"What's new? You've been an unpleasant whoreson ever since I first met you."
I grinned. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you. Andros should be here any time now, so we may have to wait a few minutes for him. He has worked as hard as I have on this thing."
Half an hour later Andros had still not appeared and I decided not to wait for him. Plautus had been rooting among the shelves at the back of the smithy and I called him over. He came towards me clutching something in his hand.
"What's this?" he asked me.
I looked at the hardened roll of material he was holding and smiled. "You'll never guess what it is, Plautus, but it's the same as this." I picked up a square piece of supple, silvery material with the softness of fine leather and the paradoxical texture of fine sand and held it out to him. He took it from me, rubbed it between finger and thumb and then looked disbelievingly from it to the hard roll of stuff in his other hand.
"What is it?"
"It's shark skin. Belly skin."
He blinked at me, confusion in his eyes. "From a shark's belly, you mean? The big fish? What's it for?"
I grinned at him. "It holds the shark together, idiot!" I pointed at the sword sticking from the mould. "And it's for that. It will wrap the hilt of my new sword, so it will never slip in anyone's grasp."
"Hmmm!" That was his only comment. "I wonder what happened to Andros?"
I stood up. "I don't know, but I'm not waiting any longer. Come on, you'll have to help me. I'll tell you what to do."
It took another half hour before all the tight-twisted binding wires around the mould had been loosened, and I stood shaking with anticipation, my hands on opposed top corners of the mould, ready to crack it open. Plautus held two bottom corners.
"Well," I sighed, tensely, "we'll never know if we don't look, Plautus, so here we go!" I twisted and jerked upwards, and the mould came apart with a soft crack. Slowly, hardly daring to hope any more, I looked down in silence.
"Well?" Plautus's voice was filled with anxiety. I relaxed slightly.
"It seems to be fine on this side. I hope the other one is as good." I levered upwards on the blade and peeled the hilt audibly from its bed, turning it over as I did so. It was flawless. I slumped back onto my stool, overwhelmed with relief, my long-held breath whistling out forcibly.
"What's the matter?" Plautus was almost sick with worry. "What's wrong with it?"
I raised my hand to soothe him and spoke quietly. "Nothing is wrong with it. It looks exactly right."
Plautus let go his breath in a long rush and slumped down, too, onto a bench. "Thank God! I thought for a moment there you'd fouled it up again!"
We sat in silence for a time, staring at the hilt. It was dusty, covered with a waxy film, and tiny knobs of metal projected from it in a number of places where the molten metal had filled the air holes in the mould. These I would file off in a few minutes, once I had recaptured my breath completely. I was beginning to feel a mighty exaltation. The gold cockle-shell of the pommel was perfect, as was the junction where the second pour, the gold, had knitted to the bronze of the first pour.
"Now what, Publius?"
I smiled at him again, feeling weary and yet triumphant. "Now I clean it, polish it and add the shark-skin grip."
"How long will that take?"
I shrugged. "An hour, perhaps less, to clean it and polish it. A day to add the grip, I would guess."
"May I hold it?"
I shook my head. "No, not yet. It's not ready yet. Give me an hour to clean it, then you can hold it."
"May I watch while you clean it?"
I laughed at his little-boy eagerness, but I was pleased. "You can watch." I reached for a small file on the bench.
Less than an hour later the job was done and the effect was breath-taking. The golden cockle-shell pommel was superb, every line cleanly etched, and the Celtic scrollwork on the thick cross-guard was crystalline in its purity. I had avoided grasping the hilt in all this time, and I had not used the file on the gritty texture of the hand-grip itself. As I applied one final flourish with the polishing cloth, Plautus was fiddling with the shark-skin square.
"You know," he said, "I don't want to sound critical, but this stuff is almost as silver as the blade, and the pommel's gold. Your cross-guard is going to look dull by comparison. It's just plain bronze. Had you thought about that?"
"I've thought about it." I stood up and eased a kink out of my back. "I'm going to coat the cross-guard with silver leaf."
"With what?"
I pointed to a box close by his hand. "Sheet silver, beaten so fine that it's almost weightless and transparent. There's some in that box there."
While he was looking at the silver leaf, I released the sword from the clamps that held it and closed my fist firmly around the hilt for the first time. "Now!" I swung it into the air and my heart almost broke with joy to feel the beauty of it in my hand. All the worry, all the fears, had been for nothing. Our agonizing calculations of the weight and balance had been accurate. Now I was holding perfection!
"Excalibur," I said.
"What?"
"Excalibur. That's its name. That's what I've called the sword. That's what it is."
Plautus blinked at me. "Excalibur? I must be stupid. I've never heard it before."
"No, Plautus," I said, "you're not stupid. It's never been said before. Calibur — qalibr — is the north African desert people's word for a mould. This came out of a mould... Excalibur." I handed it to him. "Don't touch the edges, if you want to keep your fingers." Minutely graduated lines rippled like water-marks along each side of the long blade, flowing outward from the thick central spine to edges sharper than any I had ever known, reflecting the light in their patterns and showing where the metal had been folded upon itself and beaten times without number during the tempering process.
He grasped the hilt and swung the sword and his eyes grew wide. "My God! What a weapon! Excalibur." He swung again and ended up with the point towards the open door just as Andros appeared in the opening.
Andros crouched in the doorway, squinting with sun-dazzled eyes into the blackness of the smithy. "Publius? Are you in there? Picus is home."
"Picus?" I swung to Plautus in pleased surprise. "He's here? That's wonderful! Have you seen him?"
Andros had come into the forge now and he was gazing at the sword in Plautus's hand as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. "You opened it! Did it work? Is it right?"
Plautus held the sword out to him. "It's perfect," I said. "We have made a masterwork, you and Equus and I. Where is Equus, by the way? And when did Picus arrive?"
He was gazing at the hilt from a distance of about a handsbreadth, peering closely at the details of the scrollwork and the cockle-shell as he answered me. "Equus is up on the hill at the other forge. I was there with him for a while, working on some drawings he has need of." His voice was barely audible, so intent was he on examining the hilt.
"And Picus? When did he come?"
"Hmmm? Oh, Picus. Just now," he muttered. "I saw his big standard above the hedge along the lane, headed to the villa."
"You mean just now? This very minute?"
He threw me an uncharacteristically impatient glance, irritated at being distracted from his examination. "Yes, that's what I said — just now, two minutes ago. I saw him just as I turned in through the gate to come here."
"How does he look?"
He frowned slightly, still peering at the gold cockleshell. "I don't know. I didn't really see Picus, just his standard, above the hedge. I told you that."
"So you did. I'm sorry. I'm distracting you from your triumph. What do you think of it?"
"It looks good. Very good. I'm pleased. Does it work?" He reversed his grip and held the sword properly, looking around him as though searching for something to test it on. The look on his face made me apprehensive.