she answered, “For you are you, Elena. I know you. You will find a way.”
It was that compliment that penetrated.
And thus, we walked in silence the rest of the way to my tent.
Though the air was not silent as we approached.
What rose from my sister’s tent, set not far from mine, could easily be heard.
Womanly laughter. Manly laughter. Groans. Grunts. Moans. And whimpers.
I looked to Melisse to see she had her brows drawn as she studied my sister’s tent on our way to mine.
“It sounds, as ever, that your sister is seizing the opportunity afforded her,” she murmured.
My sister, yes. As well as, from what I could hear, her lieutenants, Heloise and Genia, her mentor, Darma, with a few more Nadirii included.
Hours before, when we’d arrived at the area where we were to make camp, we found the King of Firenze had provided us a welcome gift.
Dozens upon dozens of baths set in crimson tents attended by Firenz men (or boy-men, for not a one of them was probably less than seventeen, but not a one of them was surely older than twenty).
These baths had clean, but fragrant milky water floating with petals and there were a plethora of jars and bottles of oils and lotions and salts and elixirs for skin and hair.
Precisely what a man would think a woman would want after a long ride.
It was true, of a sort. And because it was, I took a bath (without using the male servants to wash my hair, scrub my back and…other) and it felt nice. The selections I used smelled lovely, worked beautifully and helped to relax my muscles and take the tightness of the sun out of my skin.
But…
Please.
“I bid you goodnight here, sister-daughter,” Melisse said on a squeeze of my elbow.
“Goodnight, my mother-friend,” I murmured.
We touched cheeks and she gave me a small smile before she wandered away.
I watched her for a moment before I turned my attention to Serena’s tent.
I had a mind to march over there, enter, and remind her I had an eight-year-old girl in my tent and I was not best pleased this was the lullaby she was hearing in a foreign land the night before we were all to enter a foreign city and attempt to win entire realms with drills and magic.
But I not only did not want to see my sibling as she likely was now.
I did not think I could keep my temper.
And my mother, and Melisse, had taught me well.
Therefore, I went to my tent and threw the flap back, only to have my own lieutenant, Hera, immediately approach me.
“Would that we were engaging in games on the morrow, not drills,” she hissed. “I’d select her, unseat her and humiliate Serena in front of Firenze, Airen, Wodell, Mar-el and the bloody Go’Doan.”
“How long has it been lasting?” I whispered back, my gaze flicking to the lump under the quilt on the pallet.
“An eternity?” Hera questioned in her sardonic answer.
“I’m sorry,” I replied.
“You attended our queen,” my friend said on a sigh. “And she is fine. She feigns sleeping, but Serena’s ways are not unknown to her.”
They were not, for the most part.
Though perhaps not these ways.
“Go, my beloved friend,” I urged. “Sleep. I’ll see you on the morrow.”
Hera glared at me, glared at the pallet, glared at the tent wall beyond which was Serena, and then she nodded and took her leave.
I discarded moccasins, casings, tunic, arm shields, and body suit before I slid on a pair of panties and a shift.
I then climbed under the quilt with Dora.
She rolled and burrowed into me.
“My love,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms around her.
“I’m never taking a man,” she whispered back. “I’m going to be like Hera and find a sister to love.”
Hmm.
“I’m not sure that’s a choice, Dora, but if it is as you are, then I’ll be glad for you and wish for you that you find your truest love and she has the truest heart,” I said.
“All that grunting. And the cries,” she said.
The damage was done. I could do naught about it now.
I still would have words with my sister tomorrow.
Theodora’s next was tentative. “Does it hurt?”
“I don’t know, sweets,” I said. “Though Jasmine tells me it feels quite lovely and if times are right, it can be profound.”
“That doesn’t sound profound. It sounds painful and…arduous.”
I listened for a spell.
It did indeed.
I sighed, pulled her closer with one arm and tugged the quilts over our heads with another.
Then I did what I never,