The Machiavellian Adventures of Princess Eleanor

Ah, Jocelyn (and I still think that is a female name) is back ~:)
The poor guy, he might be a good knight but when it comes to the fineries of court life :dizzy2:

Quote:

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What do people think Richildis means when she says “Everyone but me …”

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I´d say she´s surprised he cares about Elianora (his ward), considering how he treats her, Richildis. Not that he treads her exactly badly, but still, I suppose he´s far from being a dream husband.
Ah, can it, I´ve hated this interpretation stuff back at school when I had to do it, and my opinion hasn´t changed much since. "What´s it the author wants to say with this..." :dizzy2: He wrote for the fun of it or because he did it for a living, that´s what.

Post #345, the one where Hugh informs the family of William's near-death? Please re-think this at some later time. The LAST half is fine. Wondering and plotting and worrying. The first half needs a little more love and uncertainty. You jump so quickly into the plotting that EVERYBODY seems stilted, stone in their character. Particularly Anne. A KING IS DYING! That should be more unnerving - even to Eleanore in general terms. And Anne. Sheesh! You have her say 3 or 4 short things to prgress plot and nothing about what she might feel.

Eleanor came awake to a hand shaking her shoulder. She blinked, trying to clear the gritty feeling from her eyes and, on realising she wasn’t in her own room, remember where she was.

Wrapped in her cloak, lying on Fulk’s bed, waiting for him to return. The door to her own room was open so a soundless retreat was possible in the event it might be needful. The door out onto the landing and stairway had been bolted, Hawise taking on the task of receptionist in the event of someone arriving; she could answer the door and delay while Eleanor fled, or, as now, could vanish outside when the stray knight turned up. The arrangement worked only because Fulk was not present.

She sat up, but not to make any room for him. “Where on earth have you been? I must have been here for hours.”

“Not even two hours. Matins has not rung yet. You’re exhausted, I think.”

“And a fine answer that is,” Eleanor replied around a yawn. With one hand she swept her hair back out of her eyes; it was loose and the way she had been lying had not done much to improve its orderliness.

“In case of future need I shall note this observation down somewhere safe: let sleeping princesses lie; they’re tetchy if awakened.”

“You are entirely uncooperative.”

“I think the same could generally be said of you. It must be catching.” His line of sight shifted downwards, away from her face to her bare feet sticking out of the bottom of shift and cloak. “Why are you here? And aren’t your feet cold?”

“None of your business.”

Fulk laughed. “There is a princess in my room, sat on my bed, scowling at me, and she tells me it’s none of my business! Oh endless source of delight, sometimes you truly are a strange creature.” Fulk sat down on top of his clothing chest, knees apart and arms braced untidily across the tops of his thighs. “I was sat playing guard in the outside doorway, gazing at the moon and slowly freezing to death.”

“Mea culpa. I am … unpractised at … certain things. And I forget things. Which I should not …” Goodwill and guilt only go so far, as does a desire for peace. A good deal more certainly Eleanor said, “But I was right – I am not helped by a rogue knight.” The next bit proved a good deal harder, so she only managed a mumble, “But I really should not let my fear for you affect me like that.”

“Dear, dear, my gooseberry is subscribing to more correct noble wisdom! I wonder …” Fulk sprang – if the movement of a tired, wounded man could be called that – to his feet, and placed an icy hand on her forehead. “No, no fever.”

Eleanor batted his hand away. “You are obnoxiously cheerful.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“I was actually speaking about losing my temper because of worry. As to that wisdom, for once it is not rubbish. If you are busy worrying about what will happen if you die or are wounded-”

“I’ll be a damned sight more careful. Beloved, I’ve fought with nothing but visions of glory with nary a thought to the mere possibility of anything less than great and heroic victory.” Fulk paused. His mouth twisted into a bitter line. “That’s how I killed my father and destroyed what was my life.” Fulk sat back on his makeshift chair with a heavy thump. “But if it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t be here now, and I find it impossible to wish I’d never met you. Well, I suppose there are times …” Abruptly he grinned at her, stilling the fluttering of newly born panic. “But even then there’s no honesty to it.”

“Wrong wisdom, crooknose. Close, but wrong. But then you are a man; I doubt I should enlighten you further.” That would defeat almost the entire point. Men should be worried enough to temper exuberance into caution, but never so worried that they became paralysed, cowardly, or otherwise unmanly or apt to die. The difficulty came in putting this – and other closely related wisdom – into use. Thanks to her upbringing she had very little by way of example to follow … but there in murky memory was a figure with an indistinct face, and some rare words: “Men need their confidence, but not too much of it; either extreme is dangerous. If you show doubt in their prowess then they too may begin to doubt, and that too is dangerous. So you send them off with smiles or teasing or whatever else suits.” Presumably her mother had gone on to do just that, but there the memory grew fuzzier still, to the point where Eleanor couldn’t remember if she had seen any more or not.

Fulk dug out the little silver crucifix he wore on a thong about his neck and held it in full sight to ward off malevolence. “And it is so that Woman has manifold mysteries, all to be kept from Man, for else their arcane evil would be disarmed, and thus their manipulation and perversion of God’s order would be at an end.”

Eleanor applauded him, careful, though, not to make sufficient noise for it to carry outside the room. “Oh very good! You missed your calling in life.”

“I’m too pleasant to be a rabid priest.” Fulk’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword even as the cheerful mask fell from his face. His fingers fondled the simple hilt of the weapon, bringing to mind the unwanted thought of who had given it him and how he must have touched her in the same way, this long lost Maude of his. “Your brother is giving me a new sword,” he said. “My choice, to suit my build and tastes. A mace too. He’s banishing my debt to the exchequer. A small castle, one taken from Trempwick’s holdings. He told me as he passed me, on his way to you. It’s going to be formally announced tomorrow.” Fulk’s hold on his sword stilled, tightened, then went slack, his hand dropping to the wooden surface of the chest. “I want none of it. It’s all meaningless. Pointless.”

“You are rising-”

“But not enough,” he interrupted softly. “Never enough.” Fulk looked at her, eyes narrowing a little. “What did he want with you? Hawise said as she let me in that now wasn’t the time for another argument.”

“That maid is entirely too happy meddling,” growled Eleanor.

“Oh most wondrous blossom, I know you like her, in part because she meddles, pesters, organises and is sensible at you, useful too, and all in that quiet way of hers. A more normal maid would likely end as a target for those hairpins of yours.”

Eleanor declared with utmost regalness, “Humph.”

“But this says nothing about that brother of yours.”

“I have been given to Sir Miles. He is my new master.” ‘Master’ had something of a sarcastic ring to it, which was both unexpected and unregretted. “Except I shall never call him that.”

“Eleanor, the trouble that might cause! It’s only politeness; it means nothing unless you want it to, and-”

“Might as well ask me to call him ‘Father’ …” Eleanor hugged her cloak about herself, the heavy wool pressing on her back uncomfortably.

He absorbed that, and perhaps understood it, for when he spoke again he said, “Somehow I doubt that is all Hawise meant. We’re not like to argue over Miles.”

“You do not need to know the rest.” If one wanted to restore harmony to one’s relationship with a broken-nosed knight one quite simply did not tell him that you had been involved in a rather unpleasant fight with your brother over said knight and his clashing with said brother’s bodyguard. She had been left with no choice – and wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise – but to defend Fulk entirely, placing vociferous blame for the entire incident on Hugh’s bodyguard. The outcome had all been highly predictable, and could be summed up simply as “Ouch!”. Hugh was a complete hypocrite, and one day Eleanor fervently hoped she could cram that fact down his throat, preferably while riding away from him on a very fast horse.

“No, I suppose not.” His words were terse, harsh, and all the idle relaxation went from his body.

“Fulk, it is boring, a waste of time speaking of, time which could be better spent-”

He held up a hand, forestalling her. “No, don’t bother. I’m just a lowly knight-”

“And an idiot!” This time she didn’t mean it in one of the kinder ways. “I have never seen you so – so determined to make yourself miserable over something so unimportant.”

“Unimportant? If I were an earl or a prince-”

“Unimportant,” Eleanor said again. She let her grip on her cloak relax, finally relieving some of the pressure on her bruises, though she acted only because keeping warm no longer mattered. “If you become an earl now it is still not enough. If you were born one you would have been entirely different, and none of this would have come to pass. You are what you are, and I like you for that.”

“I am what I am.” Fulk sagged back against the wall and ran a hand over his face. “I’ve been saying that all my life, insisting I’m proud of it too.” Pause. “I don’t think I’ve ever really meant it.”

Her heart bleeding for him, Eleanor stood and moved to stand awkwardly at his side, unsure of what to do next.

Fulk pulled her so she sat on his knee, settling her so the entire length of her body rested against his, not even a finger’s breadth standing on its own. “I’m cold,” he said by way of almost guilty-sounding explanation. After a bit he said, “If the man is all that’s left …”

“Then you stand greater than my brother, or any.”

He shook his head, his hair tickling her face. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes!” Eleanor kissed the hollow just below his ear. “Circumstances are not easy, but many could not survive it as you do.” He didn’t say anything. “There is …” Eleanor’s thought was formed but not in words, and it was the translation to something which could be shared that proved difficult. “There is ... no bravery in … in taking the easier ways. Or … or anything good in it. If you … if you were to do something to prove you are brave …” She stopped, thinking. “If you were to challenge my brother, yes, it would be said you were acting like a man, defending what was yours, protecting your own honour, guarding me. But then I would lose you. You would probably die. It is cowardly. Selfish. And because of that very … unmanly. You would leave me alone to suffer, suffer more because of what you had done, while your own suffering was at an end. The same can be said of much else. Perhaps everything else, in this. You are taking the harder path, which makes you far better than the many who would not.”

Eleanor felt a trace of damp on her temple; she sat back a little to see. A solitary tear, lost onto her skin, the glistening track on his own flesh the only sign of its birth.

He kissed her, so softly, their lips hardly touching. After a few moments Eleanor forgot even the very mild awareness she’d had of poor Hawise, sat out in the corridor, cold, bored, and as tired as the rest of them. Her thoughts had steadily narrowed down to nothing but Fulk; now the process was complete.

Several minutes, hours, days – who could tell? – later they stopped and sat, simply looking at each other, nothing more, faces close enough that their noses were almost touching. He was not saying something, she could tell. So, too, could she tell what; she was finding he had a certain way of looking at her sometimes: tender, peaceful, enraptured. He too had forgotten anything else.

Suddenly very nervous it was hard to speak. But she must, or … “I will not refuse you again.”

“That’s not exactly wise.” For one horrible moment she thought he was going to tip her off onto the floor. The next she feared he would crush her, because he tightened his hold.

“I am too young to be wise.”

“Aren’t we all?” he sighed. Eleanor studied him in consternation, until he kissed her eyelids. “I’m only a man ...”

Eleanor felt herself go a deep crimson; her seat had becoming increasingly unsettling because of that fact. “I had noticed.”

Fulk pressed his lips together, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards, his eyebrows drawn down into a passable attempt at a glower that sat firmly at odds with the rest. “You are terrible. But I love you anyway.”

From the burning sensation her blush was only getting worse. “Yes. Well. Um … It is your fault,” she rallied. “Everything. Always.”

“So eloquent, my love.”

That she didn’t reply to, but only because he had decided to kiss her again.

Fulk drew a very deep breath. “Let me love you. I will do you no harm.”

“Er …” She was not going to ask what in hell any of that meant!

“No one will know. You will still be a virgin. I’m not asking for anything dishonourable either. Any sin will be mine, so you won’t have that to worry about, and I can confess it without casting even a hint of suspicion in your direction-”

Unable to stand hearing more Eleanor interrupted, “Um …” The unfortunate thing about deciding something was that eventually you had to follow through, and it was getting harder to imagine saying anything the more she heard. Big brave princess, and all that; she gathered her nerve. “Um … less talking helps,” she managed to mumble. “Or so I am led to believe.”

Fulk placed one hand on her neck, his thumb stroking the outline of her jaw. “I do love you.”

“Um, all things considered I should really hope so. Yes.” Eleanor gave him a wobbly smile as she remembered to add, “I love you too. When you are not being annoying.” She was rewarded with a decidedly soppy grin. Her mind no longer drowning in romance a few important details occurred to her. “Um, we should let Hawise in. It will look strange, if anyone comes upstairs. And she must be cold and tired herself. And … er-”

“Peace. I’ll sort it out.”

Fulk carried her through into her room and set her down on the bed, then disappeared off to deal with Hawise.

Eleanor threw off her cloak and burrowed down into the bed, trying to create a warm patch for herself and wondering how she could ever look her maid in the eye again.

She heard rather than saw Fulk’s return, the covers being drawn so far up they covered most of her face too.

“I might agree with you on that maid of yours,” he said as he bolted the door. “She went straight to my bed, sat down, and told me to go away so she could get undressed.”

Undressed. Oh, damn! Eleanor poked her head out of the top of the blankets just enough to see Fulk, then ducked back down because he was beginning to remove his own clothes. First she would try to keep her shift and underclothes on. If that failed then she would have to hope he didn’t really look. In the event of that too proving to be a vain hope she could only pray he couldn’t tell the difference between yesterday’s bruises and today’s, and wouldn’t be too revolted.

Fulk slid into bed next to her and gathered her to him, but not before he tossed something he had been holding down on top of the covers out of her sight. Noticing that she was shivering he said, “If you’ve changed your mind …”

Eleanor muttered something about being cold to avoid answering that.

Fulk rubbed her back, his fingers brushing over her so lightly it didn’t trouble the sore flesh. His lips lingered on hers, then the top of her neck, the lobes of her ears. He claimed her mouth again, hands still gently exploring her body.

It was enjoyable enough that Eleanor began to relax. She began to copy him, feeling clumsy, seeing with some detached part of her mind how her own efforts revealed his to be so practised. That rather hurt in some indefinable way; she stopped touching him and threw her uppermost arm about his waist, the lower one already drawn up out of the way with the hand resting just below her chin, useless because of the way they lay face to face, his lower arm and her own bodyweight penning her left arm in.

He moved to kiss her again, checked and looked away. “I don’t want to pass on my frustration to you. Or do something daft.”

“Er …?”

“Well it’s true. I’m hardly proud of it.” He looked back at her, not quite meeting her gaze and face tinged ever so slightly pink. “I’ve never actually done this before. Not this way. Same idea. Few differences. Important differences. And I really do care, but at the same time it seems rather inconsiderate to try and arouse you when I know I’m going to leave you er, hanging. But it’s about as bad to just ignore you. Not to mention less fun for me. But then too much fun and I’m afraid I’ll go a bit barmy.”

Eleanor digested that. “Oh.”

“I suppose really I shouldn’t take the risk, and be as considerate as I can in something so one-sided.”

“Ah.”

“I always wanted everything to be perfect.” He sighed, kissed her briefly, then admitted, “Perfect doesn’t include ‘brilliant’ ideas like this. So please don’t judge based on this. The real thing really is very different, and far better.”

“Hmm …” By now Eleanor was positive about two things: that she was blushing badly even by her own standards, and that she sounded like she had been dropped on her head at birth.

She became aware of a very anxious pair of brown eyes now meeting her own. “You do understand?”

“Er … Yes,” Eleanor lied valiantly.

“And you don’t mind?”

“Er … I suppose I shall survive.”

“I love you.”

Before she could tell him that she recalled him saying that a few times before, Fulk kissed her again, more demanding then he’d been all night but still tender.

He ran a hand up her leg, gathering her shift and pushing it up. Once the material reached her waist he seemed to lose interest, much to her relief, and returned to running his hands over her body, the light touch setting her skin tingling.

Eleanor took matters into her own hands and kissed him again. He made a rather interesting noise much like a groan, gently pushed her onto her back and climbed to loom over her on all fours, and all without breaking the kiss, which was, she supposed in a back corner of her mind, fairly impressive.

He prised gently at her thighs with one hand. Eleanor resisted a moment, then gave up. Whatever she was expecting it wasn’t what happened next: he slid his shaft between her thighs, pushed them shut on it with his own legs, then began to move. At which point a few unpleasant jokes she had been unable to escape hearing and equally unable to forget made a deal more sense, especially that one about the archer who always aimed too low.

Fulk nibbled at her lower lip, persuading her to forget such musings. Eleanor was only too happy to oblige, and in the spirit of things she threw her arms around his neck and clung on, returning his kisses.

His motions steadily grew more frantic until he spasmed, sobbed her name into her head and collapsed into a heap.

At a loss for anything else to do but feeling something was definitely needed, Eleanor delicately extricated one hand from under his bulk and – cautiously - patted him on the head.

