A scant three weeks after entering this calm sea, however, the season changed; the good weather deserted them. The days grew colder and the winds increasingly harsh and fickle, and Jon Wing decided it was time to begin searching for winter harbourage. Accordingly, they searched the coastline for a suitable port, eventually settling on the small inland town of Aries, an ancient walled settlement on the southern coast of Gaul in the Kingdom of Burgundy. Jon Wing chose the town especially-rejecting larger port towns like Toulon and Narbonne, which were too big, he said: 'Too many people, too many ships, also too many snares for unwary sailors.' He liked Aries, however, because it was small and quiet; moreover, it was a much cheaper place to stay. Little Aries lay upriver a short distance from the sea, yet possessed a bay and harbour large enough to serve many sea-going trading vessels-a fair number of which had also chosen the inland town for their wintering.
The monks were pleased with the choice; they were more than happy to spend the cold, rainy days in prayer and discussion with the local clerics at the Cathedral and Priory of Saint Trophime. Their mighty disputations were enhanced with the liberal application of the region's good red wine, which they praised and consumed with equal ardour. The rest of the crew divided their time between the several drinking halls and brothels of the harbour precinct, indulging one desire while contemplating the other.
The enforced idleness hung heavily on Murdo, however; he found little in the town to interest him. Having no itch to enrich the whores of the town, nor thirst enough to keep the brewers busy-neither did the allure of learned debate with Gaulish monks tempt him -he instead occupied himself with climbing the hills beyond the town, or tramping along the quiet river. The hills were green with winter rain, and he liked the scent given off by the low- growing shrubs, but there was little else to recommend them, and he soon turned to exploring the ancient town.
The streets of Aries were narrow and the houses close and crabbed, and shut against the wind gusting chilly and damp out of the north and west. When the sun shone, Murdo strolled the twisting pathways. There were many peculiar-looking buildings: some had been built by the Romans, Brother Fionn told him; the rest were made by the Moors. The Moorish buildings were strange to the eye; with their white walls, and tall, slender columns, curious onion-shaped arches, bulbous towers, and high narrow windows covered with hundreds of squares of glass, Murdo always thought they looked like palaces out of a dream.
The most remarkable of these was an imposing white building which stood on one side of the market square. The market itself was a forlorn place on rainy winter market days; inasmuch as there was little produce to be had, few people bothered to come and, save for a few forlorn sellers of eggs and cheese, Murdo often had the place to himself.
On one of his rambles, he discovered that the quiet little town boasted an armourer. There were two other smiths, he knew, and both supplied the port and farming trade, making fittings for ships and ploughs, and such like. But the third smithy was on the other side of the town, away from the port and market. Murdo stumbled upon the place one day while trying to circumnavigate the town by way of the wall. Drawn by the gusty whoosh of the bellows and the ring of hammer on anvil, he had found a low, dark dwelling built into the old Roman wall. Once a gatehouse, the gate had long since been sealed with stone; the house – little more than a covered recess excavated in the wall-now served a man skilled in making weapons.
The smithy was a warm place to stop on a dark, windy day, and as the craftsmen did not seem to mind his presence, Murdo paused to watch.
'Here now!' called the smith upon noticing the tall young man loitering at the open door. 'You like to work with iron, eh? Maybe you want to be a smith like me.'
Murdo explained that he was a pilgrim in the company of a warband bound for the Holy Land. 'Our ship is wintering here,' he said. 'We will sail again in the spring.'
'Ah, you are from the longship!' answered the smith, his Latin crude, but expressive. 'Very fierce warriors, these Norsemen, I am told. Good weapons they have, too-but mine are better. Come, I will show you something.' He beckoned Murdo into the hut, which was almost completely filled by the enormous central hearth and forge. Taking a glowing stub of iron from the red coals, he said, 'This will be a sword. It does not look like much now, perhaps -but soon! Soon it will fit the hand of a lord in Avignon.'
