Fulk poked the charred sardine on his trencher with a forefinger, “You did this on purpose,” he accused. It was not a happy sight; a burned fish on a slice of thick, coarse textured, stale bread with a small dollop of stewed mushrooms and onions next to it.
“I did not,” protested Eleanor. She removed the spine from her own, nicely cooked fish and put it on the edge of her trencher, “If I were going to singe anything on purpose it would be you, not the poor, innocent fish.”
They had come to a mutual, unspoken agreement to act as if that spark had never happened. Business as usual; it saved a lot of awkwardness.
Fulk muttered something about cruelty to men at arms and kept peeling the burned skin off, revealing mostly edible fish underneath. “You are just like king Alfred,” he accused.
“What?” asked Eleanor, perplexed.
“You don’t know the legend?” Fulk scooped up a mouthful of fish and popped it into his mouth, chewing cautiously at first, then swallowing with apparent difficulty, “Well,” he sighed, giving his verdict on her first attempt at cooking, “it could be worse, it could be-” his eyes bulged and he grabbed his throat.
“What’s the matter?” Eleanor dropped her eating knife and spoon and watched him anxiously.
Fulk kept choking and gurgling for a few seconds, then made a miraculous recovery and grinned, “Where’s the point in working for an assassin if I can’t make the occasional joke about being poisoned?”
“
Someone is asking to be poisoned for real,” she said haughtily. She speared a mushroom on the end of her eating knife as if to illustrate the point.
“Sounds like fun,” another bit of Fulk’s fish vanished, “Now, a quick lesson in king Alfred for ignorant royals. He’s the one who burned those cakes; you see the resemblance? Like you he was sat about daydreaming instead of minding some unfortunate, hard working poor person’s food and he let it burn, again, just like you.”
“I was not daydreaming, I was fretting; there is a difference,” insisted Eleanor. Her shoulders sagged and her head went down, “I did try but I have never cooked anything before, I really did try so hard. It has been such a horrible day,” her voice trembled slightly, “and you were so…”
“It was just a joke,” said Fulk awkwardly, “all of it. I don’t think you’re a beacon of feminine virtues, and I don’t hate you; I like you a tiny bit in a grudging kind of way. Feel better?” She buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. “Oh Christ,” mumbled Fulk, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “Come on, don’t cry, I’m useless at crying people.”
The noisy tears switched to triumphant laughter, “No one has ever been stupid enough to fall for that act before!”
“If I kill you will anyone complain?”
“I think you might have a spot of trouble under the ‘wasting of crown property’ law, and you would be jumping to the head of a very long queue. There are a lot of people who have a prior claim on my head.”
Fulk drained half his cup of wine; he studied her over the rim, “I might get a reward for doing the realm an outstanding service.”
“Yes, you might. I had better chose an epitaph; I have two options, Trempwick’s short edition or your more elaborate one. You know I was half expecting you to start comparing me to a rose.”
“A rose?” asked Fulk, “My dear floral themed delight, if you were a rose you’d have entirely too many thorns and a caterpillar would be crawling about ready to give anyone sniffing the flower a nasty shock!”
Eleanor dimpled, “It makes me interesting.”
“Yes, suppose that is one way of putting it.” That did not sound complimentary. The overcooked sardine looked as if it agreed with him.
“If you were a plant you would be pondweed.” She had grabbed the first unglamorous plant that came to mind.
Fulk’s eyes focused far off into the distance, “Pondweed is honest; it’s clear what it is and it pretends to be nothing else,” he said quietly. His eyes focused back on her; he smiled tentatively, “I think I’d be happy with pondweed.”
“Are you saying you are not those things already?”
The smile grew wistful, “I’m saying … there are worse things to be than boring old pondweed, although by the time you find that out …” He nodded very slowly, barely moving his head, “Yes, pondweed will suit well enough.”
Oh how very curious, and he still hadn’t answered her question. Eleanor filed the information away for future prying.
“While we’re on the subject of honesty, I’ll remind you of your nice promise to take a few days holiday. Since we didn’t do that before we got here we’ll delay in going back.”
“I do not think that is a good idea.”
So, she had never intended to keep her word; slippery little blighter, wasn’t she? Well he would not give up that easily; decent bodyguards did not allow their employers to wander around in the sort of state she was currently in – exhausted, obviously in pain, and with a collection of injuries that were still at a very fragile stage in their healing where lethal infection could set in. Pride might work as a fuel source but it only lasted so long and tended to be costly in the long run. “Do you really want to go back and tell your Trempwick that you didn’t do that shopping he was so interested in because you fell asleep?”
“Not as such…”
“So, we stay here, you do your shopping and then we slowly wander back in a week or so.”
“I can say it was to avoid suspicion from the abbey; if we remain here then we have nothing to hide.”
“That’s the idea,” said Fulk encouragingly, “it sounds better than the truth.”
