By the time morning dawned, the clear night had given way to heavy gray clouds. "It looks like we're in for rain," Naissus said as they hastily ate the leftovers from supper.
"What will we do?" Amichen asked.
He laughed. "We'll move on, of course."
"Even in the rain?"
"It's spring; if we only traveled when it's dry, it might take us months to get home."
She looked at him curiously. "You're anxious to get home, aren't you?"
"By the time we get home, we'll have been gone nearly a month. And in that time, we'll have had only one night off the road. That's a long time to go without a proper bed and a hot bath and a full meal. Even when we go out hunting and exploring, we rarely go more than a week without spending a night indoors."
"I'm sorry; my mother was very rude not to let you stay longer."
He waved away her concern. "It's just as well; I'd prefer to be home."
Amichen didn't know what it was like to want to go home so badly. She had only ever been away once, and that was with the rest of the court, so it wasn't like she was away from anything, really. Here was Naissus, far from home and eager to get back, and she felt she couldn't care less if she ever went home again. Maybe her homesickness would kick in later, once the newness wore off, but . . . what if it didn't? What did that say about her and her home if she didn't miss it?
Amichen watched as all of the men broke camp with quick efficiency. She was, frankly, a little amazed to watch Naissus, along with Duke Rodger and the other young men—lords all of them—do the dirty work and heavy lifting, the same as the squires. In fact, there didn't seem to be any division of labor between any of them; Naissus was just as likely to do a hard, dirty chore as the youngest squire.
Amichen had never seen noblemen act that way before.
While the baggage horses were being loaded, Naissus and Arlen tacked up the riding horses.
"Do you want to ride today?" Naissus asked as he picked up a saddle and put it on the back of the gelding Amichen had been riding the day before.
"Yes . . . at least for a little while," she qualified. Her legs were not quite as sore as they had been, but she didn't know how long that would last.
He tightened the girth on the saddle, then helped her get on. He handed her the reins. "Do you feel comfortable going it alone today, or do you want me to put the lead on?"
"I think I'll be fine," she said, feeling much more confident than she had the day before. The horse was everything he had promised it to be, and like her litter horses, it seemed content to walk alongside all the other horses and do whatever they did; she really didn't need to control it.
He smiled at her and she was glad she had made that choice. He almost certainly wouldn't have thought less of her if she had said she wanted the lead, but he clearly appreciated her courage.
That seemed to be the way to impress him—to be courageous. That impressed people in Shi-Ha, too, but they had much higher standards. For them, bravery had to do with martial and equine prowess. Other forms of courage were so small as not to be worth noticing. But what was nothing to someone else was a big step for her, and Naissus seemed willing to judge her on her own scale—not compare her to others. And she appreciated that—to the point that, for the first time in her life, she wanted to try to do more.
Naissus tacked up his own horse, then gave her the reins. "Hold him for me for a minute," he said, before hurrying off to help with the last of the packing. Only when everyone else was mounted and ready to go did he get onto his own horse.
"Thank you," he said, taking his reins from her and starting down the road. Amichen rode at his side and everyone else fell in behind them. As they had the day before, the others maintained a polite distance so that Amichen and Naissus could speak privately.
"May I ask you a question?" Amichen asked quietly.
"Certainly," Naissus replied.
"You said last night that all of you are used to doing for yourselves—without the help of servants—but . . . why?"
He considered her question for a minute. "I . . . never stopped to think why," he admitted. Then he shrugged. "We just do."
"Is everyone in Hyrule like that?"
"I take it you mean other noblemen?" She nodded. "I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly think some people are. We're not seen as odd, if that's what you're getting at."
"Yes, I guess that's what I wanted to know."
He shrugged again. "I guess, for some of us, it comes from our training as knights. When we're about nine years old, we're sent out, in groups of three, to spend three days alone with a limited amount of supplies and equipment. If you don't supplement your supplies with some hunting and gathering, you'll go hungry.
