A Time to Blossom

Chapter 11. A serpent revealed…

Nat’s beginning to flag a bit. I knew I’d be able to outlast him. This is bloody hard work though. I can see why the master smiths used to have a team of beaters to do the donkey work for them. Well, you don’t keep a dog and bark yourself, do you? It’s hot too, and I’ve lost count of the number of tiny spark burns my arms are getting. Jackie and Liz were smiling and copping a good eyeful as me and Nat stripped our T-shirts off after less than ten minutes of hammering. They’re not wrong though, Nat does look good in a leather apron, all illuminated by the flames of the forge, and he’s trying not to look tired.

We get a short break every couple of minutes when the sword cools from bright orange to a dull red colour and Owain puts it back in the forge to heat up again.  That bright colour is what Owain calls the forging temperature, when the steel is soft and malleable, easiest to forge to the required shape. When we hit it then, it feels soft and squidgy, and isn’t so loud. After a couple of hits with our hammers, when the steel is cooling and starting to go dull red, it feels different. Harder. And it’s noisier too. That’s how we know it’s getting ready to go back into the furnace, even before Owain tells us.

It's fascinating the way we’re making this sword. Owain started out with three bars of wrought iron, and two bars of steel, all made from some blooms. Not that the Vikings knew what steel was of course. They just thought some iron was better than other iron, not that the carbon content of the iron made the difference between them. The good smiths made the better iron more frequently than average smiths, and would set it to one side for special projects. Like swords.

Steel is stronger and harder than iron, so it can take a sharper edge when it is ground. Owain says it’s to do with the way the carbon atoms get trapped between the rows of iron atoms in what are called lattices. Other elements too, like manganese and molybdenum. The Celts and Vikings weren’t chemists, so they didn’t know about the elements. They just knew that sometimes the iron was better than others. Gran says there were big trade routes all across Europe, even into what we now know of as India and Russia, and good iron was one of the things that got traded, not just gold, and spices and silk.

Wrought iron, as well as being more readily available, is tough. So the good swordsmiths like Ulfberht, would kind of plait the iron bars and steel bars together to get the best properties of both. The first thing we did with Owain was heat up the iron bars and then, when they were bright orange, we held one end in a vice and twisted the other end with a big wrench, me on one handle and Nat on the other, making the bar twist like a big barley sugar stick. One bar we twisted clockwise and the other two we twisted anti-clockwise. We put the clockwise bar in the middle, with the anticlockwise bars on either side of it, then re-heated them and Owain gently forged them together to make them stick into a single piece. So now, it was the same length as we started with but three times as wide. The it was the turn of me and Nat. After every reheat we had to bash hell out of the consolidated bar – drawing it out – as Owain calls it, making it thinner. As it gets thinner, it gets longer, more the size of a sword. Well, it will be when we finish it. Like I said, it’s hard work.

As soon as it comes out of the forge, Owain puts it on the anvil, gives it a few gentle taps here and here to straighten it or make some small adjustment, then grabs his chalk and puts a couple of marks on it. That’s where me and Nat have to hammer it. Hard. We’re getting quite a rhythm up. Each learning to know just when the other is moving his hammer back and away, so the other can swing and make his blow. We don’t need to talk to co-ordinate it. It’s starting to come naturally, the two of us working together. Just as well really, with these big ear defenders on we couldn’t hear each other talking anyway when we’re hammering. Obviously, we can slip them off for a minute or two as the sword goes back in the furnace to heat up again so I can tell Nat to keep up and pass me another bottle of water. We’re drinking the stuff like fish. It’s not just that the hammering’s hard work, we’re standing right next to the furnace and that’s over a thousand degrees hot!

As soon as me and Nat have finished a bit of hammering and Owain put the sword back in the forge, some of the students swoop in and brush up all the forge scale and oxides and stuff that flies off the blade as me and Natty hammer. Every last bit! The they take the scabs and scraps to Lizzie and Jackee to be weighed, then to some of the other students to do their research. Looking at the shape of the scraps. Dipping it in chemicals to work out the chemical composition. Some of it is even getting taken to the electron microscope to be analysed there.

A couple of the students asked if they could have a go at hammering too but they didn’t last long. Just a couple of hammers and reheats each and they were out of it. Scrawny runts, the lot of them. I’ll remind Jackie of that if she starts commenting on me and Nat again. We might be the youngest guys here but we’re definitely the fittest.

