“My brother is older than you think.” Trystan mentally rolled his eyes. Now he was lying like Mariel. “We’ll be leaving now, gentlemen,” he said politely, holding his sword up until Nick had time to reach the door.
Apparently summoned by some concerned citizen, a burly soldier darkened the doorway before they could escape. “What is the meaning of this, Père Joseph?”
“Take the boy to the church,” the taller priest commanded. “We will deal with his molester.”
The soldier grabbed for Nick, who dodged, ducked beneath his arm, and darted out the door, still pulling on his new shirt.
Wondering what sin he’d committed for the gods to test his patience like this, Trystan used his rapier to neatly slice the buttons from the priest’s cassock, forcing Père Joseph to grab his robe closed while Trystan turned on the soldier raising his rusty musket. After years of practice in undressing his fellow Aelynners with his sword, Trystan considered Other Worlders much too slow to be fun.
Flashing his rapier for distraction, Trystan nicked the soldier’s musket hand with his sword before the man had fully raised the gun. Shoving the yelping soldier aside, Trystan raced after Nick.
He had a hunch that he had just committed the cardinal sin of using his supernatural abilities to interfere in the Other World. Using them in defense of himself or his men might be excusable, but Nick was not one of his men.
Thirteen
Mariel hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but the downy mattress and quilt that had arrived after her bath had been too tempting to resist. She didn’t know where Trystan had found them, and she ought to return them and get his coins back, but she was so very tired…
The next thing she knew, Nick and Trystan crashed through the bedroom door, jarring her awake. While Mariel stumbled groggily to her feet, Nick slid under the bed at the golden pirate’s urging. Garbed only in her threadbare corset and chemise, Mariel wrapped herself in her old cloak for modesty while Trystan shut the door.
Still wearing gentleman’s silks and polished boots, hair neatly clubbed, looking for all the world as if he owned the ground he walked on, Trystan slammed the bolt home. Arrogantly unhurried, he crossed the room to press a kiss to her forehead. “Lie,” he murmured, before sitting on the windowsill and swinging out.
She checked to see that the quilt concealed Nick but didn’t dare glance out the window. She could hear heavy feet racing up the stairs, and from the panting and gasping, the new arrivals had been led a merry chase. They would not be in a good humor.
It would have been nice if she knew what this was all about. But there were only four doors up here, and theirs was the first. With a loud kick, the panel slammed against the bar and splintered.
Without missing a beat, Mariel screamed.
A shabby soldier and a skeletal priest with badly buttoned cassock froze in the act of removing the bar with an ancient musket. She shrieked hysterically, wrapping her cloak tighter, backing toward the window as the door fell open.
“Thieves! Murderers! Help me!” she wailed, staring at the intruders in what she hoped was wide-eyed horror. “Shame, shame on you! May you roast in hell for masquerading as men of honor!”
“A thousand pardons, madame,” the priest muttered, covering his eyes so as not to see her dishabille. “We but seek a boy…”
“Out!” Mariel screamed. “You cannot break in on a woman alone without causing shame and dishonor! Oh, help me, someone,” she shouted to any within hearing. If naught else, she’d gather an audience and embarrass the men to death.
With hastily muttered apologies, the priest tugged the soldier’s arm, and the men backed out, gently closing the remains of the door after them.
From beneath the bed, Nick snickered.
Trystan swung his large frame back through the window, blocking the sunlight. “That won’t fool them for long. Hurry,” he ordered, without expression. “Get dressed.”
Mariel arched an eyebrow and didn’t open her cloak at his command.
“I’ll not look, madame,” Nick whispered from under the bed. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
Mariel continued to stare pointedly at Trystan who didn’t seem to grasp her meaning, even after Nick’s polite apology. Boots clattered up and down the hall, accompanied by much shouting. If the sea god thought she would panic and leap to his bidding because of those laughable clowns, he needed to learn a thing or two about her. He might be tall and forbidding and accustomed to people jumping when he ordered, but he didn’t frighten her.
