“And where would you advise me to look for a family? Maybe at the market on a market day?” And he laughed sadly.
“If only so. Good luck!” Nikto turned away from him, leaving.
“And… and to you…” Toby, who had become very serious again, barely uttered.
Nikto approached Karina:
“Let's go,” he said simply.
Karina got up.
“You know,” she said a little later, as they left the woodland cemetery and almost reached the Royal Route. “This is some kind of nightmare, Nik! And the feeling that we were like the heroes of some adventure novel never left me all the time. A very bad novel, I would say!”
Chapter four
Encampment
“Let's stop here,” said Nikto, heavily sinking into the grass.
“Yes. Okay,” agreed Karina. She herself liked this cozy forest clearing, surrounded by bushes on all sides. “Here is a small lake, we can wash ourselves.»
“Yes,” Nikto said, and in his voice she felt the fatigue. He sat down on the grass, as usual stretching out his lame leg, and his healthy leg slightly bent at the knee, and, slightly lowering his head, stared blankly in front of him at one point. She saw that he was not at all looking at the clover leaves that grew in abundance there, but was looking at the grass as a background that helped to delve into his thoughts. His eyes were blank, and he stared ahead unseeingly. And Karina, looking at him and remembering what happened to them today, once again thought that his sweet and so soft appearance with delicate neat features, devoid of any brutality and rigidity, didn’t at all fit with his actions, with the way he behaved – tough and fearless.
“How can you be so soft on the outside and so strong on the inside!” She thought. “This body doesn't suit him at all. All the same, the men of the “upper white race” are too cute, however, this is not surprising, because they are absolutely peaceful people, not at all like “black” or “red” ones.”
She said:
“You fought so hard now, one against all! Was it very difficult for you?”
“Yes, this was a fucking disaster,” he said, still looking in front of him, in a voice devoid of any intonations, so simple and everyday.
And Karina froze, stunned by such an unexpected response. With his answers, he periodically confused her, she remembered the first time she came to his chamber, all trembling with excitement, expecting that he would start presenting to her now, well, or utter some kind of condemning speech, and he said something in style of “Ask this old asshole to dilute not with water.” And no pathos, did he take it over from Prince Arel or was it he himself? And now she was expecting from him some obviously different words, something heroic: “I didn’t give a fuck!” or “All this is nonsense, you see! Who are they before me! I would have dealt with them with one left!”. And he sits here, so tortured, tired, and admits that he was in trouble.