Eighteen
Sarah wondered if another day would come when she felt as though she were walking in something other than a waking dream.
She would have happily trailed along behind Ruith and avoided having to look at dwarves with very sharp swords—and a few with very pointed pikes, truth be told—but he had tucked her hand under his arm and seemed determined to keep her next to him. She wasn’t going to argue. She was too busy hoping they wouldn’t be thrown in the dungeon for attempting entrance into a place so fortresslike it made Buidseachd look like a pitched tent. Whatever the dwarves hid in their palace, they wanted it kept safe.
She supposed she would have felt quite comfortable with all the stone and guards and well-crafted steel—and the spells which were enough to give any woman with wit to spare pause—but she wasn’t entirely sure those things wouldn’t be barriers to her escape, should she need to make one.
They were ushered and not pushed—a good sign, she thought—through passageways and up and down stairs that whispered with tales of glorious riches and their discovery by only the most canny and persistent. Perhaps the people of Léige were more concerned with their exploits than they were using their spells on uninvited visitors—yet another promising sign. All they had to do was find out if Keir was there, have a little chat with him, then be on their way into other places that she was quite sure would be even more unpleasant.
Without warning, they walked out into an enormous hall, cavernous and intimidating, with a floor so polished, she had to look twice to make sure she wasn’t walking on glass. The walls bore carvings of the same sort of heroic scenes that the passageways had seemed eager to tell. She saw those only because, despite the darkness of the stone and the blackness of the polished floor, the entire place was full of scores of lamps and candles and other sorts of lights that weren’t entirely of this world.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Ruith looked a little winded himself. “I’ve never been in here. We were always accorded the lesser greeting hall.”
“Your reputation precedes you, then.”
“I think it might have been the chance to admire our horses more closely,” Ruith managed. “It was probably wise to ask them to resume their proper shapes well away from the walls, though I imagine Uachdaran’s scouts saw everything anyway.”
“Perhaps they’re afraid you’ll do the same to them,” she whispered.
He looked at her, then smiled. “We’ll speak of dwarvish magic later, when we have some privacy. They have no fear of me.” He looked around him for another moment, then shrugged. “I have the feeling it was the sword that earned us this. And I believe I’m going to owe Soilléir a fortnight or two of mucking out his stables as repayment.”
She would have agreed heartily, but they had come to a stop some thirty paces away from the thrones set on a dais, and she thought idle chatter might be out of place.
One throne was empty, but ’twas obvious that the king was occupying the other. She remembered Franciscus having told her that the dwarvish queen had lost her life in some tragic sort of fashion, but she couldn’t remember the details. She stopped with Ruith and wondered if she should bow or curtsey. She decided upon the latter and attempted it whilst Ruith made the king a very low, very long bow.
A guilty conscience was keeping him there longer than he might have been normally, no doubt.
“King Uachdaran,” Ruith said, straightening. “We bring you our deepest gratitude for your hospitality, as well as a gift from Soilléir of Cothromaiche. I am—”
“I know who you are,” Uachdaran grumbled loudly. “Gair’s youngest brat save one.”
“Um,” Ruith said, sounding nonplussed, “well, aye. I am that.”
“You’ve missed an entire contingent of your relations,” Uachdaran said, looking at Ruith calculatingly. “If I didn’t know better, I would think the entire house of Seanagarra was determined to make itself at home in my hall. And in my private solar.”
Ruith at least had the grace to blush. “I can understand why you might think that, Your Majesty, and I apologize for any past forays into places not usually accessible to visitors.”
Uachdaran grunted. “I don’t want to know how many forays you made, but at least you apologized. When that young upstart from Neroche arrived at my gates recently, he only flattered me in a rather restrained fashion, then retired to my solar for a very long morning of no doubt continuing to look for things he shouldn’t have.”
“I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“He always does,” Uachdaran said severely. “And I’ll have it known that the only reason I allowed it was to reward him for his eye for a beautiful woman.”
“My sister?”
Uachdaran smirked. “Bet you didn’t know that until recently, did you, Ruithneadh?”