"Later, around the age of fifteen or sixteen, we go out alone for a week with only one day's food and water and nothing but a knife and a bow and arrows and we're expected to keep ourselves alive and fed without any help of any kind—not even contacting someone telepathically to ask for advice.
"I guess, once you've lived through that—not to mention the training that leads up to it—you're not so particular about working with your hands and doing for yourself.
"Rodger and I are the only knights here—although Walcott did train with us up until he was about twelve—but the others have always joined in when Rodger and I wanted to do anything. All of us started hunting together when we were about fourteen or so because Rodger and I wanted to practice before we had to do our trial. So even though they didn't get all of the training, they learned from us.
"I think, if you spend a lot of time around other knights, you'll find that they're similar to us. Like I said, once you're trained to be completely self-sufficient, you never forget that. In fact, I think you have to do for yourself sometimes, just to make sure you don't grow too complacent and forget what you know."
It began to sprinkle around mid-morning, bringing an early end to Amichen and Naissus' conversation.
"You may want to get in your litter," he said. "It may drizzle off and on all day, or it may decide to rain in earnest; you never can tell on days like this."
They paused briefly while Amichen moved from her horse to the litter. As she stretched out in it, she couldn't feel too disappointed about having to be confined in it again; it hadn't taken much riding for her legs to get sore again.
The drizzle turned into a steady, gentle rain and the day grew cooler instead of warmer. Amichen ended up closing the second set of curtains—the heavy canvas ones—to keep the rain out and her body heat in. Between them and the overcast day, the inside of the litter was almost as dark as night.
"Amichen?" Naissus' voice startled her awake. She hadn't realized she had dozed off.
She pulled back the curtains and saw him riding alongside the litter. He had put on a heavy wool cloak and had the hood pulled up, trying to keep warm and keep the rain out of his face. "Yes?" she asked.
"We're not going to stop for lunch. But we'll stop early tonight, since we'll lose our light early."
One of the others rode up—she couldn't tell who it was, because his face was likewise covered by his hood—and he passed a plate to Naissus.
Naissus passed it down to Amichen. "A little something to tide you over," he said.
Amichen retreated back into the litter and closed the curtains against the rain, which was starting to fall harder. In the dim light, she ate a cold—and slightly wet—meal of leftover rabbit and a biscuit that was so hard, she had to gnaw on it with her back teeth.
Once that was finished, though, there was nothing to do but lie in the darkness and be bored. Occasionally she heard voices—even laughter—but for the most part, it was quiet outside except for the sound of the rain and the sounds of horses on the move. Like an unwanted guest, the rain had thoroughly ruined their party.
Eventually, Amichen nodded off again. Sometime later, though, a loud knock on her litter startled her awake.
"Are you still alive in there?" Naissus asked.
"Yes," she replied, sitting up and trying to hurriedly smooth her disheveled hair. "Although it was touch-and-go for a little while. I really thought I was going to die of boredom."
She heard him laugh. "Well, we've got the solution to that, if you want to get out."
She pushed the curtains back and found that they had led her litter right up to the door of one of the tents. Naissus was standing in the pouring rain, holding the tent flap back. She only had to take one step to get from the litter to the inside of the tent.
Of course, it was raining so hard, it looked like that one step was through the curtain of a waterfall. But Amichen had no intention of spending the night in her litter, so she dashed out and ended up in the tent laughing and wiping the rain from her face, but on the whole, she wasn't much wet.
"I knew we had too much luck with the weather on our way here," Rodger said, as he offered Amichen a dry blanket.
"Was it nice then?" she asked, wrapping it around her.
"Very. It only rained on us a couple of times, and even then, it was light—more a drizzle than anything. Now, it seems, it's finally decided it's spring."
Amichen took a seat on a wooden box while the others began to prepare dinner. They had a small metal brazier in the center of the tent filled with what looked like nuggets of charcoal. The fire was small and Amichen had to sit close to feel any heat. The charcoal put off much less smoke than regular firewood did, but the tent slowly became smoky anyway—to the point that Amichen's eyes began to sting and water.