“Chuck me another bottle of water, Nat.”

“You two will dissolve soon at the rate you’re drinking.” That’s Jackie. Just can’t resist having a little snark.

“If I don’t have a drink Jackie, I’ll dry up and blow away, just like your friends did.”

“Maybe you should do what Nathan is doing, cool down even more.”

Natters has just taken the lid off his new bottle of water and poured half of it over his head before gulping down the rest. Water is trickling over his shoulders and dripping off his arms in the flickering light of the furnace. All those gravel scars and cuts on his arms make him look well hard too. I don’t think I’m the only one looking at him either. It’s not a bad idea though, the shower. Where’s my bottle gone?

“Owain calling Planet Craig, Owain calling Planet Craig, are you reading me?”

“Sorry Owain, I was miles away. Just thinking about something.”

“So I noticed. Now you need to pay attention to this bit. I’m going to take the rough iron blank out of the furnace and leave it on the top there to keep warm and let it anneal a while. That’ll make it soften, take away the work hardening effect. We don’t want it to go hard and brittle, like how you can snap a ring pull on a can by wiggling it. That’s work hardening.”

“Got that, Owain.”

“The next thing I’m going to do is join these two bars of steel together, end to end, which is simple enough, and then you two are going to draw the resulting bar out to twice the length. It shouldn’t be too hard as it’s only a thin bar to start with. Ready?”

“We’re ready, Owain.”

Nat is smirking at me. He’s enjoying this, even if it is hard work. Or is he just grinning because I’m dripping with water too, just like him? There was something about the way he licked his lips then.

“Craig?”

“Ready, Owain.”

* * *

Craig looks hot.  Like as in sexy hot, not just hot because he’s flinging that hammer about next to a roaring forge.  I love the way he keeps looking up at me from under those couple of curls on his fringe. Thinking I haven’t noticed. He wiped his hand across his face after pouring water over his head. Left big black soot marks across his cheek. So cute. Kind of melding boyish innocence with warrior face paint. And that little dimple on his chin, under his lip. He doesn’t seem to realise just how good he looks. And those muscles. Swimmers look good, perfectly toned, not an ounce of fat anywhere. Sleek and streamlined, with broad shoulders and rippled abs. Especially the guys who specialise in breast stroke, Riley for instance. Boy, does Riley have shoulders and pecs. Shame he’s straight, but he makes a great swim buddy. Craig’s like that, but better. It’s the boxing, I guess. Makes him leaner, tauter. Nice dick too. Yeah, I know he’s sweet, and loyal, and generous, and smart and, well, he has a thousand other good qualities but, right now, he’s just so freekin’ sexy. I don’t want to go home tomorrow.

“Natters!”

“Sorry Craig, I was just thinking about something. I’m ready. Chalk it up, Owain.”

* * *

The steel feels different when I hit it. Firmer. It’s the same temperature as the iron, but it doesn’t work the same way. It sounds different too. Clearer. It almost rings. Iron has a duller sound. Owain said that most cultures have a legend about a ringing sword. A singing sword. Excalibur. Durandal. Leg-biter. A sword that is magical. He says it’s because the sword was made of pure steel. Incredibly rare for its time. Expensive, a sword for kings, better than any other sword of its era. Strong, sharp and tough. Better than any iron sword. A sword for a hero. A man with a destiny.

Excalibur. You know that legend about King Arthur and Merlin? Where Arthur pulled the sword out of the stone? Owain says that’s an allegorical story. That what it really means is that sword making was considered a magical art. Back in ancient times, swordsmiths were considered to be magicians, their skills were looked upon as magic. What they did was a closely guarded secret. People weren’t allowed to see what they did. Rocks – iron ore – were seen going into the forge and iron and good iron – steel – came out. Smiths were like gods. They turned rock into iron. Think about the old legends. Every culture had its gods, and most of them spent their time chasing women and drinking. Only one god did any work. The Romans had Vulcan. The Greeks had Hephaestus. The Vikings had Thor. All of them were smiths. There’s only one type of work befitting gods according to Owain. Smithing. Making stuff from iron and steel. Maybe the gods understood about elements and lattices and work hardening and quenching and tempering.

