Chapter Ten
Braya entered Carlislekeep with Millie and Lucy at her sides and her parents behind her. Galien plodded along belligerently behind them with Will Noble, angry that he’d been ordered to attend by his father.
Lively songs, played on pipes and lutes by talented musicians, filled the great hall, and Braya’s spirits. She smiled and pointed to a juggler, and then to a man garbed in colorful clothes standing on the shoulders of an identical looking man. She gasped at their acrobatics and was surprised that the warden had gone to such measures for her family.
Torin had had something to do with this. A peace offering. Torin was coming to the town hall tomorrow to apologize. He was a soldier who wanted peace. Her heart raced at the thought of seeing him.
She looked around, lifting her hand to the thick braid draping her shoulder. She wore her best kirtle and overgown. They were both fashioned in soft wool, dyed to match the color of the sea. Her kirtle fit close to her body and a bit off the shoulders and it had long, fitted sleeves that ended just over her knuckles. The top half of her sleeveless overgown fit like a bodice, tight around her waist and into full, flowing folds of wool with silver thread stitched in delicate patterns.
She loved her breeches and boots, but she didn’t mind donning more feminine attire when the occasion called for it.
Lucy hadn’t stopped talking about Sir Torin the entire way home this afternoon. She’d used words like smoldering and resigned, charming and serious. Braya agreed with all her friend’s descriptions, but she had seen more. She had seen him laugh, heard him soothe his horse. There was something about him…not the memories shrouded in darkness, but the light, the gentle, quietness of him that attracted her immensely. She’d never felt anything like it before.
She found him standing with the warden and Mr. Adams before a large tapestry on the northern wall. Golden light from the hearth and the candles danced around him, casting splashes of copper and bronze through his hair and through the hair on his face. The pommel, hilt, and guard of his sword jutted out over left shoulder. He wore his breeches and boots beneath a soldier’s tabard of red and blue—the same as all the border guards wore. But he was nothing like anyone else. He looked like a statue of some war-god that had come to life to create a whirlwind.
His eyes had already found her, stopped her from moving, her blood from flowing.
“Braya,” Lucy whispered close, tugging her along. “Come now, you’re holding everyone up.”
Braya smiled and held up her foot behind her, pretending her skirts were snagged. “Onward,” she called out merrily when she “repaired” it.
She couldn’t bear to look at him after what she had just done. How much of a fool was she for Torin Gray? She moved her feet. One after the other. Steadily.
“Ah, Hetherington!” The warden came forward and held out his arm to her father. “You have my thanks for coming.” He offered a quick, polite greeting to her mother and the others.
“Your invitation,” said her father with a practiced smile, “did not say what this celebration is for.”
“Why, ’tis for you,” the warden explained. “For the Hetheringtons. For their help in the past…”
Braya stopped listening. This was Bennett’s apology for throwing them out on their arses. Her father would accept because he was wise.
Her feet hurt, stuffed into tiny shoes. She wanted to sit down. Her belly rumbled. She wanted—
“Pardon me.”
Torin’s voice rode across her ears like drums as he closed the distance between them. Ah, he was coming to get her out of here and into a chair. She did her best not to smile too brightly at him.
“Sir Torin Gray,” her father ground out. “I expect to see you at the town hall tomorrow.”
“Aye, you will see me there, Mr. Hetherington. But right now, I think this woman,” he turned toward Millie, “should be sitting. Allow me to show her to her seat.”
“Her husband can do that,” Braya’s father said with a smile that seemed a bit more genuine than the one he’d offered the warden. “You can show the rest of us though.”
“Of course!” the warden cried out. “Sir Torin will show you all to your seats, where you will eat, drink, and enjoy the night!’
Torin nodded and pointed Will and Millie in the direction of a cushioned chair at the end of the enormous trestle table set up in the hall.
Braya tried to get his attention as he led her family to the front of the table and invited them to sit in the first ten places at the right and left of the head. He didn’t look at her for longer than a breath before he moved on.
Her father sat in the first place to the right, her mother beside him. Galien sat in the first place on the left, and Braya’s uncle sat beside him. Braya would like to sit as far away from the warden as possible, but she wanted to be close to her mother if fighting broke out, so she sat next to her. She also didn’t want to sit among the soldiers, even the ones who had wives. Lucy slipped into the seat to her right and the two smiled at each other.
She looked over Lucy’s shoulder and watched Torin make his way to the end of the table, check on Millie and Will, and then move around to the other side and take a seat in one of the few that remained on the other side.
He’d chosen to sit far from her when he knew there were two extra places for her family members since he’d given Millie a special seat. Did he ignore her for her father’s sake? She didn’t care for it at all and decided to do the same to him.
“What is this?” the warden pouted as he approached his chair at the head of the table and saw Galien sitting at his left. “Old friend, I was hoping I might enjoy the company of your daughter at my left. I’m certain young Galien would not mind exchanging seats.”
He didn’t give a damn about insulting and mortifying her brother.
