“I'm sorry, sir,” said Alvin. “But we had the war last year. I was on my way here but I got captured by Choc-Taw.”

“Captured by– oh, come now, boy, don't tell me tales like that. If the Choc-Taw caught you, you wouldn't have such a dandy head of hair now, would you! And like as not you'd be missing a few fingers.”

“Ta-Kumsaw rescued me,” said Alvin.

“Oh, and no doubt you met the Prophet hisself and walked on water with him.”

As a matter of fact, Alvin done just that. But from the smith's tone of voice, he reckoned that it wouldn't be wise to say so. So Alvin said nothing.

“Where's your horse?” asked the smith.

“Don't have one,” said Alvin.

“Your father wrote the date on this letter boy, two days ago! You must've rode a horse.”

“I ran.” As soon as Alvin said it, he knew it was a mistake.

“Ran?” said the smith. “With bare feet? It must be nigh four hundred mile or more to the Wobbish from here! Your feet ought to be ripped to rags clear up to your knees! Don't tell me tales, boy! I won't have no liars around me!”

Alvin had a choice, and he knew it. He could explain about how he could run like a Red man. Makepeace Smith wouldn't believe him, and so Alvin would have to show him some of what he could do. It would be easy enough. Bend a bar of iron just by stroking it. Make two stones mash together to form one. But Alvin already made up his mind he didn't want to show his knacks here. How could he be a proper prentice, if folks kept coming around for him to cut them hearthstones or fix a broken wheel or all the other fixing things he had a knack for? Besides, he never done such a thing, showing off just for the sake of proving what he could do. Back home he only used his knack when there was need.

So he stuck with his decision to keep his knack to himself, pretty much. Not tell what he could do. Just learn like any normal boy, working the iron the way the smith himself did, letting the muscles grow slowly on his arms and shoulders, chest and back.

“I was joking,” Alvin said. “A man gave me a ride on his spare mount.”

“I don't like that kind of joke,” said the smith. “I don't like it that you lied to me so easy like that.”

What could Alvin say? He couldn't even claim that he hadn't lied– he had, when he told about a man letting him ride. So he was as much a liar as the smith thought. The only confusion was about which statement was a lie.

“I'm sorry,” said Alvin.

“I'm not taking you, boy. I don't have to take you anyway, a year late. And here you come lying to me the first thing. I won't have it.”

“Sir, I'm sorry,” said Alvin. “It won't happen again. I'm not known for a liar back home, and you'll see I'll be known for square dealing here, if you give me a chance. Catch me lying or not giving fair work all the time, and you can chuck me, no questions asked. Just give me a chance to prove it, sir.”

“You don't look like you're eleven, neither, boy.”

“But I am, sir. You know I am. You yourself with your own arms pulled my brother Vigor's body from the river on the night that I was born, or so my pa told me.”

The smith's face went distant, as if he was remembering. “Yes, he told you true, I was the one who pulled him out. Clinging to the roots of that tree even in death, so I thought I'd have to cut him free. Come here, boy.”

Alvin walked closer. The smith poked and pushed the muscles of his arms.

“Well, I can see you're not a lazy boy. Lazy boys get soft, but you're strong like a hardworking farmer. Can't lie about that, I reckon. Still, you haven't seen what real work is.”

“I'm ready to learn.”

“Oh, I'm sure of that. Many a boy would be glad to learn from me. Other work might come and go, but there's always a need for a blacksmith. That'll never change. Well, you're strong enough in body, I reckon. Let's see about your brain. Look at this anvil. This here's the bick, on the point, you see. Say that.”

“Bick.”

“And then the throat here. And this is the table– it ain't faced with blister steel, so when you ram a cold chisel into it the chisel don't blunt. Then up a notch onto the steel face, where you work the hot metal. And this is the hardie hole, where I rest the butt of the fuller and the flatter and the swage. And this here's the pricking hole, for when I punch holes in strap iron– the hot punch shoots right through into this space. You got all that?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Then name me the parts of the anvil.”

Alvin named them as best he could. Couldn't remember the job each one did, not all of them, anyways, but what he did was good enough, cause the blacksmith nodded and grinned. “Reckon you ain't a half-wit, anyhow, you'll learn quick enough. And big for your age is good. I won't have to keep you on a broom and the bellows for the first four years, the way I do with smaller boys. But your age, that's a sticking point. A term of prentice work is seven year, but my written-up articles with your pa, they only say till you're seventeen.”

“I'm almost twelve now, sir.”

“So what I'm saying is, I want to be able to hold you the full seven years, if need be. I don't want you whining off just when I finally get you trained enough to be useful.”

“Seven years, sir. The spring when I'm nigh on nineteen, then my time is up.”

“Seven years is a long time, boy, and I mean to hold you to it. Most boys start when they're nine or ten, or even seven years old, so they can make a living, start looking for a wife at sixteen or seventeen years old. I won't have none of that. I expect you to live like a Christian, and no fooling with any of the girls in town, you understand me?”

“Yes sir.”

“All right then. My prentices sleep in the loft over the kitchen, and you eat at table with my wife and children and me, though I'll thank you not to speak until spoken to inside the house– I won't have my prentices thinking they have the same rights as my own children, cause you don't.”

“Yes sir.”

“And as for now, I need to het up this strap again. So you start to work the bellows there.”

Alvin walked to the bellows handle. It was T-shaped, for two-handed working. But Alvin twisted the end piece so it was at the same angle as the hammer handle when the smith lifted it into the air. Then he started to work the bellows with one arm.

“What are you doing, boy!” shouted Alvin's new master. “You won't last ten minutes working the bellows with one arm.”

“Then in ten minutes I'll switch to my left arm,” said Alvin. “But I won't get myself ready for the hammer if I bend over every time I work the bellows.”

The smith looked at him angrily. Then he laughed. “You got a fresh mouth, boy, but you also got sense. Do it your way as long as you can, but see to it you don't slack on wind– I need a hot fire, and that's more important than you working up strength in your arms right now.”

Alvin set to pumping. Soon he could feel the pain of this unaccustomed movement gnawing at his neck and chest and back. But he kept going, never breaking the rhythm of the bellows, forcing his body to endure. He could have made the muscles grow right now, teaching them the pattern with his hidden power. But that wasn't what Alvin was here for, he was pretty sure of that. So he let the pain come as it would, and his body change as it would, each new muscle earned by his own effort.

Alvin lasted fifteen minutes with his right hand, ten minutes with his left. He felt the muscles aching and liked the way it felt. Makepeace Smith seemed pleased enough with what he did. Alvin knew that he'd be changed here, that his work would make a strong and skillful man of him.

A man, but not a Maker. Not yet fully on the road to what he was born to be. But since there hadn't been a Maker in the world in a thousand years or more, or so folks said, who was he going to prentice himself to in order to learn that trade?