The Copper Sign (4 page)

He took an iron bar and put it in the hearth. “I can see all right that you’re not very strong, but a little practice will change that. You still have some growing to do. How old are you?”

“Twelve, I think,” Ellen answered meekly.

“That’s a good age for learning,” the smith said. “Let’s see what you can do. When the iron is hot enough, take it out and pound it into a square.” He pointed toward the hearth. “My name’s Llewyn, by the way; they also call me the Irishman.” Sweat was dripping down his cheeks, and he wiped his brow on his sleeve.

“My name’s Alan.” After a moment of silence, she added, “I thought the Irish were all redheads like me.”

Llewyn broke out into a wide grin, and Ellen thought he actually seemed very nice when he didn’t have such a grumpy look on his face.

“I’m not used to working in the daylight,” Ellen mumbled apologetically when she saw the sparks coming from the hearth, indicating that the iron was too hot. She put the rod down on the anvil. It used to drive Osmond crazy when her point was bent to one side or the other, and so she had practiced that until she was good at it. To forge a good square point you had to roll the bar a quarter turn in one direction between strokes, then exactly a quarter turn back again. It was most important to work evenly. When the iron had cooled, she put it back in the forge.

“I can see you’ve done that before,” the smith said with satisfaction. “I expect hard work from you—there’s more to it than just polishing the tools and pumping the bellows, but you’ll learn. For that I can pay you one and a half pennies a day, but you’ll have to find your own sleeping quarters.”

Ellen was delighted, and accepted at once. Later, she spoke with Bertha and arranged for supper and a place to sleep in return for half a penny a day and some help in the household. How easy it was to work things out as a boy! Wistfully, Ellen thought of Osmond and how proud he would have been of her.

During the first few weeks, Ellen had the worst muscle pains in her life. Sometimes her shoulders hurt so much she could barely lift the hammer. She tried hard not to let it show and bravely stuck it out. Llewyn seemed to look at her as a weak young lad who only needed to work hard enough to become strong, so he did not make it easy for her. In the first few months, Ellen’s hands were covered with blisters that constantly broke open and bled from rubbing on the wooden handle. Sometimes it hurt so much that her eyes filled with tears, but Llewyn pretended not to notice. At night she staggered out of the smithy dead tired, with a feeling of discouragement and despair and a constant fear that she wouldn’t make it through the next day.

Often she was so exhausted that she couldn’t eat a bite. She just crawled onto her straw sack, crying, and sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When October arrived, sweeping the bright leaves from the trees with its strong winds, Bertha gave birth to a son. Ellen found him much too skinny and ugly.

Bertha and Curt, though, were happy to have a second boy. “Sons are the wealth of the plain folk,” Curt liked to say. Ellen agreed, and envied the child for his safe birth. She herself was and remained a girl. Her voice would never get deeper and her face would never sprout a beard, so she took special care not to arouse suspicion through girlish behavior. She took advantage of every moment she spent with the carpenters, studying and trying to emulate the men’s gestures and expressions. And until one Sunday in November, when her game was almost discovered, she quite enjoyed it.

Thomas, the son of the master builder, and his friends had picked up a few big brown spiders in the autumn leaves that they let run down their arms and even over their faces to show how brave they were. They enjoyed watching the girls—how they kept looking at them, fascinated by their courage, but then turned away shrieking because they were so repelled by the hairy creatures.

“Here’s one for you,” Thomas said patronizingly, placing one of the eight-legged monsters in Ellen’s hand.

Disgusted, she threw the spider down, but the boys started laughing and making fun of her, and she quickly realized she had to come up with something. She puckered her nose, snorted, and spat at the spider. She had practiced doing that for a long time and was good enough at it to make a direct hit. “Got him!” Beaming, she thrust her right fist into the air and was duly admired for her good aim. “Damn thing,” she added scornfully, because curses were part of the way men were supposed to act. After just managing to escape detection, she was now especially careful to behave like a boy: She swore a lot, ate with her mouth open, and belched especially loudly when drinking beer. She ran around with her legs far apart and tried to walk like a man. Only when the boys had peeing contests did she back off, though she really would have loved to take part in that. Why hadn’t the Lord let her come into the world as a boy?

