“Food, then archery?”
She nodded. He offered her his arm, then walked with her to the buttery. He could only hope the only thing magical he was able to see there was the results of whatever Nicholas’s cook had had on the fire.
He was, he reminded himself, looking merely for an ordinary life. A useful garrison. Good ale in the evenings. Work to do that he could actually do. It would be, he reminded himself further, a welcome change from all the years he’d spent living in a moldering old castle surrounded by all kinds of wild, student-created magic he hadn’t been able to see.
“Dragons,” Aisling murmured, shaking her head. “I think there is quite a bit in here about dragons.”
Rùnach imagined there was.
She looked at him. “Do you think there will be tales of elves as well?”
He nodded. He imagined there would be. He could only hope that would be the only place she would find them for the foreseeable future.
He wasn’t quite sure what she would do when she found out he was not exactly what he’d told her he was.
Sixteen
Aisling stretched the great bow, sighted the bull’s-eye on the target, then released the arrow as she’d been taught.
Her arrow split Rùnach’s right down the center.
She looked at him and lifted one of her eyebrows. “Ha,” she said.
“I taught you that,” he pointed out.
“And I’m the one who learned it.”
He laughed a little. “And you’ve learned a great deal in a very short amount of time. Shall I fetch our arrows and we have another go?”
She started to say aye, then found that she couldn’t ignore the obvious, which was that she had been at Lismòr too long. She thought it might have been nine days, but she wasn’t entirely sure. It was perhaps double that if she were to count the days she’d simply slept after Rùnach had carried her there.
She found Rùnach was watching her seriously, which she found slightly alarming.
“What?” she asked.
He didn’t move. “I have been thinking that perhaps we should consider our plans. I’m not sure we would want to stay here forever.”
She had to disagree with him there. She had relished every moment of every day she had spent at Lismòr because she had, for the first time in her life, felt that her life was almost her own. She had trained with the bow in the mornings, walked along the shore in the afternoons, then joined Nicholas’s lads for rousing tales in the evening. Just last night, he had told one about an obscure girl who found a sword and a king to wed whilst looking for other things entirely. It had contained less magic than the tale the night before, so she had approved, though she had been somewhat unsurprised to listen to a dragon make an appearance.
She paused. She too had seen a dragon, so she supposed she couldn’t condemn Lord Nicholas for telling tales about them.
She had also enjoyed decadently hot fires and the best meals she had ever eaten in the whole of her life. If that had been everything, that would have been enough to leave her looking back on her days at Lismòr with wonder, but there had been more in the person of Rùnach of somewhere in the mountains he would not name. She looked up at him and wondered how it was that only a handful of days could leave her feeling so at ease with him.
And leave her with so many questions about him.
He seemed perfectly comfortable with the lord of Lismòr, as if he were accustomed to chatting easily with men of power and significance, though he had seemed equally as comfortable with the rabble in Gobhann. And it didn’t seem to trouble him to spend his mornings with her, teaching her how to use a weapon she had never touched before in her life.
“Who are you?” she asked suddenly.
He blinked, then smiled faintly. “No one of consequence.”
She waved an arrow at him. “I like a good mystery as well, just so you know.”
“I think I should be afraid.”
She pursed her lips. “You don’t seem to be afraid of anything.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid of quite a few things.”
“Prying questions?”
He laughed a little. “Aye, those to be sure.” He started to speak, then shook his head. “The other things aren’t worth speaking of.” He slung his bow over his shoulder. “Where shall we go now?”
“Right now?”
“Nay, when we leave Lismòr.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Are you asking me?”
“I am asking you.”
She looked at him quickly, just to see if he was preparing to burst into gales of laughter for having put her on, but he was only watching her steadily. And gravely.
“Ah, I was originally feeling a fair bit of haste,” she began slowly. “For particular reasons I’m not at liberty to divulge.”
“And now?”
She hardly knew where to begin. She had walked inside Gobhann’s gates, sure that the only path to freedom lay through an agreement forged with Scrymgeour Weger. But now she had seen that people lived, ate, passed the time in their glorious libraries full of books, all without answering to anyone or fearing a curse that hung endlessly over their heads should they simply step across an arbitrary line in the dirt.
It made her wonder about those who had held sway over her over the years, if they knew any better or were simply parroting lines they had learned themselves. The Guildmistress had warned her to never touch spinning wheels, but had that been a lie or simply something the woman had believed for so long that she had never thought to question it? And the things she’d been told at the pub by Euan and Quinn and the rest of their mates, rumors of the fierceness of the curse attached to the borders, could those have been simply things repeated until they had passed into legend?
She could hardly bear to think that her entire life had been covered and hedged about and smothered by lies told to…what? Keep her where she was? Keep her from asking questions? Keep her from thinking for herself?