She gestured with her fingers, indicating that Trystan turn around. Finally enlightened, he scowled and obeyed.
“How do you propose we leave once I’m dressed?” she asked, hurriedly stepping into the gown that had arrived with the mattress. Trystan had obviously had a busy evening. She would be grateful for his thoughtfulness if she wasn’t so worried over what trouble he’d raised now. They’d only just arrived, and he already had the authorities after him. He should have listened when she said he needed her aid. Men! They were too cocksure of themselves.
“I sense the river is nearby. I wish I had the weathermaker here,” he said in frustration, while gripping the sill in both hands. “I cannot do much without Aelynn’s heat.”
Since this made no sense to her, Mariel continued tying the tapes of the splendid lavender silk he’d bought for her. She’d not had anything so fine since Papa had died. Unfortunately, the fashionable skirt required a host of loops, tapes, and underpinnings to tie up the acres of frail finery or it would drag on the ground.
Lacking time to loop and tape, she hurriedly slid her arms into the elbow-length sleeves of the bodice and hooked the front. The lacing in back wasn’t tight enough, and the waist sagged. Her heavy stockings and wooden sabots looked ridiculous with the delicate garment, and she had no embroidered petticoat to add the layers of bounce the fashion required. She was tall. She would simply leave the skirt to trail on the floor like a train.
“What have you done to anger both church and state?” she asked as she struggled with the last of the hooks.
“Didn’t give them what they wanted,” Trystan suggested. “Are they accustomed to taking whatever they see?”
Mariel thought about that. “Depends on their level of honesty. Mostly, people don’t question authority.”
“That explains this rash of petty despots,” he muttered.
The noise in the hall had become that of muttered curses. She didn’t know how dire the problem was nor how soon they would dare her screams again. She fought the last loose hook with shaking hands.
“What now?” she asked, lifting her coarse cloak and wincing at the contrast to the silk.
“Give me the cloak. Nick, out from there.” Coat tails pulled back to reveal narrow hips and muscular thighs in tight breeches—and the hilts of his rapier and sword—Trystan examined the dim light of the window that had just displayed the rays of a clear sunset.
Oddly, the sunny day had turned dark and foggy while Mariel had dressed.
When Trystan turned to face her again, she basked in the admiring gaze he finally bestowed upon her. Of course, he’d seen her with next to nothing on, but she preferred the protection of silk and flounces under these circumstances. The lace covering her bosom was so sheer that it daringly revealed the shadow between her breasts. The gossamer fabric didn’t prevent heat from rising at his prolonged stare.
“Can you pin your hair up the way ladies do?” he asked, his gaze focused on her bosom. “I like your curls the way they are, but we need you to distract our pursuers.”
“Ladies wear their hair powdered,” she pointed out, reaching for the pins she’d discarded before her bath. The angry stomps in the hall echoed closer.
“No matter. There isn’t time. I apologize for this, but you will fare better with us gone. I’ll find Nick’s family and return in the morning.”
He pressed a hard kiss to her forehead. Then, resolutely, he flung the shabby cloak around his broad shoulders, and
grabbed the back of Nick’s shirt to point at some feature outside the window. Before she could protest, Trystan had thrown his powerful leg over the sill, and the pair disappeared from sight.
It was impossible for a man that large not to be noticed, even in the back alley of an inn. Branded by the too-brief kiss, Mariel fumed as she skirted around the bed to look outside, fearing she’d see them marched off at the point of a gun.
A mist shrouded the alley and swirled up the side of the building, masking all sight of the pair or anything else.
Lost in amazement that a pea soup that thick could have risen so quickly on a warm summer evening, she jumped, startled, at the pounding on the door, even though she’d been expecting it. Giving another puzzled glance out the window, she dallied before answering the knock. Ladies never hurried.
