The Machiavellian Adventures of Princess Eleanor

Why no cheese, just pop the supermarket and pick up some cathedral city extra mature. I do have to say I am a bit of a cheese freak.

Hehe, froggy is a cheese snob, which is one level above cheese freak. Cathedral city and any other mass produced cheese is at worst garbage and at best what I call munition cheese. If you know what munition armour is then you will know immediately what my opinion is. For those of you who don't read books on armour on a regular basis munition quality is something mass produced with no real skill or finesse to be used by the vast majority of troops because it is cheap and reasonably effective. It usually tries to copy the better equipment, but never makes it to the same level. Munition cheese is acceptable for cooking, but eating it raw is a grave sin to froggy taste buds.

No, I like real cheese. I get this cheddar from my local monthly farmer's market. Made with unpasteurised milk, matured for something like 12 months and so strong it very literally makes your gums itch. This is seriously strong cheese, unlikely the watery muck you get at Sainsbury's. At the last market I got 6 big pieces; they were all gone within a week.

The only supermarket cheese I like for eating uncooked is Sainsbury's taste the difference French Roque... er, I can't remember how you spell it. A blue cheese made from unpasteurised ewe's milk, extra mature and quite strong.

Hello:

I'm still finding my way around this maze of forums (having only recent arrived) and I came across your story. Actually, I came across the expired Writing Contest (too bad, I had a clever idea for one of the pictures) and then I came across your story. I spent the last two and half hours reading the entire thread (comments and all).

Remarkable story, you know. You do your characters very well and some are simply unforgetable (like William - I kind of liked that guy). You certainly know enough about the time and setting to create believable detail. The plot keeps me reading (which doesn't always happen in todays literature -- most of what I read is, oh, a hundred years old or so).

May I offer one criticism: In your prolouge (and at times in the rest of the story) the children are not quite acting and speaking like, well, children. Even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, did children know about things like treaties? I mean, I can wholehearted believe a king would try to protect his empire by sending his eleven year old daughter off to marry another potentates child just to create an alliance, and certainly she would be scared and reluctant to leave, but would anyone take the time to explain why she was getting married? Would she be waxing on about treaties and such? Sometimes the children speak like adults.

Otherwise, I enjoyed it. Or I wouldn't have spent an afternoon reading it when I have something really cool to read . . . you know, like Great Expectations. ~;)

The Shadow One

:duel:

Love bites -- bite it back.

You know what?

On second throught, ignore my criticism. He who shows up late for the wedding shouldn't complain about the food.

Poor manners on my part. Apologies.

The Shadow One

More new blood, hurrah! :gring:

Late guests are very welcome to complain about the food, in fact you could say that is prefered. Children are a menace of mine; I hate them in real life so I am quite clueless about they behave. They often seem to be too old because I try not to make them seem too young for their age. Heh, froggy was always an 'old' child and that doesn't help much. At least children grew up faster in medieval times; that does help a little. We shall see if my next attempt, the Scottish princess, is any better.

In the case you mentioned I assumed Matilda would have been told something like "This marriage is important to me; an alliance depends on it so DON'T MESS UP!!!"

I know what you mean on the cheese front Froggy. Only problem is there aren't any decent farmers markets nearby so I have to put up with the extra mature cheddar they sell at tescos.

Although take me to france and I'll come back with a lot of good French cheese. My special favourite is Mimolete. It's as hard as rock and if you let it melt on your tongue it feels like your in heaven and can literally faint in the perverse flavours.... sorry just need to finish of the last piece.

*Comes back in a minute nibbling on some cheese.*

Where was I Oh yes, wotcha shadow.

Milady Frog when you said you don't like children I had the image of a woman with the Geisha hat on in full plate armour with a big sword riding after lots of little children laughing manicaly.

Sorry sometimes my imagination gets away from me and with coursework exam practice and homework and the hagio thread I have no time to write anything.

Next morning Trempwick was nowhere to be seen. Fulk reported this to Eleanor when he dropped in to stash his pallet out of the corridor as usual. By now he had given up on trying to keep her in bed and out of mischief, deciding that keeping her in her room and out of mischief was a more suitable goal now.

Eleanor was not very surprised. “He sometimes vanishes for a day at a time; there is no pattern but he is often gone for several days a month. He always dresses as if he is travelling for a reasonable distance and takes a good horse; I suspect he goes to London. I would love to know what exactly he does,” she admitted, proving once again that she had boundless inquisitiveness. “He always says it is a spymaster’s holiday and a welcome break from having his nerves shredded by me.”

“Probably visiting a brothel,” said Fulk authoritively. Actually he was not at all that certain, but somehow the idea of the spymaster in a brothel amused him and it did seem likely enough. Since he was the king’s spymaster it would probably be a very high class establishment so he would have very little chance of catching the pox or being eaten alive by fleas. Pity.

“I never thought him the type for that kind of thing,” confessed Eleanor. She grinned suddenly and very mischievously, “Murdering people I can imagine, but women?” Fulk didn’t think the spymaster would be too gratified by the way Eleanor had dismissed his chances of having a love life.

The more he considered it the better his theory sounded; a spymaster would love gathering information and guilty secrets, and a brothel was a very traditional place to uncover such information. Trempwick probably recruited a lot of his low level, disposable agents from such places. A working holiday, paid for from the royal treasury, with none of the risk of entanglements or the need for a double life a longer term arrangement would require. “You’ll have to get close enough to see if you can smell perfume clinging to him when he gets back,” he suggested. Probably not; Trempwick was entirely too smart for that.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Eleanor doubtfully. She really did have a hard time picturing Trempwick having a … hobby.

“Unless he’s one of those natural monk types it’s a safe bet at least some of his trips end up with company.”

Eleanor spotted another thing that had never occurred to her; if Trempwick went off … on a holiday from time to time then Fulk probably would too. Now that was a bothersome thought, one which made her jealous when she had no right to be. She now acknowledged that one lesson she had received ages ago on being a proper noble lady actually did have some value after all. It was far better to ignore these things, unless you had the misfortune to be married to a man who had picked up a mistress or five, or had a manservant who was dragging your household’s name through the mire.

Her tutor had informed her that it was beneath her to concern herself with a common harlot who, he emphasised dramatically, could never pose her a threat. Yes, well who cared about that? The honest truth was the idea made her faintly nauseous; Trempwick had a whole new side she had never even suspected, and that did not bode well. What else had she missed? Underestimating Trempwick was always dangerous, even if this particular slippage had not proved so yet.

Fulk, well that was the odd thing. She had decided long ago that she absolutely no interest in that kind of thing, thank you. So why was she so jealous that someone else would get his attentions?

Enacting that society principle, and dodging away from a disquieting chain of thoughts, she changed the subject briskly. “Well, whatever he is doing he is gone, and while the spymaster’s away the princess will play,” said Eleanor with slightly forced levity. She sat up a bit straighter; her back twinged and she winced, “Or she would if she were able to. If only he would take his accursed servants and their spying eyes with him, and restore me to peak physical condition – we could continue our sword fighting lessons.”

Fulk said consolingly, “Never mind, we can play chess instead.”

“You like chess?” Fulk nodded. Eleanor’s shoulders drooped, “Oh drat.” She bit her lip, thinking. “Are you any good at it?”

“None so bad; every good squire learns to play and I improved my game a lot in France.”

“I see,” said Eleanor slowly. Indeed she did; if he was not very good she might be able to beat him. She had learned everything she knew about the game from Trempwick and he was reputedly one of the best players at court. It would be pleasant to win for once.





Fulk picked up his rook and moved it three squares forward, setting it down with a decisive click. “Check.” He leaned back in his chair with, Eleanor thought, a self-satisfied, smug smirk pasted all over his stupid face.

Eleanor glared at the board on the small table between them; he had done it again! Three games in a row, and all of them lost within twenty moves. “I thought you said you were not very good?” she said tetchily. She crossed her arms, ignoring the ever-present complaint for her battered body, and tried not to sulk. So much for her high hopes of winning her first chess game ever.

“You need to plan ahead more, act instead of react,” Fulk told her as he began to reset the pieces; ivory on one side of the rosewood board, ebony on the other, and all meticulously drawn up in neat ranks with the people facing their enemy.

Eleanor picked up her king and glowered at the intricately carved ivory man sat on his throne, “I think the problem with this game is that the fundamental principle disagrees with me; kings do not require saving and if they do they can damn well save themselves with no aid from me.”

Fulk grinned to himself, and tweaked the alignment of one of his pawns so he was looking straight ahead instead of slightly off to one side. “Perhaps you are just annoyed that there’s no princess piece?” he teased.

Eleanor set the king back down none too gently and announced to the world in general, “I hate chess.”

“Really?”

“Yes, otherwise I would not have said so, you cabbage witted sluggard!”

Fulk surveyed the sulking figure sat on her bed opposite him and tried not to laugh. “Alright, since you hate chess that much, and since I am a graceful victor, I shall let you off and tell you a story instead.”

Eleanor groaned, “Oh no!”

Fulk looked perplexed and asked with mock indignation, “What do you mean ‘oh no’? You love my stories.”

“I do?” she inquired dubiously. She looked across at him from underneath lowered eyelashes, presenting a perfect picture of endearing uncertainty, an act just as much as his ire.

“Yes,” Fulk informed her mock sternly. “Now, which one shall I tell you? How about Lionel the soft hearted dragon?”

“No!” Eleanor asked a question she had been wondering about for months, one which may touch on that elusive long story he had said he would tell her another time and prompt him into telling it, “You never did say how you broke your nose.”

He scratched the back of his neck and averted his eyes, “No, I doubt I did.”

“It almost sounds as if you are embarrassed,” she observed mildly. With keen interest she leaned forward slightly, one hand planted on the bed either side of her for balance, and began to put forth suggestions, “What did you do? Walk into a door? Pick a fight with someone and lose? Do rather badly in a training exercise and get your helmet nasal whacked into your nose? Do tell.”

Fulk looked at her half amused, half wounded, “None of those. What do you think I am? Some kind of clumsy oaf?”

“Yes!” she agreed cheerfully, “So, how did you do it?”

“You’ll laugh, I know you will.” He wasn’t really bothered about that, but anticipation did build suspense.

“I promise I will not laugh; princess’s honour.” Eleanor tried, and somehow failed, to look angelic, “Fair is fair, you have seen me at less than regal moments, such as this week.”

Fulk rubbed the bridge of his nose and noisily blew out a puff of air, surrendering with fained poor grace. “Oh, all right, I can see I will get no peace until I humiliate myself. In my eleventh summer I skipped my lessons and went fishing with my friend, Waleran, or Wat as everyone called him for some strange reason. It was a nice day, sunny and all, and it seemed a waste to spend it tilting at the quintain and writing Latin.”

Eleanor found her interest diminishing rapidly, “Oh, you got caught, got in trouble and got a broken nose. Fifth rate jesters have stories more likely to raise a smile than that.”

“No, I didn’t get caught…well not exactly. We passed a pleasant few hours and snagged a couple of trout, and then my master of arms appeared with a face like a smacked bottom. As you might expect we took off-”

“But he managed to catch up with you, therefore the broken nose?” interrupted Eleanor. She pulled a face, “If that is supposed to be funny significant portions of my life have been a finely tuned comedy with plenty of sophisticated jokes.”

Fulk bared his teeth in a smile; he knew it was unlikely she would guess the real ending but it was pleasurable to watch her try. “Wrong, my blazing star. He was hot on our heels and almost able to grab us when Wat dropped his fish; the master of arms must have slipped on it-”

“So you escaped for a little while, but he would have found you eventually. You got your nose broken by a fish covered lug with a wooden sword, probably when you returned home,” decided Eleanor. Right or wrong interrupting his storytelling was half the fun and, by now, habitual. She sniffed, “Still not the least bit funny.”

“My nose was reshaped before I got home, so you’re still wrong. Also the master of arms filched the fish for himself, so he wasn’t quite that upset. I might have got a little bruised around the edges, but nothing too bad.” He thought it said a lot about her life that she believed someone would casually break a boy’s nose for something as minor as this.

“Diplomatic bribery? I should have tried that … but I have difficulty seeing Trempwick being open to offers of fish.” She frowned thoughtfully and began to wind a lock of her long hair around her right index finger, “I wonder what you bribe a spymaster with, or a king for that matter.”

“So there we were, running as fast as we could and faster still. I was still carrying my fish; I suppose I was too focused on flight to think about dropping it to speed my progress. We went tearing past the fields back to the village; a wonderful plan since it brought us back towards more people who were likely to be both searching and upset. I blame Wat for that idiotic stratagem; I was following him. By some bad luck we ran into the reeve blocking the narrow gap between the tavern and a nearby house we were aiming for. He saw my fish, which was no great feat since I was holding it by the tail and it was flapping about as I ran-”

“So the reeve got you for poaching?” guessed Eleanor. “Definitely not funny.”

“No, he tried to block our path but Wat was a skinny little runt and he slipped through the reeve’s legs. I was considerably taller, so I had to knock the reeve out of my path – it was too late to change direction and there were buildings all around.” He had to struggle to keep a straight face as he said, “I hit him with the only thing on hand-”

She was fast enough to twig before he spelt it out. “You smacked your father’s reeve with a fish?” said Eleanor with unabashed delight. She recognised a kindred spirit to a young princess in the young Fulk.

Fulk matched her impish smile with one of his own, “Hardly elegant but it worked. The slap of wet fish on face was somehow very rewarding, as were his disgusted wails about being covered in fish goo. By this time there was a bit of a fuss in the village with people crowding out to see, my mother included. Somehow Wat and I dodged the crowd and ignored the furious mother’s demands to ‘come here at once!’, and we headed to the forest-”

“And then you ran into a tree while checking over your shoulder for pursuit?” she suggested, not believing for an instant that he had. Running into a tree while looking backwards would not snap a nose.

“You really do think I am totally incapable, don’t you?” demanded Fulk. He stuck his nose in the air haughtily; “Actually Wat pushed a branch out of his way and then let it go when he was past; it shot back and hit me in the face, breaking my nose.” Eleanor began to laugh, but quickly stopped with a groan, clutching her ribs. Fulk practically glowed with mock fury, “You promised you wouldn’t laugh!”

“All that mystery and daring do ending up in a broken nose from a springy branch!”

“I bet you never did anything like that, since you’re so royal and dignified and all that,” said Fulk snootily. He knew she must have been just as bad, if not worse, and he was rather curious.

Eleanor smirked, “More than you might think.”

“Poor Wat, he was always dreadfully envious of my nose and it galled him no end that he’d been the one to create it.” He didn’t realise what he had just said until it was too late. The mirth faded from his eyes as Eleanor asked the obvious, predictable question.

“Why would he be envious?”

There was a very long pause; so long Eleanor assumed he was not going to answer. Finally, cursing himself roundly for mentioning Wat’s envy in the first place, Fulk answered brusquely, “Cicely.” He shattered the ensuing silence by asking defensively, and rather challengingly, “Not going to ask who Cicely is?”

“Not when I get the impression you will bite my head off if I do, no.”

There was another long pause, then Fulk said, “The thing about Cicely was her phenomenally bad taste, though I didn’t think so at the time.” He sounded quite angry.

“She chose Wat over you,” said Eleanor knowingly, rather intimidated by Fulk’s bad humour. Until now he had seemed as placid as a duck pond.

“No, she chose me,” he admitted, his voice tight with anger. He saw Eleanor was watching him nervously, almost as if she expected him to kick the table with the chess board over and start shouting. He admitted freely enough that based on most of her experience with people, especially men, that’s what she should expect, but it still rankled that she even considered he might be that boorish.

Fulk sighed, scrubbed a hand through his hair and related his story curtly but fairly calmly, “I suppose she liked the handsome, skilled young warrior with a noble’s manners and skills, a father who was a lord, a knighthood burning brightly in his future and a potential arrangement to receive his father’s holdings after his death via being granted them as a new vassalship rather than an inheritance. It might not seem much to you but to us a minor lordship was truly something. Yes, well, I didn’t like her much but she was pretty and most of the other boys my age wanted her. Note I said boy, for all my loud protests otherwise that’s all I was. I took her interest as my due; it appealed to my ego to have what everyone else wanted.”

He winced ruefully, “Yes, I was an insufferable, arrogant git. I wish someone had been able to knock it out of me, or given me that knighthood I craved with the edge of the blade instead of the flat. It would have saved a lot of pain. So, that’s who Cicely was; my entertainment. Wat had fallen for her; I knew but didn’t really care. My mother didn’t approve, but again I cared not – I was using what she’d taught me in good faith to good effect.”

Eleanor had a hazy suspicion this was one of those Judith things. “Er …?”

“It wasn’t in my mother’s best interests to have children, me included, and it definitely wasn’t in my best interests to end up with any either. Poor Cicely, that’s about the best care I showed her. Well, she did have some good fortune in the end – I went off to France with my father when I was a few months shy of seventeen.” Fulk stared unseeingly ahead for a while, then he shook himself and he said firmly, “Now, chess.” He moved his king pawn two squares forward and set it down with a click that announced his story was finished and defied her to continue the conversation.

Her mind teeming with new information Eleanor blindly moved one of her centre pawns without thought. An supercilious git certainly, but not so now. What had happened?





Heh, this episode reminds me of an alternate, joky name I thought of for this story: sex and the single goosebery. A rather catchy name with a certain I don't know what, but totally misleading.

I'm not quite that bad with children, zelda. I just think children should be banned under the exotic pet/dangerous weapon laws. They certainly should not be allowed to exist within a 20 mile radius of me, regardless of where I am. I'm tolerant like that :winkg:

Lady Frog:

Another nice installment. Some of your dialog is quite funny (eh, hope it was intentional).

