A Tapestry of Spells (21 page)

Connail smiled. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I am a lowly swordsman,” Ruith said in measured tones. “Such things are far beyond my ken.”

“We must all be satisfied with our limitations, I suppose,” Connail said.

“Indeed, we must,” Ruith agreed.

Connail looked at Ruith for another long moment, then tripped and caught himself heavily on his leg before he fell. He said nothing thereafter, but simply concentrated on keeping up with them.

Sarah remained next to Ruith, walking silently until they reached where the others had camped to wait for them. She wondered about Connail and why he seemed determined to vex Ruith. She would have warned him that he was harassing the wrong man, but she supposed he would discover that soon enough on his own.

The others in their company made a fuss of Connail, which seemed to please him greatly. She accepted a cup of ale from Master Franciscus, then watched Ruith do the same. He seemed uninterested in the goings-on, but she could see he was watching Connail closely enough.

“He’s what I expected him to be,” she remarked idly.

“Hmmm.”

She considered a bit more, then leaned back against the wagon. “He seemed surprised to see you.”

“He mistook me for someone else.”

Sarah added that mystery to her list of things she would press him on when he wasn’t paying attention—if that day ever came. He was too canny for his own good. It must have come from so many years pretending to be what he was not.

“Where to now?” she asked.

He sighed. “Your brother has been going from city to city, which has made following him easy, only because there is but one road out of Shettlestoune. Gilean lies yet ahead, but after that we must either turn left toward Angesand and Neroche, or right, toward the mountains. Caernevon is there, to the north, and it is a major city, but I’m not sure it would be a place your brother would go.”

“Why not?”

“The mage there comes from a long line of wizards wearing six rings of mastery on their hands. Even his guardsmen there are full of serious magic. Daniel would find it difficult indeed to gain entrance into the wizard’s hall and if he managed that, he wouldn’t get any farther.” He shook his head. “These lads your brother has visited so far are children in power by comparison.”

“Even Connail?”

He looked at the man holding court near the fire, then drained his cup and set it inside Franciscus’s wagon. “Aye, even him.” He nodded toward the fire. “You sleep. I need to pace.”

“Perhaps I should set his fingers.”

“Or you could wait until tomorrow when I might actually have the presence of mind to enjoy the noise.”

She smiled briefly. “Why did we bring him?”

“I have no idea,” he said grimly. “I’ll go have a walk and see if I can’t divine the answer to that. It may take me all night.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward the fire. “Go sleep. You need it.”

She wanted to tell him he was the one who looked as if he should sleep, but he had already released her and melted into the shadows. She drank again of Master Franciscus’s finest, then walked back over to the fire. She had meant to tell Ruith about the velvet swatch in her boot, but she supposed another day of secrets wouldn’t matter. He looked as though he had enough on his mind already.

She walked over to the company, ignored Connail’s piercing look, and stretched out in front of the fire. She stared at it, watching the shape of the flame and the echoes of the wood’s memories weaving in and out of it as it burned, then closed her eyes because she was simply too tired to look any more at things that were more than they should have been.

Sleep, however, did not come easily.

R
uith stood in the shadows with his arms folded over his chest and came to two conclusions.

First, Connail of Iomadh was going to die very soon on the end of a very sharp blade if he didn’t learn on which side of the fire to place his sorry arse.

And second, Sarah of Doire had no magic.

The first he put away to chew on at a more opportune moment. The second was far more intriguing, so he turned to examine it more closely.

He wondered why he hadn’t seen it before. He supposed he could have blamed weariness. He hadn’t slept well—or much, actually—in almost a fortnight. It had spared him foul dreams, but little else. In truth, that was too convenient an excuse for not having realized earlier what one of her secrets might be. He hadn’t seen what was in plain sight because he had either been staring at Sarah like a slack-jawed sixteen-year-old-and given that he had a perfect view of one of those on a daily basis in Ned, he knew of what he spoke—or doing his damndest to ignore her, her bloody flyaway hair, her pale eyes that took in more than what she should have been able to see, and her hands that continued to weave every damn thing but spells.

He paused. He was beginning to think he swore too much. His mother wouldn’t have approved.

But she would have approved of Sarah.

Sarah, who had never once in his presence made any magic at all. Sarah, who was now starting the fire by hand whilst making a production of weaving a spell over it with such a convincing manner that Seirceil had closed his eyes as if to better listen to her lovely voice and Oban was voicing his approval with silently woven spells that set flowers and butterflies dancing about her head.

Connail was likely too busy flattering her to notice anything, Franciscus was working on preparing a pot to put over the fire, and Ned was tending the animals. That left only him to stand there and wonder if she would notice if he set fire to her wood with a bit of his own magic.

Before he could think that through fully, much less act upon the idea, her spark caught; then she concentrated on blowing it into a flame that she then fed surreptitiously whilst turning the full force of her very pale green eyes on Connail, who seemed every bit as affected by her as might have been expected.

Ruith leaned back against Franciscus’s wagon, suppressing the urge to beg the man for a hefty tankard of ale in which to drown his thoughts, and allowed himself a brief moment of repose and speculation.

How was it that Sarah had lived her entire life as a witchwoman’s daughter without having inherited any of her mother’s magic? Had her mother known?

Did Daniel know?

He imagined that it had been an unspoken secret. The question was, why? What reason would her mother, a woman notorious for her foul temper, have had for not berating her daughter for her lack of magic? Unless she had, but Sarah had certainly never given any indication of that. Not that she would have said anything about it, he supposed, even if he’d asked. After all, why would she? It wasn’t as if he’d been forthcoming with any of his secrets.

