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“Never had swan,” I said. The park down the road boasted eight or nine of the ill-tempered things—or it had. The old people were going to get a surprise when they showed up to feed their pets tomorrow.
“These were fine, fat cygnets,” Caedmon agreed, looking pleased.
I didn’t say anything.
I was kind of complicit at this point.
“I’m not talking to Claire for you,” I told him, in between bites.
“I thought you’d already talked to her. Else why were you banished?” He gestured around the little tent.
“I’m not banished.”
A golden eyebrow went up.
“I’m out here to get some sleep.”
“And you cannot do that inside?”
I rolled my eyes and ate swan. “Listen.”
He cocked his head to the side, and the fine lips pursed. “Is that—what is that?”
“Olga. She’s sleeping over.”
“It’s . . . astonishing.” He listened some more, to what sounded like a cross between a wounded buffalo and a dying rhino, with a little elephant trumpet there at the end sometimes. “Can you imagine,” he asked, after a moment, “an entire cave or village, hundreds of them, all sleeping at once? It must be deafening.”
I thought one was pretty deafening.
Dhampir hearing is a bitch.
“And yet, they can be so silent when they want,” he continued, “so stealthy, that even my men have missed them at times.”
“The slavers didn’t seem to have any trouble,” I pointed out, thinking of the little one.
The smile on Caedmon’s face faded. “He was likely never trained. Even my people do not move as they do without practice.”
“Maybe he’ll get some now.”
Caedmon shook his head. “I did what I could, but the damage was too severe. He’ll limp for the rest of his life, if he walks at all. It will make him of little use to his people, who rank someone’s value by their fighting prowess. If he goes home, he will always be considered mótgørð.”
I looked a question.
“A nuisance.”
I scowled, but didn’t say anything. I hadn’t lived in unceasing warfare for centuries. I had no room to talk. “You understand their language?”
“Well enough.”
“What did he say in there, right before you helped him?” Olga was usually pretty good at getting her point across, but her English was a little . . . rudimentary. And “fish, tracks, door” didn’t make a lot of sense.
“He asked her to rescue his bones.”
I frowned. “What?”
Caedmon switched to his back, looking up at the lamplight playing on the roof of the tent. I didn’t know why he’d brought it. He gave off enough light of his own, and for a darker night than this, if he wasn’t drawing it down like he was at the moment. I wondered why he bothered. To seem more normal, more relatable? To make it easier to talk me into something?
Maybe. Or maybe he just didn’t want the neighbors to ask any questions. Of course, other than the commune across the road, who were high half the time and didn’t trust their eyes anyway, most of our neighbors were about a hundred and wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual if he’d been standing in front of them. Except to remark on how tall he was.
