Mystic Warrior (26 page)

Murdoch watched as Lissandra happily arranged a lounge chair in the summer sun, then settled Pierre into it, and tucked a blanket around him. She'd found Amelie a pretty gown and a doll to play with and set her to making a daisy chain. Leaning against an apple tree, Murdoch waited with interest to see if Lis would make a doll of him and arrange him in her playhouse, too. He'd once considered her as domineering as her mother for this habit of pushing people into the place she assigned them, but back then, she'd been wearing her illusion of authority. Now he could see that she was just Lis, a woman who enjoyed Healing and wanted to study people in order to become better at it.

With this new perspective, he recognized that the Oracle's daughter needed people to care for as much as he needed air to breathe.

“Have a seat. I can't reach you when you loom over me like that.” She shooed him from the shade into the sun where she'd set a kitchen chair next to Pierre.

“What type of experiment is this, Madame LeDroit?” Pierre asked, stretching his thin frame on the cushions and turning his face gratefully to the sun.

Murdoch jerked uneasily at the sound of his plebeian surname being attached to his noble Lis, but she seemed blithely unaware of the disparity. He leaned against the chairback and sprawled his—Trystan's—boots in front of him. Trystan had clodhoppers for feet, but with the padding he'd added, the boots worked well enough.

“There is a Dr. Gall in Germany who believes the shape of our skulls reflects the areas of interest in our brain.” Lissandra measured her fingers across Pierre's hair.

Murdoch knew she was giving the shoemaker an explanation that would make sense to his Other World mind, but he didn't know if she was making up the doctor and his beliefs. He examined a scuff on the toe of his boot and tried to school his impatience. When was the last time he'd simply sat in the sun and enjoyed the laugh of a child and a pretty woman's touch?

His soul ached for the peace this moment offered.

Satisfied with her measurements of Pierre, Lis turned to him. Her hand grazed his hair gently, and he could feel her soothing energy. She had Healing in her touch, a heat that drew off his ill humors and bathed him in relaxation. He could almost imagine falling asleep under her ministrations. He leaned his head back to smile up at her, and she smiled back, wickedly pulling both the strings of his heart and the thread of amacara that bound them. His reproductive organ jerked to attention.

“You're playing with fire,” he reminded her.

She laughed. “And so I am, Lord Volcano. Close your eyes and think pleasant thoughts.”

He thought of her pearly pink nipples jutting from the frost-colored cascade of hair tumbling over her golden breasts.

Lis tugged his hair, jarring him from the pleasant image. “Your shield is too easy to breach like this. You'll embarrass me.”

Murdoch grinned wickedly, not in the least displeased. “Get used to it.”

With a sigh of exasperation, she returned to Pierre and asked him to think of something pleasant. Then she asked him to think of something that made him angry. Murdoch raised his eyebrows when she jerked her hands away from Pierre's head as if she'd been burned.

He noticed she was reluctant to ask
him
to think of something unpleasant when she returned her hands to his skull. “Can you feel what he's thinking?” he asked in an undertone.

“I don't have as strong an ability to read a jumble of thoughts as Ian does,” she acknowledged, “but I can feel the pain of his ordeal.”

“Then it may be best if you do not touch me again.” He started to stand up, but she shoved him back into the chair.

“I am only beginning to sense the differences,” she scolded.“This isn't an easy task.Try thinking of something not too bad. Imagine you're hammering your thumb.”

He nodded in appreciation of her wisdom. “Pain isn't as apt to make me angry.” He summoned the image of smashing his thumb and winced.

“I think I see it,” she said with excitement, keeping her voice to a whisper. “It's a very different sensation from Monsieur Durand's. How extraordinary! You have an intensity here”—she touched her finger to the front of his skull—“that connects with your motor skills here.” She touched another part of his head. “You do not simply feel pain. You react to it.”

“Like a skunk throws scent when frightened,” he said in scorn.

She thumped his head with her knuckles. “Do not underestimate the power of self-preservation.”

