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Being a slave was already driving me mad. The urge to kill someone was constant, but I restrained myself. I knew perfectly well what the punishment would be—and worse still, it would not end with me. It would extend to my parents, to anyone who happened to be close to me.
So I used what little authority I had in the smithy to turn his life into a living hell.
The next day, I began sabotaging his work.
"Master… the rings are badly cut," I said, showing him several of them, deliberately broken while I worked.
"Let me see that… they were cut wrong…" the blacksmith muttered after examining dozens of defective rings. Without saying anything else, he went straight to the bastard.
He struck him on the head with a stick.
"You call this work? Do you think I have all the time in the world to fix your mistakes?" he shouted, shoving the broken rings in his face.
The boy tried to justify himself, pointing at me.
"What did I tell you about complaining in my forge?" the blacksmith replied, throwing a rag at him. "Clean the floor—and make it spotless."
With that small detail, I managed to remove him from the position he had struggled so hard to obtain, cutting rings.
For the rest of the day, he did nothing but scrub the floor, wiping away soot and water stains again and again.
When I saw another Bulgarian apprentice struggling to carry a bucket of water, I made sure to slam into him with my hip and knock him over. The collateral damage was perfect: the bastard ended up soaked, and the floor was flooded.
"What are you staring at like an idiot? Work," I told him in Bulgarian, pointing at the puddle he had made.
I took advantage of every opportunity to pile more work on him. At lunchtime, the blacksmith was still so angry with him that he gave him no food at all. While we ate, he only watched, starving. I enjoyed every second of it.
The rest of the day continued normally, though the blacksmith decided to forge more iron when he noticed we were starting to run out of material for the mandrel. He ordered the work to be kept at full capacity and decreed that the miserable bastard would be the only one responsible for carrying all the sacks of charcoal.
They forced him to haul them alone, without help. I watched his legs and arms tremble as he kept working until exhaustion.
I simply kept doing my own work. Joining rings, focused, I managed in just a few hours to completely finish one arm of the mail shirt—something that had taken me four days to complete before.
"Excellent work, Basil… perfect as always. I don't know if you had experience with this before, but if God allows it, you will be a renowned blacksmith when you grow up. It took me three years to reach a similar level. What you have is natural talent," the blacksmith said, examining my work.
"Thank you, master," I replied, my head lowered.
"Look, soon we'll be working on lamellar armor. The master will bring other smiths from the north and expand the forge. He has finally understood what a good mail shirt can do, and that what his field smiths were making was nothing but garbage. So it's possible we'll begin working on even more complex armor, where we can truly put your skills to the test," the master said, looking at me with a faint smile.
"Yes, master," I replied.
Days passed, then months. The seasons changed again, and planting time returned. The bastard who had once shown so much satisfaction was never seen again. After two weeks, the master had expelled him from the forge for multiple errors in his work, many of them the result of exhaustion and hunger. Without the food the blacksmith used to give him, he grew weaker every day, until finally, on one occasion when I accompanied the master to see the local charcoal burner, I saw him working in the fields alongside his father.
Apparently, they had grown tired of his failures. I had obtained my revenge without spilling blood. He had been given a single chance to change his life—and he had wasted it. Now he would be nothing more than a starving peasant for the rest of his life… when he could have been a blacksmith with steady work.
The master allowed me to work with him on a new project: swords. It was clear that this was not his specialty—that his true strength lay in armor—but even so, I learned to forge blades by hand. In my previous life I had done it with a power hammer; here I had to adapt to the slow rhythm and precise blows of manual work.
During that time, the promised Bulgarian blacksmiths arrived. There were several periods where, for two weeks at a time, it was not necessary for me to participate directly. Everyone knew I was the blacksmith's apprentice, and the guards never forced me to work in the fields. From time to time I helped by moving materials for the forge, which on more than one occasion took me to the nearby village.
Although there were written signs in what appeared to be Greek, I honestly did not understand the alphabet, so I could not determine with certainty where we were.
However, while accompanying the blacksmith to the market, I managed to see a church. It appeared to still be functioning. Most Bulgarians did not follow branches of Christianity, but rather adherents of a different religion, linked to Tengrism. Still, that was where the first door opened for me to learn written Greek.
Instead of following my usual routine of going into the forest to look for edible herbs and take the opportunity to make daggers, I headed toward the church. I wanted to speak with the local priest, who at first glance did not seem to be doing well under Bulgarian rule.
The church—or rather, a small chapel—was in poor condition. Almost everything was missing. The stained glass had been stolen, anything that looked like gold had been ripped out and replaced with wooden utensils. It was clear that many things had been taken by force; shadows remained on the walls where other objects had once hung.
"What is the matter, good young man? Have you lost your way?" the priest asked in Bulgarian, pulling him from his thoughts as he looked over a large open book in front of him.
"Oh… I thought you would speak Greek…" I replied, somewhat surprised.
The priest studied me carefully.
"Of course I speak it… you are… yes, I suppose that fits. I cannot hide anyone here; it would put the House of Our Lord at risk. I am sorry," he said calmly, his gaze lingering on my torn clothes.
"I have permission from my… master," I said, pressing my lips together as I uttered that word.
