Forty-Three

“They’ve come back!” Raoul bolted upward from his former seat on the rock and started forward to meet Toinette and Erik, until John caught him by the arm.

“So it seems.” The happiness in the older man’s face was tempered by caution.

Both looked hale enough, and no more aged than Erik remembered them, setting his mind at ease about how much time the journey through the temple and the battle with the un-ark had really taken. The swords at the men’s waists gleamed with the purple fire of their spell, lighter and more bluish in hue than the un-ark’s magic had been, and both, now that John had delivered his warning, waited warily as Toinette and Erik drew within human conversational distance.

“Captain?” Raoul asked.

Toinette nodded. “My mother’s name was Galitia. You signed on in a tavern in Bordeaux. John there spends half his pay on beads and ribbons for his wife. Tried to bring a monkey back to his children once, but it died a week out. For Christ’s sake, let us come in and eat something.”

“And I was fostered in England,” Erik added.

John and Raoul began to laugh, and Toinette joined them. Exhausted as he was, and perhaps because he was exhausted, Erik was swept up in the wave of mirth as well. They stood laughing together on the beach as the other men came to see what the commotion was, curiosity becoming surprise and then elation.

* * *

Perspective is the damnedest thing. A mostly whole dress, a skin of water, a side of roasted fish, and a good half-pound of boiled nettles made Toinette as content as she could imagine any king being on his throne—maybe more, considering kings and kingdoms. Being able to sit down, take off her boots, and stretch her feet out in front of a fire had her making noises of bliss around each mouthful she took.

“You both look like you’ve been dragged backward through hell,” said Marcus.

He’d taken Toinette’s face between his hands when she’d first sat down and peered into her eyes for a long time, until she’d swatted at his arms and said that if she was evil, she’d have killed them all by now. “That’s not why I was looking,” he’d responded, but had refused to say more.

“Not inaccurate,” Erik replied. “Best we tell all the story later. But we did win.”

“Of course,” said John, who’d been the first to embrace Erik after they’d all stopped laughing.

Samuel passed another slice of fish over to Toinette. “We saw the light go very bright two evenings ago,” he said, “and then it turned red, and finally vanished. The woods haven’t been as bad since.”

“We’ve not had dreams either,” said Raoul, and then looked embarrassed, “saving the normal sort of nightmare, that is.”

“Plenty of fuel for those,” said Erik.

Toinette remembered the church, and the faces the un-ark had shown her, and grimaced. Memory faded, though. That was one of the good things about being mortal, even as vaguely mortal as she and Erik were.

“Then we’ve done well,” said Sence, in a tone that suggested that was all the question that would ever need settling.

Franz, eating quietly, looked as though he agreed. When Toinette had apologized for the loss of his rosary, he’d smiled. “No bowman gets all his arrows back,” he’d said.

“But you’re wounded,” said John.

Toinette shrugged. “Nothing that won’t heal in time. And you should see the other fellow.”

* * *

After dinner, they bathed in the ocean. Salt water would counter any lingering magic, Erik thought, and was good for wounds, Marcus said. Toinette invoked several different saints during the process, but the tone she used wasn’t likely to get help from any of them.

It did sting, besides being almost freezing. Clothing and a place by the fire were very welcome afterward.

Then, all precautions taken and with full stomachs to hearten them, Erik and Toinette told the men what had happened in the temple. It was Toinette who did most of the talking, while Erik chimed in with details every so often. They addressed her crew, he thought; she should be the one in charge of it.

She skimmed over details, saying only that the inside of the temple “made no sense” and “changed to be places from memory,” but she did speak of the man they’d killed, and of Adnet and his fellow knights. Silence crept in around her tale then: her audience, as she and Erik had done at the time, thought long of the Templars and their fate. Sence and Franz crossed themselves first, with most of the others following suit.

Of the light, neither of them spoke much, nor of their contact with the mind of the un-ark. The memory of that hungry, hateful version of intelligence would likely stay with Erik until his dying day. He wouldn’t wish it, even secondhand, on anyone else.

