She was tempted to sit down and surrender.
But since she never surrendered, she would do what she’d always done in the past. She took a deep breath and began to string her loom with what warped threads she had to hand.
She could only trust that she would find the wool for the weft, and that the proper pattern would emerge in good time.
She put her head down and walked on.
Six
Someone was daft and Ruith was beginning to suspect it was him.
He walked next to a woman who had decided not a half hour ago that she would move about more easily if she attempted to pass herself off as a lad. The lad who had previously been attempting to pass himself off as a man was now wearing a skirt and a hood pulled forward in order to hide as much of his face as possible and avoid unnecessary brawling. He, however, was wearing the same disguise he’d worn for years, which meant that his gear alone would leave anyone with questions thinking that perhaps those questions were better left unasked.
Somehow, it didn’t seem a very auspicious start to the present business.
He supposed some of his unease could be credited to weariness. The journey hadn’t been difficult physically, though he would freely admit that Sarah had traveled at a pace that had left him spending most of his time running after her.
Nay, it was that he’d spent the past three days thinking on his past in an effort to find answers for things that perplexed him, such as why he’d lived in happy obscurity for a score of years only to find himself assaulted on the same day by creatures from hell and a witch’s get from down the way.
Coincidence?
He suspected not.
He hadn’t found any answers, his forays into memories he would rather have left unexamined aside. By the time he’d reached Sarah—and been felled by her—he’d almost convinced himself that the two brutes he’d slain had been aberrations.
Unfortunately, that hope had been dashed quite handily by the troll looming over Sarah the night before and the one lurking behind Ned earlier that morning. That added to the fact that he hadn’t noticed Ned during any of his previous three days’ travel had left him more unsettled than he wanted to admit. Perhaps the boy had simply taken a different road, or benefited from Ruith’s weariness. Or perhaps he was simply adept at keeping himself undetected.
That seemed to be his only skill, though. That and blurting out whatever seemed to enter his wee head before any sort of guard he might have put on his tongue could convince him to do otherwise. At least he was fetching enough to pass for a gel, though slightly too tall.
Sarah, on the other hand, was far too lovely to be a lad and perfectly incapable of walking like anything but a wench. Ruith glanced at her, then closed his eyes briefly. No one would mistake her for anything but what she was because she carried herself like a gel. That and her hair—the color of cognac, he decided abruptly—kept escaping her braid, which she had managed somehow to wrap around her head and tuck under Ned’s hat.
He rubbed his hand over his face and wished for something very strong to drink.
Her hair was making him daft. Well, she, actually, was making him daft. He had to get away from her as quickly as possible before her relentless determination to lead them into a fray she hadn’t studied beforehand and her flyaway hair pushed him fully into madness.
He supposed it might be possible that he’d been a bit too long in the mountains.
He would have happily settled for that having been an excuse for being distracted by a woman he didn’t know and was fairly sure would frustrate him endlessly if he did know her, but he couldn’t. He had, over the years, frequented other places in other guises not entirely his own. The women he’d met were perhaps not from the lofty spheres his family would have chosen for him, but they hadn’t been without their own distinctions. He was who he was, after all, and even though his own royal life had ended abruptly many years ago, he hadn’t forgotten the protocols and traditions associated with that life.
In glittering salons and intimate dinners with very short guest lists he had moved without misstep. He’d played the mysterious nobleman at various palaces in various locales simply to ease his restlessness and escape his dreaming. Unfortunately, it had never accomplished what he’d hoped it would. His self-imposed vow of solitude had ruled him mercilessly and he had returned to his hot fire and rustic fare without undue protest.
But now duty had driven him from his refuge and he was surprised to find he actually regretted having to leave his mountain. He blamed that immediately on Daniel of Doìre’s idiocy. The sooner he caught the lad and beat sense into him, the happier he would be.
He studiously avoided thinking on what had truly driven him from his home, namely the more serious question of where Sarah of Doìre had come by that burn on her arm.
He had the feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer to that at all.
He came to himself to find he was no longer walking in the pale winter sunshine down a street that was teeming with too many souls for his taste; he was leaning against the wall of an inn, staring at nothing. He looked around only to realize he was standing with a woman, er, with Ned, rather, and Sarah was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
Nedwas looking inside the inn with an expression of slack-jawed astonishment. That had been his expression since they’d first seen Bruaih in the distance, though, so perhaps it implied nothing untoward. Ned lifted a hand and pointed with a quivering finger inside the inn—a rather seedy inn, on the whole. Ruith would have bedded down there without hesitation—indeed he had once and found the accommodations to be every bit as disgusting as he’d imagined they might be—but he was not alone and his mother had taught him to be a gentleman.
Ruith found Sarah talking to the innkeeper, no doubt trying to negotiate the best price for a flea-ridden scrap of floor. He strode over immediately and took her by the arm.
“Sorry,” he said briskly, flipping the innkeeper a piece of gold. “The lad is overtired and thought he recognized you.”
