“You do realize,” Dallag said, idly stirring tea in a glass pitcher, “that we can make arrangements for the Guildmistress to come and fetch you.”
Aisling found herself horribly tempted to unravel Dallag’s gown, then wrap her up in it, accompanied by a spell that would make her itch for the rest of her natural life. The impulse was so strong, she had to take a physical step backward from the seductiveness of the thought.
“I suppose you might try,” Aisling said, “but I don’t think you’ll succeed.”
“Oh, your elvish lad in there could be overcome easily enough.”
Aisling didn’t bother with a response, though she had to wonder briefly how Dallag could possibly be that stupid. Perhaps she had no means of sensing any magic at all.
“As you say,” Aisling said with a shrug. “As for the other, why would you?”
“Send you back?” Dallag spat, whirling on her. “So you wouldn’t be here of course, you stupid girl.”
“And you think I have any intention of remaining here?” Aisling asked, finding it not as difficult as she thought to toss off a disbelieving laugh. “Surely not.”
“Then why are you here?” Dallag demanded. “To remind me of those first horrible years when I was forced to look at you each and every day and know that you’d been foisted off on me as a babe I was required to care for against my will?”
Aisling leaned back against the door because it seemed a handy way to rest her feet a bit. She’d suspected, of course, that her mother had never loved her. She knew it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that her mother had never even been her mother. At the very least that made the events of her youth seem much less terrible and quite a bit more logical.
Logical, but brutal nonetheless.
She folded her arms over her chest because it was less tempting that way to use magic she wasn’t sure she could either call upon or control. “Was it so terrible then? To care for a helpless babe who wasn’t yours?”
“Every moment of every day until I was able to rid myself of you,” Dallag said coldly. “You with your spooky eyes and mindless stare.”
“Your compassion astounds me,” Aisling said flatly.
“Why would I have affection for a child who wasn’t mine?”
Aisling said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She simply stood there and watched as Dallag slapped spoons onto the tray, looking as if she’d suddenly been vindicated in an opinion she hadn’t been all that sure of to that point. Explaining to the woman that she understood her actions because it was obvious she was a person with no heart would likely be a waste of breath.
She caught sight of a movement near the kitchen entry and realized that Rùnach had come to stand in the doorway. Dallag’s back was to him, which Aisling supposed might bode ill for the woman’s desire to make a good impression on him. She didn’t dare look at him, though, lest she give him away. At least he might keep her from becoming scalded.
“Is he my father?” Aisling asked. “Your husband?”
“Of course not!”
Aisling frowned over that. She supposed that shouldn’t have come as a surprise either. Obviously neither of the two masquerading as her parents had ever wanted her, unwitting burden that she’d been. “Then why did you take me in?”
“Because I had no choice. But trust me, I have a choice now. I will have word sent to Beul and then you will indeed find yourself where I need never look at you again.”
“I don’t think you’ll manage it. My birthday was two days ago.”
“Of course it wasn’t; it was a fortnight ago—” She closed her mouth abruptly. “I mean—”
“Exactly that,” Rùnach said coolly. “Thank you.”
Dallag whirled around and saw him, then lifted her chin. “It doesn’t matter, of course. She has a contract left to fulfill at the Guild. Surely her honor demands she return.”
“I would say her contract had already been fulfilled,” Rùnach said mildly, “and several years ago, at that. I suggest you rethink your opinion on the matter.”
Aisling watched Dallag consider and wondered what she thought she could possibly do to turn the situation to her favor.
“Are you threatening me?” the woman asked in a low, rather dangerous tone of voice.
“I don’t think I was the one doing the threatening, do you?” Rùnach asked. “You vowed to sell my lady and I merely expressed doubt that you would manage it.”
“And you’ll stop me?” she scoffed. “With what magic?”
Rùnach shrugged. “I imagine we don’t want to examine the possibilities too closely. Perhaps instead you would be interested in seeing if a better bargain might be in the offing.”
Aisling watched Dallag go very still for a moment before an expression of calculation appeared on her face.
“And what sort of bargain might you be speaking of?” she asked softly.
“Dallag,” another voice said sharply. “We’re finished with bargains.”
Aisling realized the lord of the manor had appeared, as it were, perhaps to make certain things didn’t get out of hand. Rùnach merely shifted to one side to allow the other man to step inside the kitchen and join the group.
“Be silent, you fool,” Dallag said sharply. “Perhaps there is gold to be made here.”
Riochdair leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, but he said nothing. Aisling supposed that told her everything she needed to know about how willing he’d been to fight for her in her youth.
“I’ll give you something of value to display,” Rùnach said, “something that will be visible only to those who are willing to pay for the privilege.”
“And what sort of thing might this be?” Dallag asked. “It had best be valuable or your lady will indeed find herself sitting at a loom come morning.”
“An elvish rune,” Rùnach said. “Plastered over your front doorway.”
Aisling watched Dallag consider.
“And exactly what would you know of elvish runes?”
