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Jesse McCree was forged in fire.
As a child McCree hadn’t known the difference between dirty and clean. His mornings started with him tumbling out of the hovel in the muddiest part of town and careening, barefoot, down the streets. He didn’t mind the sloppy sludge nor the horse dung left from traders passing through in the dawn darkness. He spent the morning playing knight with the other kids from the slums. His mother stayed home, weaving baskets, blankets and cloth while his father went off to work as a laborer for an import business. The pay was hardly enough to buy enough bread for the week, and the little money his mother made off her craftsmanship went to buying materials, clothes and other necessities.
And so by the time he was nine it was easy to justify pickpocketing. Many hardly thought twice about the dirty boy bumping into them in a major throughway. It was a relief to give his parents a handful of coins; his parents were wise enough to not question, but smart enough to know. It was better to have ill-be-gotten coin than watch your family starve.
When Jesse McCree was eleven, he was caught with his hand in a rich man’s pockets.
The church was making rounds, money was tight, taxes were high and Jesse wanted a little wooden toy that the girl from up the street had. He got desperate. The target was unassuming, didn’t look too closely at much and was only idly browsing the booths; and his pockets were very, very full. He was one of the tallest men that Jesse had ever seen. He was nearly seven feet tall, a hulking figure with bulging muscles on his arms, marred with burns and work-wizened. His face was concealed by a full, fuzzy beard that was already whitened.
A piece of pie , Jesse thinks, innocently leaning against a vendor’s booth. Won’t even feel it be gone .
A purposeful fall, a little bump, some mumbling and huffing about being so sorry, sir and please pardon me, sir . Simple.
His miniscue hand was wrist deep in his pocket when the rich man’s hand came down and gripped Jesse’s forearm in a vice.
“And what is this?” The man rumbled, deep voice and echoing like the slap of the ocean on a rocky shore. As he turned, Jesse’s eyed darted everywhere, eager for escape. His eyes slid down the man’s tunic.
A symbol flying over the towers, over the taxman’s office, on soldier’s flags as they marched off to settle territorial disputes.
A servant of the king.
The man crouched down to Jesse’s level, his heavy brow furrowed in disapproval. “Are you trying to steal the king’s coin?” He said in a low rumble, just quiet enough that Jesse could only read his lips and piece together what was being said over the frantic beating of his heart.
“No, ser,” Jesse mumbled, stuttered, barely said. He could feel the sweat trickling down the loose back of his tunic during the cool day.
“You know the price for theft of the kings gold, boy?” The king’s servant warned.
“Yes, sir, I do, ser,” Jesse began the futile act of attempting to tug his arm out.
The man down the street was hung, drawn and quartered for less than theft of the king’s gold.
To Jesse’s young humiliation, tears began to fill his eyes. The snivelling came like that, a boy of eleven and a breadwinner for his family already, and he wondered what his parents would do. Would they be able to live in peace knowing that their only son was hung for theft? Would they stay? Where would his parents go? Just twelve years prior they had fled the muslim invasion of Senorio de Valencia.
The man watched him snivel and bleat silently, his face not unsympathetic. With a deep sigh he stood to his full height. He must have been over seven feet tall. “Do you have parents?” He asked, not releasing Jesse’s arm.
Using his other arm to wipe his tears, Jesse nodded.
“Take me to them, boy,” the man ordered.
“We have no money to spare, ser,” Jesse whined. “We can’t pay you, ser. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, please, ser, let me go.”
“Take me to them, boy!” The man repeated, and Jesse, cowed, had no choice but lead the servant through the twisting streets to the hovel he called home.
His mother was outside, sweeping the entryway with a short broom, and she pulled her tunic sleeves up to her elbows when she saw the pair approaching. She was a small, but portly woman. She was deceptively strong; her biceps strained against the fabric of her sleeves. Having come from a more conservative family, she didn’t find joy in dyeing her fabric different colors like the rich women and peasants with a few extra coin did. She kept it plain, and brown, with a stained white apron over it and her long ebony hair tied back and covered with a scarf.
“Ma,” Jesse cried when he approached, and his mother’s dark eyes darted to her only boy’s arm and the king’s symbol on his captor’s tunic.
“ Yishai, what did you do?” She cried out in Arabic, pinching the side of his cheek.
He could only cry.
“Your son is a thief and a pickpocket,” The man declared, shoving Jesse off towards his mother. She caught the boy with calloused hands. “And he’s thin, like a starving calf!”
His mother did not reply, only glowered at the servant.
Finally, after a long stare off, the servant sags with a sigh. “What is your name, madame?”
His mother pulled Jesse closer, almost smothering him in her skirts. “Sancha,” she allows.
“Wilhelm. Wilhelm Reinhardt, blacksmith to His Majesty.”
Jesse could feel a sigh of relief leave him. He was only a blacksmith. That would explain much about him, including the smudges of ash and heavy gloves stored in his belt. “What do you wish from us, Sir Reinhardt?” Sancha asked cautiously.
“May we speak inside?” Reinhardt motioned towards their home, a small hut crammed between two more houses identical. It had two rooms, technically: a thin and wispy curtain separated the kitchen, main living room, and the children’s room from a bedroll for his parents. They had one stone oven powered by wood, and a crude table his mother made next to it. Likewise there was another crude table made out of the same discarded wood that had two chairs, both uneven and wobbly. Sancha glanced at it, Reinhardt, and the surrounding street. People were gawking as they walked by.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and opened the makeshift door for him. Reinhardt had to duck as he walked inside, and Jesse moved to follow them. Instead Sancha blocked him with an arm. “Stay here,” she said (once again in Arabic), and darted inside. But she was back outside in just a moment, holding a bundle wrapped in a spare tunic of his fathers. “Hold your sister,” she commanded, and slammed the door.
