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No matter.. I think I'm only slightly gaining on you, so there's still plenty to read. Although it's a shame I can't give any recent criticism, but if you want, I can PM you if I find something extremely special.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
An arrow thudded into Fulk’s shield; he beat aside his foe’s blade with his sword and delivered a quick cut to the man’s right arm. A second arrow whipped by and buried itself in his unfortunate enemy’s unprotected chest. Cursing under his breath Fulk spurred Sueta on and away, trying to put something between himself and the goon with the bow intent on taking pot shots at him.
A man in a mail shirt jabbed at him with a spear; Fulk deflected the thrust with his sword and commanded his destrier in close. The footsoldier was knocked from his feet as Sueta’s flank crashed into him, and trampled underfoot.
An impact on his back told Fulk that the bowman was still following his progress with a keen eye; not feeling any pain he assumed the arrow had glanced off his coat of plates, or at worst had lodged in his armour. He wondered why the idiot didn’t simply shoot his mount out from under him; an unarmoured horse was a far easier target.
He had no more time to wonder on it; a man spurred his horse at him, swinging furiously with his sword. Trading blows and making liberal use of his shield Fulk felt the blood sing in his veins; exhaustion vanished, banished by exhilaration as he settled into the heady challenge of pitting his skills against others’.
A second man came at him as he fought, and was intercepted by Luke.
Moments later he saw one of his mounted guard weave in his saddle as though drunk, and slide gently down to the ground in a flow of blood.
An arrow spanged off his helm; in that instant of distraction Fulk’s foe lunged, the tip of his sword getting in over the top of Fulk’s shield and catching his shoulder. He smashed the rim of his shield into the sword arm left overexposed by the desperate attack. The sword dropped from nerveless fingers, the point grating in the wound as it fell away. A quick chop to his enemy’s neck ended matters - and another arrow missed its mark.
Fulk filled his lungs and roared, “Will someone get that God damned bastard of an archer already!?” He spurred his horse deeper into the fight.
A slight figure was shoved to his knees before Fulk. The man at arms controlling the prisoner clarified needlessly, “The archer, my lord.”
Fulk rubbed the bridge of his nose. Of all the things he might have expected this had not featured. A boy. A mere adolescent, no more than fourteen at the very best, armed with a hunting bow made slightly small to fit his growing height. It could never have put an arrow through his armour. “Why didn’t you shoot my horse?”
The wretched figure mumbled groundwards, “He’s too beautiful. I couldn’t.”
Fulk suppressed a sigh. “I don’t suppose you have a father in Morpeth, a rather sour old man with a great hooked nose?”
“Yes … my lord.”
The excitement of the battle over, Fulk’s blood was cooling, leaving him weary and beginning to feel the aching throb of his wounded shoulder. “Why on earth are you here?” he demanded, abruptly sick to the stomach of this prisoner.
“My cousin … he said I’d never have to farm again.” For the first time the boy looked up from his shoes. “I’d be a soldier, like I always wanted.”
“Your father has disowned you.”
“He always said I should be like my brother: boring.”
“Then you won’t be too grieved to hear your brother is dead,” Fulk said acidly.
The boy dipped his head again. “I know. I … saw.” His voice caught and wobbled. “I didn’t think he’d be hurt. Any of them! I thought we’d take some stuff, start a few fires, and go.” There was a choked sob, and he begged, “Please don’t kill me!”
Fulk hardened his heart; he could not afford to be merciful. “If you are old enough to take up weapons and fight with those attacking your home then you are old enough to pay the price of it.”
He had his men bundle the wretch away to join the rest of the prisoners before he could change his mind. Not, he knew, that he should show any mercy – it was impossible to believe the boy could be so naive as he claimed to have been.
Once his party was ready to begin the ride home Fulk collected his most important prisoner from the knot of bound men. “A shame you ran so far. It leaves you a long walk back,” he informed the former castellan’s son. “Your father said I was a dog. But it’s not going to be me running along on a leash.” He tossed the free end of the length of rope bound around the man’s hands to Luke; the squire fastened it to his saddle.
Morpeth’s son set his shoulders. “You’re a bloody mongrel and one day someone will kick you back down to the cesspit where you belong. I only wish I could be there to see it.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Your future’s easier to predict. You’ll hang, your men along with you.”
The prisoner bared his teeth in a grin which tugged open the cut across his cheek causing it to bleed anew. “I’ve avenged my father, and by now my mother and sisters are long out of your reach. You’ll never have what was ours – not now. It’s ashes, thief.”
Fulk pitched his voice to carry without being obvious about it; if he had to play silly games to build his reputation he’d rather do so with a degree of subtly. “Wrong. I’d left you your possessions; now all you went to such trouble to carry this far is mine, as rightful spoils. As for your castle? It was an outdated dung heap that only a mangy little cock like you would crow about. I’ll rebuild it in stone, and I’ll sell off your goods to help pay for it.” He gave the rope about the prisoner’s wrists a good tug to test the strength of the knots, yanking so hard the man was nearly pulled off balance. “Do try not to fall over too many times. You won’t cut such a fine figure at your execution if you’re all scraped from being dragged behind a horse.” Being as the man was still in his armour the two day trip home would be arduous, to say the least.
Ignoring his prisoner’s insults Fulk mounted up, turned Sueta’s head for home, and dug in his spurs.
Got a lot of reading to do. A lot. Good books, too …
Wasp, yes, please do ~:)
Ah, some action at last. I was aching for it.
Let all those rebels hang for disturbing probably some of the last moments of peace Fulk and Eleanor will have in a long time.
Eleanor sucked at her pricked fingertip while thinking a multitude of words Trempwick would have been distressed to find she knew.
Stitching serenely away at a strip which would become a decorative border for something, Hawise remarked, “It’s a wonder that shirt isn’t decorated with little bloodstains.”
Eleanor glowered at her maid. “Very amusing.” If a speck of blood had ended up on the crisp white linen each time she had pricked herself she would have had no recourse but to alter the simplified vine and leaf pattern border for one featuring redcurrants. She snorted. “I must have been deranged when I started this. I loathe sewing, and it loathes me.” The idea had occurred to her while she was at court; she blamed Hugh’s stuffy influences for making it form.
Aveis looked up from her own sewing with a shy smile. “It looks like the product of a mind missing a husband, to me. I once spent an entire summer sewing clothes for Dicken because he was on campaign.” Her needle stopped its work and her head bowed slightly. “That was our first summer.”
Hawise asked, “Dicken was your first husband?”
“Second.” Aveis began sewing again. “After Guy, before Huon.”
“You have had three husbands?” Hawise’s own needle arrested in its work. “But you can’t be more than twenty!”
“Three, in four years.”
Blood had stopped beading up on Eleanor’s fingertip, and she judged it safe to resume her struggle to work a pattern about the neck of Fulk’s gift. “You have been singularly unfortunate.” Aveis’ lack of luck with husbands was already known to her, as was the circumstances of each death, yet there could be no harm in hearing the story from the young woman’s own lips. It may prove enlightening.
“This land eats men,” Aveis said bitterly.
Hawise neatly inferred what her mistress required, and played dumb. “What do you mean?”
“Stephan was dead three weeks after our wedding, killed in a skirmish with raiders on our land. Several weeks later I married Dicken, at his insistence and for my protection. He took a wound while on campaign against the old Earl of Northumberland, and died of it.”
“Northumberland?” Hawise’s head came up. “But that would mean …”
“Yes. Five months ago, ousting one traitor so another could take his place.” Aveis inclined her head to Eleanor. “If your Highness will forgive me for speaking of some close to her as such.”
“Trempwick is a traitor, as was John, whom the former Northumberland followed.” Eleanor leaned back from her work to see how it was looking. Satisfied no stitch was out of place she resumed her labour. “One may hope you have had your share of grief.”
The sound of someone climbing the last few steps was followed by a loud cough beyond the curtain which blocked off the entrance to the solar. “Ah … your Highness?”
Eleanor muttered, “Speaking of grief, here comes one of mine to haunt me in penance for my ill deeds.” Louder. “You may enter.”
Sweat gave Jocelyn’s brow a sheen, and he was mildly out of breath. A small girl was sat on his hip, held securely in place with an arm. She held onto his tunic with two tiny little fists as though she feared to be dropped. “I report wall done,” he proclaimed proudly.
His progress with Anglo-French was remarkable, Eleanor felt compelled to admit. He learned swiftly, possessing both a good ear and a solid memory. The close kinship between this language and his own native one undoubtedly speeded his progress considerably. He’d be picking up some English as well, she had no doubt. “Good. Have you moved the army inside the walls?”
“It done. Guard set too.”
“Any sign of my husband?” There had been no message from Fulk since he had left Morpeth two days before. It was too much to expect a constant stream of reports but Eleanor lived in hope. It was better than living in apprehension.
“No, your Highness.”
The small girl wriggled in Jocelyn’s arms and tugged at his tunic. He smiled at her. “Ah, sorry, you wanted mother. You going walk to her? Or be carry?” The child just stretched out an arm towards Aveis. Jocelyn set the girl down on her feet. “There. Walking?” The results weren’t impressive; the child kept one hand locked on the count’s tunic hem for balance and stood staring about the room with big brown eyes.
Aveis knelt down on the floor and stretched out her arms towards the child. “Come on, Ellen. Come to mother.”
The child didn’t seem inclined to cooperate, perhaps enjoying the fuss.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “Ellen?”
“Usually Eleanor, after my mother, but given the company it seems best to use her nickname.” Aveis smiled at her daughter. “That’s how you always say it, isn’t it, Ellen?”
Ellen abandoned Jocelyn and shot across the room to her mother in one of those displays of lightening speed which only toddlers seemed to be capable of. Sat on her mother’s knee she wrapped both arms around her neck with an air which proclaimed she was not going to be moved without a lot of noise.
“She cute.” Jocelyn nodded. “Remind me of my daughter. She four now. Adorable; holds my heart in both hands. I miss her. Was nice to play a bit with yours. Then she ask for you lots, so I brought her. This no problem, I hope?”
“Ellen will be two in a few more months.” Aveis smoothed her daughter’s sandy hair. “Won’t you?”
The girl nodded.
Eleanor supposed the child was struck dumb by the number of strangers. “That would make her-”
“Dicken’s daughter, yes. And my heir.”
Jocelyn helped himself to a seat at the window. “You no sons?”
Aveis froze; her face went blank. “No.”
“Husband must be sad?”
“He wants an heir of his own so he can send Ellen away, yes. The lack of one is God’s judgement on him, I would say.” She lifted her chin. “It is no secret that I didn’t want to marry him, or that he barged his way into my home less than a week after Dicken’s body was returned to me.”
Jocelyn shrugged. “Too much odd words.”
In Langue d’oil Eleanor surmised, “Her current husband forced her to marry him soon after her previous one died.”
“Ah.” Jocelyn rubbed his chin in embarrassment. “Still … um, what is good at end is happy all, right? Or … thing?”
The three ladies stared at him, each privately trying to tease some meaning from that random pronouncement.
He tried again. “How justice from God? A child maybe make all happier?”
Aveis hugged her daughter closer and regarded the count across the top of the child’s head. “I was two months gone with child when Huon married me. I lost it three days later.”
Jocelyn’s brow creased. “Ah … Um … Tragic. Sad. Yet not the end of all. Another child brings joy of its own. Look at prince Hugh and wife; always hope. Must not blame him; forgive is good. Look to future, not sit in past like cat in puddle of piss.”
Ellen giggled. “He said piss, mummy! He’s naughty.”
Aveis gave the count a filthy look, and turned her focus to her child. “Yes. He is a very bad man.”
Jocelyn looked bewildered. “What I say?”
Eleanor told him in Langue ‘d’oil, “Your turn of phrase does not translate well, and I do not think the lady appreciates being told to stop sulking.”
Jocelyn reverted to his native tongue in disgust. “Huh. Try to be poetic and this is what happens: people act like you shat on their shoes. Er – begging your pardon, your Highness.”
Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh dear!”
Jocelyn scratched the back of his neck. “I never claimed to be a courtier.”
Eleanor forbore to remind him that he had, and on numerous occasions. “If you wish to remain a count you must become one.”
Jocelyn started to his feet in alarm. “Highness, if I have given such grave offence, please, I beg of you, forgive me and grant me another chance to prove my worth-”
“No, no.” Eleanor held up a hand in the hopes it would shut him up. “I meant if you are a count you needs must pass time at court, therefore you must become a courtier.”
“Oh.” Jocelyn became keenly aware of the two ladies and one child staring at him, wondering what he was doing as they were unable to follow the conversation. “Oh.” He sat back down with a thump. “Is there nothing useful I can be doing?” he almost pleaded. “Useful other than guarding you, of course. Which is very useful, and a task which honours me deeply.”
Alright, his claims weren’t complete lies: he did have a streak of courtier in him. “You can send out some scouts. I wish to know where my husband is.”
“Yes, your Highness. At once.” He bowed and shot out the door as though the room were an oven coming up to temperature.
Eleanor placed a few more stitches in her shirt. “I pity his wife. She must have been driven demented.”
Little Ellen commented, “I like him. He’s funny. He made a coin appear from nowhere. And he looks like the lion in the bible.”
Aveis started, and looked thoughtful. “Yes, yes, I suppose he does, a little. It’s the hair, and the beard; they look like a mane.”
Hawise added, “He has the same way of moving as the lion I saw in the king’s menagerie, too, all graceful, dangerous strength. And the eyes; they’re very intent.”
“And the brains of one too,” Eleanor finished, a touch sourly as she’d just stabbed herself with her needle again due to her lack of attention. She set the sewing aside and rose. “Enough of this; I have lost enough blood for one day. I wish to inspect the new defences.”
I wrote more than double this amount in a single day. Half of that unposted part is off in the future and won’t be seen for some time; the rest is half finished. :silly smile: It was wonderful, page after page flying down. Just like old times.
Peasant Phill, agreed, the change of pace is nice.
Seriously Froggy, this is weird. Why don't you actually publish your work? You've worked on about 18 pages on Org, and you can easily make it a 500 page book. And you'll surely have success.
