Page 23 of Paladin's Faith

“Yes.” And then, after an even longer moment, “I read.”

“That’s good.” Dear sweet Rat, I might actually be getting somewhere. “I like dramatic poetry, myself.”

He glanced at her again. “Have you read Erneste’s Idylls of Summer?”

“I have, actually.” She was a little surprised. Idylls of Summer had been quite popular the last few months, featuring lost loves, traumatic misunderstandings, and an inevitable deathbed redemption. “I thought it was well written, but soppy.”

Shane accepted this judgment somberly. She wondered too late if she’d mortally offended him. Is a man who chops up demons devouring literature where the improbably virtuous maiden dies of despair because she has been spurned by the boy she loved? “Did you enjoy it?” she asked.

He grunted.

Oh, lovely. You finally got him talking and you immediately insult his taste in reading material. She hurried to salvage matters. “I really liked the sequence where they explore the caverns, though. I could have read a hundred pages of that alone.”

“Yes!” Shane turned toward her, face suddenly animated. “The descriptions of the mushrooms, with the glowing insects living in the gills? And the echo creatures?”

“Those were lovely.” Good heavens. He makes a fine-looking wall, but when he’s interested in something, he’s practically incandescent. She tried to remember anything else that she knew about recent novels. “Has Erneste written anything else?”

Shane shook his head. “Not under that name. The poet prefers to remain anonymous.”

“Hmm. Someone must know who it is. I wonder if I could poke around the publisher and find out.”

Indecision crossed his face. “I am torn between intrigue and a desire to respect their privacy,” the paladin admitted.

“Ah,” said Marguerite lightly. “A commendable virtue. Not one I possess, mind you, but I admire it in others.” She winked and left him at the railing, feeling as if she had scored a minor victory.

That didn’t go too badly. Now, is there something else we can do to keep him from brooding at the railing for the rest of the trip?

Inspiration struck a few hours later, as she heard Wren chatting with the barge owner in Harshek, a language she was only somewhat familiar with. Language. Yes. She rounded up the pair of paladins. “Do either of you speak Dailian?”

“I do,” said Wren, in that language, “although my accent is the worst kind of country bumpkin.”

Marguerite laughed delightedly. “Where on earth did you learn to talk like that?”

“Growing up, believe it or not. Dailian is what we speak where we live, although it’s so far from what they speak in the cities that it’s practically a different language. They’re very clipped, and we drag our vowels out into next week.”

“But that’s wonderful! We want people to think you’re a minor rural noble, and you sound perfect.”

“My humiliation is the Rat’s gain,” said Wren.

“Bah. None of them will know the real you. You’re playing a role, like an actress. Everyone will think you are harmless and dismiss you and that means they won’t guard their tongues around you.” Marguerite glanced at Shane. “And you?”

He frowned. “I speak…little,” he said haltingly. “Speech is taught…in Temple. I listen more than speak.”

Marguerite nodded and switched back to the common tongue of Archenhold. “Most people at the Court of Smoke won’t actually use it. The higher nobles have taken to it as an affectation lately, claiming it’s a more civilized tongue. Might be useful on the job.”

“So what is this job actually going to entail?” said Wren. “Daring midnight raids? Blackmail? Torturing the secrets out of someone?”

“We are paladins. We do not torture secrets out of people,” said Shane sternly.

Marguerite snorted. “I think you have the wrong sort of idea about what I do. I’m not some kind of military infiltrator. I just talk to people and listen to what they say and pay attention to things. Very rarely am I…oh…stealing the invasion plans off someone’s desk in the middle of the night, say.”

“But you have done that?” asked Shane, with the faintest lift of one pale eyebrow.

She chuckled. “Stolen something off a desk? Once or twice, I suppose. Never for an actual invasion, though.”

“So you’re just listening to people?” asked Wren. “That’s it?”

“Sorry to disappoint.”