Chapter Twenty-Five: Shagreen and Hornbeam

"Well now," Brickit said, standing over me to look at my finished handiwork. "Well now, lad," he echoed as he carefully loosed the blade from the vise. He held it by the long, full tang and turned it slowly, examining the shaft of metal from all sides. I waited anxiously as his dark eyes studied the shining-bright steel in the fading light. For some reason the blue tint to the metal seemed more pronounced to my eyes than on the first blade I had polished. I thought it was beautiful.

"Well now, King Edmund," he finally said, sinking down to sit beside me on the bench. He gazed at me with wonder and something akin to admiration. "This . . . is very well done. Would that all our apprentices approached these things with such passion."

I stared at the knife blade, once again amazed at my own work. It was worth raw, aching fingers and sore arms and back to have silenced him this way, if only for a moment. "Now what happens?" I asked, and I was surprised that I could not raise my voice above a whisper.

"Now I make the cross-guard." He glanced at me, looking almost apologetic. "You haven't the skill for that yet and it's more than I can talk you through. My mother said you're leaving in two days, so if this is to be completed we need more help from the masters."

I nodded gratefully. I was surprised I had made it this far on my own.

"After we add the cross-guard, Master Boont will make the grip. She's already got wood aplenty; it just needs to be affixed. Then you polish it some more and my mother wraps it in leather and my brother sharpens it. After that the masters decide if it will be allowed to leave our smithy."

I suppressed a smirk. "And if it's not allowed to leave?"

"You get to visit it next year when you come. Don't worry, lad, I'll take good care of it."

Giddiness overwhelmed me and I snorted. Brickit chuckled, pleased to have made me laugh. He gave me a push.

"Come along, Spawn, and I'll show you how to fuse metal to metal."

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Brickit was absolutely right – the cross-guard was far beyond my skill level to make and affix to the blade. He made it look very simple – almost annoyingly so – but after I ran some coal and sweated for another hour or so, the blade had a plain cross-guard and a small rounded pommel, both of which were made of bronze and fused neatly to the tang. I was anxious that the heat would undo my polishing, but Brickit scoffed and dismissed my worries, reminding me that I had to polish it a few more times anyway. He was rather casual with my time, but I supposed since this smithy was his kingdom he was allowed to be.

We left the fire to cool and Brickit walked me over to the carpenter's shop. He was already speculating on the type of wood Master Boont would choose for the grip. He dismissed ebony and mahogany as too heavy and boxwood as too light and finally decided that some sort of ironwood would suit to balance out the finished product. My opinion on the matter was not solicited, not that I had one to offer.

I had not been paying close attention before when Brickit mentioned Boont. The master carpenter, it turned out, was female and the first Black Dwarf I had ever seen with blue eyes. She was, nonetheless, all Black Dwarf and she cast the pair of us a hearty glare.

"What were you about all day that a simple knife took from sunup to sundown to polish? What have you taught this boy, Brickit?"

Without waiting for a reply she stomped off into her workshop, leaving us to follow if we dared. Brickit motioned me on and we stepped into the large shop. I paused and let out a little exclamation of amazement at the sheer number of tools filling the place and hanging from the rafters and walls. Most of them I couldn't identify, nor could I identify the dazzling varieties of wood piled and stacked all about the place. Completely distracted, I ran my fingers over woods of every color and grain imaginable – pale green and golden blond and red and brown and even dense, dark ebony from Narnia's southernmost mountains. There were bows and poles stacked up against the walls, bundles of arrow shafts ready for heads and fletching, axe handles, and wooden swords. Weapons weren't all that was produced here – there were cooking utensils and bowls and other household implements, some of them intricately inlaid, and I smiled to see some beautifully carved animal toys.

"Edmund!" snapped Brickit, bringing me out of my reverie. He spoke my name quickly, as if it were distasteful and needed to be dispensed with quickly, but at least he didn't call me 'Spawn' in front of the master. I suppose being polite tasted sour to him, but I nonetheless hurried over to join him and Boont. The carpenter was examining the dagger, testing the weight and balance on her finger tip. She stared hard at it with narrowed eyes, deep in thought.

"Well?" Brickit pressed.

He earned himself another glare. I was glad to see I wasn't alone in receiving them.

"An ironwood," she announced. "Hornbeam, I think."

"Ha!" crowed the Chief Smith, smacking me on the back hard enough to make me stagger.

After another smoldering glare, Boont demanded, "What kind of leather?"

"Shagreen," Brickit replied without a moment's hesitation. I had no idea of what he was talking about, but Boont did and she nodded.

"Come back after breakfast," she ordered, walking away with the knife in her hands, and we beat a hasty retreat.

"Now what?" I wondered.

"Dinner," he replied, "lest you have a better idea."

I had scarce heard a better suggestion, and I realized I had forgotten to eat lunch. Maybe there was something to Susan's regular nagging to eat more. "Not I."

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"Wake up! Wake up, King Edmund!"

