The White Spell (12 page)

“I'm not sure,” she said miserably. “They said much I didn't hear and more I heard but didn't understand, but there was definitely quite a bit about murder and magic and . . . aye, they used your name.”

Perfect. He sent a silent curse wafting heavenward in the direction of a certain pair of busybodies, then looked at his savior. “You didn't see them?”

She shook her head. “I just heard them.” She looked at him then. “They were here for you, weren't they?”

“'Tis possible,” he said, because it was the best he could manage on short notice. Aye, those two were obviously there for him, but the question was why?

His list of enemies was extremely long, something he'd been quite proud of in the past, but he couldn't bring to mind anyone who would know where he was at present save Rùnach and Soilléir and they wanted him alive to enjoy his current straits. His Aunt Cailleach knew where he was, but it wasn't possible she would have sent mages to kill him. He was family. Possibly undesirable family, but she had little room for criticism there. If she'd wanted to off him, as she was wont to say, she would have gotten her hands dirty herself. Nay, those lads weren't from her.

He hadn't seen anyone else he knew, he hadn't spread his presence about, and he hadn't dropped pieces of mischief along behind him like bread crumbs.

He had, however, touched a patch of darkness.

And he was looking at a woman who perhaps hadn't been as discreet about being able to see them as perhaps she should have been.

“Did you tell anyone?” he asked.

“Tell anyone what?”

“What you can see.”

She looked at him as if he'd just announced he was, well, who he was. “Are you daft? Of course not.”

“Why did you tell me then?”

She started to speak, then shut her mouth. She seemed to be casting about for something say, then finally shrugged helplessly. “I don't know. I thought you might understand, though I've no idea why.”

“You're wise beyond your years,” he muttered. He studied the mages on the floor at his feet, still as death, then looked at her. “You're certain you didn't tell anyone else about those spots? Servants? Stable boys? Potted plants?”

“Nay, none of the three, though I can't imagine what a potted plant would reveal.”

“It could be a mage disguising himself as a plant.”

“You are mad,” she said without hesitation. “How could a man turn himself into a plant?”

There was no point in even starting down that road. “I have an overactive imagination.”

“I'll say.”

He watched as the mages in front of him began to steam. Interesting. He realized, as they began to simply vaporize, that the woman beside him was about to faint. He caught her before she fell, sat down rather heavily on his stool, then landed on his arse as the stool collapsed under their collective weight. He clapped his hand over Léirsinn's mouth as a courtesy.

She put her hand over his hand, then clutched his arm with her other hand. She was strong, he would give her that, but he'd be damned if he squeaked. She pulled his hand away slowly.

“Holy hell,” she breathed.

“Hmmm,” he agreed as the vapors swirled up into the faint light from the lantern. They made a keening sound that was almost too faint to hear, then vanished. He nodded abruptly. “Well, that takes you out of the running for lass-least-likely-to-kill-a-mage. Nicely done.”

“I don't believe in mages,” she wheezed.

He nodded toward the spot where the bodies had lain. “What would you call that, then?”

“Part of my nightmare?”

“Believe that, if you can.” He patted her back. “Time to go.”

She looked at him. He noticed that she had freckles sprinkled across her nose. The quintessential country miss, to be sure. The quintessential country miss who had apparently just encountered things she had likely never dreamed about even in her nightmares.

“I thought mages were just make-believe characters in those tales told down at the pub,” she said very faintly. “Or in faery tales. If they existed in truth, I assumed they lived in nasty places up north where I never want to go.”

He had no comfort to offer her on that score so he sighed lightly and attempted a shrug. “Apparently not.”

“I thought magic was limited to charms and love potions and silly things that old women invented to keep food in their pantries,” she continued, as if she hadn't heard him. She looked absolutely shattered. “You know. Lies told to give people comfort.”

He met her eyes. “I'm afraid not.”

She looked at him as if she'd never seen him before. “They said you had magic.”

“Lads say many things,” he said dismissively, “most they don't mean.”

She pulled away from him and scrambled to her feet. She looked at him in alarm. “Who
are
you?”

