To her relief, she saw no great pain in Erik’s face, nor heard any in his voice when he spoke again. “It happens. You look to have done well.”
“I have.” She smoothed her hands down the crimson wool of her skirts. “Amber and wax from Muscovy this trip. Lighter than furs, and less likely to leave the crew scratching.”
“Only half frozen, I’d think.” Erik laughed.
“As long as it’s the right half, gold does a lot to thaw a man again.” The setting sun glinted red-gold off the water, catching Toinette’s eye. “Here, you didn’t come all this way just to compare our lives or ask for a rematch at archery, did you?”
“No, no more than I did to let you redeem yourself with a falcon. I need to hire myself a ship.”
“Welcome words. There’s a tavern down that way”—Toinette jerked a thumb to indicate where—“that’s half-decent if you watch the landlord while he’s pouring the wine. I’ve a mind to talk over meat and drink.”
* * *
The tavern was small and reasonably clean. The table wasn’t sticky, and the rushes had been changed within the last fortnight. Toinette had been right about the wine too, and the pottage, though mostly cabbage, tasted as if the bits of meat might truly have been rabbit.
Such qualities drew a number of guests, mostly the quieter sort of men from the docks by the look of them. None sat very close to Toinette or Erik, and all seemed absorbed in their own affairs. Still, Erik switched into Gaelic as he put down his spoon and asked, “You’ve perhaps heard of the Templars?”
Toinette thought for the time it took her to sip wine and put the cup back down. “Crusader knights, weren’t they? And maybe devil worshippers?” A hundred-odd years since their parting had left her accent rusty, but Erik could understand her well enough.
“Aye, so the king said at the time, I hear.” He hadn’t bothered about it much on that occasion. Moiread MacAlasdair had said she didn’t care if they’d each kissed Satan’s cold arse in person; the men didn’t matter, only their artifacts. “They had a great deal of treasure.”
“Had?”
“Philip claimed most of it.” Indeed, those who felt safe speaking of such matters suggested that greed had been the fuel for those pyres. Erik wouldn’t have been surprised. “But there are those who say he didn’t find all—that a small company of the knights smuggled some out and brought it to an island west of England. Of those tales, a few say that it wasn’t only gold. They speak of magic enough to reshape the world, or a part of it.”
Toinette’s crimson lips pursed. “Ah,” she said, amused. “And I daresay you’ve no wish to hire an English captain. The war progresses?”
“It does. That’s the reason I’m going,” Erik said. “It’s a small chance, but I’ll take it for my people’s sake.”
“How very loyal of you.”
As it had always done, her gaze grew remote when speaking of such matters, and the humor in her voice was lofty:These affairs have so little to interest me.When Erik was fifteen, he’d blushed and stammered and grown angry. When he was eighteen, he’d blushed and stammered for different reasons, and the anger had taken a distant place.
Toinette had been his first kiss. He’d never asked, but he was dead certain he hadn’t been hers.
Older, he drank wine and composed an answer. “There’s not so much fighting these days. We’re preparing for David to return. I’ve been told I can be most helpful in this manner.” When Toinette’s dark eyes didn’t waver, he added, “And I’d like a reason to be away just now.”
War grew weary for most men. For the dragon-blooded, it could be dangerous. Too much death without a respite could lead to bloodlust, or to enough distance from mortals that their lives became playthings. Artair MacAlasdair was very careful about such tendencies in his kin, even in the cadet branches.
“I’d imagine many people would,” said Toinette. “For all there are fewer men about, we’ll likely find a crew easily enough. But first,” she added, raising a slim sun-browned hand, “let us talk payment.”
Two
“And half the treasure,” said Toinette, pulling off her second boot and propping her feet up on the end of the bed.
“If treasure there be.” Marcus, already as horizontal as it was possible for a man to be, gave her a skeptical look from the depths of his pillow. “He’s chasing legends. Will you start too?”
“Iama legend.”
“Captaining one merchant ship doesn’t make you an Amazon.”
“A girl can dream.” Toinette didn’t correct him. While Marcus knew a great deal about her, his knowledge did not extend to her other form, and she was content to leave it that way. “Besides, that’s why I’m having him pay in advance, and pay well too. I’ve not gone soft in the head just because we made land.”
“Oh, I was just crediting it to old age.”
“Bear in mind,” Toinette said, giving him a baleful look, “that you sleep sounder than I do, young man.”
Marcus laughed. “You’d not kill me. What other man would you trust to share a bed and not to turn you out for better company half the nights?”
