All of which had left him where he was, facing a woman who had just told him to engage with her in a bit of light exercise before supper. He looked at her, then shook his head.

"Mistress Muinear, I just don't think I can do this."

"What, my boy," she asked with a smile that made him very nervous. "Find the courage to raise a sword against me?"

"It isn't courage that concerns me," he said honestly. "I just have never . . . I don't . . . I can't imagine-" He took a deep breath. "You're a woman."

"No weapon you have, my lad, will harm me. Not Sle's dagger, not Uachdaran's sword, not even your mighty magic."

"But-"

"Not even your spells made to counter less pleasant ones created by your father. Those spells won't hold here, no matter what you might think."

He didn't want to be rude, but he'd seen what his father's magic could do. "I hate to contradict you," he said carefully, "but my father's spells-"

"Brutal," she conceded, "but not insurmountable."

He looked at her in surprise. "But, my lady, how would you know?"

"Lad, I am as old as your father," she said frankly. "If you think I haven't faced him, think again."

Rnach blinked. "I can't begin to imagine that."

"Neither could he," she said with a merry laugh, "which is why I managed to crawl away from that encounter with my life." She shivered. "A very powerful, clever mage, your father."

"As well as a man who would fight a woman," Rnach said firmly, "which I am not."

Muinear sighed and looked at Bristeadh. "What am I to do with him?"

"Be grateful he wants to wed Aisling, I suppose," Bristeadh said with a shrug from where he leaned against a low wall with his arms folded over his chest. "You know I can't help you with him."

"I suppose we could bring all the Council together and attack him simultaneously," she said thoughtfully. She eyed Rnach. "What do you think of that, my boy?"

"If it means I won't have to face you over spells, my lady," Rnach said, "I think I would prefer it."

It was amazing how quickly a group of spinners could gather, huddle together, and apparently invent a strategy. Rnach took the opportunity to accept a cup of wine from Aisling's father, who it had to be said looked far too comfortable in his role as sommelier.

"You aren't going to help me?" Rnach said.

"Didn't I tell you I had no magic?"

Rnach rolled his eyes. "Use your influence with your granny-in-law and convince her to just watch someone take me to pieces instead of being the instigator of the devastation. She's brought all her helpers and some of them are women as well."

Bristeadh smiled. "You have no idea who any of them are, do you?"

"I see women," Rnach said grimly, "and I do not fight women."

"Because you fear they'll best you?"

Rnach shot his future father-in-law a dark look. "Because I am a gentleman."

Bristeadh clapped a hand on Rnach's shoulder briefly. "Indeed you are, Rnach, but consider the women in your family. Your paternal grandmother is Eulasaid of Camana. She was, and still is I imagine, no wilting wallflower. Her battles fought against Lothar of Wychweald are legendary."

"I'm not Lothar," Rnach said evenly, "and I can't raise a hand against a woman."

"Consider Muinear a diminutive troll, then. She can be pa.s.sing unpleasant when she hasn't had her four o'clock libations."

Rnach eyed him narrowly. "I can see why they hesitated in giving Aisling's mother to you."

Bristeadh only laughed. "Son, you are only scratching the surface of my unsuitability. Someday I will tell you all, but until then, I suggest you gather up your best spells and bring them to the battlefield. Nothing else will do, I fear."

Rnach drained his cup, thanked Aisling's father for the drink and the utterly useless advice, then supposed there was no point in bringing his sword. He had the feeling he wasn't going to have the chance to use it anyway. He left it propped up against a bench and considered the very short walk back onto the battlefield.

That Ciaradh even had lists of any sort was a bit surprising. Then again, he'd seen guards roaming through the forests surrounding the palace, so they would obviously need somewhere to train. He wondered if those lads might be prevailed upon to rescue him if things went awry.

He watched Muinear invite the rest of the mob to make themselves comfortable on quite lovely benches set against that low wall that was holding up Aisling's father, then walk out into the midst of the field with a spring to her step that made him rather uneasy. He made himself a mental note never, ever to take her invitations at face value again.

That was the last useful thought he had for some time.

He hardly had time to gather his wits about him before he was being a.s.saulted by spells. Perhaps there was no reason not to note that initially they weren't terribly complicated or intimidating spells. He countered them easily enough with whatever magic seemed to come to hand. Perhaps there was also no reason not to rea.s.sure himself that his store of spells was rather extensive, so digging up the odd thing to use for something he hadn't expected caused him no great amount of exertion.

