There was a tall, slender figure out in the middle of it, running a horse in circles around himself. It looked like foolishness to him, but what did he know? Obviously there were things he didn’t understand about the whole endeavor, things he certainly didn’t want to learn.
He looked about for a distraction and found it in the persons of the two men standing to one side. He looked them over ruthlessly and decided that one of them had to be the lord of the place, Fuadain. The man’s clothing was likely the best Sàraichte could produce, his boots certainly better than what Acair was currently wearing, and his mien one of a man who was accustomed to having his way. If he had magic, it was of a very common, vulgar sort. Acair saw nothing that gave him pause, even in his current state of not having anything but threats with which to defend himself.
The man standing next to the assumed Fuadain of Sàraichte was a shorter, rotund sort. Acair dismissed him immediately, mostly because he found that his attentions were relentlessly drawn back to the lad working the horses.
He realized with a start that he was a she and he wondered how he had missed that the first time around. That it was a girl and not a man handling what he could see was an irascible stallion left him wondering quite seriously about her state of mind.
“You stupid girl, run him harder!”
Acair looked at Fuadain and decided that whatever else he might ever come to think about the man, he most definitely was never going to be fond of him. There were ways a man comported himself with the fairer sex and there were ways he didn’t. Acair was very clear in his own mind about which was which.
The truth was, he loved women. He loved their small-talk, the way they smelled, how they moved. He had spent a great deal of time winding yarn, judging stitchery, refilling cups of coffee and tea. And that was just for the genteel ones who weren’t coming at him with spells to rival his own or plotting behind their fans to take over thrones. He had never met a horse gel before, but he wasn’t opposed to the idea, especially after he beat some manners into the lord of the hall—
“I wouldn’t.”
He glanced at Doghail. “I beg your pardon?”
Doghail looked pointedly at Acair’s hands.
Acair realized they were balled into fists and he was halfway to stirring himself to go do something about what he was seeing out there in that dusty space—
“Arena.”
He looked at Doghail with a fair bit of alarm. “Am I speaking my thoughts aloud or are you reading them?”
“You’re muttering.”
“I do that.”
“You might want to not.”
“Mutter or go kick sense into those two whoresons out there?”
“The latter,” Doghail said seriously. “I would leave Lord Fuadain alone because he could have you slain as easily as to look at you and no one would ever find your body.”
“Could he indeed?” Acair drawled before he could check himself. He took a deep breath and reminded himself of what he was supposed to be pretending to be. “I meant, I’ll remember that.”
Doghail looked unimpressed. “The other is Slaidear, the stable master. I wouldn’t cross him either or he’ll sack you. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss out on any of those coppers, now would you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why don’t you take a walk around the grounds, go see the big house, then come back and shovel a bit more. Do you a world of good, that.”
“And it will accustom me to boots which are not mine.”
“Now that you mention it,” Doghail said with a faint smile, “that too.”
A year? He wasn’t going to last a fortnight. But he decided that if he were offered a few minutes of liberty, he wasn’t going to sneer at them. He doffed a non-existent hat Doghail’s way, then left the stables before he had to listen to any more of what was being shouted at that girl.
He was half tempted to begin a diary of his adventures. If nothing else, his mother would have been interested in his adventures. The first entry would surely have been a detailed examination of his surprise over what bothered him the most about not having magic and that would have been the lack of ability to repay arrogant men for things they deserved to be repaid for.
He had absolutely no desire to consider how that might apply to himself.
He left the barn and walked out into the twilight. A year. How the hell was he going to keep his mouth shut and his hands in his pockets for an entire bloody year?
Well, he would spend a great deal of it considering several pieces of mischief he hadn’t had time to see to properly in the past and deciding which one he would be about all of a quarter hour after he was released from the scrutiny of the spell that still followed him. That might take up a good bit of the all the mindless time to think he was finding his days becoming filled with.
He would go mad else.
Three
He knows nothing.”
Léirsinn looked up from the tack she was polishing. It wasn’t something she generally did, but the work was mindless and she needed a bit of that at the moment. Besides, they were definitely short-handed and the work wasn’t going to do itself.
At least it was work she didn’t mind. The day before had been endless and full of things she hadn’t enjoyed doing, such as biting her tongue. Better to be about something that kept her out of sight and earshot.
“Léirsinn?”
She looked up at Doghail and blinked. “What?”
“I was telling you about the lad we hired yesterday.”
It was a testament to how preoccupied she was with other things that she didn’t remember having hired anyone. “Yesterday?”
“You’re distracted.”
“Trying to be,” she agreed.
“I’d ask from what, but I imagine I don’t need to.”
