Acair squawked as his mount dipped his head in something of a bow, went rolling arse over teakettle over the damned horse’s neck, then landed with Léirsinn in an untidy heap in front of a lad who looked far too young to be wearing that hint of a massive crown atop his head.
Acair attempted to untangle himself from his companion, but he found himself too distracted to do more than push himself up far enough to sit, wrap his arms around Léirsinn, and watch as Mochriadhemiach of Neroche did what he did best. Acair had never faced him over spells, but he’d heard tales. He had to admit what he was seeing did the lad credit.
The spells that guarded Neroche kept out some of the rabble, but half a dozen very disreputable sorts had somehow managed to slip through the gates, as it were, and had taken up temporary residence fifty paces away. Acair watched in a good deal of surprise as Sianach turned himself into a barrier covered with a rather substantial spell of protection and set himself in front of them in an advantageous fashion.
Well, if that was how things were going to be, there was no point in not enjoying the rest of the entertainment.
Miach of Neroche was young, true, but the lad was nothing if not inventive and he obviously had a collection of spells that Acair realized he should have taken note of much sooner. Perhaps they could discuss that list over tea at their earliest opportunity.
He kept a running tally of the magics Miach used—one never knew when that sort of thing might come in handy when a spot of extortion was called for—but had to admit that the earliness of his hour of departure from Aherin was beginning to take its toll. He yawned, patted his mouth discreetly, then finally rested his chin on Léirsinn’s shoulder. He suspected he might have closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, but he thought it wise not to admit to anything.
Léirsinn elbowed him at one point. “You’re snoring.”
“I never snore,” he said, suspecting that might not be as true as he would have liked. He rubbed his eyes with the back of one of his wrists, then assessed the field of battle.
There was a pair of black mages still putting up a bit of resistance, but they soon gave in and departed with howls of outrage. He imagined they were rather glad to have preserved their anonymity in light of their ignominious defeat. All that was left was to collect the spoils.
Acair shifted a bit to look at Léirsinn, who was gaping at the man who had just, literally, saved their collective arses. She twisted around to look at Acair.
“Who is that?” she wheezed.
Acair heaved himself to his feet, helped her to hers, then made the other man a decent bow. No sense in not getting things off to a good start. He dusted off his best courtly manners and gestured where appropriate.
“Léirsinn of Sàraichte may I present you to Mochriadhemiach, king of Neroche. Your Majesty, Léirsinn of Sàraichte.”
“Who don’t you know?” Léirsinn whispered in surprise.
He supposed the present time was not the best one to be making that sort of list, so he gave her a look that promised details later, then turned his mind to keeping them alive, which he suspected would require a great deal of flattering the king. There were, as it happened, several things he thought little Miach of Neroche could perhaps toss onto a rubbish heap of past misdeeds too unimportant to remember the author of clearly.
He suppressed the urge to take a step to his right and use his companion as a shield, took instead a deep breath, and put on his most conciliatory smile.
“I believe,” he said with as much contrition as he could manage, “that I might have some apologizing to do.”
The words rolled off his tongue with an ease that he knew should have shaken him to his foundations, but there you had it. His life was no longer his own, his code likely corrupted past redemption, and his willingness to save his sweet neck leading him down paths he never would have trodden if he’d been in full command of his power.
He sighed. The things he did . . .
Nineteen
Léirsinn wondered if she were having a particularly long string of encounters with handsome men or if it was just that everyone in Sàraichte was ugly.
She had considered the possible truth of that for the whole of the way north, simply because she’d needed a distraction. The journey had been made very quickly on the back of Sianach, who had changed his shape into something she had been just too tired to try to identify. He was fast, she would give him that, and he seemed to have an unwholesome fascination with trying to surprise Acair, which she couldn’t blame him for. She had heard Acair blurt out more curses in the past few hours than she had over the entire course of their acquaintance. She supposed he wasn’t particularly happy about any of it, but what could he do? He had a horse with a sense of humor who was apparently enjoying himself thoroughly at his new master’s expense.
She had to admit she was currently enjoying the fact that she was off any sort of winged beast and standing in the shadows of an enormous castle that looked as if it might offer not only a decent meal, but a safe place to sleep. She didn’t care if she slept in the stables, indeed, she thought she might prefer it. All she knew was she didn’t want to ever, ever look back over her shoulder and see a storm of that sort hard on her heels. It had been painfully obvious that it wasn’t a storm of the normal sort, it had been a conglomeration of evil.
She had almost died of fright.
“Mistress Léirsinn, perhaps you would care to sit.”
She looked at the king of Neroche and noted that he didn’t look any older than she was. How he had come by such mighty magic she didn’t know, but he certainly had it. She wished she could have said he was waving his arms and spewing out words in languages she didn’t understand just to make a spectacle of himself, but unfortunately, she had to admit she knew better.