Walcott set up a tripod over the fire and hung a pot of some sort of pottage—it looked like bits of meat and vegetables in barley—from it.
A moment later, the flap of the tent opened and Naissus came in from taking care of Amichen's horses. "Gods, I couldn't be any wetter if I jumped into Lake Hylia."
He shrugged off his woolen cloak and rolled it up. Then he began to wring water out of it. Water gushed out onto the grass.
"Look at this," he said, clearly affronted.
"Mine was just as bad," Rodger said.
"Ridiculous!"
When he could finally wring no more water from the wool, he hung it up and spread it out against one of the walls to dry. The cloaks of the other five men were likewise spread out, making a near-perfect ring of wet woolen fabric. It would help insulate the tent a little as the rain brought in colder weather, but they—along with the wet ground underneath—caused the air inside the tent to become very muggy.
Naissus fiddled with the top of the doorway panel until he had a small open gap in it about the size of his fist. That let out some of the smoke, but it didn't help alleviate the dampness.
"Please tell me we have dry clothes," Naissus asked.
Rodger pointed him to a box against the far wall.
Naissus crossed the tent, taking his belt off in the process. Before Amichen could look away, he pulled off his tunic and undershirt in one motion and she got an eyeful of his naked upperbody. He was a little on the thin side, but very well-muscled. His skin was so white, he seemed to glow in the dim orangey-yellow light cast by the fire. But standing in stark contrast to his paleness was a black tattoo of some sort of strange, stylized bird that stretched across his back from shoulder to shoulder.
"What's that?" she asked him.
He turned around and seemed almost surprised to see her there—as if he had forgotten he wasn't alone with his male companions.
"What's what, Your Highness?"
"That mark on your back."
"Oh, that." He turned back to his clothes, peeling his wet undershirt away from his tunic. "It's the crest of the Knights of Hyrule."
Rodger sat down on a box beside Amichen. "Let me tell you about that—about what Suss did to me."
Naissus chuckled a little, but didn't look up as he draped his wet clothes over spare boxes.
"Every knight has that tattoo," Rodger explained, "but there's no requirement about where you put it or what size it is. Most men get it here," he tapped his chest, over his heart, "or on the arm," he said, pointing to his upper arm. "I've seen women with it on the arm, on the inside of their wrist, or even on the back of the neck. But fairly small."
"Suss and I came up through training together, but he got knighted right before me. And after he had his vigil and got knighted, they asked him where he'd like his tattoo. And he said, "On my back." And they asked him, "How big do you want it?" And he said, "All the way across. I want one like Link's.
"Lo and behold, I was knighted a couple of weeks later. And when they took me to get my tattoo, I told them that I wanted one like Suss', because, of course, I had to do what he did. I knew if I opted for a smaller tattoo, he'd give me a hard time about it for the rest of my life."
Rodger cast an accusing glance at Naissus—who was still carefully not making eye-contact. "That little shit didn't bother to tell me how much it hurt—or that it was so large, it took days to finish it. I threw up two separate times while I was getting it!"
Amichen put her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh at Rodger's indignation. She could see that Naissus was trying not to laugh as well.
"I can't help it if you have a weak stomach," Naissus replied.
"My stomach is not weak!" Rodger said defensively. "That's the most excruciating pain a man can go through, short of having a limb hacked off."
"I didn't throw up."
Rodger ignored him, turning back to Amichen. "Naissus also failed to mention to me that Link's tattoo was done by magic. I lay there for days, thinking that if Link could suffer the intense pain of being pricked by needles thousands of times, so could I. It wasn't until after I was done that Naissus mentioned that Link never went through that!"
Naissus finally laughed aloud. "Why was it my job to tell you that?" he asked, turning to Rodger. "You had access to the same information as I did—the same books."
"You know you're the scholar. You've always known more than most."
"So? I still don't see why it was my job to tell you. Besides, would it have made a difference? You've already admitted the real reason why you did it was so that you could compete with me."
"Yeah, and my point is that you knew that I would compete with you. I think you got the biggest one possible just so you could laugh at my suffering when I did the same thing."
