The Machiavellian Adventures of Princess Eleanor

[Death is yonder]

Congratulations on the house froggy

And a great update too

[frogbeastegg]

There, in the centre of that scrubby field that looked like … Were his aging eyes summoning ghosts? Trempwick slipped down from his mule and set off on foot along the raised earth walkway that ran through the field. Blind to all else except what stood in the field, he ignored the man at arms who plunged after him, hand on sword’s hilt and the others who sidled their mounts to give a better line of chase should he attempt to flee.

Trempwick halted some paces away from the curiosity and drew a cross over his breast. “My God,” he breathed.

Years of exposure had robbed the woollen cloth of much of its dye and had tattered the tunic past wearing by any respectable man. A slit over the breast surrounded by dark stains bore witness to the fate of its former owner. Once this garment had been forest green paired with a deep orange, and the fox’s head badge would have its details picked out in gold thread.

The man at arms imposed himself between Trempwick and the scarecrow. “Her Highness will wish to leave as soon as the horses have been watered, father. We should return now. She will not take kindly to being kept waiting. You know she wants to get another 10 miles out of today, at the least.”

Did any of his watchful escort know the truth of the man their lady kept under subtle guard? He could not leave yet! Not until … until … Trempwick brushed his fingers over the hole in the livery tunic’s breast. “A moment longer will not harm.” The fug in his mind cleared sufficiently for him to add, “A prayer for the man who died wearing this, at least.”

“Father, our lady has a royal temper so the merest heartbeat can harm! Especially with that rag hanging on those there poles! Don’t expect you to recognise it but that’s Trempwick’s livery, that is.”

Trempwick found himself pressed back a pace – it was that or be trodden on. “All the more reason to pray for the man’s soul!” He grasped the large crucifix which hung around his neck and began to mutter a simple prayer, hoping it would buy time. He needed to gaze on this sight a while longer – his livery! His banned livery! Three years since he’d last seen it. Three years since Raoul the lord had been destroyed. Three years since a loyal man had died wearing this. His livery! Some rotting wool with the dye bleeding out and green rot growing on the shoulders. Once men had been proud to wear it. Once. And he had been surrounded by loyal men wearing it; confident, secure, powerful. Then, so different to now it might as well be another man’s past instead of his own. His livery, a bundle of rags made mock of by peasants with all the sophistication of a swine in mud!

A hand settled on his shoulder and insistently turned him around and started to propel him along the muddy path back towards Eleanor’s group. Trempwick snatched one last backwards glance at the scarecrow before the necessity of keeping his footing fixed his eyes on the ground. It was then he noticed a peasant heading towards them. From the simple band of decoration on his tunic hem and collar he was of some import in this village.

The farmer called, “Is there a problem, sirs?”

Before his guard could answer Trempwick took the advantage. “That is an interesting crow-scarer you have.”

With a proud tilt of his head the man replied, “I took it myself when I followed my lord king to battle at Alnwick. Marched from one end of England clear to the other, stuck a couple of the traitor’s men with my spear and took one of their’s through my thigh.” He patted a spot on the outside edge of his left leg. “Greatest day of my life.”

“Something to tell your children of,” Trempwick murmured.

“Aye, and grandchildren, should God so bless me.” The former soldier clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I tell you this, if I’d got my hands on that Trempwick bastard I’d have his bones to scare the birds from my fields! Lord of Alnwick should have gutted him when he had the chance. He’d got every reason to do it so none would have looked at him squint-wise for it.” With a tug of his forelock he added, “Meaning no ill of yon lady’s husband, of course.”

Had Nell brought him here to see what he had seen and hear what he was now hearing? No, no, the tunic had plainly been there for years and Nell’s touch had never been so crude as to contrive this display. Then the question should be: was this indicative of the mark he had left on the realm, or was it a local flavour? He feared he knew the answer and that it was the first of the two. “The king decreed the traitor should live.”

“The king was pushed to it by his lords, damn their eyes!” The farmer spat into the dirt. “Worried for their own necks. Whole army knew it.”

Trempwick’s guard grunted something that might have been agreement. More clearly he said, “The party’s reassembling – better get a shift on.”

By the time Trempwick and his escort reached their animals the rest of the party was mounted and waiting. Trempwick dragged his aching bones onto his mule, eyes humbly downcast so he could escape from the glare Nell directed at him.

She snapped, “You have delayed me when you know I have need of speed. Delay me again and I shall find another priest to minister my sister’s soul! There are enough and more to choose from.”

“Forgive me, your Highness.” Did she know what he had seen? What he had heard? As Trempwick kicked his priestly mount into motion a turn of phrase bloomed in his mind; he gave voice to it quietly, testing it out on his tongue to see how it sat.

Nell twisted back to pin him with a shrivelling look. “What was that?”

“Forgive me, your Highness. A notion I had, I was but testing it out.” The look advanced from shrivelling to positively burning. Trempwick attempted to explain, “Words occupy me much these days. Since I began to work on my histories. I …” He made a vague gesture, aware of a hot sensation creeping across his cheekbones. “Sometimes phrases come to me and I need to test them out.”

“You sound cracked in the head,” she observed with the greatest of tact.

The flush consumed the rest of Trempwick’s face. “I must do the bulk of my composition in my head. And the way the words fit together, and the different words which can fit a situation, and the way the finished article sounds when read …” He strangled himself into silence, aware that he was blushing like a tremulous virgin at a wedding party. Alas that he knew himself to sound insane. Those who had conviction in their mad notions could voice them with fiery passion that could convince others. “I am often considering lines for my work,” he finished with what he hoped was an air of dignity. At his age a deep absorption into words and their many mysteries might be taken as the onset of senility.

“And what is this latest … treasure, might I enquire?”

“For one of my histories, a part of the introduction perhaps.” Trempwick rolled the words in his head once again, tasting them anew and finding them to be good. “The past is as a different country, strange and yet familiar. As knowable as the back of your hand and as unknowable as the back of your neck.”

The look Nell gave him was a strange one. “I begin to wonder if you belong in a scriptorium.”

Trempwick answered with a wistful little smile, “I wonder the same.”











There’s the appetizer. I shall either do the main meal and desert together or in two separate courses, depends on how much I get finished and when. I’m going to continue writing today and absolutely, definitely really actually will have another part for you before I return to work on Tuesday. Got a lot of it written already, just need to hone and polish, and add in some very brief scenes at various points. Watch this space closely.



You will have noticed Trempy’s POV voice has changed. He’s slowed down, no longer thinking at break-neck pace in fragments. He has become more wordy, more inwardly focused.


Thanks, both of you. If you're really lucky I'll post some pictures of my library when it's completed. (this is your cue to look interested in that same pained "Oh help!" way as when someone threatens to show you pictures of their holiday, pets or children). I've had a couple of book lovers at work ask me to take pictures to show them.

[furball]

Book lovers? <ponders Frog's new job> Well, at least you get monday off. :)

[frogbeastegg]

Eleanor heard footsteps coming up behind her and slipped a hand inside her sleeve to grasp the hilt of her knife while maintaining her prayerful posture as though she had heard nothing. A lone person, probably a man as the stride was wrong for someone who’d spent a lifetime in skirts, shuffling slightly as though in discomfort with the joints. Each footfall was soft yet placed to make some sound.

Without looking to check her guessed identification of her visitor she called, “Priest or not, it is not mannerly to interrupt someone at prayer.”

Trempwick’s voice answered, “I am amazed this little shed of a townhouse has a chapel.”

“Do not insult my host’s generosity.” Truth be told she was fortunate to have this pokey little townhouse to rest in overnight. Few wished to be closely associated with a disgraced princess whose reputation was sinking faster than a bottomless boat. Royal blood reduced to being grateful for hospitality from a middling merchant in a dull little town like Barley, oh how great an encouragement to reunite with her husband at the first opportunity!

“It is on the part of your host that I have come.” The footsteps ended and Eleanor heard Trempwick getting down onto his own knees about an arm’s length behind her. His voice dropped to a much lower level. “He has been busy thinking.”

Eleanor glanced back over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow in query.

“In any coupling there are two who can be barren.”

“And I would wish to hear my host’s opinion on this because?”

“He is sat in his hall below, sotted with drink and expounding on his theories to all within earshot.” Trempwick’s voice become softer still. “And he is full of solutions.”

“I see.” Unfortunately she did. Eleanor snorted. “An occurrence so predictable I have a long-standing countermeasure.” She rose from her devotions and made an obedience towards the altar and called for her guard.

The man entered through the open, pointy-arched doorway with a deep bow. “Your Highness?”

“Tell Walter our host requires his special talents.”

“At once, your Highness.” The man disappeared with a grim expression.

Walter could drink most men under the table and still stand up half-sober. Walter could punch a hole in a barn and had the excellent self-taught habit of always aiming for soft parts where no permanent damage would be done. Walter was an affable, friendly chap who could insinuate himself into any gathering except those of the highest rank. These talents combined into a most healthful solution for a whole gamut of problems.

When the man at arms had departed again Trempwick cleared his throat. “Well, that all sounds most interesting indeed. Might I enquire …?”

Eleanor straightened her cushion before the altar and knelt back down. “A year or two ago people began to decide that a lover would solve all of my problems at a stroke, pun intended and very much an indicator of my opinion of their prowess. Those egotistical enough to think they can resolve anything with their manhood generally do not have the talent to wield it to anyone’s satisfaction but their own.” She heard Trempwick make a strangled noise, and glanced back at him. “Come, I inherited dozens of brothels worth of spying whores from you. One learns a deal about the sins of the powerful, both private and political.”

“You used to be so innocent,” Trempwick observed mournfully. “Once you would have blushed to make such a remark. It is a shock to see how much you have changed those rare times I see you.”

“Innocence does not last when one makes the mistake of saying ‘Tell me everything’ to one of those agents.” After that educational experience she had arranged for filtered reports but minor details still slipped through. “Anyway, Walter is one of my countermeasures.” She adopted a tone very much baffled at the foibles of soldiers. “Poor man, he has such a bad habit of becoming drunk and beating people that I have docked his pay to such a level he should actually pay me several pounds a year, and I believe I have thrown him from my service at least twice.”

“And naturally his victims cannot say why he attacked them and so cannot press their outrage. Ingenious.”

“Naturally. It is one of my ideas, after all.” With a hint of a smirk Eleanor crossed herself and rose.

When he saw that she meant to leave Trempwick said, “Wait. Please, if you would.”

Eleanor waited expectantly.

“Your host is correct in one part.”

“You think I need to be told that Fulk may be barren, not I.”

He chose his words with some care. “I think you need to be reminded of it. You take too much to your own shoulders.”

“Hips,” she corrected. “Shoulders have no relevance.”

The former spymaster snorted with laughter. “Droll.”

“The truth. I am not built for childbearing. That is the start and end of it. And regardless …” Eleanor realised she was playing with her wedding ring again and willed her hands to stillness. “Regardless, Fulk is in the prime of his life. He is fit, healthy, and, dare I say it, an excellent specimen of manhood. I can assure you he is not diseased. He is definitely virile.” And because of the way Trempwick was studying her that admission caused her to blush. “There is no reason for his seed be weak save that he causes it to be for my sake.”

Trempwick moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Dearest Nell, he has no known children after years of different women.”

“He took care, and the only one he has spent a lot of time with is me.” Seeing he was about to speak again she held up a hand to forestall him. “And let us be honest, it is by the by. The only way to prove the hypothesis one way or another is for him to attempt to father a child on someone else and he will not consider it. So what difference does it make?”

Trempwick laboured to his feet; the succession of long days in the saddle were playing havoc with his joints, Eleanor knew. Three years without so much as touching a horse had utterly ruined his riding condition. “It makes a difference to the burden you carry, and that is my concern.” And likely that was his only concern, unlike the others who had felt compelled to speak on the matter with her.

