Archive of Our Own

Market days are a family affair.

They load up before dawn, working by the pale silver light to fill the wagon with their wares. When the goods are loaded, the people follow suit, cramming into the riding seat beside Martin: Henry with his lashes sandy from sleep and Jana, who isn't so different from their son in that respect. Martin wakes first, a habit he picked up in his soldiering days, stubborn to die. The ride shakes the dreams off them, Henry leaning off the cart to stare around them, as though Martin has driven them to some far-off, foreign land and not simply the next town over.

Henry's eyes, which at a glance might be mistaken for Martin's, are wide as plates when the castle towers breach the horizon. "Is this a city?" he asks, any hope and wonder quickly shot down by Martin's flat, "No."

Rattay is a more imposing sight than Skalitz; her seat upon the hill and her sturdy stone walls play at a town that one day hopes to be more than what fate has allotted. But unless there is silver hidden in that hill, Martin expects those hopes to go unrealised. He spurs the horses, their strength battling the protesting wheels up the steepest bank leading to the gates. Although a laden camel may not pass through the eye of heaven, Rattay's gates are more accommodating, and the strength of Hannes's mares bear them through while the day is still young.

Already, there are merchants and artisans ready to ply their wears, and, with them, sons and hired hands; their hose rolled up to their knees to keep cool while preparing the stand.

Martin has been visiting market days for near ten years now, at least once a year since Henry had turned one. Familiar faces nod at his passing, friendly ones hail him with every permutation of "good morning" ever uttered beneath a new sun.

Now that they've passed through the gate, Jana is as attentive as her son, searching the crowd for faces she hasn't seen in months. Beneath the swinging sign of the butcher's, her elbow lifts, hand gripping the back of the seat. "I'm going to stop in on Mathilde," Jana announces, planting a kiss upon the soft patch of skin between his beard and his cheekbone. "Back in a bit."

Though the cart is still rolling, she hops off without fear, nearly followed by her curious duckling of a son before Martin grabs him by the scuff of his scarf. "Steady there, Henry," he says. "Do you think I brought you here to see the sights?"

Henry's mouth hangs open, the gap in his teeth giving a fair view at the inside of his mouth and how his tongue works at the roof of it, trying to piece together an argument. "There're other blacksmiths here, aren't there?" he ventures, shrugging his shoulders until Martin's hand lets him go. "Maybe they have something to teach me."

"As if you won't sneak off into the castle the first chance you get." He shakes his head in disbelief. The hardest part of being a parent, Martin has found, is keeping himself from laughing at the things they say. He tries to keep his scolding gentle, however, appreciative of the fact that Henry at least has the cunning to come up with something clever. "Besides, there isn't nothin' they can teach you that I can't." The sight of a familiar face happening by prompts him to add, "Isn't that right, Josef?"

It's impossible to miss the Rattay castle blacksmith ambling by empty-handed. His workscarf is bright as a yellowhammer's belly, covering a once-blond head, now faded to silver. His liege lord's colours seem to have come to serve as compensation for his age.

Josef casts an eye towards Martin and his boy, the hired hand behind him nearly ploughing through him entirely. "Watch where you're going, lad," he snaps. Then, addressing Martin with a less hostile (yet no more gentle), "This that boy you're always braggin' about?"

Henry flinches behind him, shrinking into his scarf. Josef has a frown like a catchpole and the temper of an executioner. More than once Martin had turned away apprentices who found they couldn't stand another day under his tutelage. Although the one he's had the past few years has stuck it out— perhaps because it's become clear he's not like to have any sons to pass on the forge to.

Wrapping his arm around Henry, Martin draws him into view. "The same. Thought it was time he came along."

"'Bout time. You have a name, lad?"

Martin feels him swallow. "H-Henry."

"Shy, is he?"

"Only because he doesn't know you." Martin chuckles. "Enjoy it while you can."

"Right… well, I had the boys set you up a stand near the green. The usual spot." He waves over at it without looking, already moving on before they have a chance to thank him for the thought.

"Close, but not too close," Martin mutters as an aside to Henry. "Josef figures wanderin' eyes will pass straight from my swords to his, and make up their mind. Fatten his pockets with silver that ought to be mine."

"But wouldn't it depend on which way they come round?" Henry asks. "If they came to his first, the silver would be ours."

