Tamlyn (11 page)

My father helped Ryall with his buttons so he could join us at the table without worrying that his pants would fall down. I held the loaf for him, but rather than use a knife he simply ripped off a piece and munched
away like an animal, determined to degrade himself in front of us. When you have two hands, you don't understand how well they work together. One alone is often useless. If I could have, I would have given him one of my own.

Tamlyn went again to the forge and showed every sign that he would stay there all day. When my own jobs were done (most of them, anyway), I went along to watch him. He didn't ignore me as completely as yesterday, but all he talked about was the steel and the fire.

‘Gone too cold to work,' he explained, thrusting the metal into the charcoal and sending a spray of sparks into the shimmering haze above the forge. A shaft was taking shape already; the weapon was a sword, no doubt about that.

I stood further back this time, where I could take in more of Mr Stenglass's workshop. The ghostly shapes of last night held no fears in daylight: I could see that the axe that had hung over my head was, in fact, the blade of a windmill, and the curve I'd taken for an arm was a trap made of wire and thin strips of iron.

In the long minutes while I waited for a word from Tamlyn, my eyes wandered to that trap more and more, until I barely saw anything else. An idea was forming in my head. Soon my head wasn't big enough to contain
it and I moved out into the sunlight, searching for a stick and a patch of ground to draw on. I went back to examine the trap a couple of times, but there was only so much it could teach me; the rest I would have to invent on my own.

When I was ready, I called Mr Stenglass over to ask his opinion. I don't mind admitting I was excited by my idea, and once I explained to him what it was for, he seemed as eager to make it as I was.

Pointing to the line I'd gouged in the dirt, he said, ‘These parts here I could secure with rivets to hold them firmly in place, but here it needs to be flexible. A hinge of some kind. There is a way to do it, I think, although we might have to experiment.'

I liked the way he said
we
. I didn't want him to take over my idea and do the rest himself, even if he was the one who would heat the metal and shape the parts of my contraption. That's what I was already calling it in my head, a contraption, and if together we could make it work — out of my ideas and Mr Stenglass's skill — there were going to be smiles on the face of a certain young man who hadn't smiled for too long.

‘I haven't had a challenge like this in a donkey's age. Makes me feel young all over again,' said Mr Stenglass. ‘You know, I think it would work better if …' And away he went.

We fiddled with the lines, argued over tiny details, with me giving way once or twice and him doing the same in return. We were still staring down into the dirt when Dinny Grentree appeared at the edge of the workshop. He watched a while in awe, and a little fear, as sparks flew wildly wherever they pleased.

Finally, the hammering ceased long enough for him to call, ‘My dad needs you in the field, Piet. And you, Silvermay,' he added, turning towards me, ‘your mother said if you were here, I was to say she has more jobs for you.'

‘Tell her I wasn't here.'

Dinny smiled as only mischievous little boys can. He had no big sister and I had no little brother, so we had joined up long ago and become good friends.

With Tamlyn gone, the forge was ours and whatever Mr Stenglass had been going to work on that day became tomorrow's job.

‘Work the bellows for me,' he said as he searched among the piles of metal scraps for pieces he could use.

To my relief, it wasn't as hard as I remembered. It was sweaty work, though, so close to the heat. Mr Stenglass soon had four strips of metal in the fire, and watching them grow hotter and change colour soon chased all fear of the fire and the grime out of
my head. Later, he found an old leather apron for me, which was just as well because my yellow dress was starting to show smears of black here and there.

‘Take that last piece out of the fire, Silvermay,' he called while he was busy at the anvil.

I needed the heavy tongs — not an easy tool to master — but I managed. It wasn't so hard being a blacksmith's apprentice, I decided, and before long I was having the time of my life as I learned how to punch holes in sizzling metal. I almost set my hair alight with the sparks that flew up when I bent too low over the anvil.

