“That’s Falaire he’s taking,” she began.
“Get back down,” he whispered fiercely. He peered over the top of the planks of wood, then ducked back down himself. “Damnation, this is a new wrinkle I didn’t see coming.”
“What new wrinkle—and believe me, I don’t want to be interested in your answer.”
“That man with Fuadain? He’s the servant of one of the masters at the schools of wizardry.”
She had to clap her hand over her mouth to stifle her noise of disbelief. She settled for a silent rolling of her eyes. “Again, men in pointy hats with delusions of grandeur. I’m sure they think they have magic as well—wait.” She looked at him in surprise. “Someone from Beinn òrain is taking my horse?”
“I believe has taken is closer to the mark.”
She cursed quietly. “What will I do now? I know I don’t own him, but I’ve known him since he was a foal. Any bad manners he has, I taught to him!”
“I knew it,” Acair said, smiling at her briefly. “As far as horses go, I think he’s a good one.”
“He’s peerless,” she said. She stood up. “We must stop that man from taking him.”
Acair caught her by the arm. “What if we could escape Sàraichte and fetch your horse with one perilous, dangerous journey?”
She glanced at him. “Perilous and dangerous?”
“Two different things, but equally thrilling when viewed in the right sort of light.”
“I think you’re daft.” She watched Falaire until she could see him no longer. “Even if I could follow him,” she managed, “how would I rescue him?”
“Why don’t we worry about that when we get to Beinn òrain?”
“Get to Beinn òrain? I can’t even get myself to a decent pub!”
“I’ll see to it.”
She turned away from a horse she loved like her own soul and looked at Acair. “I don’t have the money to repay you and I don’t like not making my own way.”
“I understand that,” he said, “for I live by the same code. When I’m free, I’ll stock a fine stable with a score of peerless horses and you can train them all. That will be repayment enough. Until then, we have more dire things to worry about.”
She hesitated. “But the rest of the horses—”
“Someone will continue to feed and water them.” He looked at her seriously. “Trust me, Léirsinn.”
She felt Acair take her hand and found no small measure of comfort in the fact that his hand was warm. If he were unnerved, he certainly didn’t show it.
Trust.
She supposed she had no choice. If she left, she would have to leave her grandfather behind. If she stayed, she would lose her horse and no doubt her life. There seemed to be only one clear path, as draped in shadow as it was.
She nodded, then followed Acair into the darkness.
• • •
The port itself was not a pleasant place. It was farther east than the market itself and definitely in a nastier part of town than even she was accustomed to. It looked less dangerous when she found herself accompanied by someone who didn’t mind throwing the occasional fist to keep drunkards and fools at bay, but not by much.
She paused in the shadows with Acair and watched as Falaire was led toward a relatively large boat. Her uncle was nowhere to be seen.
“That boat there looks as if it intends to go out to sea, not up the way to Beinn òrain,” she ventured.
“I would agree with you, but I know who bought your horse. It’s heading upstream.” He nodded up the quay. “We’ll take that boat there that looks to be casting off soon.”
“I have no coin.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “We’ll have gold soon enough.”
She wasn’t sure how he intended to see to that given that she doubted anyone would be interested in playing cards that early in the morning—or late at night, depending upon one’s point of view—but Mistress Cailleach’s suggestion continued to sound in her head like an annoyingly loud supper gong.
Trust.
It looked like she wasn’t going to have much choice.
She walked with Acair through a press that consisted mostly of sailor types, though she supposed there were passengers enough among the lot. Passengers and loudmouthed rich men, as it happened, which she discovered were not necessarily the same thing. She watched a portly, angry man shouting at his serving lad and wondered what the poor boy had done to displease his lord so thoroughly. Acair seemed to be so distracted by the shouting that he lost his footing and tripped into the man.
“Oh, desperately sorry,” he said, straightening the man’s clothes and smiling. “Obviously the riff-raff haven’t been at their work of sweeping the streets, have they? Bloody lazy whelps.”
Léirsinn tried not to gape. Acair sounded as if he’d just exited some king’s audience chamber. Where he’d learned that posh accent, she couldn’t have said, but he was definitely using it to its full capacity.
The gentleman so bumped looked at Acair and his scowl lessened a bit. “This entire place smells strongly of fish,” he announced.
Acair smiled. “Doesn’t it though? I prefer the good, clean smell of Durialian dark ale myself, but that’s just me.”
The man gave Acair a suddenly friendly look. “I compliment you on your taste, good sir. I have a glass of dwarvish brew as often as possible, but I must say I would travel quite a pretty league for a robust apple beer from Gairn.”
And with that, they were off comparing drink until she thought she might like them to stop. She could hardly believe that the man she was watching charm and amuse a soon-smiling landholder was the same man who had been shoveling horse manure the day before, but obviously he had hidden talents.
