A Tapestry of Spells by Lynn Kurland

that he had hold of her right elbow. He released her immediately, for he knew the wound she bore there. He stopped himself just in time from rubbing the same spot on his own arm. He stepped to the other side of her and caught her by the sleeve.
    “What?” she said impatiently, turning to look at him.
    He nodded back the way they’d come. “That one robs his guests whilst they sleep. And he has a ready tongue for spreading all manner of gossip. I thought it best he not have any idea who you were or what your plans are.”
    “I would have discovered that eventually, I daresay,” she muttered. She chewed on her words for a moment or two, then spat them out quickly. “I’ve never been here before.”
    “There was a first time for me as well and I left rather less well-heeled than when I’d come. And if you’d care for my opinion, I’ll tell you that the next handful of inns are a bit safer than the first, though not much. Unless you’re willing to sleep with a knife in your hand. Farther up the street is perhaps more what you’re looking for.”
    She looked up the street warily. “I’ll see what I can find that suits my purse.”
    He nodded, though he had no intention of allowing her to pay for him. He supposed there was little point in saying as much. It was, as she’d reminded him more than once that morning, her quest. He was more than happy to leave it in her hands, for doing so seemed to keep her from asking questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer, such as why he’d thrown her out of his house only to chase after her hours later. In the end, he supposed he would simply give her the answer he could most easily give himself, that he was merely there to help her look for her brother. With any luck at all, that would be the extent of it anyway.
    He watched her lay siege to the street they were on, searching for a decent place to stay, all the while surreptitiously counting her coins. He was accustomed to prissy women who had all their needs catered to immediately by an army of servants, not lassies who wore sturdy and quite sensible boots and seemed terribly determined to do things without aid. Sarah reminded him a bit of his mother, which he wasn’t at all sure was a good thing, though she was a scrappier, fiercer, more intensely determined version of his mother—and his mother had been very intense.
    He watched Sarah walk away from the fifth place she couldn’t afford before he could bear it no longer. He stopped her before she continued on doggedly up the street.
    “Let us make a new bargain,” he suggested.
    “I didn’t realize we had an old bargain,” she said grimly.
    “I believe we did. You were going to allow me to trail along after you whilst you looked over several mages to see who might suit you best. And since you are about the heavier labor, I think you should allow me to see to the inns. That will leave you free to look for just the right lad to suit your purposes.”
    “I cannot—”
    “You could consider it my contribution to the cause.”
    She looked suddenly quite impossibly tired. “My pride demands that I say nay.”
    “But your good sense suggests that you put your pride to bed and then follow it there.”
    She sighed. “I’ll repay you.”
    “Of course,” he said, because he had the feeling she would fight him right there in the street if he said her nay. He’d been counting her coins right along with her and guessed just how many she didn’t have. Why she hadn’t been better prepared, he didn’t know. Perhaps her plans had somehow gone awry.
    “I need a place for Castân,” she said quietly.
    He nodded at the stables behind her. “I think they’ll take him there, given that he seems to prefer hay.”
    Sarah glanced at that drooling mess, who had indeed found a stray pile of lastyear’s final cutting and was contentedly crunching on it. She considered for a moment or two in silence, then looked at Ruith.
    “He’s not a dog.”
    “I was beginning to