Fulk began to laugh, the tremors of his body passed on to her own.

Until the end he had been doing a good job of supporting his own weight so their bodies touched but his did not rest entirely on hers; finding it hard to breathe Eleanor pushed at his shoulder. Fulk obligingly rolled off onto his back with all the grace of a dead donkey. He lay catching his breath for a bit.

He didn’t give himself long before he sat up and grabbed the mysterious object he’d carried in earlier; it proved to be a towel. He mopped rather shamefacedly at the sticky mess on her thighs. “Sorry.”

Staring at the mess, Eleanor shuddered. While acquainted with certain basics, warm slime had been unanticipated; the little she had heard had indicted something more like water. Which would be preferable. Sensitive to the way he stopped dabbing, Eleanor covered her reaction by saying, “Now I think I understand that joke about better out than in. Ugh. And to think I had considered it one of the more harmless jokes at my father’s wedding.”

“Beloved, there are a few hundred such jokes, and they broadly fall into several categories, including one also pertinent to the moment: better in than out. That one’s not about seed. Better out than in is, so you’re right there, but then there’s a line which goes opposite to that too.”

She moved her elbows so she lay flat again, wishing he would hurry up and finish; lying with her shift hitched up about her hips was not dignified and now that whatever you might want to call what had just taken place was finished she felt stupid like this. The bed beneath her was damp as well. “I do not think I wanted to know that.”

Fulk finished his mopping and began to struggle his way out of the massive bed. Eleanor snatched her clothes back into some semblance of order, bolted upright, and asked, “Where are you going?” Surely he wouldn’t just leave?

He held up the towel. “I don’t fancy sleeping curled up with this.” Fulk dumped it on the chair and shot back into bed at her side.

Eleanor settled against the curve of his body, pillowing her head on his shoulder and trying not to think too much, profoundly glad he was holding her still and trying to be content in that alone. There was but one thing she needed to think on, and that was the fact they were married. That one thought made the others nothing. It did.

Fulk’s hand stilled on the neck of her neck, no longer toying with her hair. “I’m sorry. I should not have used you like that.”

“Used.”

Fulk raised her chin with one finger and looked her in the eye, steady though his eyelids drooped. “I didn’t mean it so, never so. I meant you deserved better.” He chuckled, kissed her quickly, and said, “I’ll have you know half my brain just went wandering, so I’m not my usual articulate self. It’ll come back … sometime.”

“You hope,” suggested Eleanor impishly.








:Anyone with eyes will notice that the frog is blushing quite badly, worse than Nell, even!: Urk! :froggy just about manages a mortified mumble, to explain: I spent a few days trying to find a way to avoid writing the :cough: detail :cough of that, all unsuccessfully. While being sworn at by Jocelyn, for refusing his extra scene for all kinds of valid reasons like pacing. Never written anything like that before, either. Not really. When you think about it. Generally speaking. Actually. But either I was less detailed, at which point it looked like something else had happened, or I recapped it in retrospect, which meant exactly the same thing, when all was said and done, except it was being talked about, not done, and sort of felt all blergh like that. :goes florescent red: I mean, more blergh than it is already. I have the feeling it is not the least bit romantic, but then given the material it’s hardly set up to be a great and wonderful love scene anyway. Humph; I suppose I need practice at writing such things, for those times when I have to, although heaven knows I don’t want to.

:froggy sidles away, with the nasty feeling that everyone is now looking at her oddly or staring, thinking thoughts she would rather not about frogs who write such things: Don’t blame me – blame them! :she points at the duo: It was their fault, not mine! :froggy notices Nell is pointing at Fulk and protesting that it was him, entirely, and really nothing much to do with her:

Though I must admit to laughing quite a bit at a few lines in that! I made the mistake of sipping my tea as I proofread it, choked, and nearly ruined my keyboard. It was the pat on the head which did it. I also admit to getting all teared up, in one short place. And pitying poor Fulk, even as I wonder whether I like what he did or not, and also wonder if he’s suitably believable, being as this female froggy is going entirely on what Fulk says, with a dose of hearsay, rumour, and a smidgeon of observation to help.

Got to say I’m really very interested as to what people make of this, both in writing and in what happens. Like I’ve said many times already, never written anything like this before, not really …

:froggy goes to hide under a rock somewhere … with a large pile of books to read. And a light – lights are nice when reading books while hiding under a rock. Otherwise it’s a bit dark.:



One big miscellaneous cross-forum thank you for the variety of thoughts on Jocelyn/Richildis. :looks like a smugly pleased frog: Hehe, not bad for a line which took me all of 20 seconds to write and no thought at all.

It's in part thanks to these responses that I felt able to skip the Jocelyn scene - it would say nothing that is not already there and, more importantly, *seen* to be there. Adding the scene would only have slowed the tale down, and with this Nell/Fulk scene it would have felt very one-themed, repetitive, dull, and the (at least my own) response on finding the Nell/Fulk scene immediately afterwards would have been "Not more mush!" I also feel it will be far, far better handled in the before and retrospect, not the during. It was also not a scene of the type I need Jocelyn for; he's done enough with what is already here and planned for inclusion. In short, including it would have been very damaging.

On giving characters their heads: I do it very often. Indeed, the entire Nell/Fulk romance comes from doing just that, and thus the entire story which springs from it. Originally I wanted them to be friends, no more, off on spytastic adventures like at the beginning of the story. I presume that you will have noticed that as soon as they got on screen together they started to spark, so badly that my carpet was nearly set on fire.

But sometimes it is not the right thing to do. Sometimes what feels important to a character is not actually important, or does not need to be shown. Sometimes the deviations to the plot, where such are prompted by character demands, are not good.

Fanclubs: Been a while since I posted anything here about the fanclubs on the other forum; I recall there was a bit of interest.

Fanclub updates:
Trempy: 3 members (fuming)
Anne: 2 members
Fulk: 5 members (sleeping like the dead, but only snoring a very little bit)
Nell: 6 members (also asleep, looking as angelic as only a sleeping gooseberry can)
Godit: 5 members (also fuming)
Constance: 2 members
Hugh: 2 members (disgusted!)
Jocelyn: 5 members (worrying about the safety of the women in his family, and sharpening his dagger ready for any necessary castrations)
Richildis: 1 member (rolling her eyes at her husband … safely behind his back)
Miles: 2 members
Hawise: 2 members (thinking that Fulk’s bed is far comfier than her pallet on the floor)
Mahaut: 1 member
Anti-Trempy: 3 members
Anti-Aveline: 1 member
Anti-Hugh: 1 member


Furball, I shall come back to both of those in a day or two ~:) A good answer requires time to peculate, and I feel whatever answer I arrive at will take more time to write down than I have at present.

No rush, froggy - and no real need to reply. And I realize there may be things I don't know at this point in the story. Re-reading the whole post, I see that Anne does react at first, though she seems to settle down pretty quickly. Really, no need to reply. I'm sure we'd all rather have more story. :)

EDIT: Finally caught up with the tale to date! To answer one of your questions, the Nell/Fulk scene in the latest post is fine. Tender, believable and not as unusual as many of today's college kids might think. :) *I* might have gone . . . err, out of my way to give Eleanor some pleasure, but it's my understanding that was not common in medieval England.

A hand closed on Eleanor’s shoulder; the pressure on a few particularly raw bruises both recalled her attention and made her wince.

“I said,” Hugh repeated patiently, “that your manner is subdued today.” His eyes narrowed as he removed his hand. “Or perhaps I am mistaken, and you are only sulking.”

“Or thinking.”

“Then I would find it obligatory as to enquire what about, to have such a marked effect on your demeanour.” Hugh linked his hands at the small of his back. “Penitential thoughts of a change of ways, I might hope?”

Eleanor continued to meet his gaze, unspeaking. If he knew what she had done … She repressed a shudder, sick to the pit of her stomach at the thought of what would happen.

At last she turned away, chin tucked in. “Leave me alone, Hugh. I am sore, tired, and heartsick, and in no mood to be baited.”

“I do not bait. That would be unworthy. Indeed, it seems to me that you attempt to bait me.” If he was expecting some kind of contrition at that, or denial, or anything else then he was sorely disappointed. “I find,” he said when it became more than plain she would not speak, “I must now enquire as to what makes you heartsick. I see nothing to cause you hurt, though much should, and that it does not is a mark of your woeful lack of duty or familial feeling. Therefore, this being so unknown to me, I cannot offer the slightest assistance.”

Eleanor lifted her head to give her brother a flat stare. “I shall not even dignify that with a response.”

“Quite impossible.” Hugh strode away to stand at his own window again, looking down at the view of the training grounds it offered. “Still, I should doubtless expect no different than for my offer to be flung back in my face.”

“It is the stupid question I fling back, nothing more. There is plenty of reason and I am immune to none of it, though my vulnerabilities may be different to yours.”

“Such disrespect-”

Eleanor stopped paying attention; perhaps with some good fortune his rant would keep him entertained for a while, leaving her free. Fulk had sat with his back to her, shoulders curved inwards a trifle, half dressed. His words she remembered perfectly. “I won’t bother you like this again. I’ve disgraced myself enough.” Pause, then as an afterthought, “Disgraced with my selfishness, I mean.”

Oh dear Jesù, as if she needed more complications and worries. If he had disgraced himself, then what precisely did that say of her? And to be abandoned so quickly - that said much, and none of it complimentary. Anyway, she had only done as he told her, as she should, so honour was intact and if there was any fault it was his. Which was not comforting. What would he do now? Probably much as she’d thought before. Not that she could really say whether she was disappointed or not that the experience wouldn’t be repeated; while there had been definite good things other parts had been rather … um. Yes. Maybe very.

Hugh slapped her across the mouth; the blow stung but she thought it did no damage that would last past a few minutes. He said, “I will not be ignored. This is the second time. You will reflect on your manners. It is not fitting for one such as you.”

One side of Eleanor’s mouth twisted upwards. “Quite true, brother dear. No matter how poets ramble on to the contrary that last is quite true.”

Hugh scowled, deepening the shallow creases that were slowly beginning to permanently mark his skin. “You make no sense. No poet has ever numbered rudeness or like vices amongst the virtues fit for one in your place.”

“No, I would think not.”

“Rather patience, meekness,” that one he stressed even more than the others, “charity, piety, obedience,” again emphasised, “nobility, humbleness-”

“And a certain knowledge of one’s own worth,” Eleanor added. “Well, that I can claim, if none of the others.” She knew the value of what she had given … or thrown away, as some would have it. Not quite the value of her maidenhead, but still a good portion of the almost obscene horde of wealth and gains she could bring. Not, she reassured herself, that she cared about such things anyway, and not that anyone would ever know to be in a position to be outraged and decry her as … well, not quite a whore, as there was generally considered to be a trace of honour in such restrained dealings … so far as there could ever be any honour in something so disreputable. But she was married to the man in question, damn it!

Fed up with herself, and knowing she needed to do something about her brother, Eleanor pointed at the view from her own window. “Anyway, why did you bring me here, place me in front of this window and demand I wait?”

“You will see,” he snapped. With that he turned back to his own window and stared out with such concentration he stopped blinking.

After a while she did see. Hugh might not have summoned her here to watch Fulk but there was no point in wasting her time further than had already been the case.

As Fulk took to the field and began to limber up the few spectators braving the drizzle subtly shifted so a significant proportion of the women were now watching him. As Eleanor scowled in their direction a couple more scurried out to join the little throng of gossiping ninnys. All very well for some, having nothing better to do and the freedom that came with being unimportant. It should not be allowed!

Fulk worked his way through a variety of twists, stretches, and exercises designed to keep honed his muscles and sense of balance, armour glinting in the weak sunlight. He had thrown his entire being into the exercises that Eleanor knew he could complete flawlessly while chatting away on a variety of subjects with a princess, and this unnecessary absorption allowed him to steadfastly ignore his audience without being rude.

Absorbed with her watching, Eleanor started when Hugh spoke. “Now, here it is.”

‘It’ came in the form of another knight, armoured, his surcoat the colour of dark wine, two squires bobbing along in his wake bearing his great helm and his lance, and a few friends following at a looser distance. The coat of arms on the shield he bore was known to her: Sir William of Beverley.

Fulk didn’t let the other man’s hail interrupt his cartwheels; he answered as he went. What was said Eleanor didn’t know; the little antechamber on the second floor of the great keep afforded an excellent view but fine detail like the movement of lips was lost.

“I thought it might prove educational for you to see the ending of what you have wrought.”

Eleanor stilled her panic as best she could, turned to glance at her brother, and said calmly, “Pardon?”

“Your knight; you allowed him to damage my own guard’s honour. Therefore it is now necessary to allow things to be … settled. Before the poison can worsen and dispute become hatred and covert war. I saw fit to confine matters to blunted weapons.”

Bastard! And he had brought her here to watch.

Eleanor looked back to find Fulk was now standing, engaged in heated debate with the other knight and his entourage. Sir William chopped a hand through the air, shouting something. Fulk only folded his arms; if he replied his words were far calmer. Sir William spun away to where Fulk’s shield waited, propped against his lance and great helm. A well-placed kick sent the shield tumbling face first into the mud, defacing and befouling the coat of arms. Then he spat on the shield.

Eleanor gasped at the magnitude of the insult.

Fulk’s hand dropped to his sword and began to draw. No more than a few inches of steel must have cleared the scabbard when he let the weapon drop back. Words were said, not many, and then he was away, striding to where Sueta waited with the man at arms he had taken on as his new squire.

“He cannot hope to win,” commented Hugh. “Your knight. He is talented, but he spent overlong without a warhorse, and is thus less able then he aught to be in the true mode of knightly combat.”

The space used for tilting practice had been cleared and spectators had moved to get a better view of the action. Word was beginning to spread that more than the usual training was happening; new people were appearing on the grounds and in doorways and windows.

Fulk was ready: mounted, head covered entirely by his bucket-like great helm, lance at rest and shield levelled, waiting on his fidgeting destrier at one end of the run. There was nothing there that Eleanor saw which spoke of anything but comfortable confidence; she hoped he had grounds for it, and wasn’t just bluffing.

Hugh’s man took up his position at the other end of the run, and set his spurs to his stallion’s flanks going from walk to charge without stopping to see that his opponent was ready.

Fulk’s reaction was admirably fast. Not fast enough; they clashed before the centre point, Fulk having less time to build speed and momentum. His lance tagged Sir William’s shield and skittered off as the knight angled the surface to throw the blunt point. Sir William’s hit was solid; the sound of the impact carried all the way back to Eleanor, and Fulk reeled back in the saddle, his armoured back slamming into the narrow top of his high-backed cantle. Eleanor held her breath, thinking he would fall. Somehow he didn’t.

By the time he reached the end of the run he was settled again, slowing Sueta and resettling his lance and shield for another go. Instead of stopping and waiting for the other to also be ready to start the next run, Fulk turned and spurred back to the charge as soon as he reached the end of the grounds. Hugh’s honourless churl of a knight did likewise.

The thud of the dual impact carried again; both men hit their targets and both were flung back by the shock, but both managed to deflect the pressing force so they were not unhorsed. Fulk had done better than his first run, but it appeared Sir William’s aim had been truer than his.

Three runs; that was the usual. Eleanor stopped breathing as they turned and spurred back towards each other. She saw Fulk lower his lance and couch it firmly under his arm, stand in his stirrups, lean a little forward, tilt his shield to carry the enemy lance on out past his shoulder harmlessly. But for the clarity of that, she didn’t know how it came to be that his lance shattered and he rode away all but lying on his horse’s back, one foot kicking free while the other bore much of his weight and efforts to retain his seat. Sir William emerged as unshaken as the previous times.

Eleanor turned to her brother with a delighted laugh. “He won! He broke his lance where yours did not – he won.”

“This is not a tournament. The rules are different. Your knight lost. Any can clearly see he is not a match for his opponent. Even in a tournament such would hardly be an undisputed win, being simple luck.”

“How am I supposed to know about tournaments anyway,” Eleanor muttered, face flaming at her error. So much for the very little she knew of one of the nobility’s favourite obsessions. Trempwick deplored them as crudely violent affairs filled with muscle and not a jot of sense. “Never been to one. They change the rules all the time too, to suit the sponsor, so I could have been right.”

Back outside it appeared the same argument was taking place. Heatedly.

Unwilling to settle for such a clouded end, both men dismounted, drew their swords and moved to the middle of the ground. Eleanor didn’t know how Fulk had swung the advantage back his way, but she was grateful enough to send up a minor prayer of thanks. After the battering he had just received – and heaven forefend it had done fresh damage to his healing wounds! – he must need any and every advantage.

