Chapter One #2
“Tell me, recruit, what exactly were you doing with your cock in a knothole?” I asked because I could think of no reason to do such a thing.
He kept his sight on the ground. “Captain Greenleaves, I was trying to win a bet.”
I rolled my eyes at my cousin. Rolim shrugged as he sipped his cider. He was of little help. I looked at my left shoulder to see Tezen staring up at me.
“That is something a young fool would do,” I said and got a nod from the pixie seated on me as if she owned that shoulder.
It was a bold move for her to use me as a tuffet as she was below me in rank.
But she was also above me in nobility as she was a princess of the pixie court, and I, the lowly son of a commoner.
As far as I knew, that title had not been revoked, even though she had begged her father to do so innumerable times.
“I’d be embarrassed if I owned a gherkin that was small enough to fit through a knothole,” Tezen announced loudly enough to be heard in the castle parapets.
The novice guard turned a bright shade of red.
“Surely I would not be showing off my little pickle to anyone passing by. To be honest, at first I thought it was a wood worm and was about to slice it in half with my eating dagger when I spied the little eye winking at me.”
Two female guards passing by giggled softly. The recruit turned even redder. I’d never seen an elf such a deep coloration of carmine.
“What shall we do with him?” Rolim asked just as the first bell to worship rang out over the city.
“Tolam, that is your name, yes?” I prided myself on knowing the names of all my men, even the new ones. He bobbed his head, eyes still locked on my bare feet. “You’re to pick up a full moon’s pass of latrine duty since you seem to be so fond of the privies and have free time to be a goatish fool.”
“Yes, Captain!” Tolam barked.
“You’re dismissed.”
He ran off with the speed of one of Beiro’s arrows.
“Now I’m off to wash up and begin the day,” I announced before leaving my cousin and friend in the hallway.
Striding into my room, I closed the door but not quickly enough to bar the pixie from zipping into the captain’s quarters.
This room was on the smallish side but held a large bed, a tall dresser, and a stout desk.
A washstand in the corner, a tub behind a silken screen gifted to me by a Dwarven envoy after I’d been able to rescue her basalt badger from the sewers under the castle.
How the sturdy, stout beast had gotten free from the ambassador from Winterbreak, none of us knew.
The envoy had been incredibly thankful for the return of her pet, so she offered the small party that had trudged through the muck gifts from the cart she had brought to share with the royal family.
King Aelir teased me unmercifully after I’d been given that screen, saying that the envoy wished to see me step out from behind it minus my clothes and leap into her bed.
Not a wholly unpleasant thought, as she was quite buxom, but her husband was known to be short-tempered.
We did not need a diplomatic incident to take place, so I gratefully took the screen but nothing else.
Tezen placed her backside to one of the four bedposts as I stood stock still to stare at her. “Do you not have children to watch?”
She shrugged. Purple dust drifted downward to land atop my freshly buffed bronze armor.
It gleamed brightly in the new sun falling through the window high on the stone wall.
Every time I glanced at it, I felt deep pride.
Only the captain of the royal guard wore this bronze-toned armor.
The rest of the garrison of guards wore the white and blue of Avolire.
I’d done well for a young scamp born in the poorer section of Renedith.
Not as well as the commander of the guard, who had married into the royal family, but well enough that I was content in my life as it was.
I would have to compliment the castle armorer for his fine work in getting my dress armor so highly shined.
I’d not be wearing it today though. This would be put into my armoire for the day that the Sandrayan guests arrived.
Today I’d be pulling on a less cumbersome, lighter set of leather armor with a gambeson in the colors of the castle, white and blue, a helmet, and my sword and shield.
“Nanny Vilde will be rousing them and getting them dressed,” Tezen replied, clad in her own small, medium-weight armor. Her war picks hung from her hips, always at the ready. “Then I shall meet them at the dining hall to escort them outside to play in the gardens.”
“Ah. Well, I do plan to strip down and wash my balls so…” I waved a hand at the door.
She began cleaning her nails with a small dagger from her tiny boot.
