body favors my mother's people. I am taller than my father by a hand and an eyelash, but where his body thickened at every link and joint, my body is lean and taught. I have the dark raven hair and eyes of my mother's people. They were fishers and plainsmen, and their great height and lean bodies were assets running down prey on the plains to the far west, but here in the cold lands of my father, I stick out. In-between working the bellows I run my hands across my body and feel my own ropey muscles in my arms, chest and stomach. A cold breeze breaks the heat of the forge and my flesh prickles. As the heat returns I am filled with certainty. This is my true purpose. The fire and metal.
I feel the strength in body but I'm worried that it is not the strength of the Smith. I could not find sleep some nights, worrying that I would never have the strength to lift the hammer of my father and his fathers. The village would never depend on me for its tools and its weapons. I'd never see the delight of a child puzzling over the clever working of an iron puzzle I'd crafted for his naming day. I'd never.....the sounds of the forge had stopped. I looked up into the face of my father, who was staring at me intently, a bit like a child with a puzzle he couldn't figure.
"Geir." My father spoke my name, and though his face held little affection, his voice was smiling. It was a warm thing even in the heat of the forge.
"You look like a drowned dog boy. Get yourself down to the river before your mother comes in here and set you in a tub like a wee babe. "As my father spoke, even with the warmth in his voice, I felt the blood drain from my face with each word. I walk a foot from him and say, "Father, I'm not a child I'm of age. I have been for nearly a year. I...", He silences me with a hulking hand on my chest. As he speaks, his words are the Ice of these northern lands.
"You're a man when I say you are boy." he spits the word boy through clenched teeth as he stares fixedly at my chest and not into my black eyes.
"That means you're a man when you've made something of worth in this forge, or you do something else of worth." He looks into my eyes at the end of his words and I can see the fires of the forge burning there.
"But then that would mean you'd need one of our fine Norse daughters to look you up more than once. Though them that does are more like to crack their necks then not", and he came close to laughing with the husky wheezing that is his way.
I am fuming, but do my best to keep my words flat, "I've got all the attention I need father. Or didn't you notice our patch of gawkers."
Father turns his head to look pass the overhang of the forge and out into the streets of the village. There, sitting on the steps of the Tanner's house, are five girls from the village seemingly sitting idle and chatting amongst themselves.
I speak softly, letting a bit too much venom in my voice then was necessary, "I don't think they're here to watch an old man singe his beard on the forge." I move around to stand between him and the street and remove my shirt tossing it on the ground in front of him, then set about stretching my arms and back. Small talk across the street dwindled to silence. I reach up to grasp one of the cross beams of the overhang and then lift myself off the ground, feeling the muscles of my back ripple and tighten. I twist in the air and turn to face the girls in the street. Their eyes are locked on me though they haven't turned their heads to maintain some propriety. I flex my arms a few more times, then tensed my legs a bit to get the muscles of my stomach into the act. I drop to the ground and offer up a half bow, taking in the view as I do.
Many of the prominent daughters are represented today. The Tanner, the Herdsman, the Fletcher, and the Woodsman's girls are all in attendance. Even a few of their mothers are milling about trying rather unsuccessfully to look like they had a lot of serious business in front of the Tanner's house today. I stand back to my full height, but as I do, I can see their appreciation for my body change to something else, gaiety. I turned back to my father just in time to catch a bucket of the coldest water right in my smug face. I sputter and cough. I watch all my female attention wander off back to whatever their real business was for the few remaining hours of the day. I turn back to my father and ready myself to come to blows with the old man. The stark smile on his face drains all the fire out of me and I deflate in front of him.
"I guess I had that coming, eh dad." I share his smile but mine is a bit more sheepishly.
"Aye lad. Now obey me and get down to the river, and bring me a full bucket while you're about it."
I scoop up the bucket and shrug back into my shirt. It squelches on me as it's now also soaked and soiled from the deepening mud of the floor of the forge. I start the most embarrassing walk of my life. On my way though, I have the distinct feeling that I am being followed. I try to spy behind me and see who was still about in the streets. Twilight is nearing, though I see no one. The closer I make it to my destination the fewer and fewer people are milling about. As I reach the edge of the village I stop and feign a few stretches in order to turn about and see if I couldn't shake this feeling of eyes on me. The village spreads out behind me. It is all greens and browns with spots of white where the snows have been thick. The center of the village, directly in front of me but nearly a span back the way I had come, is a stark white blur in the midst of all the forest colors of the buildings and outliers. It has been beaten of grass by many feet in the many festivals of the spring and summer months. It is the great bonfires of the winter festivals that covers it in the fine white ash now blended to the soil of the center. It's that ash which proves my spy's undoing. She had obviously come from the other side of the center and then followed me from the forge. The ash and white mud had left a small but striking trail of white across the brown mud and grass of the road out of the village. At the end of that trail was someone, but I still couldn't tell who. My tag-along is clothed in a hooded fur trimmed cloak, with hood pulled low to obscure her face. I'm sure whoever it is, must have thought the dark cloak would help keep them obscured in the dwindling light. My spy doesn't look very threatening, indeed by their size it was either a woman, or a boy just reaching into his men's height. The bulk that the cloak hid also makes the person seem fat or hunched. It's strange because there are few with such bulk and lack of height in the village. Life here is hard and suffers the weak little. Feeling smug that I had spotted them I snatch my bucket back up and began trotting the few meters into the forest toward the river. Obviously aware of my discovery my shadow makes no more attempt to hide their travel. I hear the crunch of snow and brush clearly now.
When I make it to the edge of the forest, I move through the trees at random and at the first opportunity toss my bucket to the side and scramble up a tree. Using the higher branches I move between the trees back along route until I'm standing over the cloaked figure. I watch this person meander through the trees. The hooded head questing about over its furry bulk. I follow this person for a few more minutes. I assume they will eventually give up but before that can happen my bucket is discovered. For some reason this seems to cause the figure some consternation, as it suddenly runs off in the direction of the river. I drop from the tree and follow in the trail of my former hunter.
Now at the tree line facing the river, I see the furry figure standing, facing the river. With a frustrated and feminine "Hrumph", she hurls the bucket down into the snow by the river and sets about kicking at some of the stones at her feet. I begin to creep toward her. A gust of wind chills me a bit, but seems to only draw more anger from the figure. She suddenly tosses the large fur cloak from her back and reveals only more fur. This brings me up short with concern. I had thought my quarry human, but now I have this fur creature. It begins to shake. As it does so more and more layers of fur are shed on top of the first cloak. This continued for a few moments until the common woolen clothing of the women in my village. The hood of her dress still concealed her face. She turns back to the river and pushes back the hood. In the same motion she pulls out a great mass of flame colored curly hair. She pulls the mass over her shoulder and then strokes it a few times twisting a little. Her remaining clothing seems a little tighter then would be considered appropriate and I could see some of the white cotton under dress clinging to her body with sweat. I am now at the edge of the pile of furs avoiding her detection. I still haven't seen her face yet now her identity is clear. There is only one family with hair of flame and only one daughter to that family. Suddenly she opens her arms wide and falls back into the pile of furs with a great sigh that turns to a shriek as she catches site of me. She twists about try to gain her feet again, but the furs wrap around her legs and she ends in a pile of fur and curly red hair. I kneel down and address the mass of fiery curls.
"What troubles you Esa Tallowkin?"
"Geir? Oh gods no.....not like this."
