It was bad enough that Rodry was there with a cluster of noble youths in one corner, receiving their admiration as he told and retold stories of his exploits. Why had fate seen fit to make him the oldest? It made no sense to Vars when it was obvious that Rodry was about as suited to the future role of king as he was to flying by flapping his over-muscled arms.
“Of course, a wedding like this provides possibilities,” Lyril said. “It brings together so many lords and ladies…”
“Who can then be made into our friends,” Vars said. He understood how the game worked. “Of course, it helps if one knows their weaknesses. Did you know that Earl Durris over there has a weakness for smoking blood amber?”
“I did not,” Lyril said.
“Nor will anyone else, if he remembers that I am his friend,” Vars said. He and Lyril continued through the crowd, slowly drifting in their separate directions. He could see her eyeing up the women, trying to decide all the ways that they were less pretty than her, or weaker, or just not of her level. Probably trying to decide all of the advantages she could gain with them, too. There was a hardness to that assessment that Vars liked. Maybe that was a part of why he’d been with her so long.
“Of course, that’s another reason not to join the hunt tomorrow,” he said. “With all the idiots away, I can do what I want, maybe set things up to my advantage.”
“Did I hear some mention of the hunt?”
His brother’s voice was as booming and as bluff as ever. Vars turned to Rodry, forcing the smile he’d learned to force through so much of his childhood.
“Rodry, brother,” he said. “I hadn’t realized that you were back from… where was it you and Father went again?”
Rodry shrugged. “You could have gone and found out.”
“Ah, but you went running,” Vars said, “and you’re the one who matters to him.”
If Rodry caught the sharpness of it, he didn’t show it.
“Come on,” Rodry said, clapping him on the back. “Join me and my friends.”
He made joining the bunch of young fools who all but worshipped him as a hero sound like some great gift, rather than a horror Vars would have paid solid gold to avoid. They played at being like his father’s Knights of the Spur, but not one of them had made a name for himself yet. His smile became more strained as he walked into the heart of them, and he grabbed a goblet of wine as a welcome distraction. In just a brief space, it was gone, so he grabbed another.
“We’re talking about all the hunts we’ve been on,” Rodry said. “Berwick says that he once took down a boar with a dagger.”
One of the young men there gave a bow that made Vars want to kick him in the face. “I was gored twice.”
“Then perhaps you should have used a spear,” Vars said.
“I broke my spear on the training grounds of the House of Weapons,” Berwick said.
“When were you last on the training grounds, brother?” Rodry asked, obviously knowing the answer. “When will you be joining the knights, as I have?”
“I train with the sword,” Vars said, probably a little more defensively than he should have. “I just think that there are more useful things to do than spending every waking moment doing so.”
“Or maybe you just don’t like the thought of facing up to an enemy ready to cut you down, eh, brother?” Rodry said, clapping Vars on the shoulder. “The same way you don’t like going on the hunt, in case something happens to you.”
He laughed, and the cruelest thing was that his brother probably didn’t even see it as hurtful. Rodry wasn’t a man who went through the world with any care, after all.
“Are you calling me a coward, Rodry?” Vars said.
“Oh no,” Rodry said. “There are some men who are meant to be out in the world fighting, and others who are better off staying at home, right?”
“I could hunt if I wanted to,” Vars said.
“Ah, the brave knight!” Rodry said, and that got another of those laughs that no one there would see as cruel except Vars. “Well then, you should come with us! We’re going down into the city to make sure we have the weapons we need for the morrow.”
“And leave the feast?” Vars retorted.
“The feasting will last days yet,” Rodry shot back. “Come on, we can pick you out a fine spear so you can show us how to hunt boar.”
Vars wished he could simply walk away, or better yet, smash his brother’s face into the nearest table. Maybe keep smashing it until it was a pulp, and he was left as the heir he should always have been. Instead, he knew he was going to have to go down into the city, across the bridges, but at least down there, he might find someone on whom to take his anger out. Yes, Vars was looking forward to that, and to more beyond it. Maybe even to being king one day.
For now, though, the part of him that screamed to stay safe to avoid danger was telling him not to confront his brother. No, he would wait for that.
But whoever got in his way down in the city was going to pay.
CHAPTER FIVE
Devin swung his hammer, bashing it down on the lump of metal that was due to become a blade. The muscles on his back ached as he did it, the heat of the forge making sweat run through his clothes. In the House of Weapons, it was always hot, and this close to one of the forges, it was almost unbearable.
“You’re doing well, boy,” Old Gund said.
