Page 69 of A Rare Find

“Good.” They laughed. “I should do more to examine my own assumptions as well.”

Her lips twitched, then she sobered once more.

“Your grandfather did level a historically invaluable Saxon abbey,” she said. “So my unprejudiced opinion of him remains very low.”

“Noted.” They paused. “You could have left it, you know. At examining assumptions.”

She looked at them, uncomprehending.

They smiled widely and focused on the oars.

The day was already warm and hazy, and the air had a sweet, summery sluggishness. Clouds of insects hovered over the water.

Elf’s posture gradually relaxed, and her complexion improved. She wasn’t green around the gills and seemed more at home on the water.

“The Northmen’s boats looked like dragons,” she said, leaning over to dip her finger in the water. “They had heads carved on the stems and tails on the sterns.”

“Dragon boats.” Georgie kept rowing, slow, even strokes. “Terrifying. I’d rather face a seventy-four-gun French ship of the line.”

She shivered. “Seeing those ships racing up the river—it must have felt like a bad dream.”

This. This felt like a good dream. Afloat with Elf, the boat bobbing gently, the sunlight painting her with gold, a reminder to treasure this, now, this moment, worth as much as whatever cache of cold metal waited in the dark. Worth more.

Why such urgency to get back to London? Their haste seemed increasingly misguided. Life wasn’t there, passing them by. Life was here too.

They rowed on, between low hills quilted with pasture and tillage, green checkers interrupted by the occasional copse of trees or quadrangle of farm buildings.

It was early afternoon when the stone cottages of Thornton appeared on the banks.

“Shall we stop for buns?” They maneuvered the boat under the stone arch of the bridge, fully aware that Elf would brook no delay. They’d packed a basket with jam puffs, strawberries, cheese, bread, butter, and lemonade with her doggedness in mind.

“No,” she said. “Unless—do you need to rest?” She gave them an unexpectedly protective look, concern for their welfare written plainly on her face. Their chest felt tight, not from the exercise, from an emotion that strained their breath.

“Rest?” they scoffed. “I can row all day.”

Their arms were screaming by the time they reached their destination. Roman ruins conjured visions of the Colosseum, but what Georgie confronted was a few low stone walls in a field.

Why all the fuss? was the question that sprang to mind.

They didn’t ask.

They searched with Elf, rowing from bank to bank, then combing through the vegetation, zigzagging farther and farther upstream, even as the river narrowed on its course through a high valley, and they had to take increasing care with the boat to avoid scraping rock.

The bat cave was visible from the boat, near the top of a hill, and they carried up the lantern, clambering behind Elf, who went into the cave first—thank God. This cave was taller, thinner, and longer than the other two, with sharp turnings, and Georgie didn’t like the experience of shuffling blind around corners, and liked less the idea that sleeping bats dangled all around them, that any moment they might feel the impact of furry bodies, tiny claws tangling in their hair, leathery wings brushing their cheeks.

They were so relieved to exit, they didn’t care that the cave had been empty. Elf bore that disappointment alone.

She insisted on searching the banks again, after they’d turned the boat around, and on this pass, she spied the badger cave—maybe. It didn’t match the description she’d cited, but it was a cave, albeit the smallest yet, and it did smell a bit like badger, or at any rate, like animal, a rangy, musty stench, with a tang of ammonia.

No gold.

This time, they insisted.

“Enough for today,” they said. “Or it will get dark while we’re still on the water.”

The trip downstream was relatively swift. When the river widened and smoothed, they stowed the oars and gobbled a jam puff.

Elf ate her own jam puff in neat bites. She seemed thoughtful, rather than deflated, and was watching them with an expression they couldn’t interpret.