I’d seen it before, facing onto the street at the edge of Bell’s Close. Today the shutters were drawn back from the front window, and the glint of silver shone through the small panes of glass that cast my own reflection back in pieces.

As I entered the shop, a lad of seventeen or eighteen who I guessed was the apprentice came to greet me and to offer me assistance. Did I have a sword for sharpening? Or did I wish to purchase one? Or had I come instead to buy some cutlery? He showed me several samples, and assured me there was no one in the Canongate whose skill could equal that of Mr. Bell.

I could judge that for myself from the display of forks and knives, the gathering of swords that appeared to be awaiting dressing or repair, a scabbard half-assembled on the workbench in the corner, and the finished hilts that only needed fitting to a blade.

But the apprentice brought a sword to show me anyway—a backsword with a Highland hilt wrought in a cage of silver inlaid hearts and oak leaves intertwined, to shield the hand that held it in a fight. The blade was a Ferara blade, high quality, with on one side a rising sun and stars inscribed, and on the other side the words: “Thy king and countrie’s cause defend, though on the spot your life should end.”

“It is as fine a sword as I have ever seen,” I said to the apprentice.

He looked pleased, but the reply came not from him. It came instead from the man stepping through the private entry from the rooms behind. An older man, perhaps approaching seventy, perhaps already past it—it was difficult to say. He moved easily enough for one his age, his back was straight, and he reached out to take the sword from his apprentice with the strong, sure hands of someone who still worked with them.

“You honor me,” he told me, “but this sword was made some years past for a customer who’s only brought it back now to be newly dressed and furbished. It is not for sale.” His friendly smile took no offense, forgiving the mistake of his apprentice, to whom he now turned with the request, “Would you go and ask Marion to bring us in some ale?”

I must have looked more wealthy than I was, from all the care I’d taken dressing for my dinner with the earl, but I did not correct the swordslipper’s impression of me, nor refuse his offer of refreshment.

The apprentice nodded and left by the shop’s front door, while Mr. Bell replaced the Highland-hilted sword amongst its fellows.

I said, making conversation, “It would seem that there are many who are sharpening their swords these days.”

“Unsettled times are good for business.”

“Then your business must be always good, for our country is always unsettled.”

He briefly smiled. “That it is.” As if he sought to divert me from the swords that weren’t for sale, he said, “I have other swords, sir, if you tell me what you are seeking.”