Uachi had one thing in common with his brother-in-arms Matei: he was not very good at waiting for other people to do things for him.
As he kept watch in their camp that evening, boiling some foraged tubers and greens for a dissatisfying supper, Diarmán made his way back to the castle. They had not been turned away from court officially, simply dismissed, and although rumors may have made the rounds, Diarmán hoped that he could at least make it as far as the courtyard in order to seek information.
When Uachi had wondered aloud whether he should go instead, Diarmán had snorted.
"You'll never be known for your charms," he'd responded, and Uachi couldn't argue with that.
It was the middle of the night by the time Diarmán returned. He looked tired, but pleased with himself. In one hand he carried a basket covered with a white cloth, and he was whistling a tune.
"Are you always this discreet?" Uachi whispered, unwilling to wake Ealin, who lay sleeping on the other side of the campfire. He'd heard Diarmán coming when he was still well away. He leaned in to stoke the fire, trying not to show how relieved he was that Diarmán had returned.
"Oh, my broad-shouldered northman, I am the very epitome of discretion," said Diarmán. As if to deliberately disprove this point, he gave a flourishing bow, then spun on his heel before folding himself down to sit on the other side of the fire. Uarria, who'd been dozing next to Farra until Diarmán's approach had woken her, sprang up and came to greet him, butting her head against his shoulder. Diarmán received her with an open arm, grinning. "Hello, Princess. Somebody is glad to see me. Shall we see what I've brought for you in the basket Uachi is too proud to ask me about?"
Uachi's belly gave a disgruntled rumble, and the man himself gave a disgruntled snort, irritated that Diarmán had picked up on his interest. Then again, the lordling wouldn't have to be a sage to realize that he was hungry. Stale bread and water didn't tide a man over for long.
Diarmán was busily unpacking the contents of the basket. As soon as the cloth came off, Farra was on her feet and joining Uarria at Diarmán's side, leaving Uachi all alone on the other side of the fire. After a minute or two of slowly unpacking the basket, during which Uachi did not ask a single question and tried not to glance in Diarmán's direction, the lord raised a bottle of wine and gave Uachi an innocent tilt of the head.
"Thirsty, you grump?"
"Grump?" Uachi scowled. "Who was the grump not an hour ago, moaning and telling me to go kick stones?"
"I most certainly have never moaned in your company," he replied crisply. "It's been a very trying day. Give me a little grace. Here." He tossed the bottle and Uachi, reacting on instinct, caught it from the air. "Then wipe that pout off of your face and come get some food."
"Is it stolen or is it poisoned?" Uachi asked. The cork was already loose on the bottle of wine, and he wondered if Diarmán had had a draught on his way back from the castle. He rose, uncorking the bottle and taking a sip as he crossed over to where Diarmán was holding court.
"Did you hear that, ladies? He thinks so low of me. As if anyone could bring themselves to poison a man as good-looking as I am. And stolen." He clicked his tongue, then took a bite of a roll that looked deliciously soft. Speaking around the mouthful and gesturing with his hands, the roll still clutched in the right, Diarmán explained, "I didn't steal a thing. 'Twas a gift from a kitchen maid with a figure such as you wouldn't believe, Uachi." He suggested the shape of that figure with his hands, although he had to be exaggerating for effect.
Uachi grimaced, scraping a couple of stones out of the way before sitting down at Diarmán's side. "You're vulgar."
Diarmán shrugged, sliding the basket toward Uachi. "The only lady present is asleep. Furry company excepted of course, Your Highness." He took another bite of his roll as he scratched Uarria's ears and chewed pensively, gazing into the fire. "I'm not sure what the appeal is, to be honest. Still. Spread a few kisses over 'em and she's ready to tell me the Bitch Pretender's life story—and, of course." He waggled the crust of the roll and grinned.
"So you came back with information." In the moment, Uachi could hardly bring himself to care: there was sausage in the basket, and several pears. A bit firm, but he hadn't had fruit for so long. His jaw twinged and his mouth began to water. He set aside a portion of food for Ealin, wrapping it in the cloth that had covered the basket. Then he snatched a pear for himself. After a couple of hasty bites of fruit, he settled more comfortably onto the grass, no longer quite so irritated with his companion. "Tell me."
"Let's eat first." Diarmán took a pear too and, ridiculously, he tapped the rounded part of the fruit against Uachi's, a playful toast.
So they did. Neither of them was eager to be conservative with their good fortune, but they didn't know what was to come on their journey, and the awful thing about a tight belly is that it tends to return. They had a pear and a roll each, and they divided half of the sausage between the cats, leaving the rest for another day. Uachi was worried about Uarria; he knew that Farra could fend for herself with wild game, but how much of a shadowcat's hunting ability was born into it and how much was learned? And how much could be passed on to a human girl via magic?
Besides that, the thought of Uarria stalking prey and eating it raw made him cringe.
Uachi tended to the fire as Diarmán packed the remnants of their new rations away. Then they settled down again, the bottle of wine between them. Uachi could tell that Diarmán was enjoying the drama of the evening, and now that he had a good meal in him, he was willing to let it spin out. Maybe coaxing some intelligence out of a kitchen maid with his charms had given Diarmán back a little of the power that Coratse had so deftly swiped from him earlier in the day.
"I've put it off long enough," Diarmán said at last. He sighed, took a swallow of wine, and then passed it to Uachi rather roughly, by bumping the fist that held the bottle right against Uachi's chest. "You were right. Bloody manál."
Hope thrilled through Uachi as he accepted the bottle. "So he took them for a reason."
"'Swhat it seems to be. She told me that the princesses were sent with your runaway prince's wife as ladies-in-waiting. I said it sounded odd, two princesses serving her, because isn't she a princess, too? 'No,' she said. 'She's an empress, don't you know anything?'"
