The following afternoon, Jon stood between the unfinished hammer frame and its drive shaft, sleeves rolled above the elbow. A leather apron covered his coat; his hair was tied clear of the machinery. The sluice was shut. Ewan waited beside the disengaging lever while Bennard turned the shaft by hand and Woods watched the new bearing settle beneath its weight.
It moved a quarter-turn and tightened. Bennard stopped.
Jon worked the shaft backward, then sighted along the bearing seat. The far timber had settled. He levered it up while Bennard turned the shaft; Woods slipped oak packing underneath until it ran freely. They left room for later adjustment and moved the disengaging handle within reach of the hammerman's place, clear of the falling head.
By supper Jon had grease beneath both cuffs. He washed and joined Arthur over cold beef and mustard while Wylla examined his coat.
"Does it turn?" Arthur asked.
"Freely. We will couple the hammer after Woods finishes the braces."
Wylla held the coat to the light. "You have grown through this one as well."
"The sleeves were short before today."
"Aye, and you told me they were handier for working." She folded it across her knees. "Mairi shall have it tomorrow."
"I may be late for dinner. William wants a hand with the Waynwood clock before they close the case."
"Then send word before we carve the beef," Wylla said.
Jon leaned back while she told him of a kitchen maid's wedding. Arthur knew the groom's father and asked after his broken leg. For a little while no one wanted a drawing or a decision. Later Jon fell asleep listening to the run through his open casement, before Wylla put out the lamp.
A fortnight later, Jon brought the hammer under load.
The first blow flattened the orange end of the bar. The second jarred soot from the rafters. Jon felt the timber shift through the soles of his boots and saw the leather guide pull sideways.
"Disengage."
Ewan pulled the lever. The hammer fell once more, then lay still while the wheel turned on. Bennard drew the bar clear, and his mate shut the sluice. Across Miller's Run, men had stopped their mattocks to listen.
Jon waited for the wheel to still. "Woods, bring the lifting bars. No one under the helve until it is shored."
Jon knelt beside the anvil block. One corner stood clear of its bed, and a thin thread of water ran from the gap.
Otho pushed a sliver of wood into the seam. It came out wet. The floor had drained, but water had found the softer clay beneath the block.
They lifted it and dug down to firm ground. Jon and Otho carried a drain from the new bed to the lower channel while Woods widened the bracing and Ewan repaired the displaced guide. This time they loaded the bed with weighed stones. Otho stretched a cord from sound ground and measured each corner beneath it.
"I would have made it broader," he admitted, bringing Jon the figures. "I should have looked underneath."
"Take the heights again in the morning." Jon handed back the sheet. "We need it to stop sinking before we try a blow upon it."
Two corners settled overnight. After another day beneath the stones, neither moved. They began with the hammer raised only a little, Jon watching the drive and Otho the bed. Woods kept his men clear.
Nine days after the failure, Ewan brought a hot bar beneath the head again. The bed held through the loaded trial. Otho checked the corners before he left the cord, then raised a hand to Jon.
The men who had dug it out watched the bracing for another lurch. It held as the bar lengthened beneath Ewan's tongs. A striker beside Bennard slowly lowered the hand hammer he had brought.
Bennard fetched the next bar, yellow beneath its dark scale. Jon had him lower the sluice a little and helped Ewan find the stroke. Woods measured the drawn length; Ewan caught Bennard's sleeve. "Fetch the heavy stock. My lord, stay for that one."
Jon stayed. Afterwards the striker asked for the tongs. Ewan showed him where to stand and kept a hand upon the disengaging lever while he tried the next bar.
Bennard caught Jon at the door when they broke for food. Soot had lodged in the grey of his brows, and the heat had reddened his long face above the close dark beard. "My lord, may I write to my father? Only to tell him what I have seen. He will scarcely credit it."
"Write about the work. The drawings stay here."
"Aye, my lord."
Jon wiped his face upon his sleeve and called Ewan to eat. The smith had put another bar into the hearth. He took it out reluctantly, still looking back at the hammer as he followed them.
By then carters were asking whether their charcoal went to the clock yard or the Blackworks. The name had begun at the alehouse: Lord Black's works beside the black water. Jon heard it at the gate and took it up himself.
The Blackworks occupied both banks below the Old Watch. Ore and old iron entered at the northern gate; charcoal came by the eastern lane to a raised dry store. Beyond the ore shed, roasting hearths stood downwind of the yards. The tall furnace had its own stone enclosure. Finery hearths, hammer house, armour room, file benches and proof court followed the water, with a ditch and bare strip separating every hot roof from the timber stores.
A carter's shovel exposed Walder's fraud. Rich red stone filled the upper sacks; underneath lay wet rubble and earth. Ewan emptied the rest beside the wagon and sent for Jon.
