He looked me in the eye. "About two years."
"Why?"
"Why not? The whoring Saxons were everywhere and your uncle was dead. I didn't see any point in leaving such a tempting target for looters, so I shut it down."
" You shut it down?"
"Who else?"
"And what happened to all the tools and equipment?"
"I removed them. Hid them. I didn't know if you'd be coming back, but I decided to give you five more years. If you hadn't returned by then, I'd have dug the stuff up and used it myself. I didn't think you'd mind, since you'd be dead."
In spite of the sudden lurch in my stomach, I felt a smile forming on my face.
"You'd have dug them up? You mean you buried them? Iron tools? In the ground?"
Now it was his turn to smile. "Publius, when they call me Horse, they're referring to my muscles, not to my resemblance to the rear end of the animal. I hid them. Underground. In your grandfather's secret vault."
"Under the floor?" I was incredulous.
He nodded his head, still grinning. "Under the floor. I couldn't think of any better place. Could you? I knew that if anything happened to me, and you came back, you would look down there sooner or later. And I knew that nobody else knew the room was there."
"How did you know it was there? Did my grandfather tell you?"
"Tell me? I helped him dig it out in the first place. We had to do it at night so no one else would ever guess it was there. When I decided to hide everything, I just packed all your grandfather's treasures more carefully and piled everything else in front of them. If you want to get down there now, we'll have to unload everything from the door inward, because the place is crammed full of stuff." He was almost hopping with excitement.
"It's all there, every bit of it. If you're really here to stay, we can haul it all out tomorrow and be in business within the week. Come! See for yourself."
He lumbered over to the back of the smithy and crouched, fingers feeling for a hidden groove in the floor, scraping the dirt out of the crack, and then he heaved mightily and straightened his legs. The concealed stone door swung upwards easily on its counterbalanced hinges. I crossed to him and looked down. The hole in the floor was full of tools, anvils and assorted paraphernalia — the entire contents of a smithy. I grinned my delight.
"Equus, you're a genius and an honest friend!" I punched him on the shoulder. "Now, where's the nearest tavern? We have a double occasion to celebrate — my homecoming, and your partnership in the smithy!" His face clouded in puzzlement. "Partnership? Was that what you said?
How can that be? I have no money, Publius. I can't afford to buy half a smithy."
"Who said anything about buying? You've earned it, by keeping this safe for me. Haven't you heard the story of the faithful steward? Let's go drink some wine, Partner!"
We got gloriously, happily drunk together that night, and the next day we started unpacking the cellar. It was all there, everything we needed. By the afternoon of the third day, the fire was ablaze in the forge again and my spirits were soaring with the sparks from the red-hot iron under my hammer. The smell of the smoke set memories running and jostling in my head like boys released from their tutor, and I rediscovered the almost sexual tension that had once been commonplace in my life as I shaped living metal and made it bend to my will and my skill. The feel of tongs in my hand brought back knacks, mannerisms and old habits that had lain unused and forgotten for years, and the love and lore of my grandfather's craft brought his presence and his voice back into my head.
"Beware black iron!" he had told me, and it had seemed a pointless warning until the first time I picked up a piece of ordinary-looking metal lying beside the forge and discovered, painfully, that the redness had just left it. Recalling that day so long ago, I inhaled deeply, savouring the charcoal, the metal-flavoured smoke, enjoying the familiar, acrid bitterness of it, the stinging in the eyes and the pleasurable grittiness between my teeth.
I began by making nails, aware of the need to do something about the sad shelves that lined the room. The wood was dried and warped and split around the original nails, many of which were completely consumed by rust. I was struggling and grunting, biting my tongue between my lips as I concentrated on holding two angled pieces of wood together so that I could clamp them when I heard footsteps behind me. Assuming it to be Equus, who had gone to buy lamp oil, I did not even look around.
"Here, " I grunted. "Hold this while I get this cross-piece in place." A pair of hands materialized beside me, doing as I had bidden, but they did not belong to Equus. Surprised, I started to straighten up, but the stranger had already taken the strain of the load and nodded for me to go ahead. I acknowledged him with a half-smile of thanks, pulled the cross wedge into position and nailed it solidly with two big spikes.
"There!" I said. "That ought to do it, for a while, anyway." I straightened up and held out my hand to my helper, who gripped it. "My thanks, " I said. "I didn't see who you were, or I would not have put you to work. I thought you were my partner, Equus. I'm Publius Varrus."
He smiled briefly and nodded. "They call me Cuno. Short for Cunobelin. I'm married to Phoebe, Equus's sister."
"Phoebe's husband? Then you are a king indeed. Cunobelin was a king, wasn't he?"
"Aye, long ago. Or so they say." His eyes were moving around the smithy, taking everything in. "So you're the grandson. Equus told us you were back and that you'd opened up the old place again." He did not look back at me, so I took the opportunity to examine him. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, wearing a leather apron over work clothes, rough tunic and cross-wound leggings. His hair and beard were thick and blond — unusual in this part of the country — and filled with sawdust and tiny, tightly curled wood shavings. His clothes were thick with sawdust, too, and he had a way of blinking his close-set eyes rapidly, as though to keep them clear of flying wood chips.
"Did you know my grandfather?"
"No. I only came here about two years ago. That's when I married Phoebe. This place was closed down by then."
"What are you? A sawyer?"
He laughed, briefly baring his long, narrow, brown teeth. He was not a comely man, and he seemed to have difficulty meeting my eyes.
"No! Not by anybody's gauge. I'm a wheelwright. A wheelwright and a wagon-builder." That explained the small wood shavings; they were from turning spokes.
"A wheelwright, eh? You must be a good one. Judging by the shavings in your hair, you have work."
"Aye." The smile remained on his face. "I'm good. I have to be. Square wheels are hard to sell."
"I would think they are." In spite of wanting to accept this man as Equus's brother-in-law, I found myself instinctively disliking him, and I felt vaguely guilty, since he had offered me no harm. I have always been a believer in first impressions, and he impressed me as being untrustworthy, for some reason. I tried to dismiss the feeling, attributing it to the ill cast of his features, which were not his fault, and made a determined effort to be friendly.
"Look here, you are our first visitor, and I was thinking just before you arrived about a pot of ale. Will you have one?"
His eyes stopped roving the smithy and came back to me. "That's a fair offer. I will."
"Good." I poured two flagons from Equus's pitcher and we toasted each other silently before taking a good pull at the yeasty brew. I wiped some foam from the tip of my nose.
"Welcome to our smithy. Is there something I can do for you, or did you just wander in here by accident?"
"No, I came in on purpose, to say hello and see what you are doing."
I indicated the forge. "Not much, as you can see."