“…and we came away just as the whole lot of it fell in on itself,” Toinette finished.

“Then,” Samuel said, “are we free?”

“It stands to reason,” said Erik, “but there’s no way of being certain until we try.”

“So hope,” said Marcus, “but not too high. And no matter what, be glad we’re not sharing the place with that thing any longer. That’ll be a good thought to take to sleep.”

He spoke with the force of command, and none there gainsaid him. Raoul went out for watch, while the others took their accustomed places by the fire—all except for Toinette.

Rising from her seat, she lifted her chin, then came over to settle herself against Erik’s side. At first her limbs were tense, as though she waited for a challenge, but none came and she let out a breath when Erik put his arms around her. He saw her look across the fire, meeting Marcus’s eyes, and then saw the other man smile rather triumphantly.

“Hmm?” Erik asked Toinette under his breath.

She made a face. “He was right, the bastard. Bless him.”

* * *

Battered, patched, ransacked for supplies, the Hawk still floated, and Toinette still stood steadier on her deck than anywhere else. With her hand on the wheel, she scanned the cloudy sky above and then looked to the crew at their places.

The wind was right. The tide was right. Visio dei had shown that the island’s center was oddly empty, but the black-purple web from before had crumbled entirely away. Unless they waited through the winter, there was likely no better time.

“Very well,” she said. “Let’s cast off.”

She held her breath as the ropes dropped away and the sails snapped out. She would have wagered that every man aboard did the same.

And yet it was easy, almost the smoothest launch Toinette had ever made. The Hawk caught the tide at once, with never a bump or a sense of dragging the bottom. Wind filled the sails almost immediately. Perhaps, Toinette thought, the spirits of wind and water were themselves glad to be free, eager as long-tied dogs.

Within a few minutes, they were out past the point where the wind had turned before. They’d almost made the open ocean before Toinette recalled herself and grabbed the wheel, laughing. “Bring her about!” she called to a crew who’d stood as astonished as she’d been. “We’ve a day of provisioning still to go.”

She didn’t add anything, not wanting to tempt fate, but the rest of the words were in her heart regardless: And then we make for home.

* * *

“Right now,” said Erik, “I can see why you take so much joy in the sea.”

In the dawn light, the island receded behind them. The cabin would stand empty. Perhaps one day others would use it for shelter and wonder who’d come before, just as they might survey the graves on the beach. Perhaps the woods would retake the cabin before another set of human eyes looked on the island.

The wind was chilly against Erik’s face, but he wouldn’t have traded it, or the smell of salt and the feel of their brisk passage through the ocean, for any moment of stillness by a fire.

Toinette turned and smiled at him. With her hair and gown blown back, she could have graced the prow of a ship herself, save that she was far more vividly colored than any figurehead. “Just now, I think you’ve a place here any time you’d like.”

“Certainly so,” said Marcus, looking up from coiling rope, “especially as I fear we might be in sore need of hands soon. John, at least, wants to spend a year or so raising crops and children, and Raoul’s been speaking more of his girl back home.”

“Undeserving wench,” said Toinette. She turned the wheel and then went on. “Though I admit the idea of a few seasons on land appeals more these days. Perhaps,” she said, not looking at Erik, “it’s time I saw what summer looks like a little further from the coast.”

“I know of a place or two that might suit,” said Erik, putting a hand on her shoulder. He looked at Marcus. Eros was not the only sort of love—his education had been classical enough to cover that—and loyalty was a great treasure itself. “And I’d wager that half a score of strong men would be welcome there. Men who’ve seen the world and proven their worth particularly.”

“A man does have to consider his old age,” said Marcus. “I’d very much enjoy spending mine in the company of friends, and among those who’ve seen…some of the stranger corners of the world.”

“Then put the word out,” said Toinette. She raised a hand to cover Erik’s, squeezed it, and added with a grin, “And know that it’s likely to be cold.”

“I always knew you’d lead me to a bad end, Captain.”

Laughing, they made for home.