“Which is?”
“You’re nearly dead on your feet.”
“I am not!” Fulk plainly didn’t believe her. “I am not,” she insisted again, “I shall prove it.”
“Oh golly, a half dead princess wants to arm wrestle with me,” Fulk showed his fangs, “I quiver with fear, your royal very batteredness.”
“Not arm wrestle, you lack witted chunk of sputum, sword fight.” She abandoned her food and stood up, grabbing Fulk’s platter out from under his nose and placing it out of his reach. She gestured at the table, “Move this out of the way.” With that she disappeared from the room.
Fulk heaved himself to his feet and started working the table over from the middle of the kitchen to a corner, “I wonder if she does this to Trempwick?” he mused, “Poor devil, suffering year after year of this, it’s little wonder he’s gone eccentric.” He paused in his war of strength with the table, “If he went crazy because of her then where’s that leave me in a few years? Either unemployed or gaga.” He set to the table again, “I should have stayed with Aidney, a lot less trouble all round.”
Eleanor returned several minutes later with the pair of wooden swords Fulk had picked up that afternoon along with the fish. She threw one to him; he caught it deftly. She took up position with the other, trying to remember the little she had learned with Stephan than a decade ago. Fulk held his own sword in a single-handed grip with the point trailing by his feet; he wasn’t on guard, he just stood there with an irritating smile, waiting. Nettled by his obvious contempt for her skills Eleanor swung. The blades clacked together and hers went pin wheeling through the air.
Fulk rested the point of his sword on her collarbone, “Dead.”
“Er, it has been about fourteen years since I last did this,” said Eleanor as she went to retrieve her weapon. As soon as her hands closed about the hilt of the sword she flung herself back towards Fulk, hoping to gain the advantage of surprise. He parried her wild swing, then caught the blade of her sword in his hand, twisted it from her grip and threw it away.
His blade levelled at her neck again, “Dead.”
Her mouth twisted a few times as if she were trying to bite back a particularly choice insult or two, or perhaps as if she couldn’t think of any insults at all, much to her annoyance. She retrieved her sword again and stepped back, on guard and waiting. Fulk swung his sword lazily at the floor, scuffing up the rushes. He started whistling as he swung at the floor, the blade tip weaving back and forth in idle forehand and backhand cuts. Abruptly he changed targets and lunged; the point of his blade went right past Eleanor’s guard and hit her under the solar plexus with barely bruising force. “Dead,” repeated Fulk once again, “You’re not very good, are you?”
Eleanor recovered and brought her sword around and down. She was fast but Fulk was faster; once again he parried, this time rapping her leg as her guard went wide, “Legless.” He didn’t stop there, reversing his swing to catch her on the shoulder, “Armless.” Finally the blade rested on the top of her head, “And very dead.” Eleanor said something that wasn’t very regal. Fulk’s eyebrows shot up, “Where did a delicate princess like you learn a big, nasty word like that?”
“From a certain bad-tempered arse in a crown,” growled Eleanor. She stepped back and planted her fists on her hips, no mean feat since she was still holding her wooden sword.
“Nice to see you respect your noble father,” said Fulk wryly. With no warning he jabbed her lightly in the stomach with his sword, “Dead. You want to try fighting instead of posing and swearing; I always find that helps.”
“Right,” snarled Eleanor, taking her sword in a two-handed grip and stepping back until Fulk was only just in range, “Someone is going to get hurt. A lot.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Fulk airily dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand, “I’ve got good control, so you won’t collect more than a gentle bruise or two.”
“You … you … utter bastard!” spat Eleanor.
Fulk only grinned, “I can’t help what my parents did. Running out of good insults, are we? I know, it’s so hard to think when you’re dead.” Her eyes were blazing again; damn, he liked that.
Eleanor started circling slowly, watching him warily, this time intently focused. Spotting the change in attitude Fulk took up a relaxed, one handed guard and moved to keep her in front of him. As she neared the table she lunged, then leapt back as he parried, and grabbed a mug of wine from the table. She threw it into his face, simultaneously moving in with a downwards cut. Fulk had been expecting something like that; he managed to avoid most of the wine and blocked her attack. He raised an eyebrow as she skipped back, not giving him the chance to lean his weight on their locked blades and force her to the floor, “You cheat, my beacon of virtue, and I hadn’t finished eating my dinner!”
She didn’t reply, instead hurling the nearest sardine at him. The fish was an unimpressive missile at best; it broke up in the air and rained down on the floor with a soft splatter. The trencher, then the other sardine, another trencher, and finally the last cup followed the first sardine in its airborne attack. Fulk dodged some of it, blocking the rest with his free hand. “You’re messing up my clothes,” he protested as a slab of stale bread with vegetables still clinging to it thunked into his forearm just in front of his face.
