Page 18 of Seducing the Sorcerer
Although, likely a sorcerer would use nothing so friendly as a poker. And, now Fenn looked, the sorcerer’s staff was there as well, propped against his chair. Right handy.
Fenn took another half step backwards, trying to make it look as if he were jostling with the horse. If Morgrim tried anything, Fenn would leap backwards, gain that table and kick him in the face. Then mount the horse—if it’d co-operate—and try to get to the door. No, better to run for the door and jump on the horse’s back once they were through. And then hope to the Gods the creature would fly again.
“Perhaps you could tell me everything, Mr Todd. From the beginning. Everything that befell you the day you found the horse.”
“Well, I woke up and thought I’d better look for work. Having none, you understand.”
“Yes. And where was this?”
Fenn imagined saying, Don’t know. I was that foxed the night before I can’t remember, and, to his surprise, his cheeks grew hot with shame. Plenty of people had seen him drinking himself into oblivion when he could afford to and he’d never cared about it before, but he’d never admitted it aloud, and especially not to a man like Morgrim. The sorcerer just didn’t look the kind of bloke who’d understand. He was too in control, too sharp, too dignified. He’d likely never had a few too many in his life.
Fenn stopped hoping for a job tending the sorcerer’s fine horse. It would be enough to get through this interview alive.
“It was in the countryside outside Enno. In the north,” Fenn said. It was close enough to the truth and yet safely vague.
But the sorcerer pounced on it at once.
“You mean, in the countryside to the north of Enno? Or do you remind me of my geography, Mr. Todd?”
“North of Enno,” Fenn said quickly. Well, it might have been to the north. “Anyway, I went to the nearest farm and they’d a cesspit to dig. And the payment was a meal and...and a...”
He didn’t want to say it. It was all too easy to imagine Morgrim saying silkily, you actually thought they’d give you a real horse in exchange for digging a hole? Goodness, Mr. Todd, they saw you coming, didn’t they?
And Fenn didn’t want to look a fool. He didn’t want to earn Morgrim’s disdain. He didn’t want it with a passion that surprised him. But he’d already lied once and he had a nasty feeling that Morgrim could smell something not quite right. Morgrim’s gaze was on him, calculating, considering, judging—and his silence was making Fenn sweat. It would be wiser to tell the truth about the next part of the story.
“Truth is, they cheated me into taking this here horse. And I’m not proud of being anyone’s dupe, and I don’t like to confess it. But there it is. I was on my uppers. They said they’d give me a meal and an old horse for a day’s work and I shook on it.”
Fenn finished his tale—the horse coming to life and following him, the decision to try riding it, the wild flight and the surprise landing.
“Fascinating,” Morgrim murmured. “Did the farm have a name?”
There had been a sign. An odd name. But, no. It was gone and Fenn was too nervous to remember it. “No.”
“You hesitated.”
“No crime in thinking, is there? Sir.”
“What about these farmers? Did you get their names?”
“Never asked. They was just farmers. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You didn’t hear what they called each other?”
Fenn shook his head. “Don’t reckon they called each other anything.”
“Can you describe them?”
“The older fellow went into town. The younger one wore a leather jerkin and a fancy shirt. Handsome, self-regarding type. Didn’t like him above half, frankly, but didn’t see as I’d much option.”
“You’d never met him before?”
“No.”
“Nor come across him in Enno?”
“No. He was a good-looking bloke. Reckon I’d have noticed him.”
Something seemed to flash in the sorcerer’s eyes, but his voice was smooth as ever. “Are you in the habit of noticing handsome men, Mr. Todd?”
