Chapter Twenty-One The Lady on the Hunt
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Lady on the Hunt
“Nobody knows your heart, Emer,” Queen Lia murmured.
“I have no heart,” said the Iron Maid. “I have found it safest that way. And I do not wish to be called Emer any longer, Your Majesty. She was a foolish girl.”
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
Going to the Night Market to hear what gossip she could, then make the meals for the household, became a habit.
Forge started to leave coins on the kitchen table, and Emer read the silent message as clear as if the coins on the table were a note.
They were living off Forge’s charity. As a foundling, Emer had lived off charity all her life.
People kept being kind only if you started being useful.
This morning the Night Market buzzed with terrified murmurs about the raiders’ dread flying monster, and dark muttering about the Lady Rahela. People were divided on whether she was a spy for Tagar, an empty-headed harlot leading the Emperor astray, or a witch who had cursed him.
People were united in one opinion. The Queen’s Trials, to be conducted in the old ways, must solve the problem. The true queen would be found. The she-wolf Rahela would perish.
The whole city hated Rahela. They didn’t want to blame their fears of ghouls and raiders on their long-awaited Emperor. So they blamed her for all her own sins, and all his sins too.
Emer returned to Forge Strike’s home with a headache. She chopped wilted chicory, marigold flowers, violet leaves and cabbages with unnecessary force as she started pottage for breakfast. Meat had been too costly to dream of for days.
When the door swung open, Emer seized her chopping knife and threw it with pinpoint accuracy. Forge only just managed to duck.
“Good morrow to you also. Do you always say it with knives?”
Forge plucked the knife from its place embedded in the door frame, and threw it back. Forge was aiming for the wall behind her, Emer realized too late. Right after Emer caught the knife easily by the handle as it sailed past.
She ignored Forge’s raised eyebrow and resumed chopping. “Everybody finds people who make debonair remarks under pressure irritating. Think of a clever remark to make at night when it’s too late, like the rest of us.”
Forge laughed, the sound as rich as the ring of enchanted metal. For a moment Emer was pleased.
“I have better things to do at night.”
The brief shine of a moment flickered away. Emer could well imagine what better things Forge had to do at night. In response to Emer’s silence, Forge nodded and strolled across to the closed door leading to her forge.
“Can I ask,” Emer began abruptly, then bit her lip. “Never mind. I have nothing to say. I care not.”
Forge shrugged. “Be sure I care even less.”
Emer set the knife down with decision. “Very well, since you don’t mind answering questions—”
“I don’t believe that’s what I said, sweet maid—”
“Where did you meet Lia?”
The blacksmith checked herself on the threshold of her forge. “Don’t you want to know what our relationship was?”
“I’m not a fool,” snarled Emer. “It’s obvious what your relationship was. What I wish to know is how on earth it happened? You and the Lady Lia are from different worlds. How would you even meet, let alone indicate to each other that you might be interested in pursuing a closer acquaintance?”
Forge laughed. “‘Pursuing a closer acquaintance’? They teach people to put things so prettily in the palace.” Her scorn was obvious.
Emer felt blood burn in her cheeks, no doubt turning them as red as fire turned iron. She didn’t know the words for such things. It wasn’t as if ladies could court other ladies with marriage in mind. This was an absurd conversation. She regretted beginning it.
After a long moment, Forge explained. “There are certain taverns in the Cauldron specially intended for such pursuits.”
Even the way Forge pronounced “pursuits” was teasing, but Emer felt too shocked to care.
“What, taverns full of ladies who wish to pursue a closer acquaintance with each other!”
Whoever heard of such a thing?
“And gentlemen who wish to pursue other gentlemen’s acquaintance. Whether that pursuit lasts all night long, or if it’s a matter of fumbling in the necessary for the space of time it takes to have a drink.” Forge rolled her eyes.
“Who cares what the gentlemen are doing!”
Forge Strike had the sheer temerity to wink.
“Certainly not me. Your Lady Lia found her way to one such tavern. She dressed simple to pass herself off as a merchant girl, but she stood out all right. She let me buy her a drink. The rest is history. Learned as noble servants are, you’re no doubt aware history is full of horrors.
Your Lady Lia’s a cold-blooded manipulator who thinks of us peasants as puppets.
