“Nay,” he said, looking at her as if she’d lost her wits, “he’s a smith.”
Mary felt her mouth fall open. “He’s a what?”
“He’s not a very good one,” he offered, “if that eases you any.”
“How did you discover this?”
“We haunted him in the stables where Uncle Robin had him shoveling manure. Once we learned his true identity, we made immediate mention of it to Uncle, who then sent him off to the forge. I’m not certain he was completely appreciative of our aid in that, for the smithy is quite hot.” He paused, then shrugged. “’Tis all very strange, in truth, for he seems not to have the skills he should.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Samuel disagreed. “He’s very good at what Master Godric has taught him to do. He simply isn’t familiar with the tasks he would know if he’d apprenticed in his youth to that sort of work, which leads me to believe that he is truly no smith—”
“Or that he’s had a bump on the head and forgotten all useful bits he might have known before,” Theo interrupted. “Or perhaps—”
“Does he have a name?” Mary asked, before they could carry on their discussion of what other untoward things might have befallen that man who couldn’t possibly be a worker of steel.
“Zachary,” Samuel said absently. He looked at his brother. “The rest begs the question, does it not, of what he is fit for? It is no easy task to simply walk into a forge and do what’s asked of you, is it?”
Mary agreed with Theo that it wasn’t, but she did so silently. She left her cousins to their discussions of things that intrigued them and allowed herself to concentrate on more interesting things, such as how it was that a man who was neither smith nor stable boy—nor, apparently a Scottish lord or bespurred knight—could stand in her father’s courtyard and look as if he were the equal of any of her cousins or brothers.
He also looked, she had to admit objectively, so handsome that she thought she might have felt a bit weak in the knees. She cursed under her breath. She was a score and seven, for pity’s sake. Too old to be moved by the fairness of a man’s face or the beauty of his form.
Still, there was no reason not to study him as dispassionately as her cousins had done. For the sake of being able to discuss the like with them intelligently at a later time, of course. Nothing more.
Zachary of the fully flowered chivalry was truly a delight to make the object of such a study. His hair was very dark, though cut short in the current style that her cousins favored. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but she supposed she could save that as something to be discovered later. He might not have been a smith in truth, but his arms, which were currently folded over his chest, were powerful. She knew he had calluses on those hands because she’d felt them in the dungeon. Whatever else he did, he certainly seemed to do something with his hands besides beckon for his cup to be refilled. Her father would have respected that.
Geoffrey, however, seemed not to have found anything to appreciate about Zachary the smith. He was awash in a fair bit of righteous indignation, growing louder with each accusation.
“How long has Styrr been at this?” she whispered.
“A quarter hour,” Samuel said.
“What began it?”
Samuel smiled a very small smile. “I would suggest that Styrr was suffering from an excess of envy, but I could be mistaken.”
Mary smiled in return. If anything could be counted on to happen with the same regularity as the sun rising and setting each day, it was that Geoffrey of Styrr would at some point during his stay at Artane comment on his own magnificence. That someone else—and a smith, at that—should outshine him simply by breathing was something not to be tolerated.
“You look like a smith,” Geoffrey announced suddenly.
“I imagine I do—”
“A smith who can’t make a horseshoe!” Geoffrey shouted. He looked about him, as if he wanted to assure himself that everyone within earshot appreciated the horrors he had apparently already endured that morning. “I wanted my horse shod.”
“I hadn’t begun to attempt it—”
“You were doing even that poorly!”
Zachary took a deep breath, looking as if he would have liked nothing better than to have called Styrr fool before he turned and walked away. He said nothing in retaliation, though.
“Styrr, draw your sword and instruct him in the proper way to work with steel,” Thaddeus suggested loudly.
“Aye, do,” Connor agreed. “I’m certain we would all benefit from such a display.”