"That's what I tried to tell him, but it saves us a little heavy lifting, doesn't it? Anyhow, let's get a move on."

Urging their horses several feet forward, he pulls the reins not long after he'd spurred them. They crawl to a halt beside a makeshift stand, cobbled together that morning or the night before. Martin hopes Josef's apprentice and hands have a steadier hand at the forge than they do with a hammer and a nail, because if their crooked boards are any indication their aim could use some work.

"It looks a bit shit," Henry mutters.

"Careful, Hal. Watch your language. At least the swords will look better in comparison, eh?" Martin says amiably. "Alright, let's get to it."

It's bittersweet, watching Henry hop out of the driving seat himself. Not so long ago he'd have to simply hold his arms to either side and wait for Martin to lift him. Now, he thrills in the independence, stumbling forward into the street and carrying it into a skip. It takes his whole body to pick up the bundles of hunting swords from the wagon bed, swinging around, leg thrown out for balance.

"Hang on there, lad." Martin steadies him with a heavy hand laid across his shoulder, Henry staring up wonderingly with a gap-toothed open mouth. "I'll handle those. You get the proper sword, alright?"

He doesn't need to be told twice. To reach it he has to step up onto the back of the wagon, feet purchasing on the slats of wood stuck out the back. Reaching with his full arm span he drags the sword towards him and into his arms. It's unnerving how easily he lifts it at his young age, how he takes the pommel in his hand like he means to use it.

Henry, who summers ago slept with the lambs in the pen, now dreams of slaughtering them.

"I think some knight will want one like it," Henry says, oblivious to Martin's ruminations. "Don't you?"

Smiling, Martin says, "Let's hope so. It'll keep the fire on if one does."

A swordsmith's fortune is that even in times of peace there is not a lack of want for swords. Knights want decorated pieces for tourneys, merchants for protection— these days even burghers will commission one, to play the lord with money in their purse and a sword upon their belt.

Rattay's earliest risers hardly wait for them to set up before they begin to shop. Men bend over the stall, fingers at their chin, appraising the blade as though they'd been taught the craft themselves. Henry makes a surprisingly convincing merchant, letting the buyers examine the make of the blade before chiming in, making them seem like they'd noticed some quality less discerning people had missed.

"You see the blade?" Henry prompts one man who has the look of a rich man about him. "This one my Pa forged in winter— can you see why? Surely you have. It won't go dull in any hurry because the cold air tempers the steel so it's twice as sharp."

In moments, groschen is exchanged for goods, with a few apples thrown in to sweeten the deal. One of which Henry helps himself to, taking a satisfied bite of it. Juice dribbles down his chin and is swiped away by his fingers, chewing loudly and unawares of the eyes upon him. Until he smiles up at Martin, and finds Martin frowning back with his hands planted firmly on his lips. "What?" Henry asks through a mouthful of apple.

"How do you know we forged them in winter?"

"Em, well." Shoving a morsel back into his mouth, he says, "We might have!"

"There's no telling, is there?" Martin waits until Henry gives a little shake of his head. "Don't get clever. If you make promises you can't keep it'll come back to haunt you. Let the weapons speak for themselves."

"Yes, Pa."

"Right then. Hand me one over."

Henry's grin stretches from ear to blushing ear. He shines it on his scarf and tosses it Martin's way, delighted at how Martin snatches it out of the air. "Save the last one for your Ma, alright?"

"I was. I saved the shiniest one for her."

Martin cracks a small smile himself. "That's a good lad."

They eat, the crunching of apples in their ears loud enough to drown out the sound of the crowd gathering with the day. He has to admit that what Rattay lacks in silver it makes up for in purses. As well as the burghers and townsfolk he spies nobles from nearby holdings, faces he knows from visits to Sir Radzig's castle, but not names. One wearing a coat of arms bearing a yellow star upon a blue field he entertains for some time only for him to sniff and say "Perhaps another time."

Time, after all, is no object for nobles.

During a small lull in the crowd, while he and Henry make small talk over the little goings-on in Skalitz (Fritz is taller than him now; Theresa has been too busy at the mill; the water is too high to play in after the spring rains), another noble approaches. A little one, but a noble nevertheless. He looks to be of an age with Henry, wearing a shockingly yellow coat that seems in competition with the yellow hair on his head.

