Her last thought was that she hoped Ruith would shut the door so no one would watch her drool in her sleep.
Several hours later, she sat in front of a mirror and wondered if it would be rude to put her foot down and demand back her traveling clothes which seemed to have disappeared along with her used bathwater.
She was wearing a black dress that she learned, after sifting through profuse apologies for not having had something ready just for her, had been worn very briefly by Ruith’s sister Mhorghain before she’d demanded her leggings and tunic back.
Sarah thought she and Mhorghain might get along very well indeed.
Her hair had been washed and combed out and left hanging in a riot of curls down her back. She was rather paler than she would have thought she would have been given all the traveling she’d done, but perhaps her face was a reflection of the unease she couldn’t seem to shake, even protected as she was inside impenetrable walls. She watched as the maid, a rather tall, exceptionally lovely girl of obviously dwarvish descent, reached for something else to torture her with.
“Absolutely not,” she said, eyeing the item suspiciously.
The girl held a circlet of gold in her hands. “But, my lady, ’twas fashioned especially for you.”
Sarah scowled in spite of herself. The seamstresses had been too busy to aid her, but the goldsmiths had been lounging about with time on their hands? She revisited the idea of putting her foot down.
“’Tis a modest thing,” the girl added, holding it out for inspection. “Hardly anything to be seen, don’t you agree?”
Sarah had to agree that it was very discreet, but that was beside the point. “I’m not worthy of a crown,” she protested.
“Well,” said a voice from the doorway, “that’s a matter of opinion.”
Sarah looked around her maid to find Ruith standing just inside her doorway, leaning back against the wall, watching her. She wondered just how long he’d been standing there and how much of her complaints he’d heard. He was smiling, though, so perhaps he hadn’t been bothered by them.
“Are you responsible for this?” she demanded.
He only shook his head slowly. “I’m not, though I would certainly take credit for it if I dared.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “You look lovely.”
She stood, because she thought it might be easier to bolt that way. “You look lovely as well,” she said, because it was true, though something of an understatement.
He had obviously succumbed to the same pressure she’d been put under to dress properly for supper, though his clothing was still very discreet. No baubles, fine embroidery, capes hanging from his shoulders, or fancy court shoes. He was wearing black boots, black trousers, and a deep green tunic that she imagined would do quite lovely things for his eyes. She noticed immediately that even though he wasn’t wearing a crown, he’d been given one because he’d stuck his arm through it as if it had been a very large bracelet.
“I understand,” he began slowly, “that there is to be a formal sort of entertainment tonight.”
“How fortunate for you,” she managed. “You’ll have the chance to audition a princess or two.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but since my first thought was that I would have the opportunity to pass the evening with you, I wanted to rescue myself from complete embarrassment and see if you would humor me by practicing a dance step or two.”
She sank back down onto the chair she’d recently vacated. “But I can’t dance,” she protested.
“And I can?” he asked, with an uncomfortable laugh. “We have half an hour to remedy that before supper. I suggest we take advantage of the dancing master I bribed and left out in the passageway to await our pleasure.”
“I think I should just sit and watch—”
He walked over and pulled her up off the chair. “Nay, my lady, you will not.”
She looked up at him. “You arrogant, autocratic—”
“State dinners include dancing.”
She pursed her lips for she knew there was no escaping her fate. She conceded the battle, but not the war.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh, “I will dance, but I will not wear—” She managed to point vaguely toward the serving girl. “I won’t wear that.”
The girl looked at Ruith for support. He looked fully prepared to give it to her, so Sarah left them to their scheming and retreated to stand in front of the fire where she could attempt to warm her hands that were far colder than they should have been. She heard Ruith’s soft laughter, listened to him usher the girl out the door, then heard his footsteps approach. He stopped behind her and waited silently, but Sarah couldn’t bring herself to help him along into hitherto unexplored realms of uncomfortable conversational topics.
He apparently had more patience than she did, though, because he outlasted her easily. She finally gave vent to a gusty sigh and turned to look at him.
