Once again, my thoughts dallied, as they were prone to do of late. For some reason, I was admiring the pretty picture of manhood who stood before me rather than responding to his question. The officer had jet black hair, a bit longish in back, just the way I thought all men should wear it. I liked the way his hair was obviously clean and not overly oiled as some in my former village had worn it. His hair looked soft as cat fur and a piece of it dangled low on his forehead, making him look younger than the coldness of his eyes suggested.
He had a fine molded face with a pleasant nose, cheek bones that were rough-hewn enough to be extremely handsome, but not angular so that they looked sharp. I would be lying if I didn’t mention his well-developed muscles and his tight stomach and thighs, not that I noticed such things, of course.
I brought my mind back to more significant matters, like the question he’d asked. I dodged that and instead offered him an explanation for my presence. “I found these two boys down by the creek. I thought they were awfully young to be so near the water without supervision, so I walked them home. Unfortunately, there was nobody here.”
“So, you’d just arrived?”
“The lady fed us,” Frances said, grinning his missing tooth smile.
“And we got to ride on her horse!” Carlo chipped in.
Frey suddenly decided to make his presence known. He nickered softly and pawed at the ground, then gave my back a determined nudge, indicating that he thought it was time to continue on with our travels. I turned to face him. I could have walked him over to his saddle, then tacked up so that we could ride on, but, instead, I slid off his bridle and said, “Go on back to the pasture, Frey.”