"There is always waste," Walder said.
Mikken, visiting from Winterfell, picked up a grey lump and broke it with a hammer. There was little in the fresh face that interested him. He set it beside the red stone without speaking.
Jon picked up one of the wet stones. "You sold me iron ore. You will not be paid for earth."
"The carters have crossed half the North."
"Their wages come from your bond. Return my earnest and take your load away."
Walder appealed to Eddard, who had stopped by the scale on his way to the armour room. Eddard looked into the emptied sacks and told Poole to inspect the trader's last delivery to Winterfell.
Before sunset Walder had agreed the repayment with Abel. Jon barred further purchases from him and went back to the furnace.
In the weeks that followed, the furnace men rejected another poor load and sent for better ore from the western hills. Empty stalls in the ore shed filled again before the first full casting.
Before the tall furnace was lit, Jon laid out the trial pieces beside it: brittle casting, refined iron, steel. Ewan knew the stages; he doubted how much sound material they could carry through them all.
Bennard picked up the casting. "My father would have sent the seller away with this, my lord."
"So would I, if he sold it as bar iron." Jon put the refined piece into his hand. "You worked this yesterday. The tall furnace will give us more iron from the ore, but the finery hearths and hammer must keep up. A heap of casting is no use to Noll."
"Nor will it be a little heap if this works," Ewan remarked.
Jon showed them the space left for another hearth. Bennard paced the passage to the hammer while the furnace foreman sent two charcoal men round by the farther door to clear it. Bennard kept the trial pieces beside the entries in his furnace book; Jon wanted samples from the full charges set against them.
On the charging platform, two men waited with baskets. Jon checked the roasted ore and limestone, then made the charge man repeat the amounts. He was to keep those measures, however much room remained at the throat, and wait for Bennard's word before loading again.
The paired bellows boards rose and fell without the slowing of tired men upon the levers. Through the opening hours Jon went between wheel, hearth and sinking charge. When the relief arrived, he kept the first charge man to watch his replacement fill the baskets, then sent him to eat. Elspeth's boy had brought onions and bread; Jon took his share to the wheelhouse, where Bennard explained the blast he had settled upon.
Near midnight Ewan called him to the lower opening. Slag had run first. Now the metal followed, filling the branching sand channels with a light that painted the men's faces orange. One of the hammermen stepped forward before the heat stopped him. He had held iron in tongs all his working life; he watched it run past his boots and said nothing.
Jon stood beside Ewan until the last channel filled. The old burn at the smith's mouth showed pale against his blackened skin.
"Smith preserve us," Bennard whispered. His hands had come together against his chest.
Ewan wiped his mouth and leaned towards Jon. "We shall need the finery men working in turns when this has cooled. I can take the first."
Jon drew him back as the heat strengthened. His own heart was beating hard. He gripped the smith's shoulder, and Ewan looked from the casting to him and laughed.
Ewan took off his leather cap. He looked suddenly tired, and older without it. "I shall want more room by that hearth."
"You shall have it. Show Woods where before he lays out the next bench." Jon looked along the cooling branches. Kept working, this furnace could supply all Noll's benches. He wanted to stay until the glow had gone, but the night crew were ready. He checked them with Bennard and left.
In the morning Bennard broke a thin branch of the casting with a sledge. It snapped as the trial pieces had. Ewan took it to the finery hearth, where the blast burned out much of the carbon that made it brittle. Beneath the water hammer he worked the softened mass into iron bars, driving out the slag.
Those bars went into a long fireclay chest with crushed charcoal. Sealed and heated for days, the charcoal would put carbon back into the iron until it became steel. Bennard drew out trial bars to judge the change. When they opened the first full charge, its bars were hard outside and softer at the heart. Ewan cut, stacked and welded them under the hammer until the difference was worked through.
A leaking chest spoiled one charge. A weld opened in another. Bennard repaired the lining; Ewan shortened the later heats and cut open doubtful welds before they could reach Noll's bench. Five weeks after the first casting, they had three bars they were willing to give the armourer.
Noll's square, clean-shaven face remained grave while he cut his pieces. Mikken chose the files and watched the hardening. One strip bent far before tearing; another held a harder edge under blows. The plate strip survived its quench and sprang back under pressure. Noll flexed it once more, then set it beside his patterns.
Jon passed the tested strip to Bennard, who had stopped writing.
"Keep your notes. I want you able to teach the next man."
Bennard set the strip beside his half-filled page and left room beneath his drawing for another trial.
Mikken chose his own bars for the following week's trial. Afterwards he counted the bundles Noll had passed for plate. "Good steel comes to Winterfell in a little chest. We put it aside for the work that deserves it." He turned the last trial piece over. "You mean to give this to every lad with a spear?"