Tezen and I were old friends, serving together for years now, both as castle guards, then being promoted through the ranks as King Aelir had decreed.
Few people in the castle dared to taunt me, and this pixie princess was one.
The other was my cousin. Well, also the commander of the guard, my old friend V’alor, and the king and queen.
And Merrilyn, the queen’s companion and wife.
There were more teasers than I realized filling this keep.
“I’ve seen dangling grapes already this morn.
Another pair swaying in the breeze will make no difference.
” She peeked up from under wild black bangs.
I raised a shoulder, turned, and tugged the drawstring about my waist. My underpants slid to my ankles, and I stepped out of them.
“Nice view. Surely better than that scrawny arse on that new recruit.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you planning on stopping in the courtyard today to bid Beiro a farewell?” I glanced over my shoulder, washcloth in hand.
“Yes, of course. I always bid him a safe journey.” I returned my attention to filling the basin with cool water. She sighed so heavily I heard her all the way across the room. The crowing of a cock joined the second bell, calling us to prayers. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought perhaps you would say something more to him than a simple safe journeys, my friend.”
I lathered some lavender soap into the wet cloth and lifted my left arm to scrub under it. “I’m not sure what else you would have me say to him. He’s fully capable of leading a quick expedition out to the Glotte. He’s been in those woods hundreds of times with Kenton and Beirich.”
“Why are men so dense?” I heard her lament but continued washing. “Permission to speak freely, Captain?”
“When did you ever require permission to speak your mind?”
“I think that you might wish to say something more personal to Beiro. He is quite fond of you.”
I rinsed out my cloth and wiped myself clean.
“And I’m fond of him. He’s been like a brother to me.
I enjoy riding out with him when I’m able.
Shooting arrows and hunting game birds. Even fishing.
He’s as much a member of my family as my cousin.
What would you have me do? Kiss him on the mouth as if he were a lover? ”
“Perhaps!”
I stopped washing to look back over my shoulder at her. “Why would I do that? He and I do not look upon each other in that way. I think you are spending far too much time with Nanny Vilde while she reads romantic tales of yesteryear to the children.”
“Permission to slap the guard captain upside his thick head?”
“Permission denied.” I turned back to my washbasin. The third bell for prayer rang out. “Did you follow me in here to spin fanciful tales about kissing friends on the mouth, or did you have a more pointed reason for watching me scrub my arse crack?”
“Men. I do not know how you elves have propagated so well given every male elf I have met is as thick-skulled as a dragon but far dumber. And they went extinct!”
“Actually, there are rumors of a snowy dragon frozen into the top peaks of the Witherhorns that—”
“Argh! That is not the point!”
I glanced over to see her zip out the open window in a snit, a cloud of plum glitter riding the soft breeze in her wake.
Truly, I had no clue as to what she was riled about, and I had no time to dwell on how to calm the quick-tempered pixie.
Kissing Beiro. How foolish. We had done that once, a few years ago, after a few glasses of icy cold wine.
I’d felt nothing of a sensual nature for my friend.
Nor he for me. He’d told me such the next morning when we’d sobered up and discussed it over the morning meal.
Beiro was a fine man, but not my type. He was slim, angular, and shy.
When I lay with men, I preferred them to be of a similar size to me, strong and muscular, with a cockiness that spoke of self-esteem.
The women I slept with could be petite and delicate.
Surely Tezen was just painting fantasies in her head.
Mayhap the nanny needed to start reading military tomes.
The fourth bell rang out. I tossed the cloth into the bowl and raced to get dressed for the day.
It would be a long one—and busy—as would they all be with the impending visitors from the Black Sand Isles arriving soon.
Perhaps a fast prayer to Ihdos this morn would grant us a quick day spent doling out justice.
Knowing our king as I did, that was unlikely though.
He would hear each petition, call for witnesses, and prevaricate over sentences.
A kindhearted man, our king, and very just, but slow to mete out punishment.
Still, a whispered plea to our god couldn’t go astray.
The main bailey was alive as I jogged from the barracks chapel.