The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Peering through a crack between her arm and the desk, she saw him glance at her before leaning down for a quick look underneath the cot.

  “Find what you were looking for?” Falon asked, feeling better now that she was sitting down and all but laying out on the desk.

  Ernest gave her a look before breaking out into a mostly genuine chuckle. It had a hint of self-mockery to it, but Falon wasn’t about to bring that up.

  “It was stupid,” Ernest rolled his eyes and then shook his head.

  “What?” Falon asked and then added, “No, really: what?”

  “It’s stupid,” he grinned and Falon lifted her hand enough to prompt him with a smile of her own to continue, “oh, all right. I figured maybe the reason you wouldn’t let me into the tent…” he stopped, turning red with embarrassment.

  “Go on,” Falon urged, starting to actually be intrigued.

  “I really shouldn’t,” Ernest said covering his mouth.

  “Now I really have to know,” Falon declared, picking up her head and straightening in the chair.

  “Okay, but it’s stupid,” Ernest said his mouth twitching, “I thought maybe you had a nekkid girl in here and that’s why you wouldn’t let me in here.”

  Falon’s mouth fell open in shock, and Ernest ducked his head while grinning cheekily. Snapping her mouth shut, she was about to hotly deny that she would ever do such thing—she wasn’t a lecher or, more accurately, some camp-side doxy—but a moment later the realization struck her that there had in fact been a very naked girl inside her tent.

  “Lady’s tits,” she groaned, leaning back over the desk and thumping her head on the wooden surface several times before once again covering her head with her arms, “every muscle in my body hurts and my head aches like you wouldn’t believe—not to mention I didn’t get two hours of sleep the night before! Even if I had the inclination…” Falon realized what she’d just said and jerked in her chair, lifting her arms to bestow a fearsome glare on the former farm boy, “which I don’t! And didn’t! I would never…I mean, oh, you know what I mean,” she threw her arms in the air. “Whatever! I wouldn’t have the strength for such torture.”

  Ernest coughed into his hand, clearly amused by her antics at attempted self-defense. “Like I said, pretty dumb, huh, Fal?” Ernest laughed, “I mean, where else could you hide her except under the cot?”

  Where else indeed, Falon almost choked at the thought and snorting derisively—a truly nasty habit to which she had grown all-too-accustomed.

  The two shared a look and broke out into mutual snickers, the tense moment of before that had threatened their friendship forgotten…or at least eased and set aside.

  An idea occurred to her and the recent moment of mirth loosened her tongue. “I suppose she could have gone out the back of the tent clutching her clothes to her chest, while you were out front moping in the mud and eating your breakfast,” Falon giggled, as the scenario—something she’d actually seen once while passing another camp—replayed in her mind.

  “You didn’t…?” Ernest looked at her with wide eyes and then his face changed to some kind of dawning understanding, “Falon, you dog!”

  “What? No!” Falon fought to defend herself around uncontrollable laughter. “The look on your face!” she pointed accusingly as she continued her full-throated laughter.

  “You did!” he pointed an accusing finger of his own. “I thought I was going crazy when I caught a peek of something out of the corner of my eye that never belonged to any man alive, but it was too quick to be sure and you—” he held his sides as he joined her in laughter. “You actually sent her out the back clutching her clothes, Fal?!”

  “You saw?” Falon stopped mid-laugh, horror replacing mirth like a candle snuffed out by the wind.

  “I wasn’t sure—I mean it was so quick and it’s pretty dark in here—but from what I saw…nice, wasn’t it?” he said with a suggestive eyebrow waggle somewhat at odds with the slightly questioning sound in his voice, as if he still wasn’t entirely sure and was pressing her for details.

  “Ernest, you ass! You complete and utter ass,” Falon yelled, mortified at the very idea of being seen naked—even so much as an unintended glimpse! She was no hussy, bathing down at the watering hole and hoping a boy she favored snuck down for an illicit peek while her father stood guard to keep just such wandering eyes away! Seething, she snatched up her trencher and slammed it, egg-first, into his face, spilling bacon and greens all over and down her shirt as she rubbed the bread into his face, “I do not entertain!”