She had never seen Fulk fight before, not truly, as the times when he had put his all into battle she had also been busy. The graceful flow, one move going into another, and another, a never-ending dance, stances changing unpredictably to threaten his enemy in new ways and guard himself against the other man’s own threats, it was hypnotic. Then a pause, circling, waiting, probing, before he surged back into action again. In his hands it was an art. And he was so fast.

It was the tilting all in reverse; both combatants clearly skilled, but one able to dominate the other to such a degree he was left devoting himself to hanging on and not to winning.

After a while Eleanor began to feel stupid for ever having doubted he was in fit condition to prod someone else with a sword. You wouldn’t even know he was wounded, watching him now.

Fulk engaged Sir William in another exchange of blows and parries, moving at a blur and blocked at every attempt. Until he out-timed the other knight, hooked the cross guard of his sword on the rim of Sir William’s shield, yanked it aside and delivered a cut that, if done with edged weapons instead of wood, would have cut through coat of plates, mail, flesh, muscle and deep into the bone of the left shoulder. A slow killing blow. The three separate attacks were strung together so smoothly they appeared but one planned move arranged between the two men beforehand to the novice eye, not a gambit and two reactions to take advantage of successive weaknesses.

“Well,” beamed Eleanor, “I think there is no doubt that time. He won. Quite tidily, too.”

Hugh held his pose, staring out of the window. He lifted his hands free of the stonework of the window ledge with a small jerk, as if they rested in a sticky substance. “We should take warning from this. It was surely God’s judgement on Sir William for his unknightly conduct preceding and during the engagement, and in his quarrelsomeness in not accepting the first verdict and entering into a second round.”

Eleanor didn’t bother pointing out that almost every knight in the realm would have acted the same, doubtless including Hugh himself to the extent of wanting a clear and glorious victory. They were a silly bunch.






:rolls about on the floor, laughing her froggy socks off at the indignant, mortified Fulk, who is stalking up and down and shouting that really he knows all this helpful advice people are giving him, thank you very much, because he is not hopeless, useless, inexperienced, or just pointless, and really is actually very good, actually, and he was only working in the limitations of what he had and being considerate and about as honourable as circumstances allowed! Froggy also laughs at the bemused expression on the gooseberry’s face, just for good measure.:

I’m shocked! Fulk originally lost – there was no sword fight, just the three runs with the lances. Then he sort of snapped when he found what people were saying. He rolled up his sleeves, said, ”Right!” in that nastily meaningful way people have, and forced things to a course which suited him better so he could smack someone a wee bit hard and vent some frustration. All I could do was go and hide behind a solid object and hope this didn’t damage anything in the story.


:froggy dips her quill in a pot of ink and begins to write in her best handwriting.:
Dear assorted mob of characters who bother me endlessly.

I am writing to you in the hopes that I may be able to encourage you to cheer up. I would like it very much if you would all stop worrying, fretting, stressing, doubting yourselves and others, and generally being Right Depressing Pains. Also, please stop expecting horrible doom every other page. Cheer up! Stop whinging! Be happy! If those glum thoughts threaten again, sing a happy song!

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Froggy.

PS: I do not mean happy as in be mushy. Please stop that. It’s not fair on a frog. All these POVs, and all of them infested with mush, gah!


:froggy folds up the bit of parchment, puts her own special froggy seal on it, and sends it to the cast via her fastest messenger.: Not that it will do any good; they will ignore the frog and go their own sweet way as per usual, happy or sad. But it had to be said. Bah!



A few quick words on the ‘Will is dead!’ scene. No, after reading it again and thinking on it I still find this is exactly as it should be. If it were different it would be out of character. Think of who these people are, the situation they are in, and what it means. When someone smashes a hole in your canoe you don’t sit about crying because the paintwork is ruined – you start bailing and paddling for shore. Then you complain about the paintwork. As you will now know they do all do their respective paintwork mourning later.

On medieval standards: hmm, actually that was more the Renaissance. Medieval ideals were considerably more fair in that regard, in no small part thanks to the belief that women had seed just like men, and that it was released in the same way. But … well, er … humph. Either he’d rupture her hymen by accident, or do something deeply sinful as opposed to just slightly sinful, or leave her hanging. Er, I’ll leave it to you to sort out what classes as doing what. And all with the risk of him doing a Maude Mark II.

I´ve just read the two recent updates. The first... now why do authors have to be more detailed than needed? Allright, in this case it was needed, I give you that, anything else would have lead to...misunderstandings.
The second, a nice fight :duel: even though shorter than previous ones, if I recall correctly (it´s not exactly easy to keep 1158 pages of text in mind).
You left out a Jocelyn scene? ~:eek:

There, done.

Could have used some of those eyedrops though...

GREAT book/story/whatever you want to call it. Its better then several books I've read. I don't see how you should have troubles in publishing this one. (Giving you a enough money for a hefty book pile ~;))

Hugh wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, endeavouring to be surreptitious in this faintly undignified behaviour. If she should see there was no telling how she would interpret it; he only knew it would not be to his liking. Fear, or some other such contemptible emotion. The simple fact of the matter was that delicate handling was required, and such was easiest done when in fit personal condition. Fearing his lips would split and crack if he attempted a smile or similar expression was less than constructive.

Hugh gestured at the map laid out on the council room’s table. “So you are aware of our position.” An unenviable one it was too: the Welsh border in flames and the west of England threatened, many significant holdings in rebel hands in the north and south-east, and across the seas a France that would strike when it saw he would do homage for his continental lands. Spread all over, in England and across the Narrow Sea, lords who had not personally done him homage or given him any token of loyalty, meaning they could break away or not as they desired, or simply wait and see who won before coming to join a side, without a hint of condemnation or leverage he could apply.

The situation, while difficult, was not impossible. Threatened on many sides he may be, he did have the advantage of being centralised, unlike his foes who were scattered here and there, unable to consolidate. A guard on certain fronts and a willingness to lose some in pursuit of a greater goal would delay his enemies while he took much of his force to crush one, then after that one another, and so on until at last he had driven them all before him in disarray and defeat. Some successes on his part would gather men to him, just as losses on his part would thrust them into the arms of his opponents. It would more than likely prove an expensive, exhaustive and lengthy struggle, and that in turn contributed to the unpleasantness of the situation.

The French lands were in the greatest peril – they would by necessity be left until he had stabilised the situation here sufficiently to send men and resources to support the local lords. However, hand in hand with this, those lords would be least prey to Trempwick’s slanders; last to hear, distant from those involved and so perhaps less likely to believe. Also, regardless of whom they chose to declare for, it was the King of France they would need to defend their lands from, unless they deserted to that kingdom. Thus there was a certain assurance of a good defence even from those who declared for his sister. The French boy king and his controllers were sufficiently unappealing that no great harm was likely to be done him by desertion, and, galling as it may be to admit it, there was a great appeal in a king who was distant and so less able to interfere. He, with his divided, sprawling lands, would be less concentrated than the King of France, based close by in the Ile de France.

The best he could do until such a time as having the resources to spare to cross the sea and assert himself and his rights was send orders and messages, doing all to win men to cooperation and a course of action he found favourable. He might perhaps spare one trusted man and a very small troop to serve as rally point and begin to organise, stiffening men’s backs for the inevitable fighting. To pull soldiers from France to here to bolster his army appealed, but seemed too dangerous to be permitted; it would drain the pool of those uncertain numbers there who would fight for him, leaving those lands more vulnerable. And if he were refused the aid he sought …

Eleanor nodded. “I was aware before; Miles told me.” There was an unspoken comment residing after that, Hugh could sense it, and he was certain it said, “I also worked much of this out for myself, as I am not an idiot and do have both eyes and ears.”

“I wished to be sure you knew,” Hugh said stiffly.

“Of yesterday I spent perhaps half an hour with you, and the rest of the day with Miles, being a good apprentice.”

“Then it shall not surprise you to learn I am sending an embassage to Scotland, to confirm our alliance and make it again in my own name. Thus it shall become binding once more.” To guard his northern border against a second, far larger threat merging with the one already there, and place pressure on the rebels in Northumberland.

She gave him a very flat look. “No, it does not surprise me.”

Hugh took a calming breath and tried to quash the irritation she – as so frequently the case - caused. “I am glad to see that you consider your new position with suitable gravity.”

Her reaction to this compliment was not pleasing; she acted as though it were another pronouncement, in need of no special notice or reply.

Refusing to be hurried by her, Hugh continued to elaborate as planned, caring little if she already knew or not. He had decided the best course previously; it would be done so. “To suit the occasion and import of the mission, this embassage must be made up most carefully. Anne, utilising her role as link between our houses, is the natural choice. However she is …” Hugh searched for a tactful way to say the necessary.

“Young, too young to be the lead. Also widowed, so less prestigious and much less tied to our own house.”

“Still,” Hugh said pointedly, desiring her to know her unwanted contribution for what it was, “she may be beneficial. She will do as a part. Another must take the main place, one closely associated with myself, trusted, able to forge and authorise a treaty which will last and assist me, and do so quickly.”

“Are you asking me to go to Scotland, brother dear?”

Hugh ground his teeth. “If, for once, you allowed me to speak in my own time and say what I will you may find out! I am out of patience – next time I shall silence you myself.”

She sighed gustily, and moved to sit in one of the room’s chairs, seating herself in such a manner that she plainly declared she expected to be there for a very long time. Placed as she was, she was safely out of his reach unless he cared to go to her and so clearly warn her of his intent. Eleanor flipped her braid back over her shoulder with one hand, crossed her ankles and settled down to listen, again subtly suggesting that the listening was liable to be protected and tedious.

Intolerable! Hugh pulled his hand away from his belt, where it had instinctively come to rest. If he moved to correct her she would have sufficient warning to be on her guard, and the resulting struggle would be as undignified as ever, and would interfere with the essential business he was attempting to conduct here. He turned his back on her, unable to stomach the sight of her in the knowledge that he shunned the duty he should undertake, not gladly, for that would be to take pleasure in another’s pain, but with a ready heart, knowing it was to her benefit and betterment.

He said, “Anne will do as one. Another must be an older head, wiser, better able to negotiate and act the diplomat. Someone I can trust,” Hugh’s eyes dropped to the floor, and he was glad this small betrayal of his feelings was hidden, “and there are so very few of them. Very few. Of those, I need all of them here. But need to varying extents.”

Behind him Eleanor shifted restlessly; the soft rustle of her clothing betrayed her.

“I see I am boring you with the very explanations I thought you may appreciate.”

“Hugh, you are saying nothing I did not know or had not guessed.”

His reproof failed so dramatically, Hugh changed direction. Perhaps after all his carefully planned actions here could be sped along. Then he could attend to her manners and be rid of her much the sooner. “As I began to say before you took advantage of the gap as I paused for breath, I shall advance to the end of what I wished to say. Anne will be the link with their family, the advisor on the Scottish court, environs and nobles, and a reminder of the old agreement. Miles will be the mind; he has the wit and experience for it, and I can spare him best of those I cannot spare at all. You will be my representative; my blood, my house, linked to me, and your presence will do honour to the mission.” Hugh glared at her over a hunched shoulder. “Honour provided you comport yourself in a fitting manner. Make no mistake of my displeasure if you somehow cause difficulty in this. Miles assures me he will keep you under control; indeed this was one of my conditions in agreeing.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened; one of the muscles in her cheek twitched. “Did he indeed.”

“He did, or I should not say so. While this is not to be a blood alliance, there being no one of my blood free to wed besides yourself,” and free was a relative term there, Hugh added with silent displeasure, “if the question of marriage arises, I beg you, give it good thought, for your own sake, mine, and that of our position. Unjust thought it is, you shall never completely be freed of the damage Trempwick has done you through his claims. A good marriage will be harder for you, even once he is proven a liar in the minds of all men. The taint to your name, and the scandal, shall remain, and people will wonder.”

“I know.”

Hugh watched her expectantly, aware she was considering the matter most carefully. A pleasing sign.

Eleanor pronounced, “I shall give any proposal of marriage due consideration. I shall agree to nothing which does not suit me, or to anything I know to be wrong. But I shall consider.”

“Good. You leave the day after tomorrow. Your escort shall be comprised of your own troops, those Miles can summon of his own in the given time, Anne’s own guard, and a number of my own men, with a combined total of about eighty men under arms desired. A very strong guard. The required servants, grooms and so on shall be supplied by the three households; yours being what it is,” he gave her a most disapproving look, “you shall be able to contribute little.”

“Who will be in charge of the soldiers?”

It was a long time before Hugh could produce the answer he had known for a goodly while, or perhaps it was only an illusion prompted by his reluctance to say. “Sir Miles is more than competent to lead, though he should not be concerned with the smaller matters. Unless you object, those will fall to your knight; he shall be the second in command. To do just honour to your status.” Hugh faced his cowardice, looked it straight in the eye, and conquered it. “Also in recognition of his recently demonstrated skills. Whatever else may be said of him he does well the task I assigned him, namely protecting you from all hurt, physical or otherwise, and he does battle with great skill.”

Unsaid, always to remain unsaid except to Constance, to whom he had confessed his ignominy as always, the final part of his decision to send her: the simple fact she would be away and gone, several weeks, perhaps a month if matters proceeded slowly or travel was slow. Gone.






I admit it – this part is bad. It has all the bounce of a brick, and about as much subtlety, the important points here being driven home with a mallet and the whole matter of Nell going to Scotland dealt with bluntly, scantily and badly.

But I’m bored! There are many scenes I really want to write lying past this one. I don’t want to talk about going to Scotland; I want to go to Scotland, and all the events which happen in the meantime. The fact it is Hugh being all stodgy does not help my interest. If I could I’d just put a placeholder marker in the text and come back to write the scene later, but I can’t because of the episodic format of this beast. So instead you get this, a rubbish scene which says what it needs to in a bad way, but says it none the less. Aside from maybe a few things which I can say later, to better effect.

Humph!


Ciaran: 1158 pages of text? Including the latest update it comes to 736 pages in Word ...

Yes, I left out a Jocelyn scene. :hide: But I leave out a lot, even in this indulgent (as in it includes many things that strictly speaking could be edited out without trouble) version of the story. I have no way to include some of those things, others are just too pointless even for my current state of indulgence, some are in the past or the future outside the story's limits, many are just simple lines or brief exchanges. Some are even alternate versions of things which happen, or are set in worlds that sprouted from events that happened differently.



Welcome, aw89. Have some eye drops. :hands some over:

Alas, I do see many problems to getting this published, not least the fact I have nothing else published at all, not even a short story.

EDIT: A hefty book pile? Hehe - I did a count last week. I have 82 history books left to read cover to cover, though most of those I have read parts of as research and interest required. I had 237 fiction books to read. Since that count I have read 4 more books, and brought 3 more. Well, that puts me 1 book ahead, and of the ones I read one was just under 600 pages long, two 900 pages, and one very clsoe to 1,100 pages, whereas one of the new ones is a slender history book ('1215: the year of the magna carta, only 299 pages excluding the biblography, notes and other bits that are not really there for reading as such), and the other two are only about 600-700 pages each. So I am quite well ahead on simple bulk of pages. Not that I really count such things. It's just nice to know I am making some progress ...

Well, what about a house to store those books in?

Eleanor accepted the cup from Hawise with a grateful attempt at a smile, and downed the contents in one long go. The herbal mess might not taste terribly pleasant, but it wet her throat, which was dry with talking after telling them about her audience with Hugh, and it would do some good to stomach cramps. Another of Hawise’ quiet, unasked for bits of help for something Eleanor hadn’t even mentioned.

Fulk sniffed the air; she could see him mentally recognising the herbs and working out what they were for. “Feeling a mite delicate, are we?” he asked, with the stinking cheer of a lucky bastard who was completely and forever immune to this particular malady.

“If I ever get my hands on Eve I shall make her a very unhappy woman,” growled Eleanor. “She ate the damned apple - she should be the one suffering. Not me.”

Fulk smoothed his polishing cloth down the blade of his new sword and said matter-of-factly, “Actually, I see you as something of my own personal Eve. It’s the smile, I think.” He glanced at her from under his brows, eyes dancing with laugher he asked, “Got an apple?”

“Where would I get an apple at this time of year?”

“Use that wicked imagination of yours, my little rib-bone. I’m sure you’ll think of something more suited to the season, and to me.”

“I doubt it is quite the same if I tempt you by dangling a bowl of pottage before your nose.”

“If it’s nice pottage …”

“I doubt I want to bother, even with an apple.”

“Spoil sport!” Fulk returned to polishing his already blinding sword. “I’m hungry. I was hoping for an early lunch.”

