As Good as Gold Read online

  “The gold was not cursed!” she insisted. “I would ha’ known.”

  “Ah ha!” he shouted, pointing his finger at her. Her eyes shifted in a way that let him know she did know something about it.

  “Ye’r issue is not with me, but the thief. Take it up with her, if ye can find her.” She took a step back, then another.

  Bel rolled his eyes. He already knew the thief was female. “Where can I find her?”

  “Why, back in town, of course. I could wish ye luck, but I have no desire to because ye’ve annoyed me. Don’t come looking for me again,” she said in parting as she moved back among the trees.

  ****

  Bel returned to town in frustration. If it was in the hands of the old gypsy woman, so be it. He had no desire to warn her about what followed in its wake.

  But what if it wasn’t in her hands? What if she just verified it curse-free for the thief? The poor thief wouldn’t realize what was in store for her.

  Thief or no, he couldn’t leave her ignorant. If he could get the gold back from her and dispose of it properly, then all would be well with the world. But if he couldn’t, or she’d scattered it about the community, things would happen. Unseelie things.

  Hmmm, he thought as he meandered through town. How much of a coincidence would it be if Daywen turned out to be the thief? Something prickled in the back of his mind.

  At best, she was. If not, perhaps she would know who the other young women were about town. At worst...

  Well, it wasn’t his fault the gold was stolen. Yes, he missed it terribly, but at least the trouble that followed such fey gold would bypass him now.

  He hoped.

  For the first time in his career, he’d stolen--unwittingly, of course--from a creature that had no problems with running water. Bel didn’t discover this fact until after he’d landed in Glasgow. He stayed the night in an inn, then the next morning, discovered a squat little gnome sitting on his mare’s back.

  “Ich habe meine Goldmünzen zurück jetzt,” it said. It had come looking for its gold. Gnomes were lords of the underground, and jealous guardians of their treasure. It had bypassed the protection of running water by burrowing under it.

  Bel had fled. No doubt the gnome would find him soon.

  Unless it had found the lady thief first.

  ****

  “Belenus! My dear lad.” In her small yet comfortable cottage, Bel’s mother sat by a crackling fire. As her son stood in the doorway, hat in hand, coin in pocket, she held out her arms to him for an embrace. Bel indulged his mother, allowing her the affection of a woman for her only child. “You’ve come back,” she said.

  Bel looked around. This was not the home of his childhood, nor did he wish it to be. The cottage had been a gift to her after he’d turned his first profit. Built of sturdy walls, with a good wooden floor and thickly thatched roof, it had been quite a change from the dirt floored, one-room hovel they lived in during his childhood. He didn’t miss it one bit.

  “I wish you would come to visit more often,” she said as she settled her old bones in her rocking chair. “And,” she added, as he dropped a bag of silver into her lap, “not just to give me money.”

  “I have so much now,” he said. “Who am I going to spend it on but you?”

  “Find a wife,” she said bluntly.

  Bel stared into the flames of the fire. A wife? He remembered how much his parents adored each other, and him, despite the poverty they lived in.

  Bel also knew it wasn’t always like that. He remembered his mother’s tales of his clueless father, who she pursued for years through famine and war and brief moments of prosperity. She could have married another, but she only wanted him.

  In the end, she resorted to desperation. She had acquired a faerie from a gypsy woman, and through its magic, convinced her only love to marry her.

  His mother had found true love. Now she sought it for her son.

  “It’s not the same,” he tried to explain.

  “Don’t wait, son, like your father did. If it wasn’t for the faerie, we might never have been married.” Her voice dropped into wistful tones. “I wish we had more time together. We might have had more than one son.”

  Bel laid a hand on his mother’s shoulder. His mother put her gnarled hand on his and patted it as if it was he who needed comfort.

  Perhaps it was for the best he was an only child. Bel remembered his poverty-ridden childhood. “We couldn’t have fed another mouth.” Only after the words slipped from his lips did he realize he’d spoken aloud.