"God be with you, young sir," Martin hails, touching his hat and to his head as he bows. "How may we help you today?"

He doesn't answer, doesn't even look up. His tongue runs along front teeth that look too large for his mouth, as if his adult teeth have come in before he was ready. "These swords are of fine make," he remarks, sounding as though he's picking the words from some older relative's mouth.

"Your words do me credit," Martin says. "Do any catch your eye?"

The boy's eyes flick up to Martin's, gleaming like the outline of a magpie's wing. Just as quickly they look away towards a clatter of armour somewhere in the crowd of market-goers, and he's gone.

"That boy was funny," Henry remarks, equally fascinated and revulsed. He clambers down from the crate he'd fashioned into a seat, leaning on the market stall to catch a glimpse of the boy leaving. Whoever he'd been fleeing from evidently had caught sight of him: a man fitted in captain's clothes pushes by the stall without so much as a glance at its wares.

"That boy was a lord," Martin says, an explanation and a reminder in one. "You'd do right to treat him with respect."

Henry wrestles with a petulant expression, face pulling into a resigned frown as he mutters, "Yes, Pa."

"That's a good lad. Now go see if you can find your mother, eh? She'll be just down the road."

Martin nudges Henry with his foot, watching as the boy all-too-quickly obeys his command. Through the crowd he can hear the slap of his shoes against the street towards the green; no doubt hoping he might catch a glimpse of the castle on his quest.

Had the world been different Henry himself might have been raised as that boy at the stall had. So high above his own father in circumstance he wouldn't have known how to speak to him. Martin scoffs, crossing himself absently as he loads another bag of nails onto the stall.

He's not the salesman Henry had proven himself to be, but thankfully his work speaks for itself. The girls will have a lighter load upon the return, and not cost Hannes any labour the following morning.

Martin is beginning to become pleased with himself. A rare feeling outside of the forge, or at least since he had quit the field of battle. Jana returns with Henry and lunch: a little feast of bread and cheese, with an offering of smoked meat from the butcher's wife. Food after a long morning at market always tastes better, his mood lifting so high he even imagines himself amongst the stalls, perusing his fellow merchants' goods.

There is little in Martin needs, but he can think of a few things he wants.

The smell of a forge wafts upon the breeze, and less than a moment later a shadow falls upon him. Josef stands over the stall like a single rain cloud on a sunny day, leaning heavily on the wooden stand, large hand with fingers splayed looking like another weapon on display. "I have a job for you," he says, eyes travelling to their corners, painfully aware that he has not only Martin's attention but that of his son and wife's. "From Lord Hanush."

"Are you his messenger as well as his smith?" Jana remarks, slatting her hand over her eyes so she doesn't have to squint up at Josef. "I had heard he was a pinchpurse, but I didn't realise things were that dire."

"It's my job," Josef says shortly. "But I want you to be the one to do it."

Martin hums. "Seems unlike you, turning down a job."

"From your lord least of all," Jana adds.

"If you knew the lord you might understand why." Josef drags one hand down his face, exposing the red insides of his lids. "It isn't Sir Hanush you'd be attending to, you see. It's his ward… young Lord Capon."

Martin doesn't know the boy, but Josef speaks his name like an ill omen— or a stubborn badger, dug into the village green. For now he says nothing, but leans with interest to demonstrate that he is at least listening.

"Seems he took a bit of a tumble trying to make a fool of Sir Bernard, cracked his tooth, more n' likely it'll have to go… and you know what that means."

"Frightened to pull a boy's tooth, are we?" Jana goads, laughing as Josef snaps,

"Dammit, Jana! I have to make a living in this town! He may be a lordling now, but when that boy takes his place I don't want him looking at me and seeing a pair of tongs."

"Then why not ask Norbert? Surely an armourer can wield tongs as well as a swordsmith."

"I tried already." Josef gestures helplessly with two twin shafts of straw, one between the two suspiciously bent just beneath the head. "He wouldn't even leave it to luck."

Despite his talent for gruffness, Josef at a loss is a pitiable sight. As he and Jana exchange words, Jana insisting upon the gratitude the young lord might express at having been relieved of the offending tooth, Martin finishes his meal. The crumbs dust his lap and he can feel a little in his beard, each carefully removed, unhurried. Knowing Josef won't leave until he's told 'no' in certain terms. As the crumbs fall to the ground, a sprig of sparrows boldly swoop in to claim them.

