Page 84 of Luthias

“My laird has no belly for thieves, and I’ve seen naught of her within the stronghold. May I keep the likeness and show it to my brothers? ’Twill help with our search.” When the other master nodded he tucked the drawing into his sleeve. “If she hides on MacRoss lands, then we shall find her.”

“I dinnae reckon she took the gold to our enemies, and she’s no’ been seen on the roads.” Reothadh rubbed his brow. “Laird Callum, he’s ready to tear apart the mountains to find her. Where could she hide so well?”

“She belongs to your laird?” As the other sage glared at him Duine held up his hands in a calming gesture. “I ask only so I may better ken the maiden, and why she might flee Dun Deigh.”

“She’s no’ a maiden. The laird and Athdara, they’ve been trysting in secret. Lord Callum desires her back in his arms.” Reothadh’s lips thinned with disapproval. “Aside from her behaving like a hoor, she’s a sly one, this wench. She’s been seen more than once traipsing through halls and out of rooms away from her work bench. That and she hails from the lowlands, so I dinnae ken her people.”

“Lowlanders, they’re often untrustworthy.” Duine tried to look sympathetic. “If she’s deceived Lord Callum, then she’s done the same to others in the past. I shall make discreet inquiries of our clan’s vassals.”

“Aye, and I shall consider the debt repaid.” The Carack sage eyed him for a long moment before he asked, “How fared your sunstone elixir? Did it warm the skin, or burn?”

Although he would never share the exact formulae or processes he used for his potions with the other master––among the enclaves that was tantamount to treason––he sometimes discussed the results of his experiments with Reothadh.

“The blend warmed well on the skin and into the muscles, which relieved Mistress Duncan’s back pains from her injury,” he said cautiously. “Yet ’tis but a temporary respite. After an hour, our healer said, the warmth dissipated.”

“You might try again with a pinch of cats-eye crystal at the roiling stage,” Reothadh advised him. “’Tis what I most oft use to lengthen the potency of my blends. ’Twill give the lady a full night of ease.”

“My thanks.” Duine bowed, and then patted his sleeve. “I shall make the search for Athdara Martin a matter of urgency for my brothers.”

“Say naught to your laird or his men if you find her,” the other sage warned. “We must keep this wench from setting off a war between the Carack and the MacRoss.”

“Dinnae say such.” Duine pressed a hand over his rapidly-thumping heart. “The clans, they’ve kept the peace for six hundred years or better.”

“Aye, and ’twill take but a moment to wash away that truce with the blood of battle.” Reothadh looked away. “Find her, brother, and send word to me when you do.”

Duine stood watching him retreat toward the Carack’s lands, the boundary of which lay on the other side of the grove, and then sat down in the heather and mopped his sweating face with his sleeve. He hated such meetings, but now it seemed they had become a necessary evil.

“Och, I’m too old for such nonsense.” He drew out the drawing of Athdara Martin, tilting it so that the moonlight silvered her face. For a moment the piercing quality of her gaze reminded him of Emery Parker’s light green eyes. “’Twill be worth what I must do. Aye, for all the lives that weigh on me now, ’twill be worth all.”

After the too-close encounter with the laird Emery decided the best way to handle her overwrought feelings was to work through them. Cook didn’t want her in the kitchens, and the gardeners and groundskeepers had become very busy with planting the summer vegetable beds, so Emery decided to find out more about the sages.

Darach frowned as she asked if she could take a tour of the enclave’s workrooms and speak to some of the sages. “Why do you wish to? They’re but potion-mixers.”

“From what Camdyn told me they’re what we call alchemists in my time,” she corrected. “They were very secretive, so we only know a little about them in the future. I’d really love to see a real medieval laboratory, too.”

“Och, well, I imagine ’twill do no harm to ask. Only you mustnae drink anything,” he warned as he accompanied her to the wing occupied by the enclave. “A shepherd’s boy did once from a vial a sage dropped, and the lad turned bright red.”

“He was probably allergic to whatever he drank,” she suggested. “That would have given him a bad rash.”

“No’ from sickening,” the chieftain said, and waved his hand over his face. “The color of his skin went red as wild cherries. Aye, and he remained that color for two moons before it finally faded to pink. The lad still looks a wee bit too rosy in the cheeks.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “Why would they make something to turn skin red?”

“’Twas meant for sheep, so ’twould dye their fleece before shearing.” Darach rolled his eyes. “Or so the sages claimed. Ever do they attempt such potions, and no’ always with success. The laird told them to cease their efforts, and the shearers returned to soaking the fleeces with madder root to dye them red.”

Master Sage Duine looked up from a text he was studying when they entered the enclave’s large scriptorium. “Welcome, Mistress, Chieftain. How may we serve?”

“I asked Darach if I could visit you and the other sages.” She bobbed a curtsey that was only a little wobbly. “The laird mentioned that you do very important work here.” That was a bit of a stretch, but she hoped it would score her some points with the older man.

“Indeed, we’ve served the MacRoss since the founding of the clan.” Duine closed his book, smiling as he came around the desk. “Leave the lady with me, Chieftain, and I shall show her some of our humble efforts.”

“My thanks, Master.” Darach leaned close and murmured to Emery, “Remember what I said, and dinnae touch anything shiny, either.”

“I’m not four years old,” she muttered back, and then beamed at the sage. “Can we start in the laboratory?”

The sages’ laboratorium turned out to be located at the very end of the enclave’s corridor, and for good reason, Duine explained.

“The work we do requires use of a powerful furnace, and at times our elixirs must roil and cure for days,” he said as he escorted her down the passage. “While ’tis never been a fire at Dun Lasair anywhere but in the hearths and braziers, we take care to assure we shall never spread one.”