However, I was very much aware that we all served Lord Artos. Therefore, on the third morning, I approached Master Ilfor and suggested that he might like to have one or two of his smiths work along with me in making and fitting the sandals.
Ilfor at first expressed surprise at my suggestion, as if his men had only been “watching,” not memorizing the steps. Then he smiled, rubbing one large ear with two fingers as he realized that I had realized what he was about.
“We both serve Lord Artos,” I reminded him, allowing him that much leeway. “We are still learning how best to protect the feet. No foot, no horse!”
He nodded soberly at the saying and immediately delegated four of his apprentices to my tutoring. None of them were at all skeptical about the merits of the sandals, having seen once-lame horses walk, sound, out of the smithy with the fitted sandals.
By chance I heard from Master Glebus that a horse had been put down for a broken leg. So I begged to prepare one hoof so that the students would learn, as I had, from a close examination of a horse foot. A gory task, but essential if I was to be a proper tutor.
I TALKED MORE FOR the next three days than I had ever talked in my life. I sent the apprentices out to find unshod horses to practice on. Although I tried to avoid such a problem, it turned out that the one nail-bind that occurred-from a nail sunk too close to the tender part of the foot-made my four students more conscious of the damage inattention to detail could wreak.
I talked, I explained, I demonstrated. The metal fabrication was never a problem with men already skilled at forge work, nor was making the special tools required to do the actual fitting. But metal is dead; a horse is living. They had to learn how to cope with the horse, the hoof, the hammer, and the nail. Gradually, though, I could see confidence building as they acquired a certain knack in the doing.
Since I was free to move about Camelot, I did so, looking for another glimpse of the man I thought was Iswy. I had none, but then he could have been there and gone: Camelot had constant visitors, each with attendants.
“Don’t know anyone by that name,” Eoain told me when I got a chance to ask him. “Not among the stable lads.”
“Anyone new here-”
Eoain’s laugh interrupted me. “New? With all the comings and goings right now? If you’re worried about Cornix and your pony, don’t. Master Glebus is real careful about who he lets work our horses,” he added, pushing out his chest pridefully.
I certainly hadn’t seen anyone remotely resembling Iswy since that first glimpse.
“Any Cornovians?” I asked.
Eoain shrugged. “I don’t ask such questions.” Then he had a thought. “Plenty of people coming in to work out there …” And he waved at the outer courtyard.
“Iswy would work with horses.” Unless of course, I added to myself, Bericus had seen to it that no one hired him to care for animals ever again.
Eoain shook his head. “We’ve had half a dozen lads coming in and out with our guests’ horses over the past few days. If he was here, he’s gone now.”
That was all the reassurance I was likely to find, and really I had far too much else to do to fret over a man who was leagues away from Camelot now-even if he had been here one night.
MY LAST TWO MORNINGS at Camelot I spent teaching the apprentices what I had learned from Canyd of remedies for common hoof ailments like seedy toe, sand
cracks, hoof rot, and the puncture wounds that were so prevalent. They listened, but I think that most of them thought that such knowledge was redundant: They would do whatever Master Glebus or the horse’s owner required them to do.
That was a smith’s view of metalworking but not mine. Nor Canyd’s. However, the apprentices learned much and were no longer as skeptical of my craft. That, in itself, was a huge step forward.