The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats

The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats

Author:J. Anderson Coats
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


MY FATHER is having winter firewood loaded into our rearyard. Cartload after cartload, and all I can hear is clumping hooves and blasphemy and the clatter of wood on wood.

I have never made a more crooked seam, not even ere the age of reason.

They must be quieter.

I stomp through the hall and into the rearyard to make them. The back door rattles on its leather hinges when I kick it open.

It’s him. Of course it is. The one who looks. The one I made study his lessons, right in the middle of High Street.

He’s chopping a massive heap of wood. With one smooth swing of his ax, he splits a piece, then reaches for another chunk while rolling the ax behind his shoulder. By the time his ax is upraised, the next piece of wood is on the block and ready for splitting. Again and again, fluid as a carole dance.

The last time we met, he was not sorry. He stood there in the High Street not being sorry for my gown or my convenience or his own brazen behavior in defiance of the king, who asked us to come here to teach them to behave.

Today he will be sorry.

I hook my hands behind my back and saunter toward him, swaying my hips and pushing my chest out. I stand just out of the way and watch him swing the ax up and bring it down.

He glances my way, startles like a cat, then whips his eyes back to his task.

He does not look. He dares not look.

And there is naught he can do for it.

“G’morn,” I say sweetly.

“Better to you, demoiselle.” He does not break rhythm or turn in my direction.

“What are you called?”

The ax comes down crossways, glancing off the chopping block. As he recovers and hoists the blade onto his shoulder, he mutters, “Gruffydd ap Peredur, demoiselle.”

“Griff-ith,” I repeat in my flattest English way.

He grimaces, shakes his head the smallest bit, then brings the ax whistling down.

I peer at him as if he’s a hairy insect in my porridge. Let’s see how he finds being looked at.

Under my scrutiny, his cuts become steadily less even and betimes he must chop the same piece twice. Betimes the ax must rest on his shoulder while he fumbles for another piece of wood.

“Begging your pardon, demoiselle,” Griffith says to his chopping block, “but is there something you’ve come for?”

“Not particularly.” I idle around to his other elbow, all hips and teases of ankle. “I’ve a right to be in my own yard, do I not?”

He scrubs a wrist over his eyes while the ax weighs down his shoulder. “Right aye, demoiselle.”

I let him chop several more pieces, reveling in every wavering upswing and crooked cleave. One piece he must cut thrice, and he nearly crops a finger doing so.

“One reason we’re here is to teach your lot to behave,” I muse. “The king would have it so. And you’re always looking at me. It’s really quite rude. As if you really haven’t studied your lessons at all.



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