by Lynn Kurland
She stood there until merely standing began to make her restless. Perhaps there were properties to the country of Tòrr Dòrainn she didn’t understand, some sort of elvish thing that affected curses in a way their original spewer might not have been able to account for. She turned around to look at the trees, half hoping but not truly expecting them to have any sort of answer for her—
But there was a man standing beneath those trees who might have one or two.
He was leaning against a tree with his arms folded over his chest. Sadly, he wasn’t gasping for air as he likely should have been after obviously having run after her. Whatever he’d been doing over the past several years, he hadn’t been merely sitting in a chair reading.
He was better at remaining silent than she was, as if he had honed for years the skill of simply breathing without speaking. She gave in first because she supposed they would have stood there all day otherwise, staring at each other in silence.
“How did you know?” she asked, trying not to choke on the words.
He pushed away from his tree and walked out into the glade, stopping but a pace away from her. He looked at her and smiled, a ghost of a smile that she might have missed had she not been looking at him.
“I believe you’ve lost a few of your hairpins.”
She put her hand up to her hair and found that was indeed the case. “The maid put it up for me.”
“I should have mentioned earlier how lovely you look, but I was distracted.” He held up his hand to reveal half a dozen golden hairpins. “If you turn around, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Do you have any skill as a lady’s maid?”
“Absolutely none, but I have braided more than my share of horses’ manes.”
“That’s something I suppose.”
“It is,” he agreed.
She turned around, because it gave her something useful to do. Listening to Rùnach curse under his breath as he fussed with her hair gave her something to do besides listen to her own somewhat unsteady heartbeat.
“Well,” he said finally, “it’s back up but rather a disaster. We’ll have to find your maid to fix it unless you care to go for another run, then we can claim it isn’t my fault.”
She turned and pursed her lips at him. “It is your fault.”
He smiled. “How is it my fault?”
“You . . . well, you read things you shouldn’t have.”
“You hedged.”
“You snooped,” she countered.
“It’s what I do, and just so you know, you are absolutely stunning here in this glade with the sunshine falling down on you.” He smiled. “I wish I could decide what color your eyes are.”
She could hardly believe her ears. He had revealed her most closely guarded secret as if it had been no more serious than what his grandfather’s cook might be preparing for supper, and now he had the cheek to stand there and compliment her? She put her hands on her hips and glared at him again, because that seemed like a reasonable thing to do.
“Is that all you have to say?” she demanded.
“Nay.” He reached for her hand. “Let’s go find your maid.”
The man was going to make her daft long before any Bruadairian curse finished her off. “That’s it?”
He stopped. “Should there be more?”
She would have thrown up her hands in frustration, but he was holding one, which was comforting enough that she didn’t particularly want to disturb the pleasure it brought her.
“Of course there should be more,” she said, settling for exasperation in her tone. “You have revealed things that needed to stay hidden, secrets of state that should have been preserved, secrets that might possibly spell the end of my life!”
“You seem to still be breathing—”
“Rùnach!”
His smile faded. “Aisling, do you honestly believe that I would have risked your life in such a manner?”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I only know people who put very little value on the lives of others.”
“That was before,” he said simply. “Now, you know me. You know half a dozen others—including a pair of kings and queens who happen to be in my family—who value life very highly, including yours. And you can trust that none of us would ever do anything to harm you.”
She thought she might like to find somewhere to sit down sooner rather than later. Outside of Mistress Muinear—and perhaps the peddler who needed her to fulfill a quest—Aisling didn’t suppose there was another soul alive who cared whether she lived or died. She took a deep breath and looked at him.
“I don’t understand why you took the trouble,” she said very quietly.
“Because Mistress Aisling of Bruadair, I didn’t want you to walk anymore in the shadow of rumor and falsehood when I had the means of dispelling them both.”
She looked at him standing there with the sun falling down on his dark hair and casting the scarred side of his face in shadows and knew quite suddenly and without a doubt that if there was one person in the world she could trust with terrible secrets, it was Rùnach of Ceangail. Because he had faced death himself, going places he likely hadn’t wanted to but had just the same because he valued the lives of his siblings and his mother.
And now he had done the same thing for her.
“You are very kind,” she managed.
“And as I have said before, you are very easy to be kind to.” He smiled and nodded back the way they had come. “Let’s walk. You’ll feel happier if you’re wandering through trees who will no doubt favor you with a tuneful bit of singing only you’ll be able to hear.”
She supposed he might be right. She nodded, then allowed him to lead her out of the glade. It only took walking a bit down the path that seemingly opened up just for them for her to realize what still bothered her. She sighed. “It seems terribly anticlimactic, you know.”
He smiled. “What does?”
“You, finding out all my secrets.”
“It was just one very big secret, Aisling.”
