43

EXPOSED?

God in heaven, was that my punishment for logging? Why, god? I only did it so I wouldn't starve. Have mercy on me, I thought like a mantra as I forced my eyes down at the damp grass. Small rivulets ran through the stalks. Now and then a pair of bare male feet roamed my field of vision. My mantra went faster through my head...

"Open your eyes and behave, dammit. That's embarrassing." Henry growled indignantly. He had already removed his linen shirt and was unlacing his tight-fitting black pants.

"I told you I'm not going to wash here."

But Henry stopped listening to me. It steamed a little under the treetops, because the men needed boiling water to wash. It smelled like soap, but also very much like a man. The really tough comrades, including the older soldiers, actually had by far the fewest inhibitions. A large vat stood in the middle. Two whores helped with the washing and repaired one or the other piece of clothing. In fact, some solats even washed their stuff themselves.

Henry was one of those soldiers. Luckily Henry only went to wash when most of them had left. Almost ten men were still there. In fact, Engelbert, Robert and Raven were already sitting there. They had a towel around their waists, an absolute exception, and chattered while enjoying the steam. Henry threw his clothes into the tub and sat down with them, also with a towel around his waist. I stood at the entrance and became one with the trees...

From where I sat, I could see Henry's well-trained back damn well. Engelbert sat across from him and looked past him at me. "What about you!? Something to be ashamed of?"

Henry only half turned to me and raised an eyebrow in anticipation. Suddenly Max was standing in front of me, like he'd popped out of the ground. "Why are you still here, Nash!? Guliver is going to rage!"

Robin and Henry exchanged a look. "What does Guliver want from Nash?"

Max acted as if that were quite obvious. "So please, sir. Why every squire has to go to him."

But no one was satisfied with the answer. I wanted to help him, but I had no idea who Guliver was. Annoyed, Robin got up and rubbed his chest with soap. "Max..."

He raised his hands in resignation. "Yes, my lord. I thought someone had already told Nash. Every squire has to help out with the cook once because he doesn't have enough help."

Engelbert shook his head. "Bullshit. My squire hasn't seen him yet."

"Not yet, you."

Before it was all revealed, I raised a hand in greeting. "You heard it, Henry. Thanks for the invitation."

Although I was out of the situation, I was already in the next problem. Now I was sure. Max knew. He certainly didn't help me in vain...

I didn't meet the others again until dinner. Henry eyed me defiantly. I knew he was upset because I had obviously screwed him. But he'd be a lot angrier if he realized how much I actually duped him...

Tonight Henry and a soldier I didn't know were on watch. And because Henry hadn't forgiven me yet, he made me stay up with him and practice my sword practice with the ash cane. With this wonderful view, I sat next to him on the tree trunk, bread and jerky in my hands, and pondered an excuse.

But I couldn't think of anything because the thing with Max worried me. If the brat should betray me, I would most likely be killed like a traitor. Because women were strictly forbidden here. Except whores. And they could make me one too. If I were even more unlucky, the men would flay me before I was redeemed.

It almost frightened me that a boy was practically in control of my life. And who wasn't even aware of it. What if he spilled the beans. At that age he couldn't comprehend the magnitude of it.

"Nash! Hear me man!" Henry nudged me roughly. "Get to your exercises."

I stood a little to the side of the small watch fire and meanwhile let the stick whizz a little listlessly through the air. Henry listened carefully to see if the hissing of the air stopped or not. Slowly but surely, my life boy was starting to annoy me a lot. I was a grown woman and had to take punishment like a child. I wish I could hit Henry the ash stick the same way he'd hit me when I let my guard down.

Between the tents I suddenly discovered a flicker of a small flame. It was Max who waved me over. Without hesitation, I dropped the stick and ran to him. We ran in silent unity to the edge of the forest and crouched behind the bushes. So that nobody overhears us.

"I knew something was wrong with you. You're a girl!" Max cried in a whisper and tore his hair. "Are you really eleven?"

I swooped in surrender. "Nineteen. Watch out, Max; you honestly can't tell anyone this. They'll hang me up if they find out."

Max grinned humorlessly. "If they just hang you, you're lucky. How are you going to get away with that? There are situations when you won't be able to keep it a secret anymore."

I knew that too. Especially after today's bathing scene. "I don't really know how much longer I can do it, but I don't have any other choice." The boy wanted to ask something else, but I refused. "Are you going to tell or swear to keep quiet?"

Without hesitation, the squire raised his hand. "I swear." I breathed a sigh of relief a little more calmly. "What's your name?"

"Elizabeth."

"From the nobility?"

"No, my parents only liked noble names."

Max giggled boorishly. "Perfect for our nobles here, hu?"

I made a face and stood up. "Do you think I can wash somewhere now? Henry will drag me to this shed again tomorrow."

"But right there you can swim without hesitation. There is a pond nearby where the men always get the water. You can wash yourself there in peace."

"No one will come either?"

Max shrugged. "The men sleep or drink. They are soldiers. They don't care as much about cleanliness as your Henry."

Your Henry!? I looked at him sharply, but he held up his hands in surrender. "I mean, your employer Henry. I don't want to accuse you of anything!"