  Ernest tried to say something and raised his arms to ward her off, but she ground the bread into his mouth to shut him up.

  “I sleep in here, you fool!” she cried.

  Ernest finally got his hands around her wrists and pushed her away. “So do my parents…back home, I mean,” he spat bread from his mouth onto her chest and then smirked. The implication was clear: his parents slept together in the same room back home, with both meanings of the word.

  “If there’s a dog in this tent, it’s you, Ernest Farmer,” Falon declared, angry as a polecat and more mortified by the second at the thought that she may have been seen—and by Ernest, of all people! Her body was reserved for her husband’s eyes, not those of army brutes, and certainly not for neighboring farm boys! Even, or perhaps most especially, if he wasn’t sure what he’d saw but wanted to make sport of it and her. Her face flamed, “Now get out.”

  She stomped her left foot on the ground and thrust a finger toward the door like Mama Cink used to do when her older brother were acting up.

  “Out!” she repeated when he was slow to action.

  Ernest gave her an uncertain look, as he appeared to once again be unsure about what he’d seen—as well as likely wondering about her rapid mood swing.

  Then he rolled his eyes at her, stood up and started sauntering toward the door. “They say ale always soothes a guilty conscience,” he said, pointing a thumb at the mug still sitting on the desk.

  Drawing back her foot, Falon kicked him in the rear to hurry him on the way. “Oooh!” she hissed, and it was the sound of pure feminine frustration, a sound that she couldn’t contain any longer.

  “You know what they say. He who denied it…just admit you like the girls as much as the rest of us; there’s no shame in it, and besides—” Ernest mocked, quick-stepping to the door but Falon followed after her him kicking him as many times as she could in the hind end.

  “Bastard!” she spat after him and tried to slam the flap closed. But as she already knew—yet had inconveniently forgotten in her rage—tent flaps don’t slam. Instead, she settled for tying the flap shut and when her fingers weren’t as nimble as usual, she knotted it closed with an angry pull.

  Ernest and his misguided, lewd, and most improper suggestions could be all over camp before she even went outside! The idea that every man in her camp might be winking and patting her on the shoulder at the simple idea of a wrongdoing like Ernest had suggested, just went to show that all men were pigs. Not just pigs, but ugly, straying, faithless pigs! If only their wives and sweethearts knew what their men got up to out here, their toes would curl. They would…her thoughts trailed off as she continued to fume.

  Soon they’d all think she had ‘been with’ a girl! It was unbearable. It was intolerable! What if someday they found out the truth that she, herself, was a girl—the same girl featured in this lewd tale of fornication gone wrong! Would people think that she liked other women? Or, almost as bad, believed she’d been in here all alone and in the depths of their ugly male minds, merely sporting with herself? By the Lady, everyone would think she was filled with unnatural urges!

  It was a short step from there to believing that she randomly climbed into the bed rolls of the middle of the night to pleasure herself. After that they’d think nothing of sneaking into her tent for a little fun with the ‘good time girl’ who was supposed to be their commander. There was no end to the perfidy that existed in the minds of men
—she knew that after these weeks on the trail! She’d had to listen to them as they extolled the attributes and non-existent virtues of every camp trollop in the army.

  She’d kill Ernest, that’s what she’d do. Her reputation was ruined. Her virtue was now under threat of nightly assault. She’d use her shri-kriv, that’s what she’d do! Sneak up on him while he was alone, maybe at night, and then…visions of slitting his fool throat or stabbing him through the heart to still his flapping tongue flitted through her mind. At least, they did up until they started morphing into images of what she’d done the day before to those blinded barbarians.

  Her stomach rolled, and Falon quickly suppressed all thoughts of murder and mayhem. She didn’t actually want to murder Ernest…she only wanted to…well, to kill him for his wagging tongue and roving eyes!

