Star of the Morning (13 page)

He could not say how it had been done, or by whom, but his magecraft was gone, and he suspected it would not return to him until Lothar was dead and his spells unraveled. Perhaps it was for the best. The Sword of Angesand had been weighing on his mind. He was not anxious to admit to bullheadedness, but it was possible that he might not have done anything about it if he had been in full control of his powers.

But where to go now? He'd looked in the unlikely places. Perhaps now it was his task to look for unlikely souls in likely places. He cursed as he considered. Angesand, aye; or perhaps a less social visit to Penrhyn. There was nothing in him that whispered of a direction except
home
and that was not useful.

He cast his mind in farther circles than he had before. The schools of wizardry? He stepped back from that thought as if it stood to bite him. He hadn't been able to bear it there longer than necessary when he'd been a lad, and his sojourn had been cut mercifully short by his father's death. The wizards could likely be grateful for that, for if he'd had to listen to them pontificate one more time on the proper way to weave a spell, there would have been bloodshed.

Morgan stirred. He watched but saw that she only shifted, then passed into a deep, more peaceful slumber. Miach's brew seemed to work.

A pity Miach hadn't had an herb to restore Adhémar's magic.

Adhémar set his face forward and considered his route. He would perhaps travel with Morgan's company for a bit and continue north. After all, who knew but keeping company with unlikely souls might lead to the unlikeliest soul of all.

He had no other choice.

Six

Morgan woke. The deck was no longer heaving beneath her. She was no longer heaving either, which she took to be a very promising sign. She was somewhere that smelled of rich earth and a smoking fire. She remained still, trying to work out where that somewhere might be and where her weapons were. She had no knives up her sleeves, which was disconcerting, but the usual suspects were still stuck down her boots. The comforting coldness against her anklebones told her that much. Well, no matter. If she had to do damage, she could do so with her hands alone. That was assuming, however, that she could get to her feet and stay there long enough to do so.

She was having grave and unwholesome doubts on that score.

Twigs snapped and popped near her ear. She opened one eye a slit and saw that it was night; stars were clear in the sky above her. She was lying in a glade surrounded by trees. She was on bare ground, save that uncomfortable rock near her lower spine, and she was not alone.

“I'm running perilously short on gold,” Adhémar was saying with a grumble.

“Then cease passing the time with Glines and his cards,” Camid suggested.

“I cannot believe there won't come a time when I won't win,” Adhémar returned.

Camid chuckled. “So say all his victims.”

“I'm convinced the wench poached much of my coin,” Adhémar said pointedly. “I should go through her pack whilst she sleeps.”

“She's not sleeping,” Glines said absently, shuffling his cards. “And, no disrespect intended, you wouldn't have been able to go through her pack.”

“Why is it you are so protective of her and so unfeeling about my purse?” Adhémar groused.

“Save our lives a time or two as she has, then we'll think about it,” Camid said.

“Don't bother about his gold,” Morgan croaked, turning her head. She had to wait several minutes until the world stopped spinning and she could focus on the little group sitting on the far side of the fire. “He'll just spend it unwisely.”

“Unwisely?” Adhémar said sharply. “How so?”

“Those herbs,” she said, clearing her throat. “Where did you get them?”

“Here and there.”

She closed her eyes. It was better that way, for then the world ceased to spin quite so violently. “Then it was either here or there where you were robbed. Some village witch slipped some of her wares into what you bought.”

Adhémar snorted. “Your imagination has gotten the better of you.”

Morgan let that pass. She was far more concerned with getting herself to her feet where she could argue more persuasively. Perhaps she would even have a look at those herbs and see if they looked as disgusting as they tasted.

She sat up slowly, appalled at how unstable she was. She looked briefly at Camid. His axe was lying next to him on the ground and he was sharpening his favorite dagger with a slow, careful motion. He looked at her and winked. Well, at least someone was concentrating on their safety.

She frowned. “Where's Paien?”

Camid pointed to her right with his dagger.

Morgan looked next to her. Paien was snoring in an alarmingly loud manner. He sounded dreadful. “Is he dying?” she asked in surprise.

“He likely wishes it so,” Camid said with a small smile, “but nay, he's merely weary. We carried you both here, but with him it was a most unpleasant journey. I suppose he will remember bits and pieces of it in time.”

“Likely all the times we dropped him,” Glines remarked as he studied his cards.

Camid snorted out a small laugh. “One would think a few days without food would have lightened his bulk, but it was not so.” He stood. “I'll stand watch. Glines, tend Morgan. We'll set off at first light.” He looked at her. “Where are we going again?”

She closed her eyes briefly to recover from the sight of Camid leaping so spryly to his feet. “North,” she managed thickly.

“
That
north?” he asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Wouldn't that look fine on my list of conquests? Let us go very far north and see what sort of sport we find—”

“Not
that
north,” Morgan said, sounding appallingly weak even to her own ears. “Souther north.”

“On foot?”

“How else?” she said, gritting her teeth.

“Not by boat, I suppose,” he said, sounding rather disappointed.

Glines laughed. “Leave her be. We'll go on foot and be pleased with the journey.”

Camid made sounds of disgust and tromped off.

