Both looked hale enough, and no more aged than Erik remembered them, setting his mind at ease about how much time the journey through the temple and the battle with the un-ark had really taken. The swords at the men’s waists gleamed with the purple fire of their spell, lighter and more bluish in hue than the un-ark’s magic had been, and both, now that John had delivered his warning, waited warily as Toinette and Erik drew within human conversational distance.
“Captain?” Raoul asked.
Toinette nodded. “My mother’s name was Galitia. You signed on in a tavern in Bordeaux. John there spends half his pay on beads and ribbons for his wife. Tried to bring a monkey back to his children once, but it died a week out. For Christ’s sake, let us come in and eat something.”
“And I was fostered in England,” Erik added.
John and Raoul began to laugh, and Toinette joined them. Exhausted as he was, and perhaps because he was exhausted, Erik was swept up in the wave of mirth as well. They stood laughing together on the beach as the other men came to see what the commotion was, curiosity becoming surprise and then elation.
* * *
Perspective is the damnedest thing. A mostly whole dress, a skin of water, a side of roasted fish, and a good half-pound of boiled nettles made Toinette as content as she could imagine any king being on his throne—maybe more, considering kings and kingdoms. Being able to sit down, take off her boots, and stretch her feet out in front of a fire had her making noises of bliss around each mouthful she took.
“You both look like you’ve been dragged backward through hell,” said Marcus.
He’d taken Toinette’s face between his hands when she’d first sat down and peered into her eyes for a long time, until she’d swatted at his arms and said that if she was evil, she’d have killed them all by now. “That’s not why I was looking,” he’d responded, but had refused to say more.
“Not inaccurate,” Erik replied. “Best we tell all the story later. But we did win.”
“Of course,” said John, who’d been the first to embrace Erik after they’d all stopped laughing.
Samuel passed another slice of fish over to Toinette. “We saw the light go very bright two evenings ago,” he said, “and then it turned red, and finally vanished. The woods haven’t been as bad since.”
“We’ve not had dreams either,” said Raoul, and then looked embarrassed, “saving the normal sort of nightmare, that is.”
“Plenty of fuel for those,” said Erik.
Toinette remembered the church, and the faces the un-ark had shown her, and grimaced. Memory faded, though. That was one of the good things about being mortal, even as vaguely mortal as she and Erik were.
“Then we’ve done well,” said Sence, in a tone that suggested that was all the question that would ever need settling.
Franz, eating quietly, looked as though he agreed. When Toinette had apologized for the loss of his rosary, he’d smiled. “No bowman gets all his arrows back,” he’d said.
“But you’re wounded,” said John.
Toinette shrugged. “Nothing that won’t heal in time. And you should see the other fellow.”
* * *
After dinner, they bathed in the ocean. Salt water would counter any lingering magic, Erik thought, and was good for wounds, Marcus said. Toinette invoked several different saints during the process, but the tone she used wasn’t likely to get help from any of them.
Itdidsting, besides being almost freezing. Clothing and a place by the fire were very welcome afterward.
Then, all precautions taken and with full stomachs to hearten them, Erik and Toinette told the men what had happened in the temple. It was Toinette who did most of the talking, while Erik chimed in with details every so often. They addressed her crew, he thought; she should be the one in charge of it.
She skimmed over details, saying only that the inside of the temple “made no sense” and “changed to be places from memory,” but she did speak of the man they’d killed, and of Adnet and his fellow knights. Silence crept in around her tale then: her audience, as she and Erik had done at the time, thought long of the Templars and their fate. Sence and Franz crossed themselves first, with most of the others following suit.
Of the light, neither of them spoke much, nor of their contact with the mind of the un-ark. The memory of that hungry, hateful version of intelligence would likely stay with Erik until his dying day. He wouldn’t wish it, even secondhand, on anyone else.
“…and we came away just as the whole lot of it fell in on itself,” Toinette finished.
“Then,” Samuel said, “are we free?”
“It stands to reason,” said Erik, “but there’s no way of being certain until we try.”
“So hope,” said Marcus, “but not too high. And no matter what, be glad we’re not sharing the place with that thing any longer. That’ll be a good thought to take to sleep.”
He spoke with the force of command, and none there gainsaid him. Raoul went out for watch, while the others took their accustomed places by the fire—all except for Toinette.
