The Four Forges by Jenna Rhodes Page A

through his head. “We keep her,” he said firmly.
    “What if someone comes searching for her? Or sends Bolger hounds after her?”
    Garner snorted. “Put her and Nutmeg in the onion-and-garlic cellar. They’ll never smell ’em there!”
    “Baths for a week!” chuckled Hosmer. “But it would work.”
    Tolby let out a satisfied cloud of smoke, perfuming the air with its spicy apple blend of toback and his own herbs. “Good lads. Now, I won’t say I haven’t been thinking of going to the city, but those plans are off a ways.”
    “Till the statute runs out on his charges anyway,” Lily added and stood, gathering up the hem of her dress, merriment crossing her face, and sprinting away as quickly.
    “Bah,” said Tolby. He blew a smoke ring in her direction. “Off to bed, then, plenty of work tomorrow. Those apples won’t wait for us!
    The boys dashed off from the main room, circling through the kitchen where they could be heard getting a pannier of bread and cheese before thundering up the back stairs to their loft.
    “Funny. I don’t remember mentioning food.” Tolby cocked his head, listening to his sons storm the staircase.
    “I don’t think it needed to be.” She leaned down, kissing his temple. “Thank you.”
    “No thanks needed. They’re good lads, they’d have come to the right conclusion on their own.”
    “And what is it you think?” Her hand twisted in her apron.
    “I think it’s astonishing how quickly the Gods decided to give us another girl, my love.”
    “By the grace of the river.” Lily looked up at the ceiling beams toward the other part of the house, where Nutmeg and the stranger slept.
    “Rivergrace. Good name for a new Farbranch.” Leaning out of his chair, he picked up the scraps of the raft and tossed it in the fireplace. The wood caught smokily, and the leather lashings flared up with a great stink as the fire began to consume the evidence.
    Lily waved away the smell, coughing. “Tolby! Next time you’ve something smelly to burn, do it outside!” She dodged away from him.
    He winked at her. “I’ve a bit to do before I sleep. I’ll meet you in bed in a moment or two.” Tolby stood and hugged her before making his way out the back door to see to the farm and other things. Lily caught a glimpse of him framed in the doorway by midnight sky and stars before he passed through.
    She waited till the door closed and the sound of creaking stairs and such had quieted all over, then she went to the kitchen and down into the root cellars, lamp in hand. The area had been cut as a maze, purposely deceptive, against marauders and other dangers of living alone in the country. She’d only seen Ravers once in her life, but all knew the Demon wrath they held, and the malicious Bolgers were enough to put anyone in a stew. She stepped down twice more before reaching the dry and cool root cellar, where bags of onions and garlic lay nestled. She dug up a small box there, and opened it. Her dowry had come in this box. Nestled in a beautiful square of fabric was the ring Tolby had given her for his pledge. She could no longer wear it, years of farming increasing the size of her knuckles, so she kept it here, along with coins of their hard work, coins even Tolby did not know she saved. She pulled a remnant from her apron, spreading it out, and examining it carefully by the lamp’s soft illumination.
    Handwoven, crude, yet beautiful, it might have been a blanket once, but time had raveled it away till it could only serve as a neckerchief, and that had been its place when she took it from Rivergrace while she slept. Lily smoothed it out. Dark fabric rippled under her touch, and she could make out silvery threads running through it, and perhaps a rune or two which faded the moment she tried to focus on them. Magic ran in the weave of the material. She knew it. Magic that the Gods had taken from all of them, except the Vaelinars who did not bow to the Gods of Kerith and held their own powers.