At least she had stopped trembling when thinking about magic, never mind trying to deny it existed. She had seen more of it than she cared to, but she suspected that was going to be her lot in life for at least the foreseeable future. She looked at her horse and Acair’s grazing happily together fifty paces away. Shapechanging horses. Who would have thought it?
So many things she hadn’t expected when she’d gotten on that little boat and floated up the river to Beinn òrain.
She took the king’s proffered hand and didn’t protest when he saw her seated on a log. She lifted an eyebrow at Acair when he blustered that he could have done that, then propped her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists and settled in to watch what promised to be a goodly amount of entertainment.
She turned to the first player: the king of Neroche. He was, as she’d noted before, surely not old enough to be wearing a crown. Actually, he looked as if he spent most of his time in a barn or tromping about a farmer’s field. He was undeniably handsome, very well-fashioned, and looked to be the comfortable kind of lad she could have discussed tack with.
As far as his magic went, there had been no sparks coming from his mouth or streaks of white lightning coming from his fingertips, things she would have expected based on the faery tales she’d so loved in her youth. She had, however and in no particular order, seen him light a fire with a word, listened to some fairly dire things spilling out of his mouth back on the plains, and watched him earlier turn himself into a swirling wind that had then sped off toward the place where they now were, leaving them to catch up with him.
Hard to deny any of those things.
She looked at Acair next. She’d been looking at him for quite some time, actually, partly because he was very easy on the eye and partly because she simply couldn’t reconcile who she saw with what others said he was. He was as tall as the king of Neroche, easily, and equally well-fashioned. She couldn’t say that one of them looked more jaded or world-weary than the other. She could tell, however, that there was something going on between the two of them that she had definitely missed during the past moment or two.
Too much traveling on a horse made of wind, perhaps. It was hard on a woman’s wits.
“Don’t hold her keeping company with me against her,” Acair was saying seriously. “I didn’t give her any choice.”
The king studied him for a moment or two in silence. “Kidnapping lassies now, my lord Acair? In truth?”
“With all due respect,” Léirsinn said, which she honestly had trouble mustering up much of given that the man standing to her right had mud on his boots and looked as if he’d just spent the morning mucking out stalls, “he is telling only part of the truth, no doubt to protect me.”
“Well, that’s new.”
“I don’t harm women,” Acair said huffily.
“You make up for it with the men.”
“And you don’t?” Acair said sharply. “And whilst we’re on the subject, what the bloody hell did I ever do to you? Well,” he amended, “to you personally, rather. I may have done several nasty things to your father.”
The king of Neroche shrugged. “Call it sympathy for the rest of the world.”
“The rest of the world is faring well enough without your concern. Besides, I’ve turned over a new leaf. All those lesser mages and weak-kneed monarchs who have nightmares about my appearing at their hearthfires can now sleep in peace.”
“When you present yourself at Uachdaran of Léige’s front gates and apologize to him,” the king said with a faint smile, “then I’ll believe you’ve changed.”
“That will be when hell freezes over,” Acair said crisply.
“I wouldn’t wait that long if I were you. Uachdaran grows more impossible by the year.” He looked at Acair again, smiled, then came to sit down next to Léirsinn. “That was a very lovely introduction my lord Acair managed, but let’s do this differently.” He held out his hand. “I’m Miach.”
She shook his hand, finding it was callused in a reassuring way. “Léirsinn.”
“Your friend there said you were from Sàraichte.”
“Unfortunately.”
Miach smiled. “I’ve been there, so I’m afraid I have to agree. The visits were mercifully short, which I’m guessing wasn’t the case for you.”
“Nay, I tended my uncle’s stables for almost a score of years.”
“My sympathies, truly,” he said. “I’ll see if I can’t provide you with a bit more comfort and better food than is to be found there. If you don’t mind, though, I would like to pepper that one over there with a few questions before I decide if I dare let him in my gates to enjoy those comforts with us.”
Léirsinn couldn’t do anything more than shrug helplessly. The king of Neroche had saved their lives, but perhaps he had some sort of axe to grind with the man standing across the fire from them. She wasn’t opposed to jumping in to rescue Acair if necessary, but she supposed he could take care of himself.
“I cannot use my magic,” Acair said grimly, “which ought to be a comfort to you.”
“I know,” Miach said, looking up at him with clear eyes, “but that doesn’t satisfy my curiosity. And you know what a valuable trait that is in a mage.”
Acair rolled his eyes and sighed gustily. “Very well. Satisfy away, but please do it quickly. Léirsinn is exhausted and I’m starving. I’ll grovel however it pleases His Majesty if he will just let me inside the guardhouse where I might gamble my boots for something edible.”
“Oh, I will at least feed you,” Miach said, “but I do wonder about a thing or two. Any thoughts on who those lads were who were following you, or why? Something foul you stirred up?”
“A few black magelings,” Acair said dismissively. “Troublesome, but not powerful enough for concern.”
Miach leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Which is why you were flinging yourself along as something slightly more substantial than a petrified thought.”