Sarah pursed her lips to keep from smiling. Whatever bluster Ruith had possessed on the way into the palace—which she had appreciated, in truth—had apparently left him abruptly. He seemed only capable of looking at Uachdaran as if he’d just been rapped smartly on the nose with a stick.
“Nay, I didn’t, Your Majesty.”
“Ha,” Uachdaran said, then he frowned. “I should enjoy this more, but your grandfather was uncommonly—and uncustomarily—pleasant to me recently. I suppose you’ll benefit.”
“Your Majesty’s generosity knows no bounds.”
“Don’t think it’ll earn you another trip into my solar, boy.”
“Of course not, Your Majesty.”
“Your sister has very pretty manners, for a soldier,” Uachdaran continued. “No taste in lads, but decent manners.”
“I plan on speaking to her about both, Your Majesty.”
The king scowled at him, then turned his scowl on her. Sarah felt a little faint, but since Ruith was obviously not going to be of any help, she stiffened her spine and returned the king’s look steadily.
He grunted at her. “Sarah of Doìre.”
“Aye, Your Majesty.” She had given her name at the front gates, so it was no surprise that he knew it already.
He squinted at her from a steely eye. “I daresay I should have kept young Mhorghain here a bit longer. Would have saved me time in advising you both of the wisdom of avoiding entanglements with mages—especially such a pair as you both seem to have taken up with.”
“I’m not entangled,” Sarah protested, though she found herself squirming under the words. Nay, she wasn’t entangled, but that wasn’t because she had other entanglements to contemplate, nor because she wouldn’t have had anything to do with Ruith if things had been different.
Uachdaran only snorted at her. “You shouldn’t hedge, gel. You’re not good at it.” He pushed himself up off his throne and bounded down the steps with the energy of a youth, which he most assuredly was not. “Show me the sword you’ve brought, young Ruithneadh, and let’s see what Soilléir has foisted off upon me.”
Sarah watched the king’s face as Ruith drew the sword and laid it across both his palms where Uachdaran could see it plainly.
The dwarf king froze, just as Soilléir had done.
And then the moment was gone, just as it had been with Soilléir, as if it had never been there and nothing about the blade had startled the king. He stroked his chin thoughtfully, then looked up at Ruith.
“Nice steel,” he said.
“Not as fine as something you would make, of course,” Ruith began respectfully.
“You would be surprised at what comes from my forge,” Uachdaran said. “Including this blade.”
“Indeed?” Ruith asked in surprise.
“Indeed,” Uachdaran said, in a perfect mocking imitation of Ruith’s tone. “There isn’t a blade that leaves my smithy without my inspection and my mark. Even the Sword of Neroche,” he added with a twinkle in his eye. “And that gel’s blade that Mehar of Angesand is so fond of. I added a little something of my own recently while the interested parties were off having tea.”
“I had no idea,” Ruith managed.
Uachdaran snorted at him. “You would think with all the prying into my private affairs you did in your youth that you might have learned a few details about my most powerful magic, but perhaps not.” He pointed with his nose to the darkness behind them. “Go have a rest, children, then come to supper—if you’re not too high for simple fare.”
“We would prefer it,” Ruith said promptly, “but, Your Majesty—”
Uachdaran stopped in mid-step and turned back around. “Eh?”
“Don’t you want the sword?”
“It served its purpose,” Uachdaran said with a shrug. “You keep it.”
Ruith frowned. “Then there was a message you understood ... or ...”
Uachdaran pursed his lips. “If you haven’t the wit to discover that on your own, little lad, then you’re not worthy of that blade. Go put your wee thinking cap on, Ruithneadh. The answer will come to you in time.”
Sarah waited with Ruith as Uachdaran turned and strode out of his grand audience chamber. Ruith resheathed the sword, then turned to her. He still looked a little winded.
“The king loves a good riddle.”
“Apparently,” she agreed. She managed a smile. “Are you going to solve it?”