"I put myself through days of pain just to make you suffer, too?" Naissus asked incredulously.
"If I didn't get the tattoo, then you could lord over me about how small and weak mine was. But if I did get it, then I'd have to suffer. It was a win-win situation for you."
"Rodge, you're off your rocker." Naissus pulled some dry clothes out of a box. "For your information, I got this for me; it was what I wanted. I can't help it if your ego demanded that you get the same thing in an attempt to prove you're as much a man as I am."
Amichen listened to their back and forth with both of her hands over her mouth, valiantly holding in her giggles; it was the funniest thing she thought she had ever heard. The others, though, went about their work as if they had heard this argument before—which they almost certainly had.
It finally ended with Rodger pretending to be in a huff and some of the others rolling their eyes.
Despite the rain, the smoke, the creeping cold, and the uncomfortable mugginess in the tent, the group had an even better time than they had the evening before. Whether because of the queen's admonitions, or just because of the deluge, Hashin never came in to check on them and Amichen gradually became bolder. When someone got out a leather bottle full of liquor and passed it around—ostensibly to help everyone "warm up"—Amichen took a swig the same as all of the men.
It was so strong, it caused her to cough, which, in turn, made the others to laugh. "That's a bit stouter than wine," she said, alternating between coughing and laughing at herself.
"Here," Rodger said, offering the bottle back to her. "You need another swig to wash the first one down."
Amichen laughed. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Yes it does. Trust me."
She took another drink. It burned, but it did seem to go down smoother and she stopped coughing.
"See, what did I tell you?" Rodger said, before taking the bottle from her and taking his own big gulp.
"You are very wise in the way of spirits," Amichen agreed.
The bottle went around several more times as they all talked and told stories. Then Arlen pulled out some dice and suggested they gamble.
"I don't have anything to bet," Amichen said as the others eagerly dug coins from their purses. How odd to be a princess and not even have a coin of her own! But she had never had to pay for anything herself, so she had never had a need to carry money. In fact, in Shi-Ha, money was viewed by the nobility as something dirty—despite the fact that they were always trying to get more of it. When they went to buy something, they got it on credit and then the merchant sent a bill for it later. An accountant would pay for it and the lord need never dirty his hands with the transaction. Even if someone had a need to carry money—like when they traveled—they had a servant who carried the purse and paid for everything.
But apparently it was no shame to carry money in Hyrule because all of the young men seemed to have some.
"Here, I'll lend you something to play with," Naissus offered, reaching into his pouch again. But Rodger brushed him aside.
"You will not," he said with feigned indignity. "I'm her man; I will back her wagers."
Naissus nodded and put his money back into his pouch without argument. Amichen was a little surprised; she would have expected Naissus to insist on paying, since he was the one courting her, but apparently Rodger's claim to Amichen—in this case, anyway—trumped even a princely suitor.
She wondered why Naissus hadn't offered to be her man as well. Perhaps it wasn't something that was done between two people who might get married? It would certainly be redundant if she married him; of course her husband would stick up for her.
Or maybe he didn't want to overshadow Rodger or do anything to diminish his relationship with Amichen. Another man might have been jealous that a handsome flirt was eager to be good friends with his potential fiancée, but Naissus didn't seem to be the jealous type. Or maybe he just trusted his friends not to poach.
It was all very curious. People didn't often have close friendships in Shi-Ha—at least not among the nobility. People made alliances, but that wasn't the same thing as being friends. People allied with each other because it was expedient or a good political or financial move, but everyone understood that when fortunes changed, alliances could be broken as easily as they were made. So it was rare to trust someone who wasn't family—and not all family members were necessarily trusted.
That Naissus not only trusted Rodger with his potential fiancée, but seemed to approve—and even encourage—the two of them to have a friendship, was odd to Amichen. She liked the idea of having friends—especially after growing up without any—but it was still a foreign concept to her and it would take a little getting used to.
"Shall we play to the count?" Arlen asked, bringing her back to the matter at hand. "That's easy to play."
Everyone agreed.
