Story for the Day: Mule the Blacksmith

Legend in Frewyn tells of a Hallanys man named Mule, a strange and reclusive blacksmith who was said to make weapons imbued with magic. Though he lived before King Breian's time, Mule's legacy lives in a young smith from Galae named Lunas, one who not only bears a resemblance to Mule but also seems to have inherited some of his abilities...

It is a terrible thing, to be born with the spirit of fondness, to be blessed with the currency of innate affection and have nowhere spend it. Lunas had fondness in abundance, and he gave it freely to every creature that approached him: he gave the birds the crumbs from his bannocks, was mindful of the ants and worms around the sward, and had a galaday watching the squirrels battle one another over who stole whose nuts from whom. He had a gentle heart, making him unfit for all the usual lamentations of estate maids and groundskeepers. He liked good news and therefore detached himself from anything condemnatory or disparaging. Company that did not speak was much the best during the longer autumn evenings, and in the few visitors who qualified as good company, he found Brouneidhs the best variety the estate could afford.

                He sat on his bench, wondering at the autumn scene, counting the constellations as they appeared on their astral loom, when a gust drew the fallen leaves and blew them across his feet in a plume, the flurry tittling his shins.

                “Cold th’night,” said Lunas, watching the leaves hasten by.

                There was a slight rustling under the bench and then silence.

                “Here,” said he, offering his bannocks and rye. “You eat that. Ain’t too hungry th’day.”

                He put the trey on the ground and nudged it under the bench with his heel. A large eye gazed up at him from the shadows, spying him with a mournful look.

                “I got my tea,” Lunas insisted. “Don’t you worry yerself. You just finish that ‘fore cook comes back, else one of us is gettin’ told fer wastin’.”

                A small hand reached out, its fingers cautiously scanning the ground, and with a quick snap, the trey was pulled, the bread and bannocks were gone, and Lunas simpered to himself.

                “Always worryin’ about my wellbein’,” said he, smiling, “but the minute there’s a treat in it for you, yer all batten and bellock.”

                The gnashing sounds below him suddenly stopped, and something peered up through the crack in the bench.

                Lunas took up his tea and smiled into his cup, the reflection from within grinning back at him. “Didn’t mean you should stop eatin’,” said he, lowering his hand and patting something under the bench. “You just eat that and don’t worry yerself about it, aye?”

                The slottering sounds under the bench resumed, and Lunas polished his projecting teeth with his thumbnail and sipped his tea, his heart warmed by the maunging and mapsing of the creature lurking under his legs.     

                Lucentian chairo was always the best restorative to addled nerves and the cure to the little rubs of estate life. Difficult to come by in the south and coveted by Lucentian nobility, the powdered tea was a delicacy reserved for the discerning and the dutiful. The Cinnaide family, having good relations with Lucentian merchants, had no shortage of it, and Lunas was given full command of the stores, to measure the reserves and drink as much as of the seething broth as he liked. On long days, he often had two small portions in the evenings, but during the scenic months, when the seasons were publicly changing their gowns, he sat with one serving for several hours, nursing his cup between his hands, his delibations measured and meaningful, his eye marking the gradient of the solar arc. Here was tranquility, here was the perfect peace of an autumn evening, and Lunas, rapt in meditation, assailed by the pleasant nothingness that tea and the harvest moon provide, turned toward the breeze and exhaled, ready to spend the rest of his evening watching the stars and listening to the last stridulations of the year.

                He would not be doing this long, however.

                Ten minutes were spent in the equanimity of isolation before something came to ruin all his peace. The nightingale and songthrush stopped their madrigal fugue, the wind swelled and died, and a silver sound penetrated the landscape, reaching every ear from the estate to the lodge. Someone was singing-- it was a man’s voice, one that had neither direction nor source— it carried through the field, resonating in the recession of the breeze, the melody just articulate, accompanied by the gentle tirl of a lute:     

Tinker, tinker, Mule the Blacksmith

How do you keep your fire aglow?

Did you steal the flame?

Is your kindling tame?

