270 AС
The return home turned out to be routine, but it was like the calm before the storm. 50 dragons is a very large amount. As I already said, thirty dragons for a poor person, for example, a carpenter, is a fortune, with this money you can sail away to the Free Cities and lead a life full of pleasures there for several years. Usually people keep such money in a secure and secret place, saving it for a rainy day, or spending it on momentary pleasures. For example, that knight from the Reach, who won the horse fight, drank most of his prizes and drank in the tavern of the same Ashen village.
My father also wanted to leave part of the money for the winter, and spend the rest on expensive gifts for his mother and sisters. I barely managed to persuade him not to do it. Instead, the money was spent on buying our farm lands from their owners, the Lords of Sarsfield.
Westeros has its own hierarchy of titles:
1) The king who rules over the Seven Kingdoms.
2) Regional Grandlords such as Lord Tywin Lannister, Grandlord of the Westlands.
3) The Lord Highlord's standard-bearer. For example Marbrands, which we recently visited.
4) The vassal lords of the banner lord, the same Sarsfields from whom we bought the land, are the vassals of the Marbrands.
5) Knights of the fiefdoms. They own their own land or castle, but do not have the title of lord. They collect taxes themselves and run their own economy, but the lord is not only an honorary title, this title also gives a number of rights and privileges, in particular, "dungeons and gallows": the lord has the right to imprison criminals and execute them, a simple knight, even the richest and most powerful, has no such right. That is what the father is now.
And finally, the "bottom" of the local aristocracy - the landless "boundary" knights, who are in the service of a lord or knight-fief. This is what I will be soon.
But this classification is very conditional, because in Westeros there is no medieval expression "the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal." Here, if Tyrell, Lannister, Baratheon, Stark, Arren, Greyjoy, Targaryen, Martell or Tully (underline as appropriate) even looks at the vassal of his standard-bearer from the corner of his eye, he will run to fulfill the order with a bullet, raising his paws to the top. Nevertheless, the right of the strong always reigned here and there was no such thing that the dominant house was inferior to at least one of its vassals, as was the case in the same France with Burgundy.
According to this classification, my father belongs to the direct vassals of Lord Tywin himself, since it was to him that he swore an oath of allegiance when he entered the service, and from him he received lands. So now, in the Western Lands, there is a tiny house of Cold, owning only one farm and not having its coat of arms or motto. But father didn't care about the latter from the high bell tower, because now that we have become relatively rich and secure, after buying the land, he began to devote more time to us, preparing Aerys as his successor and me, the future boundary knight.
Because of this, my schedule has become quite exhausting, even for me - a person who knows very well about the size of the awl in his ass. Waking up early, warming up, military weapons training, hunting, archery training, helping Chloe and my mother took up most of my day. Already in the evening, after a hearty dinner, I went to a lesson with Bern, where I stayed until the middle of the night.
In fact, all blacksmiths work in the evening or at night, only in the morning, completing their work. The reason is simple - determining the temperature of hot metal. Before, even when I lived on Earth and forged a fence for my house, it was possible to measure the temperature of metal using a special thermometer. Sometimes, a magnet could help with this, because at a certain phase, when the types of ore change due to their temperatures, they stop being magnetized.
But this is Westeros - a pseudo-medieval world. There are no thermometers here, and magnets are very expensive. Therefore, you have to measure the temperature by eye, in the literal sense of the word. Metal heated to a temperature above 500 ° C begins to glow. By the color of the glow, it is quite possible to approximately determine the temperature of the workpiece. For example, steel is considered finished when the color is deep orange, like the sun at sunset.
Because of this, you have to work in complete darkness. In the absence of extra light sources, it is easier to determine whether the metal is hot enough.
I possessed all this knowledge even before rebirth.
In a past life, I was an architect. Moreover, it is very successful, specializing in the reconstruction of ancient structures, such as castles, ancient catacombs, monuments, temples, bridges and much more. I have traveled all over the world, visited many countries and accumulated a good fortune.
