“Wow,” Shilan said, frowning. “That was like… a chit’s worth!”
“Nah,” Herzer laughed, shaking his head. “You know like… maybe a tenth.”
“I begin to understand why you seem to have a girl on your arm whenever I see you, Herzer,” she said, smiling.
“Maybe you could explain it to me. It’s been a very recent and very unexpected thing. If you’re talking about that philosophical wandering: Bast hadn’t said a word to me until she walked up, looked me over like a piece of meat and told me that I needed a bath but otherwise I’d do.”
“Hmmm…” Shilan replied thoughtfully. She took a sip of her wine and cleared her throat. “Speaking of baths…”
“They’re probably packed.” Herzer shrugged, taking a sip from his own cup.
“Nope, most people are still eating and sitting around,” Shilan said.
Herzer looked at the crowd and had to admit that it was the vast majority of the town.
“If we hurry?” Shilan continued in a questioning tone.
“Okay,” Herzer replied, then paused. “Don’t baths…” he started then cleared his throat. “Don’t the baths make you feel uncomfortable?” he finally said in an absolutely neutral tone.
“Yes,” she said. “But it would be less so if you were along.”
Herzer started to smile, then an alarm bell went off in his head.
“Shilan, uhm… Cruz…”
“Cruz doesn’t have me staked out,” she replied, tartly. “I’m not planning on bedding you, Herzer. The operative term here is ‘bath.’ ”
“I’m aware of that,” Herzer said, not sure if he was aware of it or not. “And you’re aware of that. That the operative term is ‘bath,’ I mean. But Cruz’s feelings are going to be hurt if we go wandering off.”
Herzer suddenly realized, by the expression on Shilan’s face among other things, that he was in a situation where he was going to piss someone off, either Cruz or Shilan or, possibly, both. Shilan was not taking his careful hints and Cruz was not going to accept his explanation. Look, buddy, it was either have her all pissed off at me or you all pissed off at me. All it was was a bath. Okay, so I saw your girlfriend nekkid and you haven’t yet. Big deal! Nope. Definitely wouldn’t work. And this image of an axe or a mallet descending upon his sleeping head, wielded by either Cruz or Shilan, kept flashing through his mind. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. He finally came to the conclusion that if he was going to get bludgeoned to death anyway, he might as well see Shilan, who after all was a comely wench, naked before he died.
All of this flashed through his brain in well under a half a second, hardly a pause. He had just opened his mouth to seal his fate when he saw Rachel coming through the crowd.
“Hang on a second, there’s a friend of mine,” he said to Shilan, waving his arm. “Hi, Rachel! How’ve you been doing?”
“Hello, Herzer,” she said, walking over with a slightly abstracted frown. “How are the hands?”
“They’re fine,” Herzer said, holding them up, palms outward to show the heavy calluses. “I think you guys have met, but I don’t think you’ve met, met,” he continued. “Hsu Shilan, Rachel Ghorbani. Rachel, Shilan.”
“We met when you came out to the camp and gave us a briefing on… uhm…” Shilan said then paused.
“Mother has dredged up the ancient term ‘feminine hygiene,’ ” Rachel said with a smile.
“Oh, Lord, you’re not going to start talking about that, are you?” Herzer chuckled.
“I certainly hope not,” Rachel replied. “What are you guys doing?”
“We were just headed over to the baths,” Herzer said then paused awkwardly.
Rachel looked at both of them in the pause until Shilan chuckled.
“I think what he is avoiding saying is ‘would you like to come along?’ ” Shilan explained.
“Well, two’s company and three’s a crowd,” Rachel replied dryly. “And if it’s just more company, I’m truly not interested.”
“It’s not like that…” Herzer started to say.
“What Herzer would be saying if he could get his foot out of his mouth is that he would appreciate a chaperone,” Shilan said, pursing her lips.
“It’s not like that either!” Herzer said desperately.’
“So, what is it like?” Rachel asked, putting her hands on her hips. “First you go trotting off with Bast, then you’re rolling around in the woods with one of the serving girls and next you’re going to the baths with two women!”
“Hmmm, since you put it that way,” Shilan said, standing up and putting her hands on her own hips. She gave Herzer a mock scowl. “Would you care to explain yourself?”
“Oh for pity’s sake!” Herzer said, throwing his hands in the air. “How did I get myself into this?”
“I lured you into it if you’ll remember,” Shilan finally relented. “Come on, Rachel, it will be fun. And Herzer really would prefer someone else along. He’s got this weird thing about me and Cruz.”
“Who’s Cruz?” Rachel asked.
“I’ll tell you when we’re up to our necks in hot water,” Shilan said.
“Oh, all right,” Rachel replied. “And I’ll tell you all of Herzer’s dirty little secrets.”
“Deal,” Shilan said, sticking out her hand.
“And I’ll buy,” Herzer added, heaving himself to his feet. “That way I can brag about getting two women in the bath with me with a straight face.”
“If you do you will rue the day,” Rachel warned.
The baths, while not deserted, were not overrun either. Having stored their gear and collected their receipts, they worked their way through the stations. Herzer was as careful as possible about keeping his eyes in his head but he had to admit that both of the girls were extremely pretty, with or without clothes. Shilan was long and cool with high pert breasts and carefully sculpted hips and bottom. There was just enough rounding there to draw the male eye, but it was understated enough to be fashionable. Rachel on the other hand was very near his ideal of the female form: high, firm, well-rounded breasts with just enough sag to really accentuate their shape, lovely ribcage, narrow but not tiny waist, rounded hips, not wide but definitely flaring out from the waist and the most perfectly rounded bottom he had ever seen.
Not for the first time he wondered how much of his liking for the form was early canalization; he had had a crush on Rachel since before he knew what to do about it. Almost all of his “heroines” to be rescued had looked somewhat like Rachel, complete to the red hair and blue eyes.
He was very cautious not to let them catch him glancing and was even more cautious to control the natural male reaction to the situation. As he turned around to finish rinsing off he started to recite the names of all the Spartans at Thermopylae. When that, initially, was insufficient, he started at the end and worked his way back. The mental attention to details other than perky breasts, pertly rounded bottoms and mons venus worked and by the time he had a towel wrapped around him it wasn’t clear that he was evincing any interest at all. Then, of course, the sight of Rachel in a nearly transparent bath sheet caused him to start reciting again. The fact that the towel barely made it to the top of her thighs while being tugged down far enough to show a tremendous amount of cleavage, required that he concentrate on doing so in the order and nature of their deaths.
“Herzer, what are you muttering,” Rachel asked.
“Military history,” he said in an only slightly strained voice. “You first.”