“I’m the one with the soft bed,” she pointed out, “and I’ll bury my unease in sleep soon enough.”
“Throw something at me to wake me if that changes,” he said with a yawn, “or if you feel unsafe. I’ll trot out my harshest language to defend you.”
She watched him simply roll off the chair and stretch out on the floor next to her bed. She imagined it was an improvement over where he’d been sleeping for the past few days.
She stretched out and looked up at the canopy over her head. The wood was intricately carved, no doubt representing heroic scenes she knew nothing about. If that wasn’t a perfect reflection of her own life presently, she didn’t know what was.
What she should have done when her life had become something unrecognizable was scamper back inside whatever barn she’d been nearest to, saddle the first horse she’d come across, then escape through the nearest set of barn doors before anyone had been the wiser. With any luck it would have been a very unmagical pony who would have carried her off into an equally unmagical sunset where she might have found a different barn thoroughly free of mages where she could have settled in for a lifetime of very ordinary, pedestrian horse work.
Instead, not only had she asked for the ability to work spells, she had sat on the other side of an invisible doorway from a vile black mage and learned spells from him so she might sally forth and do damage with them. ’Twas only after that sallying that she realized that using those spells was a bit like riding a spooked horse that was bolting with her on its back, only this was a bolting horse that would never be outlasted.
She half wondered if she would spend the rest of her life simply trying to hold on and not be tossed aside to die a lingering, painful death from having dashed her head against a rock.
“Things will look better after a rest, Léirsinn.”
She would have answered him, but a quick look over the edge of her bed proved that Acair of Ceangail was either exhausted or had been talking in his sleep. She left him to it, then settled in for a bit of rest herself. To her surprise, she felt almost at ease. And all because a chivalrous black mage was within shouting distance.
Truly the world was full of things she had never expected.
Three
There were few things more inconvenient than a portly dispenser of strengthening draughts snoring comfortably atop a divan that hid under its austere cushions a book that would put a substantial rent in the very fabric of the world if it, as the rustics were wont to say, got ’round.
Acair leaned heavily against the footpost of Léirsinn’s bed. As tempting as it was to give a little leap of joy over being free of the king’s dungeon, he had to forebear. What strength remained him would likely be spent in overcoming the substantial obstacle that currently lay between him and the book he needed. Whatever Master Ollamh’s virtues as a healer might have been, they were certainly outweighed, as it were, by the man’s ability to nap through almost anything.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already made several attempts to interrupt his chaperon’s slumber. He had cleared his throat with vigor, bumped a leg of the sofa—well, he’d kicked it deliberately, but who was to know?—and dropped a pewter mug on the hearthstone near the man’s head. Léirsinn had woken at the latter, cursed him, then rolled over and gone back to sleep. Ollamh hadn’t indulged in even the faintest grumble of annoyance. Short of physically rolling him onto the floor and liberating the goods from beneath yon sofa cushions, Acair supposed he would simply have to wait for the man to sleep himself out.
He forced down the brief flash of panic that rose up to choke him, an unaccustomed and certainly unpleasant sensation if ever there were one. The truth was, he was in a bit of rush to get things done. There were mages to identify and slay, shadows to disperse, and doilies to stuff into pockets—all things that needed to be seen to before some fool with more power than sense reduced the world to ashes.
He deliberately took a figurative step backward. Whilst escape out the front gates topped his list of things to do, Léirsinn needed a chance to rest from her attempts to reduce the king and his hall to cinders and he needed time to recover from his state of utter exhaustion. No harm would come to the world if he were to set aside his catalog of impossible tasks for an hour or two and soldier on toward things that were more easily done.
First things first and that was to pen a heartfelt note of thanks to Hearn of Angesand for having saved his own sweet neck. Admittedly the man had saddled him, fairly literally, with a horse that wanted to kill him, but that was surely just a bit of good-natured sport at his expense. If Hearn wanted his son to be healed from an encounter with a nasty patch of shadow, Acair was happy to attempt it. It was, he knew, the only reason he was still breathing.
He supposed he might understand the lengths to which one would go to save a loved one. Léirsinn had put herself in peril for her own reasons that might have had nothing to do with him.
But if she had done it for him because he meant that much to her—
He staggered mentally away from that thought with all the grace of a Slighian lad who’d spent the evening becoming overly acquainted with the local tap. Léirsinn had already watched him weep. He had no desire to reduce himself again to a blubbering mass of gratitude and embarrassment. Perhaps she was fond of him, or perhaps not. Best to concentrate on his list of Important Things To Do and leave more maudlin sentiments to Nerochian lads who used those sorts of displays to get themselves out of sticky situations.
He found ink and parchment and used it to heap praise on the good lord of Angesand’s head for the gift of his life. He was halfway to using that ridiculous spell for hastening the drying of ink he’d pinched from Simeon of Diarmailt before he realized that using spells of any sort would make Hearn’s efforts useless. He settled for blowing on the ink to dry it and paid the price in stars swirling around his head.
He reached for another sheaf, then hesitated. As tempting as it was to have all his correspondence taken care of, he decided that perhaps he would send a message to the king of Neroche later when he thought he could find the words to tell Miach that he’d lost his brother and hadn’t taken the time to stop and look for him. That, he supposed, might tax even his own enviable powers of deflection.
He folded his note to Hearn and plopped a pot of ink atop it to keep it closed. He would seal it properly and find a messenger willing to go to Angesand later, when he felt more himself.
He walked back over to Léirsinn’s bed and indulged again in a fond embrace of that sturdy footpost whilst he considered what needed to happen next. Perhaps he might do a bit of nosing about, then toddle off to the palace library for a friendly thumb through a book or two of spells. He might even manage a decent nap on a floor that was covered with something besides vermin.
But first a wee stroll to test his strength and give Ollamh a chance to finish what were no doubt delightful dreams about herbal concoctions. He straightened, swayed more enthusiastically than he was comfortable with, then shuffled over to the door. He put his ear to the wood, but heard nothing suspicious. He very carefully turned the heavy brass doorknob and peeked out into the passageway.