Should she climb over the wall? Eleanor’s course strayed several steps from the path leading to the garden’s only gate. In those several steps the yearning was mastered; such behaviour was beneath her now, and seemed infantile. There were better ways to gain surprise, to throw off the shackles of expectation.

And so Eleanor presented herself at the front gate of Waltham’s walled garden. “My brother wished me to attend him,” she told the liveried men standing guard.

The wooden gate creaked as Hugh’s men pulled it open, its iron hinges in need of attention. The men at arms did not bow to her, or show deference greater than the holding open of the door. Eleanor raised an eyebrow at this. “You forget your manners.”

“Highness,” murmured one of the guards, dipping his head fractionally.

Hugh would hear of this, at whatever length it was necessary. Leaving her own bodyguards outside, Eleanor stepped through. The door was closed behind her, the world shut out from a space where it had no place. The scent of late spring enfolded her; she took a moment to breathe deeply the promise of summer.

She followed the narrow gravel path which led to the garden’s heart. It was as though she had stepped into the past. An unescorted, uncared for princess seeking refuge from a court she did not belong in, going to meet a man. That thought raised a smile, wistful. It seemed a lifetime ago that she voiced her suspicions about Trempwick to Anne and Fulk here, and another lifetime since she had exchanged that second - and third and more - kiss with Fulk here, thrilling in the discovery that he cared for her. Today’s purpose was not pleasant dalliance.

Hugh sat on the stone bench under a clump of trees sporting tender new leaves. At her approach he rose.

Eleanor made certain she got the first word in. “You will remind your men that discourtesy to me is discourtesy to all of our blood.”

Hugh stepped to one side and indicated the empty bench with a graceful sweep of his arm. “I am mindful of such things, I assure you. What has caused this distress?”

“I had to rebuke your men outside to wring so much as a nod from them.”

“That was not at my order. It will not happen again.”

“Good.” Eleanor settled herself in the middle of the bench, meaning there was no space left for Hugh to sit without him being uncomfortably close. Let him stand. “You summoned me, brother dear?” Summoned, acceptable. Summoned within hours of her arrival after riding from one end of England to the other, less acceptable. “I barely had time to change to fresh clothes.”

He accepted her denying him a seat by clasping his hands at the small of his back and shifting into a balanced stance, as though it were his preference to remain on his feet. It did enable him to look down on her, and heaven knew well his love of that! “For some of us it is a way of life. Some of us must even go so far as to consider business while travelling.”

Eleanor snorted. “Brother dear, kindly do not be asinine. My meaning was that this had better be important. It was not an invitation for you to bewail your lot.”

“I see you are in a sweet temper today, Nell.”

She bared her teeth at his usage of the pet version of her name, the version which she was increasingly coming to believe no longer fit. “Not half as sweet as you.”

“I have cause!”

Eleanor deliberately rolled her eyes. “And sometime perhaps you might enlighten me, since I presume that is the point of this. Or do you intend to dither on until I expire of age?”

Hugh’s nostrils flared. “You let an important Scottish agent past the borders. Worse, you sent him straight to me to skulk about! He could have been an assassin!”

Well, that was indeed news, and it was important that he not know it lest he think to use the weakness to his advantage. Eleanor quickly added one and one together, and come to the conclusion he must refer to the Scottish messenger she had referred on to speak to him about Nefastus. “Brother dear, one does not – one cannot – turn away a messenger sent to see if his king’s son and heir is being held hostage.”

Hugh ticked off points on his fingers. “You could have warned me. You could have sent him with an escort to limit his scope for mischief. You could have-”

Eleanor slapped a hand on the stone beside her. “Could is all well and good! But could with what? I have the tatters of Trempwick’s network and of Sir Miles’, both of which have been heavily purged, neither of which is designed to work in harmony with the other, and both of which are riddled with gaps which will take me months, if not years, to completely fill.” She slapped the bench again. “Who should I send as escort, Hugh? The boy who empties the chamber pots?”

He snapped his hand back to his side, tightly formed into a fist. “You should have warned me. That at the very least!”

“How?” Eleanor folded her hands in her lap, trying to ease the tingling pain in her palm without being too obvious about it. “Hugh, your messenger was only a few hours slower in bringing me word of your victory than my people were. That is how bad the situation is. What was possible under Trempwick is no longer so.” She stressed, “For now.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is so. As you must slowly build your position to stand where your forerunner did, so too must I build to stand equal with mine.”

Hugh breathed out heavily, and his anger left him. “I expect you will now request more money.”

