She waited until the door had shut and then turned to Wren. “What on earth was that?”
“Shane takes his duty very seriously. I don’t think he ever got over being left at the altar by his first god. And then later, when the Saint died—”
“No, no.” Marguerite waved her arms. “I meant when he was picking me up. The way he sounded.”
“Oh, that.” Wren grinned, no longer so serious. “That was the voice. Shane’s really good at it.”
“Beartongue warned me, but I had no idea. Is that magic?”
Wren considered this. “Not exactly? I think it’s more like the black tide. The berserker fits, I mean.” She gestured to herself. “Anybody can learn to fight, and some people go berserk, but only some people go berserk for a god. But now that the Saint is dead, we all still go berserk, unfortunately.” One corner of her mouth crooked up. “Well, not me that often. Some of us are closer to the edge than others.”
Marguerite filed that away as interesting information for later, but at the moment she had other fish
to fry. “So a divine gift of sorts?”
“Right. Except you have to have a certain amount of potential to do the voice in the first place.”
Wren cocked her head and then said, in a kind, sympathetic voice, “I hope that it didn’t upset you. He would never have intended to cause you harm.”
It was the voice of a friend, the one who held you when you cried because you’d spotted your lover with another woman, the one who picked you up when everything was broken past all mending.
“Not really,” said Marguerite, “it was just a surprise, and then I felt bad because… hey!”
Wren burst out laughing. “That’s the best I can do. I’m not in Shane’s league, or even Istvhan’s. It works a lot better when you sound like an authority figure, and I’m no good at that.”
Marguerite suddenly remembered hearing Stephen talk to a young would-be assassin, a few years and several lifetimes ago. He’d sounded so calm and so trustworthy, but she’d assumed that it was because he was genuinely calm and trustworthy.
Sweet Lady of Grass, if I could sound like that, I’d be the greatest spy the world has ever known. People would fight to tell me their secrets. As it is, I just make sympathetic noises and top up the wineglass.
“I don’t suppose you can teach me…？”
“Nope.” Wren shook her head. “Most of us can do it, but not that well. Galen—have you met Galen? No?—he can’t do it at all. He just sounds like himself. But most of the Saint of Steel’s people didn’t need it anyway. You use it most when you’re dealing with civilians. If you find survivors, or if you’re trying to get people out of an area where things are about to get really ugly, it helps to have someone who can sound trustworthy explaining the situation instead of just screaming at people to get the hell out.”
“Huh.” Marguerite considered this. “I can see how it would be useful.” She thought back to her interactions with Stephen. He’d always seemed patient and trustworthy. On the other hand, he actually was patient and trustworthy, so that might have a lot to do with it. Most of the paladins are. It’s why they’re paladins and the rest of us aren’t.
“Anyway, the people who can really do the voice are the Dreaming God’s people,” said Wren.
“They have to. It’s all tied up with how they compel demons. So since Shane was trained in His temple, he’s really good at it.” She paused, then gave Marguerite a concerned look. “It’s not like mind control. You can’t make someone walk off a cliff or anything. Hell, half the time you can’t even convince them to move off a battlefield. It’s just good at calming people down and making them actually stop and listen to you. And you can’t lie in the voice, either.”
“You can’t?”
Wren shook her head, getting to her feet. “You have to mean what you’re saying. Really and truly believe it. That’s why it works.”
Marguerite abandoned her dream of becoming the world’s most persuasive spy. Ah, well. Easy come, easy go. “Thanks for explaining. Let’s go see if Shane has found any assassins standing
between us and dinner, shall we?”
THERE WERE NO ASSASSINS, although Shane was out of his room and planted in front of them the instant their own door opened. “I can bring you up food,” he said.
“You can, but I’d rather eat down below,” said Marguerite. “We might pick up something worth knowing.”
That was definitely a skeptical expression. Marguerite exulted that she was able to read it. Wren elbowed him in the ribs and said, “If you bring us up a tray, somebody might poison it, you know. Or a bird could come through the window and attack us.”
“I have confidence that you could dispatch a bird.”
“A rabid bird.”
His lips twitched. “Birds don’t get rabies. Are you implying that I’m being overly cautious?”
“Just a tad.”
He glanced at Marguerite, who attempted to shrug as diplomatically as possible.
“Very well.” Shane bowed his head and led the way downstairs, although she noted that he was still wearing the massive sword across his back. That can’t be comfortable. Though I wonder if he even notices it anymore.
She discovered on the way down that she was extremely sore. Falling off a horse was no joke when you were over thirty. She limped until Shane stopped at the bottom and looked back up the steps, then stiffened her spine and gritted her teeth.
The inn was half-full of people, a mix of travelers and locals. There was also a paladin in one corner, with his eye swollen shut and his arm in a sling.
“Demon,” he said cheerfully, when Marguerite and her two paladins made their way over to him.
His good eye traveled over Wren’s axe and Shane’s sword. “It’s in a damn big steer. I took out one of its legs, or thought I had. But you know how they are—they don’t understand that a broken bone means you shouldn’t use it. So it kicked me with the damn leg that was broken and gave me a broken arm to match. Probably hurt it worse than it hurt me, though that’s not much consolation.”
Marguerite winced. “Can we buy you dinner?” she asked. You treated demonslayers well as a matter of principle, but it also occurred to her that her own two paladins might appreciate the show of solidarity. And I certainly don’t have to worry about them having been bought.
The injured paladin grinned at her. His tabard had the closed-eye sigil of the Dreaming God on it, but there seemed to be nothing more to his voice than rueful good humor. “The innkeeper’s already taken care of that, but the sympathy of a pretty lady is always appreciated if you’d like to join us for dinner…or dessert.” He winked at her.
Marguerite chuckled. “You have all my sympathy, but don’t get any ideas. I’m afraid I might hurt you worse than the demon did.”
He put his good hand over his heart. “Cut to the quick. Do you see this, Ramsey?”
Ramsey, who was apparently the priest sitting next to him, rolled his eyes heavenward. He was older, his dark, tightly curled hair cropped close and threaded with gray. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”