With no choice, Jesse sat in the muck by the house, cradled his sister close to his chest, and waited.
Within an hour, just as he was beginning to get cold and wet, his mother and Reinhardt emerged from the house. His mother had a certain stern resignation, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Reinhardt followed behind her, and instead of leaving stood politely to the side, hands crossed over one another. “Hand me Antonia,” she commanded, and he did. She cradled her young child close to her chest, rocking and cooing.
Jesse had other siblings; at least three, he could think. But they never lived past infancy. His sister was only three months old, but his mother said she was a strong child with a willful spirit, like himself. He wanted to see her walk, unlike he did with his brother Alfonso, or Garcia, or his other sister Lucretia.
Sancha bent down to kneel in the mud beside Jesse. He found it odd. She hated getting her skirt dirty. “Yishai,” she said, her tone flat and serious, but her true words disguised by their mother language.
“Mama?”
“You are going to go with Ser Reinhardt, and you are going to be his apprentice. Do you understand?” She let go of Antonia’s bottom to firmly grasp his hand. “You are going to learn a trade and be a blacksmith under the king. No--,” She said once Jesse started to cry again. “No. You will learn a trade and you will become a smart boy. You will learn to read. You will return home one day and take care of your dear Mama and Papa, and give Antonia a good life. You hear me?”
Tearfully, he nodded.
“Oh, my boy,” She pulled him into a crushing hug, Antonia between them, and fervently kissed his head. “I love you. I love you so much. Be good.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” he cried into her shoulder.
“You must.” She pried the two apart; Sancha was always a stern woman, full of tough love and realism, but there was no denying her soft heart.
That was the last time Jesse saw his family. Reinhardt took his hand and led him to the castle, and all Jesse could do was look over his shoulder to watch their disappearing figure. He had nothing to pack to take with him. His mother, tall and strong and plain, covered her face with her hand and cried.
The castle was a towering structure built of grey-washed stone. It resided on a cliff face and spilled easily into the town. The castle itself took up almost as far as the eye could see with his tall walls and spirals. The blacksmiths were tucked away in a corner under the armory, where natural light spilled through large windows. The smiths themselves had a private wing where they slept with their wives, if they so desired, but the wards and apprentices like Jesse slept with the servants in a wing separate. While common laborers, the smiths of the castle were respected as retired warriors and master artisans who served most loyally under The King. So Jesse became very acquainted with that part of the castle during his adolescence; the passageways unseen by the rich where servants scurried and worked, without all of the flare of the throne room. Perhaps if he had more freetime, Jesse would have grown curious and explored. But he led a very busy life for an eleven year old.
Being a blacksmith was hard work, and as a young boy Jesse quickly lost himself in it. At first he served as more of errand boy, heating the fire, delivering orders and doing other small tasks for Reinhardt. The blacksmith cove, as it was called, was filled with three other men, but Reinhardt led them all. They filled orders and made weaponry all day, from dawn to dusk and sometimes even beyond, and yet besides all this arduous labor Reinhardt refused to treat him as a page. Once Jesse stopped fearing his height, he soon became entranced with the man.
Reinhardt wasted no time; when he promised Sancha that he would make something of Jesse, he did not lie. Jesse was put into classes with other servant’s, pages, wards and knight’s children. The highborns were given their own private governess so Jesse never saw the prince, princess or any other royals that apparently hovered around the castle. He woke before dawn when Reinhardt fetched him (and the other apprentices) from the servants quarters, and then ran around doing mid-dawn errands such as fetching water, food, heating the fire, cataloguing orders by number, and general cleaning. And then, when the sun had finally risen into the sky fully, he would race across the grounds to class, where he spent three or so hours. He would then take home his script and sit alongside Reinhardt as the smith designed, labored, or did other things to maintain his craft.
Jesse quickly grew fond of the smith. While he was working, he would yell anecdotes over the slam of anvils and hammers. He soon learned that Reinhardt used to be a knight serving under the current King’s father, but he was gravely injured in a series of conquests years later and lost vision in one eye. Then unable to serve, Reinhardt turned back to his childhood trade of smithing. He quickly rose to the top and became head of the guild almost fifteen years later. And he told these tales, some melancholy, with great passion: even passing servants would stop and listen. He told tales of knights, kings, dragons and great conquests, but all the while he never let Jesse slack. He would help him read, if necessary, and then when Jesse had finished with all he could, Jesse would once again begin helping Reinhardt. It wasn’t until he was almost thirteen that he began to actually began to smith himself after observing.
He would do simple orders at first; mostly tools, such as nails, screws, and other things which didn’t take much finesse. Halfway into this period in his life he was approached by a knight. He paused his hammering and wiped the sweat from his brow. The knight was a very tall man with broad shoulders and thick, steady chest. He was clad in plain practice leathers but held at his side a long and masterfully crafted sword; the heat from the forge and the mid-summer sun made his dark curls slick to his forehead.
“Boy,” he commanded. Jesse, scrawny and in the midst of his life where his limbs were too long and too short and nothing did as he told, hurriedly discarded his hammer and took off his apron. “Reinhardt ain’t here,” he grumbled.
