Keira's Fire

Chapter 2

"Here's your coffee, Papa," I said as I stood beside my father in the barn.

"Thank you, Peanut. Just put it there." He nodded to the clear corner of the workbench, but otherwise didn't look away from the shapeless piece of wood in his hand that would become part of a rocking chair by the end of the night.

"Are you going to work all night long?" I set the cup down and was instantly captivated by his deft movements.

"Most likely. I have several orders to complete before I have to leave."

"You're leaving again?" I almost never cried, but hearing that made me want to. "You just came home."

He returned yesterday from nearly a month-long absence. Before that, he'd been gone on three other seemingly endless trips. Like the surrounding villages, ours didn't have formal leaders, but my father, along with a handful of others, was something of an unofficial leader, respected and trusted by everyone. Unfortunately for me, that meant he was responsible to assist with the political decisions that affected our village. Consequently, he was obligated to attend these meetings at the castle, many miles away. He never knew how long they would take, but a week's time was usually guaranteed. More often than not, two or three weeks was the standard. In the past, the meetings only took place once a year, but lately it seemed Papa was at the castle more than he was home.

"I'm afraid so." He put down his knife to taste the coffee. "There are many important matters that need to be resolved. You know that."

"Can't they get along without you for a while?" I tried. "Then you wouldn't have to stay up all night to work." It sounded very reasonable in my eight-year-old opinion, but from the look my father gave me, I knew he wasn't convinced any more than he'd been the hundreds of other times I'd tried to persuade him to stay home.

"What do you talk about there?" I said after a minute of wallowing in disappointment.

"Oh, just boring grown-up things." He did a good job of appearing nonchalant, but I didn't buy it. My father almost always gave direct answers to my questions. The only time he didn't was when he was attempting to shield me from something, so I knew things weren't quite as tranquil as he wanted me to believe. Besides, I wasn't so naive that I hadn't noticed the growing tension around the village. It was as if some big storm was approaching. And then of course, there was the frequency in which my father's presence was required at the castle lately. None of it boded well. I didn't want to annoy him with more questions, but I couldn't help being very curious about what was going on.

"What's this I hear about you terrorizing the village?" Papa interrupted my wonderings. "Particularly the baker's son, William?" he prodded after a minute of my silence.

At first, I hadn't a clue what he was talking about, but I guess he somehow heard about my threat to skewer that irritating boy the other day. What a cry baby! I bit my lip and dug my toe into the dirt, avoiding my father's eye.

"I allowed you to be trained as a means of defending yourself if the need should ever arise. It's not intended as a way for you to settle neighborhood squabbles or to threaten boys who get on your nerves. However, if that is how you are going to use your training, I'll stop it right now."

For the life of me, I couldn't understand what convinced my father to allow me to be trained with the boys, despite much resistance from my mother and Cecily. I had asked for ages, and the answer was always no. "No Keira, the training is only for the boys. Girls have other jobs to do." But for some reason, on my birthday this year, Papa granted me permission to train.

It wasn't a popular notion by any stretch. The other girls in the village all thought I was crazy for even wanting to do it, not that they'd have been allowed by their parents anyway. So I was the only girl among all the boys. My brothers were about the only ones who tolerated my presence besides my instructors, and they barely even put up with me. I loved it though, and I was good at it. Which, I suspected, was the reason the boys didn't appreciate that I was there. Pride was a prized attribute in our village, and unsurprisingly they didn't appreciate being outdone by a girl any more than they had previously. It was even worse for them in this setting because there were actual measurable tasks. If I beat them in a meaningless race or fight, they could claim that they let me win. But they couldn't do that as easily when my arrows hit the target with better accuracy than theirs, or when I beat them with our practice swords. Not with the instructors taking off points and yelling at them for not doing better.