The innkeeper fingered the coin calculatingly. “I don’t know as he don’t seem a bit familiar to me—”
Ruith put another piece of gold on the bar and held it there under his finger. “He’s my nephew. I wouldn’t want my sister hearing tales that I allowed him to cause any trouble. You, friend, wouldn’t want to be the bearer of those tales.”
The other man’s glance rested for the briefest of moments on hilts of blades and the number of arrows Ruith carried on his back. He lifted one eyebrow in acknowledgment, then pocketed the second coin after Ruith released it. He returned to shouting at his serving lads.
Ruith pulled Sarah across the tavern and out into the sunshine. He started up the street with her, assuming Ned would follow.
“Will you just let go,” she said angrily, trying to pull her arm away from him.
“Nay.”
“Damn you, you’re hurting me.”
He realized that he had hold of her right elbow. He released her immediately, for he knew the wound she bore there. He stopped himself just in time from rubbing the same spot on his own arm. He stepped to the other side of her and caught her by the sleeve.
“What?” she said impatiently, turning to look at him.
He nodded back the way they’d come. “That one robs his guests whilst they sleep. And he has a ready tongue for spreading all manner of gossip. I thought it best he not have any idea who you were or what your plans are.”
“I would have discovered that eventually, I daresay,” she muttered. She chewed on her words for a moment or two, then spat them out quickly. “I’ve never been here before.”
“There was a first time for me as well and I left rather less well-heeled than when I’d come. And if you’d care for my opinion, I’ll tell you that the next handful of inns are a bit safer than the first, though not much. Unless you’re willing to sleep with a knife in your hand. Farther up the street is perhaps more what you’re looking for.?
??
She looked up the street warily. “I’ll see what I can find that suits my purse.”
He nodded, though he had no intention of allowing her to pay for him. He supposed there was little point in saying as much. It was, as she’d reminded him more than once that morning, her quest. He was more than happy to leave it in her hands, for doing so seemed to keep her from asking questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer, such as why he’d thrown her out of his house only to chase after her hours later. In the end, he supposed he would simply give her the answer he could most easily give himself, that he was merely there to help her look for her brother. With any luck at all, that would be the extent of it anyway.
He watched her lay siege to the street they were on, searching for a decent place to stay, all the while surreptitiously counting her coins. He was accustomed to prissy women who had all their needs catered to immediately by an army of servants, not lassies who wore sturdy and quite sensible boots and seemed terribly determined to do things without aid. Sarah reminded him a bit of his mother, which he wasn’t at all sure was a good thing, though she was a scrappier, fiercer, more intensely determined version of his mother—and his mother had been very intense.
He watched Sarah walk away from the fifth place she couldn’t afford before he could bear it no longer. He stopped her before she continued on doggedly up the street.
“Let us make a new bargain,” he suggested.
“I didn’t realize we had an old bargain,” she said grimly.
“I believe we did. You were going to allow me to trail along after you whilst you looked over several mages to see who might suit you best. And since you are about the heavier labor, I think you should allow me to see to the inns. That will leave you free to look for just the right lad to suit your purposes.”
“I cannot—”
“You could consider it my contribution to the cause.”
She looked suddenly quite impossibly tired. “My pride demands that I say nay.”
“But your good sense suggests that you put your pride to bed and then follow it there.”
She sighed. “I’ll repay you.”
“Of course,” he said, because he had the feeling she would fight him right there in the street if he said her nay. He’d been counting her coins right along with her and guessed just how many she didn’t have. Why she hadn’t been better prepared, he didn’t know. Perhaps her plans had somehow gone awry.
“I need a place for Castân,” she said quietly.
He nodded at the stables behind her. “I think they’ll take him there, given that he seems to prefer hay.”
Sarah glanced at that drooling mess, who had indeed found a stray pile of lastyear’s final cutting and was contentedly crunching on it. She considered for a moment or two in silence, then looked at Ruith.
“He’s not a dog.”
“I was beginning to suspect that.”
She looked up at him searchingly. “I don’t suppose you would change him back to what he was. For a certain price, of course.”
“Not here in the street,” he said, because it was easier than giving her reasons that would only lead her to ask other questions and dig again into her very light purse. He flipped Ned a coin. “Feed yourself and the dog inside, lad. Stay out of sight until we come back to fetch you.”
Ned nodded and clicked at what had no doubt been a decent chestnut gelding at some point in the past. They disappeared into the stable without fanfare. Ruith nodded up the way.
“The Silver Swan is a safe place,” he said. “We’ll stay there.”
“I’ll agree to it only because I’m not in the habit of arguing with my elders,” she muttered. “This time.”
He could only imagine the conversations they would have when she realized he was not exactly who he’d been pretending to be. He put that thought aside for use as a distraction later and walked to the inn with her.
He found the innkeeper and negotiated for a quiet room in the back on the upper floor where there was a modicum of safety. He followed the man to it, saw that a fire had already been lit in the hearth, then lifted the curtain slightly and looked out the window. There was a garden below, covered partly by a small roof jutting out from the floor beneath him. Useful enough if a hasty leave-taking was required. He handed the man the full price for a single night and a pair of meals, then escorted him out the door.