“I can't say.”

“Why would those—” She pointed at the spot where the pile of mage had most recently resided. “Why would those things want you?”

He heaved himself to his feet, not entirely happy with how drained he still felt. “I can't say that either.”

The lump of cloaks shifted suddenly—one last farewell, he supposed—and he found himself with his arms full of horse girl. He wasn't sure he had ever over the course of his very long, very
selfish life ever offered another soul comfort unless it was to wish them a good journey as he sent them off to hell with a well-crafted piece of magic. He wasn't quite sure what to do with the woman in his arms, partly because he wasn't at all good at that sort of thing and partly because he was mightily distracted by a piece of stool that was still poking him in the arse.

He reached around and removed the splinter. He was half tempted to save it so he could use it to drive home a fitting piece of retribution somehow, but he wasn't sure it was worth holding on to for as long as he feared he would need to.

So, lacking anything else better to do, he put his arms around Léirsinn and rocked her just a bit. He wasn't sure how to do it properly—and suspected he was doing it poorly—but what else could he do? His mother rocked herself, but she did that whilst muttering incantations over a bubbling pot, so perhaps she wasn't one to emulate.

He soon felt very silly indeed, so he patted Léirsinn again and set her away from him.

“Time to go.”

She blinked. “Go? What in the hell are you talking about?”

“We must leave and the sooner, the better.”

She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“I suggest you rethink that,” he said seriously. “I am guessing—and only guessing, mind you—that those two were sent after me because I disturbed those spots you don't want to talk about. And I'm not the one who saw them first, if you see what I'm getting at.”

“But I'm no one,” she protested. “Just a stable hand.”

“If I were you, I wouldn't want to remain here to see if I might be mistaken about that.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” she said desperately. “I have responsibilities.”

He studied her for a moment or two in silence, glanced at the pile of cloaks still lying near where he'd almost died, and wondered
just how he was going to talk sense into the woman standing in front of him.

“If you stay, things could go very badly for you,” he said finally.

“I'll take that chance. You go ahead and scamper away, though, if you like.”

Her words stung, mostly because he was fairly sure she'd muttered
coward
under her breath. He reached down, picked up her crossbow, and handed it to her. “Interesting weapon, that. Best fetch the bolts before someone else does.”

She clutched the bow to her. “I will, thank you. Enjoy your life.”

“I'll think of you fondly whenever I breathe.”

“You do that.” She moved past him to collect the crossbow bolts, then paused before she touched them. She took a deep breath, gathered them up, then turned to look at him. “Why are you still here?”

He refrained from comment, partly because his offended feelings—and there weren't many of those, truthfully—never stayed pricked for more than a moment or two and partly because he knew she was speaking from a place of fear. He couldn't blame her for that, but the truth was, he had to leave—and quickly. It was one thing to hide in a barn and try to be a regular sort of bloke. It was another thing entirely to have a pair of mages know who he was and want to kill him.

He was starting to have a bit of sympathy for those he had stalked over the course of his long and illustrious career of making hay. That feeling unsettled him almost more than knowing how close he had come to dying a handful of moments ago. Things had to change. The next thing he knew, he was going to be offering to hoist a sword in the defense of a horse miss.

“Don't let me keep you.”

He shot her a look. “You go first.”

“Nay, you. I'll follow right behind.”

He blew his hair out of his eyes, then turned and left what had served as a bedchamber of sorts for far too long. He realized after a handful of steps that he'd forgotten his cloak, which he supposed,
in hindsight, was what kept him from walking them both into something that might have gone badly for them.

Three men were entering the far end of the passageway, obviously coming inside to see to something. Acair backed up a pace or two into deeper shadows. He felt Léirsinn's crossbow in his back and hoped she would have a moment of altruism and refrain from using it on him. He held his breath as the men came their way. Fortunately the trio of whoresons continued on past them as if they'd noted nothing amiss, which Acair supposed had been the case.

“Move,” Léirsinn whispered. “I want to see what they're planning.”

