Chapter 2
The first three days went by quickly. As promised, Cillian had a hot cup of coffee waiting for me every morning.
I started the day making knives, nails, pots and pans.
Later, we would chat while having lunch or sit silently, watching people walk by.
The work brought me a sense of contentment, and Cillian was a calming person to be around.
I’d worked alone in Red River for so long that I’d forgotten what it was like before Iain became too ill to work beside me.
It was my first day off, and Nightmare nudged me impatiently as I tried to saddle her. Bay, Cillian’s horse, munched away on hay, still unbothered by Nightmare.
‘I can’t believe you named your bay-coloured horse Bay,’ I snorted at Cillian, who was drinking his morning coffee.
‘I’m offended!’ He clutched his heart in mock horror. ‘And so is Bay.’
I shook my head, trying to bite back a smile and failing.
‘And what kind of name is Nightmare, eh?’ He looked at me over the rim of his cup as he took another sip.
‘Well, she’s black like night, a mare and …’ I paused for effect. ‘She’s a bloody nightmare to deal with.’
He threw back his head and laughed, causing the crows that waited on the wall for our leftover breakfast to launch into the air with a squawk.
Nightmare navigated the winding streets of Murus with ease, and I realised that making Cillian laugh had me smiling stupidly at strangers, so I immediately stopped.
I had adjusted to my surroundings over the past few days, and I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the city.
The markets were even more varied than three years ago and I took my time looking through all the different stalls.
The banks of the Red River were vast but isolated, and I had only shopped from riverside villages where the food selection was small, all with very similar offerings.
In Murus, there wasn’t just an extensive range of locally-grown produce – I also discovered imported foods I had never seen before.
One vendor was selling a giant, spiky, bright-yellow fruit. He called it a pine-apple. No pine trees I’d ever seen had fruit on them.
He explained that the fruit grew on the ground, not in trees, but couldn’t explain why they were called pine-apples. They looked nothing like an apple.
I bought one, a small bag of coffee beans and some honey cakes a child and her mother were selling.
The little girl smiled at me shyly. ‘She likes to stop and watch you work with the Murus blacksmith every morning on our way to set up for the market,’ her mother told me, making the girl blush.
With my shopping done, I waved goodbye to the little girl and her mother and headed back in the direction of the forge.
Instead of stopping there, I went up the hill towards the fortress.
I was close enough to see the guards’ faces, and it was a testament to their discipline that they gave me nothing but a cursory look in return.
The noise of steel striking steel reached my ears. It sounded like soldiers were training behind the fortress walls. How many were inside? There was only one way to find out.
‘I’m here to deliver some things to someone inside,’ I said.
‘To who?’ asked the guard.
Damnation. ‘A friend,’ I answered.
‘Bugger off. We don’t allow your kind in here.’
My kind? Blacksmiths? Women? Oh wait, does he think I’m a—
‘Not that kind of friend.’ I was dressed in men’s breeches and a shirt that had been worn and washed so many times that it was no longer white but grey. Hardly an outfit to entice a soldier to pay for my company.
‘I said, bugger off!’ He reached for his sword. It wasn’t wise for me to draw their attention, so I had no choice but to back up and walk away.
Entering the fortress was going to need some planning. I needed to find a legitimate way to gain access.
I headed back to Cillian, who was working on the colossal piece of metal I had seen him hammering the first day we met.
He looked at me with a smile, and I smiled back before taking Nightmare to the stable. When I returned, Cillian asked to see what I had purchased from the market. I wanted to share the honey cakes and the pine-apple with him, so I cut it up the way the vendor had shown me.
‘This is my new favourite apple.’ I ate another slice.
Cillian laughed and shook his head at me.
‘What are you making?’ I gestured to the piece he was working on.
‘It’s going to be a plough.’ He motioned for me to come over to the table we used as a workshop desk and view the detailed drawing.
‘Most ploughs are wood held together with iron nails and brackets, with one central piece of iron digging into the soil. I’ve designed this one to have multiple blades that rotate in the dirt as the horse pulls it, making it more efficient at breaking up rocks and much faster for the farmer.’
The design had many parts drawn with precise measurements, and he had labelled each piece to be crafted. Blacksmiths always created basic patterns and designs, but this was the first time I had seen plans as complicated as this. He had a unique talent for this clever type of engineering.