He glanced over at their guest, who had fallen asleep. “But now you would have to compare me with others of our kind before you can see if my brain is different from theirs.”

“Oh, certainly. And it would take many tests to develop a theory. But it's a very good start, don't you think?”

Only if they had a hundred years or so. Murdoch wished he believed they had even a year together ahead of them, but though he was a dreamer, he wasn't a fool.

 

“The stranger is here,” Lis murmured that evening as Murdoch helped Pierre down the long flight of stone stairs to the harbor dock. There was no hope of disguising their activity in the red glow of the summer sun setting over the Channel.

Murdoch didn't have to ask whom she was talking about. While waiting for the tide to turn, they'd both kept their senses open for the silent Aelynner who was lurking about Pouchay. They could linger no longer. The ship they'd hired awaited them.

An Aelynner who did not greet them directly was not a friend. Out of caution, Murdoch had to assume they'd been followed from the village. Lis wouldn't care. She'd insist all Aelynners should be rescued, regardless of who they were. He'd feel safer if he knew with whom he was dealing.

“Get the child aboard,” he ordered, scanning the nearly empty dock below.

He was aware of the limits of his energy. Even if he thought he could successfully raise a fog on a dry summer evening without causing a hurricane in doing so, he would expend more vital forces than he could afford. He didn't want to be crippled and nauseous if they had to run a Channel blockade later.

Lis shot Murdoch a look that said she obeyed only because she agreed, then took Amelie's hand and ran lightly down the stairs to the dock.

Her quiet determination concealed as much willful bullheadedness as he could claim. If she really thought they had a chance of finding the holy chalice, they needed to agree on who was leading this expedition. First, they had to make it out of France alive.

“If you can go faster without me, then go,” Pierre urged. He attempted to pick up speed, but his weak legs barely held him up.

Murdoch ignored the admonition and helped him down the last steps.

The burly captain of the hired ship hurried to the rail to help load their last passenger. “We should have waited for a dark tide,” the sailor muttered as he grasped Pierre's arm. “I don't like that we can be seen.”

“I don't like that the committee is allowed to watch,” Murdoch retorted. “When you return with your hold full of cheap grain and English cotton, you'll be a hero.”

The captain ceased grumbling. He'd known the risk before he'd accepted the task. And Murdoch had paid him well for concealing the refugees. Wealth couldn't be had without risk.

Instead of marching boldly along the harbor road, the soldiers Murdoch had feared arrived stealthily, through the shadows of the rocks along the gravel beach. He heard them before they could see him. He gave Pierre the final boost that lifted him over the railing and onto the ship. The captain grabbed his invalid passenger and hauled him toward the cabin, shouting at his crew to weigh anchor and raise the sails.

Murdoch could have joined the others aboard with a single bound, but he wanted to know who was watching, unseen, concealed by the soldiers' approach. Were the soldiers oblivious to the lurker's appearance, or hiding him?

Coming around the bend and finally seeing Murdoch, the scarred sergeant who had trapped him in the stable the previous day shouted, “Halt!”

The sergeant led two foot soldiers in their plain blue uniforms, but none of the three was the Aelynner that Murdoch sought. “We have business in Le Havre,” he informed the Guards, leaping from the planks to the shore while reaching for the forged documents for which he'd spent the last of Lis's coins. Lis still had the rest of her pearls, but he wouldn't waste them on this crew. They were likely to let him rot in prison in hopes of prying more valuables out of him.

The sergeant grabbed the papers, and held them upside down while pretending to peruse them. Many of these conscripted, untrained soldiers protecting France's shores couldn't read.

“It lacks a seal,” the sergeant decided. “You must come with us.”

Not bloody likely.
Still conserving his energy, Murdoch raised the wind just enough to blow off their useless but costly bicornes.

The youngest soldier chased the hats down the beach, while the older two pulled their sabers. With the rising wind, the surf slammed harder against the rock wall, wetting their boots.

“The tide is going out, gentlemen,” Murdoch said in a tone of regret. “I do not have time to accompany you. I will be happy to obtain the proper seal when we return.” He made a gallant bow, then righted himself—with rapier in hand.

