Deception & Betrayal (Complete)

Counting Stars

Everywhere he looked, there was noise and excitement. Even the priests from the church were caught up in the anticipation of what was to come, and nobody even knew what, exactly, that was going to be. All anyone could see was the wall of brightly coloured wagons a short distance outside of the town walls, and a large tent going up in the middle of the open space behind them. The Kinkers had arrived, for the first time in a decade.

"Tate! There you are!"

He turned away from the crowd and the adventure that it promised to see his older brother jogging toward him. Tate sighed and fought the urge to turn back around to try and lose himself in the crowd.

"What do you want, Fitz?" Tate already knew the answer, but part of him was hoping for different words to come out of his brother's mouth.

"You need to get back to the shop," Fitz replied, crushing Tate's hope for another message. "I told Father that you'd gone to get that order of nail blanks from the blacksmith, but I don't think he believed me."

Tate smiled and shrugged. "Well, thanks for trying at least. Is he terribly mad?"

"About the usual," Fitz informed him as the brothers started to wend their way through the town streets toward the family shop. "I think that he's partially convinced himself that you're spending so much time away from work because you like the blacksmith's daughter."

"Hope?" Tate laughed, the tone a little ugly. "Like I could ever be interested in her."

"Still, it gives you a reason that's better than Father finding out the truth."

The truth was that Tate desperately wanted out of this town and away from everything he'd ever grown up with. He hated the horses, he hated the customers, and he hated just about everything else in his life. The only good things were his brother and the time he managed to find away from it all. Like right now...before Fitz had ruined it by dragging him back into his own personal hell. Running his hand through his shaggy auburn hair, Tate sighed at the unfairness of it all.

Tate heard the soft tap, tap, tap of his father's hammer as they came up to the corner that still hid the shop and their home from view. If his father was working, it likely meant there was a customer, and so the yelling and punishment for skipping out would come later. His father never did anything in front of a witness, lest it damage his business, and that fact had been Tate's saving grace on more than one occasion.

"Boys!" their father hailed when they came into view. "Did you get those blanks?"

Tate knew that the question was just his father fishing for additional ammunition to use to punish him, but Fitz came to his rescue once more.

"I have them right here, Father," he announced, pulling a long, thin box out of the bag he had at his side. "Would you like me to get started on them?"

Their father pursed his lips, and Tate would have sworn that the man was disappointed.

"No, I think Tate should do it. There's a mare waiting in the stall, Fitz. Why don't you get started on her?"

Fitz nodded, ever the dutiful son, and handed Tate the deceptively heavy box before making his way along the outside of the farrier shop to find the horse that needed care. Tate turned in the other direction and headed toward the small forge that shared a wall with their kitchen. He cursed when he remembered that he was supposed to put on the stew for dinner, and he glanced over his shoulder to see if his father was watching. Seeing the man engaged in conversation with the customer, Tate slipped into the house to take care of the evening meal before returning to the forge and the nail blanks.