“Among other ones, aye, if I have the chance.” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “We have dinner and a bed for the night, at least. We’d probably best take advantage of both whilst the offer still stands. I might do a little investigating—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted quickly. “Please.”
He smiled and drew her hand through his arm. “I won’t—at least not until we’re ready to leave. For now, I think we should take the king up on his invitation for a nap and something to eat.”
Considering we’re likely not to enjoy the like again for some time was what he hadn’t said, but she was sure he’d thought.
She walked with him as they were escorted back out of the hall and through other passageways that were no less full of tales of glory and glittering things than the first set had been. She would have paid more attention, but the truth was, she hadn’t slept well, even at Buidseachd, and she hadn’t slept much at all for the past two days. She saw a quite lovely bed near the hearth in the very lovely chamber she was shown, managed to stagger over to it, and fell into its softness before she could even attempt a stab at good manners or thanks to the serving maids she had noticed.
Her last thought was that she hoped Ruith would shut the door so no one would watch her drool in her sleep.
Several hours later, she sat in front of a mirror and wondered if it would be rude to put her foot down and demand back her traveling clothes which seemed to have disappeared along with her used bathwater.
She was wearing a black dress that she learned, after sifting through profuse apologies for not having had something ready just for her, had been worn very briefly by Ruith’s sister Mhorghain before she’d demanded her leggings and tunic back.
Sarah thought she and Mhorghain might get along very well indeed.
Her hair had been washed and combed out and left hanging in a riot of curls down her back. She was rather paler than she would have thought she would have been given all the traveling she’d done, but perhaps her face was a reflection of the unease she couldn’t seem to shake, even protected as she was inside impenetrable walls. She watched as the maid, a rather tall, exceptionally lovely girl of obviously dwarvish descent, reached for something else to torture her with.
“Absolutely not,” she said, eyeing the item suspiciously.
The girl held a circlet of gold in her hands. “But, my lady, ’twas fashioned especially for you.”
Sarah scowled in spite of herself. The seamstresses had been too busy to aid her, but the goldsmiths had been lounging about with time on their hands? She revisited the idea of putting her foot down.
“’Tis a modest thing,” the girl added, holding it out for inspection. “Hardly anything to be seen, don’t you agree?”
Sarah had to agree that it was very discreet, but that was beside the point. “I’m not worthy of a crown,” she protested.
“Well,” said a voice from the doorway, “that’s a matter of opinion.”
Sarah looked around her maid to find Ruith standing just inside her doorway, leaning back against the wall, watching her. She wondered just how long he’d been standing there and how much of her complaints he’d heard. He was smiling, though, so perhaps he hadn’t been bothered by them.
“Are you responsible for this?” she demanded.
He only shook his head slowly. “I’m not, though I would certainly take credit for it if I dared.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “You look lovely.”
She stood, because she thought it might be easier to bolt that way. “You look lovely as well,” she said, because it was true, though something of an understatement.
He had obviously succumbed to the same pressure she’d been put under to dress properly for supper, though his clothing was still very discreet. No baubles, fine embroidery, capes hanging from his shoulders, or fancy court shoes. He was wearing black boots, black trousers, and a deep green tunic that she imagined would do quite lovely things for his eyes. She noticed immediately that even though he wasn’t wearing a crown, he’d been given one because he’d stuck his arm through it as if it had been a very large bracelet.
“I understand,” he began slowly, “that there is to be a formal sort of entertainment tonight.”
“How fortunate for you,” she managed. “You’ll have the chance to audition a princess or two.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but since my first thought was that I would have the opportunity to pass the evening with you, I wanted to rescue myself from complete embarrassment and see if you would humor me by practicing a dance step or two.”
She sank back down onto the chair she’d recently vacated. “But I can’t dance,” she protested.
“And I can?” he asked, with an uncomfortable laugh. “We have half an hour to remedy that before supper. I suggest we take advantage of the dancing master I bribed and left out in the passageway to await our pleasure.”
“I think I should just sit and watch—”
He walked over and pulled her up off the chair. “Nay, my lady, you will not.”
