Page 22 of Paladin's Faith

Marguerite went down to her knees to enter the low cabin.

“You’re still growling,” said Wren. “Do you have something in your throat?”

“I’m fine.” He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on the surface of the river. “I don’t suppose you packed a hairshirt?”

“I don’t think they wear those at court. At least, not unless fashions have really changed.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Cheer up. We got the demon and we didn’t miss the boat.”

Shane summoned a smile for her benefit. Wren looked at it, shook her head sadly, and left him to his thoughts.

Marguerite was in a sour mood and was finding it hard to shake. Normally her disposition tended toward the sunny, if sardonic, but today she felt off-kilter.

The demon had been unsettling. She’d known they existed, of course, but there was something about actually seeing one, and realizing that no amount of cleverness and negotiation would get rid of the thing. Oof. At least there’s a chance, however small, of buying off an assassin. She’d done so once, last year, although it had been a very near thing and she’d had to threaten to throw herself and her coin purse off a bridge in the process. If I can’t talk my way out of something, I’m in a world of hurt.

It didn’t help that it was a gray, gloomy day on the water, or that Shane, who was capable of one of the sexiest voices she’d ever heard, was now communicating almost entirely in grunts.

“This is the last slow leg of the trip,” she said, as the team of mules on the shore plodded along and the boat moved slowly upstream.

“Mmmph,” Shane said.

“The food will be better once we get there.”

“Mmmph.”

“Then I thought perhaps we’d bronze one of the donkeys as a souvenir.”

“Mmmph.”

She gave up. She slept that night in one of the two small cabins, Wren alongside her. Shane slept on the deck, outside the cabin door, as if amphibious assassins might really swarm the barge during the night. The irony wasn’t lost on her, given that for once, she wasn’t worried about the Sail coming after her. There was simply nowhere on the barge for them to hide.

When she got up, Shane was already awake. He nodded to her as she emerged and then left without a word.

Is something wrong? Is it my breath?

He returned a few minutes later, carrying a steaming mug of tea, which he handed to her as formally as a knight presenting his sword to a king.

“Oh! Thank you.”

He nodded and returned to the railing. Well, at least he didn’t grunt. And he’s trying to be considerate. And at least he doesn’t loom the way that Stephen always did. She had to give Shane credit: he was, for a large armored man, remarkably unobtrusive. Beartongue’s influence, perhaps. Presumably formal audiences were less awkward if all eyes weren’t riveted on the big guy with the sword standing behind the bishop.

Still if I don’t find a way to get him talking in actual words soon, I may push him into the water and tell Beartongue a catfish got him.

She joined him at the railing. “So what do you do for fun?”

“Fun?” he said, his eyes darting toward her as if expecting a trap.

“Fun. Pleasure. Not for work. Hobbies.”

“I know what the word means.”

Marguerite had her doubts about that, but waited.

He was silent for so long that she thought maybe he simply wasn’t going to answer, then finally he cleared his throat and said, “I walk.”

Marguerite wasn’t quite sure whether walking counted as a hobby, but was willing to chance it. “Walk where?”

“Around the city. Sometimes across the river.”

She nodded. “There’s some pretty countryside over there.”