He made himself wait, and was eventually rewarded with a tiny, reluctant nod. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
They walked to the baths in silence. When they reached the large room, they found a very different scene than the one that had greeted Theos earlier. The baths were now crowded and raucous, full of soldiers unwinding after a long day’s training.
“Stay close,” Theos warned, and he found a spot on the long bench around the outside of the room where he could leave their clean clothes. “Do you have baths in Elkat?”
“Not—not like this,” the boy said, his eyes wide.
Theos tried to see the scene from Finnvid’s perspective. Huge tubs of water, a lot of steam . . . and a lot of naked men. It was probably the last of those three that had the boy cowed for a change. Damn, if all it took was nudity to shut him up, Theos would be willing to never wear clothes again.
“Strip down,” he ordered, pulling his filthy tunic off. “We’ll start in that one, the biggest tub. That’s for basic cleaning: the water flows through fast, so it’s where you want to lose the worst of the grime. Then if you’re just having a quick wash, you can go right from it to rinsing under the stream of water, over there. Or if you want to sit and soak for a while, you can move to one of the smaller tubs. The water in them circulates, but not as fast, so you don’t want to get into them until you’re pretty clean.” Theos frowned at the immobile boy. “Strip down,” he repeated as he tugged off his own trousers.
“I can just— I don’t need to bathe—”
Theos snorted. “Yes, you do. You stink like a month in the forest, and you’ll be sleeping in my room tonight. You’ll get cleaned up, and you should shave; wearing beards is fine in the field, but we don’t do it when we’re in the barracks.”
“I don’t—”
“You’ll strip yourself or I’ll strip you,” Theos said firmly. He didn’t have time for this Elkati squeamishness.
The words got Finnvid moving, at least, although he glared as he did. After the fuss, Theos half expected to see some shameful deformity hidden beneath the boy’s rags, but his body was . . .
It was healthy, Theos told himself. Anything beyond that was none of his concern. He shouldn’t give in to his fascination with the flawless, pale skin, like the marble of the statues in the temple. He wouldn’t stare at the patch of fair hair between the Elkati’s legs, certainly wouldn’t try to get a better view of what else lay in that area.
No, Theos wouldn’t do that. But everyone else in the baths was getting a good eyeful. It probably wasn’t the first time they’d seen a naked Elkati, yet there was something beautiful about the boy, something they all seemed to notice. Knowing the Elkati was a Sacrati’s bedwarmer probably added to the mystique. What qualities must he possess to entrance a man like Theos?
Theos resisted the urge to toss a towel over the boy and instead just threw angry glares at anyone who got too close, anyone who might want to do more than look.
Finnvid kept his gaze locked on the floor, hopefully not aware of the attention.
“Come soak,” Theos said, and he led the way to the big tub. It was crowded, and there were several invitations for Finnvid to sit on various laps, which turned into a competition, which turned into wrestling and splashing. Finnvid might not have seen the staring, but he’d have to be blind and deaf not to notice all this.
Theos sighed. He’d made a ridiculous decision to keep the boy, and now he needed to tolerate the fuss until the excitement subsided and the men found something else to be stupid about. “You,” he said, reaching down and hauling on the arm of one of the younger combatants. “You and your friends—out of the tub. You’re clean enough.”
The youngster narrowed his eyes, and Theos anticipated spit in his food or maybe grime on his laundry, but the child clearly wasn’t ready for open rebellion yet. Which was almost too bad, because Theos would have liked to vent some tension by knocking an insolent recruit around a little. Instead, he glared until the boy and his friends climbed out, then nudged Finnvid’s shoulder. The Elkati jerked away as if the touch burned, and Theos sighed again. “Get in. There’s a bench about halfway down inside the tub. You see where everyone’s sitting? Step on that.”
The boy reluctantly did as he was told, and Theos then stepped into the tub himself.
One of the men in the tub was older, not Sacrati but a veteran of many campaigns. Theos had fought with him in three different valleys, and they’d always gotten along, so he nodded a greeting. The man said, “I heard you were planning to rent him out. Put my name on the list.”
Theos shouldn’t have wanted to punch his comrade in the face. “I’m keeping him to myself for a while,” he replied as evenly as he could. “But when I get tired of him, I’ll let you know.”
Other offers started coming in then, some joking, some serious, and Theos realized that he was not going to have a long, relaxing soak in the tubs that evening. “Scrub clean,” he told Finnvid. “There’s soap here, and use those brushes.”
The boy sat still, maybe trying to figure out a way to drown himself in the steaming water. Theos grabbed one of the brushes and whacked Finnvid on the head with it. “Hey. Let’s go.” He tossed a chunk of soap at the boy. “The faster you do it, the faster you can get your clothes on and get out of here.”
That was a good incentive, apparently, since the boy got to work. Theos had only needed a rinse to get the caked mud off him, so he had some time to waste while he waited for Finnvid to finish. He tried to keep his eyes to himself, but it was somewhat difficult when everyone else in the room was staring in one direction. So, okay, maybe he snuck a few peeks.
The boy needed more muscle. He was thin from insufficient food, which Theos tried not to feel guilty over, and also from growing too fastupand not enoughout. But more food and lots of exercise would have him in good condition; he probably would have been able to make it as a soldier, if he’d been given the chance. Well, he would have if his attitude hadn’t gotten in the way, which seemed pretty unlikely, really.
Now that the boy had begun his task, he was meticulous, scrubbing his entire body as if preparing for his initiation ritual. His hair became several shades lighter after he lathered it up and rinsed it out, and Theos’s hand twitched with eagerness to touch it. Instead, he flicked Finnvid’s shoulder. “Ready to rinse? Then you can shave, and we can get out of here.”
Finnvid didn’t reply immediately. He stared at the far wall, the ceiling, anywhere but at Theos or the other men.
“You’re going to have to get out of the tub eventually,” Theos said. “If you’re waiting for a time when no one else is around, you’re going to dissolve into the water and be washed down the drain.”
“That sounds fine,” Finnvid finally muttered.
Theos snorted. “Not fine with me. I have things to do tonight, so I’m leaving. You can come with me or you can take your chances here on your own.”
