Dreamspinner

by Lynn Kurland

  He couldn’t say that in his youth he’d cared much for the political machinations of any given realm. His grandfather Sìle held a seat on the Council of Kings, of course, but he’d been a bit of a snob about the whole thing, something Rùnach had agreed with heartily. Most kings did have at least some spark of magic in their veins, but none to equal the might, majesty, and sheer beauty of Fadaire.

  Well, those inhabiting the rather mysterious world of Cothromaiche might have disagreed, but King Seannair never came to any meetings and likely had no idea where his crown was, so Rùnach had never lumped him in with the others.

  And besides, kingdoms changed, gained territory, lost territory, sometimes absorbed entire kingdoms into themselves or watched their lands disappear beyond their reach into someone else’s realm. He supposed it might be an interesting exercise to see which kingdoms had begun as the only nine in the world, then become something entirely different. It might also be interesting, for the sheer sake of academics, to make note of who had written which history. He could guarantee that Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn would have a far different view of things than Uachdaran of Léige. It wouldn’t have surprised him at all to have found that his grandfather simply dismissed other realms if it suited his vanity and purposes.

  He rose, fetched the table they’d used for supper, then set out ink, pen, and paper. Perhaps he would make a list of every kingdom of note, then jot down alongside each a brief list of the languages spoken within their borders. Just to give himself something to do, of course.

  He glanced at the cot there in front of the fire that had banked itself a bit. The lure of sleep was almost too much to resist. A sleep that might actually leave him feeling as if he hadn’t been sleeping on a rock would be a luxury he hadn’t expected.

  He looked at Aisling, lying there motionless, hardly breathing, then shook his head. Even an hour of searching might tell him things that would be useful. Even if all his knowledge did was help convince her that a provincial village that existed as nothing more than a speck on the map did not have the power to compel her to save it, his time would be well spent. A petty man styling himself as overlord did not require a mercenary with Weger’s mark over his brow to find himself dispatched, though Rùnach was fairly sure he could simply go with her, approach the man, then threaten him with a harsh word or two to encourage him to trot off and look for less weak-kneed villagers to intimidate.

  Because, after all, what sort of place with any culture at all could possibly leave a woman thinking that the touch of a spinning wheel would cause her death?

  He leaned over, brushed the hair back from Aisling’s face, then froze as she sighed something in her sleep. He thought it might have been thank you, but those were again words he’d never heard before.

  A mystery indeed.

  He frowned thoughtfully, then opened his book and began to read.

  Twelve

  Aisling struggled to open her eyes, uncertain for a moment or two if she was trying to wake or trying to rouse herself from some sort of untoward illness. She had rarely suffered from any illness until she’d gone inside Gobhann. She supposed she could safely say she had woken before from all sorts of sleeps, from uneasy snoozes to hopeless, helpless descents into oblivion to escape the dullness and monotony of her life at the Guild, but she had never before woken from the sleep of death.

  It occurred to her that she was not dead, she was very much alive. She ached from head to toe and her head felt as if someone had tried to pull her brain out of her eye sockets. Her eyes burned as if she’d been weeping for days, though she knew she hadn’t. But other than those rather minor things, she felt remarkably good. She lay there for quite a while, thinking about life and death and the fact that she was partaking of the former instead of the latter. The more she thought about it, the warmer she felt.

  But perhaps the fury of knowing that one had been lied to did that for a person.

  Never touch a wheel, she had been told countless times at the Guild. Death is the penalty for touching a wheel, she’d had snapped at her time and time again. Those phrases had always been accompanied by the goriest of details about how death would come, not by the hand of some soul in power but from the wheel itself. But unless her senses had failed her completely, she hadn’t lost her hands or her eyes or had her entrails explode out of her as retribution for her cheek.

  She was whole.

  She could scarce believe it, but there was no denying it. She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling above her. It was plain, though clean and nicely plastered. The bed she was lying on was terribly soft, so soft she had to admit that when she’d first found her senses, she had considered the possibility that she had been lying in some soft patch of the next world where pain would be no more. She felt the blankets under her fingertips and found those to be just as soft as the bed beneath her back, as if they’d been woven from something much finer and softer than silk, though she couldn’t have said what. She was accustomed to rough cotton that wore at her fingers and left them bleeding by the end of the week.

  She turned her head slightly and realized she wasn’t alone. A white-haired man sat by the side of her bed, watching her. She blinked at the enormous golden crown on his head, partly because she couldn’t imagine a king sitting by her bed and partly because the next time she blinked, the crown was gone but the man was still there. She frowned.

  “Who are you, Your Majesty?”

  He smiled. “Nicholas of Lismòr.”

  “Where is Lismòr?” she asked.

  “It’s a little university on the island of Melksham,” he said without haste or irritation, sounding as if he had all the time in the world to answer questions that she realized she probably should have already known the answers to. “Just around the corner from Gobhann, if you look at the map the right way.”