She stood to the side and waited until Acair had apparently chatted himself out, listened to him express his sincerest regrets that nay, unfortunately he didn’t have time for even a brief mug of whatever could be found locally, then followed after him as he started off toward the other boat.
“And what did that accomplish?” she whispered, catching up and walking next to him.
He dangled a small leather bag in front of her. She felt her mouth fall open.
“You robbed him?”
“I offered him an unthought-of opportunity to do a good deed,” he corrected. “It is his, as they say, pocket money. That bloody satchel he has strapped over his ample middle is where the true cache of coin resides.”
“How do you know?”
He shot her a look. “I’m not sure you want to know that.”
“I believe you have a very checkered past.”
“And I believe you have a finely honed ability to sniff out a scoundrel at fifty paces. Sniff later in this case. We’ll have to hurry to make that boat.”
“You didn’t save the lad.”
He stopped and frowned. “What lad?”
“That man’s serving lad,” she said. “That lord will beat him to death when he finds his coin missing, you know.”
Acair studied her for a moment or two with a look she wasn’t sure she cared for.
“Did he,” he said very slowly, “ever lay a hand on you?”
“My uncle?” she said, her mouth rather dry. “Once or twice, before I learned to duck.”
“Then he will pay, once or twice,” Acair said calmly. He took a careful breath. “I’ll remember that, trust me. As for the lad, I’ll go see to him if you insist.”
“I insist.”
He shot her another look, shook his head, then turned and started back through the crowd. She propped herself up against a handy building and watched him until she couldn’t see him any longer. She felt suddenly quite cold, as if she were being watched. She wished for a cloak, or less lamplight, or someone to stand behind, but there was none of those to be had easily or quickly. She shook her head.
It was terrible how quickly one could accustom oneself to things one shouldn’t, like safety or protection or a man who made a very handy shield.
She had to admit she was rather glad to see Acair coming back her way. He caught her hand and continued walking, leaving her trotting to keep up with him.
“Well?”
He blew out his breath. “I saved enough for our passage and a meal, handed the lad the rest, and sent him on his way whilst his master was off relieving himself. Satisfied?”
She smiled. “Thoroughly.”
“The things I do for you, woman . . .”
“Good deeds are never wasted.”
“Ha,” he said. “That one counts at least for today, then.” He glanced at her. “I hesitate to think about what I’ll find myself doing tomorrow.”
She couldn’t answer, mostly because they were now facing what she supposed might be charitably called a boat and the reality of her situation was staring her in the face.
She was leaving the only home she could remember, she was leaving behind the one person she’d sworn to protect at any cost, and she was heading off into the dawn with a man who was currently paying for their passage with stolen coins.
What in the hell was she thinking?
Acair took her by the elbow and looked at her. “Walk on, gel,” he said quietly. “You know what lies behind.”
Unfortunately, she did. She nodded, then forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until her feet had carried her where she had never thought to go.
Trust.
It was more difficult than she’d suspected it would be.
Ten
There was truly no other place in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms so full of reprobates, layabouts, and villainous characters of all stripes.
And that was just the schools of wizardry.
Beinn òrain as a whole wasn’t any better. Acair walked up from the quayside through a maze of streets he wouldn’t have batted an eye at a fortnight ago but now found less to his taste than he might have otherwise. He was quickly coming to the realization that his fists were not as mighty as his spells. He should have insisted that Soilléir allow him to conjure up a sword before sending him off into the fray.
Swords were not his weapon of choice, of course, but he did know which end to hold one by and could generally do a bit of damage with one under the right circumstances. At the moment all he had to hand was a dagger he had pinched from a sobbing and profoundly annoying black mage he’d stepped all over several months earlier as he’d been taking a bit of a breather from all that apologizing. He’d left the lad the rest of his gear, which he had supposed at the time could be construed as a moment of charity. And what had it gotten him? A relatively dull dagger down the side of a boot that was definitely not his. Unsurprising.
He glanced at Léirsinn, but she was doing nothing past watching their surroundings with wide eyes. Then again, it wasn’t as if she’d said all that much on the journey north, a horrific, interminable amount of time spent upon a barge that only spared itself from being called a raft by the fact that it had two-foot-high sides all around. It had been powered by magic, but that magic had been so feeble, he’d been tempted to volunteer to take up a set of oars. As it was, he’d sat with Léirsinn at the back of that damned raft and counted the hours until the torment would end.
The only good thing to emerge from the journey had been knowing that they had arrived before Droch’s man, which meant they wouldn’t be encountering the master of Olc anytime soon. If there was one thing Acair was sure of, it was that Droch of Saothair never would have lowered himself to meet anyone at the dock.
That was just as well given that he didn’t particularly care for an encounter with him whilst he was in his current state. Any other time? Droch wouldn’t have elicited more than a yawn. But now, when he had no magic he could use and Droch had a very long list of insults to repay him for, aye, he would be happy to get in and out of Beinn òrain as quickly as possible.
