by Lynn Kurland
“The palace is made to impress,” Glines said, dropping back to ride beside her. “It was once, if you can believe it, a hunting lodge.”
Morgan blinked in surprise. “You jest.”
“I do not,” Glines said, looking far too comfortable.
Then again, he didn’t have a damned blade in his pack, singing loudly and distracting him.
“How do you know?”
“I have been here before,” Glines said. “With my father.” He smiled. “I was shown about by one whose task that is.”
“Surely not,” she said.
“Surely, aye. They show visiting nobility about the palace to impress and intimidate them. I’ll pretend to be one of the servants now and show you about.”
“But I’m already intimidated,” Morgan protested.
“I’m not,” Miach said, “so you can show me the palace. What can you tell us now?”
“Well,” Glines said importantly as they rode along through the outer bailey that looked as if it might have housed an entire country in a pinch, “Tor Neroche was actually Yngerame of Wychweald’s hunting lodge. This was several generations ago.”
“Several,” Morgan repeated reverently.
“Aye,” Glines said. “When Yngerame crowned his son Symon, he gave him his hunting lodge to use for a palace and Neroche to use for a country.”
“But it wasn’t this grand,” Morgan said.
“I daresay not,” Glines agreed. “So when Symon wed with Iolaire of Ainneamh, he simply could not have brought an elven princess to such a mean hall, so he built her the palace of Chagailt.”
Morgan looked at Miach with raised eyebrows. “That was a handsome gift.”
He nodded in response and Morgan suspected he was thinking of Queen Iolaire’s gardens that they had run through so heedlessly.
“Aye, well, Chagailt was beautiful, but it was vulnerable to attack. It has been destroyed and rebuilt a time or two. When Gilraehen the Fey was king, he decided that for the safety of his family and the crown, he needed somewhere more defensible. He retreated here. Over the years it has been strengthened until it has become the palace you see today. Tor Neroche; Neroche of the Mountains.”
“I think I like Chagailt better,” Morgan murmured.
“You haven’t seen the inside,” Glines said. “Wait until you’ve seen the great hall before you pass judgment. For now, let us see if we can at least get ourselves inside the front doors.” He looked at Morgan. “Are you going to tell us now why we are here?”
“I am not,” Morgan said.
Glines shrugged. “Very well. Off we go then. There are the front doors. I suppose we’ll see if Adhémar was able to talk his way inside and gain us entrance as well.”
Morgan nodded, though she had acquired a knot in the pit of her stomach that seemed determined to remain there despite her best efforts to make it disperse. She kept her head down and followed the horses in front of her until they stopped. Then she looked up.
Well, those must have been the front doors. Morgan sat in her saddle, clutching her reins, and wondered what to do now. Miach dismounted, then looked up at her.
“Coming?”
“Of course,” she croaked. She swung down out of the saddle with as much grace as possible. Her knees came close to knocking together. She credited that with the great amount of hard riding she’d done recently. It surely had nothing to do with trepidation over where she was.
A servant approached. Morgan wasn’t one to hide, or to shrink back, but she found herself gladly standing behind Glines as he discussed their situation with the servant. Fletcher had tucked himself in behind her. Even Miach had pulled his hood up over his face and appeared to be trying to be un-noticed. Only Paien and Camid looked the same as they always did: alert and watchful, but not afraid.
Morgan was terrified.
There, she had admitted it. It hadn’t been all that hard.
Shameful, but not hard.
“‘Tis big,” Fletcher whispered.
“Very,” Morgan agreed quietly.
“My father would wet himself at the sight.”
Morgan looked over her shoulder at him, then laughed in spite of herself. “Ah, but you have that aright, lad. This is a far cry from anything on Melksham. And to think the Lord Nicholas thinks he has a luxurious life.” She shook her head. “Astonishing.”
Glines came back to stand by her. “The servant is expecting us. Apparently Adhémar talked them into giving us a chamber for our use.” He paused. “You are going to have to state your business at some point, Morgan. To someone.”
“I know her business,” Miach said. He reached out and took Morgan by the hand. “Come, shieldmaiden. We’ll find our chamber and then perhaps go for a little explore.”
“Food,” Paien suggested.
“Sleep,” Glines sighed.
“Silence,” Morgan whispered. She looked up at Miach. “The singing is starting to deafen me.”
“The knife?” he asked in a low voice.
“And the ring as well, I think.” She paused. “Am I going mad?”
He squeezed her hand. “I daresay not. Let’s find this luxurious chamber we’ve been promised, then eat. I’m sure things will look a bit better after supper and a good rest.”
Morgan looked at their horses. “And these?”
“They will be cared for in a manner befitting their breeding,” Miach said.
“How do you know?”
“I watched Glines pay the head stable lad to see to it,” he said.
“That would do it,” Morgan murmured as she followed him in through the front doors. No one seemed to mark them as they passed. She walked with Miach, stunned and overwhelmed, for quite some time before something occurred to her. “Miach?”
“Aye?”
“Why didn’t you go home?” she asked.
