The pre-dawn air was sharp enough to cut. Two horses, their ribs showing faintly in the gloom, stood puffing mist in the bailey of Rocca Falcone. Alessandro swung himself into the worn leather saddle, his movements stiff. Beside him, Bastiano gripped his reins with white knuckles, his face a mask of profound anxiety.
"My lord, a day's ride is not so simple," the old steward fretted. "There are brigands on the road to Ceprano. Soldiers loyal to the Count of Ceccano patrol the eastern woods. We are two men. If we are captured…"
"Then we are two fewer mouths to feed," Alessandro said grimly, nudging his horse forward. There was no room for fear. Fear was a luxury, and Rocca Falcone was bankrupt.
The journey was a lesson in the fractured reality of 13th-century Italy. They followed the ghost of an old Roman road, the great paving stones now cracked and canted, long stretches swallowed by weeds and mud. The land was beautiful—rolling hills giving way to fertile river plains—but empty. They passed the blackened stones of a burned-out farmhouse and, later, the unsettling sight of a traveler's corpse hanging from a tree, a stark warning from some local lord against trespassing. Once, they scrambled to hide in a thicket as a dozen men-at-arms clattered past, their tabards bearing the unfamiliar crest of a golden lion. Alessandro's world until now had been a single valley. Out here, he was just another piece of flotsam in a sea of competing ambitions.
They arrived at Ceprano as the afternoon sun cast long shadows. The town was a shock to the system. A proper stone wall, manned by guards in livery, surrounded a chaotic hive of activity. After the desolate silence of his own lands, the noise was overwhelming: the braying of donkeys, the clang of a cooper's hammer, the shouts of merchants, the murmur of a hundred conversations in a dozen dialects. The air was thick with the smells of baking bread, river fish, animal dung, and unwashed humanity.
"We find a tavern, my lord," Bastiano advised, his nervousness giving way to a native caution in these more familiar surroundings. "The Boar's Tusk. Men talk there. We water the horses and listen."
The Boar's Tusk was a low-beamed, smoke-filled den packed with river traders, off-duty mercenaries, and local townsfolk. Alessandro, acutely aware of his threadbare tunic, used one of the few silver coins his father had left him to buy two mugs of sour wine. While Alessandro sat in a dark corner, trying to be invisible, Bastiano ambled up to the proprietor.
After a few minutes of pleasantries, the old steward casually asked about finding a smith for some intricate work. The tavern keeper, a fat man with a sweaty brow, let out a short, harsh laugh.
"You can go to any of a dozen smiths in Ceprano for a horseshoe or a nail," he said loudly, wiping the counter with a dirty rag. "But if you mean 'intricate work,' you mean the Lame Bear. And I'd sooner hire a wolf to guard my sheep."
A nearby mercenary with a scarred face chuckled into his wine. "Lorenzo? Hah! He forged a blade for my captain once. Thing of beauty. Sang when you swung it. Captain paid him, then made a jest about the smith's fat wife. Lorenzo broke his jaw in three places."
"I heard it was a fight over a gambling debt!" another man chimed in.
"No, no," the tavern keeper corrected, leaning in conspiratorially. "It was the Baron of Monte San Giovanni's knight. The Bear forged him a helm, best work anyone had ever seen. The knight claimed the price was too high and insulted his honor. Lorenzo put him through a wall. The Baron's men couldn't kill him—the Bishop protects the guild, even the outcasts—but they broke his leg in the street as a lesson. He's been a demon ever since."
The tales continued, each more fearsome than the last. They all agreed on two things: Lorenzo's skill was legendary, and his temper was suicidal.
"Where would one find this man?" Bastiano asked, feigning simple curiosity.
"You don't," the tavern keeper grunted. "He lives where the stink of his forge is matched by the stink of the river. Down by the old tanneries. Now, no more talk of that devil. He's bad for business."
They found the smithy on the edge of town, a dilapidated shack of stone and wood leaning towards the river as if weary of standing. Soot stained the walls like a disease. But the air of decay was defied by the sound coming from within. It was not the clumsy clang of an apprentice. It was a rhythm of immense power and precision: the deep roar of a bellows, the sharp hiss of quenched steel, and the thunderous, authoritative ring of a master's hammer.
Alessandro's heart pounded. This was it. He took a breath, the stench of the tanneries filling his lungs, and pushed open the heavy, groaning door.
The wave of heat and sound was a physical blow. The air was thick with smoke and the metallic taste of hot iron. Silhouetted against the blinding, volcanic heart of the forge was a man of immense size. He was stripped to the waist, his back and shoulders a landscape of corded muscle glistening with sweat. One leg was twisted at a sickeningly wrong angle, forcing him into a strange, braced stance.
He held a glowing bar of steel with a pair of long tongs. He worked the hammer with a sure and steady hand, and the clear ring of metal on metal filled the workshop. His movements were efficient and practiced, expertly shaping the glowing iron.
Then, the work stopped. The ringing sound faded, replaced by the crackle of the forge and the sound of Alessandro's own breathing.
The giant figure turned slowly, plunging the hot metal into a quenching barrel with a violent hiss of steam. He was a mountain of a man, with a thick black beard and eyes that burned with a fierce, banked intelligence. He held the heavy smith's hammer loosely in one powerful hand.
A low, gravelly voice rumbled from the shadows, a voice that sounded like rocks grinding together.
"The door is closed for a reason. Get out."