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Drifa stifled a giggle as the camel gave Sidroc the evil eye but seemed to purr at Drifa.
Sidroc gaped with incredulity.
“For another thing, it is a girl, not a boy.”
“What? It is not! Is it? How do you know?”
She put both hands on her hips and gave him a look one might lay on an ignorant boyling. She glanced down at the camel’s nether end, then over at another camel’s nether end. A vast difference!
“Oh. How could I have missed that?”
Ivar was laughing so hard he almost fell off his camel, which he’d already mounted ... his very male camel.
“So, no Lucifer. You could name her Lucy, though. For St. Lucy, or St. Lucia, the Christian patron saint of blindness. Even Norsemen pray to her betimes to be able to withstand the darkness of the long winters.”
“Are you going to talk the whole way to Miklagard?” He was doing something with a switch to get the camel to kneel so that they could mount.
“Does someone have a thorn in his paw?”
“Huh? You mean the camel?”
“Nay, not the camel. Methinks you are grumpy.”
“I’ll give you grumpy,” he said, pinching her bottom just before lifting her in front of him so that they both mounted the saddle at the same time, both of them astride, with her in front of him. With another light tap of the switch, the animal rose gracefully to its feet and began to follow after Ivar’s camel.
Drifa waved to the others, who were also departing in other directions.
Once they were comfortable, or as comfortable as one could be atop a walking longship, she said, over her shoulder, “You will notice that I did not protest riding back to Miklagard with you. Don’t you wonder why?”
“I cannot say that I do.”
“Dumb dolt!” she murmured. “There are things I need to discuss with you.”
He groaned. “You are going to talk endlessly, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be rude.”
“I am not going to Stoneheim with you, if that is where this conversation is leading.”
“Why not?”
“Could it perchance be that I have unpleasant memories of that place?”
“We need to talk about that.”
“Why must women talk everything to death? What’s done is done.”
“Not according to you and your forty-two nights of sensual torture.”
She could feel him smile against her hair. “Perchance I had a thorn in my paw then, too.”
“I meant to tell you. There will be no more of that.”
“That?”
“Bedsport.”
“Is that so? Actually, I had the same thought ... I intended to tell you that your nights of incredible passion are over. I have decided not to hold you to your bargain. Do not beg me. I will not be moved.”