The knight threw his sword onto the work desk. “Fix this,” he commanded. The sword had rubies embedded into the hilt, gold detailing, and the straightest edge Jesse had ever seen. He carefully picked up the sword and examined it as he had seen Reinhardt do; examine the sharpness of the edge, the firmness of the hilt. There was a weakness in the middle of the blade from repeated clashing, and if not remedied the scratch could easily sever the sword. “Gonna have to wait for Reinhardt,” he said, laying the sword back down on the table.
The knight scrubbed his hand through his hair again. “Where is he? When will he be back?” he demanded.
Jesse put his apron back on and went back to attend to the fire and the half-molten metal he had been tending. “A fortnight, maybe more,” He said. “In Navarre right now.”
The knight made a disgruntled noise. “No, I cannot wait that long.”
“There are plenty of other qualified smiths, ser, ask one of them to do a patch job until Reinhardt comes back,” Jesse retorted. Throughout the years he had learned that even though he was a servant, things were not the same in the blacksmith’s cove as they were in the city. He made men’s swords, their nails, their shield, their armor; these pompous knights needed Jesse far more than Jesse would need them. Thus he was able to gain a little leeway.
“You his apprentice or something, squirt?” The knight asked. He pulled the small stool Jesse usually occupied and sat in it, legs spread.
“Somethin’ of that ilk, yeah,” he replied. He held the chain link he was forging higher into the sunlight, and then satisfied, laid it down.
“Then you fix it.” Through some miracle of higher choosing, all the hammers and anvils and the steam and the water and the yelling hubbub of the cove silented. Tall, sprawny, skinny and orphaned Jesse was left to deal with the knight. His eyes darted to the other smiths, but they had their eyes carefully turned away.
“I can’t, ser,” After carefully assessing his words, this was all that Jesse could provide. His eyes went to the sword again-- finely crafted, honed with honors, filled with the likes of jewels Jesse would never again see in his life.
“You will. And to ensure that--,” The knight reached into his belt and deposited a small pouch of coin onto the work table. Jesse’s heart shook with the sound of metal hitting each other.
He had never seen so much coin in his life.
“A down payment. Incentive, if that’s what you prefer.” The knight glanced towards the sun, as if suddenly cognizant of the passing of time. He stood and brushed off his dark, oiled leathers nonchalantly. “I have pressing business with a cohort,” he said in way of explanation. When he swung his leg over the bench, Jesse was aware that despite the knight’s simple wear he had the physique of a trained warrior. “I’ll be back for it in, say, three days?”
“Three days?” Was Jesse to simply hold off on every other order!
“If someone has a problem, tell them to talk to Reyes. What is your name?”
Jesse hurriedly shoved his hands into his apron. “Jesse,” he said after a beat of hesitation.
“Jesse? What kind of name is that?”
The blacksmith’s apprentice kicked at the ground. “The kind you can pronounce,” he told the dirt.
“Try me!”
“Yishai,” He threw it out rebelliously, a name he hadn’t spoken in years because he knew so few would hear it.
“Jesse it is, then.” Not the first time Jesse’s gotten that reaction. “Are you a hebrew?”
“Used to be, I think.”
There was a brief pause as the Knight Gabriel took that in. Eventually he shrugged off the matter, as if it was unworthy of his thought. He turned his back to Jesse and strode out the door. “Remember! Three days!”
Jesse was left with a bag of coin, a sword he didn’t know what to do with, and a dropping sense of dread.
The young apprentice had no choice but to work on the blade. If the knight were to return and discover that Jesse had gotten nothing done, he would be severely punished. He may be Reinhardt’s apprentice, but he was still a servant of the castle; and the other apprentices told him that Reyes was one of the harshest knights.
Knights usually stayed out of the blacksmith’s way. They rarely hung around after receiving their order, and a number of them were rude to the low-born artisans. Many of them came from high-born families and trained for years to serve the king. However, that did not mean that they were chivalrous or any of the other qualities afforded to a knight. Jesse had more than once been insulted or spit at by a knight.
Reyes wasn’t like that, the apprentices said. He was low-born, hailing from a farm where he did manual labor well into his adult years until the war broke out. After that he shipped out as a recruit to fight the invaders. He started a grunt, arrow fodder, but his unusual bravery and tactical mind made it so that he quickly rose in the ranks. When his commander died in one of the biggest battles of the war Reyes took over command and the army ended up crushing the enemies.
Ever since then Reyes was promoted to the Captain of the Guard and would serve as commander would there be another need for the army to deploy. He was a decorated soldier, knight, and a highly influential person in the political scheme.
But despite this, he was still harsh. He had to stop training pages because he would be too harsh. His word was law and he liked it like that.
One of his friends from the kitchen all told him this while he was leaning over the forge melding hot steel. “Great,” Jesse said, not very invested in getting his ass beat. “Ain’t you got something to do?”
Lena shrugged and reclined onto his work table. “Yeah,” she said. “But it’s only dishes. I don’t want to do ‘em.”
“You never want to do it.” Jesse did not feel good about this. He did patchwork he knew something of, mostly by watching Reinhardt, and it wasn’t going good. He quelled his rising panic and went back to the forge.
“You try bein’ a servant,” she said. “People bossin’ you around, treating you like pure shite. I hate it. Want to do something else. Something useful. I wanna be a knight!”
