“It’s not much,” he says, offering me the basket. “And probably rather wet now.”
I open the basket and gasp in delight. Oh, there aresausages. The little kind you can eat in a single bite. I pop one into my mouth and take the basket to the sideboard, and begin layingthings out: A loaf of bread and two kinds of cheese, wrapped in wax paper. Little sausages, a big sausage—the kind that needs to be sliced with a very sharp knife. Little tarts. “Where on earth did you steal all this from?” I say, delighted.
“I didn’t,” he says, humbly. “Earned my keep right honest, I did,” he adds, in that deep west-country accent he puts on sometimes.
“Bah,” I say. “I don’t believe it for a moment.”
“It’s true,” he says, plaintively. “How do you think I keep from starving to death?”
“Stealing pies off windowsills?” I suggest.
“Only during blackberry season,” he says. I snort. I happen to know from Sasha—who volunteered the information; I didn’t ask—that Bash is considered an interesting local attraction and kept reasonably well-fed by various interested townsfolk, as well as the princes.
“So you worked an honest day’s work and used your earnings to buy me dinner?” I smile at him. “That’sawfullyconventional, for a pirate.”
“Excuse me; I bought myselfdinner. I just happened to see the light on and figured I’d drop by and make sure you weren’t eating yet another turnip for dinner.”
I raise my nose in the air. “You specifically told me you boughtmedinner,” I say. “Not ten minutes ago.”
“Just pass me a sausage, will you?” he says. Feeling as though I’ve finally scored a point with him, I do.
“So,” he says, “you took your clothes off because…”
“I did,” I say, pouring myself another skosh of mead and joining him before the fire.
“Any particular reason?”
“It felt…nice?” I say.
“Well, look at that,” he says, smiling at me. “You did something for yourself.”
“Bash,” I say, feeling unaccountably bold. “Why do you keep stealing things? What did you leave here the first time you stole those books?”
“I told you,” he says, lightly. “It’s just basic high-seas etiquette. You never take something without leaving something in trade. You’ll figure out what I left the first time eventually. Now, about that mead.”
Surprised, I snort a little laugh, then cough to cover it up. “You said you don’t like mead.” I’m not sure I should be drinking mead, my clothes old and unbinding, my hairunbraided, with a pirate who thinks it’s funny to flirt with me, in a tiny room. Well,moremead.
“I said it was a bit sweet for me. I didn’t say I wouldn’t drink it.” He pauses. “If it were on offer.”
“And here you weren’t angling for a drink.”
“I wasn’t, but now the suggestion’s been made, I find myself thirsty.”
“I’m not sure this is a very good idea,” I say, trying to imitate one of my mother’s more prohibitive tones.
“And why’s that?” he says, his voice suddenly very deep and silky. I have never thought of anyone’s voice as silky before, and I find it disconcerting.
“Where am I meant to put you if you drink yourself silly on my floor?” I say, which strikes me as a very reasonable, even sensible, point to raise.
“Anywhere you like,” he says, and grins. His eyes flashing with something distinctly intimate. I blush.
“So that’s it, then?” I say. “You’re finished with the nice thoughtful dinner thing? We’re just flirting now?”
“Were we flirting? What an intriguing notion.”
I roll my eyes as I rise, and hand the bottle to him. Why stand on ceremony? Plus, if I give him a cup, he’d likely just take it. He’s welcome to the empty bottle.
“Lord Tardigard’s Broken Heart,” he says, reading the label. “How peculiar.”
