there before you. Fair enough?”
“More than fair,” Par said at once. “Thanks, Morgan. But
you have to promise to be careful.”
“Careful? Of those Federation fools? Ha!” The Highlander
grinned ear to ear. “I could step up and spit in their collective
eye and it would still take them days to work it out! I haven’t
anything to fear from them!”
Par wasn’t laughing. “Not in Leah, perhaps. But there may
be Seekers in Shady Vale.”
Morgan quit grinning. “Your point is well-taken. I ‘ll be care-
ful.”
He drained the last of his ale and stood up. “Time for bed.
I’ll want to leave early.”
Par and Coil stood up with him. Coil said, “What was it
exactly that you did to the governor’s wife?”
Morgan shrugged. “Oh, that? Nothing much. Someone said
she didn’t care for the Highlands air, that it made her queasy.
So I sent her a perfume to sweeten her sense of smell. It was
contained in a small vial of very delicate glass. I had it placed
in her bed, a surprise for her. She accidently broke it when she
lay on it.”
His eyes twinkled. ‘ ‘Unfortunately, I somehow got the per-
fume mixed up with skunk oil.”
The three of them looked at each other in the darkness and
grinned like fools.
The Ohmsfords slept well that night, wrapped in the comfort
and warmth of real beds with clean blankets and pillows. They
could easily have slept until noon, but Morgan had them awake
at dawn as he prepared to set out for Shady Vale. He brought
out the Sword of Leah and showed it to them, its hilt and scab-
bard badly worn, but its blade as bright and new as the High-
lander had claimed. Grinning in satisfaction at the looks on their
faces, he strapped the weapon across one shoulder, stuck a long
knife in the top of one boot, a hunting knife m his belt, and
strapped an ash bow to his back.
He winked. “Never hurts to be prepared.”
They saw him out the door and down the hill west for a short
distance where he bade them goodbye. They were still sleepy-
eyed and their own goodbyes were mixed with yawns.
“Go on back to bed,” Morgan advised. “Sleep as long as
you like. Relax and don’t worry. I’ll be back in a couple of
days.” He waved as he moved off, a tall, lean figure silhouetted
against the still-dark horizon, brimming with his usual self-
confidence.
‘ ‘Be careful!” Par called after him.
Morgan laughed. “Be careful yourself!”
The brothers took the Highlander’s advice and went back to
bed, slept until afternoon, then wasted the remainder of the day
just lying about. They did better the second day, rising eariy,
bathing in the springs, exploring the countryside in a futile effort
to find the mud baths, cleaning out the hunting lodge, and pre-
paring and eating a dinner of wild fowl and rice. They talked a
long time that night about the old man and the dreams, the magic
and the Seekers, and what they should do with their immediate
future. They did not argue, but they did not reach any decisions
either.
The third day turned cloudy and by nightfall it was raining.
They sat before the fire they had built in the great stone hearth
and practiced the storytelling for a long time, working on some
of the more obscure tales, trying to make the images of Par’s
song and the words of Coil’s story mesh. There was no sign of
Morgan Lean. hi spite of their unspoken mutual resolve not to
do so, they began to worry.
On the fourth day, Morgan returned. It was late afternoon
when he appeared, and the brothers were seated on the floor in
front of the fire repairing the bindings on one of the dinner table
chairs when the door opened suddenly and he was there. It had
been raining steadily all day, and the Highlander was soaked
through, dripping water everywhere as he lowered his backpack
and weapons to the floor and shoved the door closed behind
him.
‘ ‘Bad news,” he said at once. His rust-colored hair was plas-