One
Mina
???
I looked atthe sign swaying in the breeze and sighed. It hung from a pole of twisted wrought iron, decorative but simple. The sign itself said only Smythe & Sons—the words and a silhouette of an anvil burned into the wood rather than painted. It was exactly what I had expected in a village the size of Skorsa. There was a reason I hadn’t really noticed the smithy in any of the days since my arrival.
Smythe and his sons would be common blacksmiths.
I had nothing against common blacksmiths, and didn’t want to belittle their talents or their importance, but I didn’t need a kettle or plowshare. I needed the work of a goldsmith. Skorsa wasn’t the place to find that, but I couldn’t leave the village to make my purchase. My time here was limited, and I wanted to make the most of it.
I opened the door to the little shop attached to the smithy. I had visited enough tiny villages throughout the kingdom to know they often hid surprising talents. It wouldn’t do to give up without even checking.
A bell above the door jingled, the sound almost lost under the pounding coming from the forge. I wondered at the purpose of thebell. If I had barely heard it, the smith certainly wouldn’t. The hammering didn’t stop, so I looked around the shop. I didn’t expect to find what I needed, but it wouldn’t hurt to browse.
There were buckets of nails. On one wall, a series of shelves held a few horseshoes and various bits and pieces for farm equipment. They all looked well made. If the smith’s skill extended beyond blacksmithing, he might be able to accomplish what I needed.
Walking farther into the shop, I spotted a cabinet on the far wall with glass doors and a prominent lock. There were three shelves inside, and as I walked over to inspect the contents, my heart sank. The goblets and candelabra on the bottom shelves proved that the smith fancied himself to be a goldsmith, but he was not a skilled one. The candelabra was chunky, covered in uneven designs that looked like the work of a small child. I hoped it was only gold plating; it would be a travesty if the entire thing was made of the expensive metal.
The goblets on the middle shelf were even worse. They teetered at odd angles. I wouldn’t have been surprised if drinking from one resulted in a sliced lip. Even the chunks of colored crystal pressed into them as decoration lacked symmetry.
Morbid curiosity kept me moving. I had to see what was on the top shelf. Going up on tiptoe when I got close enough, I saw the smith’s examples of jewelry. Half a dozen rings sat on the shelf. Each one looked more painful than the last to wear. They were oblong rather than round, except for one that looked triangular more than anything. The designs etched into the bands looked more like random scratches than deliberate decoration.
Skorsa’s smith had no ability whatsoever with precious metals. Even if he had any artistic vision—which I doubted considering what he had on display—he lacked the dexterity to shape gold into delicate pieces.
I sighed. I had hoped, but I wasn’t truly surprised. With any luck, the general store kept a supply of jewelry. The owner traveled toHaiwella every fortnight to restock his shop. Maybe he also carried pieces for the young men of the village who needed betrothal gifts.
Most likely, those men made a trip to the city on their own. Skorsa wasn’t so far from the capital to make the journey difficult.
If Master Kiels had nothing in stock, I’d have to ask him to purchase something on my behalf during his next trip. I wanted to choose the piece myself, but replacing the necklace I had brought to Skorsa with something appropriate took priority. In fact, I might even be better off relying on Master Kiels to pick the piece. I hadn’t done so well the first time around—hence my current predicament.
With one last look at the awful pieces on display in the cabinet, I turned away. The door to the forge opened when I was halfway across the room. I hadn’t even realized the pounding had stopped until I heard the squeak of hinges.
I froze, not wanting to be caught scurrying out of the shop. Slowly, I pivoted to face the man wiping calloused hands on a soot-stained apron.
“May I help you?”
About my age, with short cropped brown hair, the smith looked strong enough to lift me with a single hand. The breadth of his shoulders was even more noticeable because he wasn’t so tall that I had to crane my neck back to meet his eyes, which was a pleasant change. I was of average height, but I swore the men of Skorsa all towered over me. It made me miss the heeled slippers I had left back in the city, the fashionable footwear impractical on the village streets.
The smith’s dark brown eyes met mine for a bare instant. I saw shadows and silence in their depths. Then his shoulders slumped, and he looked at his toes.
“I’m not sure,” I said, suddenly fearing I’d hurt his feelings if I told him no. I prayed to Affenala that he wasn’t responsible for the rings. The man was young enough that his former master was probably still the primary smith. Would it be better if the man who had taught this one his trade had made those monstrosities? I gesturedat the locked cabinet. “Are those the best examples of the smith’s gold-work?”
A strange expression crossed the man’s face. One part embarrassment, one part contempt, and a healthy dose of shame underneath it all. “Yes. We don’t get much demand for expensive pieces in Skorsa. I think your family is the only one in the entire village to own a gold candlestick.”
I reflexively patted the charm hanging from a silk ribbon around my neck. I had no actual blood ties to the Wrison family. The mind-bending charm ensured everyone thought I was Mina Devale, Eliza Wrison’s niece from the city. The magic was powerful enough that no one even noticed the similarity between my well-known real name, Princess Charmina Devaoile, and my assumed one.
“I was actually thinking more along the lines of jewelry than candlesticks.” I tried to remember anything the Wrisons might have told me about the village smiths. Was it a father and son operating the forge? The sign out front implied as much, but in a village like Skorsa, the name wouldn’t have changed for generations. I couldn’t remember if the family name was even Smythe, which struck me as odd. In the few days I had been in Skorsa, the young women had filled any gaps the Wrisons had left in my knowledge of the villagers. Or so I had thought.
“Master Powell doesn’t make jewelry.”
I looked at the cabinet once more. “Then the rings are your work?”
He scowled. “No. Those are Powell’s. But they also are not jewelry.”
Long practice kept me from showing my agreement with this harsh, albeit accurate, indictment. The way he spoke of the other smith, I knew there was no love lost, but that was no excuse for me to disparage a man I didn’t know.
I altered my assumptions about the smiths of Skorsa. Probably not a father and son. At least, I hoped not. “What about you?”
