The Machiavellian Adventures of Princess Eleanor

[frogbeastegg]

When Jocelyn opened his eyes it was to discover he was in a room, and it was dark enough to be late at night. The day’s events came flooding back; he covered his face with his hand. Expelling the air from his lungs he said, simply, “Bugger.”

Tentatively Jocelyn sat up, giving his head time to settle so he didn’t fall over. Something was binding his shoulder up tightly; careful exploration proved it to be some highly competent bandaging. Who’d done it? More to the point who’d fetched his carcass and dragged him back here – wherever here was? Well, there was only one way to answer that, and damn it if he’d lie tamely back down and wait for his captor/benefactor to show up.

Jocelyn stood up - and nearly dropped from shock when a voice remarked, “If you fall down I’m not picking you up.”

One hand pressed to his thumping heart, sagged back against the edge of his bed Jocelyn swore, “Bloody hell!” Then, a half-second later, “Bloody hell!” He looked about the room until he spotted her, a silhouette sitting in the corner near the empty fireplace. “You’re still here.” Quite probably the most inane statement ever made in the history of the world, ever. At least it matched his equally idiotic grin.

“Your men won’t let me depart without your say so.” That tone was usually found hand in hand with that expression which said - faintly and with perfect noble breeding – that someone as crude as Jocelyn shouldn’t be allowed to foil her but, thanks to the world being a bloody unfair place, he had. Good thing it was too dark to see her properly.

“Oh.” Jocelyn gave up on his attempt to stand. Now he’d gathered his wits a bit he recognised the room; he was back at the inn.

“They won’t believe you said you would let me go.”

Nor did she, from that ever so acid tone. Ah, God! Jocelyn fingered the bandages over his wound; this was her work. “Bring my captain up here and I’ll tell him. Then you can go whenever you want. Just … wait until daylight. Please. It’s dangerous out there.” Jesù, could he sound any more like a whipped cur?! Actually, sod that! A spike of energy burned through Jocelyn’s weary veins. “And what the damned hell were you thinking just running off out there anyway!? Anything could have happened!” Jocelyn stabbed a finger towards the shuttered window. “There’s a war out there!”

“There was a whore in here!”

And now his shoulder was aching like some cruel bastard has stuffed a red hot poker into it, damn her! “If there was,” Jocelyn spat, “I wasn’t making use of her, but it will rain frogs before you believe me, so shut up and fetch my captain. If that’s still what you want.”

Didn’t take her more than a moment to go, no hesitation or anything. And there it was again, that tugging pain inside his heart, rather like someone had fastened a hook to his vitals and was tenaciously trying to pull them out. Maybe all that wailing and warbling about broken hearts wasn’t all so much pretty-fancy wordage. Maybe they did exist. Damn the woman!

The captain entered the room bowing. “Good to see you recovering, my lord.”

Why prolong the agony? “My wife and her escort are free to leave whenever they like.” Jocelyn dismissed the man with a pained wave before he could ask questions. Answering them was more than he could face. He, the handsome and dashing absolutely courageous and heroic rich and powerful Count of Tourraine, recently from the royal court and known to be a staunch support for the old king’s children, the great lover and awesome father, he, Jocelyn de Ardentes, had been left by his wife. And he’d let her go. Like a wimp. A thousand heroic deaths couldn’t win him enough acclaim to blot out the hideous infamy of it.

She was still here. Lurking. Wanting to revel in her triumph, no doubt. Bitch.

“I hope you’re happy now,” he growled.

Richildis bumped the door shut and didn’t take the polite suggestion to sod off and leave him to his misery. Gloating cow! Taking the single candle she lit a couple of others, bathing the room near his bed in soft light. Still holding that first candle she looked so damned beautiful; her eyes sparkled, her skin the colour of fresh cream, her golden hair shone in the light like – like gold! And if he’d had the pretty words to make those thoughts sound decent then maybe he’d have told her years ago, and maybe they wouldn’t have ended up here.

She set the candle down on the room’s tiny table. “I can’t believe you. Coming chasing after me like that, half-dressed and wounded. How incredibly stupid – and look what you did to yourself.”

Jocelyn lay back down, hand over his eyes. How long was he going to have to listen to this?

“All to stop me leaving. And then – after all of that - you let me go.” A pause.

The hand dropped away; Jocelyn craned his neck to look at her. Something about the way she was talking was making his innards flutter like he’d eaten a moth.

“It’s by far the most romantic thing you have ever done.” She sounded … surprised, more than anything.