Eleanor had to smile at that; was she so transparent? “Trempwick had an income of hundreds from his estates, and hundreds more from our father. I have … Well, I do not have the first hundred, let alone any of the others. I must have resources if I am to be of use. And then next time I should be able to send warning to you, at the least.”

“You are always asking me for money.”

“And you know I do not do so without reason.”

The corner of his mouth turned down. “I know that once you were barely able to get the words out through choking on your pride. A difficulty you no longer seem to feel.”

Eleanor gave him a level look. “I am not begging for charity now. I am requesting a portion of what is mine, out of the whole I allow you to husband for me. I do so for our mutual benefit. Why, Hugh, should I be ashamed?”

“You should not,” he allowed eventually. “I will get you what can be managed without causing remark. Even have you changed your mind about being thought of no great import, I have not. Your being known as Trempwick’s successor would cause all manner of harm.”

“I have not changed my mind, never fear.”

“I must balance your needs against many others,” he warned. “The rebellion has proven costly; repairing the damage will be moreso.”

“Give me five hundred, and soon. That will make a good start.”

“Five hundred marks?”

Eleanor corrected her half-brother’s wishful thinking, “Five hundred pounds.”

Hugh’s mouth thinned into a line. “I shall be leaving for Normandy at the end of next week. This will go to Constance. I am certain she will do what she can in my absence.”

“Speaking of absence …” Eleanor plucked a flower from the grass at her feet. The petals were recently opened, the bloom delicate with the freshness of late spring. She twirled it about in her fingers as she considered the best way to broach this. “I have made the requested arrangements for our father’s reinterment. All that remains is for you to take your place at the head of them and see it done.”

Hugh flinched as though she had slapped him. “No.”

“Hugh, you must. It will be remarked upon if you do not.”

“I have no right to be there, nor any wish.”

Eleanor laid her flower down on the grass, tenderly. Then she stood and set her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “I understand. Others would too, which is why you must be there.” When he did not reply she took it for acquiescence. “It can be done several days after the coronation. One of the first acts of your reign, laying your father to the dignified rest which was denied him by the rebels. It would be taken well, I think.”

“How many times,” Hugh said slowly, “did we hear the story of this garden? Near to a legend in our family and those close to us, a gentle story of the harmony between William, sixth of his name, and his queen. An example of the lengths a man should go to in order to please his wife. That our mother asked for it to be planted and walled, that she even detailed the section of wall where it is easy to climb over. So she could meet our father in peace and pretend at romance in a marriage where she was more often than not alone.” Battling to keep his face blank, Hugh stepped back and away from her. “There it was, in front of us all the time. You had but to alter a single word. Not our father, but my father. She merely misled one man in order to meet the other.” He held is arms out to the sides and slowly turned a circle. “This place might very well be my beginning.”

Eleanor pulled a face. “Now you are trying to be unpleasant.”

“Am I? You do not spawn bastards in a bed, after all.”

“You would have far better knowledge of that than I,” Eleanor snapped, revolted. It was hard to believe that her stuffy brother had just made such a suggestion. “Christ’s wounds, our mother was civilised!”

Hugh snapped around. “She was a whore and capable of any wickedness! And think, she would have needed secrecy or I would never have been made.”

Eleanor checked her first reaction, and then after a moment’s thought surrendered to it anyway. Her palm cracked across Hugh’s cheek and he made no effort to block or dodge. “You insufferable ingrate! I am sick of this! Sickened by it! You owe her respect for your life, and damn you for judging her based on – on nothing but rumours and your filthy imaginings!” Unable to stand the sight of his unrepentant face she turned away.

“Since I more than any other save your father am touched by her failings, I have more right – more reason – to be judgemental. You?” Hugh laughed harshly. “You are blessedly untouched by all of this. You have not lost everything you believed you were. You will not spend the remainder of your days living a lie. You …” He tripped into silence, and Eleanor heard him walking on the gravel behind her. “You come here and see nothing more than a garden. I do not. I see … possibilities which torment me, and from which I shall have no peace.” More softly still, the admission, “I used to like this place.”

Eleanor turned around to find him standing by the bed of fragrant herbs on the far side of the path. “Damning her will not bring you any peace. Nor will damning my father. Or rejecting them. Hate only seems to simplify matters.”

“And you would know?” He made no effort to hide his scepticism.

Eleanor picked her flower back up and gently teased its petals apart so it was fully opened. “Do you think it was easy to be reviled, only to suddenly be accepted as an heir for the very traits which saw you rejected as a daughter? And Trempwick murdered my father and beloved brother, and tried to use me. He saved my life and taught me much of what I know. How should I unravel that?” She looked to see if her words were sinking in at all; Hugh looked a touch less angry. “It is a simpler task to make peace with a lonely woman who was unable to resist temptation than it is to go through life labelling her a whore.”