She imagined he was right. Her uncle’s treatment of her the day before was nothing out of the ordinary, but she feared she was reaching the point where she had almost had enough of it. Much more of that sort of belittling and she would do something she shouldn’t.
If he had perhaps struck her, she would have felt justified in retaliating. As it was, he generally just looked at her with the same sort of annoyance a great lord generally displayed after having gotten something on the bottom of his boot whilst having absolutely no idea what to use in scraping it off. She knew that look because she’d seen it worn by many great lords over the years. She’d had boot scrapers installed in strategic locations several years ago, something that had seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Her uncle had pulled the expense of it out of her meager pay, of course, but she had expected nothing less.
“Léirsinn?”
She dragged herself back to the matter at hand. “A new stable hand,” she said, reminding herself of the current topic. “How much nothing does he know?”
“I had to show him which end of a manure fork went into the straw.”
That was indeed nothing. “And just what do you want me to do about that?”
He looked at her pointedly.
She sighed. It wasn’t as if Slaidear would lower himself to train the lad and Doghail had obviously reached the end of any patience he might have had. “Very well,” she said, crawling to her feet. “Show me the damage and I’ll sack him straightway.”
“You may want to reconsider that after you think about what you’ve been doing all morning and why.” He paused. “Besides, this one . . .” He shook his head. “There’s something different about him.”
“Apart from the fact that he knows nothing?”
Doghail lifted his eyebrows briefly. “You should have seen his boots.”
Léirsinn considered. “Worn?”
“Pristine.”
She felt her mouth fall open before she could stop it, then she looked at him narrowly. “I cannot believe you hired a lad who k
nows nothing simply because his boots were pretty.”
“It wasn’t just his boots,” he said dryly. “Besides, it’ll take me a solid fortnight to poach as many lads as I need from other places. Another pair of hands is another pair, no matter how useless.”
“That depends on how useless,” she said grimly. Damn her uncle for his stupidity in ridding them of most of their help. “I wonder what set Fuadain off yesterday?”
“Hell if I know,” Doghail said, “and damned if I care. Just keep out of his sights for the next pair of days. He’ll blow himself out eventually.”
And that was generally where Doghail’s advice ended. He didn’t care for her uncle, but since she didn’t either, they generally left their final opinions of the man himself unsaid. As for what the irritation had been, it could have been anything from a poorly fried egg to perhaps turning over in his sleep once too often. With Fuadain, one just never knew.
“One keeps an ear to the ground and a hand on his horse to survive in this world,” Doghail said philosophically. “If you want my opinion—”
“Which I always do,” Léirsinn said absently.
“I think what set him off might have been news from Up North.”
Up North was Doghail’s term for the schools of wizardry. She had her own thoughts on Beinn òrain and the wildly improbable nature of the university there—she was certain lads went there not to learn magical spells but to waste their parents’ gold at cards and dice—but she supposed those thoughts had been shaped rather strongly by Doghail’s own opinions.
“Any ideas on what that news might have been?” she asked.
“Wizards and noblemen are fickle,” Doghail said wisely. “Perhaps Himself lost a sale.”
“That would be sufficient, I imagine.”
“Stupid might be a better thing to call it,” Doghail muttered, only half under his breath. “He sacked one lad yesterday morning for not moving quickly enough out of his path, another two for meeting his eyes, and another pair for simply breathing.”
“Excessive,” she said. Her uncle tended to fire stable lads only in pairs, so perhaps he’d lost not only a sale but the final hand at cards.
“Short five hands,” Doghail continued, “and there I was wondering what the hell I was going to do to replace them when up saunters this lad who looks as if he should be sitting at Himself’s card table instead of begging for work.”
“A gambler down on his luck, do you think?”
“Who knows? He’s there around the corner, no doubt still grappling with the mystery of the pitchfork. You won’t have trouble identifying him.”
“You aren’t coming with me?”
He paused and looked at her. “Do you need me to come with you?” he asked, obviously amused.
She glared at him. “I will remember this sport at my expense, you know.”
His smile deepened the lines on his face already made by years out in the sun and wind. “Then perhaps I will come along after all. If I’m going to pay a price for my cheek, might as well earn it, eh?”
Léirsinn scowled at him, then walked without dawdling to where he had indicated. She supposed she wouldn’t have needed those directions given that she could have found the lad in question by the volume of his salty language alone.
She would have said she had skidded to a stop because of the view—and she had to agree that it was very fine—but it had no doubt been a stray handful of straw scattered where it hadn’t been meant to go that had left her with her feet suddenly unsteady beneath her. Obviously, she would be having strong words with the man who, as Doghail had said, clearly knew nothing about mucking out a stall.
