Chapter 336: There’s A Rumor Of A Ghost

"It’s very much working."

"Good." He grinned. "I’ll keep at it."

He kept at it all morning.

He pointed at a lone ancient oak and informed her it was the Whispering Tree, home of a very shy elf. He identified a ruined barn as the birthplace of the third Duke of Merrow, who had been born in a trough, he said, and never forgotten it. He told her that a certain bridge was haunted by the ghost of a miller who’d drowned himself over a bad batch of flour. She laughed so hard that she nearly slid off her saddle. Draeven corrected him, every time, in a voice of weary patience, and every time, a little more of the corners of his mouth gave way.

"That is a perfectly ordinary bridge," he said.

"With a perfectly ordinary ghost."

"There is no ghost."

"There’s a rumor of a ghost."

"There is no rumor. You invented it a moment ago."

"All legends begin somewhere."

"Not with you."

"Always with me," said Kaelen, with enormous dignity.

***

By midmorning, Draeven had given up.

They passed a ruined fort on a hill, a squat grey shape of tumbled stone with one broken tower, and Kaelen opened his mouth, and Draeven said, quite calmly, "Don’t."

"I wasn’t going to say anything."

"You were."

"I was going to say it was a fort."

"It is a fort."

"I was going to say it was a very old fort."

"It is Fort Marren." Draeven slowed his horse. "I will tell her."

"I’m not stopping you."

"You are not stopping me from telling her a true thing. How generous."

Morgana looked from one to the other. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She reined Shadowmere in alongside the bay, and looked up at the ruin, and then at the first king.

"Please," she said.

He glanced at her.

"I’d like to hear the real one."

Something in his face softened.

"It was built three hundred years ago," he said, "by a lord named Edric Marren, who wanted a view. That was his whole reason. He had a great deal of money and no sense, and he decided he would like to see the sea from his bedroom window." He nodded at the broken tower. "It is forty miles to the sea."

"He couldn’t see it?"

"He could not. He built the tower higher. And higher. Eventually it fell down in a storm, and he with it. They found him two days later, very cross, in a hay cart."

She stared.

"Is that true?"

"Every word."

"That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard."

"I know." A faint smile. "I found it in a history of the northern lordships. I read it when I was young, and I have never forgotten it."

"You read it."

"I read a great deal."

"He reads everything," said Kaelen, with relish. "He once read a seventeen-volume treatise on sheep."

"It was a very good treatise."

"It had footnotes."

"The footnotes were the best part."

She was laughing again. She laughed all the way down the hill, and into the long green lane beyond, and by the time she had stopped, her eyes were wet and her ribs ached and the whole bright morning seemed to be glittering around her like water.

"What’s it like?" she asked.

"What?"

"Ashford. Tell me what it’s like." Kaelen was looking at her sideways, with a sly smile. "You’ve mentioned a goat three times."

"I have not."

"You’ve mentioned the goat. As if it’s famous."

"It’s a very opinionated goat."

"What’s her name?"

"Biddy."

"That’s a good name."

"She’s a terrible animal." She was smiling, and she could feel it in her whole face. "She eats washing. She ate my mother’s good shawl, and she stood in the middle of the garden afterward looking pleased with herself. She’s twelve years old and she’s never once been sorry."

"I’d like to meet her."

"She’d eat your coat."

"I’ll give her a bit of mine."

She laughed, and told him more. She told them about the mill at the end of the lane, whose wheel had been broken for a decade, and the miller who swore every spring that he’d mend it. She told them about the market on Thursdays, and the old women who sold eggs in baskets, and the way you could hear the baker’s laugh across the whole square. She told them about the inn, a squat little place with a crooked sign, and old Hesta who kept it, who had once served a bishop a plate of cold mutton and told him it was lamb.

The words came out of her easily. She hadn’t expected that. It was a strange kind of homesickness. It wasn’t the sharp, aching kind she’d carried for weeks, but something soft and warm, like holding a stone that had been in a pocket all day. She could see it all as she spoke. The crooked lane. The pump in the yard. The smell of bread rising in the dark.

She looked up, and found them both watching her.

Draeven had slowed his horse. He rode a little behind now, his face turned toward her, quiet and still, and there was a look in his eyes she’d seen in the study at dawn. A fierce, quiet wonder.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing."

"You’re staring."

"I’m listening," said Draeven.

"You’re looking at me like I’m a painting."

"That is also true."

She felt heat climb into her face.

"You said it," said Kaelen softly, from the other side. "Don’t you hear it? You say home like it’s a word you love."

She went very still.

"I do," she said, after a moment. "I love it."

"Then we’ll get you there," said Draeven.

"And back."

"And back."

She let out a breath.

She did not say what she was thinking. That she had never been so happy. That the road was bright, and the air was sweet, and two kings rode beside her in plain coats, teasing and gentle, and for the first time in her life she did not feel as though she were watching from behind a window.