Your comments about children could spark an hour long conversation, so I'll limit myself to just a thought about cheese . . . and children. First, I don't every see myself putting anything in my mouth so strong that it would make my gums itch. (Although, I do recall ingesting some things which removed all feeling in my tongue and several other important parts of my body). But, since you do seem to enjoy such gastronomical delicacies, and if the cheese smells as strong as my mind imagines (or, for that matter, if its scent is even remotely as strong as its taste), I think we can safetly strike the idea of children from your immediate future.

Look forward to returning next week and reading more.

Sianara (or however it's spelled).

The Shadow One

:duel:

~:joker: Actually the cheese doesn't smell much at all. Poacher's cheese, as this one is called, has no more odour than a lump of bog standard supermarket cheese. Bah, I need cheese! Gah! I just played a whole half hour of RTW for the first time in a week, destroyed a massive, high tech Macadonian army with my smaller, inferior Roman force and captured another city and I can't celebrate with a bit of cheese!

Yes, some of the dialogue, and non-dialgoue too, is intended to be funny. It comes naturally to me; I couldn't keep it entirely serious if I tried. Well, ok some scenes do manage to remain entirely serious but not many.

“Check,” said Fulk for the fifteenth time that day. Fifteen games, and Eleanor had lost each and every one of them. Fulk didn’t even wait for her to concede her defeat before he started resetting the pieces. Though he kept his head ducked down as if intent on his task Eleanor could see the way the corners of his mouth lifted fractionally; he was enjoying this. She wasn’t. Time to try a different angle, one which promised not just a chance at victory, but also some fun.

They played through the opening; as usual Fulk had the centre guarded and his ranking pieces developed to a far greater degree than she did. When he finally brought his queen out Eleanor began to search the board attentively. After a few minutes she sat back and asked, “Can you get me a drink, please?”

“Small beer or something stronger to drown your sorrows?”

“I am not sorrowing because I lost fifteen games of chess to you; I do not care in the least,” she insisted serenely. She wasn’t; if she was sorrowful for any reason it was being cooped up inside and forced to do nothing much in the name of healing.

Guessing what she was thinking Fulk gave her an easy opening to a prolonged argument. He had got fed up hours ago of countering her many requests to do something more active. “It’s a good thing we’re not playing for forfeits; I hate to think what I could have wrung out of you by now.”

Much to his surprise Eleanor didn’t reply. She pretended to be completely absorbed in studying the board, hoping to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Mildly puzzled, and ever so slightly suspicious, that she didn’t take his bait Fulk ambled off to fetch a couple of drinks. As soon as he was safely gone Eleanor picked up her left most knight and moved it one square to the right. She then sat and waited for Fulk’s return.

He came back several minutes later, handed her a mug and sat down. “Moved yet?”

“Not yet,” she said, frowning at the board. She waited about half a minute before taking Fulk’s queen with her relocated knight. She waited several tense seconds but Fulk made no comment. The game continued apace.

Less than ten minutes later Fulk said idly, “Check.”

Eleanor’s mouth tightened, “I hatechess!” she declared with strong sentiment.

Fulk laughed and began reset the pieces once more. “You might do better if you didn’t cheat, oh sly one. Learn to play properly, and learn to plan ahead.”

Eleanor growled, “It is the only way to make this tedious game even fractionally appealing.”

“I’m sure you can do some embroidery if you prefer,” suggested Fulk mildly, still working on the pieces.

Eleanor heaved a sorrowful sigh and propped her chin on the palm of one hand. “Abusing hurt, vulnerable princesses is despicable, you do know that?”

“I know it is,” said Fulk with exaggerated gravity, clasping his hands in his lap and looking right at her. “But I can’t see any vulnerable princesses to abuse.”

Eleanor stared at him, trying to decide how he meant that. She thought it unlikely that he was digging at her assassin’s skills, but that was based on the rather tentative assumption he was too decent for such a cheap shot. In the end she fell back on an all purpose insult, “Did anyone ever tell you how annoying you are?”

“Loads of times, but it was you each and every one of them.”

“I am nothing if not consistent.”

“Let’s see if you remain consistent to your losing streak,” he gesticulated at the board, “Your move, oh irritated one.”

Since throwing her king pawn at Fulk would count as an illegal move Eleanor moved it two squares forward instead.




Sorry for the large delay and tiny, rough chapter. I have been flinging most of my effort into my beginner's guide for RTW with the aim of getting as much information gathered into one location as soon as possible. I won't bore you further with guide talk.

“Check,” said Fulk. His voice wobbled slightly as he tried not to laugh at the disinterested but still incensed expression on Eleanor’s face. He picked up the stick he had at his end of the board and cut another notch on one end of it with his dagger; this was the twenty-ninth notch and he was running out of space. Eleanor’s end of the tally stick was still empty. His latest victory recorded Fulk began to reset the pieces once again; the action had become automatic they had played so many games that day.

“You could at least wait until I admit defeat, you know,” said Eleanor dejectedly, “You get me in check then whip the pieces back to their starting positions before I have time to see if I can wriggle free.”

“I know you’ve lost, so I skip the whole time wasting letting you look for an escape and then saying checkmate thing.” Fulk smiled, the shifting firelight and inky late evening shadows made the expression quite sinister. “Anyway I get this feeling if I ever say checkmate you’ll do something unspeakable to me – it’s better to let the game end on a slightly milder note.”

“I hate chess,” said Eleanor through clenched teeth, “really and truly hate chess, completely detest, abhor, despise and loathe chess – if I ever become queen I shall ban the game!”

“So you don’t like chess then?” asked Fulk with polite interest.

“NO!” exploded Eleanor.

Fulk’s eyes widened in playful amazement and he exclaimed, “You should have said so!” That dangerous glint had appeared in Eleanor’s eyes, the one which usually heralded someone getting killed. As appealing as that gleam might be Fulk hastily changed tack, “We can do something else, if you prefer.” If she tried to strangle him he’d have to fight back, and then she would spend the rest of the evening moping at him because she’d been trounced in a second arena. Not to mention it would defeat the whole goal of keeping her from doing something which would end up with yet more blood leaking everywhere.

“Since you have finally agreed to stop boring me-”

“Shown mercy, you mean,” interrupted Fulk.

Eleanor paused for a second then began again, more resolutely, “Since you have finally agreed to stop boring me I think it would be pleasant to go and-”

“No,” said Fulk instantly. He had learned by nine o’clock this morning that anything containing the word ‘go’ involved a long walk or horse ride.

“We could see if-”

“No.” Likewise, he had found by midday that ‘see’ involved leaving the manor building.

“Well, then how about doing-”

“No.” Sentences with ‘doing’ always contained other words such as ‘sword fighting’.

“Then you suggest something, and if the word ‘chess’ is anywhere in sight I shall organise my hairpin collection by sticking them in your torso.”

“I think you’ll find I’m quite the perfect companion for a delicate young noble lady. I can sing, dance, play draughts and that game we won’t mention, also tell stories. I do sparkling conversation on a variety of subjects, including many which are suitable for nice young ladies.”

“It is quite astonishing; you have so many skills and all of them are completely useless. You -” She paused, tilting her head to one side, listening. “Horses; Trempwick’s back. Horses plural; that means someone is with him. How curious.”

Fulk quickly moved through several moves for each side, making it look as if they were in the middle of a game, “We’d best look busy; your move.”

Eleanor moved her black square bishop three squares diagonally right. Fulk brought out his white knight. Eleanor was just about to castle kingside when the door to her room opened and Trempwick came in. He was alone and, aside from his missing cloak, still dressed for the road. Without a word he walked over to the fire and began to warm himself. Neither Eleanor nor Fulk spoke; they paused in their game and waited, in Eleanor’s case apprehensively, to find out what Trempwick intended.

“How delightful; I enter a room and everything becomes hushed with anticipation,” said Trempwick, “It is as if everyone is afraid.” He glanced over his shoulder, “You are not afraid of me, are you dearest Nell?”

That was as easy to answer as his question on whether she hated him: impossible. “Should I be, master?” she parried.

He answered that only with a mysterious grin. Trempwick left the fire and walked over to Fulk. He pulled out a letter, sealed with a blob of red wax and stamped with an official crest. With a mocking smile on his lips he waggled the letter at Fulk, waving it just out of his reach. “Sir Fulk FitzWilliam, landless knight in the service of the crown, is hereby granted the right to use the coat of arms that belonged his father.” He carelessly threw the letter into Fulk’s lap; Fulk picked it up with one hand and examined the seal closely in the flickering light but did not open it. Trempwick’s smirk grew fractionally as he said, “I got you a warhorse too, a very good animal. Consider it a gift to the hero of Fauville.”

The blood drained from Fulk’s face, leaving him a ghostly white. His mouth contorted ever so slightly and he looked as if he were about to be sick.

“No thank you, bodyguard?” asked Trempwick. Polite censure dripped from every syllable. “Your manners are atrocious, and I do believe you look ill,” he turned and sought Eleanor’s opinion, “does he not look ill, Nell?”

“A little,” replied Eleanor cagily. Trempwick’s gesture might have been kind on the surface but from Fulk’s reaction there was something hidden, something malicious about it. She knew Trempwick very capable of spiteful gifts and she was not going to aid him in his game, whatever it might be.

Trempwick shrugged and said in a conciliatory tone, “But it is the idea of being indebted to a man you hate, is it not, bodyguard? No matter then, pearls before swine and all that.” Deliberately Trempwick moved a few steps away and picked up the tally stick from next to the chess board. He ran his thumb over the notches cut into the wood, his neatly manicured nail catching on each scratch and freeing itself with a clicking noise. “You are a good chess player, I presume? We shall have to play sometimes, bodyguard. I do believe I would enjoy it; playing with Nell is always exhilarating, but we do know each other rather too well for any real … edge to be there.”

Trempwick moved to Eleanor’s side and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Get your queen on the field before you castle, dear Nell. Develop your pieces.” He straightened and said genially, “I shall leave you both to your game. Goodnight, and do not stay up too late.”

Eleanor had remembered Fulk’s advice to see if she could smell perfume on the spymaster; she could not. She had been surprised to find a hint of soap instead, faint herbal scented soap of a kind they never used here. Trempwick had obviously been in London; there was no doubt there. He had visited at least one horse market and the palace; why would he need to have a bath for that? Perhaps Fulk was right after all, but surely soap was every bit as incriminating as perfume? Unless Trempwick’s goal was less covering up and more misleading, but again why would he do that?

When Trempwick was safely gone Eleanor asked the still sick looking Fulk, “What was that about?”

“Fauville; the skirmish where my father died.” He answered with the same long pause and clipped, terse speech that she remembered both from his story about Cicely and his earlier telling of the fight on their first night at John’s castle. She didn’t recall anything from his earlier account of the skirmish that would make him a hero, but Trempwick had been definite and she doubted he would say something like that without some firm grounds, even if the comment itself was potentially sarcastic. Trempwick had a reason for saying almost everything.

Fulk picked up the tally stick from the table where Trempwick had left it. Impulsively he pushed himself up from the table and crossed to the fire. He snapped the stick in two and threw both halves on the fire. He rested his right forearm at head height on the stone wall above the fireplace and watched the two bits burn in silence for a moment.

Eventually he stirred himself and said, “It’s late; let’s get your back salved and call it a night.”

Dum, dum, dum, dedededum.

(Eastenders closing theme tune, I'm forced to watch it by people who shall remain nameless.)

Plan ahead, Fulk had advised, and plan ahead she did, though not really because of his prompting. Plotting in advance was something she had always done, just not in chess because chess wasted enough time as it was without working out possible futures based on each move. By the time she was trapped in her room playing chess against Fulk Eleanor had already formulated a plan.

Every time Fulk made his move she instantly made hers, grabbing a piece at random and moving it to the first legal spot she could see. Fulk took minutes for each move; she took seconds. All the time she sat there with a fixed expression of polite interest. She kept humming an annoying, catchy ditty. Sporadically she would begin playing with a strand of her hair, twining it between her thumb and first two fingers. If she had been sat on a chair or stool instead of her bed she would have swung her leg so her heel kicked one of the legs repetitively. Instead she tapped her foot while he was thinking.

She was almost saddened to find how easy it was to get at Fulk; after half an hour of this he looked ready to jump out of the window to escape. He had also started humming the tune in an unconscious duet with her. Judging the time to be right Eleanor said quietly, “It really is kind of you to stay here to keep me company.” Fulk looked up from the board but didn’t say anything; he blinked a few times, rather too quickly for it to be normal. Her niceness must have stunned him. Firmly crushing the laugh which threatened to escape Eleanor said, “You have not even been to see your new warhorse yet.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Trempwick might take it as a slight. You really should go before he gets upset.”

“This wouldn’t be an attempt to be rid of me, would it?” asked Fulk distrustfully.

Eleanor’s mouth set into a rigid line. “Do you really think I would get very far? I am in no fit state to climb out of the window and anyone who saw me trying to leave would stop me. I am little more than a prisoner.”

As she had expected he was really tempted by the excuse to get away from her and her annoying act. He considered for a few seconds then agreed, “Yes, it’ll be hard for you to get away and I’ll only be gone for a bit. It’s best not to upset Trempwick unnecessarily.”

“Good, good now off you go before I end up with a spymaster in here and trying to teach you some manners. I really cannot be bothered to sit through a load of shouting; I have enough woes without a headache.”

“I won’t be long,” he promised on his way to the door.

Eleanor waited with baited breath until she heard Fulk’s footsteps recede down the staircase. Not wasting a second she crossed to her clothes chest and pulled out her thick, juniper green cloak. She threw it around her shoulders on her way to the door and pinned it in place as she hurried along the corridor with a slightly hobbled version of the swift, silent grace she usually commanded towards the spiral staircase.

Eleanor shot down the stairs as fast as her aching body would allow, making more noise than she usually would, but even so the sound of her progress barely registered in the echoing stone. She paused in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs making sure it was safe, then immediately made for the main door. Another quick check revealed Fulk and Trempwick were nowhere in sight and the coast, both inside and out, was clear.

Grinning to herself she gathered her cloak tightly about herself and hurried across the courtyard, dodging puddles as she went. She savoured the cold snap of the air and the feel of something other than rushes and floorboards under her feet; even the squelch of the mud smeared on the cobblestones was welcome after all this time cooped up inside. The stiffness of her bruises was slowly wearing off and lessening with each day; while the exercise was not exactly comfortable it felt good to stretch her muscles.

She was just going through the gate in the outer wall when she heard Fulk bellow, “Hey!” Snatching up her skirts with one hand she began to run as fast as she could, out and away from the manor.

It didn’t take long before she could hear Fulk’s boots pounding after her and gaining rapidly. She cursed under her breath and tried to force her hurting body to find some of its usual fleetness, but to no avail. The exertion and instinctive fear of being pursued forced her to breathe more deeply. Pain ripped through her side and she clutched at her damaged ribs, the sudden motion nearly causing her to lose her balance. She stumbled and all but fell; by the time she had got underway again Fulk’s hand closed on her shoulder, right on top of a collection of bruises and welts.

As they halted he spun her around to face him “And that’s why I told you to take things easily!” he informed her sharply. “I get tired off scraping you off the floor.”

Eleanor looked pointedly at the hand on her shoulder, “That is hardly comfortable.”

Fulk let her go and said, “My only other options were your hair or your cloak; I think you’d complain a damn sight more if you ended up half bald or choked.”

She brushed an imaginary spec of dust off her shoulder and said imperiously, “This is purely your fault, you know. I was going for a gentle walk – you are the one who started chasing me.”

“You’re the one who started running,” he pointed out.

“Escaping prisoners should know better than to hang around when their guards spot them.”

“I’ve a good mind to tuck you under my arm and take you back right now,” threatened Fulk, only half joking.

Eleanor instantly assured him, “You would not want the hassle.”

He ticked points off on his fingers, “You’re small, light and currently weaponless,” he grinned forebodingly, “it’d be no hassle at all.”

“No, but I would kick and hit you rather a lot, shout in your ear the whole trip back, and then plot some revenge that would make your life uncomfortable for a very long time to come,” replied Eleanor confidently; entirely certain he was bluffing and always had been.

Fulk scrubbed a hand across his forehead and said sombrely, “One of these days I think you’ll be the death of me.”

“Oh, please don’t say that,” begged Eleanor, “I am ashamed to admit it, but I would be terribly bored without you.”

“And this after she spends hours, days even telling me how bored she is with my company.”

“Bored with chess, you dolt.” Eleanor lifted her chin, “I know it is hard to hear if you have a helmet on, but since you presently lack a helmet you really do have no excuse. Perhaps you have rust in your ears?”

“You are a contrary creature, you know that? One minute you like me, the next you are insulting me. I’m so confused,” said Fulk with the air of a long standing, tolerant sufferer.

“Then I shall make sure I give you simple orders all the time. Right now we are going for a walk.”

Fulk looked about at the wet, gloomy winter landscape and said, “Yes, I can plainly see the attraction for walking in green fields while watching lambs gambol in the warm sun. It’s alright for you; you’ve got that nice warm cloak. I shall freeze.” He was only wearing his indoor clothes; a tunic, hose and ankle boots. He hadn’t expected to do more than walk across the small courtyard to the stable and back so he had deemed warmer clothes unnecessary.

“You are a big tough man, you will be fine,” Eleanor assured him.

“Fine? Yes – if I steal that nice cloak of yours.” A thought occurred to him; if he had the cloak then he would have to share, being a nice gentleman and all. Share as in walk along with a princess tucked under his arm. “Actually that’s not such a bad idea.” He paused, then pulled a face, “No, actually it’s a very bad idea; forget it. I’ll freeze.”

“You could go back and get your own cloak, but it does increase the risk of Trempwick finding out.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” said Fulk with a buoyancy he didn’t feel, “I’m a big tough man thing, remember?” He was going to freeze; he could already feel goose bumps spreading across his skin. Once they got moving he’d generate some more heat, hopefully that would be enough. He didn’t want to risk losing this chance to talk to her without prying ears listening in.