A wet, stormy autumn was followed by an icy, early winter that brought an end to most of the building work. The smiths, however, continued to work outdoors because costs already had gone far beyond early estimates and the stone workshops that had been promised were not finished. The smiths had sheltered the sides of their workshops with wooden planks in order not to freeze, but the wind still came through the open front. Ellen had to water down the walls every day so that sparks would not set fire to the wood. The water froze into beautiful floral patterns but made her hands red and rough. She trembled with cold as she worked, and even Llewyn, who seemed less bothered by the weather than she was, kept stamping his feet. The forge provided warmth only to the body and face of the person standing right in front of it, but their feet were still cold and soon became so numb they could scarcely feel their toes. If they didn’t keep moving, their toes could freeze. Only when the cold became too great did they stop, put out the fire, and go back to the Red Buck, the only tavern in Framlingham that served decent beer and good food at reasonable prices. Sometimes they sat there together all afternoon without saying a word, and Ellen kept thinking of home. She missed Osmond, Mildred, and Kenny, and of course Simon and Aelfgiva more and more every day. She even stopped being so angry at Leofrun and almost felt a longing for Aedith. There wouldn’t have been much point in talking with Llewyn about her homesickness. He had neither a wife nor children and in any case wasn’t a man of many words. He only spoke to her when they were working, and in her opinion he had too much to say then with his constant, repetitive explanations of every step that nearly drove her to distraction. Ellen needed only to watch how to do something once in order to remember it and do it herself in the future, no matter how many steps were involved or how complicated each step was. There was a reason for everything, and she picked it up easily. What she needed were not explanations but practice and personal experience!

When the first May flowers emerged in the springtime and started reaching toward the sun, everyone bustled about in the warm, pleasant days, but Ellen suddenly realized she was a half-shilling short in her clay money jar. She was very careful in saving her money and was pleased to see the growing number of coins. But now her heart pounded. Maybe she had counted wrong? She counted again, with the same result—seven and a half pennies were missing. The only possibility she could think of was that the money had been stolen by someone in the carpenter’s family. Bertha was careful that someone was always in the stable to guard against theft. Tearfully and with great disappointment, Ellen placed the remaining coins back in the pot and hid it under her bed’s straw mattress.

A few days passed without anything happening, and Ellen was almost ready to forget the matter when she saw someone poking around her bed. It was Curt’s oldest daughter Jane.

Ellen lunged at her. “You miserable thief!”

The girl began to scream like a stuck pig, and Bertha, who was cleaning vegetables outside the door, came rushing in.

“It was Alan who took your coins, that’s what I thought right away,” Jane shouted, holding Ellen’s clay pot in her hand. “Just look and see how many coins he has. Do you think he saved that many?” Jane’s voice almost broke. “You took him in like a son and he thanks you by stealing from you!” Jane looked at Ellen with tear-filled eyes and took a number of pennies from the pot. She scampered down the ladder to the room below and reached out her hand to her mother. “Here, Mother, your money!”

“You’ll pay for that, lad!” Bertha said threateningly, tucking the money under her apron. “Curt will decide this evening what to do about you. If it were up to me, we’d take you to court. The word is that Lord Bigod has something against thieves and sees to it that they are punished harshly.” Bertha turned away, seething with rage, and went back to work. Jane grinned at Ellen triumphantly and followed her mother out of the room.

Ellen stood there, stunned. Jane must have stolen not just from her, but even from her own parents! “What a bitch!” she exclaimed, angrily kicking at a bale of hay; then she broke out in a sweat and tears ran down her cheeks. If they threw her into prison it would only be a matter of time before they discovered she was not a boy—and she didn’t even dare to think what would happen to her then. She had made up her mind what to do, and ran as fast as she could to the blacksmith shop.

Finding herself face to face with Llewyn she announced breathlessly, “I’m leaving Framlingham.”

The blacksmith was visibly disappointed but replied, “I understand your desire to move on—there is really not much more you have to learn from me, anyway.”

Ellen looked at him in dismay. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. “It is not about you or my work here, but…” Ellen hesitated, then looked down at her feet.

“That’s all right,” Llewyn replied without looking at her. “You needn’t explain anything, you’re a free man. Do you know where you want to go?”

“Ipswich, I think.” Actually, she had no idea where she wanted to go, but she didn’t want to admit that.

“Ipswich.” Llewyn nodded approvingly. “That’s good. What do you want to do there?”

