Yelping, Aidan awoke to sunlight pouring onto his face.
“’Morning,” Slaíne greeted him a tad too cheerfully for his liking.
Aidan groaned and rubbed his head. It felt like he was still being bludgeoned with the shovel. “What time is it?”
“Dunno. But you’ve been talking nonsense in your sleep for the last half hour.” By the look on her face, he must have been saying some amusing things, but he did not dare ask what.
Then she left the room so he could be alone for a moment. Why had Salem hit him with that shovel? That couldn’t be the only way of knocking someone out of the Beyond.
Aidan freshened up at the washbasin, gave himself a quick shave, aware that Slaíne’s Pull was on the move. Surely she wouldn’t go far, but he had to wonder what she was up to. Aidan rinsed off his face and the blade and was about to go in search of his traveling companion, but there was no need: Slaíne returned with two plates of steaming food. When he stared at her in wonderment, she frowned.
“What?”
“How did you get food?”
That had been the wrong thing to say. “I did nay steal it.”
Aidan raised his hands in placation. “I didn’t say that you stole it. But….”
Slaíne blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I gave them some coin you gave me afore, of course, and said to send the food to our room. What else would I ’ave done?”
This was no good. “Slaíne,” he said with care, taking one of the plates from her outstretched hands before she changed her mind and decided to throw it at him. “When you say you told them to send it to our room…you didn’t give a name, did you?”
A mischievous glint showed in her eyes. “Bartholomew Tripe in the first upper room on the left.” Apparently she thought her name choices for him amusing.
He glowered. “No one is going to believe for one moment that my last name is Tripe. Now people are going to know I’m hiding my identity.”
She should have looked contrite and worried, but instead the maddening girl laughed in his face and took a seat on the windowsill. “Naw, there’s lots of Tripes in the area. The maid asked if you was related to the Tripe family in Brontsville.”
“That might have been a trap, Slaíne.” He tried approaching her. “If you agreed, and the family is made up, we will have been had. There is at least one price on my head.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, once Meraude figures out I’m not working for her but against her, there will be two. I’m a wanted man.”
But the girl was tearing into her brown bread with butter and red jam. Once she had swallowed the morsel, she replied, “I said no such thing, Mr. Aidan. I just said I did nay know who that was.” Well, that was a relief, at least. “And if you’re nay going to eat your bread, I’d like it.”
To show how very much he was annoyed, Aidan took a giant bite of bread and chewed. They glared at each other in silence as they ate bread, roasted potato, boiled bacon, and seasoned meat patties. With full bellies, though, the animosity between them did not last long.
“They’re supposed to bring up a jug of small beer,” Slaíne said after finishing off the last of her bacon. She licked her fingers as a Pull approached the door and someone banged on it thrice. “And that would be them now.”
Aidan set his plate aside and opened the door. Instead of being met with a jug of small beer, a fist flew up and hit him in the jaw. “Where’s my money?” the red-faced man demanded as Aidan regained his footing. He tried pushing his way into the room, but Slaíne was there, helping hold the door partially shut.
“What did you do that for?” she shouted at the stout little man. “Leave us be.” She made a face. “You reek of ale, you drunkard.”
“Angus owes me money,” he belched.
Prodding his jaw, Aidan shooed the man away. “I don’t know any Angus. Go away and abuse someone else.”
The funny fellow sputtered mightily for a moment, swayed on the spot, and then tried again to enter the room. “This is a free country yet. I have rights.” He hiccupped and his whole broad chest heaved. He pointed at Slaíne. “Yer father owes me. That wood table broke not two years after I got it.”
“My father,” Slaíne said, her voice trembling with rage, “has been dead for well over a decade.”
“Slaíne, lower your voice. You’re going to draw more unwanted attention.” Aidan pushed the man in the chest and tried to close the door the rest of the way.
But the little man was fast and stuck his boot in the way before Aidan could do any such thing. “You’re the niece. I remember everything and everyone, mind, so don’t look at me that way. Yer no-good uncle sold me a cabinet and a table one-and-twenty years ago. Woodworkers, the brothers were. Yes, I never forgot the little redheaded brat old Fen and Kate brought home.”
Aidan looked at Slaíne, hoping she wasn’t going to make a bigger scene than had already been made. He was surprised to find her face had drained of all its color. “Slaíne? Are you all right?”
The man looked at her knowingly. “Struck a nerve now, did I?” He licked his thin lips and put his hands on either side of the doorframe. “I am not leaving without my money, girl. And I don’t care what damage I might have to cause in order to get it.”
That was enough for Aidan. He released the door and grabbed the man by the collar, drawing him close enough to catch his words. “You might want to think more carefully about dealing out threats, sir.”
The man’s small round eyes darted to and fro, looking frantically for help or something to hit his attacker with; Aidan wasn’t sure which. “I won’t be talked to like that. I am not friendless here.”
“I am not friendless wherever I go,” Aidan said, putting extra menace into his words. Once the other had begun to tremble, Aidan set him right again. “I suggest you leave now, quietly.”
The drunk hiccupped again, nodded, and toddled away toward a room at the end of the hall. He paused once and looked at Aidan, then scurried back into his room and closed the door softly behind him.
