“We must be, the sun is blinding in the mornings,” yawned Mischa.
“I believe we are east,” continued Quinn. “East and a little south even.”
“I need a bath,” I said. “I reek.”
“That’s alright. We all do,” said Maureen, standing so as to allow Eefa a longer turn on the floor.
“Nyossa is a forest ripe with edibles and streams,” said River. “We may be allowed a bath. And have something to eat other than jerky.”
“At the worst, we now have shade,” said Mischa.
“What about the spirits and ghosts who live in Nyossa?” asked Catrin.
“Mythical,” said Helena in a reassuring tone. “I have never heard one shred of evidence to the otherwise. I’m sure someone lived there at one point but other than this road, isn’t it supposed to be so dense you can’t even walk among the trees?”
“It took winters to make the one road, I heard,” said Bronwyn.
As they chattered about the forest, I enjoyed the breeze and shade, but did note that we smelled horribly. My own skin crawled under a layer of filth. The soldiers were only slightly better as they had canteens to wash their faces in the morning, but they all had stubble on their faces and dust on their skin. They had to want to bathe as much as we did.
My eyes, as they kept doing, found Captain Alric. And every time I found him, he found me, as if my gaze had a physical power that nudged him to seek me out. A few times, it was I that felt nudged. It was I who found myself watched. Sometimes, he looked away, as if I was not of interest. And sometimes I looked away, because I kept seeing that note of challenge in his expression, but not again that bit of heat, that sense that he was a man and I was a woman.
He was riding ahead of where I was standing in the wagon, so I could only see the tall back of him on top of his gray horse. His armor was off except for his breastplate, all of it strapped across the back of his mount. Beneath his shirt, between the leather straps that held the breastplate in place, I could make out his strong but sinewy shoulders and back. And again, as I observed him, his head started to turn back, about to look over his shoulder, sensing me.
I pulled away from the opening in the slat and rejoined the conversation.
In the afternoon, we were given jerky and the captain sent Fletch and a fair-haired man about Mischa’s age ahead to scout for food. This man kept curiously looking at us through the slats whenever he rode nearby. He was another whose attention could have been innocent, like the handsome young one who sneaked glances at Maureen. I was convinced that one was simply lovestruck. Or it could have been more sinister. There was no way of knowing.
The two men returned to where we were walking on the path, each at a gallop, each with a deer slung over their saddles.
“Clear ahead?” asked the captain.
The fair-haired man responded. “Not a soul. Plenty of deer and coneys. We should eat well until we hit the farmlands. And the stream is about an hour away.”
“Thank you, Nash,” answered the captain. Then raising his voice, but in his always measured tone, “We will hit the stream and make camp in an hour. Same pace.”
“If they don’t let me bathe, I will just ask them to kill me,” said Mischa.
As Nash the fair-haired man had said, we soon reached it. The stream was not fast or wide enough to be considered a river but it curved along parallel to the path for a short distance before flowing back into the dense trees, its banks overflowing with eroded roots and mushrooms.
Under the canopy of trees, they tied their horses and started to set up camp.
“Half of you bathe quickly and return so the rest of us can. I do not care about the order,” said Alric, throwing his right leg over the back of his horse and dismounting, his feet barely making noise as they hit the earth.
“You must be very stealthy,” I muttered to myself and he turned to me. “Damn,” I said and turned to listen to River explain what kind of deer she thought they had hunted.
Thatcher parked the wagon near the gray horses and jumped down from the seat. He unhitched the four draft horses and secured them with the rest so they could eat the rich moss and ferns that covered the forest ground.
Half of the troop walked down the path to where clusters of water trees that grew straight up out of the stream offered some privacy. Their long green and aquamarine-colored, feathery leaves drooped into the water, waving like kelp where they hit the flowing surface.
“What is that wonderful smell?” sighed Bronwyn.
Something like camphor permeated the forest. There was also a nutty sugariness in the air. Compared to our bodies, itwaswonderful.
“Oh, I know,” said Helena. “Some of the trees in this forest are eucalyptus.”
“And clematis vines on the trees,” added Maureen. “That’s what smells like dessert.”
“I want to rub their leaves all over me,” said Mischa. “Anything but how I smell now.”