Every move she makes, she’s jerking the strings for her own little play. ”
Jerking the strings. Emer couldn’t help but think of the jolting movement of the ghoul, its strings or its leash snapped. From puppet to bloody-mouthed animal in an instant, and who would want to be either one? Surely the nobles didn’t control Emer like that.
“She’s not my lady,” snapped Emer.
“That’s right.” Lia’s voice sounded softly from the bottom of the steps. “The lady who Emer serves is my sister Rahela. My sister needs our help, and we need yours.”
The blacksmith backed away from Lia into the safety of her forge as if she’d seen a snake.
“I don’t intend to help.”
“But you will,” Lia said serenely. “Wait and see.”
Emer had thought of what happened between herself and Lia as a secret kept under covers, a night turned unexpectedly wild, to be repeated and dreamed of, but never spoken about.
Except their nights hadn’t been chance or fate.
Lia hadn’t been, as she claimed at the time, innocently wondering what happened after marriage.
She’d been looking for the exact same thing she searched for in the tawdry taverns of the Cauldron.
So much for wonderful discoveries and shared secrets. Your Lady Lia’s a cold-blooded manipulator who thinks of us peasants as puppets.
All amusement died in Forge’s dark eyes, like a bucket of water tipped over a fire. “Don’t make me regret letting you in. You know why I did.”
Because of the lingering feelings Forge had for Lia. But if those feelings were swallowed up by resentment, what would Lia and Emer do? They had nowhere else to go.
“Thank you for letting us stay,” Emer said grudgingly.
Forge shrugged, and looked around her chambers with a measuring eye. Emer did meticulous work. The grime of years was lifted off every surface in the little townhouse. She could see Forge was pleased with the effect.
“That’s all right,” Forge declared, after some thought. “Can’t abide cleaning and cooking for myself. You must learn to haggle better at the Night Market, though.”
“Prices are through the clouds due to the siege. I know how to haggle. We haggle at the Day Market too.”
Forge almost smiled. “See? We’re not so different down here.”
“How glad I am,” said Lia in her sweetest voice, “to see you two getting along so well.”
Forge answered by leaving the room. The door to her forge slammed, and the sound of striking hammers filled the silence left in her wake.
By day their host worked in the forge, and by night she went out on business.
Forge Strike was clearly a very busy person.
The early mornings were the only time she seemed to have to spare for talking, when Lia slept.
Forge wouldn’t volunteer information, but she would answer questions. So Emer learned to ask.
“How did you come to be a blacksmith?” Emer asked stiffly a couple of mornings later.
It was an unusual trade for a woman. Perhaps her father had been a blacksmith and the forge was inherited, given her name. Or perhaps in the lawless Cauldron you could take whatever job you wished.
“More properly, I’m a metalworker. I have to be, plying my trade in the Cauldron. You have to be adaptable here: it’s adapt or die.”
“Isn’t metalworker just another word for blacksmith?”
Forge directed a scandalized look Emer’s way, as if Emer had just suggested something unthinkable, like dressing a blonde in yellow. “No. A blacksmith works iron, which can be heated to a black heat. Tin and pewter, that’s a whitesmith. Silver, a silversmith, copper… take a guess.”
“I’ve seen a silversmith stall at the Day Market,” Emer contributed.
Forge took a swig from her mug of dark, astringent beer.
“And in the stalls of the Day Market and the shops along the Chain of Commerce, there are a dozen types of smith. There’s housesmiths, who make gates and rails.
There’s special swordsmiths and knifesmiths who make only weapons for the quality.
There’s the foundry workers and farriers, and the armourers’ guild who won’t let even their apprentices touch anything that doesn’t belong in an armoury.
And only the highest of the high are allowed to work with orichal metal.
My mother saved up and had me sent to a street off the Chain of Commerce so I could learn to fashion any metal into anything I chose.
For a few weeks I learned under a man who made only pins. ”
Emer had used many a pin in her time. She never thought to wonder where they came from.
“Taught me a lot, the pinmaker,” Forge continued. “Offered to keep me on, and make me a real apprentice, but I said no. Just as I said no when the Emperor came to my door, and offered to take me to the palace. I was born and bred in the Cauldron. I don’t do well under the law.”
“You want to break laws?”
“Yes.” Forge seemed confident about this. “Cauldron-kind don’t do well under rule of law. Look what happened to Key.”
“He’s making his own laws now.”