Eleanor squinted into the distance, trying to pick out which of the mass of figures was Fulk. He had to be down there somewhere, one of the mounted men in armour riding along at the front of the column. He had to be. If he wasn’t then he was gravely wounded or dead.
Aveis stood at Eleanor’s other side, still as a statue. Her eyes were riveted on the approaching army, to all appearance calm and uncaring – until one noticed how her hands were clasped tightly enough to make her knuckles shine white. The tension seeping off her reached Eleanor and made her own grow, the woman’s bitter statement of “This land eats men.” repeating itself over and over in the back of her mind.
There! A man in a blue surcoat right at the front – that had to be him. She pointed him out to her companions. “That is him, is it not?”
“I think so,” said Aveis dubiously.
Hawise squinted for a few moments longer before standing back. “Maybe. My eyes aren’t as good as yours, Eleanor.”
The passing of another minute, and the figure in blue resolved clearly into Fulk. Following a brief distance behind him was a bier, bearing a body draped with a cloak. The dead man’s shield was placed over his chest.
Aveis gave a short cry and clamped her hands over her mouth. The blood drained from her face and she swayed, like she was about to faint.
“I am sorry,” Eleanor said softly. Three dead husbands in four years; Eleanor could easily guess at the kind of talk which would plague Aveis from now.
To Eleanor’s shock Aveis flung herself to her knees and clutched at Eleanor’s skirt, talking rapidly through a flood of tears. “Don’t make me marry again! Please. I’ll pay you - I’ll do anything you want. I swear I won’t marry without your permission, or do anything else to put my lands at risk, if you will only let me be. Please. Anything. I’ll-”
Eleanor had to raise her voice to be heard across the flow. “Enough!”
Aveis subsided with one final heartfelt plea, which she delivered while looking up at her liege lord’s wife. “Please.”
It was not really for Eleanor to decide, leastways not without consulting with Fulk – this woman was his vassal, not hers. However he had said he wanted her to act as his partner, and she would be damned before she chose to sit in Fulk’s shade and snooze. It was necessary to quash compassion and to act is a business-like manner to extract as much as possible from this situation. “You ask much. While you may hold this land in your own right, you cannot ride out to defend it, or in support of my husband. This is not a peaceful time where that is of small matter.”
Aveis wiped her face on her sleeve and made an effort to pull herself together. “Your Highness, if you are able to hold your lord’s lands in his absence why do you think I cannot?”
Eleanor gave a tight smile. “Your last husband proved you unable to guard your lands and person adequately.” She felt evil when the poor girl cringed. “And I believe you acquired your second husband because you needed him to protect you.” She pretended to think for a second. “What guarantee do I have that you will not find yourself yet another husband? One who may not be to my lord husband’s best interests.”
“I will pay-”
“That in itself gives us no guarantee. I think it best for you to join my household, and for your lands to be placed in the hands of a steward of my lord husband’s choosing.”
Aveis’ head came up. “I have not spent so long trying to hold my lands together to hand them off to another!”
That answer Eleanor liked. “For a few months, until the situation is settled and you have proven your trustworthiness. You have my word that your lands will not be stripped for our profit; they will be returned to you in good order.” She eyed the crude fortifications around the village thoughtfully. They would have to be pulled down when Fulk returned and they left this place; that would leave a surplus of building timber for which a use could undoubtedly be found. “Possibly even with some improvements.
Aveis bowed her head in acceptance. “It seems I have little choice but to accept.”
“Then stand up. Please. And stop calling me ‘your Highness’.”
To Eleanor’s immense relief Aveis complied, before turning away to gaze over the ramparts. “I will not have Huon buried here. His carcass can rot elsewhere – anywhere, so long as it is not on my land.”
“Does he have family?”
“An elder brother. He holds his land from the Duke of Northumberland, and is fighting for him.” Aveis dabbed at her eyes again and tried a smile. “Having him pay for Huon’s funeral will mean less money to support Trempwick. So Huon may have finally done something I can approve of.”
Presently in a state which I like to describe as GAH!! Two people have quit at work; one’s already gone, the other leaves soon. Neither gave enough warning for us to find someone to replace them. So we’re understaffed. Badly. Making life all the more Fun we have our annual stock take on Thursday. We’re not remotely ready – we can’t be, as we simply haven’t had the people to sort it all out. We’ve also been told we’re not allowed to borrow staff from other branches to help, despite the fact that this is traditional and really rather necessary. We need 9 people. We have 6. That’s just for the day of the stock take; I won’t go into the nasty staffing problems beforehand, or the problems afterwards. So it’s overtime for the stock take prep, and overtime as cover; one day off this week, a couple of 10 hour shifts, being late out on days where we do the normal shift …
As you may guess, this means I barely have time to write. ~:(
I wish it were as easy as that. Publishers and agents are almost always only going to look at finished manuscripts when it comes to new authors. Until I have something complete, edited and polished there’s little point in my sending anything off. The best I could hope for would be a polite letter asking me to submit again when the work was complete. It would be a miracle if I got taken on for an unfinished work. The downside to these massive tales of mine is that they take a very long time to complete, meaning I haven’t yet got anything to send. I’d try short stories, but I really don’t get on with them. It’s not possible to do the things I like in so little space.
Always good to see new chapters, Froggy. Best of luck at work.
good luck with the stock. I think we can wait a bit for the next chapter. I'll have to start with some other addiction to counter the cold turkey of this one. I'm not sure I'll pick alcohol, sigarettes or comics.
:yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peasant Phill
With a knife Eleanor cut through the bandages holding the pad on linen to Fulk’s wound and eased it away, scarcely breathing as she did so for fear of what she would find. The wound sat under his collar bone, puffy and red, about an inch long. It looked deep. “You should have taken better care.”
“If I had not been distracted by an arrow I would have guarded better. As it was the blade missed my coat of plates by a finger’s breadth and thrust through my mail.” He sounded uncharacteristically peeved about the whole incident. “The entire thing was chance, not skill on their part or a lack of it on mine.”
She dropped the soiled linen to the floor and bent to take a closer look at the scab. “Better care of the cut, you rust-brained idiot! Though care when fighting would not go amiss.”
“It was cleaned when we stopped for the night, and again when we stopped last night.”
“And obviously that has not been enough. Your armour has been irritating it.”
“I could hardly ride along unarmed, nor could I dally.” Fulk twisted about obediently so the wound was in the best light.
Eleanor drew one of her knifes and, trying not to think of what she was doing to her poor knight, sliced open the wound. Immediately blood flowed forth, mingled with pus. She applied gentle pressure on either side of the wound; more pus oozed out. When nothing but clean blood flowed Eleanor rinsed the rent in his flesh with wine. Fulk hissed at the pain.
“Sorry,” Eleanor said at once.
“It will hurt however gentle you try to be.” He looked up at her with a strained smile. “Can I have a kiss for being so brave?”
Eleanor wiped his shoulder clean with a fresh bit of cloth, and slapped a pad over the bleeding injury. “Hold that in place until the bleeding slows.”
Instead of replacing her hand with his he placed his own over hers and stood up. “My kiss?”
“Be careful with that towel!” Fresh from his bath Fulk was naked except for a towel wrapped about his waist. “You do not wish to give poor Hawise a shock.”
The aforementioned maid was busily collecting up the soiled dressings to go with the clothes for washing, her eyes averted.
Fulk fiddled with the folds until they looked more secure. “There. Happy? Now can I have that kiss?”
Being a meek wife Eleanor complied for a good minute or two. Drawing back she ran a hand over her cheeks. “You need to shave,” she said ruefully. “Scratchy as a thorn bush.”
Fulk rubbed his free hand over the stubbly beard he’d grown on his outing. “Mmm.”
He seemed to be in a good mood despite being weary and wounded; Eleanor thought it best to inform him about Aveis now, in case his mood grew worse or he discovered it from another source. “Aveis’ husband died …”
“Yes. Right before my eyes. Nothing I could do; he took a blow to the head and was dragged down from his horse while stunned. A dagger through his helm’s eye slit ended it.”
“I have taken her into my household. We need to place someone trustworthy in charge of her lands.” Fulk’s eyebrows rose; he said nothing. Wanting to justify herself in case he was angry, Eleanor said quickly, “She has proven herself incapable of protecting her lands and herself; if we left her in control we would very likely find trouble, and we cannot afford more of that. This way the lands are guarded, and so is she – who will dare snatch her from my household? Once peace is restored it should be possible for her to hold her own, if we keep a close eye.”
“That’s well enough.”
Very slowly Eleanor let out the breath she had been holding, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
Fulk poked her in the ribs, grinning. “What’s this? Baited breath? My, my!”
Eleanor glowered at him. “I was unsure as to whether you would be pleased.” She pushed him back down onto the stool and checked to see how his wound was clotting
“I don’t like lazy wives; my dear gooseberry, I expect you to work.” He composed his features into a mock stern expression. “If you don’t work then I won’t waste money on feeding you.”
Dryly Eleanor remarked, “How very Trempwickish.”
“Ah.” Fulk’s lips pressed together. “You may be assured that, unlike with him, you have no cause for worry if you step on my toes. Being a decent sort of chap, you have to stamp before I start hopping about and swearing.”
Not wanting to hear another chorus of his dislike for Trempwick, Eleanor changed the subject. “Who will you place in control of Morpeth?”
Fulk considered for a bit. “Waltheof, I think. He’s steady, proven himself loyal, and I strongly doubt he’ll despoil the lady’s lands for his own profit. He’s been raised to be a lord, so he’ll know what’s needed.”
Satisfied that the bleeding had slowed sufficiently Eleanor began to apply a thick layer of salve to a fresh pad of linen. “It will act as good contrast, and bind him more closely to us. While the King of Scots allows him to be robbed of his inheritance, we do our best for him.”
This time it was Fulk’s turn to comment, “How very Trempwickish.”
“No,” she corrected impatiently, “how very noble. For nobles such thinking is absorbed from birth. It must be, else you have little hope of surviving. If you have land, someone else wants it. If you have wealth, someone else desires it. If you can be of use, someone will want to use you.”
“I know,” he interrupted. “And such thinking is not limited to the nobility.”
Eleanor forbore a pithy reply. She bandaged the new dressing into place as Hawise returned with a bowl of fresh hot water for Fulk to shave with. As Fulk set to with a blade, Eleanor helped Hawise lay out fresh clothes for him. The maid made herself scarce when Fulk was ready to dress.
As he added the finishing touches to his attire Fulk said, “I’m going to pass verdict on the prisoners, so they can be executed tomorrow.” There was a pause. He didn’t quite look at her as he said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t step beyond being a witness. I want this to be seen as my justice; it was my mercy they abused, and my lands they burned. And I want to be seen as being my own man.”
Eleanor digested this, keeping her teeth shut on a spate of impolite of words. After a bit she managed to get out something which wasn’t too unpleasant. “Very well. I shall sit like a brainless statue so the world can say you are an independent man.”
“Beloved-”
“I know such things are necessary. That does not mean I have to like it.”
“It could be worse. I could have asked you not to accompany me.”
“That would be a fool’s move. It would harm my ability to rule in your absence; I must be associated with you, and be seen to be trusted.”
“I’m not a fool.”
“I did not say you were.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, ‘loved. I admit I did wonder if I’d do best to ask you while still in armour and mounted for a fast escape.”
Not willing to be placated by kisses and silliness Eleanor glowered at him. “Flattery will gain you nothing. Or insults. Whichever that was meant to be.”
“If you don’t know I’m sure I don’t, oh wisest of all fruit.”
Eleanor continued to pin him with a level stare. It was like trying to outface a gargoyle.
“I made you a shirt,” she said, at the same time as he said, “I brought you something.”
There was a pause as they both waited in expectation of the other speaking. Eleanor broke it. “You go first, since you are the one asking me to pretend to be a bland dolt with no opinion or influence.”
Fulk rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” he muttered.
Eleanor gave him a smile loaded with false brightness. “I would.”
“On my way back we passed a merchant and his convoy. They’d obviously been trying to get clear of our path in the hopes we didn’t spot them, but one of their carts had broken a wheel.” Fulk reached into his belt pouch and pulled out something which he kept hidden in the palm of his hand. “I’m afraid I disappointed him; I didn’t loot his goods.”
“I should hope not.”
“I had a couple of my soldiers helped mend the wheel.”
Eleanor folded her arms. “Sir Fulk the Honest.”
He shrugged. “Too good an opportunity for name-building to waste. Anyway, I had a look at his wares while I waited for them to finish.” He presented his opened hand to her. On his palm lay a gold ring brooch. The long needle-shaped pin had three bands of engraved patterning on it at top, middle and tip. The decorative bands were repeated at four equally spaced points on the ring, with the addition of an amethyst set in the heart of each. “This was clearly the best amongst what he had.”
It would be churlish to remain in bad humour now. Eleanor kissed him. “Thank you.” She took the brooch from him as he settled his arm about her; close examination revealed the workmanship to be very fine. “It must have been expensive.”
“Actually, it wasn’t. Part gratitude for my help, part terror I’d simply take it, I think.” Fulk gave the end of her braid a gentle tug. “Now, what were you trying to say?”
Discomfiture at admitting to trying her hand at a hated activity for love of him combined with the worry that her gift couldn’t match his. Her words were barely audible, and carried a hint of challenge. “I made you a shirt.”
“Where is it?” When she made no move to fetch it he enquired, “Aren’t I allowed to see this shirt of mine?”
“Oh … later.” Eleanor stepped back and slipped her hand into his. “You have bandits to judge, and I have a lump of stone to imitate. Let us be off and have done with it, before I change my mind.”
I kept the day off I didn’t expect to! Yay! Don’t expect to be writing again until the weekend at the very earliest, and I’m working over that anyway.
If you want addiction I strongly suggest Puzzle Quest.
What a pleasant surpise. I didn't expect to be able to read a new chapter until at least next week.
And about my alternative addiction: I'll try my hand at this 'Puzzle Quest' but my affinity with Belgian and French comic books will be hard to beat.
Frogbeastegg,
Congratulations on writing an thoroughly entertaining and absorbing story. Your efforts are certainly appreciated. I have spent the last four days reading this thread start to finish and am impressed by your continued dedication. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope you will take some constructive criticism in the light it is intended.
