Charley Brindley
Digital Artist
Novelist and
CEO Windship Farm
From Chapter Three of the third book in the "Hannibal's Elephant Girl" series
At Carthage, Geodia set up shop in the Punique Quarter, below Byrsa Citadel, where he developed a brisk business in decorated bronze and silver.
Calogo was now seven summers in age but still a bit maladroit for the intricate work of decorating the silver.
Geodia hired boys as assistants, hoping to find a suitable young man to become his apprentice; however, he was disappointed with a string of boys wanting only to stoke his fires while eying his daughter with blatant adulation. They had no interest in design or artistic development, let alone making deliveries and picking up supplies.
Calogo was eager to maintain the heat of the forge and run errands for the shop, but it would be another two summers before he’d be allowed to handle the tools of the trade.
Tapaz, after watching yet another lazy boy of about sixteen summers, pound an ingot of bronze into a shapeless mass, took the metal from him and thrust it back into the forage to soften in the intense heat.
She yanked the hammer from his hand. “Sit there.” She pointed her hammer at a nearby bench. “Watch and learn.”
Calogo grinned as he worked the bellows on the forge to heat the bronze to a workable temperature.