Fulk stumbled on past Richard without a word. The boy was clearly horrified by his lord’s appearance; Fulk didn’t have the strength left to reassure him. All he wanted to do was sit down for a bit. No more.
The boy followed him into the tent and watched him collapse onto a stool. “My lord … you’re well?”
Fulk managed to nod. He was, after a fashion.
“Do you want some food?”
He shook his head.
“Water?”
Yes. As he moved he caught sight of himself, of the blood which caked him all over. He stilled, and shook his head again. He didn’t want to vomit again.
“They’re saying …”
Fulk dragged his head up and tried to smile to encourage the boy. All he managed with a minute twitch of his lip.
“They’re saying you’re the greatest knight on the field. In all England, even.”
“Who?”
“Everyone! Well, nearly everyone.” The boy inched a step closer, his features a bit more animated. “I’ve been hearing tales of your exploits all day. You captured Trempwick! You forced their flank – no one’s talking about Suffolk being there at all, only about you, my lord! They say you fought like a hero, that no one could touch you. That you felled scores of men yourself.”
“Yes.” It was glorious. In a few days he might be able to consider it so himself.
“You’re a hero!” Richard’s eyes glowed as he gazed at his master.
For the boy’s sake Fulk stirred himself, and summoned up a smile. “I’m the weariest knight, I won’t argue that.”
“Shall I help you disarm, my lord?”
“Please.”
Richard glanced over his shoulder to the tent’s entrance. “Is Luke coming to help?”
“Luke’s dead.” His blood was lost in all the rest which drenched Fulk’s surcoat; he knew it was there and abruptly he couldn’t bear it. He staggered to his feet and began to unbuckle his sword belt. “Help me disarm. Please.”
His surcoat went straight onto the brazier to burn, thrown on with an emotion verging on hysteria. Dried blood flaked from his armour as it was removed, and once he saw his page was getting painted by dabs of crimson Fulk waved him away to finish the job himself. His gambeson was soaked with blood, except the chest area where his coat of plates had made contamination difficult. His shirt, hose and braes were in an unspeakable state, and they too went onto the fire. Stripped naked he scrubbed at himself with a rag and lukewarm water – his hands and forearms were dyed rusted-red, as were his lower legs. Not his own blood, though he was covered in enough of that.
Richard had shrunk back, inching away fraction by fraction as Fulk peeled away his equipment. As his lord washed he began to come closer again. In a tremulous voice he said, “You’re wounded.”
Fulk looked down. His torso and arms were black and blue with bruising, only a few patches of white remaining. The half-healed wound on his shoulder had been bleeding again, as had his wounded shin. Dozens of tiny cuts and grazes marked where weapons had penetrated his armour. “Nothing serious.”
“But …” Richard clasped his hands, trembling. “What should I do?” he wailed.
Fulk wrung out his now filthy rag; he gave up and dropped it into the bowl. “You can get me some more water. Hot, cold, I don’t care so long as it will get me clean.” He should have had someone older, someone more experienced to help him. This poor lad had left home for the first time two weeks ago. “Then go find John. He’ll be able to show you what to do with my armour.” The man at arms needed a new lot in life now the loss of fingers had rendered him incapable of holding a weapon. He was reliable and a veteran, and may do well as a non-fighting squire. He’d send Richard to introduce himself to Eleanor, and tell her all was well with him.
He dabbed at the blood trickling from a slice on his forearm. The greatest knight. He thought he might be pleased with that … tomorrow.
“I am well and healthy, and have but the slightest of wounds such as any man will gather during combat, and thus I beg you not to distress yourself with concern for my welfare.” Hugh held his breath and palmed bathwater on his face. Once he felt cleansed he wiped the water away on a towel and resumed dictating to his clerk. “I pray you, my dearest lady wife, send me word of your own health at once, that I too may be at peace.”