I agree that you should consider seeking publication. However, to put it bluntly, the text is currently too long. Authors like Robert Jordan can abuse their fans' goodwill because they are already established (though god knows why). Your best bet might be to split the story in to two or three parts, but to do so you will likely need to rewrite extensively to create some natural breaks, satisfying the reader's need for (partial) conclusion whilst leaving enough suspense to hook them in to future books.
You need a good editor (I am not volunteering - I mean a professional). In a text this long some mistakes are inevitable, but there are continuity errors and confusions that a good editor would spot. I didn't take notes as I read but an example that really stuck in my mind was the juxtaposition of Hugh's seige of Rochester (Kent I presume) and Malcolm's 'gift' of Rochester (Northumberland). If an explicit distinction was made between them anywhere, I missed it. I am also pretty certain that Trempwick's house-servant who Nell fell-out with appeared in the house after his 'dismissal' (in Nell's presence). There are also a small number of (inevitable) anachronisms, though I struggle to recall any specifically.
The mark of a great author is brevity. That does not necessarily mean a short book (look at Tolstoy), but the best authors have an economy with words. No one should ever want to skip parts of the text to 'find out what happens next'.
On that note, keep up the good work.
John
Away from the boasting morons who infested the hall Jocelyn fancied he felt less sick. Yes, better the cool night air and the stars for company that that – that boastful pack of preening fools! Sneering he leaned his arms on the rampart. “I killed two men,” he said in a contemptuous falsetto. “I was wounded but kept on fighting to the end. I took down their leader. Bah!” He spat over the wall. If he’d not been shut away here playing nursemaid to former king’s blue-eyed get he’d be matching stories with the best of them, aye, and out-doing the lot of them at that!
“Yeah, well guarding her is an honour, and none of them got chosen,” he muttered. “So that makes me more skilful, more loyal, more heroic, and a bloody sight more important than the whole collection of them.”
He spat again, the bad taste in his mouth still clinging. “And anyway, boasting like that is just plain bad taste, and I don’t care if they were celebrating their victorious return home or not. Bloody pretentious gits.”
It was, all in all and in every way, too much for a man to bear, and he refused to be part of it. Even if he did have the evening off duty because the princess was off in private with her husband, letting him take his due. Even if there was some very fine wine available. And nice food. And this one woman with the most incredible bottom …
His meditations on sophisticated stuff like life, fame, modesty and bottoms was interrupted by the tower door at the far end of the ramparts opening and a figure slipping out.
Aveis glanced about, hastened to the rampart and threw something over. Gathering her mantle about herself she turned to leave.
Disposing of something where others couldn’t see? It was obvious what was happening here – she’d murdered her husband somehow and was hiding the evidence! Jocelyn launched himself forward out of the murky shadow of the tower he stood close to.
“What you throw?” he demanded loudly in their stupid language. If she ran now he’d have a job to catch up with her, some forty paces between them.
Aveis started, whirled around, her face pale in the moonlight. She seemed rooted to the spot, doubtless stuck with terror by justice in the form of Jocelyn descending on her! Her reply carried across the night on its air of challenge. “That is none of your business, and I’ll thank you to cease spying on me.”
“It my. I saw. Now you tell.”
“None of your business.” She turned to go.
He let her get one pace away out of gentlemanly courtesy, then clamped a hand on her shoulder. Not too hard – no one would ever accuse him of being anything less than fully gentle with women, children and delicate creatures of all kinds. “You talk,” he repeated, his voice pitched low.
“I am under the princess’ and earl’s protection. Let me go!” Aveis tried to wrench herself free, but made no progress. “Let me go or I shall scream.”
“Scream?”
She sucked in a lungful of air; his free hand slapped across her mouth before Aveis had chance to make so much as a sound.
“Problem with scream,” he explained, “is so slow. Need breath” The damned problem with women and screaming was that it was murder on a chap’s ears and it caused so much fuss! Given that incentive he’d made a point of necessity to learn to silence his dear, dear wife as soon as she’d shown a willingness to do it. Oh, the troubles that had caused him before he’d even managed to get her home from her guardian’s house after their cursed bloody wedding. Damned bitch. Well, at least she’d grown out of it once she’d realised he’d shut her up with his fist when it got annoying.
His attention was recalled from that damned female to the present one he was tangling with: she twisted her head and sank her teeth into the meaty part of his thumb. With a shout he snatched that hand back and gave her a healthy smack to the ear which sent her reeling with only his iron grip on her shoulder to keep her steady. “Stupid damned mad bitch!”
Aveis answered his restrained manner by giving vent to that threatened scream.
Jocelyn clamped his hand back over her mouth, risking life and limb in his charitable efforts to protect her from herself. “Now listen. People come, I tell them you I saw. Then you talk to them also. You want that?” Course, when the evil woman confessed to her foul murders he’d have to hand her over to justice anyway. It would be such a pity to see her burn … If he’d not been entirely honest when he’d called her beautiful she’d not been entirely accurate when she’d claimed not to be so.
Aveis’ eyes narrowed. She gave a tiny shake of the head, the best she could manage under his restraint.
Cautiously Jocelyn removed his hand. If she gave the slightest hint of shrieking again he’d stop playing nice and bloody her lips; that usually stopped all inclination to make a racket. “Now. Talking.”
All noble pride – strangely appealing, it didn’t make him want to smack her until she stopped being so damned cocksure - she commanded, “Unhand me. I am under the princess’ protection.”
“You run or thing, I hurt you. Got it?” He waited for her infinitesimal nod before loosing her. “Talk, killer. Or I get you …hold by guard people with asking.” He’d not had occasion to threaten anyone with arrest and questioning yet; his vocabulary was sadly not up to the occasion, a missed opportunity if ever there was one.
She drew back a long step, righting her clothes. “I was disposing of one of the more distasteful remainders of my late marriage. And that, sir, is all you need know.”
Ah ha! She confessed it. Maybe some sort of deal could be made … if she withdrew into a convent he needn’t have her executed. Yes, indeed, it was a right Christian thing to do! Mercy, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and if she wanted to demonstrate her gratitude then he’d not be churl enough to send her away, and away it would be downright sinful to do so. Mercy begets its own reward, and to turn your nose up at it would insult the very concept of compassion. That would be an insult to God, no less. “Poison? Or other …” He struggled to think of the word. “Bad medicine thing … make ill …um …” What the hell did these people call drugs?!
For a moment Aveis stared at him; her mouth twisted and she produced something akin to a laugh. “If only. That would speak of daring I fear I don’t possess.” She looked away. “When faced with a hated husband some women reach for the monk’s hood. Me? Almond cream. That one thing says it all about my character, I’m afraid.”
Women didn’t make sense when they spoke in good langue d’oil. They made less sense in this mangled cousin language. “What?” He shook his head; focus on the more important bit, by a saint’s cosy old robe! “You admit you hate him. So reason for kill him.”
“Admit I hated him?” Aveis gave him a pitying look. “It’s never been a secret. Whatever else I may did for my daughter’s sake, I never watered down what I thought of Huon. Who could expect me to? He barged his way into my home dragging a pet priest along with him, forced me to marry him, and caused me to lose my unborn baby. That, too, has never been a secret.”
“You admit you kill him.”
Aveis folded her arms. “No. I admit I wish I had – there would have been justice in that. But I didn’t. There are more than enough witnesses to that. Huon died in combat. Someone had the good taste to stuff a knife through his eye. I lacked the courage, and my daughter deserves better than such an infamous mother.”
This didn’t make sense. It had to be this God-damned language! “But you hate him, and you throw away secret thing-”
“Almond cream,” she interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Almond cream. Go down there and retrieve it if you won’t believe me.”
Now she was trying to trick him. Jocelyn pounced on the misleading invitation. “Yes. You come with too.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I not let you run, killer-person.”
“I killed no one,” she said through gritted teeth. “As I keep telling you. It’s all in small, simple words even you should understand.”
This damned creature was asking for another slap, and Jocelyn was sorely tempted to give it. “I understand all good.”
“Ha!”
“You hide throw poison-stuff-”
“Almond cream,” she nearly shouted. “It’s hand cream! Made out of almond milk, beeswax, and a few other things. It’s good for dry or chapped skin.”
Come to think of it, didn’t Richildis have some pot of stuff like that? She used it to keep her hands nice and soft. “Then why throw if so not-harm?”
Aveis’ moonlit face set in an expression which belonged on a statue of an avenging angel somewhere. “Because I hope never to need the bloody stuff again. That’s why.”
Jocelyn’s eyebrows shot up; she swore! And she called herself a lady! For shame. He didn’t understand, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. Bloody women and their making everything more complicated than it needed to be, never could say anything straight out like a man. “I don’t get. Don’t see how this explain any thing.”
“Chafed, sore skin,” she said slowly and distinctly, still troubling to keep her voice hushed. “Huon wanted an heir. I wanted none of him. He didn’t care about me. So there was a certain need for almond cream on my part. Now do you understand, or must I put it even more bluntly and shame myself completely?”
“Um …” Jocelyn scratched at his chin. Some of that he hadn’t really understood; dictation differing from the norm made this cursed bastardisation of his language so hard to follow! He replayed her words over in his mind as best he could remember them, teasing out meaning from them as best he could.
“Let us say his attentions, if they could be called that, left me feeling somewhat … raw in a delicate place.”
Oh, that! He matched her blush with one of his own. She must think him a right innocent idiot for not understanding earlier. How very embarrassing, a man of his wealth of talents taken as clueless in the bedchamber department! “I get it.” What was she anyway, Richildis’ long lost sister?! Same old complaints, except dear, darling Tildis had never used her gumption and got some of this almond stuff. Jocelyn’s scratching took on a thoughtful mien. Perhaps Richildis would like some as a gift?
“Then you will understand why I’m delighted to be able to throw the damned pot as far away as possible. And why I don’t want all and sundry seeing me do it.”
“Um, yes.”
Aveis drew her mantle about herself for warmth. “And now you will stop accusing me of murder.”
“Um … yes. You just unlucky. Very.” Or cursed. Every man who got near her died. Jocelyn suddenly wondered if the curse spread by proximity, or if one actually had to end up in her bed before the doom settled. He discreetly moved back a few inches to be on the safe side.
“I have thought myself nothing but for much of the last year,” Aveis replied with a touch of astringent humour. She made to leave.
Jocelyn blurted out, “Wait. Please.”
She turned back. “Yes?”
“Um … Your husband, the dead one. New dead one.”
“Yes?”
Why the hell was he asking this? He didn’t care at all; it had no relevance to him or his life. “You make tell like he had no chance ever. Could never be good.”
Aveis bit her lip and looked down. “He didn’t have a chance. After that beginning he never could.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Bad beginning is not nice, yes. But not all following has to be bad. Hope …” He spread his hands, helpless in the face of the language barrier.
“I didn’t want to marry Dicken either. By the time he died I loved him. The difference is Dicken was …” She smiled faintly. “Polite. Polite about everything. There’s consideration in that. He was kind. What we had was not the best of beginnings, yet it was very far from the complete disaster that Huon made for himself.”
No hope there either; it was too late to go back and belch quietly. It occurred to Jocelyn that he might not be asking the right question of this woman. “What you do now?”
“I intend to go inside and go to sleep.”
“No, now you have freedom. No Huon. What now?”
Aveis didn’t reply for a very long time. “I shall follow my lady, and be a companion to her as she asked.”
“That where, not what.”
“Ah, a sharp distinction for someone who struggles to string words together.” She held up a hand as he opened his mouth for an angry retort. “I didn’t mean that badly. To be truthful it is not something I had dared think about. What shall I do?” she mused. A slow smile spread over her face. “I shall spend time with my daughter. Huon had us kept apart much of the time.” The smile took on a slightly different quality, “But that’s not what you meant, is it?”
Jocelyn swallowed with a throat abruptly dry. “No.”
“I do wonder why you ask.”
He kept his peace.
“My guess would be that you have a lady of your own to rehabilitate.”
Jocelyn inclined his head. “She treated bad by a fool.” Treatment she’d returned in equal measure to that fool, something he couldn’t expect Aveis to help with.
“What shall I do …” Aveis moved to the rampart and gazed up at the stars. “It seems my choices are limited, broadly speaking. I can keep my acquired distaste. I can become a vowess or take holy orders. Or I can find myself a nice, patient, decent man and see if he can heal the damage.” One hand tightened into a fist. “And eventually I expect there will be yet another husband.”
Jocelyn paced a few steps up and down the rampart. He’d wanted more, proper advice. That’s what he’d humbled himself for. Huh. It would all be a waste of bloody time anyway. He should have asked what to do with a frigid, hate-filled bitch who … His thoughts stuttered to a stop; he couldn’t find the heart for it. Must be the wine he’d had earlier; it was from Italy, and the people there were all damned weird and no mistake. “Fool made a bad mess. She difficult person too. I not knowing what best to do.” He turned on his heel to face her, head up. “Not what I used to. I get nice women, Happy ones. Not sad. Am used to um, what say? Equal want? She only one who not want.”
“I can’t give you more than I already have. Come back in a few years, and I might have a better answer for you. But surely you do know much of what you need, whether you realise it or not. If you love the lady.” She set her hand on the iron door handle. “Now, I am going back inside.”
Love!? Love!? Alone in the dark Jocelyn spluttered and chocked. Love Richildis?! No one could love that cold bitch! She was entirely unlovable!
When Jocelyn returned to the cupboard which was making do as his private room he settled on the straw pallet which filled fully half the floor space, lying fully clothed, his arms behind his head. Alright. Think. Think. She’d said he knew what he needed, which meant she’d recognised his brilliance and general skill at everything he tried his hand at. He was being too modest. He was underestimating himself. He did know. Of course he did. He only needed to put his finger on what he knew.
He wracked his brains until his eyelids grew heavy, drooped, stayed shut …
Next morning he decided it would be a good idea to send some news back to that miserable cow. Make sure she knew he was still alive, lest she start celebrating his death or something. Laboriously he began to write.
