as hers are long. He could throw her over his shoulder and disappear into the forest in a flash. Not that she can see the forest. The forge is located in a courtyard, adjacent to a pig farm. Yet when Scarlet thinks of blacksmiths, if she ever has since the age of eight, she thinks of fairy tales involving forests and vulnerable girls—or perhaps that’s huntsmen?
“All right then, what is it you’ll be wanting to make now, Miss Thorne?”
Scarlet looks up, momentarily blank. She’d been tuning out the blacksmith’s introduction, with its potted history of the noble art of crafting rivets, but hadn’t expected it to be over so soon.
“Sorry?” Scarlet starts twisting her hair into a bun. The thick dark-red curls spring like flames from her head, framing her eyes, brown as the wood that feeds the fire. “I didn’t think I’d be . . .”
“Well, as I say”—the blacksmith rests both broad hands on his anvil and leans forward—“You’ll be making whatever you want. A rivet, a nail, a sword . . .”
Scarlet stares at him, releasing her grip on her hair. “A sword?”
“Oh, yes.” The blacksmith grins, eyes suddenly bright as a three-year-old boy’s. “You want to be making a sword, Miss Thorne?”
Scarlet considers this curious proposal. “No, not really.”
“Fair enough.” He straightens himself, the light in his eyes dimming. “So, then what’ll it be?”
Scarlet reaches for her hair again. “But I thought you’d tell me what to do.”
Owen Baker shakes his head. “What’s the fun in that now? No. It’s up to you.”
Scarlet’s thrown. She fingers her hair, chews her lip. Then, all at once, it comes to her. “Okay, I know.” She grins, delighted by her inspiration. “I want to make a gate.”
“A gate?”
“Yeah.” Scarlet warms to her theme. “One of those fancy gates, with all the pretty swirls and curly bits. You know what I mean?”
“The finials and curlicues?” The blacksmith folds his arms. “Well, I admire your ambition, Miss Thorne, I do. But I’m afraid that might be a tad much for a day’s work. We’ve only got five hours.”
“Oh, right.” Scarlet glances at a hammer hanging on the stone wall. “I see.”
“But we could make a part of a gate,” he suggests. “How’d that be?”
Scarlet brightens. “Great.”
“So, what d’you favour?” he says. “A curly bit or a pointy bit?”
“Yes, that’s right, use the corner when you’re drawing down—good, that’s good technique. Yes, that’s it, bit slower now.” He nods. “You’re a dab hand with the hammer, Miss Thorne.”
Scarlet looks up, grinning, face flushed. “Really? I’ve never—”
“No, don’t stop now!” the blacksmith says. “Don’t let it cool. That’s it, not the flat, the corners—you’re wanting to push the metal along, like a rolling pin does to dough, or so the wife tells me.”
This comment misses its mark, so intent is Scarlet on the pull of her arm, the upswing of the hammer, the crack as it hits the burning metal bar, the shock of hammer on anvil if she misses her target.
“Right, bring it back to centre, that’s it—remember the flat of the hammer now, start refining the shape. Lighter blows, or your point’ll snap.”
Scarlet tumbles the bar, tapping out the slope—first one side, then the other—stretching the metal thinner and thinner towards the point. She hopes they’ll have time to make another, to plunge more metal into the furnace, to see the flames leap and spit with delight to have a thing to burn. Scarlet wants to watch the fire till it’s embers and ash. She wants to strike hammer to anvil, again and again, to feel the power of the blow as she brings it down, the glorious crack that shudders through her from tip to toe. Strangely, Scarlet finds she wants to immerse her hand in the flame, wants to feel the scorch on her skin. She believes, impossibly, that the fire will be kind to her. That it will lick her warm, that the warmth will spread and rise, till she’s white hot at her core.
By rights Scarlet should be fearful of fire, should hate it, since it took her mother and her home. But she finds, perhaps because she has no memory of the event, that it’s only when she thinks of fire that she feels scared. When she sees it, she’s fascinated.
“Whatever are you doing with that frightful spike?” Her grandmother shrinks back in the chair, as if Scarlet had held the finial to her throat. “Put it away.”
“I made it,” Scarlet says, hugging the spike protectively