Page 37 of Company of Thieves
“You have better balance with your feet in the stirrups.” He stopped and waited until she regained the proper riding attitude. “Hands low. Back straight. Head up. Don’t look at where the horse is going—look ahead,” he reminded her.
“You are a tyrant, do you know that? You’re a horse dictator, and I, for one, resent you thinking you can tell me what to do. I don’t know how your men put up with you telling them how they can sit on a horse, and where they can look. Honestly, Alan—”
She had dropped the reins to gesture with her hands while she railed at him, and the old mare dropped her head, shifting as she did so.
Hallie promptly squawked, kicked her feet out of the stirrups, and fell off.
The rest of the trip to Tozeur was spent with Hallie riding behind him on Sampson while one of the men walked the old mare back to camp. At least this way, Alan thought as they cantered for the scant mile to town, it wouldn’t take them hours to get there and back.
He stopped outside a small inn, taking Hallie aside while one of the men watered the horses at the pool that formed the oasis proper. “Sometime in the next few days, my father is due to visit this area.”
Her eyes widened. “The emperor?”
“Moghuls refer to him as an imperator, but yes, it is the same thing as an emperor.”
“I see.” She was silent for a moment, her expression one of concern. “I take it you aren’t particularly thrilled by this visit?”
“No. My father and I don’t always see eye to eye.” He picked his words carefully. “With regards to many subjects, not just those of an imperial nature. He is ... there’s no polite way to put this, but I want you to be warned so that you can take steps to protect yourself if I am not around. He is a man of many pleasures, one of which is women. He will expect me to provide him with a choice of women, and I will contact the local bawdy house in order to do so, but he may well set his sights on you.”
She stiffened, outrage visible in every line. “Well, he can just stuff his sight where the bawdy house don’t shine!”
“I will tell him you are my woman, but he may ignore that. Hallie, I know you don’t like the guards that accompany you when we are separated, but you must not go anywhere by yourself while my father is with us.”
He thought she was going to make a flip comment, and was ready to explain to her that about this she must heed him, but once again she surprised him. “Are two guards going to be enough? I mean, Yussuf and Ajay are nice enough, but they aren’t overly beefy. Maybe I should have Az, too. Your dad would have to be insane to try to go against Az.”
“That isn’t a bad idea at all,” he said, making a mental note to reassign Az’s duties to now focus on protecting Hallie.
“And if I had nice sharp daggers, then I could—”
“No,” he said firmly, giving her a look to let her know that she wasn’t going to slip anything past him. “Practice daggers until I see how you do with them.”
“Fine,” she said with mock irritation, but her eyes glowed with a warm light as she tipped her head back to kiss him. She wrinkled her nose and glared at his upper lip, saying when she turned, “You better work on growing that mustache back, buster, because it’s either that or a nice big tattoo right on the middle of your forehead.”
He nodded at Yussuf and Ajay when the two men followed her down to one of the houses where a local woman was making Hallie some clothing, and went into the inn in order to write replies to the letters he’d received. He had plans to put into action before his father arrived. He just hoped it would be enough.
EIGHT
