by Caro Carson
Kayna turned away. There was nowhere to go, but she went as far as she could, to the very back of the ship. She would not sink to her knees, but she allowed herself to sit on a coil of thick rope.
The moon was full, so close to the horizon that it cast sparkles on the calm, black ocean. A long path of white light led from the moon all the way to the ship.
It was pretty, but it was not to be trusted. The moon changed daily, sometimes no more than a sliver in the sky, sometimes a huge and perfect circle, like it was tonight. The inconstancy of the moon was the only thing constant about it.
Kayna rested her cheek on the railing and stared at the white circle. The moon was now her friend. Because it hung in the sky, she knew where she was. Although she didn’t know what year it was, she knew she was still on the same earth she’d always known. She hadn’t been swept away to a fairy world. The knowledge was everything to her; it wasn’t enough.
In the privacy of the night, she clutched the railing more tightly and mashed her cheeked against the solid wood—such a lie, the way this ship felt solid and safe. She’d seen an entire island turn into mist. This ship could disappear, too.
She clutched the railing with both hands, praying it would remain solid.
“What’s happened? Are you hurt?”
The words washed over her before she could decipher them, but she knew the voice that spoke them. The lord of this ship had returned.
A single sob escaped her before she turned away, pressing her forehead into the wood instead of her cheek.
Captain’s hands were firm on her upper arms as he began to lift her to her feet. She clung to the railing harder, unwilling to be moved. She couldn’t do it any longer. She couldn’t stand, couldn’t comport herself with dignity, couldn’t try, again and again, to communicate with these strangers. She was exhausted from trying to guess who pitied her and who wanted to kill her.
The gryphon spoke, his voice full of quiet bass. She couldn’t pick out the new words she’d mastered, couldn’t guess the rest. It was all gibberish. She’d never speak to anyone in her own tongue again, the language of Camelot gone as surely as its timbered walls and its noble king.
Captain stopped trying to raise her to her feet. With a sigh, he sat down heavily next to her, so close that his thigh and shoulder warmed hers where they touched. They sat that way for a while, watching those white sparkles of moonlight, listening to the lapping water. He spoke again, and Kayna recognized the sound of concern, even if she did not know the words. He’d come to find her, because he cared for her.
I’m not alone.
Kayna knew she shouldn’t feel so suddenly secure. But his body was large and strong, his hand so real as he rested it next to hers where she still gripped the railing. His other hand brushed her hair back from her face.
She dried her tears by rubbing her cheek on the linen sleeve of her undergown. A shift. He’d called it that when she’d awoken in his bed. He’d handed her the brooch, and watched as she tied on her boots. New words. More words. How long would it take her to master a whole new language?
My child, you know the answer. Merlin was always chiding her for such questions. A few weeks to converse. A few months to read and write. You need no wizard to tell you that. Now quit bothering an old man, and find a besotted boy to give you compliments.
With dry eyes, Kayna looked up at Captain. He was not a boy. He was more, a man in his prime, and she recognized the set of his shoulders, the way he carried responsibility. Even now, sitting in silence in the night, doing nothing more than comforting a weeping maid, he was not fully relaxed. A part of his thoughts remained on the constant responsibilities he bore as king—
Not a king. If an army of a hundred men made one a king in this century as it had in hers, then this harbor alone held a dozen kingdoms. But still, Captain was like Arthur, responsible for this ship and all the lives upon it.
Arthur had been a father figure to her. Captain was...not. He was younger, stronger. He made her think of the married couples in the great hall, their mattresses rustling under blankets or behind curtains. He made her feel...hungry. She kept both hands on the railing.
Captain turned his gaze from the horizon to her blushing cheeks. He’d already seen the depths of her despair. He’d seen her clumsy attempts to speak his language. He’d seen her naked and shivering, plucked from an icy ocean a minute before her death. She was nothing but weakness, and he was all strength. He and his mighty ship were the reason she was alive.