“I’m sixteen, I’m not a boy,” Devin said.
“Aye, but you’re still the size of one. Besides, to an old man like me, you’re all boys.”
Devin shrugged at that. He knew that, to anyone looking, he must not have looked like a smith, but he thought; the metal demanded thinking to truly understand it. The subtle gradations of heat and patterns of steel that could change a weapon from flawed to perfect were almost magical, and Devin was determined to know them all, to truly understand.
“Careful, or it will cool too much,” Gund said.
Quickly, Devin got the metal back into the heat, watching the shade of it until it was exactly right, then pulling it out to work on it. It was close, but it still wasn’t quite right, something about the edge not quite perfect. Devin knew it as surely as he knew his right from his left.
He was still young, but he knew weapons. He knew the best ways to craft them and to sharpen them… he even knew how to wield them, although both his father and Master Wendros seemed determined that he should not. The training the House of Weapons offered was for nobles, young men coming in to learn from the finest sword masters, including the impossibly skilled Wendros. Devin had to do it alone, practicing with everything from swords to axes, spears to knives, cutting at posts and hoping it was right.
A clamor from near the front of the House briefly caught Devin’s attention. The great metal doors at the front stood open, perfectly balanced to swing at the slightest touch. The young men who’d come in through it were clearly noble, and just as clearly slightly drunk. Drunk was dangerous in the House of Weapons. A man who showed up drunk to work here was sent home, and if he did it more than once, he was dismissed.
Even clients were generally shown the door if they were not sober enough. A man with a blade who was drunk was a dangerous man, even if he didn’t mean to be. These, though… they wore royal colors, and to be anything less than courteous was to risk more than a job.
“We are in need of weapons,” the one at the front said. Devin recognized Prince Rodry at once, from the stories about him if not in person. “There is a hunt tomorrow, and there will probably be a tournament following the wedding.”
Gund went to meet them, because he was one of the master blacksmiths there. Devin kept his attention on the blade he was forging, because the least slip or mistake could introduce air bubbles that would form cracks. He made it a point of pride that the weapons he forged didn’t break or shatter when struck.
Despite the metal’s need for his attention, Devin wasn’t able to take his eyes off the young nobles who had come there. They seemed around his age; boys trying to be the prince’s friend rather than the Knights of the Spur who served his father. Gund began by showing them spears and blades that might have suited the king’s armies, but they quickly waved them away.
“These are the sons of the king!” one of the men said, gesturing first to Prince Rodry and then to another man Devin guessed to be Prince Vars, if only because he didn’t look slender, gloomy, or girlish enough for Prince Greave. “They deserve finer stuff than this.”
Gund started to show them finer things, the ones with gilt handles or decoration worked into the heads of spears. He even showed them some of the ones that were master made, with layer upon layer of the finest steel, wavy patterns built into them through clay heat treating, and edges that could serve as razors if need be.
“Too fine for them,” Devin murmured to himself. He took the blade he was forging and considered it. It was ready. He heated it up once more, ready to quench it in the long bath of dark oil that stood waiting for it.
He could see from the way they were picking up the weapons and waving them that most of those there had no real idea what they were doing. Perhaps Prince Rodry did, but he was away on the far side of the House’s main floor by now, trying a great spear with a leaf-bladed head, spinning it with the expertise that came from long practice. In contrast, those with him looked more like they were playing at being knights than actually knights. Devin could see the clumsiness in some of their movements, and the ways that their grips on the weapons were subtly wrong.
“A man should know the weapons he makes, and uses,” Devin said, as he plunged the blade he’d made into the quenching trough. It flared and flamed for a moment, then hissed as the weapon slowly cooled.
He practiced with blades so he could know when they were perfect for a trained warrior. He worked at his balance and his flexibility as well as his strength, because it seemed right that a man should forge himself as well as any weapon. He found both difficult; the knowing of things was easier for him, the making of perfect tools, understanding the moment when—
A crash from over where the nobles were toying with the weapons caught his attention, and Devin’s gaze snapped over in time to see Prince Vars standing in the midst of a pile of armor collapsed from its stand. He was glaring at Nem, another of the boys who worked at the House of Weapons. Nem had been Devin’s friend as long as he could remember, large and frankly too well fed, maybe not the fastest of wit, but with hands that could shape the finest of metalwork. Prince Vars quickly shoved him the way Devin might have pushed a stuck door.
“Stupid boy!” Prince Vars snapped. “Can’t you watch where you’re going?”
