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But then she ruined the mood, or enhanced the mood, depending on one’s perspective, when she muttered, “Bloody hell! Now I have mind pictures, too.”
“Of your nipples?”
“Nay, not of my nipples, you idiot. Of me riding a horse naked.”
He put the same mind picture in his head and was musing over it, erotically, when she added something else.
“And the horse is you.”
He groaned aloud.
He would never sleep tonight. Is this what they meant by that old saying, “Impaled on his own lance”?
Chapter Twenty-three
It wasn’t Appomattox, but it was a surrender ...
Drifa hadn’t slept much at all the night before, and by the sounds of Sidroc’s grumbly mood, he hadn’t, either. He started picking on her as soon as they arrived at the stable where coins were being paid for the horses, above the trade value of the camels.
“What in the name of all the gods and goddesses are you doing now?” he bellowed, nigh knocking her to the ground with surprise.
“What does it look like I’m doing, lackwit?”
“Shoveling camel shit into a leather bag?”
“Yea. I am taking it back to the Norselands with me. The gardener at the Imperial Palace told me it makes a wonderful plant fertilizer.”
Sidroc was standing, hands braced on his hips, staring at her as if she were demented. “Do you honestly think I am going to allow you to carry shit in a bag for the two or three days it will take us to return to the city?”
“Do you honestly think you can allow or disallow me to do anything? It’s not like I’m carrying it on your horse anyway.”
He shook his head as if she were hopeless while she continued to shovel up the piles. She was holding her breath as she worked; so, at first, she didn’t hear what he was saying. Then she saw him handing her some garments.
“These should fit you. They belonged to the stable master’s son.”
“Boys’ clothing? For me?”
He nodded. “Disguise yourself as best you can. Wear the cap, too, and tuck all your hair under it. Try not to pucker your lips in that flirty way of yours.”
She ignored the flirty-mouth remark and took the items he handed her. “Dost think it necessary?”
“Why take chances? At some point we will be followed, for a certainty. Let us just hope we make better time than they do.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and so a short time later she emerged from the bushes, no longer Drifa, but a slim boyling in tunic and braies.
“Drifa!” Sidroc exclaimed on first seeing her.
“Not Drifa. My new name is Askell. I always liked that name.”
“Pfff! More like Ass-kill. That would be more appropriate for our situation.”
She just smiled at his mispronunciation and showed him all sides of the new attire.
He groaned, which was what she’d intended, knowing how tight the braies were across her buttocks. He deserved the torture after what he’d put her through the night before with his “mind pictures.” This morning, too, truth be told. Every time he shot her one of his hot glances, she felt the heat all the way down to her bones. That must be why she gave her bottom an extra wiggle as she walked away from him.
His muttered curse was her reward.
They rode steadily that day, avoiding villages or farmsteads because Sidroc said, and she agreed, that the less notice they garnered, the better. They stopped only occasionally to water and graze the horses, and eat their own cold repasts. The smoked snake was long gone, thank the gods! Now they had slices of mutton, hard cheese, and bread, which Stamos and Vera had given them on their departure this morning from the farmstead, washed down by the cool water of a stream cupped in their hands.
