Chapter Twenty-Six: Waiting

I did not sleep well that night. The day had been misty and my bed felt damp and I was more anxious than I wanted to admit. Tomorrow, after breakfast, the Masters of the Blue River Smithy would make the final decision as to whether or not the dagger I had made would be allowed to leave.

A strange sense of nervousness gripped me. It was rather like knowing I had to take an important test in the morn or put on some type of performance where I had to remember a long soliloquy. I had done all I could up to this point; the final decision on my labor was completely out of my hands.

I thought if this was how Peter felt when he worried. Small wonder he had so much trouble sleeping those first few weeks after our coronation. The fact that I missed him – and my sisters and my valet and my bed and food that hadn't been endlessly stewed – did not help me find any relief. For a long while I just stared into the darkness of the room, wishing the morning would come just as greatly as I dreaded its inevitable arrival. I had no idea of what I would feel if they found the knife inadequate and refused to let it represent the smithy. Would I be able to withstand such crushing disappointment? And I would be disappointed, terribly so despite my best efforts. I wanted to succeed here. I had succeeded here. I just . . . I just so wanted to watch Peter's expression as he realized what I had made for him. I wanted him to have this knife. That would be my reward: to see all our hard work in the hands of the High King.

Rising, I lit the small lamp beside my bed and crossed the room to retrieve the knife. It flashed silvery-blue in the light as I drew if from its leather sheath. Brint had sharpened the blade to a razor's keenness, tapering the point and edges. There was a certain deadly beauty to it now, but part of its beauty was the sheer simplicity of its lines. It was as much a tool as it was a weapon, and somehow I had crafted it. After a while I returned it to its sheath and extinguished the lamp. I didn't feel any better than before as I lay down once again to await the dawn.

I sighed, tossing on the lumpy pallet. I had to learn not to borrow trouble.

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I was up early and I shocked Brack and Baia the next morning by waking them up. It was Bly's idea, one I eagerly latched onto, and I'll admit I derived a great deal of pleasure out of rousting my tormentors from their warm beds for once. Both children were delighted and screamed as they defended themselves with their pillows. By the time they were up we were all breathless from laughing and Bly had to hurry them along to get dressed in time for breakfast.

Brint was waiting for me just outside the door. I stood before him, the knife in hand, waiting anxiously and hoping my emotions didn't show so plainly as to betray me.

"Come eat," he ordered gruffly, waving me along. I had the feeling he knew exactly how I felt, as the labor of every apprentice here at the smithy had to undergo similar examinations. "After breakfast the masters will call for you."

"Wonderful," I muttered, close on his heels.

I kissed Gran on the cheek in thanks for sewing the sheath for me. Brint, catching wind of our exchange, threatened me if I tried the same thing to thank him for sharpening the blade.

"I'd sooner kiss my horse," I retorted. "At least I know his hair is combed."

"La, I take it you do it for him." He snorted and pointed a stubby finger at me. "Don't be trying that, either."

I dropped into my usual seat beside Brickit and sulked. I hadn't felt this unhappy since my second or third day here. At least then I'd just been miserable and lonely, not miserable, lonely, and sick with worry that all my hard work would be rejected. Really, at that point I hadn't started working hard. I leaned my head on my hand. Sweet Lion, was this diplomacy? I preferred the parts where I got to hurl good-natured insults or clean ancient coke ovens. This waiting for council meetings and the decisions of cranky authorities was, in some ways, as nerve-wracking as waiting for a battle to start, which I for one could say with certainty.

"Something wrong, Spawn?" Brickit asked with something akin to cheer in his voice. He clapped me on the back as he sat down.

Still not lifting my head, I looked over at him, reaching my free hand to pour him some of the small beer. "Diplomacy," I replied, unable to keep from making a face.

He gave me a little push. "And what's the worst that can happen, lad? King Nancy waits another year for a better knife. No lives will be lost and you just smashed your fingers flat for naught."

I couldn't cling to my foul mood when he put things in such perspective. A small laugh escaped me and I finally sat up straight, better able to put a brave face on things as I swiped at him in defense of Peter.

Brickit raised his cup of beer. "You've accomplished your goal in securing our good will, great Aslan save us all from ourselves. What you achieve beyond that is your own."

His words merited some thought. I looked at him perhaps more intently than ever before, and I wondered at the changes we had wrought upon one another these few brief weeks. I looked at him and I realized he was happy, genuinely happy, perhaps for the first time since he lost his wife and brother. There, then, was my foremost personal achievement, both as a king and a would-be diplomat. No matter what happened, in the end I hadn't failed.

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The masters waited after breakfast, shouting at the nosy apprentices who would have lingered to take themselves outside and get to work. When the hall was clear they all sat down again, facing each other across the table with Brickit at the head. Mercifully I wasn't expected to stand up or do anything other than wait in my seat next to Brickit. Indeed, as Brickit put it, I was allowed to be still, silent, and it was permissible for me to sweat, but I could do little else.

There were seven masters in all with Gran counted among them. Only one of them I did not know personally, a gruff-looking (relatively speaking, that is), older master whose long beard was shot with gray. He looked somehow familiar but I could not place him beyond having seen him at meals every day for the past three weeks. My own master was there, and Beal, father of the two girls I had saved from the Werewulf.

"So," Brickit said, "we're here to decide if the work of yon apprentice is worthy of representing our smithy. Moreover, it falls to us to decide if the work of one king is worthy of serving another." He reached for the knife where it rested on the table before me. "I helped to forge this blade. It is not for me to decide."

I blinked, surprised, as he handed the blade to his brother. Brint took it and handed it to their mother, saying, "I helped to sharpen and shape this blade. It is not for me to decide."

