Free Lady of Magick by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

WO
Alba

CHAPTER V
In Which Gray and Sophie Land on Their Feet
    September had almost begun by the time the wheels of the Marshalls’ borrowed equipage clattered onto the streets of Din Edin. Gray stared around at the bustle and hum of the great city—no match for London, of course, but many times as populous as Oxford, and a dramatic change from the tiny villages and small farming towns through which they had been passing. Beside him, Sophie was blending in, or so he judged by her intent listening stillness and carefully expressionless face.
    â€œIs all well,
kerra
?” he asked, as the barouche slowed to allow the passing of a heavy waggon piled high with barrels that sloshed.
    Sophie turned and looked up at him; her dark eyes were wide and fathoms deep. “There are so many people,” she said, wonderingly, “and not one of them knows or cares who I am, or who my father is.”
    Gray grinned and squeezed her hand. “It is fortunate that I know you so well,” he said; “you must be sure not to say such things to strangers.”
    â€œYou do not know me at all, if you suppose for a moment that I should,” she retorted, but though she attempted a scolding tone, she was smiling. Then something caught her eye and she sat up straight,all eager attention: “Look there! It is one of Harry’s
men without trousers
!”
    Gray turned his head sharply, startled. But though the man in question indeed wore no trousers, he was fully clothed in some sort of wrapped and gathered garment, in a colourful woven pattern of scarlet and green and gold. This together with a splendid head of ginger hair, and a beard to match, made him stand out in the crowded street, but no one apart from themselves seemed to find him an object of interest.
    *   *   *
    They drew up at last before a modest house in Drummond-street, the door of which was opened, before Gray’s upraised hand had let the knocker fall, by a young woman in a green gown. Tall and slim, with auburn hair and a constellation of freckles across her fine straight nose, she smiled at Gray and Sophie as though perfectly delighted to see them.
    â€œYou are Magister Graham Marshall?” she said, and to Sophie, “and Domina Sophie Marshall?”
    Gray, bemused, nodded.
    â€œWelcome to Din Edin, Magister, Domina. I am Catriona MacCrimmon—Rory MacCrimmon is my brother,” she added, by way of explanation. She spoke in a softly accented and curiously formal Latin. “I feared that I should not recognise you, but the moment I saw you I was altogether certain. My brother described you very precisely.”
    â€œHow could he?” demanded Sophie, startled into speech. “He has never met either of us!”
    â€œI should imagine that he asked his friend Mór MacRury,” said Miss MacCrimmon cryptically. Then she smiled again. “Now, do come in and be welcome to our house! You have been travelling; I am sure you must be weary.”
    The business of dispatching Cooper and their baggage to their own lodgings in Quarry Close, and consulting as to the location of the nearest stabling for the horses, took some little time. At length,however, Gray and Sophie found themselves comfortably ensconced in a cluttered, welcoming sort of library-
cum
-sitting-room, partaking of tea and oatcakes whilst their hostess decanted from them, with an efficiency which Gray felt Joanna might have envied, the tale of their journey.
    Catriona—for so she at once insisted they address her, almost before they had finished drinking from her chased copper welcome-cup—seemed so much au fait with the life of the University that Gray was unsurprised when Sophie asked her, rather hesitatingly, whether she was herself a student there.
    â€œOh! No,” Catriona laughed. “That is, I did study along with Rory for a year—you may not know that we are twins?—but I have not the patience to make a proper