Page 45 of Paladin's Faith

“The Bishop places too much trust in me.”

“I doubt that.” Marguerite reached for the door handle. “The Bishop doesn’t strike me as a trusting soul.”

“She trusted you on this mission.”

“Yes. But only because you’re here to watch me.” She grinned and closed the door on Shane’s sudden startled expression.

NINETEEN

Shane lay in bed with his arms behind his head and contemplated the sins of the flesh.

He had not wanted a woman’s body so badly in years. After the Saint’s death, lust had faded to another merely physical need. A generous servant of the Rat had met those needs, and he liked to think that she had not gone away unsatisfied from the bargain, but it had meant little more than eating or drinking. He knew that she had taken other lovers and he had been neither surprised nor jealous.

And then Marguerite had come along and suddenly those hungers roared back to life as if they had never left at all.

He had done well. He had almost convinced himself that it had simply been too long and that his response when he touched her after her fall was nothing but the aftermath of adrenaline. You made too much of it. You always do. You drag guilt into every interaction. Even the moments since were only the appetites of a man working closely with an attractive woman.

Then Marguerite had looked at him with clear admiration and grinned like a cat presented with a bowl of cream and he had been a heartbeat from doing something…rash. Something that he would definitely have to feel guilty about.

It wasn’t even that she was beautiful. She was, of course, with those curves and breasts and thighs, but she would likely have been beautiful no matter what her body looked like. Marguerite carried herself as if she were beautiful, and the rest of the world simply fell in line behind her.

It was that confidence that drew Shane the most. Having so little of his own, hers blazed like a torch before him. She reminded him of Bishop Beartongue in that regard. Both women had an assurance that owed nothing to arrogance, but to an absolute knowledge of their own abilities and a rock-solid belief that they would never let themselves down.

For Shane, with the constant whisper of failure and ruin in his ears, the pull was undeniable. Tell me what you want of me, he wanted to say. Tell me what you believe I can do. Tell me how not to fail you, and I will serve.

You could not say such things to another person.

She isn’t like Beartongue, though. She’s a spy. She tells rich merchants how to corner the market on lace. Just because this time she wants to do something that Beartongue believes is a good idea doesn’t mean that she’s usually on the side of angels.

She’d also saved all their lives once. Shane felt like an ingrate for suspecting the worst of her, then immediately felt naïve for assuming that she hadn’t done it for reasons of her own.

Suppose your wildest fantasies came true and she was willing to take you into her service and into her bed. How long before you were complicit in acts that only served to grind the poor underfoot and make rich men richer? Over something as ridiculous as lace?

If you were an unstoppable killing machine, it was very helpful to have a god providing your moral direction. In the absence of the Saint, the paladins had a bishop. But in the absence of the bishop…

The gods help us all. Shane thought briefly of Judith, wherever she had gone, and prayed that she did not find herself alone in some ethical quagmire. Though she’d likely handle it better than I would. And at least she wouldn’t tie herself in knots being attracted to someone.

He finally accepted that he was not going to sleep any time soon, got to his feet, dressed quietly, and went to go find the drink that Ossien had suggested.

The bar was exactly as advertised, a small, unpretentious place with a number of tables and a long counter on one side. Ossien was sitting at it, and hailed Shane with a wave when he came in. “Hey, knight. What are you drinking?”

“My sins,” muttered Shane, mostly to himself.

“They got beer and whiskey. Either of those answer?”

“Beer.”

“Sorry there’s no better,” said the bartender, sliding a mug across the bar to him. “It’s the strike, you know.”

Shane didn’t actually know. Ossien explained. “The boatmen on the lake are on strike. Say they’re done working all hours moving goods for the privilege of being treated like dirt by the Court. So they’re demanding better. No goods coming here from the highlands, none going back across until they get it.” He tilted his mug. “The best drink comes out of the highlands, though, so we’re left with this in the meantime.”

“Lowland swill,” muttered the bartender, by way of agreement.

Shane raised an eyebrow. “Won’t such a strike hurt those on the far side more? It seems like it would be much easier to move goods to the Court by the river than overland into the highlands.”

“Oh, aye,” said the bartender. “Any other season, they’d be laughed out of the place. But Court’s on right now, and either the boatmen get what they want or the fancy lords start to notice that they’re running short of beer and meat and dainties among other things. And they’ll stay short for at least a month, too. Can’t just magic up a full court’s worth of meat overnight.”

Ossien nodded acknowledgment and lifted his mug in the general direction of the lake and, presumably, the boatmen. “Best time to strike. The big man in charge this year won’t want to be known as the one who made his guests eat salt fish instead of…I dunno, pickled partridge, whatever these people eat. So they do it now and they’ve got him. He’ll yowl and threaten but he’s stuck and they know it.”