The Machiavellian Adventures of Princess Eleanor

At the sound of his name William snapped awake, fully alert and already beginning to sit up, the reflexive action of a soldier and man used to disturbed nights. The source of the disturbance was easy to locate; Anne stood in the doorway between their rooms holding her night candle. It had burned down to just a waxy stub, promising only another half hour’s light at best. William said, “Tonight you cannot say my sneezing woke you, and it is not dawn yet.”

“No.” Her free hand toyed with the end of her very long plait; the motion caused the reddish gold highlights picked out by the light to shift and shiver restlessly. She gnawed at her bottom lip

“What can I do for you?”

After a little pause she said softly, “You leave tomorrow … today.”

“I know.” William blinked a few times to push back the sleepiness now catching back up with him.

“You will be gone for quite a long time.”

“No more than a month, I estimate.”

“And it is a war.”

“I keep telling you I will be perfectly safe.”

“It just seems … well, I have been curious about something for a while now but I never … you see I … well, I never quite manage…” She was beginning to blush, a pink stain slowly spreading from her cheekbones across much of her face. William found it quite adorable. “And tomorrow you are gone, and really it does have to be you and all, and if you are gone then I will just keep on wondering, and I never manage to pluck up the courage …” By now she was a fiery red to match her hair, and her voice was little more than a mumble that William had to strain to hear. “I was wondering … I want to know … that is … well, could you …” She took a very deep breath and said all in one indistinct rush, “I want to know what it is like to kiss someone. Properly.”

William’s mouth twitched into a smile; he quickly straightened his face so she would not think he was laughing at her. So that was why she had kept on looking at him with that assessing ‘do I, don’t I?’ expression for nearly a month!

Having managed to finally spit her request out Anne kept on gabbling, “I mean it always sounds so wonderful and everyone is always talking about how wonderful it is, and it looks rather like fun, sort of, and in stories it is always magical and really wonderful, and it is kind of sort of traditional and all since this is a war and you will be gone for a while and you say I am too young for more, and really I agree that it really would not be a very good idea, but I would like to say goodbye somehow.”

William had to work hard to keep another smile in check. “Well, you will have to come a bit closer; I can’t reach all the way over there.”






“What do you think?” inquired Godit, holding the length of pale orange silk up against her face and hair. “Will it do for a veil or is the colour all wrong for me? I think it must be; a pity as it’s really a pretty colour.”

Fulk managed no more than, “Erm …”

Godit pouted. “Typical male – can kill, ride, hunt, wrestle, look handsome, even read and sound intelligent, but can he give advice on clothes? No, course not. My mother was right, alas, it does appear. Men do have very limited uses, and when it comes to shopping those are just twofold – paying and carrying.”

The shop owner, a pinch-nosed old woman, sourly agreed, “Aye, my old man was the same, actually all three of them, and my sons too. Useless. Now me? I know my cloths and if I don’t know what suits and what doesn’t no one does, not in the whole of God’s pleasant earth. Do try this beautiful lawn …”

Lawn was, apparently, a kind of finely woven white linen. Fulk dolefully told himself that at least he’d learned new one thing, so the morning could not count as entirely wasted. The trick with Godit, he had steadily discovered, was to let her do all the talking; something which was not the least bit difficult as she was a one woman gossip ring. He just let her words flow over him in a pleasant hum, allowing and relying on his subconscious pick out bits and pieces that were noteworthy. That happened now; one fragment of that mostly ignored speech bubbled up in his consciousness. “Hold on – pay?”

Godit turned from her nattering with the merchant. “Oh don’t worry about that; stick with carrying. I’ve got money.”

Good, because Fulk had only brought a small handful of lesser value coins. Breathing a sigh of relief he once again let the discussion on various materials and colours pass right over him, along with the noise from the rest of the market.

One small eternity later Godit shoved a small roll of cloth into his hands. “Be a dear and carry this, please.”

Fulk looked at what she’d brought; the exactly same lawn she had been looking at in the beginning. He pulled a face; women, shopping and vanishing time, one of the great mysteries. He fell into step at her side, padding along with a resigned expression. “Where next?” She was leading him along the crooked street filled with cloth merchants, weavers and tailors towards the central square.

