Chapter 6 #2
“I’m aware. Orin didn’t forget to remind me.
You can expect a raven from his chamberlain, no doubt containing a detailed list of every crown spent on me.
” Blainor’s focus trailed from his seneschal to the other waiting people—a handful of adults, and further apart, a scattering of young ones.
At the forefront stood a tall woman, dressed in an olive green gown.
The veil attached to her light hair flitted in the wind.
Quiet, she observed the assembling group beneath the cobbled steps, moving slowly down before stopping in mid-descent.
Blainor nodded, and the woman bowed, hands tucked into the folds of her flaring sleeves. “Warlord.” The tightness around her mouth suggested that smiles were not something that frequently visited her.
“Byne,” he said. “As you can see, I brought you your man. Unharmed. Mostly.”
“Thank you, Warlord,” Byne said, descending the steps, face softening.
While Blainor exchanged words with the others awaiting, Trisha observed the meeting between Fjorten and his wife.
Unlike the careful way Byne carried herself, restraint didn’t apply to the soldier.
He cut the distance with a few strides, grasping his wife in his wide arms and hoisting her with ease. “Feather, oh, how I missed you.”
The wind stole Byne’s words. Her husband laughed before kissing her. The faintest hint of a smile eased her expression. Grinning, Fjorten shook his head and raised his voice. “Come here, you mutts!”
The three boys waiting on the platform rushed down, throwing themselves at their father.
Trisha swallowed as he ruffled the beachy hair of the eldest—a boy teetering on the border of adulthood—and lifted the youngest into his arms. A sharp pain scratched at the insides of her neck, a never-healed scab of her past threatening to trickle blood.
The aching disturbed her magic, making it surge.
Despite the discomfort of leashing it, she forced it down, spinning around quickly, telling herself it was to give Fjorten and Byne their privacy.
A few feet away, Blainor, having finished his obligatory greetings, turned to watch his cousin, surrounded by his family—Fjorten’s boys talking animatedly over each other, their father laughing, and Byne radiating quiet contentment by his side.
A shadow of grief wavered across his face, jaw tensing before he averted his gaze.
Surprise dulled the sharp edge of Trisha’s pain. Blainor’s expression had been fleeting, almost too quick to catch, but she knew what she’d seen.
Slow paced, she moved closer to him as Blainor gestured for her to approach.
“This is Bard Trisha an Tilia. She’s come as my bard.” Whatever he had felt, he’d buried inside aloof detachment.
Senneth’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, my lord.” His bow was shallow. “Welcome to Moorhafen, Bard an Tilia. It’s been too long since anyone held your position. I look forward to hearing you play.”
Trisha squeezed her lyre’s case. Senneth’s words evoked old uncertainties. If this role mattered more to his people than the Warlord had indicated, why had Blainor asked her? He knew she wasn’t planning to stay.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
Blainor flicked his wrist. “Assign someone to fetch her a room. Inform the staff accordingly.”
The seneschal blinked, leaning back. “Of course.” He pursed his thin mouth. “Am I correct to have the staff prepare something permanent for Bard an Tilia, my lord?”
“Bard an Tilia has a keen interest in snow and ice, so through winter at least.” He smirked at her. “If not longer.”
Senneth bowed. “Yes, my lord. I’ll talk with the housemistress and assign her a maid.”
The older man retreated, leaving Blainor and Trisha alone. She turned toward Blainor, barely able to keep her voice even. “Longer? You make a lot of assumptions.”
“Have I not persuaded you sufficiently, Starling?” he murmured, glancing up toward the keep’s highest spire. “If you plan on witnessing our winters, you might as well stay through one.”
She crossed her arms. “I expect to be asked, not ordered.”
“Have I given you the impression that I’m a man prone to asking?”
“You’re twisting our agreements to your liking. I thought I was free to leave at will.”
“Telling my staff to expect you to stay longer hardly qualifies as restraining you,” Blainor said.
“I thought I told you already; you’ll know when I’ve abducted you.
” His smile deepened until his mood became formal, quick as mercury.
“Once everything is settled, there will be dinner. Someone will inform you.”
A breath of nothingness allowed her a moment to gather her composure. The warmth on her cheeks receding, she said, “I take it that’s my cue to practice a few of those ballads of forbidden love, my lord?”
He raised a brow. “Forbidden? Tsk, tsk. Such a loaded word.” He paused, voice dropping. “You know what such restrictions make a man think?”
She let out a snort. “I have no doubt you shall educate me, whether I wish it or not.”
“Trisha an Tilia.” Blainor rolled her name over his tongue in a way only he seemed to be able to. “I think you enjoy sparring with me far more than you allow yourself to show.”
Suddenly, Trisha felt as though he was standing too close. A crisp aroma of evergreen flooded her nose. His eyes seemed to see too much.
“But I’m still deciding whether you do it out of curiosity or because you cannot stop yourself.”
She retreated a step, needing more air. His musk fogged her mind. “While you decide on that, my lord, I will beg my leave.”
“Touching a nerve, am I?”
Trisha planted her feet. “I simply wish to collect my belongings and see Dapple one more time.” She spun around, chin held high. The wind calmed her cheeks, but she remained aware of his amusement like a shadow trailing after her.
By the time she had found her bags and ensured that Dapple was content, Blainor was gone. Only the wind swirled the sand on the spot where she’d left him. The doors to the castle remained open, two men standing guard on either side.
