Spellweaver

by Lynn Kurland

  She looked at the king to find him watching her with a small smile as if he knew exactly what she was seeing.

  “Do you see too?” she asked, because she couldn’t help herself.

  “Oh, aye, lass,” he said with another knowing smile. “Not many others do, though. I daresay your lad there isn’t seeing anything in my hearths but a flame to warm his backside on a chilly night.”

  “See what?” Ruith asked politely, leaning forward. “Your strings warming up, Your Majesty? My lady owes me a dance or two.”

  Uachdaran winked at her, then looked at Ruith. “While I understand your enthusiasm, lad, first I think we must humor my bard. He keeps our genealogy, as you may or may not know, and while that is a worthy task, he never misses the chance to have a peep in someone else’s family tree. Your grandfather, I’m afraid, didn’t have the time to attend him at all, to his great distress. I hope you children don’t mind if he at least comes to greet you. I imagine neither of you will escape without divulging a few details he’ll want to record in his books.”

  “I don’t think my heritage will come as much of a surprise to him,” Ruith said dryly, “but I’ll gladly humor him. I might have an unsavoury connection or two to delight him with, if he has the stomach for it.”

  “He does,” Uachdaran said mildly. He nodded to one of his pages, who ran off without hesitation.

  Sarah would have liked to have distracted herself with the fire a bit longer, but the tales had ceased. That might have been because they felt they were competing with what the musicians were creating, music she could see hanging in the air, forming itself into proper patterns of dance. She blinked, but the notes remained long enough to make their appearance, take their place in the song, then slip offstage, as it were.

  She looked at Uachdaran in surprise.

  He was still simply watching her with that half smile, as if he knew exactly what she was seeing—which she suspected he did—and was pleased to enjoy it with her.

  “Didn’t expect this, did you, lass?” he asked gently.

  “I’m finding, Your Majesty, that that has become my lot in life.”

  He smiled, a smile full of good humor. “I hope, my gel, that you will one day be able to leave that saying behind, but I fear that day is not near. Ah, here is Master Eachdraidh.”

  Sarah looked at the man hurrying across the hall, his arms full of papers and the voluminous sleeves of his robe flapping with his haste. He was tall, for an inhabitant of Léige, and very thin, looking as if he spent the majority of his time holed up in some chamber or other, looking through books. She supposed she could have been accused of hiding herself in a place or two to weave, but she somehow didn’t think she looked quite that pale.

  Master Eachdraidh skidded to a stop in front of the high table, made the king a very low bow, which sent his pages scattering, then spent a few minutes trying to gather everything back up. Ruith, the good-hearted soul that he was, walked around the table and bent to help him. They chatted amicably about the unpredictability of pages that weren’t sewn properly into a book—Sarah caught the look Ruith sent her and smiled in understanding—then Ruith straightened and left the historian to his own devices.

  Eachdraidh clutched his papers to his chest, then made the king another low bow. “Your Majesty, I have come to, of course, first delight you with the retelling of a tale or two unearthed from the vaults below, then I thought ... to ...”

  Sarah watched the man lose his ability to speak. His mouth worked soundlessly, as if he’d just seen a ghost. She looked over her shoulder to see if that might be the case—she was fully prepared to see more things than she would have ever wanted to in the past—but there was nothing behind her. She turned back to Uachdaran’s genealogist and realized he wasn’t looking at someone behind her.

  He was looking at her.

  His papers fluttered to the floor.

  He joined them with substantially less grace.

  “Interesting,” Uachdaran said, then he clapped his hands together. Guards strode across the hall, gathered up the fallen bard, then carried him and his things off to points unknown. The king looked at Ruith. “Dancing, lad?”

  “Of course,” Ruith said smoothly. He pushed his chair back and held down his hand. “Sarah?”

  She wasn’t opposed to holding his hand, though she was beginning to think she should hold it, then continue to hold it as she fled with him out the front gates. She stopped in the middle of the hall and looked up at him.

