A Willing Heart

One

The stable had allowed us to do much better than most people in the town of Greenbanú, which lay along a much-used path east of Mirkwood. And fortunate for us, the inn was but a stone's throw away, and travelers always came with horses or donkeys, for the most part, and while the innkeeper probably charged way more than he should for the safe-keeping of their animals, we charged him enough to get us by.

For it was just my brother and I left in this world, and together we had enough to make for a comfortable life. Bernd usually tended to the animals while I sewed and mended clothing. There was always work to be had mending clothes, for it cost a fortune to always have new ones made. And whatever clothes most of my neighbors had made, they wore till the seams practically tore off their backs.

Such were the times that had befallen most of us, though there were a few of the wealthy who kept me busy with a new wardrobe to go with each season, though I wondered where they used such fine robes for.

But there was always time for other things besides just sewing and mending. Sometimes, I helped Berndt with his work in the stables, for I always found the horses most beautiful. They were excellent company after working with cloth from dawn till dusk, when the fading light proved too weak for my eyes to guide my fingers' way through the stitches along the fabric. And I loved to run my hands along the animals' sides, feeding them sugar cubes as Berndt looked on with a frown.

It was a relief to ride the horses out in the plains though I made sure to ride only in the daylight, for one never could be too careful in these parts. Because we lived by the edge of the forest, there was always talk of other creatures so unlike us, much like the goblins who'd taken our parents years earlier.

Mother had taught me how to sew. She taught me how to cut cloth along lines she'd draw on the ground using chalk when I was a little girl, moving onto drawing them on paper, snipping sharp triangles along certain areas to "create shape," she'd say, and distinguish a simple dress from one that wasn't simple at all. "Grand" was the word she used. Ornate was another one.

She'd been a royal tailor and dressmaker when she was a young woman and although there were no more kings and queens to sew such beautiful creations for, she'd never stopped practicing her craft and passing it onto her only daughter. But now she was dead, along with father, killed in an orc raid more than five years earlier when she and father journeyed to a town ten days away with other merchants to purchase rich silken fabrics for her wealthy customers.

As I put away the fabric I was currently working on, a shadow crossed the window and I gasped, dropping the basket of notions onto the floor. I stooped down to pick it up and as I sat up to look out, I saw him.

He had just turned his head to look through the glass, his brow furrowed as he peered through the semi-darkness of the front room where I sat. If I hadn't just stooped down to pick up the basket of notions from under the table, he would have seen me in my simple frock and with my hair loose about my face, always hiding my ears and my right cheek. But as I sat back up, and looked out, our eyes met and I froze, just like he did.

He had piercing blue eyes that seemed to peer through my very soul, the deep blue of his irises betraying a deep sense of loss that nothing could ever replace. His strong aquiline nose was set against strong regal features, a neatly trimmed beard covering the lower half of his face. His hair, damp from the previous night's rain, was long and thick, streaming past his shoulders. Braids on either side of his head framed his strong face.

For a moment I stifled a gasp and he, having at that same moment met my own eyes in surprise, looked away, his attention returning to the man he had come to talk to concerning work as a blacksmith. But then he turned back to look at me, his eyes narrowing, only to turn away one more time when Jürgen, the smith, called for him.

The dwarf still wore the thick coat with its fur collar caked in mud, deep blue tunic that was adorned with gold trim beneath it that belied a man accustomed to a tailored wardrobe. I had not seen many dwarves till the last week or so, when they first started coming through the town and even Bernd had remarked at the beautiful clothing they wore.

So not unlike what Berndt wore, for he preferred to dress simply if he were to work around the animals, feeding them and cleaning after them, making sure the stables were always in excellent condition. Even when I made him such ornate overcoats, embroidered with the shiniest of gold or silver threads I could find in mother's chest, he refused to wear them.

Instead, he'd sold two of the best coats I had made him to the richest man in town, the merchant Lialam, who frequently visited the shop that was also our home to have his clothes mended - even when they did not need such repairs.

"You're the best seamstress in town," Lialam would say as his hand would accidentally brush against mine each time he would lay a torn coat or shirt or trousers he'd claimed he'd ripped while doing this or that. Not that Lialam did anything close to hard labor - if counting gold coins was ever an occupation to qualify as such.

"One day, you will not have to sew any one else's clothes but my own," he said just this morning, before he told me that Berndt had sold him the second coat - the best coat he had yet seen - in exchange for one of his new horses.

Berndt put the money from the coats Lialam purchased towards the acquisition of a horse rumored to belong to one of the Rohirrim - this according to the merchant himself. It was a beautiful horse, to be sure, and one that seemed to like Berndt, but its cost was too high even for us to afford.

It would require the cost of one more coat, Lialam had told Berndt.

"A coat fit for a king," Berndt told me just a day earlier. "Can you make one, sister? Lialam already said that there is someone else interested in the beast and I don't want to lose this one."

But I could not make Berndt another coat.

Not one fit for a king, for unlike my mother and father, I had not met any kings or princes to copy their coats after. Our little town was but a watering hole for traveling folk, a small mark upon one's map and if one strayed merely two miles away from the path, one would surely miss it.

No, there were no kings or princes to be met in our little village - men who would wear coats that I could copy and sew an exact replica for Berndt for.

But that was before today. For today, I had set eyes on the one the dwarves who had just walked past my window, his deep blue eyes seeing through my soul.

And he wore the coat of a king.