She decided that perhaps the best use of that rather long walk into town would be to spend the time chiding herself for being a fool. Her imagination was getting the best of her. She might as well revisit her thought of wishing for a decently executed rescue as to give any credence to what she thought she had seen.
She would go to town, procure what Doghail wanted, then spend the rest of her day mucking out stalls.
It was obviously her only hope of having any of her good sense return.
Two
If penance was best done in Hell, Acair thought he might have arrived at the right locale for it.
Sàraichte was without a doubt the ugliest place he had ever seen. He stood on a small bluff on the edge of town and examined what was to be his prison for the next year. It was a typical port town, only it didn’t seem to have the usual niceties most port towns boasted such as a decent pub, a bustling market, and a stiff breeze to wash away the lingering odor of fish.
He wasn’t sure how any of the ships in the harbor managed to escape its clutches once they were in them, but perhaps magic was needed to save the day. Why he couldn’t have been saddled with that sort of work for the duration of his sentence, he surely didn’t know. He could have stood on a hill and directed the ships in and out, offering a helping hand occasionally, collecting exorbitant fees always. It would have been altruistic from stem to stern, as it were, aiding those who couldn’t aid themselves and pocketing a bit of coin in the bargain. Yet with all his magic simply begging to be used, where was he going?
A barn.
Somewhere, Rùnach of Tòrr Dòrainn and Soilléir of Cothromaiche were having themselves a right proper chuckle over the thought.
He could only muster up a lackluster amount of enthusiasm over the thought of murdering them both, which would have alarmed him if he’d had the wherewithal to examine his own appalling condition. He wasn’t sure he could state it often enough: do-gooding had done him a terrible disservice. Gone, at least temporarily, were the days when he’d looked forward with glee to a well-planned and flawlessly executed piece of mischief. But a fond memory were the long afternoons when he had sat in this exclusive salon or that high-brow inn, ignored his hosts, and made with a languid hand lists of vulnerable mages and monarchs. All that was left was the shell of a man who couldn’t put up a decent argument as to why he shouldn’t spend the next year shoveling horse manure.
Damnation, he was a ruthless, remorseless seeker of power and a damned good conversationalist at dinner. That he’d had to remind himself of that more than once on his journey south was simply beyond the pale.
He rubbed his chest absently. That damned Fadairian spell of healing Rùnach had used on him the year before had somehow taken root inside him. He wasn’t sure quite how to remove it short of either cutting his own chest open or making a polite social call to his half-brother and threatening him with something dire if he didn’t undo what he’d done. There was the question of whether or not either would kill him, so perhaps that was something that could be put off for a bit longer.
The truth was, he was doomed to endure that damned spell for at least another year until he could remedy the situation himself. All that was left for him to do at present was soldier on as best he could and make note of slights that would need to be repaid.
Breakfast. He latched onto that idea with a fair bit of enthusiasm and in spite of his doubts about the quality of victuals he would find in a place that smelled so strongly of rotting fish. Food was food and he hadn’t had anything to eat since the disgusting fare he’d choked down the night before.
He shook his head wearily. Ah, for the days when he had enjoyed fine meals wrapped in elegant evenings spent in exquisite surroundings. He had enjoyed many of the same and, better still, he wasn’t too stupid to understand why. Eligible—and not-so-eligible—maidens wanted him within reach because he was dangerous, their mothers wanted him in their salons because he knew which fork to use when, and husbands and fathers wanted him contained in their halls where they could keep an eye on him.
He had never bothered to inform those fathers and husbands that they would have been completely unable to stop him if he decided to do something vile. If they couldn’t have seen that for themselves, he hadn’t had the patience to enlighten them.
The women, though, now there was something he would miss. Sweet perfume, witty repartee, lovely gowns, decent entertainments . . . in short, he’d had all the benefits of being Gair’s bastard son without any of the true dirty work of being black mage.
He paused, wrestled briefly with his damnable and quite inescapable propensity to always tell the truth, then relented. The truth was, he had walked in places that would have given his father nightmares, all in search of the elusive and unattainable. Those places had been very dark indeed.
Of course, he had balanced that out quite nicely by poaching spells and vexing other mages as often as his social schedule permitted, always taking time out to make life as much a hell on earth as possible for Sarait’s children and those other bastards his father has sired, including his own brothers, but what else could he have done? A man needed things to do.
There was something to be said for settling down, he supposed, but his father had been much older than he when he’d had his first serious liaison, something that had resulted in Acair’s eldest bastard half-brother, a dashing if not completely stupid man named Glamoach. The others, a motley collection of perhaps a dozen lads—it was impossible to get an accurate count—who seemed to have managed to escape their mothers’ wombs without having had anything heavy fall on them immediately afterward, were of varying ages but sharing the same unpleasant personalities and bitter feelings toward their sire.
Acair didn’t share those feelings. He had learned over the years to be simply indifferent to Gair. He had watched his own brothers angst over winning their father’s approbation, watched his other half-brothers spend their very long lives trying to match him, and watched his half-brothers by that elven princess do everything they could to stop him from doing what he damned well pleased. He had determined that, for himself, he would stay out of the fray, use his father’s reputation to gain entrance where useful, and distance himself from the man everywhere else.
