Nathan continued what he had been saying when Erik entered. ‘While I have the knack with iron, I’m indifferent with horses, truth to tell, above the legs. I can adjust a shoe to balance a lameness, or to compensate for some other problem, but when it comes to the rest, I’m as simple as anyone.’
‘Then you’ve chosen wisely to keep Erik on,’ said Milo, showing an almost fatherly pride. He’s a wonder with horses.’
Rosalyn asked, ‘Master Smith, from what you’ve said, you could have had any number of large baronial forges, or even a ducal charge. Why did you pick our small town?’
Nathan pushed away the bowl of stew he had finished, and smiled. ‘I’m a lover of wine, truth to tell, and this is a great change from my former home.’
Freida turned and blurted, ‘We’re scant weeks past burying one smith for the love of too much wine, and now we’ve another! The gods must hate Ravensburg indeed!’
Nathan looked at Freida and spoke. His tone was measured, but it was clear he was not far from anger. ‘Good woman, I love the wine, but I’m no mean drunkard. I was a father and husband who took care of his own for many years. If I drink more than a glass in a day, it’s a festival. I’ll thank you to pass no judgment on matters you know nothing about. Smiths are no more cut from the same bolt of cloth as all men of any other trade are alike in all ways.’
Freida turned away, her color rising slightly, but she said nothing save, ‘The fire is too warm. This bread will be dry before supper.’ She made a show of turning the coals, though everyone knew it was unnecessary.
Erik watched his mother for a moment, then turned toward Nathan. ‘The room is clean, sir.’
Freida snapped, ‘Will you all be sharing that one tiny room?’
Nathan rose, picking up his cloak and leaning over to retrieve his bag. As he hoisted his possessions, he said, ‘All?’
‘These children and your wife you spoke so tenderly of?’
Nathan’s tone was calm when he replied, ‘All dead. Killed by raiders in the sacking of the Far Coast. I was senior journeyman to Baron Tolburt’s Master Smith at Tulan.’ The room was still as he continued. ‘I was asleep, but the sound of fighting woke me. I told my Martha to see to the children as I ran to the forge. I took no more than two steps out the door of the servants’ quarters when I was struck twice by arrows’ – he touched his shoulder, then his left thigh – ‘here and here. I fainted. Another man fell on top of me, I think. Anyway, my wife and children were already dead when I awoke the next day.’ He glanced around the room. ‘We had four children, three boys and a girl.’ He sighed. ‘Little Sarah was special.’ He fell silent for a long moment, and his face took on a reflective expression. Then he said, ‘Damn me. It’s nearly twenty-five years now.’ Without another word he rose, and nodded his head once to Milo, then moved to the door.
Freida looked as if she had been struck. She turned toward Nathan, her eyes brimming with moisture, and looked as if she were about to speak, but as the smith left the kitchen she was unable to find the words.
Erik looked after the departing smith, and then back toward his mother. For the first time in his life he felt embarrassed for her and he found the feeling unpleasant. He glanced around the kitchen and noticed Rosalyn looking at Freida with an expression of irritation and regret. Milo made a show of ignoring everyone as he rose from the table to move to the tap room.
Erik said at last, ‘I’d better see if he’s settled in. Then I’ll be seeing to the horses.’
Erik left and Rosalyn moved around the kitchen in silence, trying to spare Freida any more embarrassment. After a moment she realized the older woman was silently weeping. Caught in an impasse as to what to do, she hesitated, then at last said, ‘Freida?’
The older woman turned toward the younger, her cheeks damp from her tears. Her face was a mask of conflict, as if she wished to vent some deeply buried pain but couldn’t let it surface past a sharp retort. Rosalyn said, ‘Can I do anything?’
Freida remained motionless for long seconds, then said, ‘The berries need washing.’ Her tone was hoarse, and she spoke softly. Rosalyn moved toward the sink and began working the hand pump her father and Erik had installed only the year before so she and Freida wouldn’t have to carry water from the well behind the inn anymore. As cold water filled the wooden sink, Freida said, ‘And stay the sweet child you are, Rosalyn. There’s too much pain in the world already.’
The older woman hurried from the kitchen on some imagined errand, and Rosalyn knew she just wished to be alone for a while. The exchange with the new smith had released something Freida had buried and Rosalyn didn’t understand, but in her sixteen years the girl had never seen Erik’s mother cry. As she cleaned the fruit for the evening’s pies, she wondered if this was a good thing or not.
The evening was quiet, with only a few locals calling in at the Pintail for a quick drink, and only one seeking a meal. Erik finished cleaning the kettle as a favor to Rosalyn, and hauled it back to the hook over the fire, now low-glowing embers.
He waved good night to Rosalyn, who was carrying four flagons of ale to a table occupied by four of the town’s more eligible young journeymen, all of whom were flirting with the innkeeper’s daughter, more to keep some sort of status with one another than out of any real interest in the young girl.
Passing through the kitchen, Erik found his mother standing by the door, looking at the night sky, ablaze with stars. All three moons were down this night, a rare occurrence, and the display was always worth a moment to observe.
‘Mother,’ said Erik quietly as he started to move away.
‘Stay awhile,’ she said softly, a request and not an order. ‘It was a night like this I met your father.’
Erik had heard the story before but knew his mother was struggling with something that had occurred while she spoke to the smith. He still didn’t fully understand what had happened in his mother, but he knew she needed to speak. He sat down on the steps beside where his mother stood.
‘Otto had come to Ravensburg for the first time as Baron, after his father’s death two years before. He had attended the Vintners’ and Growers’ reception for him, and after drinking with the town leaders, he had gone for a walk to clear his head. He was brash and quick to dispense with protocol, and had ordered his servants and guards to leave him alone.’
She stared into the night, calling up memories. ‘I had come down to the fountain with the other girls, to flirt with the boys.’ Erik recalled his own last visit to the fountain with Roo and realized the practice was long established. ‘The Baron came into the lantern light and suddenly we were a bunch of awkward children.’ Then Erik saw a spark in his mother’s eyes, and heard an echo of the spirit that had captivated men’s hearts before he was born. ‘I was as awed as the rest, but I was too proud to show it,’ she said with a rueful smile, and years dropped away from her. Erik could imagine the impact such a sight after an evening spent drinking must have had on the Baron as he spied the beautiful Freida at the fountain.
‘He had court manners, and rank, and riches, and yet there was something honest in him, Erik: a little boy who was as afraid of being sent away as any other boy. He was twenty-five, and young for that age. But he swept me off my feet, with sweet words and a wicked humor in them. Less than an hour later he had bedded me under a tree in an apple orchard.’ She sighed, and again Erik was put in mind of a young girl, not this woman of iron he had known all his life.
‘I had a terrible reputation, but I had never known another man. He had known other women, for he was sure, but he was also tender and gentle and loving.’ She glanced at her son. ‘In the dark, under the stars, he spoke of love, but the next day I thought I’d never see him again and counted myself just another foolish girl taken in by a nobleman’s charms.
‘But against any hope of mine, he came to me a month later, in the late afternoon, alone, astride a horse flecked with foam from a hard ride from