The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [22]
“Not much place for stories in the stable,” Newt said.
Since Ailis knew full well that the tales that didn’t come from the kitchens came from the stables, she gave that claim the look of scorn it deserved, making Newt snort with laughter. His expression lightened and made him seem quite…presentable.
“What are you laughing at?” Gerard asked, falling back to rejoin them.
“The stable boy is being impossible,” Ailis said primly, but her eyes were alight with mischief.
“He excels at that,” Gerard said, shooting Newt a sideways glare. It wasn’t quite a warning, it wasn’t quite jealousy, but it clearly said “hands off.” Ailis might be a servant, but she was a member of the queen’s household and Gerard’s friend, besides. Too good for a stable boy to flirt with.
“We need to talk about how we’re going to approach this,” Gerard said, intentionally moving his bay between Ailis’s and Newt’s horses.
“Approach what?” Newt asked.
“The townspeople. Or did you plan on riding in and asking, ‘Excuse me, have you seen an errant enchanter? We require him most urgently back at Camelot’?”
Newt shrugged. “If it would get us the answers we need, yes.”
“It wouldn’t. They’d be more likely to hold us as horse thieves.”
“Even a noble squire?” Newt was mocking, but Gerard refused to rise to the bait.
“Noble is as noble appears,” Ailis said, gently leaning forward to pat her gelding’s neck as it jerked at the reins.
Gerard scowled at that. He knew he didn’t appear at all noble right now, in his worn leathers and second-best surcoat. By the holy cross, he would mistake himself for a horse thief if he didn’t know better!
“You’re well-born. You can speak the part, certainly. Newt is your servant. You were sent to…ah…” Ailis lost the story as she tried to determine what her role in all this might be.
“You’re my sister,” Newt said suddenly. “We’re going to visit our father. Our master’s son, for a lark, decided to join us. Against his father’s wishes. We’re looking for another old servant, who has since left the household. We have a message to bear him, from our master, which was why we were given leave to go. So it’s vital we pass it along, else we risk our master’s anger when we return without a response.”
He stopped, suddenly realizing that the other two were staring at him as their horses plodded along down the road.
“What?” he asked defensively.
“You were wasted with beasts,” Gerard said with an edge to his voice. “You should have been a troubadour.”
“Now, that was unkind,” Newt said, rubbing his chest over his heart as though mortally wounded. The squire merely turned his attention back to the space between his horse’s ears.
“It is sound,” Ailis said, running it over in her thoughts. “His plan, I mean. Certainly better than anything I might come up with…and we haven’t much time.”
Since the sturdy brown walls of the unnamed town were coming into view, the boys had to agree.
“Let me do the talking, then,” Ailis said quickly, sensing that Gerard was still unhappy with the plan—any plan—that Newt might come up with.
Unlike Camelot, this town had no guards outside its walls. The three companions rode through an untended gate, then past a low, long building that smelled of sheep, and a stone church without seeing a living soul. Several cottages, close together and bounded by a low stone wall and carefully tended hedges, looked more promising, but whoever lived in them stayed within.
“Over there.” Gerard pointed toward one of the small cottages, and they moved their horses in the direction of a lone figure in its yard.
“Pardon, my lady,” Ailis began.
The woman looked up from the shirts she was laying over flowering bushes to dry, and blinked at the odd trio in front of her.
“Pardon, but we’re seeking a man—” Ailis faltered here. She was so accustomed to thinking of Merlin as an old man—he had, after all, helped to raise Arthur!—that she pictured him as one. They all did, else Newt would never have thought to cast him as an old servant, long retired. But describing him physically made her realize that he wasn’t actually