“I’ve changed my mind. I want to use one of my remaining beg-off-from-supper tokens.”
“Can’t,” he said cheerfully. “Even my grandfather doesn’t refuse supper here—when he manages to get himself inside the gates.”
She had to force herself to breathe normally. “I don’t belong here.”
“And given the long history of prickly relations between my mother’s people and Uachdaran’s, I would say I didn’t either. But since the king has been good enough to offer us shelter and a meal, I imagine we should accept and see if we can’t improve the goodwill a bit.”
“How politic of you, Your Highness.”
“It is, isn’t it?” he asked, frowning as if he wasn’t quite sure where the impulse had come from. He walked over to rest his hand on the enormous stone mantel. “Lovely gown.”
“Your sister wore it when she was here.”
He flinched. “Touché, love.”
“The difference is, the crown they tried to stick on her head was bigger, I understand, though she balked at wearing it as well.” She tucked her hands into her sleeves, wincing as she grazed her right arm.
“It sounds as if you’ll get on famously,” he said.
She nodded, then turned to look at the fire again, because it was easier than looking at him. She knew she was stalling, but it seemed the only thing to do out of a sense of self-preservation. “Ruith—”
“We’ll be late if we don’t hurry,” he said, taking her arm suddenly and pulling her across the chamber. “Dancing lessons. But first the appropriate
accoutrements
.”
Sarah watched him, unable to speak, as he plopped his crown on his head with an adroitness that bespoke a youth in a palace, then took hers, turned her toward him, and gently placed it on her head. Then he met her eyes.
“This is freshly forged.”
“Mistakenly—”
“Purposely,” he corrected, “for you, which means you should wear it.”
“But I am nothing,” she protested.
“You are something to me,” he said seriously, “and Uachdaran perhaps honors you for that reason. I suspect, however, that since he obviously ordered this made for you, he has other reasons we can’t yet divine.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what they are,” she muttered.
“Delving too deeply into the dwarf king’s motives can be dangerous,” he agreed, “but always yields interesting results.” He paused. “If nothing else, you could wear this very lovely bit of work and give a goldsmith who will likely be sneaking a look in the great hall tonight a measure of delight at seeing his creation atop the head of the most beautiful woman there.”
She looked up at him, but found she couldn’t see him very well. She was weary; that was it. It had been an extraordinarily long winter turned spring so far with no sign of any of it abating any time soon. She blinked rapidly.
“I’m not a weeper.”
“Nay, love, you aren’t.”
She took a deep breath. “I still don’t want this, but I will endure it to please that very shy smith.” She paused. “I’m not sure I can keep it on my head.”
“I’ll see to it.” He fetched a pair of pins from the dressing table, then frowned thoughtfully as he attempted to use them for their intended purpose. He examined his work, then reached up and brushed two stray tears from her cheeks. “You need a distraction. Allow me to offer myself.”
“Altruistic of you.”
“Self-serving,” he admitted, “but you can think of it how you want.” He took her left hand. “Let’s be off to see what we can learn before supper begins.”
Their dancing master, a small, elfin creature, had endless amounts of patience and an infectious amount of good humor. He taught them three dances, pronounced them quick studies, and promised to have a quiet word with King Uachdaran’s musicians after supper so she and Ruith would have something familiar to dance to. Sarah felt absolutely ridiculous walking into a great hall full of royalty and important guests, but Ruith had promised her he would chase her if she bolted, so she concentrated on the very necessary task of making sure her crown stayed on her head.
She found herself sitting on Uachdaran’s right hand in a place of honor, with Ruith on her right. She was very grateful for the king’s single-minded concentration on his supper, which gave her the chance to attempt to do the same. She gave up the effort after a bit, not because the food wasn’t superb but because she was too distracted by what she was seeing in the hall.
Soilléir had much to answer for.