They began to walk away from the manor, out into the surrounding empty grassland. The ground was half frozen, half muddy and Eleanor was not happy to see they were leaving a trail any idiot could follow. When Trempwick came looking for her all he would only need to follow the two sets of footprints disturbing the frost-glazed grass.

“Why does your Trempwick pretend to be so poor?” asked Fulk when they were safely isolated and unable to be overheard. “Even ignoring any titles and lands he might have he’s the king’s spymaster and only a fool would leave him open to simple bribes.”

“I am not certain,” replied Eleanor diffidently. “I think much of it is to keep a low profile. I managed to find out that he used to spend much time at court in the lap of luxury; when he was not there he was in his favourite castle in Kent or out in the field working. He began living like this when I was handed over to him. I believe it is to minimalise the chances of anyone finding out what I am.”

“But why take it to such an extent? It’s almost like he’s deliberately trying to stamp all over your status. Yes, that’s not such a bad idea – you’re a princess only when he wants you to be one-”

“Which is a handy workaround the rank issue, placing him firmly above me and allowing him to ignore the usual scheme of things,” Eleanor finished for him.

“More than that,” Fulk was getting quite enthusiastic with this idea; it was growing of its own accord and becoming greater with each new addition. “He hates you pulling rank; the few times you’ve done it while I’ve been around he’s been incensed. I think –”

Their conversation was interrupted by Trempwick bellowing “Nell!” They halted and turned around to see the spymaster marching relentlessly towards them. As soon as she turned into the wind Eleanor’s long hair blew across her face, obscuring her vision. With one hand she brushed it back so it blew sideways behind her head instead of in front of her face. She could just see that the distant figure was talking, but his words were being whipped away by the wind and she couldn’t see to lip read.

“Just who I wanted to see,” muttered Eleanor softly, being careful not to move her lips even a fraction. The spymaster was an excellent lip reader; she had learned from him. Fulk didn’t reply but she had the feeling he was agreeing with her.

Trempwick finally reached them; his eyes flicking from Eleanor to Fulk and back again. “You did not say you wanted a walk, dear Nell. I would have been happy to accompany you.” He pulled his own cloak in about himself, stopping it from flapping in the breeze and looked pointedly at the shivering Fulk. “I would not have interrupted your exercise by forcing you to turn back before I froze to death.”

“I thought you were busy, master.”

“I am never to busy for you, sweetest Nell. If you want to continue onwards I would be happy to oblige.”

If she said they were just about to head back it would be obvious she was snubbing the spymaster, and that would be dangerous. “Yes, that would be pleasant, if you are certain you can spare the time.”

“Quite certain, Nell, quite certain,” replied Trempwick breezily. “Your pet should head back before he catches pneumonia.”

“Yes,” she turned to Fulk, “Thank you for coming this far, but you really should get back inside.” The spymaster did have a point, but more importantly she did not feel like playing yet another of his Fulk related games.

Fulk did his best courtly bow and put his best noble manners to use as he politely, and quite warmly said, “The pleasure was mine, my lady.”

Trempwick watched the retreating bodyguard and commented softly to Eleanor, “He really does play the part so very well; such a pity he does not have the birth to match the manners.” He arranged himself on Eleanor’s right side so he had no chance of catching her damaged ribs and offered her his arm. When she took it he started to walk at a leisurely pace. “So you are feeling much better then?”

“The stiffness is wearing off and I am no longer likely to burst open wounds every time I move,” replied Eleanor truthfully.

“Excellent, most excellent,” said Trempwick heartily, “In that case I have something to keep you occupied, although I doubt you will care for this any more than you care for chess. We will be going to court shortly after Christmas; you will have to practise your pious princess role.”

“Why?” asked Eleanor immediately.

“A royal wedding.”

Eleanor halted abruptly and yanked her hand back from his arm. “No! I refuse-”

“Not you!” cut in Trempwick, shouting so he could be heard across her passionate rebuttal. “Good grief; no one is quite that desperate yet.” Eleanor blushed; mortified by how wrong she had been. Trempwick said more kindly, “Dearest Nell, will it make you feel better if I promise to murder anyone who tries to marry you? The only person safe from me is the king himself; anyone else I will gladly dispose of. No one will snatch you out from under my nose; you have my solemn oath on that.”

What can you say to a promise like that? Eleanor knew he meant it; the mystery was in why. What benefit did he see in keeping her that led him to make such an expansive, potentially costly and dangerous promise?

Her hesitation to respond was too long and part of her uncertainty must have shown through because Trempwick inquired, “Is something the matter?”

Without exactly meaning to she blurted out, “Why?”

The corners of Trempwick’s mouth twitched up into something that could not be called a smile. Whatever it was it was quite sad, and very fractionally tender too. “You are so blind, dearest Nell,” he said quietly.

There was something in his voice she had never heard before and she was absolutely no clearer on his motives. Well, alright there was a nagging suspicion but she dismissed it instantly; Trempwick was not suggesting he had feelings for her. The fact she had entertained the idea, even for a millisecond, heck that it had even occurred at all was ridiculous. No one ever wanted a … gooseberry.

“The wedding in question is your father’s. He is marrying a Scottish princess in order to gain an alliance. The girl is very young, described as ‘just barely thirteen’. I admit I am concerned.”

“A good Samaritan spymaster?” inquired Eleanor, mildly sardonic.

“Looking after beleaguered princesses has become a hobby of mine.” More seriously he said, “Consider what she is marrying. I am hoping you might be able to … reassure her.”

Eleanor’s answer was both honest and blithe, “Master, the best advice I can give her is to start running now and not to stop until she reaches Constantinople.”

Trempwick roared with laughter. Finally he calmed himself and wiped a tear from his eye. “Not quite what I had in mind, dearest Nell. I do not think she will be badly treated; her family would not stand for it and it would mean war. No, I was thinking more that she will need a friend, someone to calm her nerves, soothe her fears, give her advice.”

“Do you have any idea what you are asking me to do?” wailed Eleanor, “Do you have any idea what the average political bride worries about? Now do you see how I really am not qualified to do anything with this princess?”

“Nell, Nell, do calm down. All you need to do is advise her to get as drunk as possible before the end of the wedding feast. In any case I doubt our wonderful king intends to consummate the marriage immediately; she really is rather too young.”

Eleanor had to admit that Trempwick was right there; the girl probably had a year or so of grace before anyone would consider her old enough, and by that point Eleanor would be safely back in Woburn or wherever and exempt from being asked for advice. She still didn’t like the idea; for one it meant meeting up with her father again. “You really do not want to stick me in the same room as my beloved regal ancestor in front of this girl or she will get a very good view of precisely what she is being tied to, and then she will be running all the way to Constantinople if she had an ounce of wit.”

“As long as he does not get you alone you are quite safe; he would never lose his temper before a crowd, nor would he be so vulgar as to beat you before an audience.”

“How heart-warming,” said Eleanor in a small voice.

“I shall make sure he does not catch you alone, and as long as you behave, if you will forgive my frankness, you will be quite safe.”

“No, he will just get this nice idea involving marrying me off somewhere since I am now obviously cowed.”

“Dear Nell, I did promise, remember? He may get ideas but they will either be put from his head or foiled by untimely deaths.” Reassurance combined with the steadfast belief he would be capable of doing just what he said made Trempwick’s words weighty.

“I do not like this, master,” said Eleanor bluntly.

He replied with equal candour, “Nor do I, but we have no choice. Our attendance is required; helping the girl is dispensable, being present for a few days is not. So, you shall practise your princess and I shall practise my duke.” He bobbed a short bow and offered her his arm, “Your Highness?”

“Thank you; you are most kind.” She took his arm and began to walk at his side, using a more measured step than was usual.







That Eleanor/Trempwick conversation is so :stuffs fist in mouth and runs away before she blurts major spoilers ... returns several minutes later: The undertones, the incredibly subtle hints, the things no one will ever notice until they read this again after it is complete are killing me! I have so many bits that I'd love to talk about, but I can't even say which particular lines because people will start thinking and that might give the game away. This story is packed full of them, but this scene has a couple of lines which are so .... Gah!

Eastenders? Yuck; I do hate soap operas.

Practise they did, endlessly in the eight days left until Christmas. Even Fulk was not safe; he had to learn to play presentable royal servant.




Eleanor found herself in the solar pouring over a map of the British Isles and France. Trempwick tapped a finger at Wales, “They are now a part of our realm, it has taken them long enough to bend knee but finally they have done so. Your father has taken the title of king of Wales now, and the duke of Gwynedd is the main vassal for this territory. We have three of his four sons as hostages to his good behaviour.”

“Will the situation last?” asked Eleanor, studying the map intently. “If most of our armies go to France Wales will be perfectly positions to stab us in the back. It is well known the Welsh are honourless; they have already broken two peace treaties in as many years, and they have allied with France in the past.”

“Indeed,” agreed Trempwick. “They may be our vassals now, but their loyalty is questionable. None would be fool enough to think our king bluffing when he said the Welsh brats would die the instant Gwynedd rose, but a hopeful fool might believe they would be safe until the uprising was quashed. They might gamble on that, and gambol on winning so the brats live.”

“Then the answer clearly is to leave all our border armies at home, along with our northern armies and a small core to provide relief should Scotland or Wales attack.”

“Yes, but that is not what our king thinks. He is determined to take half our border forces along with the inland levies. He wants every man he can get to crush France so badly they yield up plenty of land.”

“It is a reckless policy and inviting disaster,” said Eleanor straightforwardly.

Trempwick smirked, “And that is why you are so popular, sweet Nell. You really should be more careful of what you say.”

“There is only you here to hear, master, and you think the same. Besides one of the crowned annoyance’s better points is that he always demands his advisors give good, honest advice.”

“True, but there’s difference in getting tactical opinions from a seasoned commander and your least favourite daughter. I will be advising our sovereign to change his policy somewhat when I see him next; he will listen to me. Now, back to getting you up to date before our delightful holiday.” Trempwick moved the map so the north of England was more visible. He placed one finger squarely in Northumberland. “My new holdings; as duke I get to play with the Scots if they become bothersome. They will not, not so long as this marriage goes smoothly. That leaves my own troops idle, except for my Kentish levies; they will be going off to France. The duke of York currently has a grudge against the earl of Durham, his vassal. They will both be at court pleading their cases; be sure you do not let them think they can bend your ear. The earl of Gwent should be safely gone before we arrive; refuses to remain while the duke of Gwynedd is present, and vice versa. No matter; it saves bloodshed. Many of the Welsh despise the earl of Gwent for his sense in bowing to us; the grudge has lasted some twenty odd years, quite remarkable really.”

“What about the young earl of Cornwall? Are his uncles still fighting over who gets his wardship until he comes of age?”

“Yes, they are still fighting. It is of little surprise; the boy’s collective estates are wealthy and as he is only six his controller with have time to embezzle a sum doubtless larger than the yearly income of the Isle of Man. Speaking of which,” Trempwick’s finger moved on the map to the aforementioned island, “The local count has decided to seek shelter with the duke of Ulster. This is not to be tolerated; I shall have him dead within the month, just as our king requested during his visit. We thought to stagger events somewhat to reduce suspicion when the count suddenly falls ill. That concludes the main changes on the map.”

Trempwick pushed the parchment away and picked up another roll. He unbound the leather thong holding it closed then unrolled it across the table top. This sheet was covered in tiny coats of arms with names written next to them. “Now, we shall move on to the names, faces and families we are likely to meet.”





The main hall had been cleared out; the trestle tables carted outside, along with the stools and few chairs. Their place had been taken by a circle of people, containing Fulk, Eleanor, Trempwick, the steward, the cook, and the two general menservants. The only person exempt for making up the circle was Walter, the stable boy with a broken arm. He was stood next to the large stone fireplace and currently engaged in clearing his throat and testing a few notes.

“Ready?” he asked finally.

Trempwick looked at the circle of reluctant, fed up looking people. “Everybody hold hands,” he instructed. With an assortment of sighs, groans and much trying to keep as far away from everyone else as possible the circle linked hands. “Ready, Walter.”

The boy began to sing in a clear, high voice a popular song about a damsel, a knight and a spring morning and the circle began to dance. Well, dance is what they were supposed to be doing, but many would not have described the ensuing mess as such.

The cook was going at it with plenty of gusto, moving far too fast. Holding his right hand was Bertram, the first general servant; he was going something like the correct pace but he didn’t seem to know half the steps. On his right was Trempwick, as dapper and self assured as ever. On his right came Eleanor, torn between trying to keep the correct pace with Trempwick and begin dragged back by Edward, the steward who was stumping along as if step cost him enormous amounts of energy. On his right was Fulk, proving that he hadn’t lied when he said he knew how to dance. Finally there was Gerbert, the second general servant. He just had no idea full stop.

After a short while of this Trempwick dropped the hands of his partners and said loudly, “Stop, stop, this is quite hopeless.” Everyone came to a grateful halt. Trempwick glared around at the circle, “We are supposed to be dancing a carole, not putting on a comedy act! Now I know we are missing several minstrels and our gathering is a deal too small, but it is the best that can be done. Try again, people, try again.”

Walter returned to the beginning of his song and everyone started to dance again. The results were not much better.

“Did we have this problem when I was teaching you to dance before, Nell?” inquired Trempwick as he tried to manoeuvre through the chaos.

“No, master,” replied Eleanor, giving the hand Edward held a good tug in the hopes it might give him a clue and get him to speed up. There was one single advantage to his painfully slow pace, and that was it kept her from upsetting her healing ribs again. All the same when to court a princess goes, dance she does something something … or however that silly rhyme went. “We paid a visit to some knight or other for a few days one Christmas and you made me dance my feet off until I had all the common ones learned perfectly.”

“It was a sound plan, but sadly impossible this time, dear Nell.” Trempwick stopped moving, dragging his two partners to a halt and causing a knock on effect around the rest of the circle. “It is clearly apparent that some of you really have no idea what a carole is, let alone how to perform one. So, let me run through the steps and we shall try again.”





Every single meal was served as if it were a banquet, much to the upset of the servants. Several assorted dishes, court style table service and the very best of table manners. The usual habit of eating individually instead of in the fashionable dining pairs was banished, and for Fulk and many of the other servants the habit of eating at the same time as the nobles was also banished. Instead they ended up waiting at table and eating the leftovers later.





“There is one detail yet to be taken care of, dearest Nell,” said Trempwick early one evening as he and Eleanor sat before the fire in the solar, fine tuning her explanation of what exactly she had been doing all these years. The pious thing had been dumped in favour of a blend between a small pinch of the normal Eleanor and a hefty dose of the expected polite noble lady; Trempwick had claimed the prospect of becoming famous for being the royal tutor who turned out the most boring princess in Christendom was highly unappealing. “Alas, that is something of a misdirection as I handled this on the day the king left.”

Trempwick winced and dropped into his long suffering, gloomy personality. “I had to call in,” he announced despondently, “my mother.”

Eleanor had to admit her interest had been piqued; she had never met the spymaster’s mother, or any of his family. She was more than a little curious to see what kind of a family turned out a man who had worked his way to the lofty height of king’s spymaster before his eighteenth birthday.

“The countess of Kent,” elaborated Trempwick disconsolately, “except she hasn’t been that since my father died; she clings to the title like a limpet to a rock.”

Eleanor tried not to snigger; it was hard to imagine someone managing to prevent Trempwick from getting his way but apparently this mother of his had succeeded. She would have to take notes.

“As much as I would rather leave her to her own devices I shall have to involve her in this latest intrigue of mine; since my tutorship has been entirely above board and reputable you have met her often. You also need a maid or two; I am hoping I can impose and get mother to share,” he sank a little lower in his chair, “though I have had no success in getting her to share that title. She should be arriving just before Christmas day; she was only in one of my manors near St. Albans. For all that she does go on about being countess of Kent she hates the place; she prefers to stick to her dower lands. You can try your new act on her when she arrives, before I fill her in on your uproarious ability to kill people.”






A little bit of stupidity, very quickly written but filling a gap quite admirably.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

It is of little surprise; the boy’s collective estates are wealthy and as he is only six his controller with have time to embezzle a sum doubtless larger than the yearly income of the Isle of Man.

---

He's going to embezzle enough to buy 250 tins of novelty TT mints ~:eek: ?

The day before Christmas one of Trempwick’s messengers dropped off a package of letters from the royal palace. Most of them were for Trempwick but two were for Eleanor; he called her into the solar to collect them about twenty minutes after the messenger left.

She accepted them without comment, and then excused herself so she could read them in private as soon as possible. She returned to her room where Fulk was busily repainting his shield to display his new coat of arms. The silver background was completed as was the red stripe running from top left to bottom right. He was now blocking in the three gold crosses that ran on the stripe.

She considered getting rid of him but almost immediately decided there was no point. Absently she wandered over to the window and examined the seals of the two letters in the daylight, paying careful attention to the sides of the seal.

“Something interesting?” inquired Fulk idly without stopping his work.

“Letters from my sisters,” she replied distractedly. Her close inspection revealed what she had expected; the seals had been removed, the letters opened, then everything replaced with only the tiniest trace of Trempwick’s meddling. The trace was so tiny only someone with a trained eye and an expectation of finding something would have spotted it. She whirled away from the window and headed to the chest where she kept her wrist knives, commenting heatedly, “He has done it again! And there is not a damnable thing I can do, again!”

She grabbed one knife, drew it and tossed the sheath back in the chest. With two precise stabs she hacked the seals off the letters, then threw the knife in after its case.

“Done what again?” asked Fulk.

“He always reads my messages, no matter who they are from. He reads the outgoing stuff too. I suspect he would stop anything he does not like, without word to me.” She opened the first letter, which turned out to be from Matilda, and scanned it quickly. She cast it aside and read the other, from Adele, with equal rapidity. Finished, she threw it to join the other letter, then vanished off to get a quill, ink and parchment to reply.

