Mina
???
I followed Samthrough the kitchen door of the Wrison home. Eliza stood at the counter, slicing a loaf of brown bread. She transferred the slices to a tray, looked up, and smiled. I couldn’t help but mirror her expression. Eliza could coax a smile from a statue. It was as if she radiated happiness, the emotion strong enough to infect everyone in her vicinity.
“Fill the bowls with stew, Sam. Mina, would you please put the butter on the table with the bread?”
Though all three of the Wrisons knew my identity, they respected my desire to be treated as Eliza’s niece in truth. I had asked them to behave like I was any other villager, even when we were in private. Eliza occasionally struggled to order me around like she did her own son, but she tried not to let my rank influence her actions.
“Of course.” I picked up the crock of butter and the tray of thick-sliced bread and brought them out to the table in the next room. Sam followed a moment later with two steaming bowls of stew. I arranged everything on the table and lit the candles while Sam returned to the kitchen for the other two bowls.
Alan was wrong; the Wrisons used a simple pewter candelabra at their supper table.
Thoughts of Alan, and Sam's dismissal of the other man’s talents, plagued me. Nothing added up. Another inconsistency occurred to me and when Sam came back with the other bowls, and I forgot my decision to let the topic drop.
“Sam, where did Smith Powell go? Alan said he’ll be gone for a few days, but that seems odd in a village this size.” I had gotten the impression from the way Alan spoke of it that Powell being gone wasn’t rare.
Sam wasn’t the one who answered me. “It is unusual.”
I spun around, not having realized Conrad had come in. He stood in the doorway leading from the dining room to the front of the house, a dark shadow limned in light. He took a step into the room, and the candlelight revealed his features, but he remained more shadow than man. Brown skin, black hair, brown eyes—the only part of him that reflected the light was the whites of his eyes. Combined with his height, the darkness made Magistrate Wrison an intimidating figure. Then he sat down, and the candles revealed him to be simply a man whose serious expression couldn’t hide the hint of humor that always lurked in his eyes.
I hadn’t heard Conrad joke, but his eyes told me I would before the end of my stay in Skorsa.
“Most villagers stay close to home. When anyone needs anything from the city, they ask Patrick Kiels to get it for them. Master Powell always travels to Haiwella himself, though.”
“He goes every few weeks,” Sam added. “He lived in the city before marrying Mistress Smythson.”
“It’s neglectful.” Conrad shook his head. “If he didn’t want to stay in Skorsa, he shouldn’t have taken on the responsibility of the forge. A craftsman should never abandon the people who depend on him. The council nearly lost patience with him when he up and disappeared last harvest.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“A handful of farmers forgot to check their tools early. They realized they needed new scythe blades after Gerald left for Haiwella.Obviously, the blame isn’t all the smith’s; the farmers should have known well before harvest if their scythes needed replacing. But there are always tools needed urgently at harvest time. Luckily, young Alan found a few blades pre-made in a storeroom. The farmers only lost a few days’ work.”
Again, something about the village smiths didn’t add up. “It took Alan days to find the blades? Why so long?”
Conrad and Sam both fell silent. Finally, as Eliza brought a jar of marmalade to the table and sat down, Sam shrugged. “I guess he forgot to look straight away.”
“Who forgot to look for what?” Eliza asked her son.
“Alan forgot to search for the scythe blades last harvest.”
“Nonsense. When Lewis and the others announced they needed new scythes, Alan told them he’d have them ready in another day. He didn’t forget to search.”
My eyes narrowed. “‘He’d have them ready.’ So, Alan made them. He didn’t find them.”
Eliza frowned. “No. They were already made. He needed time to dig them up, maybe sharpen them, I suppose.”
The men nodded.
I looked at each of their faces, my confusion growing by the minute. “He needed more than a day to find them?”
“I’m sure he had to sort through things before he found the correct pieces. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear Gerald isn’t the most organized.”
Sort through what? I had seen the almost bare shelves in the shop. A village like Skorsa didn’t stockpile such things; they were made to order. Maybe the smith had made a few scythe blades before his trip, in anticipation of farmers needing the tools, but what else would Alan have needed to sort through?
I lowered my spoon. “Does a village smith normally have piles of pre-made tools just lying around?”
“No,” Conrad said slowly, “he does not.”