"To every man I have sworn to arm," Jon said. "Noll is making their helms now."
Mikken looked towards the armour room and asked whether his eldest apprentice might spend a few days at the forge.
"He may learn at the armour bench," Jon said. "Noll can use another pair of hands."
Mikken bowed his head. "I will send him tomorrow, my lord."
Ewan tapped the stacked bars. "The water never asks for ale."
"It asks for bearings." Woods had come to the doorway. "And you ask for ale often enough for both."
Jon grinned with the others, but stayed by the bars. Beyond the wall, the potter was still trying clays for covered crucibles. Two had slumped; a third had survived empty. Until one could hold molten steel, the finer stock Jon wanted for tools and springs would have to wait.
The armourers already had enough sound steel for their work. Jon sent the best to Noll for armour and edges, tougher bars to spear sockets, helmet bowls and javelin shanks, and soft iron to the nailmakers, cartwrights and tool benches. The hammer drew stock quickly; shaping and tempering a blade still took a smith days.
The first hundred helmet bowls stood in five rows outside the armour room, dull grey beneath oil. Their edges, liners, nasal bars and cheek pieces were unfinished. Rodrik Cassel stopped his horse to count them, dismounted and leaned forward to count the rear row.
"All for your men?" he asked.
"For the next two spear centuries," Jon said.
Rodrik lifted one bowl. Noll had left it thicker over brow and crown, thinner behind the neck. "My father armed men with boiled leather when steel caps could not be found."
"Take one to Winterfell," Jon said. "Have Mikken fit it and tell me what your men make of it."
Rodrik turned the bowl in his hands. "They will want the other ninety-nine."
Rodrik asked what measures Noll needed for Winterfell's men. Jon took him to the bench before he rode home.
The foot harness went over a thick quilted jack, with breast and back plates, overlapping protection at belly and hip, and a steel helm. Mail collars and sleeves went first to officers, front ranks and exposed posts; the ringmakers could not keep pace with the plate.
The household's repaired mail shirts went beneath armour fitted to body, arms and legs. Tomas tried his in the saddle, upon the stair and with a weighted sack. His right shoulder caught during an overhead cut, and Noll marked it for alteration.
Jon helped Tomas free his arm. "Three measured cuts for the foot, Noll, adjusted at the straps. Begin with the men between sizes before you cut the next lot."
Visitors who had come to hear the clocks began stopping at the armour racks. Lord Cerwyn arrived with his master-at-arms and found Jon sitting upon a low stool, holding a breastplate against a swordsman while Noll judged its lower edge. Jon finished before rising to greet him. The man remained at the bench in his quilted jack, uncertain whether he should bow with half his harness unfastened.
"Stand easy," Jon told him. "Lord Cerwyn has come to look at the iron."
"And its price," Medger said. He set his gloves beside a row of unfinished bowls. "How soon could you have fifty helms ready?"
Medger's master-at-arms asked Noll for a fitted cap and examined its turned edge and liner holes while the swordsman moved his head beneath it.
"Abel keeps my accounts," Jon said. "He can give you the terms. I will promise the helms when Noll has set aside the issue for my own men."
Medger sent for Abel before he left. His master-at-arms stayed through the next fitting, asking how the cheek straps could be replaced by a man upon the road.
Wyman Manderly's armourer came the following week. He spent a whole day watching plate emerge beneath the hammer and offered twice the stated price for the next hundred. A Bolton factor asked Woods what wage would tempt him east.
"Would I choose my own men?" Woods asked.
"The yard would be yours."
Woods heard him out, his rule idle between his hands. At last he said he was in Lord Black's service and took the man to Abel.
Jon sold nails, tools, hinges, bars, and a limited number of helms once his own men had theirs. He kept the furnace designs and trained smiths in his service. Requests for ironwork gathered on Abel's desk.
Abel brought him the Manderly offer before sealing the reply. "Enough to add another bench. Shall I name a later delivery?"
Jon read the figure twice. "Once three of our centuries are armed. Tell him I will set a date when Noll can give me one."
"His armourer also asks for a drawing of the hammer." Abel held out the second sheet.
"Not for sale."
Abel amended the reply and Jon signed.
By the first hard frost, forty-seven people drew regular wages from the Blackworks. Eleven were smiths or armourers. Six kept furnaces, charcoal, and ore. Woods divided carpenters between wheel, cases, shafts, and buildings. Women from Winter Town cut liners, quilted jacks, waxed thread, and set rivets at benches made to their height. Boys fetched charcoal, worked the files and learned to keep their hands clear of the hammer. At the armour benches, the masters turned their pieces towards the light before passing them on.
