Spellweaver (38 page)

She had to sit down, even though she’d been sitting for the better part of three days. She’d been offered a variety of locales where she could take her ease whilst Ruith was about the heavy labor of being shown where he could make improvements in his own magic. She had passed a bit of her time in the library, reading obscure books that the king had personally selected for her, or pacing through the passageways, listening to the tales the stone had to tell her. She’d also sat on the edge of what served King Uachdaran as some sort of training field, though she wasn’t sure anyone would have marked it as such without aid.

If the great hall had been cavernous and the king’s throne room enormous, the lists eclipsed them by sheer size alone. Well, that and the fact that once a body entered through the stone doorway, the stone sealed behind him and left no indication of having been there.

She’d felt a little claustrophobic, truth be told.

But she’d decided that if Ruith could bear the work, she could bear the watching. She’d occupied a tidy little stone bench near that doorway that came and went capriciously, and never lacked for food or drink. She had watched Ruith train during the morning on that first day, if training it could be called, building his strength without complaint.

Actually, it hadn’t been done without complaint; it had been done with an attitude of thankfulness that she’d been sure hadn’t been lost on Uachdaran, though he’d not gone easier on Ruith because of it. He had tested Ruith in a thousand different ways, relentlessly, ruthlessly, far, far past the point where she would have begged for mercy. She had asked Ruith, when he’d been released to find water after countering ever-increasingly complex and weighty spells, why he was doing it. She had fully expected him to say it was so he could fight the mages out in the world who wanted his father’s spells.

She’d been rendered speechless by his answer.

“For you.”

He’d made her a low bow, then turned away to walk back out into the middle of the uneven stone floor.

She might have thought he was simply flattering her, or angling for another dance, but each time she’d had that thought creep into her head, she’d caught a look he’d sent her way, as if he’d known the precise moment she’d begun to disbelieve him.

For you
.

It was almost enough to make her believe he was serious in his professions of, well, affection.

There had come a point, somewhere during the afternoon of that first day, when she had no longer been able to soldier on so well. King Uachdaran had dredged up from some unpleasant well in his mountain home an entirely new collection of very vile spells. They had made her ill to watch them. Even Ruith had paled a time or two. He had called for a halt, then walked over to her. He’d pulled her to her feet, opened the door, then pushed her through it wordlessly.

He’d shut it in her face.

One of Uachdaran’s granddaughters, Dreachail, had seemingly been waiting for just such an occurrence. She had introduced herself, then offered the comfort of her private chamber for the afternoon. Sarah had accepted the offer and the distraction gladly. Ruith had appeared for supper, looking very much worse for the wear, but apparently having had the energy to arrange for a pair of gowns to be fashioned for her. She’d worn the flaming red one in spite of what she thought it might do for—or to—her hair, because she’d learned he had chosen the color himself. She hadn’t protested the crown, nor had she argued with him when he’d announced, after two dances with Dreachail, that he was down to seven.

Never mind that he’d already danced with Dreachail the night before when she had been number nine.

She pushed herself to her feet and began to pace, because if she sat too long, she began to think about what Ruith might be doing below, and she didn’t want to see any vision of the depths to which he’d no doubt been forced to descend. She wandered about the solar with her hands clasped behind her back until she found herself standing in front of the king’s map table.

She wondered, as she studied it, if it was there for his own amusement or if he ever found it necessary to use it to plan battles. It was of the entire Nine Kingdoms, though the eastern part of the world seemed to have been given short shrift. She started in Doìre and retraced her steps to where she now found herself. It was surprising to realize how far she’d come and how much longer it took to ride a horse than to fly on a dragon.

Ruith would have agreed.

She noticed a collection of markers in two bowls, little carved stones for which she couldn’t see any especial significance save they were small enough to use for all sorts of representations. She held a pair of them in her hand for a moment or two, their chill rather soothing all things considered, then put the first one in Doìre, where she had first seen one of Gair’s spells.

The world shuddered.

She didn’t enjoy the feeling, but she had to admit she reacted to the otherworldly sensation better than she had in times past. She took her courage in hand, then considered the next place they’d seen a spell—or, rather, the imprint of one, in Lord Connail’s solar. It was with hardly any flinching at all that she marked the spot where they’d found a spell in that farmer’s barn. Marking the spot on the plains of Ailean was easily done as well.

But it was then that things began to take a turn she hadn’t expected.

She placed markers on other places where she’d seen spells in her dreams; that didn’t trouble her. What bothered her was realizing that she was seeing fires on the map in front of her without the buffer of a dream.

She covered those fires with the little stones, because she couldn’t bear to look at them and the stones seemed to extinguish the flames. That, and she was obsessed with apparently marking every damned place in the Nine Kingdoms where Gair’s spells resided.

Once she was finished, she set the rest of the carved stones down on the table and walked away.

And almost into someone poking his nose through the crack she’d left in the doorway where she hadn’t managed to shut the door.

It was Eachdraidh, that bard masquerading as a historian. He’d been watching her for three days now, both when she hadn’t been looking for him and when she had been. He seemed to be everywhere she was, peeping at her. She’d had enough.

She started toward him.

He squeaked and fled.

Thrilled beyond measure for something useful to do, she ran after him. He was speedy, she would give him that, but she had been either walking, running, or riding for the past two months and she was hardened to the labor. She caught him just as he was attempting to slip inside his door.

“Why do you keep following me?”

He tried to shut the door on her, but along with her newfound stamina, she had apparently gained a bit of strength as well. She shoved the door open, sending him stumbling back into his chamber. He scuttled behind a table piled with scrolls and pots of ink and piles of quills.

“Ah, nothing,” he said nervously.

She looked at him narrowly. “I don’t believe you.”

“’ Twas a mistake,” he said. “My eyesight isn’t what it was a millennia ago, but perhaps that is to be expected.”

