“It’s your funeral, buddy.” The instructor walked off then, shaking his head as if he were a hopeless case.
Ragnor began to walk with the other prisoners, heading toward the enemy’s great hall, where presumably they would be fed. They were crossing a wide exercise field now… not pounded dirt like his exercise fields at Norstead, but rather a hardened mixture, like pitch which had been baked with crushed stone. People bustled about on the roads and walkways before them, many of them dressed in white apparel—white braies, white sherts, even white head coverings. But, nay, in this sea of white, there were many dressed in matching, light brown garb, as well, and still others in a fabric mixing brown, black and green, which would be almost invisible in a forest, he would think.
Just then, he saw one person who stopped him in his tracks.
” Who is that?” he asked. His heart began beating wildly with excitement. It was the woman from his vision… the one who had beckoned him away from the white light.
“You know who that is,” Sly told him. “That’s the Master Chief’s sister, Lieutenant Alison MacLean. The doctor.”
She is a lewd-tenant? And a dock-whore. I like the sound of that. Lewdness in a woman is always desirable. She does not appear to be in trouble at the moment. Where is the fear and danger I sensed surrounding her in my vision?
The woman was dressed all in white, like many of the men, right down to wearing men’s braies. She was tall, much taller than the average woman… and slim. Her hair was short and red. Her legs were exceedingly long. Her skin was a flawless peach color and dotted with freckles. Her eyes were green. All this he saw in one sweeping glance from her head to her toes.
“She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Nay, that’s not true. She’s the most desirable woman I’ve ever seen. Magnificent.”
“Huh?” his comrades said.
The woman had just noticed them. When her eyes connected with his in passing, they returned immediately, then widened with surprise. Yea, he was a good looking man. An Arab princess had told him one time that he exuded virility. Even bald, he would imagine he could turn a female head. He puffed his chest out and waited for her approach.
Several of his fellow prisoners laughed. One of them asked, “What’s with the interest in the good doctor?”
All the others had opinions, too.
“That must have been some knock on the head.”
“The chief is going to make seal soup out of this bozo.”
“I’m taking bets she flattens him for looking at her like that.”
“I think he’s got a hard-on over frickin’ G.I. Jane.”
“No one has a hard-on after a fifteen-mile run. His jock strap must be full of sand, just like the rest of us.”
“Man oh man, I can’t decide whether I should go eat or stay to watch this fiasco unfold.”
They all stayed.
But Ragnor did not care about their teasing. He looked at the woman who strode toward them with fire in her eyes.
“It would seem I have regained my ‘enthusiasm,’ ” he murmured to himself. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, he smiled.