Only at the age of 60, realizing that my health could no longer withstand sudden changes in climate, I retired. Then the question arose with an edge - what should I do? The pension was not small, the bank account, too, and all the time to sit with the grandchildren simply did not work out. Children offered a huge number of hobbies, ranging from collecting butterflies to getting a third higher education. My choice then determined the case. I came across an ad that was selling a good piece of land almost for free, far from civilization and other people.
For a long time, in those days, I wanted peace. Away from people, because my beloved wife left me many years ago, when my youngest daughter was born, and the children had grown up a long time ago and they had their own life, without such an old man like me. So when I saw this ad, I realized - this is what I need.
As a result, having bought a plot, a tent, a laptop, a bunch of building materials and a router, I went to do what any architect dreams of - try to build my own house. And I did it. I spent 15 years putting together a small two-story house, with a small garden, a bathhouse and a fence, although professional builders can build one in six months. But it was completely my home. I made every board, every brick, every nail in it myself. I forged a fence myself, made a foundation, built a frame, cut out furniture, planted a garden ... I did a lot of things during this time. The only thing that was not mine was the wiring and a brand new generator, which my children persuaded to order, and not to do on their own. They said that Shibanu himself was electrocuted during work and grandchildren would be left without their beloved grandfather, who constantly pampered them.
To realize such a huge project (for one person), I had to study a lot. During these fifteen years, I made many friends among carpenters, gardeners, blacksmiths, builders and all those from whom I asked for advice and help in this matter.
I still remember how happy I was to finally hammer in the final nail in my "independent" project. According to the eldest son, they later found me only a week later, lying in the wine cellar completely drunk, surrounded by empty bottles.
But I didn't stop there. At 75, I remained a vigorous old stump, who at the end of his life made a huge number of new acquaintances and friends. Before old age finally deprived me of the ability to walk, I was constantly on the move, as if returning to my turbulent youth as a young architect. Constant conferences, meetings, meetings and new acquaintances did not stop. And I liked it - to feel alive, full of life, to prove to others that age is not a hindrance to those who want to live for real.
But we all lose to death.
I know from books that some people have been running from death all their lives, trying to stay in this world for as long as possible. These famous elixirs of youth and philosopher's stones made from the blood of virgins and the horns of narwhals are just some of the most famous examples of this. Others, on the contrary, met death as a deliverance, as an old friend who finally visited them and now will lead them to a better world. For the first, she is a bony figure with a scythe, the wave of which interrupts lives; for the second, she is a beautiful girl or guy, gently, as if loved, leading them on their last journey.
I didn't fit into any of those categories. When my life span expired, I met death like an old rival that I had opposed all my life, even knowing the result in advance. There were no regrets, but there was no joy either. Only inner steely pride that he could become a rival to such a creature, and a slight sadness from his defeat.
"Something melancholy pulled me."
I perceived a new life in this world as a reward for long labors and fruitful rivalry, and I was going to live it just as brightly as I and only I want, in spite of everything and everyone, leaving my unique mark in this world.
I spent every night working at the forge. Initially, I planned only to restore my skills to the level of the previous world and quickly learn how to forge weapons. I thought since this is the Middle Ages, I would know much more than the locals, but I was quickly dipped into my own conceit, completely destroying my self-confidence.
By this rebirth, I completely forgot that Westeros is very different from Earth. The first book records, judging by the stories of rarely passing maesters on their way to or from the Citadel, date back almost six thousand years ago, and many local castles and monuments, such as the Wall in the far North or Starfall Castle in the west of Dorne, are almost 1000 years old. eight thousand years. A huge time for development and knowledge of the world around, provided that the Citadel - the only local university - has existed for 4000 years and has a very progressive education system for this world. Why, the division into specialties and the separation of secular sciences from spiritual ones in the same Europe occurred only in the 18th century. Plus, the local workers of the hammer and the anvil in this world had an ideal that they aspired to, in contrast to the Earth, where they walked for a long time at random.