Deer Richildis. I am lurning the locull lang-u-ige. I am gud at it. I speek like a naytiv now, everyone sayz. I lurn sum Inglish two …
Only Jocelyn could take behaving politely to his wife to mean he shouldn’t belch so loudly in her presence. Only Jocelyn could think that taking home a pot of almond cream and instructing his wife to use it as something other than a hand cream might go down well. Only Jocelyn could contemplate Aveis being ‘grateful only to wonder minutes later if merely standing close to her is enough to get him cursed. Only Jocelyn :needs shaking head smiley:
All I shall say of the past few weeks is this: Not. Fun.
Peasant Phill, how did Puzzle Quest go?
Welcome, john_C. You registered to post that? :blushes: Constructive criticism is always welcome.
I have considered the possibilities of splitting the story into two books. The best breaking points come earlier on: when Nell is in the church getting betrothed to Trempwick, when Trempwick’s true nature is revealed, when Eleanor leads a hall full of nobles in swearing allegiance to Hugh on the announcement of William’s accident and probable death. I’m not sure any of those are strong enough to provide decent closure and prompt the reader onwards to pick up the second volume if and when it hits shelves.
However … there’s a fair bit I’d like to add to the first portion of the story, and a lot which can be trimmed away from the second half. That would balance it somewhat, and I must admit I like the idea of Nell standing in that church reflecting that she’s now tied for life to Trempwick being an ending. Written to a higher standard it could make for a very powerful stopping point.
But then I hit the problem of the second volume being very different in tone and content to the first, covering as it does a civil war and not spytastic adventures. That may not go down so well.
Rochester is an issue I’m aware of. It came about due to my looking at a highly detailed map of England and plucking a place whose location suited an event I needed. Then, later on, I headed north and started to lay out Fulk’s earldom, and there, to my horror, was another place called Rochester! The famous historical Rochester which houses the castle siege by King John is in Kent. The northern Rochester tends to be called High Rochester in the bit’s I’ve found about it on google. There was a Roman fort very close to it: Bremenium. In a second draft I’ll have to name Rochester Northumberland Rochester High so there’s a distinction between them; I can’t really use another location to stand in for either.
Jocelyn is a great character and a (sometimes) welcome relief from the main story.
I didn't get to Puzzlequest I'm afraid. That other addiction you know. There was this new series (1 book so far) name Kaamelott, a parody on the legend of king Arthur. Merlin is useless, Bors a coward and a drama queen, Parcefal a goofball , ... Mix it with an undead enemy with bureaucratic problem and you get one hell of a story. It stands up to Monty Pythons' hunt for the Holy Grail as far as I'm concerned.
I really admire how you change the POV and interior voice with the different characters, Ms. Frog! Having Jocelyn deal with a new language makes his . . . boorishness? . . . all the more loveable.
I *don't* want to influence the plans you have for the story, but I'm sure hoping Jocelyn and 'Tildis live happily ever after. Heck, I'm hoping the same for Eleanor and Fulk, but I know how you authors are. :)
Yes, that might work, though I agree that the tone of the second book would be very different.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Great choice. The castle was originally built by the Normans and the Cathedral there was also rebuilt by the Normans (though dates from around 600 AD). The location is outstanding - a square keep on a hill overlooking the Medway river at the point where the Roman road from Dover to London crosses. Strategically vital point for trade and communications.Quote:
Rochester is an issue I’m aware of. It came about due to my looking at a highly detailed map of England and plucking a place whose location suited an event I needed.
Rochester-Castle
and an ariel view
(The castle is about 250m south of the south end of the bridge at the 'apex' of a crossed-diamond shaped pathway, whilst the cathedral is about 60m directly west of the keep. Zoom out to see the strategic importance of the castle to the river and bridge. An engraving of Rochester by Nathaniel Buck at the foot of the first page linked to above shows the medieval bridge to have been even closer to the castle.)
My wife worked in Chatham for a couple of years and I visited Rochester a few times. I wasn't aware of High Rochester either.
Anyway. Good luck with the writing.
John
A gallows had been built outside the castle walls, a simple affair with several upright poles supporting a long horizontal beam. It would accommodate all the prisoners in one go, a mercy more for Fulk than those who were to die. He had no intention of speeding these men on their way by having their necks snapped after the drop, and felt obligated to stand and watch until the last of them expired. Whirling away in a cloud of self-satisfied noble pride after witnessing the first minute of the prisoners’ slow strangulation did not seem right.
The crowd which had turned up to watch the event may be less enamoured of this concession to efficiency than Fulk. Some of them came from Morpeth, to witness justice for what had happened to them. Others were here for the entertainment of seeing people die.
The prisoners were off to one side, under heavy guard. A guard mainly intended to display the Earl of Alnwick’s power; men stripped to shirt and braes with hands bound posed a threat to none. One stood separate to the rest. In appearance only the man’s bound hands and two guards gave him away as a prisoner, in all other aspects he looked like a knight dressed for a trip to town, complete with spurs and belted sword. The castellan’s son.
The ragged crescent of an audience ranged about the gallows had to number near a hundred now. Someone was selling pies and pastries off a tray. Elsewhere an enterprising minstrel battered away at a hand drum, singing a dire, fantasy filled rendition of the attack on Morpeth and Fulk’s hunt for the prisoners.
Fulk signalled to Alfred. “Let’s get this over with.”
The man at arms saluted and began to issue orders. An expectant hush rippled out across the crowd. Amongst the condemned several men began to pray frantically.
All of their expectations were confounded when the soldiers drove the son forward to stand before Fulk. The doomed man wasted no time in spitting on Fulk’s boots. “Bastard son of a diseased whore!”
Fulk rested his hand on his sword hilt, but otherwise gave no reaction. “Doubtless you’re thinking I won’t hang you.”
The prisoner bared his teeth. “I’m a knight.”
“And hanging is for the ignoble.”
“Like you. God knows who your father is, your mother surely didn’t. He can’t have been noble – you haven’t the least drip of grace in you, you fucking mongrel.”
“If you’re hoping to goad me into killing you quickly you shall be disappointed.”
“You’re nothing but a turd on a fancy chair, a front for that wife of yours to hide behind as she gives orders.”
Given the sparkling quality of this conversation Fulk decided it best to act as though the other man didn’t speak. “I wouldn’t be the first to hang a knight, if I so chose, but it seems there is a happy solution to the problem, one which satisfied honour all around and maintains the status quo.”
“I bet she’s not the same with her other husband. I hear Trempwick’s a man, not a bloody bedroom toy. Don’t know how she finds time for you both, what with all the other men she’s tumbling with.”
“I can strip you of your knighthood.”
The castellan’s son went bright red and he bellowed, “What!?” He bared his teeth in a snarl. “You don’t have the right, you jumped up prick!”
Fulk shrugged. “Probably not. But it would be such a shame to waste the preparation, and the King of Scots did bid me to maintain peace in my lands by what means I feel necessary.”
“You’re a bloody lunatic!”
“And you, Sir William of Morpeth, are Sir William no more. Just plain William.” Fulk gestured to his men.
They bundled the prisoner back a few steps; one man held him firmly in place while the other unbuckled his sword belt. Once that was free he drew the weapon, casting sheath and belt to one side. Resting the tip of the sword on the ground, the soldier placed his foot midway up the blade and steadily applied his weight. The blade had been specially made for this, a soft, brittle thing which soon gave way. The destroyed weapon followed its casing onto the ground. The man at arms drew his dagger, knelt and cut the straps holding the prisoner’s spurs; they too were cast aside. A third soldier brought forward the prisoner’s shield. The device was cut from it, the knife point leaving marks scoured into the wooden planking beneath the leather facing. The shield was added to the pile of refuse; the patch of leather bearing the man’s coat of arms was sliced into fragments and scattered on the wind.
Throughout this just plain William ranted, cursed, swore, and plumbed depths of insult which would have left prince Malcolm agape in admiration.
Fulk stood witness impassive, jaw clenched and hand gripped tight on his sword to prevent himself loosening just plain William’s teeth with his bare knuckles.
When the men at arms were done Fulk summoned every drop of self control he had to remark in the mildest tone he could muster, “If I were you I’d save my breath. You’ll be needing it, in a bit.”
The prisoner’s reply was such that, before his lengthy spiel had run to its end, Fulk buried his fist in the man’s stomach, broke his nose with his other fist, and sent him sprawling in the dust with a third blow. Breathing heavily he stood over this latest William to blight his life. “I won’t fail.” He moved away so the prisoner could be hauled to his feet. “String him up. Let lack of breath put an end to his foul spewings.”
Eleanor leaned as far forward as she could in a vain effort to get a better view. “Oh, what is happening down there!?”
Down on the execution ground the distant figure of Fulk stepped back and the man he’d flattened was dragged away to the gallows.
A hand gingerly set itself down on her shoulder and politely tried to pull her back. Jocelyn pleaded in langue d’oil, “Please, your Highness. Stand back a bit.”
Eleanor freed her shoulder with a shrug. What did he fear? Being of good design, the tower’s archery slits were cut with slanting edges so they presented a narrow slit to the outside world and an almost door sized alcove to the inside. To fall out of the window Eleanor would have to slice her arms off, think slimming thoughts and breathe in. To be hit by a missile from outside she’d have to be deeply unlucky – moreso, given the present lack of a besieging force. “Oh, do stop pestering.”
The prisoners had been herded to stand in a line under the crossbar of the gallows. Nooses rested about their necks, and the executioner and his assistant were busily climbing over the structure tying the free ends of the ropes in place. The man whom Fulk had flattened was struggling, laying about himself using his bound hands like a club. He was yelling incessantly; faint traces of his voice reached Eleanor at her window. She could not identify any words.
When all the prisoners were strung up ready the executions stood to one side awaiting Fulk’s final order. He gave it. The assistant started at the left of the line, kicking the logs out from under the men’s feet, his master doing the same at the other end. Soon fifteen men and a boy kicked frantically at thin air, faces purpling as they steadily strangled.
Eleanor turned away. She paced the circuit of the room a few times as though that would speed the time until Fulk returned.
Hawise said softly, “I wonder if that was the trouble he expected?”
“If so it was not worth mewing me up behind the walls.” Eleanor stride faltered, then picked up speed. “Oh, damn it! What happened down there? That was very unlike him.”
Aveis left off staring fixedly at the ground. “Insults would be my guess. William has long been the same; if he feels his back is to the wall he flares up, determined to go down fighting. He thinks it makes him brave.” The widow snorted. “He’s a fool. Saying things when you’ve nothing left to lose is not brave. It’s saying them when you’ve much left to lose that’s brave. Or foolhardy.”
Eleanor tapped her fingers against her thigh, mind working furiously. “To get such a reaction …”
Hawise nodded unhappily. “He must have stuck a poisoned barb right through Fulk’s heart.”
At the window once more Eleanor saw the former knight’s body still twitched as it dangled. “Damn him!” She pounded her fist on the wall. “I hope he is suffering.”
Another trip about the room, and Eleanor headed for the tower room’s door. “Back to the solar. That is where Fulk will come first. He will not think to look for me here.”
Eleanor waited a long, long time, and it felt longer still. There was no sign of Fulk. The gallows could not be seen from this part of the castle.
The midday meal was delivered to the solar, and went mostly ignored.
Eventually Eleanor set down the book she was not reading. “Jocelyn. Go and find out what is happening. Surely they must be dead by now.”
The count shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He closed his mouth again and dipped into a bow, leaving on his errand without ado. That, Eleanor reflected with no small measure of satisfaction, spoke well for the lasting effects of her setting his ears alight over his treatment of Aveis. Sound grounds for suspicion or not, he had been much too heavy-handed and with someone under her protection.
Jocelyn returned perhaps quarter of an hour later. “Your husband’s down in the training yard, working with his knights.”
Eleanor marked her place with a bit of ribbon. “He is what?”
“Yes. He’s got them all armoured up and fighting on foot in close formation against another team of twenty. He’s right in the centre, and acquitting himself excellently.”
Her blood had gone cold and it was spreading numbness throughout her body.
Hawise rose and silently poured a drink for her lady. “Bad news?” she enquired as she extended the goblet of wine.
“He is training. With his knights.” Without showing hide nor hair near her, or sending her word. The count still loomed in the doorway, one hand inattentively stroking the pommel of his sword. This infuriated Eleanor for reasons she couldn’t explain. “Go on with you,” she told him in French. “Go join them. It would be a pity for you to be the only knight here not showing off your prowess.”
Jocelyn bowed deeply. “Thank you, your Highness.” He virtually ran out of the door, already roaring for his squire.
“Men,” Eleanor cursed. “The only difference between them and boys is that boys have the excuse of youth!”
Aveis laughed. “Oh, so very true! Shall we go and watch them at their play?”
“I am not wanted.” Eleanor drained her cup too quickly, and nearly choked.
Hawise refilled Eleanor’s goblet, but only to halfway. “Whatever makes you say that?” She set the pitcher down at the farthest end of the table from Eleanor and advanced the platter of chewettes in what was likely a hint that she should eat something.
“He neglected to inform me he was going to play battles, so evidently he does not want me there.”
“You quarrelled, didn’t you?” Hawise tested the temperature of a morsel of food with her fingertip. “This is still warm – just. Eat something, if only so we can.”
“You do not need to wait for me, and we did not quarrel.”
The maid sat back from the food and folded her hands in her lap. “If we refuse to eat without you then you must from pity for us.”
“You make it sound as though I have had nothing all day.”
“You as good as didn’t,” Aveis said. “You picked at your breakfast until you had excuse to leave it.”
“Executions do nothing for my appetitive.” Eleanor returned to her book, scowling. “Whyever did I lumber myself with two companions? Twice the nagging.”
Hawise cleared away the mostly empty goblet without asking if Eleanor was done with it. “What are you reading?”
“Er …” Eleanor searched the pages before her, trying to find something which would identify the work to her.
“It must be very good, to have held your attention so well.”
“Yes …” She turned the page, attempting to hide her increasing desperation.
“It’s one of Fulk’s, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Other than his treasured king Arthur he only owned two, both gifts from the King of Scots. But which of the two had he left lying around on their bed that morning!?