The metal slowly heated to a glowing red. “Knight’s ain’t useful,” Jesse replied, one foot pumping the fan to make the flames grow high and hot. “They’re trash. Rude. Highborn. Fuckin’ assholes that drop off an expensive sword with an apprentice and give ‘em three days.”
“You got one-and-a-half now!”
“I got a hammer, so you better go do those dishes.” Giggling, Lena hopped off the stool and raced through the servants door back into the kitchen. She was good company, better than many of the apprentices. She had ambitions to be a knight and nothing Jesse said could dissuade her.
He shook his head. Back to the subject at hand, or off with his head.
Reyes looked at the presented sword with an unreadable expression, and Jesse tried to not be nervous. He spent many hours laboring at the sword, in some attempt to fix it or improve it, but he ended up feeling like he did very little. Perhaps even made it worse. He had asked the other smiths for help, but many of them were too busy to do more besides offer vague pointers and unwilling to involve themselves in a potential scandal. Reyes chose Reinhardt and only Reinhardt to do his sword. No one else.
Except Jesse, in a pinch.
Reyes picked up the sword and turned his back to Jesse to examine it. He pulled off his glove with his teeth and drew his calloused, brown hand along the hilt. He tilted it to look at the straightness; his face was hidden and Jesse felt he would vomit.
“What was your name, boy?” Reyes told the sword.
“Jesse,” He answered, refusing to tremor or quiver.
Reyes turned on his heel and thrust the sword into Jesse’s hands. “Come with me, and hold this,” and he strode off towards the main yard with purpose. It seemed he had no choice but to follow.
On the way, they passed another station. A blacksmith from another country was there, serving a period in all good interest. His name was Lindholm, and he was exceedingly talented, but he didn’t want anything to do with the aristocracy and refused most custom orders. He had one long and sharp falchion leaning against his work table. “Is this complete?” Reyes asked him.
Lindholm sent him a scathing look. “Yes, but it’s not yours!” He said, too late, because Reyes had already picked it up and went off with it, and Jesse just had to follow cradling the expensive sword.
The field outside of the blacksmith’s cove wasn’t even a field; it was a plot of muddied dirt riddled with horse dung and passing servants. The pretty parts of the castle were left to the front where important visitors came through. The yard saw too much traffic to be pristine and pretty like the front garden.
Reyes stopped them in the middle of the yard, ankle deep in muck. He fastened his leather bracers tighter, popped his back, and turned to Jesse. He couldn’t read the knight’s dark eyes. “Hit me,” he demanded.
“What?” Jesse replied.
“I said, hit me,” He motioned to the opulent sword Jesse held, lavish in jewels and etchings. “With my sword. It is a fine weapon, and should do you well.” He held his own falchion aloft. “This as well. Lindholm is a master of his craft, though off putting, and I have no doubts about the quality, though mine is far superior. Hit me!” He moved to the side, sharp and deadly sword at the ready, and even though they were dirty and Reyes only had on the barest of leather armor, he looked more battle ready than any back-alley scrap Jesse had seen.
He scrambled to hold the sword. He never really had held one before, except in terms of holding it in place to hammer , and the long blade and heavy weight was unwieldy in his grasp. He sloppily mimicked Reyes pose; his feet squelched at he spread them apart. The horses, carriages, and army battalions just patterned past, ignorant to the brawl happening. The multiple languages of Spain drowned in Jesse’s ears.
Reyes swung his falchion.
He was fast, and in his eagerness to move, Jesse slipped dodging to the side. He fell sideways into the mud, staining his new tunic. He had barely gathered his barings when he had to roll over to escape another blow. “What---,” Jesse yelled. He had no idea what he was trying to say, but the panic overwhelmed him. He had to do something.
Reyes rounded on him again, no hint of emotion on his face. He looked down at Jesse cowering in the muck with an indifferent face. With an expert hand, he twirled the sword as he readied for another blow. He felt his heart like a baritone in his throat as Reyes swung down at him again.
CLANG!
Jesse barely brought his sword up in time; the falchion was lighter and smaller than the longsword, yet the newly repaired sword still made a cracking noise when the two connected. In the middle of the weakness that Jesse had mended, the sword began to split. Jesse cursed in Arabic.
The block didn’t phase Reyes. Jesse scrambled to his feet and held the sword in front of him, some semblance of defense, and Reyes struck again. And again. And again. Jesse managed to block or evade each one; the sword was long enough that it wasn’t too difficult to just tilt it and succeed. In addition he could see the way that Reye’s weight shifted and shoulder moved before each swing.
But with each swing, the sword kept cracking, and crumbling, and it was barely hanging on by a thread by the end of a quick-footed assault. The break was diagonal and occupied most of the sword. If Jesse moved the sword wrong, half of the blade would wobble as if threatening to break. Reyes was circling around for a counterattack, turning his own sword in his palm. Straight Edge, curved edge. Straight edge, curved edge.
Jesse took a hint to turn his sword as well, so that the broken edge was away from his opponent. This way, if he had to swing (and he doubted he could: his arm quickly tired of the heavy weapon) it wouldn’t break midway.
Reyes moved both hands to the hilt of his falchion, his shouldered tightened. Jesse felt the swing more than saw it; diagonal, at the part where his shoulder met his neck. There was one final clang as the swords met, and instead of backing away immediately, Reyes stayed there. He pushed the sword into Jesse’s, overwhelming him, stronger and taller and better fed.
