She sighed. “Is that possible?”
“The stable master told me of a farmstead where they have a small pond, which is private, and he offers clean hay stalls for travelers. How does that sound?”
“I cannot imagine anything that would give me greater pleasure.”
I can.
“You think of everything.”
You have no idea.
Where’s a chaperone when you need one?...
It was early evening when Drifa realized that Ivar was missing.
Sidroc and Ivar had taken her outside the village to a farmstead where an elderly Greek couple, Stamos and Vera, gave them a hearty meal of lamb and lentils with warm bread, then directed them to a nearby pond that they assured them was clean. In other words, their farm animals were kept away from this section so there was no runoff of their waste. They’d even given them soap and drying cloths.
Drifa had gone first, and, yea, she had probably taken longer than she should have, luxuriating in being clean once again, from squeaky hair to shiny toenails. And she’d used the opportunity to wash her dirty clothes as well, laying them on a bush to dry.
Of course, this was the first time she had been naked since leaving the Arab tent city, and she got her first good look at her hennaed nipples and areolas. They looked ridiculous to her, although the harem eunuch had assured her and Ianthe that it was considered beautiful to many men. It would be months before the dye wore off. Good thing she wasn’t married. It would probably give a Norseman a good laugh, or a fit of heart pains at the shock on first seeing them. Skalds would compose poems and recite them up one end of the Norselands and down the other, “Ode to Painted Nipples.” And folks would whisper with questions about what other intimate body parts of hers had been painted. None, thank the gods, though they probably would have been if she hadn’t escaped.
After bathing, she went to the barn where they planned to sleep that night, and Sidroc went off to bathe by himself. She was sitting on a clean wool blanket on clean hay in a clean gunna, combing her clean hair, marveling at how it was the simple things in life that gave the most pleasure.
But then Sidroc returned.
It wasn’t that he took away those pleasurable things. ’Twas just that he unsettled her.
He, too, had bathed and donned clean clothing. He’d even shaved. And he looked more handsome than any man had a right to, even a Norseman.
While she continued to comb her hair, he braided the long strands on either side of his face. ’Twas not an exercise in vanity, she knew. Viking men favored long hair, but they did not like it swinging onto their faces, blinding them. Even so, the braids added to his attractiveness, and he probably knew it.
“Where are you and Ivar going to sleep?” she asked as she put her comb away and smoothed out the blanket. When he didn’t answer, she turned to look at him.
He averted his eyes and busied himself checking over the horses they had purchased, which were in nearby stalls.
When he returned, she tried again. “Sidroc? You never answered my question.”
“Ivar has gone.”
“Gone where? The man has not left my side since we arrived in Byzantium. Like barnacles on the underside of a longship he has been to me.”
“I will be the barnacle on your underside for the time being.”
Surely he did not mean that the way it sounded. Especially since he seemed to harbor a hatred of her most times, and indifference the rest. “Why? Where has Ivar gone?”
“Ahead to Miklagard.”
“Why?”
“To make preparations.”
“What is going on?”
“We decided that there might be danger for you in the city. Mayhap Mylonas. Mayhap some others. We do not believe ad-Dawlah arranged his misdeeds on his own.”
“We. We. We. What is it with all this ‘we’ business? Why was I not consulted as well?” I have a bad feeling here. A very bad feeling.
“Men’s work,” he murmured.