The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [11]
“Just behave yourself. We won’t be long at Miss Mary’s, and if you just behave yourself you won’t be in my way at all.”
Emer began to panic. “But who will watch the valley?”
“I will,” Padraig said, quite seriously.
“But what about Daddy? Doesn’t he need you in the field?”
“He’ll let me take your job for the day. Don’t worry.”
She looked at her mother to make sure he wasn’t lying. “Is that okay?”
“Of course it is. Your brother has eyes just as good as yours.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. I’ll watch all day. I promise.”
That night, after Emer had cuddled into bed with her warmer older brother, her parents spoke of the next day’s projects.
The Mullalys were in charge of distributing weapons to various small outposts along the route through their territory, and Emer’s parents were responsible for organizing those weapons. So far, they had hidden over a hundred different pieces in four different locations. Miss Mary had forged over thirty of them, pike heads mostly, but a few sturdy swords as well.
After a breakfast of porridge and a hen’s egg, Emer and her mother walked a mile on the old forest path to Mary’s forge. A small thatched cottage of two rooms greeted them, Mary hard at work above the bellows and sweating, her forearms as big as any man’s after years of pounding shapes from lumps of metal.
“Emer!” she exclaimed. “How nice to see you, pet!” She stopped working and moved all sharp objects to the side.
“Hello, Miss Mary.”
“Your mother tells me you’ve been busy in the tower watching the swallows all summer.”
“They had five nests,” Emer answered. “And three broods of babies this year.”
“Three?”
“Yep. It was a long summer.”
“A fine long summer!” Mary said, offering Emer a small cup of brewed tea. She turned to Emer’s mother. “And how is Mairead today?”
“Fine,” Mairead answered, removing a sack from her back that was heavy with metal for Mary and a rolled piece of bullock hide for the cobbler.
Mary’s house was suddenly too hot, and Emer took off her cape.
“Don’t get too comfortable. We’re on our way in a few minutes. Why don’t you go outside and play while I finish some business with Mary?”
“But—”
“Just go outside and play and I’ll be out in a minute.”
Every time Emer played while her mother did business with Mary, she ended up with stings, bites, or bleeding pricks all over her body. She left the house and stood quietly outside the front door, in the only area that was clear of thorns or stingers, until a mix of boredom and curiosity overwhelmed her.
Slowly, she made her way round the chimney side of the house, creeping ever so closely to the thick limestone walls. By the time she reached the back window and could look in, she’d missed seeing what wares her mother had stuffed back into the large sack. She only saw a few lumps of bog iron and a pile of worn horseshoes, lying on Mary’s table next to some coins. In straining to see just how much money Mary had, Emer leaned directly into a large, vigorous nettle growing out of the wall and stung her forehead.
By the time she managed to inch all the way around the house again, sniveling and groaning, her forehead was swollen, bumpy, and red, and she was wailing.
“Did you meet a nettle again?” Mary asked, laughing a little.
Emer just nodded, crying in her mother’s lap. Mary walked to the front door and ripped a weed from the path, ground it into a sappy green paste between her rough hands, and returned to smear it on Emer’s wound. Emer flinched at first, but knew that if she allowed Mary to do her magic, the sting would disappear soon after. Her mother could do the same sort of trick with nettle stings.
Walking to the brog maker, Mairead thought quietly to herself and hummed a tune. Emer ran ahead and looked into fox tunnels in search of telltale fur, always returning to report what she’d found—not knowing how silly she looked with her sappy green forehead.
“Not a single hair in that one,” she said. “That