Or at least it didn't until the sun began to turn for home, as it were, at which time things took a decided turn for the worse.

He suspected, as a volley of unpleasant things came at him from not only Muinear but a few of the dreamspinners who had apparently decided to stretch their legs a bit, that he might have been wise to have a wee chat with all the players on the field before he agreed to engage in anything with them besides a late lunch. It was too late at the moment, though, and he was left with increasingly complicated magic fashioned into increasingly complex spells, which required ever more difficult countermeasures.

He spent a good deal of his time fighting the urge to reach for something of his father's. He revisited the necessity of sending a thank-you to whoever had gifted him with his father's book of spells and insisted that he rememorize them. He wasn't altogether certain that hadn't been the witchwoman of Fs, which he supposed didn't reflect particularly well on her character.

And then Muinear stepped out again in front of her companions.

Rnach wondered how long he would last against her before she slew him, and he realized almost immediately that that span of time was too small to be measured. He found himself flat on his back, thoroughly winded, staring up at the sky above him before he could open his mouth to blurt out a protest. His love's great-grandmother was soon peering down at him.

"That didn't go so well for you, my boy, did it?"

"I cannot lift a hand . . . against . . . a woman," he wheezed.

"Pray that little wretch Acair doesn't shapechange into one, then."

He started to argue with her, but two things stopped him. One, he had no breath for arguing, and two, she was right. He studied the late-afternoon sky as his wind returned, then finally heaved himself back up to his feet. He looked at Muinear, who was standing in front of him, watching him with a smile.

"You are asking almost more of me than I can stand," he said frankly.

"And if your father's youngest b.a.s.t.a.r.d-and I'm only saying he's the youngest from Fionne of Fs, mind you, not anyone else-were a girl, what would you do?"

He dragged his hand through his hair. "Weep, I suppose."

Muinear smiled again. "Your chivalry does you credit, Rnach, and yet more credit to your lovely mother who raised you so well. But you cannot hurt me."

"I don't want to try."

"Then pretend I am your schoolmistress and you may only have your supper if you can show me all the proper and correct answers to the puzzles I put to you."

He studied her. "You're painting a very lovely picture of it now, but I have the feeling you may suddenly discover you've changed your mind once I'm so deep in the mire of my father's spells that I can't escape."

"Or your own, I daresay," she said mildly.

He wasn't quite sure how to answer that, but he supposed if there were anyone to ask about the state of his own magic, it would be the woman in front of him. The rest of the rabble had resumed their comfortable seats by the wall so perhaps he would have privacy for questions he didn't particularly want to ask.

"Do you see the darkness?" he asked very quietly. "In me?"

She looked at him gravely. "Rnach, there is darkness in each of us."

"Not in my magic," he said. "Not before."

"Are you sure of that?"

He opened his mouth to tell her he was most a.s.suredly convinced of that but something stopped him. Good sense, perhaps. An uncomfortable encounter with self-reflection, definitely.

"I'm not entirely certain," he admitted. "The last time I had magic to hand, I was young and arrogant." He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."

"Then consider that your father is a prince of Ainneamh," she said mildly, "and he was not always as he is now."

Rnach felt a little winded. "I'm not sure I wanted to hear that."

"Perhaps not, but we don't always want to hear about the less appealing parts of ourselves. Your father comes from a long line of n.o.ble souls. You have aunts and an uncle, I believe, who didn't choose darkness, and their heritage is the same as his. The choice is always yours, Rnach. As for anything else, I think you had best be prepared for whatever comes your way, hadn't you?"

He considered, then sighed. "Very well, then. Another spell or two."

It turned out to be far more than a spell or two and at one point he realized that he was using far more serious spells than he likely should have been using. Muinear didn't seem to be at all surprised by anything he countered with. She also didn't seem to be working very hard to counter anything he was using.

Yet another thing to set aside for examination later.

He couldn't say Bruadair was particularly happy with him and what he was spewing out-at one point he wasn't entirely sure a cloud hadn't sprung up just over him and drenched him out of spite-but it seemed resigned to allowing him time to learn what he perhaps needed to.

