Free To Green Angel Tower, Volume 1 by Tad Williams Page B

the gods bless him, and Mircha herself give him good health. He will be a fine man.”
    Caihwye smiled and jiggled young Siadreth in her lap until he forgot what he had been about to do. “Thank you, Lady. I’m so glad you came back well.”
    Maegwin, who had been turning away, paused. “Came back?”
    The young woman looked startled, frightened she’d said something wrong. “From under the ground, Lady.” She pointed downward with her free hand. “From down in the deeper caverns. It is you the gods must favor, to bring you back from such a dark place.”
    Maegwin stared for a moment, then forced a smile. “I suppose. Yes, I am glad to be back, too.” She stroked the baby’s head once more before turning to follow Craobhan.
    “I know that judging disputes is not so enjoyable a task for a woman as dandling babies,” Old Craobhan said over his shoulder, “but this is something you must do anyway. You are Lluth’s daughter.”
    Maegwin grimaced, but would not be distracted. “How did that woman know I had been in the caverns below?”
    The old man shrugged. “You didn’t work very hard to keep it secret, and you can’t expect people not to be interested in the doings of the king’s family. Tongues will always wag.”
    Maegwin frowned. Craobhan was right, of course. She had been heedless and headstrong about exploring the lower caverns. If she wanted secrecy, she should have started worrying about it sooner.
    “What do they think about it?” she asked at last. “The people, I mean.”
    “Think about your adventuring?” He chuckled sourly. “I imagine there’s as many stories as there are cookfires. Some say you went looking for the gods. Some think you were looking for a bolt hole out of this whole muddle.” He peered at her over his bony shoulder. His self-satisfied, knowing look made her want to smack him. “By the middle of winter they’ll be saying you found a city of gold, or fought a dragon or a two-headed giant. Forget about it. Stories are like hares—only a fool tries to run after one and catch it.”
    Maegwin glowered at the back of his old bald head. She didn’t know which she liked less, having people tell lies about her or having people know the truth. She suddenly wished Eolair had returned.
    Fickle cow, she sneered at herself.
    But she did. She wished she could talk to him, tell him of all her ideas, even the mad ones. He would understand, wouldn’t he? Or would it only confirm his belief in her wretchedness? It mattered little, anyway: Eolair had been gone for more than a month, and Maegwin did not even know if he still lived. She herself had sent him away. Now, she heartily wished that she had not.
     
    Fearful but resolute, Maegwin had never softened the cold words she had spoken to Count Eolair down in the buried city of Mezutu’a. They had barely conversed during the few days that passed between their return from that place and his departure in search of Josua’s rumored rebel camp.
    Eolair had spent most of those days down in the ancient city, overseeing a pair of stronghearted Hernystiri clerks as they copied the dwarrows’ stone maps onto more portable rolls of sheepshide. Maegwin had not accompanied him; despite the dwarrows’ kindness, the thought of the empty, echoing city only filled her with sullen disappointment. She had been wrong. Not mad, as many thought her, but certainly wrong. She had thought the gods meant her to find the Sithi there, but now it seemed clear that the Sithi were lost and frightened and would be no help to her people. As for the dwarrows, the Sithi’s once-servants, they were little more than shadows, incapable of helping even themselves.
    At Eolair’s parting, Maegwin had been so full of warring feelings that she could muster little more than a curt farewell. He had pressed into her hand a gift sent by the dwarrows—it was a glossy gray and white chunk of crystal on which Yis-fidri, the record-keeper, had carved her name in his own runic