Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

if you'd rather be alone, I would gladly ... " He let the sentence hang, expressing his readiness to help with open hands. She shifted in her seat. allowing the smile to drop. The look of unhappiness that wrinkled her forehead and pursed her lips seemed very pretty to Liam, and the openness with which she shared her feeling made him feel somewhat special. It had been a long while since anyone had taken him into their confidence.

"Your tendered help is as salve to my troubles, Sir Liam, and I thank you. Yet I am beset by troubles that I may not share with you, much as I'd like. For the time, it is good of you to keep me company. Now," she said briskly, trying to banish the tension with a bright smile, "we'll only have light talk. Tell me such things as you remember made you laugh."

Having set the subject, she sat back and waited, her brow clear and her eyes bright. His mind was blank for a few moments. Nothing particularly funny had ever happened to him, and he found that all he could remember were the faces of other women, one and all in attitudes of sorrow or depression.

Liam did not tell her this, but his look of consternation led her to prompt him a little, and presently he recalled a puppet show he had seen in a caravanserai in a desert country.

Before long, he had a string of stories to tell, halfremembered snatches of the highly stylized comedies popular in his student days in Torquay, the antics of acrobats and clowns from the courts of distant kingdoms, folk tales told by wizened men in a hundred markets, and songs heard in taverns around the world. He even brought out an entire verse of "The Lipless Flutist," a fairly clean one, and half-sang, half-recited it for her in an embarrassed way.

She laughed and clapped her hands when he was done, and he was struck anew by her youth and prettiness. He wondered again what could have upset her so, and thought angrily of the youth. Her unhappiness was obviously connected with him, and Liam cursed the man mildly.

A comfortable silence followed her good-natured laughter at his poor rendition of "The Lipless Flutist," and he only spoke after a while because the question popped into his head.

"When did you say your husband was returning? "

"Your pardon?"she asked, starting from some daydream. "Oh, he returns tomorrow, I hope. He is so often away."

He regretted the question, but she went on, sighing sadly. "So often I sit here alone, and feel his absence strongly. I wonder if he is wracked at sea, or taken by pirates, or bandits-they say there are bandits much abroad this year; On land, bandits wait for him; at sea, giant beasts, storms, the Teeth ... oh, the Teeth are far the worst."

Shuddering, she dropped her eyes to her lap again, and Liam berated himself for upsetting her, though her returning to the Teeth interested him. So many lives in Southwark seemed to revolve around the grim rocks—Lady Necquer with her morbid fear, Marcius with his sunken ship, Tarquin with his spells. The only teeth in Southwark that had harmed him were Fanuilh's, and a cobbler had fixed that. He almost chuckled, but did not.

"I'm sure he'll return in perfect health."

She drew a deep breath and caught a smile. "Oh, I'm even surer than you, Sir Liam. But you'll grant me the right to worry, I hope." He offered her a small bow from his seat, and she continued lightly. "Now tell me, have you ever left anyone to wait for you? I'd wager you must have left weeping women in a hundred ports."

"No," he said seriously, "I don't think so. I am very easy not to miss."

She scoffed. "I can scarcely credit it, Sir Liam. Surely there is some love who drew you here to Southwark, a beauty who was planted on the docks, awaiting your return with weepy eyes and a kerchief soaked with tears."

Lady Necquer was not flirting, he decided, but teasing. He shook his head, and noticed how dark it was outside. Raindrops still trailed gold and silver on the panes. He would have to go soon.

"Then if it was no woman, what drew you, who've seen the world over, to so remote a comer of it as Southwark?"

"I had been shipwrecked for some months, madam," he lied, "on a desert isle far east and south of the Freeports. The ship that rescued me was bound here, and I was in no position to argue about its destination." He had indeed been stranded on an uncharted island, but the conditions were somewhat different from a shipwreck, and the things he had seen there would have unduly upset her, he was sure.

Even the mention of a shipwreck dampened her spirits more than he would have wished.

"I had no idea, Sir Liam. It must have been horrible." It was clear from her veiled eyes that she was imagining her own husband in such a position, and he frowned.

"Oh, by no means. Very comfortable, really. It did not rain half so much as it does in Southwark, and was warm as summer the year round. I left it with some regret. Of course, I had none such as you to return to, madam. If I had, I probably would have swum the ocean to return."

Lady Necquer smiled gratefully, and he rose reluctantly. "I'm afraid I must leave you now."

She rose as well, and though she protested that he must not leave, she led the way to the stairs. There she made him promise to return the next day.

"My husband is due to return in the evening. I am sure it'd like him if you waited with me, and dined with us."

She seemed to mean it, and he assented with pleasure.

At the bottom of the stairs, Lares waited with his cloak. With a smile he took it, ignoring the man's attempt to put it on