Chapter 64
On the second day of his captivity, Tristan woke to the sensation of someone briskly jabbing him in the ribs. He startled awake, eyes stinging, and found a dark-haired woman in a padded brown surcoat staring down at him. The butt of her spear was raised but a few inches above his ribs, ready to strike. Marcella again, joy.
“What do you want?” he groaned out.
"Good morning, Ferrando,” the mercenary brightly said. “Smile, I have good news.”
“You are getting transferred to the opposite end of Asphodel and we will never meet again,” he suggested.
“Now you’re hurting my feelings,” Marcella complained, cocking an eyebrow. “Perhaps I will have to remain silent after all.”
Besides him Fortuna, sprawled on the dirty floor as if it were the most decadent of sofas, let out a long yawn. Purely for effect, considering she did not sleep or tire.
“Do not be a brute, Tristan,” she chided. “Apologize to this lovely lady whose propensity for bothering you has been making this whole imprisonment business marginally less boring for me.”
Alas, flipping off the Lady of Long Odds the finger could not go unnoticed. He’d take petty revenge later by playing cards and calling at the first opportunity every single time, which drove her crazy. It ‘left no place for chance’, which was apparently the metaphysical equivalent of spitting in her soup. Marcella’s gaze, though, he met head on.
“Oh merciful goddess, forgive me my trespass,” Tristan said in his flattest, most lifeless tone. “I was only struck dumb by your magnificence, knowing not the words tumbling out of my mouth.”