Worthy of His Steel, Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 3
By Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Well, then, I confess, it is my intention to commandeer PotC, pick up the characters in Port Royal, raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer my weasely black guts out!
Summary: In which Will finally learns to forge a sword. How to forge a sword in one easy chapter. Oh, my aching back--the research! More of the epic of the blacksmith and the pirate. More movie novelization and missing scenes. This one is entirely off the edge of the map. In fact this is an entire lost continent!
Thank you, geek_mama_2, for the wonderful beta work; I’ll buy you a hat-a really big one.
Links to previous chapters:
Prologue: To Miss An Appointment
Ch. 1: Pirate Attack
Ch. 2: Unrestrained Piracy
Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 1
Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 2
* * * * *
Life and work had to continue, even though a little of the sparkle of the world had departed with Gordon. Gradually, the family had ceased to search the faces of companies of young men in scarlet coats only to realize afresh that the sought after face would never appear again. Eventually, Will had ceased to look up, listening for his friend’s laugh, when he was practicing at the fort. Time passed and the routine resumed.
Along with his sword fighting, Will was advancing in his craft. Finally, the day had come when he was to begin actually learning to forge metal. First, however, he had to master the equipment he would be using.
“Every one of these tools is unique,” the smith had told him. “Choose the right one, and half the job is over.”
Will had frowned in concentration, sure he’d never perceive the pattern in all this variety of equipment.
“For instance, if you want to shape the metal, you’ll not be choosing a flatter.” The smith had held out a hammer with a large flat head. “See the sharp edges of it? Those’ll leave marks in the steel. No, the hammer you want is a peen hammer. These are crowned so they’ll move the metal without leaving indentations.” He’d handed Will a hammer with a wedge on one end and a flat, rounded head.
“Like this, then?” Will had picked out another hammer, this time with a round ball on one end, but also crowned.
“Yes, that’s a ball peen. You’ve got the idea. Now, would you choose this one for shaping?” The smith had indicated another flat-headed hammer.
“No,” Will had answered quickly. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so impossible after all. “It’s got edges.”
“Right,” the smith had agreed. “On the other hand, this hammer, it’s called a set hammer, is perfect for making squared corners and flat edges. They’re like people, Will,” he’d continued, as Will had followed him over to the workbench. “Each one’s got its own peculiarities that look ridiculous and get in the way until you find the job it’s meant for. Then those odd characteristics make sense.”
Although he’d thought he’d never keep them straight, as the days went by Will had begun to recognize when he needed a ball peen hammer or a wedge peen one for shaping. He’d learnt when he needed a single-jack hammer for heavy shaping or when he needed someone to hold the work so he could use the sledge hammer. The blisters on his hands became calluses. The muscles in his arms and back grew impervious to the strain of long hours of heavy work. The flying chips of molten metal marked his soot-blackened forearms with the stigmata of a smith. He began to move with familiar ease among the elements of the forge.
The fire of the forge fascinated him. He’d catch himself staring into it, mesmerized by the lambent creep of flame along the red-gold and ash paper line of a coal. The curl of tongues of fire along a bar of steel bringing the cold, immovable object from the faintest hint of a blue glow to a blazing glory of golden life satisfied some deep longing in him. The rhythm of the hammer as he drew out the molten steel resonated under his skin. And the white hot conflagration of fire-welding, when the sparks would sizzle around and on him in a coruscation of light made his blood sing.
At first he’d made small objects-nails and spikes. Then he’d been assigned larger, less complex tools such as plowshares and shovels. Finally, he’d been allowed to work the lesser blades-to slip a wedge of steel between the folds of iron to give an axe a cutting edge, and to join an iron back to the steel edge of a knife.
The three smiths, master and journeyman and apprentice, had each brought their own qualities to their work. Master Brown gave his love of the soul of the metal, Joe had an uncanny sense of timing, and Will, to his surprise, discovered that he was the artist, that he loved most of all to make an ordinary object into a thing of beauty. The smithy of J. Brown became known as the place where the most elegant hinges and chandeliers and even kitchen kettles could be purchased. And Will had absorbed everything the other two could teach him.
