Giles raised his great round cheese of a face to the sky. "Iron came to the earth from, quite literally, only God knows where. Meteor iron has been known since the earliest days."

The boy asked quickly, "What's a meteor, Master Hazard?"

A smile spread over Giles's face. "Shooting star. Surely you've seen 'em."

The boy responded with a thoughtful nod. Giles went on to talk about a great many things that gradually acquired meaning for Joseph as he learned more of the trade. Giles discoursed on the history of iron making. He spoke of the stückofen and flüssofen that had existed in Germany since the tenth century; of the hauts fourneaux that had spread in France in the fifteenth; of the Walloons of Belgium, who had developed the finery remelting process about sixty years ago.

"But all that is just a tick on the great clock of iron. Saint Dunstan worked iron seven hundred years ago. He had a forge in his bedroom at Glastonbury, they say. The Egyptian pharaohs were buried with iron amulets and dagger blades because the metal was so rare and valuable. So potent. I have read of daggers from Babylon and Mesopotamia, long millenniums before Christ."

"I don't read very well —"

"Someone should teach you," Giles grumbled. "Or you should teach yourself."

The boy took that in, then said, "What I meant is, I've never heard that word you used. Mill-something."

"Millenniums. A millennium is a thousand years."

"Oh." A blink. Giles was pleased to see the boy was storing the information away.

"A man can learn a great deal by reading, Joseph. Not everything, but a lot. I am speaking of a man who wants to be more than a charcoal burner."

Joseph understood. He nodded with no sign of resentment.

"Can you read at all?" Giles asked.

"Oh, yes." A pause, while the boy looked at Giles. Then he admitted, "Only a little. My mother tried to teach me with the Bible. I like the stories about heroes. Samson. David. But Windom didn't like my mother teaching me, so she stopped."