He continued to spew out a lengthy bit of nonsensical excuses for his bad behavior, but she had long since stopped listening to him. She found a marginally sturdy chair, dusted it off, then sat down and looked at him expectantly.

His hands fluttered like nervous butterflies up and down the front of his tunic, finally coming to rest briefly on his cheeks before he seemed to gain some measure of control over himself. He took a deep breath, then put his hands down. They continued to twitch nervously, but perhaps that couldn’t be helped.

“How may I serve you?” he asked, only half sounding as if he were choking to death.

“You can tell me why you’ve been following me,” she said sternly. “It’s been three days now.”

“You noticed.”

“I’ve become accustomed to looking for things in the shadows.”

He looked as if the very thought might have induced a bout of terror he wouldn’t soon have recovered from. He sank down on a tall stool behind his table, wrapping his arms around himself. “I see.”

“And I’ve seen as well—you, following me. I want to know why.”

“I mistook you for someone else,” he said promptly. “My apologies.”

She had no reason not to take him at his word, but she had to admit it was a little unsettling to find a king’s bard following her. Then again, the entire journey had been unsettling so perhaps this was just another in a long series of things that would unbalance her.

Or perhaps he was lying through his teeth.

She decided that since she was so comfortable, perhaps she would take a few more minutes and determine which it was.

“You were prepared to favor the king with an heroic tale or two,” she said smoothly. “I am a very sympathetic listener, should you care to relate those tales just to me.”

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment or two. “In truth?”

“In truth,” she promised. “I am always interested in a good tale.”

Especially if those tales might lead to the odd bit of truth slipping out unnoticed. Perhaps during the course of the afternoon she might even manage to pry from him a detail or two about Soilléir’s kin. Finding someone to undo what he’d done to her eyes might be very useful.

Eachdraidh eyed her suspiciously for another moment or two, then sidled around his table and took up a chair a goodly distance away from her.

“I’m not sure you’ll find them interesting,” he said slowly.

“I don’t know many dwarvish tales,” she said, which was mostly true. Franciscus had only told her a handful, and she hadn’t paid the attention to them she likely should have, having been more interested in torturing herself with tales of elves. “I would hear yours quite happily.”

That seemed to put him at ease. He settled a bit more comfortably into his chair, looking quite a bit like a hen settling onto her roost, then he began spinning a tale that featured several dwarves in the thick of heroic deeds. She nodded in what she hoped were the right places, made the appropriate noises of shock, horror, and appreciation, then waited a bit longer whilst he was about the happy labor of providing refreshments for them. She accepted a small square of cake, a cup of tea, and the invitation to direct him to other things she might be interested in.

“What do you know of Cothromaiche?” she asked.

He spewed out a mouthful of cake all over his finely embroidered robe. He looked at her, a few crumbs clinging to his chin.

“What?” he asked, his eyes darting about nervously as if he looked for an escape.

“Cothromaiche,” she said. “The country, if that’s what one calls it. I met someone from there recently, but I couldn’t seem to pry anything interesting out of him besides a book of poetry and a lexicon.”

Eachdraidh’s ears perked up. “A lexicon?”

“It isn’t mine, or I would give you a peep at it. I might anyway, if the inducement is sufficient.”

He looked horribly torn, over what she couldn’t imagine. She waited, then waited awhile longer as he struggled to apparently overcome his aversion to telling her what she wanted to know. He leaned closer.

“What do you want to know?” he whispered.

“Everything.”

He looked as if she’d just handed him a bag of gold—or manuscripts, rather. Before she could catch her breath, or finish her tea, he had launched into a recounting of things she couldn’t keep pace with. Perhaps he was a good historian for Uachdaran, but as a raconteur of tales he hadn’t planned in advance, he was like a mouse darting across a kitchen full of hungry cats. She had scarce attempted to determine who one set of players might have been before he was off recounting the exploits of another. There seemed to be a great many wars and more bloodshed than a single, small country merited, but a good deal of that seemed to stem from their neighbors to the southwest.

Sarah would have asked for a map, but she didn’t have time before Eachdraidh leapt to his feet, sending his tea and a cake that hadn’t made it into his mouth crashing to the floor.

She looked behind her to find Ruith leaning against the doorframe, watching her solemnly. She lost her breath—an alarmingly regular occurrence where he was concerned—then managed to find enough of it left to speak.

“What are you doing here?” she managed.

“Shadowing you.”

“I thought you were training.”

“I finished.”

He looked impossibly tired, but he was still standing, so perhaps it had all been a success.

She gestured helplessly toward the historian. “He kept following me. I followed him instead to find out why.”

“Did he answer you?”

“Not yet.”

Ruith pushed away from the doorframe and walked—slightly unsteadily, truth be told—across the chamber to lean against the edge of Eachdraidh’s table. He looked down at the historian.

“Well?” he asked politely. “Why were you following her?”

Eachdraidh’s hands recaptured their former inability to remain still. “I, er, I ... ah ... I thought your lady reminded me of someone, but I was mistaken.”

“It is easy to be dazzled by her beauty.”

Eachdraidh sank back down onto his chair and nodded enthusiastically.

Ruith glanced at what was behind him on the table. “Working on something in particular?”

Eachdraidh leapt to his feet and hurried around his table to show Ruith just what that had been. Sarah couldn’t bear to listen to any of it. She realized at that moment that she had simply listened to too many tales—told by mortals or stone, as the case was—to be interested in yet another. She busied herself cleaning up the tea things and tidying up Eachdraidh’s floor. She put everything to rights, then looked for something else useful to do. She would have stacked books, but that seemed a bit too invasive, so she settled for sitting in front of the fire. She put her fingers over her eyes to stave off the headache she could feel coming on.