“A quick return to bed after they scrape the manure from their boots would be my guess,” he murmured.

“They're in a barn,” she said pointedly. “Unless the world has changed a great deal in the past hour, they're here for a horse. I have to see which one they're looking at.”

Acair sighed. Horses. Women. Intrigue. Soilléir couldn't have given him three things more bothersome if he'd planned it, which Acair wasn't at all sure he hadn't.

He stepped aside. “Best of luck to you.”

She hardly glanced at him as she pushed past him, which he supposed shouldn't have offended him. She was a horse miss, he was a powerful mage with plans to rule the world when his sentence of having to be pleasant had ended. He couldn't have cared less if she looked at him or not. There were princesses and noblewomen and even the occasional wizardess who found him quite to their liking—

He rolled his eyes. He was losing his wits, that was it. Too much do-gooding was, as he had noted on more than one occasion, very bad for a man.

He took a moment to consider what he might do next. Perhaps he could find a wooded area and live off the land, robbing the occasional unwary nobleman, and refraining from killing the ones who annoyed him. That would surely satisfy that annoying
finger-waggler from Cothromaiche and then he would have some peace and quiet.

That might also mean that he would no longer be troubled by manure, minor noblemen with delusions of grandeur, and red-haired stable lassies who had somehow found their way under his skin and troubled him even in his dreams. The sooner he was away from all three, the better.

He swung his cloak around his shoulders and strode off toward the nearest exit. His future awaited and it would no doubt be one full of deeds worthy of song.

L
éirsinn wondered when her life was going to return to normal.

First it had been the shadows that weren't quite shadows but apparently existed with enough substance to affect those who came near them. Then it had been eavesdropping on men she couldn't and didn't want to identify, men who had been instructed to kill Acair because he had—she had to take a deep breath to even dredge up the word—magic. That right there should have been enough to send her off either into gales of laughter or straight to her bed. What a daft idea. Men were men, horses were horses, and things were as she had come to count on them being.

But Acair? Magic?

She pushed aside the thought, though it was difficult to push it far enough away from her to make her comfortable, mostly because she had actually seen two men hovering in the air over Acair like a pair of vultures. She hadn't imagined it, she had seen them there. And if she hadn't taken that bloody crossbow and put arrows into both those monsters, they would have slain Acair.

She would be long in forgetting that sight.

She was fast coming to the realization that she would have to concede that there were things afoot in Briàghde, things she didn't want to get close to. And if murder and mayhem were the order of the day on her uncle's land, who knew what sorts of things were
going on in greater Sàraichte? Given the fact that Mistress Cailleach and Acair seemed to know each other, perhaps there were things in town that might make her uneasy as well. Who knew how far the madness extended?

At least Acair was gone. One less distraction for her. He would be safely off doing whatever he did with whatever supernatural abilities he might or might not have had and she would return to her sensible, normal life. Perhaps even those odd shadows would disappear, then no one would even give her another thought. It wasn't as if she intended to say a damned thing about them. Perhaps with a bit of luck, she would find a way to earn more and do that more quickly, then she could also be away from Sàraichte and at peace.

She slipped in and out of the shadows, a task made much easier by the utter lack of light in the barn save for where her uncle stood with Slaidear. Their companion had obviously been sent on ahead in the company of Doghail, who had obviously been roused from his bed for that purpose.

She stopped far enough away from her uncle that she was fairly sure he wouldn't see or hear her, but she could certainly see and hear him.

“My lord,” Slaidear said slowly, “I don't see—”

“Slaidear, your task isn't to see, your task is to do,” Fuadain said. “If you won't kill her yourself, find a man in the village willing to see to it. A rough sort. You know the type.”

Léirsinn could hardly stop herself from making a noise of horror. What was he planning now, to start slaying horses? She quickly ran through the list of mares and wondered which one Fuadain could possibly be talking about—

“But Léirsinn is your niece.”

Léirsinn froze. She would have rubbed her ears to make sure they were functioning properly, but she found she simply couldn't lift her hands. It was all she could do to allow them to remain by her sides and shake.