For three years, he’d learnt the ways of iron and steel, learnt to judge the quality of an ingot, learnt to sense the moment when bars of metal were almost liquid and could be joined together into a single piece, learnt when force was needed and when restraint. But always he’d looked with longing on the swords Master Brown and Joe were forging. Someday, he also would be worthy to give to steel the shape it desired to be.
All of the processes that went into the crafting of a sword, Will had mastered. He was only awaiting the word that would free him to bring them together. One day, that word was finally given.
* * * * *
Will found his hands actually trembling as he selected the billets of steel and iron that would form his first blade. He would begin with two layers of iron lying between three layers of steel. By the time he was finished folding it, the blade would have more than a thousand layers.
“Why, since steel is so much harder than iron and keeps a better edge, do we work iron into the blades?” Master Brown asked him, testing.
“Because the steel alone is brittle,” Will answered softly, still absorbed in the feel of the metal. “It will cut, but it cannot give. That means it will shatter under stress.” He brushed a reverent forefinger along the edge of an iron bar. “The iron gives it flexibility, allowing it to bend. Only then will the blade have strength.”
“Very good, young Turner. You may proceed.”
Will wired the layers together to anchor them in place temporarily. Using the tongs, he settled the bundled metal into the heart of the forge that the donkey had powered to the high heat necessary for fire-welding. While he waited for the metal to reach the burning point, Will set out the fine washed silver sand that would act as a flux in the joint and chose the hammer he would use to strike the weld.
Normally, Will would have continued with other work while the metal heated, but that day, he wanted to observe the entire process. Indulgently, Master Brown allowed him to stand by the forge, watching entranced as his first sword in its infant stages glowed from blue to red to gold to white. When sparks were beginning to fly off the metal, the mastersmith indicated that he would hold the work with the tongs while Will struck the blow that would join the layers.
“You must always strike while the metal is still white hot,” the smith reminded him. “If any cooling occurs the weld will only be partial.”
In a smooth swift arc, Master Brown swung the metal out of the forge and onto the anvil. The instant the molten billets touched the face, Will brought the hammer down sharply, in one blow that had showered him with hot sparks. Instantly the layers joined and the smith returned the bar to the flames without delay. Will flung the silver sand over the joint to remove any impurities. Then the smith pulled the work from the forge a second time and laid it on the anvil. With the heavy hammer, Will sealed the union between the layers making them a single piece of metal.
Then began the difficult and time-consuming process of twisting and folding the metal, giving it that wondrous marbled pattern that would be so beautiful in the finished sword and that would bear witness to its strength. By the time Will had folded the steel a dozen times, his shoulders burned as though they would drop off, his callused hands felt raw, and wherever his arms and chest were not protected by the leather of the apron, he was spattered with the burns of sparks. But he had no attention to spare for his hurts. Instead he cradled the cooling bar in his hands, turning it so that the light caught its intricacies and played over its varied surface.
Joe nodded his head at the apprentice. “Love at first sight, eh?” he remarked to his father.
“As it should be,” the mastersmith agreed. “We’ll call it a night, now,” he informed Will. “Time to clean up for the evening meal.”
“Will!” Joe waved a hand in front of his face. “You can come back to it tomorrow.”
Will looked up, dazed.
“You’ll have a hard time shedding that apron and donning your shirt if you don’t let that chunk of ore go, son,” the smith reminded him with a grin.
“I’ll wager he sleeps with it tonight,” Joe laughed. “C’mon, Will. Let’s get rid of this grime so we can get some grub. You may be able to exist on spiritual food, but the rest of us are starving.”
With a concerted effort, Will managed to set his work down on the bench. He stripped his apron over his head and followed Joe and Master Brown to the slack tub where they scrubbed off as much of the soot as had not permanently welded itself to their bodies. But his eyes kept straying to where the metal waited, seeming still to glow to him in the dim light.
Will tried to behave sensibly and leave the thing behind when he entered the house, but a minute after the door had closed behind him, he was back. The metal bar accompanied him to the kitchen, and later, Joe would have won his bet if anyone had taken him up on it.
An hour before he usually began his day, Will was down at the forge building up the fire and tending the puzzled donkey. His sword practice was more than a little perfunctory as he impatiently waited for the temperature to come up.