Lacking a decent writing surface Eleanor sat on her bed with the parchment on her pillow and the inkhorn beside her on the floor. She began to reply to Matilda’s letter first, scratching away at the parchment in a neat, plain hand.

“Good news?” inquired Fulk. His tine indicated he believed otherwise.

“From Matilda the usual letter consoling me on my continued lack of a husband, alongside much boasting of how wonderful Germany is, how rich she is, how happy she is, how loving her rotten husband is, how talented and beautiful her daughters are, and so on. I shall send her a polite, concerned reply emphasising my sincere sorrow and pity over her continued lack of a son.” Eleanor looked up from her writing and grinned wickedly, “I shall be sure to remark how kind it is of her husband to overlook her failing even though it puts the future of his kingdom at risk. That will put her stuck up nose firmly out of joint.”

“That really is quite nasty,” said Fulk reproachfully.

Eleanor replied roguishly, “Her letter or my reply?”

Fulk stuck his paintbrush back in the pot of yellow and turned to give her his full attention. “Do you even know what maturity is?” he enquired seriously.

“Yes, something which happens to cheese.” Eleanor stuck her tongue out at him and returned to her writing.

“Oh Jesú! Not cheese again!” moaned Fulk.

“No,” she said, her concentration still on the letter, “we have no cheese left, but it is Christmas soon and if anybody wants to know what to get me …”

“And that answers the question of what to get a gooseberry for Christmas; a lump of cheddar, apparently.”

“That would be nice; it has been over a decade since I last got something for Christmas.” Eleanor signed her name with an elaborate flourish and set the quill down in the pot of ink on the floor. Since she didn’t have any sand to scatter on the wet ink she gently flapped the bit of parchment up and down to encourage it to dry. “Trempwick would kill you if you tried to give me anything, even cheese.”

And that took care of any potential Christmas discomfiture quite neatly; he did have something he could give her but now he no longer needed to agonise on which option was more likely to prove fatal in the long run – giving her a gift or not giving her a gift. That necklace he’d got from the jeweller along with her fake wedding ring looked set to spend the rest of its life in his belt pouch at this rate.

Eleanor moved the second bit of parchment to her impromptu writing desk and began scribbling away once more, explaining inattentively, “The other letter is from Adele, the same as usual. She is begging me to do everything I can on her behalf to get her set free and returned home to England; she does not want to return to her family and the Spanish court because she refuses to have anything to do with those who would believe such foul lies about her. Yes, she protests her innocence once again.”

Eleanor stopped writing and bit her lip. “She is still trying to protect a reputation that died long ago,” she said unhappily, “Everyone knows she had an affair with that knight; they found letters proving it, some of those letters she had written herself. The knight himself confessed it before he was executed; he notoriously said she really was not worth the cost. For a while I did wonder if she might have been set up, but I could never see who would benefit, or why they would feel the need to remove her. I shall reply the same as I always do; that I will do all I can, but that is very little. And that is the truth.”

She put the finishing touches to the second letter and dried it in the same way as the first. Picking up both her replies she rose and headed towards the door, saying light-heartedly to Fulk, “If I am not back within a quarter hour assume I need rescuing. My time with John has reminded me just who I am; I think it time to make a point.” She vanished out the door before Fulk could answer.

Purposefully Eleanor marched off to the solar to find Trempwick. He was still there, sat at the table and working on some of his own messages. She came to a stop just beside him and lightly tossed her letters down on top of his own reading. They were unsealed, unfolded and no effort had been made to conceal their contents. “To save you the bother of removing and replacing my seals,” she said pointedly.

Trempwick didn’t look up from what he was doing; he only moved her letters off to one side and said distantly, “Thank you, that is very kind of you, Nell.” And that was it; nothing more. She had expected more, much more, and had been prepared to fight. Why did her every attempt to break free of the spymaster’s stranglehold either fail spectacularly or fail painfully?

As she turned to go she wondered what he was reading so avidly. “My stewards’ reports,” explained Trempwick, once again without looking up, “from my various lands” He couldn’t even see her to try and read her body language; he had guessed what she was thinking with no clues at all.

Painfully aware that she had once again been firmly slapped down Eleanor left quickly, her cheeks flaming with the humiliation. Princess or not she was still ultimately his pawn.








Yay! I finally got to use the maturity joke! Would you believe I've had that sat around waiting to be used for nearly 2 months now? In light of the recent cheese escapades it works quite nicely. :gring:

"Dear CA, you evil people have badly harmed the health of my story with your fancy RTW." :shakes fist:

Don't underestimate the power of buying mints; the extra strong ones can be deadly.

They can be used to daze an opponent while you move in for the kill with a soggy kipper and a Laxey Wheel mug set :duel:

Christmas day came and went in its usual, uninspiring manner. Trempwick did hold a relatively large feast for once, complete with fancy food but this was only so he, Fulk and Eleanor could practise their court dining manners on something a little more complex than spit roast chicken and pease pottage.




Trempwick’s mother arrived two days after Christmas day. As ever the spymaster was warned well in advance and he rode off to intercept her. He left Eleanor behind with strict instructions to play her new role to perfection.

And so Eleanor found herself waiting near the manor’s main door dressed in her newish russet dress cut, as ever, in the old fashion with the loose sleeves, along with a grey linen underdress and a girdle of black leather. Her hair was currently confined in a braid and pinned into a bun at the nape of her neck, thanks to Fulk’s efforts, a comb, several hairpins and a sprinkling of water. She suspected it would begin to escape the instant it dried; it always did. Since she was well able to use hairpins as weapons the harmless looking hairdo was roughly equivalent to a belt knife on the threat scale. She had managed to avoid a head covering of any variety, arguing that was really the preserve of married women. All in all she looked quite respectable and noble.

She was accompanied in her waiting by Fulk. He was wearing his royal livery with the fancy sword he had been given by John belted on at his waist. He stood leaning idly on the wall opposite her, something Eleanor would have done if she had been fit enough.

Since the Gerbert was busily running around doing what seemed like nothing much aside from walking past checking they were still waiting and looking neat every ten minutes Fulk and Eleanor just stood around in tedious silence.

Finally Trempwick’s party returned and Eleanor went out to meet them with Fulk at her side and slightly behind her. The arriving party was limited to just three people, Trempwick, an oldish woman and a young girl who looked to be somewhere around fifteen. There had probably been many more in the countess’s retinue when she left but Trempwick was very choosy in who he allowed into Woburn. His mother’s second groom was not welcome, nor was her first groom, her six man armed escort, her secondary maid, her tertiary maid, her personal cook or her minstrel. Going by the set of the older woman’s mouth this had gone down about as well as an announcement about rotten food making it out of the kitchen just when everyone has finished eating.

Trempwick’s mother turned out to be a striking woman of middle height with hair in a darkish gold now salted with silver. She must have been somewhere around fifty but she did not quite look it, and in her younger days she had probably been quite eye catching. To Eleanor’s surprise the mother didn’t wait for her son to help her down from the saddle, instead unhooking her leg from the side-saddle’s pommel and dropping down on her down. She even managed to do it in a dignified manner without getting her skirts caught up and giving everyone a good view of her legs. Eleanor was quite impressed; she had never seen anyone else doing that and she knew from experience just how easy it was to get the movement wrong with draughty and embarrassing consequences.

The brown-haired girl, presumably her maidservant, was not so confident. She remained on horseback clutching nervously at the reins while she waited for someone to get her down.

Trempwick ignored the maid, moving to his mother’s side and offering her his arm like a good boy. The attention seemed to mollify her somewhat and the hard set of her mouth eased somewhat. Mother and son walked over to where Eleanor waited. There was an awkward moment as Trempwick’s mother seemed to be expecting Eleanor to curtsey, whereas Eleanor knew that they really should be genuflecting to her. The two women’s eyes locked, deep blue against a mongrel mix of blue and green.

“Is this the best you can do, Raoul?” demanded Trempwick’s mother. Her English was noticeably accented; Trempwick must have taken his preference for French from her. “You cannot teach manners?”

Finally forced to do something other than enjoy the potential catfight Trempwick said, “Mother, this is her royal highness princess Eleanor.”

The mother looked back to Eleanor and looked her over from head to toe with unconcealed disdain. After pausing a fraction longer than was decent she stiffly curtseyed. “Forgive me, your highness. I mistook you for a common noble, the princess’s maid.” As apologies went it was far more of an insult but since noble women often had a lower ranking noble girl to act as lady’s maid and companion there was nothing Eleanor could object to without looking petty.

“Oh, we just call her Nell,” Trempwick informed his mother brightly, “Her royal highness is rather too long.” He gave Eleanor a small smile, “Since you cannot call my mother ‘mother’ you may as well go with lady Aveline.”

And that was entirely the wrong way around; you did not call your betters by a pet name, one which Trempwick seemed to delight in using like a pair of spurs, while they called you by something more formal. She had no choice but to let Trempwick get away with it, but was it worth fighting over the mother?

The same thought occurred to the old lady and she snapped at her son, “Oh, do not be so absurd, Raoul. I do wonder how you manage to get things so backwards.” She turned her fearsome glare on Eleanor, “You shall call me Aveline; I shall settle for Eleanor.” The ludicrousness of ordering a princess around in the name of getting things correct apparently did not occur to Aveline.

Eleanor decided that this was probably the best point to fold; to hold out any longer was to invite Trempwick to stomp on her again. Before she had time to answer Trempwick’s mother started speaking again. “We shall go inside and then someone will explain to me why I have been dragged all the way out here.” She started to sweep indoors but came to an abrupt halt by Fulk. She looked him over with the same measuring, haughty gaze she had used on Eleanor and said sharply, “And who or what are you?”

Fulk bowed and answered politely, “I am her highness’s bodyguard, my lady.” His English sounded better than either of the Trempwicks’; clearly he and Eleanor were going to rule the roost on language terms.

“Then why do you wear no badge? Your livery looks like a cheap imitation without one.”

Trempwick smirked and took his mother’s arm. “Dear Nell has no badge,” he explained with a jolliness that ground salt into this particular long lived wound, “no one ever thought to give her one.”

Aveline’s brows locked. “How very odd,” she declared. Without further comment she continued indoors.

Eleanor noticed the poor young maid was still perched despondently on her horse awaiting rescue. She leaned her head closer to Fulk and said wryly, “Best go do your knight in shining armour rescue act.”

“My contract says I rescue princesses, not maids,” returned Fulk. None the less he went to fish the girl down.




Because of her delay when Eleanor arrived in the solar Trempwick and his mother were already occupying the two chairs by the fire, talking away. As she entered Aveline was just saying, “… get married Raoul. You have a duty to continue the family name, and I should dearly like to be a grandmother.”

“There is plenty of time for that, mother dear.” He was humouring her but there was no doubting the bored edge to his tone.

“Life is never certain, Raoul, and God calls us to judgement at any age,

“Thank you for that bit of cheerful philosophy, mother.” Trempwick noticed Eleanor in the doorway and sprang to his feet. He took her arm and half dragged her into the room and over to the fire. “This,” he declared proudly to his mother, is the reason I am still single.”

Aveline’s glare could have melted steel, “You are not informing me that you-”

“No!” cut in Eleanor loudly. She could guess where that was going.

Her interruption did not settle Aveline’s mind, only caused her to start a new sentence. “Blood is only of use if you marry it, Raoul,” she shot a malevolent look at Eleanor, “and breed from it, something I doubt she is capable of; her hips are tiny.”

Ignored by everyone else Eleanor let out an exasperated sigh and thought to herself “Here we go again.” Aveline apparently no longer felt any need to be even slightly polite to Eleanor; she had been judged and found wanting and was therefore unworthy of anything but blunt honesty.

“Mother, please do drag your mind back from Sodom and Gomorrah!” insisted Trempwick loudly, “And kindly stop insulting my princess.”

Aveline sniffed and made no apology. “I speak as I find,” she ventured before her mouth clamped shut.

Trempwick waited a few moments to be sure she had subsided before beginning to speak again, “The reason Nell has prevented me from marrying is quite simple; I have been training her as an agent, and the king wants as few people to know as possible. I would have to explain this to a wife, and as of yet I have not encountered a suitable heiress with enough gumption to keep her mouth firmly shut. I am the king’s trusted friend and advisor, the royal spymaster, duke of Northumberland and count of Kent” he said with obvious pride, “and I will not marry just anyone, nor will I scramble after land and money like a dog after a bone.”

“An agent? Her?” Aveline seemed shocked by her sons words but to Eleanor’s expert eye the shock was slightly off, as if faked. It was almost as if she already knew. Trempwick would have had time to inform his mother of this on their way here, but why would he do that only to repeat all this now? And why would Aveline pretend she did not know who Eleanor was when they first met; if Trempwick had explained surely she would have known what to expect?

Perhaps she was being too suspicious for her own good; Aveline was obviously tactless and right now she was probably struggling not to come back with a far harsher reply, one which would upset her son.

“Why bother?” sniffed Aveline. “Why bother wasting a resource like this?”

Despite herself Eleanor winced slightly as Trempwick explained, “She has no dowry; it was squandered on the French war. No one will marry her without one and so the king has not seen fit to replace it. He found it impossible to arrange a match for her by the time she was six because of a few well documented exploits involving insulted foreign dignitaries so he gave up in despair. He handed her off to me; she is a natural schemer with a flare for intrigue.”

Aveline glowered at Eleanor as if she was now considered deeply dangerous. “Such a pity; her sister Matilda was such a nice girl, pretty too. You would scarcely know this one came from the same family. When I heard you were a royal tutor I thought to see someone like Matilda.”

“Oh, mother!” grumbled Trempwick.

“There is no point in being nice about it Raoul,” snapped Aveline, “if she is not set straight now it will soon be too late. You do not make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Already she is so old it will be hard work, and there is little to be done with such drab looks, but manner we can at least amend.” King William VI of England’s soul mate had just be located.

“Yes, well I did ask you down here to help us out with the royal wedding. She needs a maid, a companion-”

“New clothes, decent manners, proper skills, a chaperone,” rattled off Aveline without pause. “Yes, I can guess most easily. We shall see what can be done, though truth be told I suspect not a lot. Your princess will make a poor showing, Raoul; I do hope your name will not suffer for it.”

Tired of everyone moaning without being able to join in Eleanor said glibly, “Oh, do not worry; I am famous for being a hopeless case. I do promise not to kill anyone.”

There was a long pause. Finally Aveline heaved a deep sigh and crossed herself, “That the Lord shall find work for my idle hands is His prerogative, but such work may be beyond me at my age.”





The days which followed felt like some of the longest in Eleanor’s life. They were filled with the old woman’s carping and constant belittlement, though Trempwick did seem to try and protect Eleanor when he was around. Fulk was banished; he was unsuitable company.

Every single task had a horrific downside which caused much wailing and exclaiming that Eleanor was beyond redemption. Aveline was furious to find many of her plans foiled by Eleanor’s still healing injuries, and this led to several long, incredibly tedious lectures on a daughter’s duty to obey her father.

Even when a dress maker was called in to make up some new, court-worthy clothes for Eleanor the wailing did not cease. Instead Aveline spent the entire time each session, and it took some five sessions to get everything fitting perfectly, delivering a sermon to Eleanor on how her scarred back was a disgrace and how it marked her out as a recalcitrant, unrepentant, stubborn troublemaker. In the unlikely event of Eleanor ever finding a husband, she was informed bluntly, she would be lucky not to find herself placed in a nunnery the instant he saw her scars. If she wanted to avoid such a fate she should be more dutiful, pious, and obedient at all times in the hopes of proving she had learned her lesson. If she thought she was telling Eleanor something new then she was sadly mistaken; Eleanor had come to that conclusion years ago.

The matter of what to do with Eleanor’s hair caused much consternation. To hear the complaining anyone would think Eleanor told her hair to slowly unravel from whatever hairstyle it was put in. Aveline’s maid shyly ventured it was because her highness had such fine, silky hair but a single glare from her mistress had put an end to that. More bemoaning came when Eleanor informed them that she was not allowed to have hairpins or any other sharp object in the presence of the king due to his odd fear that she might try to stab them in him. This also triggered a few more lectures of proper father daughter relations.

On the positive side Aveline had the entire household able to dance several different types of carole within a day of her arrival. There was no chance of Eleanor and Fulk being shown up when they inevitably had to dance at court. She also twisted Trempwick’s arm until he agreed to buy more suitable food and let her spend time with his cook forcing him to brush up his pathetic skills. After the initial shock wore off the cook soon started grumbling, but Eleanor did have to admit he had improved significantly.

The lady’s maid turned out to be called Juliana, the second daughter of a minor knight with a fief in Kent. She informed Eleanor secretively one day that she had never seen her mistress as upset as this. Usually the old woman was strict but quite easy to get on with. Eleanor supposed she should be flattered; if you were going to be an impious, ungrateful brat, or whatever Aveline decided she was today, then you may as well go full out. Eleanor also began to wonder about selecting a fast acting sleeping draught to flavour Aveline’s mulled wine so she could get a bit of piece and quiet. It seemed like an appropriately evil thing to do.

The highlight of these long, miserable days proved to be quite simple. In one of her rare, non-moaning moments Aveline explained to Eleanor why she refused to surrender her hold on the countess of Kent title. She believed that Trempwick would then start pestering her to hand over her dower lands, leaving her with nothing. She had been briefly married once before, Trempwick’s father was her second husband, and when she had been widowed her in-laws had robbed her blind, taking nearly everything which had been willed to her including most of her original dowry. Since the dowry was often set aside to look after the wife in widowhood this was a particularly outrageous theft. Since she had only been fourteen at the time there was nothing she personally could do. She was too young to think of engaging a good lawyer and her male relations had been brought off with a few bribes so they would not take up her case.

