by Lynn Kurland
She was, he had to admit, rather spectacular.
He took a deep breath and walked across the chamber. He pulled up a chair for Léirsinn and invited her to sit. He, the youngest natural son of the worst mage in recent memory and the beloved youngest brat of a woman who he was certain gave Soilléir of Cothromaiche nightmares, perched on a stool and attempted a soothing noise.
“Are you choking?” she asked.
Damnation, he was so much better at terrifying those he met. “Something like that,” he said quickly. He cleared his throat and tried another tack. “Léirsinn, you can’t go home.”
“Why not?”
Well, because they would slay her the moment she set foot inside that damned barn, that was why not. She knew as much, so why she was refusing to let that desire to stay alive be her guide, he couldn’t fathom. He hardly dared follow where his thoughts were now leading him, but he found he had little choice. Either she missed her grandfather, she missed her horses, or she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
He could understand any of the three—well, perhaps not the last, but the woman was obviously not thinking clearly—but the truth was, they had to press on. He had business in Beinn òrain that needed to be seen to as quickly as possible and she needed to get as far away from her uncle as she could manage.
Once he had his magic back, he would rid the world of the lad who was putting those damned shadows on the ground, instruct her uncle in proper comportment when it came to nieces and servants, then see Léirsinn and her grandsire comfortably settled in a place far less tedious than Sàraichte. Then he could take up the reins of his own vile life again and turn his mind to things that horse gel there would laugh off whilst tossing that glorious red mane—
He drew his hand over his eyes. He had to find Soilléir and soon. He couldn’t take much more of looking at the woman in front of him.
“You’re afraid too.”
He blinked, realizing only then that she was studying him and he was likely babbling his idiotic thoughts aloud. “Ah,” he said, scrambling for anything to say that sounded reasonable. Of course he wasn’t afraid. He was never afraid. “I am afraid for you,” he said finally, because that was the truth. “I want to keep you safe.”
“Do you?” she whispered.
“Of course I do. Besides, if you leave, who will see to rescuing your little horse? He’ll just bite me if I try.”
“You were in earnest about that?” she asked, looking as if hope might just bloom in her with enough encouragement.
Bloody hell, his life was intolerable. He rubbed his chest in annoyance. That damned Fadairian spell of healing was like a worm, eating away at his flesh and his good sense.
“Well, no sense in not making the attempt at least,” he said. “He’s obviously very valuable, which might be of some use to you in the future. If the man who’s purchased him—Droch of Saothair—wants him, there must be a good reason. Perhaps he’s a magical pony.”
She looked at him in silence for a moment or two, then she smiled. “Thank you. A bit of humor was helpful.”
Good hell. He stole a look or two about the chamber, wondering where that shapechanging Cothromaichian whoreson had to be hiding, no doubt in a form that wouldn’t be readily spotted. Perhaps Soilléir and Rùnach both were lingering, as the saying went, as flies on the walls. Acair vowed that if he saw anything with wings, he would use the bottom of his boot to its best advantage.
He put on a smile and didn’t bother to set Léirsinn straight on matters of magic. She looked as if she might bolt at the slightest misstep as it was.
“Well,” Acair conceded, “he is a very fine horse, as I said and as far as I know. Indeed, I’m sure there are many who might call those fine qualities magical.” He saw no point in telling her that Droch never would have purchased a horse that couldn’t—
He felt himself go very still. Well, save his stomach, which was rumbling, but that couldn’t be helped.
Droch had sent his most valuable man all the way to Sàraichte to purchase a horse when he likely had scores of horses being brought to Beinn òrain by all sorts of noblemen and mages, horses that most assuredly would have had a few extra talents perhaps not visible to the ordinary eye.
Why would Droch have looked in Sàraichte for something to add to his collection?
There was something foul afoot. He could smell it from a hundred paces.
“Acair?”
He pulled back on his rampaging speculations with a skill perhaps even Doghail might have commented on, then looked at Léirsinn.
“Was I muttering?”
“Looking horrified, actually.”
“I’m hungry,” he said, “and I made the mistake of revisiting the memory of that rubbish we ate on the boat.” He shuddered. “Awful.”
“Hard to ruin apples and cheese,” she offered, “but possible, apparently.”
“Don’t remind me,” he said. “You know, I think supper might be what we need at the moment. Then, whilst we’re lingering in this lovely city by the river, I thought I might pay a polite social call to someone I know.”
“You know someone here? Is this where you’re from—nay, one of those men—” She had to take a deep breath. “They said you were from Ceangail.”
“A little nondescript, nasty place in the mountains,” Acair said dismissively. “I wouldn’t suggest a visit. I do have acquaintances here, though. The man I need to see is a friend of one of my half-brothers.”
“What does he do?”
She was obviously trying to distract herself. Acair watched her smooth her hands over her leggings and rest them on her knees as if it were something she had to think very carefully about in order to manage.