"What's the point of helping me?"

The squire got up too. "I don't want to see anyone die who is innocent. You're not doing anything bad. Not necessarily the right thing, but you're not stealing. In other words, what's in it for me to betray you?"

And I believed him. Because if he had wanted to betray me, he would have already done so.

NIGHT WATCH

I had decided to wash my hair too. Which meant I had to open them and risk being caught at a glance. But I figured if someone saw my feminine contours, my hair wouldn't make the herb fat anymore either.

As expected, the little stream was warm, because the summer sun shone on it continuously all day long. I hastened to wade to the middle, the deepest point. However, the still water only went up to my navel. So I knelt on the muddy ground and dunked the rest of me as well.

It was a blessing. I stretched my limbs underwater and let the air out of my lungs. I sank to the bottom, the water around me seemed to caress me all over. When I came up to catch my breath, I looked up at the full moon and savored my little happiness.

"Nash!" I heard Henry's angry voice in the distance. "I swear to God when I find you you'll wish you were never born."

I was convinced of that. And that's exactly why I was in no hurry to return to him by the fire. I wouldn't face Henry until tomorrow morning.

I disappeared again, putting Henry and Nash and Raven and my dead family out of my mind. It was Henry who resisted the most. The idea of him throwing off his clothes and wading down the brook to me, to Elizabeth and not to Nash. How he put his big hands on my shoulders and liked how womanly they were. And didn't complain because they weren't masculine enough. The picture came to me as he stood completely naked in front of me and also as he knelt over the whore.

That was the image that helped me get him out of my mind. But not without losing my blissful mood...

I came out of the creek and crept behind one of the trees. They grew very sparsely here so close to our camps. There were maybe a dozen young trees with thin crowns, but strong enough that they didn't sag under the tarpaulin, which was stretched at four. I rubbed myself dry behind one of the trees and wrapped my hair in the sheet.

Henry sharpened his dagger and told himself to be calm. He was a hothead, but he had it under control. And because he had the night watch, an important and dangerous job, he had to control himself more than ever and keep calm.

"Look." Henry's blood ran cold in his veins. His comrade Rotar jumped up and made a little servant. Henry took his time getting up. "How is it, Rotar?"

"All quiet, commander. No new ambush."

"What about the wounded. Did you hear anything?"

"Most are stabilized for transport, but some are seriously injured. We think two of them will die tonight."

"Names?"

"Berthol and Frodo, sir."

The commander took it easy that two men, two people, ceased to exist tonight. As if he had been told that two war horses had had their throats cut on the battlefield. Although he would certainly have mourned more with the expensive horses.

"What's Henry? Aren't you sober?" Theo growled in disgust. Both Rotar and Henry were appalled. Showing up to work not sober was outrageous. Especially as a night watch in a camp that had already had to withstand an ambush.

With this accusation, Theo wanted to damage Henry's reputation, but most of all he wanted a reason to publicly parade his son again. Preferably right in front of the king, with whom Theo naturally had a lot to do. The king was a man of honor and would never approve of what Theo did if he had known the story better.

"Sir, I haven't touched a beer all day."

"And wine?"

"No, sir." Henry had to pull himself together to sound mature but not rebellious. He hated having to hug his father like a brat. He might puke. "Neither wine nor beer. Just normal, diluted mead. And that's allowed because it doesn't make you drunk."

The man with the second highest rank in the camp took a step towards Henry and raised his eyebrows. "Do you want to teach me, my son?"

And already he drove out the next matching card. "No, father. I only answered."

Theo sighed, like a helpless father who couldn't put his stubborn son on the right path. Henry would have given anything if Theo were actually the kind of father who cared about his son. He was just a devil. "Come to my tent after your shift, boy."

He said it mildly and indulgently. It was the tone with which Theo always summoned Henry when others were around, even as a child. And when he was with him, it was over with the mildness. Then the devil put out his horns and tormented Henry.

Henry's blood pounded in his ears. "Yes, commander."

Apparently helpless, he turned around, put a hand on Rotar's shoulder and went back into the darkness. Rotar looked at Henry intently. He wasn't stupid and understood that something was wrong here, but he would never guess that it was because of the revered hero Theo Campbell, who had fought with the king as a young knight. No, it never occurred to anyone that the man who was a perfect and charming knight of the king was holding his sons hostage.

With bile rising up to his throat, Henry sat down and refrained from actually throwing up. The bad feeling of an approaching misfortune that was approaching him became more and more noticeable.

My hair was dry again, I had started tying my chest and was enjoying the last hour before sunrise. Then I would go back to our tent and face Henry. Because even as a woman, I wasn't a coward.

For the last time, I shook my hair out over my head, tossed it back, and ran both hands through my hair like a comb. Just as I was about to become Nash again, the inevitable happened. A man's voice right behind me made me stop abruptly...

"Have mercy on me..."

CONFESSIONS

I could feel my heart racing and panic rising in me. And yet I turned around very slowly. It felt unnatural. Raven stared at my bound chest, taking in my waist length hair and hips. "We knew there was something wrong with you, but that we never, ever expected."

