A Country Falls (Greatest Thief 3)

Chapter Two

After dinner, Tannix and Mayah were given rooms in the castle. Tannix wanted me to stay with him. Acen argued that I had to live in the barracks with the knights. I think I surprised both of them when I agreed with Acen.

A nice room had been set aside for our knights. It wasn't enormous, but there was enough room for eight beds, four on each side and an aisle down the middle. The knights hadn't brought much with them, and they were used to living in close quarters. They helped each other undo armour and stripped off tunics and pants without a care, talking all the while.

It was the first time I had really witnessed this side of their camaraderie. I sat on my bed, my bag of clothes plopped unopened in front of me, and just watched the knights. Or tried not to watch them. In different ways they were all attractive men, but I didn't need to be so blatantly reminded. I finally understood Mayah's distress when she had explained this exact experience to me.

After some time, I turned my attention to my bag and dug through it for my night clothes. The knights were all dressed in loose fitting tunics and pants. Mandell looked like he was already asleep, sprawled out on his back. At the far end of the room, Kor and Ender were bickering about something. Closer to me Jalor and Joen were talking about possibly making friends with some of the Navirian soldiers in the morning. Acen was in the castle with Tannix.

Evrik had the bed next to mine, and he moved over to sit beside me. "He'll be all right."

It took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize that he meant Tannix. "Oh. I know."

I clearly looked uncomfortable, because he took another guess. "You'll be all right."

This time I laughed. "I know."

"So... what's the problem?" Evrik asked.

I waved with my left hand, lazily indicating the whole room. "I'm not used to... all of this."

"Sharing a room? Well, Mandell snores," Evrik said. "Kor has nightmares and wakes up screami—"

"I do not!" Kor called across the room, his argument with Ender evidentially forgotten. Even Mandell sat up to look at him, and in the silence that followed Kor shrugged. "Well, it was just the one time."

"At least twice," Ender said.

Kor threw a pillow at him. "Aye, mate, and if you ever see me get sliced open, I'll make sure to mock you when you have nightmares about it."

"I'm not—"

"Go to sleep," Mandell grumbled, lying down again. "I'm replacing Acen for the midnight watch and if you two keep me awake I'm dragging both of you along with me."

The twins went quiet. Jalor and Joen continued their conversation. I turned to Evrik again.

"I've shared rooms before. We were all in prison together, if that counts. But I also shared a room with the thieves. It's just... are you really going to make me say it?"

The moment Evrik understood, his expression changed. Concern turned to amusement. "Oh." He exhaled the word slowly. "Oh, I see. Well. It's not... We're not..." He held up a hand to stop me from interrupting, and took the moment to collect his thoughts. "If you look at us, you're not betraying Tannix."

I blinked. "That's not what I was—"

"Joen," Evrik said a little louder. "You're the only one here with any experience with this. So, if you looked at another woman, would your wife be angry?"

Joen laughed. "If I looked at another woman, no. If I looked at another woman, yes."

"Well, there you go, my friend." Evrik clapped me on the shoulder triumphantly, like he had actually solved anything. "You can look at us, but you can't look at us," he mimicked the way Joen had stressed the word.