And then there was the peddler who had sent her on a quest, thrown her into a world she had no idea how to manage, forced her halfway across the world—
Well out of the way of the reach of anyone from Bruadair, as it happened.
She looked up at the sky, feeling a faint mist full of the smell of the sea fall upon her skin. It was, she had to admit, glorious, so glorious that she wasn’t sure what she would do without feeling it again.
“There is the sea touching other places, you know.”
She looked at Rùnach. “Is there?”
“Aye,” he said with a small smile. “There is coastline along all Neroche’s eastern edge, actually. Shall I draw you a map?”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen one.” Though she had to admit now that she wasn’t at all sure that that map had been accurate. Nothing else had been. She looked at Rùnach. “Perhaps you should, but perhaps not now.” She paused. “Should we take our leave—well, I should take my leave.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I’m not sure what your plans are.”
She looked at him in time to see him draw his hand over his brow and rub the spot over his eye where Weger had attempted to brand him like a prized milch cow—and failed.
“I was thinking,” he began slowly, “that perhaps I would make a journey to Chagailt.” He looked at her and for a change his green eyes were rather pale. “There is, as you know, a rather lovely library there.”
“Have you ever been there?” she asked.
“Chagailt?” he echoed. “It is the summer palace of the kings of Neroche, which makes it a rather exclusive locale. Scholars and seekers of truth are, however, allowed into the library without hesitation.” He rested his bow against his shoulder, the other end of it resting on the ground. “You might find answers there.”
She realized he hadn’t answered her question, but she suspected he had done that on purpose. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know why. “Am I looking for answers?”
“I don?
??t know,” he said. “Are you?”
“I’m not sure what I’m looking for any longer.”
“I thought you were looking for a swordsman,” he said slowly, “but perhaps that has changed.”
The only thing that had changed was her intense desire to go back to that very comfortable bed Lord Nicholas had provided her and pull the covers over her head. She looked up at the sky again, wishing that she could, just for a few days, live for herself. Nothing hanging over her head, not the fate of Bruadair in her helpless hands nor the finding of a mercenary capable of instigating a palace coup left to her meager devices. She sighed deeply, then looked at Rùnach.
“Have you ever known there was something you needed to do, but found yourself dreading it with everything you were?”
“Once or twice,” he said.
“What did you do?”
He looked at her steadily. “I did what needed to be done.”
“Was the price steep?”
“Very.”
She clutched her own bow, wishing her task was nothing more than learning to place an arrow where she wanted it to land. “Did you ever want to run?” she whispered.
He smiled, but it was a pained smile. “I’m not sure I want to answer that.”
“Do you think Heroes ever want to run?”
“Only if they come from Neroche.”
She blinked, then smiled. “They seem to send a preponderance of lads trotting off into the gloom, don’t they?”
“I believe there must be something in the water there,” he said dryly. He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, then froze when he seemed to realize what he’d done. He carefully pulled his hand away and lowered it to his side, as if he thought she wouldn’t notice if he were slow enough. He nodded to his right. “There is a bench over there, lady. Perhaps you would care to sit and take your ease after your morning of heavy labor.”
She wasn’t going to argue with that. She allowed him to take her bow and quiver of arrows from her, then walked with him and sat down on that very comfortable bench.
He set their gear aside, then looked at her. “Will you tell me what your quest is, Aisling?”
“I told you,” she said. “I must find a swordsman to save my…village.”
“Is that all?”
She clutched the edge of the seat of that lovely wooden bench, took several deep, steadying breaths, then looked at him. “I am to send this mercenary to a predetermined meeting place before a certain amount of time has passed.”
He nodded, as if he weren’t surprised by it.
“This presents a bit of a problem,” she continued slowly, “given that whilst I had a bag full of gold at one time, I have that no longer. I could perhaps hire out as a weaver and earn more, but I fear it would take me a great deal of time to earn enough.”
“Do you enjoy weaving?”
“I’d rather stick hot pins in my eyes,” she said, before she thought better of it. She looked at him quickly. “I mean—”
“Just that, I imagine,” he said with a faint smile. “And I can’t say that I blame you, given your circumstances.” He considered for a moment or two, then looked at her. “And if you don’t find this lad within this certain amount of time?”
She wanted to tell him. Indeed, if she could have blurted it all out right there in Nicholas’s lists, she would have. But all she could do was look at him, mute.
“Something dire happens?” he suggested.
She supposed a nod wouldn’t fell her where she sat, so she nodded. Just once.
“Then I believe I have a thought.”
“Is it a useful one?” she managed.
“It isn’t one about how many questions I want to pepper you with and how many answers I intend to pry out of you whilst you’re otherwise occupied,” he said with a smile, “which makes it a useful one, I suppose.”