“My
niece
sees too much,” Fuadain said sharply.

“She sees too much of what, my lord?”

“Things you don't need to know about,” Fuadain said shortly. “If you want to make it as clean as possible, slay her, then blame it on that new lad. Kill him afterward.” He paused. “Odd, isn't it, that name? Acair?”

“Very odd,” Slaidear agreed.

“I wonder . . . nay, the one I'm thinking of would never find himself laboring in a barn. Now, if you haven't the stomach to see to this yourself, trot off to the village and find someone to do it for you. I'm off to sell a horse.”

Léirsinn started forward to protest only to find there was a hand suddenly on her arm, pulling her back into the shadows. She went, because apparently she had lost all ability to do anything but stand about stupidly, stunned by what she was hearing. The only thing she could say for herself at present was at least she hadn't fainted. She thought that might be due to Acair's holding her up.

She somehow wasn't surprised to find that he had returned and rescued her. It was becoming something of a bad habit for him.

She didn't argue when he pulled her behind him. She would have told him she had no intention of forgoing the opportunity to use him as a shield, but she couldn't form words at the moment. She leaned her head back against the wall and fought the urge to indulge in some sort of display that wouldn't have done her credit. Histrionics, or a swoon, or perhaps simply bursting into loud, messy tears.

Acair was very still and his stillness rapidly became hers. His hand on her arm was warm, all things considered, and gave her an unexpected measure of comfort. The beating of her heart was so loud in her ears, though, she feared that everyone in the barn might be able to hear it. She forced herself to ignore it and see if she could hear any more details from the men conversing about her death, but they had obviously finished and were both off to see to their tasks. Acair fumbled for her hand.

“Let's go,” he whispered.

“But—”

“Come
now
. You don't want to have anything to do with any of this.”

She would have argued a bit longer, but it wasn't every day that she listened to someone plot her demise. She slipped through the shadows with Acair, remaining on her feet only because he kept her moving as surely as she would have a recalcitrant colt. Terror was apparently a very good means of inspiring all sorts of things, mostly flight. She was fairly sure she didn't take a decent breath until they were outside the barn and out of sight behind a pile of lumber intended for future fencing. She looked at Acair.

“Well, I'm here,” she said, taking hold of the first thing that came to mind. “What do you want?”

He looked at her in disbelief. “I want you not to be dead.”

“Very kind of you.”

“Trust me, I'm not usually this altruistic.”

“Then I've caught you on a good night,” she said. “But you needn't worry. I'm not going to die.”

He turned to face her. “Weren't you listening?” he asked in astonishment. “In truth? Léirsinn, they weren't making a jest at your expense. Your uncle wants you dead!”

“He wants everyone dead,” she began, then a thought occurred to her that she likely should have had long before then and that was that perhaps Acair and her uncle knew each other far more intimately than she suspected. She looked at Acair and felt as though she'd never seen him before.

“Oh, nay,” he began. “Don't start with that.”

She backed away. “He said you were going to kill me—”

“Nay, he said someone
else
was going to kill you,” he said, reaching for her, “and make it look as if I'd done it.”

She held him off. “You could be lying.”

“I don't lie. 'Tis my one and only virtue.” He took a step closer to her. “Think it through, Léirsinn,” he said urgently. “If I were going to kill you, why would we be here right now?”

“So I won't bleed on the barn and leave Doghail to cleaning it up on the morrow?”

He didn't smile. “If I wanted to do you in, I wouldn't have brought you outside where you could run. I would have pinned you in a stall where you couldn't escape.”

“You sound far too familiar with that sort of strategy for my peace of mind,” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter.

“I'm familiar with many things that would make you uncomfortable, but let's discuss those later. For now, believe me when I say that I don't want you dead. Unfortunately, others apparently don't share that sentiment, which is why we need to go
now
.”

She wished she could stop shivering. She couldn't believe she was having a conversation that involved death, more particularly
her
death. It felt as if she'd stumbled into a play where she'd been drawn up onto the stage and forced into a role she'd never wanted and didn't know how to escape.

