Page 53 of The Blacksmith

She stood when he did.

“Thank you, Father.”

Though he did not smile, exactly, the corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly. But his eyes were troubled. Because of Mother? The situation with the king?

There was one person who would know what vexed her father, and though the hour was late, she thought a visit with Mother might just take her mind off Lance.

Even though her mother was the one who had, however unintentionally, scared him off.

Just as well. What Idalia planned to tell him this eve would have likely done so as effectively as her mother’s words.

If not more so.

Chapter 17

He was a coward.

For two days, Lance avoided the hall. Avoided the Small Tower.

Avoided her.

Again.

Though he’d made more progress in his secret campaign to ally Stanton to their cause, befriending a sergeant who was free with his opinions of the king, Lance continued to disappoint everyone around him.

Guy could not understand why he’d not used his connection with Idalia to his advantage. Idalia likely hated him for thinking he’d abandoned her the moment her mother spoke of commitment.

Being with Idalia did not scare him. What scared him was the fact that he was dreaming of a future with the earl’s daughter—a future that could never come to pass.

Such thoughts would be ruinous for him personally, and also for their mission.

And so, he’d taken the coward’s way out and avoided her. Unfortunately, he could not avoid Guy, who slammed the door to the forge so hard Lance would likely have to remake its hinges.

“The boys are gone?”

Lance looked around the empty shop, already beginning to fill with shadows now that the door was closed. “Nay, both Miles and Daryon are hiding beneath the bench.”

When Guy didn’t smile, Lance knew something was wrong. Unlike him, the mercenary was usually as quick with his grins as he was with his gibes.

“What is it?”

“John has secured Bande de Valeur.”

It could not be. Bande de Valeur was one of the oldest and most powerful French mercenary armies in existence. In securing their protection, the king exposed his mistrust of his own army. This was as close to an admission of dissent as he’d ever been willing to display.

Lance sank onto the bench. “Who told you this?”

“A merchant passing through brought the news. You’ll find all of Stanton talking about it.”

“None would know of our order,” he thought aloud, “but neither have we heard of any other true resistance forming.”

While many of the barons, especially the Northern lords, were unhappy with John’s increasingly erratic policies, nothing more than whispers had been heard against him thus far.

“If this is true . . .”

The king was even more foolish than they’d thought. It was an open provocation against his own people. But it was a problem too—

“If it is true, the Order of the Blade will meet with more resistance than we imagined,” Lance finished.