“It makes no difference,” Eleanor said firmly, struggling to keep hold of her temper. Why must he do this to her? Why press her to examine facts she had already stared at to exhaustion and far beyond. “Whatever the reasoning, whatever the excuse, it must always return to the fact that my husband has left me because of the disharmony caused by our lack of a child, and the reason for that, however you dress it, is me.”

“And the man knew all this when he agreed to wed you!” Trempwick growled. If not for the semi-public location Eleanor believed he would have been shouting fit to wake the dead. “As did you! That is my very point – this should never have arisen and there should be no blame, no guilt, none of it! That it has, that is his fault! His! Not yours! By your own admission he is the one moping about -”

Once Eleanor might have raged back at him; the temper was still there and burning to be released. “Be silent.” That cold command shocked him enough it was as effective as stuffing a gag down his throat. “If this is the sum total of the advice that you can give me, keep it between your teeth and choke on it. By God, I can tell you have sunk to become some variety of historian – you obsess over what has gone before and how it is viewed rather than turning your energies to a solution for what is faced in the here and now. I care not whose fault it is, I care only for mending it.”

Trempwick’s face went utterly blank save for a certain set to his mouth, a mode that had once promised impending unpleasantness but now only reminded her of his powerlessness. “Eleanor, you are determined to bury yourself under guilt.”

“And you are set on raking over old wounds until I bleed to death instead of helping me find a way to heal them.” She snatched up her cushion from the floor and headed for the exit.







The ship had arrived yesterday. Dover’s castellan had taken Adele under his wing as instructed, and had kept her bundled up in her assigned rooms with little outside contact under the guise of helping her recover from her arduous journey.

Eleanor took the time to wash after her lengthy ride and to change into good clothes and send word that she would meet her sister in the castle’s great solar. That did not prevent messages from Adele arriving seemingly each time she blinked, begging her to come at once so that they could be reunited and take joy in each other’s presence.

“Joy,” Eleanor muttered as she attacked her hair with a comb to clear out the tangles before she redid the braid. “Huh! We never did get on, so heaven knows what joy she expects to find!” She was adamant she would not jump when her sister said frog.

Presentable again, Eleanor summoned the castellan’s second in command to give her a report on everything that had happened since her sister’s ship had docked. The knowledge she gleaned was promising for her intention of bundling Adele out of the way, and rather mortifying on a family basis. It seemed that she’d turned into a pale, too thin creature who jumped at loud noises and possessed an air of impending doom. No fire, no spirit, no brains.

And so, prepared as she could be without additional time and resources, Eleanor swept into Dover’s large solar with Trempwick and the three knights of her bodyguard behind her in full best dress.

The very first thing Eleanor found herself thinking as she exchanged a formal embrace with her sister was that the castellan’s underling was right – Adele’s clothes did make her look like a collection of blocks stacked atop each other. Her second was that Adele was taller by a good two or three inches!

Eleanor ended the embrace first and held her sister at arm’s length. “Let me look at you.” Then, because it was the sort of thing you were supposed to say when meeting family you have no seen since you were a small child, “Have they been feeding you properly? You feel like skin and bone!” True; their embrace had revealed that Adele had far less flesh than her clothing implied.

Embarrassingly Adele burst into tears. “Oh! Please, I do not speak of it.” She spoke in strongly accented, somewhat rusty Anglo-French.

Not for the first time Eleanor wondered if her sister’s imprisonment had been harsher than her estranged husband had claimed. With help from the various ladies maids in the room Eleanor got Adele sat down and, while they made some headway in stemming the flood of tears, cast a speculative eye over her sister.

Adele was dressed in what was probably the height of fashion somewhere in Spain. She wore a voluminous outer dress with great dangling sleeves cut off at the elbow, decorated with fur at collar, cuffs, and hem. The dress was cut wide in a way which should have flowed artistically but on Adele it just made her middle vanish so she went straight up and straight back down again like the sides of a squared doorway. Below the outer dress she wore a tight-sleeved shift in silk and it had a high collar which came up to the chin, a chunky concoction which looked just like a square. Her hair was dressed into two braids which had been pined by her ears, each folded up a few times so that they hung level with her jaw. That gave the effect of two squares placed next to a face neatly turned into – what surprise! - a square by the combined efforts of collar, hair and headdress. It was the kind of costume designed for a much larger woman, or perhaps some ill-conceived marriage between Christian and infidel fashions.

There was family resemblance in the facial details; the line of the nose or the shape of the eyebrows, and of course in the deep blue eyes. Otherwise Eleanor couldn’t spot much in common with Hugh and the reflections she had seen of herself in her polished silver mirror.

When the tears had finally subsided Adele seized hold of Eleanor’s hand as though she were the only thing to prevent her from downing. “I am so glad to be home. I want to forget the time I was away. All of it! Oh, I am so happy.” Promptly she started bawling again.

Eleanor heaved a mental sigh – how could she be related to this feeble display!? Once again she reminded herself that she had little idea of what Adele had gone through during her imprisonment, and that she should be patient. “I am certain you will feel better in a few days.”

A grateful if watery smile was her reward. “I know I will.” Adele suddenly looked abashed, and started to dab her eyes with a square of silk she produced from somewhere in her square clothes.

It was an attitude Eleanor recognised from when they were children; it had accompanied pleas for sweets, trinkets and other treats. “What did you wish to ask?”

“Well, I hate to be a burden, and I only just arrived as well. It is only …” Her lower lip trembled and the eyes filled up with more inexhaustible tears. “I do hate to impose.”

Stomping on her impatience Eleanor coaxed, “You are safe amongst your own people now. Say as you will.”

“Well, it is only that I would dearly love to be rid of these horrible clothes!”

A ripple of laughter ran through the room.

Adele tore her headdress off and dashed it on the floor. “That for Spain! And for all of those who persecuted me! I will burn everything I brought from that land of injustice and cruelty!” She trampled the finely embroidered silk underfoot. “I am English again! I have a new life and this time the envious will not destroy it!” Once again she burst into tears.

The various maids and the castellan’s wife and two daughters removed Adele to see if they could improvise an outfit for her. Eleanor breathed a hefty sigh of relief as her sister’s alternating exclamations and sobs faded into the distance. “Tell me,” she said to the castellan, “is she always that bad?”

“No.” He retrieved the trampled headdress from the floor and looked at a loss as to what he should do next. “Like a scared mouse, yes. Like a leaking water barrel, no, thank the Lord, or we should all have drowned by now!”

“Hmm,” observed Eleanor. Adele would have a bright future ahead of her as a prioress weeping for the world’s sins. Who knew, they might make her a saint if she cried enough. It had happened before. She passed over the huddle of fireside seats in favour of a window seat where she could watch the entire room. Her little party obediently trooped over and dispersed themselves around the area so she didn’t look lonely.

When Adele came back the effect was not dissimilar to the sound of a whistle on a pack of dogs – the gaze of every last man in the room snapped around to look at her and lingered for rather too long to be polite. Under her breath Eleanor muttered a very lady-like, “Bollocks!”

English fashion had, though some perverse sense of humour, worked its way around to a rough copy of the formerly out of date style Eleanor had worn for years with a few different touches so people could pretend it was bold and new. Over a simple linen shift in red Adele wore a deep blue outer dress, with sleeves which reached the wrist and which were cut very loose so that they hung gracefully to reveal to the tight sleeves of the underdress. The body of the dress had laces so that it hugged the body between hip and armpit, and was worn with a new style of girdle which wrapped a band of gauzy fabric the width of a hand tightly around the waist to tie on the left side into a bow from which fell the trailing, fluttery long ends of the sash. Over that went the older style of girdle, wrapping a single high loop about the body near the top of the slash and then crossing over into a looser, hanging loop which then tied into a knot and left decorative ends to hang down the front of the dress nearly to the ground. Adele’s dark hair had been redone in a single braid and she wore a simple veil on top of it, held in place by a band of braided silk. Eleanor recognised the clothes – they were hers, hastily modified to fit.

Adele clapped her hands in delight and scurried across the room to pull Eleanor to her feet. “Oh, do we not look like sisters now? We are dressed the same.”

The room made agreeable cooing noises, and Eleanor could tell what was going through every single damned mind. There were three distinct differences between Adele and herself. Firstly Adele was a deal taller. Secondly she had proper hips. Thirdly she had the soft, rounded frontage that only came with motherhood. The contrast was girlish dawn to womanly midday sun and dawn’s light was not going to grow any brighter.

Adele turned on Eleanor. “I am so sorry for borrowing your clothes without asking but you are such a good and generous person you could not possibly object. As soon as I have my own new ones made I will return them.”

Eleanor managed a smile. “Nonsense. You must keep them.” She was not about to admit how ill she could afford to give the garments away.

“Oh, you are too generous and kind.” More tears welled up and for the merest heartbeat Eleanor thought she saw a gleam of something else in Adele’s eyes. “I shall pay you back the very day I take charge of my incomes.”

Eleanor parried the bid for information with a ‘we women never get told anything’ helpless façade. “Hugh has not yet said anything of his intentions.”

“I will marry again.” Adele smiled broadly, and nodded. “Yes. A good husband this time. Someone with faith, who will not listen to the whispers of those who are jealous.”

Best to kill any thoughts of marriage early on. “I do not think he has plans for you to marry again.”

“Oh, but of course I must! What else might I do?” A gasp, more tears, and a horrified Adele was hanging off Eleanor’s arm pleading, “Oh, not a nunnery! He could not be so cruel! I am innocent, I always was! I have spent so many years locked away that I could not abide it! I swear I would positively die of horror on hearing the words!”

Eleanor tried again, carefully trying to prise herself loose from her sister’s claws, “I do not think-”

“You will talk to him. I will talk to him. He is not cruel and so he will listen. There.” Having made up her mind on that score, Adele released her hold. “Oh, I do only have this one set of clothes. I wonder where I might get others? I cannot ride to meet Hugh in these, and I will need fresh clothes to meet him in also.”

“I doubt I have anything you can borrow …”

“Yes,” said Adele, a fraction too quickly, “I cannot possibly borrow anything else or your kindness will leave you with much too little yourself.”

Eleanor gave her sister a measuring look; had that been thoughtless or pointed? “I travelled lightly.” A good excuse and she would stick to it. Admitting that she and Fulk did not have the money to waste on endless parades of rich clothing would cut no ice.

“Oh, well, there is the thought that I might have something made up before we leave, is there not?” Again that abashed look with the threat of tears. “But I have no money or anything,” she confided in a low voice.

“I am sure you can have several tasteful outfits made at Hugh’s expense if the castellan here will draw a little from the funds our brother provides.” Eleanor turned a winsome smile on the poor man, and there was little he could do except agree to hand over money intended for maintaining his soldiers. Hugh could afford to pay the money back, and would do so within the month. He never neglected the needs of his royal strongholds.

With that settled Eleanor pleaded weariness from her journey and withdrew. She needed time to mull over what she had learned, and to formulate a battle plan. Something told her that she would need it. She could recognise when she’d been manipulated and would have to be blind not to see her sister scoring petty points at her expense, the question being to what end? And how best to make her compliant?

“Well,” said Trempwick dryly, walking close in at Eleanor’s elbow, “Now we know where your share of,” he made a complex gesture which illustrated height and bodily build, “went!”







Hands up everyone who trusts Adele. Anyone?

Turns out the tiny scenes incorporated nicely into the larger ones with a bit of amphibian magic. A few bits don’t appear here and are saved for later big scenes. How very … environmentally friendly?

NB: I know ‘Spain’ did not exist at this time. Same as Germany in the main story. It’s just a lot easier from a storytelling point of view to bundle those distant, barely mentioned countries up under the modern label – I don’t want to specify which of the smaller kingdoms the two sisters were married off into. As for Adele’s Spanish fashion outfit, it’s a load of nonsense cobbled together out of parts of other medieval fashions and purposely designed to be horrible. Or did Adele choose it to be purposely horrible? ;)


I know, furball. It’s silly. Work in a bookshop for 3 ½ years, hardly meet any other employees who read at all. Work as a civil servant for a matter of months, meet 2 others who read a lot and a smattering of others who read a bit.