He had envisioned his life stretching out in front of him in a long series of glittering parties, his post endlessly containing large stacks of invitations to other things, and perhaps even another stab at draining the world of all its magic. His quiver, as it were, was full of useful skills and he had a code of honor that even one of those lads from Neroche might envy.
Added to all that magnificence had been the poaching of many terrible spells, the humiliating of many annoying mages, and an endless amount of the good-natured ribbing that went on amongst gentlemen of his class. If his peers had been less-than-pleased about his nicking their art, priceless treasures, and the occasional wife or daughter, what could he say? Some people just didn’t have a sense of sport.
It had been a very good life indeed.
But it was obviously a life that was out of his reach for the foreseeable future. He glanced over his shoulder to find that damned spell standing a handful of paces behind him, peering at Sàraichte just as he was. If he hadn’t known better, he would have suspected it shared his thoughts about the truly dismal appearance of the place.
“You could go away, you know,” Acair said pointedly.
The spell only tilted its head and regarded him. Acair rolled his eyes, cursed a bit to make himself feel less like a fool than he already did for talking to nothing, then tugged on his cloak and marched off into the fray.
He knew exactly where he was going, where he was intended to go rather, because a breathless lad had caught him up at a derelict pub a pair of nights ago and told him as much. He had refrained from telling the lad where Soilléir could take himself off to and what he could do with himself once there simply because he hadn’t wante
d to cause the lad to forgo paying for their supper. It had been painful to watch that envoy eventually scamper off toward the road, then change himself into something with wings without so much as a sigh of exertion.
Acair sighed presently because he’d forced himself not to then. Truly, it was going to be a very long year.
He continued on his way with another sigh, asked the first soul he encountered where he might find the stables of Briàghde, and was somehow unsurprised to find that not only were they on the far side of town, they were a great distance past the far side of town. The only way it could have been more inconvenient would have been if he’d had to march through a wall of irritated mages with terrible spells to hand to get there.
It might behoove him, he decided reluctantly, not to alert anyone in the area as to his arrival. He refused to think about the fact that if someone he’d encountered before encountered him, things might become a bit dodgy. He had survived more dire situations than that and come away unscathed. Still, no sense in putting his foot in a pile of trouble if he didn’t have to.
He purchased food on his way through town, trying not to shudder at the potential for untoward substances having found their way inside what he’d eaten, then found himself all too soon on the far side of town, looking at a manor he never would have lowered himself to frequent in the past without formidable inducement. He was halfway to the front door before he realized that he wasn’t heading toward the right place.
He sighed, then turned away and followed his nose to the stables. They were, when smelled from the outside, rather less fragrant than other stables he’d been to, though he supposed he might not be the best one to judge. He looked for a likely opening for humans, took a deep breath, then walked in with what he hoped was an appropriately servile mien.
He stopped short and stared at his surroundings in shock. Good lord, horses. He could easily see a dozen of them and that was just from where he was standing.
They were looking at him as if he might make a tasty morsel to enjoy over the course of the afternoon, that much he could see right off. He didn’t like horses as a rule, though he supposed the quality of steeds his father had kept had been very low. His only other experience with them had been hiding in their stalls whilst about some piece of mischief or another. He had discovered rather quickly that they didn’t like that sort of thing.
“Help you?”
Acair looked at a small, wiry man who had simply appeared out of thin air. He would have suspected the other of magic, but could sense none of it in him. Perhaps he was just canny.
“I’m looking for—” He had to take a deep breath before he could carry on. “Work.”
“What can you do?”
That was a list worthy of lengthy examination, to be sure, but Acair wasn’t sure the ability to pick any lock he faced, a deft hand at fleecing any card player he encountered, or the possession of magic that gave even the most powerful pause would be of any interest to the man standing in front of him.
“Whatever you need,” Acair said. He wasn’t exactly sure how much confidence to display, so he settled for what he thought Rùnach might look like when faced with one of those damned dreamspinners his wife kept company with. “If it isn’t too difficult.”
The man looked him over for a minute, then held out his hand. “Doghail.”
Acair assumed that was his name, not what he did for a living, so he shook the man’s hand and nodded. “Acair.”
Doghail nodded. “Had a missive from one of your former employers this morning.”
Acair could only imagine. He gathered from Doghail’s expression that it hadn’t been anything too damning, so perhaps ’twas best to simply not ask too many questions.
“From whence do you hail?” Doghail asked.
“I’ve traveled so much, ’tis hard to say.”
Doghail studied him more closely than Acair was comfortable with. “Any experience working with horses?”
“I’ve ridden a pair of them,” Acair conceded.
“That doesn’t sound too promising.”
Perhaps that recommendation had been less flattering than he’d supposed. He could hardly believe he was having to peddle himself to a man he would have walked past without noticing in any other situation, but perhaps that was simply part of the bargain. He had done worse.