“My answers aren’t very interesting ones.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, half under his breath, then he smiled. “Let us do this. Let’s make our way to Chagailt, then take our ease briefly in the library there. We might find a few of the answers we’re both seeking.”
“Are you seeking answers?”
He smiled. “I have a question or two that I could happily find an answer to.”
“Another mystery?”
“The same one.”
“What one is that?”
He smiled, then rose and started toward the target. “Can’t say,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Can’t, or won’t?” she called after him.
“Take your pick.”
Impossible man. She watched him collect their arrows, then examine the one of his that she’d destroyed. He shook his head, then walked back and collected her as well.
“Lunch,” he said, sounding thrilled by the prospect.
“Thank you,” she said, as she walked with him off the field.
“For what?”
“For coming with me.”
“It is my pleasure.
She looked up at him as they reached the buttery. “Why are you?”
“Do you mind if I do?”
She shook her head.
“Then it’s settled.”
It was only as she had finished her lunch that she realized he hadn’t answered her question, nor did it appear he intended to. Worse still, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to. Perhaps he was coming with her out of pity, or boredom, or a secret nefarious desire to rush into Bruadair himself and overthrow the government to install himself as king.
Though of any of the thoughts she’d had over the past month, that was easily the most ridiculous.
She stood on the edge of Lismòr’s beautiful inner courtyard, waiting for Rùnach to come back from the library where he’d gone to fetch her a book or two he thought she might like, when she realized she wasn’t standing where she was, she was standing at a crossroads. She almost looked over her shoulder to see if someone might be standing behind her, breathing lightly, waiting for her to realize the gift she’d been given.
Freedom.
And a man willing to help her discover how to keep it.
She looked up into the flat, grey sky and wondered if there were such things as curses, and quests, and…
And dragons.
She felt something sink into her soul, something that felt quite a bit like courage. She put her hand on the pillar she was standing next to, found it solid beneath her touch, and began to wonder things that she supposed might be the death of her, but she couldn’t help but wonder them just the same.
What if the peddler had lied to her?
What if her entire life had just been one lie after another?
What if she were free?
She blinked when she realized Rùnach had come to stand in front of her. She looked at him seriously.
“Are things as they seem to be?”
He blinked in surprise, then smiled. “You keep asking that question.”
She only waited, because she wasn’t sure she dared begin to think about her reply.
He chewed on his words for a moment or two, seemingly looking for just the right ones. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “I suppose that depends on what you think things seem to be.”
She supposed the only way to find that out was to find out everything she could about Bruadair. She had begun a halfhearted search the day before, but she could see now that it would take more than just halfhearted searching to discover what she needed to.
Because until she knew the truth, she would spend her days living in fear of the cold hand of doom falling upon her.
She looked up at him. “I’m not sure of anything right now.”
“Then you should find answers.”
“Are there answers to be found, do you think?”
He smiled, handed his book off to a page who happened to be trotting by, then offered her his arm. “I think a walk along the shore might provide us with a few. If not, there is always the libra
ry at Chagailt. It is, you know, a convenient stop between here and Tor Neroche.”
She wondered what was worse, being under a curse, or not having words to thank a terribly handsome, chivalrous, mysterious man for his kindness.
All she could do was take his arm.
They left at sunset. Aisling had thoroughly enjoyed her final walk along the shore, though the air had chilled her more than she’d thought it would. She had spent most of her time feeling the ocean against her hands, though she hadn’t touched it.
Not since she’d sent it spinning, of course.
Nicholas walked with them out the front gates she hadn’t remembered coming in. He was having a conversation with Rùnach that she hadn’t been paying attention to but supposed she had better lest something come as an unexpected and unpleasant surprise.
“Perhaps,” Nicholas was saying, “but there is something to be said for traveling under the cover of darkness.”
Aisling looked at Rùnach to find him looking at the lord of Lismòr with a very grave expression.
“I think we’ve been fairly anonymous so far,” he began slowly.
“Save for your time in Gobhann.”
Rùnach sighed. “Other than that, who would know? Who would care?”
Aisling felt a chill go down her spine. “Who would care about what?” she asked. She could hardly voice the thought that occurred to her suddenly, but she had to. “Is someone looking for…someone in particular?” Like me, she wanted to add, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words, because they were so ridiculous. No one knew her; no one could possibly care about her.
Which meant that Nicholas was concerned about Rùnach.
Nicholas smiled easily. “I’m overly cautious, my dear, about my guests and their travels. I’m sure you and Rùnach will be just fine. He is a very skilled swordsman, which will serve you well. And you have your bow, don’t you? I daresay you’ll manage between the two of you.”
She nodded, though the thought of someone pursuing Rùnach was one that suddenly filled her with dread. She looked at him searchingly, but found he looked anything but worried.