by Lynn Kurland
And then he understood the sound.
He was halfway across the courtyard before he realized that he likely should have covered his face.
Lothar of Wychweald stood five paces away from where Aisling was staring off into the distance, as if she saw things no one else could. Lothar looked rather rumpled, as if he’d recently been in a bit of a tussle, perhaps with his guards. He smoothed his hand down the front of his tunic, then he glanced at Rùnach. He looked away, then swung his gaze back. His mouth fell open.
Rùnach knew he shouldn’t have even looked in Aisling’s direction, but he was fool enough to rush toward her. He saw the thought that she might mean anything at all to him cross Lothar’s face, followed immediately by calculation, then a decision.
Time slowed to a crawl. Lothar pulled the knife from Losh’s belt, gave him a hearty shove, then jerked Aisling in front of him. Rùnach leapt forward, but not before he watched Aisling flinch, hard. Lothar smiled, but Rùnach was less concerned with that than he was with the way Aisling was gasping, though that likely had quite a bit to do with the point of the knife that was protruding from her chest. Rùnach flung himself forward and skidded to a halt in front of her in time to catch her as she fell forward.
He turned her sideways so he didn’t bump the blade either going into her or coming out of her. He wondered how he might pull the blade free and stab his father’s nemesis standing there without wounding Aisling further.
“I am agog,” Lothar said with obvious mock surprise. “Fancy meeting someone here who I was just certain was dead.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Rùnach said evenly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lothar said, smiling pleasantly, “I recently had your brother, Acair, as a guest in my hall and heard all kinds of things in return for, well, I think it was for something I neglected to give him.” He shrugged. “A bit naughty of me, I suppose, as is what I’ve done to your little friend here—”
He didn’t manage to finish, but that was likely because he’d just enjoyed the feeling of his descendant’s fist under his jaw. His head snapped back and he crashed to the ground. Rùnach listened to Weger bark out orders for Lothar to be bound, gagged, and locked in his chamber below. He snarled out a few dire threats for whomever had been fool enough to allow the blackguard out of his prison, which Rùnach heartily seconded.
Weger turned to Rùnach. “I don’t think we can take her anywhere with this in her flesh.”
Rùnach found that his arms were shaking. “Can she be healed?”
“Aye.”
“Then do what you must.”
Weger’s face was absolutely expressionless. He put his hand on Aisling’s back and pulled the knife free without further comment.
Rùnach felt Aisling sag in his arms, which he supposed was a mercy for her. All he could do was hope she wouldn’t bleed to death before something could be done.
“Clear the courtyard,” Weger bellowed.
Men scattered as if a strong wind had blown them to the four quarters. Weger looked at Rùnach.
“Follow me. Bring her.”
Rùnach didn’t argue. He picked Aisling up in his arms, again shocked at how little there was to her. She was actually rather tall, but she was so terribly thin, as if she had spent her life not eating very well. Yet another thing to add to the list of mysteries that swirled around her.
He followed Weger across the courtyard and through a gate he hadn’t noticed before. It led to another courtyard of sorts, though Rùnach couldn’t begin to guess the purpose for that. He continued along behind Weger until he realized that the only thing before him was the sheer face of a mountain. Cut into the side of that mountain was a set of stairs. He looked at them, then at Weger.
“You can’t mean me to climb these,” he said in disbelief. “Not with this girl in my arms.”
“Shall I put her on your back?”
“I think moving her at all is an extraordinarily poor idea—”
“I don’t care what you think,” Weger said shortly. “Don’t fall off. I can’t save you.”
Rùnach balked. “But—”
“If you want her to die, keep talking,” Weger snarled. “If not, follow me.”
Rùnach settled Aisling more securely in his arms, made the decision to ignore the wind blowing a gale, and followed Weger. Because for some reason he couldn’t divine, he didn’t want the girl in his arms to die when he could be a means of saving her.
He decided once he’d reached the top that he would never think about the journey there again. He was no coward, but the route had been heart-stopping. He’d lost count of the times he had slipped and barely caught himself before plunging to his death, taking Aisling with him. He had also been acutely aware that every breath Aisling took became shallower. Perhaps that wasn’t her blood dripping down his arm, but then again, perhaps it was.
His need for haste coupled with the terrible wind had left him resorting finally to cursing his father for having taken what might have aided him. He could have carried Aisling out the front gates, healed her right there in the mud, then come back inside within the same quarter hour.
Instead, there he was with a bitter wind lashing him, the woman in his arms dying, and no recourse but to follow a madman who for some unknown reason thought climbing the side of a mountain was going to do something for any of them.
Before he could think too long on that, or find his breath to shout a question about it, they had reached the top of the staircase. Weger fitted a key to a lock, then pushed open a door. Rùnach walked inside, surprised to find the chamber lit by torchlight, but dismissed that in favor of laying Aisling down on a pallet in the middle of the chamber. He stepped over her, then knelt by her side. The sleeve of his tunic was indeed drenched in blood, as was she. She was as still as death, which didn’t surprise him. If she survived it would be a miracle. The sooner she was seen to the better.
He looked around himself, then up at Weger. “Where is your surgeon?”