Someone on the other forum observed that Trempy seems to be portrayed in a more favourable light now whereas Nell seems harsher and crueller. I thought my reply might be of interest to the readers here so I include it below:

You’re right. Nell is harsher and more, let’s say focused, now, while Trempwick has apparently mellowed. It’s primarily the spymaster job. Trempy has spent the last 3 years isolated from the world and its pressures, discovering that he likes playing around with books, writing and histories. And, presumably, thinking of ways to regain some of what he lost.

Nell has spent it seeing the worst of a realm that’s emerging from a troubled period, and working to counteract whatever troubles she can. Not to mention the difficulties she and Fulk have faced as a couple in a society that didn’t approve of such mismatched marriages, and that’s beside and separate to the more recent strain on the matter of children. You could see hints of this at the end of the original story; the Nell walking the world after the siege and battle of Alnwick was a harder person than the one who had nightmares after killing a single person.

[furball]

A late Christmas gift! Really, Froggy, it's a joy to have more to read.

[frogbeastegg]

Posted something else on the other forum which might be of interest to readers here:

Adele, children and the lack thereof, and themes.

If you look at what Adele has got, physically and otherwise, and what Nell has got, you will see that there's a certain degree of matching. What one has the other lacks and vice versa, it's like a negative and the developed photo. Already, before they even met, each sister finds the other standing in her way, using the things they possess and the other lacks as the foundation for their position. So yes, Nell's lack of children is a key part of the theme, as is Adele's lack of power.

The difficulty is in setting this up gracefully in a relatively small amount of words. Either it gets mentioned a lot in a relatively small number of scenes, or we wind the starting point back by months and let it play out naturally ... while very little else of interest happens.

Themes in the main plot thread aside, one might note that the break up - temporary or otherwise - of this weird and unpopular marriage is something of a bomb going off in society. Without Nell and the grudging approval of Hugh, Fulk's vulnerable. Remove Fulk and Nell is once again marriageable. Thus the concern for a certain collection of characters is to push Nell and Fulk back together as soon as possible and as firmly as possible. For others it is the very opposite.

So far we've seen almost everything from Nell's POV. If you look at what she's devoting most time and worry to, and what she reveals in passing, you'll see that she's more confident as a spymaster than as a private individual. She has systems in place to thwart nuisances like would-be Romeos. She is personally alert and wary. She has agents who watch those of high enough rank to come within her orbit and who thus might pose a threat. Her bodyguard in what should be considered safe conditions is noted as being 3 knights where in the main story she only had 1. It's going to take a concerted effort to kidnap her assuming she's made into a widow, and she's not allowing anyone to link their name with hers in an intimate way. What she can't do is solve the root problem, and said root problem hits her in a whole collection of vulnerable places.

At this point you should all now be going "But Nell fished Trempy out of prison and has him in her close company!"

Yes. She did.

It's a frog story; I'd get bored if only one straightforward, plain plotline were happening.

[frogbeastegg]

A second attempt at the words proved that Eleanor had not made a mistake. “A tame squirrel?” She looked up from the list of needs that her sister had drawn up and repeated to her company at large, “A tame squirrel?!”

There was a general shuffling of feet and avoiding of her gaze.

“My sister considers a live, tame bit of fur more generally seen deceased and stitched onto clothes as an essential she cannot live without.” Eleanor skimmed through the list again. “And a lap dog, which will surely eat the squirrel. And five outfits suitable for riding. And six for everyday wear, and two grander ones for special occasions, and fifteen – fifteen! – changes of linen, and sundry jewels, and more jewellery than is owned by my sister-by-law the queen!” And that, amazingly, was but a part of the requests Adele had made.

The castellan wrung his hands. “It cannot be afforded, your Highness. I know you bid me pay for what she needs, but with all the will in the world I cannot! Not even were I to take every last penny in the entire castle, including those in the purses of others.”

“You need have no fear,” Eleanor said as she strode over to the writing desk and gently encouraged Trempwick to remove himself before she sat on him. Taking the quill from the departing man’s hand she dipped it in the ink and began scoring through lines and amending numbers. Once the document was altered to her satisfaction she waved it in the air to dry the ink. “One outfit for riding, two for every day wear, five changes of linen, shoes as appropriate, and no squirrels.”

With a bow Peter the castellan accepted the reduced list. “And what shall I tell her Highness, your sister?”

“Why, that you will not endanger your men or your castle by depleting funds to such a degree in order to outfit her.” Although she needed the man to act as a front to conceal how much power she had when it came to her sister’s fate, Eleanor did not wish his life to be made uncomfortable by a hostile guest. “Say nothing until the day she receives the goods, for that will be the day we leave.” She picked up the document that Trempwick had been writing before she ousted him. “Take this also. It records and confirms it was by my command that you used your funds to outfit Adele, and that you will be repaid in full.”

Peter set his hand over his heart and bowed deeply. “As you command, your Highness.”

He had been gone a mere matter of minutes when one of the castle’s pages arrived with yet another message from Adele requesting her sister’s joyful and most beloved company. Eleanor dispatched Emota, her second lady’s maid, to carry a message pleading that her mistress was busy and would attend as soon as she was able. Naturally Emota would draw whatever useful information she could from Adele; unceasing chatter was her one great talent.

When page and maid had left Aveis remarked over her sewing, “It shall be my turn soon, I think.”

Eleanor propped her chin on her fists and absently nibbled at the knuckle of her index finger. Aveis, still refusing to remarry three years after her last husband’s death, would be ideally placed to commiserate with Adele about the cruelties of marriage. She was nearer in age to Adele and that too might yield benefits. “Soon,” Eleanor confirmed. “Focus on the freedoms she has gained as a widow, and speak much of your own unhappy marriages.” But it wasn’t Aveis’ role Eleanor was thinking of so deeply, and it was not Adele her unfocused eyes lingered on. “Ranulf,” she mused.

The knight ceased to lounge against the wall with a start, nearly cutting himself on the dagger he was wasting time sharpening. “Might I serve?”

Eleanor crooked a finger and when he stood before her she said with a degree of satisfaction, “Yes, I think you might. For one, accentuate that Scottish accent of yours. For another, I expect the greatest heights of courtly behaviour of you.”

Placed his hand over his heart as the castellan had done Ranulf swept a deep bow, his grey eyes lingering on hers the entire time. In a husky murmur he asserted, “Anything for my beautiful lady.”

Pleasing. Too pleasing. Eleanor rapped her knuckles on his golden-haired head. “Not aimed at me, you dolt!” Linking her arm through his, she walked him over to the quietest corner of the room. “Aim your charm at my sister. Allow her to believe you infatuated – and something of a brainless sort. Let slip that your ancestry, and build up that accent of yours. I want her believing a young knight of excellent background and little wit might be willing to do something foolish on her behalf.”

“Ah, amour!” Ranulf proclaimed, striking his breast three times with his fist. “In the name of devoted love I shall flee with the beautiful lady to safety, rescuing her from her family’s cruel plans!”

Only the sharp-witted won a place in Eleanor’s retinue. “Yes. You will be one half of my last resort.” The honeycomb, the temptation for Adele to make a break for it. The other half, Trempwick the irate priest with evidence of Adele’s sinful past, would be the stick driving her away. Pray it did not come to that.

The knight considered for a moment then nodded once. “I shall begin my approach at dinner, if it please you. Have me serve you both at table.”

Knowing full well the effects of having titbits and attention lavished on one by a handsome knight Eleanor couldn’t help but smile, somewhat wistfully as it had been long since her own crook-nosed knight had done that for her. “You may begin sooner. Let her find your eyes shyly on her as you stand in the background at our next meeting.”

And that concluded the assignment of roles. Trempwick would play the stern priest as previous agreed. Hawise would ‘attempt’ to keep her fellow lady’s maids from gabbling ‘pointlessly’ with Adele. Her other two knights and all the minors of the household would behave as normal. It would arose suspicion if too many of her people were to engage with Adele.

Eleanor addressed her entire company. “Any questions or advice?” There were none. “Then let us be about our work.”




“Oh, dear sister it is so good to see you once again!” As she broke the showy embrace she’d launched on her sister, Adele began to steer her towards the fireside. “Oh, I do find this country to be so cold. That is the one good I can say of Spain, it was warm.”

“This is a mild summer.” Eleanor allowed herself to be pressed down into the mound of cushions that had been piled onto the chair. Even with the fire built low she was going to roast at this proximity. With an apologetic smile she moved her chair back a few feet, swinging it around so it was still close to Adele’s. “You will forgive me for moving a little, I hope? I have rarely left England and so am used to our colder lands.”

“Oh, I could never be unhappy with you for such a small thing.” Adele took a goblet of wine from a nearby servant and placed it in her sister’s hands. “There! How cosy. There are sweetmeats and other such trifles also.” Another servant hurried set down a small table within comfortable reach of the sisters and a third set on it a selection of dishes filled with food.

“Pray allow me to contribute.” Eleanor beckoned over her three knights. “Have a boy fetch your instruments and then play in the background for our entertainment.” While all three were as accomplished as good breeding demanded, Ranulf had a particularly pure singing voice.

Adele clasped her hands in pure joy. “Oh, the delights of genteel company! Oh, how I have missed such comforts, such marks of noble life.” Her face set, and she took a deep breath and said more levelly, “No, I shall not speak of it.”

“Did they treat you so very badly?”

“I shall not speak of it,” Adele insisted. “I could not bear to be so diminished in your eyes.”

Eleanor said honestly, “Nothing you tell me of your imprisonment could diminish you in my eyes.”

“Oh sister, if you but knew …” She shook her head. “But no. I shall not speak of it.” She picked up a bowl with small squares of marzipan and offered it to Eleanor, taking a piece for herself. “We shall speak of happier things. Oh, it is so long that we have been apart we are near to being strangers!”

“Yes.” Eleanor chewed her bit of marzipan, thinking back to the girl about to leave the country, dressed in the very height of finery and loaded with jewels, comparing her future husband to the heroes in her romances and fearing she might be kidnapped by pirates. “Do you still enjoy your reading?”

“I do not know.” Adele looked down at her clasped hands. “I have not seen a book in … many years now.”

“But why keep such harmless things from you?”

The expression on Adele’s face was almost pitying. “The church took the chance to rail against courtly romances, saying that they had encouraged me to stray. Why, then, would I have been permitted to continue enjoying them in my prison?”

“I see.”

“I doubt you can. Many other of my pleasures were condemned at the same time. My choice of clothes. My taste for lively music. My love of dancing. So very much, all fodder for the bile of dried up old clergymen.” Adele’s full lips had pressed into a thin, bloodless line. “No, you cannot understand, I think.” Draining her wine at a scandalous rate, Adele changed the subject. “But enough of gloom. I hear you are married, and to an earl no less. Is he not here?”

“Fulk remains on our lands. The dispute between the King of Scots and his son makes the border an uneasy place.”

“Oh, well, but surely I shall meet him? He sounds most fascinating.”

“It is possible you shall,” Eleanor allowed. The knights’ instruments had arrived and Ranulf began to sing softly in the background accompanied by citole and psaltery.

“Do tell me about him.” Adele popped another square of marzipan into her mouth. “I heard he is the bastard son of the de la Bec family, of a churchman no less!”

“That is true.”

“Oh, he must be so – so rough, and uncourtly in all his manners and bearing!”

“No, not at all.” Did Eleanor detect a trace of excitement in her sister’s manner?

“Truly? Not at all? But, then, all the same he must be a man who knows what he wants and takes it. Fearless, decisive, and, well, somewhat dangerous to cross.”

“Fulk is a fine example of the virtues expected of a nobleman. Far more so than many of better birth.”

