by Lynn Kurland
“Let’s go, wench. You can spew out all your missish grievances later.”
She walked with him across the boardwalk and into the tavern. It was just after sunrise, but already there were a few lads hard at their day’s labor. Or perhaps they were still finishing up their night’s work. Sarah wasn’t sure and didn’t care to investigate. She found herself deposited at a table near the door, then summarily abandoned.
She looked at the sign over the bar that tersely proclaimed that magic was not tolerated. That was something she certainly agreed with in principle, so she settled back in her chair and supposed the worst she could expect was the flash of a blade in the dim light from the fire.
Ruith stood at the bar for several minutes, a tall, intimidating figure cloaked and hooded. She watched the other patrons watch him, but apparently they didn’t care to investigate him more closely for none of them moved. She didn’t blame them in the slightest. She certainly wouldn’t have attempted polite conversation with the man if she hadn’t already known who he was.
He came to her table finally with two mugs in his hands. He set them down, pushed one toward her, then sat down with his back against the wall.
“Tidings?” she asked.
“Nothing of note,” he said with a sigh, “but I’m not sure we could have expected anything else. I wasn’t about to bring up the subject of mages, and the barkeep didn’t seem inclined to offer any hints of the same.” He had a sip of his ale, grimaced, then leaned back against his chair. “I think even a few hours’ sleep here would serve us, though I imagine we’ll be safer on the floor than whatever flea-ridden thing passes for a bed.”
Sarah drank only because she was desperate, but had the same opinion of the brew Ruith had. Vile wasn’t the word she would have used, for it didn’t begin to describe the disgusting nature of her ale. She supposed Ruith might manage to enspell what was in her cup, but she wasn’t about to ask him. She simply set her mug aside, then agreed with him that perhaps it was time to go. She followed him from the tavern and back up the street until he paused in front of an inn that looked slightly less disreputable than everything surrounding it.
The chamber they were shown to was no less squalid than she’d expected it would be. Ruith set his pack down in front of the fire, tossed more wood onto the blaze, then turned and walked back to the door.
“Lock it behind me, if you would.”
“Are you going out?” she asked in surprise. “Alone?”
He turned and leaned against the door, looking so casually lethal that she almost caught her breath. The women would fall all over themselves to get to him and the men would fall over themselves to get out of his way.
She held up her hand. “Never mind. You’ll be fine.”
“No one will enter,” he said, “if you’re worried.”
He said nothing, but suddenly a spell of protection fell down over the door. She could tell there were two sides to it and the pleasant-looking side was facing her. She didn’t imagine she would be lifting it up to see what lay on the other side.
“Will I be able to leave?” she asked uneasily.
“I am not your jailor, Sarah.”
“Just my protector.”
“There is a difference,” he said dryly, “though if you would be willing to take my advice, please just stay here.”
She sighed and walked over to him. “Very well, be off with you, then. I’ll lock the door behind you and stay to do womanly things.”
“Is that so terrible?”
She realized he was quite serious about the question. She met his very lovely pale eyes and shook her head. “Honestly, Ruith, I would much rather you go trudge in the muck and hobnob with seedy sorts whilst I stay here and sit in front of the fire. I’m just trying not to be a burden.”
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Is it a burden for a man to do unpleasant things to keep safe the woman he l—er, I mean, likes rather well?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Is it?”
“If I could fulfill this quest without your aid, Sarah, my love, I would do so without hesitation. I regretted every step you took with me to the glade and to my father’s keep and was frantic with worry when we were inside the walls. If I had thought it would have kept you safer, I would have brought the entire place down upon myself, killing the lot of us in the process.”
She caught her breath. “Surely you didn’t consider it.”
“I did,” he said. “But I am a selfish lout, so I was ecstatic—well, after I moved past wanting to wring your neck, of course—to have you rescue me so I could spend the rest of my life convincing you that I l—er, I mean like you very much indeed and would be honored to spend equal amounts of time making sure your life was full of whatever you loved most that I could provide.” He paused and smiled briefly. “Put simply, that is.”
She took a step backward because it was either that or throw herself into his arms, which she most certainly couldn’t do. She held out her hand in her most manly fashion. “Thank you.”
He looked at her hand, looked at her, then took her hand and shook it slowly. “You’re welcome.”
“You should go now,” she said, pulling her hand away and tucking it and her other one under her arms so they didn’t do anything untoward. “You know, to do those manly unpleasant things you need to do.”
He nodded, then opened the door. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
“I’ll wait.”
He smiled briefly, then slipped out the door. Sarah locked it, then heard his spell lock as well, much as the spell had done in his grandfather’s garden. She stood there with her hand on the door, tangled in the spell he’d wrought, and thought about the magic she’d seen in that garden. Poor Sarait, who had lived no doubt for centuries in that sort of loveliness, then found herself in Ceangail. Sarah wondered if she had known ahead of time just what Gair was, or if he had simply presented her with what he thought she would want to see. She pitied Ruith and his siblings for what they had seen and Ruith for what she feared he might see in the future.
