64. Now Tent
NOW: TENT
That night after we finished our dinners, we went in groups down to the river and rinsed off, the same division of men and women. Fox had stumbled on a cluster of pig-belly mushrooms and we had gleefully picked them, piling them into our aprons.
“Oh, we’ll eat good tomorrow night,” Jade had sung out when the two of us returned from the river. “Those will make a fine stew. Should we invite the scouts to have some with us? In thanks of their checking on us.”
“That’s a nice idea,” Tessa said lightly and pursed her lips.
Ilsit rolled her eyes and then, in a deliberately tinny voice, said, “Should we invite the scouts so that we can thank them with stew, and thanking them is my only aim but then I can sneak off into the night and swive Keir after dinner?”
Jade was cleaning a tin cup to replace it in the crate we kept our cups and plates in. I had brought back a bucket of river water to make suds with for cleaning our dishes. She waited for Ilsit to finish speaking and then swatted her on the arm with the damp rag.
“Ow,” Ilsit whined.
“I don’t even sound like that,” Jade said dryly. “If you’re going to make jokes at my expense, you could at least do a half-decent imitation of me.”
She uses the same voice for everyone, Fox added.
“Evening,” said Reed, stepping out of the growing dark into the light of our campfire.
“Evening, scout,” said Ilsit. “What brings you by?”
He nodded down at me. “Robbie, collect your bedroll and anything you want for sleep. You’re in my tent tonight.”
None of us spoke, and then Ilsit said, “Well, that’s a bit forward, friend.”
“Bold as brass, we say in Eccleston,” Tessa agreed.
Reed gave both women a polite nod.
“I’m sleeping with you?” I asked him, mouth like a dead fish.
“As we agreed this afternoon?” he said, canting his head to one side as if trying to remind me. The slant of his brow was pronounced, as if he was trying to get me to understand something he could not say aloud.
Stammering, I stated, “Oh—oh yes!” like an idiot agreeing to an extra helping of their meal.
I stood from the crate I had been sitting on and reached into the back of the wagon to gather the quilt I used as a bedroll.
Then I followed Reed as he began walking towards the back of the caravan.
Over my shoulder, I called out a high-pitched “Good night!” to my family, all of whom were staring at me.
Behind me I heard Ilsit explode in gales of unchecked cackling, which just unleashed Tessa’s bellow, Jade’s giggling, and Fox’s wheezing.
“Where is your tent?” I asked, hurrying, a bit out of breath.
“Oh, it’s not my tent,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Usually, I ride ahead to patrol in the mornings. I can see where we should make camp. Then I come back and patrol the caravan. Then I sleep in the afternoon in one of the army wagons. By nightfall, I am ready for night patrol. This tent I am using is an army one I borrowed. And I’ll be borrowing it for the rest of this godsforsaken undertaking. ”
“Why is—”
“Because you’re spending the night with me every night until I say otherwise.”
“You can’t just take over—”
“I can. I will. I already have.” His interruption was smooth, dismissive, even slightly apologetic.
“I’ll be riding and scouting all day and sleeping with you at night.
I have one of my brothers to check on you during the day.
I am less worried about the sunlit hours.
But the dark is up to me. I’m not letting you get more than an arm’s length from me when the sun is set.
You understand, of course.” It was not a question.
“What of my family’s welfare at night? Did you consider them?”
“My brothers have that thoroughly sorted. They will be perfectly safe.”
I was at a loss as to what to say. I had seen differing sizes of army tents for lower-ranking officers who did not sleep in or under the wagons at night like their superiors. They were either for two men or one.
We rounded several of the army wagons with soldiers standing or sitting around them, card games in play, canteens and flasks out, hushed muttering and the occasional guffaw.
“It’s against caravan rules for me to have a woman in my tent, so try and keep your head down,” he said.
“What if Gerard is back here?” I whispered.
Reed stepped to place himself between me and the gathering of men, guiding me with a hand at my back towards rows of tents. “He’s not,” he said and offered nothing else. He pushed me slightly towards one of the tents. It was a single-use size and would barely fit two bodies lying side by side.
I squatted and clumsily crawled inside with the use of only one arm, the other clutching my quilt to my side. Once in, my initial assessment of the tent’s size was affirmed. There was just enough room for two people to lie side by side, but only if they were right up against each other.
“Do you want to sleep in your clothes?” I heard him ask through the tent.