Trisha nodded at Kaiden, Hurti, and the others.
Moorhafen’s entrance approached. Perhaps she could wait in the kitchen and coax out some gossip about her host. Grains of sand crunched under her boots as she climbed the stairs.
No. She wasn’t interested in Blainor. She needed to come up with an excuse for her questions about the stone circles by the field of tall reeds.
Just as she reached the landing, a woman walked through the doors.
A few years her junior, with a petite face and an unbleached veil fixed over her brown hair, the woman curtsied, the hems of her woolen skirt sweeping over the stonework. “Mistress an Tilia, I’m Aine. Master Usmer, the Warlord’s seneschal, has assigned me to assist you.”
“Hello, Aine,” Trisha said with a smile, fixing her bags over her shoulders. “Nice to meet you.”
“Would you like to see your room?” Aine asked.
“Truth be told, I’m in even more desperate need of a bath.” She sniffed and scowled. “And so are my clothes, if they’ll forgive me.”
A faint smile softened Aine’s expression. “Easy enough to manage, mistress.” She gestured toward the entrance. “Please come, I’ll show you the way.”
Trisha fell into step with her, entering the shadowy halls of Moorhafen.
The air inside was still and brisk. A faint note of mildew tickled Trisha’s nose, mingling with remnants of smoke.
Aged wood whispered under her feet as she trailed Aine through the vestibule.
Unlit chandeliers hung overhead, and black iron sconces with dead torches and lanterns lined the walls.
Sunshine streamed through the windows and doorway, a sprinkle of dust gamboling in the light.
They passed beneath a banner in dark purpure, the sable outlines of a crest revealed at the kiss from a gentle wind.
Aine didn’t linger, leading her up a flight of broad stairs, turning right into a darkened corridor.
On the way, she stopped a passing errand boy.
A few quiet words. The boy slipped away, and Aine continued.
“You’ll have to wait for the bath, mistress,” she said over her shoulder. “The servants will bring a tub and water as soon as they can.”
“I won’t die of waiting.” Trisha brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and frowned at the dust and grime coating its surface. She added, “Rather, if I do, it’ll be from my own stench.”
Aine smiled. “It’s been some time since we last had a resident minstrel in Moorhafen.”
“So I’ve heard. Do you know why?”
The maid’s hush held a moment, the echo of their footfalls filling the space. “The Warlord’s mind is his own. I dare not guess his reasoning.”
Trisha tilted her head at an odd undercurrent.
Whatever Aine knew, she wasn’t willing to say it out loud.
Of course. It would have been too much to expect a servant assigned by Senneth to share any of their master’s secrets.
She hadn’t missed the cold spark in the seneschal’s gaze. “But he employed a bard before?”
Aine cast a thoughtful glance while leading them to a winding staircase. A wind howled. “Yes. The Warlord had a bard once.”
Trisha’s jaw set. She was beginning to see why Senneth had picked this woman. Getting anything out of her was proving to be an arduous task.
“Where in the south are you from, mistress?”
“I doubt you’d know the place. It’s far.” She hid her grin. Not a lie, exactly.
“Must be quite different. Eichlandt, and where you come from.”
Trisha’s thoughts traced back to her childhood, and its whimsical, cruel, careless nonchalance. “You’d be surprised.”
They reached the end of the stairs and continued through another corridor, brighter, with windows overlooking a rolling landscape—the rise of the land behind the swaying fields.
“Dinner’s in four hours at the Fir Hall.”
For a moment, Trisha imagined a room with dark evergreens forming its walls, a twilight sky above, ghostly light floating in the air. Then, reality called her back. No such things existed in this world. She hurried after the other woman, asking, “Fir Hall?”
“The main hall for formal dinners, mistress,” Aine explained. She paused in front of a door, turning the lock as she spoke. “The fort’s old, and there are many twists and turns; you’re sure to get lost in your first couple of days, if not weeks.”
“I don’t get lost easily.”
“If you say so, mistress.” Aine chirped, sounding unconvinced as she pushed the door open.
Trisha followed her into the bright room.
She lowered her bags. Bright tapestries overlaid the cold granite, giving the room a luxurious, premium feel.
More comfortable than anything in her life before, for sure.
With a bed, a table, and a wardrobe far too large for her meager clothes, she’d be content for weeks. Or months.
Irritation nipped at how effortlessly Blainor had exerted his authority and ensured her stay. Pushing the thought aside, she drifted toward the table. Beyond the green fields, the hills rose, their rough ridges eroded into soft waves. Heather and grass rippled in the wind.
The sight tugged at her, the memory of the moorscry echoing in her ears. Once, this land had been her home.
Trisha’s fingers formed a fist. All those years, abandoning the safety of her adoptive home, to find this place. She would find her parents and make them take her back.
“Mistress?”
She turned, mind still tangled in the past and in the bird’s haunting song.
Aine gave her an assessing look. “While we wait for the bath to be brought, let’s talk about your attire, miss.”
“My attire?” Trisha asked.
“What are you planning to wear for dinner?”
Nodding toward her bags, Trisha said with careless sincerity, “I’ll have a spare. Clean tunic, breeches.”
Aine pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. “Ancestors help me. Master Usmer’s warning was true,” she muttered, shaking her head.
Her voice gained steel as she stepped forward. “Mistress an Tilia. You’re the Warlord’s Bard, not some wayward minstrel. And I’ll be twice damned if I allow you to leave this room looking like that.”