“You don’t think the king simply died in his sleep, do you?” she said in a low voice.
He shook his head. “It would be too much of a coincidence. Someone wanted them both dead.”
“Rhona should be queen now,” she said.
“She should be. But she’s not here. And maybe that’s for the best. Someone else may take the crown but at least she has her life. Your mother and I saw to that.”
He looked over to the door and Kaetha saw barely suppressed alarm register on his face and turned to see what had caught his eye.
“Don’t,” he said firmly. “Don’t let them see you.”
She faced him again, responding to the urgency in his tone.
“Guards,” he breathed. “At the door. Talking to the ostler.”
Her surge of panic felt like falling but she did all she could to control it. “Can you see their livery?” she asked.
“Black and green.”
“We need to get out.”
“Slowly now, so as not to draw attention.” Aedan got up and Kaetha followed, winding towards the back of the room where a door stood ajar.
She couldn’t resist the impulse to glance back. The ostler was gesturing towards their table. Guards in black and green were looking around the room. Kaetha felt Aedan pull her arm and they hurried outside.
They saw the guards’ horses when they retrieved Lossie and Arrow. They were draped in green and black to match their riders’ apparel.
“But I haven’t finished brushing her,” said a stable boy.
“She’s fine,” said Kaetha, mounting her.
“Thank you,” added Aedan, handing him more coins. “Don’t tell your master we’ve gone.”
When they had rejoined the North Road with no sign of pursuit, Kaetha finally felt able to speak. “No more inn stops for a while, then?”
“No,” said Aedan. “Better tell that cat not to expect much fine food for a while.”
The following few days took them through rain drenched fields, the nights spent in bothies where they sleep amongst farm workers. Then came two days of trekking across moorland, spending nights shivering on hillsides. The memory of this made Kaetha grateful to be setting up a shelter in Gledrae Forest, despite the tales she’d heard of its wolves and wild boar, of outlaws, thieves and murderers. At least the trees afforded them shelter and fuel.
A huge tree, uprooted in a storm, fanned out its decaying roots like a half-collapsed spider’s web. Gathering dry, fallen branches, Kaetha and Aedan propped them against the roots to make a lean-to shelter, weaving willow sticks and ferns into the gaps.
Once she had warmed her feet and hands by their fire and eaten her share of the porridge from Hetty’s cooking pot, she let her attention wander to the dangers of the forest. Looking at the knife at Aedan’s belt, she felt suddenly defenceless, wishing she had a weapon too. Fire, she thought. Even if I knew how to summon it again, my weapon could end up getting me hanged, or burning down the forest. She shuddered.
She wondered if Aedan noticed her disquiet. Either way, he managed to distract her by talking about his old life in Braddon. She laughed when he told her about the time he went fishing with his friend Dermid Moray, toppled overboard and was hauled up in a net along with the fish.
“I don’t like being underwater,” she said. “Were you afraid at all?”
“Only of looking like a fool.” He grinned. “Mairi Dunbar was with Dermid on the boat and found the whole thing hilarious. I never lived it down.”
“Were they sweethearts?” asked Kaetha, trying to build up a picture of his old friends.
“Dermid and Mairi? Oh no. Dermid had a fancy for Jean Fisher. No other lass could turn his head. Mairi and I were sweethearts though.”
“You were?”
“Nothing serious, you understand.” He threw another stick onto the fire. “We were very young then.”
She recalled that he’d never said that he had loved Morwena. Could it be that there were other women in his life whom he had cared more for?
An idea came to her then, though she had no idea if it would work. She hadn’t only felt Fire magic inside her. There was something else too. Something had happened when the Annisith’s name came to her mind and she spoke it aloud. She’d heard his thoughts, catching at his memory. That was surely Air magic – Annisiths in the old stories would hear people’s thoughts. What if she could do it again? Did she only have to say someone’s name to read their thoughts? Her father was staring into the fire.
“Aedan Baird,” she whispered, quiet so as not to be heard.
All she heard was the crackling fire and the wind rustling the trees. She felt deflated. They sat quietly for a time, Kaetha picking at the willow herb where she was sitting. She longed to understand about his relationship with her mother and why it ended. She wanted to know why he’d said her name was ‘Kaetha Baird’ when they were at the inn. Wouldn’t he bring up the subject again if he’d meant anything by it?
“Could you tell me . . . ?” she began.
“Aye?”
“Tell me . . . about being a merchant.”
She listened as he chatted away describing the beauty of his ship, the Storm Petrel, and cursing the Hildervalders who sailed her now. He spoke of his early travels in which he was taught to read by Tyrrosian monks and taught a smattering of Angaulish and Shamlakahn from merchants, which included a fair few creative curse words. He talked about buying whisky from the north of Dalrath where he sold wool and tin; selling precious metals, ivory and spices in the south-west where he bought hides; acquiring corn, wool and tin from the south of Tyrros where he sold fine cloth; selling hides and corn in south-east
