might in a tongue that’s easily recognized as it finds home in a lad’s gut.”
“There is a certain beauty to that sort of simplicity,” Ruith agreed. He considered a bit longer, then made Uachdaran a small bow. “I believe, Your Majesty, that whilst Sarah is happily occupied with your granddaughter this morning, I will make a little visit to your bard.”
“Don’t render him unfit for supper.”
“I won’t.” Ruith made him another bow, then took up his quest for answers he hadn’t thought he would need but now found himself quite anxious to have.
He knocked on Master Eachdraidh’s door, then opened it before the man could escape out some hidden passageway. The historian was sitting in front of the fire, poring over a book he subsequently dumped into the fire in his surprise. Ruith rescued it, restored it, then handed it back to him.
“Thank you,” Eachdraidh said faintly. “I’m grateful—”
“How grateful?”
Eachdraidh eyed the door, but Ruith sat down in the chair across from him and affected a pose he hoped bespoke plans for a long visit. Eachdraidh hesitated, then sighed.
“Grateful enough for several tales,” he said. “If His Highness wishes.”
“I wouldn’t trouble you for that much,” Ruith said smoothly. “I would simply like to have the one you told Sarah yesterday, the one about the lovers from Cothromaiche whose romance ended badly.”
Eachdraidh looked as if he would rather have been facing Uachdaran in his lists, but he’d apparently resigned himself to being trapped.
“They were slain,” Eachdraidh said hollowly, “so it wasn’t exactly that the romance ended badly, it was just that it ended prematurely.” He paused and seemed to be looking for the right thing to say. “They were terribly happy, or so I understand, for as long as they were wed.”
“What befell them?”
“They were slain.”
“By whom?”
“By a neighbor.”
Ruith considered the countries that bordered Cothromaiche. There was Gairn to the west, then Bruadair to the northwest where the forests were full of dreams and spells and things that sensible souls avoided. There was nothing to the east but endless plain claimed by no one at all. But to the south ...
An-uallach.
Ruith rubbed his arms suddenly, wishing Uachdaran could do a better job at keeping the bloody place warm. He looked at Eachdraidh.
“Which neighbor was responsible?”
Eachdraidh shifted uncomfortably. “Ah,” he said, “I’m not sure ...”
“You led Sarah to believe it was a king, but there are no kings in Bruadair or Gairn—at least none who would sit on the Council. That leaves Morag of An-uallach.”
Eachdraidh fidgeted, then let out a deep, shuddering breath. “So it does, Your Highness.”
Ruith stared into the fire for a bit. Interesting that Eachdraidh should feel compelled to tell Sarah a tale of Cothromaiche. Uncanny that to An-uallach he was apparently being led, for reasons he couldn’t see.
He looked at Eachdraidh. “What were the names of this hapless pair?”
“Athair and Sorcha,” Eachdraidh said nervously. “They had a wee gel. Don’t remember her name, though.”
A lie, Ruith thought. “And what did this unfortunate pair look like?” He paused. “Did you ever meet them, Master Eachdraidh?”
Eachdraidh looked profoundly miserable. “Athair was a great friend of King Uachdaran’s granddaughter Dreachail’s husband, so aye, I knew him. And his bride, Sorcha. Athair was tall and fair-haired. Handsome enough for a lad, I suppose.”
“And his lady?”
Eachdraidh swallowed convulsively. “Flame-haired. Green-eyed.” He swallowed again. “About your lady’s height.”
Ruith caught his jaw before it fell to his chest. He wasn’t one to engage in idle speculation—his long bouts of it during his youth accompanied by Miach of Neroche as they speculated on the caches of spells they might plunder if given the opportunity aside—but in this instance, he couldn’t stop himself.
Soilléir of Cothromaiche had given Sarah not only a book of his people’s poetry but the means to learn his language, ostensibly to read runes that Uachdaran himself had said could only be read after considerable teaching from one who knew more than just the language. He himself had been sent to Léige to deliver a sword inscribed with the same runes only to have the king shrug it aside whilst his bard followed Sarah about as if he were looking at a ghost.
Further, Uachdaran had made Sarah a crown. Ruith had supposed it had been for his sake, but he wondered now if he had been wrong. Soilléir had treated them with a level of care that had been far above what Ruith could have reasonably expected even given Soilléir’s undeniable affection for his mother, going so far as to give them horses that