By the time Joe stuck his head in the door, rubbing his eyes sleepily, Will had already placed the bar into the flames. “Youth!” muttered the twenty-year-old journeyman in disgust, and he closed the door.
When the mastersmith entered the shop, still wiping the last crumbs of his morning meal from his moustache with the back of his wrist, the steel was glowing red.
“Your zeal does you credit, young William,” he remarked. “But do you have a plan for this blade when you remove it from the heat?”
“A plan?” Will asked.
“Yes. Will you draw out the steel into a curved cutlass or a straight small sword? How wide and how long will you make the tang? That will affect the sword’s balance. How long will this blade be? You must envision what you want the metal to become so it can sense that through your hands and strive to match your vision.”
Will did know what type of blade he wanted to make-one just like Joe had made for Gordon, but with a greater reach. Will was already taller than Gordon had been, and he was still growing. Mistress Brown kept having to let out his clothing.
“A small sword,” Will told his master. “With a tang nearly the full width of the blade and extending into the pommel.”
“Very well,” Master Brown said. “When the steel is ready, you may begin shaping it.”
The steel was reluctant to reach the correct temperature, or so it seemed to Will’s heightened sense of urgency. But at last it shifted to the rose-gold that meant it was ready to be worked. Only the first handspan of the bar was heated. Will used the tongs to remove it, set the glowing end on the face of the anvil and began to draw out the steel, increasing its length even as its thickness decreased. Over and over, he returned the work to the forge, reheating it in sections. Then he would hammer the molten metal until his bones rang with the shock of the blows. He marveled at the way the steel answered his request that it move and shape itself. Gradually, the bar of folded steel assumed the proportions of the sword it would be.
Occasionally, Master Brown would stop Will from his work, indicating that he should return the entire length of steel to the fire and allow it to heat evenly throughout its length. When it was red hot, Will removed the blade, and the smith instructed him to let it rest and cool without working it.
“You must allow it time to remember that it is part of a whole, to align itself with the remainder of the blade in a uniform grain. Otherwise each section you work will retain irregularities, will contend against the rest of the blade when under stress, rather than striving in unity,” he explained.
As Will waited with ill-concealed impatience for the steel to return to its dark, quiescent stage, the mastersmith smiled at him. “Any man can hammer molten steel, Will. That merely takes brute force. What distinguishes a master craftsman is that he knows when to wait with patience. Force is easy. Waiting is not.”
Eventually, the waiting would be over, the steel returned to the forge, and Will could continue working it. Once he had achieved the basic shape of the sword, he began tapering the blade, creating the tang and the tip by hammering at an angle. Master Brown or Joe would check his work, pointing out bulges in the thickness created by the tapering, that needed to be drawn out. As a finishing touch, Will used a tap and die set to place the threads for the pommel on the tang.
At last, on the anvil before him, lay the blade of a sword. Will knew it wasn’t perfect. He could already see things he would do differently the next time. But the mastersmith nodded his approval of the blade, and accomplishment was resonating in Will’s veins. A thrill ran through him that there would now be many next times. One last time, he returned the blade to the fire to heat through and then cool. The folded, beaten steel would forever be a single work of art.
“Now, the steel is too hard to be ground or polished,” Master Brown told him. “You’ll need to soften it, to anneal it. How will you go about doing that?”
Will had watched this process a hundred times. “First,” he said. “The blade should be heated blood red. Then I leave it insulated in the ash of the forge over night.”
“Exactly, young William,” the smith affirmed. “Slowly is the key. It must cool slowly. You cannot force the steel.”
This meant more waiting. Will left the smithy that night with many a backwards glance at the cooling forge where his first sword lay nestled under its blanket of powdery gray ash.
Over the next days, Will discovered just how much grinding and polishing a sword actually took. First he worked out the edge and tip on the large grinding stone with a stream of cool water playing over it to prevent heating of the edge. Then he used the fuller in the hardy hole in the anvil to place a groove down the center of the blade. This would lighten the sword even more. Finally he spent days polishing the blade-over fifty hours with twelve different stones. His hands cramped and his back ached from hours of sitting in the same position, but he was determined to master the art of bringing out the beautiful damascened pattern of a blade. When the mastersmith finally agreed that Will had adequately polished his sword, it was ready to harden again.
