Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [38]
At least, that was what she promised. Whether she could be trusted to keep that promise, only time would tell.
“Maybe I am a fool, a real one,” he said out loud. His horse cocked its ears back at him and snorted, then turned its head a little to look back over its shoulder at him. “What do you think?” he asked it.
It shook its head, but there was not enough of North Wind blood in it to make it truly intelligent. Not that he particularly needed or wanted a smart-tongued horse in his life to make fun of him….
Well, what was done was done. He made a note to ask Yasha to keep an especially close watch on that part of the Kingdom. If people started going missing…
He could still sing her out of the Kingdom if he had to. It was even easier, since she was a spirit, than it would have been if she was something of flesh and bone.
Or he could get a real magician to banish her….
Oh, he was thinking too hard about this. And one more day and he would be back at the Palace.
But first, he planned to spend a day or two here at the seashore. He almost never got the chance to come here, except when he was making his rounds. There was a nice little inn around the next turn of the road, where they knew him, but only as a traveler. He’d planned to be there by noon at the latest and it wasn’t even midmorning now.
Yes. He would spend a day, perhaps two here. And then—
He sighed.
Then it would be back to the foolery. This had been a nice change, but alas, it was time to get back to work.
He wondered though, as he rounded the curve in the road and saw the inn in the distance, if anyone ever realized just how much work it was….
Chapter 7
The inn was full of people, the smells of good food, the murmur of talk. Sasha stared morosely into his mug of honey mead and toyed with the remains of his apple tart. This was not going as he had planned.
It wasn’t because the inn wasn’t warm and welcoming, because it most certainly was. And it wasn’t because he wasn’t remembered as a good customer and treated as such. No…no it was none of that.
It was that for some reason—maybe it was the season, maybe it was because the current crop of local youngsters was just old enough to begin thinking of love and lovers—the inn was full to the rafters with courting couples. What they were all doing here, he had no clue. It was the middle of the day, and surely they should all be out working. Fishing, cleaning, baking, mending nets or boats—what have you. Yet here they were, mooning at each other over their midday meal.
Maybe he had been a little too good when he’d sung all those songs at the wedding. Sometimes even he couldn’t tell what The Tradition was going to seize on and run away with.
The barmaids each had their swains, who teased them as they worked, under the indulgent eye of the innkeeper’s wife. There were couples at every table, inside and out, in every possible stage of courtship. One very young pair, who from their costumes were a couple of apprentices to a potter, was at the shy, tongue-tied stage, hardly looking at each other, yet the tension between them was palpable. Another, who could hardly be separated, and he learned from overhearing bits of conversation, were newly married; he a fisherman, she a net-maker. Two couples were awkward for another reason; dressed in their finest, these were arranged engagements and the young men were awkwardly, and dutifully, trying to win over the young ladies while their matchmakers looked on. It didn’t look to Sasha as if they were getting bad bargains either; both girls were clean, nice to