The Forge stood at the bottom of the Hold’s east slope, where the ground dropped toward the marsh and the wind came in off the water with the smell of salt and rot. Gaunt had built it himself, the first winter, out of Foundation stone and the bones of a broken cart, and he had built the chimney so high that the smoke went out over the marsh and was not, in his view, anybody else’s business. The bellows were his. The anvil was his. The iron-store behind the long bench was the largest room in the Hold that had ever been kept locked by a single man, and it was locked now, and Gaunt had the only key on the cord round his neck.
He was at the bench with a bar of fresh iron on the anvil and his hammer lifted when the Chamberlain’s gloves came round the door.
“Object,” said Gaunt, without turning round, and brought the hammer down.
“I have not yet said anything,” said Velvet.
“You will object to the iron, Chamberlain, because everybody objects to the iron. It is the one thing in the Hold that cannot be argued with. So I have objected already, and we may both save our breakfast.” He struck the bar again, twice, and watched the sparks go up in a fan across the forge’s dark. “What do you want?”