  “And just what was that all about?” she asked.

  “The bard?” He shrugged. “He’s excitable. I wouldn’t give it another thought. I imagine you’re finding enough to think on without worrying about the antics of an overwrought keeper of histories.”

  It was just one more thing to add to a very odd evening, so she set it aside. She couldn’t set aside the other things as easily. “What is this place?” she managed.

  “You tell me.”

  “The fire tells stories and the king is unsurprised by that.”

  “Love, I daresay the king isn’t surprised by much.”

  “The music makes patterns in the hall,” she added. “As if the notes were dancers themselves.”

  “Fascinating.”

  She glared at him. “You’re making sport of me.”

  “I’m not,” he said frankly. “I’m intrigued by what you can see. And willing, as always, to suggest that if your sight of other things bothers you, you are more than welcome to look only at me. Indeed, I think that might be just the thing for you tonight. I promise the view will be—”

  “Ruith,” she warned.

  “Very well,” he said with a smile, “I’ll leave off with the feigned arrogance, though I want it noted I indulged in it simply to ease your nerves.”

  She grumbled at him, though she had to concede that his technique had been rather successful. She forgot about the things in Léige that apparently only she and the king could see, forgot about what lay beyond the walls, and even managed to forget about Uachdaran’s bard, who had looked at her and then fainted.

  “I think you’re forgetting about me,” Ruith said in a singsong sort of voice. “Though how you could, I don’t know.”

  She smiled at him in spite of how hard she fought not to. “Thank you.”

  “A stroll in the garden later, whilst you’re feeling so charitable toward me?”

  “I think your time would be better spent dancing with a handful of Uachdaran’s granddaughters,” she said with a snort.

  “And then a walk?”

  “Aye, to my chamber where I will thank you for the lovely dances, then climb into bed and pull the blankets over my head where I need not see anything else this day.”

  He smiled. “Very well, I’ll concede the battle. Tonight. But I think you would find the garden very interesting. Nothing there but trees and a handful of stone benches for those who need a rest.”

  She imagined it would contain quite a few more things than that, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. She would fight him about it on the morrow, after she’d spent a peaceful night not dreaming. Retiring early would give her a chance to get her crown off her head, allow Ruith some time to pry useful details out of the king, and provide her with a place to close her eyes and block out more things she didn’t want to see.

  Such as the bard, Eachdraidh, who was now clinging to one of the hall doors, still watching her as if he’d seen a ghost.

  “I’m more interesting than he is,” Ruith remarked.

  “That you are, Your Highness,” she agreed, happy for once to look at him and no one else.

  Though it was rather more hard on her heart than she suspected it might be.

  Ten princesses, indeed.

  But at least thinking on that gave her a reason not to think on all the other very odd things she’d seen since she’d walked through Uachdaran’s heavy front gates. Surely Soilléir would have known what he was sending them into, but he’d done it anyway, without a twinge of
remorse or hesitation.

  She couldn’t help but wonder why.

  Nineteen

  Ruith woke to screaming.

  He thought at first that he was still trapped in a dream and he had been the one crying out, but he sported no crushing headache, nor could he remember anything that would have wrenched that sort of sound out of him.

  Nay, it wasn’t him. It was Sarah.

  He threw back the covers, pulled on clothes, then sprinted out of his chamber and down the passageway, blessing Uachdaran for having put him next door to Sarah. He unbolted her door with a spell, pushed his way inside, then lit every candle in the place, along with the fire, as he rushed across the floor. He came to a teetering halt next to the bed, suddenly unsure what he should do. He didn’t think he had the skill to go into her dreams, though his mother had managed it often enough for him, but he also couldn’t allow her to fall deeper into where she was. He understood all too well the perils of that.

  He leaned over, intending to take her by the arms and gently shake her, only to jerk aside when he saw the flash of a dagger in the candlelight. Obviously, he was not at his best, something he noted as he looked at the blade buried to the hilt in his arm. Feeling rather grateful that had been his arm and not his chest, he sat down on the edge of the bed and called Sarah’s name, repeatedly.