“And, having set his heart on you, nothing would do but that he take you for his wife in defiance of all if need be.” Yes, there was a definite keenness about Adele, a colour in her pale cheeks which had not been there before. “And so that shows that deep down, however well he conceals it on the surface, he is ruthless.” She caught Eleanor’s hand. “Oh, I absolutely must meet this fascinating husband of yours!”

In that moment Eleanor resolved that husband and sister must never meet; there was something entirely too difficult to discern about Adele’s interest. Whatever it was, it was sufficient to make Eleanor feel unnerved. “You make him sound like the hero of a romance,” she teased, hoping to gain confirmation that that’s where her sister’s intensity came from.

“Oh no, he sounds much more …” Adele seemed to realise she had clenched her right hand into a fist and broke off with a nervous laugh. “Let us say that he sounds more like a real man.”

Driven by this itching feeling at the back of her mind Eleanor said, “He is the kindest, gentlest man I have met. Truly the best mannered, most courtly and noble man, and I am fortunate indeed to have someone to tolerant of my many faults.”

Adele laughed again. “You make him sound incapable of asserting himself.”

Again driven by whispering instinct Eleanor replied, “He is more patient than I have any right to expect.”

“Oh. Oh, well, I should simply love to meet him.” Was her smile now a trifle artificial? The keenness had dulled, that was for certain. Eleanor had found something and she was damned if she knew what. Adele shifted in her seat to regard the trio of knights. “They are most accomplished. Do you have them play for you often?”

“Yes.” Then Eleanor added, “My lord husband and I believe it is important to encourage the gentler arts in fighting men.”

“Oh. Well, yes, that is important, indeed yes.” Adele picked out a handful of sugared almonds and started chewing through them one at a time. “Although you must admit that it is important for men to be able to fight, and to stand their ground with courage, and other such areas of prowess.”

And with that Eleanor found she had the outline of an idea. What if, far from liking courteous men, Adele had a proclivity for the more uncouth sort? “A man should be a man, with all that entails. Else what is the point?”

“What indeed?” Adele reached for another handful of nuts.









The problem with Adele is that all of her exclaiming and wailing takes up a lot of space and still feels like it’s getting very little of worth across. She’s so much more tolerable when she drops the histrionics and speaks normally. I had hoped to get rather a lot more done but Adele drags back each scene she’s in, and in particular the other half of the second one posted above. There comes a point where she sounds too stupid to be convincing, and she needs to have a smart enough core underlying the “Oh!” and the exclamation marks to … well, do what she does. ;)

Oh well. We shall leave the sisters in literary limbo, chatting about boring, pointless things until I can finish the next part and pick their conversation back up at the part where it gets really interesting.

And just who is Adele? We’ve been told a bit, and shown some more, and there’s hints, and none of it adds up. The only thing that seems clear is that she does not like Spain one bit.

[Cross_T2A]

Thanks for the update, lady frog! This is my first time checking back since finishing the main Eleanor story a few months ago, and I'm delighted it hasn't ended at the end.

[frogbeastegg]

This particular argument had been going on for entirely too long; Fulk’s temples pounded with a headache which he felt it fair to blame on his squabbling vassals.

“You were seen!” Thomas of Embleton pounded his fist into his palm, a gesture which he’d repeated so many times Fulk would not have been adverse to having the offending hands removed with an axe.

The man he was attempting to sue for compensation, lord of a neighbouring fief, roared, “By a worthless-”

Instantly the situation devolved; Thomas launched himself at Stephen bellowing, “How dare you call my daughter that!” while the other man raised his voice – and his fists – to finish, “witness not admissible in any court!”

Men at arms ran forward from their stations at the side of the hall, ordering the two knights to separate. Before they arrived Fulk dashed the cup of herbal tea he’d been sipping onto the ground – it hadn’t helped his head anyway – and emptied his lungs with a single word that set the roof trembling, “ENOUGH!”

The hall froze into a collection of men midway through various motions which now struck them as faintly embarrassing; for the sake of their own dignity most lapsed into a neutral standing posture.

“You.” Fulk pointed at the plaintiff. “You knew full well that your case was faulty when you brought it before me. You wasted my time.” Thomas began to answer; Fulk overrode him. “The word of your daughter alone is insufficient – where were her attendants, I might ask? Why did they not witness Sir Stephen and his party hunting on your lands, if indeed he was doing so?” He was not interested in any reply to that, and turned his attention straight to the other knight. “And as for you, I have sat there listening to you snap and snarl at the very frayed edges of courtesy for this entire plea! You sought to goad your accuser.”

Both knights began to protest his statements, becoming more vociferous with each heartbeat as they attempted to drown the other out. Fulk let them waste their breath for a bit, increasingly determined to charge both with a lack of due respect for his authority.

Taken in the heat of his argument, Stephen spat in his rival’s face, “And if I’d seen your daughter in the woods all alone it’d be a different crime you’d be accusing me of!”

With a shriek Thomas aimed a punch at Stephan’s gut and then began to rain them down on his face and head, completely heedless of the blows the other knight was landing in return.

Fulk ordered grimly, “Separate them. Now!” Without Eleanor this was what he’d become: a man whose authority was palpably crumbling as men anticipated his final fall from royal favour. A month ago this pair would never have dared put on such a display. And so Fulk had to stamp and stamp hard.

The two panting knights stood before him, dabbling blood from minor injuries and looking pure murder at each other. This time the men at arms did not back away, they lingered menacingly at the pairs’ backs.

Fulk stepped around the mess of shattered cup and resumed his seat, a quiet reminder that every single person on this hall stood unless given permission otherwise because they were inferior to him. “You will both be fined two marks for breaking the peace of my hall. To be paid in coin. You, Thomas, will pay me one mark in coin or in goods for wasting my time with a case you knew to be flawed. You, Stephen, will likewise be fined one mark in coin or goods for displaying such contempt of my justice that you feel able to taunt your accuser. I bind both of you over to keep the peace and if you break it then you will both be held accountable and suffer equally. Both,” Fulk stressed. “And, sirs, should you fail to render a minimum of one half of the due amount by the end of the month I shall be investigating why.”

Stephen said, “I’ve been slandered and not offered recompense - I will appeal this to the king.”

Instantly Thomas added, “And I to my higher lord.”

And therein lay the true crux of the matter. Thomas supported Malcolm the Elder and his bid to make his much younger second son his heir. Stephan supported Malcolm the Younger, more commonly called the Nefastus. The state of restrained hostilities between father and son had Scotland and the borderlands on edge as men were forced to choose which side to back for the future. Fulk made a dismissive gesture. “Either will support my ruling. Waste your time if you will.”

The knights were cleared out of the way and the next petitioner began to come forward. Fulk shook his aching head and rose. “No more for today. Tomorrow morning I shall hold court here again, and the day after I shall leave. Let it be known.” He’d spent half of the day on the road travelling here, they’d take that as his reason rather than seek another.

As he left the hall he was aware of one of the petitioners coming after him. When the mystery follower’s footsteps continued after the guarded doorway Fulk set his hand on his dagger ready to draw and turned, only to see a monk hurrying after him with a letter in his hand. “Willim, if this is business for your abbey it must wait.”

The monk flashed the seal on the letter as he closed the remaining distance. “Alas not. It’s the prince’s business.”

Fulk took the letter and inspected the seal. Sure enough it was the design used by the Nefastus. “He must know my answer will be the same as always. My primary allegiance is to my wife’s brother.”

“And his is the same as always: you hold this earldom from Scotland and so must make your say known.” The monk tucked his hands into the dangling sleeves of his habit. “You might owe loyalty to the current king, but what of the law? What of higher things? Would you see the rightful heir unjustly cast aside for no reason save his father’s unnatural hatred for him? It is every honourable man’s duty – given by God himself – to safeguard the well-being and order of the land.”

“I give the same answer I always do: until the hour of his death my fealty for Alnwick belongs with the elder Malcolm for he is my lord and it is to him I swore my oaths. After that, we shall see.”

Willim lengthened his stride to keep pace with Fulk, refusing to be left behind. “That is known, accepted and good. It is the after that Malcolm the Younger would secure. He implores you to do as many others have, and say that you will have no new king save him when the time comes. He asks nothing more than that simple confirmation.”

Fulk halted turned on the monk. “I will not be involved in a rebellion. You know that.”

“The prince is not in rebellion. He has never raised arms against his father, and will not. He has but withdrawn from court and stated his refusal to accept his younger brother as crown prince.”

All that and more Fulk knew; his protest had been made more for the sake of being heard.

Willim tapped the letter Fulk still held. “Open it. Read it. The prince offers you honour and a good position should you come to his side on the day his father meets his natural, blessed end.” As Fulk did as bid the monk continued, “You are a man of honour. This is known by all. Your loyalty is as solid as steel, and your siding with law and right is as inevitable as the rising of the sun. Thus the prince only wishes you to confirm that you will act as your nature demands you must, for the encouragement of others.” The monk spread his empty hands. “You are not a great lord, no, nor a powerful one, nor even a liked one. Yet your integrity is unquestioned. If you say the laws of succession cannot be overturned by bad blood between father and son, others will find their resolve strengthened, and will also come to stand on the side of what is right.”

Lands. Wealth. A title which granted proximity to the younger Malcolm. It was quite a pretty offer. Fulk folded the missive back up and placed it in Willim’s hand. “You know what my answer must be. I will not be bribed.” He sighed and rubbed at his forehead in the futile hope it might relieve the pounding. He could not continue this dance between sides for much longer. “I hear the prince hopes to gather his supporters and present a formal petition before the king’s court indicting his proposed changes to the law of succession.”

The monk inclined his head. “Just so. He has many supporters; where the succession for the crown leads inheritance amongst the lesser follows. Many sons have much to lose, and many fathers much to be concerned about with these changes.”

“And far more sons have potential to gain,” Fulk countered. “Younger sons outnumber firstborn ones.” All the same he knew the effort to be doomed; those who stood to lose were the ones who held the power. Aside from that, the Nefastus was approaching his eighteenth birthday, hale and hearty and quite the budding warrior king. His brother was not yet ten, and would be a puppet for the ambitious lords helping the king press this disinheritance forward. The only way to assure the younger son took the throne was to remove the eldest from the picture. When Willim would have spoken Fulk shook his head. “I must give the matter more thought.”

“My friend, there must be an answer by the time the petition is presented. The prince will count those who did not support him by then to be in support of the reform.” The monk set his hand on Fulk’s shoulder. “Think, and then give the prince your answer, whatever it may be. But remember: if the change is barred with peaceful means like petitions then the realm will be spared the fighting which is inevitable should the prince find himself required to secure what is his by right.”

Fulk gave the monk’s forearm a squeeze. “I know.”

Willim gave him a faint smile. “Tread carefully. You and your lady wife have been good benefactors to our abbey. It would be a crying shame to see you in danger’s way.”

Fulk had never had the heart to tell his friend that they’d chosen his abbey for their patronage because the other nearby one had placed Eleanor’s nose out of joint with a bundle of lectures coupled with a crass attempt to get her to manipulate her husband. “I shall as though walking barefoot on hot coals. As always.”

As he tried to leave Willim followed once again. “Forgive me, but I must ask. Your lady wife and yourself are still apart?”

Fulk’s back stiffened. Yet another one who could not leave well enough alone! How many meddlers did he have to fend off each day?! “Yes,” he answered curtly. Jesú, in all likelihood Eleanor would sooner knife him than greet him and he couldn’t blame her.

“Is there anything we might do to help?” The monk quickened his step, almost scurrying as he battled to keep up. “We – I – should be glad to be of service in any way, great or small.”

Fulk came to such an abrupt halt that Willim nearly collided with him. For a long moment he simply looked at the monk. “I do not think you could help,” he said at last.

“You are one in the eyes of God. It is not right for you to be so long apart for reasons of disharmony.” Willim pulled a face at how awkward his words had sounded. “You are unhappy. She will be unhappy.”

