Disclaimer: This is not the final version as it will be available from the usual e-book sellers and eventually, bookstores. Rather, it should be seen as an (almost) final draft. If you are interested in becoming a beta reader, or you have any comments, suggestions or thoughts that you feel I should consider before publishing please drop me a line using the contact form.
The Right to Bear Arms
She spent over a year polishing and cleaning the blade in between everything else that kept her busy. She took little extra jobs where she could get them to be able to buy or trade for the materials she wanted. Bernard would probably have given her whatever money she needed for it, but she didn’t want him to. She needed the right wood to make a good grip, and steel wire to wrap around it, which was expensive if you needed good quality. Copper and tin to attach a newly forged pommel. She also saved up money and traded rabbit skins to buy the best leather she could find to make a belt and scabbard. She reinforced the scabbard with pieces of flexible wood. With Bernard and Gerry’s help she made a fairly plain but functional grip and attached it to the pommel. It was a little difficult to do without Gerry noticing, but Ala’s gift gave her a fine control of the temperatures of the materials she worked with, making it easier to do the task well. The result earned heartfelt compliments from Gerry.
“It’s a good thing you’re not meanin’ to be a smith, girl. I’d have me some real competition.”
“Gerry, I’ve been working on this for over a year! I would starve if I were a smith!”
“Yeah. There is that. At that rate it’d be hard to make a livin’ I guess, though who knows when that’s the result eh? Canna argue with it, canna we? It’s mighty fine work, girl. Mighta taken me just as long.”
As she had worked with the blade, she had a strange sensation, almost as if she could feel inside the sword, a sensation of ageless depth and countless battles. It had taken her a moment to shake it off. She didn’t tell any one, she didn’t even know how to explain the feeling to Bernard. The scabbard she fashioned was plain and quite slender. It had been made with Ala’s customary patience and desire to master the craft. When it was complete it looked like a very well made slender sword in a good scabbard. There was nothing on the outside to give away what it was. Only the quillons indicated that it might have once been something special.
“Be best if you keep that scabbard lookin’ nice and plain on the outside,” Bernard had said when she’d suggested decorating it, “that sword would attract far too much interest if people guessed what it was.”
Anything that might make it look valuable was best avoided, he said. In the meantime she kept diligently training weapons as many hours a day as she could. She was very focused on swordsmanship but Bernard insisted she spent time on archery, riding and spears and halberds as well. Very rarely, he praised her improvement. She practised several hours a day by herself or with Bernard as well as with other members of the militia when she could talk them into it or they were called up to practice. She still regularly visited the horse breeders too, as it was her main source of income. Her room and board were at Bernard’s house was free, but she did need some coin for things every now and again.
She was a popular exercise rider, her ability to calm unruly breeding stallions had made the breeders welcome her and trust her with their valuable steeds. When a horse was being particularly difficult someone from the horse farm would always come to find her. Thetwick’s reputation as a place to buy warhorses had continued to grow and she was able to get more work than ever before. Horse rearing had become the most important source of external income for the Westmarch. Despite her services being in high demand she always gave weapons practice and militia duty precedence, even though neither provided an income. She just felt comfortable with a weapon in her hand.
Ala’s skill with temperamental horses allowed her to ride some of the most energetic stallions bareback around the countryside. She didn’t see it as a special skill, she’d just discovered that horses responded very well when you spoke to them in elven. Being able to speak elven, even if it was only to horses, felt nice. The horse breeders found they could entrust their most promising mounts to Ala for exercise and even more and more of the training. She was seldom without a powerful warhorse to ride around on. It made some of the young men in the village very envious. Luckily the breeders she rode for didn’t mind her keeping a horse at Bernard’s over night, which made it easy for her to get around and kept her safe from the adolescents who didn’t think she ought to have the privilege of riding around on a horse worth substantially more than most houses in Thetwick.
She did go out on foot to the market sometimes and she had come to dread it. There was a group, usually led by Jed or Bruce, who delighted in tormenting her if they could catch her alone. Sometimes it had resulted in an altercation she had to run away from. Once, eight of them had accosted her, all bigger and stronger than her. They started off making lewd suggestions and grabbing hold of her, one of them started pulling up her dress. She had no doubt what they had in mind. She kicked one in the crotch and raked her nails across another’s face to get away. She had to drop her basket of groceries, aiming it in front of one of her pursuers legs to trip him and tore and lost her cloak to the laughing boys. It left her with a nasty bloody nose and a blow to her temple that she was sure would become a black eye. She’d been seconds away from using her fire to defend herself, which she knew could have had even more dire consequences. She ran as hard as she could all the way to Bernard’s house. He saw her come in, bloody, out of breath and crying.
“Ala! What happened to you? Are you alright?”
In between sobs, she answered him… “it’s… nothing… just… fell…”
“No you didn’t, did you? It’s those town boys again isn’t it? Which ones?”
“Please… just leave it… it’ll only set me further apart.”
Bernard frowned, “I think we’re past that Ala. I won’t have this happening again. It’ll only get worse.”
Ala looked down. She was worried he might be right.
“From now on, Ala, you’re not going out unarmed, understood? Don’t kill anyone unless you absolutely must to get away, but if anyone leaves a meeting bleeding, I insist it isn’t you, from now on. Do you hear me?”
Ala was silent. She could see he meant it. She nodded, not entirely sure what to think of it. In Thetwick, the right to bear arms was a big deal. Bernard was within his rights to assign it to anyone he saw fit and even just the idea of it immediately made her feel safer, but the people of Thetwick would look at her differently. In a way it delighted her, but it also set her even further apart from the others in the village who at least had the appearance of being the same age. Weapons were something only permitted to soldiers and nobles.
In fact it was such a sign of status that she knew that even noblewomen always included a weapon in what they wore. It was usually only a small dagger, but it weapons were so connected to the idea of nobility that a noble wearing something without any sort of weapon was unthinkable, no matter how ornate the outfit. Being armed was a sign of nobility across Iurrak, Selinus and maybe even further away.
Bernard had been dead serious. From then on, she was never without her sword. She used one of Bernard’s lesser blades for militia practice, he insisted on her own sword remaining hidden. But, she was always armed and when she went out she did always wear her own sword when she went out to do something where only a dire emergency would justify drawing it.
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