CHAPTER 10 — Spare the Wife , Spoil the Wife #2
“Then people were being too nice to say it to your face. Sounds like you were surrounded by those two-faced, sybaritic Dragonkind. But you’re done and gone from overbred hedonists who won’t do you the favor of telling you that you look like a milk cow, all bony hips and breast. We will fix that one day at a time.
For now, get outside. We’ll do as Joktepitha suggested and visit the butcher for our sheep. ”
“We’re going to eat sheep?” Stephanie asks in horror.
I eye her sideways. “Yes. Why? Do your people not eat mutton?”
“Some of us do.” She shrugs thoughtfully. “I guess I have before when I eat gyros. Though the second ingredient is soy paste and the fifth ingredient is lamb, right behind garlic powder, which makes you think there isn’t much—”
At my glower, she quite literally backpedals. “Sheep is good! I didn’t mean anything against—you know, what you guys like to eat. I appreciate that you feed me.”
I exhale a mighty breath. “Did you think we’d starve you?”
“No!” She picks at her dress.
“Careful with the stitches, girl. I didn’t stay up all night just for you to pull those out.”
Stephanie’s hand freezes and her dress drops back from where she was plucking it. “You stayed up all night?” Her eyes move over me. “For me?”
Impatiently, I catch her by her bony elbow and push her ahead of me toward the door.
“No, nimwit. I’m pregnant and I can’t hardly sleep without pain.
Since I was up anyway, I thought I may as well fashion you something decent so that it doesn’t appear to everyone in the kingdom that Roarg isn’t caring properly for his new wife. ”
“Oh. Well… thank you.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m sorry you were in pain all night,” she adds with a sad little grimace.
“Didn’t I tell you to shut. Up?”
“Sorry,” she mumbles, eyeing me warily. And she’s right to be wary: my hand is poised behind her, just waiting in case she couldn’t follow orders.
I bang her in the back of the head. “That’s for misunderstanding what shut up means.”
She snaps her jaws closed and holds her tongue as she quickens her pace so she’s no longer in easy striking range. She’s still rubbing her head when she reaches the buggy and I tell her to climb inside.
She minds me, rounding the front of it. But the knock to her skull loses its effect all of a sudden. “How’d my day go?” I hear her mutter. “Oh, I found myself in a harem of sisterwives, getting bossed around by the mean sister, thanks for asking.”
I stare at her—and she whips her head up, eyes wide, terror dawning in her expression as she seems to realize I caught her every murmur.
“Do you have cloth ears?” I ask silkily.
Her brows furrow, but then she shakes her head rapidly.
I raise my hand and clap it into the side of her skull. “I don’t either. I can hear every little hiss you make under your breath, and you’d do well to remember that, you pest!”
Another sizzle of pain strikes my womb, and I have to close my eyes and grit my teeth until it passes. A wave of sadness grips me.
I shake it off and focus my thoughts instead on Stephanie. A sigh rattles up from my chest when I consider that Roarg, if he hears of her tendency to make mutinous little mutters, will be amused. He has an awful habit for finding brats endearing.
But even if it is a bad habit, it will be a good thing for him to cleave to her.
It didn’t take a full day to see this female is the stuff that makes a decent sisterwife.
She’s soft in the ways he’s sure to like, and there isn’t an ounce of spite in her.
It helps too that she’s cowed easily enough by a swat to the head whenever she gets out of line.
I pet Opkug and motion at Stephanie. “I changed my mind about you sitting like a lump in the buggy. Get over here,” I order her tiredly.
Privately, I’m relieved she’s with me to help.
I’m not feeling well enough to make this trip alone.
“I’m going to send you to fetch the halters.
We need to catch the horses and harness them. ”
They’re usually well behaved for Roarg, Namak?ga, and me, but they get pushy and tend to misbehave with Joktepitha. Something tells me they’ll pull these same shenanigans on Stephanie.
She doesn’t know where the paddock is, so I lead the way down the hill, trundling to the barn set into the hillside.
Three of the horses pad into the barn behind us, their hoofbeats light, weight balanced on their toes no doubt because they’re ready to wheel around and run if this stranger in their midst does anything they don’t like.
When I glance over my shoulder, I see our followers are our two red roan mares, Nijmegen and Saba, and Rijswijk, our blue roan gelding—all three of them with their ears forward, eyes alert, and nostrils flared wide, attention wholly trained on Stephanie.
“Your horses are giants!” she exclaims, gazing up at them. “Wow!” She gives me a hopeful look, her eyes wide and bright. “Can I pet them?”
Despite myself, even I’m a little charmed. “Yes. They’re yours now too, you know.”
Stephanie exhales in wonder and reaches up until Rijswijk lowers his head, as curious of her as she is admiring of him.
She strokes along his nose lovingly, hand running over the deeply arched bone of his muzzle. “Look at you. You are so handsome and—” she pats his thick, strong neck, “beautifully beefy. Gah, I love you.”