It took time, but he realized as he continued to spar with Muinear that he was actually learning to manage what he was doing. Not fully, not even partly, but marginally. Not enough for it to perhaps make a difference, but perhaps enough to keep him from killing himself.

It was so completely foreign to anything he'd ever done that he felt as though he was standing outside his body, watching someone who looked like him doing things he certainly wouldn't have thought up on his own. The spells he was using required a lightness of touch that reminded him so d.a.m.ned much of Soilleir of Cothromaiche with his single words and happy thoughts that it was no wonder Sle hadn't been able to do anything inside Bruadair's borders. His grandfather would have been left cursing furiously hours earlier.

By the time Muinear announced that it was enough, he was absolutely drained of energy and magic. He could do nothing but stand there and shake.

Muinear was suddenly standing in front of him. "Not bad," she said thoughtfully. "For an amateur."

Rnach would have laughed, but he didn't have the strength for it. He could only lean over and wheeze.

"You know, I tried to lure your grandsire Sle out here and teach him what I knew," Muinear said. "Several hundred years ago, if memory serves."

Rnach looked up at her from where he was standing hunched over. "And?"

"You're a better student."

"He's stubborn," Rnach said, not sure the word had the strength to apply itself to his grandfather but very sure he wouldn't dare use the word that would in polite company.

"That's one way to put it," she agreed, "and very politic indeed. I would call him a pompous a.s.s, but I'm old and have no need to watch my tongue any longer."

He heaved himself upright. "What were you trying to teach him?"

"How not to stomp through Bruadair as if he'd been tromping through his stables at Seanagarra. Magic here, as you've seen, requires a lighter touch."

Rnach looked at the rest of Muinear's henchspinners. They had been brutally efficient at pushing him in ways he hadn't particularly cared to be pushed, but they hadn't left him with a desire to wipe them out of existence permanently. He considered, then looked at Aisling's great-grandmother.

"And if one needed to attack another mage inside Bruadair's borders," he asked slowly. "What then?"

"That is another lesson entirely."

"I think I'd best learn it sooner rather than later, don't you agree?"

"Unfortunately, I daresay you should." She studied him in silence for a moment or two. "You realize that if this muddle was created by someone of Gair's blood, it will need to be solved by the same."

Rnach sighed deeply. "That seems to be how things work, doesn't it?"

"I thought you might have your own thoughts on that."

"I daresay."

"I'd be interested in hearing them, but perhaps not tonight. Let's go fetch your sword, Rnach my lad, and you go find your lady. Perhaps a walk along the sh.o.r.e would soothe her. She's had a longer day than even yours, I suspect."

He didn't doubt it in the slightest. He nodded, then paused and looked at Aisling's great-grandmother. "Sh.o.r.e?"

"What do you think that roaring is just through those trees there?"

"I thought that was simply the echo of my muscles screaming from the exertion."

Muinear laughed. "I'm afraid only you can hear that shrieking. We're right on the coast, though a bit inland. Makes for lovely sea breezes but perhaps less violent storms than in other locales." She smiled and took his arm. "Aisling's mother loved the sea. I think her Bristeadh intended to build her house on the edge of it, but never had the chance. Perhaps you'll manage it, aye?"

He nodded, but found he couldn't speak. He remembered something Aisling had muttered in a fevered dream at Gobhann all those se'nnights ago, something about a house with no doors on the edge of the sea. He had promised her something like it more than once. That he should be almost close enough to even consider such a thing was sobering indeed.

He looked at Muinear. "Would you be willing to work again tomorrow?"

"Lad, I'd light torches and come back out this evening if I thought you could stand the work."

He took a deep breath. "I think I must, but I will tell you that my mother would be appalled at my asking you if you wouldn't mind indulging me."

"What are grannies for," she asked with a smile, "if not to indulge their children? Go have a walk with your lady, find something to eat, then we'll return and see what's left of you by the time the moon's overhead."

Rnach would have offered to walk her back to the hall but she seemed perfectly happy to skip over to her compatriots in torture with the energy of a ten-year-old la.s.s and no doubt delight them with the details of his humiliation at her hands. He shuffled over to retrieve his sword only to have Aisling's father hand it to him. He took it, then looked at Bristeadh.

"Have you any advice for me?"

Bristeadh smiled. "I don't have magic, remember?"