“This is not what I thought you meant when you said Let’s get out of here,” Senna murmured.

They were in a tavern. A whorehouse. It was clear as anything.

“Is this the sort of place a king-in-training ought to spend his time?” she inquired.

“I’m educating my squire,” he retorted, and propelled her toward a small table in the shadows at the back.

The room was wide. At one end ran a long series of boards, set upon trestles. Behind them, wine barrels sat on their sides, corks plugged on one end. Ale ran freely, too. A few rickety tables were scattered about the room, joined by a few even more precarious-looking stools, but as a general rule, men usually stood and drank until they passed out or won enough in bets to purchase an hour or two with one of the prostitutes.

The place was absent patrons, except for one other table. It was early in the evening yet, and Rardove’s pronouncement had ensured most of the town’s inhabitants were at present bobbing through alleys, hoping to find the fugitives and earn coin they could spend here, no doubt.

That other occupied table was wreathed by a group of three loudmouths, talking about the bounty laid on the Irishman, and of their earnest, enthusiastic dedication to finding him and kicking his teeth in.

Yet here they sat, in a tavern-cum-whorehouse, tossing back ale until their bellies must be small, alcoholic lagoons. Soon enough the three of them stumbled to the rooms upstairs, a woman with swaying hips guiding them. Two other women followed behind. A few moments later another woman approached with a tray with two mugs for Finian and Senna.

Senna kept her head down until the waitress left, but it was a pointless effort. Even with a dirty, pale face, her hair tucked up under the floppy brimmed hat, smeared with dirt and sweat, to him, she would always be the brightest thing about. She was a woman from her booted heels to the knotted ends of her hair, and she terrified Finian in a way the prospect of death never had.

And she was a dye-witch? Madness.

But of course, it was true. Now that Red had said so, ’twas clear as anything. She was filled with fire, passion. A dye-witch could not be made from a lesser woman.

“So, what do you think of Eire, Senna?” he asked suddenly.

She shifted her gaze back. “Do you mean the marauding soldiers or the mad barons?”

He crossed his arms. “I mean the rivers.”

She laughed, quiet, circumspect. Intimate. “They’re long and wide and deep. And they make my belly spin.”

“I mean me.”

Her lips curved into a smile that would send a monk running for a brothel. “Long,” she replied, her voice deep with the burgeoning mischievousness he liked so much. “And wide.”

He grinned back. “And deep?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Shallow as a stream.”

He scooped up his mug and tipped it her direction. “I’ll show ye shallow, later.”

She flushed a deep shade of pink and looked away.

The room was deserted now, but for a handful of women clustered at the far end of a high counter, a long flat board set on trestles. Behind it on a high stool sat a tall, striking, but tired-looking woman who had been eyeing them suspiciously since they entered.

“What are we doing here?” Senna asked.

“Rardove’s men are searching all the homes. We’ll wait here until some fat, rich merchant comes, then we steal a few of his things while he’s otherwise occupied upstairs.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Have you always been so enamored of thievery?”

“A lifelong dream.”

“What sorts of things?”

“Cloaks, coin. Whatever might allow us out of these gates at night, appearing to be someone other than ourselves. We’ll not last the night within the town walls.”

She scowled. Finian sat back, kicked his boots out under the rickety table, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ye have a better plan?”

“Well, not a plan, per se.”

“Desperate straits require desperate measures, Senna.”

“Indeed. I simply don’t like the idea of robbing merchants, no matter how fat or occupied they may be.”

“Ye wouldn’t, seeing as ye are one.”

She gave him a level look. “As a last resort,” she allowed. “If it proves necessary. But if there is some other way…”

Her gaze traveled over the room and settled on the proprietor and the circle of pretty, painted women clustered around her.

He hoped Senna wasn’t getting ideas about whores.

A loud clatter of something falling drew everyone’s attention to the top of the stairs at the far end of the room.

A man stood there, glaring at the pitcher that had sailed over the edge and smashed, spraying shards of crockery all around the feet of the prostitutes. He swung drunkenly toward the room he’d just left.

“Crazed wench,” he shouted, his words slurring together. “I’ll not come here again.”

“That’s for certain, ye won’t!” shouted a female voice. “Not if ye don’t pay for what ye took!”

The man staggered down the narrow hallway that paralleled the hall below. He pounded on another door, shouting vilely. The door ripped open. Two men came out, plucking at their tunics and hefting breeches up around their waists.

“Let’s go,” he snarled. The other men followed as their leader stumbled down the stairs, grasping the railing with a fat, white-knuckled hand. He threw up a palm as the tall, stately patroness took a step in his direction.

“I’ll not be treated that way, Esdeline,” he said in a pompous, drunken voice. It sounded like ‘Ess-dull-leen,’ and was followed by a violent belch. “Either that wench goes, or I do.”

He waved his hand through the air, as if that would enhance the dire nature of his threat, when in truth it made him look like he was fanning away the belch. And with that, the men all staggered out the door.

The three girls who had been upstairs—the one who’d apparently thrown the jug and the two who’d been in the room with the others—came downstairs. Their faces were furious, although one looked close to tears, and not from anger. Finian could overhear them talking, their angry conference loud in the empty tavern. The defeated tone in their voices carried farthest.

“That’s the third one in a sennight,” muttered one. “Left without paying.”

A few disgruntled ayes followed. The statuesque owner, Esdeline, her name as French as her bearing, sat on a tall stool, presiding over the conference, silent and utterly still, her graceful features rigid and stony.

“With the regiment that’s been about the past few days, things have been better ’an usual.” That from the small one who’d looked scared coming downstairs. Finian heard Senna shift on the bench beside him. “They always pay, and good.”

Another girl looked at her pityingly. “Aye, but they shan’t be camped here forever. They’ll move out, and just come back every now and then, like usual. Maybe once a moon.”

“Balffe always comes back regular,” said the shy one softly.

Senna’s face shifted around to look at Finian. It was paler than a moment ago. Balffe, she mouthed silently. Finian shrugged.

Esdeline reached out a long arm and brushed a wisp of hair off the girl’s pale face. “Go wash, Máire,” she ordered, but her voice was soft. She added, “Use my soap, the lavender.”

Máire’s face lit up. Senna shifted again, more sharply.

Someone else grumbled, not cruelly, but in an angry, disheartened tone, “Och, we could bathe in lavender every night and that wouldn’t make ’em pay us.”

More grumbles.

“I am not surprised to hear that,” Senna said suddenly, quite loudly. “Sad, but not in the least bit surprised.”