by Lynn Kurland
“Not a thing.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted, “which is why a bit of time sticking arrows into targets that resemble my brother-in-law might bring us both pleasure.”
“What has he ever done to you?” she asked with a smile. “He’s a lovely man, and he quite obviously loves your sister.”
“Hence the problem,” Rùnach said with a snort, “though you realize I’m not serious. We’ll find something equally as interesting to use, I’m sure.”
She walked with him from the library and down passageways and hallways. And then she heard a sound. She put her hand out on Rùnach’s arm, stopped him, then turned and looked for the source of the noise. She left him standing there and made her way back down the passageway, turning down a little hallway that terminated in a modest doorway in what she was sure was in a more obscure part of the castle.
She knocked, was invited to enter, then came to a teetering halt.
How so many windows had been fit into one wall, she couldn’t have said, though she was grateful for it. It made the riotous colors of wool piled in baskets beneath them all the more glorious. But that wasn’t what caught her attention.
It was the spinning wheel in the middle of the little room.
A woman sat there, spinning, singing to herself as she did so. Her hair was snowy white, her hands worn and wrinkled, but her eyes were a bright blue, as full of life as they had likely been when she’d been a girl.
“Ah, a fellow spinner,” she said, stopping her wheel and rising to come take Aisling’s hands. She turned them over, then frowned. “No stains, though, from freshly dyed wool. Perhaps you’ve been spinning other things of late, eh?”
Aisling heard a choking noise, but it wasn’t coming from her. It was coming from Rùnach, who was standing behind her. She turned to look at him, but he was simply standing there, looking rather winded. Aisling frowned briefly at him, then turned back to the old woman.
“I’ve never spun wool.”
“Then perhaps ’tis time you began.” The woman inclined her head. “I am Ceana. And you are Aisling.”
Aisling felt her mouth fall open. “How did you know?”
“I know many things,” Ceana said wisely, “though I rarely speak of them.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “Please come in and make yourselves comfortable. I don’t often have company, so you are most welcome. What would you care to see?”
Aisling had no idea where to begin. She looked around the chamber, so full of light and color…then looked at the old woman helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t we start with my showing you how to spin wool, my dear.” She glanced at Rùnach. “You may come along as well, my lad, if you care to.”
Aisling wondered if Rùnach would refuse, but he simply nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, and followed along behind them as if he had nothing better to do with his afternoon.
For herself, she felt as if she had walked into some sort of earthly paradise where everything was like nothing she’d ever imagined before. She found herself taken in hand and shown where the wool was separated, picked, then carded into batts ready to spin into thread.
She frowned, knowing where that was going. “And then you must weave it?”
The old woman chortled happily. “Well, of course, gel. What else would you do with it?”
“I’m not fond of weaving,” Aisling said. If she was going to be in paradise, there was no reason to not be honest.
“Neither am I,” Mistress Ceana said promptly, “which is why I never tell anyone I can. I am a spinner, you see. What would those weavers have to work with if not for my art?” She paused. “I will knit, I’ll allow, if the wool is particularly fine and I have need. But I would far rather spin.”
Aisling almost smiled. “Do you choose the colors?”
“That art lies in a different room,” she said, taking Aisling by the arm. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”
Aisling looked over her shoulder. Rùnach was standing there, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, watching her with a small smile.
“Bring your lad, if you like,” Mistress Ceana added.
Aisling felt her cheeks grow hot. “He isn’t my lad.”
“Nay,” the woman said thoughtfully, “he’s a man, isn’t he? And a powerful handsome one. Come along then, young man, and try not to leave my workers swooning over your pretty face.”
Aisling looked at Rùnach quickly, but he was only smiling ruefully. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, but she suspected it wasn’t because of the fairness of his face. It grieved her, she had to admit, that he felt the need to do that because of his scars.
She could have told him it was unnecessary.
