Dreamspinner (10 page)

She paused at the top of the sixth flight and looked over her shoulder. To her surprise, the man who had so generously paid her passage, then subsequently and rather inadvertently loaned her his sword, was fighting his way up the stairs behind her. Perhaps he had borrowed a blade from someone else. She considered telling him that assaulting Weger’s men at every turn wasn’t going to win him any affection from the lord of the keep, but perhaps it was better to keep her mouth shut. Obviously he had business in the keep just as she did, so perhaps it was better to carry on and leave him to his own affairs. She raised her eyebrows briefly at the things the man and his sparring partner were snarling at each other, added
learn curses out in general circulation
to her list of things to see to when she was free, then turned back to the stairs in front of her.

It was as she climbed that seventh staircase that things began to occur to her, most likely because she realized that there were men waiting in the shadows, men with drawn swords, men who watched her but did not approach. Perhaps it wasn’t so much that the man behind her had been sparring with men she hadn’t noticed, but that those men had formed a gauntlet he’d had to fight his way
through. If that were the case, why hadn’t she been favored with the same?

Perhaps that was yet to come.

She reached the top of the staircase and walked out into a courtyard full of statues, realizing only then that she was chilled to the bone—and very uneasy. She had skill enough for sniffing out the dangers lurking in the hierarchy of a weaving guild, but here she was completely out of her depth. It had occurred to her that she would need to talk quickly to convince Scrymgeour Weger to give her aid, but she hadn’t considered that she might be putting her own life at risk as she did so.

She looked around her carefully. The middle of the courtyard itself was empty, surrounded by low, wholly inadequate walls, and full of fog. And then she saw that what she’d thought were statues obscured by the fog were actually more grim-faced men who stepped closer and formed a large circle around her, all watching her with glittering eyes. She hardly had the chance to even attempt to raise her sword before she went sprawling thanks to someone having pushed her from behind. She managed to hold on to her sword, but she supposed that was just dumb luck. She crawled to her feet and realized it had been her morning’s companion who had nudged her rather ungently out of his way.

He was also keeping her behind him, putting himself between her and the man who had stepped forward and engaged him. She would have thanked him for that, but she imagined he wouldn’t be particularly interested in anything she had to say at present. He was too busy keeping himself alive. He shrugged out of his pack at one point, then flung it away from him before he was decapitated by his foe.

The battle didn’t go on for very long before her companion’s sword was slapped out of his hand. It went sliding across the wet stone, past her. She followed its journey and saw the toe of a boot pin it against the stone. Aisling looked up the leg, up, and still up a bit more, until she saw a face that sent a cold, heart-stilling terror through her.

Scrymgeour Weger.

It could have been no one else.

“I heard,” he drawled, “that a warrior of uncommon ferocity was making his way up my steps, so I came to see who it was. Which one of you two feeble women was mistaken for someone with sword skill?”

Aisling found herself again pulled behind the scarred man, which she didn’t object to as it gave her time to decide how best to be about her business.

She looked around herself. She was still surrounded by very fierce-looking men who were watching her as if they could have as easily killed her as looked at her. Worse still was the giant of a man standing there with his arms folded over his chest, who would likely grasp her by the front of her tunic and fling her over his parapet. She could only assume what lay beyond those walls was the sea. She could hear the roar of it—or perhaps that was the wailing of those whom Weger had sentenced to death and were still awaiting it.

It was perhaps foolhardy to think there could be honor in such a place, but all she could do was hope for it. Though it was tempting to simply stand where she was and hide, she knew she had to do what she’d come to do. Her life hung in the balance.

She stepped forward, in front of her companion.

“It was me,” she managed. “I am the warrior.”

“You?” Weger said with a look that reduced her to the quivering coward she was. “You were the one sending my best men off to lick their wounded pride and not this strapping lad behind you?”

Aisling lifted her chin. She supposed that was less to manufacture a show of courage than it was to keep her teeth from chattering. “He did me a good turn on a ship recently. I had to repay him.”

