The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [45]
“Here,” she said, brushing aside a sharp pang of grief. “For my passage, something dear to me.”
The troll stepped forward, making the horses shy even more, and sniffed once as it lifted the swan with surprising delicacy, considering how gnarled its hands were and how long the claws that curved from its fingertips.
“What about me?” Gerard asked out of the side of his mouth when the troll turned its small, shiny red eyes to him expectantly.
“What about you?” Ailis asked, her tone of voice clearly wondering at his obtuseness. “Pay your own crossing. You must have something you can offer!”
Gerard stared at the troll, who stared back at him with unblinking eyes. Finally Gerard sighed and dropped his hand to his saddle and untied a thick braided cord from a ring on the leather.
“Here.” He handed it over with obvious reluctance, and the troll snatched it from him as though afraid it would be withdrawn if it didn’t act fast enough. From the expression on Gerard’s face, the troll wasn’t wrong.
“Paid.” The creature sounded almost regretful, even as it clutched its new treasures. “Pass.”
“Let’s go,” Ailis urged him. “I don’t know how long those things will hold him.”
Gerard didn’t need to be told twice. The horses’ hooves made an odd echoing noise as they clattered on the stone archway, making Gerard look down nervously, afraid that the structure would give way. But the footing remained solid and they were over and back on firm ground within moments.
“What did you give it?” Ailis asked, turning back in the saddle to look at the bridge one last time. The troll had disappeared completely and the road behind them was empty. She frowned for a moment, thinking that there was something she had forgotten, then shrugged and turned back to her companion.
“Nothing important.”
“It had to be to you, for the troll to have accepted it. Come on, tell me.”
“It was a favor, all right?”
“A favor?” Ailis almost giggled but caught herself in time. Favors were given to knights when they set out, from the lady they were paying court to—or who wanted them to pay court to them. “Who was it from?”
“I’m not going to tell you.” Gerard’s cheeks had turned bright red and he refused to look at her.
“All right.” She would find out eventually, once they were home. Camelot kept no secrets from her. “So what is the name of this village, anyway?”
“I don’t know, I couldn’t read it last time.” He was clearly glad for the change of topic, but uncomfortable that he couldn’t answer her.
“Oh, here, let me.” She put out her hand imperiously, expecting him to hand the map over without hesitation. Gerard was bemused to discover that, when she behaved that way, he was ready to do as she commanded.
Only he looked down as he was handing it over to her and almost dropped the precious object into the dirt.
“It’s stopped glowing!”
“What?”
“It’s stopped—” He shut his mouth and handed her the map. Let her see with her own eyes, then.
“Why did it do that? Is there some kind of magic here that’s fighting it, maybe?” He hadn’t thought of that, being more concerned that they had gone in the wrong direction somehow, or that the magic had worn off.
“I hope not,” he said. “We never even wondered if whoever cast the sleep spell might be watching to see if anyone left the castle, if they know that we rode out and—”
“You think they’ve found us?” Ailis’s eyes got even wider and her face took such a pinched look that he was sorry he had said anything.
“No.” And he didn’t. He might not have Ailis’s instinct for magic, but he trusted his own intuition that there was no one on their trail. He glanced at the map again. “Do you think Merlin’s magic has worn off?”
“No,” Ailis said. “Even if he is trapped in an ice house, I think Merlin’s too powerful for that. Magic’s a strange thing,” she went on. “I mean, not that I know much about it, but I’ve listened. Merlin once said that you had