Tired of holding it, arm full of pins and needles, Amelia laid the sword carefully on the ground, within reach should she need it. She rested her elbow on her knee, and cupped her chin in her hand. “I should kill you, you know.”
He nodded, and looked neither surprised nor alarmed. “You’d be within your rights, both as an Aquitainian and the commander of this army.”
“See?” She sat up, and gestured at him with both hands, frustrated, tired, bloody sick of making decisions and then wondering if they were therightdecisions. “Agreeable. Too agreeable. What sort of man says ‘yes, my lady, you’d be within your rights to kill me?’ This is why I don’t trust you. Why youmustbe spying on us.”
He waited a beat, seeing if she was done, she supposed. Her too-quick, open-mouthed breathing filled the tent, and she clamped her lips shut tight.
When she was quiet, he said, “It’s as I’ve said before: I don’t wish to be a Sel any longer. Not to be a Selesee slave, at any rate. I want to be free. And I believe helping you is the only way I can be.”
A part of Amelia wanted to scream.
A larger part of her wanted to tip over onto the cot, curl up, and sleep for three days.
She did neither, but said, “When was the last time someone offered you water?”
“A…while.”
She stood, needing something practical to do, and went to fetch the canteen she’d left on top of her heaped-up saddlebags. She had cups somewhere, but they were likely still on a wagon, and not worth searching for.
She pulled the cork from the canteen and approached Cassius, where he still sat placid and cross-legged on the floor, hands chained behind him around the tentpole. She stood directly before him before she realized the sword lay on the ground some five paces behind her, out of reach and of no use.
He tipped his head back, hair rustling softly as it slid backward over his shoulders. Without its bright white curtains, his face seemed squarer, more masculine, his complexion warmer. “You have my word that I won’t harm you,” he said, softly.
“What good is your word?” But after a moment, she crouched before him and pressed the neck of the canteen to his mouth.
Helping another person drink was never tidy business. It was tricky to control the tilt of the canteen, to pour enough without drowning him. She tipped her hand carefully, but pearls of water still beaded and trickled down his jaw.
It struck her, in the midst of watching his throat work in desperate pulls, that this was a strangely intimate act. Her palms prickled, and she almost dropped the canteen; gave herself a firm mental shake and ignored the crawling sensation between her shoulder blades.
Cassius drank deep, and when he finally broke away, gasping, she saw and felt that the canteen was empty. No one, she thought, had allowed him a drink all day, and that didn’t make her happy. What good was a useful prisoner if he blacked out from dehydration?
He turned his head, and pressed his damp mouth to the shoulder of his tunic; wiped the spilled water from his chin. Then he glanced up through pale lashes and caught her gaze, voice breathless when he said, “Thank you.”
She was deciding on a response—you’re welcome, of course, I’m sorry—when the tent flap lifted, and Leif entered. This time, he’d brought Ragnar.
Both of them halted just inside the flap, both their gazes riveted. Leif looked startled.
Ragnar smirked. “So, this is what you wanted with the prisoner. Don’t stop on our account.” Aggression flashed in his eyes, nasty satisfaction she didn’t understand.
Amelia stood, too fast and too unsteadily to look composed or casual, but she would challenge anyone to look composed and casual in the face of the look Ragnar was giving her. She wanted to slap it off his face…even if it was anattractivelook.
She said, “Ragnar, did you have a flask of water that you carried today? During our long march?”
The smirk remained, but his brows notched together in puzzlement.Silly woman, that groove between them said,asking silly questions. “Of course.”
“Did you offer any to Cassius?”
His expression froze, and then, slowly, the smirk melted away. “I don’t—”
“You’re a prisoner,” she said, “and yet no one has denied you basic human necessities. Food, water, shelter.”
Fury flashed across his face. His shoulders lifted, bare arms tensing, rippling with muscle, testing the hold of the gold armbands he wore around his biceps.
Again, she wondered at the strength of the torq, of his subservience to Leif, because she had no doubt that he was currently fantasizing about charging her. What he’d do then she didn’t want to visualize.
“Leif,” she said, turning her attention to him before Ragnar could spit abuse through his clenched teeth. “I asked the Úlfheðnar to guard Cassius because my own men failed.” She let her disappointment bleed into her voice without making an outright accusation, and Leif looked properly shamefaced. He did, however, dart an unhappy look Cassius’s way. But then he wiped it clear and faced her.
“He’ll be looked after properly going forward,” he said. “And offered water and food when he needs it.”