Hugh rinsed away the last of the soap. He ought to rise from his bath and attend to the necessary business generated by his victory. The water was warm, gloriously warm, and so soothing to his aching body; to his great shame it made him desire to soak there until the water went cold. Why should he not? Trempwick was safely mewed in Alnwick’s chapel, a tiny chamber with no windows and only the one door. His men were being taken care of by the relevant parties, as were the prisoners. Eleanor, well what was a brother to do there? Their meeting had been difficult, stilted. Not a word she had uttered had been driven by anything other than formality. Congratulations on his victory, thanks for coming to her aid, concern for his health, the offer of hospitality for as long as he needed it, followed by her departing back to her bedchamber the very instant this bare minimum of conversation was completed. She had granted him the second best room and a spare bathtub rousted out from he knew not where, the best being reserved for her husband, the lord of this castle. By rights it should have been his, Hugh knew. So too the best chamber. Where a king visited those who owned the residence made way. He could not help but recall Trempwick’s words prior to the battle …
Hugh ducked his head under the water to wash away the unwholesome thoughts. Enough! This was what came from surrendering to petty comforts to the neglect of duty.
As his body squire helped him dry himself Hugh dictated the closing section of his message. “It is my intent to close business here in the north and return to the south, whereupon, I most fervently pray, beloved wife, that I may be reunited with you.”
He signed the letter with his own hand, and gave orders for it to be carried to Constance with all speed.
“I wish to speak to your lord.” The voice was familiar; Fulk couldn’t place a name to it.
John replied, “I’ll see if he’s available, your Highness.”
Highness? Fulk stopped examining his multicoloured torso and reached for his shirt. Of course – Malcolm Nefastus.
The crippled man at arms ducked into the tent. “The Prince of Scotland wishes to see you, my lord.” He picked at the bandages swathing his right hand, and said in a hushed voice, “I can have several of the men here in two squeaks, my lord. Or I can send him packing, tell him you’re too battered for visitors.”
“Thank you, but no.” Fulk had no idea why the prince would seek him out, and he had just enough strength left to be curious.
The prince was admitted – once Fulk had placed his dagger and the least blunt of his three swords within easy reach.
Malcolm was still in armour, head bare. Whatever was said of him for his part in today’s fighting none had called into question his personal bravery; it was easy to see why. His mail had rents in more than one spot. Wide, unfocused green eyes lived in a face much too white for comfort and said much of how the prince was coping with his first battle. Fulk wondered why he’d had been allowed to wander in such a state. Sheer negligence on the part of those older heads meant to be responsible for him, Fulk would say.
“I …” The prince rubbed at his right hand, cleaning it by friction.
“There’s water there.” Fulk nodded towards one of the leftover bowls.
When his hands were nearly clean the boy remembered to say, “Thank you.”
“What can I do for you, your Highness?”
Malcolm spent a deal of time on drying his trembling hands. When he could draw that out no longer he arranged the cloth very carefully on the makeshift table. “They – that is to say prince Hugh’s advisors and my own … they say I should be knighted. For today. For fighting well.”
“Congratulations, your Highness.”
“I know what else they say. When I’m not there. What everyone else says and will say.” His fists clenched, and at last his voice gathered some of the brashness Fulk remembered from before. “I bloody know alright, the bunch of shit-eating bastards. Always the bloody same, always.” Malcolm’s shoulders slumped, and without asking he sat down on the vacant stool, head low. “I know.” His voice was soft again.
“Highness?”
After a bit the boy looked up. “If I’m going to be knighted I want you to do it. Not them.”
“Why?” Fulk shifted his position to one with a touch more emphasis on comfort.
Malcolm chewed at his lower lip, a habit Fulk recognised as Anne’s. Which sibling had copied it from the other, he wondered? “Because it would mean something coming from you,” he replied at last.
Fulk snorted. “I’m nobody, a base-born bastard whom your father used to humiliate his English rivals.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Again the answer was very slow in coming. “Do you know what they are calling you tonight? Not the lords and the great men, but the common soldiers? The greatest knight.”
“Yes, I’d heard.” Fulk wanted nothing so much as a cup of mead. “It’s …”
“Nonsense?” the prince supplied for him. He made a dismissive gesture ruined by the uncontrolled shaking of his hand. “You know why it’s got the fucking nobles hopping about like someone pissed all over them? Because you bloody well have, in a manner of speaking.”