She gave her hair a last pat, brushed down her elegant skirt before laying the train gently over her arm, then donned a vapid smile and cracked open the broken door. Peering through the gap, she raised her eyebrows in mock surprise and dismay at seeing the earlier intruders returned. “This is most unseemly, monsieurs. Must I call the innkeeper?”
“Begging your pardon, madame, but we have been slandered and attacked by rogues who may be threatening you, for all we know,” the soldier said stiffly. “We must search your room. Please to stand in the hall where you will be safe.”
“Threatening me?” She strived for the querulous tone of the Vicomtess Rochefort. “I cannot imagine such a thing. Were you not in uniform, I would not allow this insult. I am awaiting my maid’s return. This is truly invasive. I would speak to the baroness of this as soon as I see her, but I detest ruining her nuptials with such chicanery.”
She rattled on, delaying them by adjusting her skirts and patting her hair before stepping into the hall and standing in their way until she was certain they would like nothing better than to throw her down the stairs. “What is the meaning of this, precisely?” she continued. “I should think a soldier ought to be able to stop spineless thieves. And does the church now assist in apprehending lawbreakers? I know my husband insists that travel widens one’s mind, but I say people in these parts are barely more than heathens, if this is how they treat visitors.”
Finally shoving past her, the soldier hurried into the room and opened the window to peer into the fog. The priest merely glanced under the bed and behind the door. Both looked puzzled and irritated, but not bright enough to question a lady they’d insulted and harassed.
With many apologies and bows, they backed out. She shut the door and listened as they clattered back down the stairs.
She’d dealt with officious men all her life, so she wasn’t particularly surprised that she’d driven these off, but she was absolutely dying of curiosity, and her wretched companion didn’t intend to return to satisfy her interest until morning. What was she supposed to do in the meantime? Twiddle her thumbs? Flap her eyelashes?
She’d eaten the meal the innkeeper had sent up. She’d rested. She was garbed in this lovely gown. As much as she’d like to fling off the silk and climb between the covers and sleep for a week, she wouldn’t let a little weakness stop her from her purpose.
She’d come to get the chalice. And so she would. The sooner she could send the temptation of Trystan out of her life, the faster she would return to normal.
A part of her wondered if she really wanted to return to her dull, restricted life, but she ignored it. Francine and her babe were her reality, not silk dresses and adventures with enigmatic sea gods.
***
“We probably shouldn’t be seen together,” Trystan said quietly, not looking at the boy following him. The fog that he’d created had begun to dissipate, unable to sustain itself for long without the aid of Aelynn or the weathermaker. Shadowy figures could already be discerned through the lifting mist. “This isn’t a large town. I can ask after your family in the tavern if you can find a safe place to hide.”
“You don’t like working with others, do you?” Nick asked, pretending to linger at a shop window a pace behind him. “I’ll meet you here when the bell rings nine.”
He and Waylan and Nevan worked together, Trystan thought righteously, striding off. Well, they each had their own tasks and did them in conjunction, at least. He was the diplomat who dealt with port authorities and merchants and so forth.
He just happened to like doing things his own way. As a future leader, he’d learned early that people preferred to be told what to do. Since he enjoyed telling them, it worked out well.
Beneath the cloak, he tugged off his silks and donned the leather jerkin of a working man he’d bought at the second-hand shop. He stuffed his expensive garments into a canvas shoulder bag he’d also purchased there. Covering his hair with a cap, he entered a smoky, ill-lit tavern, pointed at a tankard of what everyone else seemed to be drinking, and prepared to locate Nick’s family.
“It is taxation without representation, just like in the Americas,” he overheard his neighbor say to a group gathered around him.
“We elected Pierre to go to Paris,” a frock-coated gentleman at a table on the other side of the speaker said. “Save your lawyer’s sedition for the courtroom.”
So much for thinking he was entering a rural tavern of phlegmatic farmers. Trystan considered donning his coat again but decided against it. There were enough men in shirtsleeves that he did not stand out.