This time Will submerged the sword into a salt bath to heat the blade evenly and thoroughly-a much surer method than the varied fire of the forge. Then he plunged the hardened and heated blade into the quench tank where the vegetable oil would cool it rapidly and evenly.
“If the steel does not cool evenly, the blade may warp or even fracture,” Joe told him. “The oil, because it is a slower quench than water, allows you to gently move the blade to dislodge the bubbles that form on the surface of the steel, which insulate and slow the cooling on the affected area. This allows the heat to bleed off equally over the surface, so you’ll reduce your chance of warpage.”
The mastersmith had deferred to his son for this procedure. “There’s no one with the instinct for quenching like Joe,” the man had said proudly.
“Timing is everything,” Joe informed Will who was easing the blade through the viscous liquid. “Wait too long, the blade is ruined. Wait not long enough, the blade is ruined. You’ll learn to feel, somewhere inside you, when the steel has cooled enough to be hardened.”
That time, Will had needed to time his work with an hourglass. He would have to craft a great many more blades before he’d recognize the ideal time for waiting. When the prescribed amount of time for a blade of that sort passed, he looked questioningly at Joe.
The journeyman nodded. “That should be about right. You’ll have to see how it turns out and adjust your timing accordingly in the future.”
Removing the blade from the quench tank, Will handed it to Joe. Relief swept through him as the young man nodded. His sword had not been ruined.
Then the blade was ready to be tempered. When the temperature of the forge decreased sufficiently, Will heated his sword. This, he learned, was another time for patient waiting. When the blade had held the heat long enough, he cooled it in the slack tub.
“You’ll have to do that several times to find the level of hardness you need,” Master Brown informed him. “You want the blade hard enough to hold its edge, but not brittle enough to chip or crack.”
Over and over again, Will heated the steel. He checked the sword each time he withdrew it from the tub, dripping water. Finally, he decided the blade was tempered correctly. With trepidation, he handed it to his master.
The smith scrutinized the work, turning it, running his hand along the blade, brushing a work-hardened thumb over its edge. He looked up at his apprentice. “Very acceptable work for your first try, Will Turner.”
Will sighed in relief. The most critical part of the sword was complete, and he had not failed. He felt his shoulders sag, and he glanced down at his own abused hands.
“It’s not all magic, is it?” Master Brown commented.
Will looked up at the mastersmith. He had anticipated this work for so long, but he’d never imagined the hours of labour a single sword took. Many of those hours had been sheer determined toil. Some of those hours had brought pain.
“No, it’s not,” he answered.
Master Brown handed the sword back to its maker. Will cradled his creation in his hands, admiring the way the marbled pattern of it caught the light, feeling the satisfaction of steel that had become what it longed to be. He met his master’s gaze again, his face lighting like molten metal, the sparks flying from his eyes.
But it’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done!” he exclaimed.
“Then someday you will be a swordsmith, Will Turner,” Master Brown responded. “The hard work and the tedious repetition and the pain are the price you’ll pay for the magic. But it will always be there for you, waiting on the other side of any great effort.” The mastersmith put a hand on his apprentice’s shoulder.
“Anything really worthwhile calls for sacrifice,” he told Will soberly. “In the end a thing is only worth what you are willing to give, and to give up, for it. The steel and the sword will demand your dedication and your life, but they will pay you back a thousandfold in the end.”
* * * * *
Master Brown had been right. The magic of creation had only increased for the young swordsmith. Will remembered that sword now, the first of many, many more-each one as unique in his heart as a living soul. He thought he would recognize one of his own blades even without the use of his eyes, that somehow the metal would know the touch of its maker and would whisper his name through his fingertips.
Not every day did the golden flame of genius curl around Will’s heart as he worked. But he learnt to work with patience through both the pain and the delight. He discovered that his work never completely met his dream of perfection, but he continued to push himself further into the depths of his soul in his search for a way to break through to that dream. He learnt to be silent and let the work speak to him. And he was rewarded with occasional moments of transcendent, passionate creation, when every move he made with the metal was a joy, and the steel seemed to flow from his fingertips into the shape of his thoughts.
Gradually, the swords made by Will Turner began to match those made by Joe and Master Brown.