“And you aren’t reading it at all. Not so much as a word in the past morning.” Hawise took a knife and set to slicing the small chunk of cheese into bite-sized portions. “So, what did you quarrel about?”
Eleanor slammed the book shut. “Very well, so I am not reading it. That means nothing.” The sudden influx of wine was not sitting easily on Eleanor’s empty stomach and it would be a shame to waste the cheese; she took a handful of bits and ate them one after another.
Aveis took a sticky pastry with a lack of delay which spoke of temptation too long denied. “Was it about his wanting you to stay here instead of standing at his side during the execution?
Hawise asked, “Or about his leaving? Or something else?”
“I have been in sufficient perilous situations to be wise enough to wish never to be in another, and furthermore I know Fulk can better protect himself if he is not having to worry about preserving me. As to the other, he has been summoned by my brother and to ignore that begs for disaster.”
Hawise finished with the cheese and set the collection of bits in easy reach for Eleanor, along with a few other tempting selections. “Something is wrong, that much is clear.”
“Yes,” agreed Aveis.
“I am worried about him. That is all.” Eleanor bit into a chewette and found it was filled with diced pork and leeks. “It is not often he lets other’s words get to him. Striking a man unable to defend himself is not something he would normally do. Avoiding me …” She lifted a shoulder and did her best to sound unconcerned. “I do not know. I have so rarely seen him upset.” Which was true. It most likely had nothing at all to do with last night.
Hawise was about to speak, but Aveis got there first. “For whatever it is worth, my advice is to give him the time he seems to be seeking, then go and find him, if he hasn’t come looking for you.”
Eleanor fetched her cloak and swung it about her shoulders, fastening it in place with the brooch Fulk had given her. “Forget this. I am going to go down there and watch.”
Caught in uncertainty Eleanor opened the door a crack and did no more. Waiting.
Fulk looked over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening. “If you’re coming in shut the door. There’s a frightful draught which runs along that corridor.” He returned his attention to the ledger opened on the writing desk before him.
As he didn’t seem too displeased Eleanor came to stand at his side. After his practice session ended he had disappeared to disarm, then plain disappeared.
“Door to door search?”
“I asked Luke if he knew where you were. He said you had headed here once you’d disarmed.”
Fulk sat back. “There’s a few things I wanted to settle before I march south.” He indicated a few entries on the ledger with his forefinger. “The wood from the village palisade, we’ll use it to build a new mill. This place has enough custom to support two, and it will bring added revenues. Aveis will have no grounds to say we’ve done badly by her. The rest of the wood we’ll buy ourselves, and put towards rebuilding Morpeth.”
With great care Eleanor said, “You still plan to leave tomorrow?” If the subject had not been the focus of an argument it was only because they were both stepping around it as though it were a viper on the ground.
“I have been called. I cannot drag my heels. Bad enough I have been delayed as long as this.”
“I am pleased you are so confident I can settle your earldom into peace.”
“I don’t expect to be gone long.”
“No, it only takes a month or two. Hardly any time at all.” Assuming it didn’t take longer. Assuming he came back. Assuming there was anything to come back to. “Another week or two of your presence would do much here.”
Fulk rolled the ledger back up. “It will do me no good to delay, not in the long view. I need your brother’s good opinion.”
She was tempted to point out he was in greater need of her good opinion than Hugh’s, since he wasn’t married to Hugh. Instead she worded the unspoken fear which had been hanging between them since their betrothal. “And if the King of Scots betrays us while you are away?”
Fulk set the account roll aside. “He will wait until I’m here; If I’m away with the soldiers he loaned me then he will have to bring in extra troops to take control rather than having those he loaned me simply overthrow us. That in and of itself is another reason why I should leave soon. The longer we hold these lands the better our chance of retaining them if and when he comes. While I’m in the south I intend to recruit; I’ll dismiss these loaned swords the instant I reach Alnwick and fill my castles with my own men.” He reached out and took her hand. “We need your brother set to come to our support. We need him to look strong, too strong for Malcolm the Elder to think worth fighting. He’s not a warlike man, and he’ll only attack if he thinks it a venture he’ll gain easily from.” He closed his eyes wearily. “In truth we need them both. One to guard us against the other.”
Eleanor squeezed his hand in return. “The worst of this is that we are both right. Your place is here and you should not be rushing off to leave me. You cannot do otherwise.”
“A man shouldn’t have two such lords as I do. It’s a situation designed to collapse when it favours either king, I’m increasingly convinced of it.” Fulk produced a weak smile. “Let’s run off and find ourselves a nice little country manor somewhere, live out our lives in peace and quiet.”
“Why did you hit William of Morpeth?”
Fulk’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed a few times. “It’ll be all over the place, you’ll hear whether you want to or not. Lies. Filth. Things meant to wound.” His fist clenched and he stared at the desk fit to burn a hole through the wood.
She didn’t know what to do. Absurd and only too true. If it were her father in such a mood she’d only have to say something and he’d lash out, venting his anger that way. The same applied to Hugh, doubtless learned from that example. If she believed it would help Fulk she’d made that sacrifice in a heartbeat and not regret it. Trempwick had so rarely exhibited a wounded heart, and when he had his remedy had been one which excluded her to the point of her not knowing what it was. And Fulk? She’d seen him hurt enough to storm away and leave her until his mood improved, but then the wound had involved her and this time it did not. Uncertainly she tucked a lock of sweat dampened hair behind his ear and teased, “You seem to be breaking a lot of noses of late, my luflych little knight. This is the second I know of. Trying to set a fashion, crooknose?”
“He told me what would happen if I fail now. Not that I didn’t know, but to hear it in such bald terms …”
Eleanor put her arms around him and held him tight, leaning her cheek on the top of his head. It seemed the best thing to do. He smelled of iron and fresh sweat. “You will not fail.”
“My earldom ravaged, my people slain, our possessions looted, myself torn to pieces, and you …” The expression on his face spoke for that. “All in great detail. Very great detail.”
Though any of that would have tried him sorely Eleanor had no doubt that it was the last part which had got him. What man liked to hear the worst of what could happen to his beloved if she fell into the hands of his enemies? “I am a prize not to be abused. Nothing too bad would befall me. I am too important, too valuable.” To her own ears the lie sounded convincing enough to pass Trempwick’s stringent standards. To Fulk’s it would ring false even were it the truth.
Fulk’s shoulders heaved and Eleanor wondered if he was about to cry. He burst out, “Bloody Williams! Why is it always a William? Some days I think every fifth man is called that, others I know it is every third, and so many of them cause me trouble! It’s a cursed name, whether it was my father’s or not. I’ve decided no child of mine will ever be named William.”
Eleanor stiffened, completely thrown. “Child?”
“A figure of speech, dearest gooseberry. If I have no children none of them can be named William, can they?”
Figure of speech or slip of the tongue from a man who maintained such vigilance she had no chance of claiming she’d taken the necessary precautions when she had not? But he was smiling and encouraging her to sit on his lap instead of standing behind him, so she let the thought go. “Were you avoiding me?” she asked as she snuggled into his embrace.
“Yes,” he replied after a pause. “You know I don’t like showing my temper near you, and at that point I had a fine rage to work off.”
“Not because of last night?”
“Heavens, no!” His fingers toyed with the ribbon binding her plait, as though he was tempted to free her hair. “I half expected you to not like the idea of a back rub. I thought it worth a try though, since you’re more comfortable with me looking at your body.”
“But my refusing upset you.”
“You didn’t refuse, you sat there staring at me until I changed my mind.”
“It upset you and it spoiled everything.”
“It spoiled the mood, yes, but your doing something you didn’t want to wouldn’t have saved it. And I had hoped you would know by now I don’t find anything about you repulsive. Quite the opposite.”
Eleanor tweaked her braid out of his fingers and paid attention to how securely the ribbon was fastened. “I do know. You have made it impossible for me to think otherwise. But …” She shrugged. “I do not see how I will ever be comfortable with you seeing that mess on my back.”
“Time may change your mind.”
She did not think so … but then she hadn’t believed she’d be anything but uneasy with him gawping at her full stop. “Speaking of time, how long do you intend to stay with Hugh?”
“I had thought fifty days, more than is reasonable for him to expect of me without taking generosity too far.”
“Make it thirty. If you are away too long you will have nothing left to return to. This new earldom needs its earl.”
Now Fulk removed her braid from her worrying fingers; he replaced it so it hung down her spine. “And the new wife needs her husband?”
“Not particularly, If you remain away long enough I expect I shall have an endless parade of would-be new ones eager to kidnap me.”
“Forty days. If your brother is decisive that aught to be enough.”
So tired. So very tired. The bad side to my new contact lenses is that when my eyes are as tired as this my vision goes decidedly fuzzy. It makes reading hard. I expect there are more typos than usual here
Peasant Phill, the only comic series I’ve read is Asterix. It’s damned fine work, and the English edityions are an outstanding example of how translation should be done.
Furball, Jocelyn in Anglo-Norman is a whole new experience, one I grin at regularly. “Look to future, not sit in past like cat in puddle of piss.” I’d suggest he take that advice himself, it might help him find some peace with Richildis. That would be nice.
John_c, Rochester castle is one I haven’t had opportunity to visit. I have wanted to since first reading the account of King John’s siege of the castle, years and years ago. One day, I hope …
wow
Damn, a moment I thought that Fulk could be a bit selfish and inattentive. It would've done wonders for my identification with Fulk. Guess I'm not Fulk material.
Ah Asterix, "strange folks those Romans/Brits/Belgians/Egyptians,..." It's a great series if your 10 or 24 (my age) or more. My interests go more along the line of serious, story based comics but some series are just to good to miss.
If your into French/Belgian style comics or just want to have a good laugh, I can advise you Gaston (Lagaffe) by Franquin. It's gag based and a bit outdated but the drawing style and the humor is legendary.
Hugh and his retinue stood in prime position to watch the deployment of the army outside London. If the swarm of soldiers going about their tasks was not naked enough of a threat the groups of trebuchets and catapults being assembled at strategic points were. The king was here, and he intended to bring his capital to heel with fire and the sword.
Varin surveyed the high stone walls, hand held to his brow to shield against the afternoon sun. “It is no easy prize.”
“Only if one storms it,” Hugh replied.
“You plan to sit in the mud outside while the churls within hurl abuse at you?”
After two months of the German’s company Hugh found that his wish the man walk into the path of a ballista bolt only grew. His sister’s emissary was as imperious as her own missives. His desire was, he knew, deeply ungrateful, as were his unkind thoughts towards Matilda. She had sent this man, and the soldiers who served him, to aid him. Hugh’s brows drew down. To aid – and to spit demands in his face. To try and reduce him to their dependant. That was honesty, no more and no less and he felt no shame whatsoever in thinking it to himself. If circumstances warranted it he would say it aloud, in company, and at the very top of his voice.
Hugh was unable to keep a trace of irritation from his voice. “No, that I do not.”
“Then you will storm, I think.” The German waved a hand at the imposing city walls. “A task, I think, for your brother-by-law, no? Let him lead, give him that honour, and pray God he meets his death.”
“No, that I shall not.”
“True, there is good in her being wed to some nothing. She who would steal a crown. It is fitting. Still, I say there are pig-keepers and dung collectors who would suit her better.”
Hugh held his breath. He counted to ten before he trusted himself to speak. “Your words displease me. Whatever others have done in her name, remember this – she is my sister, and the sister of your Empress.”
Varin bowed deeply. “Pray forgive me my ardour in my Empress’ cause, and yours too, of course.”
“Guard your tongue better in future.” The apology was empty, yet what else could Hugh do but accept it as he had those previous?
“Sire!” cried one of Hugh’s bodyguard. He flung an arm out at the nearest set of city gates. A small group had emerged and was riding towards the bulk of Hugh’s army under flag of truce.
Hugh gave a brief prayer of thanks to the Lord for His benevolence, and begged for His continued support.
A while later the two men were brought on foot to Hugh’s position. They bowed deeply. The elder of the two men spoke. “Sire, we come on behalf of the city of London to ask for peace.”
“Sire?” repeated Hugh. “That was not how I was named when last I was here.”
The second man grimaced and clutched his fancy hat all the tighter in an effort to look reverent. “Some hotheads-”
“Most of the populace,” Hugh interrupted. “Let us not dress this up as something pretty, for it is not and I find myself little inclined to grant you such kindness after my prior visit. You thought to set up another on my throne. Now you have lost your nerve, and fear to lose more. You wish to keep your purses safe, your lives guarded, and your pride intact. This I shall not allow. You are here to beg me from a position of abject weakness, yet you think to dictate to me.”
The older man’s hand dropped to where his sword would hang if he hadn’t been disarmed. “If you will not come to a sensible agreement then you will find you have none. We turned you away once and we can do it again, and again, and again, and I say you’ll weary of it long before us. Sire.”
Hugh dismounted, handing his mount’s reins to his attendant. He stepped towards the emissaries. “Pray come with me, I would show you something.”
He led them – his guards following and on the alert for treachery – to the baggage park for the trio of trebuchets being constructed at the heart of his siege line. Parked safely off to one side were two wagons filled with barrels. The engineers rushing about gave them a wide berth, the soldiers set to guard them stood a trifle further away than was proper and eyed the wagons with distinct unease.
Hugh ordered the chief engineer, “I wish a barrel brought down and opened for my guests.”
The man tugged his greying forelock. “Sire.”
The barrel selected by the chief was handed down from the rightmost cart, handled with such care that it looked like the men were under the illusion it was as fragile as an egg. When the top of the cask was breached – with utmost care – an indescribable, foul stench filled the air. The liquid within was dark, thick.
Having given the emissaries time to inspect the barrel Hugh asked, “Do you know what this is?”
The foppish one shook his head but the elder man did not. “Greek fire,” he said.
“Yes.” One of three barrels remaining to him; the others on the carts were filled with water. This secret was known to but a handful, the chief engineer one of them.
“Enough to burn down the city.”
“If I so choose.”