“Boots!”

“I’m on it, Nat, don’t blow a gasket.”

* * *

“That’s good, well-done boys, we have a steel strip twice as long as the iron core we’ve made. Now it’s heated, I’m just going to bend it at the mid-point like this. See?”

“Yes, that’s easy, Owain. Well, you make it look easy. I guess that’s why you are the expert.”

“Now I’m going to fold it around the iron core. In effect, we now have an iron core with a steel skin around the outside edge.”

“We see that, don’t we, Nat?”

“Got it, Owain.”

“I’ll tack weld it to the core, then you two will fully forge it together, make the steel and iron become a single piece, then draw it out a little longer. Ready?”

“We’re good, Owain.”

* * *

I’m freekin’ swelterin’. Owain’s had us forging this sword for hours. Chalking here, adjusting there, just another tiny change there. Nat’s worn out too. He won’t admit it of course. He just keeps on smiling and grinning at me, but I can tell he’s completely fagged out. He’s not going to admit it in front of me though. His eyes are still the same. Sparkly amber. Werewolf eyes as Noah says. Foxy boy as Mandy says. Are werefoxes a thing? Nat could be one.

The students are still sweeping stuff up. Weighing stuff. Analysing stuff. They aren’t getting the full experience. They need to hit the iron. Hit the steel. Hear it. Feel it. That’s how you understand it. You can learn about lattices and strain and phases in in lectures, but you don’t really know them, understand them, until you experience them.

“Okay, hold it there boys, that’s about done.”

“Thank fuck for that, Owain.”

“Craig!”

“Oops, sorry Gran, I was just thinking out loud.”

Nat’s laughing. Gran’s laughing. Owain’s laughing. Jackie and Lizzie are laughing. Mum and dad are laughing. When did they get here? Everyone is laughing.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, Craig, I know just how you are feeling. You’ve put a lot of effort into making this sword.”

“I did my best Owain.”

“We’ll let it stabilise at temperature for a moment, then quench it into water. That will ‘freeze’ its microstructure – the arrangement of its atoms – and give it the properties we want: strength, hardness and toughness. When I say ‘go’, pick it up with the tongs and place it in that water bath, swirling t round nice and gently. Ready?”

“Ready, Owain.”

“Go.”

II’s amazing how much noise and steam a hot piece of iron and steel and can make when you swish it around in water. I guess the water coming into contact with iron at more than a thousand degrees Centigrade boils instantly, forming steam bubbles that expand, pushing the water back from them, then collapsing as the cold water pushes back and makes them implode. Sonic shockwaves or something. Cavtation. Yes, that’s it. Cavitation. That’s what makes sonar good at hearing propellers over a hundred miles away. They hear the imploding bubbles around the propeller blades.

“Okay, lift the blade out, Craig. Keep it hanging straight down. That’s it. Good. See how it’s not distorted or cracked? That’s always a danger if the stresses in the metal get too high and there are bad welds within the blade. It looks as though you and Nat have done well. Not a bad weld to be seen, at least at this stage. We’ll X ray it and test it of course, but if it’s survived the quench it’s pretty certain to be a good blade. That quench is a harsh step in the process.”  

“Owain?”

“Yes, Nat?”

“The special blades you were telling us about, the serpent blades, like the ones Ulfberht made, and the ones we saw in the museum, they had patterns in them. That’s what you said made them special. The iron and steel being knitted together and looking different colours. This blade we’ve made, well, it just looks dull.”

“We’re not finished yet, Nat. We’ve made a piece of metal that’s sword shaped, that’s all. Over the coming weeks we’ll grind the edges on it. Put a handle on it. Maybe, as it’s a serpent blade, a pattern welded blade, suitable for a chieftain, we’ll even decorate the handle with gold and few precious stones. The Vikings were really good at that. Trust me, the pattern will be there in the blade, you just can’t see it at this stage.”

Gran’s smiling at Nat. “Maybe we should let Nat in on Ulfberht’s secret, Owain. After all, he might be the key part of it…”

Owain’s laughing.

“The great smiths guarded their techniques carefully. But we do know that they each had different ways to etch their blades, to reveal the pattern of intermingled iron and steel within them. One of the sagas, the oral histories of the Vikings, tells that Ulfbert used the urine of a red-haired boy, fed for days beforehand on nettles, as the key ingredient in the concoction used to etch his sword blades.”