“If the name fits,” Hugh recited.

Eleanor flung the flower in his face. “I hardly think she would have charged people! The name does not fit – all you do is throw out insulting words to avoid thinking about anything!”

“You inflicted this conversation on me, and you do little but lecture me on that which you do not like. I say again, Nell, you are blessedly untouched by this muck.”

Helplessly Eleanor shook her head. “She was my mother too.”

Hugh said nothing for a long time. A fat bee clumsy after long hibernation took a liking to him and flew drunkenly about his head, returning each time it was brushed away. Eventually Hugh resorted to moving away from the herbs, swatting at the bee as he went. It took the hint and went to bother the rosemary instead. “I will attend the ceremony,” Hugh announced, settling himself at one end of the bench. “Because I must, not out of any desire to do so.”

Eleanor sat next to him, and voiced a thought that had been tickling at the back of her mind for a while now. “Does it not seem sad to you? That he should end up so unloved?”

Hugh raised his head. “He rejected me, not I him.” His eyes slipped away from hers, and his head went down again. “I was the truest son I could be.”

Eleanor thought that was more of a yes than a no.










(Note from the present, all else contained in this post being a couple of days old. I came to post this section only to find the forum broken. It was fine when I visited an hour before hand. That old feeling that someone somewhere said “I hope this story never ends!” and invoked a genie with a bad sense of humour has returned.)

As you might be able to tell, that’s not the end. I split it up – it’s been ages since the last post, I still want to tweak most of the following scenes, I am not quite happy with something in another scene, and the world will not leave me alone to work in peace and quiet! Gah!

Every time I sit down to write it’s the same thing. Interruption after interruption after interruption. There appears to be a stupid belief that I need to be talked at about pointless things I don’t care about every 6 minutes. Hurray, a car 7 streets away has had one tire stolen, thanks for running up here to tell me that. My life is far richer now and I’ve totally lost sight of what I was trying to write, but never mind, now I know some more pointless, useless, tedious information about something I never wanted to hear about in the first place, and that’s far better than wasting my time actually achieving anything or working on something I enjoy. I absolutely cannot write if I know other people are nearby, no exceptions. The interruptions thing is now so bad I get jarred out of my train out thought each and every time I hear the downstairs door open, regardless of whatever I get bothered or not. Considering it takes me a good half hour or more to sink into what I’m writing deeply enough to get a good flow going you might now be able to work out that this whole interruption thing makes it a non-starter. Then there are the useless phone calls. The minute the house is empty of other people the phone starts ringing, and I can’t ignore it in case it’s someone offering me a job interview. Clue: no, this is not a hospital nor a car repair centre, try reading the numbers in the phone book and then pressing the matching ones on your own phone! Then there is the idiot with the broken car alarm. And the idiot neighbour and his hammering at brickwork. And …

It’s taken me 20 minutes to prepare this for posting. I’ve been bothered three times, and the phone has rung once. ARGH!!! :has nervous breakdown:

On the positive news front, the people I did that exam for remembered I exist. It only took them 5 weeks. I had an interview yesterday. I do not hold my breath; the first thing they asked me was to confirm I had received the pack of information to help me prepare for their questions. My reply was, “No, I haven’t received anything at all and this is the first I have heard about it.” So yay, my chances of passing that interview are crippled from the start. I shall hear if I was successful “In around four weeks …”

Hmm, there’s an interesting thought. Once the final part goes up there should be a roll call to see just how many – and who – made it to the end. Possibly with each stating roughly how long they have been reading for.



And now let’s wind time back to some point last week, when I posted the below on the other forum in response to a gentle enquiry as to how the final part was coming along. Just so you know as well.

The difficulty is that this is the end. It's proving far harder than I imagined to let go. Once that final part is posted years of work is done, characters I love will slip into the background, and my writing habits will have to change dramatically. As much as I want to edit, and to write Ancel, I recognise that my writing is going to become a lonely thing. I shall have no readers, no comments, and no one to share with. It will just be me, writing and reading alone. That loneliness is not something I look forward to.

Eleanor is the first 'big' story I wrote - as I've previously mentioned there was a version before this one. Before that I did nothing but individual brief stories. Ending Eleanor is ending an era. It's ... scary. Exciting too, but definitely scary. There's the two short stories left, Silent's and Raoul's. That's not much, and it's not Eleanor.

Plus this final part is very long.