The younger of the pair exclaimed, “You wouldn’t! Your own capital! And – and we have the crown jewels-”
“I have no use for a rebellious city which attacks its liege lord and insults him in the most vicious manner.” Hugh’s words were calm but inwardly he shook with rage. The memory of his last visit to London was vivid, so very vivid. “I would sooner have made a new regalia than have the traditional one set upon me by tradesmen and commoners with the mistaken belief I am their tame pet.” Hugh beckoned for his horse. Once mounted he gazed imperiously down at the emissaries. “Make no mistake of it, I am king. I am my father’s son.” The threat contained in the last he made clear by resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. His lord father would have had precious little mercy for those who has shown such defiance. “Return to your city. Tell them what you have seen. Then make your choice. Will you burn, or will you return to me in a manner befitting rebels begging for their lives?”
The pair bowed and started away.
Hugh called after them, “I want the ringleaders of the mob who abused me. All of them.” Ringleaders? He would get scapegoats, men innocent of – no! He checked that line of thought. There were few innocents in that city. The walls had been filled to overflow with people throwing stones and pouring fourth foul words. Whoever they gave him would in truth be guilty in addition to being unpopular with their fellows. It was not so great a sacrifice he demanded, a handful to pay the main price on behalf of others. A handful to ensure men’s tongues were stilled. He would be more merciful than his four times great-grandsire, whose example he followed. William, first of his name to rule this land, had severed the hands and feet of those who had taunted him about his bastard’s birth from the safety of Alencon’s walls, and left them to live or die as God willed. Death was kinder than such an existence, however great the suffering before the end came.
Midway through his inspection tour of the siege camp one of his squires came running up. “Sire, your … Sir … your …” The lad appeared to be at a loss for the most fitting words. He set his shoulders and chose, “Sir Fulk FitzWilliam de la Bec is here.”
Eleanor’s husband. Hugh was pleased he managed to couch the man in such mild terms. It had taken such effort, yet he had succeeded. Pray he could manage the rest in similar style, and not disgrace himself. “He has brought his force?”
“Yes, Sire. Something like a hundred men in his own colours, and perhaps a thousand in the King of Scot’s.”
There at the least was something to be grateful for. The man had done as Nell had said he would … Hugh could not help but wonder what that boded for his sister’s marriage. Did she control this bastard knight she had wed? He exerted his will and turned his mind from such considerations. “Show him where he is to encamp his men.”
“When do you wish to see him, sire?”
Never. Immediately. “I will send for him when I wish to,” he replied eventually. Let him wait like the unimportant, out of favour cur that he was. Let him wait until Hugh felt in control, able to face him without ordering him torn limb from limb.
As Eleanor passed through the main hall she noticed Jocelyn in discussion with Sir Gervaise, Alnwick’s castellan. Knowing how good Jocelyn’s Anglo-French was, and that Gervaise lacked any other language, the fact they were making sufficient sense to each other to appear alarmed made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She diverted her path to them. “What is happening?”
Sir Gervaise bowed briefly. “Your Highness, one of the patrols is late back.”
“How late?”
“We expected them back a couple of hours ago.”
There was only one reason Eleanor could think of for five men to go missing while on a routine patrol in the heart of Fulk’s earldom. “Send several pairs of men out to search for them, with instructions to remain unseen as far as possible. Double the guard on the walls, and get the defences ready.” Eleanor blushed under the steady gazes of the two men, keenly aware that they knew their jobs far better than she.
Gervaise inclined his head. “Your Highness, it shall be done,” he said gravely.
Eleanor acknowledged the rescue from her misstep with a slight smile. “I trust it shall. Please keep me informed.” She departed, changing her plans for the afternoon from inspecting the food stores to bringing in all that could be managed this very day.
Sorry, been ferociously busy and subjected to some very nasty shocks and stress, then spent the last few days recovering. There’s an awful lot going on in the story at this point, and it’s impossible to keep it all straight if I’m mostly asleep and worrying away fit to out-do Nell! I’ll see if I can manage two updates this week; I’ve got a couple of days of my little holiday left.
Furball, wow to you too :tongueg:
Peasant Phill, Fulk’s leaving her to worry about him not once but twice could be said to be a tad selfish and inattentive. All he needed to do was send a couple of words with a messenger of some sort and she’d have calmed down. His evading her only made her worry more.
He’s been more selfish in the past, much more selfish. Presently he’s still newly married to his beloved, with all the soppiness and stupidity which comes attached.
“Prince Hugh commands Sir Fulk to present himself.”
“I shall tell him.”
Without waiting for his squire to come in and relay the message Fulk sat up, reaching for his tunic as his blankets fell away. It was a cold night, and his tent had none of the luxuries his rank commanded. It had an ancient wooden bed matched with a straw-stuffed pallet and a heap of blankets. That was all, unless the chest in which his spare clothes and other possessions were stored counted. Still, he supposed he should be glad of having any of it, and consider himself grateful the tent itself, plain white canvas though it was, was of a height to stand in and the same size as a very small room. Yet a brazier of some sort to heat the place would have been so nice …
When Luke entered the tent he saw Fulk putting on the first leg of his hose. “I thought you were asleep, my lord.”
“Not yet.” He’d been too busy missing the warmth of a wife at his side. It was astonishing how quickly a man got used to that, and how long it took before he could fully settle back into the solitary life. Time might blunt that; Fulk hoped not.
When he presented himself at Hugh’s own tent the welcome he received was not the warmest he’d had in his life. The prince waved away his attendants. He did not invite Fulk to rise from his obeisance. He didn’t speak. But then nor did he start shouting, or launch himself into an attack, so it was far from the worst welcome too.
Fulk stayed on one knee and kept his head bowed. Let the man do what he willed in his own time.
“So. You finally showed your face.”
Fulk looked up so as not to be addressing the prince’s boots. “As commanded, sire.”
“You were commanded to present yourself weeks ago. Instead you sent my sister alone.” The muscle under Hugh’s left eye ticked; his jaw was clenched so hard it was a marvel his teeth didn’t break. This Fulk took as a very bad sign; the prince normally possessed enough restraint that he could lend some to his father and youngest sister and still have plenty left over for himself.
“I couldn’t leave my earldom without losing it, sire.”
“You left her to face the necessary retribution alone! You should have shielded her from that as best you could. Bodyguard.” Hugh’s lip curled as he snarled the last word.
It was uncanny to hear someone other than Trempwick call him that. “If I lost the earldom we would have had nothing, and all we’d worked to gain for you-”
“Gain?” Clamping his hands on the arms of his low-backed chair Hugh leaned forward. “You ceded land to the King of Scots, and did him homage for your earldom. Gain? I gained naught.” The prince gave Fulk no chance to speak in his defence, anticipating his argument. “But you will follow me, not he, yes?”
Fulk gave a curt nod. “You are my king, and my wife’s brother.”
“And any fool with eyes can see this. Gain? You bring me a perpetual threat hanging over my head! The very instant he thinks it to his benefit, my cousin of Scotland will use your paltry earldom as an excuse for war.”
“I know, sire.” Fulk made an open-handed gesture. “It need not be a disadvantage. The earldom may be designed to shatter apart under stress, but if it is well garrisoned with men loyal to us we can hold it. I am sure of it.”
“It is an expense I can ill-afford to keep something I little desire.” Hugh leaned back, his face struggled back into impassiveness. “It is your earldom. You pay for it.”
Fulk started to get to his feet, remembered himself and sank back down. “Sire, I am already all but crippled-”
“I expect this is where you make your demands of me.” The hand lying in Hugh’s lap clenched into a fist. “Very well. Get on with it. An earldom to match your Scottish one, doubtless. What else?”
“I make no demands. I ask for nothing.”
“Then either you are very modest, or in possession of some modicum of intellect. Get up.” When Fulk complied the prince also rose. He walked a slow circuit around Fulk, hands clasped at the small of his back, always turning his head so he could see his brother-by-law. “I must credit you with the latter, or I fear I should be lying. You know I can give you nothing. You know I must. Now it is created Alnwick must be held, for if it is not my realm’s north border becomes exceedingly vulnerable and England itself open to attack. You know I must bind you to my side, lest you change your mind and side with my cousin of Scotland. You most likely gamble that I shall honour the debt I owe my sister due to her efforts to support me and not supplant me as others would have her do. Indeed, you may gamble that I seek the best way to keep her content so she will remain loyal. You may assume that, for all that I should leave the pair of you to rot, I will not allow my sister to live in penury. I admit that there is a measure of truth in this; I do not mean for you to be comfortable, but nor shall you be begging your bread from door to door as you deserve to.” The prince broke off his stalking, and resumed his seat. “One must think of the family name, and of duty to one’s blood.”
“Sire,” said Fulk slowly, “while any and all of this may be true, as I see it I’ve gained the one thing you could give me that I want. Your sister. Alnwick is enough to support us. If most of its income is left to us then it aught to be enough to pay for its defence, provided I can rely upon you to come swiftly to my aid if I’m attacked. I can fund garrisons, not an army. It’s garrisons which are needed until there’s fighting. If there’s fighting. There may not be – if he sees no benefit then king Malcolm won’t risk the attack.”
“A collection of most pretty words. However I see the flaw. If you can pay for it. You cannot, unless I either give you more resources of free you of that fine. Which I shall not. I will not lose further face in the eyes of my barons because of this marriage.”
By now Fulk wondered if this interview was designed in part to test his mettle. The prince had been nothing but honest in word and emotion – he knew Eleanor’s brother well enough to be certain he would not fake either. Yet if the prince hoped to gain any use from his unwanted brother-by-law then he needed to be sure of what kind of man he was. With this in mind Fulk decided to take a risk. “Sire, our marriage ripped the heart out of Trempwick’s cause. You may have lost face, but you gained by Trempwick losing support.”
“And that is the only reason I do not have you killed for your presumption,” Hugh snarled. “And I will have this truth from you – was your father the Archbishop William de la Bec?”
After a hesitation Fulk answered, “No, sire. He was, as I always said, lord of Walton, a small fief of no great worth.”
Hugh bolted to his feet and turned his back to Fulk, a cry wringing itself from him, “In the name of God, how is it fair that the children of such a man as you can threaten mine?!” He spun back around, eyes burning. “They shall not. I will not allow it. Never again will my protection be found wonting – this I have sworn. No one will harm a child of mine again. I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that. Your marriage will be barren – must be. One way or another it will be.”
How strongly Hugh meant that vow could be seen in how far he had let his control slip. As much as that control had wavered during this interview seeing the self-possessed prince slip into this combination of fiercely protective father and grieving man made Fulk wonder if he saw the true reason the man tried to stifle himself so much. Because it shut the pain away. “It is a decision we came to ourselves before we were wed, sire. Our children would be … outcasts and pawns, and I will not risk losing Eleanor.”
“Then pray whatever efforts you make are successful.” Hugh’s head bowed, his words became very soft. “It is a hard thing to lose a child to nature. It is all but beyond bearing to lose one otherwise.” His head came back up; Fulk nearly flinched when their eyes met. Such naked pain. The moment lasted but a heartbeat, and Hugh became once more the cool prince. “Very well. I will make you an earldom to match your Alnwick. Something assembled out of Trempwick’s lands; it seems meet that his loss becomes the gain of those who stood loyal. So you may hold Alnwick. However you will get nothing until you have proven to all that the bestowal of it is earned. I will give you nothing until men can honestly advise me that you have earned it.”
Fulk bowed. “Thank you, sire.”
“I have very little choice but to be generous. To do otherwise would be to ask you both to betray me at a later time.”
“Sire …” Fulk saw Hugh’s eyes narrow; committed he had to make his request. “The loss of her lands hurts Eleanor more than she would ever admit. It’s made her as good as a beggar.”
Hugh gave his shoulders a tiny shrug. “She was not so prideful when she chose to marry you.”
“Can you not restore something to her? Grant me less when I have proven myself worthy of it, if you do not wish to give us an acre more than what you have already planned. It is not right she should be so dependant on me.”
“Not right?” Hugh’s back stiffened. “It is a travesty. Look at what you are, and then remember what she is. A baseborn bastard and a princess of the highest lineage this kingdom has ever had.”
“Sire, I have the very keenest awareness of who and what she is,” Fulk replied quietly. An awareness far sharper than Hugh’s, for he knew he was married to William’s chosen heir and Hugh did not – and God being merciful he never would.
“It is a travesty she submitted to willingly.” The prince held up his hand when Fulk would have spoken again. “I will consider it. Be content with that, and ask no more of me.”
Fulk bowed again. “Sire.”
“One last thing.” Hugh sized the front of Fulk’s tunic with both hands and pulled until their faces were so close their noses almost touched. “If you ever make her unhappy I will have you torn to pieces. If you cast the slightest mote of disgrace on her name - above what you already have, damn you! - your sufferings will be unimaginable. And if you betray her, God help you!” He loosed Fulk ungently, sending him back a half-step. “You will be the very paradigm of a good husband to her, or you will husband some wretch in the blackest pit of hell having been sent there in a manner which will cause men to wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night from terror at the thought of such a fate. Am I understood?”
Fulk straightened the neckline of his clothes, hoping Hugh hadn’t torn the shirt Eleanor had made for him; he’d hate to have to explain signs of mending to her. “Yes, sire, and with respect it did not need saying.”
“She is my sister. It needed saying.” Hugh rubbed the back of his hand across his brow, suddenly nothing more than a weary man who should be in his bed. “Even a king is a brother sometimes.”
Weak as the evening light was, from the top of Alnwick’s high keep Eleanor could see that an army was in the final stages of encircling the castle. A large army. One too big for her own force to counter, one which had moved too swiftly to be harassed by skirmishing defenders.
Two banners flew at a point directly opposite the castle’s main gate. One was Trempwick’s, the other her own.
“Damn him and curse him to hell! How dare he raise my own banner against me!”
Sir Gervaise left off his own observations and came to stand at her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid, your Highness. We’re well stocked and well prepared. We’re in no real danger; Alnwick is one of the strongest fortresses in the north. Relief will come in time.”
Eleanor watched the ant-like men scurrying about on the ground, trying to pick out her master. After all this time he’d finally caught up with her.
How long since a game had come this desperate? Long. Long and long. He’d won then. He could win now. Raoul Trempwick had gained his place through repeated victory. Defeat was a dim memory from his younger days. It would not become the bitter companion of his final days.