Aidan waited there a minute, making certain the other didn’t come back, then returned inside and bolted the door. “We’re going to have to leave at once, I’m afraid.” He Dismissed all the maps and papers that he had so carefully organized the previous night, and then sat down to tug on his boots. “We can’t afford to cause any trouble wherever we go. People might….” He stopped and looked at Slaíne, who was shaking. His chest prickled. “You know him?”
Slaíne shook her head. “No.” Her voice was soft, and out of the blue, she ran to her bed and started gasping.
Uncertain as to what exactly had upset her, Aidan sat there for a moment and tried to decide what he should do. Then, after a short deliberation, he tugged his other boot on and went over to where she was hunched over, swearing. He picked up the water jug, which only had a few mouthfuls left in it, poured that into a glass, and handed it to her.
She took a sip and then another. “Jus’ bein’ stupid.”
“Hmm.” Aidan took the glass from her and patted her back until, at last, she seemed to have calmed a bit. He sighed. “You’re in no shape to be traveling.”
She shot him a defiant look, which might have been fierce had she not looked to be in such a pitiable state. “I’m all right. The worst is over.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He put his arm around her and helped her to the bed, though she fought him. “Lie down…please.” When she did not co-operate, he gave her a slight shove, and she fell onto her back, her mouth forming a perfect O.
Slaíne snarled at him, but he bent down and put his lips to her ear, and she stilled. “You don’t always have to be strong.” He wanted to say more, to do more, but he needed to think about his next move, so he settled for a lingering kiss on her cheek and turned before he could be tempted to do more.
* * *
He left Slaíne to rest, m
aking certain to keep within the confines of the curse lest it seize her and cause more pain…or worse. “Excuse me,” he said to one of the maids walking past, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows. “I was promised a pitcher?”
The woman stared at him in bewilderment for a moment before enlightenment dawned on her face. “Oh, you’re the newlyweds what want some of our fine beer. It’s weak, mind, even for small beer.”
Newlyweds? Slaíne’s fabrications were going too far this time. Still, how could he correct it without exposing himself or shaming her? So he smiled and said, “Yes. That would be us.”
She favored him with a polite smile, hurried off, and returned a minute later with the promised pitcher. “It’s on me. Only, don’t tell the master.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m sorry to trouble you, but there has been a small disturbance between one of the other lodgers and me.”
“Oh? Is it anything that warrants calling the law?”
Aidan shook his head and tried to keep his expression calm. “A man has mistaken my wife for someone and has upset her.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t likely know what I’m supposed to do about the matter…no offense meant, sir.”
“I was merely wondering what you could tell me about the short, stocky man at the end of the hall above stairs.” Perhaps it was beneath him, inquiring into Slaíne’s affairs, but if she knew the man and wasn’t letting on, he needed to know what wasps’ nest they had stepped on.
Now the maid seemed more enlightened. “Ah, Titus. A charity case we house from time to time. He’s a troublemaker. Has a grudge against everyone he’s ever met, and he don’t forget nothing nor nobody, mind.” She leaned in closer, her breath reeking of rot. When she spoke again, her tone was lowered, and Aidan had to strain to hear her over the noise of the pub crowd just below. “He’s a drunkard.” She nodded and blushed, as if this would be news to anyone other than herself. “Don’t tell him I said.”
“I assure you, ma’am, that I won’t breathe a word of it to a soul.”
That seemed to set the woman at ease, for she smiled broadly and offered him a cake of soap. “Here.” She sniffed what she must have thought was discreetly. “For your, er, missus.” Then the woman hurried away, leaving the odor of castor oil in her wake.
Well, that had yielded little, other than another cake of soap. He pocketed the offering and hurried back to the upper floor with the beer. Upon entering the room, Aidan took care to make as little noise as possible, as Slaíne had been sleeping when he left. He saw her eyes were open, though she closed them before he could say anything, so he poured himself a glass and Summoned the papers back onto his bed.
This time he was able to sort them back into the correct piles…mostly. Some of the papers had yet to be looked at thoroughly and translated by Slaíne, while others still simply remained a mystery. He picked up the map to Cedric the Elder’s tomb and studied it again. Would it really call out to him, the magical blood spilled on the ground there? If the war had been five hundred years ago, then rain and time would have most assuredly washed away and diluted the Pulls. For now at least, he would have to study the map and figure out landmarks.
Something caught his eye that hadn’t before, a small scrawl in the corner of the map that he might have first mistaken for oil stains from someone’s hands. He ignored the cold prickling in his shoulder and took the map over to the window, holding the paper up to the light filtering in. It was a different hand than had penned the key on the map, a hastily scrawled note: Starberry grove?
Aidan blinked his tired eyes and scanned down the face of the map. When he reached the center of the paper, which appeared to be a drawing of a mountain covered in red dots, he squinted. Could that be what the note meant? “But what have starberry groves have to do with anything?” he muttered. “They grow everywhere. They’re a weed.” The droplets on the mountain or mound, or whatever it might be, very well could represent blood shed in the Great War. Aidan felt he was missing something. He set down the map and began searching for the word ‘starberry’ in the other papers.