Valyrian steel.Legendary metal that breaks all the laws of physics. With incredible hardness, lightness and almost no brittleness, it is the ideal metal for any blacksmith. An unattainable ideal that all the blacksmiths and steelworkers of this world aspire to. With a role model, the craftsmen here on their own, after hundreds of observations and experiments, were able to discover most of the methods of working with metal that were known on Earth only in the 19th century, such as the method of deliberately creating composite steel or zone hardening. At the same time, only in the first months of work, Bern dumped on me almost 20 different methods for working with blanks, which made it possible to get rid of impurities very efficiently, evenly distribute carbon over the entire surface of the blade, to obtain better steel, and add alloying elements that increase the hardness of the alloy. This made it possible to obtain steel in quality equal to that which was cast on Earth in blast furnaces of the 17th century.
But progress stopped only half a millennium before Doom, when the Valyrians told "in secret" that dragon fire and magic were needed to create Valyrian steel. According to Bern, this helped only partially. Only half of the blacksmiths abandoned the dream of indestructible metal, while the other continued to work, not believing in the impossibility of their attempts. Even today, in Westeros, it is widely known about the incessant research of maesters and bloody sacrifices taking place in one of the free cities of Qohor, in order to learn one of the most important secrets of the vanished empire.
It took me two years to restore old skills, master new techniques and learn how to forge a huge number of things, from horseshoes to lamellar armor. Only after my return from the tournament, it was decided to conduct a kind of exam in order to test my skills. It was necessary to forge a sword - a simple one-and-a-half, which is the main specialty of Bern and the one whose blanks I rake in the neck during my jambs, which, despite all my experience, were quite a lot. Modern and medieval equipment are different things, and I always wondered how I managed to learn how to work on them so quickly.
- Ready? – Bern's voice always reassured me. This low and deep baritone made its way to the bones, forcing you to emerge from your thoughts and start acting.
This forty-year-old blacksmith had short stature, huge muscular arms, speckled with veins from constant work, a perpetually gloomy face, with narrowed eyes, from constant work in the forge and long brown hair, still untouched by gray, which he braided into dreadlocks - a traditional hairstyle of his Harkley clan, from the Northern Mountains.
- Ready. – Despite my confidence, backed up by dozens of swords already made, even under the supervision and guidance of the master, I was very nervous. This exam was my chance to prove myself and try to introduce some of my methods, which Bern considers a failure and does not want to change anything. Nevertheless, he is a true Northerner, and this people is famous for its truly donkey stubbornness and unwillingness to change anything. As they worked a thousand years ago, they still work.
"Gods bless the maesters who are still promoting metallurgy and hammering it into some donkeys with iron sticks"
In itself, the creation of a blade consists of parts:
Steel smelting.
Assembly.
Folding.
hardening.
Vacation.
In Westeros, they do the same, except for the last stage. In local realities, even a bit to reduce the strength of the blade is considered damage to good metal. Because of this, springy steel and its derivatives have never been seen here. If you think about it like that, then something goes wrong. On Earth, it was in Europe that spring steel was invented and actively used, while the cult of hardness in relation to swords was spread mainly in Japan. I'm going to fix this.
In the first stage, iron is melted and excess impurities are removed. The locals came up with whole multi-passes in order to get rid of slags. But I got smarter.
- What are you doing? – Asked Byrne, bewildered looking at my actions. Now I was engaged in splitting iron ore into pieces, and later grinding into fine granular sand using a special hammer. The resulting mass was carefully distributed over the floor in a thin layer, on a specially placed rag.
- I grind the ore into dust, so that later I can select pure metal, without impurities.
- For what? The ore of the Westlands is renowned as one of the purest. You could just clean up the excess after the smelting. - In the eyes of Bern, I have always been a genius who learned what people master for many years in a very short time. But he didn't take my ideas seriously. This was evident from his gaze, full of skepticism and slight mockery.
- Now you'll see. - I said, finally distributing the resulting sand evenly over the fabric. And now the magic will happen. Taking out a small piece of iron ore, which I could barely identify as magnetite, and a small piece of amber, which I had barely found in the most ancient forests of the Pendrick Hills, I set to work.
