The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(18)

“Yes?” he asked crisply.

“I need to see my grandfather.”

“Your appointment with His Lordship is in a se’nnight, Mistress Léirsinn, not today.”

“I need to see my grandfather—”

“Not today.”

“But—”

The door shut in her face. She would have knocked again, but she had done that before and been escorted back to the barn by a pair of rather hefty guardsmen with no sense of fair play. She turned, leaned back against the door, and forced herself to remain calm. For all she knew, the maidservant had been imagining things, or someone had sent the wench off to stir up trouble as a lark, or she herself hadn’t listened closely enough when the girl had been speaking. The possibilities were many, truly, and varied. Her grandfather was likely just fine and she would see that for herself when she was allowed inside the manor.

She pushed away from the door and walked down the stairs into the garden. She was distracted enough that she almost stepped into a patch of . . .

She stepped back casually, then let out her breath slowly. She was losing what few wits were left her. That was the only reason she continued to see those patches of shadow where they shouldn’t have been.

She looked about her to make certain no one would see her at the piece of madness she contemplated and was satisfied that she wasn’t interesting enough for anyone to watch. She glanced at the spot in front of her as casually as possible. It was perhaps a foot across and surely no longer than that. Roundish, yet not quite a circle.

She found herself again terribly tempted to touch it, but decided rather abruptly that that would be a very bad idea indeed for the simple reason that she sensed she was being watched.

She rolled her eyes. Of course she was being watched. The entire bloody manor staff was probably watching her, laughing their arses off at her stupidity. She looked over her shoulder, fully prepared to give as good as she was no doubt getting, only to realize that there was only one person staring at her.

Her uncle.

He was standing at an upstairs window, looking down at her. He was perfectly motionless for a moment, then he dropped the curtain.

Léirsinn wished she hadn’t seen that.

She made a production of looking at something on the other side of the path, some rubbish bit of fauna she was sure she couldn’t have identified even if death had loomed, then took herself back to where she belonged as quickly as possible. She spoke to no one, ignored a pair of new lads Doghail had unearthed from heaven only knew where, then fetched a pitchfork and set to work on stalls that Acair had already done.

She fully intended that the work should drive that feeling of something she refused to call terror out of her, but it only seemed to magnify it. Something foul was afoot and she absolutely didn’t want to be in the midst of it. The sooner she got herself and her grandfather out of Sàraichte, the better, no matter what she had to do. She could only hope she would manage it before it was too late.

A se’nnight. Surely nothing terrible would happen in that time.

She had no idea what she would do if it did.





Four





Acair prayed for death.

He didn’t pray, as a general rule, though he’d surely listened to his share of prayers being blurted out by those he had plied his usual trade on.

Then again, those lads had been fearing for their lives from things they should have been afraid of. He was simply suffering from an abundance of sore muscles. He wondered why anyone would choose laboring in a barn for his life’s work. If the flies weren’t biting, the horses were, and that didn’t begin to address all the things on his boots—boots that weren’t his lovely, handmade, buttery-soft, black leather boots—he wasn’t accustomed to.

He was now fully convinced the only reason Soilléir and Rùnach had sent him to his current locale was to torture him. Keep him safe? What an enormous pile of horse manure.

He had to admit it was possible that he deserved a bit of it. He didn’t have very many redeeming qualities, but he was at least honest about his failings. He was a bastard and he knew it. That complete lack of kindness and mercy served him well, but it tended to earn him powerful enemies. It had never occurred to him that he might someday count a stableful of annoying horses in that number of souls who didn’t care for him, but it had just been that sort of year so far.

He shifted on a rickety stool that was absolutely not equal to the task of providing him with any secure place to rest and wondered what insult would come his way next.

He watched in less astonishment than resignation as a very plump pigeon flapped into the barn and came to perch on his knee. Unoriginal, but he was generally the only one in any given locale with any imagination. He was accustomed to lesser offerings.

The bird proffered its leg as if it knew what its business was, which it no doubt did. He untied the message attached there, then unrolled it.

Do one good deed a day. I’m counting.

It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. Rùnach wouldn’t have cared what the bloody hell Acair did with his days; Soilléir, on the other hand, was enjoying the entire fiasco far too much. This was exactly the sort of thing he would have done to pour salt in the wound.

The bird plucked the message out of his hands, tossed it up in the air, then managed to swallow the damned thing whole. Well, at least it hadn’t left a mess—