Whatever their differences, their blood and their training was the same. Douglas’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword in the same moment that Cathal’s did. Douglas was the one who called “Come in” warily at the knock on the door, but they both turned to face the visitor, not expecting an attack but ready for one nonetheless.
Edan was there instead, his face creased with worry. His bow was quick and clumsy. “My lord. Sir Cathal. There’s been an accident, and Mistress Sophia bids you come when you can.”
That it was Sophia doing the bidding kept Cathal a shade calmer than might have been the case, but only that shade. Plenty of dying men could send for a confessor. He practically raced his first few steps down the stairs, and he didn’t slow until Edan managed to tell him and Douglas more of the story.
By the time he reached the room where Alice lay, with Sophia bustling around at her side and the sharp smell of herbs in the air, Cathal no longer had the sick feeling that the world was tilting beneath him. Still he couldn’t be completely relieved. In addition to pitying Alice, he knew that this latest mishap might bring on the question he and Douglas had been debating much sooner than either of them had hoped.
“Her ankle’s broken,” Sophia said, dipping strips of linen into a bowl of water. She’d spared a quick glance for Douglas and Cathal, but didn’t look at either of them as she worked. “I’ve sent for Donnag, but it’s obvious.”
“My lord,” said Alice, her face green-white and her voice unsteady, “have you ever considered that your castle has too damned many stairs?”
There it was: the stairs being washed, like the floors, to prepare for Lent and the end of winter, the stone slippery, and Alice hurrying to dinner. A hundred such falls happened every day, and people had broken worse than ankles before. It wasprobablyjust ordinary mortal bad luck that it had happened now to Alice.
Cathal thought so, at least, but he glanced at Douglas, for whom distance and time still evidently hadn’t removed all ability to speak with a look. “There’ll be no magic about this,” he said. “The wards would have told me, if I didn’t know already.”
Alice shook her head. “Believe me, I’m more than capable of doing myself a bad turnwithoutsorcery. I’m…aaaagh—” She broke off as Sophia started to wrap her ankle, the bandages wet and smelling strongly. After a few moments she added, panting, “—sorry for it, considering.”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s not your fault,” Sophia said. “I only wish that… Well, never mind.” She’d glanced at Douglas before breaking off, and Cathal could guess that she’d been about to wish for a real bonesetter or even a physician, but didn’t want to insult her host. “It should heal well enough, if I’m doing this right and you don’t move.”
“It’ll take months, though,” Douglas said, “unless you’ve magic beyond what I’ve heard. None of us can heal humans.”
“Most likely,” said Sophia, turning back to the bowl of water. Even dismayed, Cathal couldn’t help watching the sure, steady motions of her hands and the rhythm of her movements. “I’m afraid we’ll have to trespass on your hospitality longer than anyone expected, and if I don’t return, I ask that you give Alice shelter and protection until she’s well enough to travel.”
“I… Yes,” said Douglas, blinking. Cathal watched, torn between pride and fear, as he went on. “Do you mean to say you’ll go with my brother, then?”
“Of course. There’s little else to do, considering the situation. I wish I weren’t the one who knew how to make potions, and I hope he doesn’t have the resources to summon another demon while I’m there, but…well, if I fail, I doubt that will matter very much, will it?” She turned back to Alice. “I’ll begin packing as soon as I’ve finished here.”
Twenty-nine
When she’d thought about leaving Loch Arach, Sophia had always pictured herself and Alice joining a group of travelers once more. She’d hoped they’d be triumphant, recognized they might be defeated, and never once considered that dragons would still be involved, nor that the journey would be not the end of her mission but, with good fortune, the beginning of the final stage.
The very wordpreparationwas a bad jest. Nonetheless, she tried. It was probably for the best, as she told a skeptical and still-groggy Alice, that she’d done so much damage to her clothing. Scorch marks from braziers could be souvenirs of forgetful moments in the kitchen; holes from vitriol could point to soapmaking. She could look the part of a servant or a peasant girl.
She bought an old tunic and hose from Munro as well. Nobody would mistake her for a boy in good lighting, but at night, with her hair up and a cloak to hide most of her body, perhaps she could fool a man at a distance. Even if not, it would be easier to run in male costume.
Running was the second-to-last thing Sophia wanted to do. Unless she revised the list to include death and capture, fighting was at the very bottom. She felt like a porcupine with all her knives—the innocent-looking one at her belt, one in each boot, and a tiny one between her breasts—but despite Munro’s lessons, she had no confidence in her skill with any of them.
“You stabbed the demon,” Alice said when Sophia was packing and fretting.
“Yes, and that did me very little good,” Sophia said, though the reminder was bracing.
Men bled more, they hurt more, and they died more easily. She tried to keep that in mind. As a source of reassurance, it turned her stomach. It was all very well and good to say that Valerius’s sworn men were nigh as bad as he was, but that didn’t preclude a wretched gamekeeper or night watchman who simply wished to save his own skin, or his family’s. Sophia thought she’d use the knives, or try, if she had to, but such self-knowledge made her no happier.
She turned to other sources of comfort. In the small bag that she’d carry, she packed two of the armoring potions—both wrapped with the greatest care, and then more usual herbals on top of them for camouflage and in case circumstances arose on the journey. She took Douglas up to the tower room, a long and slow process, and showed him the golden goblet and the potion within it: Fergus’s solar elixir, waiting for the final ingredients, in the last stable state in which she could leave it.
“Should I not return,” she said, and the words stuck in her throat, such that she had to look away and cough while Douglas politely took no notice, “I’ve written out the instructions here. The processes, the hours and days, the substances…enough to make it over again. For this one, start at the second paragraph. The powdered topaz is in the wooden box with the stars on it, in the trunk. I don’t know… Forgive me, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to complete the work, but if you can, it should buy you time.”
“Aye.” He looked at her gravely. “I’m obliged to you, mistress. My brother all the more so, I’d imagine.”
There was a quality in his voice that was like Alice’s tone when she’d lectured Sophia about Cathal: not the same, but similar, copper and gold. Sophia flushed. “My lord, I assure you that I have no designs on your brother.”
Her blush was in part because she didn’t quite speak the truth—but she was close enough. What matter that she dreamed of Cathal by night and could barely see him without wanting to touch him? She’d not try to trap him in marriage, nor turn him against his brother, and that was good enough.
“Mistress Sophia,” said Douglas, “if you’ll pardon my bluntness, I give not a single damn for your designs. Have them or no. My worry is that he’ll endanger himself for your sake. He wouldn’t heed me on the matter of safety when Mistress Alice was the one going. With you, he’ll be ten times worse.”
“Ah…” Sophia said, glad and dismayed and disbelieving all at once.
“I doubt you can persuade him. I’ll not ask you to. But bear that in mind when you’re asking your questions. It’s more than your neck on the block.”
