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Ladylove? Finn mouthed silently to him.
“Drifa is not my lady, nor is she my love,” he insisted hotly. “Get that idea out of your fool heads right now.”
“Whatever you say,” Ianthe said, clearly thinking otherwise.
In truth, Sidroc wouldn’t let himself question why he was so concerned over Drifa’s welfare that he’d appointed himself her savior, and that was the bone of his increasing self-induced irritation.
So what if she had gotten herself into trouble? So what if she was injured or being assaulted? So what if he never saw her again? He could not care less.
Which was a total lie.
He cared.
Too much.
“Why don’t you two drop back and entertain the rest of the ‘troop’?” he suggested.
That was another thing that made him bloody damn mad. Once he and Finn had reported to the emperor what they’d discovered at the border lord’s estates, and once Sidroc had spoken his mind to Mylonas over what he suspected was the eparch’s involvement in the plot against the Norse princess, and once he had made plans to rescue her—though why that was his responsibility he could not understand—he was faced with a mob of people wanting to come with him. The mob being Finn, Drifa’s four bodyguards, who were nigh prostrate with guilt at losing her, and Ianthe, who claimed to now be Drifa’s best friend. If Drifa hadn’t come to visit her, it never would have happened, in Ianthe’s remorse-ridden mind. It was all Ianthe’s fault. No, it was everyone’s fault, they each proclaimed. Except Finn, who came along to enjoy the debacle. Nay, that was unfair, Finn was a good friend, and a soldier always wanted a comrade with weapon-skill at his back.
In any case, the bunch hadn’t ever asked if they could tag along. They’d insisted. And when he’d repeatedly refused, they’d said they would follow after him anyhow.
He was particularly intrigued by Ianthe’s comment that Drifa would need female companionship when he uncovered her secret. And then the infuriating woman had sealed her lips, refusing to say more. ’Twas galling to think the princess witch had a secret, which apparently involved him, which she shared with a person who was almost a stranger, but not with him.
“Will I be angry when this secret is revealed?” he’d asked. Surely Ianthe could tell him that at least.
Ianthe had shrugged.
Gods, I am coming to hate shrugs.
“Happy and angry at the same time. I am hoping happiness will overwhelm anger.”
What a load of feminine ill-logic!
They camped that night around a fire at an oasis, which meant a puddle of water with one single palm tree and about a million hectares of sand. Oh joy! Hopefully they would arrive on the morrow at the desert tent city Mylonas had reluctantly mentioned to him, under pressure from the emperor.
“What is your plan?” asked Ivar, who was dipping a hunk of paximadi into his cup of ale. Paximadi was the hard bread the Greek military carried on all their missions. It lasted forever because it was hard as a rock.
He was saving his to feed to Lucifer at the end of this mission in hopes the devil would choke to death. His luck, the beast would turn the bread into vomit and spew it at his face.
“Are you listening, Guntersson? What is your plan?”
What plan? “First, we must discover where Drifa is being held.” That sounds like a plan, doesn’t it? “It makes no sense for us to go storming into an enemy encampment, and that is how we must view this Arab tent city. Believe me, they will not welcome us.” You would think I had actually thought this out, instead of barreling ahead on the steam of my emotions. Emotions? Me?
“I can go in, dressed in Arab garb,” said Gismun, one of Drifa’s guardsmen. “My dark hair and complexion look least like a Norseman of us all.”
“It could be dangerous,” Sidroc warned.
Gismun’s chin shot upward. “I am a Viking.”
That said it all.
Sidroc nodded. “Once we locate Drifa, we must attempt to remove her with stealth. Our numbers do not warrant an all-out attack.”
“I know where Drifa is,” Ianthe said with certainty. “She is in a harem.”
Everyone turned slowly to stare at Ianthe.
“Mylonas inferred to us in our meeting with him that Drifa had an Arab cousin who might wish to marry her for purposes of an alliance,” Sidroc mused aloud.