I push her aside. “Save that talk for your husband.”
“Are your earrings made of Orc teeth?”
For three full breaths, I stare at the gelding’s mane before I finally turn to Stephanie. “In what corner of hellfire’s kiln did that question come from?”
She gestures at my ears. “I’ve just been curious.”
I huff a long-suffering breath and cast my eyes to the heavens, which I can’t see, care of the rafters. And my, they’ve grown cobwebs. I’ll need to be in here again with Stephanie to clean them away. Tomorrow, maybe. “They’re my mother’s tusks.”
“Are you—”
Slowly, I lower my eyes until my gaze is back on her. “Am I what?”
She bares her teeth in a grimace, and her shoulders hunch like she’s prepared for a blow. “I was going to ask if you were serious. But I see that you are,” she adds quickly.
“I am. It is tradition to polish the tusks of our loved ones and wear them. To remember them. To honor their memory. Someday, if Roarg should pass before you, you will wear a piece of him.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary—”
I snarl at her. “You will wear a piece of him.”
She holds up her hands. “Okay, fine, fine. If Roarg dies, I’ll wear part of him around.”
Muttering, I turn from her and face the horse, who turns to me and almost looks amused. “Eternal save us all,” I complain to him. “New wives are so difficult to break in.”
He nickers knowingly.
“Have you ever harnessed a horse?” I ask her, guessing the answer.
“No.”
I nod to myself. I open my mouth to order her to the tack area, but she asks a question before I can get a word in.
“What kind of horses are these?”
“Zeeland Trekpaards. Halters are on the far wall. The first hook.”
“I see them,” she says, and moves for them. As she returns with two, she smiles at the level of my chest, where Opkug is strapped. “Does Opkug like coming to town?”
“Yes, I suppose she does. Although it hardly matters. She’s a Hammerfist. She’ll do what needs to be done whether she enjoys doing it or not.” I wither Stephanie with my gaze. “As you will now do. Halter the horses.”
“Which ones?”
“Doesn’t matter. They all work well together. Just grab two.”
She manages to get Rijswijk’s halter on without fuss, but the mares are more resistant.
I push her aside and have words with the girls until they stand nicely and allow Stephanie to approach.
Saba is the more willing of the two, not sidestepping or dancing, and for that reason I tell Stephanie to switch to Nijmegen.
Nijmegen needs to learn a lesson in manners.
We secure her and Rijswijk to lead ropes so they stand in place for harnessing and I send Stephanie back to the tack wall. “The collar on the far left will fit Nijmegen. Rijswijk’s is the fourth one in—yes. That one.”
Stephanie has to retrieve them one at a time, due to their size—or rather, her lack of size. And she brings Nijmegen’s collar to Nijmegen with a look of extreme consternation. “How does this go on?” she asks.
I sigh loudly and move forward to open it up and demonstrate how to fit it around Nijmegen’s neck, and how to buckle and snap it on.
In order to get Rijswijk’s collar on his neck, I have to instruct Stephanie on where to find the mounting block. “If you’re ever outside and need to reach, look for the carriage stone,” I tell her.
“What’s a carriage stone?” she asks.
“Paver stones laid like stairs so that brats, pregnant women, and the elderly can step in and out of the buggy easier.” I wave to the wall again. “Bring me that harness rig.” I point her toward Rijswijk’s.
When she struggles to lug it over, I’m amazed at how helpless this female is. She’s going to have a hell of a time throwing the rigging over the horses’ tall backs.
But all Orc children learn how to harness the family horses, and likewise Stephanie will learn ways to cope with her lack of size. Unlike an Orcian youth, she won’t be growing taller to make the job easier.
Ah, well. Hammerfists don’t quail at the idea of hard work.
I show her how to tighten the hame, how to pull down the breeching strap, how to fit on the back pad and breast strap, how to snap the pole strap on, and how to fit the tugs and the rest of the various lines until it’s time to add the bridle, attach the reins, and connect the crosslines.
Stephanie does everything I do, her smaller hands moving swiftly and capably enough. Finally, both horses are tacked and we walk our team to the buggy with an air of achievement.
But as we’re fitting the yoke on, Stephanie’s gaze strays to the other harnesses on the wall. “How do you know what gear goes on who?”
“I sometimes forget whose collar or rig goes on who,” I admit. “If you realize you’ve made a mistake, it’s a matter of untacking—”
“Allll of it?” she moans, gaze moving over the many buckles, straps, and lines.
“Very nearly,” I agree with a sigh.
“I guess it won’t be all bad,” she says, hand gliding admiringly over Rijswijk’s glossy fur. “We get to feel you up twice, you sexy beast.”
I smirk and shake my head. “If this is the way you talk to Roarg, it’s no wonder he’s smitten with you.”