The Queen and the Cure (The Bird and the Sword Chronicles #2)(21)
The men chimed in then, naming the people they missed, the people they’d lost, and the oldest soldier, a man named Gibbous who had been in the King’s Guard for as long as Kjell could remember, called out the name of a woman, his eyes glued to the heavens.
Jerick hooted, surprised, and the mood was broken. Isak, determined to keep Sasha talking, asked her if she’d lost someone close to her.
“I am the one who is lost,” Sasha said. “And I don’t think anyone is looking for me.” The corners of her mouth lifted wryly, and Isak looked momentarily stricken. Kjell glowered at him. His men had become too familiar with the servant woman. It wasn’t good.
They unrolled their pallets in the mouth of the cave, leaving the horses hobbled outside. Kjell volunteered for the first watch, needing solitude.
He didn’t get it.
Sasha found him when the camp quieted, and she perched beside him, casting her eyes out at the empty expanse, mimicking his posture.
“You are angry again,” she stated softly.
He didn’t deny it, though anger was too strong a word. He was weary. Restless. Distracted. Intrigued.
“Having a woman traveling with a group of warriors is dangerous,” he said.
“Why?” The question was quietly distressed.
“Because if they care for you—and they all do—they will stop looking out for each other and they will all start looking out for you. It’s not your fault. It’s not theirs. It’s simply the way we are.”
“I see,” she whispered, and he ceased speaking, knowing that she did.
She stayed with him as the moon rose higher in the sky, sloughing off the haze and lighting the dunes around them. Before long, Sasha was curled on the sand beside him, her head on her scarf, her legs and arms drawn into her chest, and he sighed, knowing his men would think they dallied.
But he didn’t wake her. Not yet. He would let her stay a while longer.
The horses slept, his men dreamed, and he kept watch.
They entered Enoch ten days after leaving Solemn, dusty and dirty, longing for baths, wine, and beds that didn’t encourage sand spiders and stiff backs. There’d been no battles, despite Sasha’s warning, and their armor was dingy, their skin chafed, and their horses in need of grain and grooming.
The land of Enoch boasted the River Bale, the largest river in all of Jeru. It extended for one hundred miles, just below Jeru City all the way to the borders at the south of Enoch, and because of that, the province enjoyed trade with the kingdom and the Northern provinces, unlike its poorer neighbor, Quondoon.
Along one side of the River Bale, fine homes and respectable businesses lined the streets. Sheltered women and cherished children moved freely, and a cathedral erected for the first Lord Enoch overlooked the river and cast a disapproving shadow upon the opposite bank. Across from the safe and the acceptable—with only the width of the mighty river to separate the two—all manner of decadence and depravity had become well-entrenched.
The wealth was just as evident on the far bank of the Bale, if not even more so, the free flow of money and vice drawing the respectable and disreputable alike. Gaming and gambling drew the greedy and the bored. Taverns and teahouses enticed the hungry and the hiding. Elaborate public bathhouses, where washwomen would draw a man’s bath, clean his clothes, and keep him content while he waited for them, attracted the soiled and the lonely, and kept them coming back again. Luxurious inns boasted rooms that were fully stocked with food and fair company, and the drinks never stopped flowing.
It all bore the purifying sheen of money, but the women were still concubines and the spirits still made men foolish. Kjell’s men were eager to be impetuous and imprudent for several days, and when they boarded their horses and secured lodging, they dispersed along the streets of Enoch with firm orders to be prepared to ride out in two days’ time. Kjell was among them, Sasha deposited in a room of her own with a maid at her beck and call and the benign instruction to do whatever she wished.
Yet Kjell worried.
And he fretted.
Then he grew angry that he worried and frustrated that he fretted. Finally, after spending hours doing the things that usually brought him pleasure and relief, he stormed back to the inn where he’d left her. He stomped up the stairs to her room and pounded upon the door of her chamber until she opened it with weary eyes, the wafting scent of rose petals, and freshly-washed hair. He grunted his relief that all was well, repeated his edict that she go wherever she pleased, and turned and stomped to his own quarters, directly across the wide corridor.
Then he stood inside his room and listened at his door, straining his ears to see if she left. She didn’t. Where would she go? Did he think she’d followed him from Solemn only to leave him in Enoch? He threw himself across the massive bed and fell into restless sleep, wishing she was curled nearby and hating himself for it.
He would take her to Jeru City. He would find a place for her in the queen’s service, and he would be free of her.
He returned to the bathhouse the next day, determined to lose himself in his old ways, to soothe himself in water and steam and scent and skin. But the woman who attended him looked like Ariel of Firi—it was the look he thought he preferred—with dusky skin and full lips, round hips and heavy breasts. Her thick, black hair was arranged in fat ropes down her back, and he found himself wishing it was unbound, the curls untamed. When she looked up at him, her eyes carefully lined in kohl and heavy-lidded with pretended ardor, he felt nothing but self-loathing. He immediately sent her away.