“Not by doing aught with a sword,” Weger said with a snort. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you take the part best suited for you, which would be to act as his servant for the next fortnight?”

She blinked. “But I wasn’t planning on being here a fortnight. I only need to speak to you—”

He waved away her words. “Not now. I’m busy.”

“But—”

“I am busy,” he said, cutting her off curtly.

Aisling wanted to blurt out that she had until midnight only to talk to him, but he didn’t seem amenable to any further conversation.

Weger pointed at her, then used his pointer finger in the most minimal way possible to indicate that she should move.

Aisling hadn’t planned on moving, but she moved just the same thanks to the hands that came to rest on her shoulders and set her out of the way. She went, then pulled her cloak closer around her—
his
cloak, rather, the man who was now standing in front of her—and was grateful for someone to hide behind. She leaned slightly to the left so she could see Weger’s face, which was as malleable as granite. He simply stared at her companion for several very long minutes in absolute silence. Then he pursed his lips.

“Well.”

The man in front of her didn’t move. It occurred to her as she stood there that he was the perfect size for her to hide behind. A swordsman, obviously, judging by his muscular build, which was well revealed by the tunic pasted to his shoulders and arms. He was trembling badly, but she couldn’t blame him for it. If she’d been fighting her way up those perilous, slippery stairs, she might have been trembling as well.

“Your name?” Weger barked.

“Rùnach,” the man said. “My lord.”

Weger’s expression didn’t lighten. “Who’s the quivering puss behind you?”

“A lad I encountered on my journeys.”

Aisling looked around the man—Rùnach, if that was what he was called—and nodded. “He paid for my passage on the ship after I’d been robbed. Very decent of him.”

“Then as
I
said, you’ll be very decent and be his squire whilst you’re both here, given that you have absolutely no skill and he has two hands that don’t work.”

Aisling felt her mouth fall open. “But—”

“Paul,” Weger called, “take these two and show them to the buttery.”

A man stepped forward. “But, my lord,” he protested, “I have already a lad with no skill under my charge—”

“And now you have another,” Weger said, looking at him mildly, “plus his servant. Does this trouble you?”

Paul looked as if he was torn between marching himself over to the parapet and flinging himself off or speaking his mind. Apparently he decided on the latter. He let out a slow breath. “It seems to me, Master Weger, that my skill might be, ah, better used—”

“How I say it should be used,” Weger interrupted. “And I say your mighty skill, my good Paul, should be used to see this man and his servant fed. I’ll send instructions later on where they are to be housed. Find the lad water as well to wash the blood off his face.”

Paul opened his mouth, considered, then shut it. Aisling understood completely. She’d seen the look Weger had sent him and found herself rather relieved that her interaction with both the keep and the keep’s lord would be limited to sneaking in a simple question before midnight.

Paul scowled at her, then looked at the man who had named himself Rùnach.

“Come, then. And bring that thing there along with you.”

Aisling didn’t argue. It was early still. Perhaps she would slip off after sunset, after Weger’s work was done and he’d had a decent supper, and corner him. He might be more amenable then to listening to her request.

She walked behind Rùnach as he crossed the courtyard to collect his pack, then forced herself not to wince as she followed after him as he followed Paul. Her feet were very sore, though she supposed they would thaw out eventually. It was safe to say that she had spent the whole of her life that she could remember being cold and wishing that her feet were warm. The first thing she was going to do when she had a bit of money was buy herself a decent pair of shoes.

She descended steps behind Rùnach and Paul, hardly able to believe where she was. At least the inside of Gobhann was less intimidating than the outside. Her first sight of the keep that morning had almost stopped her heart.

Details had been, she had to admit, very sketchy about Scrymgeour
Weger’s lair. She’d known where it was, mostly, thanks to Ochadius’s book. She’d scoured the weaving mistress’s library for further details about both those who had escaped its sturdy gates and those who chose to stay inside the same, just to satisfy her curiosity. She had assumed it would be a rather small place, tidy, sparse, with perhaps large lists, stables for horses, and a rather rudimentary garrison hall.

