She passed him to return the silabat and waster to their place among her baggage. “I've always believed there isn't anything a good brawl and a few bruises can't fix.”
“I'm sure a little Kai magic never hurt either.”
The sudden stiffness in her posture surprised him, and her expression turned wary. “I suppose,” she said in a noncommittal voice that was a telltale sign itself, as was her abrupt change in subject. “You should try and sleep before the dawn comes. Even an hour or two will help.”
This wasn't the first time she'd reacted in such a way to one of his casual remarks about the Kai's ability to control magic, and Serovek wondered at her reaction. That her people were born with such an inheritance was no secret. He'd warned his men countless times to be especially wary when dealing with Kai raiders crossing their borders. They were a physically tough people and hard to kill, and any magic they wielded, no matter how minor, made them even more so.
He tucked the observation away for later, when he could mull it over without the remnants of his recent nightmare clouding his thinking. Her suggestion to try and sleep before the following day's travel was a sound one. Still, the thought of returning to the stall where Megiddo rested didn't appeal to him, even now when the blue luminescence surrounding the bier had disappeared. “Maybe you should sleep instead. I'll keep watch until dawn.”
She scooped up his blankets and tossed them at him. “Remember, your night is my day. I'm wide-awake. If I need to sleep, I can do so while I ride. You're the leader of this expedition. You need your wits about you.” She lifted her chin to indicate the empty stall across from the one they currently occupied. “Sleep there if you need or go back to the inn. A soft bed awaits you if you want it, and distance from the monk.”
“I'm not Pluro Cermak,” he snapped, affronted by her allusion to a need for posher surroundings or a desire to avoid the monk. “Megiddo might be in a barn again, but I'll not leave him here alone.”
“He won't be alone, Lord Pangion.” Anhuset's more formal address didn't quite disguise the sympathy in her voice. “And I doubt anyone would compare you to his brother under any circumstance.”
He'd lashed out unfairly. The residual fury at discovering Megiddo's resting place in a ramshackle barn had ignited with Anhuset's suggestion. There'd been nothing beyond the remark other than practical advice. “Forgive me,” he said and offered her a second bow of the evening. “You didn't deserve my rancor.”
Anhuset's shoulders lifted in a shallow shrug. “It's of no matter. I suspect you and I will brawl with words as well as wasters and silabats on this trip. You didn't try to tear my arms off. There's nothing to forgive.”
Once more, she chased away his demons with her acerbic wit and made him laugh. Serovek left her with Megiddo and their gear to find a sleeping spot in a pile of mostly clean straw in the empty stall. Bedded down, with his back to his companions, he stared at the wall in front of him, counting the cracks marring its surface until his eyelids grew heavy. He was tipping over the edge of sleep when Anhuset's voice stopped him.
“Margrave?”
Some instinct, or maybe the tone in her voice, warned him to stay put and keep his back to her. “Hmm?”
“You're ugly, but your hair is soft.”
A gust of more laughter burst past his lips and out his nostrils. The woman wouldn't know how to deliver a compliment if her life depended on it. He wrapped the blankets more snugly about him. “Then I've found favor in your eyes with one thing.” he said. “Good night, Anhuset.”
Chapter Six
They never made such easy money in a night.
Anhuset quickly learned that the conversation between human males worked better than any dream elixir brewed by the most skilled Kai apothecary. It was vapid, shallow, and so utterly uninspired she was in danger of sliding from a light sleep atop her horse into a stupor of boredom.
The late morning sun offered little warmth but a great deal of punishing light, and she was glad for the deep shadows of her hood that kept the worst of the glare off her face. She kept a slitted gaze on the wagon rolling ahead of her, Megiddo's blanket-covered bier tied down to keep it from sliding across the wagon's platform. As usual, Serovek took the lead in their caravan, flanked by two of his men, Weson and Shear. She couldn't hear what they discussed over the inane bluster and gloating her companions swapped between them, each trying to outdo the other in their feats of prowess in a fight or between a bedmate's thighs.
Of the three who rode beside her, she knew Erostis best, having diced with him on those occasions she'd visited High Salure. An amiable man with a trickster's hand for rolling the bones and an accurate intuition for his opponent's weaknesses in a game, he'd lightened Anhuset's purse by several coins in gambling rounds. At the moment he lectured the more flamboyant Ardwin for his poor spending habits on wine and women.
“You keep buying a trio of whores for the evening, and you won't be able to afford scratching your ass before the week is out. And with the amount of drink I saw you put down last night, I doubt you had it in you to crawl on top of one them for a quick fuck. They never made such easy money in a night.”
Ardwin stiffened in the saddle, affronted by the admonishment. “What are you? My da? And just because you can't get a rise out of your own prick, old man, doesn't mean I can't.”
Erostis's dry chuckle told her he'd taken no offense at Ardwin's defensive insult. It was the bluster of youth. Erostis was a good twenty years older than Ardwin and unruffled by such things. Anhuset suspected the two of them engaged in similar verbal brawls on a regular basis.
The rider to her right and just behind her narrowed the space between them, and her back prickled at the weight of a jaundiced stare on her. It wasn't the first time she'd felt this particular stare. Ogran edged closer, watching her with the sullen expression that seemed permanently stamped on his features. Unlike the rest of their party, he kept to himself, had little to say, and lacked any noticeable humor.
Anhuset considered none of these things a character flaw. She was laconic herself; her wit, when it made an appearance, sharper than most people liked. But there was about Ogran a mien of dangerous resentment, bubbling so close to the surface she could almost smell it. He never put voice to it on this trip, and whatever caused his malcontent remained a mystery. Still, she remained wary. His gaze, when it landed on her—and it did more often than she liked—held something much darker than mere curiosity or disdain. Human gazes were hard for her to read, their strange eyes too much a distraction to discern the nuances of subtle expression, but his scrutiny had a weight to it that didn't need discernment. He didn't approve of her presence among them and made little effort to conceal it.
“Your ears aren't pointed,” he stated when he finally coaxed his mount to ride adjacent to hers. The debate between Ardwin and Erostis went silent.
The hood she wore kept the worst of the sun's brightness off her, shrouding her ears and hair, providing deep shadow and obscurity. He must have pondered over the shape of her ears from the previous day, when she'd been bareheaded. Anhuset accommodated his unwelcome observation and scraped back the hood so he might have a better look. When she turned to face him, he swallowed hard and reined his horse a little farther away from her.