  She considered that, then frowned again. “Am I dead?”

  “Why would you be, my dear?”

  Why, indeed? There were many deeds worthy of death in her country. Touching a spinning wheel was one of them. Crossing the border was another.

  Yet there she was, still breathing.

  “How did I come to be here?” she asked, deciding abruptly that that was an easier thing to contemplate than anything else.

  “You were brought here,” Nicholas of Lismòr said.

  Aisling started to ask by whom, then realized there was someone else in the room, someone standing in the shadows. It was Rùnach; she could tell that by his shape alone.

  “Did he carry me here, Your Majesty?” she asked.

  Rùnach made a strangled noise of some sort. Aisling looked at him, then at Nicholas.

  “Did I ask amiss?” she asked.

  Nicholas only shook his head, a faint smile on his face. “I’m sure he’s just wondering about your form of address for my modest self.”

  “The crown over your head isn’t very modest, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Aisling said. She rubbed her eyes briefly. “At least I think I saw a crown.” She looked at Nicholas. “Am I dreaming?”

  Nicholas reached out and patted her hand. “I don’t think so, though any time you want to dream a crown atop my head, you certainly may. As for the other, you could simply call me Nicholas, if you’d prefer. Anything else might startle my students.”

  Aisling wasn’t going to argue with him. Besides, she had probably imagined the whole thing anyway. It had been that sort of fortnight.

  “And to answer your question,” Nicholas said easily, “Rùnach carried you here. You’ve been asleep for a trio of days. How do you feel?”

  “Remarkably good, all things considered.”

  Nicholas laughed and it was as if the sun had come out from behind terrible clouds. He put his hands on his knees and rose. “I think something strengthening might be just the thing for you. I’ll trot off to the buttery and see what Cook has in his stockpot. Rùnach, lad, keep her company, won’t you?”

  “How do you know Rùnach?” Aisling asked.

&n
bsp; “I know his sister.”

  “Everyone knows his sister.”

  “She traveled a great deal recently,” Nicholas said with a shrug. “You might like her, I daresay. Quite opinionated about things.”

  Rùnach snorted, but said nothing.

  Nicholas put his hand briefly on Rùnach’s shoulder in passing, then left the chamber, tossing a pleasant, “I’ll return,” over his shoulder as he did so.

  Aisling watched him go, then looked at Rùnach leaning back against the wall near to the hearth, looking as if he couldn’t decide whether to sit or bolt. He didn’t move, though, as if he had at some point in his life perfected the art of simply leaning against a wall and becoming as still as death.

  In time, it made her nervous. She cleared her throat finally.

  “You needn’t stay,” she said. “I appreciate the rescue, but I know you have plans of your own.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I’m happy to stay.”

  She realized then that she was supposed to be angry with him, but somehow she just couldn’t quite muster up any enthusiasm for it. He could have clasped hands with her in a soldierly fashion at any point along their long slog through inclement weather and been off on his own, but he hadn’t. He had walked with her, silent and grave, for his own perverse reasons, no doubt. And he had done her the favor of bringing her to a safe place after she’d had the temerity to touch a spinning wheel. That alone was enough to merit her gratitude, surely.

  She thought about sitting up, then realized there was no strength in her limbs. It occurred to her immediately that perhaps she had rejoiced over her escape too soon. The truth was, she felt a great lassitude running through the entirety of her form, as if she’d been running the stairs at Gobhann without pause for days on end.

  The other thing was, she wasn’t seeing very well. First had been that ridiculous crown on Nicholas’s head and now it was a strange sort of something around Rùnach, something that glittered briefly as if it had been the echo of a dream. Of course, once she blinked again, it was gone.

  It was very odd, that.

  Then again, her life was full of things that made no sense to her. How was it that she should have longed so desperately for freedom, yet unless she succeeded in her quest, she was destined to lose that freedom precisely because of who she was? Surely she was nothing at all, not even worthy of notice by the very long reach of Bruadairian curses. After all, her family was not noble, though they had aspirations of appearing that way. She knew that because the Guildmistress had sneered it at her once, when she’d dared wonder aloud about them. And she wasn’t even a part of that family any longer. Her parents had made that clear on her twenty-first birthday, when they’d come to sign her into slavery yet again.

  She decided at that moment that if she ever managed to free herself completely from any and all curses, she would change a few things.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  She nodded. Rùnach pushed away from the wall and walked over to a table. He poured something into a silver goblet, then came to stand next to her bed. Aisling found herself helped into a sitting position, then watched over as she imbibed until her throat had stopped burning right along with her eyes. She was helped back onto her pillow, then left to herself whilst Rùnach returned the goblet to its place. Aisling watched him pick up a book and take his place in Lord Nicholas’s chair.

  “Shall I read to you?” he asked.

  She looked at him in surprise. “Do I look like an invalid, then?”

  He shook his head. “I simply thought you might be restless. A convalescence can be trying.”