“Do you want to look for anything?” Godit’s brow creased. “What exactly do men buy anyway? Horses and weapons, usually. Very strange creatures, you men. I don’t see how you manage to ignore half the interesting stuff only to go for dumb animals and lumps of metal used to hit people. But no, I have seen, much to my great astonishment, great groups of men of all ages gathered about weapon sellers going on and on about the various merits of this sword or other, and how this pommel design is far superior to that one, and other such trivial nonsense. A sword’s a sword; you stab people with it and lop off limbs. One style works as well as another, and the things never look very pleasant, not at all, so discussions of the assorted beauties of blades are pointless, if you will pardon the pun.”

“One style of sword is very different to another, and it’s best to have a blade matched to your height, build and fighting style. There is plenty to talk about.”

Godit waved a hand in dismissal. “Boring! One stick shaped lump of metal is much the same as another.” She crinkled the tip of her nose and asked without trying to hide her complete disinterest, “So does that mean I have to stand about feeling like I’ve been abandoned while you go play with swords and gush about braided red leather binding on a hilt being the current fashion?” She looked at him hopefully, hazel eyes pleading for rescue from such a dread fate.

“No, there’s nothing I want in town.” As they walked along the street Fulk could hear shouting, and plenty of it. Nothing dangerous, but it did sound like something good was cracking off in the square.

Godit beamed with pleasure. “Excellent! I was so worried there for a moment. Well, we can go then; I only needed a new veil for posh occasions and I can tell you hate shopping.” She ignored Fulk’s polite, unconvincing claim that he didn’t mind shopping. “What shall we do next? I did promise to keep you occupied all day and it is probably no later than ten in the morning. Life! I promised life, laughter, fun, pleasant diversions, gentle relaxation, a chance to be more than a knight practising his fighting and looking woeful. I do wish I could tack love on that list somewhere but really I don’t want to be overly optimistic. I know; we can go for a nice walk away from both palace and town.” She glanced at the bundle he was carrying and suddenly grinned. “We’d best drop that back off in the palace first though; if somehow I do manage to coax another kiss from you I don’t want my material crushing or dropping on the ground. It would only get in the way anyway.”

“Er…”

They had reached the central square now, and the source of the uproar was clear. A fishmonger was currently enjoying the benefits of being stuck in the stocks with a pile of rancid fish burning next to him, warning everyone he had been convicted of selling rotten food. A group of apprentices were pelting him with rubbish while the prisoner cursed and threatened, futilely trying to dodge. The fishmonger’s woes were completed by a very loud woman with an exceedingly long and varied list of complaints; apparently the man’s wife. His life might be about to improve; her current spiel was on how she intended to take the children and go home to her parents right this afternoon and if she ever saw him again she would get creative with a frying pan. Every once in a while the man took a little time out from yelling at the apprentices to direct his torrent of abuse at the woman instead. Together they managed a blistering exchange of swear and curse words that Fulk found surprisingly educational. Godit’s ears began to burn a bright red, indicating the language lesson was even more enlightening for her.

At the other end of the stocks sat a beggar, hunched up with his chin propped on one hand, apparently an old hand at this business. Seeing Fulk’s eyes on him the beggar shrugged cheerfully, as if to say ‘that’s life, and better his life than mine!’ The fishmonger was doing an excellent job of drawing all the attention away from the beggar.

Godit only spoke up a little to make herself heard across the din; she didn’t pause at all, burning ears or no. “Actually that is a very good idea – a nice blanket and a basket of food. It’s very fortunate the weather is fine today, though it may get a little chilly. Never mind, just grab your warmest cloak and I’ll do likewise, and perhaps freezing has some potential advantages, such as a nice warming hug from a broken nosed knight.”

The crowed cheered and hooted as the wife dumped a bucket of decaying fish guts over her husband, spat at him and then began to flounce off. She wasn’t fast enough; the crowd jeered at her in her turn as the fishmonger hurled a handful of muck at her and hit her square in the back, and told her in no uncertain terms exactly what he thought of her, her family and her virtue.

“You are beyond relentless!” They began to make their way back up the street they had just walked down. Behind them Fulk could hear that the wife had gone back for more, armed with a marching tirade about his family and lack of ability in certain delicate areas.

