Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [65]
His cool strength was almost shocking, in this proximity. He did not reek of dried sweat, as she had expected—she had no doubt she stank worse herself, just now. The congealing blood, stiffening in dark patches on his gray tabard, had little odor as yet, for all that a chill of death seemed to hang about him. She rested in the curve of his arm away from the dampest stains, intensely conscious of the weight of her thighs across his. She had not relaxed in the circle of a man’s arms for . . . for as long as she could remember, and she did not do so now. Limp exhaustion was not the same thing as relaxation.
He dropped his face to the top of her head; it seemed to her that he inhaled the scent of her hair. She trembled slightly.
He murmured in a voice of concern, “Now, I’m only being kind to your horse, mind you.”
Ista snorted softly, and felt his body’s tension slacken a trifle at the reassurance of her half laugh. It was wonderful to imagine letting go one’s guard, if only for a moment. To pretend that safety was something another could give as a gift. It could only be for a few more moments; he would certainly not have blocked his sword arm with her in this way if they weren’t nearly within sight of his camp. But presumably, as long as she pretended, so would he. So she clung, and let herself be rocked along, her eyelids drooping.
Hoofbeats on gravel, a shout; she knew it was friends before she even looked up, for no new tautness flowed into his easy embrace. Your dream is done. Time to wake up. She sighed.
“My lord!” cried a horseman. One of a trio in gray tabards, she saw through her eyelashes, trotting down the river’s side in the sunny midmorning. The mail-clad soldiers broke into a canter and pulled up around them in a laughing mob. “You have her!” the speaker continued. “I might have known.”
Her rescuer’s voice was amused, and possibly a trifle smug. “I should think you might.”
She considered the heroic picture they presented atop the dappled warhorse, and what a fine show it made for this lord’s men. It would be gossiped about tonight in his troop, no doubt. And so a commander maintained his mystique—she did not begrudge him the calculation, if calculation it was. If, as a man, he had also obtained some bonus of pleasure from this courtly cuddle of her exhausted self, well, she could not begrudge that either.
The men vented a spate of brief reports: of prisoners taken, of the area secured, of wounded treated or transported to the nearest town in carts, of bodies counted.
“We’re not done rounding up all who fled, then,” said their commander. “Though I begin to doubt the accuracy of our alarms from my Lord dy Tolnoxo. We seem to have only ninety Jokonans to account for, not two hundred as he claimed. You’ll find five more dead ones downstream. One that I pulled from the stream about three miles down, I think must have fallen when we first struck their van. Four more near the mouth of a ravine a mile or so farther, where I caught up with them attempting to make off with this lady. Take some men and collect them and their horses and gear, and put them with the rest, to be listed.” He tossed the reins of Ista’s horse to one of the men. “See carefully to this beast—it belongs to the Sera, here. Bring its gear to my tent. I’ll be found there for a little. Have any who were involved in delivering the captives from the baggage train report to me at once. I’ll ride to inspect the wounded and prisoners in the afternoon.”
Ista roused herself to ask the soldier, “There were some men of the Daughter’s Order, taken prisoner by the Jokonans—are they safe?”
“Yes, I saw several such.”
“How many?” she asked urgently.
“I don’t know exactly, my lady—there are some in the camp.” He jerked his head upstream.
“You shall be reunited with them in a moment, and have all their accounts of the morning’s business,” her rescuer soothed her. He exchanged salutes with his men, and they all departed in their several new directions.