There were no chairs around the table, or anywhere else. In this room, you stayed on your feet.
The dawn’s light bathed the map in red-gold, but it remained only sunlight when it touched the wood, not turning to the darker red that would have meant battle, nor the yellow of plague. The first signs of the day were clear.
Cathal crossed the room to a dark corner, where a small well descended into the earth below the castle. Lowering the bucket—made of ash as well—was routine now, his hands as trained to the motion as they were to drawing his sword or mending his gear. His mind, not yet fully awake, wandered, making lists of the tasks ahead, bringing up the memory of the last song the night before, and reminding him that he was only a short staircase below the room where Sophia spent most of her days.
Might she be up there already? She wouldn’t be one for mass, that was certain, and she might be wary enough to retire to the turret before the rest of the castle went to the chapel. Later, he could go up and see for himself. It would be wise to check her progress on occasion and to see what use she was making of the room he’d given her.
It would be pleasant to see her face in the rosy light of dawn, to stand alone with her in a warm room and talk as he never seemed quite able to do at meals. Everything about the great hall spoke to him too much of his role and his duties, and he could never quite break free of them long enough to think of conversation. Odd that his days had been longer on campaign, and physically as hard or worse, but he’d always been able to charm a pretty lass when he’d wanted to.
Mayhap that was the difference. He was trying to be a good host to this one, not win himself a tumble in his tent.
The succession of images that thought called to mind—women in his arms, now with Sophia’s face to accompany their full breasts and sleek thighs—made him nearly drop the rising bucket. Water slopped over his hand. Even though the water here was warmer than normal, and Cathal didn’t mind most cold, it was an unpleasant shock.
Mind to your tasks, boy, he scolded himself, in the voice of a long-dead man whose squire he’d once been.Or do you need that water poured over your head?
No, sixteen was a long time past, and even if his burdens had felt a touch lighter over the last few days, Cathal knew they were still there, a long list of tasks that didn’t leave much room for pleasure of any sort. His body was still disposed to argue the point, but he pushed those urges to the back of his mind, picked up the bucket, and brought it over to the table.
On most days, the water ran smoothly into the channels of the map, then vanished. When drought was forthcoming, it disappeared midair. Cathal had seen that happen in his boyhood. This time, the water hit the first of the carved boundaries and froze instantly.
Blizzard.
He began to swear steadily. By the time he’d emptied the rest of the bucket, he’d exhausted Gaelic and switched to English. When he reached the staircase, he’d worked his way over toward French, and he’d just started on Arabic when he heard a quiet inhalation from above.
Turning, he already knew he’d see Sophia on the stairs above him.
One hand covered her mouth, but above it, her eyes crinkled up at the edges, evidence of a hidden smile. Unbound and uncovered, her hair fell about her shoulders in a dark cloud. She’d tied it loosely back with a scrap of blue ribbon, but a great deal had escaped. Preoccupied as he was, Cathal was struck by the urge to step forward and brush the loose hair back from her face, to feel the silk of it against his fingers and then the warmth of her skin.
In his mind, he went on cursing for a few seconds.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“Blizzard,” he said, and then the only other thing that came to him. “Didn’t think you were awake.”
“I wish I wasn’t,” she said. She reached up to touch her hair, as if realizing its condition belatedly, and dropped her eyes for a moment. “Some operations must take place at dawn. I thought I’d perform them and then go back to sleep. I didn’t think I’d be seen, really…”
Now he saw that she wore a cloak, though she’d pushed the hood back onto her shoulders, making it useless for concealment.
“My good fortune, then,” he said and smiled at her.
The flush that spread across her cheeks reminded him of the dawn itself. Her lips parted slightly. “Oh,” she said, half breathing the word. For an instant, the very stairs and walls felt insubstantial, and he and Sophia might have been the only solid things in the universe.
Then she cleared her throat. “Your friend—Fergus—his cure will have to do with the sun and with Saturn. Solidity. The translation of spirit into matter. The spell’s impeding that. There are elements missing in him or deficient…an amputation, if you will.”
“Poetic enough,” said Cathal, grimacing. Once again he wished “Valerius” near enough at hand to throttle. “You can restore such things?”
“Someonecan,” she said, straightening her back as she spoke, “and I’m the one who’s here. I have a few notions about how to begin.”
“Good.” And it was, though the change of subject had been a fairly effective cold bath—and that, in turn, reminded him of the map’s prediction. Tasks settled back on his shoulders like hawks made of lead. “I must go. I beg your pardon.”
* * *
Part of the difficulty was that the weatherthensuggested no such thing as a blizzard. The sky was clear, that bright and almost brittle blue that happened in high places during the winter; the air was still and, for February in Scotland, warm. If Cathal hadn’t seen the map, he wouldn’t have thought Loch Arach in any danger of calamity.
Nobody else in the castlehadseen the map, or indeed the room where it lay. Prophecy didn’t figure largely in their lives—except for some of the guards, most of them had little to do with magic in general—and although his father must have warned the folk of the castle and village about similar peril, Cathal was damned if he could remember how. He wasn’t sure he’d paid enough attention to learn the process in the first place.
Approaching Niall, his steward, he therefore felt like an utter fool.
“There’s a blizzard coming,” he said, having always preferred to jump the fence rather than go around. “Likely a bad one. How are the stores?”