Uachi snorted in derision. "Empress."
"So I changed tack. What an honor that would be, I said, serving an empress. Being so near to the emperor and all the goings-on. And she told me that she would think so, too, but her friend, who is the queen's chambermaid, has reason to know that the queen is not happy at all about the arrangement. Spends every night weeping, she told me, for her girls. Evenna and Halla. Wears their hair in a locket pinned to her dress every single day."
"Mm." Uachi remembered the dark-haired queen, a vision of opulence in sumptuous cloth but adorned only with two pieces of jewelry: the crown of her station and the brooch pinned to her breast. Feeling more and more certain, Uachi told himself to slow down, to think through the few facts they knew with caution before leaping to any conclusions. He swigged the wine and passed it back to Diarmán. It was good, very good, but he had to make sure not to drink too much. One of them would need to have his wits about him through the night, and it did not look promising that Diarmán would volunteer, judging by the gleam in his eye and the flush in his cheeks. "A woman might cry for a thousand reasons."
"True enough, but Coratse isn't just a woman. She's got ice in place of a heart. Ice and stones and..." Diarmán narrowed his eyes, taking a sip of wine. "And cherry pips."
"She certainly seems to be eager to curry favor with Koren. She's declared her loyalties to him in no uncertain terms."
"Right. And one would think that it would be a coveted opportunity, placing a daughter or two with the imperial court. Doesn't Who's-It have a son?"
"What?"
"Your prince. Doesn't he have a son?"
The pieces shifted into place, and Uachi raised his eyebrows, leaning back on his arms. "He does. Older than Uarria by some years. Coratse's daughters must be older, but..."
"Prime match-making opportunities, you would think." Diarmán took another swallow of wine, then lifted the bottle, peering into the dark glass, through which the light of their campfire could be seen flickering. He made a contented sound low in his throat and took another, smaller swallow. "Maybe she just misses them, though. You're right. We haven't any proof."
"We know that Koren chose to take two princesses into war with him, supposedly to wait upon the wife he also took with him. His motivation is of more interest to me than Coratse's. She might have agreed for the benefits it could afford her and her daughters, but why did Koren do it? They would be a burden to him. He must have wanted to keep them close."
"Well, he's several times older than they are—but softest bits. Could be possible he's just got a taste for high-born innocence."
Uachi spat on the dirt. "Do not put anything past him. He's fruit from a rotten tree." When Diarmán handed him back the bottle, Uachi took one small swallow and immediately passed it back. "No: I think he's got other plans. Keeping your queen and her people in line."
"So what are we going to do about it, Uachi?" Diarmán sighed and sprawled back onto the grass. It was such an unexpected and oddly dramatic move that Uachi nearly laughed. Diarmán lay there starred out, his chin tipped up toward the sky. He needed a shave. He scratched at his throat as he said, "Aside from finishing this bottle of wine."
"You can finish the wine, although I don't know that I recommend it. If you're sore-headed in the morning, I'll have no mercy on you."
"Oh, sir," Diarmán murmured. "You are a hard man."
"Shut up." Something in Diarmán's dryly flirtatious tone had sent a spike of unease into Uachi's belly—unease and something else, something Uachi was not ready to face. "Tomorrow...well...I suppose we shall go princess-hunting again."
"I think it's a terrible plan, Uachi." This was flat, direct. Diarmán had rolled his head and was peering at Uachi from his low vantage point. "What do you expect to do? Sneak into an army and abscond with two girls? It's a bit higher-stakes than saving yon kitten from your runaway mage. And what do you hope to do with the princesses once you've got 'em?"
"Well, obviously we'll..." Uachi broke off, cold realization washing over him.
He didn't know. Even if Coratse was not pleased that her daughters were in Koren's charge, that did not necessarily mean that a renegade, suicide mission to rescue them would end in accolades. She needed Koren as much as Koren needed her, or more; damaging the arrangement they had was bound to wreak havoc. Besides, he didn't much care about the princesses themselves, or Coratse.
It had all been a thin thread intended to convince Diarmán to come along with him, buying his allegiance with the frail hope that perhaps bartering with Coratse would give him back his lands and titles. And that, Uachi had wanted. Truly.
But not so much as he wanted to slide a dagger into the archmage's throat. He had a chance to do that while he was here, but if he did, he needed Uarria to be safe while he did so—which meant that he needed Diarmán to travel with them so that he could undo the spell when he well and truly turned his feet toward home.
"...Obviously we'll figure it out when we get there?" Diarmán suggested. "Wherever 'there' is."
It was unexpected, and Uachi looked at him sharply, frowning. Diarmán was smiling, though, and maybe it was because he was warm with drink and in good spirits, but it was a smile nonetheless—a gentle smile, an invitation.
"Yes."
"Yes. Good." Diarmán sighed again, and as he slid an arm over his eyes, he convulsively yawned. "Good. How hard can it be to find a war, anyway? They're probably very loud."
Uachi watched Diarmán for a few minutes. That was all it took: the lordling's breathing slowed, and it was obvious he had drifted off to sleep. He leaned over and gently extricated the wine bottle from Diarmán's hand. He corked it and put it away, and then, moving as quietly as he could, he shook out their bedding. He covered Diarmán with a blanket and then bedded down himself, his dagger under his pillow, one eye open.
I am ever-so-interested to hear your thoughts on how Uachi has been acting since the audience with Coratse. He would say he doesn't have much interest in other people's fortunes, but here he is offering Diarmán a glimmer of hope.
Certainly, he has his own reasons. There's an archmage out there he would love to meet. Do you think that's all there is to it?