Chapter 16

In the morning, Mom couldn’t understand why I was so late getting up. Dad had already left for work and even my wives were up before me.

“What do you have planned for today?” Mom asked, when I finally came down to breakfast.

“I want to show Katie and Margie the farms,” I told Mom.

“Yes, your uncles will be glad to see you again. None of the grandchildren are old enough to work out there yet. I’ll see you for dinner, won’t I?” she asked.

“Yes, we’ll be back by dinner time,” I assured her.

My uncles were indeed glad to see me, and they were impressed with my wives. My wives were impressed with the farms and the tales I told them about repairing the equipment on them. They also talked to my aunts about canning and freezing while I talked to my uncles about yields this past year. We had a very enjoyable time that day at the three farms that we visited.

After dinner that night, Dad took me aside to talk to me, while Mom and my wives did the dishes and put the food away.

“Mark, are you having relations with those girls? I heard a noise last night and later I saw one of them returning to your sisters’ bedroom,” Dad told me.

“I ... Dad ... this is a little hard to explain,”

“Hard or embarrassing?” he wanted to know.

“Hard,” I answered. “You see I’m married.”

“To which one?” Dad asked in shock.

“Both of them,” I answered and waited for the explosion.

“Both of them!??” my thoroughly shocked Father asked.

“Yes, we were married in Ireland by a Druid,” I told him.

“Druid?”

“Yes, two wives aren’t unusual in their religion,” I told him, but hadn’t needed to mention Magic yet or curses, and I didn’t want to if I didn’t have to.

“Which one was in your room last night?” he asked after a time.

“Both of them, but only one at a time. We usually all sleep together in their king-size bed.”

“And their parents allow that?” he asked, incredulously.

“Yes, they really like me. That’s one of the reasons they are paying for part of my college expenses. In my off time, I do the gardening, farming and take care of the vehicles,” I told him.

“Yes, I was wondering why they would pay for part of your college expenses. That’s pretty obvious now,” Dad finished before asking, “How long are you going to keep this a secret?”

“Probably a long time. The government and most churches frown on you having two wives,” I told him.

“You are going to have to at least tell your Mother about it sometime. She will start to wonder what is going on after a while. She thinks you’re just friends now,” Dad told me.

“Yes, I guess Mom will have to know eventually. Let me talk to my wives about it and we’ll decide when to tell her,” I told Dad. Later that evening, I approached my wives about the new problem.

“My Dad heard and saw one of you last night,” I told them. “I informed him that we’re married. He is worried about when we’ll tell my Mother.”

“Not right away,” Margie said.

“No, later. Maybe Christmas. We’ll come back with you then. There will be more time then, and we can pick just the right situation to tell her,” Katie told me.

“All right,” I agreed. “Christmas time.” I later told my Father our decision. That night I again slept alone.

In the morning at breakfast, which I was on time for unlike yesterday, the day’s schedule came up again.

“What do you have planned for today?” Dad asked, as he prepared to leave for work.

“I need to see Uncle Dan about a sharpening problem,” I told him.

“Sharpening problem?” Dad asked.

“Yes, I need to know how to sharpen a particular kind of knife and since he sharpen all kinds of tools and knives, I thought he would know the right way to go about it,” I said, hedging about just what I wanted to sharpen.

“Yes, Dan has all of those tools over in his shop,” Dad answered. I knew that he and Uncle Dan didn’t always see eye to eye on things.

“You ladies aren’t going with him, are you? Dan’s shop is very dirty and untidy,” Dad told them.

“No, we’re going shopping with Mother Kent, and then we’ll help her start preparing the food for Thanksgiving dinner,” Katie told Dad.

“All right, I see you all tonight,” Dad said, as he kissed Mom and headed out the door. I took my time finishing breakfast and then got out some of my old work clothes to change into before heading over to my Uncle’s forge.

Arriving there in the pickup, I held out my hand and silently called Fragarach from where he rested at my power source. He appeared in my hand.

“Fragarach, this is where I will try to resharpen you with my Uncle’s help. Will you allow him to examine you, so he can determine what needs to be done?” I asked.

“Is it really necessary?” Fragarach demanded.

“Only if you want to be sharpened correctly,” I told it.

“OH, all right!” the sword consented, “But keep me away from that forge.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “no forge. It would draw your temper.” I exited the truck but did my best to keep the sword out of sight. Uncle Dan was having coffee in his office when I arrived.

“Hi, Uncle Dan. Have you got a little time to talk?” I asked, as I entered his office.

“Mark! Good to see you. How long have you been back?”

“We got here on Saturday.”

“We?”

“I brought a few friends with me.”

“Ah! What can I do for you?”

“I need some advice on resharpening a sword,” I told him.

“Resharpening? What happened to it?”

“It was broken, and I reforged it,” I told him.

“What about the temper?”

“I re-hardened it the way you showed me with clay layers.”

“OK, so now it needs sharpening. Where is it?” Dan asked. I took a very deep breath before answering him or showing him the sword.

“Promise you won’t get upset when you see it,” I asked.

“Why would I do that? Is it some kind of fantasy sword? Some role playing thing? Most of them aren’t really made for use, so why would you need to sharpen it?” Uncle Dan asked.

