Read Online Deception's Pawn (Princesses of Myth) by Esther Friesner - Free Book Online Page A

those clothes for me,” I said. “Otherwise the girls will find them.”
    “Those three are like mice, into everything,” he said. “I’m surprised you could shake them off your track to come here, especially Dairine.”
    “Don’t you mean Gormlaith? The others say she likes to cling to people.”
    “Her? That could be. I say if she wants to get close to you, what’s the harm? The poor thing’s lonely.”
    “With all four of us in one room, at meals, and having lessons together?”
    “True, but that’s—” He waved his hand. “Well, it’s different from what she used to have.” He saw my puzzled expression and went on: “There are friends and friends. You know Connla, right? Taller than me, redheaded, ridiculous mustache?”
    “I’ve seen him and that mustache.” I giggled just thinking about it. The poor boy looked like he was carrying a flame-colored stoat under his nose. “But we’ve never spoken.”
    “That lad’s been a brother to me since we were babies. If he wasn’t such a good fighter, he’d have asked to serve as my charioteer. I’d mourn any of our warriors who fell in battle, but if the Morrígan sent her ravens after my comrade Connla—may it never happen!—I might go mad with grief. I’d fight the gods themselves to drag him back from Tech Duinn, and he’d do the same for me.”
    “Gormlaith had a friend like that?”
    He nodded. “Aifric.”
    Aifric … How could I have forgotten? Once more I heard Gormlaith murmur, “We were friends. Like sisters.” I also recalled how Ula and the others had avoided answering the questions I’d asked about Aifric’s fate. Was that why Gormlaith sometimes hid herself away, to be alone with the ghosts of past happiness?
    “Do you know what happened to her?” I asked Kian.
    “I don’t think anyone at Dún Beithe does. One day she was here and the next, gone. It happened in the late autumn, after Samhain. My father sent hunting parties after her, but the weather turned foul and they lost her trail early, too early to tell where she was headed. If she went into the boglands …”
    His voice trailed off. I could tell he was imagining the worst but didn’t want to say it and make it real. Bogs could be as treacherous as they were beautiful. There were pathways through some, but not all, often with planks laid down to keep the traveler safe. And yet one step off the known road, and the mire could gulp you down. Devnet sometimes sang of kings who tried to change their fortune by giving men and maidens to the soft, hungry earth as sacrifices. Such tales never failed to send chills through all who heard them.
    I tried to distract him from those dark thoughts. “Wouldn’t she have gone home?”
    “Home? If you could call it that, with no living mother or father to welcome her return.” He sighed. “I rode with the men who took that road, but we reached her kinfolks’ house without finding her along the way.” A pained look came into his eyes. “I thought it would be hard for them to hear she’d run off, but she’d been with us so long that she was no more than a nameto them. When they said they were sorry, it was only because they had to say something .”
    “I wonder why she left,” I mused.
    Kian shook his head. “There were rumors at first—there are always rumors—but they died quickly. If anyone knows the real reason, they’re not talking.”
    I recalled more of Gormlaith’s words: “She was happy here.” Happy hearts don’t flee the place or the people they love.
    “She never confided her plans?” I asked. Even though I’d never known her, I was unwilling to abandon Aifric to oblivion. “Not even to her best friend or any of the other girls? Didn’t any of them have the slightest idea where you could have searched for her?”
    “I’ve told you what I can. Whatever became of Aifric, it happened years ago.” He stood and offered me his hand. I was still so worn out from wielding the wooden sword in an