As Stefan’s gaze settled on Erik, his expression darkened, but Manfred put a restraining hand upon his arm. Whispering something in Stefan’s ear, the younger brother maintained a tight grip. Stefan at last nodded once, his eyes heavy-lidded, and forced a cold smile to his lips. Ignoring Erik and Roo, he bowed slightly toward Gwen and said, “Miss, it seems my father and the town burghers are intent on discussing issues of wine and grapes beyond my understanding and patience. Perhaps you might care to acquaint us with some more . . . interesting diversions?”
Gwen blushed and then threw Erik a glance. He frowned at her and slightly shook his head no. As if challenging his right to advise her, she jumped lightly down from the low wall around the fountain and said, “Sir, I would be delighted.” She called another girl who was sitting nearby. “Katherine, join us!”
Gwen took Stefan’s extended arm like a lady of the court, and Katherine awkwardly followed her example with Manfred. They strolled away from the fountain, Gwen exaggerating the sway of her hips as they vanished into the darkness.
After a moment, Erik said, “We’d better follow.”
Roo came to stand directly in front of his friend. “Looking for a fight?”
“No, but those two won’t take no for an answer and the girls—”
Roo put his hand firmly on Erik’s chest, as if to prevent his moving forward. “. . . know what they’re getting into with noble sons,” he finished. “Gwen’s no baby. And Stefan won’t be the first to get her to pull up her skirts. And you’re about the only boy in town who hasn’t bedded Katherine.” Looking over his shoulder to where the four had vanished into the night, he added, “Though I thought the girls had better taste than that.”
Roo lowered his voice so that only Erik could hear, and his tone took on a harshness that his friend recognized. Roo used it only when he was deadly serious about a topic. “Erik, the day may come when you will have to face your swine of a brother. And when it does, you will probably have to kill him.” Erik’s brow furrowed at Roo’s tone and words. “But not tonight. And not over Gwen. Now, don’t you have to get back to the inn?”
Erik nodded, gently removing Roo’s hand from his chest. He stood motionless for a second, trying to digest what his friend had just said. Then, shaking his head, he turned and walked back toward the inn.
2
Deaths
Tyndal was dead.
Erik still couldn’t believe it. Each time he came into the forge during the last two months he had expected to see the burly smith either asleep on his pallet at the rear of the forge or hard at work. The man’s sense of humor when he wasn’t sober, or his dark moodiness when he was—everything about him was etched in every corner of this place where Erik had learned his craft for the previous six years.
Erik inspected the coals from the previous night’s fire and judged how much wood to add to bring it back to life. A miller’s wagon had lurched into the courtyard the night before with a broken axle, and there would be ample work to fill his day. He still couldn’t get over Tyndal’s not being there.
Two months previously, Erik had climbed down from his loft expecting the events of the morning to be as usual, but one glance at Tyndal’s regular resting place had sent the hairs on Erik’s neck straight up. Erik had seen the smith drunk to a stupor, but this was something else. There was stillness to the old man that Erik instinctively recognized. He had never seen a dead man before, but he had seen many animals dead in the fields, and there was something eerily familiar in the smith’s attitude. Erik touched Tyndal to assure himself the old blacksmith was truly dead, and when he touched cold skin he jerked his hand away as if from a burn.
The local priest of Killian, who acted as a healer for most of the poor in the town, quickly confirmed that Tyndal had indeed drunk his last bottle of wine. Since he had no family, it was left to Milo to dispose of the corpse, and he arranged a hasty funeral, with a quick pyre. The ashes were scattered, and a prayer was said to the Singer of Green Silence by her priest, though smiths were more correctly considered the province of Tith-Onanka, the god of war. Erik felt that somehow the prayer to Killian, the goddess of the forest and field, was appropriate: Tyndal had repaired perhaps one sword in the six years Erik had been around the forge, but countless plows, tillers, and other implements of farming.