  It took longer than he would have supposed, likely because he hadn’t thought to use a spell until she had stopped shrieking and had descended into racking sobs. He cast a spell of Camanaë over them both, a spell guaranteed to drive out all but the sweetest of dreams, then found his arms full of her. He tried not to wince as she jarred the blade on her way to throwing her arms around his neck, but he feared he hadn’t managed it very well.

  She pulled back and looked at him in surprise, then gaped at his arm. “What befell you?”

  “Ah—”

  She blanched. “I did that?”

  “I shouldn’t have leaned over you.”

  “Did you?” She blinked, as if she couldn’t fathom why he was where he was and she had stabbed him. “Was I dreaming?”

  “Don’t you remember it?”

  She took a deep breath. “Only darkness.” She looked at his arm dripping blood down onto the bed. “I’m sorry I can’t fix that. Well, I could sew it—”

  “Not to worry,” he said, ripping off his other sleeve and tying it above the wound. “Take your blade back, love.”

  She pulled the steel free of his flesh, and he swayed in spite of himself. He rolled his eyes at his own inability to tolerate a small prick of a wound, then rose. He cleaned her knife on his shirt, then handed it back to her. “Bring your blades, and come with me. You’ll have my bed, and I’ll take the floor.”

  She crawled unsteadily out of her bed, then accepted the dressing gown he handed her. She pulled it around her, then padded behind him on bare feet. He would have to remedy that sooner rather than later, but perhaps she wouldn’t mind if he attended to his arm first of all. He extinguished all he’d lit on his way in, held open her door for her, then followed her out into the passageway.

  And into Uachdaran of Léige.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, a little off balance.

  Uachdaran looked at his arm, frowned, then looked at Sarah. “I don’t suppose,” he said in a tone that said he very much hoped he wasn’t supposing, “that you made that wound fighting off the wee princeling behind you.”

  “I was having a nightmare,” she said faintly, “and stabbed him by mistake.”

  Uachdaran peered at Ruith’s arm, then looked up at him. “Need a surgeon, do you?”

  “A spell would be just as welcome.”

  “Happily, I might have one or two of those,” the king said. “Put your lady to bed in your chamber, lad, then you’ll pull up a scrap of floor in my solar—though I can’t believe I’m inviting you into my private sanctuary.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Your Majesty,” Ruith said, because he had spent the last night of Sarah’s life without her in the same chamber as he found himself, “I would prefer to keep Sarah within reach.”

  Uachdaran made a noise of disapproval. “I don’t hold to these newfangled ideals of too much togetherness before marriage. A visit or two is sufficient, to my mind, to check for crooked teeth and knobby knees.”

  Ruith wasn’t at all surprised, but he managed not to smile. “I vow I will be, as I have been until this moment, a perfect gentleman where Sarah is concerned. I wouldn’t want to face my mother’s disapproval.”

  Uachdaran considered. “Well, she did manage to raise six lads without any of you going off to follow your sire in his madness, so I suppose she instilled some decent character into you. Very well. Bring your lady along. I’ll have a look at her arm while we’re tending yours.”

  Ruith didn’t ask how Uachdaran knew about the trail of spells in Sarah’s arm. There was little—perhaps nothing, actually—that passed within the dwarf king’s realm that he didn’t know. He took Sarah’s hand, spelled a pair of soft slippers onto her feet, then walked with her after the king. He was a little surprised to find he did indeed remember the way to the king’s solar, but he supposed that was something he should keep to himself.

  The king opened the door, entered first, then held the door for them both. He saw Sarah seated in front of a fire that leapt to life at his approach, then motioned for Ruith to help himself to the stool next to her. Ruith did, smiling a little at being put in his place. Uachdaran went off to putter amongst things that smelled like herbs, so Ruith took the opportunity to look at Sarah.