Everyone who studied at school knows about the ebonite stick and what will happen if it is rubbed against wool. In fact, in those ancient times, ebonite, which is vulcanized rubber, was not yet created, but amber was used, with similar properties. Now this experience will be useful to me to strengthen the natural magnet, which is a piece of magnetite.
Several times touching the electrified amber drop to the ore, I began to bring the magnet over the resulting iron sand. The result was obvious - a huge amount of iron shavings began to separate from the total mass, sticking to the magnet. Unfortunately, the magnetic field of magnetite is too weak and disappears very quickly. You have to "charge" it very often.
"Eh-h, the work is dreary, but it's impossible without it," I thought, cleaning off another layer of iron dust into a separate mortar. Only once did I turn around to see Bern's reaction. Jaw to the floor and bulging eyes. He is in shock. It is necessary to explain the "legend" to him, otherwise at such a pace he will consider me a sorcerer. And here the attitude towards them is especially negative.
"A passing maester from Oldtown told me about this method. "I began to shamelessly lie to his face. - According to him, in this way you can get almost perfectly pure iron, which is easy to finally clean after smelting. He had two whole links of dull steel. I decided to take him at his word.
Silence reigned, broken only by the sound of iron dust being scraped off. Judging by Bern's face, he was actively thinking about something, making some conclusions and conclusions for himself.
"Um…" He was the first to break the silence. What does "link of dull steel" mean?
Bah-bah...
"It means that the maester has a very deep knowledge of blacksmithing. - Still, I tore my hand away from the burning face from the blow, I said. It's not every day that you find out that a master blacksmith doesn't know such elementary things. "And the presence of two or more links indicates that his level of knowledge is at the level of the conclave of archmaesters and he is one of the most enlightened people in our craft in all the Seven Kingdoms."
- Hmm, clearly. - Did it seem to me, or did this red face, from constant proximity to the forge, turn a little reddened? "But don't those who study magic wear Valyrian steel links?"
Wow, he does have some knowledge. Albeit from an unexpected area.
- No. - I answered, once again holding a piece of ore over the crumbs. "It's not magic, it's the properties of materials. If you rub amber with wool, then "lightning" is born in it. I pass this lightning to this "stone" and it can attract iron for a short time.
- It's clear. "Bern, judging by his dumb… ahem dashing face, he didn't understand my 'explanations for the little ones' at all. "But then why doesn't anyone use this method?" This will also help to obtain the best quality steel.
"See how the eyes sparkled"
- Yeah, but there is one big problem. - I broke off a blacksmith who had already flown away into the distant distances. - Rare and expensive. Amber is a very rare material and is not found anywhere in large quantities. It is more profitable to sell it than to work with it in the forge. Do you know that for this little stone in Essos, at the jewelers, you can easily get almost 100 dragons?
- Khm-khm... - The man choked on saliva from the announced amount, then cleared his throat somehow, barely pulling himself together. I understand him. I was surprised when I found out about such sums. More precisely, merchants passing through the River Road offered to sell them amber for almost 20-25 dragons, but if you remember that these cunning people sell everything for 3-4 times the price, it turns out to be almost a hundred gold pieces. And maybe more. - Hmm ... I see. Where did you find it?
"Here's a sly face" - I thought, looking at his attempts to hide a little greedy smile.
- Forget your fantasies. - My most "kind" look made him moderate his greed a little. "I barely found this piece of amber in the deepest thickets of the Pendrick Hills. He is no longer there. And you better not go there - the local giant bears are very fond of feasting on human flesh. The only place where amber is in abundance is Skagos, a large island in the North. But it's even better not to go there.
- Why?
- The locals will eat. "Today I arranged a whole evening of revelations for Bern. Wow, the man is in shock again. – Judging by the stories of the northern merchants, they once even rebelled against the Starks, for the right to live according to their traditions. The uprising was crushed, but one Stark was missing.
- Did they eat it?