"Alright then," Martin says. Offering his hand out, he gestures with two fingers for the straw. "Let's see one."

Up close, it's even more obvious Josef hadn't left anything to chance. A man who had never uttered Fortuna's name in earnest in all his years, who never even had a son out of fear he might not come out of his wife holding a hammer. One shaft is twisted, obviously tampered to demonstrate it as the taller of the two.

Martin picks the other.

"Bad luck, friend," Josef tuts. "Looks like the job's yours, Martin."

"Looks like," Martin echoes, nonplussed. "Where is the lordling, then? I'll not keep him."

"Down in the lower castle, most like. That's where he always goes home to roost. And good luck, man. He may be little, but he has a mouth on him."

Pirkstein is perhaps the smaller of the two castles, but more well-wrought if one were to ask Martin. Its small courtyard and tall tower would make for a hard siege, with nothing but cliffs for the attackers to mount if they didn't want the hard fight to breach the city's walls.

Martin twists his pliers in his hand, then thinks twice and drops them into the pocket of his apron. A dog doesn't win friends with its teeth, after all. Near the bottom of the stairs a guard hails him, "You the blacksmith?"

"I am."

The guard lifts his visor, displaying an incomplete set of teeth in a grin. "Lord Capon will be on the second story."

He nods, and makes his way up the wooden stairs, past one heavy wooden door and to the next. From the entrance he sees the same knight who had been hunting through the market— a man who appears a few years his senior, the hard shell of his armour made more striking by a hood divided into bold black and yellow parts.

Before the question is asked or assumed, a stifled cry comes through the thick panelled door at his back.

"Lord Capon," the knight calls through a crack in the door, "the smith is here."

"Tell him to leave!" comes an obstinate voice from inside, full of tears and boyish fury. "I don't need any smith!"

"Sir, Lord Hanush-"

"It's not my uncle's tooth! It's- ow!" His protests are quickly silenced by a sharp, pained yelp that devolves into muffled whimpering.

"May I have a word with him, sir?" Martin asks.

The knight extends an arm in answer, door creaking open to allow him passage through. Inside, a boy in a room too large for his small size cowers in the corner. Two beds are pushed against the wall, but the possessions strewn about the room seem to belong to but one person. Hanush, it seems, was in no mood to foster more fledgling knights.

He tries to imagine Henry in such a large room all to himself, and falls short in the exercise. It's hard to imagine Henry alone at all, forever with someone in tow to do mischief with.

"Good afternoon, sir. God be with you." Martin greets the boy with a nod of his head.

Without a mother's skirts to hide behind, the boy— Hans— pushes his face up against the wall. His nose flattens, eyes squeezing shut. A few fat tears leak out from the corners, dredging tracts down his cheeks. He snivels, then snivels again, perhaps out dismay that he has not yet outgrown such tears; not yet old enough to realise he never will.

"I understand I'm here to serve his lordship in an unfortunate business," he begins solemnly. "May I ask what happened?"

"It's uncle's fault!" Hans protests, sniffling. "If he hadn't insisted upon an escort he wouldn't've— I wouldn't've." The entire time he speaks he is nursing his hand against the right side of his jaw like it's about to fall off. "I fell. I fell and- it's just a crack."

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

Tears rim the glare aimed Martin's way. His eyes are blue and sharp as steel mirrored against the sky, but he thinks of Henry's softer, darker gaze. The round look in them when the mundane is dressed in a story. Henry had understood that himself at the market, with those winter forges. And perhaps it hadn't been a lie. The forge is lit in winter, after all.

"You won't be the first knight I've done this service for." Martin baits his words with the impression that there is more to say on the matter, but leaves it there. Hans perks up with interest.

"I won't?" he asks. Martin can almost hear his cheek peel from the wall, sticky-wet with tears.

"No. Far from it, in fact. I served as a soldier before I settled down as a blacksmith. I've pulled enough knights' teeth to make a new set of them for myself." Through his tears and his outrage, Hans giggles with delighted disgust. A lord and a boy in one. "I was always surprised by how they cried— before and after. These were men who took blows that could have killed a man, and yet bore those injuries gravely, but an aching tooth would have them crying for their mothers."

