"Where are we going now?" Uachi asked, following Diarmán through the darkened hall of the keep. He frowned at the tapestries they passed. Most of them featured tall men or women in forests, but Uachi could not connect the stories to any lore he knew. The flame-haired man who was present in many of the tapestries certainly was not one of the Blessed Sovereigns.
"To meet with one of my brothers. I told you I thought I knew someone who could help you." Diarmán paused at the mouth of a stairway and gestured up. "I expect we'll find him here. It's the aviary."
Uachi peered up the shadowed stairwell and nodded for Diarmán to precede him. He took the stone steps slowly, allowing a space to open up between the lordling and himself. Uachi had come to more or less trust him, and he was certain that his true identity as a confidante of the Penruan emperor was as of yet unknown to Diarmán's family, but he could not afford to let his guard down. Indeed, he had a hand resting on the hilt of his dagger as he emerged behind Diarmán into a room that, if he judged correctly, was in one of the towers of the keep.
An animal scent pervaded the air. Creatures rustled in alcoves all along the walls. Some were open, and here and there Uachi glimpsed a feathered resident stirring; others were closed off with iron grilles. There was a young man bent forward, tending to something within one of the larger cells. The floor along the walls was littered with sweepings redolent with the scent of droppings and peppered with feathers of every shape and size.
Nearby on a wooden perch was an owl, watching the man. As Uachi and Diarmán entered the aviary, the owl swiveled its head, looking over its back toward the two of them. It ruffled its feathers and adjusted its stance on the perch, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Padréc," Diarmán said. "I'm home."
The young man backed up a step, pulling his head out of the cage. He had the same flame-colored hair as Diarmán, but slightly longer; his disheveled curls were barely restrained by the leather cord tying half of them back. He grinned, spreading his arms. "Brother! Welcome home!"
Diarmán smiled back, but held up both hands. "If you don't mind, I'll decline the embrace."
Padréc looked down at himself and laughed. It was clear from the state of his clothes and the stiff-bristled broom he held in one hand that he'd spent the better part of the afternoon at work. "I'll save your clothes, but it's good to see you. Who's this?" He turned a pair of bright hazel eyes on Uachi, surveying him with a thoughtful look. It was neither friendly nor unfriendly, simply curious.
"A friend. His name is Uachi, and he needs your help."
Uachi had not yet been informed what sort of help Padréc could provide him, and looking at the boy, Uachi wondered what could be in his capacity to give. He was clearly a few years younger than Diarmán, just at the threshold of manhood. He did not look to be much of a ranger or a fighter. Uachi glanced between the two brothers, folding his arms.
"Well, then." Padréc set his broom aside in an empty alcove. He turned away from them and busied himself for another moment with the cell he had been cleaning. Then he glanced at the owl and nodded his head toward the freshly-tidied space. To Uachi's amazement, the owl shifted again, rustled its feathers, and then it spread its wings and took flight with hardly a sound. It made one silent circle of the aviary before coming to rest on the alcove and shuffling inside. Padréc closed the grille behind it and latched it.
Then he turned to them again, dusting off his shirt front. "Let's go down. If you don't mind, I'd like a quick washing-up before we talk."
"We'd like you to have one too. You smell like shit," Diarmán said cheerfully. He gestured for Padréc to lead the way, and the younger man, with a roll of his eyes, started down the stairs.
A short while later, the three of them sat on a sunny stone balcony that reminded Uachi of those at the palace in the Holy City. Being there made him think of Mhera, which made him think of Uarria and where she might be. He forced himself to loosen his fists and swallow his impatience as he waited for one of these ruddy-headed lordlings to start talking.
"All right, then," Padréc said. He had washed his face and hands and had changed into a clean set of clothes. Now he perched on the edge of his chair, pouring drinks for the three of them.
Uachi sniffed the honey-colored liquid curiously, then took a sip. Knitting his brow, he glanced at Padréc, who smiled. "I hope you like mead. I'm not too humble to say that our alewives make the best mead in all of Narr."
Diarmán took a healthy swallow of his own and gave a sigh of pleasure. "Now I'm home," he said. For a minute or two, there was no talk as the three of them sipped their mead, Uachi with considerably less pleasure than the others. More than once, he drew breath to break the silence, but swallowed down the urge with frustration. In Penrua, serious talks between men were always had over wine; this silence could be part of a Narrian ritual it would serve him poorly to disturb.
At last, Diarmán broke the silence. "Brother, my friend Uachi is in search of a woman and a child. I had hoped you might be able to help him."
Padréc turned that bright and steady gaze upon Uachi again. Something in those eyes reminded Uachi of Farra; it was an alert look, the look of a forest creature or a watchful bird. "Is that so?" he asked.
"My wife and my daughter," he supplied.
Glancing at his brother, Padréc said, "I thought you were off to demand an audience with Lady Coratse?"
"I am; we'll leave on the morrow. If it happens that Uachi's path closely follows my own—and we have reason to suspect that it will—we'll travel together. I believe that on this point we're agreed, are we not, Uachi?"
Uachi shrugged. "You'll hear no argument from me. Especially if you've horses to supply." Looking at Padréc, he added, "I think they will go to Aólane. Diarmán tells me that this queen of yours—"
Diarmán made a soft sound of derision, but Padréc's expression did not change—
"—is not far from there."