"How do you play?" Amichen asked.
Arlen explained. "The person who has control of the dice calls the count and names the bet. So, for instance, I might say 'four in four.' That means that four is the number you want to hit, and you have four rolls in which to do it. Whoever rolls the most fours wins the pot and gets control of the dice.
"Normally, when you roll the correct number, you set that die aside and just roll with the remainder. But since there are so many of us playing, we'll keep all the dice in play so that we can reach a higher number of correct rolls; that reduces the number of ties."
"What happens if you tie?" Amichen asked.
"Then the people who tied will play another round to try and break the tie."
"I think I get it."
"It's really simple," he said. "It doesn't take any skill or strategy."
"In short," Rodger said, "a good game to play when you're drunk."
They pulled over a box so they could roll the dice on the lid. "Shall we roll to see who controls the dice?" Arlen asked.
Naissus waved it off. "They're your dice. You start."
"Alright, then, I'll call three in three and three is the minimum bet."
"That your lucky number, Arl?" Seymour asked, as he ponied up the required bet. Everyone else added their coins to the kitty.
"You know it is," Arlen said with a smile. Then he rolled.
But three apparently wasn't his lucky number because Rodger won the round.
"What shall I call?" he asked Amichen, as he shook the dice in his hand.
"I don't know," she said, surprised that he would ask her opinion when she wasn't very familiar with the game.
"What's your lucky number?"
"I don't know that I have one. I've never gambled before."
"Really?" he asked, seeming surprised. "You haven't played cards or anything?"
She shook her head.
"What do you do for fun in Shi-Ha?"
"You assume we have fun," she replied, causing everyone to laugh. She didn't tell them, though, that she hadn't been joking—at least when it came to members of court. Politics was everyone's hobby of choice and they played it with deadly earnest.
"I thought theater was very popular in Shi-Ha?" Naissus asked.
"Oh, it is."
"Well, that sounds fun," Rodger said. But Amichen shook her head.
"Theater is serious."
"Really?" he asked, surprised again. "You don't do comedies or farces or anything?"
"No. Everything is a morality tale or a tragedy or religious in nature—or all three. They can be quite heroic and emotional, but they're not what I would call 'fun.'"
"So, you've never had any fun?"
Amichen thought about his question for a minute, searching her memory for anything that stood out as 'fun.'
"The court went to Olchi once when I was a little girl."
"And you had fun there?"
"I did—but that was just because I was getting to go somewhere new." She smiled. "I guess I like to travel."
"This summer, you will have to come to my estate in Summerfield and stay with me," Rodger said. "It's on the southern border of Lake Hylia; we can go swimming every day if we want, or riding, or hawking. And I always have a big party on Midsummer Day and everyone who is anyone comes. There are horse races and archery competitions and the knights have a tournament to see who's the best fighter. And then, that night, we have a masked ball and everyone dresses up in costumes and tries to guess who everyone else is. If someone guesses correctly, you have to take off your mask. Whoever is still masked at midnight gets a prize and then there's a big reveal so we can see who managed to fool us all night."
Amichen found herself leaning forward so eagerly, she was almost falling off her box. She had never heard anything that sounded so exciting before in her life.
"It sounds wonderful," she said.
"You will have to come and stay with me for a month. I'll show you how to have fun."
Amichen glanced at Naissus questioningly. He nodded to her.
"I will definitely come," Amichen said, turning back to Rodger.
Rodger smiled brightly. "Excellent. When we get back home, I'll make arrangements."
"I'm more concerned with having fun now," Arlen interrupted. "So roll already."
Rodger laughed. Then he looked at Amichen. "I think . . . I think you look like six is your lucky number. So I'll call six in six with six as the bet."
Rodger was obviously a bit of a seer, because six did seem to be Amichen's lucky number; she won the round.
She looked at Rodger as the dice were passed to her. "What should I pick?" she asked.
"Sixes seem lucky for you; bet on them."
She shook her head. "That wouldn't be fair to be in control of the dice and keep naming a number that I'll win with."
