16CHAPTER 3
Marcus ran outdoors, hastily throwing his scarf about his neck. Two lumbering horse-drawn wagons slowly pulled up to the rear of the blacksmith, holding the necessary coal. The driver, Phaethon, hopped off of the horse's back, untying the ropes that lashed a white canvas over the cargo. The smith called his apprentices out, and they carefully began to remove the coal from the wagon.
"Good day to you, Marcus." Phaethon shook hands with the smith, and exchanged a few quick words.
"You are as punctual as ever. I should remunerate you for your additional service, seeing as how this order was particularly large."
"I don't blame you, honorable smith. Nobody wants to march a few miles in this sort of weather just to toil in a coal mine."
"Yes, but the court always is in need of more soldiers and new equipment." Marcus let out a heavy breath.
"How's your iron supply working for you?" Phaethon decided not to completely change the topic.
Marcus' eyebrows visibly drooped again. "Hard times, brother. Nobody wants to work, nothing get done. The blast furnace gobbles up coal at an incredible rate. Say, how many bins of coal do you have back there?"
Behind the retired charioteer, the horses whinnied anxiously. "I have four, but I don't know how long that will last you."
"Hmm… this weather is strange at times. We've been putting more time and effort into preventing cold air from messing up the system. The furnace is becoming a lot harder to operate. It's harder to heat, and the slog doesn't exactly always go where we want it to."
"I see. What's your output?"
"If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get out two tons of iron on a weekly basis. But the troops always want more steel. And that always takes more time and resources. Ah, that reminds me! Follow me, I have something to show you."
Phaethon glanced around for any sense of the time, something done more instinctively than anything else. After entering the blacksmith, he sealed off the entrance. As the little outside light faded, he allowed himself to be enthralled by all the meandering pipes and crevasses glowing under the fiery radiance of the furnace. Several apprentices were working some nearby bellows, while others roamed around, searching for potential problems. Managing the furnace was a difficult role, and men were constantly rotating about, changing stations or occasionally taking a nap.
Marcus opened up a bin of coal and began to shovel the black substance into the top of the blast furnace. Others helped him pour in iron ore and limestone. The furnace let out ear-splitting roars as the iron ore entered a slow reaction with carbon and superheated air.
"Quite an exquisite piece of work, isn't it?" The blacksmith faced Phaethon, beaming.
"Hrrmph? You haven't made anything!"
"Ah yes, the process takes six hours, give or take a few. But normally, the beauty of it is how this thing can run for a few years straight without repair."
"So how long have we been here?"
"I'm looking at a quarter of an' hour. Perhaps you should check on your horses. The poor beasts shouldn't be left out in the snow."
"Right, should I just leave now? I'm not sure I can wait for you to finish smelting the iron."
"Don't worry, that's just the time it takes for a new batch of iron to purify. We still have some incoming iron from the last queue. Should be done in half an' hour or so."
As soon as Phaethon took a step outside, his other foot lingered inside the blacksmith. Chuckling nervously, he glanced at his two horses, which were impatiently stamping. He was sure that they would have ran off, wagon and all, had he tarried any longer.
"Say, Marcus, do you have any stables back there?"
"Sure do, but it's still gonna be a helluva lot colder out than it is inside."
Phaethon willingly agreed, detaching his horses from the wagons. They were led into a few stalls, each one being a measly three meters deep, slightly more than a meter and a quarter wide, and equipped with low walls. At least it could be worse, he thought. The height of the roof was sufficient as to allow the cart driver a decent decimeter of empty space above his head, but he was satisfied that there was a roof upon the shoddy stables at all.
"Years of disuse. Who bothers to maintain their stables that well if no horses ever come by?" The smith could easily read the driver's expression, though he could never quite understand the full importance of horses to a cart driver. In society, smiths simply weren't trained to ride- their roles were to largely hammer away at things. Aesthetic talents were also small commodities in the world of utility.
After the horses were well tied up, the driver spent a few minutes feeding the beasts and devising a plan to store his cart. Of all the counterproductive things he had done in his life…
By the call of an apprentice, Marcus had already resumed his position in operating the blast furnace. As molten liquid slowly dripped to the bottom of the furnace, the smith carefully poured the material into a crucible for reheating and hardening. After that, he would have to fold the metal tens, or even hundreds of times in order to form strong steel.
Marcus deftly seized a pair of tongs, fishing out the rapidly cooling mass from the furnace. By the time he set it upon his anvil, it was no longer flaming, and was firm enough to not flow off the surface. Marcus hammered it into a bar-like strip, then dousing it. The bar of metal would once again be exposed to the heat of the furnace, and folded across. Thus the constant folding, reheating, and carbon fusion continued until the smith deemed the material satisfactory. For the final step of the process, the steel had to be hammered to precision, creating a balance between speed and strength. The edges of the blade would then be tempered in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.
In time, the smith triumphantly held up his creation. The sword gleamed under the fire, though by no means was it ornate. Marcus created for purpose, and was honored for such. Phaethon took the blade within his gloved hands, examining it for strength and balance.