Weger shook his head. “He’s useless.”
Rùnach didn’t consider himself particularly dull, but he had to admit he was baffled. “Then what now?”
“What do you mean, what now?” Weger echoed in disbelief. “Do what is necessary! Bloody hell, man, must I instruct you in every bloody step? Take your mighty magic and heal her!”
Rùnach blinked. “What in the world are you talking about?”
Weger threw up his hands in frustration. “Heal her, you fool! Use Fadaire or whatever elvish rot comes first to mind.”
“But—”
“Have you lost all sense?” Weger demanded incredulously. “Surely you haven’t been so long out of the world that you can’t recognize when you have your magic back. It will work here in this chamber, I guarantee it.”
Rùnach gaped at his host. “But I have no magic.”
“Of course you have magic—” Weger stopped suddenly and his mouth fell open. “You what?”
“I have no magic,” Rùnach said, through gritted teeth. “My father took it all at the well.”
Weger looked quite suddenly as if he would have liked to have sat down. “Bloody hell,” he said faintly. He sagged back against the door. “I had no idea.”
“You didn’t ask.”
Weger rubbed his hands over his face and indulged in a selection of very vile curses. “Damn it,” he said, finally. He looked at Rùnach. “What are we to do now?”
“Well, if magic will work here,” Rùnach said, “why don’t you use yours?”
Weger folded his arms over his chest. “I haven’t used a word of magic in over three hundred years.”
“No time like the present to dust it off then, is there?”
Weger hesitated. Rùnach suspected it was the first time in those same three centuries he’d done so. He considered, then looked at Rùnach.
“I could,” he said, sounding as if the words had been dragged from him by a thousand irresistible spells, “but I have no elega
nt magic.”
Rùnach shrugged. “Then use Wexham.”
“It will leave a scar.”
“I don’t think she’ll care.”
“It will leave a very large, ugly scar,” Weger amended.
“Then use Camanaë or Fadaire,” Rùnach suggested.
“And have my mouth catch on fire? You ask too much.”
Rùnach looked at him seriously. “I honestly don’t care what you use as long as you use something that will save her life. Whilst you still can.”
Weger looked as if his fondest wish was to turn and flee. But he apparently wasn’t the master of Gobhann because he was a coward. He took a deep breath, cursed fluently, then knelt down on Aisling’s other side. He took her hand in his, then put his other hand over the still-bleeding spot in the middle of her chest. Rùnach listened to him spit out an eminently useful spell of Croxteth, then follow that bit of healing with a very long string of curses in which Lothar of Wychweald and Rùnach’s own father figured prominently.
Aisling took a deep breath. She murmured a handful of things, opened her eyes and looked at Weger, then sighed and fell back into senselessness.
Rùnach smiled in spite of himself. Perhaps the spell had been hastily and roughly spoken, but as with any spell used for healing, there was something left behind, something wholesome and good. If Weger’s spell had left a wholesomeness that was better suited to the rough atmosphere of a garrison hall, well, perhaps that was only to be expected. Aisling would live, which was all that mattered.
He smoothed the hair back from her face, then looked at her benefactor. To his surprise, Weger was looking at the woman lying there in front of them as if he’d seen…well, his expression was not one of horror or disgust. It was as if he were seeing something he had never expected to see, no matter the location.
“What is it?” Rùnach asked in surprise.
Weger put Aisling’s hand he’d been holding in Rùnach’s, then lurched to his feet. “I need something very strong to drink,” he said thickly.
“What did you see?”
Weger glared at him, spat out another pair of spells that flooded the chamber with werelight and created and filled a hearth behind Aisling’s head. “Nothing.” He threw a key at Rùnach that he barely managed to catch. “Lock up and make sure I get that back. It’s the only one I have.”
“And the werelight?”
“Everything inside here will disappear when you lock the door.” He took the two steps necessary to get to the door, then paused as he put his hand on the latch. He considered, then turned and looked at Rùnach. “No magic?”
“Not a drop,” Rùnach said. Almost without flinching.
Weger pursed his lips. “Magic is a very unmanly way to go about things. Prissy and affected, if you ask me.”
“I feel better already.”
Weger paused and seemed to be chewing on his words quite thoroughly before he found ones he wanted to spew out. “See her back to your chamber,” he said, “then do not leave her.”
Rùnach frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is I want you to keep her next to you at all times.” He scowled. “The girl needs a guardian, not only here but when she leaves here. I believe you are that man.”
“But I’m not going anywhere with her,” Rùnach said in surprise.
Weger was very still. “I would rethink that, were I you.”
Rùnach felt his mouth fall open. “Why?”
“Because along with a keeper, she needs a swordsman to win a war for her.” Weger lifted an eyebrow. “Are you not a swordsman equal to that?”
“I have no desire to be equal to that—” Rùnach heard the words come out of his mouth, then shut his mouth slowly, because it felt as if the entire world had slowed to a smooth, almost imperceptible stop.
Are you not equal to me, son?
I have no desire to be equal to you, Father.
