Foster was riding a few lengths back, not that Marguerite was really worried about him, either. “I fear it’s not nearly as exciting a story as yours.” She sorted mentally through a half-dozen cover stories, and settled on one that was more or less true, though it glossed over some of the grimmer details. “I was a page in the Merchant’s Guild in Anuket City. Most of the pages there are by-blows of the various members, so presumably I was as well.” This was true, in fact, although she knew exactly whose bastard she was. Her grandfather had been a shipping magnate, and when his son had the poor
taste to sire half a dozen children on the wrong side of the sheets, they had all wound up as pages. It was a way to care for them without having to acknowledge anyone, and if any of the youngsters showed talent, they were within easy reach.
Marguerite had indeed shown talent, although not for business. At least, not for the business of trading physical goods. “I was very good at listening. Pages are nearly invisible, and even people who should know better let things slip in front of us. Eventually that talent attracted notice from certain factions within the Guild. First they pay you for information, then they start sending you out specifically to collect more information…” She lifted a hand from the reins and waggled it back and forth. “There’s not a specific point where you wake up and realize that you’re an operative. You just keep going along and meeting more people and chatting to them and learning who is interested in buying what information, and then it’s twenty-odd years later and you’re off to the Court of Smoke, trying to figure out where a stray artificer has gotten off to.”
This was also true, so far as it went. Mostly. If you squinted.
Wren cocked an eyebrow at her. “I doubt it’s as simple as you’re making it sound.”
“No, but I doubt learning to swing a sword was that simple, either.” Wren’s expression made Marguerite want to laugh. “Honestly, being an operative is frequently very boring. For every time you’re smuggling information out of a powerful warlord’s bedroom, you spend a month sitting and watching one particular bar, waiting to see who shows up.” (This was not a lie, but the truth was that these days, Marguerite paid people to sit in bars for her.)
Shane surprised her by offering a comment. “We often marched a great deal,” he said, “and waited a great deal, merely to be in place for a battle that might last less than an hour.”
“Yes,” she said, turning to nod at him. “Exactly like that.” Internally, she exulted that she’d gotten the man to talk at all. Perhaps he simply needs time to warm up to new people. He might even be shy.
A shy berserker. Well, why not?
She would have liked to draw him out more, but unfortunately the road grew busier as they approached a market town, and they went back to riding single-file.
They were passing a drover with a line of bored-looking cattle when disaster struck.
A dog came out of nowhere, barking at the cows. Most of them ignored the animal, but one youngster made a deep sound of alarm and kicked up his heels. The drover turned to get him back in line when the dog darted forward and nipped savagely at another cow’s hocks.
The cow jumped forward, startled, swinging her head to look at the dog. Marguerite’s mare was sufficiently placid that neither the sound nor the motion bothered her much, though she did manage a rather graceless sidestep. Marguerite tightened the reins just as the cow kicked out in a panic.
The cow’s aim was good, if slow. The dog was fast enough to dodge, but dodging put it practically under the mare’s hooves, and suddenly there was a barking dog and a kicking cow and the mare was no longer feeling placid at all. Marguerite had time to think, Oh shit and then the horse
went up on her hind legs to avoid stepping on the dog and crow-hopped sideways and the dog went nuts and the cow kicked again and the drover was yelling and she lost her seat on the saddle and the horse came down and Marguerite fell off and the ground came up to meet her.
SEVEN
“EASY…” someone said in her ear. “Easy. Don’t move. I’m right here.”
Marguerite wanted to say that she was fine, she hadn’t even lost consciousness in the fall, but her head was still ringing and adrenaline was a cold wash through her veins. She wasn’t quite sure how long it had been. She didn’t think she’d blacked out, but there had been a long few seconds when the world was going whommmmm around her and she had been carefully not moving, in case it didn’t stop.
The horse hadn’t stepped on her. That was the important thing. It would be extremely annoying to have dodged the Sail for several years, only to have her career ended with a badly placed hoof.
“Easy,” he said again. A man, but she didn’t quite recognize his voice. “Easy. Hold still. I’m going to check your neck. Don’t move. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Of course you’re right there, she thought. She would have been annoyed but there was something incredibly soothing about the way he spoke. She could not remember the last voice she’d heard that was so gentle, so trustworthy. She wanted to trust that voice, to believe that everything really was okay.
Strong fingers moved down the back of her neck. “Does this hurt at all?”
She tried to shake her head and the hands immediately locked into place, holding her head still with unexpected strength. “No, don’t do that. Tell me. Can you talk?”
“I can talk,” she said. Her mouth was full of sand and more got in when she opened it.
“Good, good.” That voice made speaking sound like a great accomplishment. “You’re doing good.
Tell me if anything hurts.”
“My knee hurts like the devil.”
A deep, sympathetic noise. “We’ll get there in a minute. Can you wiggle your fingers?”
Marguerite wiggled them obediently. “Good girl. Does your head hurt?” He slid his hands across her skull. “Any sore spots?”
“There.”
He fell silent, fingers gently working over the soreness. “Nothing soft,” he said after a moment.
“Nothing bleeding. Can you focus your eyes?”
He’s a healer. Of course. I should have realized before. That was the kind of voice it was. Calm and kind and absolutely in control of the situation. Marguerite could recognize it now, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying it. There was a nagging familiarity to it, though. Had they met before? And where were the paladins when she was lying injured on the dirt with a strange man poking her head?
“I can focus just fine,” she said. “There’s a pebble in front of me shaped vaguely like a goat. I can’t say it’s terribly interesting. Can I move yet?” She hadn’t slept on her stomach since she was thirteen and her breasts were squashed in uncomfortable ways.
“Just a little longer. You’re doing very well.” She felt his thumbs settle on either side of her spine, moving lower. His forearm brushed her back. There was nothing remotely sexual about his touch, but Marguerite was incredibly aware of his presence. Those hands…and that voice. Damn. He’s got to be taken. Men who sound like that never stay on the market for long.
She really wanted to see his face. Maybe she’d be lucky and he’d have a face like a frog’s ass and the other women in his life had all been terribly shallow and she could sweep in and prove to him that looks were all a matter of attitude anyway and what mattered was who you were on the inside and…