  “What price would you put on love?” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “That was my choice: have the money to feed mouths that would never be born, or bear the mouths where there was no money to feed. I still say I got the better bargain.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You have the money. You can afford a wife.

  “I mean it, Belenus Doran Eamonn MacEuros. You’re not getting any younger. Soon no lassie of marriageable age will look at you.

  “Wait too long, and you will be lucky if she can bear you any bairns.”

  “I’m not yet thirty, myself.”

  “And how old will your wife be?”

  Must he think upon this now? “I’m sure I can find one young enough to bear me many sons--daughters too. I’m certainly rich enough that a woman would forgive my great age.”

  His mother snorted her disapproval. “And if you were poor? Would she look upon you then?”

  Bel frowned as he tried to figure some argument that would please his mother, but she continued.

  “Then again,” she said, as she gave the teapot on the table at her side a poke and a sniff, “if you were poor, you wouldn’t be traipsing all over the known world. You’d be staying put and working the earth and you’d be there for her every night.

  “And then you know you’d have love, boy.” She lifted the pot, only the slightest of grimaces betraying the pain of her hands.

  Bel rescued the pot and poured for them both. If he did have a wife, there would be someone who could be here for his mother, to help her and ease her burdens. He knew she was too proud to hire someone to help about the house. “If I did, would you that I bring her to live here?”

  “Goodness, no!” his mother retorted. “She needs a house of her own.” She set her teacup down with a tink. “You’ve given me enough money I could purchase a very fine home for you. All you need to do is find a good, strong lass to put there.”

  “No,” he protested. “That money is for you.”

  “It’s far too much for my needs.”

  “Nonsense. Anyhow, I didn’t bring you as much this time. I had a little robbery this morning. Some young woman lifted my saddlebags and made off with a substantial amount of gold.”

  His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Gold, did you say?”

  He gave her another one of his shrugs.

  “It wasn’t by chance a hundred pieces, was it?”

  Bel sat up. “How did you know?”

  His mother turned from him, waving her hand dismissively. “Let her keep it.”

  “I can’t. That gold is--” Cursed? Fey? Stolen?

  “You can easily afford it,” she scolded. “Let her have it, and spare her the agony of poverty.”

  “She certainly didn’t look impoverished. She was well-nourished enough to outrun me.”

  With a speed he didn’t expect, his mother reached over and slapped him hard on his hand.

  “Ow!” he exclaimed, shaking away the pain. “What was that for?”

  “That’s for being a greedy, selfish, ignorant lout. You’re just as oblivious as your father.”

  “That girl didn’t steal my gold because she’s in love with me.”

  “But she’s in love with someone.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  His mother lifted her teacup and took a long sip, refusing to answer his question.

  “Mother?”

  “Do you know why we lived poor?” she said in a low voic
e. “Do you know why we farmed and worked so hard yet could barely afford to feed ourselves?”

  Bel had wondered about that from time to time.

  She drew in a breath before offering her confession. “I had put myself, and therefore my future husband, into a heavy debt.” She weighed her next words, not sure which ones to choose. “I’d grown impatient with your father. I’d told him I loved him. I’d done all those things girls do for boys when they love them. I even tried to seduce him. In the end, after a plot of mine to get him drunk and drag him to the altar failed, I turned to the final resort left me.

  “I went to the gypsy woman. For a price, she gave me the Enchanted Faerie. It worked.

  “But I owed her. To pay her exorbitant price, I had to borrow a great deal of money.”

  Bel sat rapt in his chair, his teacup forgotten between his fingers. He’d not heard this part of the story before.

  “Your father and I spent the next ten years paying it back, but we succeeded.

  “Then we had one glorious week, free from all bond. We’d never felt so good. And then...”

  Bel bowed his head. And then... and then his father had died, once the debt that his wife had taken upon herself to win the hand of the man she loved had been cleared.