The faint queasiness lingering at the edges of Eleanor’s perception grew to a level where it was harder to ignore. “Please, do not mention lunch.”

“Not even if it’s got cheese?” Fulk exclaimed, “My God! You went all pale the moment I said cheese. My love is sick unto death!”

Eleanor stared flatly at Fulk. “I just decided I do not like you.” A sharp pain stabbed in the pit of her belly; she hunched forward a bit in the hopes that might ease the constant dull ache and discourage any more such pains. “Good timing,” she grumbled. “Normally I am perfectly alright, but now I have to wander off to Scotland I feel positively terrible. The world conspires to be inconvenient at me.”

Fulk chuckled, then advanced to full-blown laughter. “Oh light of my eyes, you do have a way with words, sometimes.”

“I shall remember this when we get on the ship,” said Eleanor sweetly. “You need not look for any sympathy from me when you get seasick. I shall laugh at you. Mercilessly.”

The point of his sword gouged a scar in the floorboards, so suddenly did it drop. “We’re travelling by ship?”

“Well, how else did you think we would get there? Fly?”

Fulk set his sword aside and dropped the cloth onto the floor next to it. “I’d hoped we’d ride, since that’d be the usual way” His shoulders rose and fell in a fluid motion. “The world conspires to be inconvenient at me too – I’m a decent enough sailor after the first two days. It’ll take us about a day and a half, in good weather. As if this trip didn’t stink enough.” Fulk snatched his swords back up and scoured at the blade with a vengeance.

Hawise placed a few more neat stitches on the tunic she was mending. “Stink?” she asked.

“Like the tanner’s quarter,” returned Fulk.

The tanner’s quarter being the most rancid part of any town, Eleanor didn’t agree. “Perhaps like the fishmonger’s street, or a midden heap, but certainly not worse.”

“Maybe to your refined nose they reek badly enough, oh royal one, but I said tanner’s quarters and I meant it.”

“Leave my poor nose alone.” Eleanor copied Fulk’s own habitual gesture along with his saying, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.

Fulk waggled a finger at her. “Being silly isn’t going to distract me.”

“Distract? As if I would even try.”

The fun was spoiled by Hawise repeating, “Stink?”

“Her brother packs her off to Scotland with a guard of eighty men drawn from four different sources, Sir Miles, and Anne, and demands she wins him an alliance with the Scots. It stinks. Trempwick’ll know – he can’t not know, and that guard won’t be anything like enough if he exerts himself to get her back. Ten times that number would not be enough. That’s before you think that of those eighty something like seventy-five of them can’t be trusted because they haven’t proven themselves, unlike those few who helped rescue her. As for the King of Scots himself, God alone knows. If he takes it into his head to detain her, or use her as a hostage, or force her to marry to suit his ends then there’s nothing much to be done to stop him. Hugh could have sent someone else – he could have sent Sir Miles and Anne alone, with their respective guards. It stinks,” declared Fulk again, very passionately. “If I wanted to be rid of my sister and rival without ruining myself overly much then I’d think of something very much like this.”

Quite sure he was finished, Eleanor remarked dryly, “Well, I never did claim Hugh and I were particularly close.”

Fulk exclaimed something which sounded very much like, “Gah!”

Eleanor leaned across the gap and touched the back of his wrist lightly. “You worry too much, crook-nose.”

Fulk twisted his hand to capture hers. “Do I? I know you – I don’t think I can worry enough!”

Hawise, being the faithful maid she was, halted with her needle threaded halfway through the fabric and said, “I agree with him.”

Eleanor tweaked her hand back from Fulk and curled it in her lap with her left hand. “I feel distinctly harassed.”

“Good. Next thing is that you start to see sense.” Fulk disarmed his words by shifting forward on his stool to reach her more easily and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Softly he urged, “Find a way out of this. Refuse to go, if necessary. Say you’re ill – you are. You can get a week, easily, and delayed enough then you won’t be going.”

“I cannot. There is nothing so unusual here. Princesses and queens are ever the diplomats for their families, where other royalty and high nobles are involved. It is time honoured tradition, as is their safety while engaged on such missions. Anne’s father will not harm me; to do so would be to damn himself, and his heirs would never be free of the infamy, like the damage of betraying or hurting a guest but magnified a hundred times.” Eleanor remembered the solar’s windows; through one it was possible they could be seen, if someone came down what amounted to a back ally in the inner bailey. “Sit back; someone could see.”

Fulk braced his boots on the ground and shoved away from her, moving not just himself but his stool back a goodly distance too. He showed no reaction, but she couldn’t help but think he was hurt.

“Hugh would not purposely send me into Trempwick’s arms; it would do him too much damage. Trempwick …” Eleanor’s hand rose to the betrothal ring she wore about her neck. “Trempwick is as Trempwick does. He is my master. But that also makes me his apprentice.”





:Froggy looks up from her book, bleary eyed. She yawns, puts a bookmark in place and drops the book on to the large stack of others. Froggy yawns, blinks sleepily, and yawns again: For those of you wondering why the posting of new parts is suddenly so slow, here’s why.

The problem with being the book expert at work is that one has to be the book expert. Things have now got to the point where people often ask me if we have a book instead of checking the computer – I’ve learned most of our inventory so if asked for a title or author I know if we have it or not, and frequently roughly how many copies we have. I’m also the one who knows what most of the books are. I’m the book frog. Which means I have to try and keep pace with our new and more interesting (i.e. more popular, most likely to sell, something we need to promote, interesting looking, famous, etc books) so I can explain what they are when the inevitable customer or ten asks what X book is about, or for something suitable for Y.

:froggy blinks and reaches for her current book in a zombie like state, and tries to read and type at the same time: Consequentially I am reading all sorts in massive quantities. I’m also reading stuff I wouldn’t usually. Now that can be good, but then some of this stuff I would not read because I know I will not like it. That said, I have found some I enjoyed, like Garth Nix’s Abhorson trilogy.

Thou shalt not speakth to the frog of the customers who now ask about Dan Brown’s ‘Angels and Demons’, making the poor amphibian suspect she has to suffer through that too. Da Vinci Code was bad enough, and that’s considered his best book.

I need to read:
-Shadowmancer (Children’s but supposedly for everyone, like a darker Harry Potter. I’m not expecting great things, but maybe decent)
-River God (I wanted to read this one for some time, so an edition for £1.99 less 20% is great!)
-numbers 3, 6, 7, and 12 from Lemony Snicket’s ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ (One down, and counting, and I fervently hope the later books are better than number 3. I shall skim; that should do me a book per hour and a half)
-Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth (had it for a while, but never actually got around to reading it properly, instead reading excerpts here and there at random. Looks good)
-Tim Severin’s ‘Viking: Odinn’s Child’
-Mary Renault’s Alexander trilogy (looking good; a name I have been hearing for a time and wanting to try)
-There are 3 history books which are different to our usual – they are proper history books, not children’s stuff or error filled light fluff. All by Michael Grant: Eternal Egypt; the Fall of the Roman Empire; the Rise of the Greeks.

And that is just this week! That’s 1,500 – 2,000 pages, excluding the history trio! I’m only glad I already know my Shakespeare well enough not to need to read his complete works, along with Enid Blyton, Philip Pullman, and several others which a frog needs to know about which came in recently. This being ‘Christmas’ time we are getting two deliveries instead of one, and it seems like both more types of books and more interesting books. So that’s more for me to cover.

I can do about 100 pages of fiction per hour with excellent comprehension, maybe 120 if I skim a bit. History is more like 60 pages per hour, sometimes less, and I can’t skim that. I’m managing about 400 pages a day.

I also have shelves full of books I want to read and we don’t stock, which I am trying to make some dent in between work titles.

:froggy whimpers, but keeps on reading at a fast pace, thinking that after her current one Shadowmancer should be the next book, because we have 18 copies of it and just today one customer was asking all kinds of questions about its content, themes, and so on:

Ok, so I don't need to do any of this reading, strictly speaking. But I like it when I go into a bookshop and the people there know their business, and I get enough comments from customers to know it is really appreciated by them too.

The 'Wheel of Time' series is also looming in my future, thanks to the new one just coming out. :gulp: 11 very big, fat books, of which I have heard plenty, much of it about braid tugging women, books in which nothing actually happens, men who endlessly whine about not understanding women, and other such encouraging things. A best selling, highly popular series, which I doubt can be as bad as it is often made out to be, although it may not be great. Anyone here read it?

Humph! And yet will they send us the two newer Discworld books, 'Going Postal' and 'Thud!'? No, they send those to the other branches. Gah! I still haven't read or brought either of them. :mutter: Rather have Discworld than Jordan.



A house to store my books in? :manical laughter echoes through the thread: No, I plan far better - a large house complete with a library wing! :gring: :loveg:

I haven´t been commenting the last update, so here´s for both of them.
Bad: no, rather short, yes, but considering your postscripts, that´s not surprising. I really wished to go to your book store, the ones I usually visit often as not can´t tell their invenory with the help of the PC, let alone from memory. What that says about the knowledge of the book´s content, you can guess. Besides, I can´t complain because you posted two updates n as many days.

As for the length, after reducing the huge spacings between the paragraphs, re-formatting to single- spaced lines and Verdana 10 font style, the story as of now has a lenght of 789 pages.

Yahoo! I'm finally a member and finally I can post a reply for my addicting story! I've already said what I've said at the Entrance Hall but I think I have to shout it here again, make it more worthy. Nice story! Wow! Fantastic. Sorry, I'm raving. But this is a time for me to celebrate! Promoted to memeber and finally able to do a proper reply for this story. YAY! ~:cheers: ~:cheers: ~D

Fulk closed the outer door of Eleanor’s quarter’s behind himself, scrubbing at the ink stains on his right hand gained while putting his name at the end of several copies of documents relating to his now cancelled debt to the royal treasury.

He stopped, struck motionless by the sight of the man he’d left on guard duty inching out of the main room, helm clasped in both hands, his fingers worrying at the metal of the rim.

Fulk didn’t waste breath asking if something were wrong. “What happened?” He was braced to spring into action the moment he knew which way and how, should it prove necessary.

“Sir, she insisted, and beggin’ your pardon and all, but she’s a princess, like. Won’t take no notice, or no for an answer, and off she went, and it’s no place of ours to try and stop her, anyhow. She were well guarded,” he added hastily. The wretched man twiddled his helm about in his hands, trying to wring it like a cap. “She’s got four and her maid with her, leaving me behind to give you word of things, so she ordered. Sir.”

Fulk dropped a hand to his sword. Something sat wrongly here – if she’d just gone somewhere then there’d be none of this fuss. “This bothers you why?”

“She said you were to look for her in the third northern tower of the outer walls, if’n you asked, sir.”

It took a moment for Fulk to realise what that meant; as he did he cursed.

“There be none so unusual about it, sir, if you’ll forgive me for saying such. Many go and watch these things, and it’s justice and all, and you know how it all links to her.”

“I do,” replied Fulk curtly.

“It were only that she seemed so odd and out of sorts about it all, or else there’d be no real upset, like.”

Fulk left the door swinging in his wake.

He had no excuse to run, or even go at a rapid dog-trot, but he walked as briskly as he dared. It was a long enough way, and things were already beginning …

The hilt of his sword felt comforting in his left hand, though why was anyone’s guess. The weapon was as fine as could be, made of the best metals and the best craftsmanship, plain in design but its simple ornamentation giving it a terrible beauty. His own coat of arms had been cut into both sides of the pommel and enamelled. It could sheer the limbs off a man, lop heads, slice from shoulder to navel in one stroke, and do so without losing its edge or taking damage. But it couldn’t harm that which had no solid body.

The inner bailey was quieter than usual, but the outer one was an anomalous mix of busier and quieter. More people, fewer of them working, and the majority of them scattered about trying to get up onto the walls or out of the main gate to see what lay outside the palace itself. Fulk worked his way through, using shoulders and elbows where necessary.

At the foot of the tower in question stood two men in Eleanor’s livery. They tugged their forelocks to him in greeting.
Fulk stopped, itching to be on but knowing appearances were all. “I don’t like all this crowding; it’s ripe for Trempwick to have another attempt at her. In all this confusion …”

“Aye,” agreed one of the two.

“Stay alert. Don’t move without my own order, not even for God himself.”

The other two soldiers were inside, standing guard in the room that accessed the wall ramparts. Fulk repeated his excuses, and was told that Eleanor was in the room above, where no one could get to her without going past one or both sets of guards.

He opened the door to the upper most room carefully, having done his best to make sufficient noise on the last leg of the stairs that they would hear him approach. As soon as he began to catch sight of the occupants through the growing crack he felt obliged to say loudly, “If you kill me you’ll feel guilty. I hope.” Eleanor had both her knives drawn and ready, and Hawise was still fumbling to free hers.

He shoved the door to as the weapons disappeared back from whence they came. Crossing to the window he saw what Eleanor was watching. He caught hold of her, spun her about and buried her face in his shoulder, holding her head there with one hand and pinning her arms down with the other. Just in time – from the hungry sound the crowd made the first of those set to die today had just been set loose to dangle at the end of his rope.

She struggled, trying to free herself. He tightened his grip, knowing he was probably hurting her and not much caring, if it was the only way to prevent her seeing.

“You let her watch this?” he demanded of Hawise.

“Let?”

“Oh, you know what I mean! And your hold on that knife is still terrible. Do you listen to nothing we try and teach you?”

Hawise shrank under the force of his glare, flushed at being found wanting. “I’m sorry. I’ll try and do better.”

“Don’t try: do.” He’d relaxed his hold a bit; Eleanor tried again to prise herself free. Attention devoted to retaining his hold on the princess Fulk snapped, “Oh, go and sit outside.”

The maid gone and Eleanor subdued again there was a brief bit of peace, peace with the sound of people jeering at the man slowly strangling to death, kicking and swinging.

A funny, muffled grumbling noise came from the front of Fulk’s tunic.

Fulk released Eleanor’s head. “Pardon?”

“I said, as much as I like your nose I do not want mine done to match.”

“Sorry.” Wondering how much trouble he’d just gotten himself into, Fulk tried to kiss her, just a chaste brush of lips. She suffered through it without a hint of response, but at least she didn’t try to bite. Feeling cautiously encouraged he asked, “You like my nose?”

“If anything ever happens to it I shall be heartbroken.” She tried to raise a hand; Fulk adjusted the arm he’d flung about her body so she could while he still retained his hold on the rest of her, keeping her facing away from the window. “Really it quite suits you.” She ran a fingertip lightly down from bridge to tip. “I cannot imagine you without it being crooked.” The flash of deep blue annoyance in her eyes gave him all of a fraction of a heartbeat’s warning; she flicked the end of his nose. Tears sprang to his eyes. “I presume you have forgotten my poor back is still decidedly tender?” she asked pointedly. “Which makes you neglectful. Else you do not care, which makes you cruel. Nor do I much care for being half suffocated, manhandled, and all for purposes which remain decidedly mysterious.”

Being wise in the ways of gooseberries Fulk didn’t set her free or loosen his hold enough that she could get away easily, but he did shift the pressure as much away from her back as possible. “Sorry.”

Her breath warmed the thick wool of his tunic as she sighed. “I think I hate you.”

“I hate you too, oh exasperated one.” He kissed her again, between her eyebrows.

A roar from the outside indicated the second man had begun his slow decent into death. The last of the Welsh hostages; the most important two. The only ones to die here. Because they had lived here.

Eleanor started, beginning to try and look. Fulk once again pinned her and smothered her face in his shoulder so she couldn’t. “That,” he said firmly, “is nothing to do with you. Nothing.”

“It is everything to do with me.”

“No!” He placed his hands on her shoulders and held her a little away from him so he could look down at her. “No. Nothing to do with you.”

“That is Llwellyn. His half-brother too.”

“I know, heartling. I know.”

Her head sagged forward so her forehead rested against his breastbone. “Owain is fourteen. Llwellyn not much older than me. He went bravely, you know. Not such a pathetic little man, after all. Mayhap I should not have called him that.”

“It is nothing of yours.”

“There were sixty-four hostages, all told. Hanging is a cruel death. A dishonourable death.”

Sometimes it took hours for a hanged person to die, sometimes even much of a day, depending on a great many things like their build and weight and the angle of the rope. Unless a kind executioner broke their neck, or friends dragged on their legs to speed things to mere minutes. As nobles they should have been safe from such an end, beheaded instead. That was a clean death, far faster, and without the indignity of choking out what remained of your life as your bowels failed and your face went purple, your body twitching and dancing uncontrollably. These two would have no such mercy, save perhaps in deference to their rank if they still lived in a half-hour.