Mary watched her cousins exchange very bland looks, which she was sure were very difficult for them to maintain. If there was one topic that found itself discussed ad nauseam at the fire in the evenings after the lord and lady had retired, it was the quality of swordsmen who had darkened Artane’s hallowed gates, either in the quest for her hand or in the quest for even the most minimal training from her father. Mary had been happy to have found herself included in such discussions as the one the lads turned to for the final opinion on horsemanship.
Styrr had not fared well on any of those evenings.
She caught her breath when Geoffrey drew his sword with a flourish. Zachary had nothing in his hands, no sword at his side, no means of escape save by bolting and leaving his pride behind. She wondered if he would have the good sense to turn and run.
He didn’t.
Geoffrey hadn’t seemed to have noticed. She supposed, to be fair, that she couldn’t say that he was completely without skill. He had managed to draw his sword, after all, and he had pointed it in the direction of his enemy, also a very good sign. But intimidate anyone with it? Not likely.
She pursed her lips. She had obviously lived with de Piaget men for too many years.
Styrr attempted to hack at Zachary the smith with wild strokes, strokes that Zachary avoided simply by stepping out of their way.
“Perhaps there is more to him than he’s revealed,” Theo whispered. “He might be a knight after all, one bitter from the Crusades in years past—”
“Then where is his sword?” Samuel asked.
“Perhaps he fell on hard times, or ruffians, or had a very ill sister and was forced to sell everything he owned to convince the nuns at Seakirk to take her in. I’m not completely convinced he’s a Scot by birth, though his Gaelic is flawless. His French is surely better than it was since we’ve been working with him. Is he a scholar then, do you think?”
Samuel looked at Zachary, then shook his head. “Too much sword skill to have spent his youth only with manuscripts.”
They looked at each other in a silence that was fraught with meaning.
“Intriguing,” Theo said slowly.
“We must know more,” Samuel said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
Mary agreed, and she would have bid her cousins consider silently what that more might involve, but listening to them speculate distracted her from the skirmish in the courtyard that she was convinced wouldn’t end well. Either Geoffrey would manage to actually poke Zachary with his sword, or Zachary would allow Geoffrey to humiliate himself so thoroughly that Geoffrey would call for Zachary’s death by some other means.
None of it boded well for her escort out the gates.
She looked down at her cousins who were standing in various places below her. Connor looked back at her, lifted his eyebrows briefly, then continued on with his watching. Thaddeus and Parsival were on the ground, discussing in whispers what they saw. She looked for Jackson only to find him walking over to stand next to her father. Her father acknowledged him with a slight nod.
The crowd grew. Zachary the smith was now fending off Geoffrey’s attack with a pair of long knives he’d managed to get out of his boots. She watched him catch Geoffrey’s blade between them, then give Geoffrey a mighty shove backward.
“I’ve no quarrel with you, my lord,” Zachary said, his chest heaving.
“You ruined my horse!”
“My lord, I haven?
??t seen your horse,” Zachary said, leaping aside to avoid a wild thrust.
“You are a liar,” Geoffrey spat. “The horse is half lame and I’ll see you punished for it.”
Mary found herself suddenly shoved aside so forcefully, it took both Theo and Samuel to keep her from tumbling off the stairs. She regained her balance and watched as Geoffrey’s mother continued down the stairs, continuing to push souls out of her way as it suited her. She came to a stop next to Robin only after shoving Jackson so hard he almost went sprawling.
“What is this!” she exclaimed. “I heard there was an injustice going on in your courtyard.”
Robin looked at her gravely. “Did you indeed, Lady Suzanna?”
“This isn’t even a proper fight,” she protested. “I insist that you make this fair.” She pointed toward her son. “Two blades to one? Absurd!”
Mary watched her father consider, then nod and walk out into the midst of his courtyard. Geoffrey seemed loath to back away, but Robin glared him into doing so. Mary couldn’t imagine that Zachary would be willing to give up either of his knives, so she wondered what her father intended to ask him to do.
