His father or Douglas would have drawn much from her appearance. Cathal thought that she was probably decently wellborn and well-off, but any further meaning slipped away, too subtle for him to grasp.
“What kind of aid requires a dragon?” he asked and then, before she could respond, raised a hand. “I warn you now… I kill for my family and my people these days. That’s all.”
Wide eyes went narrow at that, but only for a moment. “Do you…” Sophia started, then sucked a breath in through her teeth and smiled with obvious effort. “I thank you for the warning. I’ve no need for men-at-arms. In truth, it isn’t you I need precisely.”
“The night’s gone sore long already,” he said, although he didn’t entirely want her to leave him to the castle accounts, nor to the thoughts that crept in around the edges of the numbers. “Speak plainly, pray.”
“I want one of your scales,” she said, and although she didn’t seem aware of it, her hands clasped together in front of her. “I would welcome more.”
“Ah.” Matters were becoming slightly clearer. Again he wished for Douglas, or perhaps Agnes, who’d always been the best of them where sorcery was concerned. “Enchantress, are ye?”
Sophia shook her head. “I wouldn’t make any such claim. I study alchemy. I am…” She wet her lips. “By the standards I know, I am very good. There are experiments, properties of metals and stones, that I believe the scales of a dragon would bring out. Some of them would be most helpful to…to people.”
“So I’d think.” Cathal pushed his chair back and stretched his legs out in front of him, folded his arms behind his head, and asked, “Which people? There are a few men in London I’d rather not be most helpful to. We’ve had a war recently. You might have heard.”
“I have,” she said, and Cathal watched her eyes darken, so that the fire behind him reflected in their depths. “And believe me, I’m no fonder of the English king than you are.”
If she’d been a man, she’d have spat after the title. Being a woman, she only curled her lip, either truly passionate in her loathing or a decent actress. Cathal considered her speech and her clothing, flipped back pages in his mind, and asked dubiously, “French?” She was young to be bitter about that war. Families handed grudges down, but he didn’t think a secondhand grievance would be so sharp.
It took a moment, a glance over her shoulder, and a long look into his face before Sophia answered. “Jewish. And English, once, before he exiled us to serve his own greed.”
“Oh,” Cathal said.
English news reached even him slowly and patchily. He hadn’t remembered the edict. He wasn’t sure if he’d even been in England for it. There’d been a few years in Aragon about then, a blur of tournaments in the sunshine and wine in the shade. Back then, he’d asked little more of life.
Sighing, he came back from his reverie to find Sophia watching him, barely breathing. For the first time, he thought of the edict and of the stories that had reached him from time to time before. She’d bared her neck to the blade by telling him. While he’d reminisced, she’d waited to hear what he would do with her life.
“English stupidity,” he said gruffly and shook his head.
“Common enough to most countries,” she replied. Her voice never rose, and the motion of her shoulders as she shrugged was slight. “We were lucky. My mother had relatives in France. Others were less so. Only a few could take more than what they could carry. And the journey was hard. Not everyone survived. There are more ways to kill than a sword’s edge. So…” Another small shrug. Cathal got the impression that it was all she would permit herself. “You see.”
“Yes.” He even thought she was telling the truth, as far as he could be sure of that. “Do you want vengeance?”
Sophia laughed shortly. “I want vengeance, yes. I want justice, and a good harvest, and a fine horse to ride home on, and a bag of gold to spend when I’m there.” She unclasped her hands and touched the corner of her wimple, as if to push back hair that was still covered. “Wanting doesn’t matter except to children and lords, Sir Cathal, and I’m a great distance from either. What I seek is protection…and understanding. Knowledge.”
“And the scales of a dragon will provide those?”
“They could. What notes I’ve read aren’t clear, nor do they cover all they might—nothing ever does, I find—but all of alchemy is about transformation. Metal or stone, mind or body, it’s all one thing changing into another.” Her face lit as she talked, revealing the inner fire of the scholar on a pet subject. “The dragon has always been the symbol for the power to change.”
“How apt,” said Cathal.
“Yes.” Sophia smiled at him, for the first time with more than politeness. “Yes, and perhaps that was because one of our early scholars knew one of your ancestors, but there might be more to it. The notes I’ve found suggest that the body of a dragon would have great catalytic power, could allow an alchemist to achieve great things, perhaps might even make possible experiments that otherwise could not come to fruition. And—”
“And so I should thank God you decided on scales and not my heart.”
“You—” Once more she bit back a comment. “It seemed a request even less likely to find favor with you. And I’m no murderess.”
“And I would have to have one,” Cathal said, and was pleased to see a blush spread over Sophia’s face. He’d guessed, or at least come close to guessing, what she’d stopped herself from saying.
“I’m sure that’s not for me to say.”
“I’m sure.”
Thinking, he looked down. The accounts were drifts of parchment and ink, as meaningless as the snow outside. His shoulder ached, a reminder that he was far from the only one with more-than-human gifts, and that the other side was amply endowed.