Romantic? But wasn’t that all; about flowers, singing, stupid words and dying in agony because the blasted female wouldn’t give you so much as a kiss? “Um ..” What to say? In response to a comment like that? It was kind of like a compliment, sort of, in a backhanded way, if you squinted. Jocelyn didn’t think it would be smart to admit he’d intended to kill her.

If there was a thing where you could look at words as pictures then Richildis right now would make the perfect template for that fancy word ‘inscrutable’. “Why?”

The fiery angel was still lingering, and he gave Jocelyn a nudge. Or he would have if God had actually sent him, but he hadn’t because He knew Jocelyn was smart enough to get by without all the flash fanciness which probably cost heaven quite a bit, if you thought about it. But the problem was Jocelyn’s wound ached, his brain felt like curdled cheese, and last time this damned angel had interfered he’d fallen down a pothole.

Richildis repeated, “Why are you letting me go?” Pah! As if she thought Jocelyn didn’t understand the question or something.

Uh, right. Yeah. There was something about this … something … “Well …” Yes, that was a good start. Now what next? Should he say that if he got rid of her then he could pick a nice amicable young beauty who didn’t hate him, and install her in his castle to keep him company? Yeah, that would show her! “I can-” Uh, actually no, forget that!

“Is it so difficult a question to answer?”

Bloody yes it bloody well bloody was! Jocelyn scowled so hard it made his face ache. Intuition hit him like a punch to the face – maybe his aid Up There had gotten impatient – and this silly idea started jiggling away in his mind. Maybe, just maybe, it was possibly one of those things where you saw a dirty old man lying in the middle of a road and then you either kept on travelling and got killed by divine vengeance or stopped to help him and then discovered that actually he was the only one in the entire world capable of saving your favourite dog from choking to death during that night’s feast? A test. Yeah, one of them things.

Let’s assume it was and proceed accordingly. Well, it wasn’t like he’d got anything left to lose, not after turning himself into Jocelyn-who-couldn’t-even-keep-his-wife. “Well … It’s … That is …” Smooth and eloquent – not! Jocelyn mentally heaved himself up and chucked himself over the parapets, and said in the tiniest, most ashamed voice he’d ever heard coming from his own mouth, “I want you to be happy.”

And watched bewildered as the daft creature burst into tears. This was just embarrassing. Completely, purely, excruciatingly embarrassing. No other word for it. If he could crawl to the window and manage to wedge himself through the narrow gap he’d probably dive out of it just to get away from the humiliation, second storey drop or no. Slapping a hand over his face Jocelyn admitted that people were right – it did take a big strong manly man to admit to stuff like feelings. Christ, a lesser man would have melted into a puddle by now!

Right. Yes, right. Right. Take the blow, roll with it, and come back for another strike. Just like sword fighting, this. Take the pain, push on into it, and make sure you bloody well won so no one could laugh at you for the indignity of getting there! But he left his hand covering his face so he didn’t have to look, because really that would just crumple up his amazingly masculine courage, and that couldn’t be allowed. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Sort of. Kind of. In a way. I mean, that is to say … Bugger!”

Jocelyn levered himself back up into a sitting position. Some things just couldn’t be done lying down. “Look, Tildis, all I’ve ever really wanted is a wife who likes me, maybe even loves me. I just want to go home to someone who’s missed me and is glad to see me. Someone who I’ve missed and am glad to see. Someone who wants to make me happy, and who I want to make happy. Someone who appreciates my efforts. Someone who-” and God, he was blushing like a virgin on her wedding night! “wants to go to bed with me. Because, you know, actually, really that’s all I’ve ever wanted from life, pretty much. Except for children. And a nice castle, and title and lands and such. And wealth. And importance.” Um, but maybe he was straying from the point here? “It was damned obvious I wouldn’t get that with you, right from the start and that’s why I didn’t want to marry you. You didn’t like me, and you made me feel like a crude barbarian, and I bloody hate that! And I hate feeling off-balance, and ignorant, and damn it if you don’t also make me feel like I’ve been castrated and turned into some helpless sod who isn’t a man at all and I damned bloody well hate that too! And I hate the stress of having to prove I am a proper man after all!” And something somewhere here had gone a tad wrong … Too much shouting and accusation, maybe, and not enough of the nice and fluffy stuff?

Jocelyn gathered himself with some effort and stabbed home the final blow on this flurry of … whatever it was. “What I’m trying to say is that I’ve tried my damned hardest since I’ve known what’s what, and I thought that it was working, but no, obviously not. Now you want to leave me, and all because of something which isn’t true. It’s not fair!” And hadn’t he heard his eldest son whine like that when told he couldn’t have a proper sword yet? Jesù! “But no, that’s that and it’s over. You’d rather believe ill of me and end it all then so bloody well be it – go. Because there’s nothing else I can do but lock you up, and I don’t want that. I never have, damn it, whatever you think of me. So go! Leave me alone, and believe the worst of me, but know this – I was trying and it was working otherwise you wouldn’t bloody well be here in the first damned place, and now you’re leaving me because you got the wrong impression!” He gasped for breath, panting slightly. Felt like he’d run a couple of laps of Saint Maur’s training yard.

