Forged

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “This is a woman of the highest born blood,” the man Grannish hissed. “You will refer to her by her title—!”

  “ ‘My lady’ will suffice,” she cut him off.

  “Your pardon, my lady, I am a foreigner to these lands and things are different here than where I come from.”

  “Then it is understood. Truly, you are forgiven. Driver, ride on!” she said in loud command.

  The driver had since climbed out of the mud and back up into his seat, Dethan having kept a sharp eye on him the entire time. He made a sound to the horses and they drove on with a jolting start. Dethan watched them go, his eyes on the woman and hers on his the entire time. It took him a minute to shake himself free of the trance in which he found himself, and then he found himself questioning why he had done what he had just done. He should be worrying about his own skin, his own tasks, and not what happened to a lone man in the filth of the street.

  “Thank you, sir,” the man said then, coming up to him and grabbing his hand. He touched the back of his hand to the back of Dethan’s pressing them together. “I owe you much. Come let me reward you.”

  “I have no need of reward,” Dethan said. He eyed the other man. “And you have little to give, I think.”

  “Any other day that would be true, but today is the fair and I have been saving my silver to go. I think I might find me a wife today, if I can be so lucky.”

  “You intend to buy one?” Dethan asked.

  “Oh well … I suppose I could. From one of the slavers. But my money is so little that I wouldn’t be able to buy any woman of passing health. It takes a strong woman to be a mudfarmer’s wife.”

  “You might be surprised,” Dethan said. “A sickly slave might be made well with good care. I’ve seen it done.”

  “It might be cheaper at that!” The man chuckled; it was a low raspy sound. He ran a hand back through his hair, obviously a habit because there were streaks of mud in various stages of wetness from the times before. “By the time the courting is done a man can be begging in the streets. Your idea has merit, that’s what! So, to the fair then? I’ll buy you a roasted gossel leg for your trouble though I wish it was more.”

  “A gossel leg is more than fair and will be more than welcome.”

  “Very well then.” The man pressed the backs of their hands together again. “My name’s Tonkin. You are new around here.”

  “Yes. Why does that matter?” Dethan said uneasily.

  “Well, no one who knows would step in to interfere with his lordship the high jenden’s business. He’s a cruel bastard, make no mistake about it. If I hadn’t fallen I would never have come close to that vehicle of his. He rides it round here all fine and fierce looking, making sure all us drudges know our place.”

  “Jenden?” he asked cautiously. He didn’t want to seem too strange to this individual. But by the look the man sent him he could tell he was very much so strange.

  “Advisor to the grand. You know, advisor to the king,” he stressed when, no doubt, Dethan’s expression remained blank. “And anyways, that was the grandina, the grand’s daughter, with him. I guarantee you had she not been with him the whole business would have gone much differently. It’s rumored that once the jenden killed someone right in the middle of the street. And the grand is so enamored with all the jenden says and does he can do no wrong. I suppose that’s why he’s given his eldest daughter and heir to the jenden to marry. Though some say he’s getting the raw deal, what with her being so ugly and all.”

  “Ugly? That’s ugly?” Dethan asked incredulously, cocking a thumb in the direction the coach had disappeared in. “She’s nearly as beautiful as Kitari. And I do not make that case lightly, for I’ve seen Kitari with my own eyes!”

  He regretted it the minute Tonkin looked at him as though he’d grown boils all over his face. After all, what manner of man claimed to have seen the unattainable queen of the gods? But then Tonkin’s face relaxed and he chuckled.

  “Oh aye, she is a beauty at that. I agree with you. But ’round here that burn makes her ugly to most. Some said she will be unfit to rule after her father’s death … no doubt some like the jenden himself. Jenden Grannish wouldn’t be marrying her, you could wager, if he could think of any other way of becoming grand for himself. As it is the grand’s children have been cast a sad eye by Hella. Misfortunes have fallen on the royal family in terrible ways. The grand’s sons dying like that. And his two youngest daughters taken by the plague just this past summer. That leaves only the grandina Selinda and grandino Drakin. But the boy prince is only two and of poor health.” Dethan’s companion tsked his tongue and shook his head gravely.

  As though to say that was the whole of it and there was nothing to be done about it. But surely anyone could see that there was something dark at play in the grand’s household. Of course, Fate was as capricious a goddess as any and Hella had been known to toy with entire families, entire bloodlines, especially if she felt slighted in some way. It was hard to say what moved Fate and why her whims fluctuated so wildly. There were those who said Hella had gone mad, her mind crazed by the many things she could see and feel unfolding in the world. From all the choices she had to make every day that could save a person or bring about their demise or worse.

  But fate could be changed or altered under the right conditions. One just needed to know all the elements at play.

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