Chapter 9

"Husband?" Stefan sputtered when they were clear of the western gate.

Rayna gave him a knowing smile, "I can think of no finer man in all my days. You are brave, daring, intelligent, dashing..."

"And stupid, impetuous, reckless, a heretic, a murderer, and probably on a short list to be soon drawn and quartered," Stefan finished her sentence. "That was no run-of-the-mill priest I skewered back there, he was a master."

She dismissed his complaint with a wave of her hand, "In for copper, in for a crown — just like you told me."

Stefan sputtered all over again, but nothing intelligible came out of his mouth. He was incredulous that she couldn't see the possible ramifications of slaying a priest, especially a priest with prestige and connections. He was distracted by the momentary thought that maybe he should have killed all of the priests, but dismissed that avenue as impossible; priests scurry too fast, like the rats that they are.

Rayna was not to be deterred by his silence, "As the old man said, 'your wife'."

Stefan protested, "He was just an old man."

"And you are just the savior of a hundred or so Delucians." She ticked off her points with her free hand, "We arrived just in time. You just happened to have a scroll. You just happened to save that old man, who," she paused, "just happens to be able to read, and asks for your scroll. To make a full hand, no one else asks to view the scroll."

Stefan was about to reply that they didn't stick around long enough for anyone to ask, but shook his head at her logic instead. All that Rayna offered he dismissed as sheer, dumb luck, but she still had a point to make with her full hand, "There was prophecy in his blessing, and you cannot deny it."

She grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her, "You will be my husband, and I will be your devoted wife, who you will never regret. Show me another man who could or would have done what you did today, and I will withdraw my claim on you. You will not find another, Stefan, not in a hundred years, or a thousand leagues."

Stefan could find no argument to sway her, so he turned to their present circumstances. "If we wish to keep our fool heads on top of our shoulders, we should ride hard and into the woods to confuse any pursuit."

They crossed through a near-to-harvest field, and dove into the woods. They chanced upon a game trail that led deeper into the forest. They left the path for a rocky terrain that hid their travel. The tall evergreens lent a piney scent to the world, as they meandered up and then around a foothill or two, until another faint path opened before them. The trail ended at a boulder-strewn stream; one that obviously swelled during the spring melt and gradually tapered off to a smaller flow throughout the rest of the year.

Stefan swung down from his saddle, and stared at the flowing water for a moment in silence. Boulders littered the area, making the bank of the stream a tricky balancing act of staying upright without ankles being twisted. Rayna watched him with mild confusion as he wavered at the edge of the stones, as if there was a decision to be made.

Whatever it was, the man looked up with intent written on his brow. Stefan returned and dug out the medicine bag that he had been gifted. He pulled out the bar the mild soap with herbs embedded in it. For him, the world collapsed into the small deliberate movements that led towards his immediate goal. A monotone chant rose unbidden in his mind as he prepared himself for a ritual bath. Shutting out the world, he had no idea whether Rayna had come down off of her horse, or was even paying attention to him. She was a part of the outside world that didn't matter at the moment. The primal need welling forcefully through the trunk of his body directed his limbs.

Leaning against a boulder, he shucked his boots and stripped off all of his clothes. Even the heat of the afternoon couldn't penetrate his directed thoughts. Gingerly, he walked across the bank of stones with the soap in his hand. He stepped into the icy stream with barely a hiss escaping his lips. He cast about for the deepest slough he could find, carefully choosing his steps until he drew near the deep pool within the stream. He placed the soap on the dry top of an upended stone, and marched into the deeper water.

Three times, he fully immersed himself. Each time he came up for air, the chant ingrained into his memory from his youth was upon his lips: "The Call to Cleanse the Soul." The third time he had stayed beneath the water until his lungs began to burn, bursting out of the water with a great heaping gasp for fresh air.

As he filled his lungs again and again with fresh air, he felt soft hands touch his shoulders. A rough bar of soap rolled across his skin, awakening his senses. He held out his arms, and they were rubbed. He stood up and moved to the shallows. His legs were scrubbed; his buttocks, and finally his scrotum were rubbed with soap, and cleansed. The hands urged him to dip back into the freezing waters, and he followed their direction. The hands massaged his scalp and rubbed the herbal medicinal into his hair. He dunked himself again, and emerged refreshed.

The hands spun him around, and he stared deeply into the eyes the naked woman. Rayna met his silence with her own determined gaze. He glanced down, and wondered at her small high breasts with her erect nipples. Her soft belly with its slight undulation entranced him, under which he knew he would find her offered passion.

He returned to her face and found an enigmatic smile on her face. She didn't speak a word, but instead took his hand and placed the bar of soap in it. She took a step backwards and held up her arms. The stream burbled merrily past the two figures, and a fish snatched an insect from the surface of the water with a smack of its tail.

Stefan touched her with the bar of soap, and he dipped into the recent well of memory. He remembered when first they met, a panicked young woman and a stricken soldier. The pain he caused her with that soap shuddered like an indictment of heartlessness through his body. He rubbed the soap between his hands until he had worked up a good lather. Placing the soap on another dry rock, he stroked her skin slowly with infinite softness, wiping away as carefully as he could, the pain of that first purging. With hope in his eyes, he stared deeply into her own as he washed the grime from her forehead and down her cheeks. With a firm grip he rubbed the nape of her neck, forward to the soft spot at the top of her chest.