I groaned. How, how, how could Baia and Brack be so wide awake? They were worse than Peter. Not even Lucy was so chipper when she woke up. I hissed and threw my pillow in their general direction. A moment later it was thrown back and hit me in the head. Dragging myself upright, I staggered to the basin and washed up, tempted to dunk my head in the water. I couldn't remember when I had last washed my hair and suddenly I longed for my valet and the deep marble bathtub in the dressing room Peter and I shared. A hot bath was quite my idea of paradise at the moment.

"You awake, Spawn?" Brint called.

"NO!" I growled, rounding on him as he stood in the doorway.

"You look awake," he countered brightly.

"Well, I'm not!"

He chuckled. "Then sleepwalk yourself over to the wood shop after breakfast and I'll see you after my mother is done with you."

I muttered something unintelligible, not really following him, and I didn't speak again until I thanked Gran for my breakfast. Afterwards I made my way to see Boont. The master carpenter smirked at me and my nearly alert state as she presented me with the knife.

I stared speechlessly. The tang was completely encased by grayish-yellow wood. It was perfectly smooth and swelled slightly in the middle. I took it in both hands, amazed at the difference the grip made. I had thought it looked like a knife before, but I hadn't realized until that moment how greatly I had been influenced by what I wanted to see. Thiswas a dagger. What I had made up to this point was merely a skeleton of one. Boont watched me closely, enjoying my reaction.

"It's beautiful, Lady," I finally managed to say.

She gave me a little bit of a smile. "Respectable work for a first try," she agreed gruffly. "You're not done yet, though. Off to the river for some clay and polish it again."

I thanked her time and again until she threw me out of her shop. I didn't have to go so far as the river initially – I still had my bowl of river clay saved from the day before and this I used, under Brint's critical eye, to polish the blade again. I polished the cross-guard and pommel for good measure, giving them a dull luster. I wiped it down time and again until the blade shone bright in the late morning light, and then I leaned my head in my hand, staring at it, weary and happy at once.

"It's not very becoming on a king," Brint commented, suddenly standing over me with a smirk on his lips.

"Hmm?" I looked up at him in surprise.

"Clay isn't your color, Spawn."

"Wha? Oh!" I finished in disgust, realizing there had been clay all over my hand that was now ground into my hair. He laughed as I stomped out of the work shop.

So I ended up going to the river after all to wash the mud out of my hair. The water was cold and the bugs were swarming and I was tempted to wear clay in order to stay dry and unbitten. Brack intercepted me on the way back and told me I was to fetch my riding gloves and join Gran in the long house.

I found the grand old dame examining my handiwork. There was a pleased gleam in her dark eyes as she hefted the knife and felt it for balance and strength. She had an assortment of unfamiliar tools laid out on the table and a strange hide the likes of which I had never seen before. It reminded me of a huge, dark, dried mushroom.

"What is that?"

"Shagreen leather," she replied, amused at my tone. "It comes from queer ocean fish from far to the south where the Eastern Sea is always warm. The fish is flat and shaped like a diamond with a long barbed tail, or so they say."

"A ray?" I wondered, but there was no more time for speculation as Gran expertly measured the grip against the edge of the leather. Moments later she took a blade and began to cut the hide in a long, continuous strip. It seemed a shame to cover such lovely wood, but even I could tell the grip was too smooth for a proper hold. Under Gran's instruction I wrapped the wooden grip, but no matter what I did the leather – which was very rough against my fingers - wasn't long enough. She let me struggle for a while before taking knife and leather out of my hands and once again I was shown by a master craftsman how to make something work. She pulled and stretched the black leather until all the wood was tightly covered and the strip overlapped only slightly.

"See? Now unwind that and we'll affix it in place."

The glue she used was nasty stuff and smelled so foul that I did not want to know how it was made. The strip wrapped over itself at the base of the grip and at the top it fitted tightly into a narrow lip left in the pommel and clamed tightly around the leather. I was rather amazed at the detailing Brickit and the other masters had put into this because I would not have thought of half the things that were to the Dwarfs quite ordinary.

"There." Gran handed me the blade with its rough coat of leather. I stared in quiet awe, barely noticing as she pulled out more, heavier leather pieces and said, "Now for a sheath."

I proved quite hopeless at sewing the layers of leather together that she cut out for the sheath, though. I wore my gloves at this point to protect my hands from getting lacerated on the thread. Two long, heavy needles were used, passed in opposite directions through the holes punched in the leather, but I pulled the oiled thread too tight and broke it so many times that Gran got fed up and, like Boont before her, threw me out.

"Go annoy Brint!" she ordered, slamming the door behind me, her patience with me gone.

So I sought out the master smith in his den with the express desire to annoy him. Brint was expecting me (Gran's voice having carried very well) and he held his hand out for the knife.

"Now what?" I asked hesitantly.

He grunted. "Now we eat. After that, you watch as I sharpen it. Unless the Nancy can't be trusted with anything sharp, in which case you're done."

I made a face at him and shook my head, thinking of Peter's remarkable skill with a sword or javelin. I slapped the knife into his waiting hand. "Don't hurt yourself, Brint."