“Sorry, my lord,” Nem said, “but you were the one who walked into me.”
Devin’s breath caught at that, because he knew how dangerous it was to talk back to any noble, let alone a drunk one. Prince Vars drew himself up to his full height and then struck Nem across the ear, hard enough to send him tumbling down among the steel. He cried out and came up with blood on his arm from where something sharp had caught it.
“How dare you talk back to me?” the prince said. “I say that you walked into me, and you’re calling me a liar?”
Perhaps someone else there might have come up angry, come up ready to fight, but despite his size, Nem had always been gentle. He just looked hurt and perplexed.
For a moment, Devin hesitated, looking around to see if any of the others would intervene in this. None of the ones with Prince Rodry seemed as though they were going to intervene though, probably too worried about insulting someone who outranked them so greatly even as nobles, and maybe some of them thinking that maybe his friend did deserve a beating for whatever they thought he’d done.
As for Prince Rodry, he was still over on the other side of the House’s floor, working with the spear. If he’d heard the commotion above the din of working hammers and rushing forge bellows, he didn’t show it. Gund wouldn’t interfere, because the old man hadn’t survived as long as he had in the environment of the forge by causing trouble for his betters.
Devin knew he should stand by too, even when he saw the prince raise his hand again.
“Are you going to apologize?” Vars demanded.
“I didn’t do anything!” Nem insisted, probably too stunned to remember how the world worked yet, and truth be told, he wasn’t all that bright when it came to things like this. He still thought the world was fair, still thought that not doing anything wrong was enough of an excuse.
“No one talks to me like that,” Prince Vars said, and hit Nem again. “I’m going to beat some manners into you, and when I’m done you’ll thank me for the lesson. And if you get my title wrong while you do it, I’ll beat that into you too. Or, no, let’s give you a real lesson.”
Devin knew he should do nothing, because he wasn’t as young as Nem, and he did know the way the world worked. If a prince of the blood stood on your toes, you apologized to him, or thanked him for the privilege. If he wanted your best work, you sold him it, even though it looked as though he couldn’t swing it right. You didn’t interfere, didn’t intervene, because that meant consequences, for you and your family.
Devin had a family, out beyond the walls of the House of Weapons. He didn’t want to see them hurt just because he’d been hot-tempered and not minded his manners. He didn’t want to stand by and see a boy beaten senseless for a drunken prince’s whim either, though. His grip tightened on his hammer, and Devin set it down, trying to tell himself to stand back.
Then Prince Vars grabbed Nem’s hand. He forced it down onto one of the anvils.
“Let’s see how good a smith you are with a broken hand,” he said. He took a hammer and lifted it, and in that moment Devin knew what would happen if he did nothing. His heart raced.
Without thinking, Devin lunged forward and grabbed for the prince’s arm. He didn’t deflect the blow by much, but it was enough that it missed Nem’s hand and struck the iron of the anvil.
Devin held the grip, just in case the prince tried to smash him with it next.
“What?” Prince Vars said. “Take your hands off me.”
Devin struggled, pinning down his hand; this close to him, Devin could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Not if you’re going to keep striking my friend,” Devin said.
He knew that just by grabbing the prince, he’d created trouble for himself, but it was too late now.
“Nem doesn’t understand, and he wasn’t the reason you knocked over half the armor in here. That would be the drink.”
“Take your hand off me, I said,” the prince repeated, and his other hand strayed toward the eating knife at his belt.
Devin pushed him backward as gently as he could manage. A part of him still hoped this could be peaceful, even as he knew exactly what was going to happen next.
“You don’t want to do that, your highness.”
Vars glared at him, breathing hard, with a look of pure hatred.
“I’m not the one who’s made the mistake here, traitor,” Prince Vars growled, death in his voice.
Vars set down his hammer and picked up an arming sword from one of the benches, although it was obvious to Devin that he was no expert with it.
“That’s right—you’re a traitor. Attacking a royal person is treason, and traitors die for it.”
He swung the sword at Devin, and instinctively, Devin grabbed for whatever he could find. It turned out to be a forge hammer of his own, and he brought it up to block the blow, hearing the ring of iron on iron as he stopped the sword from connecting with his head. The impact jarred at his hands, and there was no time to think now. Catching the blade against the hammer’s head, he wrenched it from the prince’s grip with all his strength, sending it clattering across the floor to join the pile of discarded armor.
He made himself stop then. He was angry that the prince could come in and strike at him like that, but Devin was all patience. Metal required it. A man who was impatient at the forge was a man who got hurt.