She hadn’t expected a fortress that looked as if it had simply erupted from sheer, unforgiving rock. The walls had risen easily a hundred feet up in front of her, terraced back against the mountainside, which had seemed to be, again, solid rock.

The inside of the keep was no less intimidating. More stone as far as the eye could see, with the whole place seeming sparse and uncomfortable. It was obviously a locale meant for the very utilitarian business of learning the art of war.

She followed Rùnach and Paul down three flights of stairs, then along a passageway that filled increasingly with a smell so vile she had to put her hand over her mouth.

“In here,” Paul said in a tone that was just south of a snarl. “And be quick. When the food’s gone, it’s gone.”

She couldn’t imagine that could be anything but a good thing, but what did she know of men and their stomachs? She caught the rag Paul threw at her, presumably to clean her face with, then walked into a long, cave-like room full of tables flanked by rough-hewn benches. Those benches were currently being occupied by the most terrifying-looking group of men she had ever clapped eyes on.

She felt horribly conspicuous in her bare feet and borrowed cloak, but she seemed to garner little notice. That might have been because Rùnach seemed to be attracting the full attention of the bulk of the men there—and the attention wasn’t of the pleasant sort.

She followed him to where things—she supposed they might have been termed
food
—were being slapped on trays and handed over for consumption. She looked down at her quivering, grey bit of gruel accompanied by a slab of dry, grey bread, and was almost felled by the smell of it. She accepted a cup of something she hoped was drinkable, then followed Rùnach over to a table.

He sat, nodded for her to sit between him and the wall, then set to his meal with the single-mindedness of someone who hadn’t eaten much for breakfast. She hadn’t eaten either save for what the captain had given her on board his ship. She had intended to take the coins she had earned sewing the things he’d trusted her with and buy yet more things that couldn’t be as awful as the food in the Guild, but events had interrupted her—events consisting of disembarking, then finding herself promptly robbed. Again. She was beginning to think that asking someone for a few ideas on how to keep herself safe might be wise.

Her supper was every bit as disgusting as it looked. She ate it all only because she was very hungry. She poured some of her ale onto the cloth and wiped the blood from the side of her face. She sincerely hoped that would be the last time she ran afoul of ruffians. Highly unpleasant as a group, truly.

Once she was finished with that, she had nothing to do but look about herself and wonder what she’d been thinking. She should have asked Weger to come outside the gate and talk to her there. She was accustomed to the society of women. That wasn’t to say that they couldn’t be vicious or dangerous or uncouth, but at least after a certain point there had been no tittering over bodily emissions or fights erupting over bread that was just this side of brickish hardness.

At least she had a buffer between herself and the rabble. Of course when someone’s stew went flying and the bulk of it landed against the wall above her head, she found she was wearing it just the same. The only thing that saved her from a broken nose was Rùnach’s hand reaching out just in time to catch the bowl before it landed on her face. He set it down, then continued on with his meal.

She sipped her drink—she didn’t think she dared call it ale, but she couldn’t think of anything else it could be—in a futile effort to calm her nerves. She was extremely grateful when Rùnach asked her if she had finished, then indicated he’d had enough himself. She followed him from the dining hall, wincing at the things that hit her in the back but unwilling to draw any attention to the abuse.

Paul led them back up a flight of stairs and down a passageway
to a door. He pushed it open, then indicated with a sweeping gesture that they should enter.

“Only the finest,” he said grandly.

Aisling realized she wasn’t moving only because her feet had become rooted to the spot. “We’re together?”

“Of course,” Paul said sharply. “Why would you expect anything else?”

“Well—”

“The lad is out of his head with weariness,” Rùnach interrupted. “Many thanks to my lord Weger for his consideration.”

Aisling peered into the miniscule chamber she had been given—to share with a complete stranger, no less—and wondered if it could possibly have been worse. There was a bed of sorts, a table sturdy enough to sport water for washing, and a tallow candle that was spluttering as it burned. She supposed it was an improvement over the long rows of cots in an enormous room that was stifling in the summer and freezing in the winter that she’d been accustomed to at the Guild, but she wasn’t quite sure how.