“Persistence is its own reward, and she who dares wins.”






Not even an hour later Fulk found himself sat on a thick blanket with Godit on a grassy hill about twenty minutes walk from the palace, a basket with a picnic resting untouched at his side and a view of rolling, empty grassland with the palace slap bang in the middle right before his eyes. The distance reduced the people hurrying to and fro on the main road and castle walls to ants, but the palace itself still effortlessly managed to be imposing.

“It was a very nice speech he did, short and to the point with the right bit of inspirational quality. You know I’ve never seen a king march off to war before? It was really something, well worth seeing, but I doubt I’d share that opinion if you were leaving. It’s easy to see the glamour when you’re losing nothing. I did love that bit in the speech about how he was discharging his sacred duty as anointed king, not delegating because he loved his country too much to hand over its defence into another’s hands, and how he will only stop fighting to defend what God has given into his care when he is called to Paradise. It’s true you know; he’s never, not once, sat at home when there’s fighting to be done, no matter how minor. It’s one of the reasons his lords like him, I think. Fear him too; you know who’s going to turn up at your castle gate with an army and a battering ram looking for vengeance if you break faith. And where William goes much of his own army goes too, and you know he only accepts the best. The sight of men in his livery – and that includes you, Sir Fulk FitzWilliam! - is enough to make even Scotsmen discover the meaning of fear.”

“Even?” asked Fulk flippantly.

“Englishman!” Fulk saw the slap coming and rolled with it; his cheek was left stinging but he doubted the mark would last more than a few minutes.

His face split with a broad grin. “And proud of it.”

“I just did a great honour to you and yours and you respond by insulting me! Ignorant English pig! You’re all the same.”

“Makes me wonder why you’re looking to marry an Englishman then,” Fulk teased. “Go home; find yourself a nice Scotsman with a matching funny accent, red hair, and a beard like a bush.”

“Now there is the sole advantage you English have – you’re mostly properly shaved. Scotsmen? More hair than a flock of sheep, thanks to our king’s fondness for facial hair. I hope his successor changes the fashion. And we’re not the ones with the funny accents.”

“No?”

“No – that’s the Welsh.”

“Yes. Funny bunch, the Welsh.”

Godit nodded. “Mmmm. Very funny.” Silence held for a moment while they both considered the hapless Welsh. “Well,” she said brightly, “you’re only English but I like you. You’re bright enough; I can soon finish teaching you good manners. Lesson number one: never cast doubt on Scottish bravery.”

“I didn’t mean to offend; it was a joke.”

“Lesson two: beware the prickly Scotch pride.”

“Prickly pride I’m well versed in.” Fulk idly rested his hand on the hilt of his dagger, curling his fingers round to touch the hairpin safely hidden there. Silence held sway for a bit.

“Today’s little arrangement was quite timely,” said Godit. “I found I just had to get away from the solar for a bit; the queen is going on and on about her first kiss and it really is quite enough to drive me insane. Actually poor old Mariot is going quite mad; she’s worrying about her dear little Anne just like a mother would, on the one hand happy for her and on the other anxious. I would have thought just telling us about the general event would have been enough but no, she will go on and on in very great detail over and over, telling us exactly what happened and how wonderful it was. She drags each second out to a minute of talk! What’s more they kissed several times, so as you can imagine there’s a lot of seconds there, and she’s under the illusion that old joke about ‘not sure we got it quite right; let’s try again’ is new and just for her. Please! Age old and rusty, although I admit I did fall for it myself way back when I was a deal younger. Amazingly in this case it was her, not him who said it; well, well, wonders never cease and all that.”

Fulk smiled wistfully, hearing an echo of Eleanor saying, “I am not quite sure … perhaps we could try again?” when he has asked what she had thought of their first kiss. Still smiling he said, “Sometimes the best ways to say a thing are long taken, and all we can do is repeat them over again.”

