Emperor: the field of swords E#3 by Conn Iggulden Read Free Book Online Page B

closed behind her and he was alone, his thoughts swirling in chaos. He breathed out slowly, shaking his head in amusement at his own reactions. He felt as if he were being stalked, but it wasn’t unpleasant. His tiredness seemed to have vanished and he thought he might join the table below for the evening meal after all.
        The door opened again and he looked up to see her, still there.
        “Will you ride out with me tomorrow?” she asked. “Octavian said you know the area as well as anyone.”
        He nodded slowly, unable to remember what meetings he had planned and not caring, particularly. How long had it been since he’d last had a day away from his work?
        “All right, Servilia. Tomorrow morning,” he said.
        She grinned then without replying, shutting the door noiselessly behind her. He waited for a moment until he heard her light step going downstairs and relaxed. He was surprised to find he was looking forward to it.
        
        As the light faded, the furnace turned the workshop into a place of fire and shadow. The only light came from the forge and the glow lit the Roman smiths as they waited impatiently to be shown the secret of hard iron. Julius had paid a fortune in gold for them to be taught by a Spanish master, but it was not something to be handed over in a moment, or even a single day. To their exasperation, Cavallo had taken them through the entire process, step by step. At first, they had resisted being treated as apprentices, but then the more experienced of them had seen the Spaniard was exact in every part of his skill and begun to listen. They had cut cypress and alder wood to his order and stacked the logs under clay in a pit as large as a house for the first four days. While it charred, he showed them his ore furnace and lectured them on washing the rough rocks before sealing them with the charcoal to burn clean.
        They were all men who loved their craft, and by the end of the fifth day they were filled with excited anticipation as Cavallo brought a lump of iron bloom to his furnace and poured it molten into clay racks, finally turning out heavy bars of the metal onto a workbench for them to examine.
        “The alder wood burns cooler than most and slows the changes. It makes a harder metal as more of it takes the charcoal, but that is only part of it,” he told them, thrusting one of the bars into the bright yellow heat of his forge. There was barely enough room to heat two pieces at a time, so they clustered around the second, copying every move and instruction he gave them. The cramped workshop could not hold all of them, so they took turns coming in and out of the cooling night air. Only Renius stayed throughout as an observer and he poured with enough sweat to blind him, silently noting each stage of the process.
        He too was fascinated. Though he had used swords for all his adult life, he had never watched them being made, and it gave him an appreciation for the skills of the dour men who worked earth into shining blades.
        Cavallo used a hammer to beat the bar into the shape of a sword, reheating it again and again until the spike looked like a black gladius, crusted with impurities. Part of the skill came in judging the temperature by the color as it came out of the forge. Each time the sword was at the right heat, Cavallo held it up for them to see the shade of yellow before it faded. He filed and beat the soft metal as his own sweat sizzled on it, falling in fat drops to vanish on contact.
        Their own bar was matched to his at every point, and as the moon rose, he nodded to the Romans, satisfied. His sons had lit a low pan of charcoal as long as a man, and before its metal cover was removed, it glowed as brightly as his forge. While his sword heated again, Cavallo signaled to a row of leather aprons on pegs. They were clumsy things to wear, thick and stiff with age. They covered the whole body from neck to feet, leaving only