She couldn’t say she was looking forward to seeing any of it herself.
She looked at the magic in front of her and trailed her fingers through the strands of Fadaire she could see, strands that were woven with the faint sound of snow as it fell through bitterly cold air and the soft fall of rain as it fell in the spring. Ruith had done that, she was sure, for no other reason than to please her.
And she had insisted he chat up ten princesses before he looked at her.
She was daft as a duck.
She was also weary beyond belief. She left the spell whispering softly behind her and walked over to the fire where she could dig in her pack and see what Rùnach—another very lovely son Sarait had no doubt been very proud of—had packed for her.
She didn’t go far, simply because she didn’t have the energy to. Fortunately a polite foray into the pack produced a child’s primer, written in what she assumed was Soilléir’s native tongue, a set of knitting needles, and several particularly lovely skeins of yarn packed tightly into the side of her pack. She fingered the yarn for a moment or two, then set it aside and opened the book.
She couldn’t say with any confidence that she was pronouncing correctly what she was attempting to sound out, but she continued on in spite of that. She had to pause after a few pages because there was something about the sound of that tongue against her ear that tugged at her in a way she couldn’t identify. She couldn’t say it made her uneasy, for it didn’t. There was something attached to the words, though, something that tinged them with a sadness she couldn’t shake off.
She attempted another handful of pages, then had to shut the book because she thought she just might weep. She put her hand over the worn cover, then stared into the fire for a moment or two.
It occurred to her, with a start, that she had recognized a few of the words, not because she had seen them before, nor because she had heard them in Soill
éir’s poetry.
She had heard them somewhere else.
She frowned. There was a mystery there that only became deeper the more she looked at it. It would have been so much easier for Soilléir to have simply translated the runes on her knives for her, especially since it was obvious he had recognized them as ones coming from his native land, but he had chosen not to. Why hadn’t he just told her what she needed to know instead of sending her off on a journey with books in hand and no one to help her?
Well, he was a mage, and they were unpredictable. Perhaps he’d foreseen the fact that Ruith would disappear for hours at a time and leave her without something to occupy her time. She imagined, however, that he hadn’t been the one to tuck yarn into her pack, so she thought pleasant thoughts of Rùnach as she considered a skein of dark blue wool.
She thought about Ruith’s hands, then began a pair of mittens for him. She’d done the like so many times that she hardly needed to think about what she was doing, so she reopened the child’s book and kept it on her lap as she knit. The first poem there wasn’t difficult and the more she attempted to sound it out, the more easily it seemed to come to her tongue. She wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t heard her mother mutter something in those same words, but that seemed so fanciful, she could scarce credit it.
She saw something out of the corner of her eye, dropped her knitting, and flung her knife at it before she thought better of it.
Ruith reached up and stilled the knife quivering near his ear in the wood of the door—the closed door, as it happened. Her blade had torn through the hood of the cloak she had so carefully woven for him, which seemed to trouble him more than the fact that she’d almost put a knife through his eye.
“I hereby resign the position of your guardsman,” he said faintly. “I’m hiring you to protect me.”
“Don’t be daft,” she said, setting her things aside and pushing herself up out of her chair. “You frightened the bloody hell out of me!”
He pulled off his cloak and looked at the rent in the hood. “My most abject apologies, I assure you.”
She jerked her knife free from the wood of the door and glared at him. “Knock next time.”
“I will.” He looked at his cloak. “Shall I fix—”
“Nay, I will,” she said, taking his cloak out of his hands. “It will keep me from doing damage to you. And you may as well come have something to eat since you’re alive to do so.”
He nodded and followed her across to the pair of chairs set in front of the fire. Sarah set to work on his cloak, simply because he had frightened her quite badly and she thought if she had something to work on, her hands might not tremble so. Or at least she did until Ruith reached out and covered her hands with his.
“I’ll do that.”
She wanted to protest, but found she couldn’t. She allowed him to take his cloak away, then watched him heal the rent with a spell. She happily accepted not only food from her pack but drinkable wine from his. Once she’d had a restorative sip or two, she set her cup aside.
“Well?”
“I asked a few questions,” he said carefully, “but not so many as to garner undue attention. I’m fairly sure the lads aren’t here.”
“Did Franciscus come fetch them, do you think?” she asked, reaching for her needles and holding them, just to give herself something to do.
“It would seem logical,” Ruith agreed. “Oban wouldn’t have gone with anyone else, and I don’t imagine Seirceil would have allowed himself or the rest of them to be carried off against their will. He isn’t powerless.”
She looked up at that. “Did Seirceil know you, do you think?”
“He certainly recognized the Camanaë spell I used on him.” He shrugged. “He knew my mother and he knows Sgath. I would imagine at least the thought of who I might be crossed his mind.”
She put her knitting down in her lap. “That must have been difficult for you. Healing him, I mean.”
