Just as quickly, the look was gone.
She shrugged one shoulder and moved on, swaying her hips at a group of rowdy soldiers at the next table.
“What am I, invisible?” Tristan grouched from across their small table, his cheeks already ruddy with drink.
Wolfe’s mouth twitched with amusement.
“When you grow more hair on your jaw and around your knob you might catch the attention of a wench or two.”
Tristan stroked his mostly smooth cheeks, soft fuzz sprouting haphazardly in patches like moss on rocky ground.
“At least I don’t have hairs coming out of my nostrils and ears, old man,” the boy threw back.
“What are you now? Fifty? Sixty?”
Wolfe was only twice the boy’s age at thirty years. But he’d fought enough battles and bore enough scars for a man who’d lived several lifetimes.
“Besides,” the boy said with a smirk, “some maids like us smooth and green. The better to show us how to please them.”
He leaned in to confide in a whisper, “Twelve times in one night. That’s my record with a merry widow two villages down.”
He flicked a challenging look at Wolfe’s crotch.
“How often can you get it up? I hear more time lapses between performances the older one gets.”
Wolfe let the metaphorical gauntlet lie for a few seconds before picking it up.
It was in moments like these that he recalled why he allowed the boy to travel with him. If nothing else, he was entertaining.
They made an odd pair—the dark, illiterate, bastard killer-for-hire and the golden, privileged son of an influential lord.
“’Tis notyournumber that counts, but hers,” Wolfe finally imparted. “And it is not how swiftly you swing your sword, but how enduringly and skillfully you wield it.”
Tristan’s brow scrunched with concentration as he digested that bit of well-earned wisdom.
The barmaid came back with Wolfe’s stew and took her good time setting it on the table before him, sending him lingering, wanton looks. Biting those full, pillowy lips to remind him of her skills in using them.
“More ale, love,” Tristan said in his deepest voice, mimicking Wolfe’s earlier demeanor, leaning back on his stool with legs spread, meager chest puffed out.
She didn’t spare him a glance.
“Get it yourself from the barrel at the bar, lad,” she said upon departure, failing to secure what she wanted from the man she wanted.
“I only serve themen.”
Wolfe hid his smile in his stew as he lowered his head and dug in.
He could practically feel the boy’s narrowed eyes burning a hole into his skull as he tried to figure out what Wolfe possessed that he didn’t.
“I don’t get it,” Tristan muttered.
“Maids tell me I’ve the handsomest face they’ve ever seen all the time. Right up there with Sir Lancelot.”
He raked a hand through his wavy mane.
“It’s the golden hair, you know. And the pretty blue eyes from my mum’s side. Being the eldest son of a landed lord doesn’t hurt either. Plenty of coin to buy them ribbons and other fripperies.”
He gestured to Wolfe with a disgruntled flick of his hand.