Dreamspinner (23 page)

“You give me too much credit,” Nicholas said easily. “I overheard you at your sister’s wedding saying it was in your plans, and I didn’t doubt you would make good on the threat. But I won’t force you to delve into the reasons for that choice at present. Eat in peace, my lad. We’ll discuss other things tomorrow.”

Rùnach was happy to take advantage of the invitation. He tucked in contentedly to food that tasted as if it had actually been made with the intention of humans not only eating but enjoying it, finished with a few sips of an elegant, delicate wine, then sat back with a deep sigh of pleasure.

“Better than Gobhann?” Nicholas asked, his eyes twinkling.

“Please,” Rùnach said with feeling, “let’s not discuss it.”

“Then let us choose a different comparison. Was this superior to Buidseachd?”

“That depends on which table you’re talking about,” Rùnach said. “The buttery is, as I’m sure you know, vile, but I didn’t eat in the buttery.”

“Soilléir is a bit more choosey about his fare, is that it?”

“Thankfully,” Rùnach said with feeling. “And I was the beneficiary of that for many years.”

Nicholas studied him. “And what did you find during those many years you were there? Anything interesting?”

“A few things I gave to Miach at Buidseachd earlier in the year, but nothing else of note.”

“And did you find anything interesting in Gobhann?”

Rùnach shot his uncle a sharp look. “Terrible food, endless amounts of work, and Lothar of Wychweald, though I’m guessing you aren’t surprised by any of those.”

“Encounter him, did you?” Nicholas asked mildly.

“I thought the worst would be having to listen to him sing at all hours, but I fear it was much worse than that.” He nodded toward Aisling. “He stabbed her, though I’m not sure why.”

“Don’t you know?”

Rùnach dragged his hand through his hair. “Have I told you how much I loathe riddles?”

Nicholas only laughed. “Consider it a mystery, then.”

“I’m not sure that makes it any more palatable,” Rùnach said grimly, “but I’ll play, if it pleases you. Nay, I don’t know anything about her save she doesn’t tolerate lobelia very well. She’s obviously too thin, rather delicate, and has absolutely no skill in defending herself despite a pair of days with Weger conducting her lessons. And Lothar I’m sure thought her nothing more than a convenient target.”

“In the last, you might be right,” Nicholas conceded. He looked at Aisling for a moment or two, then back at Rùnach. “Who healed her?”

“Weger, if you can believe it.”

Nicholas laughed softly. “I’m actually surprised he managed an entire spell when what was likely tumbling out of his mouth were curses.”

Rùnach nodded, though he found himself suddenly thinking less about Weger’s abundant collection of foul epitaphs in several languages than the look Weger had given Aisling after he’d healed her.

As if he’d seen something that…awed him.

Rùnach looked at the woman lying in that bed, still as death, and wondered what had felled her and what would remain of her once she woke.
If
she woke.

He looked at Nicholas. “Can you heal her?”

Nicholas smiled. “There was no need for healing, Rùnach. She was overcome by something and had no recourse but to fall senseless.”

“What sort of something?”

“Oh, I imagine it isn’t really very interesting.”

“Isn’t it?”

“She’ll wake to herself,” Nicholas said, as if he hadn’t heard Rùnach, or perhaps had heard him but didn’t want to discuss the subject further. “I wouldn’t have fed you supper if there hadn’t been aught to do.”

Rùnach could only nod, because he should have realized that.

“Sleep is what you need, my boy. You can have the chamber next door if you like, or William can make you up a pallet here before the fire. Aisling will be safe either way, I promise you.”

“I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you.”

He listened to the words come out of his mouth and couldn’t for the life of him decide where they’d come from. He had the tatters of his former plans to gather up and try to weave back together and Aisling had…well, he had no idea what Aisling had.

If I touch it, I’ll die
.

He frowned thoughtfully. That was an odd thing to say. Had it been her mother to so thoroughly warn her off her own spinning wheel that Aisling had continued to believe it far past the age when she should have relegated the words to a mere childhood warning?

Odder still that she had touched it just the same, as if she simply hadn’t been able to stop herself.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true either. She had sent the wheel spinning without touching it. An unmagical woman who had walked into Gobhann with no cloak and no boots had smoothed her hand over air and sent a spinning wheel turning. And then when she had reached out and touched the wood, she had gasped, babbled in a tongue he didn’t recognize, then fallen as if she were dead.

“Mysterious, wouldn’t you agree?”

Rùnach pulled himself back to himself and looked at his uncle. “I’m not sure she’s a mystery I want to solve.”

Nicholas only smiled pleasantly. “What a terrible liar you’ve become there in that hovel so loftily termed a school.”

Rùnach would have protested further, but he knew there was no point. He could perhaps tell himself all day that he wasn’t interested in the things swirling around that very plain, very simple gel from
some obscure corner of the Nine Kingdoms, but he would be lying.

The first thing he would start with was that language she had murmured in her unguarded moments.

He looked at his uncle. “How is your library these days?”

“Robustly stocked with all manner of interesting tomes. And when you’ve exhausted your search there, you might come have a peek at the more dangerous things kept in my solar.”

Rùnach found himself unable to keep from smiling. “Then perhaps when our patient awakes, we should make a visit there.”

“I do have a lovely hearth.”

“I imagine you do, my lord.”

Nicholas called William, who helped him clear away the dishes and move the table. “I’ll return in a bit,” he said, putting his hand on Rùnach’s shoulder briefly. “I’ll bring you something to read should she sleep longer than you do.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Rùnach said. “For that and the refuge.”

