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A blacksmith apprentice. And that was with his brother being kind.
“It’s better than digging ditches or cleaning rocks out of fields. And you’ll still be doing more of that kind of work for a while yet—until you find a way to be your own master,” Harris said, sounding just like their late father might. Dry. Lifeless. It seemed Archie would never know if his brothers had come to mimic their father as a way of self-preservation—to avoid receiving the same treatment Archie had—or if they had just been born that way.
Harris was less than two years older than Archie, and the average-height, lanky young man still couldn’t grow a decent beard, but he already spoke like an elder with half a foot in the grave.
“There’s just no use turning your nose up at it, Archie. You’re sixteen; you'll reach your majority by the harvest, and none of us are children anymore. We all have to work, and if Rupert finds himself a wife, the last thing he’s going to want is the two of us there, eating all his grain. I have the donkey and have already made some extra coin as a carrier. But you—”
“I only have my muscles. I know.” It was nothing Archie hadn’t heard before. Their father hadn’t forced Archie into a formal apprenticeship in the years before he died, but there simply wasn’t enough work at the mill for so many men. So, Archie had taken over the bulk of his mother’s old chores, and with fears of the plague lessening in the last year, he had hired himself out to contribute to the family funds as he was able—mostly digging ditches or clearing rocks out of fields for the local farmers as Harris had said. And the muscles Archie had built along the way were a poor consolation for the expectations that came in their wake.
According to his brothers, it seemed there should be no better fortune in Archie’s life than to become another donkey pulling a cart for his master. And while Archie didn’t scratch his brother in response—like the cat had scratched him—he could now see the reason behind it.
Archie had fumbled his offer; he knew the stray tabby was far more magical and intelligent than it appeared, so why should it be tempted by the life of a pet and the sort of work usually given to domesticated animals and over-muscled miller sons?
It certainly wasn’t a life Archie wanted for himself.
But there was nothing for it now. Archie pushed himself off the cart, pulling the last small sack of flour from the wagon bed and putting his only celebrated asset—his muscles—to work. “I’ll take this to the plague orphans, then? I can find my own way back.”
Harris frowned, indecision warring on his face. With everything else that had been said, it wasn’t hard to understand why. Their family used to go down as far as the neighboring town of Carabus to deliver all their flour and grain, but the so-called Ogre Marquis of Carabus was still tyrannically holding to the quarantine restrictions, and the plague had naturally made everyone a bit more conscious of their immediate neighbors. So, when their father was alive, it had become second nature to stay closer to Castletown and give any surplus flour to the local Charity House run by a collection of older widows, spinsters, and other Matrons of the Light who dedicated their lives to the work of the fates. But now the mill belonged to Rupert. And so many years after the plague, he might have his own ideas how the surplus should be used.
Especially now that Rupert had marriage on his mind.
But Archie wasn’t going to wait for either of his brothers to give their permission. Not for this. While his father had been alive to provide for his temporal needs, Archie hadn’t required the Charity House for its intended use, but its existence fed his soul in another way.
He wasn’t about to give it up.
The matrons already knew to expect him, so Archie circled around the back to enter the kitchen directly. Then—like he was afraid of being locked in—he went to the inner door and propped it open with a broom. Right on schedule, a melodious voice filtered in from the main room where all the children had gathered. Even better, Archie knew the voice in question belonged to an auburn-haired beauty with freckles across her nose that could easily put any goose girl to shame.
Someone who never winked just to get attention.
Princess Ainsley.
“Spurred on by the strength of his true love, the knight drew his sword, glowing with the holy Light of the Fates. He struck the terrible dragon and . . .” the princess read, her voice carrying all the excitement of the fiery tale.
One of the younger plague orphans, a six-year-old with crooked braids, noticed Archie lingering at the doorway and turned. “You almost missed it,” she mouthed.
And Archie smiled, waving for Sophie not to worry. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Princess Ainsley had also lost her mother—the queen—and her elder brother—the crown prince—in the plague, and despite her rank, she had found her own way to serve her grieving people. Along with nursing many of the sick herself, she came to the Charity House most every week, singing songs and reading faerie stories to the orphaned children, just like Archie’s mother used to do for him.
All Archie had to do was bring the flour and start the bread dough rising, and it was like his mother never died. His worries melted away. He thought he could make it through another week working the mill and everything that came with it. He thought he could even be a farrier or a stable hand, just so long as he still had these stolen moments to escape and aspire to.
Some of the old faerie stories were historical, some were merely symbolic, but they were all given by the fates and preserved by their matrons and holy oracles to bring more light into the world. A world where all the hero’s words and actions came out exactly right, and all his dreams came true.
A world of magic.
And if Archie ever had a chance to talk to the cat again, he swore he wouldn’t waste it.
* * *
“Well, there you are, Tom. Am I finally going to convince you to stay?” asked a young shop assistant. Tabitha put down a saucer of goat milk for Leo and her collection of strays.
Why did everyone want to own him today? The cat might have protested the thought—violently—but over four years ago, when before became now, Leo had been too disoriented to put his claws and animal instincts into proper action. He hadn’t thought to hunt his own mice right away. Tabitha was the first human to do him a good turn, seeing his pathetically thinning frame and putting a dish of her own dinner scraps before him.
She had even found a brush to help him get a stubborn mat out of his fur.
As such, she might be his favorite of the humans he occasionally visited, but he still had never been tempted to stay longer than a handful of solitary nights at the second-hand shop where she currently lived with a growing number of cats.
Tom or tomcat really wasn’t much better than puss, and both offers of ownership had been equally distasteful, but for completely different reasons. Hiding behind a silk curtain of sable-brown hair, Tabitha talked to Leo, but she talked to all her other cats too. She had never indicated she thought him anything other than another stray, something to stave off her own loneliness and provide her with a bit of comfort in her labor. He felt no threat or danger from her, but there was also no intrigue, no flashes from before . . .
