The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(30)
The journey to town seemed rather less tedious than it had when he’d made it by himself going the other direction and they arrived at the market just as things were beginning to look lively. One thing he could say for the inhabitants of the port of Sàraichte, they were early risers. He walked across cobblestones that were slick partly from the dew but mostly from the ubiquitous wooden boxes full of freshly caught fish that were being carried to at least two dozen fishmongers.
“Wait here a minute,” Léirsinn said, looking at him seriously. “I have business to conduct privately, then you may come.”
He would have told her that he never wriggled his nose into places where it didn’t belong, but that was his stock in trade. Then again, he was turning over a new leaf. That he was giving her privacy might be counted as a good deed if one looked at it in the right way.
So he clasped his hands behind his back and remained where he was as Léirsinn approached an ample, white-haired woman with a voice like a ship’s captain, pulled coins of her purse, and handed them over.
He considered, then shrugged. Perhaps Léirsinn trusted that woman to keep her funds safe. He generally kept his treasures far away from where he slept, so he understood the compulsion. Léirsinn then had a brief but obviously earnest conversation with the woman. Whatever was said didn’t seem to satisfy her, which was no doubt why she was frowning when she beckoned to him.
He approached, then stopped behind Léirsinn’s choice of someone who looked a bit more supernatural than most—
And he suddenly understood why.
“What are you doing here?” the woman asked, sounding thoroughly annoyed.
Well, that was his damned aunt and he was wishing he had somewhere at present to hide from her, that’s what he was doing there. Actually, she wasn’t his aunt, she was his great-aunt on his mother’s side and there was a very good reason Léirsinn had considered her to have a bit of a supernatural sheen to her. Whilst his mother’s sisters were off doing good, something for which they were endlessly mocked, that one there was knee-deep in the family business.
Damn. What to do now?
“Léirsinn, my love, take these coins and run off to fetch me a pint of ale, would you? I can tell already it’s going to be a very trying morning. I’ll put your lad there to work. It looks as if he could stand to do a bit of laboring with his hands.”
Léirsinn nodded, then looked at him pointedly. “Don’t discuss anything important while I’m away.”
“I’m sure I’ll spend the time shoveling fish guts,” Acair said. “A nice change, actually.”
Léirsinn nodded then walked off, looking a time or two over her shoulder. Acair smiled encouragingly until she was gone, then he turned and looked at Léirsinn’s, for lack of a better word, banker.
“Auntie.”
“Don’t you Auntie me, you miserable little wretch,” Cailleach of Ceal said with a snort. “I know you and your ways. You’ve likely come to try to appropriate a bit of my magic.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Acair said, “and that isn’t simply because of my recent quite dire and terrible straits.”
Cailleach looked behind him, then made a sound of satisfaction. “Ah, what a lovely little spell you have following you there. What’s its purpose?”
“I believe its task is to slay me if I use any magic.”
Cailleach looked at him for a moment or two in silence, then she threw back her head and guffawed loudly enough to send a flock of something feathered flapping off in terror.
“Oh,” she gasped, reaching out and grasping his forearm in a grip that brought tears to his eyes, “that is rich. Let me see if I can guess who is behind it. Not Nicholas of Diarmailt—”
“I think he might be dead,” Acair hedged.
“You know he isn’t.” She wiped her eyes with her apron and chuckled a bit more. “He was at your half-sister Mhorghain’s wedding not a pair of years ago. I understand you didn’t get an invitation, which I suspect wasn’t an oversight.” She was momentarily distracted by tossing a fish at a woman and expertly catching a coin in return. She pocketed it smoothly, then looked at him. “Your father, I understand, is indisposed at the moment, which leaves me with a substantially reduced list of souls who would either care enough or have the power to send such a thing off to vex you.” She considered, then looked at him from shrewd bluish-green eyes that were mirrors of his own. “That little prince from Cothromaiche is responsible, isn’t he?”
Acair was utterly unsurprised that Soilléir would be the one she would settle upon. Would that she would settle something a bit more substantial on the man, say perhaps a man-sized boulder. “Aye,” he admitted crossly, “damn him to hell.”
She laughed again, then sat herself down on a stool. “Have a seat on the shorter, less comfortable stool, little one, and tell Auntie all your troubles. But first, why are you keeping company with that lovely piece of goodness I just sent off?”
Acair sat down next to his great-aunt and accepted a sip of something from a flask she produced from under her table of wares. He gasped, then blinked until his eyes stopped watering.
“You wee babe,” his great-aunt said, clucking her tongue. “Never had strong drink, eh?”