 

I don't know what lies Dinny Grentree told for me, or whether Birdie simply gave up waiting, but there were no more calls to return home for the rest of the day. I ate lunch in the Stenglasses' kitchen — Mr Stenglass's wife was as cheery and level-headed as he was — and worked at the blacksmith's side until the light began to fade. By then, the struts along the sides of my contraption were welded together, the hinge we'd argued over and redrawn a dozen times was in place, and we got down to the delicate business of attaching the wires that would make the whole thing work.

‘That's it, I think,' Mr Stenglass said finally. ‘Time to test it out.'

I hefted it up and down. ‘It's heavier than I thought it would be.'

‘It won't be a girl who carries it around, though, will it?' he replied with a wink. I'd acquitted myself well in a man's world that day and he knew it.

‘Shall we go and find the young man it's meant for?' he asked.

I'd been looking forward to this moment all day, yet now that it was here, butterflies had suddenly gone wild in my stomach. ‘I suppose we should.'

‘What's his name again?'

‘Ryall.'

‘Well, your Ryall is in for a big surprise.'

 

Ryall was sitting outside, soaking up the last of the afternoon's warmth, when Mr Stenglass and I approached along the lane. My mother came out when we were still a few paces away and stood staring, not at what dangled from Mr Stenglass's hand, but at me.

‘Silvermay Hawker, what on earth have you been up to? Look at yourself, girl.'

I looked down at the pretty yellow dress Mrs Wenn had given me in Greystone. Some of it was still yellow — a patch that perfectly matched the apron that had shielded it all day — but where the apron hadn't stretched my dress was grey. In fact, around the hem it
was more than grey, it was black, and the shoulders and sleeves were much the same.

‘Ruined,' Birdie cried. ‘Whatever got into you? Mr Stenglass, aren't there enough boys in the village to work your bellows?'

‘None as clever as this one, nor as hard-working,' he shot back at her. ‘This is her doing.' And with a flourish, he raised our contraption and held it out across both hands as though presenting a gift before the king.

‘What in the name of the gods is that?' asked Birdie, who wasn't ready to forget the damage I'd done to my dress just yet.

The commotion brought my father from the house and a few other pairs of eyes besides. They all looked at me first, astonished, and only then at what we had made.

‘It's for Ryall,' I said. ‘To help him do things for himself.'

I was looking at him as I spoke, but he didn't seem very curious. Despite what I'd said, he didn't stand up, didn't even look at what Mr Stenglass held out so grandly.

Others were interested in the contraption, though. Ossin came closer, inspected it from either side, up and down, and eventually took it out of the blacksmith's hands. ‘Bit like an arm,' he said, fascinated.

‘That's exactly what it is,' I announced in triumph. ‘A new arm, with a hand at the end, see, that can open and close. We've brought it for Ryall to try out.'

I took the contraption from my father's hands and stood in front of Ryall. ‘Come on, let me fit it on your elbow. There are straps, with a buckle.'

He still didn't rise, and when I tried to hold the contraption close so he could raise his shortened arm towards it, he pulled away instead.

‘Stupid idea,' he muttered. ‘How can bits of iron and wire do what my own arm could do?'

I was ready for disappointment if the new arm didn't work properly; in fact, I was expecting it to need adjustments. But he had dismissed the whole thing with barely a glance. I hadn't expected that.

‘Have a go with it. You might be surprised,' I appealed to him.

He folded his arms across his chest, an action he could still perform reasonably well. I was starting to feel dejected and quickly told myself to buck up.

‘I'll show you how it works,' I said, and went to Mr Stenglass so he could help fit it to my own elbow.

But, of course, our contraption wasn't meant for an arm that stretched all the way down to fingers and a thumb. My arm fitted inside the struts without any bother, but my hand was in the way of the claw that
we'd made to close when the wires were tweaked in just the right way. My demonstration was an utter failure.

The little crowd dispersed in disappointment and it was left to Mr Stenglass to undo the buckles to free my arm. The metal had cut into my flesh, and trying to fold my hand out of the way had strained my wrist. I soothed it with my other hand, yet the real pain came from Ryall's rejection. He really was in a bad way. I couldn't be angry with him, but all the enthusiasm, all the energy that had seen me work beside the blacksmith all day, evaporated like a thin morning mist.