“I’ve done more difficult things since,” he said, “though I will concede it wasn’t pleasant.”
“Because of the magic, or what it meant?”
He smiled faintly. “You sound like Soilléir. And if you want the truth, it was both, though just using magic was surprisingly unpleasant. It was the first thing I’d done in twenty years. It about flattened me.”
“You did look a little weary.”
“Your tea helped.”
“I have no idea how,” she said, pursing her lips. “It was nothing but herbs.”
“Brewed skillfully.”
She picked her knitting up again, then looked at him suddenly. “Could we go back to that farmer’s house where we left the horses and our gear?”
“We’re not terribly far from it,” he conceded. “Is there something in particular you want?”
“The herbalist in Firth gave me an entire sack full of things. They were definitely enspelled, but with wholesome things.”
“How do you know?” he asked casually. “See something?”
“Aye, thank you, I did,” she said shortly. “I thought I was losing my mind.”
He laughed a little. “We were quite a pair, then, for I daresay I thought the same thing about myself. And aye, if you want them, we’ll fetch them. Perhaps I can talk the man back out of my bow, though I think my sword has likely already been melted down for wagon parts.”
“Did it have especial meaning for you?”
He shook his head. “’Twas just a blade. The arrows I would have again, though, and the bow.” He frowned suddenly as if he considered something truly dire. “I daresay we’ll need to fly there, if Tarbh is willing. Just to save time.”
“If we must,” she said with a shiver.
“I think it is the only way I’ll have more out of you than a handshake.”
“You scoundrel.”
“I’m determined.”
She pushed her hair back from her face with the back of her hand. “Ten women of rank, Your Highness. I’m sure you’ll find one among them to suit.”
“Have I ever told you the tale of Tachartas of Tòrr Dòrainn?”
“Did he fall in love with a milch maid?” she asked sourly.
“Even worse: a shieldmaiden whose only claim to magic came from what was spoken reverently about her swordplay.”
“Must you?” she asked, pained.
“I’ll tell you another about Fearail of Cothromaiche afterward if you can refrain from throwing something at me during the telling of the first.”
“How do you know so many tales—nay, don’t tell me. Your library was extensive.”
“And your mother’s wasn’t?”
“My mother’s was full of spells I couldn’t bear to look at, even in Doìre. I spent most of my time down at the alehouse, reading Franciscus’s books. I will admit he had more than his share of tomes for a simple alemaster.” She hesitated, then asked the question she hadn’t been able to bring herself to before. “Who is he, do you suppose?”
“We’ll ask him when we see him next.”
“I don’t like things that turn out to be what I didn’t think they could be.”
“Which is why I’m always so straightforwardly ardent. So you aren’t surprised later when I fall to my knees and beg you to look at me twice.”
She threw her ball of wool at him.
He laughed at her as he caught it, then reached over to hand it back to her. “Two tales, then a bit of a nap for the both of us, I think. I’ll go out again after dark to see what I can learn after the lads have tucked a few strong ales away. Then I think we’ll go. We would be wise to travel under the cover of darkness.”
She supposed there was sense in that, as well as the added benefit of not being able to see clearly just how far off the ground they might have been. She listened to Ruith begin his tale, then closed her eyes, because she couldn’t help herself.
She lost the thread of his tale, but couldn’t muster up the energy to ask him to backtrack. She fell asleep almost before sh
e knew what she was doing.
She woke to a kink in her neck. Ruith had covered her with his cloak, but he was nowhere to be seen.
She looked around, feeling slightly panicked, only to find him standing at the window, motionless. She set his cloak on his chair, staggered to her feet, then managed to get herself across the chamber. Only a day into her quest and already she needed more sleep. She didn’t suppose that boded well for the rest of the journey.
Ruith turned his head and smiled at her. “Sleep well?”
“Terribly,” she croaked. “And you not at all, I imagine.”
He shrugged. “I had things to think on. That and I supposed you could keep me in the saddle tonight if necessary.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” she said uneasily. She started to elaborate on the fate that would await him did he trust her with his life on the back of a dragon, then she had a decent look at his face. “What is it?”
He seemed to chew on his words a bit before he turned and leaned back against the window frame. “I’m curious about a few things.”
“I hesitate to ask which ones.”
He considered a bit longer. “I wonder where Franciscus is.”
“With the lads,” she said in surprise. “Don’t you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think,” he said slowly.
“What else would he—” she began, then felt her mouth fall open. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing,” he said carefully. “I just find several things rather too ... convenient.”
She had to lean against the opposite side of the window to keep herself upright. “Such as?”
“Such as why it was he was at Ceangail when we needed him the most,” Ruith began, “or why he was waiting with his wagon in Bruaih on the same road we were taking, or why he found himself as the alemaster of Doìre—pretending to be what he was not—when he obviously could have been loitering anywhere else in the world.” He took a deep breath. “Or why he befriended a perfect stranger masquerading as a mage on a mountain when the stranger was a boy, yet kept his secret as he became a man.”