Mayhap that was the difference. He was trying to be a good host to this one, not win himself a tumble in his tent.
The succession of images that thought called to mind—women in his arms, now with Sophia’s face to accompany their full breasts and sleek thighs—made him nearly drop the rising bucket. Water slopped over his hand. Even though the water here was warmer than normal, and Cathal didn’t mind most cold, it was an unpleasant shock.
Mind to your tasks, boy, he scolded himself, in the voice of a long-dead man whose squire he’d once been. Or do you need that water poured over your head?
No, sixteen was a long time past, and even if his burdens had felt a touch lighter over the last few days, Cathal knew they were still there, a long list of tasks that didn’t leave much room for pleasure of any sort. His body was still disposed to argue the point, but he pushed those urges to the back of his mind, picked up the bucket, and brought it over to the table.
On most days, the water ran smoothly into the channels of the map, then vanished. When drought was forthcoming, it disappeared midair. Cathal had seen that happen in his boyhood. This time, the water hit the first of the carved boundaries and froze instantly.
Blizzard.
He began to swear steadily. By the time he’d emptied the rest of the bucket, he’d exhausted Gaelic and switched to English. When he reached the staircase, he’d worked his way over toward French, and he’d just started on Arabic when he heard a quiet inhalation from above.
Turning, he already knew he’d see Sophia on the stairs above him.
One hand covered her mouth, but above it, her eyes crinkled up at the edges, evidence of a hidden smile. Unbound and uncovered, her hair fell about her shoulders in a dark cloud. She’d tied it loosely back with a scrap of blue ribbon, but a great deal had escaped. Preoccupied as he was, Cathal was struck by the urge to step forward and brush the loose hair back from her face, to feel the silk of it against his fingers and then the warmth of her skin.
In his mind, he went on cursing for a few seconds.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“Blizzard,” he said, and then the only other thing that came to him. “Didn’t think you were awake.”
“I wish I wasn’t,” she said. She reached up to touch her hair, as if realizing its condition belatedly, and dropped her eyes for a moment. “Some operations must take place at dawn. I thought I’d perform them and then go back to sleep. I didn’t think I’d be seen, really…”
Now he saw that she wore a cloak, though she’d pushed the hood back onto her shoulders, making it useless for concealment.
“My good fortune, then,” he said and smiled at her.
The flush that spread across her cheeks reminded him of the dawn itself. Her lips parted slightly. “Oh,” she said, half breathing the word. For an instant, the very stairs and walls felt insubstantial, and he and Sophia might have been the only solid things in the universe.
Then she cleared her throat. “Your friend—Fergus—his cure will have to do with the sun and with Saturn. Solidity. The translation of spirit into matter. The spell’s impeding that. There are elements missing in him or deficient…an amputation, if you will.”
“Poetic enough,” said Cathal, grimacing. Once again he wished “Valerius” near enough at hand to throttle. “You can restore such things?”
“Someone can,” she said, straightening her back as she spoke, “and I’m the one who’s here. I have a few notions about how to begin.”
“Good.” And it was, though the change of subject had been a fairly effective cold bath—and that, in turn, reminded him of the map’s prediction. Tasks settled back on his shoulders like hawks made of lead. “I must go. I beg your pardon.”
* * *
Part of the difficulty was that the weather then suggested no such thing as a blizzard. The sky was clear, that bright and almost brittle blue that happened in high places during the winter; the air was still and, for February in Scotland, warm. If Cathal hadn’t seen the map, he wouldn’t have thought Loch Arach in any danger of calamity.
Nobody else in the castle had seen the map, or indeed the room where it lay. Prophecy didn’t figure largely in their lives—except for some of the guards, most of them had little to do with magic in general—and although his father must have warned the folk of the castle and village about similar peril, Cathal was damned if he could remember how. He wasn’t sure he’d paid enough attention to learn the process in the first place.
Approaching Niall, his steward, he therefore felt like an utter fool.
“There’s a blizzard coming,” he said, having always preferred to jump the fence rather than go around. “Likely a bad one. How are the stores?”
Then he waited for questions or disagreement, watched the old man—half my age, he always had to remind himself now, his brain as likely as any mortal’s to be swayed by gray hair and a bent back—for skepticism, and got none. What Niall actually did was make a clicking sound with his tongue, expressing general disapproval to the universe regarding this sort of messing about, and then start in on his usual list: so many cords of wood, less grain than he’d have liked, and so on.
Cathal listened carefully, forcing the figures into a mind still unused to remembering such things or relating them to the lives in his care, but all the time slightly amazed, even though he realized he shouldn’t be. Niall had been his father’s steward for forty years, and his predecessors had doubtless passed on certain bits of knowledge along with the books of accounts, little tidbits like Oh, and the lord knows the future now and again. Prophecy firsthand wasn’t part of Niall’s life. Secondhand, it was just another fact of Loch Arach, like keeping horses away from the MacAlasdairs.
Such a calm reaction should have been reassuring, and yet—
—and yet there was a whole world here that Cathal barely knew, and his experience was almost all from outside.
