THE REALM

Chapter Nineteen

  With the meal finished, and feeling the worse for it, I rose to follow after Kuri, only he wasn't headed for the door. He stopped and motioned me to go back out to the horses and obediently I did.

  It was almost with eagerness that I slid into the saddle of the mare I rode. Eagerness to be gone from this dreary place. What was Kuri doing anyway?

  Time stretched on and I was about to dismount and go back inside, when the doors of the shack opened and Kuri came out, only he wasn't alone. To my consternation the servant girl was with him and she had a dirty sack hung over one thin shoulder.

  No, it couldn't be!

  Kuri mounted up and then pulled the girl up behind him. He turned his mount to go and I couldn't help the question that came from my lips, "Why?"

  "Why not? Benaiah, when it is in your power to do good you should."

  "This is good?" I exclaimed.

  Kuri gave me a censoring look and turned his horse onto the trail out of this little hole in the middle of nowhere. The girl turned her head back to me and, mildly shocked, I watched her stick her tongue out at me.

  The brat turned forward and I turned my mount to follow along after Kuri. Kuri was making a terrible mistake in bringing this girl along.

  *****

  I don't think I'd ever seen anyone eat so much before. Early in the day I'd ridden ahead and been fortunate to bring down a Roan deer with an arrow. I had it gutted and dressed out with a fire already made when Kuri had arrived with the girl.

  All the while the meat had cooked over the fire the girl had stared at it in rapt focus. Hadn't she ever had meat before?

As I watched her devour her third steak, I soberly acknowledged the possibility that perhaps she hadn't. Whether she had or not she was certainly making up for lost time.

  I'd had one steak so far and I'd been about to start into a second, but there wasn't much meat left as most of the usable deer meat I had packed in salt for the journey. I was still hungry, but it didn't seem right to eat more in the present circumstances. I laid the second piece of meat before the girl.

  She stopped eating for a moment to glance up and stare at me intensely. She didn't say anything and after a moment she went back to eating, but at a slower pace.

Why had I done that? I didn't particularly care for the girl and from all appearances the feeling was mutual. She needed help though and it had been right to give her extra, as I had been far more fortunate than her as of late.

  I guess I understood now why Kuri had done what he had in bringing the girl along. There was also the fact that she was of his people and he had already told me that he had plans of gathering them together.

  The girl was likely going to still be a nuisance. A nuisance that was going to eat us out of provisions in short order. Where was she putting it all?

  Kuri rose to leave the campsite, but before he left he leaned down to whisper into my ear, "After she gets some sleep I'm going to need you to help me cut her hair off. She has lice." He left and I stared at the girl across the fire from me, who was eyeing me up suspiciously.

  Oh this was just great. I had not signed up for this!

  *****

  "You're not cutting my hair off!" The girl screamed, as she struggled against my hold on her. My hold was unrelenting though and about the most strenuous aspect of the whole endeavor was trying to keep back from the girl's unkempt and greasy looking hair.

  Kuri stopped the girl's sharp head movements by grasping her face with both hands. He didn't say anything. All he did was stare in that way he had that said he knew everything you felt and that he cared deeply for you. I'd been the recipient of that stare many times over the past two years.

  The girl resisted the warm current of Kuri's gaze for only a moment before her body began to shake in a series of deep sobs. I found myself hurting for her, because of the empty forlorn quality of her cries.

  Kuri's words were the soul of comfort, "There is no shame in this. Your hair will grow back and you will be even more beautiful than before. Now are you ready?"

  Slowly the girl nodded and I felt a pulse of emotion course through me. The girl had courage. I admired that.

  Kuri brought out a sharp knife and began to gently cut all the girl's hair away. It was a humbling experience, as the girl I held seemed to sink within herself with the loss of more and more of her hair. Finally it was over and I let her go.

  She instantly pulled away and headed down a path towards some boulders nearby that offered concealment. I watched her disappear from view, but I could still hear her crying. I hated the sound of that. It affected me like nothing else ever had.

  I had no experience with women and every moment with even just this girl was a lesson on what the realm of being female was about. It was nothing for a man to be bald in life, but for her…well, it was everything.

  It made sense to me. It shouldn't have, but it did. I found myself wanting to help her in some way, but to her I was the enemy.

  I looked around the desert environment, at a loss as to what to do. It was hot and the sun was at full strength. Immediately I thought of the newly uncovered skin unused to the rays of the sun.

  I went to my saddlebag and opened it, taking out my one and only change of clothing, which also happened to be my favorite shirt. It didn't matter.

  Unmercifully I ripped it up and retied the pieces of it together in a different fashion. Satisfied I approached the nest of boulders. The girl immediately drew back from me, but I pressed forward and backed her up against a boulder. Without saying anything by way of explanation, I reached out with the torn up shirt and began to wrap the makeshift turban around her head in the way that I'd seen Robanic tribesmen do.

  She held still until I was done and perhaps the look in her eyes was a little less hostile. "What's your name?" I asked.

  "Mayrin."

  "Well, Mayrin, we'll be moving out in a little bit. It's probably best for you to ride double on my horse for a while so we don't tire the other one out too much. It's cooler here in the boulders than out in the open, so stay here and I'll be back when it's time to leave."

  I turned to go, but stopped as she husked out emotionally, "You didn't want me to come along with you and your friend. Why are you being nice?"

  I had to think about it for a moment and when I spoke it was as if I was experiencing the reality of the truth that she was hearing as it registered for the first time within my own consciousness, "I was like you once. Alone, afraid and without any hope of things ever getting better. Things did get better and I…"

  "You what?" she asked.

  I looked back to her and finished my thought, "I hope things get better for you too."

  I watched her nod and then look down as if in contemplation of something. I left her to be alone and went to check up on the old mare. Kuri was there, already tending to his even worse looking mount. I didn't say anything, but I kept my back to him.

  "That was thoughtful of you to do," came Kuri's voice from over my shoulder.

  I grunted in reply.