TBC
Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 4
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Well, then, I confess, it is my intention to commandeer PotC, pick up the characters in Port Royal, raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer my weasely black guts out!
Summary: In which Will finally learns to forge a sword. How to forge a sword in one easy chapter. Oh, my aching back--the research! More of the epic of the blacksmith and the pirate. More movie novelization and missing scenes. This one is entirely off the edge of the map. In fact this is an entire lost continent!
Thank you, geek_mama_2, for the wonderful beta work; I’ll buy you a hat-a really big one.
Links to previous chapters:
Prologue: To Miss An Appointment
Ch. 1: Pirate Attack
Ch. 2: Unrestrained Piracy
Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 1
Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 2
* * * * *
Life and work had to continue, even though a little of the sparkle of the world had departed with Gordon. Gradually, the family had ceased to search the faces of companies of young men in scarlet coats only to realize afresh that the sought after face would never appear again. Eventually, Will had ceased to look up, listening for his friend’s laugh, when he was practicing at the fort. Time passed and the routine resumed.
Along with his sword fighting, Will was advancing in his craft. Finally, the day had come when he was to begin actually learning to forge metal. First, however, he had to master the equipment he would be using.
“Every one of these tools is unique,” the smith had told him. “Choose the right one, and half the job is over.”
Will had frowned in concentration, sure he’d never perceive the pattern in all this variety of equipment.
“For instance, if you want to shape the metal, you’ll not be choosing a flatter.” The smith had held out a hammer with a large flat head. “See the sharp edges of it? Those’ll leave marks in the steel. No, the hammer you want is a peen hammer. These are crowned so they’ll move the metal without leaving indentations.” He’d handed Will a hammer with a wedge on one end and a flat, rounded head.
“Like this, then?” Will had picked out another hammer, this time with a round ball on one end, but also crowned.
“Yes, that’s a ball peen. You’ve got the idea. Now, would you choose this one for shaping?” The smith had indicated another flat-headed hammer.
“No,” Will had answered quickly. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so impossible after all. “It’s got edges.”
“Right,” the smith had agreed. “On the other hand, this hammer, it’s called a set hammer, is perfect for making squared corners and flat edges. They’re like people, Will,” he’d continued, as Will had followed him over to the workbench. “Each one’s got its own peculiarities that look ridiculous and get in the way until you find the job it’s meant for. Then those odd characteristics make sense.”
Although he’d thought he’d never keep them straight, as the days went by Will had begun to recognize when he needed a ball peen hammer or a wedge peen one for shaping. He’d learnt when he needed a single-jack hammer for heavy shaping or when he needed someone to hold the work so he could use the sledge hammer. The blisters on his hands became calluses. The muscles in his arms and back grew impervious to the strain of long hours of heavy work. The flying chips of molten metal marked his soot-blackened forearms with the stigmata of a smith. He began to move with familiar ease among the elements of the forge.
The fire of the forge fascinated him. He’d catch himself staring into it, mesmerized by the lambent creep of flame along the red-gold and ash paper line of a coal. The curl of tongues of fire along a bar of steel bringing the cold, immovable object from the faintest hint of a blue glow to a blazing glory of golden life satisfied some deep longing in him. The rhythm of the hammer as he drew out the molten steel resonated under his skin. And the white hot conflagration of fire-welding, when the sparks would sizzle around and on him in a coruscation of light made his blood sing.
At first he’d made small objects-nails and spikes. Then he’d been assigned larger, less complex tools such as plowshares and shovels. Finally, he’d been allowed to work the lesser blades-to slip a wedge of steel between the folds of iron to give an axe a cutting edge, and to join an iron back to the steel edge of a knife.
The three smiths, master and journeyman and apprentice, had each brought their own qualities to their work. Master Brown gave his love of the soul of the metal, Joe had an uncanny sense of timing, and Will, to his surprise, discovered that he was the artist, that he loved most of all to make an ordinary object into a thing of beauty. The smithy of J. Brown became known as the place where the most elegant hinges and chandeliers and even kitchen kettles could be purchased. And Will had absorbed everything the other two could teach him.
