The Blacksmith: Order of the Broken Blade

by Mecca, Cecelia

  “A worthy name. Shall I show you to the forge?”

  Her manners befitted her station, and as Lance followed the lady down toward the large stone building, certainly larger than any he’d worked in before, he couldn’t help watching her walk. Surefooted despite the wet ground beneath them, she held her head high.

  As a noblewoman does.

  Which should remind you not to stare at her backside.

  “’Tis a wonder you were available to come to Stanton Castle. We feared, after Roland passed, it would be some time before a master smith could be found.”

  Stanton’s need for a smith had been the order’s good fortune.

  “My father said you approached him at the Tournament of the North?”

  He caught up with her then, and they slowed as they reached the forge.

  “Indeed, my lady.”

  “Was Lord Bohun very disappointed you left?”

  His former master and now ally was actually quite pleased as Lance had told him of his purpose at Stanton, but that fact was one of many Lady Idalia could not know about.

  “Aye, my lady, but the opportunity to serve as a castle smith was one I could not ignore.” At least part of his statement was true. “I hope to forge more swords and armor than keys and nails here.”

  She peered inside the shop. “You’ve two fine young apprentices who are quite adept, so you should definitely find yourself supplementing the armorer here.”

  That surprised him. “Stanton has its own armorer, then?”

  “Nay.” She shook her head. “We are supplied by Kenshire’s. The old smith, Roland, had little experience forging weapons. I am surprised you are experienced with both.”

  “My . . .” He nearly said father. “My original master apprenticed in an armory but moved to Marwood as a journeyman.”

  “And so we are lucky to have you here at Stanton.”

  When she moved toward him, he could smell a hint of citrus. “I would forewarn you, though. Roland was much loved by the people here. Some may find it . . . difficult to see him replaced. Even by such a fine man as yourself.”

  Fine? Lance had been described many ways before. Reticent. Unforgiving. But never “fine.” He liked the word, especially from her lips.

  “I will strive to please my lady and the people of Stanton.”

  He’d meant nothing by it, but as soon as the words left his mouth, Lance held his breath. He could not afford any missteps here, even a subtle flirtation such as that.

  Fortunately, Lady Idalia did not seem to question his choice of words. Pleasing her would be equally enjoyable and disastrous.

  For them both.

  * * *

  Idalia made her way back to the keep but stopped just before entering. Preparations for the meal would be nearly complete, and she needed a moment to herself.

  Waiting until Father Sica moved out of her path, the priest’s expression grim as usual, she hurried to the abandoned Small Tower and used one of only two keys that opened the door. Pulling it closed behind her, Idalia hurried up the tightly wound, circular stairs to the top.

  This tower was originally meant to be one of four lookouts located at each of the four corners of the inner curtain wall. But before the construction could be completed, her great-grandfather was given a new commission from the king, one that came with a large enough sum to allow him to build a second, and much taller, wall around the first. The towers had instead been placed around the new outer wall, leaving Small Tower an unused anomaly.

  Idalia had been coming here since she was a child. All knew of her very poor hiding spot, but only Dawson had another key. And it had been some time since he’d climbed these steep steps. The pain in his knees prevented him from doing so. Once, her mother had wondered aloud if a new, younger seneschal might replace him. Her father had not taken kindly to the suggestion and none had mentioned it since.

  But she’d not come here to dwell on her mother’s illness. Reaching the top of the tower, Idalia leaned against the cold stone wall and closed her eyes, imagining him.

  She’d spoken to Lance but once. Still, she could envision his face clearly.

  Although he didn’t have a beard, he’d not shaven for some days, the whiskers on his face as black as the tousled waves that came down to the tips of his ears and covered his entire forehead.

  Built like a knight, nay, a blacksmith, he was difficult to miss and she’d certainly not done so. She’d stopped walking the moment she’d caught sight of him.

  He’d done the same.

  He’d looked at her as if she were beautiful, but she knew the truth, just like everyone around Stanton did. She was naught but a plainer version of her very beautiful older sister. As her younger sister, too young to know any better, had once said, she was “pretty enough.”

  Well, he was much more than ordinary.

  I really should get back to the keep.

  Just one more moment, she negotiated with herself.

  Idalia opened her eyes, staring at the wall in front of her. Others might have a moment to spare for daydreams, but she did not. Standing up straight, she sighed and began the careful walk back down the stairs.

  Would Tilly be back from market day? No doubt that was where she’d run off to earlier, pretending not to have seen her. At ten and four, her sister could be trusted with some tasks, but she could never be completely relied upon. Indeed, she was still a child in many ways, and if Idalia could help it, she’d remain so for as long as possible.

  Though she would have liked a sachet of citrus blossom and a few other supplies.

  As she locked the tower door, two hands covered her eyes from behind. Had her thoughts summoned her sister?

  “Do not look,” Tilly said, taking her hands away. “Close your eyes.”

  “I assumed that was what you meant me to do when you told me not to look.”

  “Smell.”

