Chapter 15
An hour later, Frederick had produced something that could, with considerable generosity, be called a hook.
"It looks like a question mark that's been stepped on," he said, examining it critically.
"It looks like a first attempt," Thomas corrected. "Which is what it is. Nobody makes anything worth keeping their first time."
"What did your first hook look like?"
"Worse than that. I was twelve, and I was convinced I knew everything, and I nearly set the forge on fire trying to prove it.
" Thomas took the hook and turned it over in his hands.
"This will never hold anything heavy, but it's recognizably a hook.
That's more than most people manage their first day. "
"You're being generous."
"I'm being accurate. Most people quit after the first hour. Most people decide it's too hard, too hot, too far outside their experience." Thomas set the hook on the workbench. "You didn't quit. That matters."
"I thought about it."
"Everyone thinks about it. The difference is whether you act on it." Thomas began banking the forge fire, preparing to close up for the midday break. "You're welcome to come back whenever you wish, if you want. We'll work on basic shapes; things that are actually useful, not just exercises."
"I thought this was useful."
"It's useful for learning. But no one needs a hook that can barely support its own weight." Thomas's mouth twitched. "When you come, we'll make nails. Everyone needs nails."
"I've never thought about where nails come from."
"Of course you haven't. You've never had to.
" Thomas wiped his hands on his leather apron.
"That's the difference between your world and ours, Your Grace.
You can go your whole life never thinking about where things come from, because there's always someone else to think about it for you. We don't have that luxury."
It wasn't said with bitterness; it was just a statement of fact. But it landed like a blow anyway.
"You're right," Frederick said. "I've never had to think about it. I've never had to think about any of it—where my food comes from, who makes my clothes, how the candles that light my rooms are produced. It's all just... there."
"It must be nice."
"It's comfortable. It's not the same thing as nice." Frederick began unfastening his borrowed apron. "I want to learn. Not just the forge but everything. How things work. How people live. All the things I've been too privileged to notice."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to be useless. I don't want to be one of those people who can only function when surrounded by servants." He handed the apron back to Thomas. "And because I think Lydia deserves someone who understands her world, not just someone who's read about it in books."
Thomas was quiet for a moment.
"Come back," he said finally. "We'll make nails."
"I'll be here."
"I know you will." And for the first time, Thomas smiled. "You're not what I expected, Your Grace. I'm not sure yet if that's good or bad. But it's definitely interesting."
***
Frederick walked back to the manor through the village, and for the first time in his life, he actually saw it.
Not as scenery to be passed through. Not as the collection of tenants and tradespeople who existed to service the estate. But as a living place, full of living people, each with their own stories and struggles and small victories.
There was Mrs Thompson at her door, the candle-seller who had been so offended at the harvest fair.
She looked at him as he passed; not with the deference he was used to, but with something more assessing.
Calculating. As if she was trying to decide what to make of this duke who kept showing up in unexpected places.
He nodded to her. She nodded back, after a moment's hesitation. It wasn't friendship, but it wasn't hostility either.
There was Robert the carpenter, hauling lumber into his workshop. He paused in his work to watch Frederick pass, his expression unreadable. Frederick nodded to him too, and received a grunt in return, which, from Robert, was practically a warm welcome.
Children were playing in the street, who scattered as he approached and then peered out from behind their mothers' skirts, curious about this strange man who looked like a lord but was covered in soot.
"Good afternoon," he said to no one in particular.
"Good afternoon, Your Grace," someone replied, but he couldn't see who, and the words were surprised but not unfriendly.
It was different. Everything was different. A month ago, he would have walked through this village like a ghost, noticed by everyone and seen by no one. Now, people looked at him and seemed to actually register that he was there. That he was a person, not just a title.
It was unsettling. It was wonderful. It was the strangest feeling he'd ever experienced.
By the time he reached the manor, his arms were aching, his shirt was soaked with sweat, and he was fairly certain he had soot in places soot was never meant to go. Boggins took one look at him and raised an eyebrow that spoke volumes.
