Successfully diverted, she nodded. “My father is a cousin to the earl,” she replied. “During the wars between the king and Roger Mortimer, my father served the earl and the king. But he sustained a very bad injury in the battle at Stanhope a few years ago and resigned from fighting. He simply administers the garrison at Kirklinton now and has knights and other men who do the fighting for him.”
“What is your father’s name?”
“Sir Saer de Lara. Have you ever heard of him?”
“I am sorry, I have not. I am sure he was a great knight.”
“They used to call him The Axe. Father did not fight with a sword. He liked his axe much better.”
The Axe.Now, Mathias had heardthatname. De Lara’s Axe had been a feared fighter, indeed. More and more, Mathias was sure he would never divulge his past to Cathlina. Or at least, never divulge it to her father. He was coming to wonder if his attraction to her would lead him down paths he was trying very hard to avoid. If their attraction grew and he eventually pledgedfor her, somehow, someway, he would have to be truthful. To lie about who, and what, he was then have the truth come from someone else’s lips to Cathlina’s ears would have devastating consequences. Truth be told, lying was not in his blood. Truth and honor meant everything to him.
“I could make him an excellent axe,” he teased softly, watching her giggle. She had the most beautiful smile. “Mayhap you will want to give your father a gift someday and employ me to make it.”
She laughed softly. “I am sure you would do a very good job.”
He grinned, swept up in her charm, when a pair of knights entered the stall. They didn’t see Cathlina, sitting against the wall, as they sauntered into the shop, knocking over a hammer and hardly caring. They were young, arrogant, and full of entitlement. The taller of the pair, a young knight with bristly red hair, approached Mathias.
“Have you finished with my horse yet?” he demanded.
Mathias picked up an enormous steel file and bent over, pulling a hoof between his legs. “Almost,” he said. “A moment longer.”
“A moment longer?” the knight repeated, incredulous and outraged. “He has been here all morning.”
Mathias was filing the front left hoof. “He has been here not yet two hours,” he said steadily. “These shoes were specially prepared, as you requested. That takes time. I am almost finished.”
The young knight pursed his lips angrily, eyeing the big smithy. “You are incompetent,” he announced. “This job should have been completed an hour ago.”
“I will be finished in a moment.”
“I will not pay you, then. You did not finish on time.”
Surprisingly, Mathias kept his composure. “I told you when you brought him in that he would be finished by earlyafternoon,” he said. “I have finished him sooner than I estimated and you will indeed pay me the full price or I will pull every one of these shoes off of him and you can find someone else to shoe this bad-tempered beast. Do I make myself clear?”
The young knight was looking for a confrontation. He was too arrogant to back down from what he considered a challenge. “You will do no such thing,” he said. “I will not let you. I will take my horse now and I will not pay you for being lazy and slow.”
Mathias kept filing. “You will pay me or the horse stays here and I will sell him to the highest bidder to recoup my losses.”
The young knight was outraged. “He is my horse and I am taking him.”
“Not until you pay me what you owe me.”
The young knight marched over to Mathias and lifted a hand to strike him, but Mathias grabbed the knight’s wrist before he could follow through with the action. The knight yelped as Mathias shoved him away and tumbled over a bucket near the anvil.
This brought the knight’s companion charging forward, unsheathing his sword. Mathias dropped the charger’s hoof, preparing to defend himself against the armed knight, when a stool suddenly sailed into the knight’s feet and the man went down. With both knights on the ground, Mathias was rather dumbfounded when Cathlina rushed up and kicked the armed knight in the shoulder. It was a hard enough kick that the man’s entire body rattled.
“Shame on you!” she scolded angrily. “You foolish whelps! By what right do you try to cheat a man out of his earnings? You are a dishonor to the knighthood, both of you!”
Mathias’ eyebrows lifted at her furious manner and brave tactic of throwing the stool she had been sitting on in order to disable the armed knight, but in truth, he wasn’t surprised. She had shown remarkable bravery the day before whilst fightingwith a man three times her size. If he thought about it, his respect for her had sprouted at that moment. She was a strong and courageous woman. Now, with this latest show of courage, his respect for her had gone from a sprout to a healthy bloom.
“’Tis all right,” he soothed her, trying to steer her away from the men who were trying to gain their feet. “Please go and sit down. Do not trouble yourself over this.”
Lured by the commotion, Sebastian appeared from outside the stall. His brow furrowed at the men on the ground.
“What goes on here?” he demanded.
Mathias merely shook his head but Cathlina spoke. “These men were trying to cheat your brother out of his earnings for shoeing this horse,” she pointed angrily. “They tried to attack him.”
Sebastian’s red eyebrows flew up in outrage. “Is that so?” he said, going to stand over the young knight who had started it all. He was just starting to sit up as Sebastian loomed over him and glared. “You were trying to cheat us?”