“No, this sword is very old,” I told him. “It’s name is Fragarach.”

“A sword with a name!? Okay, let’s see it,” he said. I brought Fragarach out from behind my back.

“Yes, that is a very old pattern. You don’t see many swords like that,” Uncle Dan said on seeing the sword.

“How did you get it.?” he asked.

“The person that had it when it was broken, couldn’t use it and told me that I could have it if I could repair it,” I said skirting as much of the facts as possible without lying.

“Well, lets see what this repair looks like,” Dan said and reached for the sword. His hand had only touched the hilt of the sword when a strange expression crossed his face and he set it down.

“This is a Magic sword!” he exclaimed. “How did you get it? Who did it belong to?”

“How do you know that?” I stammered in shock.

“I have a touch of the Talent, but can’t do very much. My grandmother, your great grandmother was a MacTavish, and a very talented witch, but the talent didn’t seem to pass to her children and only a tiny bit of it showed up in her grandchildren. My brother and sisters don’t have any, and mine is very limited, but many smiths have a touch of the talent. That’s what makes them a good smith, they have a feel for the iron,” Uncle Dan told me.

“Somehow it has shown up in me,” I told him, but didn’t expand on it.

“Damn! Magic, Ha! You always have come up with more strange shit than anyone else in the family, Mark! Magic!” Uncle Dan said with a chuckle, before turning serious, “What do you need to know?”

“What is the best way to resharpen it?”

“There are several ways. Is it all right to touch the blade.”

“Yes, I spoke to Fragarach before bring him in here. I had a real fight after I re-hardened him,” I explained.

“Fight?”

“He wasn’t anxious to have a new Master after so many years,” I explained, and added, “Yes, it’s OK to examine it, but I’ll have to do the work.”

“OK, let’s go over to the layout table where there is plenty of light,” Dan said, as he put on his reading glasses, so he could closely examine the sword.

“You did a good job of forge welding. There isn’t that much cleaning up to do. What are these marks down the spine of the blade?” he asked.

“They are runes naming the sword and stating that it now belongs to me,” I told him.

“OK. The job is going to have to be done by hand,” he told me next.

“By hand? We couldn’t use the belt sander? That is a lot of blade to sharpen by hand,” I said.

“No, it would generate too much heat, and there isn’t that much to clean up. You can use a file to dress the area around the weld, and then use sandpaper and a diamond hone to get the edges sharp,” Uncle Dan told me.

He then guided me through all of the steps from the removal of the excess metal with a file to the use of different grades of sandpaper with a leather backing to sharpen both edges. He stressed maintaining the correct angle while moving the blade, and always pushing the blade away from my hand, plus keeping my fingers on the spine of the blade and away from the edges. Later I used one of his diamond hones to do the final touch up of the edge. It took me several hours to finish, with Uncle Dan checking on my progress periodically while he did his own work.

“The final test,” he told me, “Is will it cut paper?” He held a piece of paper vertically, and I easily sliced it into small pieces using both edges of the sword. I knew that now I would be able to maintain a sharp edge on Fragarach all of the time by myself. Fragarach had been very quiet while I worked, but seemed to be more alive in my hands now that he was sharp. I returned Fragarach to his resting place at my power source. Uncle Dan was shocked again when it vanished.

“Can you do a lot of things like that?” he asked, curious.

“Yes, I did all of the work reforging it and heat treating it using the fire of my power source and some spells to keep the metal from oxidizing,” I told him.

“You could be a great blacksmith,” he told me. “With that kind of control you could do a lot.”

“I have other things to do at present, Uncle Dan,” I told him. “But may take up the trade later, as a hobby at least.”

“Come by the house on Thanksgiving,” I told him, as we shook hands before I left, “and you can meet the friends I brought along.”

“Interesting friends?” he asked with a grin.

“Oh, yes and beautiful,” I added.

“I’ll be there,” Uncle Dan said with an even broader smile.

When I got home, I could smell pies baking, and Mom and my wives were getting ready to make some Christmas cookies for the grandchildren. I went into the back parlor after saying hi to let them know that I was back, and called up the book of Magic I was presently working on to do some reading until dinner time.

“Well,” Dad asked at dinner, “did you get your sharpening problem taken care of?”

“Yes. Uncle Dan knew just what to do and talked me through it. It was very informative,” I assured him.

“Oh, and I invited him over on Thanksgiving to meet Katie and Margie,” I added, as an after thought. Dad didn’t look all that happy at this news.

Before we went up to bed that evening, I told Katie and Margie that my uncle possessed the Talent. They also wanted to talk to me.

“We’re lonesome and horny, too,” they told me. “Can we sleep with you tonight?”

“My bed isn’t even big enough for two, and it would never take three,” I told them.

“Why don’t you come to our room. We could all fit in the Queen size bed there,” Margie suggested.

“We really are lonesome,” Katie reiterated, as she rubbed up against me.

“All right, I’ll come to your room. But I have to leave before my parents get up. My father already knows about us being married, but I’m not sure how happy he would be with us sleeping together here,” I told them.