“Awesome, Nat! Gran, we’ll feed Natty on nettles all night then get him to pee on the sword tomorrow before we take him to the airport. See if we can reveal the pattern.”

“I don’t think we need to keep Nathan up all night eating nettles, Craig. The contents of this bottle from the metallurgy lab will do a far better job. It’s a solution of ferric chloride, used for etching metallurgy samples. Alchemy has moved on a little in the last thousand years. But maybe we should let Nathan apply it, just in case it does need a little red-haired magic too. Nathan, pop on a pair of these vinyl gloves, then dip a piece of that cotton wool in some ferric chloride and swab it over the blade.”

It's funny how the students are all crowding round the anvil now the hard work is done. All eager to watch as Nat wipes the cotton wool over the sword blade laying on the anvil.

“Give it another rub, Natters, there’s not much happening. Are you sure it’s strong enough, gran? Maybe we need a stronger solution.”

“Don’t be impatient, Craig, it’ll work fine. Just let Nathan’s magic do the rest.”

Magic my arse! Nat’s just swabbing the chemical over the blade. Etching the metal. It’d work way faster with a stronger solution. Or if it was heated up. Chemical reactions always go faster when you increase the temperature. It’s Arrhenius’s Law.

“I can see something. Look, Craig, there’s a feint pattern appearing. Like a little squirly shimmer running along the blade.”

“Shift over, Nat, let me get closer. I need to see it in better light.”

Now everybody’s crowding in, blocking out the light. Muppets. Nat’s right though. There’s definitely something there. Kind of like darker bits and lighter bits, all entwined together. It’s getting more distinct every time Nat swabs over it.

“You see, I told you the pattern was in there. That’s why we twisted the iron bars. To make that rope-like figuring. See how part of the pattern twists to the left and part twists to the right? Those are the remnants of the clockwise and anti-clockwise twists we started with. And see how the edges of the blade are brighter too? That’s where we put most of the steel. Round the edge where it’s needed to get hard and sharp for cutting. And remember when I tack welded the remnant of the steel bar to the iron core and got you and Nat to hammer it in and folded it over? That’s where those brighter flecks along the spine come from. The steel etches brighter than the iron, so it shows up as those small sparkly strands dispersed along the spine, running through the iron twists. Now you can understand why the Vikings often called their swords after serpents. It really looks like there is a snake pattern embedded in the blade.”

Owain’s right. It looks awesome, and it’s not even finished yet. It’s still all rough and scaled at the surface from forging. It’s going to look awesome when it’s been ground smooth and sharpened. And had gold and jewels put on it of course. But the blade itself is amazing. It’s actually a metal composite! We think we’re smart these days make carbon fibre and epoxy composites, like our kayaks, but the Vikings were actually making metal composites nearly a thousand years ago!

“It’s not often you see Craig lost for words.”

“It certainly isn’t, Nathan. He was born noisy - you could hear him crying all the way down the corridor from the delivery room in the hospital - and he’s kept up the volume ever since.”

“Oh, thanks gran, tell everybody…”

“Okay, everyone, back to your desks. We need to start tidying up the lab, it’ll soon be five o’clock.” Gran’s good at giving orders. “And you two, you probably should go take a shower to clean up, you’re covered in soot and scale. There are showers in the changing rooms at the end of the corridor.”

“We’re okay, aren’t we Nat? We’ll help Owain tidy up. He’ll need a hand with the furnace and everything.”

“No, I won’t, nothing to be done there. We’re going to let the forge cool down naturally for a few days and then the students are going to dissect it, layer by layer, analyse it to death. So, for once I can just pack up my tools and go. I’ll see you in the morning, Professor, I’m looking forward to seeing the results of all today’s different analyses from your students. And thank you boys for your help. It made life a lot easier for me, I normally have to work alone. To be fair, some of the students did offer to help, but well, you saw how good they weren’t”

“Right, you heard Owain, you’re released from slavery. Go and get a shower and changed back into your clean clothes. Your mum and dad are here already to pick us, and grandad, up. I think the plan is for us to eat out tonight as it’s your last night with us, and Nathan’s last night before he flies back to America.”

* * *