Unhappy. Fulk snorted, unable to contain his disgust at the complete understatement. Doubt had begot conjecture out of which grew misunderstanding, from which had flowered guilt and further misapprehension, and grown a harvest as poisonous as hemlock. Would that they were only unhappy!

“I could take your lady wife a message,” Willim suggested. “And at the same time speak to her, try to soothe the troubled waters. Or merely go and see what she would like to say to you.”

Surely not even Eleanor would tell a monk to hurry on back to her husband and tell him to get on with the business of fathering a bastard? The ache in Fulk’s temples abruptly grew. “No. Thank you, but no.”

“Anything, then?”

The offer had been kindly made; Fulk knew he owed it a better answer than this. Pressing some warmth into his voice to melt the ice that had sprung up the instant his wayward wife had been mentioned, he said, “If truth be told I doubt any but Eleanor and myself could mend our difficulties. It is now more a matter of …” Of choosing between two bitter brews. “Of opportunity. You will have heard her sister has returned to England? Her brother the king wished her to go and meet Adele, and keep her friendly company for her first weeks here.”

“Then go to her,” urged Willim. “You have been dashing around your lands for what, four weeks now? Five? Holding court and wasting time, and if rumour is correct some of that was spent running away from her as she tried to reconcile with you. Go. There is nothing left to hold you here.”

“Nothing? My lords bicker amongst themselves, my authority is being called into question seemingly once each week-”

“And you know the solution to that.” Willim folded his arms and raised his chin. “And admit it: you miss her. You are one split into two and that is not right.”

Unable to deny both truths Fulk bristled. “What do you, monk, know of marriage? Or women? Or even of a man’s feelings or needs?”

A faint smirk was the real answer, the words were needless. “Quite a bit, it appears.”

“Bah!” snarled Fulk. This time the monk did not attempt to follow him as he strode swiftly away and began to climb the stairs up to the private rooms.

Slamming the door behind him Fulk cast Malcolm’s letter onto the half-assembled chair and said to the flurry of servants assembling his chamber’s furniture, “Out. Someone bring me some wine and food, other than that leave me be.”

He took over the work himself, threading the last ropes through the bed frame to make a web which would support the mattress and tying them off. It wasn’t his grand marriage bed - that was with Eleanor, ironic considering that she was the one who dishonoured it – but it was more than comfortable. He was working up a fine sweat manhandling the mattress over and attempting to heave its uncooperative mass up onto the frame when Gilbert returned; the servant swiftly placed the food to one side and came to his lord’s aid.

As the feather-filled pallet settled into place Fulk stepped back, moping his brow with his sleeve. “My thanks.”

Left alone he sank onto the bed and glowered at the meal. The simple fact was that he could not face Eleanor again until he had resolved the problem which had caused them to fall out in the first place. Otherwise they would repeat the same old arguments until once again they broke apart. Fulk drained the goblet of wine in a single go and refilled it with an unsteady hand; the gaping hole in his still-bleeding heart threatened to swallow him, as it did each time he allowed himself to dwell on what had happened. He wanted her back. He needed her back. Damn it, earldoms and royal approval could rot for all he cared! He just wanted her!

And there was only one way to manage that.

Fulk drained a second goblet of wine, then a third. Was he at last desperate enough to stop flinching from his choices? Was he? Well? As he turned to grasp the pitcher and refill his cup a fourth time he found himself staring at the empty pillow next to his own. The entire empty half of his grand bed. Empty and cold. For a month. At his meal for one, eaten alone, like every other meal he’d taken outside of the public hall for a month. At the room and its partly assembled furniture. Cold, uncaring, uncared for. At the half empty wine jug, and the lack of anyone chiding him for drinking like a drain, and the fact he’d done it, and the fact he’d spent many nights in the last month drinking more than his custom. At a life lacking in her quirks and influences. At the brittle and depressed man he’d become. At the nagging presence always chasing her own goals with scant regard for his feelings she’d distorted into. At everything. Now. Recently. These last months.

“God’s blessed bollocks!” He tossed away the partly empty cup, hearing it land on the floor and spill its dregs across the boards as he stood up rather too quickly for the amount he’d drank. Crossing a gently wavering world he shouted for his squire, one word pounding over and over in his head in time with his migraine:

Enough.











I fell over in all the ice and snow England has been afflicted with these past weeks. Nearly broke my wrist; the first aid chap at work said it was something of a wonder I hadn’t snapped it like a twig. Delightful phrasing. Instead I bruised it rather badly, and it still hurts more than 10 days later. All the tendons across the back of my left hand, and the ones running up to my elbow. Makes typing painful and something I can’t do for long. It’s a lot better now but I don’t want to overdo it. Hence the short part delivered later than intended. This scene was already mostly complete.

The continuation of the Nell/Adele scene is too long and complicated for me to do with a dodgy wrist so I’ve done the first Fulk scene instead. It takes place on the same day so the order doesn’t matter. If anything placing it here helps to add to the impression their conversation has run on for hours of what Nell would delightfully term pointless drivel.

Before anyone feels sorry for me, I should add that I narrowly avoided a terrible fate: it was my birthday the day after I fell. If I’d broken something all the inevitable jokes about getting plastered in celebration would have caused me to replicate Nell’s hairpin of doom assassination technique!





Welcome back, Cross_T2A. This story’s a lot shorter and in a quieter tone than the original but I guess it’s interesting reading for the glimpse of the ‘future’.

[Death is yonder]

A belated get well soon for her lady frog

And many thanks for the latest updates, especially for posting despite your wrist.

[Cross_T2A]

I'm now realizing how lucky I was to have come upon the main story when it was already nearing completion. Your efforts are tremendously appreciated, lady frog, but each update merely whets my appetite for more!

As a man, I sympathize with Fulk tremendously. After getting his father killed and failing his first love the way he did, his relationship with Eleanor must be more than simply the love between them, but a chance at atonement. She's asking him to betray not just her and their marriage, but his redemption in his own eyes. Yes, the problem of an heir is a real one, but surely Eleanor must realize what her solution must be doing to Fulk?

I eagerly await the next installment!

[frogbeastegg]

Adele had been eating tidbits and rambling on about her luxurious life before she fell from her husband’s grace for … Eleanor wasn’t sure. How long did she need to sit on this over-cushioned chair before her spine began to ache?

“And I set such a fashion for wearing silks with delicate little floral patterns on them. Oh, people fairly fought over who could find the most tiny little patterns!” Adele reached for another handful of honeyed nuts and Eleanor idly wondered did the food fuel the stories, or did the stories demand the eating? If her sister continued at this rate she would soon lose that underfed look; running an eye over Adele Eleanor imagined her with a few more pounds to her flesh and found the result depressing. Adele would become one of those gently rounded, soft, wide-hipped creatures able to walk with a hypnotic sway, and illustrate manuscripts Christendom-wide as an ideal beauty. “Oh, it shall all be the same when I am married again, I do not doubt.”

“I do not believe Hugh intends you to marry again.”

It appeared that Eleanor had not imagined the dismal undertone to her words, for Adele reacted to this repetition as she had not to the previous ten or twelve. She pressed a hand on her sister’s knee. “Oh, do not be cast down for my sake, dearest Eleanor. I just know Hugh will find me a husband. How could he not?”

How could he, one might better ask. Eleanor cautiously began, “Considering your reputation-”

“Oh, pish!” Adele dismissed that with a flourish of her hand which came dangerously close to blacking Eleanor’s eye. “Lies! It will be proven.”

“If it could not be proven at the time then how-”

“Because the credulous cretin I was shackled to is dead!” Dead silence followed that exclamation, even the gentle music stalled. Adele placed her fingertips over her lips and tittered nervously. “Oh dear! I fear that the frustrations of so very many years of wrongful imprisonment and slander and all my other trials have had an undue affect on me. Well, it is quite true. Most honestly, completely true! My late husband did not once give me chance to speak on my own behalf. He listened to his firstborn son, and cast me aside without a word. And for that,” A sharp edge came and went on Adele’s face, so fleeting one would have missed it with a blink. “For that I shall never forgive him.”

By this point Eleanor had no doubts left – the soft, silly sister was a façade. Under it lay a full-blooded member of her family. Time to attempt drawing it out. “That does not answer the how as to the proof. What proof is there after all this time?”

“The proof of deeds. One need only examine what my stepson has done to see that he cast guilt on me in order to strengthen his position.”

“I am not aware of any such telling deeds.”

Adele smiled and this time it was not soft. “I doubt you would. Forgive me, dear sister, but why should you? Your husband’s interests are all centred firmly on the border between England and Scotland. You have told me so yourself. You are seldom at court, again you tell me, and none speak of you having any engagement in Hugh’s rule. Indeed, and again forgive me most dear sister, you appear to have most pointedly isolated yourself from anything larger than your husband’s earldom, perhaps as a reaction to that unsightly bid to place you on the throne in our brother’s stead?”

Eleanor returned the smile with a bland one of her own. “I always keep up with family news, and anything relating to it. Did you know Matilda has another child now?” Yet another girl, glory be.

Adele clapped her hands like some kind of performing bear. “Oh, how wonderful! I am an aunt again! All of our little family are so blessed with our children.” At which she blushed furiously and added with haste, “I am certain your own time will come as God wills. Yes, I am certain indeed. It would be most strange if you alone out of all of us were not blessed.”

It was almost too easy to fixate Adele on these pathetic little digs. Eleanor made a small, emotional show of accepting the sentiments at face value, suitably chastened by the reminder of how insignificant and ignorant she was. “Please, tell me of these deeds which will prove your innocence.”

Adele went still save for her hands which worked at each other in her lap. “Oh, it is all so very dreadful I do not know if I should speak of it in such kind company. None with conscience could rest easy on hearing it.”

“And none with conscience could rest easily not hearing it.”

“My two little boys. That – that monster my husband spawned in his first marriage manipulated him into having them cut from the succession, written out as bastards.”

So everyone knew, right down to the humblest swine herd living in a cave. It was a sensible precaution under the circumstances.

A single tear slid down Adele’s cheek; she dabbed it away with the back of her hand and them covered her face. “They were confined in a monastery. My eldest was not even six at the time and his brother two years younger. Such innocents, harmless little angels. And … and, oh, I can hardly stand to speak of it! He came and boasted of it to me! The monster came to my prison and told me what he had arranged and he brought proof! He cast it at my feet!”

This was not making any sense. Eleanor suggested, “He killed them?”

“Worse!” Adele wailed. “I carry what he brought always. I had them dried, preserved, so the truth could never be buried. It is all I have left of my little boys!” She drew out a little pouch worn around her neck and tipped the contents onto the palm of her hand. The two small, shrivelled objects took a while to click into recognition. A ripple of oaths and outcries ran around the room. Adele broke down completely, clasping the tiny pair of manhoods to her heart and howling in unrestrained grief.

Eleanor dropped to her knees beside her sister and made comforting noises, mind elsewhere and working rapidly. Castration to remove a male rival from the line of succession was old, outdated and barbaric, yet merciful compared to murder. It was in no way, shape or form proof of Adele’s innocence. A deeper part of Eleanor’s mind pointed out that the pair of artefacts were of comparable size, and so either the younger brother had been very gifted compared to his sibling or they had come from boys closer in age. She would have to ask someone more knowledgeable on the matter.

Eventually something approaching calm was restored. Through her final tears Adele had been hinting heavily at other, equally horrific deeds committed by her stepson, but refused to be drawn with gentle enquiries, saying only that she could not bear to speak of them.

“And I had been so happy too,” Adele said, wiping her eyes on a square of linen one of the ladies had found for her. “Remembering the good days. I have not been so happy for many, many years as I have been this afternoon!”

Sometimes, Eleanor had learned in the past three years, it was best to play into someone’s hands. Risky, always risky. Over her sister’s head she met Trempwick’s eyes and raised an eyebrow. The former spymaster hesitated, nodded.