“Mayhap,” agreed Godit easily. “But really, anyone would think we trio of maids were entirely innocent and in need of enlightening to hear her talk, or even that she just invented the sport and is the only one in the whole of Christendom who knows what to do. She must be exaggerating though; not to cast doubt on our king’s abilities but they just don’t have that fire to them yet. Pleasant, no doubt, but wonderful? Ha! She’ll soon learn, I think. In a way it’s rather charming, watching her grow up like this and experience for the first time some things of us have come to take for granted. Not me, you understand; you did an admirable job of burning away that rather jaded familiarity I had built up. Well, I do understand how she feels; I just can’t sit still and smile nicely while she tells me about it for the seventieth time this morning! Christ! She has been married for two months now and they only just got around to kissing. It is quite sad really, and of course now he is off on his little war and by the time he gets back who knows? Absence makes the heart grow fonder or forget entirely, as I’m sure you know. Speaking of which, how are you doing? Forgetting or growing fonder?”

Fulk said nothing, his mind still wandering a past a couple of months old.

Godit made a show of peering into his face, searching for clues. She straightened up again and said confidently, “Let me guess, you are thinking a Thibaut?”

Fulk blinked back to the present having heard nothing, painfully aware she expected him to say something. “What?”

“Oh come on! You must have heard of Thibaut the Songwriter’s famous verse:

“I don’t want to be a martyr,” said Fulk softly. His throat choked up.

“Then I shall valiantly redouble my efforts,” declared Godit merrily, taking the wrong meaning. Fulk didn’t bother to correct her; longing for the impossible was a habit he dearly needed to break. Godit was speaking again; Fulk reined his wandering attention back in. “… her play games with you. She’ll be here to marry anyway, so I doubt she’ll even have a second to spare for you. Anyway, it wouldn’t be seemly. No, don’t make the mistake of allowing things to backslide; keep away from her while she’s here or you’ll only regret it later.”

“I don’t want to see her at all. The wedding and the feast; I can’t see a way to avoid them and I don’t want to be there. Dear Jesú, I do not want to be there. I couldn’t just watch. I wanted to be in France, anywhere but here to watch.”

Entirely serious for once Godit said, “I’ll see what I can think of, and if the worst comes to the worst I’ll stick firmly at your side and do my best to support you.”

“Thank you.”

They sat in silence for a while. Godit leaned over and brushed her lips on Fulk’s cheek; his eyebrows shot up and he started out of his reverie. “Well,” she explained coyly, “I had to recall your attention somehow and I always found slapping people melodramatic.” She placed one hand lightly on his arm, the pressure barely altering the natural lie of his tunic sleeve. “Forget. Don’t linger on what was, not unless you’d spend the rest of your life looking backwards and never, ever forwards.”

“It sounds a good deal easier than it is.”

Godit snatched her hand back. “Only because you never try. How long has it been since you left her?”

“Sixteen days and around twenty hours.”

“See? You’ve kept count to the hour, you bloody great fool! How is that forgetting? Every time I’ve seen you you’re off wandering in your memories half the time.”

“I am not!”

“Look at today then. We went shopping; you stood about moping. We went back to the castle; you walked along daydreaming. We’re out here now and what are you doing? Off with your princess in your imagination!”

It was on his lips to complain that part of him had been left behind with Eleanor and nothing filled the gaps or even numbed the awareness of his loss, no matter how hard he tried. He swallowed the words, not wanting to share something so intimate. “I suppose this little rant has nothing to do with your relentless husband hunting failing on me?”

“It is a common, well known, universal truth that every single woman needs a husband; until I get to be a widow I need a man to hide behind, and to be a widow you need to have been married at some point. Being a daughter’s the worst lot in life; being a wife’s one step better. Being a widow leaves you free, with control over your own life.”

“Oh, so what you’re really looking for is some poor sod to marry and then die swiftly leaving you a tidy inheritance?”

“I wouldn’t be looking for young and tolerable then,” said Godit scornfully. “I’d be looking for some rich old fool. With the right person I’d be very happy as a wife, far happier than as a widow.” She looked down at her clasped hands and admitted, “I’m getting old; I’m sixteen, seventeen in May. If I keep this up much longer my name will be mud and no one respectable will have me. I’m running out of time, you see.”

“Which makes me your last ditch effort then.”

She snorted. “And that’s how my little bit of honesty is repaid. As I’ve told you repeatedly you’re a good match and I like you. I haven’t met anyone else I like even half as much. Imagine how I feel knowing you’re far too busy in your little dream world to even notice I’m alive.”

Fulk quickly said, “I’m not quite that bad.”

