Dhan had constructed a smelting furnace

Over a shallow hole in the ground Dhan had constructed a smelting furnace, a clay wall surrounded by a thicker outer wall of rock and mud, the whole girdled with bands of sapling. It stood the height of a man's shoulders and a pace wide, tapering to a slightly narrower diameter at he top to concentrate the heat and reinforce the walls against collapse.

In this oven Dhan made wrought iron by burning alternating layers of charcoal and Persian ore, pea and nut size. Around the oven a shallow trench had been dug. Sitting on the outer lip with his feet in the trench, he operated bellows made from the hide of a whole goat, forcing precisely controlled amounts of air into the glowing mass. Above the hottest part of the fire, ore was reduced to bits of iron like drops of metal rain. They settled through the furnace and collected at the bottom in a blob-like mixture of charcoal, slag and iron, called the bloom.

Dhan had sealed a removal hole with clay that he now broke away so he could drag out the bloom, which was refined by strong hammering requiring many reheating in his forge. Most of the iron in the ore went into slag and waste, but that which was reduced made a very good grade of wrought iron. But it was soft, he explained to Rob through Harsh. The bars of Indian steel, carried from Kausambi by the elephants, were very hard. He melted several of these in a crucible and then quenched in fire. After cooling, the steel was extremely brittle and he shattered it and stacked it on pieces of the wrought iron.

Now, sweating among his anvils, tongs, chisels, punches, and hammers, the skinny Indian displayed biceps like serpents as he wedded the soft and hard metals. He forge-welded multiple layers of iron and steel, hammering as if possessed, twisting and cutting, overlapping, fording the sheet and hammering again and again , mixing his metals like a potter wedging clay or a woman kneading bread.

Watching him, Rob knew he could never learn the complexities, the variables needing subtle skills passed down long generations of Indian smiths, but he gained an understanding of the process through asking innumerable questions.

From the book “The physician” by Noah Gordon.

He went numbly out to the spring

He went numbly out to the spring with the cheese and the cider, not daring to think. When he came back into the house she was in the process of removing her gown. Best peel the wet things off,' she said, and got calmly into bed in her shift.

He removed the damp trousers and tunic and spread them on one side of the round hearth. Naked, he hastened to the bed and lay down next to her between the pelts, shivering. 'Cold'

She turned to him.'You've been colder. When I took your place in Barber's bed.'

'And I was sent to sleep on the floor, on a bitter night. Yes, that was cold.'

She turned to him. “Poor motherless child,” I kept thinking. I so wished to let you into the bed.'

'You reached down and touched my head.'

She touched his head now, smoothing his hair and pressing his face into her softness.'I have held my own sons in this bed.'She closed her eyes. Presently she eased the loose top of her shift and gave him a pendulous breast.

The living flesh in his mouth made him seem to remember a long forgotten infant warmth. He felt a prickling behind his eyelids.

Her hand took his on exploration. 'This is what you must do,'She kept her eyes closed.

A stick snapped in the hearth but went unheard. The damp fire was smoking badly.

Lightly and with patience. In circles as you¡re doing,'she said dreamily.

He threw back the cover and her shift, despite the cold.

He saw with surprise that she had thick legs. His eyes studied what his fingers had learned; her femaleness was like his dream, but now the firelight allowed him the details.

'Faster,'She would have said more but he found her lips. It was not a mother's mouth, and he noted she did something interesting with her hungry tongue.

A series of whispers guided him over her and between heavy thighs. There was no need for further instruction; instinctively he buckled and thrust.

God was a qualified carpenter, he realized, for she was a warm and slippery moving mortice and he was a fitted tenon.

Her eyes snapped open and looked straight at him. Her lips curled back from her teeth, in a strange grin and she uttered a harsh rattling from the back of her throat that would have made him think she lay dying if he hadn't heard such sounds before.

For years he had watched and heard other people making love – his father and his mother in their small and crowed house, and Barber with a long parade of doxies. He had become convinced that there had to be magic with a cunt for men to want it so. In the dark mystery of her bed, sneezing like a horse from the imperfect fire, he felt all anguish and heaviness pumping from him. Transported by the most frightening kind of joy, he discovered the vast difference between observation and participation.

From the book “The physician” by Noah Gordon.

He thought the hens were impressive creatures

He thought the hens were impressive creatures, large and buff-coloured, with unfeathered shanks and red combs, wattles, and earlobes. They made no objection when he robbed their nests of four of five white eggs every morning. 'They think you're a big bloody rooster,' Barber said

'Why don't we buy them a chanticler?'

Barber, who liked sleeping late on cold winter mornings and therefore hate crowning, merely grunted.

Rob had brown hairs on his face, not exactly a beard. Barber said only Danes shaved but he knew it wasn't true, for his father has kept his face hairless. In Barber's surgical kit was a razor and the fat man nodded grumpily when Rob asked to use it. He nicked his face, but shaving made him feel older.

The first time Barber ordered him to kill a chicken made him feel very young. Each bird stared at him out of little black beads that told him they might have grown to be friends. Finally he forced his strong fingers to clench around the nearest warm neck and, shuddering, closed his eyes. A strong convulsive twist and it was done. But the bird punished him in death, for it didn't easily relinquish its feathers, Plucking took hours, and the grizzled corpse was viewed with disdain when he handed it to Barber.

Next time a chicken was called for, Barber showed him genuine magic. He held the hen's beak open and slid a thin knife through the roof of the mouth and into the brain, The hen relaxed at once into death, releasing the feathers; they came away in great clumps at the slightest pull.

From the book “The physician” by Noah Gordon.