Two cups of mead. Fulk sat up straight again, one hand slipping near his dagger. “If you’ve come here to insult me then you’d better leave. Now.”
“No!” The boy scowled and averted his face. “Damn it, I …” He came to his feet in one shaky movement, and kicked the stool across the tent. “It’s always the fucking same!”
There was something of despair in those words, and it made Fulk pause. “If you’ve something to say, why don’t you sit down and talk sense. You were before.”
The prince balled his fists at his side. “I was trying. Then you accused me of insulting you.”
“Because it sounded as though you were. There’s no need to swear.”
The boy stood there like a statue. Fulk waited. Eventually Malcolm righted the stool, and sat back down. “It’s what people expect of me.”
It was difficult to know how to treat that confession. Fulk sensed that it was offered by way of an apology, an opening that would not normally be offered. “Yet you can speak elegantly and well when you so choose. As you do now.”
“I am a prince.” The words, while every bit as well-spoken as one would expect from a scion of royal blood, were bleak. Malcolm breathed out heavily. “I am also the Nefastus. That has always taken precedence.” He lifted his chin. “I wish you to knight me. As I was attempting to say. You have pis- upset the lords. They have reason to fume at your being dubbed the greatest knight by the commons. Simple fact of it is that you deserve it and they don’t. Not just from today, but from before it too. You’ve won skirmishes, rescued your princess, fought in single combat and in tournament and always emerged victorious. No one can deny your skill at arms, and you’ve got the head of a leader to go with it. All you lack is the blood.”
“This greatest knight business will be forgotten within a week. There are others out there who are better than I.”
Malcolm hitched his shoulders. “Yes. But did they fight here? No. Did they capture the enemy leader? No. Did they help carve a path to this castle, even? No. So for now at least you are hailed as the greatest.”
“And that’s why you want me to knight you? Because I’m currently celebrated.”
The prince’s green eyes flashed with contempt. “The Nefastus would. I don’t.”
Fulk raised his eyebrows at that.
“I want you because …” His mouth twisted, and when he managed to get the words out they were in a still more subdued tone than the rest of the conversation. “You know what it means. I don’t think they do. Not so well as you do. Everything you’ve got in this life you won with your sword. They’re lords first and knights second.” Malcolm shifted on his stool, letting his hands hang limply between his knees. “And maybe they won’t have let Trempwick surrender. Not when they had so much reason to run him through.”
Fulk rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d had never made another knight, had not expected to until Richard reached manhood. It must have cost the boy a lot to come here and ask for this favour. “Being knighted by me will do you no favours.”
“Say you will think about it? Please.”
“Very well.”
The boy clambered to his feet. “You’ll want to go to your wife. I’ll leave. Now. I’ll go and … and …”
And wander about uncared for until the shock wore off and he broke down, still wearing his filthy armour.
Midway to the exit the prince paused, and said so softly Fulk only just heard, “I wanted to do what was right.”
Damn it, make that two very large cups of mead. “Your Highness?” Who could he rely upon? Fulk amended his question to a more accurate form: who did he have left? Many of his better men were worn out, wounded or dead. The lot fell by default on poor old John. “If your own squire’s not up to the task, let my man help you.”
“I …” The boy choked up, unable to speak.
Time to be out of here, or he’d be trapped by his own conscience for hours. Fulk grabbed his tunic and hauled it on, buckling his belt with difficulty as he crossed his tent with his cloak stuffed under an arm. “If you’re still of the same mind, come speak with me tomorrow.” He ducked outside without giving the prince chance to reply.
The wounded man at arms was waiting a tactful distance from the tent flap. “My lord?”
“Ah, John. Just the man. I’ve a job for you …”
“My lord?”
“Take care of the prince for me. His own lot have abandoned him like a stray dog. He’s in no state to be alone.”
“You’re telling me all the killing got to him?” John made a rude noise. “Not that one.”