She was grateful.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. She’d never given him the proper kiss of greeting. She could at least give him a kiss of thanks.
He turned his face away to nod toward the silver moon. “’Tis a haunting kind of sight, the full moon is, when it hangs so low in the sky.”
She should not have even thought of kissing him. Whether king or not, he was a gryphon, the leader of this mighty ship. As a notha, she was not a woman who could presume to kiss a king.
Humbled, she looked in the direction he was looking, at the same moon she’d seen every night of her life. She was alive, and she was still in the world. She murmured the gryphon’s words. “’Tis a haunting kind of sight, the full moon is, when it hangs so low in the sky.”
He jerked at her words. She felt it, snug against his side as she was, and she felt a little spark of satisfaction. She was alive, she was here, and she had one special gift. He was startled because she’d repeated his foreign words, pronouncing each one just right.
“You speak English after all. You have been pretending all along, madam. A spy?” The censure in his voice was clear, fury in every quiet, clipped word.
She tightened her grip on the railing. She had no idea what she’d just repeated in his language, but he must think that she understood.
“You speak English after all,” she repeated, softly, apologetically. “You have been pretending all along, madam. A spy?”
He stared at her, hard, and she knew that for this moment, at least, all of his attention was for her, his ship and his worries forgotten. “What trick is this?”
“’Tis a haunting kind of sight, the full moon is, when it hangs so low in the sky. You speak English after all. You have been pretending all along, madam. A spy? What trick is this.”
With a slow shake of his head, he whispered, “If that isn’t the most goddamned strange—”
“If that isn’t the most god—”
“No, don’t say that.”
No was a word she understood. She longed to talk to him. They’d get nowhere with this conversation, though, because she had no context for it. He could be talking about anything—but the first thing he’d said, he’d been looking at the moon.
Her gaze dropped to his lips again as she spoke his words once more. “’Tis a haunting kind of sight, the full moon is, when it hangs so low in the sky.”
He frowned, but she could feel herself waking up, moving into that intense state where she felt most alive, when she was using her ability to master something new.
One of those words must have meant moon. Loor, in her language. So low in the sky. Low, loor. The two words might mean the same thing. She let go of the railing with the hand that was closest to his, embarrassed by how stiff her fingers were from gripping it so hard, for so long. But she wanted to know the word, so she gave her hand a little shake and then pointed at the full moon.
“Low in the sky?” she asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“The low?”
“No, the moon. The moon is low in the sky.”
She pointed again. “The moon?”
“The moon.”
As far as she could tell, everything was some kind of neutered the. Nothing female or male, nothing barren or fertile. Not a very beautiful language. She wrinkled her nose in disapproval. “The moon. The chair. The shift. The gryphon. The, the, the.”
He laughed. “Yes, everything is the.”
He understood her. He understood, and part of h
er wanted to sob again, but instead she smiled. It was lovely to be understood.
“But it’s not the Griffin,” he said. “Just Griffin.”
“The Griffin Captain.”
He was the lord of the ship, and he was one man she was certain did not want her killed, the man who laughed at her first little joke in his language. Now it was he who was doing the gazing at her lips. A little sizzle of lightning went through her.
“It’s just Griffin,” he said, his voice very quiet, very close. “Say my name. Griffin.”
“Griffin.” With only one hand on the railing, she could turn in the circle of his arm to face him more fully. They sat face to face, nearly chest to chest, each with one hand on the rail in the silver moonlight.
With his other hand, Griffin lifted her chin, but it felt nothing like the fatherly chuck that Merlin had given her long ago. Griffin’s fingers were warm, the strong fingertips of a man who worked hard.
“Kayna,” he said, and his voice was warm, too.
“The Kayna,” she said.
And then he kissed her.
His mouth was gentle. His lips were soft, but the beard he’d shaved was growing in and felt rough as he tilted his head to press his mouth against hers once more.