Tell me all the things I do not know

                The voice sang in an ethereal lilt, divided between rhythm and tone, the melody strange and alarming, but the lyrics Lunas knew well, having heard them many times as a child. The song was an old ballad about the legendary Mule the blacksmith, a smith and ferrier of unknown origin who was fabled to have lived and worked in Hallanys before the reign of Brave King Breian. Mule’s mysterious abilities and eccentric appearance won him a place amongst his peers, and the comparison was not lost on Lunas, a comparison Lord Cinnaide was always sure to make any chance he could, calling Lunas by the same name whenever he visited the workshop. The song continued, the first stanza galed out at perfect pitch:

Standing high above the fire
When hearths alight and light is low
He tends the forge, his sacred pyre
He works in secret, back in bow

                Fingertips flourished across the rose of the lute, a resonant thrum echoed across the field, and a sudden presence settled just beyond the workshop. The trey under the bench rattled with violent apprehension, something scurried quickly away, and Lunas sighed to himself, thinking about the last time he was paid such a visit.

                “Why they always gotta frighten her?” he muttered, leaning down and taking up the trey, emptied of all the bread and bannocks. “Ain’t her fault she’s trapped here.” The song went on, and Lunas, somewhat disquieted by the performance, finished his tea, put his cup down, and put the trey aside, telling himself in a quiet voice, “Don’t be disrespectful now. They’re just after a visit, that’s all. No use in bein’ harsh about it.” He glanced back at his workshop: the drape over the door flickered, something burrowed inside, and Lunas wished this little musical internal would soon be over. He did not mind providential visits to his small part of the world; he only minded that it was done with such pageantry and parade.

By what magic is he melding
The beek and bale of Ingle-low
Cutting, shaping, drawing, welding
The cadence of the hammer blow

                The voice grew in pitch, a swirl of fallen leaves drew up by the fence, and a single lantern by the courtyard lit. Unquietness followed, the heavy stillness of reverence pervaded the field, one that snuffed the crickets and drew the attention of the deer grazing by the woods. The light from the lantern softened into an amber glow, and an image suddenly appeared, a tall and slender figure, a man with long limbs and vulpine features, holding a twelve-string lute. The figure shimmered into place, sitting atop the fence post, with one leg hanging down and the other resting languidly on the rails, donned in a leather huntsman’s jerkin and high riding boots, his fine black hair tied back beneath his feathered bycocket, the neck of his lute resting idly in his left palm. He strummed across the rose of the lute, and a voice almost emanated from his mouth, the plangent sound hovering above his lips:    

Tinker, tinker, Mule the Blacksmith

How do you keep your fire aglow?

Did you steal the flame?

Is your kindling tame?

Tell me all the things I do not know

                It was a voice calculated to captivate rather than entertain. Its pitch, absolute and unwavering, belonged more to a well-tuned instrument than it did a young man, and as he sang through another two stanzas, with eyes closed and fingers moving along the frets, when he reached the chorus again, he stopped playing along on the lute and directed his song at Lunas.

                “Did you steal the flame? Is your kindling tame?” Here he paused, his eye fixing on the blacksmith. “Tell me all of the things I do not know.”

                The song was seemingly over, and Lunas understood him. He stood from his bench, his head bowed and shoulders stooping, swallowed a sigh, and turned to greet his visitor with a diffident countenance.

                “Nothin’ to tell, Yer Lord,” said Lunas, with a shrug and half a smile. He trundled over to his visitor and gave a slight bow. “Nothin’ you don’t already know, that’s sure.”

                His lips purse in a timid smile, but his visitor could not be cheated by looks and smiles. The gaze and constancy were discomfiting, which is what the visitor intended, the conscious and penetrating stares serving to discompose what was always confident.    

                “I cannot know everything,” said the visitor, his voice lifeless and insinuating. His gaze flickered momentarily toward the workshop. “You might have some secrets not told.”

                “Oh, not me, Yer Lord,” said Lunas, laughing affectedly. “No sense in tryna hide anythin’ from the Gods.”

                “And yet our children will try.”

                He made a mirthless smile, and the curls around Lunas’ wide mouth unfurled into a frown.