Whilst the hall itself could be properly described as stately, it wasn’t the heavy beams in the ceiling or the marvelously designed and fashioned tapestries draping over the walls from floor to ceiling that she couldn’t look away from.
It was the tales being told by the flames flickering in the massive hearths set on either side of the hall.
She felt as if heroic epics were being reenacted for her benefit alone, mighty deeds wrought by dwarves throughout the ages, battles fought against darkness and evil when men and elves were otherwise occupied with less weighty matters of their realms. Sarah could only watch, speechless, at what she saw, things she had never once considered might be occurring under her nose—or under mountains she had never laid eyes on in her life—things that had quietly, relentlessly, absolutely kept the inhabitants of the Nine Kingdoms sleeping safely.
She looked at the king to find him watching her with a small smile as if he knew exactly what she was seeing.
“Do you see too?” she asked, because she couldn’t help herself.
“Oh, aye, lass,” he said with another knowing smile. “Not many others do, though. I daresay your lad there isn’t seeing anything in my hearths but a flame to warm his backside on a chilly night.”
“See what?” Ruith asked politely, leaning forward. “Your strings warming up, Your Majesty? My lady owes me a dance or two.”
Uachdaran winked at her, then looked at Ruith. “While I understand your enthusiasm, lad, first I think we must humor my bard. He keeps our genealogy, as you may or may not know, and while that is a worthy task, he never misses the chance to have a peep in someone else’s family tree. Your grandfather, I’m afraid, didn’t have the time to attend him at all, to his great distress. I hope you children don’t mind if he at least comes to greet you. I imagine neither of you will escape without divulging a few details he’ll want to record in his books.”
“I don’t think my heritage will come as much of a surprise to him,” Ruith said dryly, “but I’ll gladly humor him. I might have an unsavoury connection or two to delight him with, if he has the stomach for it.”
“He does,” Uachdaran said mildly. He nodded to one of his pages, who ran off without hesitation.
Sarah would have liked to have distracted herself with the fire a bit longer, but the tales had ceased. That might have been because they felt they were competing with what the musicians were creating, music she could see hanging in the air, forming itself into proper patterns of dance. She blinked, but the notes remained long enough to make their appearance, take their place in the song, then slip offstage, as it were.
She looked at Uachdaran in surprise.
He was still simply watching her with that half smile, as if he knew exactly what she was seeing—which she suspected he did—and was pleased to enjoy it with her.
“Didn’t expect this, did you, lass?” he asked gently.
“I’m finding, Your Majesty, that that has become my lot in life.”
He smiled, a smile full of good humor. “I hope, my gel, that you will one day be able to leave that saying behind, but I fear that day is not near. Ah, here is Master Eachdraidh.”
Sarah looked at the man hurrying across the hall, his arms full of papers and the voluminous sleeves of his robe flapping with his haste. He was tall, for an inhabitant of Léige, and very thin, looking as if he spent the majority of his time holed up in some chamber or other, looking through books. She supposed she could have been accused of hiding herself in a place or two to weave, but she somehow didn’t think she looked quite that pale.
Master Eachdraidh skidded to a stop in front of the high table, made the king a very low bow, which sent his pages scattering, then spent a few minutes trying to gather everything back up. Ruith, the good-hearted soul that he was, walked around the table and bent to help him. They chatted amicably about the unpredictability of pages that weren’t sewn properly into a book—Sarah caught the look Ruith sent her and smiled in understanding—then Ruith straightened and left the historian to his own devices.
Eachdraidh clutched his papers to his chest, then made the king another low bow. “Your Majesty, I have come to, of course, first delight you with the retelling of a tale or two unearthed from the vaults below, then I thought ... to ...”
Sarah watched the man lose his ability to speak. His mouth worked soundlessly, as if he’d just seen a ghost. She looked over her shoulder to see if that might be the case—she was fully prepared to see more things than she would have
ever
wanted to in the past—but there was nothing behind her. She turned back to Uachdaran’s genealogist and realized he wasn’t looking at someone behind her.