Jesse tried to say something, anything, but all that came out was a pathetic grunt. He pushed back against Reyes, feeling attached to his head, but all it did was hurt the weapon. It began to make a noise that Jesse didn’t like, something like fall and something like the sound of Jesse’s head hitting the muck. He didn’t have a choice.
He had to fight dirty, like a feeble little streetrat scrabbling in the alley for the last piece of stale bread and biting the other boys who tried to get it.
He brought his leg sharply into the side of Reye’s knee. The knight stumbled, lowered his sword, and Jesse took his chance. He pivoted his sword and swung as hard as he could at the knights exposed rib. He wasn’t thinking about what he would do if he injured the knight and he died, he wasn’t thinking about his station as an apprentice, and he wasn’t thinking about Reinhardt.
He doesn’t know what he was thinking.
When his sword hit the sturdy leather, the swing was enough to push Reyes over, but the dulled blade didn’t cut through the leather. It didn’t even pierce it.
In fact, the sword hit his side and then fell into two pieces. Jesse stood stupefied holding the hilt and about three inches of the sword. Reyes rose groaning from the ground, mud all over one half of his face. He wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand. “You got me good,” he said, one hand going down to tenderly feel his side. “That’s going to bruise.”
“You deserve it,” he told him. “You could have killed me.”
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I was swinging like a drunken fishwive going after her cheating husband.”
Jesse didn’t respond, but held the blade closer to himself. Reyes laid his arms on his knees, looking relaxed and not at all like he just attempted to kill Jesse. “If I was in battle with that piece of shit sword, I would have died,” he said, throwing a hand at the half of the blade in the mud. “That blow you dealt wouldn’t even do anything to full plate.”
“I told you I didn’t know how to do it! I told you to wait for Reinhardt!”
Reyes laid his hands on his arms. “I know,” he said. “I just… It doesn’t matter. You have a good arm.”
“I swing hammers all day.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason for your leftie.”
Jesse pretended he didn’t hear that. “Well, now the sword is really broken. Asshole.”
“Yeah, there’s no fixing it.” Reye’s hand raked through his curls with a sigh. Jesse noticed a wedding band on his left hand, simple and steel. Easily hidden by a glove. He squinted at it, wheels turning. He didn’t hear about Reyes being married. “I’ll have to wait for Reinhardt. Damn.”
Jesse simply snorted and looked away, the hilt of the blade hidden in his arm.
“You have a good arm. You ever thought about swordcraft?”
“I’m an outsider. Parents are arabic. Fled from war. Refugees. Caught stealin’ Reinhardt’s gold. I ain’t the material,” he spat.
“And I was a farmer who fucked my hogs daily, if you believe all accounts of me,” Reyes replied without missing a beat. “I’ve been bothered to get a page. You’re the only material I’m willing to use.” Jesse made another derisive snort.
“No. I’m fine where I am.”
Reyes hummed and stood up, sloshing mud off his breeches. “Think the king would be happy if he knew that you ruined the sword he gave me when I was knighted?” Reyes wondered. Jesse whipped his head towards him and began to say something-- don’t, or you wouldn’t, or bastard hog-fucker-- but Reyes interrupted him.
“Great. I’ll meet you tomorrow at sunset.”
And Reyes gathered the bits of his sword, looking into Jesse’s eyes with something like triumph, and then marched off.
That is how Jesse learned swordplay from the best swordsman in the kingdom, learned how to read, and how to be a blacksmith in the series of twenty-five years.
His life wasn’t an exciting one.
He didn’t adventure, go to war, or marry. He stayed in a forge and made weapons all day. He served people with exciting lives. Gabe pressured him to become a knight. He knew the king, he said. Brat can’t say no to me unless he wants the entire court to come down on him.
No thanks, he said. I have an order to work on.
His skill in swordsmanship soared under the tutelage of Gabe and his partner, Jack. The two had been soldiers together in the war, and Jack was the sensible disposition to Gabe’s reckless all-or-nothing approach. Despite their differences, the two were thick as thieves and twice as capable when they stood side by side teaching Jesse how to fight.
But they were more than just tutors. They spent time with him individually, the three of them shooting the shit during lunches. Hiding from official duties. Jesse was not ashamed to say that the relationship he cultivated with the knights made a lot of difference when it came time for him to serve the king as a blacksmith.
Now he had his own shop outside of the castle. He didn’t work solely with the king, although he still did a piece of two. Reinhardt still served as head smith, and Jesse had a better time among his own kind. He had two pages, one boy and one girl from his old neighborhood, to help him out around the shop. He paid them handsomely.
He never found his family again, but he was okay with that. He had new family. Reinhardt, Gabe, and Jack always had room at their table for him.
His life wasn’t an exciting one, he thought, at least until one of the handsomest strangers he had ever seen came to him demanding a weapon he had never made.
“A what?” He said, wiping his dirty hands on his apron. He wasn’t thinking about leaving black hand marks on---
“Kanabo,” The man repeated patiently.
He was shorter, but way stockier than many Jesse had ever seen, with long dark hair pulled back and shining like polished obsidian. He had a shrewd, sharp face that had been carved just to accommodate his cheekbones and severe, reflective eyes. He was also dressed in a way that Jesse had never seen. It was similar to the clothes Jesse could remember his father wearing just after they had moved to the town; long and colorful with loose fitting pants. But the man wore a deep blue tunic that was crossed over left-to-right and revealed a white cotton undertunic. But the tunic was cut off at the sleeves, leaving just the white under-tunic showing. He wore very loose pants that matched his outer tunic, with very wide legs. All of it was secured with a band of fabric across his waist. There was a long sword holstered at his hip, and a broken weapon sitting in front of Jesse.