“I’ll go hunting today,” he said when he’d forced a picture from the tallies: not as much food or fuel as he’d have liked, particularly if the storm lasted, and he’d no notion of how long that would be. “And I’ll bring back wood as well. Send messengers to the village. Tell the folk they’re welcome up here and to prepare if they’ll stay in their homes.”
“Aye,” said Niall. “Three days hence?”
“Aye,” said Cathal, a startled echo. Yes, the map had always showed three days in the future, never more and rarely fewer. He knew that. He hadn’t expected that knowledge from Niall.
He didn’t, it seemed, expect half of the things he should.
As the day progressed, Cathal found that feeling growing stronger and stronger. The stable hands and smiths, the folk of the castle, even his guards reacted much as Niall had. Some showed their displeasure more, some were surprised, and a few even looked doubtful for a second or two, but everyone accepted the news. Even Father Lachlann, whose place in the Church would have let him voice doubts to Loch Arach’s temporary lord, spoke no word of contradiction or even question.
They all assumed Cathal knew whereof he spoke. He did, so that trust should have been at worst a pleasant surprise, but it merely bore down on him like the walls themselves until he could escape into the air and then the forest.
Hunting offered relief, as it always did. The cold air streaking past him cleared his mind; the challenge of sighting and diving occupied him; and the dragon’s shape was largely a creature of instinct and impulse. The human side of him remained, but it was easy to let it lie dormant for a time, to give over doubts and let the ever-turning wheel of thought give way to a creature at once of the moment and of centuries. All would settle itself in enough time. Meanwhile, there were clear skies above and prey below.
As usual when he wasn’t hunting for himself, he touched the stag as lightly as possible, breaking its neck with one swift blow and keeping claws and teeth out of the matter. The folk of the castle all k
new what Cathal was. Still, none but the men who’d fought with him had been close when he was in dragon form. Most pretended not to see. Artair had believed in making that easy for them, and Cathal agreed with his father on that score.
For similar reasons, he always landed, on his return from the hunt, in a small clearing just outside the castle walls. From there he would transform and carry in his quarry if it was manageable, or send out some of the men if he’d brought down an elk or a boar. Nobody asked how it had happened, and he always looked human by the time he saw anyone.
He was human, barely, when Sophia stepped out from between the trees.
Seven
She was too late to see anything—a pity, even though she hadn’t come out with that intent. Spotting the dragon in flight, Sophia had caught her breath and stared at the vast greenish-blue form, taking in the outstretched wings and the lashing tail, unable to believe that anything so immense and so far from human could spend most days as a man. Then, seeing the creature descend, she’d followed. Who wouldn’t have?
What she’d found was Cathal standing above a dead stag. He looked just as he had that morning, clothes all in place, sword hanging at his side, and even his hair only slightly disheveled, but when Sophia walked out into his view, he drew his head and chest back in surprise, not a motion she’d seen from him or from any human being. Snakes acted so, startled and ready to strike. She stopped in her tracks.
“Satisfying your curiosity?” he asked, watching her with narrowed eyes.
His voice sounded deeper than usual, though Sophia wasn’t sure whether to credit that to transformation or anger. Now was not the time to ask.
Now might have been the time to lie, but she couldn’t think of anything plausible. “Yes, but no.” She raised a hand. “I saw you land and came over to watch…but I’d come out to go to the village and then realized that I’d no hope of making my way there without a guide. I hadn’t known you were…out. Hunting.”
Cathal regarded her silently. One hand went to the fastening of his cloak, which Sophia now noticed was a silver dragon’s head. His was a family powerful enough to hint at their true nature. She would do well to remember that.
She would also, said her conscience, do well to remember that Cathal was not a salamander nor a griffin nor a two-headed calf, but a man and her host.
“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes. “I shouldn’t have intruded. I saw nothing. I give you my word on it.”
Honestly meaning apology and reassurance, she realized too late how suggestive the last sentence sounded. The winter air wasn’t nearly frigid enough to chill her blush in that moment, and she couldn’t make herself look up at Cathal.
Not until she heard him laugh.
“Well,” he said, and she lifted her eyes to discover his face open with mirth and his hair ruffling in the slight breeze as if it shared the joke. “I’ll cherish my modesty yet, then. And I’ll not faint just now.”
“Please don’t,” she said, measuring the length and breadth of him with her eyes. “I could no more carry you back than I could that deer.”
“Come now, lass,” Cathal chided her, shaking his head. “If I’m more than half its weight, I’m either the worst glutton in the world or a far worse hunter than I’d thought.”
“And you both weigh less than the mountain. After a certain point…” Sophia spread her gloved hands, illustrating helplessness. She glanced back to the stag. “It is a very large animal. Especially for winter, I think?”
“Aye, it’ll do. I hope.” Cathal followed her gaze, then looked back to her, studying her face. It was a gentler kind of assessment than the sort he’d given her in his solar, Sophia thought. “Will you be able to eat it?”
Instinct and travel through England made her glance behind her before she responded, and she lowered her voice as well. “No. It’s… We would have trapped it and then cut its throat. There are other restrictions too.” Seeing concern enter his face, even if it was just the worry of a host for a guest, Sophia smiled and fought back the urge to step forward and touch his cheek in reassurance. “If my life is in the balance, that will no longer matter. And until then, I do very well. You set a good table.”
