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“I’m sorry I’ve got no catch for you today, Nora. I’m sure the fish’ll be back any day now.”
I eye his fishing boots and net, still hanging up where they were this morning, bone dry. There’s been more and more days when I suspect he can’t bring himself to leave the house at all.
“That’s all right, Dad,” I say with a smile. “A bit of leek and potato will do us fine.”
He pushes a smile on his face in return, and I pretend not to notice how much effort it takes. He tries so hard to be okay for me—tries and often fails. But today, he’s able to muster enough playfulness to waggle his eyebrows at the stew I’m stirring with mock anticipation. “Absolutely. Why, if I eat enough of that, my eyesight will be so good, I’ll be able to go fishing in the dark.”
I let out a genuine laugh. “That’s carrots, Dad. Carrots help you see in the dark.”
He smiles his lopsided smile, as if he knew this already. “So it is. Still, you never know.”
Most of our conversations are like this—safe, easy topics, where he tries to make me laugh with a goofy joke. We don’t talk about my experiments, or even acknowledge the ramshackle workshop out back that he built for Mom. It’s her notes on plant combinations and minerals I’m using—and that makes the subject too sensitive to bring up.
Something catches Dad’s attention out the window. He frowns, pointing out a panicked Fred Biston, talking agitatedly to someone out of sight round the corner.
“What do you suppose is going on there?” Dad asks.
“I’ll go check.”
I can hear Fred’s voice before I’m even out the front door.
“He just made a mistake! You can’t do this!”
Then a pair of soldiers in the uniform of the king’s men turn down the street, dragging along a familiar body. It’s Thatch, clutching a brace of dead hares and pheasants, still with the snares on them. He must have gone to collect them from his traps when he left me. When he lifts his head, I see the bright blood on his lips and a scarlet cut just under his eye. Our eyes meet, and my stomach twists at the stark contrast from the confident man who was annoying me in my workshop just hours before.
“Eleanor!” he shouts. “Eleanor, help me!”
The soldiers don’t slow, but they slide their gaze curiously towards me. I start down the path from our house and look to Fred.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Poaching on His Majesty’s land!” a soldier answers for him, his mean, black eyes narrowing like he’s enjoying this. “And now King Albrecht will decide what’s to be done with him.”
The panic in Thatch’s eyes intensifies, and it spikes within me too. The king isn’t known to be merciful.
“Wait!” Thatch shouts, digging his feet into the ground. “I can pay him back! I have money—gold! As much as he wants.”
The soldiers sneer. “If a peasant like you had gold, why would you be filching from the king’s parks?”
“She has it!” he jerks his head wildly towards me and I go cold. “She’s my betrothed. She can pay my debt…as part of her dowry!”
I try to back away. “What? No, Thatch. That’s not?—”
“Where’s this gold?” The soldiers have stopped now, and are eyeing up my cottage with disdain. I think about Dad still inside, and dread the idea of these cruel men getting anywhere near him.
“The shed!” Thatch explains. “There’s a shed behind the house. She keeps her tools there—that’s where she makes the gold…”
It seems intriguing enough for one of the soldiers to go investigate. I edge close enough to Thatch to hiss at him.
“What have you done? I don’t have any gold yet, you know that!”
“You’re close—I saw it,” he murmurs, jutting his chin out at me almost defiantly, but there’s a wobble to it. I realize that he’d try anything right now, he’s that afraid. “You can help me,” he insists.
The soldier returns with a random assortment from my workshop, and my heart sinks to see my careful work thrown together in his arms. The bag from the market sits on top, the trinkets I make peeking out.
“I don’t know, there’s a bunch of blacksmith stuff in there,” the soldier says. “But there’s also this.” He pulls out the heart pendant, and to an untrained eye the warm shine could easily be mistaken for gold.
“All right,” says the soldier with a nod. “Bring her too.”
