The smithy is a mouthful of heat and honest noise. Wat, the smith’s apprentice, works the bellows as if air were a stubborn animal. His master does not look up from a horseshoe until the shoe agrees to be a circle.

“Castle metal,” the smith says, when you are allowed to exist. “Hinges. Tires for carts. Mill-irons. Nails that hold the world together and never get a song. A sword is a rare guest. Today we have mill-work or we have theater, and I am not paid in theater.”

Wat’s eyes still want a blade-story. He also wants, you can tell, to be useful in a way that will make his indenture look like a path, not a chain.

“Indenture,” the smith adds, because he heard you thinking, and he says it while turning the shoe, which is how the word stays a tool. “Years of training. Food, a roof, a trade. You are bound to Hew as Wat is bound to me. Fair masters copy the terms where a priest can read them. Unfair ones hope you cannot.”

Wat wipes his hands. “If the steward stamps it, I can come to the mill. Crack in a stone is a job. Cousin-outlaws are a story. I can walk you to the carpenter first. He remembers when the motte wore wood.”