"I've been learning to forge metal," Frederick said, before Boggins could comment.
"Indeed, Your Grace. I can see that."
"It's harder than it looks."
"Most things are, Your Grace." Boggins began the process of helping him out of his ruined clothes. "Shall I have the laundress attempt to salvage this shirt, or is it beyond redemption?"
Frederick looked at the garment, which was streaked with soot, damp with sweat, and probably never going to be quite white again.
"Salvage it if you can. If not, keep it anyway."
"Keep it, Your Grace?"
"As a reminder. On the first day, I actually made something with my own hands."
Boggins' expression flickered, just briefly, just enough for Frederick to catch it, before settling back into professional neutrality.
"As Your Grace wishes." He set the shirt aside. "Will you be returning to the forge tomorrow?"
"Yes. Thomas is going to teach me to make nails."
"Nails." Boggins' tone was carefully neutral. "How... practical."
"That's the point, isn't it? To learn practical things. Useful things. Things that matter to people who don't have servants to do everything for them."
Boggins was quiet for a moment, helping Frederick into fresh clothes with the efficiency of long practice.
"If I may say so, Your Grace, you seem different today."
"Different how?"
"Lighter. Less burdened." Boggins stepped back, examining his handiwork. "It suits you."
"Learning to make misshapen hooks suits me?"
"Learning to be human suits you." Boggins' voice was soft. "I have watched you all those years, Your Grace. I have never seen you smile the way you've been smiling lately."
Frederick didn't know what to say to that. So, he said nothing and went to find food to satisfy the hunger that physical labour had awakened in him.
But he thought about Boggins' words for a long time afterwards.
***
That night, Frederick sat in his study, the small one he preferred, and thought about the day.
About the forge and the fire and the impossible weight of the hammer. About Thomas' pointed questions and his unexpected acceptance. About Lydia, working beside him, her movements fluid and practised, where his were clumsy and uncertain.
About the village he'd walked through, and the people who had looked at him like he was starting to become real.
He took out a piece of paper and began to write. Not a letter—nothing so formal. Just thoughts, observations, the scattered impressions of a day that had changed something fundamental in him.
Today I made a hook, he wrote. It was ugly and malformed and will probably never hold anything heavy. But I made it. With my own hands. From raw metal and fire.
I've never made anything before. I've signed papers and given orders and watched other people create things on my behalf. But I've never stood at an anvil and felt the weight of a hammer and watched something take shape under my own force.
It's addictive. The rhythm of it. Strike, turn, strike again. No room for complicated thoughts. No space for worry. Just the metal and the fire and the endless attempt to shape one into something useful.
Thomas says I'll learn. He says everyone's first attempt is terrible. He says his own first hook looked like something a horse had stepped on.
I believe him. But I also think there's something more happening here. Something beyond just learning a trade.
I'm learning who I might be. Who I might become. If I'm brave enough to let go of who I was supposed to be.
He set down the pen and looked at what he'd written. It was rambling, unfocused, nothing like the precise correspondence he'd been trained to produce.
But it was honest, and that was something new.
***
The next morning, Frederick arrived at Corvenwell Manor's front door, after visiting the stables, just as Lydia was lifting her hand to knock.
He opened the door and gestured for her to enter. "After you."
Lydia stepped into the entrance hall and felt, immediately, like she'd walked into a different world.
She'd been to the manor before, of course.
Everyone in the village had, at one time or another, delivering goods, collecting payments, attending the rare formal occasions when the estate deigned to acknowledge the existence of the people who lived on its lands.
But she'd always entered through the side door, been conducted to a small receiving room, and been dismissed as quickly as business allowed.
This was different.
The entrance hall was vast, larger than the entire ground floor of her uncle's cottage, with a ceiling that soared up into shadows and a staircase that swept upward in a graceful curve.
The walls were lined with paintings in gilded frames, portraits of men and women who looked like they'd never smiled in their lives.
"It's very... big," Lydia said.