The sergeant didn't have time to properly engage his weapon before Murdoch used his rapier point to strike the saber from his opponent's grasp, sending it flipping and twisting into the deeper water. “I regret the misunderstanding,” he said in amusement.

That he was amused instead of furious was Lis's doing. How could he be angry or frustrated when he'd recently been granted all he could desire?

The remaining armed soldier raised his musket to his shoulder. Quelling a smirk, Murdoch nicked the man's wrist before he could lower the weapon into position. The soldier yelped and almost lost his grip.

Using his rapier as focus, Murdoch set fire to the musket's gunpowder. The ancient weapon blew apart, scorching the soldier's coat sleeve and tumbling him backward into the wall.

Even Lis couldn't complain that he'd revealed his gifts, he thought smugly. Muskets exploded all the time.

In the meantime, the weaponless soldiers wouldn't waste their lives by attacking an armed and skilled swordsman. As the third soldier returned at a run with the wind-tossed bicornes, Murdoch tipped the edge of his blade to his own hat in acknowledgment. “Until we meet again, gentlemen.”

He splashed through the surf, vaulted back to the dock, and leapt across the growing gap to the ship's deck just as the wind he'd raised caught the canvas. It would be a race to see whether the ship escaped before the last two muskets were brought to bear.

“He's still hiding in the rocks,” Lissandra murmured, appearing beside him as silently as a wisp of smoke, referring to the hidden Aelynner.

Murdoch dragged her back against the cabin wall, placing himself between her and the musket fire. He'd given the man every chance to leap on board. In his opinion, any Aelynner who was cowardly enough to fear these soldiers wasn't worth saving.

But Lis's concern touched a soft spot he hadn't known he harbored. He grimaced and extended his energy to heat the tide and cool the night air. As the sun burned orange and red and dipped into the water, Murdoch created a fine mist that swept over the shore, drenching the beach in early dusk, and providing concealment to any who might be slipping along the water's edge.

Despite the mist, the soldiers took aim at the bow where he and Lis stood.

His keen hearing caught a splash that wasn't surf. The sloop lurched to starboard, on the side away from land. The soldiers aiming their muskets noticed nothing unusual. Murdoch didn't know if Lis did.

As the first shot fired over the bow, Murdoch caught Lis's eye. She nodded, and together, they dived for cover while filling the sails with air.

 

Lissandra waited for Murdoch to comment on the feat they'd just accomplished. She was still astounded that they'd understood each other's needs and shared their strengths with such coordination.

Instead, Murdoch stalked grimly toward the small cabin below the mainmast.

The shots fired over the bow ceased as the ship slipped into the mist. The sun was already setting, obscuring the horizon.

“I'm not sure I like this world,” she said aloud, just to disturb the walking thunderhead beside her.

“You don't belong in it,” Murdoch agreed. “Trystan can take you home once we reach England.”

“Once we find the sacred chalice,” she corrected, reminding him of their mutual vision and goal. The shared dream of security and plenty just within their reach had to mean something—although she disliked the part where the chalice wouldn't let her touch it.

The reason for Murdoch's testiness rose from among the water barrels, soaked and dripping, interrupting any further disagreement. Murdoch must have heard the newcomer arrive. If he would not communicate, she must learn to read the blasted man's mind to grasp his moods.

“Monsieur, mademoiselle.” Of average height but built sturdily, the intruder made a squishy bow. The lack of hat revealing his graying hair diluted the gallantry. “I fear I am a stowaway.”

“You will be shark bait shortly if you endanger any of us.” Murdoch caught the man by his elbow and dragged him into the cabin where their companions waited.

Lissandra knew from his mental shields that the stranger was the countryman they'd been seeking. But unlike Murdoch, she did not instantly assume that he was the village man who'd aided the committee. She had learned not to make hasty judgments. Besides, on the sea, neither she nor Murdoch had reason to fear him. He would, indeed, be shark bait if he caused harm.