Bjorn was a blacksmith as his father had been, and before him his father's father. The craft came by blood, by hands and by backs. In his family men were born already knowing that the world respected two things; good steel and the arm capable of making it. Bjorn had been given both, he had come broad in the shoulders, hard as an anvil and megin had touched him on top of that. He had had more luck than others and if the Star allowed it, more future.
Perhaps that was why he was having so much trouble hiding his satisfaction. The Hird's armory there contained nothing impossible, there were no blades sung in the Lord's tongue, no metal shaped by force of megin, no relics from the stories told in old workshops to impress apprentices. Even so, the place left him nearly dizzy with admiration. Everything there was good, not the good in the way a rich merchant said something was good without knowing what he looked at. Truly good, even the simplest weapons seemed to have come from the hands of people incapable of accepting mediocrity.
"The simplest work here is as well made as my best, Guardian," he said, with all the respect he had.
He was speaking to the giant. The Guardian was a guest of the Hird, an immigrant from a people Bjorn knew only through the reports of merchants and travelers. They said giants were made for work the way wolves were made for hunting, they also said they were serene most of the time, Bjorn believed both things. That was why he was the first of the apprentices to gather the courage to approach, before the others found theirs.
He knew what he might learn from a creature like that, he also knew that sometimes a whole life changed because of a single conversation spoken in the right place. The Guardian pointed at the war hammer in Bjorn's hands. It was a magnificent piece, large and dense, so finely worked, with the weight distributed so precisely that it felt lighter in motion than it looked by far.
"This," said the giant, "is scrap." Bjorn shifted a little. Though not from offense, it was the voice.
Even a man his size, and there were those who called him little giant when they wished to irritate him or praise him, had trouble not lifting his hands to his ears when the Guardian spoke. The voice did not come out, it advanced, as if the air itself had to open to let it pass.
"I think I'll take this one," Bjorn answered. He did not feel insulted, every decent blacksmith went through worse humiliations during his apprenticeship. Sometimes from the master's mouth, in his case from his father's. Sometimes from a customer already in the ground because a piece had failed at the wrong moment. A bad weapon killed its owner as easily as it killed the enemy. If it was scrap, it was scrap and a blacksmith who did not understand that ended up selling pots.
"Good choice," said the Guardian.
That pulled a proud smile from him. If the giant called the piece scrap and still thought it better than the rest, then Bjorn at least had an eye for steel, that was already something.
"Hey, big man." Bjorn turned by reflex, certain it was meant for him."Not you," said the voice. "The other big man."
He found the owner of the jest and felt the irritation rise before he had even thought. The young man was tall for an ordinary man, but short beside him. He was missing an arm, carried a crooked smile on his mouth and had a butler clinging at his side. The whole arrangement practically shouted nobility, he had never liked such people. Men who had never needed to earn their own bread were not decent men, his father said so, and he agreed.
"Yes?" the Guardian asked, bending toward the young man.
"You seem to understand weapons," the youth said. "Understood them well enough to recommend one to me?"
Bjorn's dislike worsened. A blacksmith already deserved respect, a giant blacksmith more still. One did not speak to a being like that as though asking for cheap beer on some corner.
"Yes," the Guardian answered. Then he lowered himself to examine the youth, the giant looked at him from several angles, touched his shoulder, adjusted his posture, made him step to one side, then to the other. The noble allowed it, he even seemed amused.
"I understand," the Guardian murmured at last. He lifted one of his long arms to a shelf far too high for any common man to reach without a bench and took down a weapon and held it out to the youth. "It is bad," he said. "But the different weight will suit you."
"Are you sure?" the youth asked, and the Guardian only nodded.
That was the last drop. Bjorn already had little goodwill toward nobles, the way the fellow doubted the giant's word stripped him of the rest. "He is a giant, spoiled boy," he said, barely containing his anger. "So take the damned weapon." But he regretted it the instant he said it.
Not because of the noble but because of the Guardian. To answer in that manner there was also a disrespect toward him. But Bjorn's blood always went bad around the well-born, and certain things came out before judgment. The youth did not answer at once, he merely looked at him with black eyes, far too calm. The butler showed a small but evident displeasure, Bjorn had seen that before, they always wore the same look as though the whole world owed them delicacy.
"Why are you looking at me as if you mean to beat a cripple?" the youth asked at last, casting a glance at his own empty shoulder.
Bjorn opened his mouth and nothing came out, not from guilt it was from surprise. Of all the answers he had imagined since the fellow appeared, that one belonged to none of them. Silence fell for an instant, the butler went rigid. The Guardian, meanwhile, released a deep gust that Bjorn could only describe as the laughter of a horse, if horses knew how to mock.
"Do not tell me you're afraid of a cripple now," the youth continued, and the crooked smile did not leave his mouth for so much as an instant.
"I would not be so dishonorable," Bjorn answered, at last finding his voice. And it was true, he had too much pride for that. There was no value in thrashing some pampered noble, less still a pampered noble with only one arm. A victory like that weighed nothing in the hand.
"Fight him," said the Guardian, and the three of them looked at the giant.
"Guardian..." Bjorn began, without truly knowing what he meant to say. That it was not worthy training? That he did not want trouble with some son of an important house? That the whole thing was absurd?
"It will do you good," the giant finished and Bjorn frowned.
The idea, however, seemed to please the youth at once. The smile widened only a little, not like that of an offended noble finally granted leave to teach an artisan a lesson, there was something else there.
"You heard the big man," he said. "You're not going to run from the cripple, are you?"
Bjorn felt his jaw harden, he suspected that perhaps he was not standing before a ''spoiled boy''.
Perhaps he was standing before a problem.