He pushed his hood back off his face and looked at her solemnly. His eyes were very pale in the torchlight that seemed to be everywhere in the passageway, driving back the shadows.
“I thought you might need me,” he said quietly.
“Oh,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“It was nothing.”
“It is something to me.”
He pulled his hood up again, squeezed her hand, and walked with her down the passageway. Morgan was grateful for that, somehow, and that her companions had encircled her, Paien and Camid leading, Miach and Glines on either side, and Fletcher walking behind. She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Don’t lose yourself.”
He shook his head vigorously. “Won’t.”
Morgan nodded and took comfort in their companionship. She would have to thank Nicholas for it at some point. She wondered if she would have managed to even walk upright instead of crawling if she’d been by herself.
It was, she conceded, difficult to remember you were an important person when your surroundings made you feel the size of a child. She wondered how Weger might fare.
Better than she, no doubt.
The servant stopped before a door, opened it, then stood back for them to enter.
Morgan walked inside and gaped. She wondered if that might possibly be her continual reaction to Tor Neroche. The chamber was nothing short of sumptuous.
It was also seemingly prepared just for them. There were low couches lining the walls to one side, seven in number. On the other side of the chamber was set a dining table and other chairs for relaxing and conversing after the meal. A fire blazed in a massive hearth. Food was being brought in and laid on a sideboard.
Morgan found herself wishing quite desperately for a bath.
The company was ushered in, then the servants withdrew and left them to themselves.
There was water at least for the washing of hands and faces and a prettily written note that promised more washing on the morrow if desired. Apparently food and sleep were what the masters of the castle had decided were most important. Morgan had to agree.
So sh
e ate wondrous things with her companions, said fairly intelligent things after supper when they sat before the fire, then found that her only desire was to find a bed and make use of it. She put her pack on the floor but hardly dared crawl between such costly sheets. Miach seemed to have no compunction about the like. He pulled off his mud-encrusted boots and stretched out his filthy self upon a goose-feather quilt. He looked at her as she sat gingerly on the bed next to his.
“Well?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to make use of that?”
“I don’t dare.”
“Dare. You need to sleep.” He reached over and pulled her pack up to sit between their beds. “There. It will be safe here and you will be safe there. Sleep, Morgan, while you may. You can be about your business tomorrow.”
She nodded numbly. Perhaps it was the length of the day. Perhaps it was the grandness of the surroundings. Perhaps it was a bit of disbelief that she should be in such a place. She lay down and found that tears were slipping from her eyes and dripping down to wet her hair.
Miach reached for her hand and held it. “All will be well,” he said, very quietly.
She nodded, but she wondered. The knife in her pack had quieted down, so perhaps sleep was not so unreasonable an expectation for herself. She nodded again, closed her eyes, and knew she would never sleep.
“Miach?” she asked sleepily.
“Aye, love,” he said softly.
“Where’s Adhémar?”
He snorted. “Slumming with the servants, no doubt.”
“Does he know many?”
“Aye.”
Morgan nodded and allowed herself to relax. The feeling of Miach’s hand around hers was comforting, the bed was nothing short of delicious, and the song of the blade and the ring had subsided to a pleasing echo of a whisper.
“Morgan?”
She would have opened her eyes to look at him, but she was simply too weary. “Aye?”
“I have something to tell you,” he said softly. “Something important.”
She wanted to ask him if he was going to ask her to marry him, chipped nails and callused hands aside, but she couldn’t even manage that. Besides, that was too ridiculous, even for her, so she merely nodded. “If you like.”
“First thing,” he said. “We have to talk first thing tomorrow.”
“Hmmm,” Morgan said. She felt herself drifting off into the first safe, peaceful sleep she had had in days.
Miach had called her love.
That was worth a dozen pleasant dreams.
Twenty-three
Miach wrapped himself in a spell of invisibility and walked swiftly through the midnight halls of Tor Neroche. He hadn’t considered how grand a place it was until he had seen it through the eyes of an innocent, honest woman who had never been anywhere so fine. He supposed he might never look at the palace in the same way again.
He’d told her he had something to tell her. And he did. He would tell her who he really was. At least in that much, he would be honest with her.
He ran up the steps to his tower chamber. All was as he had left it. Indeed, a fire burned in the hearth, as if he had merely left to poach something from the kitchen, not flown all the way to Istaur to find his liege lord.
His liege lord that he would have cheerfully strangled if it wouldn’t have meant his own neck in trade.
He slammed the door behind him, cast aside his spell as if it had been a cloak, and crossed over to the table still littered with books and sheaves of paper and other things he didn’t need and couldn’t bear to look at. What he wanted was to be back downstairs, holding the hand of a woman who trusted him; what he needed to do was be about his business quickly so he could—before she woke and found Adhémar right there, more than willing to show her the great hall and that interesting sword hanging over the fireplace.
He turned toward the fire only to find that one of the chairs before it was occupied. He hesitated, then walked over to sit in the vacant chair. He smiled. “Cathar.”
Cathar handed Miach a cup of ale. “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” Miach said with a sigh. “Tired and heartsick.”
Cathar’s eyebrow went up. “Heartsick? That sounds promising.”
