I raised an eyebrow and set the knife back down. “The balance is off anyway.”
The shopkeeper rolled his eyes at me.
Annoyance pricked beneath my skin. Who was he to decide who should or shouldn’t have weapons? Men were always so quick to decide that sharp things belonged in their own hands and nowhere else.
“You’ve had your fun,” he said, making little shooing motions at me as if driving off a stray cat. “Now move along there.”
Anger rippled through me. If he had any idea who I was, he would not be waving me away from a table of knives as though I might faint at the sight of a blade.
“I’ll move along when I feel like it,” I said coldly. “Customers have a right to inspect merchandise before purchasing, do they not?”
The shopkeeper huffed and folded his arms. “Go on and inspect, then, but don’t blame me if you get hurt.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You really think you’re something, don’t you?”
After Leopold yesterday, I had very little patience left for arrogant men.
“Can you even throw one of these things?” I asked him.
“Naturally,” the man said, drawing himself up with visible offense. “Want a demonstration?”
“I’d love one.”
The man walked to the side and pulled the cover off a large circular board, bigger than a man, set upright on a wooden frame. The board spun slightly when the cover came away, making a faint whirring sound. It was divided into six differently colored sections, and leather straps hung limply where a person could be fastened against the front. Dale had one of these with his minstrel equipment, and Will Scarlet and I loved it. We had used it until Dale banned us from practicing near campfires, tents, trees, horses, and anything else that could be damaged or frightened. Several people stopped their shopping to watch as the shopkeeper picked up a few knives and backed up several paces from the board. He waited until the board had stopped spinning. “Red,” he called, and threw.
The knife struck the red section.
The small crowd applauded, and more people wandered over, drawn by the promise of a show. “Blue!” he called next, and threw again. The blade sank into the blue section.
He turned toward me with a smug little smile. “See?”
“I see,” I said. “Can you do it while it is spinning?”
A man in the crowd laughed. “Yeah, Nero. Can you?”
“I was just giving this girl a lesson,” the shopkeeper said. “She seems to think she can throw.”
He made a mocking bow and offered me the handles of two knives. The crowd laughed, clearly expecting me to shrink away in embarrassment now that the challenge had turned real.
“Gladly,” I said. I walked toward him as if I was about to take one of the offered weapons. Then, with the speed that had been trained into me through years of practice, I drew my concealed knife and called, “Yellow.”
I turned and threw.
The knife struck the center of the yellow section.
The crowd fell silent for one perfect moment. Then a loud murmur rose around us, followed by whistles and laughter. Nero’s face turned bright red.
I walked to the board, wrenched my knife free, then returned to him. “Spin it,” I challenged. “Let’s see how good you really are.”
His shocked expression cleared, and to his credit, he didn’t look angry for long. “Well, well, well. I underestimated you.”
I gave the wheel a firm spin and stepped back. “Throw.”
Nero concentrated hard. As the wheel began to slow, his gaze followed the movement of the colored sections. “Red,” he called.
The knife flew. When the wheel stopped, Nero’s blade was embedded just above the line between red and yellow. It was still in the red section, and the crowd applauded with even more enthusiasm than before.
“My turn,” I said.