Robin stopped next to him and held out his hand. Mary watched Zachary exchange a very long look with her father. His expression was as inscrutable as her father’s.
Lust. Mary realized at that moment that what she was feeling was lust. It was such a novel sensation that she almost had to look for somewhere to sit down.
Zachary the smith was, she would readily admit, the most handsome man she had ever seen. Her family was full of handsome men, so another one shouldn’t have had any effect on her. But even standing there in borrowed clothing and what she was sure were her sire’s oldest pair of boots, he was spectacular. She fanned herself surreptitiously until she looked at her hand and realized he had held it in both his own to warm it. She put her hands behind her back and clasped them there. Safer that way, no doubt.
Zachary pulled the sheath of one knife out of his boot, resheathed his knife, and put it in Robin’s hand.
Her father didn’t move. He simply waited. That was the first sign of any sort of surprise that Zachary had betrayed since she’d begun watching him. He stifled it soon enough, shot her sire a dark look, then pulled the sheath out of his other boot, resheathed his second knife, then handed it to Robin as well.
“Still unfair, Uncle,” Connor said loudly. “Tie his hands behind his back!”
Parsival smiled at his cousin over his shoulder, then unbuckled his sword belt. “Smith!”
Zachary looked up, then caught the sword as it came flying toward him. He scarce had time to cast aside the belt and sheath before Geoffrey was coming at him in a fury.
Mary realized she was leaning on Theo only because he almost went tumbling off the stairs to his left. He smiled faintly at her, then put his arm around her shoulders. Mary leaned on him happily. She was just tired. She wasn’t weak in the knees over a man who fought like no other smith she had ever seen. It was obvious that he had trained. He might have even given her father sport for an hour or so.
Geoffrey might have been a poor swordsman, but he was an excellent hurler of insults, a skill which he demonstrated to its fullest. He disparaged everything from Zachary’s looks to his parentage, finally settling quite comfortably on his sword skill.
Zachary only fought without comment and without undue exertion.
The conflict went on far longer than she expected it to, with no clear winner, though ’twas obvious to her that Zachary had only made the minimum effort necessary to defend himself. Geoffrey finally made a very large production of taking a step backward.
“I’ve humiliated you enough for one day, smith.”
Zachary rested Parsival’s sword against his shoulder. “So you have, my lord. I appreciate the mercy.”
Geoffrey resheathed his sword, accepted congratulations from any who were willing to offer them, then gathered his mother up and started up the stairs. Mary leapt off them before she could be caught. Samuel and Theo followed her, standing in front of her where she wouldn’t be seen. She waited until her father had given Zachary back his knives and gone to the lists before she breathed easily.
She watched Zachary go fetch the scabbard, then walk over to Parsival. He resheathed her cousin’s blade and handed it back to him. He dragged his sleeve across his forehead, then laughed uneasily at something her cousin said.
Mary had to lean back against the hall’s foundation. She was, in truth, too old for this.
Parsival walked across the courtyard with Zachary, speaking with him as companionably as he might have any other lad of his own station. They shook hands in front of the forge and Zachary went back inside, presumably to go back to work doing something he didn’t know how to do.
“This is a mystery,” Theo said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“It must be solved,” Samuel agreed.
“At our earliest convenience,” Theo said, sealing the bargain. “Tonight after he’s finished in the forge we’ll lie in wait for him in the stables and hope he comes to see if Master Rolf needs aid. Though I daresay I’ll need to avoid Uncle Robin today to have the liberty to be about my own affairs.”
“Why is that?” Mary asked.
Theo looked at her with a wicked little smile. “Because your sire threatened to beat me if he found me either eavesdropping on him as I was this morn, or lurking purposefully near his solar. Or loitering aimlessly anywhere else in the keep. I think I startled him badly this morning, but I hardly intended to remain in the garderobe for the whole of the day.”
Mary laughed in spite of herself. “Theo, you will provoke him overmuch one day and he will make good on his threats.”