For three years, he’d learnt the ways of iron and steel, learnt to judge the quality of an ingot, learnt to sense the moment when bars of metal were almost liquid and could be joined together into a single piece, learnt when force was needed and when restraint. But always he’d looked with longing on the swords Master Brown and Joe were forging. Someday, he also would be worthy to give to steel the shape it desired to be.
All of the processes that went into the crafting of a sword, Will had mastered. He was only awaiting the word that would free him to bring them together. One day, that word was finally given.
* * * * *
Will found his hands actually trembling as he selected the billets of steel and iron that would form his first blade. He would begin with two layers of iron lying between three layers of steel. By the time he was finished folding it, the blade would have more than a thousand layers.
“Why, since steel is so much harder than iron and keeps a better edge, do we work iron into the blades?” Master Brown asked him, testing.
“Because the steel alone is brittle,” Will answered softly, still absorbed in the feel of the metal. “It will cut, but it cannot give. That means it will shatter under stress.” He brushed a reverent forefinger along the edge of an iron bar. “The iron gives it flexibility, allowing it to bend. Only then will the blade have strength.”
“Very good, young Turner. You may proceed.”
Will wired the layers together to anchor them in place temporarily. Using the tongs, he settled the bundled metal into the heart of the forge that the donkey had powered to the high heat necessary for fire-welding. While he waited for the metal to reach the burning point, Will set out the fine washed silver sand that would act as a flux in the joint and chose the hammer he would use to strike the weld.
Normally, Will would have continued with other work while the metal heated, but that day, he wanted to observe the entire process. Indulgently, Master Brown allowed him to stand by the forge, watching entranced as his first sword in its infant stages glowed from blue to red to gold to white. When sparks were beginning to fly off the metal, the mastersmith indicated that he would hold the work with the tongs while Will struck the blow that would join the layers.
“You must always strike while the metal is still white hot,” the smith reminded him. “If any cooling occurs the weld will only be partial.”
In a smooth swift arc, Master Brown swung the metal out of the forge and onto the anvil. The instant the molten billets touched the face, Will brought the hammer down sharply, in one blow that had showered him with hot sparks. Instantly the layers joined and the smith returned the bar to the flames without delay. Will flung the silver sand over the joint to remove any impurities. Then the smith pulled the work from the forge a second time and laid it on the anvil. With the heavy hammer, Will sealed the union between the layers making them a single piece of metal.
Then began the difficult and time-consuming process of twisting and folding the metal, giving it that wondrous marbled pattern that would be so beautiful in the finished sword and that would bear witness to its strength. By the time Will had folded the steel a dozen times, his shoulders burned as though they would drop off, his callused hands felt raw, and wherever his arms and chest were not protected by the leather of the apron, he was spattered with the burns of sparks. But he had no attention to spare for his hurts. Instead he cradled the cooling bar in his hands, turning it so that the light caught its intricacies and played over its varied surface.
Joe nodded his head at the apprentice. “Love at first sight, eh?” he remarked to his father.
“As it should be,” the mastersmith agreed. “We’ll call it a night, now,” he informed Will. “Time to clean up for the evening meal.”
“Will!” Joe waved a hand in front of his face. “You can come back to it tomorrow.”
Will looked up, dazed.
“You’ll have a hard time shedding that apron and donning your shirt if you don’t let that chunk of ore go, son,” the smith reminded him with a grin.
“I’ll wager he sleeps with it tonight,” Joe laughed. “C’mon, Will. Let’s get rid of this grime so we can get some grub. You may be able to exist on spiritual food, but the rest of us are starving.”
With a concerted effort, Will managed to set his work down on the bench. He stripped his apron over his head and followed Joe and Master Brown to the slack tub where they scrubbed off as much of the soot as had not permanently welded itself to their bodies. But his eyes kept straying to where the metal waited, seeming still to glow to him in the dim light.
Will tried to behave sensibly and leave the thing behind when he entered the house, but a minute after the door had closed behind him, he was back. The metal bar accompanied him to the kitchen, and later, Joe would have won his bet if anyone had taken him up on it.
An hour before he usually began his day, Will was down at the forge building up the fire and tending the puzzled donkey. His sword practice was more than a little perfunctory as he impatiently waited for the temperature to come up.
By the time Joe stuck his head in the door, rubbing his eyes sleepily, Will had already placed the bar into the flames. “Youth!” muttered the twenty-year-old journeyman in disgust, and he closed the door.