“Work as a blacksmith, what else? I don’t know anything else.”

“It’s what you do best. I know only one man who has such an unfailing sense about iron as you do. You could still learn a lot from him. When you get to Ipswich, ask for Master Donovan. He is the best swordsmith in East Anglia. With him, you’ll be a complete beginner once again!” Llewyn stood motionless for a moment, thinking. “He was a friend of my father. Tell him I send you to him with my highest recommendation.” Then he added softly, “I was not good enough, but you are.” And speaking more loudly, “Don’t be put off by him, do you hear? Donovan is a cranky old fellow, but you must do everything you can to get him to take you. Promise me!”

“Yes, master,” Ellen replied in a husky voice.

As they parted, Llewyn gave her his hammer, adding, “My master gave it to me. Cherish it.” Then he cleared his throat and gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Good luck, lad.”

“Thank you, Llewyn,” Ellen whispered in a choked voice, unable to say anything more. She sneaked back to the stable, fetched her money, and left Framlingham like a thief.

Ellen entered Ipswich through the north gate. For a moment she hesitated, unsure where to turn. The warm spring sunshine of the last few days was fading and giving way to thick rain clouds. A few drops fell on the tip of her nose, and anxiously she looked up at the sky. Only a small patch of blue was still showing, and no doubt she would be standing in the rain soon. In contrast to her, most travelers coming through the north gate as she had seemed to know exactly where to go, hurrying forward without looking around. Ellen wandered slowly toward the south. Nobody was waiting for her, so she had all the time in the world to explore the town. She stopped at the first crossing and looked about. Farther south she could see ships’ masts, so this had to be where the harbor was. To her left and to her right were winding streets lined with many houses close together. Ellen rubbed her temples, looking both ways, but couldn’t decide which way to go, so she sat down on a stone wall, her legs dangling, and took a final gulp of water from her flask.
I’ve got to refill it
, she was thinking, when she heard an excited cackling of young girls behind her. Curious, she turned around.

The girls were standing nearby, talking and giggling with such excitement that everyone passing by turned to look. A buxom maid ran her hand through her dark hair, laughing loudly and apparently seeking attention. Ellen could see how much she enjoyed the obvious admiration of the men and the envy of her friends, who were now laughing even more loudly and shrilly so someone would pay attention to them as well.

“Come on, what are you waiting for?” a skinny girl with red hands asked impatiently, grabbing one of her friends by the arm and pulling her in the direction of the market square. “Let’s stop dallying and get going!”

“You can hardly wait to get to the fair, can you,” sneered the dark-haired girl, winking at one of the other girls. “She’s got her eye on the tooth puller,” she explained, nudging the girl next to her.

The skinny girl blushed and looked down at the ground in embarrassment.

It was market day in Ipswich, and Ellen’s heart leaped for joy. Aedith had told her all about it once and was almost breathless with excitement about everything there was to see there. A fair was really something special. Only big, important cities could afford them since they could be held only with the permission of the king, who demanded a heavy tribute for granting this privilege. Many merchants came from distant places in order to sell their spices, costly fabrics, and remarkable gadgets. Fairs were announced far in advance and attracted preachers, jugglers, clowns, and musicians, all of whom made a living entertaining people.

As the girls headed off, giggling, Ellen slid down from the wall excitedly and followed them. The farther they went, the more crowded the streets became, and Ellen noticed people streaming in from all directions seemingly headed to the same place. The streets got narrower, and the houses stood closer together. In the meanwhile, the clouds had swallowed up the last bit of blue, and the grey clouds seemed to merge with the grey roofs of the townhouses. Though it was just after noon, it looked as if was already beginning to get dark. Ellen hadn’t gotten very far before the rain started to fall in big drops, turning the dusty street in a few moments into a muddy quagmire. Everyone, including Ellen, crowded in close to the houses trying to stay out of the rain. But as fast as the rain had come, it now quickly passed. The earth rapidly absorbed the water, and after a short time the only reminders of the brief cloudburst were a few puddles here and there. A few rays of sunlight even fell on the narrow lane, and the pigs that had run off during the rain appeared again, pushing their way through the crowd and rooting in the mud for something to eat. Ellen’s shoes were still dry for the most part, and to make sure they stayed that way she took care not to let herself be pushed into the puddles as the crowd pressed forward.