“Can you resist such an offer?”
Can you resist me?
“I could,” she says confidently. “It serves my purpose not to.”
“Hmm. And what purpose is that?”
When she stands, I realize the sun is beginning to set. Have we been out here so long already?
“Mayhap I will tell you on the morrow.” She puts the coin purse in a pocket sewn into her gown. Likely the same pocket where her knife resides. “Or mayhap not.”
Chapter Nine Aedre
Smoke rises from the forge, the smell of coal dust and molten iron oddly comforting. I walk inside, grab an apron, and begin to work. Father doesn’t pause as he hammers away, the clanging sound of hammer meeting iron ringing in my ears.
I look at his work.
A sword, and a fine one at that.
Amery, my father’s apprentice, nods in greeting. Though he’s not seen twenty summers, he’s a fine apprentice and will make a master smith someday.
I pick up a set of metal spoons in obvious need of filing and begin to smooth the sharp edges. Though part of me wishes my father was between pieces, as we need to talk, the other part of me is glad for the respite, as it will be an uncomfortable conversation.
Amma waited for me last eve, as she typically retires early, to tell me that Father had gone to Hester’s Tavern. As it was his second visit in a matter of days, Amma is convinced he has feelings for the alewife. I disagree. He’s visited the tavern more oft of late, there’s no denying that, but not once in all my years has Father shown interest in another woman. I would welcome it, of course. But when my mother died giving birth to me, he swore, according to Amma, he’d not take another woman to his bed or as his wife.
And he never had.
Despite both Amma and I encouraging him otherwise.
“Daydreaming will not get those spoons filed.”
Despite Father’s gruff tone, I turn and wrinkle my nose at him. I’ve done this since I was a babe, according to him, and he cannot resist it.
“Come.”
Wiping his hand on an already dirty apron, he strides from the dark room into the bright light of the day. The docks are visible from here, the sea beyond them rough this morning.
Picking up a jug of water from the ground, he pours it into a leather skin. Father leans against the side of the stone shop and drinks deeply.
“’Tis a fine weapon you were forging,” I say, wiping my hands instinctively on my apron before I register they aren’t yet dirty.
“A commission from the new lad.”
Everyone is a “lad” to my father. If King Galfrid himself had seen one less summer than him, Father would call him lad as well.
“Which one?”
If there is a sword to be forged, Father will prioritize it above all else. As the only smith in Murwood, his days are usually spent making tools and nails.
“The commander.”
Vanni commissioned a weapon from my father?
“When did he speak to you?”
And why did he not mention it to me? After we parted ways last eve, I told Amma about our conversation. As was her custom, she did not tread lightly with her advice.
“Your attraction to him will cause poor judgment.”
Not that I told her of any such attraction, but she is a Garra, after all.
“This morn, at daybreak.”
Oh, he is a slippery one.
“What did you think of him?”
Father takes another swig of water before putting the skin back down. He will not bring it inside the forge, even sealed. Coal dust tends to find its way inside of every crevice in the shop.
“He is Galfrid’s man.”
Apparently that was all he planned to say. It should have been enough. None in Murwood have any great love for either court, their appeals to our people to fight for one side or the other something we do not tolerate.
“Aye, he is that.”
“What of you?”
Father knows I spoke to him that first day, but unless Amma decided to tell him, he doesn’t know about our private meetings. I plan to save the coin and give it to Father when the commander is well on his way back to the southern coast.
“He is not to be trusted,” Father adds, which I know to be true.
Lying to my father does not come naturally to me. So I find myself saying, “They are looking for Kipp.”
Our eyes meet.
“I’ve heard the same,” he says. “We need to warn him.”
Father knows of his true parentage, of course, after Kipp’s mother told us all so many years ago.
“Aye,” I agree. “Do you think he will return soon?”
Father nodded. “Any day. You can keep watch for him. You spend as much time wandering the village as you do in the forge.”
What good luck that he should suggest it.
“I know you do not approve . . .”
Father pushes himself away from the wall. His face is an entreaty. “I would keep you safe above all, Aedre.”
He glances over my shoulder, and his expression changes so drastically my stomach drops. I follow his gaze and groan.
Father Beald.
I’d not heard the Elderman was in town.
Traveling from port to port, he lands at the docks in Murwood End twice or thrice a year.
His visits are much the same each time. Around the village he goes, soliciting support for a church to be built right here in Murwood End. He simply cannot understand we need no such structure to believe in many of the same ideals as those who claim the Prima represents God’s will here on Earth.
“Good day,” my father greets him.
I echo the words, grinding my teeth as I say them.
“Master Dal. Mistress Aedre.”
I nod, trying not to let the deliberate slight bother me. Never mind that Garra are given the courtesy title of Lady—he refuses to use it. I care nothing for such trivialities, but I do care about the intentions behind his omission.
He’s never