As always, with each complaint of slow-healing muscles and still-raw nerves, he thought, Could have been worse.
“What are you offering?” he asked.
The blush deepened. She was remembering how he’d opened this conversation. With such prompting, he thought of the exchange too, and of the possibilities he’d denied. Desire sparked briefly within him this time, tightening his groin for a moment—but no. He was tired, she was no serving girl to take such things lightly, and they’d both already dismissed that possibility.
“My skills,” she said. “With herbs and with potions. I’m no doctor, nor even a midwife, but those in both professions have found my remedies useful at times. Perhaps you have need of such services here…and if you don’t now, you may. Winter is a time for sickness.”
“Any season is,” said Cathal.
He stood up. Sophia caught her breath at the sudden motion, or maybe at his height, but she didn’t flinch. Cathal came around the desk and stood in front of her, looking down into her face as if he could read an answer there.
As usual with augury, nothing useful came. There was only his judgment.
“We may strike a bargain,” he said. “Here is my end. You carry out your experiments here. You may take the results home, but I’ll not risk you traveling with anything so connected to my person. While you’re here, you provide what aid the castle and the village require of you.”
“Yes, gladly,” she said, knowing there was more and waiting for it.
“And you go home after you accomplish one thing for me…or prove that you cannot.”
Her eyes met his, wide and serious. “I would need to know the task.”
“You will,” said Cathal. “Come with me.”
* * *
Castle MacAlasdair had never in Cathal’s life lacked room. Alasdair himself had built for a legion or more of men-at-arms, not to mention the brood he’d sired on various women, and his work had lasted for generations, with occasional reinforcement when one of his descendants was in a generous mood. Now, with Cathal alone of the family at home, halls full of closed
doors marked a half-dozen disused bedrooms. Playing the generous host with Sophia and her friend had been easy.
Finding the room at the end of one hall had been easy too…the only easy thing about the whole damn business.
As always, he braced himself before he opened the door, readying his muscles as he’d always done before the breastplate of his armor settled into place, telling his body it could take the weight.
On the other side, candlelight flickered in the darkness. A shadow rose within it and came to meet them. As it neared the door, it became a middle-aged woman, brown hair streaked with more gray now and face more lined than it had been a year ago. “Sir Cathal,” she said and curtsied. “He’s asleep.”
“I would hope,” he said. “I’m going to show him to our guest.”
Sithaeg allowed herself no expression. Cathal wasn’t cruel enough to even hint at hope, and she wasn’t cruel enough to expect it. “Aye,” she said and stepped out of the way. She watched Sophia, though, and Cathal knew she was as helpless not to look, and to wonder, as he had been to speculate.
Thinking not of propriety but only of darkness and the limits of mortal sight, he took Sophia’s hand. It lay stiff and cold in his, but she didn’t pull it back or protest, just allowed him to lead her across the small room to the large bed in the center. One candle flickered on the table beside the bed, casting feeble light over bottles and glasses and even less over the figure who lay under the blankets.
“Fergus,” Cathal said under his breath. “My friend since he was little more than a boy. Close as my brother or closer, in his way.” His father would have called that folly, to so value a creature who’d live perhaps a quarter of his life.
His father wasn’t there.
“What ails him?”
There was sympathy in her voice, but Cathal was used to sympathy. He seized on the other thing he heard: the curiosity, the eagerness that said here might be a job to do.
“Look closely.” Cathal picked up the candle in one hand, cupping the other around the flame. It burned almost against his skin, a friendly little creature and a relief here. “Look at his jaw. The sides of his neck.”
He moved the candle closer and heard Sophia gasp. Good eyes, he thought, and quick reasoning. She’d seen the translucence at the edge of Fergus’s skin, how first the color left and then one could see the pillows through the faintest haze. “God’s teeth!” she said, barely keeping her voice down in her shock.
“Touch him. At the edge. He won’t feel it,” Cathal said with a certainly he’d have given anything not to feel.
Gingerly, she did, and drew her hand back almost at once, staring back and forth between it, Fergus, and Cathal. Although her mouth had fallen open from the start, for a few minutes she got nothing out of it. Only after working her jaw did she manage, “It…my finger went through him. He’s…dissolving?”
“You’re the scholar.”
Sophia caught her breath. “You wish me to cure him.”
“I wish,” he whispered with a faint twist of a smile as he remembered her speech earlier, “him cured. Our bargain would be that you try until you determine that you can’t.”
“And you’d believe me if I said so?”
“I’ll weigh the evidence.”
She took another look at Fergus, bending closer this time, sniffing the air above him, and frowning. “I’ve seen nothing like this in my life, nor heard of it in any accounts,” she said, and then straightened and looked at Cathal. “But someone once said as much of any malady, did they not? And I did speak of discovery. I will do my best.”
“Thank you,” he said almost tonelessly. Like Sithaeg, he couldn’t let himself hope. He took her hand to lead her back out of the room.
This time, she resisted.
“I’ll need to make an examination,” she said when Cathal turned to her, “and I’ll need to know how this came about.”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
Three
“Well, how did things fall out?”
