Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [48]
And really, Ailis thought, replacing the sailcloth cover, what else should I be doing?
You are a witch-child, a voice whispered to her from deep within her dreams. Your place is near magic. Morgain’s voice? Or, as she was coming to suspect, the voice of the place, the magic in its very stones and water? It didn’t matter. That comfortable sense of belonging was sliding back over her, wiping away the alarm and replacing it with the need to be back at her work.
This time, the flutter of wings against her neck was nothing more than the sea breeze coming in through the small window overhead.
When Morgain returned a short while later, Ailis was back on her stool, measuring the quantity of gossamer sand needed for each spell. Morgain didn’t even glance at the covered wall before coming over to check on Ailis’s progress.
“Excellent work,” the sorceress praised, letting some of the tension fade from her face. Ailis could feel herself practically glowing under the older woman’s approval.
So what if Morgain wanted to make trouble for Arthur? There was nothing Ailis could do about it for now, and it was none of her affair, anyway.
SIXTEEN
“Show me Morgain’s home,” Gerard uttered in frustration as they left the village. But the lodestone had done exactly that. The three were led to an almost completely hidden path that led around the town and up the rocky cliff. In the distance, out to the east, over cold gray water and under an equally gray sky, they could see the Orkneys. On the nearest of those islands, a stone-walled fortress rose from the ground as though thrust up from the earth itself; immovable, unshakable.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Newt said. “Unless Merlin’s been having a joke on us all this time.”
He sounded as bitter as Gerard felt. The villagers had not been welcoming. Just as the first man they encountered, many of the townsfolk refused to even speak to the strangers. Finally, Gerard had taken Sir Caedor and the horses away, leaving Newt alone to discover what he could, on foot. The little he had learned was that the first old man was right—no one would guide them.
“We will still need a boat if we try to go on our own.” Sir Caedor sounded even less enthused about the prospect of travel over water than he had about travel over land.
“We should be able to hire a boat in the village,” Newt said. Then he reconsidered, in light of their earlier reception. “Or maybe we’ll have to borrow one without asking.”
“Steal one?”
“Is it stealing if you return it when you’re done?”
“Yes.” Sir Caedor was definitive on that, as he was whenever he and Newt disagreed on anything. Which was almost always.
Newt shrugged. “Then we’re stealing it. You have another idea?”
Sir Caedor clearly wanted to take Newt to task for insolence, but kept his lips firmly pressed together.
Gerard was thankful—he wasn’t sure he was up to yet another round of peacekeeping, especially when he felt like pitching them both into a well and leaving them there.
Being the leader didn’t mean leading so much as it meant balancing, Gerard decided, turning to look out over the water once again. He felt that strange warm touch inside again, like heated bathwater rising around his heart. He knew this had come from Arthur’s blood-gift.
“Are you there, Ailis?” he asked quietly, touching Guinevere’s token, the silver band that still rested on his arm. “Are you waiting for us to come and rescue you? We’re almost there. Just hold on a little while longer.” He heard Newt ride up alongside him, Loyal dancing a little as the smells of the sea reached his sensitive nostrils.
“So. We’re going over there,” Newt said quietly.
“That was always the plan. We just have to figure out how. Other than stealing a boat, that is.”
“Oh, I said that just to choke him a little,” Newt said dismissively. “About crossing the water, though—I think I have an idea how we can do it.”
“Talk.” Gerard went from distracted to focused, like a dog scenting a hare.
“Did you