“She’s saying I act like I am teenaged,” I explained, and to Tessa I said, “I do not laugh like I am seventeen. I barely laugh at all.”
“It’s more of an open mouth Tessa tries to describe,” Ilsit suggested. “You pant after him like a rabid animal. Just swive him already.”
“Leave her be,” said Jade. “And leave me be too. I can look, can’t I?”
“Can look at what?” came a man’s voice.
The five of us flinched and looked up to see the four scouts, Reed, Keir, Dermid, and Evangeline.
It was Keir who had spoken, and he looked down at Jade with open, unchecked want. Then he squatted next to her and held out a woven bag. “We’re about to come up on maybe the biggest village near the dust road between here and Skow. It is called Griston. When we were scouting today, we met a barley farmer and he gave us these.”
Jade took the bag and opened it. “Candy!”
“Yes, and it is delicious,” chimed Evangeline. Then she sat between Tessa and Ilsit, who passed Evangeline her pipe to smoke.
Keir planted himself on the ground next to Jade and indicated she take a piece of candy.
Reed and Dermid chose to lean against the wagon, arms crossed, but the Helmsman had a friendly smile. Reed wore his usual enigmatic expression of polite disinterest, but his eye was sharp and trained on me.
I pretended not to notice and dipped my hand into the bag when it reached me. Inside was dried fruit coated in a honey-like lacquer that melted on my tongue. I had never tasted anything like it and couldn’t stop myself from a moan. When I looked around, I saw that no one had really heard as Dermid and Keir were explaining that Griston made the majority of the whiskey drunk on the continent. Apparently, their agriculture was all barley and rye, their town full of distilling businesses and warehouses of barreled drink.
“Coopers must thrive in that place,” Dermid was saying.
Then I saw that Reed was watching me. From his lean on the side of the wagon, he had straightened slightly. Then he did the funny thing he sometimes did with his jaw, stretching it and moving it from side to side.
So, I did it again. I took a second piece of candy and made a little moan.
This time, he peeled his body off of the wagon and walked away, calling out, “I’m to patrol now. Good evening.”
“Anyway,” Keir said to us, but his eyes were still on Jade, “we came to invite you to a night of celebration. We’re staying two nights in Griston. It’s a nice break, and we’ve made good coverage of the road. This Captain Gerard and the Lord Sheridan and his son, Bertram, they all say a rest is needed. And they’re going to let folk drink, women too, which is apparently a luxury for you Rodwin people.”
Tessa and I looked at each other. That did not sound right.
“We’ll be in one of the taverns on the second night,” added Evangeline. “I’ll come find you and tell you which one. We don’t want to drink with anyone else. This whole caravan is full of people with absolutely no humor.”
Ilsit laughed and slapped the lady warrior on her arm.
I understood how truly ignorant I was when we reached Griston. It was the largest town I had ever seen, perhaps twice the size of Sheridan. They operated the same, with a lord and sharecroppers and other independent businesses. They had no church that I could see,though, and apparently were closest allied with Eccleston, though we saw a handful of scarlet flags of Perpatane.
“They want the protection of a bigger place,” said Jade to me as we walked behind the wagon through fields on the outskirts of their town.
Griston allowed for the caravan to settle in these fields and set up camp. As we did so along the public road, the wagons stayed in a type of formation, falling into rows. The cavalry and infantry were bustling about with arrangements for camping, shouting what supplies were to be replenished by Griston. Soldiers were passing out cakes of cheap soap. The Oberlong was flowing nearby, unseen but loud, and around us folk were talking about having the time to bathe in the river and wash dirty clothes.
Up until then, we had all carried buckets from the river into our wagons and, one at a time, taken turns scrubbing our bodies with our own soap, trying to stay as clean we could. All of us were used to regular baths. Tessa had lived right near a public well pump, and the rest of us had not only my small well in the yard but also the glowing creeks of Nyossa.
Men and women were divided, men to go up the river to the right and women to the left. We went in turns, Tessa, Ilsit, and Jade going first and then returning so Fox and I could take a turn.
We kept our clothes on, scrubbing our bodies beneath them and then taking the soap to the clothes themselves. I insisted Fox stand close to me so I did not lose her in the crowd of women. The river was wide in this part of the country, but not choppy. And we took our time. When we reached the bank and climbed out, Fox spotted some honeysuckle.
Can I crush some to rub into our hair?
“That’s a nice idea,” I agreed, “seeing as I didn’t bother packing anything that didn’t serve a practical purpose.”
When we returned, Tessa had strung up a clothesline between the wheels around the sides of the wagon. We all took turns insidethe tarpaulin, changing into fresh clothes after shucking off our wet ones.
I had not spotted any god trees along the river, and we were still fairly well stocked with mother’s moss from my last nightly excursion. I had told Reed when he rode near our wagon that day, as he did with more frequency, what I needed to do. He had escorted me from the wagon to the camp perimeter and begrudgingly waited for me at the edge when I insisted I work alone. We had not spoken very much since he claimed victory over my admitting I was a seductress, but our manner was more at ease.
I was gathering the courage to ask Reed why he had insisted on a midwife joining the caravan, but I found myself so distracted around him, so taken by his salt smell, his height, the ease in which he lived inside his own skin, I would forget to ask. And I wanted to ask Thane why he had hired these four foreigners, but Thane was so preoccupied helping run the caravan, I only saw glimpses of him now and then. He always held up a hand in acknowledgment, trying to communicate something in his serious gaze, but I would turn away, unsure of what I felt for him now.