Eleanor placed a breezy expression on her face and said, “Well, we cannot rival a king’s court here, and do not have days to spend on arrangement, but I do believe we should manage a tolerable grand diner for tomorrow.”

Adele went into raptures and Eleanor knew that her reading had been correct: Adele wanted a large audience. For what reason she would have to wait and see; better to find out while the circumstances were limited and tightly controlled than wait and risk learning when at a disadvantage.











An update at last. Not sure if it’s fully coherent; I wrote it while extremely sleep deprived and ill. I wanted to include the follow up feast scene with this, the ‘flu says otherwise.

Is anyone else mildly disturbed by the notion of Adele wearing two sets of severed balls et al around her neck? Sign of lost marbles, or a substitute for them? :p

For anyone wondering about the house, it’s still dragging on. Doubt I shall be there before the end of March, and it’s becoming a question of which will happen first, my getting the keys or my exploding out of sheer frustration. One of the parties in the sale left the paperwork untouched on a desk for 3 ½ weeks, another lied about having all of their part done, and one of the ‘searches’ my solicitors need to perform before the sale can go ahead has jammed up on some petty bit of bureaucracy which involves a tiny gap in some records about the land’s use before the house was built. Naturally I can resolve this snag with a cheque made out to such and such and yet more time.

A simple, straightforward sale that should be done in a month, they told me. Ha! Try 3 months!

The last month has been nothing but overloaded amphibian. The house sale, a massive stack of books I had to read in short order, Mass Effect 2, work, interruptions and a whole bunch of other things. Took about that long for my wrist to stop hurting, too, and now it's started snowing again so I have the chance to have another go at breaking bones. Predictably enough, now the busy is easing back a little I've picked up a very nasty dose of 'flu. You know, the delightful kind where you can barely speak or breathe, consequentally can't sleep, and generally understand why 'flu used to kill people in significant numbers. I'm getting better.



Thanks, Death is Yonder. The sentiment worked until Thursday and the 'flu, anyway

Cross_T2A, I'm mostly in agreement. As Nell ideas go, that one is ranking near the bottom of the smart chart. Despite everything she says about examining everything from each possible angle, she's not. She's steadily become more desperate to find a solution that she believes will make Fulk happy. On the other hand, if Fulk had shown some responsiveness during those earlier conversations instead of doing a handwave and "We don't need to think about it now." things almost definitely wouldn't have grown to this point.

They need their heads banging together.

[Ludens]

Is anyone else mildly disturbed by the notion of Adele wearing two sets of severed balls et al around her neck?

Something tells me they are pigs' testicles.

I am going through a similar bureaucratic mess at the moment, so you have my full sympathy. Good luck sorting it out, and get well soon.

[Death is yonder]

Is anyone else mildly disturbed by the notion of Adele wearing two sets of severed balls et al around her neck? Sign of lost marbles, or a substitute for them? :p

Not terribly so

Adele seems to be akin to Nell when she's not being herself (spy work), except that whilst Nell uses nonchalance or mock diplomacy and politeness to throw people off guard, it appears that Adele uses false happiness, and that endless prattling. There's more than meets the eye with that woman

Sets the suspense for whats to come next. I thought I've seen it all when the Trempy matter was closed, and this seemed like a "quickly get rid of the noisy disgraced sister!" matter.

Yet now it seems like the stage for something big to come again, excellent job once again

Really enjoy the way the story is picking up its pace again

Once again, hope that your paperwork issues can be resolved quickly. Its just terrible when you pay people to do things and they slack off on the job.

And best wishes for a speedy recovery

That's all I can do I'm afraid

[frogbeastegg]

3 months. My simple, straightforward "It'll be done by the end of January" sale is now at the 3 month stage. Problems. Nothing wrong with the house, just with the people I'm paying to work on my behalf. Sorry 'work' on my behalf, since it takes them 3 working days to send a ultra important simple fax, and two entire freaking months to fail the certification on a house which should pass. I don't see any end in sight even assuming the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

I am completely stressed, worn out, drained, and harrassed by the accursed process. It's incredibly hard to summon up the right state of mind to write anything at all. And then I get interrupted. Endlessly. Repeatedly. If someone were intent on preventing me from writing then they couldn't do a better job. Most of the time I can't so much as manage to think about what I need to write, never mind actually put words on the paper.

The flu was swine flu. Bad swine flu. Thanks to our amazing healthcare system I couldn't get any of that super effective tamiflu medicine they made such a fuss about because my doctor doesn't work weekends and you only get it if you're diagnosed within the first 2 days. So it settled on my lungs. Yay, chest infection. I'm still coughing all these weeks later.

Then there's all the other bits of crap not related to the house doing their best to get me down.

I need a long weekend. Time where I can do something brainless like play a light game and do a bit of reading for a couple of days, relax, recover, and then hopefully perk up enough to start writing again on day 3. I'm trying for an extra day off this weekend. Doubt I'll be allowed it because of the strikes which took place on Monday and Tuesday (yes, I thought about using that as 'free' time off but it would have cost me over £100 so I couldn't). We'll see. If not this week then next.

2010. One quarter down, and it's one of the crappiest years of my life. Nothing but problems, setbacks, stress, sickness, and going nowhere with great amounts of effort. Huh, and I thought the first half of 2009 would take some beating!

[Brandy Blue]

I hope things get better soon. I'm sorry to hear that someone who has done so much for us is suffering.

[gollum]

Sorry to hear of your suffering ladyfrogg, i hope you get better and things get better too.

However, at the cost of sounding like an idiot, bad times teach one more than all good times combined. Find ways to relieve the stress, say meditation works wonders. Find also ways not to depend emotionally on what's happening and learn to accept it rather than wanting to bend events to your will. Finally wash your hands regularly, and be proactive and exagerating with the nhs.

[Death is yonder]

Sincerely hope that a turn to your fortunes will come about soon, best wishes to a speedy recovery.

Take the time to engage in some sedentary yet meaningful activities

If only to distance yourself from the stress of all the turbulence at the moment.

[naut]

3 months. My simple, straightforward "It'll be done by the end of January" sale is now at the 3 month stage. Problems. Nothing wrong with the house, just with the people I'm paying to work on my behalf. Sorry 'work' on my behalf, since it takes them 3 working days to send a ultra important simple fax, and two entire freaking months to fail the certification on a house which should pass. I don't see any end in sight even assuming the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

Estate agents? You don't have any other options?

[frogbeastegg]

I am alive. I am mostly sane. The house sale continues. It has to be near the end now - only the drawing up and signing of the contract, and the transfer of the money is left.

This coming weekend is Easter bank holiday in the UK. I get 4 days off instead of the usual 2. I am hoping to do some writing then, if people will leave me in peace and quiet. Should I be successful in this daring ambition a new part will be posted by Monday evening. If nothing is posted by that time, please picture me huddled in a corner tearing my hair out by the roots and screaming "GAAAAAAH!!" continuously.

[gollum]

The Machiavellian adventures of the patchily hairless Princess Estaterealnor.

[Ludens]

[frogbeastegg]

The pumice scraper tore a hole in the parchment; Eleanor cast the stone down on the desk and cursed. Holding the sheet up to the light she could see that the entire centre had worn dangerously thin, never mind the hole. It had been reused one time too many. With a disgusted sigh she dropped the parchment onto the floor and reached for another. Dipping quill in ink she wrote out the beginning again.

Her Highness the Princess Eleanor of England to her beloved husband and lord, Sir Fulk Fitzwilliam de la Bec, Earl of Alnwick. Greetings.

And yes, he knew all of that! Eleanor dabbed the last mark of the sentence onto the sheet with an aggressive flourish.

I trust you are well and that God keeps you in the best of health.

Too pious. She let the words dry and then attacked them with the pumice until the parchment beneath the opening was once again clean.

Having heard nothing of your business, I trust that all goes in your favour.

Too reproachful. Again Eleanor expunged the words.

I am presently in Dover. Hugh, may God watch over him and guide him, requested that I attend our sister on her return home to these shores, reasoning that, amongst strangers though she must be, having been absent so long from this her home, there would be comfort in shared blood where there would not be in total unfamiliarity.

Yes, that worked tolerably. Eleanor tapped her left hand against the sloped surface of the desk.

My sister is

Is what? Mad, bad, and dangerous to know? A smile quirked Eleanor’s lips; better that than insipid.

is I believe most glad to be safely home amongst us once again, bearing no kindly feeling for her people-by-marriage or the life she led there.

Well it was difficult to miss a prison.

I intend for us to travel to join our royal brother, the king, shortly, whence decisions about her future may be made.

Eleanor recharged her pen at the inkwell and pressed the nib against the glazed pottery sides to bleed off excess ink. No, it would never do – should the letter be intercepted it would give an enemy a fractional insight into her plans and that could not be allowed. One unwed royal lady and one whose husband was estranged, the most tempting of targets for any with an surfeit of ambition and a dearth of loyalty. The words were erased; the parchment grew incrementally thinner.

I hope to be reunited with you shortly, if that please you, my most dread and worshipful lord.

Eleanor pulled a face and hacked away everything after ‘please you’. Given their recent difficulties Fulk might not read that with his usual humour and take it for an insult … or overly seriously. Now which would be worse?

please you, my most dearly beloved lord.

Perhaps not. Eleanor reached for the pumice.

please you, my luflych little knight.

That brought a pang to her heart.

If it does I pray you send me word to come to you, or come yourself to me. I do not wish to displease you further by attempting to rejoin you where you do not wish it.

Too desperate. “Damn the crook-nosed menace!” Eleanor muttered as she scoured every word relating to reunion away. “He is supposed to scatter roses on my path, not thorns!” Resuming the letter at the part about taking Adele to Hugh, Eleanor tried,

It is my plan to reside at court for a time.

No! That sounded as though she were refusing to return to Fulk.

I expect I shall be required at court

Should she attempt to join Hugh’s entourage he would send her away, and then she would look as though she had been making excuses to avoid Fulk. When Eleanor set the stone down after removing these latest words she noticed a tinge of pink on the smooth grey. Sure enough her right thumb was bleeding slightly, the tender skin torn by the number of words worn away. Eleanor sucked her injured digit and gave her next words more thought.

Thereupon it is my intent to remove to Woburn.

There. He could take that as an invitation to join her or not as he desired. Blood continued to ooze steadily from her thumb; Eleanor watched it without paying much heed. She needed to reach out a hand to Fulk, that was the entire point of the letter and thus far precious little of its contents served that. There were things that needed to be said and as she could not speak them to him needs must she write.

Eleanor licked the fresh blood from her thumb and took up her quill once again, this time committing each word to the parchment as rapidly as they came into her head.

It grieves me to have caused you such hurt as I did, and to be apart from you as we now are. Equally it grieves me to have had no word from you in all this time, not a single word be it kindly or harsh. Nor a single indication you recall my existence. I have reached out my hand towards you and it seems this displeased you further. I beg you, then, tell me what you would have me do to mend what has broken between us and I will abide by your will. I love you as ever I have and pray God that you find the same, my own best-beloved knight.

“Your Highness?”

With a guilty start Eleanor jerked around to check the door; her knee smacked into the desk’s leg with eye watering force and the resulting tremors overturned the ink pot. The dark liquid flooded all over her letter and she could do nothing other than shove her stool back before the mess caught her skirts. “Hellfire and damnation!”

That brought the idiot from outside the door bursting in with an anxious, “Your Highness, is something wrong?”

Eleanor limped forward, “I am fine. My letter is not! Did no one teach you to knock before shouting?”

Ranulf flushed. “Your Highness, I did knock; I spoke only because you didn’t reply. I beg pardon if you did not hear.”

“Why do my household knights persist in arguing with me?” Eleanor plucked her letter from the desk by one ink-free corner and held it dripping. It was beyond saving.

“What man would not follow the example of the greatest knight?”