Fulk clasped her to him again, now gentle. “Since the Welsh broke their bargain there’s no other way this could have fallen, save ways which make your brother weaker than he already is.” He rested his chin on the top of her head, his thumb stroking her jaw where it came to join her ear. “It is none of your fault.”

“I was supposed to marry Llwellyn …”

“And I’m right glad you didn’t. I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead,” the slowly dying, he corrected privately, “but there it is, and I can’t regret it.”

“If I had this would not have happened. Any of it.”

“No, you’d probably have died with your first child at fifteen or such, and that I can’t regret either. To speak ill of the dead,” the horribly dying, “again, I don’t think he was like to be one to care much for you.”

“No,” she agreed softly. “He would not have. We were not suited.” She tried to raise her head; he laid his hand over her cheek, preventing it. “I have something of a duty to watch,” she explained. “Trempwick urged them to rebellion, because of me. He can use me like that because I made it possible.”

Duty; so that was what she called it. Not what he’d have chosen, preferring instead ‘self flagellation’ and similar. “Oh gooseberry mine, I know being royal has its foibles, and that a certain sense of ego is one of them, but really you do try too hard sometimes. Trempwick is far more to blame, as is your father. The Welsh themselves decided to rebel. There are many who made this mess; it is none of your doing. As for whatever might have been, it could have been worse. There’s no ruling that means all ‘could have been’s must be better than the is.”

“There is some truth in what you say – I know that, and always have – but there is truth too in what I say. I made this possible. I did not do so alone, but I did do so.” She seemed to accept the fact he wasn’t going to let her watch, for she settled her head more comfortably and looped her free arm about his middle, working her hand into his belt. “Well, we do what we choose to do, and we none of us can see the future. All that can be done is to live with it. I dare say many people have managed to contrive far greater disasters than this. Just look at Helen of Troy.”

Fulk gave her a possessive squeeze. “You’re certainly no Helen.”

“Oh? I thought you mad enough – or blind enough - to believe me beautiful.” She sounded amused in that faintly tolerant yet disapproving way usually reserved for benignly insane relatives.

“I do,” he assured her. “But did no one ever tell you fishing for compliments is beneath your royal dignity? You understood very well what I meant.”

“It is also beneath my royal dignity to stand here like this with anyone possessing a nose like yours,” she said tartly.

“You leave my poor nose alone, oh disreputably royal one.”

She tensed, listening to the noise drifting in through the window. “They are still alive?”

Because she asked it, he looked. “Yes.”

“No one is helping them?”

“No.”

“A common thief dies better. God forgive me.”

Fulk rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. “There is nothing for Him to forgive.”

“Talking of that which you do not know or understand is a bad habit of yours.” But for all that she snuggled in closer against him. “Let me know when it is over.”





The blow did more than snap Eleanor’s head around; it threw half her body to one side and sent her reeling to keep her feet.

Before Fulk could do more than twitch Hawise’s hand closed on his bicep. “She won’t be happy if you die,” she hissed.

Fulk clenched his teeth and locked his leg muscles, willing himself to stay in place and unmoving, if not for his own sake then for hers. He wrenched his face downwards to hide the naked hate he knew must be there, clear and loud for all to see and understand as they willed. His eyes never left the scene.

At the far end of the hall Eleanor slowly straightened, wiping blood from her mouth. Hugh was on her before she had truly recovered, twisting her arm up behind her back. He headed towards the stairs up to the private rooms, her obliged to walk before him unless she cared to have her arm broken.

After they left the unnatural hush lasted a few moments. Then someone said, “Well, for once I find myself reminded of the old king, looking at him.”

A spurt of nervous laughter proved short-lived.

Some woman’s voice commented, “Makes me wonder why Raoul goes to such trouble to get her back.”

“But she had a point,” declared a man’s voice, high and passionate and youthful. “She did! It was a disgrace – Welsh or no, hostages or no, they were noble.”

“Hostages,” came another voice, “to a broken agreement, meeting the end laid out for them by that agreement. No other could have been done.”

Profoundly disinterested, Fulk stopped listening. Both siblings had their merits with their arguments; it could be said both were right. Llwellyn and his brother had deserved better ends, if only to prevent setting a precedent for hanging nobles. To do other than what had been done would have been mercy, and in these circumstances that was a form of weakness that would store up trouble for the future.

It had started quietly enough, the two siblings speaking softly enough that the whole hall couldn’t hear, though any could see both were emotional. It had gotten louder quickly, Hugh losing his vaunted calm and Eleanor – even from the distance of half the hall – recognisably about to lose control of her temper completely. Then Hugh had accused her of having no idea of a noble’s manners, let alone anything else linked to that high station, and Eleanor had thrown back that from what she saw of him he might as well be a swineherd’s bastard. At which point he’d slapped her. The breach in good manners was shocking, far more so because it came from someone normally so fastidious. Fulk tried not to think of what a Hugh so furious that he forgot one of the most basic rules of conduct was capable of; Eleanor was penned up with that and no help available.

She returned a quarter of an hour – a lifetime! – later, chin raised and every ounce of royal hauteur called forth for display. She also wobbled and walked in a swaying line. Wits were scrambled, someone commented covertly.

The very instant it seemed permissible for him to go to her, Fulk did so, Hawise keeping him close company. He put out a hand to steady her; she slapped it away and snapped, “I did not give you leave to handle me at will, bodyguard.”

He snatched his hand back, burned, smarting even though he knew that had been for the benefit of their audience.

Once outside the hall the fresh air did her some benefit; she began to walk a little straighter., shaking her head to clear it.

“Damn my brother,” Eleanor swore. “Damn him and his self-absorbed arrogance.”







:sighs: Poor Nell.

:surveys the ‘Wheel of Time’ series, where it sits on her shelves. 10 paperback books, taking up 44.7cm of space.: I’ve only got 1-10, and New Spring as part of the Legends I anthology, instead of as the standalone book. I’ve heard the stand alone book is too bloated to be good, compared to the short story with the same name. I won’t bother with buying book 11 until it too comes out in paperback. I may borrow it from my library, as they almost certainly will get it soonish. 44.7cm of books! Gah! I started to work out the page count, but I lost my place around 8,000 pages and couldn’t be bothered to start again.

It’s going to take me a month to read this lot if I read nothing else and keep a good pace! :wails: At least I got them cheap.

Ciaran; same with the other bookshop in my city. I've been told books don't exist when they definitely do, that they are not in print when they certainly are, that the author does not exist when s/he has written quite a few books, that they are not available in this country (and two weeks later I find Uk editions of them on the shelves ...), and I once had an order for a book take over 1 year to be fulfilled. Literally. If I want a book they usually don't have it, can't or won't get it, and generally prove useless. This is why I love Amazon.uk so much - they almost always have everything I want, cheaper too, and they only fail me on the incredibly obscure, out of print, years old type books I occasionally look for.

Then welcome, littlelostboy. ~:wave: Congratulations on your promotion, and hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

“Which way?”

Eleanor lifted her face free of Fulk’s cloak long enough to answer, “West, for now, and quickly. We must find cover before dawn, and put as much distance between ourselves and the palace as possible.”

She tightened her hold about his waist as he swung their horse about to the new course and applied his spurs, and pressed her cheek into his back against the wind of their passage. The thick folds of his cloak cushioned the links of his mail and billowed out around her wherever he hadn’t got them firmly weighted in about himself.

Fulk took one hand from the reins and placed it over her own, pressing them into his belt buckle and dragging some of his cloak over to cover them. “Try not to fall off,” he advised, his cheerfulness strained.

Eleanor spat out a mouthful of wool from her first effort to reply, and turned her head safely to one side. “I would have thought you knew that funny old fairy story: if you keep hold of him all night no matter what, you can keep him. So I shall! Just do not turn into a snake or something, or we will both fall off.”







The fairy story being Tam Lim, or one of its very many variations and predecessors.

That is hardly even a scene, let alone an update of froggy proportions, but proper frog-sized updates have not been possible for a while and every little helps. Saving up for a new update is not quite the same as saving for a new bookcase; writing does not arrive in predictable batches. Besides, we’ve hit one of those parts which I have been looking forward to for a while, hearing and seeing snatches of scenes and dialogue for months.

Froggy, your writing is getting SO polished. Each way you write is done with panache and style:

"“Sir, she insisted, and beggin’ your pardon and all, but she’s a princess, like. Won’t take no notice, or no for an answer, and off she went, and it’s no place of ours to try and stop her, anyhow. She were well guarded,” he added hastily. The wretched man twiddled his helm about in his hands, trying to wring it like a cap. “She’s got four and her maid with her, leaving me behind to give you word of things, so she ordered. Sir.”

Fulk dropped a hand to his sword. Something sat wrongly here – if she’d just gone somewhere then there’d be none of this fuss. “This bothers you why?”
"
Great paragraphs, both, and the way they play off each other, with the curt ending, "This bothers you why?" . . . very satisfying! And, "Something sat wrongly here." A NICE turn of phrase that brings the focus even more back to Fulk, while advancing the tension.

Frogbeastegg, just a week ago, I was watching one of Jackie Chan's recently released movies, "The Myth". It is a long and complex movie to explain in writing but quite simple when you watch it. I'm not sure if it released in the UK or US yet but the basic storyline is that of a Mongolian general (Jackie) falling in love with a Korean Princess (Kim Hee Seon, apparently not like your Gooseberry). However, Jackie is torn between loyalty to the Chinese Emperor as the princess is the Emperor's concubine and his love for the Princess all the while he is the 'bodyguard' for the Princess. However, unlike Fulk, Jackie is damn high-ranking commanding a vast calvary army himself.
Sounds somewhat like your story! Quite emotional too. If you watch the movie, you should listen to the soundtrack! It is called "Endless Love" and it is sung in a mixture of Korean and Mandarin. Jackie and Hee Seon sang the whole song.
Hehehehehe, conincidence, yes? No? ~D

Ludens stuck up a link in a main hall where we talked about a royal family being an agent. I gotta say it's a pretty good read regardless my obsession of assassins particulary a female. Anyhow, it kept me reading and reading.

(Sorry, I'm not much a constructive critic. As long as I like it and understand they word you're saying it then it's all good.)



#52 (Just so that I know where I left off.)

Lady Frog:

Just a note to say how much I am still enjoying this tale of yours. I actually caught myself up tonight, considered posting this note, went onto other things, came back, read it again, and decided to post it after all.

Your pacing improves with each page. And I enjoy your personal introspection at the end of each segment almost as much as the story itself.

If I were to offer a criticism [here The Shadow One steps back a pace and prepares to duck quickly] it might be a lack of description of the surroundings. There is plenty of dialogue and no shortage of action, but the pages I've read tonight -- which account for the last couple of weeks of postings -- are devoid of any kind of description.

Hmm . . . just a thought . . . and it didn't stop me from reading . . .

I've finally finished reading the whole thing after a intense reading session that lasted a month. ~:eek:

Fulk handled a costrel to Eleanor. “Here, drink a bit of that. It’ll warm you.” He went to see to their horse, an unimpressive looking beast carefully selected for that fact, that and its stamina and speed.

He looked as he had when they first met, aside from his longer hair. Eleanor smiled faintly, remembering she had told him he looked like a knight from the battle of Hastings. He still did, in his plain clothes and old short-sleeved mail hauberk, occasionally casting her a speculative glance when he thought she wouldn’t notice. The air was ripe with unspoken questions.

She unstoppered the flask and took a cautious sip of the contents. Coughing, Eleanor waited for the liquid to finish burning its way down her gullet. Mead, and neat at that rather than the slightly diluted version she was used to. It tasted wrong without the bit of apple juice.

“Sip,” advised Fulk, his back to her, “It’s strong stuff, but warming.”

True, the burning had come to rest in her stomach, making her feel a little less chilled in general. Hoarsely she replied, “I did sip.”

He laughed under his breath, she was sure of it. “It takes a bit of getting used to.”

Eleanor jammed the cork back into the neck of the costrel and dumped it on the ground, drawing her cloak tightly about herself. It was a cold night; the sky was clear and the stars out. The rotten log she perched on kept her a foot or so above the ground, but she could still feel the chill seeping from the frosted soil. The winter-nude trees in which they sheltered – from eyes; the bare branches were sadly little aid against the elements – glowed silver with frost and moisture slowly hardening wherever the night’s light fell. The whole landscape did, lending it a faint feeling of unreality.

Safely away from the palace, a good number of miles put between them and pursuit, and at last stopped. Time for a final few details. Eleanor removed the simple gold ring from her right heart finger, twisting and pulling at the band until at last it came clear. She settled it on her left heart finger, finally able to wear her wedding ring.

Looking up she found Fulk had left the horse; he stood watching, the hem of his long cloak swaying. He had not asked a single question yet, or delayed, only done as she said with efficiency. Roused from his bed perhaps an hour after he got into it, told to dress warmly and to put on his old armour and sword, and to make ready to leave. He hadn’t even heard any of the orders she had given elsewhere. He knew only what she had told him as they travelled, and that little enough, due to the difficulty of conversing while moving at speed and in as much stealth as could be managed. He knew they went to Southampton, and there to Perth, to rejoin Anne’s party.

“Go to sleep,” she told him. “We will move again in a few hours, a little after dawn. I will keep watch.”

“I’m willing to hazard that you’re a fair bit more tired than I. You sleep now; I’ll watch.”

The mere thought of sleep made Eleanor’s eyes go heavy; the frantic planning between being ordered to Scotland and the present had not allowed any time wasted in slumber. As tempting as the idea of curling up and letting it all go was, she knew better. “My part in this is all but done for now; all is now yours to do. You need the rest more than I.” He was inclined to be stubborn, she could tell, and while he might not be a master of the attitude he was talented enough to be bothersome. “Dearest, listen,” she said, softly, “there is nothing left for me to do but trust you. You, however, must get us safely to meet Anne in a timely manner, with no one any the wiser as to who we are.”

“Tired princesses are tetchy.”

“So are tired knights, and, myself being a gently born lady, I think it most unfair that I be the one to suffer the irritable companion.”

“Oh, now she wants to be cherished and cosseted!” Fulk grimaced, caught up the mead and consumed a manful swallow of it without showing the least inclination to cough and splutter.

“Yes. Having left a place where I could have a hot bath not even an hour after my request, simply to be here with you, I think it only fair I get some compensation in other regards.”

Fulk’s eyebrows rose. “Compensation?” He dropped the leather flask onto the pile of saddlebags. “You get to tell all and sundry for a few days that you’re my wife, and neither of us will die because of it. That’s more than enough. You’ll be the envy of every woman we meet.”

“Yes, who could resist such a modest man?” said Eleanor dryly. “Now stop trying to be witty and go to sleep like a good broken-nosed knight, before I get fed up.”

“If you’re half asleep you won’t be able to think rightly, and I rely on you to do all my thinking for me.”

“I can doze while we ride, if I sit before you instead of behind. You will not deprive me of the simple pleasure of using you as a royal pillow, thank you very much.”

Fulk snorted in amusement. “Royal pillow. Alright, never say I’m not a graciously obedient knight. I’ll do as you say, unchivalrous as it may be. Sensible, though, I’ll give you that.”

“That is why it is unchivalrous.”

Fulk unbelted his sword and placed it on the ground close to hand, rolled himself in his cloak as tightly as possible, and lay with the saddle for a pillow, still in his armour. His conical helmet, freshly blackened with paint so as to keep it from reflecting light, Eleanor picked up from the piles of bags. She set it down next to his sword, the simple iron bar which guarded the nose carefully aligned so his hand could close on it on first or second blind grab in case of sudden need.

Fulk’s eyes opened again as she dragged over her impromptu throne, to sit by him. “An angel to guard my head,” he joked, quoting a children’s rhyme.

Eleanor smiled angelically down at him. “Shut up and go to sleep, luflych,” she ordered in her best imitation of lower-nobility English. That was the final aspect of her disguise, well practised over the years but unused in some months. If she spoke continuously like that now she would fall back into the knack of it faster, hopefully before she had any need to sound as though she had been born talking that way.

Fulk’s eyes went perplexed at being called ‘luflych’, then sealed shut in a way which said he was not going to enquire as he had enough to worry about without the quirks of gooseberries.

Eleanor stayed by him, lightly stroking his hair back from his face until he was asleep. “Rest well, luflych,” she whispered, testing the word out again to see if it still felt as it had on the first use, where there had been no thought behind the selection. It did, more or less. It felt right. On examination it was about as uninspiring as ‘gooseberry’; simply the base English word for ‘lovely’, generally unused except by the lower orders. But … it suited him somehow. The meaning, the slightly rougher sound compared to the more common word, even the language it was in – a language of scholarship, learning, poetry and nobility fallen from high grace and such gentle usage to something entirely more workaday. The way it was not of any court or polished gathering of false and flowery language, imbued with a blunt honesty. She tested it again, “Luflych …” It did suit.

