Page 11 of The Iron Dagger
“Nobility. Royalty. Men.”
“How do you know I’m noble?”
With a wet, soapy hand, she reached over to him. His breath caught in his throat, not knowing where her finger would land, but then he felt her touch the silver in his ear.
“Everything about you speaks of courtly fashions,” she said, indicating his hair and his fine cloak hanging by the door.
“It doesn’t bother you, does it? The silver?” he asked. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Everyone knew that witches disliked silvery metals, iron in particular. Had she been in discomfort all this time?
Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, as though surprised, and then she shook her head.
“No. Silver doesn’t bother me. Nor does iron, not much,” she said, and he noticed a curious rise of pink on her cheeks. Then she turned back to the washing. “Hasn’t your father looked for a good match for his son to marry?”
It was not his father who pressed him to marry with dogged determination. His mother had tried to push him towards one wealthy so-and-so’s daughter or another, but Gideon had evaded them all. After the last embarrassing instance of his mother trying to force a match between him and someone he actually admired, he was put off on the idea of marriage entirely.
“My marriage is a matter of strategy, and a good enough opportunity has not come along.”
“What sort of opportunity? How important does she need to be?”
The truth was there were any number of young women at court who would satisfy his family’s need to uphold their good standing, but he had his own set of standards. “Lands. I tried the ransom route, but now I fear I must consider matrimony.”
Hara snorted. “It says much about you that you’d rather abduct and ransom a woman for lands than to get married. And what it says isn’t good.”
“I suppose that’s one thing I have in common with hedgewitches. I also do not find marriage agreeable.”
“Why? The idea of someone to warm your bed each night and give you heirs is unappealing?”
“I simply don’t have the time. I travel often.” His father was always on the lookout for trading and business opportunities, and Gideon was his eyes and ears to roam the neighboring kingdoms and bring back word of wars and strife that may require their goods. Sowing the strife was his father’s job.
“But if you only married for the lady’s lands, then why do you care?” said Hara. “She could live in comfort at home and you can do what you like.”
“You sound like my mother,” he said. There was no one he was beholden to, and he preferred to keep it that way. “The last thing I need is another person to nag at me when I go home.”
“Where is home?”
“North.”
“North . . . are you from Montag?”
Her uncanny ability to guess or See the truth was stronger than his will to lie.
“Yes. I am the son of Commander Leofrick Falk.”
“Commander Falk?” said Hara, dropping the plate she held into the soapy basin.
Gideon realized too late that she may have heard of his father, who was a high ranking member of Empirator Corvus’court. Gideon swore softly; he had not expected her to be familiar with the nobility of Montag, but judging by her reaction, she had heard the name before. Now she knew exactly who he was. After a short pause, Hara collected herself and spoke softly.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, going back to her task.
“I thank you. There’s a certain Lenwen king that may be out and about looking to throw me in his dungeons.”
“I would not turn over my dish washing assistant. Those are hard to come by,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. Her tone was lighthearted, but she seemed a bit agitated, the tentative warmth of the conversation suddenly gone cold. And Gideon could understand why.
For generations Montag had been ruled by sorcerers—the Ilmarinen family. Their whims and mercurial tempers resulted in vendettas that none could stop. They were said to have power over the very wind and the seas, and that they could make the earth shudder with naught but their hands.
That was until Empirator Corvus staged a coup and overthrew the Ilmarinens twenty years ago, with Gideon’s father at his side.
Leofrick Falk was notorious for his prejudice against magic-kind. In the years since he had come to power, witches were slowly and subtly pushed to the fringes of society in Montag. Surely this knowledge had reached the common folk here in Norwen, a country with sorcerers in high, respected positions at court.