“Ranulf, do not.” Eleanor let the letter go and it landed back in the puddle of ink on the desk. “I have no wish to be … jollied.” Or humoured, teased, courteously flirted with, or anything else save for being left alone.

The knight bowed contritely. “Jolly you shall have to be, I fear. I came to inform you that the hall is prepared and people will begin assembling shortly. If your Highness wishes to dress fittingly …”

“Very well.” Eleanor waved him out and surveyed the wreckage. There was no clean parchment left, these had been the last two sheets whose contents were safe to scour away for a new message. Now one had a hole and the other was blacker than the sheep it had originated from. She must write to Fulk now, while the urge was still on her, and get the message travelling. Left longer she would decide it a poor idea and do nothing

Drawing one of her knives Eleanor cut off a hand-sized section of the holed sheet. It would have to do. Aware of time pressing on her, she scribed the introduction as quickly as she may. With dismay she saw that left her barely half a sheet. What could she say in so little space? The final paragraph of her original letter would not fit.

Outside she could hear footsteps hurrying to and fro. There was not much time; if she did not leave of her own volition someone else would be along to remind her – as if she could forget this wretched banquet she had suggested for her sister! Snatching up the quill she considered, and scribbled down three words before she could change her mind.

Mea maxima culpa.

“My most grievous error,” she murmured as she rolled the tiny letter up and reached for a ribbon to tie it with. Mostly heartfelt, partially an invitation for a response – any response – from him. “What he is supposed to say,” Eleanor informed the sealing wax as she pressed her personal seal into it, “is ‘It was my fault also.’ But so long as he says something …”

Leaving the room, she called for one of her couriers.







I couldn’t get enough peace and quiet to do much, and I was struggling to get anywhere with the intended course of the story. So I wondered about writing a single, small scene that wasn’t meant to be there. A bit later I had this vision of Nell trying to write to Fulk and being interrupted all the time, exactly as I am being. It would have been funny, a nice little comedy with a hint of poignancy to it. A gooseberry does not have to take constant bothering quietly! She can build up to a marvellous tantrum involving such delights as an inkwell lobbed at the latest intruder. Except I couldn’t get enough peace to manage comedy. So I had to give up on that go play it straight, ending up with the above.

How many times would Nell have had to scrub words away in order to end up with a hole in her parchment and fingers so chafed by the pumice they bleed? Depends how many times the parchment had been reused beforehand. We can safely say she must have been writing for a long time on that first sheet before we arrived and she wore a hole in it.

I should have the keys for my house just in time for next weekend. Then I need to find carpets for it, get my furniture delivered, buy the multitude of bits and pieces which I have not already, and move my possessions on over. And then I will finally be able to write in peace and quiet, surrounded by a couple of thousand nicely displayed books.

Thank you to those who voted for this story in the hall of fame awards. If anything it’s been a more difficult journey than the main story; I confess that if I’d know about the house and the many stresses of the sale before I started writing I would probably have waited until I’d moved before starting. Or pushed harder to complete it before finding a house I liked.

[furball]

Thanks for the update, Ms. Frog. Nice compact way to show us what's going through Nell's mind. And congrats on the home!

[naut]

I don't know how you manage to compartmentalise all that stuff with the purchase of your house and still manage to write. I could never manage it, as soon as something like that happens to me I simply can't write. I can come-up with ideas yes (in fact my best ideas come in times of heartbreak), but I can't actually write, I get fidgety and distractible.

[Death is yonder]

Interesting insight into the thoughts of a gooseberry

Congratulations on the house! And many thanks for the story written despite your circumstances

[frogbeastegg]

Quick note to say that I got my keys last Friday, and moved in on Sunday. I absolutely adore the place - it's a perfect frog pad indeed. Peaceful, quiet, bright, airy, and above all mine.

The place is still rather skeletal. I'm not having most of my furniture delivered until my carpets are fitted, and without my furniture I'm not moving much across from my parents' home. So no PC, no internet connection (I'm at my parents' to pick up some stuff), barely anything at all. Hehe, if I say the entire house only has 3 books in it then you'll understand! :cough: Ok, I also have my sony reader with 72 ebooks on it but it's not the same thing at all :cough: I've still got quite a lot to do.

So there's not going to be a new chapter for at least a couple of weeks, maybe as many as three. It depends on how long it takes for various things to be done. Thought I'd let you know.

[furball]

No worries, and congratulations! I hope your home is wonderful for you and yours.

[Death is yonder]

No worries about delays in plot progress

Enjoy turning the new house into the house of your dreams

[frogbeastegg]

Finally got an internet connection at home; it was sorted out today.

The good/bad news is that it’s still going to be a while before I can post more of Third Sister – my laptop is still at my parents. I had to leave it behind as it was the best way for me to get my sporadic internet access. Not sure when I will be able to collect it, and I shall have to pick up the loose threads and feel my way back into the story.

The good/good news is that I moved my desktop PC over to my house several weeks ago, and it’s still got everything I used to use to write on it. One evening I had a certain mental image and wrote the following brief, self contained story. Since it follows up from something mentioned in Sister3 (sister to the power of three – that’s one scary sister :p) it’s relevant and doesn’t spoil anything because I’d carried that particular side line as far as it was meant to go in Sister3.




The first born

“Let me pass. You – and no men – will deny me my right.”

The men – ten of them, wearing his brother-by-law’s livery, second-born sons the God-bedamned lot of them – closed formation before the massive wooden doors leading deeper into the palace. Drawing his sword one of them said softly, “You – and no man – will cause us to break faith with our sworn lord.”

Ten. Ten men to stop him. Malcolm might have laughed at it, might have thrown back his head and roared with gut-shaking laughter until he spewed. Might once have, might yet in the future did he survive the day. Setting hand to his own sword he stepped forward from his companions, his gore-spattered armour on clear display. “I am Malcolm, called Nefastus or sometimes Rufus, first born son of the King of Scots, and it is my lord father who is dying – or dead! - behind you. Your lord tried hide his dying from me.” He drew his sword, relishing the clear song the steel made as it cleared the sheath. He kept his words level, matter of fact, knowing that made them far more menacing than any amount of shouting. “You will get from my path or I will gut the whole fucking lot of you, as I’ve done with every other son of a whore who’s tried to stop this day. I will hang your corpses from trees for the ravens to make sport with. I am the first born!” He gestured with his free hand at the knights at his back, not turning one instant from the dangerous sons of bitches in front of him. “We are the first born! None will stop us.” He advanced another step, playing with fire and floating so high on a tide of battle fury that he fucking gloried in it. “Get from my path,” he growled, levelling his point at the man who’d spoken.

That knight batted Malcolm’s sword away with his own and spat on the ground. “Go back to hell, Nefastus.”

The fight was ugly. Balls for polishing up a façade of bravado – how else could any right man describe it? The eldest sons of the nobility slaughtering their younger brothers, and all because the king was a pissing coward who’d sooner tear his realm apart than let his son inherit. Because a sister had always possessed more of an ear for the lies of others than eyes to see the truth. And because, Malcolm admitted as he wiped the blood from his blade before sheathing it once more, six years out of a lifetime of twenty wasn’t damned near long enough for a man to learn to be a man and to distance himself from the scared little brat that lashed out at everything and everyone because he was too God-cursed stupid to see anything other to do with a world that rejected him.

Rufus some of them called him now. The red. Red hair, red hot blood in his veins, and red blood on his hands. Malcolm sketched a cross over the pile of corpses. “May you do better in the next life than this.” Rufus: the red; blood and fire and violence and glory and ambition and passion and an unlucky colour for hair, and sufficient improvement over Nefastus that he tacitly encouraged it wherever possible.

There was another set of guards at the next door. A smaller set at the door beyond that. Malcolm strode down the halls of his father’s palace, boots ringing on the tiles and leaving crimson prints. The jingle of his friends’ armour and his own gave counterpoint to the implacable advance.

“I am the first born!” he bellowed, brandishing his sword in the air. “I will wade through blood and trample the dead underfoot, and I will have my right! Who will stop me? Let him who thinks he can come forth! I am Malcolm Rufus, first born son and lawful heir of Malcolm the Elder - Malcolm the milksop! Who will fucking stop me?”

No one. That’s who.

At the final door Malcolm put his weapons away once more. His palms filmed with sweat inside the mail mittens of his armour. For a space he did nothing more than stare at the door, closed and barred against his entry. No time for this, no fucking time! He would look weak and that would kill him more surely than anything else.

“Wait here,” he commanded his companions. Come what may, better or worse, he’d settle this alone. He wouldn’t have others drawing blades on family. Family! Malcolm spat to clear the taste of bile from his mouth. He reckoned that Eleanor the Gooseberry had the right of it when she’d said that when it came to family royalty were fucked up at the very foundations – not that she’d phrased it so forthrightly.

He twisted the handle and gave the door a push. It didn’t move. He tried again, harder. Nothing. Laid his forehead against the wood; of course they’d locked him out. Even now, even after all this, they couldn’t just shut the fuck up and let him do something with a hint of grace. Stepping away he ordered, “Break it down.” He would not beg those on the other side to open it for they would not.

After the second touch of the makeshift battering ram the door swung open, a worried face under a mitre appearing in the gap and – one assumed- an equally priestly body wedged behind the rest of the door to keep it from being pushed further open. “How dare-”

Malcolm punched him in the face. Hard. The man went down, and he applied boot to door to open it the rest of the way, stepping over the stunned bishop as though he were a turd in the street. Let no one say he didn’t know how to make an entrance!

Inside the king’s sickroom faces turned to stare. This one and that one and some of the others, they were important. The rest were so much nuisance. Malcolm noted the names that matched the faces for future reference and then sidestepped to clear the door. “Anyone who does not want to be involved in high treason should leave. Now. You will be forgiven and have my word no reprisals will follow. Stay, and die.”

If he’d laid a wager on who’d speak first Malcolm would have won. Won twice over if he’d bet on the gist of her words, too. “You monster!” spat Anne. “How dare you! Our lord father is dying and you-”

“And I was not informed,” drawled Malcolm, “because you, dear sister, did your damnedest to keep the news from reaching me. Then you filled my path with idiots loyal to this revisionist shite which says a first born son has no better claim than any other. And then you barred the door.” Almost he choked; he turned it into a harsh laugh. “You forced me to wade through blood to get to my own father’s deathbed, and you call me a monster?”

He could see the calculations running in the minds of those gathered. If he was here then he’d won. Here and now there was nothing left to stop him save this little gathering, and if he fell there was a large collection of armed men outside who’d be mighty pissed off. All it took was one man breaking for the door to set an exodus in motion. Within a minute there were but five of them left in that chamber. Malcolm. Anne. Her husband. Their father. And little brother James. Naturally. Hard to shove a crown on his head if he wasn’t present.

The laboured breathing coming from the canopied bed paused as a dry old voice rattled, “Get out. Nefastus.”

Malcolm crossed to the bed side and stared down at the man lying there. Illness had stripped Malcolm the Elder down to the very core. Bones, yellowed flesh than hung as loose as over-large clothes, dulled hair, and eyes from which pain had long since eaten the sparkle. Malcolm bowed his head. “I did not know,” he breathed. Kept in the very north of the kingdom by his feud he’d been entirely reliant on news sent on and someone had seen to it that word of his father’s sickness did not reach him until very late. Someone? Anne. Always Anne. Always her and this withered remnant of a man conspiring to ruin him.

“Good,” Malcolm the Elder rasped. “Wish you still did not know.” He laboured for breath and with visible effort gathered himself to snarl, “Devil spawn.”

Malcolm let out a sharp puff of breath as though he’d been punched. Swiftly he disguised it as something more sardonic. “Aren’t the dying meant to make peace with their enemies to set their soul in better standing for the hereafter? Guess one day I’ll see you in hell, old man.”

The dying man attempted to reply but no sound came out and the shapes formed by his lips weren’t something Malcolm could make sense of.