"I won't do that," Hans says, unwittingly agreeing to the service.

"And that is your right, my lord. Although I must admit I admired the tears. All the great knights in the tales we commoners tell shed them, over loss or love or injury— for a moment, it felt like I was in one of those tales myself."

Sensing the opportune time, he lifts his pliers from his pocket. They look small, nearly harmless, in his hands, and little Hans, to his credit, doesn't flinch.

"It would be better, sir, if you sat in the light." Martin gestures to the sunny seat carved into the wall beside a window— looking out and down upon the very road they had ridden to arrive at Rattay's gates. "There isn't a candle in the world small enough, I'm afraid."

"Even if I open my mouth really wide?"

Question aside, he crawls to an upright position and practically runs on fours to the seat, legs immediately picking up so they don't hang on the floor.

"Would you like to try it?"

Hans considers a moment, then shakes his head. He flinches as Martin settles in the seat opposite his, eyeing the tool in Martin's hand as if it's an opponent's sword.

Reluctantly, he opens his mouth. Martin places his thumb upon the boy's chin, opening it up further to inspect.

The inside of his mouth is a mismatch of old baby teeth and a growing set of adult teeth. There are gaps where he has lost the old, and the new have not quite come in yet. His tongue swipes the gum absently, filling in the empty space. It plays with a molar on the right side of his mouth, almost appearing to nurse it. When it slides off, the damage is immediately obvious: a fracture, no thicker than a hair upon Hans's head, splits the molar from crown to root.

It's a wonder the boy isn't crying more, really.

"Tuck your tongue into your left cheek," Martin says softly. Hans does so, stretching it so Martin can see the blue veins running underneath. "This will hurt. The worst pain in your life, most likely."

Out of the corners of his eyes he sees Hans's outline change as his muscles stiffen around his bones. He drops his legs, stretching his toes so his body is connected with the floor. Taut as a bowstring, and Martin prays it's an empty one.

He fits the pliers around the offending tooth, knowing he has the right one when a sad little whimper brushes past his knuckles. Hands testing their grip, Martin inhales— and pulls.

Hans pulls, too. Hard and away, the back of his head hitting the wall as he cries out in pain. The pliers' grip glide across the face of the tooth, coming out empty.

Agonised groaning follows the sudden yelp, Hans slouching forward until his face is practically in his lap. Every curse in Czech, and a few in Polish, string from his lips in lieu of his mother's name before they dampen to an unhappy whine. Martin wipes his pliers dry on the front of his apron, elongating the moment to let Hans recover. "It loosened," he says. "Ought to take just one more tug."

"You shdidn't gettit?!" he cries in dismay, clutching the cheek with the offensive tooth as he glares accusingly at Martin. "But it hurdt!"

"Anything will if you pull on it." Martin displays the pliers, tapping the empty teeth together. "It's strong, as any healthy tooth will be, m'lord. It must have been some fall, to crack such a tooth."

The compliment seems to help. Hans rubs his cheek, looking contemplatively off to one side.

"Shall we have a go again?"

"Give me a moment," Hans mutters, speaking more freely without a hand at his cheek. "You were a soldier before you were a smith?"

"I'd trained some as a smith, but aye. I was."

"Do you have any scars? Can I see them?"

Martin chuckles. "I presume you mean the ones I got in battle, not from hammering my own hand?" Not waiting for an answer, he begins to pull up his tunic at the corner, just enough to reveal a white, raised patch of skin. "I caught an arrow with my side. Two inches left and it would have caught my bowels, and there'd be no coming back from that."

Hans gapes. "You would've died?"

"Awfully," Martin answers, nodding knowingly. He'd seen it happen, men poisoning their own blood as they lie in agony.

Hans sticks his tongue in his cheek, chewing thoughtfully. Just once, before he realises his mistake. "My father fell, too," he says. "It killed him."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir." He wishes he could say more.

"Maybe that's why Uncle was so cross."

"Could be. The things that've hurt us, or the people we care about, often seem more frightening. What might've seemed like a small danger to you looked like life or death to him."

Hans sits with the thought, frowning and rubbing his cheek. In the absence of conversation, the sounds of the market feels like a cruel jape on both their accounts. For Hans, an innocent excursion cut short; for Martin, a reminder of what he's missing. He wonders if Henry has tried his luck with Jana yet, or if he knows his mother's answer will be the same as his.

