"Daft, the lot of you," she said darkly. "I have no beauty but what lies in my skill."
"Hmmm," Glines said, unconvinced. "If you say so, then I must agree. Now, lest you skewer me for heaping more praise upon your lovely head, let us move on to another subject. Did you notice our young shadow inside?"
"I did."
"That's Fletcher Harding, you know."
"Is it?" she asked in surprise, "I wonder why he's here. "
"Who knows? We'll find out if he follows us aboard."
She nodded. "I'm surprised you noticed, though. I assumed you were fixed on your game."
"Your skill lies with the sword, mine with the cards." He yawned. "I had to keep myself from falling into my cups somehow."
She smiled in spite of herself. "You are really a terrible man, Glines."
"Stop," he begged, "I may blush soon."
"Then I will stop, lest the praise be too much for you. Oh, look," she said uneasily, "here we are."
And there they were. She had come to the point where to walk any farther would have meant she was walking into the water. Bad enough that she should have to get onto something that would beonthe water.
"I'll book us passage," Paien said. He held out his hand and everyone filled his palm.
Morgan watched him go, concentrating on swallowing and breathing. She thought of the knife in the bottom of her pack, the knife that Nicholas had kept for years and entrusted to her. The knife that might have magic that the king was lacking.
It might mean the difference between victory and defeat, he had said.
Morgan continued to take deep breaths. She put her hand on her sword. It didn't help.
Paien returned, all smiles. "He'll even feed us. "
"How long a journey?" Morgan croaked.
Adhémar frowned. "Haven't you made the journey before?"
"A very long time ago." She had, when she'd been ten. It had been with her mercenary guardians and she'd vowed if she survived it that she would never again set foot on another boat.
She took a deep breath to still her churning stomach.
It did no good.
"Time to board," Camid said, his long nose quivering in excitement. "I love boats," he said enthusiastically. "Not many where I come from, of course, but I've never not enjoyed a journey on one. I say we take a boat north while we're about our business?"
Morgan continued to breathe. In tact, there came a point where she almost felt better. The sea air was bracing and her stomach was settling quite nicely. She breathed a time or two more and thought that perhaps her fear of boats, or rather what would happen once she set foot on one, was perhaps ungrounded and unreasonable. Had she spent years avoiding something she should have enjoyed?
"Let us be off," she said cheerfully. She nodded to her companions, glared just on principle at Adhémar, then shouldered her pack more securely and followed her companions onto the ship.
She was well.
All was well.
She stood on the deck of the ship. It began to rock. Her belly began to rock with it.
She knew, with a sense of finality that wasn't at all unexpected, that she was in deep trouble.
Chapter Five
