Jade looked up from where she was beating dust from a bedroll. “Salt man?”
“The Vyggian with the snake tattoos on the sides of his neck. The one-eyed man. He has caught me twice now, and I only was able to forage last night as he believed my poor tale of looking for phlox.”
“Shit and piss and hell,” sighed Tessa, her eyes closing.
“I’ll cut his balls off,” Ilsit said, swigging her tea. “I’ve a hunting knife.”
Foxbeamed at Ilsit.
Jade squinted up at me. “How bad?” She always knew what to ask.
“Bad,” I replied. “He asked if I sought mother’s moss.”
“I repeat,” Tessa stated, standing a little from her seat by the fire to stoke it. “Shit and piss and hell.”
“The women in this camp are doomed,” Jade worried, putting a hand to her neck, eyes roving over the caravan.
“I mean aside from traveling for Perpatane,” Ilsit grumbled.
Tessa grunted, smothering a laugh.
I shook my head. “I have drawn his attention for some reason. So he has his eye on me and may have it on you.”
“For some reason,” Ilsit repeated mockingly.
Jade smiled at me, an indulgent look on her face.
“She always likes to act like she isn’tthatpretty,” Tessa said to Ilsit. “And lately she blames it on age.”
“Been that way since girlhood,” agreed Ilsit. Then, making her voice higher, as if I sounded terribly prim, she said, “I am not the fair twin—no, no, not me! That’s my sister! I cannot understand why all the boys like looking at my backside.”
Tessa smiled. She liked that Ilsit spoke of Rowena still.
Fox began to shake a little, darting a look at me in apology.
I gave her a droll frown that had no real anger in it. “I seek to warn you of a grave matter, and you resort to teasing me. You are all absurd. Also, the man is unknowable. He is like a serpent sunning itself on a rock. You do not know if he sleeps or if he is waiting to strike. He is so dispassionate that I wonder if?—”
“Why does she compare him to a serpent?” Tessa asked Jade and Ilsit, speaking over me and winking at them.
“Don’t say it,” I protested, glaring at them all.
“It could have been any other animal,” added Jade. “Yet she chooses a serpent.”
“Well, I would think,” Ilsit answered, contemplative, pausing to blow on her tea, “she wonders at the serpent that is between his legs. Hence the imagery.”
The three of them fell into laughter while Fox continued to snicker in her soundless way.
“For gods’ sake,” I said.
“So many Robbie admirers on this caravan,” Jade said. “Herschel, Thane, and now this Vyggian man.”
“Herschel and I were of a use to each other,” I sputtered. “That is past us now. You are imagining Thane’s interest, and this man is decidedly younger than me. And seems to think I am a criminal of some kind.”
“He’s not wrong,” Tessa said, but her manner was indulgent.
“You’re telling me the man has no interest in a nice swiving in his tent?” Ilsit asked me, pointing at me with her tin cup. “Come now, modesty doesn’t suit you, Robbie. You’ve a perfectly acceptable pair on your chest as well as a glorious rear end. And your face isn’t bad either.”
My own earlier thoughts of a rapid, fiery coupling with him on the camp perimeter must have shown in my face, because Tessa and Ilsit both made scoffing noises and began to laugh again.
