Page 16 of Ironling
“Don’t trouble yourself, Hakon, please. That’s just Hugh.”
His ears deepened in color at her use of his name. “He couldn’t resist when he smelled the good cooking.”
Smiling, Aislinn replied, “He isn’t alone. Quite a few people stray into Hugh’s kitchen around dinnertime. I promise, he doesn’t mean anything by it. You and Wülf are welcome here.”
“Not in the kitchen!” came bellowing from inside.
Aislinn winced, but a small smile formed around Hakon’s tusks. She marveled to see it, as well as the dimple it made in his right cheek. Fates, that little divot softened his whole face.
Bowing again, Hakon hustled his dog away from the door. “It was a pleasure to meet you, my lady. I hope I can be of service to you and your father.”
“Of course,” she said by rote, her stomach still in strange knots.
She watched as the halfling led his dog away, his short, dark hair glossy in the late afternoon sunshine. It wasn’t until he disappeared around the corner that Aislinn realized emotions bubbled in her middle still, but they weren’t…bad. No indeed, the flutter of excitement in her chest was most pleasant.
Smiling to herself, Aislinn ducked into the kitchens, her mood lightened.
Excellent. We needed a new blacksmith.
5
The fires of Hakon’s forge often burned late into the night, partly because he enjoyed working in the evenings, when the air was cooler and the dark afforded a better chance to accurately gauge the color of the heated iron, and partly because there was just that much work to do.
Hakon hadn’t made nails nor chain link nor horseshoes in years, and never so many. Only a handful of days at his new position and he felt he could make a hundred hobnails in an hour in his sleep. It was always good to practice the basics, he told himself. Not every job could be a beautiful breastplate or wicked axe. Plow heads and hatchets and serving knives all served important functions, too.
At night, at work, when it was just him and his hammer and Wülf, Hakon could clear his head of everything else. He practiced his human words with every hammer stroke, forming his lips around the new words and phrases to memorize what they felt like, which would help him with what they looked like on others.
When he could hear what was said, he found the Eireantongue easy enough to follow, although he was still baffled by some of their idioms and verbs. The problem was when people mumbled or pointed their faces away from him. Human lips were harder to read, moving much quicker without the hindrance of tusks.
He was undeterred.
A few days within Dundúran Castle and Hakon knew it was where he was meant to be. The work was steady and soon he hoped to be trusted with more challenging work. The smithy itself was an impressive thing, a huge circle of connected forges set in a stone circle, divided into cells by stone and brick. The ring of a room faced the west bailey, aired by a wall of wide windows. It had everything a smithy could want, with several work areas to choose from. Hakon already had a mind, since it was just him and the old head blacksmith Fearghas, that they could divide the space into specialties, so that specific tools and molds didn’t have to be fetched or traded out every time.
He was waiting for Fearghas to warm to him before bringing this up, however. Although, he wasn’t sure Fearghas warmed up to anyone. The tetchy older human man was big and burly, his head shaved to reveal a shiny scalp, but a wild beard grew to touch his chest. Hakon hadn’t determined the color of his eyes yet, so often they were squinting or scowling.
Fearghas had deigned to give him a succinct tour of the smithy on his first day, but after that it was only barks to assign Hakon the busywork. For his part, Fearghas seemed solely focused on making intricate, decorative goblets set with braided metal and precious stones. These he took to his favorite tavern most nights to drink and sing shanties.
Hakon had to hope that his steady work of nails and horseshoes would eventually earn him some modicum of trust with the older man. He knew a skilled blacksmith when he saw one, and Fearghas was skilled—if abrasive. And set in his ways.Hakon would give the man a few more days before he brought up his suggestions.
Fearghas aside, there was much to recommend his new circumstances.
A small but well-kept room had been given to him just off the smithy so he could keep the fires stoked. Staff were welcome to use the heated baths below the castle, as well as take their meals in the dining hall with the liege lord and his family if no banquet was being held.
The best part, though, was all the pretty human women who inhabited the castle. The castle staff was a small army of people, half of whom were female, and many of them young and hearty lasses. His head had turned to behold more than one as he walked to find himself and Wülf food or on his way to the baths.
For the first time in his life, a woman flirted with him.
His ears burned hotter than his forge fire thinking of it.
He’d harbored dark doubts deep inside him during his journey north that he wouldn’t, in the end, find human women attractive or suitable—or worse, none would find him appealing. He’d lived his life in Kaldebrak being passed over and ignored as a potential mate, but more than one human woman had already run her gaze over him appreciatively.
It will work,he thought to himself.This all will work. I’ll make you proud yet,gadaron.
Now it was just a matter of talking to one of them. He was growing more confident in his Eirean every day, and he thought soon he’d be able to hold a conversation with a woman without fumbling his words.
He wasn’t opposed to sampling the fruits, as it were, thinking of how one of the kitchen maids had given him a particularly lusty look as she ladled his supper into a bowl. His aim, though, was always to find his mate.
With so many women here, not just within the castle but thecity of Dundúran itself, there had to be a woman who might fancy him and whom he could love in return. This was all for her, after all, his journey and new life.
