“What was that, Joe?” I asked, but the only response I received was a blank stare, as if Joe had not heard his own mouth speak the strange word, which had forced its way out of him.
“Joe!” I persisted in a tone verging on disrespectful, to my friend and master no less– so overwhelming was my curiosity. Had that bloviating churl, Pumblechook, been present, he would have no doubt marched me before the magistrate (or worse, my sister) for such an offense.
“Sorry, Pip, old chap,” said Joe catching himself out of his daze. “Which I meantersay that ‘that,’ by which what I mean ‘this,’ is called a kat-a-na sword.”
“But wherever did you acquire it?”
“Was ages, Pip. Long before you were born, or your sister married me by hand.”
I gingerly passed the sword to him in hopes that the tactile sensation would improve his memory. He held it high, inspected the straightness of the blade, and even gauged its balance, all the while I waited in agony for him to continue.
He finally did: “It were late one ev’ning, an’ a bit too close to a full moon to my liking, so I were running to get home. So there I were along the road an’ I see an ox cart broked on the side. Now, Pip, old chap, you know how I don’t pay no mind to no one’s business, ‘xcepting of course my own, you know that right?”
I nodded.
“But I got to thinking how this poor chap got stucked out there on his ownsome, and there was a Howler’s moon coming on and all. So’s I come up and offer a hand, or in actual, two. Well, I see that his wheel was cracked awful, and there was no use rolling it. So you know what I did, Pip, I picked up one side of the axel and walked that cart all the way to the forge. Next day, I fixed it all up nice and proper.” Joe now laughed at something in his story, though I could not discern what it was.
“The owner, of the ox cart I meantersay, were a strange one, I’ll tell you that, Pip. Little, he was, with a face like a cat. Never seen a man like that before and never again. Didn’t speak much in our tongue, but he were gentle as a lamb, an’ we got on famous. Now I apol’gize, Pip old chap, for I see that I’ve gone an’ rambled; so I’ll say it out now. The man he offered me some notes for my troubles, but I’d a have none of that. Was my duty help out, you see. So he goes an’ he reaches into his ox cart an’ pulls out this here sword what we’re spying at the present. He says this word ‘kat-a-na’ over and over. Then he wraps it in this leather here and puts it in my own hands. Before I could say another word, he were on his cart and off. And that were that.”
“And you kept it all this time?” I asked.
“Well,” said Joe a bit nervously, appearing more interested in his shoes than the conversation, “times got hard and I got to want for some necess’ries, so’s I tried to sell her, that is to say it, that is to mean this kat-a-na. But, as it goes, no Hunter were too eager to buy it. Little sword like that didn’t look like it’d do much to a Howler. It’d heal up right as you cut it. Now, if it were silver, of course – ah!”
He handed the sword back to me, though I was lost in thought. How could something so beautiful and seemingly useful be worthless?
Silver. It was what separated the Noble Hunters from the Brutal. In the early days of my apprenticeship, knowing nothing of the workings of the commodities market, I mentioned to Joe the idea that we should find some silver for ourselves and forge weapons therefrom. This evoked a shrieking laugh from Mrs. Joe, who suggested that I should climb up to the moon and see if I could find any silver there.
“Ain’t nobody like us has got silver, Pip;” said Joe, “them Nobles bought it all up ages ago. Couldn’t but get a scrap if we sold this ‘ole house.”
“Greedy buzzards,” spat Mrs. Joe, “They took the only thing that puts a Howler in the ground, and made it so most folks can’t even afford to think about it. Leave us here in the marshes to get ripped apart, while they play at Hunting for sport.”
Now, in the forge with Joe, I recalled the silver dagger I had seen – no, held! – on my first day with Miss Havisham. How elegant and graceful it seemed. What a marked contrast to the ugly, savage weapons Joe and I fabricated for the Brutal Hunters. And, how the beauty of this katana reminded me of that dagger – and of Estella.