It had taken long years and a new marriage to a man who caught the king’s eye and was made count of Kent after the previous incumbent was stripped of the title for his disloyalty before she had managed to get anything back. She was still missing much of her rightful holdings today and Trempwick had refused to help her, claiming it was all too long ago to be relevant now. She would not be left destitute again because she would not hand anything of hers over to a man again; if it was firmly in her grasp it could not be taken away without a good fight. If she hadn’t been so miserable Eleanor might have liked her for that; despite all Aveline’s pious and proper lecturing Eleanor strongly suspected she might have a rebellious streak, although it was quite well buried.





:runs hands together: When they reach court things are going to get ... :gring:

Hehe, very good, Axeknight. You can also lace them with poison and give them as presents to people you don't like.

Trempwick's mother?
~:eek:

Whoa.

The seventh of January marked the day they arrived in Waltham where the king had elected to hold both his Christmas court and his wedding. William recognised that a king needed a certain opulence and pomp to demonstrate his power and awe those surrounding him but this did not mean he had ever liked it. This preference for a quiet life was something he had passed on to most of his children, alongside his short height and wild temper. John was a big exception to this rule, and based on her letters Matilda too had been converted to the expensive side.

Waltham walked a fine balance between need and preference. As it was outside London it was quieter and visitors did not have to fight through crowded, dirty streets and dodge pickpockets on their way in. There was a certain lack of convenience in getting to Waltham but the roads had been upgraded to a king’s highway many years before so they were amongst the best kept roads in the kingdom. The trouble was more in the extra distance people had to ride but William seldom cared about that. He was a king; it was his job to inconvenience people to reinforce his power over them.

For the rest, well it was astonishing what a bit of cash and an impatient king could do. Waltham could offer almost everything Westminster could. The only real difficulty lay in fish dishes, as Waltham was landlocked and away from any rivers. William’s steward had arranged a collection of royal warranted fish merchants to convey any and all fish that the palace might require from London to Waltham. The fish always arrived in good condition as the transporters did not wish to risk losing their lucrative contract, and William used it as another example of the power and wealth of his realm. He could afford to have a live fish carried by hand in a small tub of water from London to Waltham if he wished; how many others in England could do that? It was the kind of waste William liked: simple, unique, and with a good result at the end of the day.

To call Waltham a palace was a bit of a misnomer; it would be more accurate to call it a lavish castle. People called it a palace simply from habit and expectation. In the inner bailey stood a great, four story tower keep. The king’s sumptuous rooms occupied the entire top floor. On the third floor were several guest chambers reserved for the most honoured, trusted visitors. Below this came the council chambers, treasury, the great royal library, accounting rooms, and a smaller private throne room for receiving honoured guests with both spectacle and privacy. The entire ground floor was taken up by the main hall which also doubled as a public audience chamber and throne room. The cellar of the keep held the most important stores and a small armoury in case of siege.

The other buildings in the inner bailey were not fortified; they had thin stone walls, large windows and decoratively carved stonework. There was a huge kitchen outbuilding with attached food storeroom, set well apart from any other structure because of the fire hazard. It was close enough to the main hall that food could be rushed from kitchen to table without growing cold. There was a private church set off to the north of the inner bailey; it was just large enough to take the royal family and their inner circle. The other two buildings were guest houses, filled with generously furnished chambers for those important guests who didn’t quite fit into the keep itself. One of the guest buildings, the eastern one, was slightly more prestigious because it housed the royal nursery as well as several guest rooms. This house was usually reserved for family members who did not fit into the keep, such as in-laws.

The inner bailey was enclosed by a large stone curtain wall with towers and an imposing gatehouse. Beyond those walls came many of the other critical buildings, such as stables, armoury, store rooms, and a secondary, smaller hall for the less important people to eat and sleep in. When the court filled up, as it was doing now, there simply was not space to put everyone in the main hall.

The inner bailey was surrounded by a second curtain wall, even thicker than the last but not as tall so as to enable the defenders an advantage over any attackers who managed to take the outer wall. Waltham might be built leaning to luxury but defence was still an ever present part of the scheme.

A short distance outside the walls a small, inevitable castle town had grown up. There were all the usual services you would expect, aiming for and catering to everyone from poor spit boy to rich noble.

On the other side of the castle, once again a safe distance back William had allowed a couple of fish ponds and fruit orchards. Some liked to keep such things inside their walls but Waltham was never expected to come under siege. The space they might have occupied has been filled by the two extra guest houses.

Just west of the orchards was a large garden surrounded by thin a stone wall. William had ordered it planted as a favour for his now dead queen, but it had soon found favour with him and as his children grew up they too took advantage of the seclusion it offered. Within those shielding walls you could do pretty much whatever you wanted without someone bothering you or word spreading around court. The solitary door leading into the garden was always kept firmly locked and guarded by two men at arms so only the royal family or their favoured guests could get in. Periodic sweeps of the garden ensured no one climbed over the wall to get in and the gardeners were allowed in only at appointed times.

All kings had a means of distinguishing those they favoured above others and William was no different; he had the Order of the Garden. It was a rather whimsical name for a great honour; membership was so small the guards, who were drawn from a special unit and wore a rose badge alongside their king’s personal badge of a lion, knew the names and faces of each and every person so they could authorise them on sight. Even Eleanor was known, despite her very rare visits to Waltham.

Almost every single important person in England had come to court for the wedding and king’s Christmas celebrations. Even a few of the French lords had braved the rough winter crossing to be present. Only a handful of the English earls and counts had remained at home, most because of sickness or other such reasons. Eleanor would not have been surprised to learn some of those excused were faked; a party packed full of rich, influential people was not everyone’s idea of a good time, even if it did give you chance to catch the king’s eye, broker marriages, alliances and other deals, and to generally lord it up.

Each guest brought an escort, limited to five men at arms and one body servant of the appropriate type. William insisted on these limited numbers for three reasons. The first was pure logistics; there are limits to the numbers even a king can feed and house. The second was to prevent people bringing private armies to add weight to their words. The third was to limit the kind of trouble that usually followed soldiers - namely drinking, brawling, whoring, gambling and anything else which might get loud and messy - to a limited, manageable amount.

It was into this teeming hive of activity that Trempwick, Eleanor, Fulk, Aveline, Juliana and a guard of five men at arms from Trempwick’s nearest fief rode in mid afternoon. As soon as they got past the first gate Trempwick told his men at arms to disperse and find themselves billets, except for one man who he kept to act as his body servant. Trempwick also left the group’s horses with the soldiers. Then, assured by the gate guards that the king wanted to see Trempwick and the princess as soon as they arrived, the rest of the party headed on foot towards the towering stone keep.

Just inside the main hall a man in royal livery with the king’s badge of a lion hurried up to them and repeated the gate guard’s information; the king wished to see his earl and daughter immediately. The rest of their party was welcome to wait in the great hall and he would see they were sent refreshments while suitable rooms were found.

The man politely insisted on guiding them even though they both knew where the royal suite was. They climbed up the spiral staircase behind the servant then waited as he knocked on the door at the top. A voice called impatiently to enter. The servant opened the door, stepped in and bowed, then announced them. Finally he stood out of their way and held the door open for them. Trempwick squeezed Eleanor’s shoulder lightly and murmured, “Remember our agreement,” in her ear. She took his arm and together they entered the room. They halted half way across the king’s solar and Trempwick bowed. After a small hesitation Eleanor managed to force herself to curtsey.

William gaped at her, taken aback. “Nineteen years and I finally get a curtsey,” he said finally. “Well, well, wonders shall never cease.”

Eleanor was about to remark this was the only time in years she had seen him without expecting to be harmed when she felt the warning pressure of Trempwick’s elbow against her side. With less difficulty than she had expected she kept her peace. She was revolted to find that she was still afraid, both of the king and of the thought of more pain.

The king surveyed her from his seat at a table spread with documents, his hands linked before him on the table. His right hand still had the smallest finger bandaged to its neighbour but his knuckles had healed. If the curtsey had knocked him off balance then her appearance only compounded the situation.

For the first time in years she looked like a princess, really looked like a princess, not a cut price princess. Her clothes were brand new and fashionable for once, made to measure and adjusted to perfection. They also suited her, being deep blue to match her eyes paired with sky blue underdress and girdle for contrast. The neck of the underdress had an elaborate embroidered boarder running along it in deep blue, and the dress itself had a swirling line, flower and leaf design painstakingly sewn into the material in a rich shade of blue only fractionally lighter than the material of the dress. They were undoubtedly the most expensive things she had ever had, even beating the thin, narrow gold circlet that was her barely used crown. This was just one of several new outfits and Trempwick had complained liberally about his bank balance until his mother had shut him up.

There was but one fly in the ointment. “Her hair,” growled the king.

Trempwick deliberately misunderstood, “Yes, I do think it looks quite good, sire.”

“She has hairpins - I know what you taught her to do with hairpins, Trempwick!”

“Sire, the only other alternative is for her wander about with her hair loose and that really is not an option here.”

William chewed this over and agreed grudgingly, “Very well, but,” he changed his focus back to Eleanor, “if I so much as see your hand stray near those pins you will regret it profoundly.”

How amateur did he think she was? If she wanted to skewer him she would wait until his back was turned. She gathered her courage and took the plunge before it could slip away again. “I can promise you will see nothing of the sort,” she said with a barely perceptible bit of bite.

“Still as rude as ever,” commented the king sourly.

Trempwick stepped in before the situation could worsen. He physically put himself between father and daughter and held up his hands in a gesture meant to calm everyone down. “Sire, Nell, if you can please refrain from tearing each other apart for once? We have a wedding tomorrow and both of you are required to be there and in good health. Do I need to point out that you are both still healing from last time? Do I also need to point out that there is a castle full of people to hear and word will spread quickly?”

William snorted scornfully, “That is all very fine and pretty, Trempwick, but will the brat behave?”

“I do have a name, you know,” said Eleanor sweetly.

The King snapped back, “I know – I chose it.”

“God give me strength!” exclaimed Trempwick, his hands dropping down to his sides. “Is it really so impossible for you to get along?”

The king immediately dissented, “You heard her, she is completely disrespectful.”

“And I suppose calling me brat is the height of good manners?” inquired Eleanor acidly. The two eerily similar pairs of eyes locked glares.

Trempwick continued as if he were treading on egg shells, but then given what he was saying and who he was saying it to that was understandable. “Sire, she has agreed to … behave, as you put it, as long as you also … well, behave, as she put it.” The king ground his teeth at that but astoundingly said nothing. Eleanor also managed to refrain from commenting. Trempwick continued rationally, “So if you will both hold to that … ?”

William continued to glare at Eleanor, then half-heartedly said, “If the brat – if she does I will.”

“Likewise,” returned Eleanor with matching enthusiasm. She had to trust Trempwick would keep his promise; she could see William’s mind plotting away, already working out how best to use this opportunity.

William tapped his fingers on the tabletop and said slowly, “Very well, that is settled. If she keeps her end of the bargain I shall grant her a small yearly income, let us say twenty-five pounds. Good conduct should be rewarded.”

Eleanor forced herself to smile and say thank you as nicely as she could. It was hardly convincing but at least she had tried, as the terms of their new truce dictated. A small income with what conditions attached? As much as the money appealed the potential downsides were numerous, and it would give him another hold over her.

William looked pleased, too pleased for Eleanor’s liking. For the first time she could remember he spoke to her in a normal tone, “Anne is over in the royal guest house until tomorrow; you can share with her tonight then take over her room tomorrow when she moves up here. It would be nice,” he placed special emphasis on that word, “if you could look after her; she is rather homesick.”

“I shall try.” And that made him the second person to ask, after Trempwick. Why did everyone seem to think she was going to turn this Scottish princess into an assassin overnight, or fill her head with horror stories? The poor thing had enough trouble as it was without knowing precisely what she was getting in to.

Trempwick didn’t seem to expect this lull in their war to last so he took the opportunity to send her away. “Nell, why not go now? Your father and I have matters of state to discuss and they would bore you.”

No they wouldn’t! However interested she was in their business of state her already shaky courage was failing and she was glad of the chance to flee with honour, and body for that matter, intact.






When Eleanor had gone Trempwick relaxed minutely, the stiffness of his pose easing away. Now they were alone their already easy formability lapsed completely into straightforward camaraderie. William stood and waved at him to the fire, then filled two goblets with some hippocras from a jug that stood on his work table and joined the spymaster. “Will she keep her bargain?” he asked. He could not believe that she had finally given way, not after all these years. While he could take some joy in the knowledge that his had not broken his finger in vain he was honest enough to admit this transformation was partly the spymaster’s doing, and that bothered him immensely. He should not need someone else’s help.

Trempwick accepted his wine and sipped it. “It has limits but as long as you do nothing to upset the apple cart, so to speak, it should hold up just fine. I shall keep close so as to provide a steadying influence.” Trempwick took another sip of his wine then smiled deliberately, “I shall show her off about court for you, to your credit, I think.”

“Do what you feel is necessary,” said William. He took a deep drink from his cup and paused long enough to identify each of the flavouring spices before he swallowed. “That is what I shall be doing.”

“William?” inquired Trempwick quizzically.

It took a while for the king to answer. “This alliance is only as strong as the marriage; as long as there is a way for the marriage to be dissolved the alliance can falter.”

Trempwick sat up so quickly some of his hippocras spilled onto his clothes. “Surely you don’t mean you are going to consummate the marriage now?” William said nothing. Trempwick repeated his demand, “Tell me I have misunderstood.” Again the king remained quiet. Trempwick stared at him and said slowly, “You described her as ‘just barely thirteen’ – that is too young. Fourteen is the accepted age-”

“I know,” interrupted William glumly. “You can tell me nothing I have not already told myself.”

William was irritated to discover that did not stop his spymaster from telling him again. “You are likely to pick up a reputation for being perverted.”

“Nonsense. I plan on ignoring her for a year or so after tomorrow. I shall simply be doing what is expected; many vital political marriages discount age in favour of being indissolvable. ”

“Her family-”

The king didn’t trouble to hide his scorn as he interrupted, “Her family did not think to write a provision for her age into our agreement. They plainly do not care.” William disliked the Scots king, and this was one of the reasons why. The man couldn’t even spare a few minutes and a bit of ink to add a clause to the contract for the sake of his daughter. William had found time for each of his three married daughters.

Reputation and policy failed Trempwick tried a new, more emotional angle. “Then what about her?”

“What about her? That is two questions in one, Raoul,” he reproached mildly. “She will have been well acquainted with what is expected of her. As for the other I shall make sure she is quite drunk and it will not take long.”

“You could fake the bloodstain,” suggested Trempwick.

William dismissed the idea with a shake of his head. “It leaves plenty of space for things to go awry later. I might have the sense to say nothing but the same really cannot be said of the girl. Besides have you ever seen the swarm of curious women who descend on brides to console, commiserate, and fish for juicy details?” William frowned, “No, of course not – you never did marry. Yes, well the deception would last all of twenty seconds and then it would be spread about court. By midday I would be a laughing stock.”

“What if she gets pregnant? The younger the mother the greater the risk, and more children would be a disaster-”

“Oh, do shut up!” said William loudly. “You know as well as I that there are ways to avoid that.” He did not see why his spymaster objected so strongly; anyone would think he was the one who had to bed the girl instead of being one of the many lucky men who got to return to the feasting and joke about it. The spymaster had not even seen the girl, he didn’t know her family - there was no reason for him to be so upset. “I will hear no more on the matter.”

Trempwick set his goblet down on the floor and stood up. “Sire,” he said tightly, “in that case I shall take my leave.” He stalked away, slamming the door behind him.

William drank some more of his wine, pulled a face and flung the remnants into the fire. The flames leapt high and changed colour, then settled back down. “Too much nutmeg,” he muttered to himself, trying to excuse the small fit of temper.

The truth was Trempwick’s storming out bothered him. In the many years they had known each other they had disagreed many times, but the spymaster had always remained deferential. But then William had never refused his advice like this before either; usually Trempwick gave sound council based on more than some emotional dislike for long standing tradition and common sense.

On a sudden fit of resolve William shouted, “Squire!” Shortly Simon, the youngest of his squires, appeared. The king instructed him, “Fetch my spymaster back. I will accept no excuses.”

It took a while but eventually Trempwick presented himself. He was immediately contrite, “Sire, William, my deepest apologies. I like this not at all and I know you feel the same. I was angered that I could not find a way out of this trap for you.”

As excuses went it was unexpected but Trempwick seemed very sincere, and he had always been a loyal servant working for his king’s gain. William reasoned it could be plausible enough, no matter how irrational it sounded.

“It will not happen again,” said Trempwick anxiously. He seemed very eager for this incident to be forgotten.

William let the tension drag out a little more to remind his spymaster just who was king here, then nodded. “To business,” he said, inviting the spymaster to sit back down with a wave of his hand.







I noticed yesterday evening that I keep swapping between duke and earl. Both titles are the same thing; earl is the English version, and therefore correct for people holding lands inside England, while duke is the continental version. Trempwick is an earl, not a duke. Let's hope I get it right from now on.

Bah! If you wear earplugs and hide in the next room Trempwick's mother isn't so bad!
:hide:

The great hall was one of the most splendid sights Fulk had ever seen. The first thing that hit you was the scale; you felt dwarfed by the sheer size and height of the room in the same way you felt insignificant when you entered a cathedral. Fulk estimated it would be possible to fit approximately three ordinary rooms into this space if you stacked them on top of each other and still have a small gap between the top room and the massive beams supporting the roof. The hall also took up the entire ground floor.

On all four walls not one but two ranks of windows provided illumination, one row at normal height to provide window seats and accessible defensive positions and another some eight feet above. The highest rank were simple slits with the walls bevelled so the gap on the inside was far wider than the opening on the outside. This allowed more light in but limited the chances of missiles making their way through the gaps. The ground level windows were made up of more complex arrow loops cut in a cross shape and set in arched recesses easily seven feet tall. While the shape appeared decorative it actually provided the perfect port for both longbows and crossbows.

