The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(44)
No—no. Of all things, I would not doubt my love. I told myself that as I climbed abovedecks.
The angle of the sun surprised me—it felt later than midafternoon. The harbor gates had shut again. Petals spun on the still water, tumbled down from the street. The Dark Horse lay in the harbor, sleek as a seal; a suspicious group of townsfolk had gathered on the wharf to stare at the king’s steed. I shook my head grudgingly. Crowhurst was bold, I’d grant him that.
Mr. Hart was waiting at the starboard rail, stiff-backed as any gentleman. “Is Miss Song . . . well?”
I knew what he meant, but I wasn’t going to answer such a roundabout question. I pushed the clove I’d been chewing into my cheek and gave him a wide-eyed look. “Well, what?”
He grimaced, adjusting his grip on the brass; in the cold, his knuckles were white. “What do you make of her claims about the king?”
There it was. I considered my words. “Her memory is unquestionable, and she doesn’t lie often.”
“Oh?” Mr. Hart’s face was bland but behind his eyes . . . was that pain?
“And when she does, she does it poorly. Many tells.” I sighed. “You know this. You watch her nearly as closely as I do.”
The corner of his mouth turned up, his expression rueful. “She’s better at keeping secrets.”
“Ah, yes.” I spat the clove into the water and drew a fresh one from my pocket. “That, I can agree with.”
“Hmm.” His eyes flicked to me, then back to the harbor. “She really did fall, you know.”
I threw back my head and laughed; did he think me jealous? “I know.” For a long moment, we were quiet. I watched a young boy on the pier as he took a daring step toward the Dark Horse—and another. He got within spitting distance before he ran back to the safety of the crowd. A few of the men tittered, but not many—and no one else made a move toward the strange yacht. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Hart shift from foot to foot; the boy was troubled about this business with Crowhurst. Or was it about Nix? No matter which it was, I shared his concern. “Want a drink?”
“What?” He turned to me, his eyes incredulous. I nodded at the wharf.
“Well, I need one.” I stepped down the gangplank without waiting for him to follow. I set a quick pace, making the lock swing, and soon enough I heard his footsteps behind me.
The tavern at the top of the wharf was a long building with a roof made of flaked stone. Small windows squinted suspiciously at the windy harbor. Inside, business was brisker than it had been last night; the red-faced fishermen had gathered for a late lunch after beating the tide home, and many were drinking to one another’s health. “A la v?tre! A la v?tre!”
The benches were full, and the air was close with the smell of people and ale and the smoke from the fire. The decor might be convincingly called “charming” by only the greatest of liars: the walls were nailed with chipped shells and twisted driftwood, and the bar was built out of the yellowed jawbone of a great fish. I leaned against it and signaled the girl at the spigot. She looked hard at me with her washed-out eyes, but she took my coin and pulled two mugs of cider. I pretended not to notice her scrub the pennies on her apron before she put them in her pocket.
Still, as I took the cider back to the table, I let myself sigh. It was almost as bad in this little town as it was in modern New York City.
Mr. Hart and I sat across from each other at a wide wooden table. He watched me over his mug, his expression calculating. We drank for a while in a bubble of silence, and I did not fight it. Around us, conversation swirled. Men roared their toasts; others whispered in corners. They used an older dialect—different from the way I spoke it, but there were words that caught my ear: dangereux . . . magie noire . . .
Black magic—I traced a scar on the wood of the table. Did I speak French because of the man who drew my map? Was the suffering of my early years only some foreigner’s fantasy?
Spinning the mug in his hands, Mr. Hart stared at the barkeep, but I do not think he was really watching the girl. At last he spoke. “If I hadn’t seen the things I’ve seen on this journey, I’d question her sanity. Now I find myself questioning my own. The things Miss Song said, about the wolf. And the dead man. They seemed familiar, but like a dream does.”
I gave him a half smile. “But you do remember her falling.”
“Into a tunnel underground. Yes.” He spoke slowly, as though he had to draw every word from the well of his memory. “We were passing time exploring the warehouse. . . . The floor fell away, and I threw down a rope to help her back up.” He tapped his fingers on the pewter, making a dull ringing. “What do you remember from this morning?”
“Before the parade?” I downed a mouthful of cider. “Stealing our coin back from the harbormaster.”
To Mr. Hart’s credit, he laughed. “I should have expected something like that. But . . . was there anything else? Something you didn’t do but somehow remember anyway?”
I held the clove between my back teeth, considering. “I . . . I dreamed last night about climbing over the abbey wall. It runs beside the castle, and I wanted to take a look inside—maybe find the treasury. I spent some time here listening, talking to the drunks. Apparently the king’s treasure is kept in a pit below the castle.”
He frowned. “A pit?”