  Sleep had obviously fled from her, which he couldn’t blame her for in the least. He’d never been able to sleep again after waking from a nightmare.

  “Sing her a lay, Ruithneadh,” Uachdaran said, holding a glass bottle up to a candle. “Take her mind off the darkness. There’s a lute somewhere in here. I’d lay odds you know where it is.”

  Ruith would have preferred to stick hot pins in his eyes rather than embarrass himself by demonstrating his lack of ability with anything bearing strings, but he could at least carry a tune. Perhaps Sarah would forgive him his very poor accompaniment.

  He did indeed find a lute, tuned it, then looked at Sarah who was watching him in surprise.

  “I had no idea you had so many courtly skills, Your Highness,” she said.

  “Having them is perhaps a matter for debating later,” he said, “but I will concede that my mother did insist we all learn a few useful things. I do not play well, but if this could count as wooing, I might play better.”

  “You seem to be lacking those ten princesses closely examined, Prince Ruithneadh,” she said pointedly, “before you begin to think of anything akin to that.”

  “I believe we recently decided it was ten princesses danced with—and I believe that is much more than I agreed to at the start,” Ruith said, frowning as he plucked at the strings, “and I believe I danced with not one but two of our good king’s granddaughters this past night. That makes my remaining tally eight, not ten.”

  “Well,” Uachdaran said, sounding as if he were trying very hard not to laugh, “the boy can do his sums. You must accord him that, Sarah, gel.”

  “And I’m playing under enormous duress,” Ruith said, “with an arm that still bleeds. Surely that should earn me a concession or two.”

  Sarah hadn’t begun to offer her opinion on that before Uachdaran had walked across the floor, slapped a dwarvish spell of binding on Ruith’s arm, then grunted at him before he returned to his work.

  Ruith winced at the spell, but found its thoroughness to be quite admirable. He took a deep breath, then trolled back through his memories to things he’d learned as a lad. That repertoire was exhausted quite quickly, which left him attempting things he’d heard in other locales over the past decade, things he rendered quite badly. He looked at Sarah occasionally to find her watching him with a faint smile.

  “I warned you,” he said simply.

  She shook her head. �
��It’s charming.”

  “Do you play?”

  “Franciscus taught me a little, but my repertoire is limited to raunchy pub songs.”

  Ruith laughed. “He should be ashamed of himself.”

  “He should,” she agreed. “I much prefer to listen to you. It’s lovely.”

  He was happy to humor her a bit longer, though equally pleased to set aside his lute when Uachdaran finished his work, crossed back to Sarah, and pulled up a chair in front of her.

  “Let’s try this on your arm,” he said.

  Sarah pushed up her sleeve and didn’t wince as he applied the salve he’d either found or made. The red that had faded with Soilléir’s spell had returned, leaving terrible trails up and down her arm. Uachdaran’s mix made no difference in the black, though the redness receded. He sat back, studied Sarah’s arm for another moment or two, then looked at her.

  “Something has delved deeply into your flesh, my lady,” he said gravely. “It is difficult sometimes to undo too much digging, be it mountain or flesh.” He looked at Ruith. “What have you tried?”

  “Camanaë,” Ruith said. “Master Soilléir attempted an essence change, but even that failed.” He paused. “Have you any suggestions, Your Majesty?”

  The king shook his head slowly. “Thoughts enough, but no suggestions. I’ll consider the matter further, then see if another attempt might be made. Put away that lute, my boy, and go fetch your lady a pallet. We’ll put her here by the fire and watch over her until she sleeps.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Your Majesty,” Sarah put in, “I’m not sure I could sleep. Close my eyes, perhaps, but not sleep.”

  The king nodded. “As you will, gel, for I can understand your apprehension well enough. Darkness that doesn’t abate can be quite terrifying. Ruith, fetch that blanket there and we’ll at least wrap her up well. Then you and I will discuss the state of the world.”