The Stonegate Sword

Chapter 20: Weapon Smiths

CHAPTER XX

WEAPON SMITHS

            Samuel led the way down a wide hall with stone walls and a polished wooden floor.  The hallway opened to a rose garden and fawn colored flagstone patio with stairs leading to intersecting walkways.  Walks led north, south and east, with the latter crossing a small courtyard, flanked by rows of ornamental junipers.

            They followed the walkway east, which turned into a gravel path leading toward a stone blockhouse.  Gray and windowless, it looked like a fortress within a fortress, and so it proved to be.  Twin gates, ten feet high by six wide, were in the center of the north wall.  A narrow door pierced with a black iron grille formed the rear of an alcove to the left of the gate.  Samuel stepped up to the door and knocked.  A face soon appeared behind the grill, and the door opened.  The hinges were well oiled and quite soundless.

            A young page told them that they were expected, and led them across an inner courtyard, across an arched colonnade, then into a narrow room.  He asked them to wait there while he went to fetch their hosts, then he slipped away.  The room was largely taken up by a wooden table and a dozen chairs.  Shelves covered the long wall opposite the door through which they had entered.  They bulged with glass jars, tools, and books.  A stone table with a sink and rows of glass flasks occupied one end of the room, while in the other was a second door, which promptly opened and admitted two men.

            They learned that these were two of Airel’s weapon smiths.  Both wore green canvas trousers and leather tunics.  They made polite bows and welcomed them to the laboratory.  Samuel then presented Don.  The taller of the two gave his name as David.  His hair and beard were close cropped, of medium brown.  He was muscular, and slightly below average in height.  The other man was also short, but older with a grizzled beard that came to a point at the chin.  He was bald, with a white ruff behind his ears and across the back of his neck.  His face was rough-hewn, ruddy, with strongly etched wrinkles.

            Welcome, Sir Donald,” said the second man.  “I am called Charles.  Please sit down.  We will have refreshments shortly.  But, first of all, we want to thank you for bringing the shells from Steamboat.  They have been examined, and have proved to be very helpful.”

            Don took s seat next to Samuel, with his back to the row of shelves.  He noticed that both of the weapon smiths had the coarsened hands of workmen, with fingers stained black.

            “I was glad to help with the Steamboat shells,” responded Don.  “I really did little enough, though it was a strange job for a loreman, to be sure.”  He gestured toward Charles’ hands.  “Though your ink stains make me guess that you use pens also.”

            David glanced at his finger tips.  “Oh, yes,” he said with a short bark of a laugh.  “Not ink, actually.  Chemicals and charcoal.  It does look like ink, though.  How much do you know about gunpowder?”

            “Made of charcoal, in part, as I recall,” answered Don with a smile.  “I suppose you gave that much away, already.  Also a nitrogen compound called saltpeter.  My father had many books dealing with weapons, but he kept them in a locked cabinet.  They were a bit hard to come by, of course, since the book burners tried to destroy all knowledge of such things.”

            “Not very successfully,” remarked Samuel.  “Plenty of books survived, even those that told of weapons.”

            Charles and David both nodded.  David spoke for the first time: “That is true.  We have a very adequate library.  Unfortunately, most of our information is too advanced.  What we need are books from pre-empire and pre-industrial times.”