"Are you ready to try again?" Hans asks, shifting his legs, seeming conscious that it wasn't on Martin's account that they had stopped.

"I am if you are."

The little lord nods, adjusting his legs so they're positioned between Martin's knees. "You know what to do," Martin hums, then reminds himself who it is he's addressing. Not some village boy, but a lord. "Mouth open, please, sir."

Hans's mouth pops open with a small 'aah!' as his tongue tucks into his opposite cheek. His breath smells of a lord's morning routine— frankincense and cinnamon, rather than herbs foraged at his doorstep. Martin fits the pliers around the molar, as though he's about to twist the errant end of a stubborn nail, but instead of twisting, he pulls.

Something gives. Hans wails.

He shunts himself back against the wall, the back of his head cracking against the wooden window seat. Doubling over, his hands don't seem to know what to nurse for, capping his ears as he moans pitifully to himself. A drop of pity falls from Martin's throat into his stomach, not at the boy's pain, but that he cannot laugh at him. Make some levity of the sorry situation. When Matthew's front teeth were stubborn in his gums, Jana had helped dry the boy's tears before he drowned in them, making a joke of his troubles. She has a way, like Henry does, of making people feel the way she wants them to, be they boys or knights— perhaps even both.

Martin has no such talent. Point him at a problem and he'll fix it, but it would take a designer more clever than him to predict a boy besides his own.

And even then, there are always surprises.

"Hold this between your teeth until the bleeding stops," he says in lieu of any enlightening comfort, offering a soft woollen cloth to wet.

As they sit in unhappy silence, Hans curls into himself. Wet tears slide down his cheeks, which he dries on his knees until his hose look like he's been kneeling upon wet earth. Like a common village boy.

"Would you like to hold it?" Martin asks, before the idea has fully realised in his mind.

Hans stops crying abruptly. Martin doubts the tears before were for show, merely that sometimes children his age can only live in one world at a time. Misery, joy, curiosity— all experienced in extremes.

He offers his hands, cupping them together as though ready to accept a baby chick in his palms. The tooth, when dropped, makes him flinch. Perhaps anticipating it will still somehow hurt him. Hans looks at it, tilting his palms left and right, examining it from all angles with the same eyes that had widened at the sight of Martin's scar.

The boy likes his trophies, Martin suspects. One day these walls may well be lined with stuffed heads when those little arms grow strong enough to pull back a bowstring, mounted in-between the little murals of rural Bohemia.

"You keep it," Hans says, dashing Martin's expectations. "For your set of knight's teeth."

A short snort issues from Martin's nose before he can help himself, catching the bewildered look in Hans's eye before he can explain himself. "You're too kind, m'lord." He has no desire to explain that it was a metaphorical set, and that there was no mythical set of knightly teeth hidden somewhere in his forge. "I'll keep it somewhere safe." He drops it in the pocket of his apron, patting it twice for emphasis. Hans grins so wide the bloody gap where his tooth had been shows.

"Are we feeling better, Lord Capon?"

The knight stood in front of the door has swung it open, standing in the portal between the bedroom and the hallway, hips canted at an easy angle. There is a look of relief in his brow, the frown from before less pronounced.

"Itsh sthill hurtsh!" Hans says, then drags the blood-soaked rag out between his teeth to try again. "It still hurts."

A gloved hand is laid upon Hans's shoulder, summoning another smile uninhibited by the rag between it. "It will, but the worst is over. Perhaps Sir Hanush will permit you some spirits for the pain."

"Sir…" Martin ventures, making it clear he is preparing to be on his way by dropping his pliers in his apron, then patting the pockets as if checking to see if he has everything. "The young lord isn't to have anything hard for at least three days— after that, if the pain is better, he might be able to return to normal."

The knight snorts. "Are you a smith or a sawbones?"

"I've been both, depending on what the situation calls for."

"Fortunate for us. Thank you for the service, I was planning on delivering the payment myself, but Sir Hanush decided he had a mind to deliver it personally."

Martin minds his expression, nodding into a bow. "I'll see him now, thank you, sir. God be with you, my lords."

"God be with you, blacksmith!" Hans calls, waving with his bloody cloth as Martin exits the room.

