Rebels and traitors

Chapter Twelve — Birmingham: October, 1642

The sword Lucas was making had been hurriedly hidden from the cavaliers. He returned inside the smithy. It was purposely kept dark so he could evaluate the fire and judge from the colour of heated metal when it had reached the correct temperature — changing through a range of pale colours that did not show in the darkened forge, through dull red, sunrise red, cherry red, bright red, light red, orange, and yellow. Swords were forged at cherry red, then tempered at a lighter colour.

There were many stages to making a sword; that was why, apart from the metal they needed, they were never cheap. Birmingham was turning out weapons upon which soldiers could rely; there would be thousands of these sent to Parliament's armies eventually. They were workaday models that never carried makers' marks, short tough blades that the soldiers often abused. There were famous cutlers, many of them foreigners, who had worked in London and who would soon move to Oxford to follow royal patronage. These high-flown Swedes and Germans made long rapiers with polished gold- and silver-decoration and bijou daggers for gentlemen. They always sneered at the plain Birmingham blades, yet the King's men today had known what they were trying to buy. The war would be won using these unsigned, affordable, mass-produced weapons.

Purse-lipped, Lucas began work again. First he dragged open a large shutter with which he had closed off his workplace when the unwelcome purchasers came. To work in the heat and dust, he needed good ventilation. Still pensive, he added extra expensive charcoal to the forge. The brick-built hearth had its bellows permanently attached, with an air pipe that ended in an iron 'duck's nest' at the heart of the fire. Country forges allowed the smoke to wander upwards and find its own way out, but towns were more sophisticated and Lucas had a brick hood and a chimney to draw off smoke and fine ash. His anvil stood as near as possible to the fire to reduce the distance he must move when carrying hot metal.

The smithy interior was cluttered, both with items he had made or was still making, and with his tools. He was a true blacksmith; he worked with ferrous metals, never lead or tin. Nor did he use gold or silver, the jewellers' material, nor bronze, although for his own amusement very occasionally he would make a household item of brass, to prove he could do it and to please his wife with the gift. Although he could shoe horses, he hardly ever did so; that was a farrier's job. Nor did he like to mend wagons' iron rims, but would send would-be customers on to a wheelwright. He had originally specialised in knives, though to earn extra money he mended pots, farm tools and firedogs. Now he made swords.

The tools of his trade were cumbersome: the forge with its fuel buckets, riddles and rakes; the single-horned anvil, set into a heavy oak stump at the right height for his knuckles, with its variously shaped elements for different tasks; the bicks, fullers and swages that were the anvil's moveable accessories; the quenching bath and the slack tub, where worked metal cooled. On racks that Lucas had made for the purpose hung his hammers, especially the crowned peen hammers that he used most often, with their slightly rounded edges that would not mark a blade as it was worked; he had also a great sledge hammer and other hammers with large, flat heads. Beside the anvil stood the vice. Close to hand were tongs in various sizes, then chisels, punches, files, a treadle-operated grinder that he had devised himself, drills and presses. All around the workplace were racks for holding work-in-progress. The fuel hut was outside, along with water butts.

To make a regular sword, first iron would be drawn out: pulled to the required length and flattened. A small tang would be formed on one end, where eventually a pommel and protective hilt would be fixed. The edge would be dressed on the anvil with glancing hammer blows, finished, then polished by hand. Some swords tapered towards the point, which affected their balance. Bringing the weight back close to the soldier's fist would make a weapon easier to manoeuvre, though at the same time it reduced the killing power available at the point. Most of the swords Lucas made had very little tapering. The civil war armies generally used swords of almost equidistant width, with neat points, longer for cavalrymen who needed to sweep down from horseback, shorter for the close hacking of infantry.

There was a great deal of work in the early stage, when the metal was worked in sections of six or eight inches at a time, being continually turned over and worked from both sides, and frequently reheated. Carbon was added to the iron, forming steel and strengthening the blade. The whole piece would be completely heated in the forge and allowed to rest through cooling, to remove stresses. Once shaped, it would be reheated again and this time cooled down extremely slowly, for many hours and perhaps a whole day. This made it soft enough for grinding the edge. Then came more heating to harden the blade again, which had to be done evenly at the cherry-red temperature, during which process it was swiftly quenched in cold brine, maybe several times until the smith was satisfied. This rapid cooling created hardness, then tempering added toughness to the steel and ensured the blade was not too brittle. To temper a sword, Lucas would clean any scale from its blade, then take a solid iron bar as long as the sword itself. The sword was placed upon the bar, back down for a regular single-edged blade; it would heat up to a blue colour before being allowed to cool naturally in the air. The result would be a tough and springy body, with a hard edge.

Lucas was a worrier. He was distressed by the incident with the King's men, and he admitted it to himself. With his mind still in turmoil, he took the current half-finished blade and prepared to continue where he had left off. He was hardening the blade. His concentration was elsewhere. That was how this sword became, if not 'a Friday job', at least a Wednesday one. In his agitation, Lucas rushed the work.

After he resumed, he decided it would never be a good one. He had already worked on it for days. He was reluctant to dispose of it and start again. He was a sensitive, honest craftsman, so he knew when to give up and abandon a bad piece; yet there were some faults he could mend. That knowledge too was part of the skill he had built up over the years. He felt in his heart that this sword was beyond saving.

The fault, if there was one, could not be seen by eye. In time Lucas grudgingly completed the weapon, added metal guard, hilt and pommel, and finally sharpened the edge. But he hated it. The sword assumed abnormal significance, coloured by the sour incident with the cavaliers. They had caused him to make a bad piece. So long as he possessed this sword he would remember their visit, but he could not be rid of it because his instinct kept telling him it was not right. If he sent it to the army, he would never know what happened, but he feared it was too brittle and would shatter. That could be the death of the man using it.

Irritated with himself, Lucas kept it back from sale. He hung it in the rafters, out of the way. It would remain at the smithy for another six months, a perpetual reproach to him. Only when Prince Rupert of the Rhine came to Birmingham to exact revenge for anti-Royalist activities, would this sword be brought out and begin its travels.