A Sharpened Axe by Jill M. Beene

Author:Jill M. Beene [Beene, Jill M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was night, and the gate to the castle was shut firmly behind them. The guards had been no problem, used to the constant comings and goings of servants, as steady and inexorable as the waves on the distant shore. Samiris had kept her head down when going through the gate, as if she were shy of the men who guarded it. She didn't want to draw attention to herself, didn't want them to recognize her.

One guard had made direct eye contact with her when she had dared a glance, but there was no shock of recognition, no question or uncertainty in his eyes. Aster had done her job well; Samiris was a servant tonight.

That's the only difference between me and Aster, Samiris thought, dully. Cloth and jewels. Underneath, we're all the same.

The thought made her even more determined to see her plan through. Samiris shook away the final little doubts that nagged at her like a swarm of mosquitoes as they strode forward into the night.

The night was quiet, save for the distant sounds of muffled revelry leaking from a bar down the street in odd-spaced drips as the door opened and closed. A breeze ruffled the long braid of Samiris' hair, smelling of the muck of a nearby alley, the cooling cobblestones beneath their feet, and faintly of brine.

When she told Aster their destination, the girl had looked at Samiris with a crinkled forehead for several moments, then nodded. Aster led the way deftly. Samiris was glad she had demanded to come along; in minutes, Samiris was helplessly turned around. There was no way that she could have found her way; she would have been turning in circles for hours. This part of the city was not the perfect grid that it appeared. Little alleyways and byways transversed the main streets like capillaries from veins.

It took them a half hour of brisk walking before they arrived at the address that Samiris had scrawled on a piece of parchment. Samiris knocked on the door with more confidence than she felt. The door was wrenched open nearly immediately by a gangly youth of about sixteen. He took one look at Samiris and Aster and his face turned a dark maroon.

"Hello," Samiris said to the boy, who was now studying the details of his bare toes. "We are looking for Bernard Gaffey."

Wordlessly, he turned and opened the door wider, inviting them in. They stepped over the threshold and were hit with a wall of heat and the smell of warm stew. A family of eight sat at a sturdy but worn table; the one place that was vacant obviously was for the boy.

"What's this now?" the large man at the head of the table said.

He was red-headed, broad in the shoulders and the arms, and tall. Although he was past forty, there was an obvious strength and vitality in him. A plump, kind-faced woman sat at his elbow, dishing out ample ladles of stew to the five large teenage boys and the youngest child, a pretty girl of around ten.

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