After a while Richildis said, “I’m not sure if you’re trying to tell me you love me or hate me.”

Jocelyn blinked, thrown entirely. He thought about it. “Both, I think.” A bit more thought and he added, “But I’d rather not hate.”

Well, she’d stopped it with the crying, which was something. What wasn’t something was the fact he couldn’t bloody well even guess what was going through that mind of hers. But then when had he been able to? “Jocelyn …” She shook her head and said no more.

Slowly it occurred to Jocelyn that for the very first time ever he’d managed to knock her off-balance with words, stun her and leave her utterly at a loss. He mentally pumped a fist in the air and yelled, “Yes!” She just sat there like someone had knocked all the wind out of her, like she couldn’t begin to think of where to start. Made a change for someone other than him to have that problem. Struggling to grasp it all.

And you know there was maybe one last thing to add. Like he’d thought earlier, before he’d chucked his pride in the chamber pot. “Tildis?” he said honestly, “I think you’re beautiful. Always have.”

“Then why,” she said, voice gone all screwy because of crying and shock and stuff, “didn’t you say so?”

Because he just did say so? Once he’d have snapped that back as an answer and delighted in maddening her. Now he kept it to himself. “Because you want fancy words and that’s plain. Boring. The sort of thing any idiot could say. You’d have laughed.”

For the first time in ages she looked directly at him instead of past him or around him. “If you had said it like that I would not have laughed.”

Calling her a liar would be rude, so Jocelyn just shrugged with his one sound shoulder. “Tildis, the thing is all those things I’ve done recently which you liked, well I did do them. They were real. I did them. You liked them. So I don’t see what the problem is.”

“You and that maid-”

Jocelyn placed his hand on his heart. “I swear on the lives and souls of our children that I didn’t touch that damned girl, didn’t intend to, and wouldn’t have even if you hadn’t turned up!”

Slowly Richildis said, “You wouldn’t lie … Not with such stakes.”

“Doesn’t that mean you owe me an apology?” Jocelyn asked smugly. Ah – something altogether more important occurred to him. “And doesn’t that mean you’re not leaving me now?” Finally, a question which had plagued his bemused brain for years, “And anyway, why do you care? You don’t like me coming after you, damn it, so you should be glad I turn elsewhere half the time.”

Oddly he had the impression she was about to go pop like a bubble, only without any of that nice jolliness. A bubble of anger, or hate, or something like that, exploding into a wave of anger or whatever it was made out of.

No answer was offered so Jocelyn poked a bit more. “I mean, it’s true. You won’t come to me willingly, you try to make excuses most of the time, you complain and make me feel guilty when I force you, and then you go all sulky every time I so much as look at anyone else!” He threw up his hands. “Damn it, Tildis, what am I meant to do?! I’m not made out of bloody stone!”

She still didn’t answer, and Jocelyn had a feeling that somehow he’d gotten onto the high ground in this battle. He was running about naked, so to speak, with all his bits on show and flapping about while she was still refusing to take her shoes off. Who’d have thought he’d manage to do so well with just words, only words, and nothing but words, and mostly honest ones at that? Not her, that’s for sure. He should do his duty as a husband and set an example and make sure she damned well followed it. “Come on, Tildis. Whatever you’ve got to say can’t be any more God damned embarrassing than any one part of what I’ve managed to get out.” He tried to sound encouraging, and did his best to smile nicely.

Tildis jerked her chin up and spat, “Because I hate being reminded I’m the only woman in Christendom who doesn’t enjoy being mauled by you!”

Ok, some answer was better than none, and while that wasn’t the one he’d been looking for it was better than silence. Mostly. And anyway, it wasn’t entirely unexpected, if he were honest. She’d mentioned something similar once or twice in the past. Ok, dozens of times. And it was kind of sort of slightly his fault, in a way.

It turned out she wasn’t finished with the angry-word-spitting. “Or that I’m defective because I don’t like it!”

God, Christ, and all the saints, the dratted creature thought she was broken. He could have wept. Jocelyn nervously wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Tildis … I never knew.”

She made a harsh sound that accused him of lying. He noticed she was still crying, and thought it might be nice if she’d do so on his shoulder. His good shoulder, not the wounded one. If only.