She looked up at him. “You arrogant, autocratic—”
“State dinners include dancing.”
She pursed her lips for she knew there was no escaping her fate. She conceded the battle, but not the war.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh, “I will dance, but I will not wear—” She managed to point vaguely toward the serving girl. “I won’t wear that.”
The girl looked at Ruith for support. He looked fully prepared to give it to her, so Sarah left them to their scheming and retreated to stand in front of the fire where she could attempt to warm her hands that were far colder than they should have been. She heard Ruith’s soft laughter, listened to him usher the girl out the door, then heard his footsteps approach. He stopped behind her and waited silently, but Sarah couldn’t bring herself to help him along into hitherto unexplored realms of uncomfortable conversational topics.
He apparently had more patience than she did, though, because he outlasted her easily. She finally gave vent to a gusty sigh and turned to look at him.
“I’ve changed my mind. I want to use one of my remaining beg-off-from-supper tokens.”
“Can’t,” he said cheerfully. “Even my grandfather doesn’t refuse supper here—when he manages to get himself inside the gates.”
She had to force herself to breathe normally. “I don’t belong here.”
“And given the long history of prickly relations between my mother’s people and Uachdaran’s, I would say I didn’t either. But since the king has been good enough to offer us shelter and a meal, I imagine we should accept and see if we can’t improve the goodwill a bit.”
“How politic of you, Your Highness.”
“It is, isn’t it?” he asked, frowning as if he wasn’t quite sure where the impulse had come from. He walked over to rest his hand on the enormous stone mantel. “Lovely gown.”
“Your sister wore it when she was here.”
He flinched. “Touché, love.”
“The difference is, the crown they tried to stick on her head was bigger, I understand, though she balked at wearing it as well.” She tucked her hands into her sleeves, wincing as she grazed her right arm.
“It sounds as if you’ll get on famously,” he said.
She nodded, then turned to look at the fire again, because it was easier than looking at him. She knew she was stalling, but it seemed the only thing to do out of a sense of self-preservation. “Ruith—”
“We’ll be late if we don’t hurry,” he said, taking her arm suddenly and pulling her across the chamber. “Dancing lessons. But first the appropriate accoutrements.”
Sarah watched him, unable to speak, as he plopped his crown on his head with an adroitness that bespoke a youth in a palace, then took hers, turned her toward him, and gently placed it on her head. Then he met her eyes.
“This is freshly forged.”
“Mistakenly—”
“Purposely,” he corrected, “for you, which means you should wear it.”
“But I am nothing,” she protested.
“You are something to me,” he said seriously, “and Uachdaran perhaps honors you for that reason. I suspect, however, that since he obviously ordered this made for you, he has other reasons we can’t yet divine.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what they are,” she muttered.
“Delving too deeply into the dwarf king’s motives can be dangerous,” he agreed, “but always yields interesting results.” He paused. “If nothing else, you could wear this very lovely bit of work and give a goldsmith who will likely be sneaking a look in the great hall tonight a measure of delight at seeing his creation atop the head of the most beautiful woman there.”
She looked up at him, but found she couldn’t see him very well. She was weary; that was it. It had been an extraordinarily long winter turned spring so far with no sign of any of it abating any time soon. She blinked rapidly.
“I’m not a weeper.”
“Nay, love, you aren’t.”
She took a deep breath. “I still don’t want this, but I will endure it to please that very shy smith.” She paused. “I’m not sure I can keep it on my head.”
“I’ll see to it.” He fetched a pair of pins from the dressing table, then frowned thoughtfully as he attempted to use them for their intended purpose. He examined his work, then reached up and brushed two stray tears from her cheeks. “You need a distraction. Allow me to offer myself.”
“Altruistic of you.”
“Self-serving,” he admitted, “but you can think of it how you want.” He took her left hand. “Let’s be off to see what we can learn before supper begins.”