She spent a very pleasant hour learning how to dye, how to choose what wool to blend together, what sort of sheep and goat produced what kind of substance, and what types of each Ceana thought most fine. Eventually she found herself back where she’d started. She stood next to Ceana’s wheel and looked at it.
“What are you spinning now?”
The woman put her hand on the flywheel. “The stuff of dreams, my gel. Wool so soft it will make the queen herself sigh in pleasure to wear it.”
Aisling nodded. She hadn’t touched a wheel since the one that rendered her senseless—
“I have another wheel,” Ceana said, “over there under the window. Be a good lad and fetch it for us, would you, young Rùnach? Aisling, my dear, pull up a stool here next to me. We’ll have a lesson, shall we?”
Aisling looked at Mistress Ceana in surprise. “How did you know his name?”
The old woman only smiled enigmatically.
Aisling looked at Rùnach, mute. He smiled briefly, fetched what was required, then set the wheel down in front of Aisling. She looked at it and felt a little as if she were staring death in the face.
She looked down at her feet, because that was what she was accustomed to doing.
“There’s a leader already tied, my dear. I’ll show you what to do with it.”
Aisling looked up and met Rùnach’s eyes. He was watching her steadily, as if he would have given her some of his own courage if he’d been able.
She kept her gaze locked with his, then reached out and touched the wheel.
And she breathed still.
She smiled.
Rùnach smiled in return, though his eyes were full of tears.
“Tenderhearted, is he?” Ceana said gently.
“Very,” Aisling agreed.
Rùnach smiled at her once more, a smile she understood completely, then turned to Ceana and made her a low bow. “I’ll leave my lady in your care, then, for an hour or so. Manly business, you know.”
“A trip to the larder, I imagine.”
Rùnach laughed. “Aye, I daresay. What might I bring back with me?”
“Enough for three, me lad,” Ceana said, sounding pleased. “Spinning is hungry work that requires the occasional infusion of delicate edibles. You’ll want to watch and admire, though, which is why we’ll need food for us all.”
“I’ll return posthaste.”
Aisling watched him turn and walk away. She realized Mistress Ceana had joined her in the activity. The old woman looked thoughtfully after Rùnach as he closed the door, then at Aisling.
“You know who he is, don’t you?”
“A soldier,” Aisling said, feeling a little startled, though she couldn’t deny that the more time she spent with Rùnach, the less she thought him simply a soldier. “I once thought he was a lord, but he claims he isn’t.” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know and he won’t tell me.”
“Hmmm,” Ceana said thoughtfully. “Well, he has his reasons for keeping things secret, I suppose, but don’t we all?” She looked at Aisling. “You have secrets, my gel. Deadly ones.”
Aisling found absolutely nothing to say to that.
“Not to worry,” Ceana said with a smile. “I am an old woman who knows how to
keep her own counsel. There are no great tasks left for me in this world but to take my pleasure at my wheel and pour my love for all things beautiful into my yarn. I have often wished, though, that I could spin other things. The blush of love, the scent of roses on a warm summer’s afternoon, the first chill of fall as it settles in the trees.” She looked at Aisling. “Dreams, perhaps.”
“Dreams,” Aisling whispered. “Why would anyone want to spin dreams?”
Ceana smiled. “’Tis just a thought that came to me just now. I don’t know why.” She fingered the wool she was holding, a royal purple shot through with golden threads. “If I truly had my wish, I would spin all those things out of thin air, then string an invisible loom with them.” She smiled at Aisling. “I might even be tempted to weave, then.”
“They would have to be fairly lovely things to convince me,” Aisling said doubtfully.
Ceana laughed. “I’m sure they would, my gel. I’m sure they would.” She rubbed her hands together briskly, suddenly. “Let’s be about our work, Aisling. I have much to teach you and time is short.”
Aisling reached out and gingerly touched the wheel again, on the off chance the curse hadn’t noticed her cheek the first time. But the result was the same, namely nothing at all. The wheel was simply wood under her hand, nothing more. She took a deep breath, then looked at Mistress Ceana.