Oh, the court musicians had it all wrong. This was not pleasant, but consuming. She could not hold onto a thought for more than a moment. Forget lips of ruby red and such sterile, cold descriptions. This was warmth and power, and as he cupped her jaw and held her harder, this was heat and strength. Mouths opened, and this was taste and intimacy, and Kayna cared for nothing, thought of nothing, but this man. He was her world.
She could have kissed him forever. It was leading somewhere, building up to something, when he cupped her face in both of his hands. It took her a long moment to realize he hadn’t done so to deepen the kiss but to slow it down. Then he kissed the bridge of her nose. Her forehead. Then he apologized.
“I should not have done that.”
Not that. She understood those words. She must have done something wrong, something to make him think she did not love what they were doing.
She corrected that mistaken impression the best way she could, with a smile. “Yes, sir.”
He began to shake his head, so she leaned forward to kiss him again, whispering yes against his lips. His groan came from deep in his chest as he pulled her to him tightly and kissed her hard, a thrilling kind of masculine power, but it was too brief.
He stood, drove a hand through his hair, and addressed the moon with more nots and thats.
She frowned. He had to know she enjoyed kissing him. She knew he’d enjoyed kissing her, but he was acting like it was something bad. He turned back to her and offered her his elbow again, obviously a great courtesy in this century. This meant he wasn’t mad at her, but he was upset about something. She would never understand until she could speak his language.
She stood and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, the way he’d taught her to do. It was time to have him teach her his language. But as he led her to his cabin, she bit her so-recently-kissed lip to stop from smiling overmuch in front of the crew.
After all, there was no reason she had to stop kissing while she learned the kisser’s language.
Chapter Seven
Griffin had been so impatient for his quest to end. London had been the destination, Lady Vivien the prize. Now, he did not care if they ever reached London.
That kiss had changed him.
Kissing the Lady Vivien, bedding the Lady Vivien, had been a calculated experience, one of importance to his future. Pleasurable, of course, but an experience of both gratitude and greed. Gratitude, for he could use seduction to fulfill his dead family’s ambitions yet. Greed, because he saw titles and money in his future when he kissed her. He wanted that title. He wanted that money. He could taste Vivien’s greed in return.
Kissing Kayna had been nothing like it. She was of no use to him. None. Yet that first touch of her lips had seemed so infinitely precious, like a gift, a tenderness he did not deserve in his life. Then the pleasure had come rushing in, not the pleasure of avarice achieved or the animal response of a body touched, but the intense pleasure of—
Of what?
He had no words for it.
Kayna slept in his bunk, warm in the furs, but Griffin had not yet stretched out on the floor by the door. He sat at his desk and brooded into the darkness.
The pleasure of what, exactly?
All the words rushed in at once. Kissing Kayna had made him feel that he belonged, that he was home, that he was safe with this person and that he would do anything to keep her safe. She was everything that was beautiful, color and light and music. She satisfied a piece of his soul.
He could not have her. His marriage contract had been written and sent. Some things could not be undone.
He opened the desk drawer and withdrew the silver stag and doe, passion and peace. The ruby felt warm as he rubbed his thumb over it. He had passion aplenty; he needed the peace.
With his marriage to Lady Vivien on the horizon, these last days upon his ship with Kayna were all the passion and peace he would ever have. He should make the most of them. Even now, he could slip under those furs. She would wake, and he would kiss her again. There would be no need to seduce her. She was so responsive to his kisses, his blood heated to think how responsive she’d be to his touch. She would smile and say yes, and his hand could drift to her breast. From her breast to her soft stomach, hard hip, softer thighs. A week they would have, a week of bliss on board the ship, perhaps two if the wind stalled and he found excuses not to make port.
And then he’d marry another woman.
Kayna would be set aside, given money to compensate for the fact that she would no longer be considered marriageable. She would be hurt.
He could not do it. For once, his greed was outweighed by something else. He cared for Kayna. He could not harm this woman from the sea.