Padréc nodded. "I see." He raised his eyebrows at his brother. "So I'm to make a survey and see if you've judged the woman's path aright?"
"Just so," said Diarmán.
"Tell me, Uachi," said Padréc, turning his attention to the ranger, "do you think they're mounted?"
"Probably."
"And if I find them, then should I slow them down for you?"
Confused, Uachi looked from Padréc to Diarmán. "I don't want you to bring either of them to harm. If you're going to—to track them, I'd just as soon go with you. I'm not a poor tracker myself, but I'm not sure whether she is ahead of me at this point or behind."
Diarmán chuckled, raising his glass of mead with a wink. "Trust me, Uachi. You cannot go by the ways Padréc goes. Alas, neither can I."
"But don't worry," Padréc said, picking up the thread. "I'll be gone no more than a day. Tell me, why do your wife and your daughter run from you, Uachi? Why should I help you find them?"
Uachi was not certain how far House Olarian was from Eldran's Keep, but he suspected it was far, much farther than a normal man could travel in the course of a day. He had the sense that he had missed something, and he did not like to feel ignorant. It made him irritable, and it came out in his tone. "My wife is unsettled in her mind," he said, "and I do not believe my daughter is safe with her. I need to find them. Can you help me, or not?"
"Look me in the eye," Padréc said.
With a creeping sense of unease, Uachi met Padréc's steady, thoughtful gaze, his jaw clenched. He forced himself to relax.
"You're angry. Why? You aren't giving chase to harm them? You aren't...violent? Spiteful?"
Uachi drew a deep breath. He let it out slowly, grasping for calm. "I'm impatient, Padréc. If there is a way to bring them both safe homeward, I would give anything in my power to make it so. But I think the farther she gets away from me, the less likely it is that I shall be able to save both their lives."
He could feel the brothers watching him, silent.
"Please...if you have some way to help me, I'd be in your debt. My daughter is in very real danger, and I cannot waste time. Either you believe me, or you don't. If you don't, tell me now, so I can start walking."
Padréc studied Uachi for a moment. Uachi felt strange under his gaze, as if the young man could see past his face, into his mind somehow.
At length, Padréc broke eye contact and drained his glass of mead. "Very well. Because you are a friend of my brother's, and because you would accompany him on his journey, I'll do what I can to help you on your way. If I must—if they have one—I'll kill the horse to slow them down."
Diarmán added, "He loves animals," as if that explained something, as if it mattered. He turned his attention to his brother, who had moved to the balcony. "Shall I tell Mother?"
"I don't want her to worry," Padréc said. "I don't like to lie to her, but she's in a fragile state of mind. Tell her I'm taken with the flux and keep her away from my room." He placed both hands on the thick stone wall of the balcony and, with a quick flex of his limber muscles, he was crouched on the wall.
"What are you—" Uachi leapt to his feet. Before he had taken one step, though, Padréc sprang off the wall, spread his arms, and disappeared from sight.
Uachi darted to the wall of the balcony. "Padréc!"
There was no sign of the man in the air or on the ground—no sign of anything but a hawk, its banded wings catching Uachi's eye as it soared away.
From behind him came the sound of choked laughter.
Uachi rounded on Diarmán, his face burning, his chest tight with a mixture of outrage and disbelief. "What in—"
The lordling was bent over, one hand covering his face. The other rested on Uachi's overturned goblet of mead, as if he had been too slow to save it when Uachi bumped the table in his haste. "Your face!" he gasped. "Gods below, I should have called all the household to witness that."
Struggling to piece everything together, Uachi looked over the balcony wall again. "Tell me he's crouched down there like a spider on the wall," he said.
"Nine bells, man, you are intent on believing my folk are a myth, aren't you?" The sounds of a chair scraping and the clink of the glass on the table came, and then Diarmán was at Uachi's side, peering into the distant at the tiny, dark speck of the hawk. "He's the bird, Uachi."
"You're bloody joking."
"You saw it with your own eyes!"
"I saw him jump off the balcony like a goddess-damned fool!"
"His clothes are probably down there on the lawn somewhere," Diarmán said with a thoughtful purse of his lips. He peered over the balcony wall. "I'll have Emón scamper after them before supper. He can keep a secret like no one I know."
"If you mean to tell me your brother just turned into a hawk in front of my eyes—"
"And if he has to take out the horse, I expect he'll go for a wolf, or maybe one of your shadowcats—"
"Why haven't you sprouted feathers, then, if you think it's so bloody funny?"
Diarmán fixed Uachi with a mischievous smirk. "Oh, Uachi of the North. Who says we've all got the same gifts?" He raised his glass of mead in a toast and drained it in a swallow.
Admit it. If you were Diarmán, you would have played the same trick on Uachi. He needs a bit more humor in his life, doesn't he? 😂😇
So, the "ruddy-headed lordling" has as much as admitted that he has a few tricks up his sleeve, but it seems like he's trying to help Uachi. What do you think? Can he be trusted? 🤔
I'm hoping to offer more regular updates over the coming weeks, friends. Thank you again and always for your patience! Be safe, be well, be seeing you soon.
xx Mina