When the sun was little more than a red line against the mountains, he heard the clatter of hooves in the yard and stepped hurriedly back from the window rather than be seen. Who was the woman to cause him so much discomfort? He imagined how long it would take for the pair of them to brush and water their horses before coming inside. Would they be joining the officers’ table again for a meal? He was hungry, but he didn’t want to entertain a guest. He would have food sent up to him, and-

A low knocking at his door interrupted his thoughts, making him start. Somehow, he knew it would be her even as he cleared his throat to call “Come in.”

Servilia opened the door and walked into the room. Her hair was wild after the ride and a smear of dirt marked her cheek where she had touched it. She smelled of straw and horses and he felt his senses heighten at the sight of her. She was still angry, he saw, summoning the will to resist whatever she had come to demand. It really was too much that she walked in without even an announcement. What was the guard doing below? Was the man asleep? He would hear about it when she had gone, Julius swore to himself.

Without speaking, Servilia walked across the wooden floor to him. Before he could react, she pressed the palm of her hand against his chest, feeling the heart thump under the cloth.

“Still warm, then. I had begun to wonder,” she said softly. Her tone held an intimacy that unsettled him and somehow he couldn’t muster the anger he expected. He could feel where her hand had rested, as if she had left a visible sign of her touch. She faced him, standing very close, and he was suddenly aware of the darkness of the room.

“Brutus will be wondering where you are,” he said.

“Yes, he is very protective of me,” she replied. She turned to leave and he almost reached out for her, watching in confusion as she crossed the long room.

“I wouldn’t… have thought you needed much protecting,” he murmured. He hadn’t really meant her to hear it, but he saw her smile before the door closed behind her and he was alone, his thoughts swirling in chaos. He breathed out slowly, shaking his head in amusement at his own reactions. He felt as if he were being stalked, but it wasn’t unpleasant. His tiredness seemed to have vanished and he thought he might join the table below for the evening meal after all.

The door opened again and he looked up to see her, still there.

“Will you ride out with me tomorrow?” she asked. “Octavian said you know the area as well as anyone.”

He nodded slowly, unable to remember what meetings he had planned and not caring, particularly.

How long had it been since he’d last had a day away from his work?

“All right, Servilia. Tomorrow morning,” he said.

She grinned then without replying, shutting the door noiselessly behind her. He waited for a moment until he heard her light step going downstairs and relaxed. He was surprised to find he was looking forward to it.

As the light faded, the furnace turned the workshop into a place of fire and shadow. The only light came from the forge and the glow lit the Roman smiths as they waited impatiently to be shown the secret of hard iron. Julius had paid a fortune in gold for them to be taught by a Spanish master, but it was not something to be handed over in a moment, or even a single day. To their exasperation, Cavallo had taken them through the entire process, step by step. At first, they had resisted being treated as apprentices, but then the more experienced of them had seen the Spaniard was exact in every part of his skill and begun to listen. They had cut cypress and alder wood to his order and stacked the logs under clay in a pit as large as a house for the first four days. While it charred, he showed them his ore furnace and lectured them on washing the rough rocks before sealing them with the charcoal to burn clean.

They were all men who loved their craft, and by the end of the fifth day they were filled with excited anticipation as Cavallo brought a lump of iron bloom to his furnace and poured it molten into clay racks, finally turning out heavy bars of the metal onto a workbench for them to examine.

“The alder wood burns cooler than most and slows the changes. It makes a harder metal as more of it takes the charcoal, but that is only part of it,” he told them, thrusting one of the bars into the bright yellow heat of his forge. There was barely enough room to heat two pieces at a time, so they clustered around the second, copying every move and instruction he gave them. The cramped workshop could not hold all of them, so they took turns coming in and out of the cooling night air. Only Renius stayed throughout as an observer and he poured with enough sweat to blind him, silently noting each stage of the process.

He too was fascinated. Though he had used swords for all his adult life, he had never watched them being made, and it gave him an appreciation for the skills of the dour men who worked earth into shining blades.

Cavallo used a hammer to beat the bar into the shape of a sword, reheating it again and again until the spike looked like a black gladius, crusted with impurities. Part of the skill came in judging the temperature by the color as it came out of the forge. Each time the sword was at the right heat, Cavallo held it up for them to see the shade of yellow before it faded. He filed and beat the soft metal as his own sweat sizzled on it, falling in fat drops to vanish on contact.

Their own bar was matched to his at every point, and as the moon rose, he nodded to the Romans, satisfied. His sons had lit a low pan of charcoal as long as a man, and before its metal cover was removed, it glowed as brightly as his forge. While his sword heated again, Cavallo signaled to a row of leather aprons on pegs. They were clumsy things to wear, thick and stiff with age. They covered the whole body from neck to feet, leaving only the arms bare. He smiled as they pulled them on, used by now to following his instructions without question.

“You will need the protection,” he told them as they struggled to move against the constricting coverings. At his signal, his sons used tongs to lift the cover from the charcoal pan and Cavallo pulled the yellow blade from the furnace with a flourish. The Roman smiths crowded closer, knowing they were seeing a stage of the process they did not recognize. Renius had to step back from the sudden wave of heat and craned to watch what was going on.

In the white heat of the charcoal, Cavallo hammered the blade again, sending sparks and whirring pieces of fire into the air. One landed in his hair and he patted the flame out automatically. Over and over he turned the blade, his hammer working it up and down without the force of his first blows. The ringing sound was almost gentle, but they could all see the charcoal sticking to the metal in dark crusts.

“It has to be fast here. It must not cool too far before the quenching. Watch the color… now!”

Cavallo’s voice had softened, his eyes filled with love for the metal. As the redness darknened, he lifted his tongs and jammed the sword into a bucket of water in a roar of steam that filled the little workshop.

“Then back into the heat. The most important stage. If you misjudge the color now, the sword will be brittle and useless. You must learn the shade, or everything I have taught you has been wasted. For me, it is the color of day-old blood, but you must find your own memory and fix it in your minds.”

The second sword was ready and he repeated the beating in the charcoal bed, once again scattering embers into the air. It was clear enough by then why they wore the leathers. One Roman grunted in pain as a fiery chip settled on his arm before he could pluck it away.

The swords were reheated and shoved into the charcoal four more times before Cavallo finally nodded.