Looking left and right, the open door leading deeper into the castle seems a likely place for a lord like Hanush to occupy himself. Sure enough before he has even crossed the threshold he sees a large shadow cast upon the floor, eclipsing the heavy wooden furniture that makes up what Martin assumes is a dining hall. He stands upon the precipice between the hall and the room. Behind him, he can hear Hans chatting animatedly to the knight in intermittent bouts of unintelligible yammering.

He's grateful at least he didn't have to leave the boy to himself in that big, empty room.

He knocks without announcing himself, although it hardly seems to matter. From inside a loud voice asks, "Is that you, Martin? Come in, and close the door."

Lord Hanush of Leipa is a man Martin has seen before, although he had no reason until now to think that the familiarity is mutual. Likely the favourite of Radzig's neighbours, he is often a guest at the castle, and not a personality that is easy to overlook. A far cry from the more reserved Divish, his fine furs and richly groomed beard speak for him even when his lips are silent. "When Sir Bernard told me it was a blacksmith from Skalitz who'd stepped up to help my nephew I had wondered if it was you. Who better to tend to a noble boy than the minder of a noble bastard?"

The remark captures his expression before he can mind it, lips twisting into a disapproving smile, which provokes bemused laughter in the lord. "Now, now, don't fret. You may be glad one day that your Henry's circumstances are… known among the neighbouring lords. It may keep him out of trouble."

Or help him find it, Martin thinks, bitterly wondering how many of the local nobility Radzig has taken upon himself to enlighten.

As is his right, comes the second thought. The soldier's thought, that does not rattle with fear at the idea of a noble's whims irrevocably changing Henry's life as easily as they had given him life.

"You're right, sir. Forgive me, I hadn't been made aware that Lord Kobyla's secret had been trusted to anyone else," he says, and it's not a lie.

Hanush chuckles. "Yes, well, I don't need to tell you what Sir Radzig is like when he's been drinking. That aside, there remains the matter of your payment." Reaching into the pouch at his belt, he procures a small purse of groschen and tosses it on the table. Mostly empty, any shape it had is quickly lost once Hanush's fingers do not hold the strings.

"Thank you, sir," Martin mutters in thanks, taking it with a nod of the head.

"Hold on, there's more where that came from! I have another job for you, Martin. One that will earn a bit more acclaim than whatever thanks my nephew gave— if he gave any at all."

Martin touches his apron pocket, feeling the outline of the tooth between the fabric. "He was grateful in his own way, m'lord."

"Which is a kind way of saying he didn't." Hanush laughs again. "No matter. I'd be worried about what else you dislodged if he had."

Standing in bewildered silence at Hanush's willingness to divulge his nephew's lesser qualities, he wonders— somewhat belatedly— if the Lord of Leipa sees him as but an extension of his noble friend. An aspect of Radzig, manifested in his home. "I'd like you to fashion him a sword," Hanush explains. "A proper one that he can carry with him out of his boyhood. Something he'll hopefully use to break other people's bones, rather than his own." Snorting gently at his own joke, Hanush's eyes glimmer in Martin's direction. "Perhaps finally I'll have the chance to test Radzig's confidence in your craftsmanship."

There is no choice but to bow his head in a show of gratitude— knowing it would be foolish to refuse the request, if that were an option. "I won't let you down, my lord. Nor Lord Kobyla, for that matter."

"From how he tells it you've yet to. Now…" Hanush extends his arm, hand extended in welcome towards the door. "Take advantage of the rest of your day. It must be nice, getting out of that hovel of a village."

It's as plain a dismissal as any, but Martin lingers, struck by many thoughts at once. The tender youth he'd spent the better part of his last hour entertaining; the dismayed reminder that although it was he and Jana who had spent sleepless nights taking care of Henry, his fate will forever be determined by their betters; the fleeting joys of boyhood, before the world begins to take things from you. One tooth at a time.

"Sir… if I might make one request," he begins, hesitating at shape of the next words on his lips. "My boy wanted a look at your castle's forge. If it wouldn't be an intrusion—"

Yet what, to him, felt like a rebellion— a reclamation— barely seems to register in Hanush's mind.

"He'd like a look, would he? I don't see why not."

