Home > The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga #1)(9)

The Blacksmith Queen (The Scarred Earth Saga #1)(9)
Author: G.A. Aiken

Beatrix got to her knees, piled her books and papers together in her arms, and got to her feet. Her beautiful yellow dress swirling around her.

“New dress?”

“It’s not as expensive as it looks.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“But you were thinking it.”

Keeley watched her younger sister walk away.

“Where are you going?”

“Away.” She glanced at Keeley over her shoulder. “I’ll be in the feed shed, where it doesn’t smell like shit.”

“Dinner—”

“I’ll eat later.”

* * *

“Then there was the time I met elves,” Keeley’s father went on. “Not a friendly lot. Downright rude. But I liked them anyway.”

“Is there anyone you don’t like?” Caid finally had to ask the man.

“No.”

Caid didn’t know how to respond to that, but he didn’t have to. Keeley entered the stable.

“Everything all right?” her father asked.

“Yes. Gemma and Mum are doing just fine.”

“Keeley.”

“I mean, why should Mum give me a little more respect as I actually have stayed to help care for the family.”

“Keeley.”

“Especially when Gemma has just run off and become the whore to a god—”

“Keeley!”

Keeley blinked. “Yes?”

“Big Bart,” her father said.

Keeley stomped down the line of stalls until she reached an extra-large one. She opened it, went inside, and a few minutes later, came back out with a limping horse. A horse that met the name “Big Bart” head-on.

She had Big Bart stand in front of his stall and she took some time to stroke his hair and muzzle. The horse clearly liked her, constantly nuzzling her and trying to get closer. Eventually she held his reins in one hand and began to drag the fingers of her other hand down the animal’s spine.

Caid watched while Laila and the others stood beside him.

“What’s she doing?” Laila asked.

“I have no idea.”

The horse was clearly lame and probably in pain. Humans usually put down a horse as soon as it lost its usefulness, so Caid was surprised to see Keeley tending to the animal as if she had no intention of doing any such thing. If his pain was tolerable, that seemed fair enough. And he could recommend something that would ease the horse’s suffering without killing him.

“Did you find it?” her father called out.

“Would you let me do what I do, Father?”

“Oooh,” Angus said to Caid. “She’s getting cranky.”

“I can hear you,” Keeley snapped.

Staring at the floor, Keeley continued to move her fingers down the horse’s spine until she finally stopped, her head tilting to the side.

Where her fingers rested on the horse’s back, Keeley squeezed and the horse began to move all four of his legs; Keeley quickly stepped back, laughing.

She took off the bridle. “Move, would you?” she asked Caid and the others, and they all stepped back.

The horse started running, charging down the center of the stables and out the open double doors.

“What did you do?” Laila asked.

“His spine was just off.”

“But . . . what?”

Keeley waved Laila’s questions away. “You work with horses as much as I do, you learn to care for them outside of just putting on new shoes.”

“Don’t listen to her. My Keeley helps all our neighbors’ horses. She has a way with them.”

“So you’re an animal healer?”

“Don’t ask me to sew up wounds. But if bones and muscles are giving them trouble . . . I can try to fix them.”

“Not just animals, though. She fixes me back all the time,” Angus said proudly. “And her mum’s.”

“If you followed my directions,” Keeley chastised, “you wouldn’t need me to fix your back all the time. It’s the way you pick things up. And you’ve got to stop playing with the pigs.”

“The pigs like me. They’re me friends.”

“And that’s why we haven’t had a side of pork in many winters,” Keeley muttered.

“You can have pig for dinner . . . just not our pigs.”

* * *

Keeley opened the back door, but before she could step into the kitchen, her mother and Gemma immediately stopped talking.

She clenched her jaw and, without meaning to, let out a little growl.

Her father patted her shoulder. “Back in the cage, little one,” he whispered to her. “Put that anger back in the cage.”

Loving her father too much to want to hurt him with any bickering, Keeley took in a deep breath, let it out, and stepped into the kitchen.

“Food smells good, Mum.”

“Thank you.” Her mother motioned to the pot of bubbling stew sitting over an open fire. “Get that, would ya, luv. I’ll get the bread.”