He shut it, then took off the majority of his weapons and propped them up in a corner. Knives down his boots would be enough for the morning. He looked at Sarah.
“You’ll be safe enough here, I daresay,” he said, walking over to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out for a walk,” he said. He put his hand on the latch, then paused. “Lock the door after the maid comes, and please sleep. I’ll take the key and return when I’ve had a look around.”
She stood by the fire, wrapped in his spare cloak, her face grey with weariness. “I don’t understand why you won’t just cast a spell, or waggle your fingers, or some other such rot to find him. This seems like a great deal of fuss for something that could be solved so simply with magic—though I can’t believe I’m suggesting it.” She shook her head slowly. “I must be losing my wits.”
“You aren‘t,” he said simply. “As for the other, there are times when ’tis best to go about your business without leaving a trail of magic behind for others to follow.” He opened the door. “I’ll return.”
She only watched him, silently.
He left the chamber, shut the door behind him, then found another doorway to linger in and wait. He supposed his life would have been much easier if he’d allowed himself even a simple spell of un-noticing, but since he couldn’t, he’d become very adept at blending into crowds and standing in shadows.
He remained very still as a maid with a pair of serving lads arrived with enough food to feed half a dozen souls. They were let in, then all three left without incident. Ruith waited until he heard the lock turn before he took himself downstairs and through the great room. He left the inn, then turned to his left and walked quickly along the street, mingling with townspeople hurrying about their own business.
Bruaih wasn’t a large place, but it was enormous when compared to Doìre. Ruith had been there many times over the years and found it to be nothing more than what it purported to be: a bustling hamlet of not a single honorable soul. Only in Shettlestoune, or so the villagers said with pride, never mind that Bruaih wasn’t technically part of Shettlestoune county. Close enough for a sloppy spell, or so the saying went. Geography aside, the town lived up to its self-proclaimed reputation. Ruith expected to be lied to, cheated, and robbed if at all possible every time he set foot in the place. There was, he had to admit, a certain clarity of purpose that came with that manner of doing business.
He suspected Daniel of Doìre wouldn’t fare very well trying to cheat cheaters, which might turn out to be very useful indeed.
He spent the morning walking through the market with his hand on his purse, nosing about the odd shop selling potions and sundry that the mage up the way wouldn’t have lowered himself to produce, and sitting in a darkened corner in the seediest pub in town where he could eavesdrop in peace. All of it produced nothing more interesting than reports of Master Oban being even more stingy and high-handed than usual, which he’d already suspected, and a raging headache, which he’d acquired from listening to off-key musicians attempting to play whilst still laboring under the influence of things imbibed the night before.
He walked back to the Silver Swan by a fairly circuitous route simply from habit, then went upstairs and hoped for the pleasure of even a cold luncheon. He was weary, his head pained him, and he imagined that the search for Daniel’s trail could be taken up again later in the afternoon without undue trauma having been inflicted upon the world. For the moment, sleep was what he needed, sleep that followed something decent to eat.
He knocked on the door instead of simply walking inside the chamber b
ecause his mother had somehow managed to instill a few manners in him, then let himself in when there was no answer.
Sarah was asleep on the floor in front of the hearth. He was somehow unsurprised to find her there instead of on the very comfortable-looking bed. No doubt she had left that for him since he had paid for the chamber. He was tempted to use it, but that might have left him sleeping more deeply than he wanted to.
He started to remove his cloak, then hesitated. He supposed he couldn’t spend the next few days with Sarah—assuming that was how long it took to find her brother—never showing his face. He didn’t consider himself particularly vain, but there was no denying that his particular ancestry was difficult to hide.
Then again, given how enormous Sarah’s eyes had been as they’d walked into Bruaih, perhaps she had less experience with the world outside Doìre than she cared to admit. She might look at him and find him not only nothing out of the ordinary but actually quite repulsive.
At present, he wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
He tossed his cloak over the foot of the bed, yawned hugely, then went to sit in a chair in front of the fire. He ate without tasting any of it, then helped himself to a mug of ale that couldn’t compare on its best day to Master Franciscus’s poorest attempt. It was almost cold, however, and useful in washing down his meal, so he didn’t complain. Then he set his mug aside and paused. He had fully intended to close his eyes and have a bit of rest himself, but instead he leaned his head against the back of his chair and simply watched Sarah of Doire as she slept.
She was, as he had noted before, remarkably pretty, even with the dark smudges under her eyes and her fingers still slightly green from whatever she had likely been dyeing before her mother’s house collapsed under the weight of Daniel’s poorly wrought spell. He wondered what her life had been like, all those years with a brother dabbling in things he shouldn’t have been and a mother whose reputation for crotchetiness rivaled even his own. Perhaps she had found solace in weaving her own spells into whatever cloth she had made.