“More than you, I’ll warrant.” Rùnach pushed away from the doorway and started across the kitchen. He paused next to Dallag and looked down at her. “Elvish runes are curious things,” he said. “Some come accompanied with curses. I could tell you why I have such a thing with me—a rune, not a curse—but then if you spoke of my identity, that rune would do you injuries you would never recover from. Death would be a mercy.”
“I’ll have word sent to the Guildmistress,” Dallag said angrily. “This afternoon.”
“And lose the chance for something capable of making you a true fortune? I imagine you’ll do no such thing.”
“And who are you—”
Riochdair took his wife by the arm and pulled her out of the kitchen. Aisling listened to the curses fade, then looked at Rùnach.
“That was entertaining.”
He smiled briefly. “Let’s have what we came for, then be on our way. Perhaps a stay at a nice inn would be reward enough for our time here.”
“I’m not sure there are any nice inns left in Bruadair,” she said with a sigh. She shook her head. “I hope it’s worth saving.”
“I didn’t say you had to save everywhere,” Rùnach said, walking over to take her face in his hands and kiss the end of her nose. “We’ll leave this bit as a wreck.”
“You are a terrible man.”
“But you love me.”
She put her arms around his neck. “Desperately. Even if you are engaged to Annastashia of—”
He only laughed. “I am not, which you well know. We also won’t invite her to the wedding, not that she’ll notice. She’ll be too busy checking potential husbands off her list to pay the slight any heed.”
“Does she have a list?”
“She was holding it in the hand she didn’t try to flatten me with at supper the other night.”
Aisling nodded, grateful for the distraction. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment of peace, enclosed as she was in the emb
race of someone who actually did love her. The respite was brief, but perhaps she could hope for nothing more at the moment. The heavy tread of someone coming back down the passageway was enough to send a thrill of fear through her, though she knew it was only her foster father. She pulled away from Rùnach and smiled wearily.
“Thank you.”
“A quick question or two, then we’ll be on our way,” he said quietly. He reached for her hand and held it securely in his own. “We won’t linger.”
She nodded, grateful for a man who loved her enough to keep her safe, then turned to wait for the man who hadn’t possessed the courage to do the same.
Eight
Rùnach sat on a worn stone bench with a bit of late spring sunlight falling weakly down on him and wrestled with the impulse to unhide his magic and use a bit of it on Dallag of Malcte. The woman who had sold Aisling into slavery deserved a brief display of unpleasant spellworking, just enough to make her rethink her greed. He wished her discomfort to be very visible for Aisling’s sake, but perhaps that was a little too dark even for his current state of mind.
Aisling seemed slightly less opposed to the man who had masqueraded as her father all those years than she was to the woman who had pretended a similar role. Rùnach rose briefly and put his cloak around Aisling’s shoulders as she sat on a different bench, watching the man who had been an accomplice to her incarceration in the Guild pace in front of her. He wished for magic to create a cloak for Aisling so luxurious that the man would have winced, but perhaps there was no point. He didn’t dare and he supposed neither Aisling nor Riochdair would have noticed. She did glance at him briefly, smile even more briefly, then turn back to watching her erstwhile foster sire. What she was thinking, Rùnach couldn’t have said. He imagined they weren’t pleasant thoughts.
He resumed his seat without fanfare and glanced around himself for the dozenth time. He saw nothing, heard no shrieking from inside the house, felt no shiver telling him an enemy was approaching from behind. None of Aisling’s supposed siblings were hiding in the bushes behind them that he could tell. He had dispatched the youngest of Riochdair’s brood after a lengthy battle, then promised the boy details about the sword later if he would go inside and do all his chores. The lad, apparently David by name, had hurried back into the house without argument. No one else had come to offer a challenge, though Riochdair had glanced his way enough times to leave Rùnach wondering if he were considering the same.
In time, Rùnach decided that he himself was far less interesting than finely folded dwarvish steel. He’d wondered more than once if the sword said clearly to a Bruadairian exactly who had made it, but he wasn’t about to ask Riochdair. The man looked as if he might soon have an attack as it was. No sense in pushing him on to a faint prematurely.
Riochdair made a small circle near the bench where Aisling was sitting, then turned to face her. He took a deep breath. “I’m not your father.”
Rùnach pursed his lips, finding himself thoroughly unsurprised. A quick glance at Aisling said she was as well.
“So I gathered,” she said. “Who are you, then?”
Rùnach supposed he would have to take her aside at some point that day and tell her how damned proud he was of her, if that would even matter. He rested his elbows on his knees and studied her, wondering when it was she had changed from an unsure, innocent miss to what she was at the moment.
Regal.
Even Weger might have cracked a smile at the sight.
She was sitting on a bench that was even more worn if possible than the one that struggled to hold his own weight, but she might as well have been sitting on a throne. Her back was straight, her eyes up, her hands folded demurely in her lap. That same weak sunlight that fell on him fell on her as well, but it seemed to like her better. It gathered itself around her, as if it wrapped her in a warm embrace and was pleased to be able to do so.