But he wondered about hers, just the same.

And speaking of secrets, Ruith couldn’t stop himself from looking at Connail of Iomadh, who had his fair share of them. He was currently making a great production of warming his hands at the fire. He had been, for the past half hour since they’d made camp, entertaining himself by regaling anyone who would listen with tales of mighty magic wrought and arrogant mages humiliated. By him, of course. Ruith pursed his lips. Connail was just like his father, whom Ruith knew not only by reputation but by an unpleasant encounter or two.

Peirigleach of Ainneamh and some tavern wench had produced Connail three hundred years ago, or so the tale went. Ruith wasn’t at all surprised that Connail had styled himself a great lord in a relatively small city far enough from his home so that he wasn’t bothered by nosy relations, but large enough where he could be genuflected to whenever he passed. It would have suited his ego perfectly and perhaps been the start of repayment for the slights he no doubt endured from his father’s family whenever chance encounters occurred. Connail had made no mention of having found Ruith’s face familiar, though he’d certainly looked closely enough in Iomadh. That could have been for any number of reasons, though—

“Shall I spin a tale for you all?” Connail asked brightly. “Something so horrifying as to defy belief?”

Oban and Seirceil seemed amenable enough. Sarah was too busy feeding her fire and looking as if she would have rather been anywhere but where she was to offer comment. Ruith caught her eye and gave her a faint smile. She lifted an eyebrow, then started to crawl to her feet.

“Oh, nay,” Connail said, catching her by the arm quickly. “You’ll want to stay for this.”

Sarah looked torn, likely between a desire to be polite and an equally strong one to pull the knife from her belt and use it on the fool sitting next to her. Ruith almost smiled, for he could plainly see the thoughts flit across her face. She sat back down, apparently with great reluctance, and nodded warily.

Connail obviously needed no encouragement to begin. “I had lived many years in Iomadh,” he said, settling in comfortably and sending Ned off to refill his mug of ale, “enjoying the luxuries I had provided for myself, taking on the occasional apprentice and teaching him just enough for him to be useful. But not too much, lest he prove ... troublesome. But you understand that, don’t you, Master Oban?”

Strands of werelight sparkled and swirled around the camp, coming to join themselves to the fire. Ruith shook his head slowly. Oban agreed, apparently.

“Of course, there is a danger in setting oneself up as a powerful mage in a large city,” Connail continued, “for one then draws attentions to himself that he might rather avoid. I, however, had wasted little time worrying about it, for I knew I was equal to the task of protecting myself. Besides, I had a small garrison of mages at my disposal, should I have fallen ill, or been weak from making too spectacular a piece of magic. Unfortunately, the beginning of my tale comes not in my comfortable abode, but as I was out traveling about the countryside where I found myself in a rustic tavern in Gilean—which happened to be the only place within miles where one might have a decent cup of ale. Nothing to compare to yours of course, Master Franciscus.”

Ruith watched Franciscus lifted his mug slightly in acknowledgment of the compliment, though he said no word.

“I don’t admit weakness often,” Connail said, “but I will concede that on that particular night, whilst I was well into my cups, I might have made mention of my magic. And being in Gilean, I thought it might be instructive for the inhabitants if I offered my thoughts on a certain wizardess who happened to live in the area. She had, you see, caused me to lose a position at a certain prince’s palace because she said my magic was too dark and unpleasant.”

Ruith wasn’t unused to exercising an austere sort of control over himself. It had served him well in the past. It served him well at present, for it took every smidgen of it to keep himself from displaying any reaction to those words. The only wizardess he knew living near Gilean was Eulasaid of Camanaë.

His grandmother, as it happened.

“So you disparaged a wizardess,” Franciscus said, moving to set his stew to boil over the fire. “Not very chivalrous, are you?”

Connail smiled, but it was not a warm smile. “I have learned to hold my tongue since then, thanks to a lesson on the subject from a most unlikely source.”

“Oy, but by who?” Ned asked, his eyes very wide.

“I’ll get there in good time, young one,” Connail said. “For now, I’ll say only that I dragged myself back home and gave no more thought to the evening than I might have an unremarkable meal. It was over and forgotten before I lay my pounding head on my luxurious silken pillow. It never occurred to me that on another night such as the first, a dark and stormy night where the wind howled and the rain lashed the windows, that I might find myself regretting my words.”

“Did you, indeed?” Sarah asked, not looking up as she continued to feed her fire.

“I did, indeed,” Connail said smoothly. “Thank you for asking. And to answer the unasked question of what possibly could have befallen a powerful mage such as I, let me tell you. There I was, sitting in front of my fire a scant month after my outing, enjoying a fine, rare wine imported from Penrhyn and listening to the wind howling outside, when who should have simply appeared in front of me but a man. He was unannounced, unescorted, and obviously uninvited, but before I could open my mouth to chastise him for his poor manners, he bound me so I couldn’t speak.”

There was complete silence save for the crackle and hiss of the fire. Ruith was rather more grateful than he should have been for a very solid wagon to lean against.

“Of course, I wasn’t unwilling to use the sword hanging over my mantel,” Connail continued, “but I found that in addition to rendering me mute, the whoreson had rendered me immobile as well. I could only watch in stunned silence as the man pulled his hood back and revealed himself to be the youngest son of that particular wizardess I had spoken of in the tavern. I knew the man not only by sight but by reputation, and there is no shame in admitting that I knew at that moment I had made a terrible mistake. I was fully prepared to apologize—profusely, if necessary.”