The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [55]
They soon came to another village, not as devastated as was the last one, and Richon sighed with relief at the sight of the women and children working in the fields, and in the shops along the market streets. Chala watched them intently.
There was a bakery with heavy dark bread for sale.
Richon bought one loaf and paid for it with a copper piece, but Chala insisted on buying two more loaves and paying a full silver for hers, though that was three times the price posted.
The woman who worked the shop stared at the coins, as if afraid, until Chala said, “For your children’s sake.”
The woman nodded but said nothing. Her eyes watched Chala suspiciously until she and Richon left the shop.
“Why did you give her so much?” asked Richon.
She waved an arm. “All of the men in town are gone. Only the women and children remain.”
“Oh,” said Richon, ashamed he had not noticed. His mind had not been trained to think of details like this about his own people. He had always thought of them as a group, not as having lives of their own.
Chala was better able to understand his people than he was!
They passed a blacksmith shop, and then Richon turned back as he realized there was a man inside. The only full-grown man in the village.
The blacksmith was hard at work pounding out a sword. But when the blacksmith turned to him, Richon saw the man was missing an arm.
“I haven’t finished yet,” the blacksmith said roughly.
“Finished what?” asked Richon.
The blacksmith paused a moment. “You are not a messenger from the royal steward?” he asked.
Richon shook his head. The royal steward? His mind whirled. Was that who was in charge of his armies at the border?
Once Richon had thought the royal steward his loyal adviser, but in his years as a bear he had realized that the man had simply been interested in taking power for himself through a weak king.
“Ah, well. I have no time to spare to make orders for anyone else,” said the blacksmith. “The royal steward has paid for all the weapons I can make for the next month, and more than that besides. So even if you’ve broken a plow or have a horse in need of shoeing, I cannot help you.”
His eyes glanced over Chala, but he said nothing of her. Too much work made a man incurious, Richon thought.
“I see.” Richon thought to leave the shop then, but stopped to ask one more question. “The men of the village?” asked Richon. “Did they all join the army to go with the royal steward?”
“Join the army? I suppose you could put it like that,” said the blacksmith with a trace of bitterness.
Richon noticed how awkwardly he worked with his one arm. The flap of skin that covered his stump was not entirely healed. How recently had he been maimed? And how had it happened?
“How would you put it?” asked Richon.
“Forced to it,” said the blacksmith. “Threatened with the lives of their wives and children.”
Chala made a very human sound of distress as the blacksmith went on.
“Took some of them hostage, sent away to other villages. No one knows where. Most of them were left here, though. With the royal steward’s promise the men would be home by winter.”
Did the royal steward think the war would be over so quickly?
“And you?” asked Richon.
The man held up his stump. “I resisted,” he said. “The royal steward took the sword right from my own shop and cut off my arm with it. Said I was lucky, for he needed blacksmiths at home as much as he needed soldiers. Said I would live so long as I proved that I was useful. And he told me the number of swords I was to produce each month.” He named a figure that made Richon’s eyebrows rise.
“Indeed. I work night