  His mother shook her finger at him again. “That young woman has stolen your gold as the price of love. And don’t you dare try to get it back from her. You forget about that gold, you wish her well, whoever she is, and you go on your merry way.”

  He sighed. If only he could tell her the whole truth about the gold. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is that simple!” she said, her fist coming down on the arm of the rocking chair. She ignored what no doubt was pain. “And as for you, you are a fine, strapping lad who would make some woman a good husband.

  “I don’t know what it’s like in those furrin lands you do your business in, but here, a good man is scarce. Wars, illnesses, all manner of bad luck has deprived us of enough eligible young men. You wouldn’t believe what some of these young lasses go through to find true love.”

  Bel put his teacup down. Any excuse he offered to leave would be seen for the sham it was. “I’m not going to seek a wife so some lass doesn’t have to compete on the marriage market.”

  The fire went out of his mother’s eyes, to be replaced by something softer, something he remembered seeing there often as a child, despite their poverty. He took it for granted then, and didn’t want to admit he knew what it was now. “No,” she said, her voice toned down. “I would not have you marry just to marry. I would have you marry because you are in love.”

  “And what if I am not in love?”

  “It is because you are not looking. It may be that you have to seek it, or it may be that you simply have to open your eyes, like your father did. Maybe you will be so lucky as to have it come find you.”

  He rose, muttering shallow excuses they both knew were false. She caught him by the sleeve as he slipped by.

  “But if you are, at least be wise enough to realize what it is at the time.”

  She opened her mouth as if to say more, but nothing came out. Her eyes studied her son in a way that made Bel uncomfortable.

  “What?” he said in an effort to dispel the awkwardness. She held onto his sleeve so he couldn’t pull away.

  He could see the thoughts tumble through her head. “I would give you something to help you on your way,” she said at last.

  “What?”

  She beckoned him closer as if to whisper in his ear, but it was not a secret she bestowed. Gently she took his face in her hands and brought his face down low. She murmured something he couldn’t make out, then she pressed her lips to his forehead.

  Bel felt a warmth spread through him. “What was that?”

  “A mother’s best wishes for her son.” She released him. “I’m sorry.”

  ****

  His mother’s conversation weighed heavy on his heart. As the shadows lengthened through the streets, Bel’s thoughts brooded in his head.

  He heard the sound of a wagon approaching, its wheels rattling on the cobblestones. He looked up and stepped out of its way. By sheer luck he saw a figure that looked remarkably like Daywen slip into an alleyway. As he watched her retreating back, he knew for sure that she was the one who had stolen his gold. He followed her, and watched as she conducted a transaction at the back door of a shop.

  She seemed a comely lass, with a fine figure, her waist cinched tight by her bodice, the thin linen of her blouse not completely hiding the swell of her breasts and the hem of her skirt almost high enough to expose her ankles.

  As she turned to leave, he blocked her escape. “Well now,” he said, his voice low. “I seem to have found my thief.” He closed in on her, she turned to flee and he grabbed her hand, causing her to snap back to fall into his arms.

  Bel clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed her back against the wall. He doubted the sounds of the town would be sufficient to mask her screams.

  The lass kicked and struggled against his grip. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said into her ear. “But we need to talk.”

  Something hard pressed into his chest. He kept his one hand against her mouth, and leaned back just enough to slide a hand between them and into her bodice. She continued to struggle and beat against his arms with her hands. “What have we here?” he said, drawing out a dark velvet pouch. “It wouldn’t happen to be my...”

  No, it wasn’t his gold. While the weight could have been right, it didn’t shift and clink as money would have.

  The moment he lifted that pouch up between them, the lass went still. Even in the fading light of evening, he could see how pale she’d become. She muttered something against his hand.

  He relented, lifting his hand enough for her to speak. “Please,” she said. “I need that.”

  Bel stepped back, freeing her. She tried to snatch the pouch away.