Eleanor moved a few steps away and knelt stiffly on the ground, cold-numbed joints unwilling to cooperate with their usual grace. Hands clasped in front of her, she began to pay off a little of the debt she owed. One set of prayers each for those pairs of people, one man and one woman each, sent out of the palace tonight at varying times and by varying methods. Trempwick would surely catch some, if not all. Not a one of them knew why they did as they had been told, or of the danger they faced. The more said the greater the chance of information reaching the wrong ears, by one means or another. Let them be safe, remain safe, and end safely, her safety not brought at the cost of their lives, or if blood must be shed, then let it not be in vain.

Another set for the young woman with her hair dyed black and her face half hidden by a massive swollen bruise. May no one look closely at her. May she keep the pretence faithfully and well, so none knew that the princess going in state to Scotland was not a princess at all. She would be seen little enough, having now excuse to hide away until that bruising faded. May she survive whatever inevitable attempts Trempwick made on her, more than survive – escape unscathed. May she not think her bargain so badly made, if that were possible. It was one thing to hear and to accept, another to live through and still accept, though to her very great credit the girl Miles had found had not flinched from the unappealing request put to her. For which Eleanor was glad: the girl would have been incarcerated for a couple of weeks, and another brought into the secret in the hopes she might prove more useful, to meet the same fate if she did not.

May Anne, Miles, and the rest of the official party arrive safely and travel safely. Trempwick could not help but know she was with them, and nothing could guarantee her safety in that party. Nothing but her absence. That absence only protected her so long as Trempwick looked in the wrong direction; by the time he found his mistake it must be too late for him to counter her own move. Else he would hunt for her when he may find her. Her protection was their great danger; her danger their short-term protection. May they be safe.

Llwellyn and Owain: may they forgive her for using their deaths so. May they forgive her also for throwing her weight behind Hugh’s insistence on hanging them, changing the minds of Constance and Miles, who had argued for clemency and beheading.

Anne … Eleanor hesitated. No, if Anne were to forgive her for excluding her entirely from her plans then let it be of her own accord, not divine prompting. Only let her be safe. She was not what Trempwick wished for, but he would not turn his nose up at having Anne as a prize if it should be easily obtainable. The girl would be very … useful.

May the four gate guards who had in the depths of the night let Fulk and herself out of the two rings of Waltham’s walls be in peace. Loyal men, trusted by Hugh and by Miles, and placed in danger’s way because of this trust. May they escape notice and thus questioning from unfriendly sources. If … if they should be caught or pressured … oh God, let them stay silent! Let any falling into Trempwick’s way stay silent! Lest one weak point unravel the whole, and doom all of those involved.

May the crew of the tiny ship in Southampton be as loyal as Miles believed. May they be safe, and their families, and those they cared for. May their needs and wants be met. May there be no space or thought for them to betray. May they be safe from unwitting betrayal, or from attracting Trempwick’s notice, either from his person or from his many agents.

May Hugh keep in good health, and may he do well in his efforts to gain his throne while she were away. May he begin now to do as well as he was needed to, and better even than that. Gingerly Eleanor explored her cut lip with the tip of her tongue, trying to gauge how badly it must look. Probably not so bad, and with the blotch of face paint that had made up her injured cheek removed she should pass well enough as normal. Give the man the simplest of jobs, explain to him several times what he must do, and take the hardest part yourself, and he still managed to make a mess of it. If she had not been reeling away already to make it look worse than it was … And as for his complaining about how that necessary evil had made him look! May he develop some modesty, and not always think first of himself. May he cease to be so stuffy, as that was the source of a deal of his problems and shortcomings. May he stop playing at being king and be king.

May Trempwick … No, no point in praying for him to miss her absence completely, or some other such. Better to ask for something less than a miracle. May Trempwick discover her disappearance too late to be able to counter well. May his efforts to hunt her down remain one step behind as per her plans. Please God, may she have that one day lead before he found that the girl posing as princess was not her and began searching. More than one day’s lead, if possible. May he hunt in the wrong direction, may he fall for at least a few of her false trails and tricks, may he finally locate her when it was once again too late for him to reach her.

May she be forgiven also for wishing Trempwick catch her innocent decoys instead of Fulk and herself.

Eleanor turned, smiling, to look on the slumbering form of the owner of the final name on her list. Keep him safe. Above all, whatever else, she prayed, keep him safe.

Lastly, reluctantly, spurred on by the way Fulk smiled as she touched the back of her hand to his cheek, Eleanor asked for protection for herself, something she had long ago ceased to do. For his sake, that he may not suffer more because of her.




:froggy claws her way out her current pile of books, eyes half closed, massaging her strained wrists: Oooh, Diana Gabaldon’s Fiery Cross did murder to me. 1412 pages of mass market paperback, read over 3 days. So heavy … Humph; not as good as the beginning of the series either; Outlander/Cross Stitch (depending on your country) was good, but each progressive book interests me less. It seems like far less is happening although the books are getting even longer, and while I don’t mind rambling plots, slow story telling, scenic tours and all that (hehe, I write some of that stuff myself, as you may have noticed a bit :p) I do like it to be interesting. Not nearly 100 pages of Jaime treading on a snake, being bitten, and then being ill. Or similar. And Brianna can take Roger and little Jemmie and jump off a cliff and die, now, or preferably sooner. Blergh. Bring back the intrigues of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s court and inter-clan squabbles, the excitement of the Jacobean uprising, the focus on the more interesting original characters, the …

Er, ok, enough. It was an alright book, but I hope the next (and presently last, until the next is published) book in the series is heading back to how the first two were. And take the setting back to Scotland! I read the first two a while ago, halted part way through the third book, then didn’t pick it back up again until now, when I started at the beginning again, to refresh my memory and because I liked the first two books. My brand new copy of the sixth book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, is sat on a shelf looking heavy at me.

Presently on this week’s reading list:
Umberto Eco’s ‘Name of the Rose’ Not one we sell; I just want to read something of my own for a change. Er, make that own as in one not linked at all in any way to work. After all I have been reading some I already owned, or wanted to read, and there are some I had read before, and a few I had started to read but not finished. I started it a few months ago, but got interrupted by a need to read a few books for work. That in turn started off this reading frenzy.

Diana Wynne Jones ‘The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land’ It’s funny. It’s also alarming how many of the entries are true thanks to the billions of bad to average fantasy books out there. Come on people, write wilful princesses without freckles, slightly tiptilted noses and penchants for cross dressing! It’s easier than you think. :looks sideways at Nell: Or better yet, try a tame princess with freckles and a slightly tiptilted nose. Defy the stereotypes! Mix things up! Make your pirates say “Yurgle! Blackberry pie!” instead of “Aaarr! Shiver me timbers!” And so on. :looks about at all the people staring at her: Um, I need to write a bit of comedy, stupid, silly frog comedy. It shows.

C S Lewis’ Narnia series. This being a re-read; I used to read them a lot as a young frog, but it’s been a while, and the Narnia box set is one of our best sellers at present. The really good thing about Narnia is that I can read one book every 2 hours at a relaxed pace, and they are easy, relaxing books. Perfect material for frogs suffering from reading massive Gabaldon tomes one after another for a week or so. Not a one of them is thinner than 800 pages.

The Wheel of Time. It’s still sat there, being Big and Long, with A Lot Of Pages. I picked up book 1, read about 4 pages, and realised I really was not in the mood for something like that. So I put it back. No point in reading it when I am not in the mood; I will only hate it. I’ll try again in a week or two.

A breath of snow and ashes. It’s the last one in the series until the seventh is written; it’s also the new one, and the second half of the one I just finished, as the plot for one book ended up sprawling enough to be cut into two books. I need to read it soon. And excuse me if I mutter quietly that really with some editing it very probably could have been just one book, not two. I mean, I do like detail, and all that, but there is a point where even my eyes begin to glaze over … Although she is a very popular, multimillion selling author. So maybe it is just me. Or not; I do see quite a few other people who say they liked the first two, found the third ok, and disliked the last two (this before ABOSAA came out).

Er, enough again. It’s just I don’t really have anyone to talk about books with, as such.




:looks at furball's reply: Er, am I going mad, or did there used to be more to that? :hits her email, where she has kept a few of the 'new post' messages, complete with the copies of the contents of said posts: Yes, there was. I take it you changed your mind about that part on pacing for some reason? This topic isn't a fan club; if you think something is bad, please do say so. As I've said before, I do consider all comments, even if I do not always change because of them.

Thanks for highlighting the good lines. It is a simple thing to do, and it really helps me.

And did you actually mean you didn't like 'Pillars of the Earth'? If so, I'd like to hear why. Every single opinion I've seen on that book is nothing but positive, which makes a frog squint sceptically. As ever I'll make up my own mind, but I really like encountering other's opinions on books I have read myself. Highly educational for a writer, that.

As for Pratchett, I used to like him. I have not brought or read 'Thud!', and only just picked up 'Going Postal' in paperback. I got it free, which is the only reason I bothered. No idea when I will read it. I used to really like him, but none of the books since 'Carpe Jugulum' have really felt ... hmm, I can see how they would be good, and liked bits of them, but overall I was bored while reading, felt no urge to re-read as I used to, and can hardly remember what happened in them. Except the two children's Discworld books about the witches. But again, I can't even remember the name of the main character. That's bad - I always remember all sorts of details about all the books I read for years afterwards, even if I hated them. I can't seen to re-read any of his older works either, which I used to do fairly often.

littlelostboy: Congratulations on catching up.

No, I haven't seen that film. Or even heard of it, until you posted. I might see if I can watch it, if/when it is out on DVD. I shall investigate the soundtrack; I could use more music suitable for writing to.

The 'princess falling for lowly protector/lowly protector falling for princess/both falling for each other' thing is a very common device. Which is why I wanted Nell and Fulk to be no more than friends. :scowls: That intend did not even last for the first 5 pages of the very rough draft, thanks to them Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands(TM). Hehe, I am a tough enough frog to admit that they were right in doing that; the story, and the characters, benefited greatly from it. Even I do, as it forces me to practice writing things I would shy away from by choice.

Welcome, Weebeast ~:) Comments don't need to be 200 pages long and in fine detail to be useful. Even simple "I like it." type comments are useful, or "This line was funny." or "I liked this particular scene because it was really touching/cool/funny/reminded me of my breakfast." and so on.

Ludens is giving out links? Hehe, act of faith, methinks, as he's not up to date with the story, so for all he knows it could be rubbish by now. I'm flattered ~:)

:looks at The Shadow One in a wide-eyed, innocent and cutely harmless way: As if I would hurt you for being useful. :smiles nicely, and somehow it looks disconcerting:

The comment on pacing, taken with furball's original, is food for froggy thought. Or maybe not - I know it has a way to go, because it's being posted episodically by a writer who is learning as she goes. That said, I must say I feel I am doing better than some of the published and very well selling/loved work I am reading now, such as the latter volumes of Gabaldon's series, or Tad William's 'Memory, Sorrow, Thorn' trilogy (in four books, because the last is so long ...). Then there's the famous 'Wheel of Time', which I haven't read but even die hard fans admit that there are 1,000 books where nothing really happens.

So, er, in summery: froggy pacing = decent, but could be better, could be worse too. Something I wouldn't mind hearing more about, like where it lags, where it doesn't, where it is really great, where it is at it's worst, and so on. I'd also like the moon on a stick and a pet unicorn to ride to work every morning to save me walking.

Descriptive matter, or the lack thereof, is one of the few recurring 'Need more!' comments I get. It seems to be a natural amphibian weakness. Just keep on prodding me when more is needed, and I shall try to add it where I think it useful. I'm not going to put it where I don't think it should be, but still, I do wonder if anyone is interested in reading, for example, a more detailed description of Fulk in his old armour in that last part, or of Eleanor's new rooms and what is in them, or of [insert just about anything here]. It keep on thinking that if I describe one more time what Nell is wearing, or similar, I shall have people wailing in horror. Each time I begin to write such a thing I remember all the other times I have. Which is why the longer description of Fulk's current look ended in the bin, and Nell didn't get one at all. Well, that and the fact it didn’t quite feel right there.

Lady Frog:

Another great post. It gave me something interesting to read over a very late lunch today.

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose? This is just eerie. I bought the book my freshman year of college; I found one at a second-hand bookstore in MINT condition, an original Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich hardcover first edition. It even has the stylized copper inlays on the cover.

I read it at the time, thought it was pretty good and shelved it away. During my recent move, I came across it and tossed aside to read again.

From a Catholic perspective, Eco's book is a masterpiece blend of history, intellectualism, and great storytelling. I'm on about the last 50 pages, hope to finish it tonight, and I've enjoyed it much more the second time, particularly since I've lingered over the passages describing the history tensions between the Franciscans and the other Orders in the Church. Odd to think that one concept -- embraced poverty -- could have had raised such fierce emotions in a Church committed to the betterment of the world.

I won't say any more in the event you haven't read it, but I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts on the work once you've finished it.

Descriptions: Well, the Shadow has to admit a moment of embarrassment as I reread my point about the lack of description. It occurs to me that someone -- perhaps someone not as innocent or THICK as I -- might read that note as requesting an enhanced description of a particular [cough, cough] SCENE. THAT IS NOT THE CASE. I appreciate you not reading that into it.

Moving on, descriptions are tough -- it takes talent and a lot of practice to blend a scene with dialog and description in a way that doesn't make the scene feel heavy or slow the action. Some authors rely heavily on descriptions, (Eco to name a recent read) and can make the story sail despite all the extra text; others, like Hemingway, avoid descriptions almost altogether.

I agree that in the midst of a good story, I sometimes get so involved with getting the story on the page that I forget to describe the scenes I see in my head. I just assume everyone else will see the same thing I do.

I look forward to the next installment.

Oh, an update, nice. I´ll have to go and sacrifice a crump of cheese in the frog goddess shrine ~;)
If you´re wondering why I´m currently reluctant with reviewing the newest installments, I´m re-reading the story from the start and didn´t even glance at the newest installments. I´d like to read them in the whole context, not as seperated bits. But I´m catching up, so a review might come some time in the future.

“Alright.” Jocelyn blew out a puff of air and wiped the palms of his hands on the skirt of his tunic. “Alright. Just act normal. Alright, no problem. Why should it be a problem, anyway, damn it?” A quick check that his clothes were all nicely arranged and didn’t make him look like a twat, one final deep breath and muttered “Alright,” and he opened the door.

The best way to give bad news was to send a letter from … oh, ten miles away aught to do it. Shame life didn’t cooperate.

He greeted the gaggle of women working in the solar with a pleasant smile, working hard at being charming, chivalrous, handsome in a suitably manly way, and just really nice. “Morning, ladies.”

There was a dutiful chorus of polite replies. The ladies in question, all five of them, were working industriously away at a new hanging to grace the wall of the main hall behind the dais, replacing Yves ugly choice of a serpent-monster eating a man whole. Richildis was seated at the head of the group on a backless chair, three of the others gathered about her on stools, sewing away at minor panels and borders while she worked the main scene. The final maid was the youngest, set to work cutting sections of plain linen to supply more panels to surround the central image.

Nice. Be nice. Jocelyn came to look at his wife’s work, a little curious as to what was going to be decorating his new castle. It was also a nice thing to do. Which was nice. He made some suitably appreciate noises. The image was nothing interesting; it would do, but not worth much notice. Some man and some woman sat together in a garden, with a few birds and a hound curled up at their feet. Plants too, or there would be once the stitches were in place over the faint guidelines inked onto the fabric.

Enough of that time wasting stuff; get on with it. And be nice! “Might I request the fine company of my wife this fine morning?” Oh yes, right smooth that sounded – dandified and repetitive! Far better when he’d just blasted in through the door and cheerfully told everyone not called Richildis to clear off.

Someone giggled. Some actually giggled. Jocelyn glared about until he located the culprit; the rabbit-faced girl cutting cloth.

Before he could chuck the female out the window – oh very well, door. It was a bloody long drop and she looked too heavy to heft comfortably – Richildis started to get rid of her associates.

“This,” she said to him as soon as they were alone, “has best be pleasant, such as, for example, your telling me that we just inherited a large sum of money from the death of a relative we didn’t like. Anything else and you can go away. I’ve had enough for one day, thank you.”

“It’s not even noon yet, Tildis. Surely it can’t be that bad.”

