"Hmmm," she said wisely. "Well, I did. But I saw to them all."
"Then since you took on my task, I'll take on yours," he said, taking her brush away from her. He might as well have clutched a pile of nettles for all the sense it made. He dragged a bale of hay behind where she sat. "I think your mane will take longer."
She shrugged. "I don't have time for it."
"I'm surprised you keep it long," he said, finding it difficult to breathe all of a sudden. He gritted his teeth and kept manfully at his task.
"I cut it after I left Lismòr," she said without inflection. "I'd grown it long to please Nicholas, but then I cut it." She paused. "Later."
"After you left the orphanage?"
She was still. "Hmmm. "
Miach paused. Perhaps now wasn't the time, but it not now, he didn't know when. He put the brush down and rose. He walked around to squat down in front of her. It was a guess, he supposed, and likely none of his business, but since she seemed to view him not unkindly, she likely wouldn't stick him for the familiarity. He reached up and brushed her hair oft her forehead. There, over her left brow, was a small mark.
A sword.
But it pointed neither up nor down. It pointed sideways, as if it neither rested nor was raised for constant use.
Or perhaps that meant that it was never sheathed.
"Interesting," he said.
"Is it?" she asked.
He thought that perhaps he might have been better off never to have started this, but it was too late now. He met her eyes. "It's Weger's mark, isn't it? "
She looked at him for several minutes in silence. "And what would you know of it?" she asked finally.
"Ah," he stalled, "word gets round."
"Does it, indeed? "
He curled his fingers into a fist to keep himself from reaching up and touching the mark. "Why does it point that way?"
"Perhaps you'll learn that in time," she returned. "When word gets round again."
He looked at her and couldn't help himself; he laughed. "I imagine so."
She frowned at him. "I think you enjoy poking fun at me. You know, I have skewered men for less."
"Have you?" he asked, with another smile.
"Well, not for exactly that, but I do not like to be teased."
"Did you go straight to Gobhann after you left the orphanage?"
She blew her bangs out of her face in frustration. "Miach, I do not want to discuss it."
He tried not to enjoy the pleasure of hearing his name from her lips overmuch. "You really don't?" he asked. "In truth?"
"You aren't going to stop, are you?"
He smiled gravely. "I will, if you want me to."
"Nay, you will not. You'll be like the drip, drip, drip of an endless string of fall rainstorms, wearing away at me until I relent."
"What a flattering description," he said. It beat boots.
