Masques (Sianim #1)(35)

They were traveling in comfortable silence until Wolf stopped abruptly and snapped his fingers. He spoke hurriedly. "I know where else I read that story. It will take me a few days to get the book. Tell Myr that I've gone seeking a clue. Between the two of you, you should be able to handle anything that happens. Don't go to the library without me; I'd rather lose a few days' work than have you turned into a rock if you opened the wrong book."

Aralorn nodded. "Take care of yourself." She hugged him quickly and stepped back.

He took the wolf's shape and disappeared into the woods without a sound. It wasn't until he was gone that she thought to wonder how the camp would take the fact that she was returning without Wolf after the events of last night. Edom's death would not have vindicated her of all suspicion. With a wry smile she resumed her course.

At the camp, Aralorn skulked around until she found Myr organizing a hunt for the next day, as the camp supplies were gelling low. She caught his attention and then waited for him to finish. Listening to him work was fascinating. She had worked in a number of courts and seen the best politicians in the seventeen kingdoms work their wiles, and none of them even came close.

He reassured and soothed and organized until he had a small, skilled party who knew where to go and how to get back - without any of those who were not chosen feeling slighted or overlooked. With everybody as edgy as they were, this was a major accomplishment. If Myr survived to regain his throne, he would be a ruler that Reth would not soon forget.

"What did you need, Aralorn?" Myr asked, approaching her after he sent the others to their appointed tasks.

"Wolf is going to be absent for a few days. He is looking for a book that might be able to help us fight the ae'Magi." She kept her voice noncommittally informative, not certain whether he would accuse her or not. He had no reason to trust her, except that Wolf did, and Wolf was gone.

Myr started to nod and then caught the problem. "Since you are the only one who heard that, the first thing that people are going to wonder is if you were really the villain last night and have completed your nefarious plot today."

Aralorn nodded, relieved that he seemed not the least bit leery of her. "I didn't think of it until Wolf was already gone, or I would have made him come back to camp before he left. I thought that you might want to break the news rather than I."

Myr nodded. "I'll tell them that he left and leave out the details. There are enough things to worry about - we don't need another." Abruptly, like an extinguished candle, the taut energy that generally characterized him was gone. He just looked very tired.

"You need to let them look after themselves for a white. They don't really need you to tell them what shoe they should put on which foot or how to make stew," she commented.

Myr laughed involuntarily. "You saw that one, huh? How should I know how much salt to put in? I've never cooked anything in my life - anything that was edible, at any rate."

"I wish I could help you more; but even if they aren't terrified of me, I'm not someone they can trust. You have my sympathy, for what it's worth. Anything I can do, just ask."

"Thank you, Aralorn." He glanced up at the cloudless evening sky. "I wish that all the tents were done and we had twice as much food. The winter comes without much warning here. I once knew a man who could predict the weather. He told me that the air had a tartness to it before a snowstorm, but I could never smell it." He was talking to himself more than Aralorn. Abruptly he turned on his heel and headed toward the center of activity.

Aralorn watched as he stopped and laid a hand on the shoulder of an older woman plying a needle. Whatever he said made her smile.

Aralorn had watched him on and off when she'd been in the Rethian court, and he'd impressed her. At fifteen he'd been working in the background to keep his father from destroying Reth without undermining his father's seat on the throne. Here, he gave the people something to do so that they wouldn't sit and think about what they'd lost and what their fate was to be. He was a master at the art of ruling - but it cost him. He looked as if he'd seen ten years more than his eighteen. She wondered if he'd live to see his nineteenth year. He probably wondered about that too.

Since Wolf had asked her to stay out of the library, Aralorn did her best to keep busy. It wasn't difficult. Without *willow or Wolf, only she and Myr had the training to teach the motley band of rebels how to fight.

Haris was easily the best; the heavy muscles that he'd developed swinging a smith's hammer lent an impressive strength to his blows. Like most big men he was a little slow, but he knew how to compensate for it. In unarmed combat he could take Aralorn, but not Myr.

The rest of the camp varied from bad to pathetic. There was a squire's son who had at one time been quite an archer, but he was old and his eyesight wasn't what it had been. One of the farmers could swing a scythe but not a sword. Then there was the farmer Traven, whose greatest asset as a fighter was his size, which he more than made up for by his gentleness.

"Okay now, keep your sword a bit lower and watch my eyes to see where I'll move. Now, in slow motion I'm going to swing at you. I want you to block overhanded, then underhanded and then thrust." The big farmer would have been a lot better off if he could forget she was a woman. The only way that she could get him to strike at her was it' she did it in slow motion. But when they sped things up, he wouldn't use his full strength. She was about to change that if she could.