“I sit at one,” he said, shrugging, “and I nod at the right times when the cooks and the steward talk to me. Forgive me. I know that the Mussulmen hunt and eat their game. I’d thought it might be the same for your people.”
“It was a kind hope.” The reference made her remember the profanity she’d overheard that morning and that his statement that he spoke Arabic. “Were you on Crusade?”
“A few.”
She had always been good at figures. The ones she did now showed a picture almost as staggering as his flight overhead had been. “How old are you?”
Sandy eyebrows came together as he thought. “A century and a quarter? Maybe less. Remembering each year gets difficult. I’m the youngest. I know that,” he added with a wry tone that she recognized well.
“You and my brothers,” she teased in return. “Never will any of you forget it, and heaven forbid the rest of us should.”
“Oh aye,” Cathal said, “I expect we’ll let it go the moment our elders forget to remind us of their place in things.”
Sophia laughed and held up her hands. “I can’t argue that point with you either… I’ve an older sister myself. And she knows it. I can still remember every word of her last lecture.”
“And how long ago was that?”
“When I boarded the ship for England. She was worse than our parents. They resigned themselves to my peculiarities years ago, but Rachel…” She shrugged. “Her eldest daughter should be getting married soon, so that might take her mind off me.”
“Peculiarities?” Cathal asked, cocking his head slightly.
Sophia couldn’t make out whether he was teasing or honestly curious. She wrinkled her nose at him. “Alchemy. Scholarship. Being a Catherinette—” Cathal’s puzzled look reminded her that not everyone had spent the last ten years or so in France. “Over twenty-five and unwed. I never worshipped the saint, of course, but…you understand. You must know that none of these are usual in a gentlewoman.”
“Oh,” he said, like one reminded of long-forgotten things, and smiled ruefully. “Aye. That. I haven’t spent much time with…gentlewomen…these past few years.”
“I’d imagine there weren’t many on Crusade.”
“A few. Wives. Daughters. A handful who themselves fought.”
“What was it like over there?”
“Hot. Dry. Old, and it’s me saying that.” Cathal smiled again, then sobered. “Or do you mean the fighting? It was war. War is verra much the same, one time to another. The English, the Saracens…” He spread his hands, and Sophia saw again how large they were. A scar, long faded but still visible, crossed one palm. “We all bleed the same. Even my clan. Everything I’ve faced, anyhow.”
The restriction caught her interest. “Are there things that don’t?” she asked, because curiosity was stronger than dread and not knowing had never helped anything.
“So I’ve heard. Ghosts. Shadows. Demons, mayhap. But I’ve only ever fought men.”
“Oh.”
Sophia glanced down, looking at ground where the snow had disappeared in patches. The earth revealed was muddy and dismal looking.
Lost in thought, she didn’t see or hear Cathal move, only felt the sudden warmth of a hand under her chin—warmth that spread down her neck the way heat from a normal touch never would have. She wanted to blame his nature, but she didn’t think she could.
He tilted her chin up, his touch unexpectedly gentle. “Whatever you’re thinking of,” he said, “you may as well ask. I’ll take no offense from it.”
“Oh,” she said again, this time because she couldn’t initially remember where her thoughts had been going. She took a breath. “You don’t sound like…
There are those who talk about glory. High purpose. In war, I mean.”
“There may be those who find it.” He slid his hand away and stepped back. Sophia fought off the impulse to follow him. At least his distance was clearing her head, and his expression was less playful—although, as he’d claimed, he didn’t look offended, simply matter-of-fact. “The glory fades by the second war, I find. Perhaps the third.”
“But you keep going.”
“Aye, well, there’s little enough glory in most tasks most days. They’ve still got to be done…here for my people and there for the rest of us. Wars are better for all when skilled men are fighting. I’m skilled. At that,” he added, and sighed. “And it was a damned sight simpler out there.”
She looked up, past the square line of his jaw, and saw the shadows under his eyes. MacAlasdairs, it seemed, were no more immune to sleepless nights than any other men. As much as the words Cathal said, as much even as the resignation in his voice, those shadows illuminated her experience of him from a different angle. Beneath distance and curtness, she now saw weariness and uncertainty, a man struggling to fit himself to an unfamiliar role.
“Anything is simpler when you’re used to it,” she said. “I don’t think your steward would fare so well on campaign, any more than he would in my laboratory. I know I wouldn’t.”
As soon as she’d spoken, she thought, Well, of course, idiot. You’re a woman, and expected Cathal to say likewise, either laughing at her or taking offense at the comparison. When he didn’t, Sophia remembered his sister, the one he’d said had taken his place fighting the English, and then that he’d spoken of women fighting in the Crusades. It was easy to forget facts in expectation; she’d never liked that about her mind.
“And you’ve had many more years than most,” Sophia continued, because the silence had taken on weight and she didn’t know what that would end up meaning if she let it go unchecked. “Centuries. Well, a century.”
Highland Dragon Warrior Page 5