“Show sense, man,” Fulk snarled. The conversation with Malcolm had prodded him a short way out of his own lassitude; the need for Eleanor had begun burning in him, a tiny little flame growing hotter all the time. “He’s fourteen. He’s killed once or twice, that’s all. Nothing like this. I doubt he’s ever sent others to their deaths or made choices which ended with them, either.”
John’s mouth pulled into a sour line. “I suppose.”
“Sit with him. Get some hot wine down him, get him out of that armour, and sit with him.”
“As you command, my lord,” the man at arms growled.
Fulk clapped him on the arm as he walked past. “Good man.”
He walked like an old, old man, and limped slightly with his right leg. Bestubbled, pale, eyes surrounded by dark circles – the toll extracted from Fulk since she’d last seen him made Eleanor’s instinctive desire to rush to him waver. He looked so fragile.
When he closed the bedchamber door Fulk sagged back to lean on it. Closing his eyes he tilted his head back until it too rested on the solid woodwork.
Eleanor said the first thing which came into her mind. “You look terrible.”
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in weeks, oh gooseberry mine.” Fulk ran a hand through his hair. “Damned vultures, hopping about waiting for any meat they can tear at. They couldn’t wait to point out to me that you were up here, and not waiting for me in the bailey.”
She hadn’t thought of that, heartsick as she was and wanting to be alone until the only company she wanted was available. Hugh would never had understood that, so she had made a brief foray to receive him. Eleanor had believed otherwise of Fulk. “I am sorry. My lord.”
Fulk shook his head. “You misunderstand. Whatever we did would’ve been wrong in their eyes. If you’d been waiting then they’d have whispered about your unnatural attachment to me. Damn the lot of them to hell.” The curse was no more than a weary exhalation.
Moments later Eleanor was in his arms, face buried in his tunic. He stank of sweat and steel, and he held her tightly enough to crush her. Fulk took a deep, satisfied breath and rested his cheek on the top of her head.
A time later Eleanor raised her head and demanded, “How are you?”
Instead of replying he kissed her with the utmost gentleness, and smoothed her hair back into order where it had caught on his stubble and been pulled into disarray.
She prodded his breastbone. “That is not much of an answer.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “I am weary to the bone, battered, bruised and bloodied, half-starved, thirsty.” Fulk placed his hands on either side of her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. “You have a bath waiting for me. Oh my most beloved gooseberry, for that alone I could kiss you.”
“I made the arrangements as soon as it became clear you would fight today. In the hope …”
He clasped her to his chest again; Eleanor felt a tremor pass through him. “This must be why men invented marriage.”
“To get a bath?”
Fulk’s body shook again, accompanied by a choked sob. “No.”
Eleanor stroked the back of his neck. “My poor luflych little knight. Everyone was at great pains to warn me about how you might be. I believe they thought I would be shocked. They do not know I have seen some of this before.”
He gasped out a laugh that contained another sob. “And now you’re stuck with something of all three possible moods.”
“I do not notice any signs of you drowning yourself in drink.”
“Only because there’s none in reach.”
“You are barely crying, and certainly not hysterical.”
“Battles don’t take me that way. Not since the first time.”
“Nor do I see you acting like a rutting idiot, as Aveis picturesquely termed it.”
Another quiver ran through him. “My usual remedy. As you know. Except this time it’d be honourable, not like the others. I don’t know why you put up with me using you that. It was disgusting. Sordid. Disrespectful-”
Eleanor set a finger over his lips. “I never said so.”
“I’m too tired! Now it can be something better I’m far too tired. What am I going to do?”
“Take a bath?”
This time the laugh had more of mirth and less of pain to it. “When did you become so sensible?”
“I do not know.”
Fulk pulled back so he could see her face. “As we advanced we heard stories. About men tortured to death outside the gates.”
“Yes.”
“I hear you killed someone.”
“It has been a long time since I used a crossbow. I thought I would miss.”
Fulk raised his eyebrows in silent query.
“I meant to hit him. Missing would not have had the necessary effect.”
“It can’t have been easy to hold all this together.”