“I mean, I didn’t know you thought that.” Damn, but it was bloody obvious when you thought about it. What else was she going to think, being a sheltered type who’d had nothing but lousy treatment from the same man others swooned over? Jocelyn buried his face in his hands. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Well, mostly.” He dragged his head back up and attempted to meet her eyes – suddenly it was very important that she understand and believe. “No one bothered to tell me! They just got me drunk, and let despair that you hated me and told me it didn’t matter because you were mine, and told me that it would be the best night of my life because you’re so beautiful and a proper noble girl instead of the lowly sorts I’d had. They didn’t warn me you wouldn’t know what you were doing, or that I’d have to do everything, or that you would be hurt, or-” He choked on the lump in his throat. “And I didn’t know how to win you over after that. You hated me. And I hated you for making me feel like I wasn’t any good.”

Richildis had gone as white as a fresh linen shirt. “What are you saying?”

“I thought you knew I’d made a botch of things and didn’t want me because you thought I was rubbish in bed. And because you hated me,” he added, because he was an upstanding honest type. “Damn!” The more he thought about it the more bloody stupid he felt for not thinking of it himself. Jocelyn d’Ardentes: a man who couldn’t even keep his wife and who was as thick as frozen mud. What a complete tosser! “But then how were you supposed to know it can be different?”

She pressed her lips together and said through clenched teeth, “You make me sound foolish as well as defective.”

Foolish? Her? “Tildis? For once in your life trust me, damn it. There’s nothing wrong with you. Or at least …nothing which started that way.” Jocelyn scratched at his earlobe, foundering. “Look, woman, I got something beautiful and I broke it and I didn’t even know I was doing it, and maybe – maybe I can prove that some day. Given chance.” Uh, yeah, could even a lover as amazing as he was undo the damage he’d done to her? Um, and did he even know how? Right, whatever and so what. Time to hammer at the iron while it was hot and hope he didn’t burn his fingers or whack the hammer into his eye-watering spot. “Look, you’re leaving me over something which didn’t happen. We’ve got that bargain we made before I left for England, and it was damned well-” She hated cursing! “ Er, that is it was jolly well working. You liked my letters and stuff, and I’m glad you cared enough to come out here, even if I don’t remember asking it. We’ve … I guess we understand each other a bit more now, too.”

Jocelyn groaned his way to his feet, tried not to fall down as he crossed the ground between them, and dropped gratefully onto his knees at her feet. He took her left hand tenderly in both of his. “I don’t want you to leave me, Tildis. Please stay. And note that I’m being all nice and stuff, and I’m kneeling so it’s probably romantic.” Bugger, if only he’d thought to get that stupid ring out of his bags. That would have shoved the romance stakes through the bloody roof! “Look, maybe it won’t work. Maybe we’re so dam- er very messed up that there’s no fixing it, or maybe we’re just destined to hate each other, but I swear if it doesn’t work I’ll let you go if that’s what you want. But we should try. Please?”

Richildis gazed down at him, traces of tears still damp on her cheeks. For the longest time she didn’t say anything. Then her head dipped into the shallowest of nods.












It’s time to bid Jocelyn goodbye – and good luck. That’s his final scene. Turns out that the big solution was cutting off all the stuff which followed Richildis nodding. Even a single line more was too much; the thread departs the tapestry here, and here it must depart.

Now you will begin to understand what I have said about loose endings which will probably make people want to hurt me. What’s going to happen from here? He could fail, he could win her over, they could manage to rub along in many varying shades of tolerant (un)happiness. … The seeds for all of these possibilities are scattered throughout the story. I know what happens; you will have to decide for yourselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you decide they manage to struggle through and end up in Happily Ever After

Remember how occasionally I have said that the story writes itself and that I have very little influence? Also that occasionally a small chance here will have huge consequences there? Originally Jocelyn died. He was supposed to die. He was created purely to be a view on the other side of the channel, to view William’s accident and death, and to carry the news to England. His secondary mandate was to provide an alternative to all the happier couples and the courtly men. We should have seen him for the final time lying on the littered field at Alnwick with a lance snapped off in his guts, lying propped up against his dead warhorse, slowly dying in agony and alternately cursing his fate and mourning his lost chances.

That fate changed long, long ago, as he attended the wounded, then recovering, then dying William. All those things he began to realise about himself, his family, and the very problematic royal family of England subtly changed his path to one where he walked and lived. The cumulative effect of the many microscopic changes added up to him not being a hot-headed idiot and leading a mounted charge out of Alnwick’s gates in search of glory. He went on foot with the shaky faith that following Nell’s instructions was the right thing to do.

Jocelyn d’Ardentes, hail and farewell!



Thank you.