Naissus, sitting on her other side, laughed. "You have a lot to learn about gambling."
"Yeah," Bodi added, "the point is to win."
But Amichen called fives in four with a bet of three. Seymour won that round.
The bottle of liquor continued to make its way around the group and they became more boisterous. It became hard to roll the dice and keep them on top of the box; often they threw too exuberantly and rolled some off the top. It was decided that any that rolled off the box were a loss—they didn't count, even if the correct number landed up—so it actually did become something of a game of skill as everyone tried to keep their rolls entirely on the box.
"What would my mother say if she could see me now?" Amichen said, rattling the dice in one hand while she accepted the liquor bottle from Rodger again. "Two nights away from home and I'm gambling with a bunch of men, without a chaperone, and I'm pretty sure I'm drunk."
Naissus laughed. "When in Hyrule, do as the Hyrulians do."
Amichen knocked back the last of the liquor and set the bottle aside. "Yes, but we're still in Shi-Ha," she pointed out.
"I won't tell anyone if you won't."
Amichen laughed. The combination of the company and the liquor made her feel freer than she had ever felt before in her life. She felt as if she had spent all of her life wrapped up tightly in a smothering blanket, unable to breathe or even speak, but now her bonds had been stripped away and she was completely and utterly free.
She was starting to understand why her mother wanted her to go to Hyrule—although how her mother knew her so well when she didn't even know herself was a bit of a mystery. Naissus and the others—despite all of them being of the Blood Royal—were easy-going, unpretentious people. Maybe she would find court in Hyrule to be different, but she didn't think so; a petty, back-biting court surely couldn't produce so many jovial, good-natured young men. Surely the other people of Hyrule were like them: fun-loving and honest. She never had to wonder what Naissus and the others were really thinking or what they meant by their purposefully ambiguous words; there was never any attempt at secrecy or deception in any of them. They were as honest as the day was long. She didn't have to be guarded and careful.
Imagine trusting a group of foreign men she had only known a couple of days when she couldn't trust a single person at the court in Shi-Ha!
"What's your call?" Walcott demanded when Amichen stayed distracted by her thoughts too long.
"Oh. Six in six for six," she said.
"What happened to wanting to be fair and not use your lucky numbers?" Rodger asked as he ponied up his bet.
Amichen laughed. "I played with the lot of you. Now I'm not so concerned with being fair."
Everyone laughed.
Amichen pulled off her circlet and slapped it on top of the box. Then she rolled her hand. The circlet kept her dice from rolling off the box.
"Can you do that?" Walcott asked no one in particular.
"You didn't tell me I couldn't!" Amichen crowed triumphantly.
That sent Naissus and Rodger scrambling to their clothes boxes to fetch their regalia. When their turn came, they rolled inside their own crowns.
"That's not fair," Seymour wailed. "We don't have circlets," he said, gesturing to himself, Bodi, Arlen, and Walcott. They were lords by birth, but had no titles of their own yet, so they had no right to wear a circlet of rank.
"I'll tell you what," Amichen said, holding out her own crown, "I'll rent you mine. A rupee per turn."
Rodger laughed uproariously and put his arm around her, hugging her to his side like she was one of the other boys. "What ruthlessness!" he exclaimed with delight. "I love it!"
"What happened to our meek little princess?" Naissus asked. But he was smiling to show that he obviously didn't mind the change in Amichen.
"You ruined me—just like Hashin said you would," she said.
That elicited even more laughter from the assembly.
They had to quit playing when they broke Walcott and Seymour. "You've got everything we have," Seymour said.
"You still have clothes on," Rodger hinted.
"I think that's enough for tonight," Naissus hurried to say. "It's quite late."
Amichen counted out the seed money that Rodger had lent her and gave it back to him; she still had a respectable pile for herself. "Is it really?" she asked. She had been having such fun, she hadn't noticed the time passing.
"Yes."
"I guess I better go to bed then," she said reluctantly. She could only imagine how cold Hashin's reception would be; surely even the heavy rain hadn't drowned out their loud merrymaking. Hashin was sure to disapprove—especially if Amichen came staggering in late and smelling of liquor. That might push the old woman over the edge.