  “Have you ever had one?”

  “Once,” he conceded, “and it was very tedious. A friend of mine read to me endlessly until I was able to hold a book myself. I think I would have gone mad otherwise.” He frowned at the spine of the book he held, then opened the cover. “This appears to be the Tale of the Two Swords.”

  “Is that good?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Have you never heard it?”

  Aisling thought there might come a day when she would reveal more than she cared to if she didn’t learn to guard her tongue. “I’m sure I have,” she said hastily, “but I’ve forgotten the details.”

  “Hmmm,” was all he said. He glanced at her. “Would you rather sit up a little? I believe I can find another pillow or two.”

  “I can fetch—”

  “Of course you shan’t,” he said with a slight sound of disbelief. “Here, hold this and I’ll return posthaste.”

  She took the book from him, then watched him leave the chamber. For a soldier, he seemed to have rather lovely manners—then again, considering how few soldiers she knew, perhaps she wasn’t a good judge of any of their ilk. The only men she knew, she realized, were Euan and Quinn, and she realized after being in Rùnach’s company for several days that those two were rather foul-tempered and rude.

  She had to admit, now that she could look back on their travels across Melksham from the comfort of being deliciously warm and alive, even temporarily, that Rùnach hadn’t even been unpleasant on their journey—and that in spite of having found himself cast out of Gobhann.

  She watched him walk back into the chamber and realized yet again that he was a rather intimidating specimen. She hadn’t seen him all that often with Weger—she’d been too busy hanging her head over whatever bucket had been handy to notice, then fretting over how to get Weger to herself—but that last day they had seemed rather evenly matched. She wondered what had possessed Rùnach to go inside Gobhann when he was obviously fully capable of wielding a sword without instruction.

  He helped her sit up, placed a pair of pillows behind her back, fluffed them, then took the book from her and sat down. He looked at her, then blinked in surprise.

  “What is it?”

  She would have shifted, but she was too tired to. “I’m sorry about Gobhann.”

  He smiled briefly. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “But I drove you from it.”

  “Aisling, you had nothing to do with it, truly.” He paused and seemed to consider his words carefully. “Weger has reasons for doing things, reasons that are too deep for us lesser men to comprehend. I daresay this is one of those times.”

  “Who was it who knew you there?” she asked.

  “No one of import.”

  “The man who stabbed me?”

  He studied her for several moments in silence, then smiled ruefully. “I think that we should make a bargain, you and I.”

  “A bargain?” she asked uneasily. The last time she’d agreed to a bargain—which, in truth, she really hadn’t agreed to—she had wound up hundreds of leagues from home.

  Though she had to admit her current locale was far more luxurious than anything she had ever imagined, even after surreptitious looks in Mistress Muinear’s book of Fable and Lore, so perhaps bargains weren’t all that terrible after all.

  “Aye, a bargain,” Rùnach said. “One question and one answer a day.”

  “Which will you offer?”

  He blinked, then smiled. “You misunderstand me, lady. I’ll have one of each, and so will you. And the answers must be completely truthful.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but found there were no words to express how uneasy the thought of having to give him honest answers made her. If she gave details about Bruadair, she would die. Or so she’d been told.

  Yet she hadn’t died from other things…

  “You know that you are perfectly safe here,” he said quietly, “don’t you?”

  “For the day, at least,” she managed.

  “And you think you won’t be tomorrow?”

  “I hope I will be tomorrow,” she conceded, “and I believe, my lord, that that is your question for the day.”

  His mouth fell open, then he laughed a little. “Very well, I will be more careful tomorrow, believe me. And I am no lord.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “I’m channeling Los
h, apparently. I apologize.”

  “Rather I should be flattered,” he said, sighing lightly. “Now, I seem to have wasted my question, but you have not. What will you ask?”

  “Is the man who stabbed me the reason Weger forced you from Gobhann?”

  He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Aye,” he said, looking as if he would have preferred to be talking about anything else. “He is who Weger considered to be dangerous enough to send us both away.”

  She nodded, then froze. “Both?” she asked in surprise.

  He looked at her steadily. “It wasn’t me he stabbed, Aisling.”

  “But I’m no one,” she protested. “I was simply in the wrong place.”

  “Possibly,” he conceded. “Even though Weger didn’t think so.”

  “And what do you think?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Don’t answer that,” she said quickly. “I’m still half asleep.”

  He rubbed finger absently over the cover of the book he held. “I have to agree with Weger that you were in danger as well, though I’ve still to work out why. I wasn’t thinking clearly when Weger roused us so gently from sleep, else I would have queried him more thoroughly.” He looked at her then. “I have spent several years telling myself that I was working for the good of others, but the truth is, I was thinking of no one but myself, which would appall my mother were she alive to witness it. I apologize for the things I said that night. My conduct was reprehensible.”

  She could hardly believe her ears. “You don’t owe me anything—”