“I thought you confined yourself to shooting little arrows into things.”
Mansourah looked at him coolly. “I believe you’ll find that I can do far more than that.” He nodded sharply toward the door. “Outside.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“Would you prefer that I prod you along with a spell of death?” Mansourah growled.
“Don’t you lads from Neroche have a prohibition about that sort of thing?” Acair asked politely.
“Aye, ’tis called honor, which is why I’ll take great pleasure in killing you in the usual way, with a sword through your chest, not your back.”
Acair supposed that was fair enough, though he had no intention of dying that day. Humoring his half-sister’s husband’s brother—he didn’t like to think about how that left him related to the grumbling prince currently exiting the chamber—seemed the very least he could do, however. Perhaps the lad could be prevailed upon to produce funds for a decent supper if he’d been taken out and exercised properly for a bit.
Acair made certain Léirsinn was still sleeping comfortably before he left the chamber and pulled the door shut behind him. He thanked Mansourah politely for the discreet spell of protection he dropped over the door, then followed him down the stairs to the inn’s great room. He made good use of the time by reminding himself of a few things he hadn’t particularly wanted to think about before.
He was on, he thought he could say without too much of a twitch, a Noble Quest.
He wasn’t one for those sorts of things, as it happened, being much more inclined to sit by the fire with a hearty mug of tasty ale and indulge in ribald mocking of those who embarked on the same. It was truly an indication of how far his life had gotten away from him that he had become the one trotting off into the Deepening Gloom.
His father would have had an attack of the vapors if he’d known.
But damnation, what else had there been to do? Someone was cluttering up the world with disturbing spots of shadow that left anyone who walked through them adversely affected. There seemed to be no one else with the stomach to take up the trail, which had left him forgoing the impulse to bolt to more elegant surroundings to instead hoist the proverbial sword in the world’s defense. If Léirsinn’s grandfather needed a rescue from the clutches of her dastardly uncle, and Léirsinn herself needed protection from that same unsavory relative, well, all the more reason to lay hold of whatever nobler instincts he could dredge up and be about his business.
That was made substantially more difficult by an injunction that he not use even a smidgen of his formidable magic, a vexing charge of which Acair found himself endlessly reminded thanks to that damned spell of death that threatened to fall on him at the first sign of even a casually muttered spell.
Finding the rogue who had sent that spell to dog his heels was, he had to admit, very high on his list of things to do whilst questing.
He shook his head wearily. His task was daunting, his resources scarce, and his survival depended on nothing much past his formidable wits. Those lads from heroic tales could scarce lay claim to anything much more noteworthy than that.
“Acair? Hallo?”
He pulled himself back to the business at hand and looked at Mansourah. “A bit of a stroll first, to warm the blood.”
Mansourah considered. “Interested in seeing what you stirred up this morning?”
Acair bestowed a smile upon the poor lad. “There is hope for you yet.”
“You won’t escape crossing blades with me later.”
“My dearest boy, I would count it a great disappointment to miss such an opportunity. Now, can you possibly be discreet?”
Mansourah shot him a dark look, but Acair expected nothing else. He was happy to list the lad’s flaws at length, but he had to admit that there had been the odd tale or two circulating about that one there having accomplished the occasional Heroic Deed. Even those lads from Neroche didn’t manage that without some small bit of skill.
He followed his companion out of the inn and prepared to spend at least a pair of hours mingling with the workaday types.
It would be interesting to see what the afternoon might bring his way.
Three
Léirsinn woke to the sound of metal ringing.
She sat up and looked around herself quickly. She was alone, which was a bit alarming, but at least her chamber wasn’t full of ruffians, which was less alarming. She rubbed her hands over her face and tried to make sense of what she was hearing. If she’d been in her uncle’s barn, she would have assumed that noise was just tack jingling. In her present locale, though, she thought it sounded quite a bit like swords.
She pushed off the blanket someone had obviously draped over her, pausing briefly to appreciate the fact that it wasn’t covered in horse hair, then rose and made her way unsteadily over to a window. The curtain was made of fabric finer than she had ever put her hand to, but perhaps that was nothing more than she should have expected given the luxurious nature of their accommodations.
She pulled back the curtain, surprised to find that it was well into the afternoon but somewhat less surprised to see that a pre-supper duel was in the offing. The mystery of the noises she’d been hearing was solved, as was the location of her companions. The only question that remained was whether or not the two fools going at each other with rapiers down there in the garden would manage to kill each other before she could stop them.
She looked quickly for her cloak, and then left the chamber at a dead run for the ground floor. The innkeeper, a sturdy, sober man of a decent age, only watched her as she skidded to a halt in front of him. She made a manful attempt to gather her dignity back around herself, then looked at him with as much hauteur as she could manage.
“The garden, good sir,” she said. “If you please.”
“Of course, lady,” he said. He nodded to one of his lads, then instructed him to show her the way to the garden.
Léirsinn followed the boy outside, then frowned when he stopped and looked at her pointedly. She would have asked him what he wanted, but he had already glared at her and gone back the way they’d come before she could. It occurred to her then that she likely should have given him a coin for his trouble, but it was too late. It was also too late to ask him if she could escape back inside with him, so she turned to face the madness she had come to stop.