“What?”
“I’m giving you the chance to disrobe. Do you want to sleep in your—underdress thing? We may near winter, but we are still in the low country and it can get hot in a tent.”
“You mean my shift?”
Reed did not answer me.
I was rather miffed at my being nervous to be in bed with a man when I was more than halfway through life.
Folk always joked that seventy was a lucky age, and that was what most poorer people hoped for.
I had never been truly poor, always having been fed and healthy, and I had always reasoned I might see an age closer to eighty.
So at forty, I had lived little more than half a whole lifetime.
For me to be so nervous to sleep next to this man, no matter how powerfully desirable I found him, was irritating.
Squatting still, I undid the front ties on my dress and drew it over my head.
Then I undid the laces of my little boots, short and tied off at the ankle.
I folded my dress over my shoes and set these on the quilt I rolled out across the long square of the tent.
The opening flapped up and then Reed, less awkwardly than I, crawled inside. He sat back on his heels and eyed me in my shift.
The nearby campfires cast enough muted light for us to see by.
“I didn’t get a chance to fold my quilt in half to make my bedroll.”
“We’ll make a single one with your blanket and mine.
” Without asking me, he reached beneath his short-sleeved tunic and the hooded leather jerkin and pulled them off.
Then he brought his feet up and started to undo the laces on his boots.
“Probably unwise to take these off in case we are attacked, but I am tired and I want to sleep in the most comfort I can.”
I sat staring at him. Any ire-induced confidence dissipated instantly.
The god snakes—their heads sitting on the sides of his own, their tongues flicked out curiously, tasting the hollows beneath his cheekbones—were coiled artfully along his neck, shoulders, and upper arms, their tails looped over the skin just above the crook of his elbow.
Over his heart, a simple triangle was inked, the point of it directed upward, a line through it.
I realized that was an old symbol for Brother Air.
His body was lean, the musculature stretched and taut everywhere.
Had his shoulders and waist been a bit thicker, he may have been built more like his brother or even Dermid.
But instead, his frame had a V shape to it, the shoulders still broad if not bulky, a tapered waist and slim hips giving way to long legs.
I was dying to touch him.
Reed undid the belts he wore with their short swords that lay along his thighs.
He undid the one around his left thigh where a shorter, broader blade like a hunting knife rested.
He stacked them with his shirts and boots near the end of the tent where I sat.
Then he unfolded a blanket I had noticed and tossed it to me.
“Spread it over us whenever you’re ready to lie down.
” He leaned forward on his hands, hovering his face just over where I sat confused and unsure.
“I’m not going to try anything. This is not a ploy to get you in my bed.
I am serious in my protection. I’ll pleasure you over and over, again and again, some other time.
” Then he flattened and rolled his body so that he was lain down, face staring up at me, arms crossed.
I couldn’t help but stare down at him, noting the lines and angles of him, the tension in his forearms resting on his frame though his expression was one of disregard. I found myself wondering if he would take his eye patch off.
Numbly, I scooted my rear farther down and then stretched my legs out before me. Still sitting up, I spread the blanket out over both of us and then leaned backwards with it brought to my chin.
We lay there, arms and hips touching due to the fact that my own hips were wide. Then I asked, “When?”
“When what?”
“When will you pleasure me over and over, again and again?” I could not believe I was asking it, could not believe my own recklessness.
After a drawn-out breath, he answered, “Some other time, as I said.”
“Yes, but what if I am near death? What’s the point of waiting?”
“So I can better defend you, Robbie. It would be rather difficult to protect you if your murderers attack while I have buried myself inside your sex and I am oblivious to all but the small, perfect bit of divinity between your legs.”
The air in the tent felt like it was made of honey—heavy, sticky, and rich.
“How do you know it’s perfect?” I asked throatily.
“I just do,” Reed whispered after a pause.
My sex was recently filled with a rolled linen due to my courses, and my gut ached with a cramp from my bleeding. I should not have felt as aflame as I did. The pulse in my lower belly should not have thrummed.
“There’s not a hair of extra space in this tent, you know,” I remarked, utterly inane and pointless.
“So don’t roll over.”
“And how will I collect the moss?”
“You’ll tell me when it needs doing. I’ll come with you. And then we’ll return to my tent. My brothers can handle the distribution of it.”
“And we will sleep here, side by side, night after night, not coupling?”
“Not at all.”