The reply was a list of village names that Gifford had never heard of. Roan probably knew every one of them. In her head, she likely had a list and mentally checked off the locations. “Plenty of shields, why so few swords?” Gifford didn’t hear the reply. The man’s voice was low and didn’t carry the way Roan’s did.
She stayed out there until the weapons were unloaded and the wagon rolled out. Then she returned, wiping her hands on her apron. Immediately she picked up her hammer and headed for the forge.
“Woan, you need to eat,” Gifford said.
“You still here?”
“Yes, Woan. Still am. And you still need to eat. You know…food? It’s like the fuel you put in the fu-nace. If you don’t keep putting some in, the fu-nace goes out and all things shut down. Don’t want that, do you?”
She smirked at him.
He shook the bag once more. “Smells good. I think it’s chicken.”
She mopped her brow again and, wiping her hands on the leather apron, walked over.
“Let’s eat outside,” he said.
“Why?” She pierced him with an intent stare. Anyone unfamiliar with her would have seen it as suspicious, or accusing. Gifford saw it as the bright light of a focused mind capable of seeing beyond the shadows that confused everyone else. Roan always wanted to know the why of everything.
“I have this old fwend I want you to meet,” Gifford replied. “You’ll like him. He’s quiet, but pleasant, handsome, and especially bwight.”
Another smirk. “The sun?”
He grinned. “Is nice out. Pwetty, even.”
With the desperate concern of a young mother asked to leave her child with an irresponsible guardian, she looked back at the ore glowing in the fire. Gifford pressed his lips together as he imagined how Roan would one day have her own children and look exactly that way. Gifford wouldn’t be the father. He couldn’t even be a guardian; she couldn’t trust the wretched cripple to protect her baby. The thought hit hard. He felt it in his stomach like a punch, and in his throat like a hand squeezing so hard he couldn’t breathe.
“What’s wrong?” Roan asked, the bright light of her stare upon him again, eyes that saw far too much.
“Nothing,” he managed to say.
“You look in pain. Are you feeling okay?”
He put a hand to his chest. “Nothing a little sun wouldn’t fix.”
As they walked out of the smithy into the sunbathed courtyard filled with the grunts, shouts, and clangs of men training to fight, Gifford mentally chided himself. Greedy is what I am. I should appreciate that she talks to me at all. If Iver hadn’t messed her up so badly, she wouldn’t dream of eating a meal with me. She’d have already married one of Tope’s boys and wouldn’t be allowed to speak to the twisted pottery goblin.
The thought was well intentioned, but the pain devouring his insides wasn’t listening. He was going to lose her when the better man came along, which could be virtually anyone. No, not anyone. Not me. I’m not the one man whose touch she can accept. The man who could take her in his arms, who could kiss her without her screaming. That day would come. He knew it would. He constantly prayed each day for Mari to heal Roan, to let her live the normal life she deserved. He had faith it would happen, and when that day finally came, he would cheer for her even if that same day his heart would shatter, and happiness—as he knew it—would fly out of his world.
“How about this?” he said, finding a sunny patch of thick grass far enough outside that the sounds of crashing hammers wouldn’t interfere with conversation.
“Wait,” she told him and took off her apron. “Ground will be wet this time of year.” She laid the thick leather out for them to sit on.
He smiled.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing—just you.”
“Just me, what?”
I just love you; that’s all; I love you with every breath, every thought, every beat of my heart because you’re more than a person, you’re a world unto yourself—a rich, vibrant, exciting, fascinating universe, and I want to spend my life exploring every forest, field, and stream.
“Always thinking,” he said.
Roan looked down at the leather beneath her knees and shrugged. “Just didn’t want us to get muddy.”
He dumped out the bag’s contents.
“Chicken legs!” Roan burst out with a huge smile. “I love chicken legs. I’ll have one; you have the other.”
“They both fo’ you.”
“No! No!” She was shaking her head even as she bit into the first leg.
“This isn’t my meal. I’m just going to watch you eat.”
“You have some, too. It’s good.” She wiped grease from her chin, then grabbed up the other leg and held it out.
“I’ll have a bite.”
“Oh, and yellow cheese!” she said, unwrapping the cloth-covered hunk.
He watched her devour the food in precise bites, while in front of them a class of soldiers practiced moves under the barking tutelage of a Fhrey instructor. Behind them, the smithy’s little chimney belched black smoke that blew east with the spring breeze. Roan forced him to eat some of the chicken before she finished it.
“Nice out, isn’t it?” He lay back on his elbows. They were off the apron, and he felt the wet soak into his sleeves. “What do you say we do this ev-we day?”