“Let's go.”

She realized Acair was still talking to her and she'd missed what he'd been saying. She started to walk, then what he'd said actually made sense to her. She pulled up short.

“Go?” she echoed. “Go where?”

“Out of Sàraichte, obviously,” he said. “I don't think either of us is safe here any longer. I didn't intend on bringing company along with me, but 'tis obvious you can't remain behind.”

“But I'm not going anywhere with you,” she said in surprise. “I can't leave my grandfather.”

“Don't worry about him,” Acair said dismissively. “He'll be fine.”

She could scarce believe her ears. “You're daft,” she managed. “They'll kill him as well!”

“Killing your grandfather is the last thing Fuadain will do,” he said seriously.

“But why would they keep him alive if they were willing to kill me?”

“Leverage,” he said. “They believe you know too much about
things you apparently shouldn't, which is why they want you dead. If you flee, they'll want you to come back here so they can, again, see you dead.” He shrugged. “Leverage.”

She felt something slide down her spine. “How would you possibly know that? Are you in league—”

He shook his head sharply. “I don't know your uncle, but I know his type very well.”

“But I can't leave my grandfather,” she said firmly. “I have a responsibility to keep him safe.”

“At this point, neither of us can keep him safe here,” he said. “We definitely cannot bring him with us.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I didn't ask you to.”

He looked around him, as if he feared something might be listening, then he took her by the arms. “I
can
save him, but not at the moment. I definitely can't save him if I'm dead. You can't save him if you're dead either. Hence our need for saving our own sweet necks first.”

“You're speaking in riddles.”

“I know,” he said grimly, “and it's giving me pains in my head.” He blew out his breath. “I am almost an entire bloody year away from being free of a charge laid on me. Once that sentence is served, I can return and see to your grandfather.”

“Sentence?” She looked at him narrowly. “You've escaped from some sort of gaol, haven't you?”

“I would say I'd walked right into one, but you can think of it however you care to. As for your grandfather, if you can trust me, I can help you. But I can't help either of us if we're dead, which is why we need to escape Briàghde before your uncle realizes we've left.”

“Who
are
you?” she asked. “More to the point, why do I keep asking?”

He smiled. She had to admit that he was terribly handsome when he frowned, but when he smiled . . .

She shook her head to clear it. Perhaps there was magic after all and she'd been put under some horrible spell that was attempting
to lead her away from her very sensible existence where the only sort of males she had to encounter had four feet instead of two. The current one walking on two looked around him, then leaned closer as if he had some terrible secret to share.

“I shouldn't tell you this,” he whispered, “but I think I might be allowed this much.” He paused. “The truth is, I am a mage.”

She blinked, then smiled. “Of course you are.”

“You don't believe me?” he asked in surprise.

“Of course I don't believe you,” she said with a snort. “Magic? Are you utterly mad? I think what you're suffering from is an enormous ego and delusions of grandeur, but perhaps that's too blunt.”

“I deserve this,” he muttered. “And somewhere, someone is having himself a jolly good laugh over it all.” He looked at her. “Believe me or don't, at this point it doesn't matter. All that matters is that we get away from this place as quickly as possible.”

She stopped just short of wringing her hands. “But how do I leave him behind?” she whispered. “He's helpless.”

Acair chewed on his words until he seemingly found ones he could spew out. “How long had his illness been coming on?”

“I can't say with certainty,” she said slowly. “He took care of me the night I arrived and seemed perfectly sound. The next night he was in his current state.”

“And what happened to you when he had this sudden decline?”

“I was sent to the stables.”

He closed his eyes briefly, then put his arm around her shoulders and turned her away from the pile of timbers. “I didn't have a very good look at him, but I'm guessing the cause of his illness wasn't natural, if you know what I mean.”

“I'm ignoring that because it's ridiculous.”

“All the more reason to have a bit of faith in it,” he said firmly. “And if this makes you feel any better, I think the more notice you take off him and put on to yourself, the better off he will be. Fleeing Sàraichte is a fine way to do it.”