“Ah, what does he do?” he said, wondering just what he was going to have to do not to be distracted by her. “He meddles, for the most part. He’s also a master at the schools of wizardry.”
She blinked. “A master? A master of what?”
“Do-gooding,” Acair said distinctly. There was no point in attempting to describe whatever other rot Soilléir dabbled in. He highly doubted Soilléir could describe it himself with any success. “I think we could pay him a small visit in the morning, nip over to the stables afterward and make certain your horse is being well cared for, then we’ll do what you want to.”
“In truth?”
Why did she have to look so damned grateful? He supposed she was very near to the end of whatever tether she held on to, which was something he couldn’t blame her for. He had been at that place once or twice in his life as well, though he had at least had magic to help him cling to his sanity. She had only her will.
“In truth,” he said. “We’ll see to it all on the morrow.”
Her fingers that had been clutching her knees relaxed a bit. “So, how do you know all these people?”
The spell in the corner cleared its throat pointedly. Acair didn’t bother to offer a rude gesture in return. More alarming than that piece of unconcern was the fact that he hardly noticed that vile spell any longer unless it announced itself. In truth, he hardly recognized himself any longer.
He shrugged and dragged himself back to sifting through what he could and couldn’t say. “My father travelled a great deal and I carried his bags for him.”
“Is that the truth?” she asked.
“Almost.”
She sat back in her chair, which he thought might be a good sign.
“So, I suppose we find this friend of your brother’s—”
“Half-brother’s,” he interrupted.
“Half-brother’s,” she said. “Then we find my horse, then I go back home.”
There was no point in arguing with her over that at the moment. Perhaps later, after she’d had something to eat, a decent night’s sleep, and a gentle reminder about why they’d fled Sàraichte in the first place.
&n
bsp; “I need to learn how to play cards,” she said thoughtfully.
He realized he’d missed something. “Cards?”
“So I can earn enough gold to rescue my grandfather.”
He could think of worse ways to earn the odd coin. “I think you might be very good at it,” he conceded. “You have an honest face, which would serve you well.”
“Will I need to learn how to cheat?”
He started to tell her nay, then realized what she was implying. He scowled. “I don’t need to cheat.”
“You’re that skilled?”
“Six brothers,” he reminded her, “and an indeterminate number of half-brothers. I learned early on to read faces. And count what had been played, if you must know the truth of it.”
“No sleight of hand?”
“As tempting it might have been, nay,” he said. His brothers would have abused him mightily for that sort of thing and he had wound up on the bottom of the pile often enough without that provocation. That had only lasted until he had taken them one by one and helped them realize that he had become the sort of man who didn’t put up with abuse.
“You’re cursing.”
He blinked, then sighed. “A terrible habit.” He rose. “I’ll find food and drink. Do not leave.”
She looked up at him. “I’ve exchanged one gaol for another it seems.”
“You’ve forgotten what you heard in the barn in the middle of the night, obviously.”
She nodded. “And so I had. Thank you.”
He suppressed the urge to curse again, wondering why in the hell he bothered with manners given who he was, then left the chamber before he suffered from any more altruistic impulses.
He didn’t need to bother with cards given that he had, on the way to the inn earlier, lifted the fairly substantial purse of a lesser master he’d bumped into—ill-gotten gains on that man’s part if ever there had been any. He ordered a meal to be sent upstairs, ordered one for himself, then bought a round for a group of students who looked as if they needed it. He’d been inside Buidseachd himself on more than one occasion and sympathized with them.
He sat down before he did anything else utterly out of character.
He watched Léirsinn’s supper be carried upstairs, then attended to his own. The food was better than he had expected, but his expectations had been very low indeed.
It was profoundly odd, he decided as he lingered over a mug of reasonably tasty ale, to be in a city where he’d been so many times before yet have everything be different. He was not sweeping in on the wings of an evil intention, fully prepared to do whatever was necessary to achieve his dastardly ends, he was . . . well, he was fully prepared to do something dastardly and admittedly he was there to save his own sweet neck, but he had taken a chamber for a rustic miss and he wasn’t going to force her to sleep on the floor. If that wasn’t altruism in action, he didn’t know what was.
He studied without excessive interest the souls gathered about the tables in the gathering room. Most he could tell were from Buidseachd, given their dress and conversation. He supposed a single day of liberty was the best they could hope for in such a place. At least the food was better at the pub than what they were eating up the way. He’d filched more than one meal at the castle and regretted it each time. He’d half suspected there was someone there who purposely ruined as many suppers as possible, just to give the lads something proper to complain about.
There was a table more sparsely populated than the rest, but he understood that. It looked to be a few older, perhaps lesser men associated with Buidseachd. Servants or minor magelings hoping to better their lot, no doubt. Acair wished them well and left them to it.
Until he realized his name was being bandied about.
He normally would have been satisfied with being spoken of as the creator of all kinds of trouble, but he was appalled to realize how annoying it was being credited where credit was definitely not due. He was being blamed for mischief he never would have bothered with. It was insulting, truly.
