Chapter 7

Since I had what I considered plenty of money right now we made a deal on a sword. He charged what he normally did for a top quality sword and swore he wasn't charging me any extra for laminating the steel before hand.

I was interested in seeing how he did with it, but I didn't keep too close an eye on him. If he didn't weld the layers together properly it would show up plainly later anyway. He selected some metal and then put it in his forge to let it start heating.

"You know mister, you look like one of them Heroes to me, no offence. I've had one come through here twice before and he was a damned nice fella. Are you on a quest for one of them cockburners?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact I am, even though this weapon I'm building is more of a just in case deal than something I think I'm going to need any time soon," I said, but I was struck by the fact a Hero had admitted his identity to one of these people.

The more I thought about it the more I realized it was inevitable. After all, a Hero was basically stuck on Chaos for months or years at a time and you had to trust somebody at least some of the time.

"Well, I thought you carried yourself more like a fighting man than a smith and I wondered about it. That one I talked about before showed us how to make the horse powered bellows and how to make it run the grinding wheels too. You know any tricks like that?" he asked.

"Well I might, but none come to mind right now. Say, do you ever pour any bronze?" I asked.

"Well we do a little of it, but the molds are a bitch to make," he said.

"If I showed you a better way to make 'em could you keep it to yourself?"

"Hell yes I could. I'm always looking for easier and better ways to do things and make things," he said.

"Let me tell you how to make a mold out of beeswax then."

I nearly laughed at the look he gave me, but I strung him out waiting for the info while I worked on the limbs for my bow. He pounded hell out of my sword while we weren't talking, and by the time I'd told him the whole story he was dying to try it himself. I recommended he just make a simple little something first and see how it went from there.

It was a day's work to get the limbs ready for grinding, but I did get it done and gave him the tale of investment casting while I was at it. I knocked off and went looking for a place to get a meal and spend the night while he was still fartin' around with the beeswax to try his first time.

I passed by three Inns without bothering to look for a room because their common rooms were full and the places were none too clean. I figured I could find better in a town this big and damned if I didn't. It wasn't on the main street, but I found a nice Inn one street over.

They were doing a good business so I decided to try a meal first. They offered an all you can eat special like the place I'd eaten in the smaller town, but it was six pinches. I didn't mind because I figured the food would be better. I asked and found out they had rooms to let too, so I paid for three nights and a serving girl showed me to my room.

It actually looked clean, and when the girl showed me to it she told me I could have hot water for a bath for a pinch more. I told her I'd take one later, but I just wanted to put down my things and get a meal first so she said fine and left.

There was no provision for locking the door from the outside so I kept my cams on my person and left my extra clothes on the bed and then made my way back down and ordered the meal.

Thankfully there was a higher class of people eating and drinking here and there was no rowdy behavior causing stew spillage. I ate four bowls and discovered I'd been right about it being better. There was much more meat and grain both in the stew and it tasted much better too. I had two cups of wine too and then went back to my room.

I saw a wooden tub in the middle of the floor when I got back to my room, and I barely had my drawers off when the girl came back with the first bucket of hot water. I put my feet in, took hold of the bar of soap, and got to washing.

She came back with two more buckets of hot water before she was done and then came up with a bucket of lukewarm water to rinse me. She'd even brought a towel for drying off, but it was a little threadbare.

Once I got out and had dragged up my drawers I saw her about to dip the bucket into the bath water and I figured she was going to empty the tub.

"Where are you going to pour the water?" I asked.

"Out the window there. It'll fall down to the street," she said.

"In that case just open the window and I'll pour the whole thing out at once," I said.

"Oh, thank you," she said, and opened the window.

After I emptied the tub she took it and the bucket and left. I turned back the thin blanket as fast as I could and didn't see any bugs running for cover so I blew out the light and went to bed.

Early to bed and all that crap. I was up right about sunrise the next morning. I dressed, checked my pockets to make sure the cams were still there, and then headed downstairs and out the door. I stopped in a small general store and bought a big sausage and a small loaf of bread for breakfast and headed back to the smithy.

George, the smith I'd met yesterday, looked like he'd been up a little late the night before. He greeted me with a smile on his face though and since no one else was around he told me how pleased he was.

"It worked just like you said. I only made a little something to try it out and it worked perfectly. I could barely believe how smooth the metal was when I broke the mold off.

"I didn't use sand like you said though. I used some molding powder like we use to make moulds out of and it worked real well," he said.

"Do you mind showing me the powder?"

"No, it's everyday stuff, but before we had to make a block of it and carve what we wanted to mold into it, inside out kinda. I mixed some up with water and just dipped what I wanted into it. Like you said to do with the sandy mix. We don't have much real sand around here anyway."

He showed me the mold powder and I knew at once it was gypsum - practically plaster of paris. Hell, I'd have suggested it in the first place if I'd thought there was a chance in hell he had any.

"It'll be even smoother using this. I'll give you a few days to practice up and then I want you to cast something for me."

"I should be ready before long since I'm not doing nothing else until I get this down. Frank can take care of anything else that needs doing unless we get a big order or a complicated job.

"Today I'm fixing up a big room to work in so the stuff ain't out in the open for anyone else to see. I can make good money on it if I can keep the secret of how it's done."

"You should be able to. Say, you aren't going to have to tell the boss man about all this are you?" I asked.

"Boss man? Who? Daddy? Oh, I remember him giving you the business when you first came up now. No, I won't have to tell him about it. He comes down to act like he's running the place two or three days a week.

"You can't see it no more, but he got kicked in the head by a horse he was shoeing a few years ago. Used to be an indentation in his forehead from the shoe he'd just put on before he got kicked. It went away slowly after a couple of years, but Daddy gets confused real easy ever since then."

I stayed at it all day, and with the help of the powered grinding wheels I was able to get through with the limbs by late afternoon. I let George know I wouldn't be back for a couple of days and took off for my room again.

The next day I walked by the house where the Damsel was supposed to be spending time as a house slave. Reportedly a banker owned her, even though slavery wasn't supposed to be legal, and the information Kathy Caretaker had given me had said he never let her out of his house.

I walked around town, having breakfast at a small cafe like place near his home and I waited around until I thought he'd probably be heading to his bank. It wasn't the bank I'd come in by, and I had the notion it was more likely to lend money to those who weren't as credit worthy. I expected it was more of a loan shark type operation with a sort of heavy-handed collection process.

Whether it was or wasn't was no concern of mine. He had the Damsel and I was leaving with her, sooner or later.

Sure enough, when I went back outside after eating I saw the banker walking out of his house to meet a couple of hefty men and they escorted him toward his bank. I didn't follow them and I didn't even try to get a closer look at his house. My main focus was on what type of weapons they had on them and I couldn't see any swords. That was good. Neither of them were even nearly as big as I was.

Even though I hadn't told George I'd be back today I headed his way after eating some lunch. He was shut up in his new foundry room, but when I knocked on the door and told him who it was he said for me to come on in.