In one poem regarding a wizard named Edell, a brute who was known to eat in excess and would often find himself drunk on the juice of dayberries. That was what Slaíne’s translation said in the margin. Next to the name Edell, there had been written a question mark, and both had been circled lightly. Aidan scanned farther down the page, and while he found no more references to food, there was a note that said Enduring Goblet? Whether that was Dewhurst’s or Slaíne’s surmise, he could not be certain.
For the next two hours, Aidan pored over the papers, searching for something, anything, that might enlighten him. He was so caught up in his work that he barely noticed that Slaíne had risen until she asked where the beer was, startling him out of his studies.
“Hmm? Oh, over on the sideboard.”
She gave him an inquisitive look, but said nothing as she trod over to the beer and noisily poured herself a glass. Then, disturbing Aidan again, the glass thudded down on the table like a judge’s gavel. “Sir, we need to talk.”
“Of course,” he said, setting the papers aside. He had gotten nowhere with his reading, anyway; maybe he would learn some more about the drunkard from Slaíne. “What is it?”
For a moment she worried her lip, squinting as if she were trying to remember something. When she spoke again, her voice was low and serious. “I think that man might know who cursed me.”
That brought Aidan up short. He stared at her in wonderment for a moment, but then came to his senses and said, “I thought you said the elves had you cursed?”
Slaíne nodded. “I think they did. Only, I was so little, it’s hard to remember exactly. I do remember a strange man coming along after my mam and pap was killed by Meraude. The man worked for the elves or….” She frowned. “Or maybe he ran afoul of them. It’s all so muddy in my head.”
“But you think that the drunkard down the hall might know something about your past?” He watched as she poured herself another glass of beer. “What makes you think that man knows anything connected to you?”
She downed the glass of small beer in one large gulp, and then hiccupped. “Because he mentioned my parents’ names.”
Chapter Five
Aidan
Aidan stared at Slaíne in contemplative silence for a moment before saying, “So you were the little girl he remembered?”
Slaíne shrugged. “I dunno. But he spoke their names.” Her nose wrinkled up, scrunching all of her freckles together. “Least, it sounded like them. It’s been so long since anyone’s spoken of ’em, I can’t be sure.”
“And this man believes your parents – your father owes him money?”
“What of it?” she said. “Papa made good furniture out of the best wood. I remember him making my cradle, and I never had no complaints.”
He scratched his chin. “Right. I’m not saying that your father made poor furniture, what I’m saying is that I need to know if you remember anything or have heard anything in the past about this man, your parents, the Circle, and the Blest. No more secrets.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“If this man is going to be trouble, we need to leave before word of our presence here is spread around. Surely you must see that any familiar face is a danger to us now?”
Her mouth opened and closed a few times. Slaíne jumped to her feet, crossed her arms, and moved over to the window. At length, she spoke. “Papa was a woodworker, Mam was a maid. I don’t remember no one complainin’ never.”
“How old were you when they….”
“Died?” She shrugged. “I was four when they was killed, and shortly after I was wanderin’, then I was taken, and— What?”
How could she possibly remember so much of her early childhood? She must be fabricating things, wittingly or not. “You wouldn’t have known if there were any complaints. You were but a
babe.”
She seemed to lose confidence. “Some things are kinda – what do you say? Murky. But I remember my parents very clearly.” Her look became distant, wistful, as she said, “She had the finest black hair, shiny as the night sky. And Papa was handsome, though he was balding. They loved each other. Loved me. He always joked about how I was his little doll that he carved out of one of his trees.” The memory seemed to have soured, for her face crumpled. “It almost seems right.”
“What almost seems right?”
“What? Oh, that they died. Happy people always end up dying tragic deaths.” She couldn’t have meant that, and Aidan didn’t believe for a moment that had been what she was going to say, but he let the matter go. “What I’m sayin’ is that maybe this man knows who cursed me, or maybe he done it himself ’cause he was angry about the furniture. And if he can lead us to who cursed me, then surely the curse can be undone.”
Aidan thought on it for a moment. What she said made some sense, but what sort of mood might this fellow be in to help them? It did not seem likely that he would come to Slaíne’s aid; and even if they did ask, what would the repercussions be? “Slaíne,” he said, “if we’re going to ask this man what he knows about your curse or whoever cursed you, we need to make certain that he isn’t going to hand us over to the authorities.”
She gave him a look and said, “I ain’t stupid.”
“I’m not saying you are. You just….” He gestured vaguely.
“What?” she said, her eyes darkening.
“You have a temper.”
Of all things, the girl threw back her head and howled with laughter. “You are one to talk about tempers, sir.”
That made him crack a smile himself. “You know, you do have a point there. I’m simply worried that in the heat of the moment, you might say something amiss – if provoked.” He turned back to his maps to hide the concern on his face. “I just don’t want y— I don’t want either of us to get hurt.” He sniffed dismissively. “I was stupid, walking straight into Dewhurst’s manor. His wife knew who I was all along. What if this man figures things out? I don’t want a repeat of what happened before…or worse.”
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