She took a deep breath. “Apparently not.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You Bruadairians are a secretive lot. There are indeed many tales—where there are tales to be found—of the lengths you will go to in order to maintain the veil drawn over your country.” He lifted an eyebrow briefly. “I know details, if you’re curious.”
She managed to dredge up a scowl. “Someday, Rùnach of Tòrr Dòrainn, I will know a secret you do not, and I will make you work very hard for the details, believe you me.”
He laughed a little and nodded back toward the palace. “Let’s go, woman, before you enjoy that thought overmuch. And before I forget my manners in the enjoyment of your giving me my mother’s birthplace instead of my father’s chosen locale, let me ask how you feel.”
She considered the condition of her poor form. “Remarkably good, actually.”
“I’m exhausted from chasing you, so why don’t we go sit in front of the fire in the library and read for a bit? We might be able to look in the same books for a change, or I can watch you read what I handed you earlier. It was very enlightening.”
She nodded absently, then looked over as much of herself as she could. No telltale signs of impending death or untoward swelling or discoloration signaling her innards preparing to suddenly adorn the outside of her flesh. She frowned, then looked up at Rùnach.
“I believe I’ve been lied to.”
He chewed on his words for a moment or two. “In essentials, I would say aye. I believe there may be some truth to rumors of terrible things happening to those who cross your borders, but I imagine that is only because those souls are likely hunted down and dispatched by means of a very pedestrian sword.”
“Do you think so?”
“I do. Mansourah of Neroche didn’t dispute the fact that the borders are tightly controlled, though I’m not sure I understand the reasons for it.”
“Mansourah of Neroche?” she asked in astonishment. “How
would he know?”
“He travels a great deal, something I believe he first engaged in to escape the annoyance that was his late brother Adhémar. He knows your ousted king Frèam. He also, if you can believe it, speaks your tongue.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked him.”
Rùnach pursed his lips. “It is his only redeeming feature, believe me. And I could learn your tongue if you would teach it to me.”
“Would you?” she asked, surprised. “Why?”
“Because then I would understand what you mutter under your breath when you think no one is listening.”
“Then I won’t have any secrets at all,” she said.
“Save the ones you keep by virtue of the fact that you’re a woman,” he said dryly. “Those of us belonging to the other persuasion are continually baffled by your kind.”
She suspected Rùnach wasn’t baffled by anything of the sort, but she didn’t say as much. She walked with him through the trees of his grandfather’s forest, relieved that the trees were courteous enough not to trip her when a handful of them didn’t have very kind thoughts about Rùnach himself. Apparently several of them had served as training partners in his youth and still felt the slight keenly.
“Did you guess?” she asked finally, when she thought her curiosity might get the better of her if she didn’t speak.
“What do you think?”
“I think you are going to poke your nose into a mystery one of these days that truly will be deadly, and then you’ll regret it.”
He smiled. “No doubt. But as for your mystery, the first clues I had were words you murmured not only at Gobhann but at Lismòr as you were descending into understandable senselessness.”
“And you couldn’t help but memorize those words.”
He shrugged. “Habit.”
“How did you know what the words meant?”
“That was more difficult. I had no idea what language they were and found nothing in any lexicon I searched, so I was at a bit of a loss.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Is that what you were doing in those libraries?”
He smiled, and she was pleased to see it was done with a fair bit of sheepishness.
“I had to keep myself awake somehow.”
She realized she was gaping at him. She shut her mouth with a snap. “I can’t believe you were . . . well, what would you call it?”
“Unraveling a mystery surrounding a very lovely woman who was plagued by things I knew couldn’t possibly be true.”
She walked with him for a bit longer before she could ask what she supposed had bothered her from the moment she’d seen her truth in his eyes. She took a deep breath. “And if speaking of, ah—”
“Bruadair,” he supplied.
She had to take another, deeper breath. “Bruadair,” she said, half afraid she would be struck down right there on the soft path leading to the king’s hall. She breathed still, which was encouraging. “If speaking of Bruadair had meant death in truth, what would you have done?”
“Kept my bloody mouth shut.”
She looked at him then. “To spare me?”
“Aye, Aisling, to spare you.”
She couldn’t respond, so she concentrated on simply watching where she was going and enjoying the brisk chill that lingered beneath the shadows of the trees. The forest was lovely, the ground was soft beneath her feet, and Rùnach’s hand was warm around hers. And under it all was the hint of a song that flowed as if it had been a river. She listened for a bit, then looked at Rùnach.
“I’m sorry you had to leave this.”
“There are many beautiful places in the world,” he said with a faint smile. “And if I’d done nothing but linger here, I believe I would have turned to fat or become as insufferable as my cousins, ever looking in their polished mirrors.”
“Well, you would have had reason, I suppose.”
He beamed at her. “Ah, another dip into that most interesting of conversational topics, namely your opinion of the fairness of my poor face. Tell me more.”
She rolled her eyes. “I refuse to add to your conceit. Tell me how you unraveled your latest mystery instead.”
