doorstep this instant you little brat!” Mosn’s slight form deftly rolled out of the way of the broom that followed the words. Darsay almost lost her balance in the aftermath of not landing the blow.
“I'm sorry. It won’t happen again.” Darsay sniffed loudly, turned her back to the lad and began sweeping the porch as if trying to remove the dirt that Mosn had undoubtedly left by sitting there. Dejectedly turning, Mosn walked to the other side of the town square and found a secluded nook to continue his watch. The town square was where any festivities were held and the farmer’s market in the winter. Yrany wasn’t affluent enough to cobble the square yet the hard packed earth was nearly as hard stone. The main buildings of the town were built around the square with their fronts facing the center. A traveler had but to find the square to find most any service that was offered in the town.
Mosn meant it when he had told Darsay that he wouldn’t be spending another night on the porch of her inn. One last look was all he wanted. There wasn’t yet any signs of wakening from the house he watched. When his father had lived there, the forge would already have been burning. There wouldn’t be any hammering for another hour. Just heating the forge for the day’s labor.
Mosn’s father had died four days ago. An accident if the truth be told. The meat dresser had never intended to run the sharp metal rod through the blacksmith’s heart. A rod only forged last winter by the blacksmith for the purpose of spitting the game being butchered. No, the blacksmith had attacked the tanner’s son in the meat curing room and had fallen on the rod. That was the story that everyone mouthed about the village. There were looks of sympathy and condolence, but not for Mosn. The tanner’s son had been the one so comforted. After Skeln’s disappearance, Akeli had taken to following the tanner’s son. Some even blamed the fire that took the town drunk on the blacksmith. No one blamed Eklethin for defending himself. No one blamed the butcher either for lending a hand in that defense. They all knew what had happened to the other three young men that had been caught by the enraged blacksmith.
The window curtain at the upper room window stirred ever so slightly. Mosn tensed and looked ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Akeli was the one that had caused the whole problem. She had been the reason for the other three having been beaten to within an inch of their lives. Only the young men seemed to realize that fact of the matter. They were the ones that had been forced to steer clear of the girl after the second beating. The third one had been caught through no fault of his own. Akeli persisted naively and on discovering failure had sobbed the tale of her broken heart on her father’s shoulder. Clormen walked with a limp that he would have for the rest of his life. Skeln disappeared before Akeli thought her heart broken. As it was, she wept profusely for a few minutes on hearing of his supposed demise in the house fire. An hour later, her sights were set on Eklethin. His elusive nature had saved him until four days ago.
The downstairs door opened slowly and Akeli peered about suspiciously. Mosn knew what she was looking for. The hand behind her back held her new husband’s horsewhip. He still had the welts from yesterday’s encounter with said whip. She could wield it mercilessly. Her new husband had shown up in town scant hours after hearing the news of the vacant forge. Two days after her father’s death and an hour after his burial, Akeli had used her golden looks to marry and the journeyman blacksmith had set up shop in the forge the same day. Mosn thought it strange that he had appeared so conveniently until he learned that he hadn’t been farther than the old Redzyn manor to begin with. Everyone else thought he had just happened through and thought no more of it. Mosn had come into the suspicion that the journeyman had done most of the wooing and Akeli, or receiving unaccustomed attention, had been an easy conquest. Akeli was now a respectable married woman in the eyes of the villagers. Mosn, on the other hand, he was accorded all the ill deeds of his father.