Gilbert's body laid sprawled asleep on the camp bed that had been prepared for him, inside his tent. He slowly opened his narrow eyes. It was then that the blinding morning light hit his pale face, so much to create an annoying sense of nausea. The general felt cold on his naked body, so much that he tried, placing his body in a comfortable position, under the thin blankets, to search a slight warmth. An annoying headache began to torture the sleepy mind of the man, so much that it was even difficult for him to fully open his eyes.
He couldn't remember much of the night before, he just remembered taking part in the banquet the night before, organised by the army commander, he remembered the smell and taste of hops and the white foam of beer entering his mouth, he had only that memory. At that moment the memory began to come to him, he remembered he had most likely, the night before, he must have drunk too much alcohol and remembered immediately after receiving a severe headache.
He remembered paying a young prostitute from the camp, he remembered taking her to bed with him, he remembered having passed most of the night with her, he couldn't remember anything else. He didn't even know what time it was.
-My general- a firm voice entered his ears from the opening of the large military tent. Gilbert covered his eyes with one arm and slowly turned his body in the bed until his back was completely in the other direction.
- Leave Francis, I have no intention of getting up - the man replied drowsily. The young man was still there, right at the entrance to the tent, watching the general sleep. Francis's cheeks quickly turned completely red. How could he be so beautiful, so attractive? Still Francis could not explain it. In his twenties Francis Hoover was always fascinated and in love with the male gender, but he had never been able to express his sexuality. For this, Francis Hoover, the half noble, English second lieutenant, found himself in his twenty years of life, in his most beautiful and brilliant age, still being a virgin.
Hoover found the fact of being a virgin very annoying, as it was said that in the year 1730 no man or woman had ever arrived a virgin at the age of twenty, this fact bored him both on the social side, since he could not yet boast of his conquests under the sheets and on the physical and bodily side, because as we know all living beings in some points are in need of physical and sexual contact.
But Francis, he had never had the luck or not yet the occasion to experience sex.
-My lord- this words came out of his thin lips, almost like an insecure gust -you need to get up, and also to wear clean clothes, take the water lily oil and brush your hair, must I remind you that today is the day?!-.
Gilbert quickly opened his eyes and pulled the blankets off him, leaving his naked body to be seen completely. He got up slowly and walked to the basin of water to cool his sweaty face from the night. He opened the little bottle containing an oily yellowish liquid and smeared it on his chest, under his armpits and on his neck. He put on the new clothes that had been placed on the table and quickly brushed his medium-long dark red hair, tying them behind his neck.
He took the white head wig and promptly placed it on his head, covering the natural scarlet colour. Hoover witnessed the general dressing up and in short moments, he was amazed at how the man was indifferent to have shown his nakedness to his companion. They both came out of the tent and, as soon as this act was accomplished, a crowd of about a dozen men began in a mild and decidedly submissive way and dismantle the large tent.
Gilbert turned his gaze for a few seconds towards those men, he recognised their greasy smell, and this immediately pinched his nostrils making him cover them for a few seconds with the back of one of his hands. He also saw the fear in those men and their appearance, their dirty clothes of simple workmanship which certainly had not been changed in weeks. He recognised them, they were plebeians, slaves, serfs, peasants and fishermen, who had been during the battle took from their homeland and kept as labor.
In their eyes, in addition to an understandable fear, the general was able to glimpse a shadow of hatred and aversion towards them, towards the British army itself. Gilbert could not blame those men, they had seen the terror, the death in their eyes, they had seen the pale corpses of their offspring lying on the ground. They witnessed the death of young men, killed with all possible brutality, they had seen their wives, sisters or even daughters being raped, and all this was done by the mighty British army.
The man did not like being part of the army, he did not like having to see and commit so much brutality, he had, inside, always felt that his destiny would be different, he had always loved to believe and partially hope for it. Like most of the last-born in a noble family, unless he was the only male, there was no great chance of receiving a good and illustrious future. In case his father had decided to give his son a fair future, then there were two possible solutions: the monastery or the melee.
From every point of view Gilbert was still happy not to have been condemned to a humble and meek future as a churchman and not having to give up his wild love relationships. Of course, on the other hand it was also of his knowledge that some of the priests or some illustrious churchmen illicitly possessed a progeny or lovers, although it was considered, in the eyes of the church a sacrilege towards God himself.
Gilbert could not blame those men, for he himself knew how difficult it was for any man to give up all carnal passions. In any case, he was particularly grateful to his father, for not having condemned him to a life of chastity and abstinence. The general looked around, the view that at that moment he was able to perceive was definitely different from that of the last night. Apart from his tent, it was not possible to see any other tent in the valley.
The former camp had now left a magnificent, verdant valley in sight. The sky was grey, the air was cold and from the past campfires, which the night before had enlivened the banquet with their sweet heat, there remained only the extinguished remains full of coal. Gilbert wrapped his arms around his body and lightly bit his thin rear lip, it was so cold that he could barely contain the white clouds of vapour in his mouth. Further on the hill, in the opposite direction of the valley, a small group of soldiers prepared the last things and put them away neatly, using straps on the back of their horses' saddles.