Their dancing master, a small, elfin creature, had endless amounts of patience and an infectious amount of good humor. He taught them three dances, pronounced them quick studies, and promised to have a quiet word with King Uachdaran’s musicians after supper so she and Ruith would have something familiar to dance to. Sarah felt absolutely ridiculous walking into a great hall full of royalty and important guests, but Ruith had promised her he would chase her if she bolted, so she concentrated on the very necessary task of making sure her crown stayed on her head.
She found herself sitting on Uachdaran’s right hand in a place of honor, with Ruith on her right. She was very grateful for the king’s single-minded concentration on his supper, which gave her the chance to attempt to do the same. She gave up the effort after a bit, not because the food wasn’t superb but because she was too distracted by what she was seeing in the hall.
Soilléir had much to answer for.
Whilst the hall itself could be properly described as stately, it wasn’t the heavy beams in the ceiling or the marvelously designed and fashioned tapestries draping over the walls from floor to ceiling that she couldn’t look away from.
It was the tales being told by the flames flickering in the massive hearths set on either side of the hall.
She felt as if heroic epics were being reenacted for her benefit alone, mighty deeds wrought by dwarves throughout the ages, battles fought against darkness and evil when men and elves were otherwise occupied with less weighty matters of their realms. Sarah could only watch, speechless, at what she saw, things she had never once considered might be occurring under her nose—or under mountains she had never laid eyes on in her life—things that had quietly, relentlessly, absolutely kept the inhabitants of the Nine Kingdoms sleeping safely.
She looked at the king to find him watching her with a small smile as if he knew exactly what she was seeing.
“Do you see too?” she asked, because she couldn’t help herself.
“Oh, aye, lass,” he said with another knowing smile. “Not many others do, though. I daresay your lad there isn’t seeing anything in my hearths but a flame to warm his backside on a chilly night.”
“See what?” Ruith asked politely, leaning forward. “Your strings warming up, Your Majesty? My lady owes me a dance or two.”
Uachdaran winked at her, then looked at Ruith. “While I understand your enthusiasm, lad, first I think we must humor my bard. He keeps our genealogy, as you may or may not know, and while that is a worthy task, he never misses the chance to have a peep in someone else’s family tree. Your grandfather, I’m afraid, didn’t have the time to attend him at all, to his great distress. I hope you children don’t mind if he at least comes to greet you. I imagine neither of you will escape without divulging a few details he’ll want to record in his books.”
“I don’t think my heritage will come as much of a surprise to him,” Ruith said dryly, “but I’ll gladly humor him. I might have an unsavoury connection or two to delight him with, if he has the stomach for it.”
“He does,” Uachdaran said mildly. He nodded to one of his pages, who ran off without hesitation.
Sarah would have liked to have distracted herself with the fire a bit longer, but the tales had ceased. That might have been because they felt they were competing with what the musicians were creating, music she could see hanging in the air, forming itself into proper patterns of dance. She blinked, but the notes remained long enough to make their appearance, take their place in the song, then slip offstage, as it were.
She looked at Uachdaran in surprise.
He was still simply watching her with that half smile, as if he knew exactly what she was seeing—which she suspected he did—and was pleased to enjoy it with her.
“Didn’t expect this, did you, lass?” he asked gently.
“I’m finding, Your Majesty, that that has become my lot in life.”
He smiled, a smile full of good humor. “I hope, my gel, that you will one day be able to leave that saying behind, but I fear that day is not near. Ah, here is Master Eachdraidh.”
Sarah looked at the man hurrying across the hall, his arms full of papers and the voluminous sleeves of his robe flapping with his haste. He was tall, for an inhabitant of Léige, and very thin, looking as if he spent the majority of his time holed up in some chamber or other, looking through books. She supposed she could have been accused of hiding herself in a place or two to weave, but she somehow didn’t think she looked quite that pale.
Master Eachdraidh skidded to a stop in front of the high table, made the king a very low bow, which sent his pages scattering, then spent a few minutes trying to gather everything back up. Ruith, the good-hearted soul that he was, walked around the table and bent to help him. They chatted amicably about the unpredictability of pages that weren’t sewn properly into a book—Sarah caught the look Ruith sent her and smiled in understanding—then Ruith straightened and left the historian to his own devices.