A good thing that is, young one. You with your pitiful scribblings in your book that will never be equal to mine…
The conversation in its entirety came back to Rùnach with startling clarity, as if he were standing to the side of the little tête-à-tête, watching his father speaking with his son of ten-and-eight. A son who, as it happened, very much wanted not to be equal to his father, but surpass him in every way.
Only whilst using that power for good, of course.
He had often wondered, in the years that followed when his power was no more and the controversy was confined to mere speculation, if perhaps he would have failed that test if he’d had to face it in truth. Perhaps he would have become just like his father if he’d had the opportunity. He had been, he had to admit, perhaps a bit more proud than he should have been of several things. His skill with the sword. His skill with a spell. The way he could walk into a hall and have all eyes turn his way, the masculine eyes with envy and the feminine ones with admiration that ofttimes had led to swooning.
How many times had Gille complained loudly that Rùnach had taken at birth all the beauty intended for the rest of them before they could claim their share? Rùnach had laughed, for his brothers had not been lacking in handsomeness themselves, but he could admit, now that his face caused flinches of disgust and horror, that there had been a time when he’d been very aware of the elegant figure he’d cut.
Perhaps the well had been a boon.
“Must you think about this all day?” Weger demanded.
Rùnach looked up at him. “What war?”
“How would I know?” Weger snapped. “I just know…well, never mind what I know.”
“With all due respect, my lord Scrymgeour, what have you seen?”
Weger rubbed his hands over his face suddenly, then blew out his breath. “Nothing I could name,” he said, sounding suddenly very weary. He looked at Rùnach. “I’ll give you another fortnight, then throw you out. I think I can protect your anonymity that long, though Odo recognized you easily enough as Morgan’s brother. I can’t imagine others would, but one never knows. Lothar certainly knew who you were—” He started to speak, then shook his head. “A fortnight. No longer.”
“But, I don’t want to fight her war,” Rùnach spluttered.
Weger looked at him in a way that made Rùnach suddenly feel as if he were a lad of ten-and-two who had disappointed someone who had until that point thought highly of him.
“You might, Prince Rùnach, think about someone besides yourself for a change.”
And with that, the door banged shut and Weger was gone.
Rùnach shook his head, then he shook his head again. He finally had to get up and walk around the chamber, a dozen times, two score, five score, until he stopped being able to count the turnings.
He realized, at a certain point, that Aisling’s eyes were open. For a moment, he feared she was dead in spite of Weger’s spell, but she was watching him. He stopped at her feet and looked down at her.
She was, as he had thought at more than one point, not at all plain. She was…well, he had no idea what she was. To be honest, she frightened the hell out of him. She should have been at home, sitting by the fire, trying to fatten herself up, not lying in a bitterly cold tower chamber attached to the most austere keep in all the Nine Kingdoms, sporting what he was certain was a very ugly scar on her chest.
He wondered, not for the first time, how she had been chosen to come look for a man to save her village. Had there been no one else? Or had she volunteered?
And why?
“You’re making the chamber spin,” she said, putting her hand over her eyes.
“I’ll stop.” He hesitated. “How do you fare?”
“I feel a little…breathless.”
He imagined she did. He looked at her and shook his head. How she had expected anyone to have believed her a lad, he had no idea. He watched her put her hand over what had recently been a hole in her chest, then flinch. She lifted her head and looked at blood still damp on her tunic and the rather substantial rent, then looked at R
ùnach in surprise.
“That man stabbed me.”
He nodded.
“Who was he?” she asked faintly.
Rùnach had no desire to discuss those details with her, so he wouldn’t. He sat down on the floor next to her. “He was no one important,” he said easily. “I wouldn’t give him another thought.”
She rubbed her chest absently. “He seems very dangerous. Why is he here?”
“Perhaps because he is dangerous,” Rùnach said. “Weger may keep him here because he can do less damage locked in a cell here than he could outside the gates. Why he was free today, I wouldn’t attempt to speculate.”
She sat up carefully, then looked over her shoulder at the fire in the hearth. The sigh that escaped her was difficult to listen to.
“Let me help you,” Rùnach said, holding out his hand.
“I don’t need aid,” she said, then crawled over to sit against the wall, close to the hearth.
That bothered him slightly, that refusal, though he decided it was perhaps wise not to examine why. He simply turned so he could watch her as she leaned her back against the stone and breathed. It looked painful, truth be told, but perhaps there was no healing that came without some sort of price attached.
“Why am I not dead?” she said finally.
Rùnach realized he should have thought sooner about inventing a decent answer for that. He was absolutely positive Weger wouldn’t want anyone to know what he’d done, not even the woman who owed him her life.
“Ah,” he began, “Lord Weger keeps a, er—” He cast about for a plausible tale. “He keeps a mage here for emergencies.”
She blinked. “A what?”
“A mage.”
She laughed a little. “Surely not.”
He smiled, because there was something about her laugh that was like a glimpse of sunshine after endless days of rain. He had the feeling, daft though it might have been, that she hadn’t laughed all that much in her life. She seemed to savour it just as much as he did.
“What do you mean, ‘surely not’?” he asked.
“Because there are no such things as mages,” she said, almost gently, as if she feared to ruin a dearly held belief for him.