“It can. The barrels of salt herring we needed arrived and most of the casks were spoiled, so now they must be returned and a new batch found. Mahaut tried to tie ribbons in the cat’s fur, and got scratched; the howling, from her and the cat! And then-”

Jocelyn stopped listening. It was all dreary tedium, nothing important. Except maybe that cat. Would killing the creature be excessive?

Another noise caught his attention, this one thinner and distant. Smiling and nodding as if he were listening, Jocelyn crossed to the window. Once the shutter was opened the noise grew stronger. Jean, wailing for all he was worth. The baby was cutting a new tooth and wanted the whole world to know it. As he put the panel of oiled parchment back into place Jocelyn congratulated himself on insisting that the nursery be set up in one of the outbuildings instead of somewhere in the keep. It might even have been a good idea to insist on somewhere in the outer bailey. The parchment might keep out the worst of the weather and let in a good dose of light, but by heaven it let in the worst of the noise too, and as much as he loved his children the racket they generated would try a saint’s patience.

The break in her yattering was enough to recall Jocelyn’s attention in time to hear Richildis say dryly, “And then there’s that. Poor love.”

Jocelyn scratched at his beard thoughtfully; it was getting a bit shaggy, and in need of its twice-weekly trim. “Got a good pair of lungs on him.” Mahaut had made less noise, and she was a girl, damn it.

As if that were her sign Richildis snatched up the small pair of scissors she’d been using to cut thread for her sewing. “Sit down and I’ll sort it out.”

Muttering under his breath, Jocelyn lumbered over to the stool. “Tildis …” he began, as she clipped away. He framed his words carefully, trying not to move his jaw so she wouldn’t cut his lips off.

“Yes?”

“You don’t think that perhaps … maybe Jean’s a bit soft, do you?”

The snipping stopped. His vision was filled by the distressingly pointy ends of the scissors, and his wife’s hand wrapped about the handle in a hold which was well suited to driving them through his heart. “No. Why?”

He ran a finger about the neck of his clothes, an ill-advised move which sent a load of cut hair down next to his skin. “It’s just he wails so much, and at the slightest thing.”

“He’s a baby. It’s what they do.”

“Well, yes, true, and then again not really. The others were quieter. And I’m sure Thierry was bigger by this age.”

The little shears began to clip away at his other cheek. “They’re brothers, not twins. Of course they’re different. There’s nothing wrong with Jean; he’ll be suitably fierce or whatever when he’s older, and then you’ll be complaining to me that he’s too much trouble.”

In the face of her certainty Jocelyn gave up. Waste of time trying; what would a woman know about babies anyway? He sat quietly as she finished amusing herself by butchering his beard; might sweeten her mood a bit, and by Saint Anthony and a sausage he needed all the help he could get before he told her his news.

Richildis stood back to admire her handiwork. “There. Done. As good as I can make it, without removing the whole lot.”

“Don’t even think about it,” warned Jocelyn, eying her sternly. Given half the chance she’d do it, the bitch. He examined his reflection in the bronze mirror she held up, stroking his beard here and there to make sure of the effect. Once again he’d come through the experience with a neat bit of hair that hugged close to his jaw, a shade longer than stubble. Good.

His eyes lingered on her rear as she took the mirror back into their bedchamber. News could wait, and actually the longer he left it the better she might take it. Really. And anyway, there were better things to do than talk about things neither of them would really like, and probably argue. Jocelyn clasped his hands in a very quick prayer – not that he needed divine intervention, damn it! And with her anyone needed all the aid they could get, anyway – stood up, and purloined her as she came back through the doorway. It was a mixed success. She didn’t stiffen the instant his arms went about her; she waited until he began to kiss her instead. Familiarity took over; he increased the pressure on her lips until his own mouth felt bruised, holding the back of her head with one hand so she couldn’t twist away, trying to wring some reaction or another out of her as she stood there like a bloody lump of rock.

About two heartbeats later he remembered, and let her go. “Sorry. Habit dies hard.” A few nights ago she’d told him she was afraid; that was understandable, he had to admit … grudgingly. That was why he’d sworn he wouldn’t force her again, so now she shouldn’t be afraid. It didn’t seem to have done much good. He should have remembered that promising her fidelity had changed her – into a maniac who smacked him over the head with a jug at short notice. Talk about making a rod for your own damn back.

She shot away from him, several long paces instead of the usual other side of the room, so maybe that was some consolation. Only some consolation: she was still trembling, in that damned just perceptible way of hers, and her failure to hide it made him want to crush her in his arms … or just crush her. “It does. Perhaps it will never die.”

“Damnation and a bucket of fish! Don’t blame me alone, like it’s only my fault!”

“I didn’t,” she said quietly. “You did.”

Sod their agreement, sod this argument, sod her, and sod trying to put news in some form she’d like! Sod it all! “The king’s insistent on leaving the day after tomorrow, and he’s about well enough to take the journey if it’s slow. We’re going with him; all of us. Even Jean. By his order. He wants to impress on me a bit more firmly who’s lord here and who’s the vassal, so he’s uprooting us all at his whim and dragging us off to no purpose of our own to amuse himself. Not a bad idea, but I’m damn-” There was that agreement too, so quickly he amended, “er, a Saracen if it’s not annoying. We’ll turn back when he reaches the Narrow Sea, all of us but Thierry. The boy’s staying with him, and that’s that, so don’t start shrieking.”

There was one of those great silences that usually occur when a small child stands up in a large adult gathering and says in a delightfully clear, carrying voice something akin to, “What’s a leper? Because my Daddy said the abbot is a filthy old leper. I always thought the abbot was a nice old man; he’s got hair coming out of his ears and it’s funny.”

Richildis went such a shade of white he thought she might actually faint. Then she spoke; he had to strain to hear the words, but even a deaf man could have heard the malevolence. “That butcher is going to take my son, and expects me to drag my other two children out into the midst of winter on a fool’s errand.”

“I’m hardly pleased either.” Jocelyn raised his arms in an extended shrug, then let them fall back to his sides, his palms slapping his thighs. “I tried, damn it I did try. He wouldn’t listen, not when I told him Jean’s teething and miserable and in no real state to travel, or when I said Mahaut was still so young she should be left in the nursery. Or when I pleaded your delicate motherly feelings, or need to stay here and finish mending the harm Yves’ did being as I can’t do much myself in my absence. Or anything.”

Part pleading, part as an order, she told him, “Do something.”

Jocelyn clenched his teeth on his instinctive reply, that he could do nothing he hadn’t already tried and failed with. He stood instead, feeling useless and pointless, stupid, abruptly, acutely conscious of small things like the way his arms hung at his sides as if he didn’t know where to put them.

There … was one thing he could think of to do, and that night when they had talked, the night of the wedding … and one other time she had liked it well enough in a relative manner of speaking … so maybe … and the worst that would happen was his being rebuffed same as usual. He moved over to her, extra-light on his feet and a little slower than usual. He didn’t kneel, given that she was not that much shorter than he, but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him – carefully! – and patted her very gently on the back. “There, there,” he murmured. Er, but that suited the children better.

Amazingly she didn’t rail at him for acting like she was one of their children. Nor did she try to get away, or make it plain that his proximity was as appealing as a midden.

It took a very long time, so long that the only reason he didn’t give up and dump her was the fact he hardly ever got to touch her without her tensing up, but slowly the apprehension began to leave her.

“It’ll be alright,” he said. “Mahaut will enjoy herself, do her good to travel a bit, see a few things and people. As long as he’s well bundled up warmly and has something to gnaw on, Jean’ll be perfectly happy. If he can throw up on his nurse and mess his clothes as soon as they are changed to clean ones too then he’ll be delighted. And Thierry, Thierry will be so puffed up proud of being one of the king’s pages that he’ll be quite unbearable.”

Richildis sniffed, and again, the only indication he’d had that she might be crying, or almost crying. “I wish I had your confidence.”

Jocelyn wished he had his confidence. “Come on, cheer up. What’s the worst that could happen?”

She looked at him most eloquently.

“Yes, well.” He coughed low down in his throat, which only made his airway feel a bit blocked. A second go set matters back to how they had been before, and he had an answer to give. “That is why I shall be assigning each of the children a dedicated caretaker, whom I’ll tell that if anything in the slightest goes wrong I’ll mince them up and feed them to my falcon. I’ll tell Mahaut and Thierry that too. I’d tell Jean, but he’d just blow bubbles and laugh at me.”

“As you are here, do you want to practice a bit of reading?”

About as much as he wanted to break his foot. “I suppose I can. Just a bit, mind, not some whole bloo- er, big book, and not on anything boring.”

Now, if she weren’t Richildis, and if he didn’t know what she was like, at this moment in time he would kiss her, and, if she weren’t Richildis, she’d probably like it, making them both happy. But she was Richildis.

To his great astonishment she drew herself up to her full height, closed her eyes, and kissed him. He’d had far more impressive kisses in his life, more passionate, more enjoyable, more quite a few things; this one partially missed its aim and hit one side of his mouth while ignoring the other, was so chaste it could be his sister – God rest her soul – and very brief. It was also the only kiss she’d ever willingly given him.

As he gaped at her, looking in his mind’s eyes like some gawky, pimpled boy who’d never been kissed before in his life and hadn’t realised what girls were for until this precise moment, she mumbled, “Yes, well, we did both make our bargains. You should not keep yours alone.” A good deal clearer she said, “And don’t fling yourself at me and expect me to like it! Don’t manhandle me, don’t crush me, and if I’m not interested hurting me won’t help matters. I told you, be more … careful, and maybe I’ll …” She trailed off, evidently less able to word these things than she had been a few nights before.

Being one of those chivalrous idiots nowadays, Jocelyn finished her sentence for her, “Get less scared.”

He waited for her to get a book, watching her as she knelt by the locked chest. Melancholy; there was a feeling he’d never really expected to have anything to do with. Melancholy was for damsels who stood on tower tops pining for their lost loves, and other junk. Or for people who realise too late that they’ve screwed up so much, and will probably never fix it all.

In a low voice he told her back, “You hurt me, so many times and in so many bloody ways. You make me feel so God damned stupid and worthless. It’s not my doing alone.”

Her hands paused in their work on the chest’s solid lock. “I didn’t say it was.”







I hardly ever know if I want to laugh at Jocelyn, or smack him, or perhaps pat him on the shoulder and say, “There, there.” What a very odd man … hehe!

Richildis is easier :pats Tildis on the shoulder and says, “There, there.”:




I'm still reading Rose, nearly 200 pages in. I've had another book I needed to read at the same time, and my reading time has been a bit more limited over the last couple of days, thanks to my wanting (or should that be needing?) to write. I'll save my verdict for when I'm done.

Descriptions tend to be sparse because ...it's not what I write for or about. ~:) I write for dialogue, characters and character, plot and events, humour and emotion, and the neat little turns of phrase now and then. My style reflects that. Detail is not interesting, it is ... just detail. Nothing more. Now, sometimes I do see things vividly and need to write them as detail, such as the way Fulk's cloak was moving ever so slightly in the breeze in that previous part, making the hem sway. I also know I need detail to bring some life to the world, so I put that stuff in. Or try. But I'm a big enough frog now, with a developed enough style, to know that detail in abundance is never going to come naturally to me. It will always be something I have to add artificially, which means if often feels wrong to me. As I write by feel anything which feels wrong is revised until it feels right, or removed if it will not work.

My work will never be detail heavy, but it might manage to be a bit less … lean than it is now.



:Froggy is sitting on her cloud in frog god heaven, and a bit of cheese materialises next to her. Froggy eats the cheese.: Mmmm, nice. Books are good too. Don't burn them! Just wrap them up safely and put them on the shrine.

Starting again? Eeep! You now have 751 pages to read! :gives some eyedrops, knowing they will be needed: I imagine reading through the story again could be quite an interesting expereince. You should pick up on a lot of those little things I buried in the earlier parts of the story ... :looks hopeful, and wants to know if you do or not, becasue she is a curious frog, and feeling curious:

Well then, a week and a half restricted to business hours. Great story. I was hoping for some more "small unit action", assignations and missions with the two, and not such a grand theme. The big theme conflicts more with what I know of history and makes me a little uncomfortable. There were some parts early on though where all I could think was: What’s up with all this dialogue? For Christ sake somebody throw a pie or something! But that could be because I don’t like feeling intellectually inferior to a 14th century man at arms :knight:. Thank you though for not describing the beatings in such detail in the later stages. There’s a special horror when someone blames a tired, sore arm on the person whose back they just flayed open.

Yes the story could benefit from some editing, but better too much than too little. The characters are alive and unique but it would be nice to read some different accents; that’s always been a favorite of mine. I’ve been reading the story so much I almost typed this with an English accent! What I REALLY want is an intense battle scene from Fulk’s perspective. Besides the first abduction attempt I don’t think we have a real good idea of what he thinks. I want to know exactly what goes through his mind although I’m sure most of his actions are trained responses. Mostly I want to know this because I’ve fallen quite in love with Her Royal Goosberriness and might have to fight him someday ~:eek: :duel:.

What I enjoy most when reading a story is trying to discover things about the author. Which brings up this point: http://www.cabotcheese.com/ supposedly makes the best cheddar cheese in the world. It might be worth checking out.

If there was a better way to travel Eleanor hadn’t discovered it yet. Seated side saddle-wise before Fulk, curled up into his body, fastened against his armoured chest by the length of his cloak and arm he had wrapped about her, passing the time bandying words or dozing with his shoulder for her pillow.

Waking from her latest bit of light sleep, Eleanor looked about to see where they were. Still in trees, in a world still frosted about the edges. Nothing unexpected there; they were travelling via back ways, avoiding roads and other people as far as possible. By the sunlight it was somewhere about midday.

“Awake again?” asked Fulk.

“Possibly.” She worked on a few adjustments to his cloak, bundling one fold up to act as a better pillow and protection against tangling her hair in the links of his mail. “Or possibly not. This could be but a dream.”

“Oh? You usually dream about running away with knights to travel through frozen wildernesses?”

“All the time,” she assured him blithely. “That is, when I am not dreaming of ruggedly handsome outlaws.”

Fulk began to declaim in a rather stilted voice, “Alas and woe, for I have been captured by a creature of dubious morals. Oh woe, woe is me. Woe. Who now knows what my unhappy fate will be. What dire plans she has for me, I shudder to think. Woe, and more woe.”

“I thought I might go back to sleep …”

“Like a cat, you are, sometimes.”
Eleanor craned her head back, managing to just catch a glimpse of the underside of his chin. “Oh?”

“Lazy.”

“I am not! I am hoping to put you off your guard, so I can sneak away while your back is turne-” Fulk’s hand clamped across her mouth.

“Ssshh!” he hissed in her ear. His right arm slipped from around her waist to settle on the hilt of his sword.

As soon as she realised what he was doing, Eleanor’s hands went to her knives, ready to draw.

Fulk nudged the horse, encouraging it to keep walking. His head was up, turning from size to side, scenting like a hound.

Not being a battle-hardened veteran it took her a moment before she caught what he had: the faint fragrance of blood on the still air.

The very stillness was some reassurance; whatever had caused the blood to be spilt was gone now … or laired up, waiting. There was no sound of fighting, or of other people, or cries of wounded, man or beast. And beast it could be; something killed by a poacher or predator.

Fulk slipped down, pressed the reins into her hands and whispered, “Any sign of trouble and you go.”

He was off, moving through the trees like a ghost. Which was probably a good thing, as it saved the bother of his disagreeing when she told him that without him she was going nowhere.

The minutes passed; nothing happened.

Eleanor made more fuss over the horse than was necessary to keep it quiet and content.

Movement, there to her left and at mid distance where it was hard to see through the growth of tree trunks, bare branches, naked bushes, and some few bits of winter greenery. Someone approaching, carefully, but still making a noise. Not a half-decent hunter, then … or someone who didn’t see any need to keep his approach stealthy.

She had the knife drawn and poised to fly at the least bit of notice before she recognised Fulk.

“I thought I’d make a bit of a racket to avoid surprising you and being skewered. Instead I’m nearly skewered for making a racket. I’m disappointed – yet not the least bit surprised – to see you didn’t run away, like you’re supposed to.” All was well, but not perfectly well; such was evident from the way he spoke, almost normal in volume but not quite right in inflection.

“What was it?”

Fulk unknotted the chin straps of his helmet and pulled it free of the saddlebag strap where it hung.

Settling her knife back into its sheath Eleanor asked, “Bad news, then?”

Helmet laced on over his bare head, Fulk stuck a foot in the stirrup and settled back into the saddle behind her. With his left hand he took the reins back, but not before making sure his sword hilt was free of entanglement in their clothes. “Bodies,” he said curtly. “Half frozen; been here for at least a day. Nothing to concern us.” He jabbed a spur into the horse’s flank.