She started forward, fully intending to strip a layer of hide from the man for thinking he could come into her stables and pretend to know what he was doing whilst throwing the whole place into disarray, then found herself coming to another ungainly halt. It took her a moment or two before she realized what was so odd about the scene in front of her.
The best stallion in the barn was standing there in an open stall, regarding the man as if he might find him interesting enough not to stomp into oblivion. That was a first. Falaire was without a doubt the most majestic horse she had ever seen. He had in his short ten years covered a dozen mares who had produced exceptionally valuable foals, but none to equal him. If she had believed in things she couldn’t see—which she most assuredly did not—she would have suspected he had something magical running through his veins. Perhaps there was Angesand blood somewhere in his line, or something unusual from some stable in the East where horses were more valuable than men, or . . .
She lost her train of thought when the man obviously trying to decide how best to get into Falaire’s stall paused and looked at her. She wasn’t one to be overcome by the looks of anything not trotting about on four legs, but if that one there had been a horse, she would have beggared herself to buy him.
The unavoidable truth was, he was stunning. Tall, dark-haired, pale-eyed, with a face that stopped just short of being pretty. She found that once she started looking at him, she simply couldn’t stop. It was as if she had just seen her first priceless treasure, sparkling, stunning, and impossibly out of reach. If there had been glass between them, she felt quite certain that she, even with all her years on her shoulders, would have been standing there like a ten-year-old with her nose pressed against it.
She heard Doghail laugh and walk away. She would have cursed him but she didn’t want to waste the energy for that when it could be so much better used admiring—
“Finished?” the man asked, dragging a dusty sleeve across his forehead and leaving a trail of dirt there.
She blinked. “Finished with what?”
“Watching me at this fine labor?”
She felt her face grow hot. She wasn’t sure if that counted as blushing or not, but she couldn’t say she cared for the embarrassment that went with it. She pulled herself back from her gaping and struggled to reach for her good sense before it scampered completely away.
“Finished?” she echoed. “Aye, I am and so should you be.” She shook off the spell she had obviously been under—if she believed in spells, which she didn’t—and walked over to take the pitchfork away from him. Unfortunately, that put her far closer to him than she was comfortable with, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Who the hell are you and whatever left you thinking you could muck out a stall?”
He shot her a look she might have been offended by if she hadn’t had the same sort of disdain tossed her way more than once from the horse on her right.
“I am Acair of—” He stopped suddenly, then pursed his lips. “Just Acair.”
“Have you ever mucked out a stall, Acair?”
“Absolutely not.”
“If I weren’t so desperate for help, I would throw you out right now.”
His mouth worked for a moment or two, as if he simply couldn’t bring the right collection of words to the fore.
“I’m not interested in what you have to say,” she added. “I’m only interested in your apparent inability to shovel manure.”
He pursed his lips. “I am more familiar with that than you might suspect.”
She highly doubted it, but there was no point in arguing over it and nothing to be done about it at least for the day. “You’ve been hired, I’m desperate, and so we’ll proceed.”
“I’ve already been told how to use this damned thing.”
“Did you listen?” she asked pointedly.
He looked horribly offended, which led her to believe he had never set foot in a barn unless it was to accept a leg up onto the back of a very expensive horse.
“I listened very well,” he said. “This work is simply more dangerous than I was expecting.” He pointed at Falaire. “That damned nag tried to bite me.”
“That damned nag is the most valuable horse in the barn,”
she said evenly, “and if he bit you, you got your hand too close to his mouth.”
“He didn’t bite my hand,” Acair shot back, “he tried to nibble my arse!”
Only years of hiding her emotions—ah, hell, there was no hope for it. She stared at that ridiculously handsome man standing there covered in dust and straw, looking as if he’d just endured affronts he simply couldn’t tolerate, and laughed. She didn’t laugh often, but she couldn’t stop herself at the moment.
“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly.
She shook her head. The situation was beyond hope. She exchanged a look with a smirking Falaire, then handed Acair the pitchfork.
“Don’t turn your back on him,” she suggested. “I will give you a simple lesson in the management of powerful beasts—nay, do not speak—and then you can be about your work.”
“I know a great deal about managing powerful beasts,” he muttered.
She was going to have to stop looking at him very soon or she wouldn’t get a decent day’s labor out of herself again. “Horses?”
He seemed to be chewing on his words. “Are horses’ arses close enough, do you suppose?”
It had been a very long day already. That was the only reason she didn’t take the pitchfork he was holding and stab him with it. She forced herself to look at him sternly when all she truly wanted to do was continue to laugh. She got hold of herself, then turned a stern look on him. Once she’d made sure he was paying her heed, she drew an imaginary box in front of and including Falaire’s head.
“This is his domain.” She paused and looked at him. “Do you understand?”
Acair glared at her. “I am not such a simpleton.”