“She is hiswife? You jest. She is hardly more than a child herself, and he is gray of beard!”
“I know. But she is his wife, nevertheless. Mary or Martha or Margaret or something. I know not. Of course, she was already a widow and mother of that odd child.”
I didn’t want to ask, but he clearly wanted me to. “Odd?”
He grinned in wicked excitement. “Yes, did you not observe him?”
I had seen this boy he spoke of. He had been clinging to the girl’s skirts, which was not so unusual. I had taken him for a younger brother. Other than thinking he had sallow skin and did not resemble his fair-hairedsister, I had not given him more notice. Before I could ask more about his apparent quirks, Aleksey said sternly, “You are not to speak with any of the Wrights.”
“Me? Why not?”
“They are very religious. He is all hellfire and damnation and sin. It’s quite funny to listen to, but you will not appreciate it as you have no sense of humor about sodomy.”
“What! What is that supposed to mean?”
“You get very irate if anyone judges you, whereas I—”
“Oh, this will be interesting. Whereas you…?”
“Whereas I understand their point of view and am very tolerant of their opinions.”
There was some truth to this, so I let it go. “And your soldiers? Who are they?”
He smirked at me in the dark, a tendril of our earlier argument still with us. “Major Parkinson is a good sort of chap, but I would not choose him to lead anything other than the horses to water, and even then I would want a competent sergeant to accompany him to make sure he found his way back safely. He is very nice, but that is all I can say for him.”
“I would say he likes his food.”
“Well, yes, he needs a sturdy horse.”
“And a large uniform.”
He gave me a censorious look. He was not as cruel as I and did not like criticizing people, usually finding good in the worst. I have still not forgiven him for not wholly condemning his uncles, who had tried to depose him, had me tortured and then nearly executed, and almost murdered him. Still he occasionally tried to tell me that they had some justification for their actions, given how we were changing things in Hesse-Davia.
“The other officers are Captain Jonathan Rochester and Lieutenant Owen McIntyre. John is the older one, as he came up through the ranks. The one with the limp is Captain Roderick Fallkirk, the one who is staying here with the horses. The soldiers’ names I do not know, of course.”
“Of course.” He was funny sometimes in his utter inability to see how vainglorious he sounded. I had to remind myself that hewasa king. It was amazing, really, that he took interest in any of these people. I did not. I only asked as I was forced to be their companion for some weeks and needed to understand them a little. “I suppose you would say the same about the two surly looking men who said they were trappers?”
“I have no idea who they are. I do not know them from the colony, but I will ask Major Parkinson in the morning. If they were trappers, they must trap very small animals, for they did not have any traps with them.”
I did not reply. It was getting late, and we were due an early start, much to my disgust. I got more comfortable and ran over the journey in my mind, planning what we needed to take.
“Niko….”
“No. You brought this upon yourself. Lie there and suffer.”
“You must be suffering too.”
“I am, but I have an iron will and no sense of humor, as you have just pointed out.”
“They will all be asleep and hardly likely to come knocking now, and besides, Faelan would hear anyone approaching and warn us.”
“In case you have not noticed, he tends to bury his head under a pillow at night and pretend we are not doing what we are doing. I doubt he would hear anyone.”
“He doesn’t pretend any such thing. He studies us.”
“Don’t say that! For fuck’s sake, Aleksey! That’s it. I have joined the Reverend Wright’s ministry and given up sodomy for good.” I heard Aleksey snort at my curse, one I had adopted from a sailor on board the ship we had come to the New World upon. He had taken the habit of addingfuckinto his speech at random and very amusing intervals, and mimicking him to amuse Aleksey (my condition on board that ship was so pitiful that my poor boy needed some distraction from nursing me) it had sort of stuck. I found it very effective and thought all men should learn such a useful curse.
Aleksey sobered and reverted to his mission. “That’s a pity, because if you attend closely, I think you will hear me throbbing from all the way over on your pallet. Listen.”
