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“But you really do.”
“From what, exactly?”
“You, to begin with.” She bent to tighten the saddle straps. “I could have just ended your life. You practically walked into the tip of my arrow.”
“But had you not been there, I could have followed the same trajectory and been none the worse. Which makes this a you problem.”
She heaved a disgusted sigh. “Are you always this argumentative?”
“Usually, I’m worse,” I reported proudly. “You might want to consider that before inviting me to accompany you.”
Our eyes locked over the horse’s back, and my stomach suddenly elected to turn arse over teakettle.
“What part of our encounter so far suggests to you that this is an invitation?”
“Look...you,” I said, realizing I still had no idea what her name was. “I’m more than capable of making my own way to the Adventure. I would, however, appreciate it if you don’t propel any more metal-tipped wood dowels through the heads of my chosen transport.”
“You’d have preferred that I allowed him to stab you?” she asked.
“I have preferred the chance to fend him off myself.”
“That wasn’t a risk I could allow.”
Maybe it was the presence of all that lean muscle, but I was having trouble arranging my thoughts into patterns that resembled common sense. “Did someone hire you to be my bodyguard?”
Bending to dip a wooden bucket in the water trough, she held it to the horse’s muzzle while it slurpily drank.
The wire of tension around my rib cage eased incrementally.
No one kind to horses could be all bad.
“It’s not your body I’m guarding.”
“See, that makes me just a little confused. Because earlier, when I asked, “what do you want,” you said ‘you.’ And if it’s not my body...” I trailed off, allowing her to pick up the end of the implication.
“It’s your life,” she said. “Someone would like very much for you not to have one.”
“How is that any different than guarding my body?” I asked.
“You’re already making me regret taking this assignment,” she grumbled, bending to pick a burr from the mount’s belly.
I followed suit, idly picking one from its glossy mane. “But really, though. What is your name? I need something to pair with the insulting things I’m saying about you in my head.”
“Salvation,” she said.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the dramatic effect and all that, but it’s really not working for me,” I reported.
“That’s my actual name. Salvation.” She shooed me out of the way to buckle a leather saddle bag onto the horse. “You can call me Sal.”
“Your mother named you Salvation?” I couldn’t suppress a snort. “I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t go with Patience or Mercy, otherwise, you’d just be a walking contradiction, and wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”
Sal allowed me a good wallow in my own cleverness before lowering the boom.
“I never knew my mother. As a baby, I was dropped off on the Order’s doorstep in a picnic basket. Reverend Mother was the one who named me.”
It was too early in the season for crickets to churr, but I heard them all the same.
“Well, don’t I feel like a horse’s shyte-chute?”