Bodi looked out the gap in the doorway. "I don't think you want to go out in this, Highness," he said. "It's still pouring down. He turned back to them. "I'm not even sure if we could find your tent; it's blacker than pitch out there—like being in a cave."
"You can stay here," Naissus offered.
Amichen glanced around, as if expecting someone to tell her that she would do no such thing. But none of the others seemed scandalized by such a suggestion. In fact, they were all busy preparing their pallets for the night.
Amichen looked back at Naissus. "I . . . do you think I really should?"
"Are you afraid of any of us?" Naissus asked, perking a brow.
"No, but I am afraid of how it will look."
"I don't know what people in Shi-Ha know about the Knights of Hyrule," Rodger said, "but in Hyrule, no one would think anything of you spending the night with one of us—much less two of us."
"A knight's reputation is impeccable," Walcott concurred. "No one would ever suspect a knight of compromising a lady's reputation—nor of allowing anyone else do it in his presence."
"To do so would be a shame beyond shame," Rodger added. "You would be publically disgraced—dragged out in public, like a criminal, and your brother-knights would strip you naked and spit on you or strike you across the face, then your tattoo would be cut up so that it would be permanently scarred and everyone could see that you were a disgraced knight."
Amichen was horrified. "Has that ever happened?" she gasped.
"Not since the Order was reestablished," Naissus said. "But it did happen long ago."
"You're as safe here as if you were sharing a room with your brothers," Rodger added. "Naissus and I would die before we'd ever let something happen to you."
"Not that you have anything to fear from the rest of us," Arlen pointed out. "It's not like we're rogues waiting for Naissus' and Rodger's backs to be turned."
"Of course not," Naissus said quickly, as if wanting to reassure his other cousins that no offense was intended. "I know Amichen is as safe with any of you as she is with me. I was only speaking of reputation, which they're prickly about in Shi-Ha. But not even they can claim any dishonor was done if one of us is around."
Amichen realized then that her mother's back-up plan wouldn't work. They obviously had different ideas about what constituted appropriate behavior between men and women in Hyrule, but there definitely was a line they would not cross. And if Rodger and Naissus' reaction to Hashin's accusations were any indication, the Knights of Hyrule had a certain amount of prickliness about their reputations, too. If her mother tried to press the "dishonored" claim, she might find herself receiving open hostility instead of a compliant son-in-law.
And Amichen vowed then and there that she would never settle for that sort of man. She didn't want a husband who wasn't in control of his desires and was so weak that her mother could bully him into marriage. Such a man would make an awful husband. She wanted someone like Naissus, who had refused to be pushed around by her mother, and whose honor was beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"I'll stay then," she announced.
They prepared a pallet on the ground for her. A wooden box was placed between it and the wall of the tent to keep drafts from coming under the edge of the tent and blowing directly on her.
"It's not as comfortable as your bed," Naissus said spreading a blanket out on the pallet. None of them even had pillows; they used their rolled up clothes to rest their heads on.
"It's fine," Amichen assured him.
"Let us know if you need anything," he said. Then he went to his pallet and got under the covers.
Amichen looked around the semi-circle of pallets arranged around the fire, a little shy about disrobing in front of so many men, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to her. Some had already rolled over and had their backs to the fire. Even Bodi, who was sitting alone on a box next to the fire, keeping the first watch, was busy stirring the embers.
Then it occurred to Amichen that it wasn't a coincidence that none of them were looking at her; they were purposefully trying to give her as much privacy as they could.
She hurriedly pulled off her corselet and robes and draped them over the box behind her bed. Then, wearing nothing but her thin chemise, she crawled under the covers.
Naissus was right; the pallet was much less comfortable than her rope cot with its feather mattress. The pallet was so thin, she was practically sleeping on the ground. But despite feeling very awake and a bit uncomfortable, the late hour and the alcohol quickly caught up to her and she fell asleep within minutes.
