Dreamspinner (14 page)

Losh was looking at her as if she’d lost her wits. “You ain’t serious.”

“The Heroes of legend are real, of course,” she conceded, “but those other mythical creatures?” She shook her head. “Fanciful imaginings.”

“’Tis the fever, isn’t it?”

“I don’t have a fever.”

“Then someone has led you astray,” he said seriously. He paused, looked around him as if he stood to impart very secret and important knowledge and wanted no one else to overhear him, then leaned closer to her. “There are elves, and then there are elves. Most mere mortals don’t get close enough to tell the difference.”

“Then how would mere mortals possibly know what they look like?”

“Because there
have
been those who’ve gotten close and they’ve done the rest of us a goodly service by reporting what they’ve seen.”

“How convenient.”

He pursed his lips, then continued on. “
Most
elves have pointy ears. Well, the elves of Ainneamh have pointy ears. The ones from An Céin don’t, neither do the ones from Tòrr Dòrainn.” He paused again and frowned. “At least I
think
the ones from Ainneamh do. I
wouldn’t know, never having seen one myself, but I’ve heard they look like something that has stepped out of a dream, all glittering and terrifying.” He looked at her seriously. “They look right through you as if you wasn’t there. That’s odd, isn’t it?”

“Weger does that,” Aisling said, “and I’m fairly sure he’s not an elf.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” He looked at Weger, then shook his head. “Since I came here, I’m not sure about anything. Not even elves.”

She could safely say she wasn’t sure about anything either. She had been convinced she was going to die the night before, yet she’d woken that morning, still breathing. Though perhaps that wasn’t going to last as long as she had hoped. Her stomach made a terrible noise that had not only Losh but half a dozen others looking her way. She put her hand over her mouth, but that didn’t stop the feeling of her supper beginning to crawl up the back of her throat.

Only this time the feeling was more violent than it had been the night before. Perhaps she’d been granted one more day, as a grace and a warning. She pushed herself to her feet and managed to remain there, however unsteadily.

“Where’re you off to?” Losh asked in astonishment.

“Must talk to Weger,” she said thickly.

He tried to stop her; she would give him credit for that. She shoved him away from her, a little surprised she was able to manage it, then stumbled across the floor to the hearth. Rùnach looked up as she came, then jumped to his feet. Perhaps she looked determined. Perhaps he feared she would puke down the back of his tunic. She didn’t care. She clutched the arm he held out toward her and vowed to weave him something made of any color but grey at her earliest opportunity, then put herself in front of Weger. She cleared her throat.

He ignored her.

She took a deep breath and spewed out words whilst she still could.

“I must speak to you, my lord.”

He looked up at her. “Must you, indeed?”

She nodded.

Weger considered her for several heartbeats in silence—though she had no silence inside her head. She could hear her heart beating as if it were a great river rushing in her ears.

He finally looked at the handful of men gathered there and nodded sharply toward the door. “Privacy.”

The men grumbled as they rose. Several of them shot Aisling looks that said they were heartily unhappy she had ruined their pleasant evening.

Weger waited until they’d gone, then looked at her. “Talk.”

Aisling looked nervously at Rùnach, then back at Weger. “In private, my lord.”

“Your master there won’t care what your wee concerns are, little lad, so spew them out, but be quick. I have a hot fire and a bit of dessert waiting for me in my chamber. You’re standing between me and it, and that place is perilous.”

“I need a soldier,” she blurted out. She supposed that could have been done better, but perhaps simply stating her needs was the best way to go about it all.

Weger yawned. “For what?”

She glanced at Rùnach, but he was only watching her without expression on his half-ruined face. She took a careful breath, then looked back to Weger.

“For business that I have been foresworn not to reveal.”

“Important doings, eh?”

“Very, my lord.”

“And just what sort of gold do you have for the hiring of a soldier?”

She felt a little faint. “I had a goodly amount, but it was stolen from me in Istaur. The rest of my goods were taken in Sgioba.”

“Not all that handy in protecting yourself, are you?”

“I never had the need,” she said. Her voice sounded tinny to her own ears. Not only that, an annoying buzzing had started in her ears. That and the flutterings in her midsection were starting to become quite alarming.

“
Lad
, you had best realize that the need has arisen.” He folded his arms over his chest. “What do you have to trade?”

She wished she’d had the peddler’s gold. She wished she’d had a bright sword with a gem-encrusted hilt. She wished she had had anything to trade but perhaps something Weger wouldn’t even be interested in. But since it was all she had, it would have to do.

She turned her back to Weger and pulled the book from under her tunic. She looked down at it in her hands, though she would be the first to admit she was having a hard time seeing it. There was a very large
O
carved into the cover, and that cover was splattered with a few stains she had always hoped hadn’t been blood. It was obviously something Ochadius had treasured, so perhaps Weger would find some value in it as well.

She took a deep breath, turned, and then handed it to him.

He took it with a frown, opened the cover, then froze. The book dropped from his fingers suddenly, but he made no move to retrieve it. It was Rùnach who reached over, picked it up, and handed it back to him.

“Where,” Weger asked in a garbled tone, “did you get that?”

“I bought it,” she said.

“And what is it you’re thinking of doing with it?” he asked, looking at her sharply. “Selling it back to me at a premium?”

“That hadn’t occurred to me,” Aisling said, wondering why it hadn’t. She looked at him hesitantly. “Would you—”

“What, buy back my own damned words stolen from me by some…some…some—” He spluttered for a moment or two, then slammed the book down on the table by his elbow. He rose and glared at Rùnach. “Get this creature out of my sight before I kill it.”