He had to put an end to the farce before he lost all claim to his former character. He was a black mage, damn it to hell, and one that gave other black mages pause. His father might have been terrifying and his mother unnerving, but he was all that and definitely more when it came to instilling fear and a desire to immediately do whatever he asked.
He downed his ale, set his cup down, then left the gathering chamber. He would find Soilléir, get him to take that damned spell back, check on Léirsinn’s horse for her—that was the very last pleasantry he would engage in—then he would be back to his usual way of carrying on.
Murder, mischief, and mayhem. He would embrace all three with renewed affection and commitment.
He had to, before he completely lost himself.
Eleven
Léirsinn stood near the chamber door and watched Acair look out the window. It was almost exactly what they’d been doing the day before. The only difference now was she’d had a pair of remarkably tasty meals and a good night’s sleep. She wasn’t sure what Acair had had. He’d returned from the gathering chamber the night before in a foul mood. If he’d been a horse, she would have put him in his stall and left him to sort himself on his own. Since that had seemed a rather useful idea, she’d put herself to bed and left Acair to work through whatever was troubling him.
His mood hadn’t improved much after breakfast, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him. He was obviously concerned about something and she suspected she knew what it was. As much as she tried, she couldn’t forget the sight of those two things hovering over him . . . how long had it been? Two nights ago? She thought it might have been no longer than that, but that night plus the journey to Beinn òrain, then a very uneasy sleep the night before—it was all a bit of a blur. If Acair wanted to look out the window and make certain he wasn’t being stalked by more of those things, he was welcome to his looking.
“Let’s go,” he said, dropping the very worn curtain.
She said nothing, mostly because she was afraid if she started talking, she would never stop. It had been the most unsettling pair of days she could ever remember having had. Perhaps she was more a creature of habit than she’d ever dared suspect.
The discomfort had started the moment she’d hidden behind that pile of fencing and watched someone walk off with a horse that wasn’t hers by right but definitely was by affection. Her unease had only increased as she’d boarded a boat that could hardly have been seriously considered the same, spent the entire trip wishing she’d had the courage to turn and heave her guts over the side, then disembarked in a city that made Sàraichte look like a pristine habitation for elegant faeries from one of the tales she remembered her parents having told her as a child.
“Are you unwell?”
She realized that she had simply come to a stop on the stairs. She wondered if she had been babbling aloud. She looked at Acair.
“I’m not sure.”
He held out his hand. She looked at it, then at his face.
Magic? Him?
He reached for her hand and pulled. “Don’t start with those looks. If we can gain this man’s chambers, I promise you a very stiff drink. Do you a world of good, I’m sure.”
She walked because he gave her no choice. She supposed she didn’t want to remain behind, especially when she realized that a pair of men standing at the bar, nursing mugs of ale, were looking at her.
“Keep walking,” Acair said under his breath. “Don’t look at them.”
She was happy to comply. She left the inn with him, then kept her head down as he traded places with her and put her farthest away from the street. She would have thanked him for the courtesy, but the truth was, speech was simply beyond her. She was so far out of her normal routine, the routine she’d been engaging in on a daily basis for the past eighteen years, she hardly knew what to do with herself. She was
absolutely adrift in a sea full of creatures she fully expected to drag her under at any moment.
The cobblestones were slick and treacherous under her boots, something that only added to her discomfort. She watched them for most of the journey up the hill, desperately latching onto something that looked familiar. She stopped Acair before he walked into a pool of shadow with a casualness that should have alarmed her. That she was only tempted to yawn should have alarmed her more.
Acair caught himself in mid-step, then blew out his breath. “Thank you. The last brush with one of these was rather unpleasant.”
And it had led to those two creatures trying to kill you, was what she thought to say but didn’t. She simply walked around the shadow, then continued up the way.
At one point, she hazarded a glance at where they were headed, then realized that she hadn’t paid any heed to the castle as they’d been on the boat and she definitely hadn’t seen anything of it from their chamber. She stopped still and gaped. She had never in her life seen anything so large.
“Tatty old thing, isn’t it?” Acair remarked. “Don’t know how anyone manages to live here.”
Tatty was not the word she would have chosen, but what did she know? She nodded because speech was beyond her, then continued on with him right up to the front gates. She wasn’t sure how he expected that anyone should let either of them inside, more particularly she herself, but he seemed to have no fear of being rebuffed.
He glanced her way. “My welcome here may not be warm.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. She was so far out of her depth, all she could do was look at him and hope he wasn’t walking her into some sort of terrible trap from which she would never emerge. He smiled briefly, then turned and knocked on the gates.
She was accustomed to barn doors, not castle entrances, but she had to concede that those gates didn’t look particularly intimidating and there was no portcullis that she could see. Perhaps the garrison was very fierce and the lords who sent their sons there had no fear for their safety. In truth, what did she know of great men and their progeny save Fuadain? He had a handful of sons, but they obviously didn’t care to pass any time with their sire for she hadn’t seen them in years.