Picking your way through a military camp was hazardous at the best of times. Cooking, and the blacksmith's forge nearly setting tents afire every thiry seconds, and people leading horses through to be reshod or fitted with new tack, and everyone wandering everywhere like they'd spent the whole day just in planning how best to get in each other's way. And those bleeding guy ropes that were strung up everywhere like Mother Moran's sodding washing, just waiting to be tripped over...
Actually, come to think of it, there was more than enough washing in the way!
Murray Carwardine was twenty-something years old and was build along more or less the same lines as a bull. He also had boots that were too big, a cap that was too small, a tunic that was a hair's breadth away from being too faded a shade of black to fit regulations (it had been repaired with scrupulous neatness, and the fixings all shone, but even so) and a flintlock musket that couldn't possibly belong to him slung over his shoulder.
He pulled aside the flap of a tent. Saluted. Tugged his cap off. The hair underneath was short cropped and bristling, and a bright, alarming shade of red.
"Fixed it, sir."
"What? Ah, good!" Bernard looked up from the maps spread over his table and smiled, his red beard a little wild. He hadn't been keeping it trimmed much while out on the field. No point really and there was always something to do.
His own clothes were neat and tidy, much nicer than Murrary's own, everything tailor made to his sturdy frame. He wasn't as broad as the other man, but he was quicker and longer limbed.
"I knew I could count on you. No stop looking so serious and take a seat." Bernard gestured to the wine he had sitting on the table, "Have a drink. I have good news!"
"Good news, he says? What might that be, to have you drinking at noon?"
Bernard's smile got bigger and he lifted his tankard, "She said yes! Eloise said yes!"
"She what? She's agreed to marry your ugly mug? And I can drink about it?"
Normally he wasn't allowed to drink on duty. It happened anyway - you didn't last long as a soldiering man if you didn't have the nose to sniff out some decent nosh every now and again, even just to compensate for the slop army cooks called stew! - but enlisted men didn't usually get a look in when a promising barrel was found.
''Pour me a drink, man!"
Bernard beamed, quickly pouring Murray a large mug full, "She did!"
He had been courting her a few months now, having fallen in love with the pale beauty almost at first glance. She was so proud and strong and he had been awkwardly courting her in the hopes she might want him too. He knew her parents wanted the match, but he had made it clear to Eloise that if she didn't want too, he wouldn't pressure her.
Flushed with pleasure, Bernard took a long drink, "Now just have to get a date set and the wedding planned. Though, really, that will be all on her. I can't say I'm much help in that stuff."
"Course you're not, boyo. If the Geisler who's marrying this girl is the same one I know, he'd get so excited he'd forget to wear boots to the wedding, and probably put his trousers on inside out. Lord knows I've mothered you along often enough."
Murray gulped. This was good stuff, this booze.
"That's...woman...stuff, anyway. They like it."
He'd never actually met the girl. Not personally. Seen her, of course, at the sort of formal wotsits that made marriages among the high and mighty possible in the first place. He even thought he'd have known her name - Eloise - and not just because Bernard had been mooning over her for months!
Hopefully she made him happy. If she didn't...oh Lord, there would be Words Had.
"Oh please. You haven't mothered anything and I am not that bad." Giving his friend a dark look, he wasn't able to hold it for long, his face splitting into a wide smile, "Wait until you meet her. She's amazing. Brilliant and witty and just stunning."
The fact that most people wouldn't consider his bride-to-be to be classically beautiful didn't really matter or occur to Bernard.
"You'll love her. It's a shame she was born a woman, she would have made a peerless solider. Though, I suppose I am rather glad she was born a woman. Couldn't very well marry her otherwise."
"Mmm. I hear they frown on that in the church. Just a rumour, mind you."
Of course they frowned on it. Murray knew they did, they always had and he'd always known. Lord sakes, that was part of why he was still in the service after his time conscripted had finished. If he was going to love a man - any man, but definitely not a woman unless she were his own Ma - then it'd be best to do it in a place like this, where he could marvel at them in peace without some damn fool pestering him to marry already!
Besides, there was nothing like the risk of death to make the living beautiful. Men under arms could get away with loving each other, because they knew that. They shone with it like someone had lit a fire in their skin.
Bernard laughed, clapping his friend on the shoulder, "Ah, but you are right. I'm very thankful she was born a woman." Like most soldiers, Bernard had slept with other men while out in the field. Bonds were formed and sometimes, you just needed to be close to someone, with someone that understood the horror you had just been through and that you could confirm you were alive with.
"What about you? When are you going to settle down?"
"Me? I'd make a rotten husband, and well you know it!"
"What? No! You would be a fine husband. I don't know why you keep insisting otherwise." Bernard shook his head, "Married to the army I suppose. It's just such a waste."
"Pity the fool woman who marries me...sure man, you'll be happy enough once she has you properly civilised and fit for mixed company, but me?"
Murray burped loudly. It may or may not have been deliberate. He swung his feet up so he could rest his muddy boots on the little folding camp table Bernard usually used for maps.
"I couldn't marry someone I didn't love."
"I'm sure you just haven't met the right woman. You will. I didn't think I was going to fall in love until I saw Eloise. Stole my breath away." Laughing, Bernard gestured, "Besides, what woman wouldn't love all...that."
If Murray had been asked to draw his own expression at that moment, it would have looked like this:
:|
If he wore glasses, he would have been peering most severely over the top of them. He was sorely tempted to get a pair of glasses, just so he could do it. He made a non-committal sound in his throat.