He had every intention of doing just that. He needed to find Soilléir, inform the man curtly that the current situation was absolutely unacceptable, then demand that that bloody spell of death be sent speedily on its way to the nearest rubbish heap. It was one thing to be shuffled off to arguably the most tedious spot in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms and be required to labor with his hands, it was another thing entirely to be leaving bits of his soul behind whilst being stalked by lesser mages he couldn’t fight off with even the mildest display of annoyance.
He was finished with the ridiculous business he was embroiled in. Soilléir had best agree or he would be finished too. There was still a country full of Cothromaichian magic just ripe for the poaching and Acair had far more experience with how to fail at that sort of thing than he’d had a pair of years before. If there was anything he thought he could do better with practice, it was the acquisition of unlimited power.
But until that happy moment arrived, he would find a decent place to sleep, eat something that hopefully wasn’t infested with vermin, then present himself at Buidseachd’s gates at first light. He was finished.
He stopped at the first reasonable-looking place he could find—The Uneasy Dragon—and took a chamber under the first innocuous name that came to mind. He shepherded Léirsinn up the stairs to a decently clean if not sparsely furnished chamber that at least had no spots of shadows. It was full of the echoes of centuries of magic made within its confines, but he wasn’t unaccustomed to that sort of thing. It was safe enough for the moment.
“I can’t do this.”
He let the curtain drop—no sense in not having a look at the garden below to make certain there weren’t mages with evil intentions lurking there—and looked at his companion.
She was wringing her hands. He’d never seen anyone do it—well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d watched a few grown men wring their hands when faced with his mighty magic. He wanted to feel guilty about that, but—well, he likely should have felt terrible about the terror he had inflicted, but there was nothing to be done to change the past. Yet another thing to add to the list.
“You can’t do what?” he asked, dredging up as much patience as possible. He hadn’t eaten and he hadn’t slept. Both tended to make him short-tempered, but he supposed that was nothing he should apologize for.
Apologize? He shook his head. Truly he was beginning to feel like his underpinnings were eroding. What next? Voluntarily traipsing all over the Nine Kingdoms, looking for things to do to better the lives of those he encountered?
“This,” she said, waving her hand about. Her hand was trembling badly. “I can’t do this. I want to go home.”
He sat down on a chest near the window and looked at her. She was standing in the middle of the chamber with her arms wrapped around herself. He suspected she was as weary as he was, for she certainly hadn’t slept on the boat. She looked like a country miss who had just seen her first sight of a large city and hadn’t liked it one bit.
“Have you ever been away from Sàraichte?” he asked.
“Not since I arrived,” she said, then she turned and walked to the door.
He leapt up, reached it first, and put his hand on the wood. He had business to see to and no time to be chasing women who could apparently scarce bear the sight of their own village square, never mind anywhere more sophisticated. He paused and frowned. Of all the things he could call Beinn òrain, sophisticated was the very last.
Truly, he needed to be back to his accustomed way of living.
He looked at the woman standing not a pace away from him, shaking, and thought she looked like nothing more than a poor, terrified filly, being asked to do more than her heart could bear. Something welled up in him that left him profoundly uncomfortable. Pity, perhaps. A strong desire for even stronger drink, no doubt.
“Why don’t we have supper first?” he offered, latching onto the first rea
sonable thing that came to mind. “I find things always look better after a decent meal.”
She didn’t release the door latch. “Let me go. I’m going home.”
He tried another tack. “I won’t stop you if you truly want to go,” he said—and he could scarce believe he was being so conciliatory—“but I will remind you of what you left behind.”
“Everything that was familiar,” she said, glaring at him, “thanks to you.”
“Me?” he echoed in surprise. “Why me?”
She swore and turned away from the door. He watched her cross the chamber to stand in front of the fire and thought he might understand why none of his brothers had wed. Women were . . . well, he didn’t care to repeat what his father called them. His mother referred to the fairer sex as mysteries that only few men were clever enough to solve. That was his mother, though, and what she said about men was likely nothing useful to repeat at the moment, either. ’Twas a wonder he managed to converse with anyone at all with any success given his parental examples.
He leaned back against the door and watched Léirsinn of Sàraichte wring her hands a bit longer. As he watched her, it occurred to him what was wrong, something he hadn’t considered before.
She was truly afraid.
He felt something in him shift. To be honest, he didn’t like the place where that shifting had occurred—in the vicinity of his heart—and he knew exactly whom he would eventually repay for that, but there was no denying that something in him was moving about in an untoward way and affecting his good sense. For the worse, no doubt, but there you had it. He was being blown about by the winds of events he couldn’t control and now he was having feelings of . . . compassion? Sympathy?
Indigestion?
Hard on the heels of that unsettling development was the realization that he had never suspected the woman in front of him might be afraid of anything. She handled enormous, biting beasts without even pausing. She bit her tongue and took speech from her uncle he wouldn’t have listened to more than once without retaliating, all to save her grandfather who would likely never speak again.