He stepped rapidly to one side, away from the slippery mess on the floor, then moved in. She just managed to block his cut at her flank, flung herself out of the way of a second cut, and barely blocked a third. As she blocked Fulk grabbed her sword arm in one hand and carefully twisted just enough to get her to drop the training blade. Eleanor punched him with her free hand; he cast away his own sword and caught that hand too, then transferred his grip so both her wrists were caught in one fist. He smiled down at the defenceless princess, “I win.”
Eleanor disagreed; she kicked his shin. She tried to wrest her arms free, without much success, and kept up the barrage of kicks. Fulk struggled to keep his grip while trying to dodge, “Look, just give up and admit defeat.”
“Burn in hell!”
“Now isn’t that nice,” muttered Fulk, wincing as yet another kick landed on his abused shin. Deciding enough was enough he changed his grip on her wrists, pulled her in close to him, turning her around so her back was facing him. Then he wrapped an arm casually around her throat, the other keeping her hands firmly prisoner. “Surrender?” he asked, confident she would, after all her arms were pinned, she was trapped, and he could cut off her air at will. Anyone sensible would admit defeat; if this were a real fight then he had won.
Sense and Eleanor were apparently old enemies; she sank her teeth into his upper arm and stomped on his instep. With a howl that was more reflex than reaction to real damage Fulk let her go. She sprang away, then barrelled back in again, ramming him with her shoulder. Fulk let her knock him off balance, grabbing her in a bear hug as he fell over. He landed on his back, rolled over so she was trapped on the bottom. She went berserk, using every trick available to her as she tried to claw her way free. He braced his weight carefully so he wasn’t crushing her, but kept her firmly pinned down. “Give up, damn it!” he demanded.
Her attempt to stick her knee in his groin failed, and Fulk jerked his head back so her head butt missed. Somehow she got an arm free and started thumping him in the back, “Get the bloody hell
off me!” She punctuated her request by entwining her fingers in his hair and pulling.
“Surrender,” he repeated again, bracing his left forearm across her chest, freeing up his right to grab her free hand. He grabbed her wrist and slammed her hand to the floor, pinning it down, “Before someone, such as you, gets hurt.”
Eleanor glared up at him, then tried to bite his nose. As long as he kept his face out of range the worst harm she could do was deafen him with a lot of loud complaining. The fight left her, “Alright,” she gritted out, “you win.”
Fulk got nimbly to his feet and extended a hand to help her up. She ignored it, getting up on her own. “Don’t be a sore loser,” he chided, earning himself a foul look.
“I did not lose,” retorted Eleanor, contrary to what she had said earlier, “The idea was to prove I am not half dead, not to try and win a fencing match against someone with the advantages of height, weight, experience, training, and reach.”
Fulk rolled up the sleeve of his tunic and linen shirt and examined the tooth marks on his arm, “Look at that,” he insisted, pointing at the barely visible marks with a finger. The thick wool of his tunic had protected him well, “Just look at that! It looks like I’ve been attacked by a wild animal!”
“Do you want fishing out of that lake of self pity before or after you drown in it?”
“I thought I’d have a good swim about, care to join me? Lake Self-Pity is very picturesque and the water’s nice and warm.”
“I suppose I might be persuaded to paddle about in the shallows, and say that that was embarrassing.”
“Yes, it was,” agreed Fulk. He tussled his hair to shake out any rushes that might be stuck in it, then started dusting himself down to remove the copious bits of debris clinging to the wool of his clothes.
Eleanor ignored the bits stuck all over her own clothing and retrieved the two swords. She was trembling slightly; she was thankful Fulk either hadn’t noticed or had decided to say nothing. The day had been trying enough without having to find excuses to avoid explaining why she had panicked. A fear of being crushed by some idiot climbing all over her was not the kind of thing she wanted to talk about, now or ever.
Fulk misinterpreted her silence, “You didn’t do so badly,” he offered kindly, “You actually did quite well at the end.”
Wonderful, thought Eleanor, she had done better through blind panic than through strategy and half remembered basic lessons. What an accolade. She would have to remember that in a sticky spot where her life was at stake; when in danger panic and act like a prat for best results.
Fulk watched her, concerned, “You will get better; I’ll soon have you handling the basics of sword fighting with ease.” Silence. “You’re not going to have me executed for winning, are you?”
“No, for that kind of pettiness you need my sister, Matilda,” Eleanor forced a smile, a thin, tight lipped affair which looked more angry than reassuring, “I suppose I did not realise just how vulnerable I am. No knives, no … chance.” And that had potentially nasty ramifications that blew a hole in her emergency marriage avoidance plan. By the time she had opportunity to do away with her unwanted husband without a crowd watching she would be literally naked and defenceless. The first possible opportunity after that was … too late. She remembered how vulnerable she had been, how easily she had been totally immobilised, and felt sick. “Add hand to hand combat to the list of subjects you are teaching,” she nodded firmly, “Yes, I am promoting you to master of arms.”
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