  Death is too good for that peeping tom, she fumed silently, and while she fumed she bustled about the inside of the tent, setting things to right. Putting aside her stiffened, stinking, blood-soaked clothing from yesterday for laundering and wiping mud off the side of her cot, she performed all the usual chores that would normally be a woman’s duties back in the home, but rightfully belong to her valet out her in camp—a valet she wasn’t ready to let near her with a ten foot pole for a good lone while yet. Bringing her breakfast, indeed!

  After that she snatched up her sword and sat down at the camp desk. Alternately sipping the mug of small beer he’d left behind and cleaning blood off her weapon, then stropping her sword to sharpen it, she imagined each stroke of the whetting stone was instead a piece of Ernest’s flesh being cut by her blade.

  It helped, but not as much as it might have since whenever she got too dark in her bloodthirsty thoughts, images from yesterday came back to haunt her. It had the very upsetting effect of ruining a perfectly good mad.

  Still, it was nice that he liked what he saw well enough to want details—

  Falon gasped, mortified at herself and she tossed her sword on the bed and snatched up the ale as she went to the tent flap and upended it.

  If enough ale could turn a good man bad, it appeared that so much as one mug could destroy a female Lieutenant. Swearing off drink for the foreseeable future, Falon strapped on her sword and hurried out of the tent, fleeing as if the very demons of the underworld were hot on her heels.

  Chapter 45: When Summoned: I come running…or rather, at a fast walk

  “Lieutenant,” said a clipped voice with a familiar, Imperial accent as Falon hurried past a series of lean-to’s that passed as the sleeping site of several of her men.

  Falon stopped so fast she almost overbalanced. “Darius!” she said, relief at seeing the man alive throwing every other thought straight out of her head, “I thought you dead on the field!”

  “Such faith in your loyal Sergeant,” the Imperial scoffed, “of course I’m not dead. I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

  “You,” Falon goggled and then grinned at him, “oh, you! You know what I mean; when you and the file disappeared after that last attack and we couldn’t find you later. After we’d taken the field, we feared you dead.”

  “I heard,” Darius allowed gravely, “from all accounts you did a man’s job of it. More like you were a real Officer—the kind a man can be proud to stand beside and take orders from in a fight,” he stepped up to her and smacked her shoulder, “good job, Sir.”

  “You know that in our lands the only ‘Sirs’ are Knights,” Falon said, flushing with pleasure at this recognition from a man she respected. She imagined she stood a little straighter after his praise and acknowledgement.

  “Forgive an Imperial his ways then?” Darius said a single corner of his mouth turning up.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t let his mischaracterization pass. “I don’t know who you’ve been speaking too,” she said, feeling her shoulders slump a little at the admission. She had enjoyed the praise while receiving it, but now it was time to fess up and set the tale straight, “but it was probably someone who took a head blow, like me.” She sighed, “I got a lot of good men killed and we were overrun trying to pincer attack the Ice Raiders who were engaged the Captain. It ended up nothing but a bunch of stumbling around in the woods, alerting everyone and their sister to our…to my ‘surprise attack.’ Some surprise,” she snorted, her humor turning foul at the memory of her failure, “if there was a surprise then the joke was on us.”

  “I’ve spoken with the Captain’s men,” the Imperial said carefully. “They said they were about to be routed when you showed up in the nick of time and took the pressure off. They’re of the opinion that your maneuver saved their lives.”

  “Then all I did was trade one set of lives for another, and men who relied on me died because of it,” Falon said sullenly. “I should have done better.”

  The Sergeant paused contemplatively. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit; so’s you know, by all accounts, a lot of the Left Wing broke and ran when the going got rough. Sire Morlan, for one, did not come out of this battle covered in glory,” he said. After a pointed pause, he added, “Still, there’s always room for improvement.”

  “If anyone will trust me with command after yesterday; I doubt the men would follow me,” Falon muttered darkly, bitterly recalling starting the day with well over eighty men and ending it with just eight battered, bruised, and bloodied men when she came straggling back into camp. A nine-in-ten casualty rate was worse than a route—it was criminal! How could anyone look to her for leadership with those kinds of losses?

