She stayed near Foye when she could, watching him when she was not fully engaged with the challenge of the road. Conversation, when there was any, was either between men who spoke a dialect she did not, or in Arabic that often included the use of words and phrases she soon understood to be crude in nature. This was a very different use of the language than she was familiar with. Less formal. Less elegant Very much to the raw point The verbal equivalent, she thought, of walking as if one possessed bollocks. She tucked away her new words and phrases for future reference. As the morning wore on, the sensation of trousers and robes instead of a riding habit and parasol began slowly to seem less absurd to her, and through a process of observation of the other riders and frank experience she learned the different carriage required of her when sitting astride. She became Pathros. A native youth who had been riding astride all his life. With bollocks between his legs and a vocabulary to match.