Eachdraidh clutched his papers to his chest, then made the king another low bow. “Your Majesty, I have come to, of course, first delight you with the retelling of a tale or two unearthed from the vaults below, then I thought ... to ...”
Sarah watched the man lose his ability to speak. His mouth worked soundlessly, as if he’d just seen a ghost. She looked over her shoulder to see if that might be the case—she was fully prepared to see more things than she would have ever wanted to in the past—but there was nothing behind her. She turned back to Uachdaran’s genealogist and realized he wasn’t looking at someone behind her.
He was looking at her.
His papers fluttered to the floor.
He joined them with substantially less grace.
“Interesting,” Uachdaran said, then he clapped his hands together. Guards strode across the hall, gathered up the fallen bard, then carried him and his things off to points unknown. The king looked at Ruith. “Dancing, lad?”
“Of course,” Ruith said smoothly. He pushed his chair back and held down his hand. “Sarah?”
She wasn’t opposed to holding his hand, though she was beginning to think she should hold it, then continue to hold it as she fled with him out the front gates. She stopped in the middle of the hall and looked up at him.
“And just what was that all about?” she asked.
“The bard?” He shrugged. “He’s excitable. I wouldn’t give it another thought. I imagine you’re finding enough to think on without worrying about the antics of an overwrought keeper of histories.”
It was just one more thing to add to a very odd evening, so she set it aside. She couldn’t set aside the other things as easily. “What is this place?” she managed.
“You tell me.”
“The fire tells stories and the king is unsurprised by that.”
“Love, I daresay the king isn’t surprised by much.”
“The music makes patterns in the hall,” she added. “As if the notes were dancers themselves.”
“Fascinating.”
She glared at him. “You’re making sport of me.”
“I’m not,” he said frankly. “I’m intrigued by what you can see. And willing, as always, to suggest that if your sight of other things bothers you, you are more than welcome to look only at me. Indeed, I think that might be just the thing for you tonight. I promise the view will be—”
“Ruith,” she warned.
“Very well,” he said with a smile, “I’ll leave off with the feigned arrogance, though I want it noted I indulged in it simply to ease your nerves.”
She grumbled at him, though she had to concede that his technique had been rather successful. She forgot about the things in Léige that apparently only she and the king could see, forgot about what lay beyond the walls, and even managed to forget about Uachdaran’s bard, who had looked at her and then fainted.
“I think you’re forgetting about me,” Ruith said in a singsong sort of voice. “Though how you could, I don’t know.”
She smiled at him in spite of how hard she fought not to. “Thank you.”
“A stroll in the garden later, whilst you’re feeling so charitable toward me?”
“I think your time would be better spent dancing with a handful of Uachdaran’s granddaughters,” she said with a snort.
“And then a walk?”
“Aye, to my chamber where I will thank you for the lovely dances, then climb into bed and pull the blankets over my head where I need not see anything else this day.”
He smiled. “Very well, I’ll concede the battle. Tonight. But I think you would find the garden very interesting. Nothing there but trees and a handful of stone benches for those who need a rest.”
She imagined it would contain quite a few more things than that, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. She would fight him about it on the morrow, after she’d spent a peaceful night not dreaming. Retiring early would give her a chance to get her crown off her head, allow Ruith some time to pry useful details out of the king, and provide her with a place to close her eyes and block out more things she didn’t want to see.
Such as the bard, Eachdraidh, who was now clinging to one of the hall doors, still watching her as if he’d seen a ghost.
“I’m more interesting than he is,” Ruith remarked.
“That you are, Your Highness,” she agreed, happy for once to look at him and no one else.
Though it was rather more hard on her heart than she suspected it might be.
Ten princesses, indeed.
But at least thinking on that gave her a reason not to think on all the other very odd things she’d seen since she’d walked through Uachdaran’s heavy front gates. Surely Soilléir would have known what he was sending them into, but he’d done it anyway, without a twinge of remorse or hesitation.
She couldn’t help but wonder why.