When the mastersmith entered the shop, still wiping the last crumbs of his morning meal from his moustache with the back of his wrist, the steel was glowing red.
“Your zeal does you credit, young William,” he remarked. “But do you have a plan for this blade when you remove it from the heat?”
“A plan?” Will asked.
“Yes. Will you draw out the steel into a curved cutlass or a straight small sword? How wide and how long will you make the tang? That will affect the sword’s balance. How long will this blade be? You must envision what you want the metal to become so it can sense that through your hands and strive to match your vision.”
Will did know what type of blade he wanted to make-one just like Joe had made for Gordon, but with a greater reach. Will was already taller than Gordon had been, and he was still growing. Mistress Brown kept having to let out his clothing.
“A small sword,” Will told his master. “With a tang nearly the full width of the blade and extending into the pommel.”
“Very well,” Master Brown said. “When the steel is ready, you may begin shaping it.”
The steel was reluctant to reach the correct temperature, or so it seemed to Will’s heightened sense of urgency. But at last it shifted to the rose-gold that meant it was ready to be worked. Only the first handspan of the bar was heated. Will used the tongs to remove it, set the glowing end on the face of the anvil and began to draw out the steel, increasing its length even as its thickness decreased. Over and over, he returned the work to the forge, reheating it in sections. Then he would hammer the molten metal until his bones rang with the shock of the blows. He marveled at the way the steel answered his request that it move and shape itself. Gradually, the bar of folded steel assumed the proportions of the sword it would be.
Occasionally, Master Brown would stop Will from his work, indicating that he should return the entire length of steel to the fire and allow it to heat evenly throughout its length. When it was red hot, Will removed the blade, and the smith instructed him to let it rest and cool without working it.
“You must allow it time to remember that it is part of a whole, to align itself with the remainder of the blade in a uniform grain. Otherwise each section you work will retain irregularities, will contend against the rest of the blade when under stress, rather than striving in unity,” he explained.
As Will waited with ill-concealed impatience for the steel to return to its dark, quiescent stage, the mastersmith smiled at him. “Any man can hammer molten steel, Will. That merely takes brute force. What distinguishes a master craftsman is that he knows when to wait with patience. Force is easy. Waiting is not.”
Eventually, the waiting would be over, the steel returned to the forge, and Will could continue working it. Once he had achieved the basic shape of the sword, he began tapering the blade, creating the tang and the tip by hammering at an angle. Master Brown or Joe would check his work, pointing out bulges in the thickness created by the tapering, that needed to be drawn out. As a finishing touch, Will used a tap and die set to place the threads for the pommel on the tang.
At last, on the anvil before him, lay the blade of a sword. Will knew it wasn’t perfect. He could already see things he would do differently the next time. But the mastersmith nodded his approval of the blade, and accomplishment was resonating in Will’s veins. A thrill ran through him that there would now be many next times. One last time, he returned the blade to the fire to heat through and then cool. The folded, beaten steel would forever be a single work of art.
“Now, the steel is too hard to be ground or polished,” Master Brown told him. “You’ll need to soften it, to anneal it. How will you go about doing that?”
Will had watched this process a hundred times. “First,” he said. “The blade should be heated blood red. Then I leave it insulated in the ash of the forge over night.”
“Exactly, young William,” the smith affirmed. “Slowly is the key. It must cool slowly. You cannot force the steel.”
This meant more waiting. Will left the smithy that night with many a backwards glance at the cooling forge where his first sword lay nestled under its blanket of powdery gray ash.
Over the next days, Will discovered just how much grinding and polishing a sword actually took. First he worked out the edge and tip on the large grinding stone with a stream of cool water playing over it to prevent heating of the edge. Then he used the fuller in the hardy hole in the anvil to place a groove down the center of the blade. This would lighten the sword even more. Finally he spent days polishing the blade-over fifty hours with twelve different stones. His hands cramped and his back ached from hours of sitting in the same position, but he was determined to master the art of bringing out the beautiful damascened pattern of a blade. When the mastersmith finally agreed that Will had adequately polished his sword, it was ready to harden again.