- May be. No one knows, but since then no one has visited the island without a hundred warriors behind them. - I answered, shrugging my shoulders, and continuing to work. - And about this drop ... It is something like my emergency reserve for a rainy day. It is much easier and safer to carry than 25 dragons in a purse.
Further work proceeded in silence. It took almost 2 hours to select almost one and a half kilograms of iron dust with the help of a weak magnet, which had to be constantly "charged".
After that, the melting process finally took place. Load the iron into the furnace, pre-heated to one and a half thousand degrees. It took almost an hour and a half for the iron to melt even a little. And all this time it was necessary to stand near the furs, heating the forge as much as possible.
- You were right. - Said Bern, getting up at the mill and speaking today as my "apprentice". - There are almost no impurities.
- This is good. So you can reduce the number of folding. - I answered, quickly, with the help of a special device invented by the locals, removing the top layer of iron, where impurities floated. This was followed by the addition of the second most important ingredient for steel - coal. It had to be added quite a bit, exactly 1/19 of the mass of iron, in order to obtain a hard and not brittle alloy. The main thing is to evenly add coal dust and mix it properly to form several types of steel - hard high carbon and durable low carbon. And let's not forget silver dust, a special mixture of metals made by maesters from the Citadel and sold all over the continent. It's mostly manganese and chromium, but they help improve the alloy by making it much stronger.
"Only, dear she, an infection."
Next came the waiting. It was necessary to wait until the resulting steel cooled, forming a cast plate 1 centimeter wide.
- Good metal. - The teacher smiled, looking at the result. I agreed with him - after splitting the plate with a hammer, it was clear from the pattern of stripes on the alloy that it was of very high quality.
The further forging process resembled a constructor and bore a suitable name for this - assembly. It was necessary to pick up pieces of steel depending on their hardness or strength and "assemble" the future sword by welding the resulting workpiece into one. After the workpiece is folded several times, like a sheet of paper, among themselves, obtaining a homogeneous metal structure, making it completely monolithic and getting rid of the last impurities.
"That's how swords are made." - I thought, looking at the workpiece bursting with heat, over which it is necessary to perform the last ritual - hardening.
I was always amazed at how in the movies they try to make amateurs look like good blacksmiths. The same hardening. Everyone knows that it is needed to increase the hardness of the alloy, but out of nowhere such a result does not appear. Strength suffers. A fully hardened blade will break very quickly. Blacksmiths in both worlds found a solution - zonal hardening. Cover the guard with something insulating, say clay, and only then lower it into the water. So the central part will not be so hard, but it will not lose its strength.
- Well, the blade is ready. Bern said yawning again, because we started working almost in the evening, and it was already late at night on the street. Almost six hours of forging and the same amount will have to work out more to get the final result.
- Not yet. – It was necessary to make one more innovation from the Earth. Under the uncomprehending look of the master, I lowered the cooled workpiece into the remaining coals. Due to its structure, the resulting steel has a large amount of internal stress. There is a way to relieve these stresses: vacation. Tempering is the heating of steel to a much lower temperature than the one at which it is heated. That is, up to about 400 ° C. When the steel turns blue, it is heated enough, tempering has occurred. Then you just need to let it cool down.
As a result, the stress of the metal partially disappears, the steel acquires ductility, flexibility and springiness, but loses its hardness. It turns out spring steel.
I explained all this to Bern, again telling the tale about the clever master from Oldtown.
- But why? – On his face was formed puzzlement and wild incomprehension. "If the blade becomes softer, then it will be much more difficult for them to fight. And he will be much more blunt.
- Not really. - I made a remark, moralizing raising my index finger. - You are right. The main advantage of a hard blade is that it holds the edge better. But a flexible blade is much harder to break. When hitting a target that is too hard, a sword made in the traditional way is likely to break or bend. The flexible blade is monolithic and if it breaks, then for good. But we must try to do this, because you can only break it in half. Of course, hard steel should cut easier than soft steel, but in practice, bones are normally chopped with a flexible sword, and armor steel cannot be pierced with any chopping blows, unless, of course, it is a Valyrian blade. So, in my opinion, it will be better to sharpen the sword before each battle than it will break right during the battle.
