Page 39 of Historical Hotties
Cassius was still twitching. “Stupid, ridiculous old men,” he muttered. “And what about him putting me in command right in front of Darian? How do you think that made de Lohr feel? If I were him, I’d be bloody furious.”
“Then you find Darian and apologize to him,” Bose said steadily. “Tell him you did not mean to usurp his command, that you happily defer to him in all things. And then just do what you want, anyway. But make him feel as if he had part in the decision making. I’ve seen you do this, Cass. You’re a master.”
Cassius sighed sharply, struggling to push down his temper. He focused on Bose’s words. The man was making sense. Taking a deep breath, he smiled weakly.
“That was the Scots side of me raging like a madman, you know,” he said. “I get that from my mother and grandmother.”
Bose grinned. “What about the Viking side?”
Cassius shrugged. “That side wants to raid the countryside, burn villages, and steal women,” he said. “I keep that side well restrained.”
Bose laughed softly. “I hope nottoorestrained,” he said. “You must let it out for the battle against Marcil if we are to win this quickly. We need your mighty sword, Cass.”
Cassius’ smile faded. “It will be unleashed, I assure you,” he said. Then he took a deep breath to steady himself and looked off towards the stables. “I suppose I should find my dog and make sure he is fed before I take a few hours’ sleep. I did not sleep all night.”
Relieved that he was calming down, Bose waved him on. “Go,” he said. “Find that stupid dog. Du Bois and I will be in the hall, finding something to eat. It was a long night for us, too. Do you want me to send word to Tickhill and Pontefract?”
Cassius nodded. “If you would, please,” he said. “Do it before the day is out. I’d like to get this over with as soon as we can.”
“I’ll make sure the messengers go out within the hour.”
Cassius merely lifted a hand before heading off towards the stables. With missives being sent, he was focused on other things. He wanted to check on his horse to make sure the animal was well-fed and bedded down, and he knew the dog would be somewhere around the horse.
But he was wrong.
A hunt for Argos went on for fifteen minutes until he finally found a stable servant and asked if the man had seen a big gray dog about. The man had, pointing to the postern gate. It seemed that Lady Dacia and the dog had gone back to the river.
With a frown, Cassius followed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
That silly dogwas following her again.
Dacia had been nearly to the postern gate when the dog came out of nowhere, wagging its tail and licking her hand. At first, she was greatly annoyed, but that annoyance fled because the dog, for all of his ridiculousness, really was a sweet animal. Happy, too, especially when he was pushing young women into the river. Dacia did like dogs, but she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Argos.
He belonged to Cassius, after all.
Still, the dog seemed to like her quite a bit.
He followed her as she passed through the postern gate, which was guarded after last night’s raid. She was in full view of the soldiers who were at the gate as she and the dog headed down to the river’s edge.
It was a bright spring morning, not too cold, and the grass was wet with dew. She was looking for the tall, slender bushes that grew wild in a land where so many other flowers and grasses grew wild. Around the River Don, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of heavy foliage of all kinds, and she began to hunt for the dragonwort, pulling apart bushes, looking aroundthe base of the earthworks that formed some of the defenses of Edenthorpe.
The dog wandered around behind her, sniffing around, running over to the river and peering into it. There were a great deal of water fowl in and around the river and as Dacia finally found what she thought was a small dragonwort bush, Argos managed to catch some kind of small water bird with a great deal of noise and splashing.
When she looked over at him, he had killed it and was already starting to eat it, feathers and all. But it didn’t take him long and as she pulled out a small knife to cut through the long, slender branches that contained the dragonwort, he wandered over to where she was and plopped down beside her. She glanced over at the animal in time to see him burp up some black feathers.
“God’s Bones,” she said distastefully, turning back to her task. “You are a brutal and disgusting creature. Do you know that?”
“So I have been told.”
Startled, she turned to see boots next to her, shielding her eyes from the sun and looking up enough to see that Cassius was standing next to her. Quickly, she looked back at her task, a reflex action so he couldn’t see her uncovered face.
It was purely habit.
“I did not mean you,” she said, her heart racing furiously. “I meant your dog. He just ate a bird.”
“That is because he is hungry,” he said. “I went to the stable to find him so I could feed him and was told he had gone with you.”