Gilbert counted them, there were three people, he recognised them all: two were the twins William and Dickon Dustin, while the third, and most honourable member of the entire army was none other than the commander himself. Gilbert approached a distance that was still respectful, but one that kept within itself a sign of friendship and submission. The general had always admired that man. He remembered the past, when, at the age of fifteen, he was sent by order of his father, the lord of the isle of Man, to join the British army and learn all the military strategies and methods of a member of the armed cavalry.
He was only seventeen then, Gilbert was still a teenage boy, he still knew little about life, he knew what warmth a woman's body was, but no more. The Commander had taken him under his protection, he had taught the young man how to behave in the army, how to slaughter men, how not to have mercy on enemies, how to never trust someone too much so as not to be stabbed in the back. Years ago Gilbert was only an unprepared boy, yet, in only eight years he had managed to form his body and spirit and had managed to make him a respectable general and honourable member of the cavalry at only twenty-three.
-My commander- Gilbert knelt down and lowered his head almost to the point of reaching his knees. The man turned to the general.
The Commander was a massive and tall man, a few centimetres over six feet tall, he had pitch black hair streaked with some white hair, which went down to his shoulders. He had a thick beard and two narrow brown eyes, his name was Harald Hoover.
-Greetings, uncle- Francis Hoover also knelt down, but in a much less formal way, which still maintained a respectful and submissive tone. Gilbert couldn't believe that despite being uncle and nephew, two Hoovers couldn't be less alike. Commander Hoover was a solid and particularly robust man, while Francis was of a weaker bone structure and certainly not as portly as his uncle's. Besides, while the Commander naturally possessed black hair like the darkest of the nights, Francis had thick chestnut-brown hair.
The only thing uncle and nephew had in common were the deep honey brown eyes, typical of the Hoover family. The Commander did not show much empathy towards the two, he let his chapped and thin lips part in a tired whitish cloud, then turned towards his horse and further tightened the solid leather belt.
-Listen to me, all of you- came out of the Commander's dull lips as an imperious command -this very morning we will all leave, our destination will be Warwick, for those who in doubt, had not been informed by their family ... - with a firm movement of his hand, the man pulled the end of the black belt and then returned to look at the other participants in the group.
-Your majesty in person, Princess Isabelle, has taken care to pray every noble lineage of English blood to take part in her due participation in her royal fourteenth birthday-. It was very cold, Gilbert could not hold the annoying cold between his thin lips, which through his respiratory system went down to his lungs and as a malevolent guest it pinched them, irritating them.
-The following week will be a time of leisure, relaxation, and I recommend that you enjoy this temporary lightheartedness, on the other hand you all deserve it...- Captain Hoover remained with his thin pink lips irritated and cracked by the cold half open, almost as if he wanted to say something important, but also some confession that he was trying to avoid.
-Keep your eyes wide open, always, and only this is what I order ... - the man had not said everything, and he was frustrated, but his spirit was strong enough to hint covertly to a hidden meaning, which at the same time many they did not understand. Almost no one was really attentive to the captain's advice, being trapped in emotionality and in their own ego to ignore the man's important suggestion. Gilbert expected nothing else, on the other hand many of them would have really loved to meet their families again, their parents, brothers and sisters, they would finally be able to receive the reality they had been waiting for for some time.
A reality devoid of hostility and arrogance, a period of calm and amusement awaited them by now, and he knew from the bottom of his heart how reassuring it was to be able to rejoin his family again, once he risked his own existence during the battle. All of them, every single individual present there, possessed noble blood running through their veins.
The Dustin twins, for example, came from the noble Dustin family, an ancient dynasty of counts and countesses who ruled over the entire territory of Southern Ireland, a family of which gold was said to flow in the veins instead of blood.
Captain Hoover, while part of the British melee, was descended from the family of marquises who ruled over Orkney and the other eight surrounding islands on the North East coast of Scotland, located in the North Sea.
He himself, Gilbert Stanley, was descended from the family of Viscounts, which for centuries ruled on the Isle of Man, located in the middle between Ireland and Central England.
Then there was Francis, and there was not much to say about the latter, he was simply an illegitimate son, born from a relationship between an Hoover and a simple courtesan, and despite noble blood partly flowing in his veins , he did not really counted as an aristocrat, nor as a plebeian. About thirty minutes passed before everything was ready for the departure in the direction of Warwick and by now the clear sky, which was once illuminated by the rosy and intense light of the dawn was replaced by a greyish and cloudy one that completely occupied the sky of the South, leaving no room for any light or flare.
The general had started his day in a completely negative way and now that dark sky didn't help in the least to restore his dejected mood. He was tired and weak, he couldn't say more.
The night before he should have refused to show up at the banquet, he should have avoided spending the night with another girl and should have tried to rest decently. The problem was that he had realised all this only at the precise moment. Once the horses had frantically started the march there was no more time to think twice about what had been or what had to be done, there was no more time to think about the past, or to look to the future.
Now it was the five of them, alone, immersed in the green and cool of the southern moors, it was just them, they and the cold, them against everything and everyone, to face a devastating eight and a half hour journey. From Bristol to Warwick, from the clearings of the South to the luxury of the Center.