  Her spirits sank, as the previous day had proved beyond a doubt that a woman had no business commanding men. As soon as Darius left, she all but lost the company.

  “Again, I think you’re too hard on yourself; the men who came back with your swear by your sword arm and sounded ready to follow you back into battle anytime. A lot of the wounded know they wouldn’t have made it but for you getting those Snow Fox barbarians to not only surrender, but then help scour the battlefield for casualties to take back to the Wenches and bind their injuries,” he said carefully.

  “The ones who ran away…” she muttered, thinking that those men who had run before the charge had probably been the smartest of the lot.

  “Will be punished for their cowardice,” Darius said smoothly, a bar of iron entering his voice.

  “What?” Falon said, jerked forcefully out of her growing mood of self-loathing.

  “There’s never call for abandoning your fellow soldiers out of fear; armies that tolerate such behavior don’t long survive. They’ll get what’s coming to them,” the Imperial said darkly, a look in his eye that she couldn’t recognize. He gave himself a shake, “But what’s this about saving the Prince? It’s all the men who came back with you could talk about this morning. How ‘Mister Falon and company rescued a Prince lost in the woods’.”

  Falon flushed. “Best keep such talk quiet,” she confided, “I doubt the Prince will take kindly to hearing the army talk of how he was rescued…not that it’s true either,” she hastily added.

  “So what’s the real story?” Darius asked with a quirked eyebrow.

  Falon shrugged. “I don’t really know,” she saw a look in his eye and scowled, “I really don’t. I took a head wound so my memory of what was said might be suspect, but it sounded like—from what I remember,” she allowed, “that he led a charge to break the enemy center, smashed them, and then got lost and cut off in the woods with only a handful of men. It probably happened when they were chasing after the savages.”

  “Men on horses don’t do well against men in woods—especially when they know those woods and the horsemen don’t,” Darius nodded. “And that puts some light on other camp gossip. Speaking of which,” he said, looking down at the ground as he bit his lip.

  “What?” Falon asked after too long had passed.

  “Oh sorry,” he muttered, “lost in thought.” He gave himself a shake, “There were messengers, supposedly from the Prince, asking for you.”

  “Supp
osedly?” she asked surprised at the qualifier.

  “We told them you were still sleeping off that battle and they turned away and left,” Darius said, sounding suspicious, “it seemed…odd.”

  “You’d think they wouldn’t let a mere Lieutenant, one step above a commoner, sleep when the Prince is calling,” Falon said with concern.

  “Exactly. Especially not this Prince,” Darius said, “but maybe he’s turning over a new leaf, especially after the way you saved his life.”

  “Possibly,” Falon said then absently added, “but I didn’t save his life. We just escorted him out of the woods.”

  “Like a lost babe,” the Imperial said scornfully.

  Falon eyed him, allowing her visage to harden. The Imperial met her eyes for a stiff moment and then looked aside with a smile.

  “Not as ready to give up command just yet, are you?” he murmured.

  Falon gave him a second, even harder look, but anything she said in reply that didn’t end with the Sergeant up for the knotted rope would only make her look weak. And after his service fighting the barbarians, she wasn’t ready to do that…not yet anyways. But speaking of which—

  “So what did happen after you went for the flanking attack and got separated,” Falon asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  “I took the file, like we agreed, and went wide,” Darius said, meeting her eyes. “We hit them in the flank, and with surprise and some tough fighting, we did some damage. But there were too many of them and we were cut off,” all through this he met her eyes steadily, but then his gaze cut to the side and he looked away. “After that we retreated and became lost in the woods.”

  “Really?” Falon said, remembering her time wandering in the woods behind the field cleared around Ice Finger Keep. “It’s easy to become turned around in there. You should have taken someone woodwise with you,” she advised belatedly, and after the fact and she realized it the moment she spoke. Feeling her face heat up she rubbed her forehead and shook it off, as water under the bridge. They would know to do better in the planning stages later.