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“Caves can be lairs,” she pointed out, still whispering, and craned her neck to peer over his shoulder.
“Know a lot about lairs, do you?”
“I have heard of them.”
“Where?”
“In the chansons the minstrels recite, they speak of bandit lairs. I translated one myself, and it distinctly said—”
He stopped short. “You translated a romance about a bandit lair?”
“There were things in the tale other than the lair,” she told him loftily. “Although I’m sure yours is a very nice lair,” she added, not wishing to anger him.
“Lass, my lair is by the sea, a hundred or more miles gone from here, and I am far too weary to take you there tonight.”
She send up a swift, silent prayer of thanks.
“I am taking you to a river so we can eat, and I can wash. Then we are going to sleep. Then we are going to get my sword back.”
“And then you will release me?”
He nodded. “You will never have to see nor think of me again.”
“My fondest wish.”
“And mine.”
“We are aligned in our purposes.”
“Aye.”
“Good.”
“Aye.”
“Excellent,” she said more forcefully.
“Aye.”
She frowned. “Stop saying ‘aye.’”
He hefted her in his arms, making her roll about. “You simply wish to get in the last word.”
She snapped her face forward, determined not to speak another word to the beast. A moment later, she muttered, “Hmmph.”
“That counts,” he said quietly.
“As does that,” she retorted.
She couldn’t tell, but it looked as if he might have smiled.
Underbrush crackled in the distance, the sound growing closer. Footsteps thumped on the loamy earth behind them, then, from out of the woods, appeared his horse.
She sagged in his arms and aimed a disgusted look his way. “You could have told me Fury was a horse.”
“I wanted to hear about the bandit lairs.”
The horse trotted up, tossing his he