The alehouse complained of soot upon its washing and doubled its stew pot. Two crofters abandoned poor strips of land to earn winter silver and discovered the Old Watch still required them to return for harvest service owed to Winterfell. A widow named Bessa took three lodgers, bought a second goat, and threatened to skin the next armiger who wiped lampblack upon her wall. As charcoal grew dearer, Jon put his forester in charge of opening new coppices and protecting the young growth. On pay days the bread stalls stayed open later, and the alewives filled benches that had stood empty a year before.
Along the road to Winter Town, empty houses filled before new frames rose on plots where sheep had grazed among fallen stones. A smith from the Cerwyn lands was moving in with his wife and children. The smaller child followed their household chest through the doorway, carrying the iron pot in both arms.
A bootmaker had set a glazed window above his bench, with children's shoes upon the lower shelf. Farther on, a woman from Mairi's cutting room stopped Jon's horse to thank him for giving her eldest work. It had paid for her roof before the rains. Her youngest called from the new upper window; she looked up sharply, remembered to curtsey and hurried home.
Jon's horses knew the stops now. He spent the morning at the Black Yard on a striking train, ate at Winterfell with Bran arguing beside his chair, and reached the Blackworks in time for Noll's inspection of the next helms.
Two bowls showed seams after raising. Noll split them open for the smiths and put the rest of that iron aside. Hewyn arrived with the next fitting list and stopped beside the broken metal.
"Does this put back the field march?"
"The men keep their old caps until these are right," Jon told him. "We march on the day appointed."
Twelve days later sound helms had passed Noll's trials. One spearman turned over the leather cap he had brought from home, feeling its worn crown before putting it away.
That morning Mairi brought six women, a wrapped pole and a roll of wool broad enough to cover Jon's table. Beneath the armour-room lamps she shook out a plain black field.
"The borders are doubled, my lord. Tomas asked for a stronger hoist."
Jon tested the edge between his fingers. "Good. Bring the pole."
Tomas helped the women spread it clear of the floor while they fastened it. Mairi had brought new cloth for the six century flags as well. Their black cloth had faded through marches and wet drills; the white numerals and spear and shield badges would be sewn onto the replacements.
Mairi nodded to the women. They opened the second bundle: fifty narrow sable shoulder cloaks, each cut to clear a sword arm and backed at the clasp. Beside them, Noll's benches held the first six complete household harnesses—dark steel from helm to sabaton, mail filling throat, armpit, and groin, the plates shaped for saddle and foot rather than tournament display. Round shields rested against the wall, black-faced and uncharged.
Ewan came in carrying the tested pieces for Noll, but stopped beside the six household harnesses. He lifted a breastplate and turned it to see the inside. Then he looked down at the bent strips in his other hand.
"We made all of it here." A grin drew at the old burn beside his mouth. "I could have stood in a lord's armoury and wondered who had paid for these."
"I could trust the next bar to take the hammer as well as the last," Noll answered.
Ewan set his strips beside the armour. "I want to try thinner bars in the next chest, my lord. They should take the change sooner. And when one of those clay pots holds, I want to be there."
"Lay out the charges with Bennard. Keep the trial bars." Jon made room for Mairi's women to carry the flag through. Ewan was already calling for the foreman.
When the new banner rose above the proof court, workers and their children filled the gate without a bell calling them. Candidates waiting for Hewyn joined two Winterfell guards at the racks; one guard called the other to see the shoulder joints. Jon came over. "Fit Tomas again," he told Noll. "At first bell tomorrow, the armour goes to the yard."
* * *
That night Wylla found Aries asleep outside her chamber with Patch across his feet.
He had brought his blanket and folded it too narrowly to cover his knees.
Wylla crouched beside him. He woke at her touch and came up with both arms over his head.
"It is me," she said.
He let the arms fall. For a moment he could not look at her.
"Bad dream?"
"No."
She waited. Patch stood, stretched and pressed his nose into the blanket.
"I heard you go," Aries said at last.
"To the linen room. Mairi needed help with the blankets."
"You were gone long."
Wylla sat beside him on the stair. He moved nearer without lifting his face. She put the blanket over his knees and tucked the cold foot beneath it.
"You could have come and found me."
"I wasn't looking."
"No?"
He shook his head. She let him have that. After a little while he leaned against her arm, and she gathered him close enough that his cheek rested upon her shoulder. The puppy lay down again.
Jon came to the landing carrying an unfinished letter. He stopped when he saw them. Aries made to straighten, but Wylla kept her hand at the back of his head.
"He will have his sleep before any more errands," she said softly.
"I came for the spare candle."
"On the shelf."
Jon took it and withdrew. He had lain against that same shoulder after waking frightened, and had no wish to make the boy explain himself before his lord. In the morning Aries arrived early with Jon's boots and said nothing of the stair. Before going out he set Wylla's little footstool beside her chair, where she could rest her feet while she sewed.