Riochdair looked over his shoulder, then took the added step of looking around the garden. Rùnach could have reassured him that they were quite alone—Aisling’s sisters who were apparently no longer her sisters were at the window in the upper story of the house with their noses pressed against the glass, and Dallag was standing at a window in the kitchen, glaring, but that was the extent of the eavesdropping.
Riochdair looked at Aisling, then paused. “Would you prefer to sit next to your, ah, next to . . . er . . .”
“I believe I would,” she said.
Rùnach was happy to welcome her over to his side of the garden. It was perhaps better because the bench was more fully in the sun. Well, that and the fact that the sun seemed to be willing to include him in its embracing of Aisling. He put his hand on her back and smiled at her. “Thank you.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For coming to sit with me.”
Aisling nudged him with her shoulder, then looked at Riochdair. “We’re ready.”
Riochdair glanced about himself one more time, then took a seat on the bench opposite them. He sighed and leaned forward a bit with his elbows on his knees. “As you have surmised, I am not your father. I am, however, your cousin.”
Rùnach felt Aisling stiffen next to him. He couldn’t blame her for it. He met her gaze and saw a dreadful hope there. If this was her cousin, then perhaps he would know her family.
“Your father brought you to us when you were a babe,” Riochdair said. He looked at Aisling, no doubt to judge if she intended to say anything to that.
She simply watched him silently.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you the details surrounding that decision on his part,” he continued, “though that is simply because I don’t know them. In fact, I can’t even say that I knew him very well; he’s a bit of a hermit. All I know is that your mother had died and he was unable to care for you. He begged me to claim you as my own and never tell anyone anything else.” He rubbed his hands together as if they bothered him somehow. “I have kept my word, not even telling Dallag my connection to you.”
“And yet you broke your word and sent me to the Guild,” Aisling said flatly.
“I couldn’t keep you here any longer,” he said, looking pained. “Not with my wife. She is . . .” He paused, then shook his head. “I couldn’t keep you here any longer.”
Rùnach watched Aisling out of the corner of his eye. She looked unsurprised, which he understood. He was even less surprised by her next question.
“Who is my father?”
“His name is Bristeadh,” Riochdair said slowly. “I can suggest places to search for him, but I honestly have no idea if he’s still alive or not.”
Rùnach wasn’t about to ask Aisling if she could sense the man’s dreams. There were some things he supposed she just wouldn’t be prepared to do. She looked at her cousin for several moments in silence.
“Nothing else?” she asked.
He looked at her helplessly. “As I said, they keep to themselves, those folk. I am very distantly removed, I will admit, but I believe I was his only choice.” He paused, then looked slightly pained again. “Perhaps his last choice.”
Rùnach watched Aisling consider the man. She watched him for so long in silence, Rùnach wondered if she would ever speak again. Riochdair, to his credit, only sat there on his bench and waited for her to perhaps come to terms with what he’d told her. Aisling finally took a breath.
“Was there no other place for you to send me, then?”
Riochdair looked for the first time slightly unsettled. “I considered many things once I knew I could not safely keep you here,” he said, “but . . . well—” He broke off and shook his head. “You’ll think I’m mad if I tell you the truth, I imagine.”
“I’ve become accustomed to all sorts of things over the past few weeks,” Aisling said seriously. “If you give me the truth, I’ll believe it.”
Riochdair took a deep breath. “I was warned not to send you anywhere but the Guild in Beul.”
Aisling looked at him in shock. “Warned? How?”
He looked profoundly uncomfortable. He cleared his throat several times before he seemingly mustered up the strength to say what he needed to. “In a dream,” he said finally.
Aisling blinked as if she hadn’t heard him. She bowed her head for a moment or two, which Rùnach wasn’t sure was a good thing or not. He still had his hand on her back and could tell she was still breathing, which he supposed was better than the alternative. He realized after a moment or two that her shoulders were shaking. He leaned over to look at her face only to realize that she wasn’t weeping.
She was laughing.
It wasn’t laughter tinged with hysteria, so Rùnach thought perhaps that was progress. She shook her head finally and put her hands over her face briefly. Rùnach exchanged a look with Riochdair.
“Dreams can be interesting,” he offered.
The man looked as if he found them less interesting than terrifying. He cleared his throat. “I normally would have dismissed such a thing, but the dream was so vivid. It’s still in my mind so strongly, it’s as if I just awoke from it.” He paused. “I couldn’t ignore it.”
“Of course not,” Rùnach agreed quietly. “Of course not.”
Riochdair seemed to regain some of his color, perhaps the result of having gotten such a secret off his chest. “I would be happy to lodge you both tonight—”
“No.”
Rùnach couldn’t blame Aisling for that. He had absolutely no desire to spend more time than absolutely necessary under Riochdair’s roof and it had everything to do fearing he might find himself poisoned at luncheon.
Riochdair nodded, as if he also understood. “Very well. How can I aid you, then, beyond simply answering questions you deserved answers for?”
“I need to find my father,” she said quietly. “If you can help us with that, that will be enough.”
Riochdair nodded. “As I said, he’s a bit of a hermit, but I’ll make a list of places you might try. I don’t know if you have a map—”