Gran passed it to Boont. "I helped to finish this blade. It is not for me to decide."

"I fashioned the grip of this blade," Boont declared, drawing it to have a look at the finished product. "It is not for me to decide."

A sinking feeling was filling my stomach. At this rate would there be anyone left to make a decision?

My master spent a long while staring at the dagger, feeling its heft and testing its flexibility and strength by driving the tip into the tabletop, which earned him savage hisses from Gran and Boont. He ignored them as he went on with his examination.

"It is well shaped and tempered," the Master finally declared. "It is less for a king and more for a brother. I would allow this work to leave our smithy so long as it goes only to a brother's hand."

Brickit smiled slightly as I let out my breath.

"There is no question of that," said the Chief Smith.

Beal now held the dagger. He stared long and hard at it, then at me. Slowly he rose to his feet and when he spoke his voice was thick with emotion. "I did not help to fashion this blade, though I wish to Aslan that I had. That way I might have been able to express some thanks to the knight who risked his own life to save my daughters from the jaws of a Fell Beast. I cannot speak without being biased, and therefore it is not for me to decide."

My own throat tightened in sympathy for the difficulty he had in speaking. I regretted not seeking him out myself, but it seemed I had not had an idle moment since the Werewulf had been slain. Beal nodded his head to me and resumed his seat, handing the knife to the last master.

"Well, Master Barret?" asked Brickit.

The gray-bearded Dwarf cast me a sour look as he took the knife. He drew it, scowled, snorted, and finally sneered, "Manling work. It might do for a Son of Adam but not for our smithy."

I couldn't decide which stung more – his rejection of my work or being called a manling. Clearly it was meant as an insult, and not in any way one of the playful slurs Brint and Brickit and I had gotten used to exchanging. I sat in stunned silence, staring at Barret, aware that all the masters were glaring at him.

Brickit slowly stood. "You, Barret, are no less biased than Beal save that he is fair enough to remove himself from judging. You are here to judge the work, not the person that did it, nor the one it is meant for. Nor are you here to fight for our cousins in Moon Mountain. Your brother is well enough equipped to fight his own battles. So tell me now, and tell me in truth with one hand upon the Lion's tail, what it is about this blade that is flawed."

I realized then that Barret look very much like Biss. The miner's resentment of my presence at the smithy must have affected his judgment. I suspected there was a deeper bitterness here than met the eye, something beyond letting a dagger leave the grounds of the smithy. I had landed in the midst of a family civil war.

Barret snatched up the knife again, clearly furious at being so cornered. "The balance is off."

"I balanced it," Boont immediately snapped. "If that is the case, the fault is mine." She stood up and held out her hand. "Give it me that I may correct the flaw. The High King of Narnia will receive naught less than my best."

He glowered, clearly not about to cross the carpenter. I couldn't blame him. Barret cast Brint a look similar to the one he had thrown my way and snapped,

"The tip of the blade is too thin. It will snap the moment it touches bone."

"Say as much to the table!" the Master replied in kind, pointing to the half-inch deep gouge he had made.

"And I smelted the iron that made the steel," Brickit added. "You used steel from that very batch just last week, Barret, and you found no flaw in the metal you forged. So I bid you tell me why this blade should not represent this smithy."

Silence. The full weight and might of Barret's glare was unleashed upon me and I, Edmund, King of Narnia, returned the stare with ferocity to match. It may not be my place to speak or move, but nothing prevented me from defending myself from his wordless attack.

"After all," Brickit said, "the knife is going to a Son of Adam. It comforts me that you think so highly of men and kings that this work is not nearly good enough to grace their hands. You have my thanks, Master Barret, just as I'm certain you have the thanks and good will of the other masters."

If thanks and good will equated to murderous intent, Barret certainly had it in good measure and from every direction. I was too cross at his groundless hatred of me to be anxious.

"Twist my words and opinion as you will, Chief Smith." He pointed at me. "This one eats with this family but he has no name. You call him apprentice but he has paid no price and no servitude. If his sad attempt satisfies you and your masters then who am I, your cousin, to argue?"

"He has paid with blood and his servitude will last a lifetime," Brickit replied evenly. He smiled faintly. "And given that he will visit but once a year, so will his apprenticeship. He called us family first and this clan's name is his. Open your eyes and you'll see that the only sad attempt here is a grown Dwarf pitting himself against a boy."

Barret glowered, glancing at his peers. Boont very much wanted him to say something more, that was obvious, but he gave her no satisfaction.

"It is my right to refuse its leaving."

"Indeed," agreed the Chief Smith. "Just as it is Edmund's right to hear you explain to him and us everything he has done incorrectly in fashioning this knife, so that we might mend his ways. So." He resumed his seat, motioning for Boont to follow suit. "Begin."

The master smith said nothing. We all knew that there was nothing he could say that would not be based in resentment of the fact that I was not a Black Dwarf. Time passed without a word being exchanged. I knew the masters of the smithy were prepared to wait all the day through.

Barret abruptly stood. He glowered at the lot of us and finally snarled, "Then begone with ye, Son of Adam, and take your knife when you go. 'Tis good only for your - "

"Enough!" Beal commanded, standing. Of the two he was by far the taller and more imposing, and he spoke with quiet authority. "You will not insult a member of my family, Barret. Take your own words and begone. We are done here. King Edmund has our permission to take the knife from this smithy." He deliberately turned his back on his cousin, picking up the knife as he faced me. "Pray tell the whole world where this was made, Edmund of Clan Welent."

I leaned across the table to take it from Beal's hand, my heart racing. "I shall do so with pride, good my cousin."