“Great Jesus and his sainted mother! Who is that?” A small, dark wearh with a pronounced squint approached them through the crowd with two spirited horses in tow. Marcus could tell what he was from the way the man smelled, which was so much less gamey and ripe than a warmblood. The man was slightly bowlegged, as though he had spent too much time on horseback.
“This is Matthew’s latest project,” Gallowglass said. “Marcus, meet Davy Gams. We call him Hancock.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” Marcus bowed. Davy’s eyes popped.
“He’s American,” Gallowglass said apologetically.
Davy glowered at him. “You Americans have caused a great deal of trouble and cost a packet, too. You better be worth it.”
Not knowing how to respond, Marcus adopted the silent, attentive attitude that he had perfected while working for the doctors Otto.
“How old is he?” Davy demanded of Gallowglass, who was studying the faces of the people passing them.
“Bonjour!” Gallowglass called to one particularly attractive young woman wearing a red, white, and blue rosette on her bodice who was shopping among the hucksters at the wharf. He turned back to Davy. “Somewhere in his fifties, I warrant. Matthew didn’t give me exact facts and figures.”
“Damn frogs.” Davy spat on the ground. “They talk a good game, with their cockades and coffee, but you can’t trust them. Not even Matthew.”
“I’m only twenty-four, Gallowglass. I was born in 1757,” Marcus said, swallowing down the stab of desire that shot through his loins at the sight of that Bordelaise bosom, fair and freckled.
“Gallowglass means days, not years. And don’t contradict your elders,” Davy said, cuffing Marcus on the chin. Once, it would have broken his jaw; now the blow registered only as an unpleasant reverberation. “It doesn’t matter, in any case. You’re as useless as a fart in a jam jar.”
“Fuck off.” Marcus made a rude gesture, one he’d learned on the Aréthuse from Faraj, the ship’s pilot. He could now curse in Arabic as well as Dutch, French, German, and English.
“I suppose we’ll have to take him to Paris.” Davy let out an earsplitting whistle. “For that, we’ll need a carriage rather than horses. You can’t travel on horseback when you’ve got a baby with you. More needless expense.”
“I know, I know.” Gallowglass clucked with sympathy and clapped Davy on the shoulder. “I tried to put in at Saint-Malo, but the seas weren’t having it.”
“Bloody Matthew and his daft ideas.” Davy’s finger shot up in warning. “One of these days, Eric, I’m going to strangle that boy.”
“I’ll hold him down while you do it,” Marcus said, still smarting from all that he’d discovered about his new life from Gallowglass. “High-handed bastard.”
Davy and Gallowglass stared at him, astonished. Then Davy began to laugh in the gasping, unpracticed wheezes of one who hadn’t been amused in some time.
“Not yet sixty and already angry with his sire,” Davy said, wheezing and coughing some more.
“I know,” Gallowglass said fondly. “The lad has real potential.”
* * *
—
MARCUS HAD NEVER ridden in a carriage before, only a wagon. He found that he did not like it. Mostly he was able to make it outside before being sick. Hancock soon grew impatient with their frequent stops, and resorted to holding Marcus’s head out the open window so that he could continue vomiting while they traveled.
His eyes streaming from the grit from the road, Marcus clamped his teeth shut against the rising bile （his guts were empty of blood and wine by this point）， and strained to overhear the conversation in the carriage, before the words were blown away by the wind.
“—Granddad will have a stroke,” Gallowglass said.
“Wasn’t Matthew strictly forbidden—” Hancock’s next words were inaudible.
“Wait until Baldwin discovers.” Gallowglass sounded both alarmed and pleased by the prospect.
“—another bloody war will break out.”
“At least Granny will—”
“—dote on him like an old woman.”
“Watch your tongue around Marthe or she’ll—”
“—better idea to take him there if she’s in town.”
“Auntie Fanny won’t be at home. We’ll have a devil of a time—”
“—deposit him with Fran?oise and then have a drink.”