Nell was somewhere within the mountain of stone that was Alnwick. Once he had her he could turn this about. So he would get her.
Trempwick completed his inspection of his army’s deployment and returned to his tent. So weary! By the last part of his tour he could barely suppress the tremors of fatigue. Dangerous. To keep those he had left he could show no weakness. Must seem strong. Confident. They’d tear him to bits otherwise. Desperate men were hazardous. These men were desperate indeed, seeing no option but to press on and pray for all to turn their way once again. Making peace with the bastard would be too costly.
He sank into his folding chair and poured himself some wine. Too many days and nights spent working himself to the bone. A forced march days long, miles long. Every ounce of haste he could muster had been spent for this, his best chance to regain Nell. From the Welsh border to here within four days of receiving urgent word that the bulk of the force about Nell marched south.
How long did he have? Days … How many? Four for the bastard to reach him if he managed heroic speed. Say another three for word to reach him. More could be won if skirmishers went sent down to harass the advance. Ten days total?
Trempwick took a bite of his plain meal. Another. Another. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Food was strength. Strength was life. Ten days. Ten nights. 240 hours.
He could do it.
He had to.
The bit where he grabs Fulk and tells him he is going to be the best husband ever or else is one of my favourite Hugh snippets :gring: I like him a lot more when the façade cracks and he becomes human.
Poor Trempy, he could use a week at a luxury spa. Rest, food, relaxation, and no worrying.
Why did i hear the theme from McGyver in the background when Trempwick had his monologue?
The next installment will be very interesting.
"Furball, wow to you too"
Took a few days to decide how or if I should respond. :)
Yeah, I apologize for the vapid post. I long ago decided that posting spelling corrections was too nit-picky. And I've mentioned that I shy away from commenting on characters or plot too much cause I don't want to influence the creative process or planned exposition. And pointing out all the wonderful turns-of-phrase or POVs, etc., just makes me sound like a fan-boy.
But I want you to know I read and enjoy every episode, ma'am.
I don't know what you have planned for the future, but it feels like there could still be a couple of hundred jam-packed pages of action, plot, characterization and historical info to go. . . and I wouldn't mind a bit!
Editting this for publication would be a big task and an absolute joy. I realize the problems there might be in breaking it into two (or more!) books. But there are certainly enough characters, plot, interesting info and sheer *interest* to warrant it. However the story ends, I think we're all gonna be sorry to have to say goodbye to everyone.
The first set of church bells inside London began to ring for Terce, a cacophony which grew as the multitude of holy sites joined in with their own differing melodies.
Prince Hugh spoke to his chief engineer. “Let us clap our spurs to this doddering horse. Give them a single volley.”
From the fringes of Hugh’s retinue Fulk watched as the siege engines were made ready to shoot by an orderly flurry of activity. The same preparations would be taking place in the other siege camps, the order having been relayed by flag signal.
The machines flung their shot in harmony; seconds later the other camps launched and missiles flew at the capital from four directions. Fulk succumbed to the same temptation as others in the prince’s party, and shaded his eyes to better track the flight of a single flaming missile mixed in with the stones. Like many he had never seen Greek fire before, only heard the appalling stories of those who had. Stories, he suspected, which grew in each telling.
The missiles hit home. The effect was disappointing. The stone shot produced a series of audible impacts as they landed behind the walls. The Greek fire … nothing. A murmur ran through the spectators. Perhaps, it was suggested in low voices, not enough of the substance had been used? A single cloth-wrapped missile the size of a man’s head mustn’t be enough, whatever the stories said. Hugh had been too mean with his fanatically guarded supply and so wasted what he’d used. Those who had been present for Hugh’s attack on the rebel-held castle ten days march from here countered with the possibility that the missile have landed in a street, and so had little to burn.
Wisps of greasy black smoke began to rise from the area where the missile had disappeared behind the city wall. The wisps grew to a plume, and again to a cloud. A church bell rang again, a tuneless clamour crying of attack and fire.
Within the half hour the city gates opened and a procession of men on foot wearing long white robes trooped out. A second party consisting of guards and some prisoners hung back near the walls, waiting.
Brought before their king the twelve most important men of the city dropped to their knees, awkwardly due to the nooses they had placed about their necks in token of his right to execute them. “Sire,” their spokesman said, “London is yours. We surrender without condition. We place our fate in your hands.”
Hugh raised his chin. “I accept your surrender.”
The kneeling men bowed with difficulty.
“You will have your militia stand down at once. Any man found bearing a weapon other than a dagger for personal protection will be killed on sight. My men will take possession of the walls; any person not in my service found on those walls will be killed. When the party I send to take control of the tower arrives the gates must be opened to them without delay, and again, on pain of death, the walls must be cleared and no person of yours bearing arms. Only when my men are in full control of the city will I myself enter.”
Paranoid though this would inevitably be seen as, Fulk believed it to be a wise choice. London had proven itself worthy of distrust; the ease with which it could fall upon Hugh and his army must not be underestimated. With the army deployed to march through the streets, strung out in a thin column winding through the city, and the city’s gates slammed shut to prevent escape Hugh’s entire cause could be cut to pieces by ambushes pouring from the side streets. Some would view the damage to the city a price well worth paying for the victory in this civil war.
The spokesman said, “The men you asked for wait outside the city under guard. The mayor is amongst them. He more than any other was Trempwick’s man.”
Hugh dispatched a party to claim the men. He bade the emissaries to rise and remove the halters from their necks. “Unless there is additional treachery from your city I shall from this point forwards show you the mercy I would grant to those who surrendered without recourse for violence on my part. Your people need not fear, excepting those who violate my orders with regards to weaponry and forbidden areas. There will be no looting and my soldiers will behave with decency. I intend to permit your charters and rights to stand intact, for the main.” He offered his right hand for them to bow over and kiss; each man did so in turn. “If London crosses me again I shall raze it to the ground and the city shall remain as naught but ashes, never to be rebuilt.” The prince set his hand on the crucifix formed by the hilt of his sword. “This I do swear. Such treachery as has run rampant through my realm must never be permitted again. It is an affront to God and to all right thinking men, and so shall it be rewarded fittingly.”
“Give me back my wife, and I shall depart peacefully. My word upon it.”
Eleanor shouted back a reply before any of her companions could. “I am not your wife!”
At this distance it was as good as impossible to read Trempwick’s expression. “Nell. I know you are under duress-”
“I am not!” Eleanor filled her lungs and roared back so loudly the words tore at her throat. “I am not your wife! I am not anyone’s queen! I will not usurp my brother’s throne! Never!”
“Your half-brother has no right to the throne. You are the chosen heir!” A full bowshot separated them, yet his finger pointed unerringly at her. “You. No other.”
It was a truth Eleanor was uncomfortably aware of, with her father’s ring hidden in her girdle and his messenger standing at her side. Eleanor prayed Jocelyn had the sense to keep his mouth tight closed. “Traitor and liar!”
Perhaps deciding that further addressing her was too dangerous – or that he might gain more by bypassing her – Trempwick addressed those stood with her. “Send her out to me and I will march away within that very hour. My word on it. I shall seek no retribution, now or later. Continue to hold her and I will not let a single one of you live, and the manner of your dying will be the most unpleasant I can find. There will be no mercy. I give you one hour. Send my lady out within that time or learn I speak no idle threats.” He rode back to his army without further ado.
Sir Gervaise said, “I wonder that he does not think we will cut your throat if he attacks, considering he believes us your captors.”
Eleanor watched her master’s retreating figure. “He knows I am not. Thus he knows I am in no danger from you.”
“He may speak of idle threats all he likes, but I don’t see much he can do save attempt to storm our walls.”
Knowing Trempwick as she did Eleanor did not fear his storming the castle. Why take such a risk when he could get her to surrender herself, or induce her garrison to betray her?
The unlucky men handed to him as those responsible for the abuse he had received on his first visit to the city Hugh had dealt with in the largest of the city’s market places. People crowded out to watch, filled with curiosity about the event itself and the man at the centre of it.
Following the example of his four time great-grandsire Hugh had their hands and feet cut off. In a touch of his own he had their tongues cut out, and that wound cauterised with the others before the loss of blood could carry their lives away before it was time. The wretches were then taken to be hung at various crossroads in the city. The city’s mayor – for he was the first the citizens had thrust forward into Hugh’s hands – ended his life strung up above the very gate where he had denied Hugh access. The corpses would hang for three days, after which they would be cut down and cast into an unmarked pit outside the walls. In a show of mercy Hugh had requested the ground be consecrated so their souls might have some hope of redemption.
Acutely conscious of his people’s regard Hugh conducted himself with the utmost care throughout, showing neither too much interest nor too little, bloodlust nor squeamishness, hatred nor pity. To aid him in maintaining this facade in full force of the grizzly display he turned his mind to how much money he could extract from this city in fines and payments to regain royal favour. The loss of coin would hurt these merchants far more than anything else he might devise.
As promised one hour later Trempwick returned, bringing with him several soldiers and four prisoners carrying a roughly hewn tree trunk.
“My patrol,” Gervaise growled.
Two of Trempwick’s men began to dig a hole in the ground to seat the stake in.
Eleanor’s head swam with the horror of understanding. “He will torture them to death.”
Jocelyn looked appalled. “You inside. Not watch. Better.” His hand moved fractionally to indicate Aveis and her daughter standing close to the back of the gatehouse’s ramparts, and again for Hawise at Eleanor’s side.
Eleanor took his meaning – and limited it. “Go inside,” she ordered her two ladies. “Do not come back out without permission.” She would stay. She owed that much to those who were going to die for her.
Aveis made no attempt to hide her relief at the command; she settled her child on her hip and carried her away.
Hawise didn’t move. “If you are staying so am I.”
Eleanor contemplated having Jocelyn carry the maid away but decided against it. It might set a precedent; she could find herself bundled away likewise. “Sir Gervaise.”
“Your Highness?”
“Make sure the garrison know that Trempwick will do the same to them if he captures them, whether we surrender or no.”
“Your Highness.”
It took a while to set up the stake and bind the first prisoner to it. By that time the walls were lined with much of the garrison, stony-faced as they came to see for themselves the truth of their comrade’s capture.
Trempwick spurred his horse forward. “Let her go, and I will let my prisoners go. Otherwise they die one after another.”
Sir Gervaise cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Burn in hell!”
Trempwick dragged his mount’s head about and rode back towards his camp. One of the soldiers near the stake drew a knife and started work on the prisoner.
Eleanor found it increasingly hard to make her eyes focus on the writhing figure on the stake, then hard to gaze in that direction at all. She tried to close her ears to the screams. Before long she was trembling with the effort it took to remain in place. Trempwick’s man was a master at his work; she suspected he must be the spymaster’s chief torturer. To carve a man up, piece by piece, bit by bit, without placing him in danger of his life or permitting him to lose consciousness required tremendous skill. Those prisoners would each take hours to die.
Her stomach got the better of her; she lurched to the corner of the gatehouse and threw up. Hawise, she noticed, had done likewise and now huddled in a corner with her hands pressed over her ears. Another bloodcurdling scream set Eleanor heaving again, and induced her to admit that duty was less important than ensuring these deaths weren’t in vain.
“Help me back to the solar,” she begged Jocelyn. Trempwick knew his target too well.
Hugh stood before the chest which held the crown jewels. Reverently he bowed to them, and crossed himself. He murmured a prayer of thanks to God for allowing him to come this far.
The palms of his hands were damp; he wiped them on the skirt of his tunic and reached into the velvet-lined depths of the chest. The twin sceptres were the first items he touched. He ran his fingertips along the slender shafts until each hand lay at the correct point to grip them. Taking a deep breath he lifted them clear. In his right hand rested the iron sceptre topped by a fleur-de-lys, in his left the gold with the crucifix and four pearls dangling as pendants. For the first time in his life he felt the weight of the symbols of his future authority and right to command. He found them lighter than the invisible burdens they represented.
Setting them aside he lifted up Saint Edward’s staff. Holding it in a single-handed grip he stared eye to eye with the dove perched atop the gold-sheathed shaft. The foot of the staff was capped by a spike, and it was to Hugh’s chagrin that he knew he thus far managed only one half of the duty the saint’s staff lay upon a crowned king. In a whisper he swore, “I will herd them back to peace and smite those who would break it, or I shall die in the attempting of it.”
The jewel and gold encrusted sword Hugh placed aside swiftly. This was his father’s sword, made for his coronation, one of the few personal items of regalia included in the chest. Hugh would not use this sword when his own day came. He found himself attracted to the concept of using a true sword in his own crowning, a thing made for battle with only such ornamentation as was practical, feeling it would speak of his strength and intention to pursue his foes as practical things, not ornamental tradition.
He grieved for the loss of the ring, which should have been returned to this store from his father’s hand upon his death, and wondered how a replacement could sit alongside the splendour made and blessed for Saint Edward the Confessor. A ring there must be, for without it king could not fully be wedded to country. Even were the band of gold set with sapphires and diamonds imitated so closely as to be indistinguishable from the original it would not, could not, be the same.
Only one other item out of the collection in the chest Hugh wished to see, to touch. The crown itself. Not a crown made for common wear, not a showy plaything, the crown. The crown with which kings were made; the only crown with which a King of England could be made.
Hugh had seen his father wear it during the occasional ceremonial crown wearings, and on rare important occasions where one of his personal ones would not do. The glory of it took his breath away as he lifted it into the light; the weight of it made his neck muscles bunch in anticipation of the discomfort it would cause its wearer.
Hugh did not foul tradition by placing it on himself. Only the Archbishop of Canterbury could place this crown on a man’s head and only he could lift it off again, whether this man was being anointed king or had already ruled for a lifetime. He did not tempt fate by lifting it above his head as though to imagine himself wearing it.
Touching his lips to the gold brow band he murmured, “Let me be worthy.” He returned it to the chest, to sleep in the dark until he could be united with it in Westminster before God and nation.
He knelt before the chest, intending to spend time in vigil before these, the symbols of the high office he hoped to undertake, as a squire spent time in vigil before going forth to be knighted.