“Pierre is a nobleman’s son, just like you, chevalier,” a farmer in manure-encrusted boots argued. “He may agree to accept taxation if the Assembly does, but he will never agree to change the way things are and make us equal.”
Despite what the American colonists claimed, all men weren’t created equal, Trystan mused. He couldn’t raise a thunderstorm as Waylan could. Waylan couldn’t practice diplomacy if his life depended upon it.
On the other side of the lawyer, the scholarly gentleman who’d been addressed as chevalier finished his drink and pushed back from the table. “People are rioting for bread that cannot be had. Soldiers are raising arms against women and children. The Assembly has illegally declared itself above the king’s command. The natural order is being disturbed by these wayward notions. You cannot change the way things have always been done. The nobility have wealth and education and are better able to govern than a chicken farmer and a cabbage picker. God gave us the tasks we were meant to do.”
Trystan started to nod in agreement, but the worrisome mention of riots and the chevalier’s pompous tone forced him to stop and reconsider. If he believed the gods had given him his talent for languages and protecting Aelynn, then why would they take away the task for which he was destined and banish him? Might mankind not mistake the intention of the gods?
And if soldiers were raising arms against protesting women and children in Paris, did that mean the militia he’d seen might turn their muskets against the villagers arguing in the streets of Mariel’s home? Should people be killed for speaking their differing opinions?
“Oh, heaven forbid that we change the way things have always been done,” the lawyer said mockingly, interrupting Trystan’s struggle to grasp the country’s politics. “The Africans have always been slaves, so thus they must stay into eternity. Kings have always murdered their brothers, and so they must continue. The Queen of France eats cake while her citizens starve. Let us introduce no innovation!”
“De Berrier will not have it any other way,” the chicken farmer echoed, gesturing toward the chevalier.
Uh oh. Trystan watched the man in the frock coat—de Berrier—shrug dismissively.
“The problem is that no one understands economics or heeds the lessons of history. That must be corrected.” Without waiting for disagreement, the chevalier walked out.
Draining his cup, Trystan was about to follow the scholarly de Berrier when the argument picked up again.
“Did you not hear, you stupid peasant?” the lawyer asked without anger. “De Berrier is to marry a wealthy baroness and inherits the guardianship of a rich
little boy. He has high connections and the court listens when he speaks. He has been called to Versailles to give advice on financial matters there, where he can earn a better title and lands than the duc can provide.”
The farmer growled threateningly. “We will see about that on the morrow. If we are as strong as our comrades in Paris who march against the king’s injustice, we will show the chevalier and the duc that they cannot feast while we starve.”
Trystan rolled his eyes heavenward. Why me? he inquired of any gods listening. All I want is your chalice back. I’m not the revolutionary sort.
But if Mariel and young Nick were caught in an uprising, it would be his fault. And he could not hand the boy over to a man who might use Nick’s inheritance to gain a king’s favor. He needed to find out more.
Trystan lifted his finger and ordered another round.
It would be easy enough to find de Berrier later, when the rebels stuffed the arrogant scholar down a privy. For now, he’d listen and learn.
Fourteen
After leaving the tavern, Trystan still had no idea what to do about Nick, but he did know he had to find the chalice and escape before they were caught up in a protest that could easily lead to riot and violence. He was incapable of running away from a fight, particularly in defense of the helpless, and he would most certainly end up breaking Aelynn law. The noose kept tightening around his neck, and he squirmed inside the confounded neckcloth this society required that he wear.
Local gossip confirmed Nick’s story of de Berrier being his relation. There seemed to be a warrant on the boy’s head, but like everything else in this country, politics decided whether anyone believed the murder was justified or not.
As the church bells chimed nine, Trystan hurried to the store where Nick should be waiting. The boy wasn’t there.
Alarmed, he paced back and forth for another five minutes, cursing himself for leaving a thief alone. Nick had no reason to trust Trystan, or vice versa. He should be relieved that he had one less obstacle to his goal. Instead, he worried.
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