Probably that said something about the resilience of the human spirit, or at least its stupidity.
Regardless, I’ve got to get to the bottom of this, or I’m going to drive myself nuts.
As an experienced operative, Marguerite had a number of ways of extracting information from someone, with varying degrees of subtlety. Her old spymaster Samuel could have had one casual conversation about the weather with Wren and walked away knowing Shane’s entire life story.
Marguerite was not in that league, but she did have certain skills.
She weighed up the possibilities, considered her options, then decided on a plan of attack.
“So,” she said, cornering Shane as he came back from the privy, “what the hell is going on with you, anyway?”
Shane said, “Um?”
She put her hands on her hips and glared up at him. The height difference was considerable, but Marguerite had always felt that this was a problem on their part, not hers. “You,” she said. “You are acting strangely. You jump like a frightened rabbit when I get near you, and you haven’t checked my room for assassins once. What is going on?”
He looked around, clearly uncomfortable. “Have there been any assassins?”
“Oh yes. Scads of them. Three at every stop. Wren fights them off with the chamber pot.” She poked the center of his chest. “Is this about what happened the other night?”
He didn’t answer that, but he didn’t really need to. His agonized expression spoke volumes.
“Was it really that bad?” she asked ruefully.
“What? No!”
Well, at least I can be sure he’s telling the truth. Beartongue had been right, the man was a terrible liar. “Oh good. I quite enjoyed it, myself.”
The inn’s back garden was dimly lit and under better circumstances, Marguerite would have considered it romantic. The paladin is a decorative addition, or would be if he didn’t look as if he was about to be drawn and quartered.
“Yes,” Shane said. “I…err…yes. As well.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m doing this badly. I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation right now.”
Marguerite took pity on him. “It was just sex,” she said gently. “It’s fine. People do that. I’m not asking for your soul.”
“No,” said Shane with sudden bitterness, “no one’s been interested in my soul for quite a while now.” His lips twisted and he held up a hand. “Ignore that. I’m being more than usually self-pitying, it seems.”
“Actually, I find it rather refreshing to see that you’ve got normal human flaws.”
“I have so many flaws.”
“So you say.” There was a low bench against the wall and she sat down on it and patted the seat next to her. Shane gazed at it like a martyr witnessing the place of his imminent execution, then lowered himself down next to her.
“Any particular flaws troubling you at the moment?” she asked, since it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything on his own.
Shane gave a short huff, whether of surprise or dismay or simply because he didn’t know where to start, she couldn’t tell. “All of them. I don’t know.” He dropped his head into his hands, so the next words came out slightly muffled. “I’m going to choose the wrong thing. I always do.”
“Mmm.” Marguerite had a feeling they weren’t just talking about sex anymore. “What about Lady Silver?”
“Huh?”
“You chose exactly the right thing there. We got away because of that.”
“That’s—”
“If you say ‘that’s different,’ I shall cheerfully strangle you.”
The huff this time had at least some laughter in it. “Fair enough, I suppose.”
“Mmm. So what did you choose wrong, then?” She could make a pretty good guess, but there was always the chance that she was wrong.
“Well, we could start with my god.”
“The Dreaming God, you mean? Was that really your choice?”
He snorted. “I chose to devote my whole life to training as one of His paladins, didn’t I? And then…”
Marguerite was glad that he wasn’t looking at her. She didn’t want to see the expression in those pale blue eyes.
“Days, I waited,” said Shane. His voice was as bleak as winter. “Weeks. Everyone else was chosen. And finally it was obvious. My god didn’t want me.”
Nearly two decades old, and the wound had only scabbed over, Marguerite thought, never healed.
“What did you do?”
He sighed, looking faintly embarrassed. “I was young. I thought if I couldn’t fight demons, maybe I could still do something worthwhile. Justify all the effort they’d put into me. Word came down that a gargath was in the woods—do you know those? No? They’re more common around the Dowager’s city, I think. Rather like a wolverine, but once it’s killed something, it hollows it out and wears the remains around and…I don’t know, fuses with it, somehow. Every kill means it gets bigger and bigger, just layering the bodies.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Oh, very. The smell alone will knock you down. Gargath don’t breed often, that’s the only good thing. They’re definitely magic but not demonic, but the Dreaming God’s people will still try to take them down if they find them, because the smaller they are, the easier they are to kill.” He rubbed his
nose, probably at the memory. “I thought if I could kill the gargath, I’d be doing some good, and if it killed me, well…no great loss. So I went off after it by myself.”
Marguerite put her head in her hands. “That is such a…a you thing to do.”
“It was a bone-headed thing to do, if that’s what you mean. Swords are not the optimal weapon for fighting a gargath. They can see out of the eyes of the fresher bodies, you see, and move their limbs, so you’re fighting a ball of flailing rotten meat. I would have died and been added onto the pile if the Saint hadn’t claimed me at that moment.”
“I’m glad he did!”
“I’m not entirely sure I am.” He sighed and scrubbed at his face, sitting up. “No, I’m being an ingrate. The Saint gave me purpose. I did a great deal of good in His service.” He snorted. “Mostly because the battle tide didn’t let me choose much of anything.”
Marguerite leaned back against the bench. Part of her wanted to say, Nope, no matter how pretty the man is, this is too much for me to deal with. She’d never been particularly attracted to damaged men.
The other part of her was aware that she was sitting out in the open where an assassin could spot her, knowing that said assassins were in active pursuit—and she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t checking every exit every few seconds. Her nerves weren’t screaming at her. All because of the man sitting next to her.
（The smallest part of her was working out how to never be in the vicinity of a gargath, but it could probably be safely ignored for the moment.）
“You’re doing a great deal of good now,” she said.
“I am an excellent weapon.” Another typically Shane delivery, no bravado, simply a statement of fact.