She stirred under the covers and murmured the names that had broken her heart at Tintagel. Arthur. Guinevere. Griffin did not trust himself to comfort her in her nightmare. If he were to lean closer yet, if he were to wake her and she turned toward him in gratitude for chasing away her sadness...
He took the stag and ruby, and slipped them under her pillow. “Peace, my love,” he whispered. Then he pulled on his boots and left the cabin.
He found Terrence among the cabin boys who slept on the deck near his quarters and woke him instead. “Do you know how to fire a pistol?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Go to my cabin. Lock yourself in with the Lady Kayna and shoot anyone who dares to come in when they realize I’m gone.”
“Gone, sir? ’Tis full night.”
“My business will not wait until morning. I’ve lost too much time as it is.”
He’d sat in the dark, longing for a woman he could not have, wasting his time thinking, wishing.
Wishing. He’d been a pirate, damn it all to hell. When he’d wanted jewels, he’d taken them. When he’d had a chance to captain his own ship, he’d seized it. When he’d wanted to avoid a hangman’s noose, he’d walked into a governor’s palace and all but instructed the king’s envoy to write him letters of marque.
He needed to take action now. There might be a way to stop his own messenger before his marriage offer could be delivered.
“Tobias,” he called. The man was the most likely to defy his orders, so Griffin would keep him close rather than leave him on board with Kayna. “Lower the skiff. You’re rowing me into town.”
The odds were against him.
Griffin had bought men at the tavern in Port Isaac, a gold coin for each man who could show up with a horse and set out that same night. The prize of twenty coins more to the man who succeeded had guaranteed that most were riding across the country even now, intent on intercepting the messenger from Bristol who carried the marriage documents. Griffin would dock in Portsmouth a week hence, and pray one of the men would be wai
ting to claim the twenty coins.
Until Griffin knew whether or not a man succeeded in stopping the messenger, he would not allow himself to touch Kayna. Seduction was out of the question, and yet they lived together in close quarters. He had to survive a week of temptation with Kayna as they sailed along the coastline—so he taught her to play chess.
It was a brilliant plan. He needed no words to demonstrate the moves of castle and queen. He could study the board instead of her face.
It was a terrible plan. Matching wits with Kayna did not cool his passion. She picked up the game uncommonly quickly. He was awed by her mind; her body seemed even more desirable.
Her skill at chess was nothing compared to her ability to pick up his language. She wanted to know pairs of opposites: hot and cold, day and night, happy and sad, before and after. She insisted on having Terrence remain every time he brought a meal, and gestured for Griffin and Terrence to speak to one another as they ate. She wanted to hear their conversation. This seemed to be how she learned English phrases so quickly.
When Griffin was on deck, so was she, drifting near any cluster of men who might be conversing, listening avidly as they talked about the coastline, the birds, the ship. When she repeated their saltier language over a meal, Terrence would gasp in mortification, and Griffin would laugh.
Laughter was a potent aphrodisiac.
Sadness, too, was potent in its own way. She’d asked him to show her on his map where she’d been found. Kayna in the sea where? Her fingers had trailed from the channel to Tintagel, then she’d lifted them to brush away her own tear. When more fell, she’d wiped her cheek impatiently with the linen sleeve of her shift. Griffin felt a desire of a different kind, the need to reassure her that she was not lost, that she was not alone.
For now. If the men of Port Isaac did not intercept his marriage offer, she would be alone. He would be married to the wrong woman.
Regardless, Kayna was in his life here and now. He thought to cheer her with a gift of the silver comb and brush he’d bought for his bride. Battling the many days’ worth of knots and snarls in her hair only added to her distress, so he took the comb from her hand and took over the task himself. He was more patient than she, or perhaps he just welcomed the excuse to touch her even in this limited way. When her hair was smooth and straight, he watched her plait braid after braid and coil them atop her head, an intricate hairstyle that left her neck bare.