Godit seemed to have great difficulty expressing what she wanted to, speaking slowly while her brow was furrowed by a faint frown. “It just … seems … right. You came here with next to nothing and were soon granted lands and a place here which makes you a suitable match for me. I’m only here to find a husband without my family poking, prying and shunting men I don’t like at me. The queen decided to push us together, although not quite in this way. It seems like someone up there,” she flicked an index finger up to point at the sky, “has decided we belong together.”

“Funny; I remember thinking someone up there wanted me to fall for Eleanor. Look how that turned out.”

“Perhaps the purpose of that was to bring you here?”

“Then it was a damned cruel way to do it.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“You deserve someone to value for you, not someone who dreams of another.”

She laughed quietly. “Your concern means in some way you do value me for myself.”

Fulk made a noise midway between a sigh and a growl of frustration. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand this; if I don’t find someone soon my family will call me home and lumber me with someone of their choice the instant I walk through the main gate, whether I like him or not. Then they’ll send me back to serve my queen with my new husband in tow. They’ll use my position at court as an extra selling point, and I’m most likely to get stuck with some ambitious type who sees me as a stepping stone.”

Fulk tried once again to express his point without getting too blunt. “We are nothing more than friends; that’s not a good foundation.”

She only laughed again. “Your roots are showing; I’m noble, you are noble now. Start thinking like one.”

Fulk closed his eyes and said in a level voice, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life as a replacement? A very poor second best?” He looked at her, trying to impress some of his solemnity onto her.

Godit raised her chin and met his eyes with a small, confident little curl to her lips. “I doubt I would.”

“No, perhaps not. I value you as a friend and I suppose eventually I’ll mostly get over Eleanor, but how long will that take? Months? Years? Decades? A lifetime? I will never completely forget, and I’ll never feel anything close to the same for you. I might grow fond of you, but I doubt more than that. Until then you’d be nothing more than a convenient body and an obligation I don’t want. You think it wouldn’t matter, but it would. A very great deal. You wouldn’t be a friend any more, and there’s a good chance I’d grow to resent you, perhaps even hate you.”

“But-”

Fulk pounded his fist into his thigh with bruising force. “No! I don’t do substitutes, and I don’t care to repeat past mistakes. You’d make a very nice Maude the Second, and it seems you’re doing the best to become one. I’m not interested, either in marrying or in courting. I will not start thinking and acting like a noble when it comes to love and marriage; I know how that ends up. I’m a bastard – living proof of two people’s sin, a walking reminder to one poor woman that her husband didn’t love her, a reminder to one man of what he didn’t have at home, and a reminder to another woman that she was always going to be alone when it mattered. Common nothings get the better end of the stick in this one thing. I’ll marry for love or not at all; not for money, or alliances, or social gain, or any of that. I’d like children, before you try and fling that at me, yes I’d like sons and daughters of my own. But not at any cost, and not so badly I’ll do something I know is a mistake.”

There was a very difficult silence. Godit had blanched as soon as he had raised his voice, and was now staring fixedly off at the palace, ignoring him. Slowly her colour began to ebb back. “Who’s Maude?” she asked quietly.

“Someone to whom you should be very grateful. Your family won’t be able to drag you home to marry if the queen requires you to stay with her, and she can speak up on your behalf. Your family can’t go against her, even if she is little more than a child. You’ve got influence and power because of your position with her; use it. Don’t throw yourself away on someone like me.”

Godit considered that for a while and then very slowly nodded. After another long silence she said sadly, “You are going to die a very lonely man.”

Fulk choked out a laugh. “Yes, and live as one too. Good thing I don’t expect my life to be a long one.”

“Friends?”

“Of course.”




All this mush, mush, mush, mush stuff is really getting a strain to write. Plot required and necessary, but such hard work.

That's actual medieval poetry, so don't blame the frog if you don't like it.