Alice had always known how to pick her time. Right now, it was first thing in the morning, just when Sophia was bent over the basin splashing cold water on her face. She grunted her first response.
“I’m sorry, I thought I was asking a human being.”
“Nobody human is as awake as you are at this hour,” said Sophia, moving aside to let her friend wash. They’d managed to get the room to themselves—and a finer room than most people gave to travelers, with bright tapestries on the walls and thick rugs on the floor—so she spoke freely while she dressed. “He said yes. But we’re staying on.”
She explained the situation to Alice in a few quick sentences, struck as she talked by how little she knew of the details. It had been late when she and Sir Cathal had reached their agreement, and Sophia had been glad enough to put off further discussion. Now, under Alice’s shrewd gaze, she wondered how much more there was to find out, and how dire the situation might truly be. Putting up her hair, she fumbled with the pins.
“Oh, come here,” said Alice, holding out her hands. As she’d done a hundred times before, she dressed Sophia’s hair with a quick efficiency that bordered on painful. “It’s as well,” she said, after an assortment of thoughtful sounds. “I didn’t much like the idea of going right back again when we’ve just got here. Best you wait until spring before you finish up, if you ask me.”
“It might well be longer,” said Sophia. “And that’s if I succeed at all.”
“Have more faith in yourself. I don’t mind anyway. This seems like a well-kept place, for all its lord’s surliness. Plenty of food, decent cooking, and no fleas. I don’t know how they manage that.”
“Hmm,” said Sophia. Now that she thought of it, she didn’t notice even one of the itchy bites that usually accompanied a stay anywhere remotely warm, and the room was quite comfortable in that regard. A fire had been roaring away in the fireplace since before she’d woken—and she hadn’t noticed anyone coming in to build it. “Magic?”
“Then more people should be sorcerers. Why don’t you do this sort of thing?”
“Because there’s no elixir that’ll let me start fires from my bed. Not that I know of. Whatever magic Sir Cathal…or his family…knows might be different.”
Alice patted Sophia on the shoulder and stepped back. “Lucky for you, I suppose, or you’d have had nothing to bargain with. Still, see if you can’t get him to teach you while you’re here. I’d dearly love never to scratch a flea bite again.”
“I can’t imagine Sir Cathal teaching anyone magic,” said Sophia, remembering the blunt speech from last night and the frank-to-the-point-of-rudeness way he’d eyed her. She felt herself flush again, wondered what he’d thought when he made his…inspection…and shook her head quickly. “Or anything else.”
“He didn’t try anything untoward, did he?” Alice asked, reading Sophia’s face carefully. “I thought you’d have told me if he had, but—”
“No. And I would have. And it wouldn’t matter. He seemed to have little time for, um, untoward, though. He didn’t seem to have much time in general.”
Knowing that, Sophia half expected Cathal to put off their meeting and his explanation. Even had he been more eager to tell her the history of Fergus’s condition than he obviously was, Sophia assumed that other matters would come first. She’d hardly finished her bread and ale an hour later, though, when he appeared—not the page she’d expected, but Cathal himself, walking up to her side so quietly that she didn’t look up from her reading until he cleared his throat.
She flinched. She also squeaked. She was halfway off the bench, eating knife protectively in one hand, when she recognized him.
Cathal’s gaze never wavered. He looked at her as if jumpy women were common facets of his day, as mayhap they were. “You’ll come to no harm here,” he said evenly, once Sophia’d had a chance to catch her bre
ath.
“Of course,” she said. She smiled politely all the way up into that chiseled face. “Can I be of assistance, my lord?”
“You wanted the chance to examine Fergus and receive a history of his state. I’ll give you the second first. Walk with me.”
“Of course.” She closed her book and picked it up, tucking it under her arm. The weight of it was reassuring. “Where are we going?”
“Where I need to go. There are…” He waved an impatient hand. “Tasks. Always. I might as well explain on the way. It’s no secret.”
“And the examination? I’ll need my supplies—”
He turned and barked a name, which sounded a bit like Martin, only with more rising and falling around the vowels. A dark-haired boy nearby looked up and answered in Gaelic.
“Go to—” Cathal began, switching to English and glancing at Sophia.
“The stables,” she said, slipping between languages with a few seconds’ thought. “The bay mare at the far end. My instruments will be in the pack on the left. They’re glass, for the most part.”
“Aye, so take good care. Bring them to Fergus’s room,” said Cathal, with a stern look at Possibly-Martin.
“And if you’ve a surgeon or a physician, I’ll need to take blood.”
“None here over the winter.” Cathal flicked his hand again, dismissing the page. “Don’t fret yourself. I can open a vein without killing the man it belongs to, if I must.”
Already he was walking. Sophia hurried toward his side, crossing the rushes and heading through the door nearest the high table. Now, a little before midmorning, the cooking smells coming from under the door weren’t as strong as the smell of burning wood. “How long has he been, er, the way he is?” she asked.
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