SSJPabs, I always say, half joking and half not, that if Conn Iggulden’s Caesar books are classed as historical fiction then Eleanor has no problems. With its made up cast and altered world history Eleanor actually manages to be more accurate than Iggulden’s monstrosity.

The second of those two links is a variety of literature I devoured as a child, and still love today. I feel unworthy of being compared to those works; they are true classics.

The first of those two links is the argh-awful bodice ripper romance. I admit that there’s resemblance between their canned description of the genre and this story; this is why I didn’t want any romance between Nell and Fulk. It clouds over the thematic links I did want to be seen. I fought them; I lost in very short order. This is the disadvantage to characters who write themselves.

The difference between a trashy romance and Eleanor is that the trashy romance sets up cardboard characters on a generic faux medieval stage and, with a minimal plot, shoves them together for the sole purpose of showing them fall in love and several sex scenes. It doesn’t aim to do anything else. The whole point of them is to present variations on a limited collection of themes which the audience find sexy; it’s pretty much a female equivalent to porn. Each period setting plays to a set collection of desires, for example regency is all dancing, balls and stilted dialogue which wants to be Jane Austen but is a fifth rate imitation. It’s formal, based on the rich and fabulously dressed, and features a male lead who is suave and cultured, and often so 'passionate' (their definion, definitely not mine) that in real life he'd be sat in prison for sexual assault.

While some of the wiki page’s labels fit, the execution and intent behind it is a world apart. Females are in a subordinate position in Eleanor because that’s the historical reality. Trashy romance does it because it plays to themes of wanting to be dominated, or of wanting to battle society and stand out. Because the romance is intended to be light reading and cheering the whole issue is usually watered down, even when it’s supposed to be nasty and shocking it reads like a children’s edition. Marriage has given Nell a lot of good, and it’s given her new limitations – Fulk will not accept being a cipher. Trashy romance marriage sets the woman up in a position to do whatever she wants because her husband is there to agree with her and make her life fluffy. Trashy romance knights save the heroine from everything for ever and ever, (except when the heroine is decided to be spunky and saves herself for giggles) and the whole motivation is to use the protective male concept a lot of women find attractive. Fulk protects Nell because that was his job, and now he’s actually made her life more dangerous than it was at the start by the simple combination of being loathed by the nobility and removing Trempwick’s own protective influence. And so on.

Yes, this means I have read some trashy medieval romance. I’m embarrassed to admit I have slogged my way through something like 20 of the wretched things under the theory that a writer should read absolutely everything, especially the things she would not read by choice, in order to learn more. I learned plenty – about what not to do.




Every POV character here, and most of the story itself, is a twist on the standard that readers are taught by the bulk of books. That’s only going to be noticeable by someone who reads a lot of historical or fantasy type fiction, and only if they decide to think about the story as an overall once it’s completed. It’s in no way a big part of my reason for writing this, more like a neat bonus feature for those who, like me, read so much that they see the same things over and over and over again.

Nell the unexpected heir marked by destiny (scar on her face from the royal ring) who doesn’t become ruler. By convention she should be queen, ruling over a society that’s headed rapidly towards modern equality and acceptance. As the main character the effect is further strengthened; she is practically bound by fictional law to become queen. She’s the wilful heroine who doesn’t manage to turn the world upside down, and who ends up more trapped than before. She should be free to do as she wills, not having to ask more people than before for more things than before. She's much more bound by concepts like duty than before, and the role she has fallen into is one which allows her less freedom in terms of things like choosing what to do with her life and time. There are others which apply to her, lots of minor ones like she’s the assassin spy type who isn’t. She should be a female version of James Bond by now, killing left right and centre in improbably cool ways, usually while dressed in black. I won’t go into them all unless people want me to.

Fulk is the lowly man who rose high and didn’t change the world. Convention would have him accepted, and society would be reconsidering its ideas about the superiority of noble blood. Yet more modern equality being railroaded in where it doesn’t fit.

The romance between them muddies that because it drags in that comparison to trashy romance. Still, it works in some ways. Fulk is the tolerant pushover husband who isn’t really.

Jocelyn is the character who gets the trashy romance convention twist. He’s the rapist and bigoted type who isn’t the villain. The knight of noble birth who isn’t courtly. The devoted father who is a bad husband. And quite a few more. In short, he’s a trait of the hero matched each time with a trait of the villain; he’s a genre paradox.

All of the characters are a lot more than their respective twisted cliches. It's always right near the bottom on their list.

But as I said, that’s all a side theme. The core of the story, as far as it has one single thing that can be called that, is the very historical theme of small, seemingly insignificant things making the most impact in the long run. For all the grand events, such as the death of a king, it's the smaller ones, like a man being seasick, which have the most impact.