Jesse snapped himself out of his reverie. Business. Right. He went to examining the ‘kanabo’ in front of him. It was made of heavy wood and had sharp item spikes on one end. The handle was well worn from use. Upon closer expectation, Jesse could see several missing spikes and the beginning to a crack in the base. “You need a new one or a repair?” He asked, running a thumb over the missing divot where a spike was.
“Whatever you recommend,” the man insisted. “I can pay whatever is necessary.”
Jesse clicked his teeth and picked it up. Oof . It was heavy. He picked it up with two hands to feel it. “I won’t lie,” he said. “I ain’t never heard of nor made one of these before, or repaired one, and I ain’t comfortable saying that I can. You got a diagram? A sketch? Anything?”
The man shook his head no.
“Alright. What about your sword there, what’s wrong with it?” Jesse motioned at the mans waistband, and the man looked down at it as well. He drew the scabbard out of his belt and laid the sword, tenderly, on Jesse’s workspace. He then drew it out.
It was a long, thin, single-edged sword. The blade was silver and perfect, completely free of damage, scratches, or any sign of wear. The hilt had black leather backed by an elaborate gold brick pattern. When Jesse moved it, he saw that the hilt was marked with the image of a dragon devouring it’s own tail.
“Fine craftsmanship,” he said. “Must have cost a pretty coin, but there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I won’t use it,” the man said. He reached over the table to sheath the sword and tuck it back in his middle. “I dishonor it.”
Uh, okay.
“Uh, okay. But until you come back with something like a schematic for this weapon I can’t do anything,” Jesse explained, motioning to the kanabo. “It ain’t because I ain’t interested, because I am,” he was very interested in the way those eyes watched him. “It’s just that I’m not going to have you pay for somethin’ I can’t guarantee the quality of.”
The man nodded, understanding, and Jesse was disappointed to see his eyes lower. “Is there any in this city who might be able?”
Jesse thought. The blacksmiths back at the castle were better travelled, and perhaps had happened upon something similar. He hummed and rubbed his chin. He could have the kids mind the shop while he ran over…
“I know some people. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll tell you.”
He could have done it today, but some part of him was desperate to see the man again and he hadn’t even left.
The man nodded and turned to leave. Jesse, so desperate to see his eyes again, lunged over the table to speak to him again. “Wait! What’s your name?”
The man turned to him. “Shimada,” he said. “Shimada, Hanzo.”
“Nice to meet you, Shimada. I’m Jesse.”
“Jesse,” he bowed slightly at the waist. “A pleasure.”
And then he disappeared into the mid-morning market crowd.
“You don’t understand. He looked at me like, and his,” Jesse made a sigh and dropped his wooden spoon into his bowl of stew. He made a motion over his face and body and finally just laid his face on his table.
“It must be nice to be young,” Gabe grumped, now about fifty years old and quite disillusioned with love (except the kind that included Jack). Jack swatted him and said, “Who was he?”
“I don’t know. He called himself Shimada Hanzo and he wants this special kind of club repaired.”
That grabbed Gabe’s attention. He leaned back and crossed his arms. “A club?”
“Heavy wood, sharp points on one side. Shoulder length.”
Gabe hummed.
“I meant to go by Reinhard to see if he’s heard of it, see if I can find some resources to repair it or remake it.”
“You might,” Jack said. “He travels a lot. If he doesn’t have any idea about what it is, he might still be able to help you fix it. Apprentices never outgrow their masters,” he warned.
“I know.”
“You’re good to ask him for advice.”
“I know.”
“Are you going too today?”
Jesse looked out the paneless window to the setting sun. “It seems I have too,” he said. “He’s coming back tomorrow, to see if I’ll have anything for him.”
“Then you better find something for him.”
He didn’t.
Reinhardt said that he had no tips, as he did only metalwork, not woodwork. The other smiths said similar things, though one was able to point out the origin. “Beyond the sea, beyond the arabs, beyond the indians. Beyond even the Chinese.”
Beyond even the Chinese?
So the next morning he awaited with baited breath for Shimada to arrive, spending his time pacing the workshop and wringing his hands through the apron. He expected him at the same time, perhaps later, but Shimada arrived just a scant hour after dawn. He lets himself in, all straight lines and dark hair.
“Greetings,” he said. “News?”
“Sorry, Shimada. I have none. All I know is that you’re beyond from even China,” he pulled up a stool for Shimada and sat in one opposite of him.
“Japan,” Shimada supplied.
“Hah?”
“Japan. That is what they call my homeland, though I know it as Nihon. It is an island off the coast of China, near Korea. We are a proud people, involved in our art and culture. I am proud to be counted among them,” He said, no preamble. He took the offered seat and laid his kanabo against the stool.
Jesse spared a glance at the kanabo. Same as before. Was he sure that he couldn’t repair it? He would hate to assume but it was relatively simple looking. “I envy that,” he said. “Raised in this here city, been a blacksmith most of my life. Speaking of……,” He trailed off.
“My kanabo?” Hanzo picked the weapon up and offered it once again to Jesse.
“I didn’t find out anything about it, but I can’t lie and say I’m not intrigued.” In Shimada. “I’m willing to try my hand at it. Might make a new one. But it’ll take a while.”
“How long?”
“At least a fortnight. You’d have to find something else to hold you over whatever you need the kanabo for.”
