Chapter Twenty-Four: Worthy
If I thought there was anything in the least bit romantic or magical in making weapons I quickly abandoned those childish and silly notions when it came time to polish a blade. The best I could say was thank Aslan I hadn't tried to make Peter a sword because I would have had to stay at the Blue River Smithy an additional month just to get the thing polished. Polishing was a long, boring, and in the end quite smelly job, though at the same time the end results were very satisfying.
Brickit wouldn't let me touch the blade I'd forged the night before, but he made me start out by heating and tempering one of my earlier attempts and practicing on that. Polishing was accomplished by rubbing the metal with a series of flat stones, each one of progressively finer quality all the way down to clay from the banks of the Blue River. Each stone had to be moved in a different, consistent direction to avoid scoring the metal too much and Brickit told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to touch the tang. After leveling a few choice threats, he explained that polishing the tang was counter-productive and could cause the grip to come loose.
With a series of five polishing stones, a bowl of clay, and a bowl of water arrayed before me, I set to work. The practice blade was tightly clamped in a vise on a work bench and after a quick tutorial in even pressure and water as a lubricant and the importance of following but one direction Brickit let me have at it. He came back often to check my progress and told me when to switch stones and direction, each time showing me the exact angle and starting point for each swipe of the stone. That didn't happen as often as I would have liked, but I will say that I was fascinated to see the steel gradually acquire a smooth sheen that got shinier and brighter as the morning wore on until Brickit threw a rag at me and told me to switch to the clay. I had thought the clay would be easier to use than the stones, but I was wrong. It clung and got under my nails and it stank. My hands were aching by the time I was done, but I had never been so pleased to get so muddy (even though some of the clay got in my hair and dried as hard as plaster). When I wiped the steel down one final time the blade had a surface that was almost mirror-bright with a faint bluish tinge to it.
"Not bad for the first try," Brickit allowed in a grudging tone that told me he was very pleased with my first efforts. "Fairly respectable work. 'Tis easier to polish double blades like this with no false edge, believe it or no. Of course," and here he freed the blank from the vise and turned it over, "you'll want to be doing both sides."
I made a sour face at him as if that was obvious, but in truth I had completely forgotten the other side of the blade. I stretched my sore shoulders and shook my hands to ease the tightness in them.
"Now," he said, rambling on in much the same manner as he wrote invitations, "were this the Nancy's present it would get polished and the cross-guard added, then go to Master Boont for the grip to be fitted and sanded and then you'd have two more times at it with this clay mix and some oil. But, seeing as how you didn't destroy this, you can start on what you made last night. Mind, now, you must take care not to distort the shape and 'ware the edges! These things don't need to be sharp to cut a finger."
He set up Peter's knife in the vise and once again showed me the right angle to move the roughest of the stones. I hesitated, and the Chief Smith gave me a little poke in the arm.
"It won't polish itself, Spawn."
I flicked some water at him in retaliation and with a chuckle he let me get to work. If I lingered longer and rubbed the stones with greater care than before, I think I can be forgiven. I watched the metal grow smooth and buff under my strokes and I tried to imagine Peter's expression when he finally saw this and held it in his hands. In my mind's eye the knife was done and I could see it clearly, a neat dagger for everyday use, sharp, strong, and elegant. He would be thrilled in his quiet way, just as I was thrilled to think that I was the one to make this for him. It was more than a weapon or a tool by now. This knife was a pledge and an icon for Narnia's High King, a symbol that spoke of a depth and passion the words for which I did not yet possess. I could say I loved Peter and I had, but this gift would show my brother how great my devotion had become these past few months since Beruna. My actions, my work, would speak for me, and all the emotion I could not express fully I now poured into my labor.
Since coming to Narnia I had learned that the merest of things – a handkerchief, a kiss, a quiet promise – had a greater, more profound meaning and dignity than any monuments or memorials of metal and stone. And so it was with the knife. From the rough ore taken from the heart of Moon Mountain to the ingots cast in sand to the steel blank I had hammered into shape to the knife gradually taking on a dull sheen beneath my hands, love and devotion and skill had followed this gift at every stage of its journey. Like me, it had come from darkness to light, shaped and tempered with care, and like me, I knew it would be loved and treasured. And so, like me, I had to make it into something worthy.