“It wouldn’t, if you knew the entire tale.” Miach drank, then set the cup aside and looked at his brother. “Well? Anything interesting transpire during my absence?”
“Haven’t you been watching?”
“Of course.”
Cathar hesitated only slightly. “I meant, haven’t you been watching the castle?”
“I assumed you would see to the castle. I’ve been watching the borders.” He smiled. “What are you going to tell me? Has Rigaud made over the Chamber of the Throne in purple velvets? Or greens, to match his eyes?”
“He tried,” Cathar admitted.
Miach managed a brief laugh. “I’ve no doubt he did. How did Turah fare?”
“As you might expect. He was nimble and canny and left the fighting up to me.”
“Wise lad.”
“Lad? He’s older than you are, Miach.”
“And yet so fresh and spry still,” Miach said sourly.
“I can see it was a long journey,” Cathar said. “Did you not find what you sought?”
“I found more than I sought,” Miach said. “I found Adhémar, as well as a few creatures I thought were gifts from Lothar but now I suspect not.” He opened his mouth to say more, then shut it.
“And?” Cathar prodded. “Come now, Miach, and tell Cathar all your sorry tidings.”
Miach threw him a glare. “Very well. If you must know, I met a woman.”
“A woman?” Cathar said in surprise. “You had time to meet a woman?”
“Surprisingly enough. Unfortunately, she’s not one I can have.”
“Wed?” Cathar asked sympathetically.
“Nay, not wed,” Miach said.
Cathar smiled. “Are you going to tell all, or must I guess?”
Miach looked at him in silence for a moment or two. As usual, if there was anyone he trusted inside the walls of Tor Neroche, it was Cathar. He needed a ready ear—and a sensible one. He sighed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“I found a wielder for the Sword of Angesand.”
“You’re off topic, brother,” Cathar said with a small laugh. “What has that to do with your woman?”
“I believe she is the wielder.”
“A woman?” Cathar said, stunned.
“As fate would have it.”
“A woman you like?”
“I wouldn’t say like,” Miach said grimly.
“Oh,” Cathar said almost silently. “So, your problem is that she doesn’t like you?”
“Does it matter?” Miach asked, pained. “I suspect she looks at me like a brother.”
“Hmmm,” Cathar murmured sympathetically.
“She also bears Weger’s mark.”
“Scrymgeour Weger?”
“The very same.”
Cathar shivered. “She’s dangerous then.”
“Very. Let’s also not forget that if she does prove to be the wielder, she will immediately join forces with Adhémar and I will be left forever looking at them together and wondering why it is I can’t bring myself to fall upon the Sword of Angesand in a fit of despair.”
“Well, that I might be able to spare you.”
Miach blinked. “How?”
Cathar scrunched up his face, as if he thought he might have said too much.
“Cathar,” Miach warned, “if you know something—”
“I don’t know anything,” Cathar said frankly. “You know Adhémar never talks to me.”
“What has he done?”
“There’s some sort of feast being planned,” Cathar ventured carefully. “For a month hence.”
“Of course,” Miach said grimly. “He’s probably set to celebrate finding his wielder and dooming her to being used as his weapon against Lothar.”
“I don�
��t think the feast is for that.”
“Then what is it for? Yet another banquet to celebrate Adhémar’s glorious reign that is devoid of disaster?”
Cathar shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know anything more than that. I suppose we’ll find out. Now, what of your woman? Does she know what you think about her?”
“That I love her, or that I think she’s the wielder?”
“Either. Both.”
“She’s ignorant of both, and that is my doing.” Miach sighed deeply. “I’m not sure I want her to know either of the two.”
“Why not?” Cathar asked. “If she’s the wielder, don’t you want her to use the Sword of Angesand?”
Miach sighed deeply. “Of course I want the wielder to use the sword. But that was before I knew who the wielder was. That was before I was complicit in bringing a woman here who has no idea what lies in wait for her, what her destiny is, how we intend to use her until her usefulness fails. Does that satisfy you?”
Cathar buried his response in his cup.
“You and I were born to this duty,” Miach said. “We could renounce our birthrights at any moment. I could go be a farmer. You could go raise sheep.”
“Not now,” Cathar observed.
“Of course, not now,” Miach returned, “but I could have. Before Mother’s mantle fell upon me.”
“Could you?” Cathar mused.
“I had a choice,” Miach said flatly. “Before she died. I was old enough to understand exactly what my future would hold and I accepted the task.”
“Did you understand truly?” Cathar asked. “Fully?”
“I never saw this, if that’s what you’re asking,” Miach said. “And nay, I did not understand how that mantle would come close to crushing me beneath it before I found the strength to bear it properly. But I have been amply rewarded for taking a chance on something I perhaps didn’t fully understand. You’re missing the point. At some point, you and I understood. We made a choice. Morgan will not be given a choice.”
“Won’t she?”
Miach shook his head curtly. “She’ll touch that damned sword, it will deafen us all with its singing and blind us with the flash of magelight, and then she will be pulled into a life she does not want and never asked for. How will she then say nay?”