Acair felt his eyes narrow. There was obviously something more to the whole affair than what he’d been led to believe. If the apology he’d so fervently blurted out hadn’t rid him of that bloody thing there, just what was its purpose?
There was something that didn’t smell quite right and that wasn’t just his dungeon-soaked garb.
Obviously the only way to discover the truth was to, as usual, be the one to do all the dirty work of looking for it. Unfortunately, until he could do more than sit on a sofa and wheeze, that search couldn’t even begin. He put the king’s book atop his grandmother’s, pushed himself to his feet, then walked unsteadily around the foot of Léirsinn’s bed, ignoring the spell of death keeping watch there.
He sat down next to the night stand where sustenance waited patiently to be consumed. He wasn’t sure it would serve him very well, but he forced himself to at least partake of a biscuit or two and a few sips of tea.
That unpleasant task seen to, he leaned back and took a moment to simply watch that lovely woman there as she slept. He could scarce believe he was keeping company with a lass with absolutely no magic to her name who had bargained he knew not what for a bit of the same in order to save his sorry arse. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time anyone had risked anything more serious than a spot at table for him. His mother did him the favor of generally not attempting to slay him when he arrived at her side door for a bite of supper and a bit of gossip, but someone who had no blood ties to him?
It was astonishing.
He listened to Léirsinn breathe for several minutes until he thought he had convinced himself that the rattle in her chest was merely from the chill of the chamber, not something more serious. If something happened to her…well, he would outrun that damned spell of death haunting him, find Soilléir of Cothromaiche, and bring him to Léirsinn on pain of death with a demand to heal her.
He thought he might understand more clearly than he wanted to why Hearn of Angesand had been willing to bargain with him for the healing of his son.
A knock sounded on the door, which he had to admit was a welcome distraction from his maudlin thoughts. He didn’t dare hope it was anyone more interesting than a servant bearing hot water for tea, but he wasn’t going to spurn that. He rose, then hesitated. There was no sense in leaving dangerous things lying about, so he took the notebook with his grandmother’s map and slipped it carefully under Léirsinn’s pillow. That seen to, he got himself over to the door without undue effort, then opened it.
He found himself presented with a scene that left him thinking that perhaps all that do-gooding had served him well after all. Sometimes he could scarce believe how well things fell into place for him when his need was most dire.
Ollamh was standing there with his hands full of bottles, things no doubt brought to aid his patient. Next to him was a pair of lads bearing all manner of fine edibles. On the other side of the passageway were the same lads as before. The only difference was that they were now standing post with a slight slump to their shoulders, as if their duty had become just too tedious to keep them at their best.
Acair lifted the covering off what turned out to be a quartet of very fine appendages of some hearty bird or other. He didn’t think, he merely liberated a pair, then walked out into the hallway, ignoring the squeaking of the physick.
“Just off to the loo, of course,” he said smoothly. That excuse given, he handed the joints to two of the guardsmen with a wink. “Our secret,” he assured them.
Perhaps ’twas unkind to take advantage of such rumbling tums, but he was a ruthless worker of evil spells and an unrepentant opportunist. What else was he to do?
He fixed a pleading glance on the third, patted his own belly, and tried to look a bit queasy. Sadly, the effort took far less pretense than he would have liked, but it had been that sort of spring so far.
“Down the passageway, if you please,” he said, “then right back here for your own supper, my good man. The king will never know.”
The guardsman looked unsure, something for which Acair couldn’t blame him in the least. As he’d already admitted very reluctantly to himself, not much happened inside Durial’s borders that the king didn’t know about. Perhaps this, though, would be overlooked.
That was exactly what he hoped would happen for the sake of the senseless lad he subsequently stuffed into the loo only after removing the man’s cloak and donning his helmet. Creases in his own locks were perhaps the least of his worries. Given how badly he needed a good soak in a tub, he thought he might owe his unwitting helper an apology instead of a strongly worded letter of complaint.
He had no doubts that Léirsinn would be perfectly safe in the care of Uachdaran’s personal physick, so all that was left was for him to nip in and out of the king’s throne room. He needed that damned spell of death stuck to the bottom of Uachdaran’s chair as well as his Gran’s doily if he could manage it. If he could blame the theft of both on an unnamed, never-to-be-found servant, so much the better.
Once he had one more night of vermin-free sleep behind him, he would face the more difficult problems of mages and shadows and places scribbled on his grandmother’s map where he wouldn’t want to go but would likely need to if the world were to be saved.
With a hearty but silent curse to keep himself warm, he strode off into the shadows to make mischief.
It was, he had to admit, his favorite sort of quest.
Four
Léirsinn woke to the sight of someone leaning over her. She shrieked and clouted him on the nose before she realized that it was simply Master Ollamh trying to hand her some sort of healing draught, not some foul mage trying to do her in.
She sat up and looked over the edge of the bed to where the poor dwarf had taken cover. She still had to hold onto the headboard to keep herself steady, but she wasn’t pitching out of bed completely. Progress had definitely been made.
The healer’s eyes were watering madly and he was protecting his nose with one hand, but his tiny cup of liquid had been spared. He crawled to his feet, holding his brew aloft as he did so. He handed it to her, waited until she’d drunk it, then took it back.
“How do you fare, mistress?”
She took stock of her poor form. The fires raging inside her had subsided from the enormous heat of a raging inferno to the toasty warmth of a small campfire, which was definitely an improvement. She wasn’t sure she would ever be the same, but perhaps that was something to think about later.
She was trying to hit upon a response that didn’t sound daft when it occurred to her that the king’s healer looked very nervous. He was taking an excessive amount of time to set his cup aside, which she supposed should have madehernervous. If there had been something vile in that draught—
She turned away from that thought before it galloped off with her to places she didn’t want to go. She had never felt particularly at ease in her uncle’s stables, but it had never occurred to her over the course of her time there that anyone would want to murder her. That she considered that more often of late than not was not a habit she wanted to begin.