‘This is incredible!’
His cheeks flushed, and he reached up to rub the back of his neck. ‘You think so?’
‘Yes. You’re smarter than you look, aren’t you?’ I tilted my head, a smirk tugging at my lips.
He chuckled, and we went back to eating honey cakes and pine-apple.
‘What do you know about the people residing in the fortress?’ I asked, trying to sound only mildly curious.
He wiped at the juice trickling down his chin from an exceptionally juicy piece of pine-apple. ‘They just showed up one day.’ He shrugged. ‘A lord from Capita with three children is what I’ve heard. They arrived just over three months ago.’
‘What’s with all the soldiers?’ I asked.
‘They escorted the family to Murus from Capita. Whoever this lord is, he needs a well-trained militia, which doesn’t come cheap.’ Cillian wiped his sticky hands on his breeches as he continued. ‘If I had to guess, I would say this lord and his family are hiding from someone or have been exiled.’
‘Exiled by who?’ I was getting even more curious about the fortress inhabitants. Cillian shrugged again, but he avoided my gaze. Was he afraid to say more?
‘His militia seem rather well behaved compared with the few soldiers I’ve met,’ I said with a bitter taste in my mouth. Cillian laid his big hand on top of the one I had resting on my knee.
‘You have nothing to fear while you’re staying here. That’s a promise, Caris.’
I nodded but moved my hand from beneath his. Being touched, even out of kindness, made me uncomfortable. He didn’t seem bothered by my withdrawal, which I was thankful for.
That night I lay awake, unable to sleep.
I could see the stony facade of the fortress through my little bedroom window.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the man, with his hauntingly pale blue eyes and my mother’s blood staining his hands, found peaceful slumber within those cold, unyielding stone walls.
The rest of the week flew by. I visited the young girl and her mother at the market again and bought more of their honey cakes. I told the girl that I would be back working in the forge with Cillian in a few days, and her excitement filled me with pride.
On another of my days off, I took Nightmare for a ride outside the city gates.
We found a meadow with a small stream. I stripped down and bathed, enjoying the pleasure of the water running over my hot skin.
As always, I passed the fortress gates to check the guards’ faces before returning to the forge.
It was my first day back in the forge, and Cillian had asked me to stock up on horseshoes. By the end of the day, I had filled a wooden crate with new horseshoes and carried them to the shop.
‘You won’t need to make a horseshoe for months—’ I came to an abrupt halt when I realised Cillian wasn’t alone.
‘Aren’t you the woman telling anyone who will listen that you’re a blacksmith?’
It was the black-bearded man who had stood behind me on the bridge to Murus.
‘She is a blacksmith, Mac.’ Cillian frowned.
‘You’re joking?’ Mac said with a sneer.
I ignored Mac’s stare and moved to hang the horseshoes from largest to smallest on nails in the shop wall, making it faster for Cillian to find the size and shape he needed.
‘Why would you want that oversized pant-wearing woman messing around in your forge, Cillian? Women are only good for one thing and, even then, you have to give the mouthy ones a slap or two to keep them in line.’
I fumbled and dropped a shoe as my ears burned.
‘You can do better, Cillian. There’s something wrong with that one.’ He lowered his voice only slightly.
‘I don’t need your ore.’ Cillian pushed a sack into Mac’s chest.
‘What? It’s good ore!’
‘I don’t use bog ore.’ Cillian crossed his arms. ‘So don’t come back.’
‘It’s not bog ore! It’s good stuff,’ Mac hissed. ‘What did she say to you, huh? Or has she put some spell on you?’
Cillian picked up a large hammer and stalked towards the man, who backed up quickly. ‘Get out of my shop, and if I ever see your face in here again, I’ll rearrange it for you.’
Mac’s eyes moved frantically between the hammer and Cillian’s stony face.
I snorted when he tripped, backing out of the shop. His bag of bog ore landed heavily on his gut, and I heard him grunt just before Cillian closed the shop door.
I continued hanging the last of the shoes.
‘You know I don’t think those things about you, right?’ Cillian stood behind me, the hammer held forgotten by his side.
I turned to face him. ‘I know.’
I reached out to take the hammer from him, feeling his warm breath fan across my cheek for a moment before I stepped back and stowed the tool away.