  The directive wasn’t needed. She’d already caught the scent. Smiling, she took the sachet from under her nose and turned around.

  “Thank you, Till.”

  She looked down at the almoner pouch wondering what else her sister had picked up from the market.

  “What did you . . .” She stopped as Tilly pulled two bulbs of garlic from her pouch. How many items did she have in there? “’Tis said if you peel it and place it under the pillow, it may help to relieve a headache.”

  Idalia crossed her arms and waited.

  “I knew you would be angry. But Idalia, she is in so much pain.”

  “And if the merchant asks questions?”

  “He will not.” She tucked the garlic back inside. “I’ve not seen him before. Likely never will again.” Tilly rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say, ‘Can you please help with a remedy for my mother.’”

  “Shhh,” she scolded. Though the courtyard was not as busy as normal with supper approaching, there were still plenty of servants and men-at-arms moving around them. “Father will not be pleased.”

  Even if Idalia did not fully agree with her father’s insistence on keeping the extent of their mother’s illness secret, she understood his concern. And though she herself sought potential cures, Tilly had not quite mastered the art of subtlety. All would know her purpose for the garlic bulbs before long.

  Father Sica had hinted, as her mother’s pain increased, that her condition was a spiritual matter that could be treated by no physician—a test from Satan. Idalia knew her father feared the priest would bring his talk of Satan’s influence to the village. He worried such aspersions would ruin not just his wife’s reputation, but the prospects of his two marriageable daughters. He was an earl, a powerful Northumbrian lord who once served as judicar to the king, and yet priests had a power all their own.

  If she or her sisters criticized the priest, however, her father would say only, “He is a man of God.”

  Idalia sighed. Though her father relied on her, he refused to listen to her counsel on most subjects, their mother chief among them.

  “He
will not know,” her conspiratorial sister replied.

  They’d just entered the great keep, and as expected, her absence had been missed.

  “Lady Idalia . . . if you’ll pardon us, Lady Tilly,” said the laundress. “The new girl,” she said, wringing her hands.

  “Aye? What of her?”

  Tilly used the interruption to wander away, as was her custom.

  “She broke a paddle. After comin’ back from market without the lye soap I asked her for.”

  “Have you spoken to Dawson?”

  Though she asked, Idalia already knew the answer. Although the seneschal was officially in charge of the household staff, everyone came to her first. It had been that way for some time, even when Roysa, her older sister, was still in residence. Roysa had since wed a powerful border baron.

  “Nay, my lady. Shall I do so?” the older woman asked, blinking. It was an open secret that the laundress was slightly terrified of him.

  “I will speak to the girl. But,” Idalia warned, “you will need to practice patience as well. She is still young.”

  The laundress was already nodding, grateful. “Aye, my lady.”

  And so it went until Idalia resigned herself to visiting her mother after the meal rather than before it.

  It was only when the second course was served she thought again of the new smith.

  Idalia knew in some households he would not be invited to eat here in the hall. But at Stanton Castle, all were welcome, courtesy of her mother. She’d insisted, for as long as Idalia could remember, that anyone who contributed to the well-being of their home had a place at every meal.

  She was about to send an invitation to him when the very man she was thinking about strode into the hall.

  And looked directly at her.

  3

  Lance had never met a more suspicious lot.

  He sat at the back corner of the hall, pleased to learn he had a place there but less so about the dour looks he received. Though none would accuse him of being overly gregarious, Lance could usually befriend the locals quite easily.

  Not so the people of Stanton.

  Forcing himself to ignore the dais, he listened to the workers who sat around him.

  “They came today, but no one knows their purpose here,” said one man deep in his cups.

  “They?” he asked.

  All turned to stare at him.

  “Lance,” he said to those he had not yet met, answering the unasked question. “Wayland. The new smith.”

  Grunts and one half-mumbled “Aye” was what he’d expected and what he received.

  Lady Idalia had warned him, but the old blacksmith must have been even more beloved than she’d thought. Lance understood such loyalty. This wasn’t the first time he’d replaced an old master. But this time, there was much more at stake.

  “He talks of the king’s men.”

  This from the redhead at the end of their trestle table.

  “I’m Robert, the butler,” he added.

  So this was the man in charge of Stanton’s stores of ale. An important position, and one who would make him a good ally.

  The meaning of the butler’s words penetrated as he lifted his own mug of ale to his lips. “Did you say the king’s men?” he asked, lowering it.

  His gaze shot to the area just below the dais. Shifting to see between the other hundred or so retainers that dined between them, Lance spotted the distinct red and yellow of the men’s surcoats.

  Without reacting, he turned back to his meal.

  But not before getting a glimpse of her.

  She sat next to her father, as regal as a queen. Not that he’d ever seen a queen before, but he had been around plenty of noblewomen, and Lady Idalia was certainly that.

  Which only served as a reminder that he needed to stay well away from her.

  “Is it common for the king’s men to visit here?” He addressed the question to the butler since none of the others seemed inclined to include him in the conversation.

  In answer, Robert shrugged.