Murdo learned that the smith-a blunt, sweaty, black-fingered man named Bezu-had two apprentices and, owing to the increased demand for arms and armour brought about by the pope's crusade, two was not enough. Bezu was looking for a third man to help him meet the rising flood of orders for his wares. 'A strong boy like you would make a good smith. I could teach you. I could talk to your father maybe; I think we might come to an agreement.'
Murdo politely declined the offer, but the smithy became the place he visited most often. Indeed, Murdo became such a familiar onlooker that one day they invited him to share their midday meal of salt beef, cheese, and bread; in return for this kindness, he stayed to help with some of the smaller chores. When they had finished for the day, Bezu told him he was welcome to come and work and eat with them the next day.
Murdo happily agreed, and was soon spending much of his time with the armourer and his apprentices. The three worked together in a convivial haze of heat and smoke and earthy conversation, and Murdo enjoyed their camaraderie as much as he enjoyed watching them hammer the glowing red iron into sword-blades, spearheads, and shield-bosses. Bezu let Murdo try his hand at the bellows, and when he professed to enjoy this labour, the smith asked him whether he would like to learn how to make a spear.
'First, we must select the iron,' Bezu said, pawing through a stack of long, flat lengths of the black metal, some almost as long as Murdo was high. This amazed Murdo, who had imagined the head of a spear to be more properly fashioned from a short, thick square.
'Ah, this is where you are wrong, young Murdo. We are making this lance in the old Roman way,' the armourer told him. Laying a finger beside his nose, he added, 'It is a secret my family has kept for ten generations.'
'And you will tell me?' wondered Murdo, flattered by this unexpected confidence. 'Why?'
Bezu shrugged. 'Perhaps I show you, and you change your mind and stay to learn my craft.' He smiled. 'Also, what good is a secret if you cannot tell it once in a while?' Bending to the stack of iron, he pulled out a long, thin strap, as wobbly as a snake. 'Here!' he cried, handing the iron to Murdo. 'This for you!'
Murdo grasped the cold shank of rusty metal, regarding the wobbly length dubiously. 'It does not seem much to you now maybe,' the armourer suggested. 'But soon-a spear fit for the hand of a lord.'
Bezu then began showing his new pupil the long process of shaping the strap of iron: heating it in the forge, flattening it, folding it, squaring it, and then gently rounding the upper half, a third portion of which was folded over upon itself, squared and flattened once more, leaving a ridge in the centre and flaring the edges to form a stubby, leaf-shaped blade. Murdo liked working the iron, but regarded his handiwork as more of a curiosity than a weapon. Certainly, an iron spear was too heavy to throw, and the blade was too short and blunt to do much more than puncture.
'Just wait until you put the shank into the wooden shaft,' Bezu told him, showing how the long iron core would be inserted into a shaped haft of ash or oak. 'Like so, eh? The blade cannot become separated from the shaft, and the core makes the shaft as strong as iron. When it is finished, you have a spear which cannot be broken!
Thus, Murdo occupied the wet winter months, coming early to the smithy most days and working until dusk, often spending the night beside the hearth as well. When the closeness of the smithy stifled rather than warmed, Murdo would go out and perch himself on the old Roman harbour wall and spend the day wrapped in his cloak gazing out across the low-lying countryside towards the sea. Rain or sun-it made no difference to Murdo. The damp spates of wind and rain which the realm of Burgundy suffered were balmy as summer showers compared to the howling, spitting, bone-cracking winter storms of Orkneyjar.
On these occasions, and much of the rest of the time as well, he thought of Ragna, and what he would do when next he saw her; he thought about the two of them making love, making a home, making a life together. He thought of Hrafnbu, and how he and his father and brothers would win it back from the treacherous usurper Orin Broad-Foot. He thought of his mother, and he hoped she was well and not worrying about him. He took great solace from the fact that she was with Ragna; that the two of them should be together enjoying one another's company warmed his thoughts on dismal days.
As the wheel of the year turned slowly around to spring once more, he grew restless to resume the voyage. Day after day, he watched the low clouds sailing southward, and wondered when Jon Wing would summon the crew and cast off. He went to the harbour often and almost always found the sea lord and two or three crewmen