Since this was the royal palace each and every window had glass in it; a statement of wealth and a nice bit of comfort. The glass might hamper the defensive property of the arrow loops but they also made a second, more subtle statement – the king could afford to smash his windows in the event of someone attacking. The amount of money that would be wasted if that ever happened make Fulk feel faintly ill; it would be enough to buy several decently sized manors with good farmland. While the windows provided more than enough illumination there were wall brackets with currently unlit torches; as each bracket was only a few paces away from its neighbours it would be possible to achieve excellent lighting indeed even in the darkest of nights.

At the opposite side of the massive room to the door stood the dais and high table where the royal family and their honoured favourites would dine. Behind the dais was a fireplace. Fulk had heard of domestic fireplaces so fast you could roast a whole pig on them. This fireplace could easily accommodate a few people if you strung them on a spit like in a manuscript’s illustration of hell. The fire blazing there currently was small in comparison to what was possible and yet the hall still felt nice and warm.

Along each side of the hall forming a squared off ‘u’ shape with the high table were two long rows of trestle tables. While those lucky and influential enough to dine at the high table would take advantage of the high backed chairs that looked elaborate even that this distance those on the lower tables would have to make do with benches. The space in the middle of the hall between the tables was large enough to accommodate whatever royal entertainments were desired, up to and including a small foot tourney between four armed men, Fulk thought.

The monotony of the stone walls was broken up by hangings depicting scenes from the bible and popular stories, hunting scenes, and battle scenes. One thing was certain: the owner’s wife had not made them herself. Even assuming the late queen had been assisted by the usual gang of maids it would have taken her several lifetimes to make this little lot, and that’s assuming she never needed to sleep, eat or take a break.

Everywhere there were decorative carvings; on roof beams, the ends of the benches, the chairs, the edges of the tables, the window seats, the tops of the arches, around the fireplace – everywhere on wood and stone alike. Little people engaged in an assortment of activities, faces both normal and grotesque, animals, heraldic designs relating to the royal family, a variety of designs including zigzagging lines, swirls, imitation plant tendrils – too many to catalogue. Despite the quantity the effect was not overdone. The decoration was applied in the same places and in the same ways as every other hall Fulk had been in; it was just the scale of the room allowed for far more than your typical hall.

The hall was full of people, nobles, their servants and palace servants alike. People were playing board games, dice and cards, many were talking, a few people were eating or drinking, one group was admiring a duet of lute and song, and some were conducting business.

Fulk realised he was stood there gaping like a fish; he firmly closed his mouth and wrenched his gaze back to his companions. He was gratified to find he wasn’t alone in being awestruck; Juliana was looking about herself with wide eyed wonder. Aveline did not seem impressed, but then she was an old hand having spent quite a lot of her life at court over the years.

The old lady looked about like a hawk searching for prey. Evidently she spotted whom she was looking for as she said sharply to Fulk, “Stay here until someone orders you otherwise; I am going to see an old friend.” She glanced towards her maid and sighed. “And for heaven’s sake stop that idiot girl from gawking like a moonstruck calf!” On that pleasant note she strode away, making a beeline for a nobleman who looked to be of similar age to her.

Fulk turned to Juliana and said, “Well, you heard Her Happiness. Let’s find somewhere to sit down.” She was so absorbed in her examination of her surroundings she didn’t hear him.

Fulk tapped her on the shoulder; she jumped. Clutching one hand to her heart as if to suggest he had nearly given her a seizure she gave him a wishy-washy smile. “Sorry, did you say something?”

“We’ve been dumped with instructions to sit here until someone comes back. You can stand about if you like but I’m going to sit down.”

The girl stuck close to him as he made his way to the nearest bench and sat down. Fulk started to look about him again, this time more covertly. Aveline was talking to her nobleman; it appeared they knew each other well as their conversation was too animated to be stilted polite chitchat. There were quite a few other people in livery like his, but theirs bore badges; the king’s lion, and a stylised golden feather that Fulk thought belonged to prince Hugh.

Someone tugged at his sleeve. Fulk broke of his surveillance to find Juliana sat stiffly next to him with one hand on his cuff. Wordlessly she pointed at a huge dog stood before her and growling menacingly. She didn’t extend her arm so much as flick a finger in the dog’s direction as if she thought the dog would try and eat her hand if she gave it chance.

Fulk rolled his eyes and stuck out a hand for the dog to sniff. After a cursory inspection the dog licked his hand then moved closer and dropped its head into Fulk’s lap. Fulk grimaced as he looked at his dog drool covered hand then took advantage of the dog’s invitation to be petted to wipe the drool off onto the animal’s fur coat.

Juliana blushed slightly, “It didn’t look very friendly before.”

“Even kings don’t keep dogs who eat people; replacing all the dead servants is too costly.” Fulk stopped scratching the dog’s ears but the animal plainly wasn’t satisfied; it butted his hand until he started paying it attention again.

Juliana looked over towards her mistress. “I do wonder what she’s up to,” she said archly.

“She’s talking to someone, said something about an old friend.”

“Really?” Juliana leaned her head closer to Fulk’s, “An old friend? You know what that usually means.”

“Yes, it means they’ve met before and didn’t hate each other,” said Fulk shortly. Gossip had never been his thing.

Juliana decided he was no fun and sat there pouting.





When Eleanor finally emerged at the bottom of one of the stairwells she looked around, searching the crowd for her party. Fulk spotted her before she saw them. He gave the dog a gentle push to encourage it to go away and said to Juliana, “Eleanor’s back; come on.”

Eleanor noticed them when they were about half way to her; she immediately headed towards them. “Where is Aveline?” she inquired.

“Talking to some old friend of hers,” replied Fulk. He pointed the duo out in the crowd; Aveline was still engrossed in her conversation and had not noticed them.

Eleanor smiled grimly. “Then this is the perfect opportunity to go and visit my soon to be stepmother.” She was quite pleased that she had made it sound like her own idea rather than something two people had ordered her to do.

Juliana looked dubious. “Shouldn’t we tell my lady first, your highness?”

“If we tell her she will come with us,” replied Eleanor bleakly. There was a slight pause before her good princess act reasserted itself. “That is to say she will be dragged way from her conversation and that would be terribly unkind,” she said smoothly. “You could stay here while we go, then when she has finished talking to her friend she will know where to find us.”

“Alright,” agreed the maid reluctantly.

“Good, that is settled. Remember, do not interrupt her; let her come to find you.” With that warning Eleanor departed as fast as she could without her haste becoming obvious. Together with Fulk she managed to gain the doorway, then she was out of the keep and away out of Aveline’s line of sight and into safety.

Fulk was dying to ask what had happened but since they were threading their way through the throng of people bustling about the bailey he couldn’t; bodyguards do not interrogate their employers. Instead he followed Eleanor as she headed to the royal guest house. They entered the building and Eleanor immediately turned left into the nursery itself. Currently it was empty; there was only one royal child in the country and she was under lock and key with her mother thanks to her dear father’s bid for the throne. She stopped just past the door and waited for Fulk to come through, then closed the door behind him.

Eleanor didn’t have chance to fill Fulk in on her audience with the king; a childish voice with a pronounced Scottish accent enquired hesitantly, “Who are you?”

She turned to find a young girl with dark red hair stood in the second doorway, the one which led back into the ground floor bedchamber. She looked to be around twelve and her clothing spoke very highly of her family’s wealth. “Anne, I presume?” said Eleanor.

The girl nodded, then added, “Princess Anne.”

“Well, I am Eleanor, princess Eleanor.” She couldn’t resist adding that last to echo the girl.

The girl smiled tentatively. “Oh, William’s last child?” It took Eleanor a second to work out that William meant her father. She had never envisioned him as the kind of person to drop to first name terms even with his wife. Anne’s smile faded and she said nervously, “I do hope we are going to get on.”

Eleanor flashed her a smile, “I am sure we will; contrary to what some may have told you I will not murder you.”

Anne’s eyes flew wide and she insisted politely, “Oh no, no one has said anything like that.” There was a rather awkward pause, then Anne looked at Fulk. “Who is he?” she asked timidly.

“My bodyguard. Just ignore him, I always do. He is not nearly interesting enough to notice, nor intelligent enough to hold a decent conversation.” Behind Eleanor’s back Fulk rolled his eyes up as far as they would go and pulled a stupid face. Anne giggled, then clamped a hand over her mouth. Eleanor turned around just in time to see Fulk abruptly return to normal. Since her face was hidden from the girl Eleanor stuck her tongue out at Fulk before reassuming her royal decorum and turning back around.

“I think he is funny,” Anne said happily.

“Hear that, Fulk?” asked Eleanor imperiously, “You are now officially funny.”

Fulk’s reply was laced with exaggerated seriousness, “As you say, Your Highness. My foes will tremble before me all the more now.”

Anne giggled again. “I like you, both of you” she declared.

Well, there you go then, job done. Both the king and Trempwick would be happy. Now what? Neither of them had bothered to give her any instructions beyond getting the girl to like her and cheer up a bit.

Anne took a few hesitant steps closer and blurted out, “Can I ask you something?”

Here we go, thought Eleanor, the bit where I am tempted to tell her to start fleeing the country.

When the question came it was not what Eleanor had expected. “Everyone says you never got married; is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked curiously. Anne realised her bad manners and blushed miserably. “I mean if you do not mind telling me; my grandmother always said I asked too many questions so if you like just tell me to shut up.”

If she told the girl to shut up and mind her own business she would have an upset king and an upset spymaster to deal with if they found out. “I would not say I minded,” replied Eleanor slowly, trying to buy time to think of a more politic answer to the marriage than the truth.

Anne came to her rescue with a suggestion so quickly it was obvious she had decided her idea must be the truth. “Is it because you have fallen in love with someone and you have both sworn to marry each other but he is unsuitable so you cannot marry until he distinguishes himself somehow?”

It was an idea stolen right from some bard’s stupid romantic story and Eleanor thought it embarrassingly saccharine. She remembered both Adele and Matilda had gone through phases where they practically ate romantic literature and believed life really was like that. The worrying thing was that in so many of those tales the lovers always died tragically. Eleanor had never seen the appeal, and now in her experience unrequited love was proving to be a pain; dying because of slightly requited love would only make matters worse.

On the other hand it died sound better than “No, your husband-to-be sold off everything that was supposed to be mine to pay for his war and everyone hates me so much they refuse to even contemplate marriage without a very hefty bribe. Also I really do not like the idea and generally would prefer to run screaming.”

Besides, there was a certain tiny grain of truth in Anne’s version. Sort of. If you looked at it obliquely … through a thick fog … with your eyes tightly shut. “Yes,” agreed Eleanor. Best to keep anything she might say short and leave the rest to Anne’s imagination.

There was no stopping the girl’s curiosity. She asked avidly, “What is he like?” Fortunately for Eleanor she gave no pause for an answer, immediately supplying her own, “Is he brave and handsome?”

Why not? “I think so.”

“Is he a skilled warrior and brave knight?”

“I am sure he is.”

“And kind and gentle and intelligent?”

“Er, … yes?”

Fulk joined in with a very innocently worded, “What’s his name?”

Eleanor blushed a flaming red. As if this was not difficult enough already! She would get him for that later. There was something about the way he had said that which implied he thought he knew the answer. She had a sinking feeling he thought she was talking about him. The stuck up, arrogant, conceited git - it was none of his business to go around noticing that she had a certain attraction to him, and certainly not right for him to assume he was nice, or intelligent or anything at all!

Anne looked horrified, “You cannot ask that!” she exclaimed. “It has to remain a secret until he has proven himself worthy. Then she can sweep her off on his fiery changer and they will live happily ever after.” Anne beamed at Eleanor, “The king will not come to kill you like in the stories because I will ask him not to as a special favour and he did say if I ever really, really wanted anything I should just ask.”

“Isn’t that nice?” said Fulk with a teasing note only Eleanor would notice. She began to wonder if she could get away with throttling her bodyguard while in her nice princess act.

“I bet he has written you several songs,” said Anne dreamily.

Oh yes, he has.” Fulk took a few steps into the middle of the room and stood facing both of them, though he was looking at Eleanor slightly more than at Anne. He took up a minstrel’s pose and began to sing, “Gooseberry, Gooseberry, my delight. Thou art truly a wondrous sight. From that glare. And that stare. I think myself about to die.” Fulk bowed with a flourish then said to the crimson Eleanor, “That was how it went, wasn’t it? Poor chap was singing that under your window in a rainstorm.”

Eleanor wished she had something to throw at him. Something heavy. He was obviously having a whale of a time with the absurdity of the idea that someone might care for her. At least this time being a good victim only required her to blush and look embarrassed, something was knew she was doing of her own accord whether she wanted to or not.

Anne only saw what she wanted to see; a romantic song from some wonderful knight as retold by a bodyguard who happened to hear it. The interplay between the elder princess and bodyguard was completely disregarded. Anne sighed, “How romantic.”

If Trempwick ever got word of this he would never let her forget it; it was bad enough Fulk knowing without finding the spymaster humming Fulk’s impromptu song. Eleanor initiated damage limitation, also fervently hoping to put an end to this. “This must remain a secret; promise me you will not breathe a word to anybody.”

Anne immediately nodded and said solemnly, “I promise, not a soul ever as long as I live.” The room was still for a moment, then Anne belatedly recalled her duties as hostess. “Oh gosh! I am so sorry, I should have invited you in and got you a drink and some food, and ordered a bath and - and everything. My grandmother always said looking after guests is a sacred duty.”

Determined to make up for lost time Anne ushered them in to her guestroom without even checking to see if they wanted to go, rather like a dog herding sheep. She pushed them towards the window seat and said, “Please do sit down; I shall go and take care of everything else.” She picked up her skirts and fairly ran out the room, leaving the door open behind herself. A few seconds she reappeared and shut the door. They could hear her footsteps running away.

Fulk and Eleanor stood where they had been left. Fulk blinked a few times then said neutrally, “Interesting.”

“Very,” agreed Eleanor. “By the way remind me to hurt you a lot as soon as we have time.”

Fulk nodded pleasantly, “As you command.” He dithered for a second, then impulsively reached into his belt purse and pulled out that necklace he’d been carrying around for weeks. He turned to face her and grabbed her nearest hand then pressed it into it, curling her fingers tightly around the small object. “Look, um … your knight should probably give you some token once in a while.”

The potential implications of ‘your knight’ and ‘token’ were so immense Eleanor refused to consider them. Instead she slowly uncurled her fingers to see what he had given her. The necklace lay on the palm of her hand, delicate gold work holding a teardrop of clear rock crystal onto a gold chain. It was undoubtedly a lover’s token.

She opened her mouth to say something, she did not quite know what, but Fulk laid a finger across her lips before she could make a sound. “Don’t,” he warned, “if you say something I will probably say or do something daft; God knows I’ve proved I’ve a propensity for that in the past.” He saw the question beginning to form and sidestepped it by changing the subject, “Better hide that carefully; if your Trempwick sees it he’ll be mighty displeased. And now we really should get back to safer ground; we have company coming thanks to Anne.”

He sat himself down and somehow Eleanor managed to travel the few steps to the window seat without conscious thought. She collapsed down opposite him, dazed. If she was understanding this correctly there was a small chance that he might actually just maybe have a tiny little crush on her.





And there's another fragment of what used to be the window scene.

My latest effort at getting children right; I think she seems like a rather silly five year old instead of just thirteen.

Excellent. The last part was really well done, though the part preceding it are very good though. But don't ask me about children since I don't understand about them either. The only thing that bothered me was the bit about pneumonia, but that has nothing to do with your writing skills ~D .

Is it allowed to requested a few more scenes from Fulk's point of view? I am curious as to how he experiences his relation with Eleanor.

Again, very well done. Looking forward to reading more. And I hope that is still a lot more to follow...



Edit: is it just me or is the number of typo's in your story increasing?

While Anne was gone Fulk and Eleanor sat in silence, Fulk too wary to speak and Eleanor too stunned. Her hand remained closed tightly around the necklace; the solid feel of the token, the cool smoothness of the crystal, the slightly sharp needle like point of the clasp’s hook all felt reassuringly real. She was not dreaming. But she still hard a hard time believing.

She opened her hand and looked at the necklace again. Implication depended on the giver; from a relative or close friend this would be a harmless trinket, from another female it would be a pretty little bauble, from a man who had declared an interest in the recipient it was a lover’s token, from someone with an agenda it was a bribe. From Fulk it was …?

He was a friend, but no one else would see it that way. The way he had given it to her, or more importantly what he had said … but perhaps she was placing far too much import on ‘your knight’. Her knight could simply mean a knight in her service, which he was. Yes, but then why call it a token? Why, she had a whole army of whys – why anything.

Crossly Eleanor stuffed the necklace into her tight sleeve where it would be safe. She really was not made for all this fretting about love; trying to reconcile the two opposing suspicions was going to give her a headache.

A few moments later she stood up. “I am going to find Anne,” she announced. She had a plan that would take care of one out of the many problems this unexpected gift presented.





The younger princess was easy to locate; Eleanor just had to follow the voices. Anne was currently busy discussing what food to offer her guests with a royal servant. When she had finished her extremely long order she let the servant go and Eleanor made her move. “Anne? I have a small favour to ask of you, if you do not mind.”

“Oh no, I would love to help. My grandmother says I should always help people because it is a Godly thing to do.”

“Yes,” agreed Eleanor inattentively as she towed the girl out of the corridor and into the nursery. She pulled out the necklace and held it out to Anne. “Could you give me this in front of a large audience and say it is a gift of friendship, or something equally respectable?” The best place to hide something was often in plain sight, as long as it had some excuse for being there.

Anne’s eyes sparkled as she took the necklace, handling it reverently. “It is from him?” she asked in awe.