  He wouldn’t make further inquiries yet, but the presence of these men did not bode well for his mission here. If the earl received the king’s representatives regularly, it might be an unwelcome clue to his political leanings.

  If Lance and his friends were to rebel against the most powerful man in the country, one whose ruthless extortion of his barons had prompted them to form the order, they would need the Earl of Stanton’s support. Without it, they had little chance of bringing King John to heel.

  That Stanton had needed a new blacksmith just when they needed powerful allies had been either a lucky happenstance or a sign. While he was glad for it, Lance did not necessarily agree with Conrad, who’d suggested it was divine fate. “The fates clear a path to the one man who will convince all others,” he’d said after sharing the entirety of his plan to him in that tent. That plan had led him here.

  “Go back to London,” the man sitting next to him muttered, presumably to the king’s men.

  None responded, but it was the opening Lance needed.

  “Nord.”

  It was a risk. A Nord battle cry. More than a word.

  When he was answered with grunts and nods, Lance breathed more easily. These were Northerners like him, but that did not mean their lord was on his side.

  Unlike some of the others who had declared publicly against John after his most recent defeat in France, Stanton had remained silent on the matter. According to Conrad, whose father and Stanton had disliked each other so intensely Conrad could not risk approaching the man himself, the earl’s father had served the king well. The son had done the same, back when Henry was still king. He’d even served as his judicar.

  But that had been before John. Before the taxes that increased so often, for a failed war with France, his men could no longer pay them. Before the kidnappings, John’s answer to his barons’ inability to pay constantly increasing taxes. Just before the tournament yet another baron’s daughter had been taken by the king’s men after her father refused to pay twenty thousand marks for permission to secure her marriage. Before the aggression on his own people— the barons and earls in the north who had begun to take a stand.

  Lance remained silent for the remainder of the meal. It had been an eventful first day, and he knew when to retreat.

  He also knew better than to look up at the dais again. But although he was a disciplined man, and a smart one, the instinct was too strong to be denied.

  * * *

  The summer sun shone bright, a welcome relief from the rain of the past three days. It was nearing time for dinner, but their royal guests had just departed, leaving Idalia a few moments of respite. She’d already attended mass and visited with her mother, who now lay on two heads of garlic under her pillow courtesy of Tilly. After speaking to cook about provisions for the day and seeking out the tutor to discuss her sister, who’d missed another lesson that morn, she’d decided a visit to the forge was necessary.

  It is my duty to see to the smith as I would any worker in the castle. It has naught to do with how he looked at me last eve.

  She knew that was not altogether true, but it wasn’t a fabrication either. The marshal had asked for the help of one or both of the boys at the smithy. Two of the stable boys had fallen ill, both on the same day.

  As she approached the forge, smoke billowed out of the stone building. She thought of Roland, who had served Stanton Castle since before she was born. The people were not alone in their grief over losing him.

  “The impurities will crack off as you twist it.”

  The low voice reached her ears as she came to a stop in the open doorway. Miles and Daryon stood watching, transfixed, as the new smith leaned over the anvil, his back to her. She could see the awe on the boys’ faces and wondered what Lance was about.

  Idalia took a step inside, somewhat accustomed to the heat in the tool-lined space. Roland’s work had always fascinated her, and she’d spent more time down here than her fathe
r would have liked.

  “Master Roland never twisted a nail before,” Miles said to the smith.

  She took another step toward them, and froze.

  Lance’s arms were bare. Covered in soot but very, very bare. As he held up his handiwork, muscled biceps and thick forearms moving in unison, she could not help but admire his form. And though she quickly looked away, toward the bright orange metal clasped between the tongs he held, she could tell by his expression she’d been caught.

  He didn’t smile, exactly, but the corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.

  “He could twist a metal rod,” Daryon clarified, “but that nail is so small.”

  “It’s called a rope twist,” Lance said, still looking at her.

  Idalia swallowed. She’d never minded the heat in the forge before, but suddenly it engulfed her. As did his stare. She couldn’t look away.

  He finally broke the stare, turning to his young apprentices.

  Her shoulders fell. Idalia could breathe again.

  Of sorts.

  “This is a very special nail,” Lance said. “I’ll be showing you a new technique each day.”

  He dropped the nail to the side and handed Miles his pliers.

  “Can you spare the boys until midday?” Idalia asked, remembering the marshal’s plea. “Our marshal finds himself without two stable boys and could use assistance grooming this morn.”

  Lance nodded to the boys. “Go.”

  They obeyed immediately, scurrying past her and out the door.

  “I fear your gown will be worse for visiting here,” he said.

  Indeed, her pale yellow frock would collect soot more easily than most, earning her a lecture from the laundress, but it would not be her first talking-to.

  “I’m no stranger to the forge,” she said, watching him wipe his hands on a cloth that was more black than cream. A leather apron fit snugly around his chest, but it was his arms that captured her attention.

  Not that Idalia had never seen a man’s bare arms before. She had, especially here in this forge. But this was the first time she’d ever wished to run her hands over them before.