“I am ready.”
“I think, my gel, that you are.”
Twenty-one
Rùnach paced through the hallways of Tor Neroche, finding that doing so was far more unsettling than it should have been. The last time he’d been there, he’d been a youth of ten-and-three, come with his mother who had made the journey to visit the queen just after Mhorghain’s birth. He thought he remembered them having put Mhorghain and Miach to nap together in adjoining cribs, but he could have been wrong. He’d been too busy making clandestine forays into the library whilst enduring priggish lecturing from the crown prince Adhémar about sneaking into places he shouldn’t have to know for certain.
He thought he might have pointed out to Miach’s eldest brother that filching his father’s sour wine was a more grievous sin than looking for something to read, but he couldn’t be sure. He was fairly sure, however, that he’d bloodied Adhémar’s nose at one point, but that had been nothing more than he’d deserved. He had been, he had to admit, a bit hot-tempered in his youth. Fortunately a score of years locked away in Buidseachd had tempered that a bit.
Now, he simply felt cold as he walked through the passageways and felt as if he were walking over his own grave.
At least Aisling had found something pleasant to do. Actually, perhaps pleasant was grossly understating it. The wench was obsessed. Fortunately, she had found in Mistress Ceana a kindred soul who was equally enamored of all things woolly. Rùnach had seen them both fed lunch, napped on a cot Mistress Ceana had insisted be brought in and set under the window for his pleasure, then dragged himself to the kitchens for supper for the three of them.
He’d started to ask Aisling if she didn’t want to at least take a walk after supper, but he had watched her blossom right there before his eyes, as if she’d been a seed that had been planted in some magic-saturated soil. He had taken her hand, bowed low over it, extended the same courtesy to Mistress Ceana, then left them to their work.
He’d considered the library, but his afternoon’s labors there had been too useless and depressing to return to. Though he’d tried to make it seem a bit of a contest earlier in the day, sitting with Aisling at opposite ends of a very long table, and exchanging the occasional knowing look, it had seemed less and less like a game and more like death waiting for him around the corner.
He had to have answers and he had to have them soon.
He paused at the bottom of a long, circular stairway and looked up into the darkness. No one barred his way, so he began to climb. He climbed until he could climb no more and stood on a landing outside a door. He knocked, because he at least had that much good breeding left in him.
“Come!”
He opened the door and found none other than the illustrious king of Neroche sitting in front of his fire. Miach was looking at him in a way that suddenly made him very nervous.
“Waiting for me, were you?” Rùnach managed.
“I thought you might be wandering abroad this evening,” Miach said with a smile. “Is your lady still spinning, or has she worn her spinning mistress out?”
“She’s still there, but I told her I would fetch her in an hour and insist that she sleep.” He shrugged. “And speaking of the opinions of women, what does your bride think of your spending your evenings in your hovel here?”
“I made a special trip just for you, so she approves. And just so you know, I don’t spend all my evenings here.”
“Of which I imagine she also approves,” Rùnach said, shutting the door behind him and casting himself down into the empty chair in front of the fire. “Our mothers are pleased with the match, I’m sure.”
“Are you?”
“I am.” He accepted a cup of ale from his brother-in-law, sat back, then sighed. “Get on with the bludgeoning.”
“Me?” Miach asked innocently. “Why would I bludgeon?”
Rùnach pursed his lips. “Because you are who you are and you know Soilléir of Cothromaiche very well. I am continually appalled by the similarities between the two of you.”
Miach only watched him steadily, a small smile playing around his mouth. “You know what she is, don’t you?”
“Who?”
“Aisling.”
Rùnach shot him a look. “A girl, thank you. I haven’t been so long at Buidseachd that I can’t recognize one when I see one.”
Miach looked at him for a moment or two, then rose and set his cup on the mantel. “Very well, think what you like. I’m going to bed.”
