“Especially on days when the cooks make chili,” she agreed. “And then there’s the spell to increase the prowess of the manly arts.”
“Just between you and me, that one owes any success to the belief in the man using it rather than any actual magic,” I told her. “Even my moms are the first ones to admit that there’s no way they can beef up a man’s . . . er . . . bits with magic. But the silly men think they can, and that makes them feel better about themselves, and everyone’s happy.”
“Is the old woman who is with your mothers also a relation?”
“Mrs. Vanilla? Not really. I assume she’s staying with my moms?”
“Yes. She is knitting a coat for Lord Ethan’s horse.”
“A horse blanket, you mean?”
“No,” she said blithely. “A coat. It has lapels and pockets.”
I let that go, feeling that the less comment about Mrs. Vanilla, the better. We chatted for a few more minutes, but Peaseblossom had nothing to say that gave me cause for concern. So it was that I spent the next hour and forty minutes teaching the pleasant Peaseblossom everything I’d learned a few hours before.
Master Hamo would have been proud.
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” I told her, shaking her hand once our time was officially over.
“Likewise. I will see you tomorrow night. Perhaps there will be more you can teach me?” The last was said so wistfully that I knew I’d have no problem talking her out of fighting again.
“I’m sure I can. See you then.”
I made my way back to the center of the camp, where Aaron’s men had arranged a bunch of wooden tables around a huge bonfire. The light from the latter danced along the front of Doug’s big tent, casting long shadows as my fellow warriors and all the support members of the camp ate, drank, laughed, and sang in the way that people do when they’re out camping.
“Lady Gwen. I am pleased to say that we’ve found you a squire. Seith, come forward and meet your lady and take her sword.” Doug strolled out of his tent to greet me, waving toward the bonfire and the accompanying crowd. One small, dark form scurried out.
A boy of about eleven or twelve considered me with large pale gray eyes that were startling against his swarthy skin and the shock of black hair that hung down over his forehead in spikes. He reminded me of an anime character come to life.
“Seith?” I repeated. It meant “seven” in Welsh. “Are you a seventh son?”
“Of a sixth son,” he said with a nod.
“Missed being special by just one son,” Doug commented in an aside to me. “Seith is actually my child. Stop staring at the lady and take her sword, lad, lest she lose her temper with you.”
“Whoa now,” I said when the kid hurried forward to take the Nightingale from me. “I do not lose my temper with children. And even if I did, I’m not going to hit him or anything. I don’t believe in violence.”
“You are a warrior of Aaron,” Doug pointed out, making a gesture that had his son hurrying off with my sword.
“Aside from that, I’m just here for a week. You have six other sons?”
“Ten sons, fourteen daughters,” Doug answered, taking me by the elbow and escorting me to the fire.
“You must have an amazing wife.” I put a little extra emphasis on that last word to remind him that he should be ashamed of hitting on me when he had a family already.
“Wives plural. I’ve had eight of them. The last one divorced me two years ago. I am currently sans spouse.” He looked steadily at me.
“Wow. That’s a hell of a record to have going against you. Ooh, is that salmon?”
It was salmon, and I managed to get a plate of it and accompanying rice and veggies without Doug making any more overt references to something that just wasn’t going to happen. I settled down at a table to enjoy my dinner.
“Ah, here comes the entertainment,” Doug said from behind me.
I turned, my mouth full of delicious planked salmon, and almost choked when a troupe of about ten women in a pornographer’s idea of harem outfits flitted into the camp, nipples flashing, silken scarves flying, and catcalls from my fellow warriors filling the night air.
“Holy sh— That’s the entertainment?” I had to grab my plate to save it when one of the nearly naked women leaped onto the table and began to undulate her way down it, much to the pleasure of the men around me.
Doug reached out and caressed the woman’s (mostly bare) breast. “Yes, indeed.” He stopped fondling her to glance down at me with a leer. “You prefer male company instead?”
“For the last time, I am not interested in you—”
“We have dancing boys, as well as girls,” Doug interrupted, waving a hand to my left, his attention elsewhere as one of the women began a move that I can only describe as using his leg as a stripper pole.
I looked away. “Wow. So you do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual dancing boy before. They really can dance, can’t they?”
“I’m told their buttocks are divine,” Doug said, smiling down at the woman who was twining her slightly clad self around him. “I have no interest in male buttocks, so I couldn’t judge, but I trust you will come to a decision on that matter.”
I considered the well-oiled specimens of male dancers’ behinds, clearly visible since they wore basically G-strings and not a lot else, and decided that interesting though the subject was, I had probably better take myself off before things got too rowdy.
“Would madam care for a prostitute?” A soft voice next to me asked as I picked up my cup and plate. A small, balding man held a notebook, with pen poised over the paper. “Male or female? The rates are the same for both sexes, if that makes a difference.”
“It doesn’t, and, no, thank you.”
“Perhaps madam would like a complimentary ten-minute preview? We allow those for very important persons. You may use your ten minutes as you like, either in flogging your prostitute, having him (or her, if madam swings that way) engage in acts of an oral nature, or even trying out a sample of the prostitute’s sexual methodology—”
I escaped before the man could go any further. I felt oily just by association, and hurried back to my tent with my plate, where I found Seith sitting outside.
“Hungry?” I asked him.
He nodded. I gave him my plate.
“Doesn’t your dad feed you?”
“Aye, but I’m always hungry. Dad says I’d eat his horse if he let me.” The boy shrugged, then scarfed down the salmon and veggies.
“Well, enjoy. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can take a bath, would you?” I rubbed my arms. Even through the mail, my skin felt dirty.
“Ladies have baths in their tents. The men use the stream.” He got to his feet, cheeks stuffed, chipmunk-style, with food. Little bits of rice flew out as he said indistinctly, “I’ll fetch it for you.”
“That would be lovely, thank you.” I entered the tent and began to unhook all the armor and mail strapped to my body, wondering where Gregory was and whether he would manage to find me before the night was over.
I certainly hoped so. I had many things to tell him . . . and more things to do to him.
THIRTEEN
Gregory Faa was a man annoyed. Again.
“Faugh,” he said as he shook his cell phone, then swore under his breath. He’d never been the sort of man who said “faugh,” and yet there he was, standing in the middle of the Welsh afterlife, saying not only words like “faugh,” but coming perilously close to adding a tch!
“And I’ll be damned if I turn into the sort of man who tches at the drop of the hat,” he growled to his phone, and shook it again as if that would make it function. “Connect, damn you!”