"Aren't you going on a journey?"
Ah, so this was where it lay, apparently. "I don't know. Am I, my lord?"
"An assumption, my dear," Nicholas said easily. "Sleep in peace tonight."
Morgan wondered if he had lost his wits, or a decent meal and promise of a gloriously comfortable bed had robbed her of hers. She frowned at him, thanked him again kindly for his hospitality, then escaped his chambers before he could say anything else unsettling.
She had hardly made it ten steps from his solar when she was accosted by a voice from the shadows.
"My lady."
Morgan stopped and sighed. "I'm not your lady. I'm just Morgan."
"My lady Morgan." The lad from Nicholas's solar stepped out from the shadows.
He stood there, Harding's youngest son, squirming uncomfortably until he finally gained control enough of his gangly limbs to stop and look at her. Morgan was not given to shifting, having earned her own measure of self-control on the other side of Melksham Island in the tower at Gobhann where self-control was a particularly important subject to learn, but there was something about the moment that left her with an almost uncontrollable urge to rub her arms.
She managed not to. "Aye, lad?" she asked.
"Lord Nicholas won't speak to me about it," the young man whispered, "but I've heard rumors."
"Rumors are dangerous."
Apparently not dangerous enough to deter him. He leaned closer to her. "I heard," he whispered conspiratorially, "that the king of Neroche has lost his power."
She felt her eyebrows go up of their own accord. "Indeed. And where did you hear that?"
"I eavesdropped on Lord Nicholas while he was discussing it."
Morgan waved aside his words. "He worries overmuch."
"I don't think so. 'Tis rumored the king also searches for a warrior of mighty stature to wield a sword for him." He paused, looked about him as it an enemy might be listening in, then leaned closer to her. "The Sword of Angesand," he whispered.
She blinked in surprise. "The what?"
"The Sword of Angesand. It was fashioned by Mehar of Angesand, who wove into it?"
"Aye, I know all about it," Morgan interrupted. That was all she needed, to have to listen to another of Nicholas's romantic and completely unsuitable tales whileoutsidehis solar. At least inside she had a warm tire to distract her. Here she only had a skinny, trembling lad who couldn't have been more than ten-and-two, who was making her cold just by looking at him.
"Go to bed," she ordered, "and forget what you've heard. The king is well. Indeed, all is well. I would say that listening to too many of Nicholas's stones has worked a foul work upon you."
The lad hesitated.
Morgan nodded firmly toward the dormitories. The lad nodded in unison with her, looking only slightly less miserable than before. He cast her one last desperate look before he turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Morgan snorted to herself. Rumor and hearsay. The lad was contusing fact with the stuff of Nicholas's evening's entertainment.
She put the matter out of her mind and sought her chamber, finding it just as she had left it two years earlier. Indeed, it looked just as it had for the six years she'd called it her own. She hadn't used it very often since going on to make her way to other places, but each time she'd returned, she had found it thusly prepared for her. She leapt into her bed with a guilty abandon she would regret in a se'nnight's time when she was reduced to rough blankets near a weak fire. She closed her eyes and promised herself a good, long march through bitter chill at some point in the future as penance.
But not tonight.
The king has lost his magic.
It couldn't be true. Morgan rolled over and pulled the covers up over her ears. The king of Neroche was as full of vile magic as ever, the Nine Kingdoms were safe, and she was indulging in a guilty pleasure she rarely allowed herself.
Surely all was well.
Chapter Two