“I am honest,” he said, latching onto his one virtue. “If that’s worth anything to you.”
Doghail lifted his eyebrows briefly. “You might be surprised. And aye, ’tis enough. Fortunately for you, the master came through in a temper recently and sacked half the lads because they dared meet his eyes. You might keep that in mind for the future.”
Acair had no idea who the master was, but he didn’t like him already. What sort of pompous blowhard walked through a place and terrorized those who dared look at—
Well, he was that sort of pompous blowhard, but perhaps that wasn’t a useful thing to admit at the moment. And if he were more apt to meet many of pairs of eyes and reward them accordingly than insist they avert their gazes when he passed, who could blame him? The only thing he loved more than a well-stocked, inaccessible solar full of priceless treasures was a rollicking good skirmish with a mage who didn’t make him yawn.
He was, in truth, a simple man.
“You’ll earn ten coppers a week,” Doghail said. “Can’t do more or I won’t eat.”
“Coppers,” Acair repeated. “Coppers?”
Doghail made a noise that could have passed for a laugh. “Coppers,” he repeated. “You know, those wee coins worth nothing?”
“Ah,” Acair said, feeling somewhat at a loss. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a coin of so little value. He tended to operate in piles of gold sovereigns, but that was obviously not going to be his lot at present. As he’d said before, he was in Hell for the duration.
“Generous, I know,” Doghail said dryly. He nodded toward the barn’s innards. “I’ll show you where you’ll bunk, then you can be about your business.”
“Delightful,” Acair said. He followed Master Doghail through what seemed to be an endless maze of stalls containing an equal number of what looked to him to be rather disagreeable-looking equine . . . things. He caught sight of a lad or two apparently doing what he was going to be required to do and was powerfully tempted to take his chances with that damned spell and bolt for civilization.
Doghail stopped in front of what could have only been termed a minor passageway in a very poorly funded butler’s pantry. Indeed, passageway was too grand a term for it and closet didn’t describe the painful smallness of the place. He was half tempted to call it a stationary dumbwaiter, but he couldn’t find his tongue to speak.
“Luxurious, isn’t it?” Doghail said, without a shred of irony in his tone. “Fortunately for you, all the lads with seniority were sacked, leaving this place free. You look, if you don’t mind my saying so, like you’re accustomed to only the finest.”
Acair gave up trying to express his thoughts. They weren’t pleasant ones anyway.
“You’ll want to change, no doubt,” Doghail continued mercilessly. “Wouldn’t want to get anything on those very fine boots of yours, I’m thinking.”
“Change into what?” Acair asked.
“I’ll find you something.”
Acair would have put his foot down at wearing another man’s boots and cloak, but he supposed he wouldn’t need a cloak for long and he wasn’t keen for anything to land on his own footwear, so he exchanged his handmade Diarmailtian leather boots for something that felt a bit like a cobbler’s experiment gone terribly wrong.
Doghail smiled, then handed him a pitchfork. “The tool of your trade, my lad.”
Acair promised himself many, many hours of thinking on a proper repayment for a certain Cothromaichian prince who possessed spells just waiting to be appropriated, then took the pitchfork and followed his
employer to a stall containing a horse that looked as if it were none-too-pleased to see him. He looked at Doghail. “You want me to go in there?”
“Unless you’ve some other way to remove their droppings that I’m not familiar with.”
Acair considered. This was a place where a bit of magic certainly would have come in handy, but there was nothing to be done about it. He eyed the horse inside that stall and had a rather unfriendly look in return.
“Or you could present yourself at the manor and see if Himself might need someone to clean his privies.”
“Ah, I think not,” Acair said without hesitation. There were some things that even he wouldn’t do, no matter the consequence.
He nodded to Doghail, took a firmer grasp on the handle, and hoped he would survive the day.
• • •
By the time the sun had set, he was sore, out-of-sorts, and so filled with a desire to wrap his blistered fingers around a certain mage’s neck, he was almost tempted to tell that spell of death to go to hell so he could chance a bit of shapechanging and be off to do what needed to be done.
And if that weren’t enough to add insult to injury, someone had stolen his good boots.
He accepted Doghail’s invitation to see what all his labor assisted, though he couldn’t imagine it could possibly be anything he would be interested in. What he wanted to do was take himself off to that pitiful scrap of floor, cast himself down on it, and sleep like the dead. If he were overrun by mice and other vermin, he honestly didn’t care. It might send him off more speedily to that place in the East where he could rest from his labors. At the moment, nothing sounded better.
But unfortunately his form was frighteningly resilient and his will to live apparently too strong to be overcome. He suppressed the urge to sigh and simply followed Doghail without comment.
They stopped at the end of a very large expanse of dirt that lay adjacent to the stalls. It must have been quite valuable dirt considering the entire bloody thing had a high roof, no doubt to protect the ground against the weather. All Acair knew was it was a place he hadn’t wanted to become familiar with earlier because he’d suspected it would take him half the night to muck it out and if he were found too close to it, that was exactly what he would be doing. Fortunately for his hands, it was being used at the moment for what he could only surmise was horsey exercise.