Morgan didn't dare watch him go, but she determined that she would have speech with him, Paien, and Glines later, when Adhémar was not about. They would discuss their direction and she would tell them . . . well, she would tell them nothing. How could she reveal that she was carrying a weapon that was so slathered with magic that she could hear it singing from the depths of her pack?

They would think her mad.

She realized, with a start, that she probably should be considering the same thing. Was the blade calling to her? She hadn't realized until that moment that indeed it was.

Glines came to squat down next to her. “Are you feeling better? You look pale.”

Morgan swallowed with difficulty. “I am well,” she managed. She would have to keep thoughts of the knife out of her head or she would go mad in truth.

“Can you eat?”

“I daren't,” she said honestly. “I think I might have a little walk, though, just to see what's left of me.”

“Do you wish for company?”

“Nay, Glines, thank you just the same,” she said, but she let him help her up to her feet. She swayed in an appalling manner and it took her far longer than she would have liked to feel steady. She managed, finally, to look at him without her eyes crossing of their own accord. “I will be well,” she said firmly.

“I suggest you stay off boats in the future,” he said.

Morgan couldn't have agreed more, but now was not the time to think on it. She leaned in toward him. “I suggest you be careful with Adhémar,” she said under her breath.

“Why?”

“Did you smell those herbs? The man can't tell decent ones from enspelled ones; who knows what else he can't tell.”

“I'll remember that,” Glines said. Then he paused. “Morgan, about those herbs ...”

“Aye?”

“How did you know they were more than they seemed?” He paused and looked at her warily, as if he expected her to draw a dagger and poke him with it at any moment. “That they were . . . magical?”

“I just did,” she said, but she was beginning to wonder herself. First Nicholas's blade, then the herbs.

These were very unsettling events.

“I just did,” she repeated, “but it was nothing. I need to go.” She brushed unsteadily past Glines, ignoring his offer of an arm. She managed to make it to a tree at the edge of the firelight before she had to stop and take hold of something to steady herself.

No more boats.

The next one might just do her in.

 

 

By the next morning she was not much more herself, but she had no more time to devote to lying about uselessly. She heaved herself upright and remained there through sheer willpower alone.

Paien leaped to his feet, looking years younger than his normal self, and greeted the world by ingesting a breakfast that just the sight of made her ill. She contented herself with tea she made from things Nicholas's very unmagical cook had very unmagically stowed in her pack.

“North?” Camid asked as they prepared to break camp.

“North,” she repeated firmly.

“Skirt the edge of Istaur,” Paien advised. “It isn't a friendly place and we would be well off to avoid any unnecessary encounters with the locals in our present states.”

“I feel fine,” Morgan said, hoping they would mistake the weakness of her tone for discretionary quiet.

Camid grunted, and shouldered his pack. “Well, we have to make at least a brief detour to the docks.”

“Why?” Morgan asked.

“We've baggage to put on a ship back to Bere,” he said, pointing at the baggage.

Morgan recognized the uncomfortable lad who had been shadowing them at the tavern in Bere, only now he looked different. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that he was bound hand and foot and gagged as well. “Who is that?”

Glines pulled back the lad's hood and Morgan lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

“One of Harding's sons,” she noted. “Not the youngest, for he is at the university. Which one is this?”

“Fletcher,” Glines said. “He is the eighth, I believe.”

The boy would have answered, but again, he was wearing cloth tied about his mouth that prevented him from expressing any opinion on the matter.

Morgan looked at him and for some reason she hesitated. She wasn't one to have pity on souls who should have been safely tucked into bed each night, but she did feel for the lad and his desire for adventure.

“Can he wield a sword?” she asked.

Fletcher nodded enthusiastically.

“Not well, if memory serves,” Paien said. “Don't you remember him, gel? He snuck into our camp that one night and spent half an hour trying to merely draw it as he begged us to take him on?”

Morgan looked at the lad. She recognized the desperation in his eye. If she'd had a heart, it would have gone out to him. To be eighth in a line of eleven lads belonging to a man who seemed determined to live forever and spend all his gold so his sons saw none of it—perhaps he was merely burning to escape his unpromising destiny.

“Well,” she said, “why not?”

Camid looked at her blankly. “Why not what?”

“Why not take him along?” she clarified. Then she frowned. Had she said that, or had something unruly taken over her mouth? Things were going downhill for her rapidly. First her fine form, then her wits. “Perhaps he deserves a chance.”

Camid looked as surprised as she'd ever seen him. “But,” he spluttered, “what will we do with him?”

“Train him,” she said, then she looked at Camid, openmouthed. If she could have turned around to look at herself, she would have.

Paien laughed heartily. “What did you put in those herbs, Adhémar? She's gone soft.”

Morgan would have agreed, but she was distracted by the sight of Fletcher suddenly freed of his bonds by Glines and kneeling at her feet.

“Thank you, my lady,” he said, clasping his hands and looking up at her with tears streaming down his face. “You will have my everlasting gratitude and I vow I will do all you tell me—”

“Then stand up and cease blubbering,” Morgan said in irritation. She wasn't altogether certain at whom she was more irritated: herself for being a soft-hearted fool or Fletcher for looking at her as if she'd saved him from a life of torment.

He leaped to his feet enthusiastically. “Now?” he asked, in a fashion not unlike an over-friendly pup. “Now what shall I do?”