‘Don't feel too bad. Some men have to come up with an idea themselves before they can think it's any good,' Mr Stenglass whispered in my ear. ‘What you did today was wonderful, Silvermay, and not just for the thing we made together. I'm sure more will come of it than you're thinking right now.'

He went back to his forge. The contraption lay at my feet; stooping, I picked it up. The only one left to see me do it was Ryall, who hadn't budged from his chair since we'd arrived and even now kept his arms folded.

‘I just thought … I don't know,' I said. ‘I wanted to help, and I thought this thing might make it easier for you.'

At least he looked at me while I spoke. His eyes dropped from my face to my damaged dress. ‘Will
the dirt come out, do you think? Seems a pity that …' He didn't seem to know how to finish. Rather than return to my face, his eyes lingered on the yellow area that had been protected by the apron. ‘You helped the blacksmith — worked the bellows for him,' he said, part question, part fact.

‘More than that. He let me work the metal, punch holes.'

‘You shouldn't have, Silvermay.'

‘Why not? Don't you think you're worth doing things for?'

‘I don't want people feeling sorry for me.'

‘It's not a matter of sympathy, Ryall. We care about you, even if you don't seem to care about yourself any more. I'd make this contraption all over again tomorrow, and I don't care how many dresses I ruin.'

‘I owe you something, though, don't I? I have to be
grateful
.'

‘That's up to you. I don't expect gratitude; none of us do. What you feel and how you behave isn't something anyone can force on you.'

‘I suppose you're right,' he said, standing up for the first time since I'd come in such excitement from the forge.

I thought he was heading inside, and if he was going to think any more deeply about what I'd said, it would be overnight, while he lay alone in his misery.

I turned away myself, then a sound drew me back — the sound of metal touching metal. Ryall had picked up my contraption, causing the buckles to swing against the struts.

‘Will you help me try it on?' he asked.

I don't think he had deliberately planned it that way, but I was pleased the first real attempt to make the mechanical arm work took place with just the two of us to see it.

‘If you move your elbow, these wires will tighten,' I explained. ‘And if you tense the muscles below your elbow, these wires here will move instead.'

He tried it, but the collar that fitted around his stump was too tight and he couldn't make the hinges in his new ‘hand' open and close any better than I'd been able to. In that sense, the test was another failure, yet I don't think this mattered to either of us. Ryall had given it a go because he owed me something and he wasn't going to let me down. That brought him closer to the young man he'd been than a clever jumble of steel and wires could have done.

‘Thank you, Silvermay,' he whispered and, despite the disappointment as I unbuckled the contraption from his elbow, he granted me the first smile I had seen on his face since we'd arrived in Haywode.

 

The following morning, I was stiff in my back and shoulders from working the bellows and wielding Mr Stenglass's heavy hammers. I could hear those hammers already in use again by the time I showed myself at the kitchen bench.

‘Tamlyn's started early,' I muttered to my mother.

‘It's not him,' she said. ‘Your father's taken him hunting in the woods.'

Ryall was gone, too, and I was on the point of asking if he'd gone with them when I saw that my contraption was also missing.

‘He took it with him when he went off half an hour ago,' Birdie said.

‘Hunting?'

‘No, he said he was going to see Mr Stenglass.' A moment later, she was calling, ‘Hey, where are you going? There's all your work from yesterday to catch up on …' But before she could list all the jobs, I was out of earshot and halfway to the forge.

‘Ah, there you are, Silvermay,' said Mr Stenglass, when I arrived, a little breathless since I had run the whole way. ‘Ryall thinks we need to work the wires a bit differently.'

They showed me a drawing in the soot that had
taken the place of yesterday's scratchings. Ryall did the talking until I cut him off. ‘Of course, that would work much better.'

And it did. By lunchtime, we had loosened the collar to fit perfectly over Ryall's stump, made a new hinge to help the ‘fingers' grip at a different angle, and strung the wires according to Ryall's improved ideas. He was so excited about the contraption — he started calling it by that name, too — that he insisted on wearing it at the Stenglasses' table while we ate.