“Yes.” Realising that the corners of her mouth had twitched up fractionally Eleanor quickly squashed the smile and said more normally, “I have had it for ages but I am never able to wear it. If people saw you give it to me then it would seem harmless.” Even the foundations of this deception would be built on deception; if she said she had only just got it Anne would work out it had come from Fulk.

Just as Eleanor had expected the younger girl loved the opportunity to play love’s assistant. She vowed, “You can rely on me.” After a bit of consideration Anne fastened the necklace in place about her neck as if it were hers.




Not long after Eleanor and Anne returned to Anne’s guest room Aveline and Juliana finally put in an appearance. Eleanor certainly would not say she was glad to see them but they were the audience she had stipulated Anne should wait for. Having Trempwick as a witness would have been a bonus but Eleanor decided the risk was too great; if Anne messed up even slightly the spymaster would instantly be suspicious. His mother and her browbeaten maid would be much easier to fool and they were more than able to act as reliable witnesses. They were also likely to spread word of Anne’s ‘gift’.

As soon as she arrived Aveline took control of matters; she turfed Fulk out and then engaged in polite conversation with the two princesses. She was, of course, dictating the course of conversation to suit her own interests. When the food Anne had requested arrived Aveline nibbled politely at a small chewette and oozed disapproval, though why precisely was a mystery.

After spending some twenty odd minutes answering questions about Scotland and her family Anne managed to get a question in edgeways. “Eleanor, might I ask why your bodyguard had no badge?”

Eleanor suppressed a sigh; why did everyone always ask her the same old questions over and over? Marriage this, badge that – at this rate she would be asked what she had been doing these past few years in oh, call it ten minutes.

Aveline thoughtfully saved her the trouble of answering by saying very disapprovingly, “Her lord father has not seen fit to give her one, why is for him to know. It is not for us to question our king.”

Anne looked uneasy. “I have a badge; it is a lark. I really like it. You should have one too.” She looked at Eleanor with a kind of needy desperation, “I am sure he has just forgotten.”

Eleanor would have agreed if she had been given the chance; killing the girl’s illusions seemed unnecessarily cruel since she would have to marry the king regardless. With her illusions at least she worried less; they might not last long but they provided some comfort. Eleanor strongly suspected in like circumstances she would have been a fear stricken wreck desperately searching for a way out but despairing in the knowledge that there was none; by contrast Anne was cautiously optimistic in her little dream world. All the same she felt despicable for misleading the girl.

Aveline had no such squeamishness. “Nonsense,” she declared gruffly, “he has not forgotten – he has decided she does not deserve one.”

Eleanor stepped in to try and mend the damage as quickly as she could. She had always been fast on her mental feet and all her years with Trempwick had only improved both her speed and ability to sound convincing. “It is because I refuse to marry.”

Poor Anne looked like she had been slapped. “But, he has always been so nice to me,” she protested weakly, “He cannot be that … that mean.”

Eleanor quietly wished all kinds of hellish torments on Aveline and tried again. “My father and I do not get on but I see no reason why he would not like you.”

Aveline chipped in with her own viewpoint, “You are obedient and dutiful; Nell is not. Who can blame our king for being displeased at being denied his due? Mark her fate well, and learn from it lest the same should happen to you.” And that really was that; Eleanor decided she was going to have a word with Trempwick demanding he called his mother off before she caused irreparable damage.

Anne rallied, “I will talk to him and see if he will change his mind.”

“You will do no such thing!” snapped Aveline. “A good wife does not try to bully her husband; it will be your duty to-”

Eleanor interrupted as loudly as she dared, which was something just below a shout, “Yes, quite, but now really is not the time for such discussions.”

Aveline pursed her lips and looked judgmental. “There is no better time,” she said deliberately, “since the girl is to be married tomorrow she should be well acquainted with what is expected of her.”

“Oh, but I already am,” insisted Anne seriously, “I want to be a good queen and my grandmother and everyone made sure I know everything I need and I worked really hard to learn it all.”

Eleanor quickly moved in to lend support, “Yes, I am sure her family saw to her education; to assume otherwise is rather impertinent. Even I, disaster that I am, know all the assorted rules, guidelines, instructions, courtesies, duties, responsibilities and rights.”

An edgy silence descended on the room. Anne took advantage of this to unfasten the necklace and say, “I do so hope we will get on, Eleanor. You have been so kind to me; I would like you to have this.” She held the necklace out to Eleanor.

Eleanor caught hold of the chain just above the crystal between thumb and forefinger. She studied the necklace as if she had never seen it before, then smiled and said warmly, “Thank you.” She fastened the pendant in place about her own neck and that was that, hidden in plain sight and harmless to all but her, Fulk and Anne.

Aveline watched the exchange mutely. Feeling the need to take back control of matters she started to describe all the other society wedding she had been to in her long life in great detail. She allowed no interruptions and any attempts to try and alter the topic met with firm resistance. Eventually Eleanor gave up and settled into a bored stupor, more asleep than awake.





Trempwick put in an appearance around half an hour before dinner was due to be served. He exchanged polite nothings with the others before turning his attention on her. His eyes went straight to the necklace and his brow creased with a frown. He came closer and picked up the crystal droplet, letting it rest against the insides of his fingers as he admired it. “Very pretty; where did you get it, Nell?”

“It was a gift from Anne,” she replied, striving to seem casual. Trempwick’s brown eyes bored into hers as if he believed he could search her soul for the truth if only he stared hard enough.

Aveline refused to be left out. “It was a very handsome gesture, I thought.”

Trempwick let the pendant drop back down against Eleanor’s breastbone and stepped back to a more proper distance. “Very handsome,” he agreed lightly. “I do hope you will excuse me but I am going to steal Nell away from you. We shall see you at dinner.”

As her role demanded Eleanor accepted his proffered arm and let him lead her away without comment. Trempwick headed towards the keep, through the main hall, up a staircase and to the private throne room on the second floor. He ushered her in then closed the door firmly behind them. “There; we can speak in peace without setting tongues wagging. The king will be here shortly to lend credibility to this charade.”

Trempwick smiled as if at some private joke. Eleanor arched an eyebrow, silently asking for an explanation. Trempwick generously provided her with one. “I was thinking of the last time you and I were in this room, do you remember, sweet Nell?”

It was impossible not to; it was the time she had been handed over to Trempwick for training. “Yes, master,” she agreed dispassionately.

“I think it worked out well for all concerned, don’t you think, dear Nell?”

“Yes, master,” repeated Eleanor again. She was not entirely sure if she did agree but trying to work out what would have been different if events had taken a different course that day was nearly impossible. As things stood she was here, in this future and the good tended to be inextricably mated with the bad.

“He did leave his mark on you that day, though, and that truly is a shame.”

“Master?”

“That scar under your eye, Nell. Very faint but still just visible; a pity.”

She did not know why they were here but she was certain it was not to discuss old times. “Why did you bring me here?”

Trempwick clasped his hands behind his back and ordered, “Report.”

“I would do far better if your mother would stop trying to foil me at every turn,” she grumbled, “Every time I make progress she jumps in and starts wailing doom and gloom or ranting about propriety until Anne gets worried again.”

Trempwick’s eyes narrowed and he all but snapped, “I told her to support your efforts, not destroy them! This will not be tolerated.” Trempwick paced for a few steps then halted and said abruptly, “You will continue soothing her; I have seen a few weddings with petrified child-brides and they were neither pretty nor glorious. That cannot be allowed to happen here; if our king has to drag her kicking and screaming to the altar and back he will become a laughing stock.” The spymaster looked directly at Eleanor. “Besides,” he said with a sigh, “it would hardly be pleasant for her.”

After a long, morose pause Trempwick wandered over to the throne. He brushed his fingers along one of the carved wooden arms, then looked to Eleanor with a hint of a smile. “I wonder if you can still make it up into the roof beams?”

Eleanor looked up and considered the room’s unique roof. Although there were rooms above it the throne room had the same pointed roof supported by beams running horizontal from one side of the room to the other creating an A shape that many single story buildings had. The keep’s builders, in the time of her grandfather, had decided that the slanted roof was more impressive and so special allowance had been made for it in the design of the building; the room above was perfectly normal.

“I would get up easier than ever, however I would now have to sit in the middle of one because I am taller, and so I would be obvious to anyone looking up.”

“Stay on the ground then, sweet Nell. I had enough difficulty dragging our sovereign lord off you last time he found you up there.”

Business dealt with and safe frippery exhausted they waited for the king in peace.





[dual forum bit]

Something about that part feels very off, though what exactly eludes me. As stupid as this may sound this part is proving very difficult to read back; the text keeps wriggling as if it is alive.

Earls, dukes, confusion – I have never seen a decent explanation of the English ranks, only piecemeal usage that seems almost random. Add baron into the mix and it gets even worse. In this case I shall trust external judgement over my own haphazard guesswork. Earl is the English version of count. Duke is duke. Baron will not be mentioned unless someone can fill me in on what exactly one is. So Trempwick is a duke after all. Everyone confused now? I am.

A couple of people have brought it to my attention that my spelling is getting steadily worse in these recent parts. I have noticed this myself; even after checking the document through several times myself and with the aid of Word’s spellchecker nasty mistakes are slipping through. I fix them up as I spot them, but that is often not until hours, even days later. I’ve started getting d and b mixed up again, along with g and c. That text wriggling effect I mentioned earlier is another ... symptom, if you will. I recall seeing something about dyslexics having good and bad periods; sometimes you can spell, sometimes you can’t. I think this froggy just fell right out of a good period smack into a bad one. I shall give everything an extra pass or two in the hope that will help. Sorry.

[/dual forum bit, heading to individual comments]
Ludens, I have a few more Fulk’s eye view scenes planned for the rest of their time at court. The first is due to appear in the next part. I suppose this is about the halfway mark now, it kind of depends what I do later on.

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Something about that part feels very off, though what exactly eludes me.

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Perhaps because nothing interesting or unexpected happens?

Ack!

The part does what I want it to and what I need it to. It sets things up, reveals things, builds on things and if you look very closely it hints. In fact there is at least one very important thing in there, to be built on and pointed out in the next part.

It lacks elegance (and that is the problem I have with it, I think) but it works as I want or it would not be here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

The part does what I want it to and what I need it to. It sets things up, reveals things, builds on things and if you look very closely it hints. In fact there is at least one very important thing in there, to be built on and pointed out in the next part.

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I suggested that because it read like a scene from a story I am working on, which was also important yet somehow uninteresting. It revealed motives, hinted at others, set the plot working and still it felt dull. Simply put, all the characters were doing their routine without showing any originality. That's what made it dull, I think. I am still not sure about it though, but the predictability factor probably was for a large part responsible for this.

Dear God, Holy Mary, Jesus Christ on his bloody cross. How much can one frog write in a week and a half!

I'm going to be two days reading that lot. As soon as I'm done I'll just praise it so heres my preemtive flattery.

Stupendous, superfluous an extra ordinarily inventive entertaining rip roaring ride of a story.

This was the first real court feast Eleanor had attended. She had been too young to be allowed to attend the ones held before she left court, and in her infrequent visits since then she had been left to eat in her own room with Trempwick. When the king had desired her forgotten the main hall had been closed to her; to sit at the high table was to be near the centre of attention. A princess could never sit at one of the lower tables; even if Eleanor were not exactly well known someone would have recognised her and the incident would have become fuel for rumour.

She had heard the usual stories and reminiscences of other feasts and court meals, and once she had managed to sneak into the hall and watch for a bit before she had been found and returned to the royal nursery by her exasperated nurse. She had also dined in style during her very brief time at Aidney’s before she murdered him. Based on those sources she had expected to be bored silly by the pageantry and need to conduct polite conversation on subjects she was not interested in with people she did not like.



She was pleasantly surprised to find she was enjoying herself. The food was every bit as delectable as she had expected, and Trempwick was proving to be an excellent companion instead of the dour, watchful figure she had thought to be trapped with. She might be near her father and brother but they were not her dining partners so they may as well be entirely absent for all the contact she had with them.

It was traditional for people to dine in pairs at a formal occasion or large meal, sharing a trencher and cup. The pairings usually ran to one man and one woman, though occasionally the young were paired with someone older, grandson and grandfather for example. Married couples almost always formed pairs, as did betrothed couples. One of those partners would look after the needs of the other; the young would look after the old, and men after women. That was not to say the consideration was one sided, more that the stronger would look after the weaker. It was poor manners to eat something you knew the other did not like, as the nature of a shared trencher meant that whatever one ate the other ended up with as well. The same applied to drinks, as there was only one cup per pair.

Trempwick was an first-rate partner, far more than he had hinted he would be back at Woburn. He lavished attention on her, cutting her food into bite sized bits, removing bones, selecting her favourites and generally giving so much consideration to her that he barely ate himself. She had to admit she rather liked it.

Trempwick watched as she ate a small portion of rabbit in thick ale and herb sauce. “It is good to see you happy for once, dear Nell,” he said quite sincerely.

“I do believe it may be the food.” It was not often she plucked up the nerve to tease the spymaster but tonight it really did not seem to matter. He had dropped out of his usual tutor/spymaster role and seemed to be aiming more at being a friend for once. He had even shown a liking for banter, just like Fulk. Never in the fourteen years she had known him had he ever been so … relaxed.

He laughed quietly. “Then I shall endeavour to make my cook learn to do as his job title suggests.”

Eleanor’s hand moved towards the cup but Trempwick beat her to it, his hand flashing into action the instant he saw her begin to move. He passed it to her, then took it back when she had finished with it. After drinking himself he looked into the mostly empty cup. “More malmsey or something different?” he asked.

“Can you see anyone with some clairet?”

Trempwick drained the cup in one swift gulp, then waved a hand to attract one of the waiting page’s attention and spoke quietly to the boy. A minute later the boy hurried back with an ornate jug. Trempwick held their cup out for the boy to fill, then turned to Eleanor with a smile. “Your clairet, darling Nell.”

“If I change drinks too often you shall end up quite tipsy,” she observed with a smile. She tested the clairet; it was a mix between red and white wine, a dusky pink in colour and quite light in flavour, unlike the strong, sweet malmsey. It was also less potent; she had never been fond of getting even slightly drunk. A wise agent stayed alert at all times; a dead agent did not.

“If my head starts spinning I shall empty the cup into the rushes instead of my gullet,” Trempwick assured her brightly.

Eleanor arched an eyebrow. “Along with your stomach?” Normally that would get her firmly squished back into place; it was fun to kick sand over the line a little.

He laughed. “I do hope not, dear Nell. I would never live it down. Sobriety is the habit of a lifetime, and one I do not intend to break.”

There they were, probably the only two people in the hall intent on remaining completely sober, both for the same reasons. Somehow this confirmed what she had always known but never put into coherent thought. “We never do get to relax and be like everyone else, do we?” she asked sadly.

Her mood affected the spymaster’s; his reply was quite sorrowful, “No.”

Always watchful, always alert, always analysing everything and searching for motives. Everything had meaning; naught was simple. Nothing could ever really be accepted for what it appeared to be. Only a handful of people could be trusted, and even then not completely. It was a lonely existence, tonight crushingly so. The only other person in this hall like her was Trempwick. Together they sat here, slightly off to one side even while in the middle of things, almost like the players sat slightly apart from their chess pieces, a part of the picture yet somehow not.

Lonely. Absently Eleanor fingered the crystal teardrop of the necklace, considering the possibilities once again. If this was a lover’s token then it changed quite a bit, including the motive for that rather frantic embrace back in Woburn as the king arrived. Sympathy still, but of a whole new kind. She couldn’t resolve the two conflicting logics - it was obvious he could never love her; it was obvious there was something here.

A hand caught hers, gently stopping her restless toying with the token. Trempwick pitched his voice so low that none other could overhear, “Do not fret, dear Nell. You have done well; that necklace is proof of it. Anne is happier and you are safe, so relax, as much as we ever can, and enjoy yourself for a while.”

She considered his words and a slow smile spread across her face. She had fooled him; finally after all these years she had outwitted him. He truly did believe the necklace had come from Anne. He was also right – there was no point in worrying about this now. “Have you seen any cheese?”

Trempwick let go of her hand and groaned melodramatically, “Oh Jesú! Not cheese.”

“Ah, but you are not paying for it,” she pointed out archly, “my father is.”

Trempwick’s eyes gleamed. “Good point, sweet Nell, good point indeed.” He waved to the page.





Just as with every other aspect of the palace that Fulk had seen dinner was a truly unique spectacle. Since he was in the upper echelon of royal servants he was assigned a place near the bottom of the right table along with Juliana. If he leaned forward he could see past his fellow diners to the high table. To the right of the king sat the tiny figure of Anne, his dining partner. To the king’s left was prince Hugh partnered with his wife. Fulk wasn’t really interested in them; he found his eyes drawn to the dining couple next to Anne. Eleanor and Trempwick.

At this distance he could not see too well and his view was impaired by people but what he could see was more than enough. They were sat quite close and their heads were bent close together; every now than then they would laugh. They looked as if they were enjoying themselves. The spymaster was being the perfect partner and Eleanor was playing along.

Sickened Fulk stopped watching. He turned his attention back to his own partner, Juliana. “Would you like some of the duck?” he asked, trying to make up for his momentary neglect. There was a serving dish with several ducks nearby; the only reason he asked about duck instead of something else.

“Yes, please. A leg, if you don’t mind carving.”

Fulk asked the person next to him to pass the platter; the dish slowly worked its way down to him. Expertly he removed a leg from the whole bird with the aid of his knife and placed it on the trencher he shared with Juliana. He wouldn’t have minded a wing but his appetite seemed to have died so regretfully he passed the dish back, wings and all. He set to, carving the meat off the bones for Juliana.

Eleanor was wearing his necklace and playing along to the spymaster. She had risked the spymaster’s wrath and devised an elaborate charade so she could wear his gift. She was playing along with the spymaster. Oh damn it, forget the pretty words – Trempwick was courting her and she was not rejecting him even though she was wearing Fulk’s token.