“Haste can be considered a virtue,” Acair said, “especially when viewed in a particular light.”
“Aye, when that light illuminates the possibility of a painful, lingering death.”
“Exactly.”
Léirsinn watched them as they discussed the difficulties of traveling without magic and the generally unpleasant nature of black mages, and wondered how she had gotten herself caught up in such madness. Miach of Neroche, king though he might have been, looked like an average, though extremely handsome, sort of bloke who might have frequented the local pub after a hard day’s work in the field. Acair, while equally handsome, looked as if he’d just stepped from a fancy lord’s hall and was waiting outside the front door for his carriage to arrive and take him home to his equally luxurious abode. They were actually quite different, if one were to look at them in that light.
But even so, she could sense something in the both of them that said quite clearly that they had seen things she might want to avoid having to look at. Miach, while looking terribly at his ease, was obviously not relaxed, and Acair, while looking less at his ease, was obviously trying very hard to not make an ass of himself.
“How long have you been forced to endure him?”
She realized Miach was asking her that question and dragged her attention away from Acair, who was standing on the other side of the fire with his arms folded over his chest. “Ah, a fortnight,” she said, “but perhaps more. It seems much longer.”
“And how has he been? Rude? Dismissive?”
“Quite charming, actually.”
Miach glanced at Acair, raised his eyebrows briefly, then turned back to her. “He has done some terrible things, you know,” he said seriously.
“Haven’t we all?”
Miach smiled faintly. “Acair’s level of terrible is quite a bit worse than the usual bit of misbehaving.”
Acair glared at him. “And that is useful, how?”
“I just thought it needed to be said before I let you through the gates. I believe I’m the least of your worries once you find yourself with them locked behind you. Don’t want you to be surprised by your lack of welcome. I’m not sure Morgan is terribly fond of you.”
“She can name the slight and I’ll apologize for it.”
“Will you mean it, I wonder?”
Acair looked at him evenly. “It is difficult for a man to change when everyone around him continues to throw his past in his face.”
“Do you want to change that past, I wonder?”
“Ye gads, nay,” Acair said without hesitation. “I’m simply pointing out that ’tis difficult to change one’s future when one is continually reminded of one’s failings. If I ever wanted to change, which I do not, I would find this unwholesome habit from so many to be quite off-putting.”
Miach looked at Léirsinn. “How have you managed to come this far with him? I think I would have smothered him in his sleep long before now.”
“Willpower and a very strong stomach.”
Miach laughed. “I daresay.” He turned to Acair. “I suppose you will behave if I let you inside, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t think to do otherwise.”
Miach’s look of skepticism was hard to miss. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we? At the very least, I think we should see your lady inside the walls. You and I can then speak privately. “
“You may speak freely in front of her,” Acair said, sitting down wearily on a stump across from them. “Ehrne gave her an exhaustive list of my adventures.”
“Ehrne?” Miach repeated. “When did you see him?”
“We landed on the wrong side of his border and please don’t force me to give you the details now. Let’s just say that Léirsinn has heard more than she needed to and anything she didn’t already hear is exactly the sort of thing you don’t need to tell her.”
Miach stared at him for several long minutes in silence, then looked at Léirsinn. “Has he been unkind to you?”
“Nay,” s
he said, surprised at the question. “The epitome of chivalry. Well,” she amended, “what he claims he can manage of it. I’ve little experience with it, so I’m taking his word that he’s not very good at it. I haven’t had any complaints about his behavior, though. He has bought me several meals, rescued me from what would surely have been my murder, and taken me to visit Hearn of Angesand. Heady stuff, that.”
“But,” Miach began slowly, “you realize he’s toppled thrones, left realms in disarray, stolen priceless treasures, and generally wreaked havoc simply because he could, don’t you?”
“Not recently, I don’t think.”
“That’s because he doesn’t have any magic he can use.”
“I don’t,” Acair said crisply, “which is, again, why we have come to your humble abode to find the man who can change all that. If we could leave off with the chit-chat, I’ll be about that, then we’ll be on our way.”
“Rùnach isn’t here,” Miach said mildly.
“I’m talking about Soilléir!”
“I knew that.” Miach winked at Léirsinn. “I’m annoying him because I can. I’m the youngest, you know, so it comes quite naturally to me. Don’t know why Acair doesn’t feel a bond with me over that.”
“You didn’t have my brothers,” Acair said darkly.
“You didn’t spend your youth with Adhémar,” Miach said dryly.
Acair paused, then nodded. “You’re right. You had it worse. Now, to the material point, which is where is that damned Soilléir? I want to talk to him and the sooner the better.”
“He’s not here.”
Léirsinn supposed that if he hadn’t had a decent amount of balance, Acair would have simply fallen backward off the stump he was sitting on. He gaped at Miach, his mouth working for several moments with no sound issuing forth, as if he simply couldn’t latch onto any useful thing to say.