The Goblets Immortal, Beth Overmyer [novels to read for beginners .txt] 📗

Ignoring all this, Aidan returned to his room, and heard two voices within.

“Hold still,” said the seer.

“Let go,” Slaíne snarled.

Aidan was seized with fear and tried the door handle, but the door was bolted. “What’s going on in there?”

“Not now, milord. There’s a wild beast to be tamed.”

Aidan frowned before clarity dawned on him. “Tell the beast that breakfast should be ready within the half-hour.”

“Won’t take nearly that long – if she would only quit squirming. It’s gotta be tighter, girl. Quit your fidgeting.”

A grunt. “Nay. Not that tight,” Slaíne said with a startled gasp. “You are a witch! You got me hair in the laces.”

Suppressing laughter, Aidan left the two shouting at each other and went to the chair at the end of the hall. As Larkin had said, it only took another ten minutes to do what she could with Slaíne’s dress. Soon the seer stormed out of the room, wringing her hands. “So many tangles! She never brushes that crazy mane of hers.”

Aidan mashed his lips together before he could smile or chuckle at the agitated seer. The seer was a seer, though, and she gave him a shrewd look.

“And don’t look at me like that, milord. Hair is a very serious business.” She shuddered. “Well, at least, to most decent people.”

“Heard that,” Slaíne shouted through the keyhole.

Aidan leaned against the door frame and regarded the older woman. “You look tired.”

She scowled. “Never, Mr. Powell, comment on a lady’s appearance other than to praise it to the heavens.” The woman straightened out her skirt and glared at a large stain. But she did look tired. Exhausted, even.

Aidan sought to seek the reason whilst smoothing things over. He began with caution. “Forgive me, madam. I was out of place. I merely meant that last night was difficult for all of us. I assumed you had as much trouble sleeping as I did.” There. If that would not do, nothing he could say would.

Larkin narrowed her eyes at him. “Stayed in your room last night, did you?”

He winced. “Mostly.”

She scoffed. “‘Mostly’, he says. One does not mostly do much of any single thing. I mostly died. I mostly cut off my hand.”

Aidan raised his eyebrows. “One could mostly cut off their hand….”

“Oh, you rascal. I saw—” Her eyes grew distant and she clamped her mouth shut.

“Did you see the row I had?” Aidan asked.

“See? No. Heard? Yes.”

Aidan groaned. “I didn’t know I was being that loud. Forgive me.”

“Nay, not I to forgive. Ask her. She’s the one that you wronged.”

That did not sit well. The words chaffed at Aidan, and he shook his head. “I did nothing other than what I thought to be right.”

The seer regarded him again with one of her cold, piercing looks. “Trust her.” Before Aidan could answer that he did – mostly – Larkin cut him off. “Tonight, when the wraiths return, take her with you.”

Aidan shook his head. “No.”

“You might be surprised.”

“Absolutely not.”

The woman’s shoulders heaved and she smiled. “She does have the sword.”

“Yes, but a sword does not a swordsman make.”

Larkin laughed. “She might be better than you at it. Do not judge before you’ve seen.”

“If something happened to her—”

“Pssh! It would no more be your fault than if I crossed the road and was run over by a stray apple wagon. You can’t save us all, milord.”

Aidan clenched and unclenched his jaw. This was not the conversation he wanted to be having this early in the morning, if ever. “You changed the subject on me. What happened last night when I left you? I heard—”

“No decent man would listen at keyholes and then repeat what he heard.”

The door behind Aidan creaked open. “Heard what?”

Aidan moved out of the way, and Slaíne brushed past him. She still wore the yellow dress, though the light gave her face a better color. It was more flattering than he had realized in the dimness of the night previous. He cleared his throat as if to speak, then thought better of it.

The seer raised her brows at him, though Slaíne was mercifully unaware. “Are we on the road today? I ’spect we’d be wanting to find the grave.”

Larkin shushed her. “No, today is not the day to try for it. We need a strategy, in case we encounter any foe. Not to mention that none of us has a clue as to the location. We’ll need a map. We’ll need a certain Lord Dewhurst for that. He has a map, though I doubt he understands how to read it. We’ll take that somehow.”

“Good luck with that,” Aidan muttered. The women looked at him, and he raised his hands. “Your old master has a map. Perhaps others have a copy as well.”

The seer was already shaking her head and finger at him. “Let us speak of it here no longer. We’ll talk over matters at the appointed hour. But for now, milor— All right, Mr. Powell, you could do with, er, some—”

Slaíne sniffed. “Yes, he does kind of stink, don’t he?”

Aidan laughed. “Is that all?”

“Men,” Larkin said, taking Slaíne by the arm and leading her down the remainder of the hall. “Don’t take too long, breakfast is in twenty.”

“I know,” said Aidan, amused. “’Twas I that told you.”

But they were already gone.

Aidan cursed and returned to the room and bolted the door behind him. The water, as he expected, was freezing, but he thought it unreasonable to ask the servants to empty the bath and heat more water for him. So he Dismissed the filth from the tub, stripped down, and took a quick, brisk bath.

Once he’d finished, he had nothing to dry off with, and was forced to return to his own filthy clothing. But, after a little concentration, he was able to Dismiss the worst of the grime and dried sweat away, making the clothing more presentable and less offensive to the ladies’ sense of smell.

After he’d done that, to his surprise and relief, he found a shaving kit lying on the dressing table.