Rùnach gaped at him. “That’s it?”
Miach only raised his eyebrow briefly. “Lock up when you’ve stewed enough, would you?”
Rùnach pondered that.
He was still pondering the next day in the lists. He didn’t like to reduce his life to simple reports worthy of an assistant bard’s practice diary, but there had been little progress to speak of on any front. He had slept a discreet distance away from Aisling in front of their fire, then escorted her to Mistress Ceana’s chamber at first light. He had encountered one of Miach’s older brothers in the passageway, which had left him grinding his teeth as he realized Mansourah of Neroche had taken one look at Aisling and apparently fallen immediately under her spell. It hadn’t helped matters at all when Mansourah had introduced himself and Aisling had realized he was the soldier Weger had recommended she seek out. Rùnach had sent Mansourah one way and Aisling the other. Knowing she was closeted with Neroche’s master spinner—and hoping that wasn’t a mistake of epic proportions—had left him free to trot out to the lists to try to find answers.
His sister was terrifying the garrison, so he took the opportunity to terrify the hapless king of Neroche. He was happy to find that he remembered several things Weger had taught him, though less than surprised to find Miach knew those same things. He finally leaned on his sword and looked at his sister’s husband.
“I’m biting. What is she?”
“A girl.”
Rùnach growled. At least he thought he growled. It was difficult to tell what he was doing when all he wanted to do was wipe the smirk off Miach’s face.
“You know,” he said shortly, “you annoyed me when you were a lad. You haven’t improved since then.”
“I repaired your hands.”
“And left me with a broken tooth thanks to the rivet in the leather strap you gave me to chew on whilst you were about it!”
“I fixed that as well.”
Rùnach looked over his shoulder to make sure no observant gel with shorn hair was standing behind him, eavesdropping with abandon, then leaned closer to his brother-in-law. “Let me lay out for you, King Mochriadhemiach, all the
problems that sit arranged pleasingly on a trencher before me. Perhaps then you can stop smirking long enough to examine them with me.”
“You’re testy.”
Rùnach ignored him. “Why no one saw fit to tell me that Lothar was lounging negligently at Gobhann, I don’t know—”
“Didn’t we tell you?”
“Nay, you bloody well didn’t tell me!” Rùnach shouted. He took a deep breath. “Nay, you didn’t tell me, but no matter. I found that out all on my own. Somehow he managed to free himself and find me, all whilst I was singularly unable to protect a helpless woman.”
“She’s not helpless.” Miach smiled. “She is lovely—and all the more lovely for not thinking herself so.”
Rùnach frowned. “You shouldn’t be looking.”
“I’m scouting out a future sister-in-law,” Miach said mildly. “I’m just wondering if you understand the path that lies before her.”
“And you do?” Rùnach said shortly. “And just so you know, I’m not sure I’m equal to expressing how desperately I would like to loathe you for your damned sight.”
Miach only smiled briefly, then his smile faded. “There is something stirring,” he said slowly. He hesitated, then looked around himself. “I don’t think it wise to speak of it here.” He paused. “Something slippery that I can’t quite see.”
“Heaven help us, then.”
“Or you, rather,” Miach said seriously. He chewed on his words a bit longer, then shook his head. “I’ll say no more at present. I think you should be careful, both with yourself and with that gel of yours.”
“She is not mine,” Rùnach said, though it was odd, wasn’t it, how he found that he was wondering where she was and what she was doing. He would have put his hand to his head to check for undue warmth there, but then Miach would have thought he was feeling for Weger’s mark.
“I suppose you could ask for aid,” Miach mused. “In keeping both you and Aisling safe.”
“From whom?” Rùnach asked grimly. “You, newly wed? Ruith, newly wed and fresh from a battle with my sire? One of my elvish cousins who would shudder delicately at the sight of anything to do with anything created from anything but Fadaire?”