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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aedre
All day I’ve waited for him, working alongside my father, letting the hammer’s rhythmic strike on the anvil lull me into some sort of peace. Not the kind that stays with you, but the fleeting kind that keeps the demons at bay.
But it never lasts for long. No more than a few minutes pass before I’m reminded that Amma isn’t sitting just outside the forge. Or the door will open, and I’ll look up, expecting Vanni to fill the frame. Instead, it’ll be a patron of my father’s or his apprentice, Amery.
This time, it’s neither.
“Agnar,” I greet him from my perch on a high stool. Punching is my least favorite duty, but it needs to be done. Still, if there’s any excuse to stop, I’ll take it.
“A ship has just arrived,” he announces.
“A regular occurrence here, but thank you for the information, Agnar,” Father says. He has not lost his humor, at least.
“From Breywood.”
Not a regular occurrence. We trade regularly with Highlanders, but almost never with the Edingham royal court. It is most unusual indeed.
“Breywood Castle?” I clarify.
“Aye,” Agnar says. “They say the queen’s commander is on the ship.” He scowls. “We’ve one too many of those already in Murwood.”
That surprises me.
“I thought you and Va . . . Lord d’Abella have gotten on? From what I hear, you’ve been training with him.”
In answer, he grumbles something and nods toward the door. “Are you coming?”
When an interesting ship comes to port, many of the villagers gather to meet it. I shake my head, about to say no, when Father answers for me.
“Take her. Go, Aedre.”
Normally my father is attempting to get me into the forge, not out of it. I’m about to ask the reason for the sudden change when I realize he’s attempting to distract me.
Mayhap I need to be distracted.
“Go,” he says, more forcefully than is his custom. “Bring back news of the visitors.”
“I will finish that,” Amery says, taking the punch from me and gently guiding me off the stool. When I’m next to him, I realize the boy we’ve come to depend on so much is now a young man.
“When did you grow so tall, Amery?”
He straightens even more. “Some time ago, Lady Aedre.”
I smile at him, forgetting for the moment that my world has been turned around, and hand over my tools. Taking off my apron, I hang it and bid Father farewell. I wash outside in the wooden bucket, then join an impatient Agnar, who talks the entire way.
I have little to say.
Amma is gone. Vanni will be leaving. I chastise myself for not having spoken to him again last eve before I returned home, unable to abide the crowd of revelers any longer.
By the time we arrive, we’re not the only ones hoping to get a look at the newcomers.
“I see nothing,” I say, angling for a better view.
It’s then I realize we’ve been separated in the crowd. Agnar is nowhere to be seen, leaving me to navigate toward the docks myself. I make my way toward the water’s edge and get a glimpse of blue and silver.
Agnar was right. It seems these men are from the queen’s court. How peculiar for there to be two commanders in Murwood End at the same time. Does Vanni know about it?