Martin tries not to either. It might encourage him, give him ideas which he and Jana both want to discourage where they can. The truth of his birth, although it might win him friends and allies, may cost him more. Still, these hours are fleeting, and who knows when he may next get the chance. He bows his head, wondering if he might benefit from having a string tied to the back of his head, to save him some energy the next time he must speak with a lord. "Thank you, sir," he says, taking his leave with a final, "God be with you."

He exits Pirkstein the same way he came, rejoining the market, perhaps even busier than how he left it. In the crowd he sees the sour-faced knight, one arm stretched out at a familiar angle, ushering a young boy through the commotion. Josef nods at him from his stall, and Martin wonders if his fellow smith knows that his service to Hanush will not end with this little errand.

As his own stall looms into view, he sees Jana engaged in conversation with a local. Less interested in the swords and weapons, they seem to be debating the worth of a bag of nails from the forge. He sees her gesture dismissively at the crooked nails hammered into the stall, and although he cannot read the words on her lips, he can imagine her pitch: theirs are a step above the local smith's.

There is something, or perhaps, someone missing from the picture. There's no sign of their boy on his mother's tail, nor anywhere else for that matter.

"Where's Henry?" he asks, once the local has moved on a few groschen lighter, but a bag of nails richer.

Jana stops, the handful of groschen she'd been counting slipping through her fingers and onto the ground. "I thought he was with you. He said-"

"And you believed him?" Martin laughs. He's not sure he could be cross if he tried. "I'll go look for him, I have a feeling I know where he ran off to."

He sets off up the hill, towards the upper castle, letting his eyes wander at the various market wares on display: fine fabrics, leather goods, jewels set in silver. Things he might afford, if Hanush opens his purse a little further to him. A present for Jana, or Henry, come New Year. Not one to begin counting his silver before it's in the bag, however, he moves on from the thought, continuing through an opening in the walls and up past Josef's forge. It's there, to his surprise, that a flash of red catches the corner of his eye. That scarf Jana had made him is a useful giveaway for their often wayward son.

Henry crouches beside the workshop, peering around the door and across the bridge into Rattay Castle. Every time the guard glances his way he ducks back behind the door, fingers still peeking out. He doesn't seem to hear the sound of footsteps behind him, which gives Martin a rare opportunity.

"Have they given the signal yet?" Martin bends over his knees as he asks, chuckling when it sends Henry four feet in the air.

"Pa! I was only-"

"Save your breath, son. I know what you were up to." Straightening, Martin places his hands on his hips and looks across the bridge. A guard is posted at the entrance, but stopping little boys is unlikely to be his prerogative unless they look like mischief. Henry, with his mother's lashes and Radzig's eyes, appears at a glance to be as innocent as Christ in His manger. "I have to wonder why you haven't made it across yet."

Henry's teeth drag across his lower lip, breathing through the gap in them, and casts his gaze across to the portcullis. "I was gettin' around to it," he says, with all the force of someone afraid to admit their fear.

"Aye, of course you were." It flatters him to think he might find a forge, even an unfamiliar one, somewhere safe he can hide. Though he's not certain Josef would approve. "Here, I may have something that'll help. Do you remember that pedlar who stopped by Skalitz last spring?"

"The one with the talismans?"

"The same."

"You wouldn't let me buy anything off him."

"Because he could've clipped those hairs off his horse for all we know. You can't buy luck, Henry. It has to come to you. Here…" Martin dips his hand into his pocket, plucking out the tooth to hold between his thumb and forefinger. "A knight's tooth, for courage. Hold out your hand."

He drops it into Henry's waiting palm, his fingers curling around it to feel its points against his skin. What stock he takes in the trinket is impossible to judge— Martin suspects he was so interested in the charm trader's goods for the macabre thrill of it all. Still, he thinks he sees a wish to believe in his son's eyes. The same eyes that looked on Rattay and saw a sprawling city, rather than a humble market town. Perhaps he's old enough to come to Kuttenberg, and see what a true city looks like.

"If we're both going, can Ma come too?" Henry asks.

"I don't see why not." They had begun the day together, it only makes sense to end it together, too. "One of Josef's hands can watch the stall— he owes me that much for savin' his hide, eh?" Placing his hand on Henry's back, they retreat from the castle. Henry stands a little closer than he would usually, hiding from the not-so-watchful eye of the guard. Grateful, perhaps, that he's not yet too tall to hide in his Pa's shadow.