Eleanor heard again the screams of those Trempwick had cut to pieces outside the walls, saw once more the moment where her mentor’s banner had fallen. “I do not ask about your battle. Do not ask me about mine.” Imploring, “Please. I want only to forget, so far as I can. I do not have the luxury of being able to drink myself into a stupor or any of the rest of that, and …” And she had done her crying, mourned what she’d lost and had turned her face to what she had left. It would be every bit as wrong to mourn Trempwick here and now, where her concern should be with her beloved, as it would have been to show any of her grief for him in public. Then too if the subject were not raised she would not have to hear what had happened in that brief time where Fulk’s banner had flown next to Trempwick’s.
Fulk’s only answer was to put his lips to hers.
Once Fulk was safely installed in his bath Eleanor made him drink some of the rich beef broth she’d been keeping warm by the fire. He put it aside half finished, and settled back against the padded rim of the tub. She believed him to be drowsing until he said, “It would have been politic to yield all this to your brother.”
“I see no reason to place you second to him.” Eleanor caught up the dish of soap and began to wash Fulk’s hair. “Has he fought for half the day? Is he half as battered as you? Is he lord of this castle? If he has complaints about the hospitality he has been granted he may direct them to me, and I shall see him off in short order.”
A wave of water swept the tub as Fulk turned around to face her. “Eleanor, it would have been tactful-”
“He is my brother first and above all, and if that is not sufficient then he owes us a very great deal. If he begrudges us one bath and one bed he is not worth caring over.”
The look he gave her boded trouble for the future, it was much too wary.
A flea struggled from Fulk’s sodden hair. Quick as a flash Eleanor crushed it with her thumb. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she cleaned pulped insect off Fulk’s shoulder.
“Thought I’d got rid of them all before I came here.”
“Did you think you had rid yourself of all this stubble also?” Eleanor ran a finger over the several days’ growth which covered his chin.
“Too tired for such delicate work.”
Eleanor tutted and made a comment about lazy knights being left to fend for themselves as a way to encourage them to betterment. Nonetheless she set to with a razor when she was done with his hair. It was slow, cautious work, the first time she’d turned her hand to it. Fulk made it seem so easy on those mornings when she’d watched him. Everywhere there lurked potential disaster – ears to nick, a chin to cut, the contours of the face to follow across hard bone and yielding flesh. That she only cut him once Eleanor credited to her familiarity with a knife.
Fulk was drowsing in earnest by the time she managed to get him out of the water so she could tend to his wounds. He leaned against one of the pillars of their bed, eyelids drooping and paying little heed to her steady progress with wine and salve.
Eleanor dressed the worst wounds first, biting her tongue as she tended the one on his shoulder. He’d taken that one before he left her; it should have healed by now, would have if he’d been given chance to let it.
“You’re not embarrassed,” Fulk commented. Fatigue slurred his words. “First time you have seen me naked and not been self-conscious.”
It was true, so much so that she had not considered it until mentioned. There wasn’t room for embarrassment. Fulk was hurt in body and spirit; he needed her. Equally she needed him.
Once Fulk’s cuts were dressed Eleanor changed to a different pot of salve, this one intended to ease his bruising. The jar was of a size with her clenched fist; it was nearly empty by the time she finished. To see the body she had come to take such delight in reduced to this sorry state grieved her deeply.
“Luke died.”
Eleanor didn’t think he desired a response of any kind from her.
“So did Nigel, and William, and Edward, and … too many others. Going to have to replace fully a third of our retained men. Of those you sent out, I don’t know. More losses. How many, how bad … I don’t know.” For a time he watched her smoothing ointment onto his bruises. “I would like some wine. Please.”
Having prepared for most eventualities Eleanor could do better than simple wine. When she brought the goblet to him it was filled with mead.
After consuming most of his drink in an improbably short space of time Fulk seemed to lose interest, and sat with the goblet lolling in his lap. “Tomorrow we’ll celebrate. Tomorrow we’ll recount our deeds and revel in the glory of it all. We’ll boast of how many we killed, and tell anyone who will listen how much we enjoyed ourselves.”
“Tomorrow the fighting will have happened yesterday.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “Odd how a bit of time makes so much difference.” Fulk consumed the remnants of his mead; he held the cup out to her. “More.”
