There had been so many mistakes packed so closely together that Jane had a hard time deciphering their actual order, especially in her current, desperately compromised state. They were jumbling together in her mind. If she strained, though, she thought she could make some sense of them, some...progression.
The first, she supposed, had been accepting Gunther's surreptitiously offered flask as they'd sat around the campfire with their companions three nights ago. She and Gunther had been seated beside each other, so close that their elbows had occasionally brushed, and, she had noticed, he hadn't offered the flask to anyone else.
The two of them were knights; the other men who had been ordered along were not. The other men were subordinate; subject to Gunther and Jane's orders. The two of them were different, this gesture seemed to say. Set apart. Special. So Jane had accepted the flask both times it had been offered, and had only spluttered a little - her grimaces had hardly been noticeable, she'd assured herself - until a quick, sideways glance at Gunther had revealed the tiny spark of humor flashing deep in his slate colored eyes.
Then both of them had been wrenching their lips suddenly and violently downward, mutually struggling against the laughter that had wanted to come. A second later, when Gunther had shifted his attention to the guttering fire, she'd elbowed him in the ribs, hard, almost sending him sprawling off the log they'd been using as a seat. Even his muttered string of oaths had sounded suspiciously like barely-suppressed mirth.
That sense of camaraderie, that acceptance of his gesture with the flask - yes, that had been the first mistake.