“Are you sure—”
“That you are well aware of the fairness of your face and the fine figure you cut? Aye, I’m quite sure of that. Now, tell me what I want to know.”
He smiled. “Well, if you must know—and this will no doubt reveal more about my methods than I’m comfortable with—I spent a fruitless search or two in various lexicons. It was when we reached Tor Neroche—”
“Where the king is your brother-in-law and the queen your sister,” she said pointedly.
“Well, aye, they are,” he admitted, apparently without any shame. “I decided perhaps it might be useful to determine where you could possibly have come from. So, knowing that the unwashed and ill-kempt Mansourah of Neroche had traveled a great deal, I repeated to him the words I’d heard you murmur, hoping beyond hope that he might know of their origin.”
“And he did,” she finished for him. “Very clever, that one.”
“But unpleasantly fragrant and possessing no table manners. You wouldn’t want anything to do with him.”
She realized then what his words actually meant. She looked at him in surprise. “Are you saying that you’ve known since we left Tor Neroche?”
He nodded.
“And you didn’t tell me?” she said, aghast.
“And have you bolt when I wasn’t looking? Of course not.”
She started to protest the accusation, then realized he had a point given that she’d done exactly that not a half an hour earlier. “Very well, so you’re exceptionally good at keeping secrets. What did you learn about my country this morning when you no doubt read that book you handed me?”
“That Bruadair is littered with so many lakes, rivers, and streams that it is thoroughly impossible to go a league in any direction without getting wet.” He looked at her. “What do you know about your country?”
“I only know the Guild.”
“But that wasn’t where you were born, was it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember very much about where I was born. In fact, I’m not sure what I remember isn’t something I instead read in a book.”
He walked with her in silence for another moment or two, then stopped. He turned her to him, then pulled her into his arms.
She supposed that if all her tears hadn’t already been spent, she might have wept. As it was, all she could do was simply stand there and continue to breathe, in and out.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. “I wish things had been different for you.”
She shrugged, because there was nothing she could do to call back any of the years she had lost. “’Tis over and done, though I don’t particularly care to think on it.”
“Then let’s speak of other things. I believe there’s a bench over there that might suit us for a moment or two. Let’s sit whilst you’re about the work of telling me how it was you left Bruadair.”
She supposed there was little point in keeping that a secret any longer. Not now that Rùnach knew the most important secret of all. She sat down with him, rather more grateful for a solid seat than perhaps she should have been. She sighed, then looked at Rùnach.
“I may have told you some of this already,” she said.
“Context,” Rùnach said wryly. “I was imagining you in some tiny little village, not Beul.”
She blinked. “How did you know that?”
He rubbed his hands over his face briefly, then looked at her with a weary smile. “That was a guess. It is the capital of Bruadair. That’s all.”
“That’s something,” she said. She had to take a deep breath and clasp her hands tightly in her lap to keep them from shaking, perhaps, though she wasn’t sure why. “I was out on my day of liberty from the Guild and had been looking in a shop window when I saw a very finely dressed couple coming out of a very fine restaurant. I was in the mid
st of gaping at them when I realized they were my parents.”
“They won’t eat so well when they’re slaving away in a mine.”
She smiled. “Perhaps not. Anyway, I think I would have spoken to them if it hadn’t been for a man suddenly distracting me by asking for directions to somewhere I can’t remember. The only reason I remember him is that later in the evening, he rushed me through streets I was unfamiliar with.”
“Wait,” Rùnach said, holding up his hand. “What happened between those points?”
“I had run to the pub I often frequented to meet friends, terrified that my parents had seen me and would be sending guards after me.” She had to stop for a moment or two because the memory was too fresh. “I knew the only reason they would have been in Beul was to indenture me again, so I had two choices: I could either go back to the Guild and give up another seven years of my life or I would have to run.”
“And you ran?”
“I ran,” she agreed. “Two of my friends—if they can be called that, I suppose—had been talking about overthrowing the government.”
“Interesting friends,” he noted.
“Very,” she said. “One of them pulled me out the back when guards came in the front door, shoved a trader’s license into my hands, and told me to go. I ran and had not only a city guard but the gentleman from outside the shop get me to the border. I then ran bodily into the weaving mistress, Muinear, who put money into my hands and pushed me into the queue to leave the country.” She paused. “The Guildmistress slew her for that.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the bloodstained sword.”
He let out his breath slowly. “I’m sorry, Aisling.”
“I am too,” she said quietly. “Mistress Muinear was kind to me.” She took a deep breath. “After I escaped across the border, the peddler who sold me Ochadius’s book cut my hair and gave me clothes and money, then I ran into the night and caught the carriage that dropped me in Istaur. You know the rest from there.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared off over the land that surrounded the palace walls, walls that seemed to be more suggestions of a border than a barrier to anything determined, for quite some time in silence. Then he looked at her.