“You will have a splitting headache tomorrow,” Eleanor chided as she reached for the pitcher. The first amount she’d given him had been sufficient to make him mildly drunk.
“Right now I’m seeing Luke. He has a split head. Literally.” He uttered another of those laughing sobs. “Drink is a poor second best. Now there’s an understatement. It’s so slow, makes my mood worse until I finally pass out, and then leaves me feeling like death when I wake.”
“Then do not drink so much?”
He let her complete her work in peace, except to request a second refill.
As Eleanor tidied away the medicines Fulk lowered the goblet and watched through sleepy eyes. “That’s why I favour the other route. Though don’t be fooled by anyone who says its about creating something to make up for all the destruction, or anything like that. For a bit you can drown yourself in pure sensation, and if the first time doesn’t send you peacefully to sleep then the second should. Women never leave me with a headache either.”
“Charming.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Don’t be insulted. That’s the ale brewed from horse’s piss end of things. You’re at the other end of the scale with ice wine and such.”
Eleanor raised her eyebrows. “If you are trying to tell me you intend to keep me in a barrel with a lock on it from this day forth …”
“You’re really very special.”
“I shall never let you drink heavily again.”
Fulk’s lips stretched into the most ridiculous smile Eleanor had ever witnessed. “No. Really. Other half of my soul. Makes me so glad I married you, since that makes us one flesh too according to the monks. It’s good not to be split into bits.”
“You are starting to remind me of Count Jocelyn at our wedding!”
“That’s harsh. Right when I’m trying to tell you that I love you.”
Eleanor surveyed her wreck of a husband, hands on hips. “I love you too, my luflych little knight.”
“Good.”
“Else I doubt I would put up with this.” She kissed his forehead, and plucked the goblet from his hand while he was distracted. “Why not go to bed?”
Fulk pinched the bridge of his nose and concentrated very hard. “I’m making a prat of myself, aren’t I?”
“Yes, dearest,” she assured him, kissing him again to make it plain she forgave him.
Naked except for a few bits of bandaging Fulk had no need to undress. He crawled up the bed and flailed his way under the blankets. Half asleep already, he reached out to her and held the pose insistently. “I feel better just holding you. Makes the screaming go away.”
Blowing out the candles Eleanor stripped down to her shift and climbed into bed next to him. The arm dropped down to hold her, he was asleep before she’d settled comfortably.
Only Nell could greet her poor battered knight with “You look terrible.” after stressful weeks apart.
Anne would be thoroughly disgusted. What kind of a reunion was that!? Where was the romance? The declarations of undying love? And Fulk went to sleep!
Crib note: “My usual remedy. As you know. Except this time it’d be honourable, not like the others. I don’t know why you put up with me using you that. It was disgusting. Sordid. Disrespectful-” Fulk is referring to certain ahem, occasions from before they were married. I doubt anyone remembers them, which is most unfair because of the awkwardness of writing those wretched scenes! I prefer to cut away at a tasteful point, There I had to detail it all so no one could get the wrong impression.
Chief, mess indeed and hurrah for it! Not only does it give me some good scenes to write, it’s the sort of thing which keeps me interested in writing this mammoth. I can’t
stand people who think one battle neatly solves everything. That was rare. “Tralala, we’re victorious and so everything is fixed!” scenes should be banned. I’d be so bored if I had to write one of those.
Incognitia, nice to know I’m managing to surprise
I think. That depends on why it’s surprising. Deus ex machine etc tend to be surprising – because there’s no way to see them coming, and their only purpose is to be surprising and drag the story in the desired direction.
Judas, Jocelyn has survived being shot before, hence my comment about him being unlucky with crossbows. That was back in France, when he helped William subdue the rebellious Count of Tourraine. Whether he survives this time is another matter entirely
Avernite, spymaster Trempy was always more fun to write than general Trempy. :sighs: I do miss some of those earlier dynamics. Nell and Trempy especially.
Scrooge, tension is still there? Good. It would be easy for the story to go flat at this point. That’s the danger to not following the “tralala” path. Readers can be left saying, “Will she
ever resolve anything?!”