This time Will submerged the sword into a salt bath to heat the blade evenly and thoroughly-a much surer method than the varied fire of the forge. Then he plunged the hardened and heated blade into the quench tank where the vegetable oil would cool it rapidly and evenly.
“If the steel does not cool evenly, the blade may warp or even fracture,” Joe told him. “The oil, because it is a slower quench than water, allows you to gently move the blade to dislodge the bubbles that form on the surface of the steel, which insulate and slow the cooling on the affected area. This allows the heat to bleed off equally over the surface, so you’ll reduce your chance of warpage.”
The mastersmith had deferred to his son for this procedure. “There’s no one with the instinct for quenching like Joe,” the man had said proudly.
“Timing is everything,” Joe informed Will who was easing the blade through the viscous liquid. “Wait too long, the blade is ruined. Wait not long enough, the blade is ruined. You’ll learn to feel, somewhere inside you, when the steel has cooled enough to be hardened.”
That time, Will had needed to time his work with an hourglass. He would have to craft a great many more blades before he’d recognize the ideal time for waiting. When the prescribed amount of time for a blade of that sort passed, he looked questioningly at Joe.
The journeyman nodded. “That should be about right. You’ll have to see how it turns out and adjust your timing accordingly in the future.”
Removing the blade from the quench tank, Will handed it to Joe. Relief swept through him as the young man nodded. His sword had not been ruined.
Then the blade was ready to be tempered. When the temperature of the forge decreased sufficiently, Will heated his sword. This, he learned, was another time for patient waiting. When the blade had held the heat long enough, he cooled it in the slack tub.
“You’ll have to do that several times to find the level of hardness you need,” Master Brown informed him. “You want the blade hard enough to hold its edge, but not brittle enough to chip or crack.”
Over and over again, Will heated the steel. He checked the sword each time he withdrew it from the tub, dripping water. Finally, he decided the blade was tempered correctly. With trepidation, he handed it to his master.
The smith scrutinized the work, turning it, running his hand along the blade, brushing a work-hardened thumb over its edge. He looked up at his apprentice. “Very acceptable work for your first try, Will Turner.”
Will sighed in relief. The most critical part of the sword was complete, and he had not failed. He felt his shoulders sag, and he glanced down at his own abused hands.
“It’s not all magic, is it?” Master Brown commented.
Will looked up at the mastersmith. He had anticipated this work for so long, but he’d never imagined the hours of labour a single sword took. Many of those hours had been sheer determined toil. Some of those hours had brought pain.
“No, it’s not,” he answered.
Master Brown handed the sword back to its maker. Will cradled his creation in his hands, admiring the way the marbled pattern of it caught the light, feeling the satisfaction of steel that had become what it longed to be. He met his master’s gaze again, his face lighting like molten metal, the sparks flying from his eyes.
But it’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done!” he exclaimed.
“Then someday you will be a swordsmith, Will Turner,” Master Brown responded. “The hard work and the tedious repetition and the pain are the price you’ll pay for the magic. But it will always be there for you, waiting on the other side of any great effort.” The mastersmith put a hand on his apprentice’s shoulder.
“Anything really worthwhile calls for sacrifice,” he told Will soberly. “In the end a thing is only worth what you are willing to give, and to give up, for it. The steel and the sword will demand your dedication and your life, but they will pay you back a thousandfold in the end.”
* * * * *
Master Brown had been right. The magic of creation had only increased for the young swordsmith. Will remembered that sword now, the first of many, many more-each one as unique in his heart as a living soul. He thought he would recognize one of his own blades even without the use of his eyes, that somehow the metal would know the touch of its maker and would whisper his name through his fingertips.
Not every day did the golden flame of genius curl around Will’s heart as he worked. But he learnt to work with patience through both the pain and the delight. He discovered that his work never completely met his dream of perfection, but he continued to push himself further into the depths of his soul in his search for a way to break through to that dream. He learnt to be silent and let the work speak to him. And he was rewarded with occasional moments of transcendent, passionate creation, when every move he made with the metal was a joy, and the steel seemed to flow from his fingertips into the shape of his thoughts.
Gradually, the swords made by Will Turner began to match those made by Joe and Master Brown.
TBC
Ch. 3: Canticle for a Blacksmith, Part 4