Page 35 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

THEY TRAVELED ANOTHER two miles west before making camp for the night.

Torstein had the tent pegged and was laying out their bed against a low shelf of rock, out of the wind, when Samira caught his wrist.

"Not there."

"It is sheltered."

"That is what the scorpions think." She pushed at the nearest stone with her toe and rolled it over. Something small and pale lifted its tail and scuttled for the dark. "They hide under stones through the heat of the day and hunt at night. Put the bed on open sand, away from the rock, and off the ground if you can."

He moved it without a word and raised it on the saddle packs. Samira drew his knife from his belt, crouched, and traced a circle in the sand around the bed, murmuring Bismillah under her breath as she went.

Torstein watched her close it. "That keeps them out?"

"No. A scorpion walks over a line as easily as you do." She handed back his knife. "The circle is for the jinn. For the scorpions, you shake out your sandals before you put them on in the morning."

He looked at the circle, then at her, and she could not tell whether he believed a word of it. Then he turned to the men. "Beds off the rocks," he told them in Norn. "Turn the stones before you lie down, and shake out your sandals come morning. There are scorpions here the size of your thumb."

When Samira glanced back from the fire a while later, Torstein was standing by the tent knocking his sandals together, one against the other.

Kato and Ajani joined them and sat by the fire.

Kato looked as if he was about to seat himself closer to Samira when Torstein plonked himself right beside her, so he was plastered to her side.

"You are sitting on my cloak," Samira said.

"Aye."

"Are you going to move?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He is sitting on your cloak so the prince cannot get near you," Mathias answered with amusement.

"I can hear you," Torstein said.

"We know," replied Njal. "Fifteen years I have sailed with him," he said in Norn. "I have never once seen him jealous."

"Never," Mathias agreed.

Kato, who understood every word, grinned and replied, "Are you worried your wife would prefer a good-looking prince to you? You know if she were to marry me instead, I could provide a good life for her."

Torstein growled and glared daggers at Kato. "How would you like it if I rearranged that pretty face of yours so it matches the look of your arse!"

That had all the men roaring with laughter.

Njal translated the quip for Samira, who was not quite sure what to make of such crudeness. But she smiled inwardly, knowing that for some reason her husband was jealous and dared even to insult royalty.

Soon the banter lessened as they ate their meal under the stars. Torstein placed another cloak over her shoulders and kept his arm firmly behind her back. It wasn't until she muffled a yawn that he stood and walked her back to their well-stocked Bedouin tent before he returned to the fire.

Samira washed with the water provided, then lay down on the makeshift bed Torstein had raised for her and fell asleep from exhaustion. When she woke later in the night, it was to find her husband plastered against her, even in sleep, one arm around her waist and her body tucked against his. She smiled and burrowed closer into his arms for warmth until sleep claimed her once more.

***

THEY PARTED IN THE morning where the road forked north.

"Salé, then Lisbon, then home," Kato said, swinging up. "A month behind you at best. Tell my father I am alive and that I have found something worth following. And send my greetings to my sister, Zala, her husband, and my nieces and nephews."