The Tanner's Daughter

2. Unlikely Reunion

The spring rain kept many things at bay. The smells went first, drowned in sodden earth outside and mildew within. The best that went were the flies. Sarah could tie her hair up without them tickling the back of her neck.

Though the rain kept many things at bay, it didn't keep all.

She was just bringing in the last of the leather hides to keep them dry when another soldier strode down the street. The rain hadn't started yet, but Sarah could smell it coming. That and the sweat on the soldier as he passed. She kept her head down, so she didn't recognize him until he spoke. "Miss Tanner."

She nearly dropped the hides. The man was near age, somewhere in his second decade, with stubble on his chin and hair out of sorts. But she'd know that voice and crooked nose anywhere. "Beck. I didn't expect..." She adjusted her hold on the hides. "What are you doing here?"

"I overhead one of the men saying he had trouble at the market the other day. Trouble with a girl that..." He cleared his throat. "...that 'smelled of piss.' Those're his words, I swear. I wanted to make sure all was well." He glanced at the building behind her and grinned. "Figured you still lived here."

He didn't mention the incident with the cobbler and the farrier. Why would he? She was nobody important.

"I'm fine." She glanced at the sky and stepped back into the doorway as it started to sprinkle. "Care to come out of the rain?"

He shook his head. "I'm on patrol." He tipped his head, water dripping from his hair. "Until another day, Miss Tanner."

He left, and Sarah just stood there. How things had changed. He didn't even call her by her given name. Not anymore.

***

The rain came and went, came and went, so often that Sarah didn't bother putting the hides back out. Not even one of their regulars dropped by that day.

Sarah tidied the store, then found her father in the back, marking another X on the ledger. Neither of them could read, but her father's father had taught him to keep track of sales. Though her father never showed her how, Sarah picked it up by watching.

Her father sat at the table, not bothering to look up when she came in.

"I'm going to the trapper's now."

Still no word. An empty cup sat next to his inkwell. Sarah didn't have to smell it to know what it once held. And it wasn't even evening. She held back a sigh.

"Be back before dark," he said as she was halfway out the door.

"Of course." She pulled on her shawl and stepped into open, damp air.

***

David had visited twice before her father nearly walked in on them, giggling. "Get down!" Sarah shoved him under a table stacked with hides and faked a sneeze to cover the noise. Her father didn't even look at her as he left through the front, empty-handed. He must have been out of ale.

Something thudded against the table. "Ow... Can I come out now?"

She'd been so busy thinking of her father, she had forgotten about the man hiding under the table. She pulled him out, and they agreed to meet outside the shop from then on. Besides, David insisted, it would be better for his constitution. She playfully swatted at him for that remark.

The day Beck dropped by, she found herself preoccupied again as she made her way into the forest. Magpies chittered. A rabbit bounded across her path. She found the creek where she and Beck used to play as children, back before her mother died, her father started drinking, and she took over the shop. Back before she lost touch with Beck.

His father had been a simple farmer but joined the latest Crusade. He never came home. Beck had wanted to go, but they wouldn't take a boy not a decade old.

He kicked at the creek when he told Sarah, who'd just seen her seventh summer. "I'll never get to do anything great!"

"Sure, you will." Sarah sharpened a stick with one of her mother's kitchen knives. Father wouldn't let her touch his tanning ones. "You need more training is all. Like me." She dropped her knife and raised her makeshift sword. "Arm yourself!"

Something splashed through the creek, drawing Sarah back to the present. David crossed, holding something behind his back with one hand. Sarah narrowed her eyes. "That better not be what I think it is."

David smirked. "What might that be?"

She grabbed at the thing behind his back, fingers brushing something soft. He chuckled and raised it above her head. Sarah gasped. "David of Doncaster! I asked you to bring something practical. What use hath I for a fox pelt?"

"You could wear it."

No, she couldn't. "Only the nobility can afford something like that." She bit her lip. "It wouldn't sit right on a girl that smells of..." She stopped herself before she used Beck's word.

David shrugged. "Then sell it."

Sarah stared at him. "Me? Sell a fox pelt? You're right. That would ne'er look suspicious."

"I'll go with you."

Why did he insist on acting like England allowed men to be whatever they wished? If David had his way, she'd be dressed like a lady, he wouldn't be an outlaw, and Beck wouldn't have to be a soldier. Wait... why was he a soldier? What happened to the farm?

Sarah shook her head. "I should go."

"Wait." David took her hand. "It's over here." He led her across the creek to a clump of boulders. He leaned beside one, which somehow managed to stay dry underneath, and pulled out an old parchment. He unfolded it, revealing it to be a small deer skin, probably a doe. A poached doe—the king's deer. Sarah held her breath, then smiled and slapped his shoulder for good measure.

As long as her father didn't find out where the skin came from, they'd be fine.