Malcolm turned away from the bed brusquely, before he could do whatever the fuck it was that was burning away below his heart and crying for release. “Well, looks like he’s done and out of the game. Now it’s just us. A happy little family waiting for the corpse to stop breathing so we can squabble over a circlet of gold.”

James resumed his place at their father’s bedside, holding his hand and looking solemn. Nice for those who were cared for, cherished, Malcolm thought bitterly. Nice to be losing something this day. Poor little Jamie.

Sister Anne didn’t move to the bedside like a pious daughter should. Oh no, the conniving bitch knew that she’d no longer got an advantage in that direction. She knew it was all about the here and the now and the fine line between which of the grown men in this chamber could kill the other. She moved in closer to her husband, taking up position at his left as though guarding his weaker flank in battle.

The red fire no longer coursed through Malcolm’s veins. In its place was a weary kind of inevitability. “Anne. Stand down. Walk away now. I swear I will leave you in peace.”

She tilted her chin proudly. “And my husband?”

The husband she had taken in order to bring his strength into line behind the bid to deny the rightful heir his throne. “Oh, I doubt he will leave,” Malcolm answered glibly.

“Victorious or dead,” confirmed Robert, Earl of Fife and the muscle behind the figurehead they’d made out of poor wee Jamie. He was a man of few words and thank fuck for that – Malcolm could do without him joining in the blathering.

Anne touched her husband’s arm briefly. “I pray victorious.”

Malcolm’s lips twisted in a sour line. “Bollocks’ sake, sister, you don’t even like the damned man! You never have!”

“We stand together.”

“It isn’t the standing that counts, sister.” The devil was rising in him and Malcolm battled to control it. “Can’t you see? Why won’t you see? It’s the other things that count – and it’s for those that I intend to kill the son of a whore this night.” She tried to say something but Malcolm spoke over her, relentless. “He won’t listen to you. He doesn’t ask you for council. Doesn’t respect that you have a mind. Won’t leave you in control of his lands when he’s away. Won’t let you have control of your own household, even. Won’t let you spend a clipped penny without his say so, and grudgingly then. He beats you for amusement. He whores frequently, without care whether your miles away or standing within reach. And don’t try to tell me for one heartbeat that you enjoy having him in your bed.” That tearing feeling rose in his heart; reaching out his right hand – the armoured hand encrusted with the drying blood of her cause’s followers – he implored, “Anne, you must see that he brings you nothing but misery and an army.”

She regarded the hand as though it were a viper. “An army is enough if it destroys you.”

The devil was clawing at its cage; Malcolm clenched his hand into a fist and let it drop back to his side. “I will find you a new husband. One worthy of you. Not an old man like your first, and not a steaming shit like this one. You’re two years short of twenty – you have your whole life ahead of you.”

“And what manner of fiend would you choose?” she cried. “You, whose only knowledge of women comes from rape! You know nothing of what I want!”

Malcolm laughed. He had to. It was laugh or rend into bloody chunks with his bare hands. “Since I’ve been raping women – and boys and various animals – since before I was old enough to get a hard cock I’d say I’m an expert.” Shit! He grappled with his devil and won a measure of control back over it. “Anne, I’ll find you a good man. One like in your romances. One like Fulk of Alnwick, or …” He spread his hands helplessly, no authority on what females liked in a man, “Or whatever you want. Just tell me. Only stand aside.”

“What I want is for you to die so you may never again inflict yourself on our kingdom.” She folded her arms in a pose that he recognised from elsewhere, hands tucked inside her dangling sleeves. Almost casually she twisted the knife of her words by adding, “Or on another woman. Or boy. Or animal.”

So that was it. “The problem with you, Anne, is that you always put too much store in stories. Stupid romances, and tales about monsters.”

A cry came from the bedside. Young James followed it up with, “Father is dead!”

Anne rushed over with a shout of grief. Grief which didn’t stop her from prising the crown from the body’s hands, Malcolm noticed. She held the crown out to Jaime. “Take it, brother. It was his wish, and our realm’s.”

The moment stretched out forever. Then the boy took the crown in his awkward teenager’s hands. He gazed at it as though there were nothing else in the room, turning the band of bejewelled gold over and over in his hands. Anne and her husband formed a wall between Malcolm and his young brother.

The Earl of Fife drew his sword. “Come die, Nefastus.”

Malcolm drew his sword as he’d known he must since he’d made the decision to come here. Against the earl he was outmatched, as he’d known since before he sent his men away. Twenty years old and still growing into his full strength, against a man in his prime. Years of battle experience versus over a decade’s. Weariness from days spent travelling and then fighting opposed to rested freshness. Why?

Because the Nefastus had an unholy pact with Satan, cared nothing for his life, and loved nothing more than to slaughter and wound with his own hands. Because he was a monster, an unholy terror placed on this earth to wreak the devil’s work. Because killing his own family was one of the few affronts not attributed to his name.

Or because he believed a king’s duty was to execute where possible with his own hands. To bear the responsibility himself, to see firsthand the result of his orders instead of sitting safely distant from blood and sin both. Because he needed to prove he wasn’t a coward and a weakling like his father, may God rot his soul.

Whatever the liars said, it had always been the latter. In England he’d learned how to make people see it. Well, some of them – it’d be a fucking miracle on high if everyone had opened their eyes.

Some was a start.

A start had enabled him to stand as leader to some those who opposed his father’s reform of the inheritance system. To grow his reputation gradually. To attract other followers. To begin the shift from Nefastus to Rufus in the minds that were open. His enemies had erred by making the battle a legal one which upturned the rights of inheritance across the entire kingdom; they should have focused on removing the Nefastus alone.

It was a bad fight and he’d been a fucking idiot for putting himself in so much risk! Malcolm drew his sword and went into a ready stance, mind speeding through everything he knew in desperate search of something that might give him an advantage. An equal chance of victory wasn’t enough. Fuck it – a three in four chance wasn’t enough! He had to win. If he didn’t he’d be rotting on a spike and Scotland – his fucking kingdom! - would be pissed further down the privy chute.

There was a thud, loud and at the same time very dull with a hint of an echo. The earl dropped like a poled ox, revealing wee Jaime stood behind him, crown still in his upraised hand.

Maybe not wee Jaime any longer. He’d done a man’s work in this. That was what they always missed: James had a mind of his own. Open eyes and the ability to form his own judgement; unlike Anne he’d seen the brother behind the angry front which pushed the world away. They’d been quiet allies for years.

Solemnly James stepped over the unconscious earl and knelt before his brother, holding the crown up on open palms. Bits of blood and hair stuck to the gold from where it had smashed into the earl’s skull. “You always did bite off more than you could chew, Malcolm.”

Malcolm set his hand on his brother’s head. “So long as I’ve you to guard my flank.”

“You promised I would be ordained.”

And that was the thing they always wilfully ignored: James’ desires and destiny lay in the church. He had no wish to be kept in the secular life. “I will start the arrangements tomorrow.”

A blur of movement over by the stricken earl caught Malcolm’s eye and he hurled himself to the side. The knife caught his arm instead of his chest, and landed so badly that it delivered hilt instead of blade to his body. Rolling as he contacted the ground, Malcolm came gracefully back onto his feet and immediately closed the distance between himself and Anne. Her second dagger she held on to, and tried to plant in his belly. A short struggle and she was disarmed.

Keeping both of her wrists tight in his hands Malcolm let her kick and thrash at him. “You didn’t learn such sloppiness from Eleanor of England, sister. You might have learned the general idea from her but never the rest. She wouldn’t have given herself away by placing her hands near her weapons earlier on – she only did that as a warning to those who knew she was armed. You’re not fucking meant to be! And she’s bloody good at throwing knives so they land point first.”

Anne alternated between shrieking curses and accusing James of base treachery.

At last he could bear no more – and the noise was beginning to waken her husband – so Malcolm called for his companions. While they bound the earl’s hands and feet Malcolm continued to hold his sister. “I should have you killed,” he said in a low voice, right by her ear. That shut her up right quickly. “You plotted against me. You incited others to treason. You supported our father in his lunacy while he tore our kingdom apart. You tried to murder me. You refused my mercy.”

She spat full in his face. “I always knew I would die if I lost, Nefastus.”

For the sake of his men he could not appear weak. Restoring Scotland to glory would take a strong sword. He cast her from him so forcibly she fell, and commanded his men to bind her also.

At last he placed the crown upon his head.





The next morning news of what had happened spread, and people flocked back to the palace to ingratiate themselves with the victor of the struggle. Malcolm had Robert of Fife taken to the courtyard and tied to a stout wooden post. Before an audience of hundreds he proclaimed his charges against the man. Treason. Corruption of others in the realm. Misguiding the old king and leading him down paths contrary to the welfare of the realm and God’s own laws. Conspiracy to prevent the lawful succession. Attempted murder of the lawful heir. Concealment of the king’s state of health from his people, preventing them from praying for his restoration.

He pronounced his verdict of death. He himself, alone. No court of peers, no trial, none of that. There would be time for niceties another day and with less important prisoners. Today it was most important that his brother-by-law die as an object lesson. Unlike Hugh of England he would not be forced to let his enemy live, he would not be pulled around by his lords. Here and now and today he held all the power.

“I will not have you hanged, drawn and quartered,” he informed the prisoner in a voice which rang across the courtyard. “I will not make you a martyr to your chaotic cause. I will not give you a horrific, honourless death which nevertheless carries some dredge of honour in it because it recognises you as a danger and lets a man show his courage.”

He’d given a lot of thought to this. Took his mind off his damned sister.

“Your lying words misguided our former king. Your treacherous breath polluted this entire realm. So your death will cure them.” He indicated he was ready, and the two men he’d chosen to be his aides stepped forward. One offered him a hammer, the other a thick iron nail. Thus equipped he waited for his comrades to hold the earl’s head steady; the man had no idea what was to happen and concerned himself with attempting to incite rebellion amongst the crowd. He’d got some balls, Malcolm would give him that.

He lined the nail up and drove it half way home in a single, swift movement before anyone understood what he intended. A second, stronger blow finished the work.

With the hollow of his throat nailed to the post behind him the earl found it a lot harder to talk.

Malcolm leaned in close to the stricken man, whose eyes were filled as much with confusion as pain. “For what you’ve done to my sister, you son of a shit.” He wrenched open Robert’s mouth and cut out his tongue, and nailed it to the post above his head. Standing back he said loud enough for the crowd to hear, “If he hasn’t suffocated or drowned in his own blood by sundown, open his stomach and let him die that way.”

He’d blamed all of Anne’s crimes on this man and let him suffer for them so she could skip away free and innocent. She’d call him a monster. He’d keep her in genteel imprisonment until he could find a trustworthy, decent man to marry her to. Someone who would treat her well and keep her from dabbling in anything else dangerous. She’d name him a monster for that also. Fucking ingratitude!

Malcolm wiped the blood from his hands on a square of linen and began to walk towards the exit, his bodyguards falling into place around him. “Send word throughout the realm. I require all who hold land or who owe fealty to Scotland to present themselves and make their oaths to me within the next month. Any who do so will be counted friends. Any who do not will find their heads on spikes. And make arrangements for my coronation; I require it as soon as possible. There’s a lot to do before this kingdom’s reunited, never mind rebuilt into strength, so let’s not fuck about wasting time!”








The thing with Anne is that she was always an incompetent plotter. Her young age helped her a lot before because people overlooked her, and the company she kept compensated quite a bit. Alas, she’s grown up and learned very little about that line, which hasn’t stopped her from diving in head first. Too naive, too idealistic in a blinkered way, exceptionally blind in certain areas because she’d rather listen to others and attempt to turn the world into a romance. One wonders where she will go from here.

As for Malcolm, he’s still not someone I’d invite around to tea but he’s getting somewhere.

The mental image that started it all? Malcolm nailing a man’s throat to the stake he was tied to. Ulp!