"M-hm."
"Exactly. Surprised the woman aren't beating down your door."
"The ones who beat down people's doors tend to be silly. Would you really wish some silly little empty-headed bint on me?"
"Oh yes. In a heartbeat." Bernard smiled, wide and innocent, "I still remember who used to send me on those awful training missions when I was younger."
"You're younger than I am, y' daftie, and I'M not thirty yet! Don't you start on any of that back in my day guff!"
Murray shook his head.
"Seriously boyo, if I have to pour you another one to shut you up..."
"Ha." Bernard leaned over and kissed the top of Murray's cheek, "It's not strong enough for that. I would need several more. Now, stop pouting. It isn't dignified for a man of your advanced age."
"I should give you a good beating. I really should. Getting married, and you still don't know to respect your elders..."
Grumble grumble grumble. Somewhere underneath all of that, Murray might have been nursing a warm little glow. God in heaven, but he loved this boy.
"Well, you must have just done a bad job of teaching me proper respect." Bernard smiled and took a seat, draining his mug, "Just...married. I finally found the right woman. You'll love her Murray, I know you will."
If only he knew...
The right woman wasn't coming. Nice as some girls might be, boys were nicer, and in a lot more interesting ways.
"Nah, I won't. You said it yourself, married to the army. How can any woman - even yours? - compete?"
"Bah. You'll change your tune someday. But, well, I wont lie. It's nice to not lose you to some harpy just yet. Couldn't find my own underclothes without you."
"You do know how women work, right? What they like?"
Geisler knew about men - he was a popular commander, unless he utterly bollocksed it up - but women...oh god. If he didn't know, Murray would have to arrange it, and when it came to women he was as much help as tits on a bull.
"What do you mean?" Bernard had never been very good with women. He would visit brothels like most men, but actually dealing with women he wasn't related to was rare and he tended to much it up badly. He had a knack for saying just the wrong thing when trying to impress a girl.
"Just...women, y'know. Um."
"What about them?"
"Oh God help me...am I going to have to take you to a brothel, or have you figured that bit out? And do you know how to suck up to a woman when you've done something wrong but don't want her to shout?"
Bernard flushed, his ears going red, "I am aware of how to...please a lady in that regard."
"And thank the Lord for that small mercy, because I'm not inclined to pay for you to learn!"
Murray laughed, a short, sharp 'huh' like a dog's bark.
"What about the other bit? When you've done something wrong and and she's cross at you, what do you do? If you've ever had sisters, or even your mother...that's a more important skill."
"Well, just, ya know, er..." Bernard shifted, looking uncomfortable, "Just...do what she wants." That was the method he used with his sisters and mother. They got angry, he just did what they wanted him to do. Another man, Bernard could handle it, knew where he stood. But women did things like cry and give him the silent treatment.
"Good man. Your girlie, she's not the crying type is she?"
Lord, let him have had more sense than to choose some panicky, over-emotional little goose!
"Eloise? Good God now. She's perfect, I told you. She's got spirit in her." Bernard gave a happy sigh, eyes unfocused as he pictured his beautiful betrothed.
Yep. Lovesick, and a pretty bad case of it at that. Murray had never seen Bernard making the kind of goo-goo sheep's eyes he was making right now, and the girlie wasn't even in the bleeding room!
Better let him work some of it out then.
"So what's she like? Details, man, details."
"Beautiful. She's strong and fierce and so smart. That girl can do anything." Bernard laughed, "I'm still surprised she'll have me. She can read, well too."
"Can she cook though?"
It was an important question. The boy had a pretty sturdy appetite, Murray knew - he'd often enough been the cook when whatever cold, grey, surface-scummed slop the official unit cooks served up was just too bad to stomach. Bernard had a marked fondness for burnt crispy bits, considered them near enough to a food group in their own right. Being trapped in a marriage with a woman who insisted on eating GREEN LEAFY THINGS might just kill him.
"Er, well, yes. She can." It wasn't the best food, but Bernard didn't really mind. He liked that she made it and that was enough for him, "Besides, I already have cooks. Once were married, she just needs to supervise and she's very good at that."
"I already have cooks," Murray echoed. It was not without some affection. "Look at you, preparing to live the gentleman's life. Got a house, got your own cooks, got a girl agreed to be your wife. At this rate it shouldn't be too long until you're peeling an anklebiter or two off your legs..."
The thought of Bernard with children made him smile. He wasn't much good with them himself - unless they were a very specific kind of little'un, the kind who didn't panic and cry when he was harsh - but Bernard...
"I only hope so. I would love kids. I'm sure they'll be calling you Uncle Murry in no time." Bernard was almost glowing at the very idea of being a father. He adored kids and liked being around them.
Cor. Cor, blimey and damn. Uncle Murray?
Which bright spart had thought that up? Better stomp on it good and quick, before Bernard was asking him to be godfather or something equally extravagant...and all for a sprog that didn't even exist yet!
"That can wait, boyo. We've got to get you safely through the wedding first! Now, have another drink..."
If you could only get him sozzled enough, the boy would loosen right up. Sing like a bird, probably, for all that he could never remember the words to any of the good ones. After that, whatever nerves he had would be so pickled he couldn't remember them and he could be delivered safely to the altar.
Bernard frowned down at his drink, "Murray, I get the feeling you are trying to get me sloshed and it's hardly past lunch."