Fulk’s knife slashed through the cooked meat and sliced a deep scar along the thigh bone. “Careful,” warned Juliana, “it’s already dead, you don’t need to kill it again.” Fulk mumbled an apology and finished boning the leg more carefully. He ignored the food, leaving it all for his partner. Instead he pulled out a handkerchief and began cleaning the blade of his knife; it was the one the king had given him and he always kept it immaculate. Moreover it gave him something to do in lieu of eating.

Fulk forced himself to calm down and think rationally. Trempwick’s attention was focused solely on Eleanor and they were talking privately, so what? Did that mean they were flirting? No, it only meant Trempwick was being a far better partner than Fulk was. He could be – should be – doing exactly the same thing with Juliana. The hall was filled with people doing exactly the same thing. If he had been paired with Eleanor he would have been doing the same thing. It was only good etiquette.

No, actually if he had been with Eleanor he would have been taking advantage of the occasion and flirting, even though it was against his better judgement. However what he would do proved nothing about what the spymaster would do. Trempwick had had years to make a move before Fulk appeared and he had apparently done nothing; why would he change now? Anyway it didn’t much matter what Trempwick was doing; Fulk was confident Eleanor had eyes only for him.

But that had not stopped Maude, had it? Unfair; that had been his fault, not hers. Him and his stubborn pride. Fulk nearly laughed; unlike Maude Eleanor was not the kind to quietly do as her family told her.

“Whoever she is she’s not worth it,” advised Juliana. Fulk looked up from his knife; she smiled slightly. “It’s very obvious; you love someone and she won’t have you.”

Not true, Fulk knew Eleanor had a matching interest. Past experience had taught him just how potent that was; a spark quickly became a blaze if given chance.

“Stop moping and find someone else,” advised Juliana sagely.

He’d thought about that but it just wasn’t the same. He’d never particularly liked whores; he preferred to know if the reaction he was causing was real or not. Besides he had never been too happy with paying for something he could get for free elsewhere. He could easily find someone else willing to dally with a handsome knight, an Eleanor substitute in a way. The problem with substitutes was that they were never the real thing, no matter how close the resemblance might lie. He wanted Eleanor, no one else.

The only other time he’d ended up like this was during his time with Maude. He hadn’t been interested in any but her, and just look how that had turned out – disastrous.

Juliana patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll soon forget about her.”

“Never,” he said softly.

He didn’t realise he had spoken until he noticed Juliana was eying him up speculatively. She seemed rather amused. “Well, well, you do have hidden depths. In that case we’d best chance tactics. Give her a gift, something nice. They make a good introduction, believe me. The only reason I started to pay attention to my Rolf was the brooch he got me, and we’re to be married soon.”

He had, though it was something he had done on a whim. The gift had inched closer to the line he didn’t want to cross, confirming how he felt and creating a situation which could rapidly have gotten out of control. It was dangerous in another way too; if the spymaster found out he would be furious at Eleanor’s deception, and Fulk could not forget his oft repeated threat. So much as a single hair …

Eight years; what had he learned in eight years? Plenty. Then why did he still fear he would lapse back into the foolish boy and repeat the exact same mistakes? Because he was, in a way, still doing exactly the same stupid thing. The necklace was the latest proof.

Juliana had more advice, “You have to think about what you want, then decide if it is worth pursuing.”

What did he want? That was easy - Eleanor, a quiet wedding, then enough wealth and land for them to live at a standard where she would be happy. Was it worth pursuing? The first two might be possible but only if they both felt like dying within a couple of days.

Aware that Juliana was expecting some kind of response Fulk said something about thinking on what she had said. He went back to working on his knife, though the blade already gleamed.

Maybe there was a way, if only he could find … angrily he wrenched his mind from that well trodden path. She was out of his reach and there was nothing either of them could do. His only choice was a bleak one; leave or stay and he had irrevocably made his mind up at the same time he had given up his futile insistence on trying to fool himself into believing he was not falling for her.

And so he would stay, and watch, and wish.





How much can a frog write? A heck of a lot and my keyboard knows it. Now I have technique pretty much sorted (including detail and I think punctuation is finally correct throughout aside from typo style errors,) it's just a case of deciding what I want to write and then putting it down.

Ludens, on repeated review my feeling with that part is always that it is written poorly. It needs ... better words, different words, more words. When I wrote it I kept having to use different words to the ones I wanted because my spelling had disintegrated to the point where Word couldn't match the mistaken version to the one I wanted. Approximately every third word in that bit contained a typo of some sort originally. I couldn't really read what I had very comfortably. That made it a struggle to get anything down on page.

I seem to be over that now; this last part has the right words and in the right quantities and places too. I'm not quite sure if the typos in finished article problem is fixed yet, but things do feel better now.

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I seem to be over that now; this last part has the right words and in the right quantities and places too. I'm not quite sure if the typos in finished article problem is fixed yet, but things do feel better now.

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Good, glad to hear that it is over. I just thought you were going through the same thing as I am and that you might benefit from my conclusions. Apparently, I was wrong.

Fulk's scene is great; I always like it when you switch perspective to him.

The wedding day dawned with an icy fineness which promised to last well into the afternoon. The ceremony itself was not due to be held until three o’clock; since the day would be given over to feasting and frippery once the vows were exchanged William had elected to leave the first part of the day clear for business.

If it was business William had intended then it was of a strange sort; by eleven o’clock he was sat in his solar with Trempwick, drinking small ale and talking idly.

“The coronation will be held next Wednesday,” William told Trempwick. “We will make the journey into London so she can be crowned in Westminster and shown to the Londoners. I thought it best to distance the two events to keep from overwhelming the girl.”

Trempwick’s answer was very approving, “A good decision, William. You gain much at no cost; the Londoners get to see their queen, tradition is honoured, the Archbishop of Canterbury gets some exercise, you get to enjoy the peace of Waltham for longer, your wedding is comparatively quiet, and Anne is given chance to adjust.”

“I had a new crown made for her, Raoul,” confessed the king with a slight, poignant smile.

“What? Why?”

“I could not bring myself to order Joanna’s crown altered. There is so little left of her, to destroy this one thing … it sends her further from this life to the next, erasing the traces of her presence, her life. I grew so very fond of her.” He looked up, old grief weighing heavily on his heart. “You must think me a sentimental fool.”

Trempwick was not best pleased at being put in a situation where he had to provide some kind of reassurance. He ventured, “You had a good marriage, William, and a good life together.” His reluctance was just slightly visible but the king was too deeply buried in his thoughts to see it.

“I was so rarely there, often off travelling or fighting. I took her with me whenever I could …” He shook his head sadly and said mournfully, “We were granted just shy of seventeen years together, and I grew so very fond of her.”

“You have your children; in a way she lives on in them.” Trempwick’s displeasure at being forced into offering platitudes was again just visible, and again the king overlooked it.

William swallowed past a lump in his throat and felt tears burning shamefully at the corners of his eyes. “Yes, and look how I have honoured her memory.”

The king leaned over and picked up his crown from where it lay on the table, polished to a blinding finish and ready for the wedding. He held the band of gold in both hands and stared at it. “You know, Raoul,” he said as though from a great distance, “this crown is a parasite of sorts, and yet everyone wants it. It takes your life, sucks you in and never, ever lets you go until you fall down a lifeless husk. Once it latches hold you can never be rid of it, even if another takes it from you its shadow haunts you still. It consumes you and those near you. I have lost … everything to it.”

“I was a neglectful husband because this thing required me to be. I was an absent, poor father because this thing required me to be. I have killed my son for this lump of gold, and will kill another if we meet again. I sent my daughters off to foreign lands to marry strangers because of this, all except one and she too this crown has tainted. I have pushed my body until it begins to fail and then kept on going, never a moments rest because of this. Now I marry again even though I do not desire to do so, and I do so solely for and because of this thrice damned crown.” There was no energy in his curse, just drained acceptance and that made it all the more potent.

William rubbed a thumb over the shining gold and stared at his reflection, distorted by the curve of the metal. The misshapen king stared back, a mockery of his living counterpart. It seemed most fitting to William; the crown was showing him what it had done, how it had taken a young man and warped him until the younger him would no longer recognise the older. Sometimes even the older man did not recognize himself.

“I never exactly wished to be king, but I was the heir. Even if I did not take the wretched thing I would have done no better; I would have been a threat to be removed. And now, now I am aware my time in this life grows shorter and so I fight to fix this crown’s doing even as I watch it continue to destroy.”

Trempwick said nothing, only stared at his liege. William sighed and set the crown down on the table. The spymaster did not understand; so few ever did. Only age had caused him to see for himself, removing the scales from his eyes and enabling him to see beyond the illusion of glory.





Anne and William were married at the castle’s church door, witnessed by as many people as could be crammed into the bailey and onto the inner curtain wall’s ramparts and tower tops overlooking the area. The ceremony was almost always held outside at the church door so more people could bear witness to the couple’s vows. Occasionally higher ranking couples married inside the church, the more important ranks getting closer to the altar. William, as king, could have given his vows before the altar itself but that would allow far fewer witnesses and so he had elected to stand at the church door like nearly everyone else did.

The vows were short and simple. William spoke his in a clear voice pitched to carry throughout the bailey and Anne struggled to do likewise. She was word perfect and her nervousness was well hidden, much to the delight of the crowd. They had a queen again for the first time in years, and she could play the part with great promise despite her youth.

After William placed the ring on Anne’s finger the ceremony was over and the royal couple, along with the most important nobles, headed into the church for the wedding mass. Those left outside began to head to whichever of the two feasts their status permitted them; the nobles and better royal servants going to the hall in the keep, the rest going to the secondary hall in the outer bailey. The food would not be served until the king returned from the church but it would take a considerable amount of time for everyone to get inside and find a place.





The wedding feast a great deal grander than the meal the previous night in every respect; the food, the decoration, the diners’ attire, the quality and quantity of drink served, the entertainment.

For Eleanor and Trempwick, however, the feast was nowhere near as cheerful as the previous night’s. They ate sparingly and the playful humour was missing; instead their mood was one of unhappy anticipation. It would not be too much of a stretch to mistake them for the bridal couple, so ill suited that they hated each other already and dreaded sealing the union so it could only be undone by death.

When the feast had been going long enough for most of the guests to get at least partly drunk the king’s chancellor, a bull-like man by the name of Thierry, staggered to his feet, wavered slightly as if he might fall and hammered his goblet on the table. “I say it’s time to put the happy couple to bed,” he slurred at the top of his voice, “It seems a shame to keep them here when they obviously desire to be elsewhere and alone.” The call was taken up by the rest of the guests.

Even the king was not immune to the bedding down revels, especially not the king – it was important for as many people as possible to bear witness to the king being put to bed with his new wife. Along with the famous blood stained bed sheet it made a blunt statement about the parentage of any children Anne might have in the near future.

The ladies chosen to undress the bride and put her to bed before the groom was escorted up by the men, or more accurately those few men deemed important enough to take part in a part of the revels that usually included every single guest but could not work the same way given the size of the gathering here, started to leave their places and congregate near Anne.

Eleanor didn’t move; she was sat next to Anne anyway and she was still wishing she was not involved in all this. She was trapped into attendance on three counts; rank, relation to the groom, and friendship with the bride.

Trempwick leaned close to her and said quietly, “You get the easy part.” Eleanor glared at him, thinking he was referring to Anne. One side of his mouth lifted into a lopsided smile. “Duty and scruples both demand I tell the joke about considerate archers; that will make me as popular as the Pope given the inevitable ribald atmosphere.”

A crease appeared between Eleanor’s eyebrows as she tried to work out what that meant. In the end she asked, “What joke?” She was not entirely sure she wanted to know but she was undeniably curious; she wanted to know what exactly managed to discomfort the spymaster. It might be information she could put to use in her next bid to throw off his stranglehold.

Trempwick took a deep breath, paused, then let it out with nothing said. He cleared his throat. “Let us say that while everyone else is going to be on about well, planting and so on I will be joking about …” he blushed, the spymaster actually blushed, much to Eleanor’s delight. “about not planting,” he finished lamely.

Eleanor blinked, still not really understanding. This did not sound like the kind of thing she could use. “But they have to consum-”

“I know,” said Trempwick quickly, “and they would.” He shifted in his chair and looked very uncomfortable. “Dear Nell, it is high time for you to leave along with the others. I shall see you later.”

Since Anne was now standing up and moving to join the group Eleanor didn’t have much choice except to drop the matter and go. While it was not unheard of for the bride to need dragging off it would be outrageous for one of her ladies to need the same, and Anne already had enough to worry about without Eleanor adding to her woes.





Usually the ladies helping the bride undress spent much of their time swapping stories, experience and tips that would provide material for a full month of sermons from any semi-decent clergyman. This party did not, instead working in silence, something Eleanor was earnestly grateful for. She had absolutely nothing to contribute to any such conversation, except maybe a few self-defence tips learned from Fulk and that really was not suitable. She had also dreaded having to play hypocrite and tell Anne everything would be fine when she believed otherwise. Her conscience was already laden with guilt over the comparatively small lies she had told thus far. Finally she was none too taken with the idea of being forced to listen to things she did not want to hear; she could hardly close her ears as she had with Judith.

Anne was tucked into bed with her long, loose hair draped artfully around her on the pillows before the first word was uttered. “I’m scared,” she admitted in a small voice, clutching the covers up to her chin

At this reminder of just how young their new queen was the women stopped bustling around putting clothes away and adding the finishing touches to the room and exchanged glances. Surprisingly it was Aveline, who was only present because she was the closest thing Trempwick had to a wife and therefore here representing one of the more powerful families at court, who stepped into the breach.

“Do you think I felt any different on my own wedding day?” asked Aveline almost kindly. Whatever Trempwick had said to her had altered her attitude towards Anne considerably. “No, I was the same; almost every bride is. I trusted my parents to choose wisely, to choose someone I would be well matched to and could be content with. I was right; they did.” She placed a consoling hand on Anne’s shoulder and said gently, “Give it time; the beginning is often the worst part. Time, experience – they change everything for the better.”

Eleanor nearly added sarcastically that time and experience could very well change things for the worst. It was one thing to suspect you might hate something; time and experience turned that suspicion into certain fact. She was also tempted to add that this match was pure expediency and Anne’s parents didn’t seem too concerned about her beyond ensuring she did them credit in the eyes of the world.

A tray with a jug of wine, a cup and some assorted dishes of food had been set out near the bed in case the couple got hungry. They were, after all, missing half the feast. Constance, Hugh’s wife, filled the goblet and handed it to Anne. “Drink this.”

Anne refused to take it. “My grandmother said I should not get drunk or it would be really, really scandalous.”

Constance wouldn’t take no for an answer; she continued to hold the cup out. “Of course you should not be drunk, but nor should you be entirely sober.”

Anne was still reluctant, too hung up on what had been impressed on her before she left home, and perhaps not quite understanding what Constance was trying to do for her. Loud laughter echoed from the staircase; the king was being brought up. Phillippa, the duchess of Warwick rolled her eyes and said disdainfully, “Men and their inconvenient timing.” Constance gave up on her efforts to get Anne to drink the wine and set the goblet back on the tray.

Eleanor started edging towards the door in preparation for a fast exit. She had never been to a wedding before but the crudity of the jokes, advice and conversation during the bedding down ceremony were legendary. She also never wanted to see her father wandering around naked, especially not being tucked into bed next to his new wife, and very definitely not on his wedding night. A groom was expected to display an obvious interest and virility as he was delivered to his bride; if he did not manage an errection for the audience the crude advice only got worse.

A wave of drunken men made their way into the room, pushing William in front of them. He was already stripped to his shirt and hose and the people nearest him were trying to rip those last few articles off. He lost patience and slapped their hands away with a cross oath. This was accepted with a kind of drink induced benevolence; the longer it took to undress him the longer everyone could poke fun at him and gawk at the petrified bride in the hopes of seeing more than her head.

Eleanor found her exit blocked by the influx of noblemen still pushing their way in, and the infamous jokes began to fly. In the space of a heartbeat Eleanor learned a whole new set of coarse slang plus several words she couldn’t even guess the meanings of.

Spurred on by the need to escape before things got worse, and her guilt over leaving Anne to face something she herself feared evaporating in the face of self-preservation, she tried pushing her way through the crowd but that had undesirable effects; someone pinched her rear. Blushing furiously she turned around, located the culprit by his stupid smile and punched him in the codpiece just as Fulk had once recommended. He folded up, clutching his injured member with a satisfying groan of agony.

Taking advantage of the sudden space surrounding her after that Eleanor kept working towards the door. The king’s shirt sailed overhead and landed on someone’s head near the back of the crowd. The jokes got worse with plenty of talk of battering rams and gates, swords and scabbards, and other transparent innuendos.

Finally Eleanor managed to fight her way to the door and through it. She paused for breath and wiped a hand across her brow while leaning against the wall at the top of the spiral staircase. She never wanted to be the focus for this kind of ceremony; in many ways it would be the final insult and on top of everything else she would have to suffer should someone force her into marriage it would be unbearable.

A fresh batch of raucous laughter and more shouted crudity persuaded her that stopping for a rest was not important after all; she hurried off down the stairs, stepping over and dodging the assorted articles of clothing that had been pulled off William and cast on the floor as the party made their way up.






I could have posted this yesterday if the paradox forums hadn't been down for well over 24 hours. I can't let one version get ahead of the other or I shall forget what needs posting where.

Speaking of which, curious frog time again. How many people are still reading this? On paradox forum I'm getting something like 6 replies per part and people are tied in knots with suspense, but here things have dropped off. You know frogs, always curious especially when it comes to readerships.

You were helpful, Ludens. You gave me an excuse to keep on analysing that particular bit until I found something I suspect may be the problem. If my explanation sounded as if I was brushing your suggestion off that was not my intent.