“No?”

“No.”

“Tell me.” That he didn’t only strengthened her suspicion that he had found something he believed would upset her. “Tell me; you are my knight, and I order it.”

“Bodies,” he repeated again. “Peasants.”

Considering the direction they had taken and how long they had been travelling, Eleanor thought it likely she didn’t need to be told, after all. “We are near the area London controls. There are some minor lords loyal to Hugh with lands touching on the edge of the area an armoured force from the city can reach at a day’s ride.”

“By the bodies, when the wind picked up a bit, I could small burning, faintly. Old burning, of fires long since gone out.” Eleanor pressed her hand flat onto his thigh, trying to comfort him or gain some comfort herself, she couldn’t tell. His free hand came down to cover hers, pressing it against his leg. “There are times I wish you were dim-witted, as much as I love you for not being so. Then you’d have to be told …”

“That people have done war in my name.”







Rather the opposite, I liked the small unit action but really wanted to get on to the big stuff. The story has always conflicted with real history in some ways, by its nature it can't do otherwise. But then it's not history; it's alternate history.

Hehe, about the pie comment. Until I read the end of that bit I thought you meant the dialogue was like something from a bad comedy.

Accents ... accents .... hmm. Nope ~:) It wouldn't suit this story and set of characters, not at all. It would feel utterly, utterly wrong. There's the various levels of polish to the characters' speech, and I feel that works perfectly, along with the various little ways of speaking and quirks of language a few characters have.

Oh, and Nell says in the completely unlilkely event you manage to kill Fulk she will have no choice but to kill you. Painfully. :hide: ~;p

I forgot something. I finished Rose a few days ago. In a nutshell it was ok. I hated the way he kept on using Latin without giving a translation. The plot was so so, the characters bland, the writing decent enough for a translation, aside from those oddities I mentioned to you before. It was the discussion on history, theology, religion, philosophy and so on which made the book good. I am sad to say that I found by the last half of the book he was repeating his subjects, and I wanted to tell him "Yes, you've done that bit, now do something else! We got it the first time ..?

He also manages to be the only author ever, historical or fictional, who made me cringe when going over the medieval church?s attitude to women. I have even read first hand medieval rants on the subject and felt less like bludgeoning the writer than I did here ;p Not sure how he managed it, but he did. Maybe it was the way he went over the same point over and over throughout the book to the point of redundancy. Not so bad as his endless repetition of heretics being different to the clear cut clumps of evil sinners that the church believed them to be. Yes, got it, move on already, damn you. :tongueg:

I also hated the entire plot line with the girl. It felt mostly pointless, forced and contrived, as if Eco had been told he had to get one sex scene in or the book would not be published. That it served to bring out the heretic monks and advance the plot there was good. The rest, pointless, a waste of space, unbelievable too. The plot advances could have been achieved far better with another. Froggy no like ;p Hmm, also a bit of a cheap device. "Look, here is a poor girl who is forced into prostitution! With monks, which is even worse! And by the way the church blames her entirely for this situation! And she is no good and wonderful too, and our hero loves her, and she must love him because she gave him a freebie on first sight and forgot her hard won food to feed her starving family! Haha, feeling pity yet? Yes, good! Burn her! Haha! Bet that made you a wee bit upset?" Er, not really. More like fed up and rolling my eyes.

That does not mean I did not like it. The parts I did like lend themselves much less well to discussion or comment. Basically the entire first half of the book found favour aside from the bland characters. Then slowly the plot became worse and the characters still did not develop, and the discussion began to feel repetitive. If the discussion had managed to remain fresh my overall pinion of the book would have been higher.

To this I need to add one last thing: I'm reliably told the book er ... interfaces with some of Borges work. I haven't read anything by him yet. I intend to, soon ... soon for a frog.

Good little snippet. It recalled my fond memories of riding, a light frost, and yes…the smell of blood on a cold day (but not that of burning peasants). Although I don’t have any of swords and princesses, yet. Reading over my first post it seems a bit more negative then intended. I’m much more into visualizations and actions (even simple ones) than dialogue. I’m glad to see that you’re reading so much; it will only enhance your fine (as in really really good) literary abilities.

Whew, done, 801 pages, at least in the formatting I use.

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You should pick up on a lot of those little things I buried in the earlier parts of the story ... :looks hopeful, and wants to know if you do or not, becasue she is a curious frog, and feeling curious:

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You want to know if I spotted anything that hints at the way the story goes later on, probably mainly Trempwicks attemt at coup d´etat utilizing Nell? Well, that I can answer precisely: No. Sorry to disappoint there, but as I think I´ve mentioned before, I´m horrible at spotting stuff, have always been and will ever be.

On to the latest installments, my, the pace picked up yet again, the hanging of the hostages, the flight of Fulk and Nell under cover - I first thought now she´s off to Constantinople at last - and then Jocelyn´s try at being nice ~:)
Talking about Jocelyn, I realized some, well, inconsistencies, with him. At one point you have him thinking this:

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If he could read her mind like a bit of parchment what would he find? Probably a few familiar lines deploring him as an uneducated barbarian, a few long passages on how much she loved the children, plenty of miscellaneous and tedious rubbish, some bits in some foreign language or other, and a frightening collection of large words he couldn’t quite decipher.

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and

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He skipped the biggest words, and several smaller ones he couldn’t make sense of.

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But then, some time later, you´ve got him talking to de Issoudun:

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But I expect you’ll need to do something to while away the hours, unless your friendly rat is a better conversationalist than most.

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That choice of words seems a bit out of character, and that´s not the only time. Maybe something you´ll want to pay attention to when (if) overworking the whole story.

And for now, please excuse me, I´ve got to give my eyes some rest. It´s not as bad as it could be, were I forced to read from an oldfashioned CRT screen, but even reading from a TFT screen becomes tiring after a time. Plus I´ve got a big sacrifice in the Frog Goddess Shrine to do.

Trempwick opened the door as another scream tore through the dungeons. Pleasing timing, but accidental. Ordinarily he left this to others. Except when it was too important to be farmed out.

His subject huddled in a corner, hands clamped over her ears. She was shaking like a leaf in a gale. Good.

He closed the heavy door with a soft slam, and stood waiting for her to take notice, moulding himself into an attitude of polite waiting and enquiry.

The man shrieked again. The effect was suitably rewarding: the girl quaked yet harder. Detail: when given a choice, always start hurting the male. Men were supposed to be stronger. Tougher. Honour-bound to keep silent. So if they started bellowing … Supposed. He had never much cared for the truth or lie of that. Only the use mattered. But he suspected it was perhaps not as true as all that.

Now he cocked an eyebrow as the girl finally registered his presence and looked up from her little world of misery. Cocked an eyebrow to say without words, “If he can’t stand it, you certainly won’t. And you’re next.”

“I think,” he said, dragging his words out a little more than usual. Made them sound more worrisome. “that you had best tell me a thing or two. Where is my wife?”

This pair had been caught by those he had watching, yesterday very early morning. Brought here for mid-evening. No time to waste – on receiving the news of their capture he had come. Hearing other reports as he came. And as he planned, and waited for the necessary to be begun.

Nell was gone. Fled. Where? Why? How: her and the knight, by horse, slipped out like this pair and the second pair even now being brought to him. Replaced at court it seemed by a decoy. That news so very new he had considered it for but a brief instant, it given to him as he worked his way through the Tower of London towards this.

She had been gone for a day. As best he could presently tell. She must have gone in the dark of last night. But when, in these long winter nights? Important! Time = distance = harder to track. Did she want him to find her? Want to hide from others? Hide from others and have faith he would find her, if not she him. Or hide from all? Why? So many reasons … So many answers … Complicated little thing, his Nell. When she wanted it. When she wasn’t being stupidly simple.

The man at arms screamed once more.

The girl sobbed and buried her face in her knees. Her hands pressed over her ears so hard.

With a courtly bow, Trempwick stooped over her and dragged one hand away. Carefully. So as not to hurt her.

And screamed again. One of those screams which … tore the soul, stayed with you for hours, days afterward.

“That would be his eye,” he commented. Remain light. Do not care. Do not sorrow. Let her see it. Now she had to listen. “His right eye. If he was ever an archer, he is not now. Or much of a warrior. His fingers are all broken, each and every joint. His back flayed to ribbons. A few teeth are gone, his nose broken, an earlobe lopped off … This particular man of mine has a habit of burning his own name into his victims, like branding a horse. He’s called Bartholomew; quite a long name, and a lot of letters. Eleven, to be precise, that being as many as all your fingers and one more, and each letter on an individual iron. He is proud of his literacy.” How crude. How distasteful. How utterly deplorable! All of it. “By now he is a bleeding, quivering ruin, blubbering away and telling my people everything we want to know and far, far more besides. Anything to make it stop.”

“Then why ask me?” she cried.

Jesù above, she was young! And he treated her like it. Like an idiot child. Elaborating, “Because I caught two of you. Because you might know something he does not. Because I like to corroborate my information. Because I can.” Now, from controlled to madman in a second! He yanked on her arm brutally. Put his face very close to hers. Shouted, “Because I want my wife back. And I will slaughter the whole damned country if I must to do that. I will stop at nothing to get my beloved back and see her safe.”

Within perhaps a quarter of an hour he knew everything. And the man at arm’s noise was getting most irksome.

They were brother and sister. The sister being the younger by a couple of years, if that mattered. Nothings, not nobles. They had received word their father was ill. Dying. Calling for them. So off they set, as soon as possible. They had been given permission and money for the trip by their lord. A minor knight sworn to another, sworn in turn to that drunkard who served as the bastard’s spymaster. They had travelled off the roads from fear of the bandits they had been told were everywhere. The rebels supporting the princess. The country was in flames. At war. So they had been told. By enough people it sounded true. And it was what they expected too. Logical.

Nell would have been gone two whole days at some point in this present night. Two whole days.

Nell’s work, this. Not Miles. It was … not in his style. He could see her … will threaded through it all. So his dear little Nell had finally overcome her squeamishness. He was quite proud. Question: using Miles’ resources as his ally? If so, why? Or playing the ally to escape her brother? One option dismissed without consideration: she would not try to flee both. Hopeless venture, self-damning.

As he left she asked what would happen now.

He paused in the doorway. Held the pose. Let her wait. Worry. Then half-turned slowly. “I see no reason why your knight should not have his whore back. Undamaged.” Quite a few reasons. But always be sure an asset will no longer be required before disposal. And it may be that she could be put to use. Even returned to her knight, she might be of use. “As for your brother,” he shrugged. “We shall see.”

Two rooms away from the tiny cell with the girl languished the man at arms. Trempwick paid him a visit, to tell his man to cease. The man at arms was a bit battered. A bit bloodied. A bit singed and burned. But in good condition. Not even so much as a single broken finger.

A lot of pain did not necessarily mean a lot of damage. A lot of damage was detrimental. He smiled, pleased. This had not been crude. And it had achieved more and in less time than the usual crudities employed by the less thoughtful. Time here was vital. Where others might have spent days he had taken not even an hour.

As he stared at the soldier hanging in his chains Trempwick wished it were another man at arms.

The man at arms lifted his drooping head and looked right at Trempwick. “Why?” he asked. Almost wept the question. Not a single question put to him, or reason given. Just pain.

There was but one suitable answer. Trempwick gave it, generous. “Because.”

As he left the dungeons, his boots echoing on the cold stone floor, Trempwick hummed a tune. To blot out the screaming he still heard. Even style had its cruder parts. To lend himself that … aura. To maintain it. Necessary. Aura/appearance/lie which was to him as armour was to a battlefield knight. There were people. Not many. Not likely to see or hear him. But if they did … he must be the spymaster.

One main worry: Nell was out there with the knight. Just the knight. In a country being ravaged by fighting. Why and where did not matter. She was out there. She was out there. It took much of his discipline to suppress the tide of sickened horror and fear. As he thought of what might happen …

Damn her for a fool! A fool making perhaps a good decision, and well. But a fool none the less.

He picked up pace. As fast as he could without leaving a walk. Why he hurried he did not know. What more could he do? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing he hadn’t already done, days and days ago. Then it had been simple caution. Acting against the very unlikely. All knew what their queen looked like. But only in words. Not a picture, not a person. Only inadequate words. All knew to err on the side of generosity – any dark-haired female of something like the correct height and age to be brought to him undamaged. A large reward for those who brought their queen to safety. The most painful and prolonged death possible to any who disobeyed.

But soldiers were soldiers. Men were men. Idiots were idiots. Almost he could hear their simple thoughts: “But she looks so ordinary. And she’s dressed like no one important, speaks like no one important, and only has one man with her. So …” And he was not God. Even He did not manage to control all to his whim, the mutterings and excuses of the priests ignored.

Nell had been right. Waiting was indeed the hardest part. Which he hadn’t seen until now.







:froggy seems to be in some mind of exhausted trance-like state, and is muttering things about Christmas being evil. Vicious comments about a nasty Christmas music CD with a playtime of not quite an hour, featuring the Smug Man, Happy Woman and Lisping Children which plays on endless loop hour after hour, day after day, week after week, are also present.: Gah! :starts humming ‘we three kings’, because she’s hard the damned CD so many times now it seems to be playing in her poor addled mind even when she’s away from the shop. froggy turns up her nice frog music to try and drown out the mental lisping song.: It has adverts in it too. Done by what’s his name Scoffield. The one who used to have Gordon the Gopher. :Mimics part of an advert, by saying in a stupidly fake sad sounding voice, “Because when they’re gone, they’re gone.” And adds in her normal frogsome tones, “Until the next delivery, and that being twice a week we are seldom sold out for long, you right twit!”: The woman sounds like Julie Andrews on an overdose of happy pills. :froggy starts to rub at her poor hands, which are peppered with an interesting pattern of paper and cardboard cuts, and her left index finger is so bashed from picking up boxes and prying out the contents that it is a delightful bloody mess, featuring real frog blood: It hurts to type :cries:



It doesn’t sound all that negative, Vladimir. ~:)

Hehe! I’m telling myself just the same thing about my reading. It seems to help, when I’m working my way through something I really don’t like much and/or don’t want to read anyway.

Ciaran: Plenty of things are hinted at. Things like this bit, when Trempwick is talking to Nell fort he first time about her growing attraction to Fulk:
“You do not know what you are getting into.” He looked at her with a kind of desperation. “Yes, that spark might die away, but if it does not? You will be spending your life right next to someone who does not share your feelings, you will be left looking at what you cannot have.” His voice cracked just perceptibly, “It’s hard, you have no idea how hard.”
Who else is he talking about, if not Nell? He didn’t, after all, suddenly start to court her after Christmas, as she believes. It’s just she’s rather blind, wrapped up in her own troubles, and used to thinking of him as entirely safe in that regard, like a father.

Or, from the end of the same scene, where she runs off upset:
“Nell…” Trempwick called after her. She started to run. He stared after her, worried. “What to do? Two evils, but which is the lesser?”
If you know a thing or five, you might be able to identify the two evils he is talking about. Leaving her alone, or sending Fulk to her to provide comfort. You probably can’t get that the first go through.

And so on, and so forth, in profusion.


Jocelyn … being quite illiterate is not the same thing as having a poor vocabulary. He can’t spell or read long words most of the time, and sure, he doesn’t know what all of them mean, but he has a rough idea of most, and ones like conversationalist he can put a meaning to because they sound so similar to other words he does know. He’s been absorbing words all his life. Richildis alone has taught him a lot, without either of them thinking about it, simply by talking where he can hear.

Jocelyn's something of my opposite: he can talk, but he can't play with words on paper. Whereas I can read and write all day long with no trouble or effort, but get me to talk and I stumble over my words, or can't find anything to say.

An update, a bit late for St. Nicolaus (6th Dec.; Do the English celebrate that? I honestly don´t know...) but still, updates are always good.
Do you have, by any chance, an idea how long it´s going to be, or how it´ll end? Not that I want this marvellous story to end, far from it, I love long stories, the longer the better, but occasionally I´m curious as well.

By the way, I´ve watched Braveheart just the other night, now I can place to what mental image I had all the time of King William. When I read the title for the first time, I had imagined Nell a bit like that princess in that movie, certainly not a short, spying, scheming, occasionally murdering, snappy gooseberry with the hobby of driving her bodyguard-husband mad. But in the end, I´m glad I´m proven wrong, as you so aptly put it yourself:

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. It sounded like someone who spent half her time praying for sick little lambs everywhere in the world, and the other half being so boringly proper even her staid churchman of a confessor told her to go and do something exciting for once

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