Ah, young grasshopper. You need to understand the Zen of Aveline. She will complain and do anything she can to put down or belittle Nell. She loves her little boy getting together with a princess. She hates the way her little boy treats her. She will complain about anything she can. Nothing ever makes her completely happy. She is left with this horrible conflict when it comes to Nell and Trempy sharing a bed now; she wants to complain but well, it's her son and a princess!! She'll be complaining about propriety anyway, but in a half-hearted kind of way; not sure if the scene including that bit is important enough to write. I suppose it is. :sigh: more mush related stuff. :cries:

Nell complaining about Trempy's servants to her family? Nah. It's really a very trivial matter in the grand scheme; think of how it would sound. "His servants are really nasty and they insult me all the time! They won't take orders from me!" They’ve been doing it for fourteen years, just look at how they talk about her and treat her when Fulk first arrives, and in other subsequent scenes.

:assorted Godit blowing kisses to her fanclub members:

It's early in the day, Kaiser. Nell's going to be with Aveline for quite a bit longer ...

And lo a little frog did sit upon a lily pad and spake thusly: "Listen thy to igaworker, for he hath the right idea."

In a Nell/Aveline death match there's no question that Nell would win; she'd say dispatching Aveline is doing a good day's work. Then she'd have nightmares and feel all guilty again.

A fanclub tally:
Trempy: 2 members
Anne: 2 members
Fulk: 1 member
Nell: 1 member (and the poor gooseberry is so happy)
Godit: 5
No real bias towards there then

An updated fanclub tally then:
Trempy: 2 members
Anne: 2 members
Fulk: 3 members
Nell: 2 members (she's now very happy, but also jealous of Fulk. She says Godit only has fans because she's a slut and the readers are male)
Godit: 5

Actually coz1 was the grasshopper this time, Avernite.

Thanks, the_hdk.

Now, to the real point of replying now instead of waiting as I usually do. Fulk and his Godit problems. You have to remember the setting and that she is noble, and that changes an awful lot from a modern perspective. Fulk's essentially got a choice between romancing her and then marrying her, romancing her and dumping her, or keeping his distance. He knows he is not interested in marrying her at this point; all he has is a mild attraction coupled with a lot of pent up lust left over from someone else. If he romances her and then dumps her he's effectively ruined her life; even if she is still a virgin she will have rather a hard time convincing people of that, and so it gets very hard for her to find someone else at her own social level. As was touched on waaaay back when Fulk was explaining about Maude at this time single noble girls are expected to be virgin brides; if they aren't all kinds of bad things can happen. Fulk's simply being decent. He could use her as a rebound but then he'd probably destroy her life; even if he married her he would possibly resent her for trapping him like this, taking advantage of him and then guilting him into marriage.

It's exactly as he says; she would make a very good Maude the Second. It's a mark of how much he's changed.

As for Nell, well he knows it’s over and wants to move on but he is not being very successful; the gooseberry managed to work her way deep into his heart. It takes time, and despite the large page count there hasn't been much of that. Not quite 17 days since he left Woburn.

Oh, and Godit is outraged – she’s only sixteen! Aging but not old yet, as she so nicely puts it. She also insists she is not going in anyone's bush. o

Oh, go on then, while I’m here and in ‘behind the scenes frog’ mode; Anne and babies. Meh, awkward. Conception at that young age is supposedly very tricky; something about the body not quite settling down into fertility or something. Also plenty of nasty complications and stuff during the birth, and permanent damage of all kinds of stomach churning sorts. Increased risk of death too. Then there’s the delicate matter of conceiving said baby. She’s only about 13 and 4 months old now; that does rather made it kiddie porno to the modern mind, regardless of detail shown. The initial wedding night was about as much fun for me to write as for her to do, but she was lucky in that it only took a few minutes whereas I was writing all that stuff for hours and also had to consider a whole lot of stuff I nerver wrote simply for the sake of consistancy. I didn’t get the impression readers enjoyed it much either, so the lack of further sex is really a bonus for everyone, except maybe the increasingly cross-eyed William

It’s all kind of mute; plot is God, as I repeatedly say. The question is only made possible because of plot; it's not something I'd ever have done by choice. I certainly won’t complain about the plot required lag time between wedding and the pitter-patter of tiny feet (if indeed there ever are any) because it makes it easier for me to write the eventual outcomes. Anne is growing up rapidly now; even another week makes a good difference. Plot being plot the instant it's required Anne is getting shoved back into bed with William no matter what she wants, or what he wants for that matter.

It’s nice to see plot and mush for once working to my gain rather than my cost