Suddenly it wasn't so easy to swallow anymore. "Please, Raven. Don't tell anyone."

Raven ignored this and approached angrily. He stopped a hand's breadth from me, panting like a bull. "Have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea what will happen to you if this gets out? Tell me, are you crazy?"

I shook my head just as angrily, my open curls swaying. "I'm not crazy, I'm just not a noble lady who can crawl into her estates. I have to fend for myself."

"So? With lies?" Suddenly something occurred to him and he eyed me with disgust. "And you wanted to know how you manage to gain Henry's trust? While you're pretending to be a lie!? What do you want from Henry? Why him of all people?"

"I don't want him at all. It wasn't planned to fall to the commander's son. I just wanted to learn so much here that I wouldn't be defenseless at the mercy of anyone in life. That I could fight. Get tougher. Henry was in my Basically irrelevant and completely unknown!"

The disgust vanished from his eyes. Disappointment was still there, but no longer disgust. "And how do you intend to make off when you've learned everything you wanted?"

"I would just disappear. Forget Nash and live on as Elizabeth."

"Is this your name?" Raven mumbled a little calmer now. When I nodded, it got quieter. Raven thought for a while, then put his hands on his hips. "Are you really from Kent? And that thing about your family? Was that all a lie?"

"No, that's all true."

Raven threw back his head. "You should get ready to dress, if anyone sees you, it's over for you and Nash."

I pulled my doublet over my head in a hurry and tied my hair back in a way that it looked like a boy's mop. "So you won't betray me?"

"Why should I?"

I shrugged my shoulders innocently. "Royalty?"

"The king would be grateful if I didn't force him to make such a decision by betraying you. Theo would probably rejoice, but the king doesn't believe in cruelty."

"Thanks Raven."

He raised his head again. "You have to tell Henry."

"Never." Then it would be over with Nash and my future.

"You can't lie to him like that! Maybe he would have more mercy on you and wouldn't ask so much of you. For example, he would make you bathe in front of the men."

"Or send me away because he feels betrayed." Raven looked silently into the grass and didn't contradict. "And if not, he would probably coddle me like you say. But then what's the point of my staying here?"

Raven wanted to contradict, but he let it be and spread his arms helplessly. "I can't lie to Henry. I can't do this to him."

It wasn't news to me that Raven and Henry had something in common. It probably had something to do with Theo. So I wasn't surprised that Raven had a problem with that. "Then just avoid the subject. Please, just until winter."

"Winter? Why?"

"I hope that Henry has taught me everything I need to survive by then. Then I'll be gone." Because there were already two people who had caught me. The danger that they babbled on became too great. So I had to leave as soon as I could.

Raven sighed and nodded. "Good. I'm doing my best."

"Thank you very much. I see what a mess I'm putting you in." He waved it off, grumbling. I seized the opportunity of the confessions. "Can I ask you something. Something that's been bugging me from the start? What about the Commanders and Henry? What's wrong with that?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Wasn't it obvious enough? Theo is an asshole and Henry can't do anything to get away from him. Not even disappear and turn his back on the war. Because that would mean turning his back on the king too. So he would be a traitor."

"Is there a reason Theo treats Henry like this?"

Raven shook his head and leaned against the tree. "It's always been like that. Theo was cold and calculating. He was never fit for anything but a warrior. But he didn't have any credentials either as a father or as a husband. The boys were poor bastards."

I pondered that for a moment, listening to the wind in the thin treetops. "You're older than Henry, aren't you?"

"Ten years. I'm as old as his eldest brother was. And I'm sorry, his brothers were disgusting. The eldest, Reinhard, was the worst. Theo had also hurt him the worst because he was the heir. The middle one, James, suffered under Reinhard. Then came Henry and the two brothers allied against the little one. But neither of them was safe from Theo."

Raven's eyes turned angry and bitter. "They were terrified of him. For a long time we didn't think anything, because some fathers are strict. But we became suspicious when Henry was seven. My father, Theo's older brother, and I came to visit my uncle at the time. As we walked from the gate into the hall Henry was hidden in the bushes and as we passed him he jumped out roaring and was delighted to have startled us."

He snarled and pushed himself restlessly from the tree.

"A harmless prank! My father wanted to tease him too and said; What will your father think of this? Henry turned pale as the wall. He suddenly staggered and began to stutter and beg. And vomit." He looked up angrily. "Henry was terrified! The skinny little boy. He threw my father on his knees and cried and begged, stuttering. He was so sorry and it was just a joke."

Raven stopped and clenched his fists at the memory. I couldn't breathe. I had expected that I would hear something bad, but that surpassed everything. The older cousin shook his head and sighed to calm himself down.

"Imagine what a panic this little fellow must have had. About nothing."

"What did your father do then?" I asked into the threatening silence.

"He took him in his arms and comforted him. He even swore he would never lose anything about it. But he still wouldn't stop begging..."

Then it was finally quiet. I couldn't say anything, couldn't think. We just stood there. The image of a skinny, black-haired boy begging, pale and stuttering, burned itself into my brain. It was awful...

The sun rose behind me. In silent agreement we marched back to camp.