Shimada cast a glance around the shop. There weren’t many weapons displayed, because Jesse didn’t like to flaunt his work, but there was just enough to show samples of his work. After a brief period, Shimada pointed to a longbow on the wall. “That will suffice.”
“Great. Don’t worry about paying for it, by the way.” That was the best bow he’s made yet. “I’m invested in figuring out this kanabo, now.”
Shimada once again bowed his head, a sliver of a smile on his face. “You are welcome. It is a fine weapon, but not sentimental. I picked it up the last time I was home, and have not returned since.” Shimada paused, deep in his own thoughts. “Perhaps I should switch weapons anyway,” he said, mostly to himself.
From then the two went to the front counter while they set up plan for pick up. Shimada told Jesse what he could about how the weapon should be held and swung, but cautioned that the weight of it made it hard to recover from hits. Jesse wrote that down in his notes, and the two made idle chatter about weaponry.
“How do I spell your name?” Jesse asked, charcoal hovering over his log. Shimada began to answer, but stopped short.
“What is your family name?” Shimada answered in turn.
Jesse attempted to not look stupefied, attempted not to get caught staring, attempted to adjust his trousers subtly. “Uh, don’t have one. Only noble-borns have that here,” he said. “Usually just ask for Blacksmith Jesse and you’ll find me. Ain’t a lot of ‘Jesse’s’.”
“You don’t use family names here,” Shimada repeated. “I hadn’t known. In this case, you may call me Hanzo.”
“Hanzo,” he repeated. Hanzo smiled at him, and that was when Jesse knew he was fucked.
For the course of three months Hanzo visited him. Each time Jesse had a new model of a kanabo ready, but they were not satisfactory. The first, Jesse took Hanzo to the castle training grounds. There were various knights and pages running around, sparring and practicing archery. “I’ll put a dummy in my workshop,” Jesse told Hanzo when a knight shouldered past them and nearly pushed Hanzo into the ever-present mud.
“Do not feel the need to burden yourself for me,” Hanzo said, not meaning it at all. His eyes were locked over his shoulder staring at the knight who passed them, face twisted in a ferocious snarl. “Are all here so disrespectful?”
Jesse shrugged. “They’re highborn, so yes.”
“Highborn are rude here,” Hanzo said slowly, testingly, eyes searching the crowd around them.
“Almost always. Never met a nice one, really. Never had to treat a person as an equal, only a servant or an opponent.”
Hanzo was quiet for a second. “I suppose I cannot fault that interpretation. Is this the dummy? To which we test with?” He motioned to a line of dummies, stuffed with straw and suspended with wooden sticks.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. At the moment there was a series of pages messing with them, batting them with their dulled swords. “They’ll move once we come. We’re taller than they are, and therefore scary.” Jesse grabbed Hanzo’s upper arm and began to steer him in the right direction. His heart soared, even when Hanzo gently detached himself.
“I remember being afraid of older people,” Hanzo replied musingly. “My father was perhaps the worst.” The pages scrambled as soon as they saw Jesse, as he promised.
“They are,” Jesse agreed. He spun a dummy to face Hanzo. “Go ahead and hit it.”
Hanzo did not even hesitate. He swung the kanabo down so strongly and suddenly that Jesse had to dodge out of the way. The impact from the heavy weapon destroyed the dummy. It bust through through the solid wood, tore the canvas outside of the dummy and sent straw sailing.
“Damn,” Jesse said, and Hanzo laughed, loud and clear. With a crack, he pried the kanabo out of the wood, and to Jesse’s chagrin, the majority of the spikes were missing. “Damn!” He repeated. “Going to have to try again,” he said. “Sorry.”
“The balance was off, regardless.” With an apologetic shrug, Hanzo pressed the broken kanabo into Jesse’s hands. “This was to only be a short visit. I have other things I must attend too, and I am afraid that your infectious, ridiculous attitude distracted me. If you will pardon?” He then turned heel and strode off through the crowd, walking with a speed Jesse hadn’t seen before, and Jesse was left starstruck.
The third time was nearly a month later. The kanabo had been ready for an upwards of two weeks, but Hanzo had simply disappeared in midair until one morning, Jesse walked into his shop to find Hanzo half collapsed onto his work table, drooling heartily and in an undignified manner he didn’t realize Hanzo could manage. The bow he gave him and his sword was laid up beside him, and everything was very peaceful.
Then he noticed the white bandages around Hanzo’s midsection and his discarded tunic.
“Oh, fuck,” he said.
Several days later, Hanzo is set up in Jesse’s bed recovering. He works as a mercenary, he explains. He spent much of the last month in Africa helping settle a territorial dispute, and on his way back he was unfortunately injured. His attempts to find a doctor were ill-founded, and he nursed it on his own for a time.
“You got have gotten fever,” Jesse chides. Hanzo dismisses him with a click of his tongue. “But I did not,” he replies
“Only because I have friends in high places,” he stresses. At Jesse’s further insistence, Hanzo’s expression slowly sours. When he first woke he was confused, but amiable and happy to see Jesse. Not for long.
“How aristocratic of you,” he sneered. He turned his face away. “I thought you hated aristocrats, but now you flaunt your connections to the court.”
“Don’t turn it around on me like that,” Jesse spat back. “You’re my friend and I did what I gotta to save you.”