"Oh… strange. Bulgarians are not usually good… owners of people, these pagans," the priest commented, grimacing slightly as he closed the book.
"I would like… I would like to learn to read Greek," I said, looking him straight in the eye.
The priest looked surprised. He bit his lip and glanced up at the ceiling for a moment.
"Of course… of course… let me see if I have something… yes, I do have one… where did I leave it? I have no ink left… ah… charcoal will do," he murmured, moving through the disorder of the chapel until he showed me a piece of papyrus and a chunk of charcoal.
Learning was important, especially when everyone around you was illiterate. The priest knew how to speak, read, and write Latin, Greek, and Bulgarian. Apparently, a more formal Bulgarian civil code and lexicon had been introduced not long before, and he had learned them with the intention of evangelizing the Bulgarians. He had not had much success in that goal, but for me it was exactly what I needed.
From my parents I had learned that I was born in the year 811 of Our Lord, and with the priest I finally understood the year we were living in. It was 822, which meant I was eleven or twelve years old, depending on the exact time of my birth.
Thus, my routine changed. Instead of going to the forest, I began moving through the village and learning. For a full year I learned to read, to write, and to use conjugations and structures. The most difficult part was written Bulgarian; the letters felt strange and hard to grasp. Even so, twice a week I studied Greek and written Bulgarian.
Most days I worked as a blacksmith, and on others I learned to read and write properly. I had lived among Bulgarians since I was three years old, so speaking the language fluently was nothing unusual. Over time, my accent came to sound native.
When the year 823 finally arrived, I was writing a letter for the priest. It was to be sent to Pliska, the capital of the Bulgarian Empire, with the intention of requesting an audience with the kan in order to attempt to evangelize him.
Then I heard the sound of metal inside the chapel.
I stopped writing and looked up. A dozen men in lamellar armor entered. I immediately recognized my master.
At first it seemed he had come to speak with the priest, but his gaze soon fixed on me. He frowned.
"What is he doing here? He should be working in the forge," the Bulgarian lord said angrily.
"Župan… ah… the young man says he has your permission to visit this house of prayer," the priest replied nervously, his Bulgarian marked by a Greek accent.
The župan walked toward me.
"You, Basil… why are you not working in the smithy?" he asked in Bulgarian.
"The work ended for today. I nearly finished the entire mail shirt and we ran out of rings. The iron shipment was delayed, so we could not continue and the work was set aside for the moment. The master told me that you, my župan, allowed me to move freely on your lands as long as I returned by sunset," I replied in flawless Bulgarian.
The župan stared at me, a mixture of surprise and confusion on his face.
"And why does he have papyrus and a pen?" he finally asked, turning to the priest.
"The young man can read and write… he was taking dictation for what I must write to send to Pliska, my župan," the priest said.
"In Bulgarian?" he asked, visibly surprised.
"In Bulgarian and in Greek, my župan," the priest replied.
"I see you are full of surprises. Very well. I actually need you to write a reply to the kan. He wants to know how many men I will send for the northern campaign, and it must be sent today," the župan said.
"Of course… Basil… write," the priest instructed.
I changed the papyrus, dipped the pen into the inkwell, and looked up at the župan, attentive.
"One hundred horsemen… one hundred men," the župan said.
I slowly turned my gaze toward the priest.
"Should I write it exactly like that? Shouldn't something like knyaz be mentioned, a more formal address? Otherwise it might seem offensive," I asked cautiously.
The priest nodded slightly.
"Yes… Knyaz Omurtag. In response to your call to arms, your humble subject answers his duty, contributing one hundred horsemen and one hundred men," he dictated.
I wrote every word carefully.
When I finished, I extended my hand and gave the letter to the župan. He took it and read it attentively. I doubted he could write in his own language, considering how recent the new civil code and Bulgarian lexicon were.
He handed the letter to the priest.
"Is it good or not?" the župan asked.
"Yes… yes, perfect… Basil is good with letters and numbers…" the priest replied.
The župan took the letter and looked at me for a few seconds.
"Return at dusk," he said, turning and leaving the chapel.
I returned home without trouble. The next day, everything seemed normal. While I was joining rings in the smithy, a group of guards appeared and began speaking with the master blacksmith. Shouts soon followed.
"What do you mean you're taking Basil? He's my best apprentice… damn it! What? Basil can't read—he's a blacksmith…" I heard the master shout angrily.
Shortly after, the župan's guards appeared.
"Roman… come. The župan has orders for you," one of them said.
I saw the master clench his teeth in fury. I said nothing. I simply followed the guards.
They took me to the župan's manor. There they gave me several books to review, and I began writing his letters. I spent much of the day watching his repulsive jaws move as he dictated, again and again. I also used the Ionic numeral system to keep minor accounts, since Arabic numerals were not yet in use, even though they were far superior for accounting.
The only good thing about all of this was that I no longer had to do so much physical labor. I had far more free time and ate the leftovers of the župan's household, which were infinitely better than what I had received before. There was always ham or meat. In addition, I lived inside the manor with my parents, where the cold no longer reached us. We slept in the servants' quarters.
It could be said that studying had been worth it.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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