That crown had been made for a saint; Hugh prayed for his aid. It had graced the heads of men whose names now rang with an echo of legend; Hugh meditated on their examples. It had been worn by men of lesser calibre; Hugh desired above all to evade becoming another such man. He prayed for a son to pass this on to. He asked for guidance. Above all he looked at what he sought to undertake, what it truly meant, his fitness for it, and how he could best serve it.
Hours later he rose on stiff legs and closed the chest, fastening its four stout locks. He crossed himself, bowed, and stepped backwards until he was near the door. Only then did he turn away, careful not to put his back to the holy objects.
What a nice update.
Peasant Phill, having never watched McGuyver I wouldn’t know :tongueg: From what I hear of that program McTrempver would build a catapult from a paperclip, a piece of flint and a pet ant called Tony. It would not only work brilliantly but it would instantaneously blow a massive gap in the walls in a single shot. This could be amusing.
Furball, truth be told I couldn’t think what to say at all so I went with “Wow to you to” in the hopes it might at least cover for my complete lack of inspiration.
I wouldn’t be afraid of influencing the story ~:) The characters tell me what happens, and I merely write it down. I can barely influence it myself. It’s a good thing; I tend to cringe from some of the less than happy events, and they are necessary.
Jocelyn finished adjusting his clothes and flipped a coin to the really very damned sullen girl who’d had the good fortune to catch his eye. Honestly it was too much! Anyone would think by her attitude that she hadn’t wanted to be bundled into bed by a highly attractive count!
He made his way through the warren of corridors to the outside, travelling in the warm stupor which came from recent satisfaction. As he emerged into the bailey he smothered a yawn. What would be really nice now was a nap. He took a deep breath of fresh air in an effort to shake off the lassitude and cursed the unfairness of it all. God made men sleepy at certain times as a hint that they should doze peacefully in a soft feather bed with a suitable female twined about them. Fat bloody chance of that! Fat bloody chance before you added in the siege and some poor wretch wailing his life away outside the gates hour after hour and a princess who possessed a right bunch of strange attitudes towards men doing what came naturally. Once you factored all that in it was a miracle you managed to take your clothes off in the first place.
A group of men at arms were training in the bailey; his own men were working their paces separate to the locals. Jocelyn took up position to watch, arms folded and face set in a scowl which implied his people needed to work a damned sight harder to win his approval. Not that they actually did. The posture was traditional – his men didn’t need to improve, by Christ’s knee! Each one of them could have fought three of the locals without breaking a sweat, being proper sturdy men in the service of someone who knew a lot more about war than the average lord.
On spotting Jocelyn Alain cried, “Up the pace you idle bastards, the lord’s watching!”
The handful of men picked up speed, cutting and jabbing at their sparring partners with more energy. Inwardly Jocelyn grinned; just like being back at home. Home. The word slashed through Jocelyn leaving an unbearable ache. If he’d been home he’d have been watching his eldest son taking his swings at the pell with a wooden sword made to suit his growing height, concealing his pride in endless corrections as he guided his heir on the first steps of the path to manhood. Someone else would be doing that, maybe at this very time.
Trempwick’s prisoner let out a particularly blood curdling shriek; activity in the bailey faltered for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Jesù and his blessed torments, feeling overwhelmed him and Jocelyn nearly shouted that he’d had enough! He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his children again, to sit in his own hall, to speak his own language, to argue with his own wife, to be master of all he surveyed, to have some proper fun and to get to doze afterwards, and above all to be away from this bloody civil war!
He slouched back against the wall of the keep, his scowl no longer fained. He was getting old, that was it. Must be. Saint Bartholomew’s bones, but it wasn’t fair that he could turn into a whining old git at the ripe old age of eight and twenty! By choice he encouraged slight tickle of a budding yawn into a fully fledged jaw-cracker, aware as he did so of a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. The yawn petered off into a heavy sigh. One penny and some good effort all wasted on some ingrate of a servant girl and the only difference was that he felt sleepy, a little less tense with lust, and more agitated to spend actual proper time with someone who actually properly liked him and whom he actually properly liked in return. It had been too long since he’d last seen Amelyn and their son, young Jocelyn. Longer still since he’d spent time with Gisele, and his off and on relationship with Tillot had been off for so long it was as good as finished.
His thoughts were broke by a sound, or rather an absence of it. The screaming had stopped. All activity ceased and men held their breaths as they waited to see if the poor damned wretch would be revived again, or if he’d finally managed to slip away from this world to the kindly embrace of a bevy of angels who’d bandage his wounds and such like.
Time stretched and silence prevailed. The collectively held breaths were released and life resumed for all except the man outside the gates.
The worst thing about this bloody siege – apart from the risk of death, the being trapped, the screaming, the right cunning git parked outside the gates, the simmering atmosphere inside the gates, and the boredom – was being cut off from the rest of the world. For all he knew Richildis had sent him word of how his lands were faring – hell, damn it the bloody woman had bloody well better have! Anything could have happened. Considering she was a woman Tildis was smart, and when it came to the children she was highly motivated, so he could mostly rely on her to keep his lands in one piece if only for their sake. Thing was, between the civil war over the English crown and the French king’s attempt to wrest power from his regents Jocelyn had this recurring nightmare of returning to find his holdings burned to ashes, dead bodies lying decomposing where there had once been settlements, and then, as he entered the ruins of his grand castle at Saint Maur, three little corpses and another with gorgeous golden hair … Richildis could send him a messenger telling him she was dead, and he’d not know about it.
The whoomp of a catapult shooting made Jocelyn bolt upright, battling the instinct to dive for cover. The missile soared overhead, a black speck which grew in size until it became a lump about the size of a man’s head. It landed, bounced, rolled, and came to a rest two good strides away Jocelyn’s feet. The reason it had looked the same size as a man’s head was quite simple: it was one. Or had been. The nose, lips and ears had been trimmed away to leave half-clotted wounds which had run out of blood to ooze, and the eyes had been torn out. There wasn’t a hair left on it, not on the scalp, not where the eyebrows should be, not eyelashes.
Jocelyn swallowed hard and nudged the head with his foot so it faced away from him. He wasn’t squeamish but as mutilated heads went this one looked particularly unhappy. Convulsively Jocelyn scraped the toe of his boot against the ground, wanting the brownish-crimson muck the brief contact had left gone; he felt an unwanted yell building in his throat.
Jesù bloody Christ! That Trempwick was one hell of a bloody sick bastard!
A ragged crescent had formed about the head, everyone keeping their distance but all feeling obliged to look, as they’d felt obliged to look at the man when he’d still been alive, whole and recognisable at the start of this. Some of the less hardy souls tossed up their stomachs.
In a low voice a man observed, “That’ll be us, if he gets his hands on us.”
Jocelyn’s English was good enough to snatch a word or two out of the whole, no more. The same applied to the reply of, “Then we’d best make sure the castle doesn’t fall. Right?”
“Alnwick’s strong,” put in a grizzled old veteran.
One of the soldiers who’d spewed up his guts swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and rose on shaky legs. “What fucking good is that if help never comes? Or if it’s not enough? No man should die like that!” He very nearly looked at the head, and shuddered.
Jocelyn’s effort to puzzle out any form of sense from the words was shattered by the resumption of the screaming outside the walls, this time rising in a new voice.
Some of the men in the bailey crossed themselves. Multiple voices murmured, “God save us.”
“Better to look to the king than the Almighty.”
“If he comes.”
Another man added, “If he wins.”
And a third, “What king?” Whatever he’d said caused his fellows to turn on him with more than a bit of hostility. Quickly the man at arms added, “Well, no one’s been crowned yet, have they? So there’s not a king, speaking legally. That’s all I meant.”
Enough of all this jabbering! Whatever it meant Jocelyn didn’t like it. Soldiers needed to be kept busy so they didn’t have time to scare themselves like a pack of brats swapping ghost stories. In loud langue d’oil Jocelyn ordered his bemused men, “Enough bloody idling, back to it, damn your lazy hides!”
The example was gradually followed by the locals, and once more the yard was filled with men practicing their skill at arms to the sound of a man being torn to shreds.
Thunder. There’s been a lot of it here recently, and by the looks of things it is going to thunder again soon. Don’t know if any of you remember but at the near the start of ‘Eleanor’ I had my PC melted by a thunder-induced power surge. This has left me paranoid, especially now I have this wonderful shiny black machine of reliability. At the slightest rumble it gets completely disconnected from the power supply, making it a tad hard to write ;)
"Jesù bloody Christ! That Trempwick was one hell of a bloody sick bastard!" All the besieged will be nervous wreckes before Trempwick sends his first man into combat.
Let's hope a releave force gets there in time.
It was probably lightning that fried your PC and not thunder, nevertheless the one goes with the other. English isn't my first language so I don't know the excact word for it but there is a device that disconnects whatever you plug into it when the current running through it is higher than a certain amount. And if that doesn't work, you can still use old reliable ( and non-electrical) pen and paper.
Froggy: Peasant Phill refers to a surge protector.
My current PC is plugged into a surge protector. So was the one which got melted. :blankg:
“Life’s a strange thing,” Edwin observed. “Yesterday we were all closeted away frantic over what to do, and today we sit in feast to celebrate London’s return to its rightful master.”
Fulk swallowed his mouthful of quail. “A feast we might have had yesterday if not for your delays.”
The goldsmith raised his eating knife in a salute. “Fair point. Alas, I must confess that we Londoners have a certain arrogant pride. Few of us believed the prince would truly risk damage to his capital, whatever he did to that castle. We were wrong.”
“I think the prince is surprising a great many people, Trempwick not the least.”
“Yes, yes.” Edwin nodded. “Few expected him to be able to hold his own, and fewer believed he would be capable of acting as he has – as has been necessary.”
Fulk glanced to the dais where Eleanor’s brother sat at the centre of the table, a sight of considerable splendour despite his lack of a crown, king’s or prince’s. “They do say adversity does wonders for refining a man.”
“To his better elements, or his worst. We are fortunate in that it appears our future king is refining to the good. There’s not a soul in the city who doesn’t know he could have treated us far more harshly, and some of us can admit it would have been deserved.” Edwin transferred the bones of his portion of the quail onto the waste platter and helped himself to a portion of veal. “The fines he has levied on the city are heavy but we keep our heads and our businesses. We shall recover.”
“I doubt all as are sanguine.”
“That would be unnatural! Men are made to complain.”
Luke refilled Fulk’s goblet with wine and stepped back to his place in the shadows. A droplet of wine had splashed onto Fulk’s hand; he wiped it away.
Fulk’s dining partner held up his own cup for a refill. “Your squire’s not made for this, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.”
“Luke is learning swiftly.” As was his master, Fulk admitted to himself. His terror of committing a blunder while dining in high company receded a little more each time he did so.
The goldsmith held up a hand in a placating gesture. “I meant it not as a slight. It was an attempt to broach a subject in an artful manner.” With a self-mocking smile he broke off a mouthful of bread. “Evidently not so artful as I’d hoped.”
Until now Edwin had made conversation which, if not always light, had seldom failed to be engaging, and Fulk had found himself forming a good opinion of the man. If nothing else the goldsmith had failed to remark on Fulk’s exclusion from the high table, and his behaviour had been unfailingly courteous. “And this subject would be …?”
“You have need of someone who can fill a body servant’s role to a standard which befits your new rank.”
“Do I?” Fulk phrased it so it wasn’t a question so much as a warning not to attempt to impose.
“Now I’ve offended you, and for that I apologise.” Edwin waved away a servant offering a new type of wine since both their cups were full. “I’m not sure how such things are handled amongst the nobility. Apprenticeships are generally arranged in the bluntest of terms.”
The goldsmith’s open naming him as nobility put Fulk on his guard. “What do you want of me?” he asked, a trifle brusquely.
“I have three sons. The eldest will take over my business, and I think to have my youngest join him as a partner. My middle son has no taste for it, and his dislike for the work shows. He wants to be a warrior, wants desperately and has for much of his life. I’m a rich man.” Edwin tugged at one richly embroidered cuff, jewelled rings glinting as they caught the light. “Very. It’s no accident that I’m sat here at the high end of this table, worthy of a place next to the king’s unusual brother-by-law.” He subsided with an apologetic half-smile. “That sounds intolerably boastful, I know. But it’s true. I can fund my son to knighthood, if I can but find one prepared to take him. He’s not got a drop of noble blood in him, so finding a man willing to take him on is not proving easy.”
“So you’re asking me because of who I am.”
“I hoped that you of all people might be willing to overlook his one lack.”
It would be a long while before noblemen thought to place their sons with him for training, if ever they did. Fulk’s rapid rise had placed new demands on him; an earl needed more than one squire, and he needed someone of greater social skill than a common man at arms drafted to the position. Denied the traditional source of young men Fulk had long known he would have to find an alternate source; the one on offer here struck him as one with potential.
Edwin misinterpreted his silence. “I’m not asking you to make him a lord, or a landed knight, or anything such. Just a household knight, a man who can fight and follow his lord. You give him the skills, I’ll give him the equipment and pay you for his upkeep.”
“How old is the boy?”
“Ten. Somewhat old to begin I know, but he’s been taught a little basic skill. Some wrestling, a bit of staff fighting, a bit of the care of armour, and he’s good with horses. He’s tall for his age, and he’s got good stamina.”
“I’ll look at him. No promises, mind.”
Gah! At the time in the story when I most need to write quickly I’m plodding along and the frustration of it is killing me!
This scene needs others to work decently, and is posted solely on the theory that something is better than nothing when you’ve already been waiting a while. The other scenes are following as quickly as is amphibianly possible, which is presently not very :( Should be done by the end of the week :crosses fingers:
You know things are bad when you think a broken finger or similar would do wonders for your writing because you’d need to take some time off work sick and could spend days at a time writing endlessly, then realise you’d have to turn up anyway because everyone else who can do what you do is not there.
The conclusion is rapidly drawing near so I'm wondering why you depicted a scene where Fulk consideres taking a 10 year old boy as second squire. It must be because he (or the situation) is crucial to the upcoming confrontation otherwise (IMHO) it has no function.