- Ahem ... - Kind of Bern after my words became very thoughtful. Apparently, two things fought in him - the upbringing of a Severyanin, who really does not like everything new and foreign, and recent impressions, where I was able to hit him hard, seasoned with my title of genius in his eyes. After a few minutes of deliberation, a draw was declared. - Do what you want. This blade is yours anyway, but don't do that with my swords.
- Fine. I replied with a shrug of regret. They don't climb into someone else's monastery with their charter, so I won't try to convince him. Over time, he will understand and decide.
All the remaining time until morning was spent polishing, sharpening and creating a handle. Leaving the forge at sunrise, I held in my hands my first forged sword.
It was a simple one-and-a-half, or, as it was sometimes called, a bastard, without any decorations. A simple blade with a shallow fuller, a straight guard and a handle wrapped in tanned boar skin, ending in a small round, which serves as a counterweight.
Berne has already evaluated the result and said that I passed the exam. The sword turned out well, with the right balance, good steel pattern and razor sharpness. This is not a shame for the boundary knights to use. But there is always a fly in the ointment. As the master explained, before the title of a sword of excellent quality, he lacks some zest. Not decorations, ornaments or other nonsense that is hung on expensive blades, but zest, which shows that the sword in front of you is the pinnacle of blacksmithing.
In the future, I will also work in the smithy at Bern, but not as an apprentice, but as a junior master, receiving my share from orders. Yet I am already 11 years old and in a few years I plan to leave home and travel. You need to slowly forge for yourself an ax, a dagger, armor for a horse and armor. After all, without them, what kind of warrior am I?
"Time to sleep," I thought, feeling my eyelids stick together from fatigue. The next day was fruitful and it cannot but rejoice.
***
Time tends to go regardless of our desires and will.
After the Ashmark tournament and the addition of the rank of blacksmith to my piggy bank, the days continued to go on, slowly turning into weeks, then into months, and then into years.
The cold winter that the maesters foretold has passed, and the sunny summer has come again. Our small farm, thanks to my father's thrift and thrift and my little advice, more related to the sale of crops and the distribution of money, slowly grew into a small village, wholly owned by our family. My father also continued to work on the farm, finding horse breeding his passion. He was even able to save on some small things and buy foals from Dorne and the North, hoping to get a breed that combines their best qualities. So far, there have been few results, but it is already clear that the foals bred are stronger and stronger than their parents, which in the future could turn into a profitable and profitable business. The mother, who turned out to be the illegitimate daughter of one of the Lannets - a very distant branch of the Lannisters from Lannisport, woke up family blood, and she actively began to take care of the affairs of the village, supervising the planting and harvesting. When we, with my brother and sisters, found out about its origin, our eyes went out of our heads. Still, it's good to know that you have some of the blood of the kings of the Cliff in you. At the same time, this explained Aerys and me's bright green eyes, which are one of the attributes of the lion's house.
Aerys also never ceased to amaze. His fanatical love for swords paid off - during our sparring with blades, he finished me like a god turtle. True, later I did the same, but in a battle with axes. But this does not negate the fact that he became an excellent swordsman, easily fighting on a par with me and his father at the same time. The most amazing thing is that he did not have the "chivalrous disease" that most local children suffer from. He really enjoyed helping his mother run the household and increase the family's wealth. According to him, it gave him great pleasure to see how his future possessions are slowly growing. One house a month, one farm a year. Slowly but growing. And in this I agreed with him.
The sisters were also happy. They grew up as little beautiful angels who inherited all the best from both parents, including a sharp and perspicacious mind. Already, these little kawaii incarnations are weaving ropes from the entire male part of the Cold family. The only one who can control them (and who they truly respect) is Cersei, who their charms simply do not work on.
And I still continued to train, study, play with my sisters, go to fairs and sometimes tournaments, work in the forge and prepare for the day when I leave my native nest.
Which came in the middle of 272 from the conquest of Aegon.