“Friend? You do not even know me,” Hanzo pushed the covers off himself and slid his feet off the side of the bed. He was dressed down just to a spare pair of breeches Jesse lent him, and Jesse’s mouth went dry at the sight of him. He sprang to full height, half wanting him to stay and half wanting him to go.
“I-- I would like too! And you can’t leave yet, you’re hurt,” He said. “Just because you got all fucking angsty for whatever reason doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me and leave!”
“Oh, so you can control when I stay and when I leave?” Hanzo wobbled to his feet and retrieved his discarded clothing. He dressed himself with deadly efficiency, tying knots and sliding into fabric faster than Jesse could process.
“No! Listen, you stubborn bastard--,”
“Then speak!”
The mere purpose in Hanzo’s voice shushed him. “If you have something to say, then say it.”
Jesse said nothing. He didn’t know what to say.
Hanzo left.
After that, Jesse looked twice at any shadow who passed over his workshop. A glint of black hair, a blue tunic… Nothing. It seemed that Hanzo was chasing the corners of his life while running out of it.
“It’s stupid,” Jesse says, punctuating the statement with a hammer blow. The sword below him is nondescript in comparison to Hanzo’s kanabo. It’s a simple longsword, regular make, with some stupid family emblem on the pommel, a complicated spiral work of gold for the hilt and a house adage engraved on the hilt. The customer was a puffed up noble who stared down his nose at greasy, dirty Jesse and attempted to pay him almost two-hundred gold less than what Jesse considered the minimum.
He’s lowborn. Not cheap.
“It is not,” Reinhardt retorts. He’s sitting across from the anvil on the stool Hanzo sat on once, arms crossed and just observing. Useless. He could help.
“I barely knew him,” Jesse replies, yanking the sword off of the anvil and thrusting it into the water. Steam quickly fills the small hot. “What, he was pretty and told good stories so then we were betrothed? Right.”
“Maybe you miss him for good reason,” Reinhardt replied, unphased. He fans a gargantuan hand in his face to rid him of the steam. “Maybe a subconscious part of you realized you were letting something important go.”
“What bullshit,” Jesse replied without preamble. He pulled the sword out and examined it: it was a good base, but would need more layers. For now Jesse stabbed it into the forge and sat down at his work desk to work on a schematic. “You’ve been listening to the bard love songs. You don’t even got a girl.”
Reinhardt made an uncomfortable noise.
Jesse turned back to look at him. “Do you?” He said, suspicious. The misery of hanzo-not-being-there-to-stare-at disappeared.
“An envoy from the caliphate,” Reinhardt said carefully, musing over his words. “Was at the castle a few fortnights ago. She was well-spoken and travelled, and we hit it off immediately. We have been exchanging letters since then.”
“A muslim?”
“Yes,” Reinhardt said. “Her husband died from illness, and she has one daughter. Fareeha. Her name is Ana.”
“Ana,” Jesse mused, trying to name in his mouth. “I’m happy for you.”
Part of him wanted to stand up and congratulate the man who had practically raised him, but just the thought of a relationship dimmed him. He sat back down, picked up his charcoal, and looked uselessly at the schematic. Half finished. Useless. The beginning of a body, something of an edge…
Reinhardt hauled himself out of his stool and went to peek over Jesse’s shoulder. “What is this?” He said, softly as he could manage.
“A kanabo. Like the one I told you about,” He replied glumly, tracing his pencil weakly along a line of the kanabo on his parchment. “I never finished it. He just left it here.” It was sitting, unused, by Jesse’s cot.
Reinhardt scrutinized it. “It looks fit,” he said. “Forget the details. Follow your instinct. I,” he announced grandly, reaching one paw to grab the hilt of the slowly heating sword. “Will be taking this.”
Jesse’s chair clattered to the floor. “Hey, you can’t--,”
“I can,” Reinhardt enounced carefully. “And I will. Good night, Jesse. Finish that kanabo.” He dunked the sword into the water quickly, just to cool it, and while the steam filled the shop, he left.
Jesse eyed the molten metal still sitting in pan in the forge.
Maybe he will finish the Kanabo.
Almost six months on the dot, the shop was closed. The door was shut for the day, and through the slanting orange light coming through the cracks in the woodwork. Jesse was busy counting the clink of coin, one-two-three-four.
Three solid knocks on his front door.
“Closed!” He called back. “I know how to use a sword, so you better get if you think you can rob me.” He said this with no real investment, bent over the front table counting the coin.
The door opened anyway. Jesse sighed and rubbed his temples. The other hand reached under his counter for the sword he kept there.
Someone dropped something on his table. Jesse peeked through his eyelashes. It was a scroll of parchment, tied with a long gold ribbon that draped all the way off the worktable. His eyes followed the ribbon to the figure, shorter but stocker, face dimmed by the setting sun.
“I went and got this,” he said. “For you.”
Shaky hands went to unravel the scroll. “From Japan?” The ribbon was silk and felt like running water over his scarred hands.
“Yes,” he said. “A long trip.”
Inside was one of the most detailed diagrams for a weapon Jesse had ever seen. The kanabo diagram in front of him went into things such as the materials and the appropriate welding techniques. “This is beautiful,” he breathed. “But I already finished your Kanabo. Tested it out myself.”
Something like joy, but not quite that, something like admiration but not that either shined in Hanzo’s eyes. Jesse had never seen the reflection of himself so clearly reflected in Hanzo’s sepia eyes.
“How much do I owe you?”
It came out before Jesse could stop it. “A kiss.”
“Deal.” And he kissed him.