  But Bel was faster. He lifted it out of her reach. His fingers plucked at the drawstring opening.

  He drew a figure from the pouch, and when he held it up, it began to shimmer in reds and blues and other colors, bright and pretty as spring.

  “Oh, glory,” she gasped.

  He looked from the glowing figure to her. A warm tingle blossomed on his forehead. It grew and spread over his face.

  Oh, surely not! he thought.

  Something else tickled in the back of his mind. He pushed it away before it could overwhelm his wit. The figure slipped from his fingers.

  Feminine hands caught it. But he had seen enough. That was unmistakably the Enchanted Faerie.

  The alleyway grew dark once more as she slipped the faerie back into the pouch she snatched from his fingers.

  It all made sense now. He gripped her arm so she couldn’t flee. “You are the thief who stole my hundred gold. You then took the money to the Gypsy woman, who gave you that.” He flicked the bag with his finger. The lass clutched it to her. “Then, armed with the magic of the faerie, you sought out your sweetheart.”

  That got her attention. Her gaze snapped up and she looked at him, bewildered.

  “Then,” he said, “with a courage you thought was from the faerie, you approached your sweetheart, proposed marriage to him, and he turned you down.”

  Her mouth gaped.

  “And that is how I know your name is Daywen Athalia.”

  A heat so strong Bel could feel it suffused her cheeks. “What?” she squeaked.

  “And now you’ve put me in a quandary: what do I do with you?”

  Daywen looked to the opening of the alleyway. If it wasn’t for the grip on her arm, Bel was sure she would have bolted. He didn’t want that. He really didn’t want that, but wasn’t sure why.

  “You have put me in an awkward spot between several of my relations,” he explained. “When my mother learned you had stolen a hundred gold from me, she guessed rightly that you were seeking the faerie. Had she not told me, I would demand my hundred back from yo
u, if not in coin, at least in trade--”

  As he spoke these words, Daywen stiffened and she drew herself upright. “I am not that sort of woman!” She pulled against his grip like a panicked horse.

  Bel pushed her up against the wall once more, this time her hands pressed between his chest and hers. “And if it had occurred to me--which I will not confess if it did or not--and I chose to sample your favors, that would not bode well between me and another relation of mine: my cousin. After all, isn’t he your sweetheart?”

  Confusion wrinkled her brow. “Who’s your cousin?”

  He didn’t expect that. Surely the lass knew who she loved. “Uhh, Lachlan...?”

  “Oh,” she muttered, then realization dawned in her widening eyes. “Oh! Oh no...” She sank under his grip.

  “So no, I won’t be taking a hunner’worth from you that way. I can’t even steal a kiss from you.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. She was pretty and wasn’t going anywhere for the moment. Is that why he wanted to kiss her? That itch in the back of his head nagged him. All he had to do was bend down and taste her lips...

  He hastily changed the subject. “And my dear sainted mother would tan my hide if she heard I tried to claim back my gold. But I will tell you what you are going to do--”

  Bel felt a cold prickle on his neck.

  “Wo sind meine Goldmünzen?”

  Bel turned around slowly. As he stepped away from Daywen, she peeked over his shoulder. “Oh,” she gasped. “What’s that?”

  Bel faced off the small creature before him. It was short and squat like a goblin, and dressed in filthy clothing. Its face was pinched, its eyes, when not squinting, were large and it held out a grubby hand. “Ich wünsche meine Goldmünzen.”

  “It’s called a gnome, a fey creature from Batavia. And it wants its gold back.” To the gnome, he said, “Ich habe nicht Ihre Goldmünzen.”

  “Wo sind sie?”

  Bel glanced around. The only way out of the alley was the way they came in, and the gnome blocked that escape route. “Do you have any cold iron on you?” he asked her.

  She gave herself a quick pat-down then shook her head.

  Taking Daywen’s hand, Bel fled up the alley.