"Another excellent work, Marcus. Your reputation is well substantiated!"
"Thank you. Have you ever thought about how our nation has changed within the past decade? It's a perplexing revolution."
"I don't understand."
"The Kingdom of Athos simply wasn't renamed from the Luminaean Empire. The government did manage to censor a lot of information to conceal historical changes. That, too, is something I'll never be sure of. But the empire was broken into smaller sovereign states after the death of Lord Athos. We have been fortunate enough to keep the largest chunk of material wealth. Some still refer to the kingdom by its original name, though."
Phaethon grunted, not quite absorbing what the smith was saying. "Half of us are cold and starving, and you're counting your blessings?"
"But think about it. Our survival has been dependent upon our natural resources and environment. Back when the Luminaean Empire was partitioned, we held on to the best territory! The land is rich with coal and other crucial ores, so we gained a technological advantage over rivals. Stone quarries are abundant, ready to be used in strengthening each city's infrastructure. Plant and animal life were diverse and populous, until the harsh weather set in."
"Travel through the mountains is now a horrible peril. The beasts are gaunt and greedy, ready to tear and bite at any living thing."
"We humans don't function much differently either."
"What do you mean?"
"It's only a matter of time until a revolution for social justice begins. The working class cannot be content forever with empty bellies and no pay. I cannot shove all the blame upon the government, but if food doesn't start coming in soon, a large portion of the populace will starve to death."
"Marcus, you should get out from the comfort of your blacksmith more often. Outside the city and the court, there's a whole different world, fraught with turmoil and strife. Perhaps… in the near future, the peasantry will be able to eat more than frostbitten potatoes and hardtack."
"I truly want to. There's more to life than pounding at molten metals with a hammer. Every day, it always feels like that there's so much more to do."
"Yes… I feel that the peoples are underrepresented."
These words seemed to hit a switch in the smith's mind, as if he had walked into a storm without realizing it. Or maybe, he had been in the eye the whole time. "I cannot fully agree with you, Phaethon. It's true; the commoners sacrifice some wealth for the greater protection of the state. The court doesn't want to give up any power, and radical change will only result in bloodshed."
"Marcus, there's people out there who have given up everything for this so called 'greater protection.' And where is this protection? Nobody would give a damn if one peasant died, right? If you can ignore one, why don't you ignore two? And while you're at it, why don't you just pretend none of them exist, because they are composed of individual units of "nothing? They don't care about you. If you were to drop down dead right this instant, there wouldn't be any obituaries written about the contributions you made to the society! The court would just complain about the damage iron and steel industries, and how much money they could have been making."
"What do you propose happens then? What good would come about if the peasantry were well represented? Since the beginning of civilization, all societies have been broken up into classes. To remove all classes would be ludicrous."
"Think about the greater good, and how many people would be saved if the government shifted its power."
"Inefficiency and corruption are only two among the long list of things deteriorating this empire. A majority of uneducated laborers will severely undermine the already damaged government. If the future of our empire lies in their hands, only civil war and turmoil will come out of it. Only strict, centralized control can save us now."
Phaethon was ashen faced. "You are just as corrupt as the rest of them. Taking everything for granted and not looking at the big picture."
Marcus stood up and shook his head. "Anarchy results in death. Unless faith in the central government is retained, death is inevitable. I care about the populace, and by doing so, cannot possibly stand the thought of giving power to them."
The blast furnace, which had only been part of the background minutes before, now seemed to bellow even louder than before, making all conversation impossible. The door flung open as Phaethon stalked out. It was clear that he had outstayed his welcome.
The smith walked the driver out to the stables, where he untied the horses. "I hope you enjoy being paid for your efforts." Phaethon caught the small sack of ingots that was thrown to him, and departed without a second word.
Now that the initial excitement and blind obedience had worn off, Cecily began to ponder why she had left in the first place. But then of course, why not? Before her village was destroyed, she had just adopted a job at the schoolhouse. Though it was menial and low paying, at least the men acknowledged her intelligence and gave her a job at all. Furthermore, Cecily couldn't even stand manual labor. If this success were an interesting change, it would be even more difficult to imagine the next two years.
The stark contrast occurred on a halcyon night, right after the town festivities. Everybody had returned home, barely settled in, when a group of bandits attacked. The local militia was drunk and slow to rouse, thus little could be done to stop the plundering. Within the next two hours, more than half of the village had been burnt down, and many inhabitants slain. Cecily escaped with her father, brother, and two sisters, but her mother was struck by a collapsing roof, and never made it out.
Her father was overcome with grief, and soon died of pneumonia, leaving Cecily to handle the family. The world wasn't sympathetic towards a single woman who towed three young children around. She drifted from village to village, never able to find her niche in the tightly intertwined web of small-town life. Everywhere she went, she was regarded to as a witch, or worse, a whore. Unable to find another occupation or a dwelling place, she fled into the country, hoping (though not expecting) that someone else would be able to take care of her siblings.
Though her heart sunk and churned with remorse, she knew that there was no other option. Sacrifices had to be made.