Brunhilde

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Adam woke up, completely naked, in a comfortable bed, though a bit firmer than he would have liked, without knowing where he was. He also had no idea what day it was or what time it was. It was daylight, that much he was certain of.

A strong ray of sunlight passed through a small window, blinding him to the point that he wanted to hide under the covers.

However, he couldn't move, as a rather beautiful woman with long, slightly wavy blonde hair and skin as white as milk was curled up against his body. Although he couldn't see her face in this position, he could admire her perfect back down to the small of her back.

The young soldier then remembered what he had seen and done the previous day in this modest room. A less-than-innocent smile formed on his face, radiating satisfaction.

Wow! That was really something!

He struggled to realize what he had accomplished but didn't forget how he had achieved that result. That thought somewhat dampened the young man's spirits.

This young woman, who must have been between twenty and twenty-five years old, was about the same age as François, but ten years older than his real self. He had initially felt embarrassed when he showed up at her door the previous evening, but she had managed to calm him down.

She had guided him into her house, led him to her bedroom, and then began to remove his uniform. Slowly, she started undressing in front of him, making him forget even his own name. What she did next, with great skill, had shaken him so much that he stopped thinking about returning to his own time for a while. All his worries seemed to have disappeared.

In return, he did things to her that no one else had ever done. Despite his real age, he had a lot of theoretical experience from browsing certain pages on the internet. Whether with his mouth or his fingers, he was very gentle and precise, as if he had done it thousands of times.

Brunhilde was first surprised, then shocked. Of all the soldiers who had passed through in the last two days, he was the one who had paid her the most attention by not just focusing on his own pleasure, and who had given her the most pleasure.

Adam, despite the considerable pressure on his inexperienced body, took his time to ensure the young woman was comfortable. She let him proceed and ended up in a similar state—very satisfied, though exhausted.

Brunhilde, awakened by a slight movement in the disheveled bed, lifted her head. A heavy, thick lock of hair fell in front of her eyes, and a seductive smile formed on her pink lips.

"Good morning," she said in her language.

"Good morning," he replied in the same language. "To sleep well?"

The young woman laughed softly at hearing the young man attempt to speak Westphalian.

"You say: did you sleep well," she corrected him before kissing him on the collarbone, on the opposite side of the scar left by the bullet he had received at Hastenbeck.

"Did you sleep well," he repeated thoughtfully, trying to memorize the phrase in that strange language.

"That's right. Yes, I slept very well. Thanks to you… and your hands."

Adam only partially understood what Brunhilde had just said. He was just beginning to learn the local language, which was different from that of the Hanoverians and even more different from the German language as he knew it. For now, he could only introduce himself, say "hello," "goodbye," and a few other small things. It was far from enough to hold a conversation, but he had noticed that he was quite good at memorizing words.

It was a very strange feeling, as if, by laying out all the pieces of a puzzle on a large table, he roughly knew where each piece went. Or rather, it was as if he had a fairly accurate vision of the final image of the puzzle and thus knew where each piece should go. Before, he had much more difficulty, as if he didn't have the box lid to guide him.

Maybe it was thanks to François? Maybe he had a talent for languages?

Adam felt a little guilty, thinking that in some way he was stealing François' talent, the man he felt increasingly close to. A light touch of a finger once again chased away his dark thoughts.

While looking him straight in the eye with a strange mischievousness, Brunhilde let her hand wander over his slim, muscular body until it disappeared under the sheets. This hand, slender and still quite soft despite the difficult past few years, stopped when it encountered something warm.

Adam's hand gently rested on the young woman's wrist, raising a silent question.

"I… um, no money."

Brunhilde froze for a second before leaning towards his ear, a seductive smile on her lips, and whispered softly some words he didn't understand: "It's a gift."

It was Adam's turn to let himself go.

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When he returned to the camp, his head in the clouds, he was immediately surrounded by his friends, who seemed to have been waiting for him.

"You took your time!"

"So?! How was it?!"

Without needing to say anything, his friends' faces turned red with excitement. Just seeing his goofy smile was enough to know he had enjoyed it.

That young widow had been recommended to him by his tentmates, and of course, he had told his friends about it, who were now eagerly awaiting his return. While she had accepted his money, as she needed it to survive in these particular circumstances, she had given him a particularly generous rate.

Jean was drawn by lot and was the second in the group to head towards the small stone house with a moss-covered tiled roof. He quickly disappeared, and the small group of friends settled near a fire.

P'tit Pol was holding one of his poor shoes, whose tip no longer resembled anything, except perhaps the gaping mouth of a child-eating giant. The days spent marching briskly on the roads of the Holy Roman Empire had taken a toll on his shoes, as well as those of many other soldiers. Like P'tit Pol, they had no choice but to wait for halts to try to fix the situation.

Adam also had a repair to make, but in his case, it was a hole in one of his shirts under the armpit. Fortunately, the hole wasn't too big and could easily be sewn up. The problem was that he had never used a needle, neither in this life nor in the other.