Aisling blinked. “But I need your help—”

He snarled a curse at her, then turned and shoved a chair out of his way before he strode furiously across the hall and slammed out the door.

“And now off we go to bed,” Rùnach said, rising and retrieving the book. He tucked it under his arm, then took her by the elbow and pulled her along with him. “I think a sturdy door between you
and the lord of Gobhann would be a very sensible thing to have at the moment.”

“But I need—”

“You need to be behind a closed door,” Rùnach said firmly. “Let’s find that, shall we?”

She found that she was perspiring suddenly. “I think I might be ill.”

“I imagine Weger feels the same way.”

“I’m in earnest.” She clapped her hand over her mouth and looked at him in horror.

He cursed, then looked for Losh. “Garderobe,” he said crisply.

She arrived at one only because Losh knew where it was and Rùnach managed to carry her there before she lost her supper. And when there was nothing left inside her wanting freedom, all she could do was lie on the stone of the passageway and wonder if each breath might be her last.

Which was becoming slightly tedious, as it happened.

“Hold that book, lad, and follow me. Let’s get this one to bed, shall we?”

She didn’t protest when Rùnach picked her up and carried her out into the courtyard, down the stairs, and along the passageway to their chamber. She closed her eyes and was extremely grateful for even a hard, uncomfortable wooden bed beneath her back.

She heard Rùnach thank Losh for his aid, then send him off to bed. A stool scraped across the floor. She turned her head to find Rùnach sitting on that stool, lighting a fresh candle. He held her book in his hands and looked at her.

“Best spill your guts, lad.”

She couldn’t see his ears for his hair, but he didn’t look like an elf. He was handsome, true, in a way that was almost difficult to look at, but as for having stepped from a dream…well, obviously Losh had listened to too many fireside tales and begun to take them seriously. Elves were creatures of myth, as were dwarves, trolls, ogres, and dragons. Everyone knew that. Even she who had grown to womanhood cloistered in a weaving guild knew that.

“Aisling?”

She looked at him, poor normal-eared man that he was. “I have no tale to tell.”

He shot her a look of profound disbelief. “I think you might be the first person in the history of Gobhann to leave the lord of the keep stomping off in a snit. There has to be some tale behind that feat.”

“’Twas the book,” she said, gesturing weakly to what he was holding.

“May I?”

She would have nodded, but her head was spinning too violently to even attempt it. She simply waved him on, then closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch him flip the pages.

“Where did you get this, Aisling?” came his voice from rather far away.

“A peddler.”

“Why do you need a soldier?”

She couldn’t tell him, partly because she couldn’t fight her weariness and partly because if she gave him details, she would die. Though if she didn’t find her way back to Weger, she would die just the same.

“I’ll tell you about it in a bit,” she lied.

“I’m sure you will.”

“Wake…me,” she whispered. “Before midnight.”

She felt something be put over her, a blanket perhaps. She opened her eyes a few minutes later and saw Rùnach reading her book. He rubbed his fingers over his mouth, then apparently surrendered to the impulse to smile. She couldn’t decide what he found so amusing about that hapless Ochadius of Riamh’s troubles, but apparently he found something.

“Midnight,” she managed.

He looked at her and smiled faintly. “Of course.”

She closed her eyes and surrendered to a weariness that went far beyond anything she’d ever felt before.

She hoped it wouldn’t be the last thing she felt.

R
ùnach watched Aisling until she fell asleep, which didn’t take all that long. He had no idea what ailed her, not being much of a physick himself. She had no fever, no stuffiness in her head that he could hear, nothing that led him to believe that something had invaded her form. Though given where they were and the appalling conditions to be found there, he supposed she could have been felled by any number of things out of her experience.

He looked at the book in his hands and had to shake his head. Ochadius of Riamh? No wonder Weger had been slightly startled, Ochadius being one of his cousins however many times removed as was polite. Rùnach stared thoughtfully into the darkness. It would take a bit of thinking about that genealogy to place Ochadius, but he had the feeling he was among the younger of Lothar’s progeny. That Ochadius had escaped Riamh was unusual. Most who were either guests in the hall or stumbled across the borders didn’t find their way out again. That he had gotten himself inside Weger’s gates was even more unusual.

That he had stayed long enough to memorize all Weger’s strictures was astonishing.

Rùnach would have given much to have had a wee peep at Ochadius’s brow to see if he sported any kind of mark there.

He thumbed through the pages carefully, memorizing as he went. Though it was tempting to speculate on how Ochadius had come by Weger’s strictures, the more interesting questions were why he’d lost them and how Aisling had come to have them in her possession.

Or if she understood what she had.

A sound at the door startled him. He reached out and caught his sword before the hilt of it slid along the wall and clunked him on the head. He looked up to find Weger standing in the doorway.

“She is well,” Rùnach said, “if you were curious.”

“I wasn’t,” Weger growled. “I’m here for a look at that damned book!”

Rùnach waved him in, waited for Weger to perch on the side of Aisling’s bed, then handed Gobhann’s lord Aisling’s treasure.

“I don’t think you’ll be surprised by its contents. Our good Ochadius was very thorough.”

“Damn him to hell,” Weger grumbled. “Never should have let him in the front gates. Still, I would prefer to make certain he’s written all my strictures down properly.” He shot Rùnach a look. “Don’t suppose you’ve had time to memorize what you’ve read, have you?”

Rùnach smiled. “’Tis a very bad habit, I’m afraid.”

“The question is, can you call what you’ve read to mind?”

Rùnach stretched his legs out, because it gave him something to do besides shift uncomfortably on a stool that was better suited to a serving maid of about seven summers. “I can,” he said slowly.

“Everything?”
Weger asked pointedly.