Subject: Gevurah : The Forging
Date: 17 Jul 1993 18:44:39 -0700
Organization: 5150 Memorial Scholarship Committee (A wholly owned subsidiary of X Industries)
Summary: Progressing nonintuitively
Keywords: mighty warrior justice

19930626055607

   For Yevgeni, dawn never came up like thunder.  The old smith had always
sneered when he heard that phrase; it showed just how few dawns the average 
poet actually witnessed.

   Dawn crept in, sneaked in, quietly; you'd look up and it was there.  
Yevgeni, as if to illustrate this thought to himself, looked up.  And she was 
there.

"Good morning, smith."

"G'mornin', m'lady."  For lady she was; though it had been many years since 
Yevgeni had seen any of gentle birth in this part of the continent, there was 
no mistaking the way she held her body, or the tone of her voice, which was 
arrogant and childish.  She was very young.  Too young to be in these
troubled lands unescorted, which meant she was here without her elders' 
knowledge.

"I wish to be apprenticed to you, smith."  Yevgeni's curiosity was piqued by 
this outlandish request, but not enough to conquer his long-established 
prejudices.  

"I have taken no apprentice for thirteen years.  They are lazy, irresponsible,
and disrespectful.  You will be all three and worse beside.  Return to the 
perfumes of court, m'lady."  His sneer was all the dismissal he deemed 
appropriate for her.

   He saw her no more that week; however, after that time she returned.  
Yevgeni noted with amusement that she had--according to her standards--humbled 
herself; she wore no veil, and her dress bore only enough silver to feed a 
family of five for a month.

"Please, master smith, I have traveled far.  Allow me to be apprenticed to 
you."

   While this nonsense was certainly providing him with more amusement than 
he'd had for seasons, Yevgeni thought, a good jest had its limits.

"Lady, you are as likely to be my next apprentice as I am to be the next 
Chamberlain.  I am old, and tired, and my temper has grown even beyond that 
which my last 'prentice used to fear.  Go, before I am any more tempted to use
it on you."

"I cannot return, master smith, and you will not take me in.  So I am forced to
stay where I am; here you will find me should your decision change."  

   Chuckling to himself, Yevgeni slammed the door on the little peahen's 
theatrics.

   He had a very good dinner that night.

   Four days later, he turned with an angry sigh to the bedraggled, starving, 
muddy woman in his doorway.  His face was dark.  "You will leave this place 
now, and return tomorrow at dawn's break.  You will be wearing a simple dress 
of coarse cloth, suitable for sweating and bleeding on, and three changes of 
clothes.  You will also bring with you my fee, which is a pound of gold, plus 
a pound of silver for every time you have made me refuse your request.  Do not 
be late, apprentice."

"No, sir."  Her voice had hardened with the waiting; the undertones this time 
were not of arrogance, but barely repressed triumph.

   Behind his closed door, Yevgeni heard her shouts of elation as she walked 
down the road.

   The apprenticeship took seven years to complete.  Her family came looking 
for her, having heard that she had been headed this way; they returned empty 
handed.  She was unrecognizable, of course, in her coarse dress and covered 
with soot.  After they left, she worked like a madwoman until she collapsed 
from exhaustion.  Yevgeni nursed her back to health, beat her thoroughly for 
her stupidity, and nursed her back to health again.  

   The final year of her apprenticeship was spent forging a sword.  It was 
straight, and sharp, and exquisitely balanced.  Free from jewelled clutter, its
beauty lay in its naked honesty; it was a weapon designed to kill, and utterly 
sincere in its desire to do so.

   She took her leave the week after finishing the sword.  Their parting was 
formal and emotionless; Yevgeni expected no less of her.

   As Yevgeni cleaned up her room, he saw the sword standing abandoned in a 
corner, left there as a thing totally unimportant.  Shrugging, he hung it up in
his room, making a mental note to ask Len to craft a suitable scabbard for it 
tomorrow.

Three years later, she invited Yevgeni to the coronation.  He declined.

heckler