Once Keeley had put the large pot onto a nearby wood table so her mother could spoon the food into bowls, she noticed that Gemma was standing by her.

“Need help?” she asked with a sweet smile.

“Sure.” She motioned to her sister’s white cape. “You may want to take that off.”

“I’m fine.”

“But you don’t want to get a mess on it.”

“It’s fine,” she replied, the smile never wavering.

Keeley faced her sister.

“Why don’t you want to take that bloody thing off?” she snapped.

“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business!”

* * *

Angus cringed before the first shove even happened. He knew it was coming because nothing had changed. His two eldest daughters always bickered. They grew up, it seemed, eternally trapped in mutual headlocks.

But despite their constant arguing and complaining, they still loved each other. That’s why Keeley had been so hurt when Gemma, according to her, “just left.”

Of course, he also knew why Gemma “just left.” Because Keeley was the one person in the world who could talk Gemma into staying. Who could stop her from doing what she so deeply wanted to do.

It all made sense to Angus, but not to his two girls.

He waded into what had turned into an embarrassing slap fight, pushing the pair apart.

“That’s enough!” he barked. “I’ll not have my daughters fighting each other like this.”

“Your father’s right,” Emma said before going to the back door and bellowing for the rest of their brood. Not because she was angry, she just always bellowed at the children or they ignored her.

“You two”—Emma pointed at her eldest daughters—“will not fight in front of those little bastards. Giving ’em ideas. I won’t stand for it.”

Angus frowned. “Maybe we shouldn’t call them little bastards.”

“They’re little bastards and they know it.”

One of the younger girls ran into the house, swinging a brand-new, all-steel hammer, but her mother immediately grabbed hold and yanked it from her pudgy little hands.

“Give me that! And no hitting the Amichais with your fists either,” Emma warned. “Or they may just eat you right up!”

“Mum!” Keeley and Gemma barked together.

“They’re mountain people,” Emma whispered. “They do that sort of thing.”

Both girls gawked at their mother before Gemma went about getting the rest of the children seated and Keeley went outside to round up their guests.

That’s when Emma turned to him and winked.

Reminding him why he would always love that woman.

CHAPTER 5

The food was good. The ale even better. But the chatter . . . ? Caid hadn’t known an entire family could talk that much. Now he understood why Keeley talked so much except when she was working at her forge. When she was focused on her work, she only spoke when she needed her apprentices to help her with something. Otherwise, the only sound coming from her was her work hammer bending metal to her will.

But at that dinner table . . . the talk was never ending. It wasn’t just the children either. It was the man and his wife. Did they not speak to each other during the day? Was that why all this discussion at dinner was necessary?

The only one who didn’t seem to have anything to say was the nun. Perhaps she was part of a silent sect, but that seemed unlikely as she had been arguing with her older sister all day. More likely it was that she was too busy watching Laila and the rest of them, wondering what they were up to, he guessed.

The meal was winding down, and Caid was staring blindly at the kitchen table, wondering how he could sneak out of here without insulting his hosts, when he felt something climb up his back and stand on his shoulders. Then a little body stretched across his head, arms hanging over his face, and began to snore.

Slowly, Caid turned to Keeley, who sat beside him. She glanced at him, looked back at the younger sibling she’d been chatting with, then . . . she looked back at him. Her gaze lifted up and her smile was huge. Then came silent laughter.

“Are you going to help me?” he finally asked her.

“But she likes you.”

“She threatened me with a nonexistent hammer all through dinner.”

“Mum took the hammer. But it would have just been a love tap.” When he only continued to stare at her, Keeley finally motioned to one of the older siblings. “Isadora, take her, would you?”

Chuckling, Isadora pulled the snarling toddler off his head.

“Come on,” Keeley said before she stood. “Da, we’re going to check the perimeter before bed.”

Her father waved them off, not breaking his conversation with his mate. A woman, Caid now knew, Angus Farmerson desperately adored. Despite the twelve offspring. Despite the hard work of farm living. Despite the fact his woman had a brutal scar that went from one side of her face to the other. A scar that cut right through her eye, leaving nothing but a white, dead thing that she couldn’t see out of. But she didn’t seem to care and he didn’t seem to notice.

   
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