Every time Adam had needed to do some sewing, it had been his mother who took care of it. But more often than not, when one of his clothes had a tear—usually his jeans at the crotch—he would simply throw it away and buy a new one.

But in this era, from what he had understood, that wasn't the norm. Everything that could be repaired was fixed until there was nothing more to do. Every bit of savings was important since wages weren't extraordinary unless one had highly sought-after skills. That was why some clothes were passed down from generation to generation.

The image he had of his father, or rather François' father, was of a fairly austere man dressed modestly. His jacket, like his breeches—a type of short pants that tightened at the knee like what he and all the men he had seen since waking up were wearing—seemed to have gone through all sorts of trials and been mended dozens of times. However, it was far from the kind of sewing job Adam was capable of. On his father, it was neat and well-done, probably the work of his wife, François' mother.

He had a few memories of her, but they were always very touching. She was clearly a loving and caring woman. Despite the weight of the years, she still appeared young. Her eyes seemed full of laughter and compassion.

In one of these memories, which blurred with his own, she was sitting at the edge of his bed, telling him a story to help him fall asleep more easily. François seemed to love stories during his childhood. His maternal grandfather, who told him many stories, had left a great void in his early years. His mother, whose name he still didn't know, had successfully tried to fill that void by telling him stories of travel, extraordinary adventures at the other end of the world, and terrifying monsters.

As he thought about these things while sewing his shirt, a few names came to mind. There was "ech-Mau," the equivalent of the Devil; "la blanq jument," a white horse that appeared at night to tempt both adults and children to ride on its back, only to throw them into traps or drown them; or "le grand-père loripette," an equivalent of the bogeyman, who kidnapped children who misbehaved, stuffing them into his big sack.

An enigmatic smile formed on Adam's face as he thought about all these stories.

"Hey," said Charles, as he finished cleaning his rifle because his father had advised him to do so whenever he had the chance, "Do you think we're going to fight?"

P'tit Pol shuddered slightly at the question but said nothing. Everyone here knew how scared he was. He was one of the few in this army who had been happy to see the Duke of Cumberland's army retreating again and again without trying to fight a proper battle. Even though he had collapsed from exhaustion near Bremen, he preferred that to falling under enemy fire.

"Hmm, honestly, don't know," Adam said truthfully. "It's freaky to retreat all the way here to fight when they could have done it in Hanover, Nienburg, or Bremen."

"Freaky?" Louis asked curiously, not understanding the word, which sometimes happened since his friend had hit his head.

"Oh, I mean I don't get it. It's very strange. Plus, their army is quite large."

"Fine, but their army doesn't look too great," Jules countered, "worse than ours. Especially the Hanoverians, they look like militia. I think the only thing they can really rely on is their position and the redcoats accompanying them."

"Yes, that's true! They all look sick!" P'tit Pol said hopefully.

"If the difference is too great," Adam thought out loud, "our commander will reject all proposals and try to annihilate the enemy, right?"

P'tit Pol, who had started to perk up, slumped down again upon hearing Adam/François' words.

Damn it! If only I had known! I would have done some research to find out what's going to happen! Do we even win this war?!

Full of regret, Adam didn't say anything more, and a heavy silence fell over the small group. From an outsider's perspective, one might easily have thought they were in mourning.

Jean was surprised to find them like this a few minutes later. The atmosphere was the opposite of what it had been when he left to visit Brunhilde. However, they soon perked up when they saw the tall guy, a bit cramped in his more-or-less white uniform.

"So?! asked all the soldiers except Adam/François.

"It was incredible! I think I did pretty well," he declared proudly.

"Are you sure you didn't miss the mark, hahaha!"

"How could I miss the mark?!" he exclaimed, blushing, certainly imagining the situation and the embarrassment that would follow.

This almost cute reaction made the group laugh even more, including Adam and P'tit Pol.

"By the way, we didn't ask about the price! How much did she ask for?"

"Um, she asked for thirty sols."

"Thirty?! That's three days' pay! I hope she's worth it!"

"Well, she's very beautiful, so I guess? Why, how much is it normally?"

Immediately, everyone fell silent, as they themselves didn't have the answer. Although it was allowed, the business of flesh was highly immoral. Whether it was Jean, Jules, Louis, P'tit Pol, François, or Charles, they all would have received severe beatings with sticks or belts if their respective fathers had found out they had been with one of these women.

Thirty? I paid ten sols! Better not say anything, it's for the best.

"I, um, I'll pass," Jules said, his cheeks red and tears in his eyes.

"Me too," followed Charles.

"Same here," murmured Louis with disappointment, though with such a handsome face, he could have gotten a much better price.

"I-I'll go," P'tit Pol said in a trembling voice, his face as red as his hair.

Everyone suddenly turned, surprised, toward P'tit Pol, who was already standing up despite his shaky legs.

I wouldn't have bet on him, that's for sure! What a surprise! The little redhead was hiding something after all!