He looked supremely unconcerned. “I can outrun his ancient self, which I pointed out to him this morning.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t lie in wait for you so no running was involved.”
“He threatened that, but I was unintimidated.” He looked back at the courtyard. “I think I can outrun yon smith as well, without much trouble.”
Mary pitied Zachary the smith, for he would have no peace until the twins had satisfied their curiosity. And hers, with any luck.
Though she supposed her curiosity would have been satisfied with a simple answer to a simple question and that was how soon he intended to leave Artane.
“Coming?”
She realized Theo was looking at her expectantly. She shook her head weakly. At the moment, the only thing she wanted to discover was the closest place where she might sit until her knees grew steady beneath her again. She waved the twins off to their nefarious labors, then decided that perhaps she should seek out an obliging pile of hay and cast herself down onto it until she recovered from what she’d seen that morning.
She reminded herself sternly that all she wanted Zachary the smith for was his escort away from her father’s keep, not his very fair face or gentle hands. The sooner she sealed her own bargain with him, the happier she would be.
She supposed she might be reminding herself of that for most of the day.
Chapter 7
Z achary leaned against the door of the smithy and happily took a break. He had been enjoying his promotion from stable boy to smith for a little over two days now. He felt as if he’d been in the gym for a month without pause. It was a sad comment on the state of his life that he looked back with fondness to hours on end of trying not to puke while shoveling horse manure.
The past three days hadn’t been without their bonuses, though. His headache had finally stopped; he’d had decent sleep and many hearty meals. He’d also had the pleasure of that ridiculous encounter with Geoffrey of Styrr earlier that morning, but he didn’t think he could thank Lord Robin for that. He’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and run afoul of a fool’s ire.
Other than the fact that it had put him in Styrr’s sights, he could honestly say that he enjoyed his new temporary job. It gave him work and answers both. Artane’s smith,
who was currently waiting for a broken arm to mend, was a very talkative soul who seemed to have his finger on the pulse of everything going on in the keep. He had also been more than happy to have even an unskilled laborer help him while he waited for the replacement of his cousin the freeman from another village. That cousin’s village had been wiped out by marauders from the north, so business for him had been pretty skimpy. Zachary had thought fond thoughts about the stoutness of Artane’s walls, then happily learned more about metal smithing than he’d ever thought to.
He had also learned the year: 1258. He hadn’t been surprised. Once he’d resigned himself to a bit of time in the current day, he’d concentrated on soaking up as much trivia as possible. Gideon would appreciate the details, after he recovered from the broken nose he was going to have.
All things considered, life in medieval Artane was good. The work was satisfying, the company pleasant, and the food quite edible, despite the poor harvest he knew they’d had the year before. At least when it came to supper, it helped to be working in a job that was so critical to everyone’s survival. If he ended up having to go all the way to Falconberg to find a working time gate, he would at least go well fed.
He’d given his plans quite a bit of thought while learning how to pound steel. He’d given up on the idea of trying the solar door. Even with as decent as Robin of Artane had been to him, he couldn’t imagine that the man would simply look the other way as his pitiful smith traipsed up the stairs and loitered at the lady Anne’s doorway. And if he tried without an invitation, he suspected he would make a very sudden, pointed journey back to the dungeon. He imagined he couldn’t count on a second rescue.
And speaking of rescues, he hadn’t seen anything of his champion. Lord Robin hadn’t volunteered any information about her and he hadn’t dared ask anyone else to identify who might have found herself locked in the dungeon a handful of nights ago. He had begun to wonder if he’d imagined her.
Or he did until just that moment.
As if she had materialized from his imagination, the girl walked across the courtyard. Zachary pushed away from the wall of the smithy and watched in surprise as his erstwhile rescuer led out a horse that had to have been seventeen hands high. It wasn’t an enormous horse by twenty-first-century standards, but big enough for the thirteenth.