“Always, Rùnach. Always.”

Rùnach watched William make up a cot for him in front of the fire. He thanked the lad, then took Nicholas’s chair and simply stared at Aisling by the light of the fire and the candles, which had magically dimmed to just the right brightness.

He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. He hadn’t intended to be sitting in comfort at Lismòr, he’d intended to be freezing his arse off in Gobhann. He touched the spot over his brow where Weger had tried to brand him, not once but twice, and wondered how it was possible his face could hurt him so badly yet there be no mark there to show there was a reason he winced every time his hair brushed his brow.

That was a bit of a mystery, as well.

Though he was more interested, he had to admit, in the secrets of the lass lying in the bed in front of him. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared at her, wondering who she was and where in the Nine Kingdoms she had learned a tongue that he absolutely didn’t recognize, a tongue that had left a soldier with almost seven centuries of living to his tally almost speechless with wonder.

“My lord?”

Rùnach jumped in spite of himself. The next words out of his mouth were almost
I’m no lord
, but he supposed there was no point in bothering. He smiled at Nicholas’s page.

“Aye, William?”

“My lord Nicholas asked me to bring you these things,” he said, handing Rùnach a basket. “Books he thought you might like, as well as sheaves of parchment and pen and ink, if you feel the need to scribble down the odd note.”

“Take him my thanks, would you?”

“Of course, my lord.”

Rùnach waited until he’d pulled the door shut behind him before he peered into the basket to see what Nicholas had sent along. Along with tools for taking notes, there was a book on the detailed political geography of the Nine Kingdoms, a rather thick book entitled
The Etymology of Curses
, which left him smiling, and a slim, illustrated volume on sheep, the wool they produced, and spinning techniques used in turning those various types of wool into thread for weaving and yarn for knitting. Rùnach set the last aside for Aisling, should she be able to look at it without screaming, along with the book on curses, and opened the tome about the political geography of the Nine Kingdoms.

He couldn’t say that in his youth he’d cared much for the political machinations of any given realm. His grandfather Sìle held a seat on the Council of Kings, of course, but he’d been a bit of a snob about the whole thing, something Rùnach had agreed with heartily. Most kings did have at least some spark of magic in their veins, but none to equal the might, majesty, and sheer beauty of Fadaire.

Well, those inhabiting the rather mysterious world of Cothromaiche might have disagreed, but King Seannair never came to any meetings and likely had no idea where his crown was, so Rùnach had never lumped him in with the others.

And besides, kingdoms changed, gained territory, lost territory, sometimes absorbed entire kingdoms into themselves or watched their lands disappear beyond their reach into someone else’s realm. He supposed it might be an interesting exercise to see which
kingdoms had begun as the only nine in the world, then become something entirely different. It might also be interesting, for the sheer sake of academics, to make note of who had written which history. He could guarantee that Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn would have a far different view of things than Uachdaran of Léige. It wouldn’t have surprised him at all to have found that his grandfather simply dismissed other realms if it suited his vanity and purposes.

He rose, fetched the table they’d used for supper, then set out ink, pen, and paper. Perhaps he would make a list of every kingdom of note, then jot down alongside each a brief list of the languages spoken within their borders. Just to give himself something to do, of course.

He glanced at the cot there in front of the fire that had banked itself a bit. The lure of sleep was almost too much to resist. A sleep that might actually leave him feeling as if he
hadn’t
been sleeping on a rock would be a luxury he hadn’t expected.

He looked at Aisling, lying there motionless, hardly breathing, then shook his head. Even an hour of searching might tell him things that would be useful. Even if all his knowledge did was help convince her that a provincial village that existed as nothing more than a speck on the map did not have the power to compel her to save it, his time would be well spent. A petty man styling himself as overlord did not require a mercenary with Weger’s mark over his brow to find himself dispatched, though Rùnach was fairly sure he could simply go with her, approach the man, then threaten him with a harsh word or two to encourage him to trot off and look for less weak-kneed villagers to intimidate.

Because, after all, what sort of place with any culture at all could possibly leave a woman thinking that the touch of a spinning wheel would cause her death?

He leaned over, brushed the hair back from Aisling’s face, then froze as she sighed something in her sleep. He thought it might have been
thank you
, but those were again words he’d never heard before.

A mystery indeed.

He frowned thoughtfully, then opened his book and began to read.

A
isling struggled to open her eyes, uncertain for a moment or two if she was trying to wake or trying to rouse herself from some sort of untoward illness. She had rarely suffered from any illness until she’d gone inside Gobhann. She supposed she could safely say she had woken before from all sorts of sleeps, from uneasy snoozes to hopeless, helpless descents into oblivion to escape the dullness and monotony of her life at the Guild, but she had never before woken from the sleep of death.

It occurred to her that she was not dead, she was very much alive. She ached from head to toe and her head felt as if someone had tried to pull her brain out of her eye sockets. Her eyes burned as if she’d been weeping for days, though she knew she hadn’t. But other than those rather minor things, she felt remarkably good. She lay there for quite a while, thinking about life and death and the fact that she was partaking of the former instead of the latter. The more she thought about it, the warmer she felt.

But perhaps the fury of knowing that one had been lied to did that for a person.

Never touch a wheel,
she had been told countless times at the Guild.
Death is the penalty for touching a wheel,
she’d had snapped at her time and time again. Those phrases had always been accompanied by the goriest of details about how death would come, not by the hand of some soul in power but from the wheel itself. But unless her senses had failed her completely, she hadn’t lost her hands or her eyes or had her entrails explode out of her as retribution for her cheek.