Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [42]
“We have only one room, but it is yours, sir knight. Supper is served in the common room, but I assure you, it is everything you might desire.”
The innkeeper was a slimy ball of a man, stuttering and practically salivating over them. Caedor could only imagine how the man thought to turn their presence to his benefit, perhaps charge the locals a coin each to view the bed the “famed knight from Camelot” slept in, or to eat from the same bowl he used.
“You will stay a night? Two nights? Longer? We can accommodate you better the next night, I will have another room open for your squires.”
“Thank you, no. We will have need only for one night.” Gerard butted into the conversation before Caedor could inform the innkeeper of the same thing. The man looked taken aback that a squire would interrupt his master, and Caedor could feel his jaw begin to grind in frustration.
“If you have only the one room,” Gerard continued, “Newt and I will bed down with the horses. But the meal would be most welcome.” The stable boy, who had hung back while Caedor spoke, nodded and led the horses off.
When the innkeeper bowed and scurried off to make the room ready, Caedor turned to face his charge.
“There was no need to offer to sleep with the horses. I’m certain he could have found a room for you.”
“We have discussed this before,” the squire said, leaving Caedor at a loss. “You must treat Newt with more respect, or we will leave you here, despite Arthur’s request that we include you in our journey.”
The squire stared him directly in the eye in a way that could only be described as defiant. “I mean it. I will leave you here, and report back that you failed in your obligation—failed in the basic task of showing courtesy and respect to your companions.”
Caedor’s jaw worked, but no words came out. How dare this youth, this stripling, this child say such things to him? To reprimand him over how he treated a mere stable boy?
“Accept Newt as a travel companion, not a servant,” the squire said. “Or stay here on the morning when we leave.”
Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, Caedor knew what he would do when the sun rose. Duty was duty. But it left a bitter taste in his mouth; the taste of ashes and saltwater.
Ailis had no idea what time it was. She wasn’t even really sure what day it was. One faded into the next, no way to set one day off from another. After a while, it didn’t matter. But her brain, confused and filled with new and strange information, could not let go of one question: “Why did you steal me?”
Morgain didn’t bother to look up from the parchment she was reading. “Focus on the spell, witch-child.”
“I am focused.” Ailis thought that she could do this in her sleep at this point. “Why did you steal me from Camelot?”
The enchantress gave a dramatic sigh, placing the parchment down carefully on her workbench. “Have you never seen a shiny button on the ground and picked it up?”
Ailis didn’t need to have it explained further. Morgain had taken her not from any planned intent, but because she thought that Ailis might possibly be useful in some way, at some later time. Or not.
And if not, she would face the fate of all unmatched buttons: being discarded.
Ailis pursed her lips into a tight line, and focused again on the small silver globe floating in the air in front of her. She would show the sorceress. She would show Morgain that she was worthy of not being discarded.
As though sensing Ailis’s thoughts, Morgain smiled, a sly, smug smile of her own, and rose to walk over to where Ailis was working. She leaned her head of shining dark hair over the girl’s red braids to check her progress.
“Gently,” she said. “Gently wins the day.” Then the two of them leaned forward as one to breathe on the sphere, and it dissolved into a spray of noxious-smelling fumes.
“I did it!