Princess of the Sword by Lynn Kurland

but he only tugged on her braid, smiled at her, then walked unsteadily away presumably to find more wine.

    Morgan sat, but she didn’t relax. Miach obviously needed a bit more time to recover from the events of the day, but she would watch him and suggest they leave the moment he looked equal to it. They might have been in a chamber where the company was pleasant, but that said nothing for what lurked outside the door.

    The sooner they were away from the fury Droch was no doubt nursing, the better off they would be.

     

Six

    M iach fetched a new bottle of wine, then poured glasses all around. He looked up as Léir’s servant walked unsteadily back to stand in the shadows, his hands tucked into the folds of his robe. He wondered who he was and how he had come to find himself in Léir’s company. Or if he’d come upstairs earlier that morning and told Léir everything he’d seen.

    Perhaps that was something better reserved for later contemplation, after he’d stopped shaking and could think clearly again. And perhaps later he would also think on the spells he’d memorized in Droch’s solar, the books he’d thumbed through, the personal diaries he’d managed to free from their locked box in the darkest corner of the chamber. He would consider Droch’s fury with Gair over his stinginess with his knowledge, speculate on the other magics Droch was certain Gair had unearthed from unpleasant places, and give himself time to wonder why Droch seemed to be so concerned that Gair might have passed on to others spells he shouldn’t have had.

    He hadn’t found what they needed in Droch’s solar, true, but he’d found an entirely new set of things to chew on.

    But not now. For the moment, he was quite happy to be where he was: safe, warm, and in a chamber where the books on the shelves didn’t make his skin crawl. He drained his cup, then set it aside and turned so he could watch Morgan. What he wanted to do was pull her into his arms again and hold her close until his heart was no longer so cold, but he was nothing if not discreet. He settled for pressing his booted foot against hers and enjoying the simple pleasure of watching her.

    She looked at him in surprise, then rolled her eyes and reached for his hand. She laced her fingers with his, then turned back to Léir. Miach looked at Léir as well, smiled sheepishly, then sat back and let the conversation wash over him.

    It took a while, but Morgan finally decided that Léir was deserving of at least a few tales of her time in Weger’s tower. It was with obvious relish that she related to him the strictures she’d learned on the first day alone, ones that seemed to relate in a particular way to ridding the world of the plague of finger-wagglers.

    Miach shook his head in silent wonder. Morgan was sitting across from a man who, half a year ago, she would have spotted for what he was at a hundred paces, then either killed him or avoided him—yet now she was chatting almost as easily as if she’d been in Nicholas of Lismòr’s solar. Perhaps it was Soilléir himself. He was a man without guile, skilled enough that he no longer worried about his place in the world, and old enough that he likely no longer cared. Miach knew he terrified most of the other masters and baffled the remainder. He also tended to have mud on his boots during most of the year thanks to the time he spent tramping about in his garden.

    The conversation deteriorated rather quickly into a polite argument about what was more useful, a sword or a spell. Miach supposed Léir would never convince Morgan it was the latter, though she did concede after a bit that spells were not quite as abhorrent as she had once thought and Léir agreed that a knife up the sleeve could indeed come in handy in the right circumstance, such as when a lad might be slipping over a wall in the middle of the night and didn’t particularly care to use any magic.

    “What do you think, Miach?” Leir asked.

    “I think