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the furnaces with a bellows until he had enough heat to melt the ore and squeeze out the spirit of the star metal in its truest form. The spongy mass must then be
kept hot and beaten repeatedly to drive out impurities, the lesser spirits that could cause the iron to lose its courage. The end product was a bar of malleable wrought iron, ready for the anvil.
    Goibban had trained apprentices to do the actual smelting, handling the raw ore and working the goatskin bellows and blowpipe that controlled the heat of the fire. This freed Goibban to work with hammer and chisel, creating unbreakable tools and weapons to replace the old bronze ones, and inventing new uses for the iron.
    Already his fame had spread beyond the Blue Mountains.
    There was usually a cluster of admiring children gathered around the forge, crowding each other for a vantage point to watch the smith at his anvil. When the great hammer crashed down and the sparks flew they oohed and aahed in unison. There was no rival for the drama of watching Goibban turn a bar of iron, glowing at white heat, into an axe head or an axle. Only Kernunnos inspired greater awe. But Kernunnos was a frightening figure to children, while Goibban was patient with them, and kind, so long as they did not get in the way of his work. Goibban was immensely popular with everyone in the village—and as yet unmarried.
    There were those who whispered he had given his spirit in marriage to the spirit of the star metal and would never take a wife to be its rival. Goibban himself had said—a saying repeated now around many fires—“Gold is precious, copper is flexible. But the star metal, iron! Hot, it is as soft and graceful as a woman; cold, it becomes as hard and strong as a warrior. Nothing is more worthy of a man’s devotion than iron.”
    In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, many women attempted to compete with the iron for the smith’s attention. If a married woman showed interest in Goibban her husband usually encouraged her, for such a lifemaking could bring honor to the family and perhaps a child with the smith’s gift.
    On this bright spring morning Goibban was shaping axles for the wagons of Kwelon the oxkeeper. The work was going slowly. Sweat beaded his broad forehead and ran down his
nose, dripping like a melting icicle. The new apprentice had not succeeded in clearing this batch of iron of impurities, and Goibban would have sent it back to the fire if Kwelon had not been so anxious to have the axles. Soon the passes would be cleared of snow; soon wagons must be on their way south, piled high with salt.
    Goibban wore little more than a leather apron around his waist because of the heat of forge. His powerfully muscled torso and arms were bare, gleaming with perspiration, as the hammer rose and fell. His whole concentration was on the job at hand, so he was not aware of his customary audience. He did not notice when the cluster of children parted to make way for a new arrival.
    He did not even hear Epona the first time she spoke his name. She called again, louder, and he glanced up to see one of his special favorites among the children, a girl who was content to sit quietly for hours, watching him work without interrupting. In return he had made toys and trinkets for her and given her more than one bright blob of metal to play with, metal that should have gone into something more valuable.
    She kept his gifts at the bottom of her chest of belongings: special treasures, hidden away and shared with no one. For several seasons she had spun her dreams around them; they had come to represent more than Goibban suspected. When the other children teased her and called her Goibban’s pet she no longer fought them with her fists, but blushed and hid her face, secretly pleased.
    Seeing her now, Goibban gave her the little wink that he reserved just for her, and asked quickly, so as not to lose time from work, “What is it, child?”
    Epona smiled shyly at him, willing him to see