Wymar - named for his lord father - ushered Fulk to one side, away from the main gathering of lords, saying, “You shall forgive me and accompany me, I am sure. You shall find it to your gain.”
“Really,” murmured Fulk. He followed the other man easily enough, alert all the while for the barb which might strike.
“I shall be brief.” Wymar chose a spot near the wall and made himself comfortable by slouching against the stonework. “Let’s be honest - I do not wish to be seen taking overmuch of an interest in you. Nor do any of those I represent. That is the advantage of bastard sons, you know.” He snapped his fingers in Fulk’s face. “We are so much less weighty than true bloods. We are almost expected to associate with the wrong types and such like. Thus I can speak to you without beginning rumour that my lord father seeks friendship with you.”
“And does he?” Fulk enquired.
The reply was as blunt as could be, flippant enough to make Fulk flush with anger. “No. Why the devil would he?”
“Then one wonders why you are wasting my time.” Fulk stepped away.
“I said brief. Evidently you want briefer.”
“Quite.” Fulk nodded towards the hundreds of nobles. “I have a whole host of people I can be belittled by, near all of them of better standing than you.”
The young man snorted a laugh. “Well enough. The point, then. You are going to be the target of half the field in our gracious king’s tournament. Everyone not on your team will be after you, wanting to beat you into the mud for the insult of your existence. And,” he said, a wry tilt to his brows indicating the words to be a compliment, “for your reputation, oh greatest knight. You have no friends - no one to stand shoulder to shoulder with. You shall be felled in the opening minutes however good you are.”
It was a problem which Fulk had identified within a day of entering his name for the event. In hindsight it had been a mistake to put his name on the entry list; losing would crush the budding reputation he had laboured to build, and as his companion said none would stand by him from choice. Had he not entered he’d have been called a coward, a true case of being damned whatever he did.
“However,” Wymar the younger continued, “while none want to associate with you, some would like to see those most like to target you take a fall, shall we say? Call it an alliance of mutual interest. You need allies. Those I represent want to see certain folk take a thump on the helm. Those folk will be coming straight after you - it’s all but certain.”
Fulk crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall himself. It was important not to seem too eager. “Names, or leave me be.”
“As for those who would fight with you, well recall my earlier words. We bastard sons are so suited to dirty tasks, and there are already some of us enlisted on your team. As for the remainder, there’s a fourth son and a disfavoured second son. In short, men of an age and status where we are expected to be tasteless, to the vast distress and embarrassment of our families, who can, nonetheless, decry our deeds and claim complete innocence. For noble relatives, let us say names like my lord father, my lord of Suffolk, and many of their affinity.”
Fulk acknowledged the point with a slow nod. “And for the other?”
Derby’s son leaned forward conspiratorially. “Our dear earl of York is a bird which flies too high and makes overmuch noise in the mistake of its own import. And, let us merely say, certain others of his close alliance.”
Fulk rubbed the bridge of his nose and wondered what to do with this latest mess. “I do not seek to get involved in existing feuds between families.”
“Have you not heard the expression ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend’? York wants you ruined; he has set himself against you and you must decide if you wish to stand or if you’re happy to be slowly ground down.”
“That is true,” Fulk said carefully. “But it does not mean I must place myself in the centre of anything.”
“We don’t want you in the centre,” Wymar interrupted scornfully. “Blessed Christ! Do not get over an high opinion of yourself! We seek to make a simple arrangement that lasts all of an afternoon. York and his will come after you. I and mine will stand at your side. Together we will beat them into the mud. You gain by not getting your head staved in. We gain by their minor humiliation. Neither of us have to listen to them crowing about defeating the greatest knight and hero of Alnwick. They lose. Or,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “we can wait until after they have you on the ground, and then we can attack them while they are distracted by your unconscious carcass!”
Fulk decided upon the lesser of the two evils. “I do not appear to have much choice. Very well.”
Derby’s bastard son gave a curt nod. “Good. Now I am also instructed to say this: mutually beneficial agreements do not need to be all show and intermarriage and so on. Quieter arrangements might be forthcoming. The enemy of my enemy, after all.”
“You may tell them that I will listen to any honourable proposal. But I shall be no man’s dog or front to hide behind.”
Wymar raised his brows. “I wonder how long you shall last. You do not have the delicate touch for weaving through court life.”
“I do not intend to be much at court. That would suit everyone, I believe.”
“Yes, it would.” Wymar touched two fingers to his forehead in a casual salute and sauntered off.
Fulk breathed out, long and low, and decided it was time to reunite with his wife.
When Eleanor spotted Fulk making his way across Westminster’s great hall she couldn’t hold back her smile. “My luflych little knight,” she greeted him, holding out her hand. “Come to keep an outcast company?”
Fulk clasped her hand tightly and bowed over it in best courtly manner, brushing a kiss onto her knuckles. “Oh sour one, I came in search of someone who’s obliged to speak to me and not be condescending.”
Eleanor made a show of looking around. “Oh? Who would that be?”
Fulk turned a winsome smile on Anne and bowed deeply. “My lady.”
Anne giggled. “However do you two manage?”
Eleanor and Fulk’s eyes met; he smirked. “Quite well, I think. I just threaten to beat her and that keeps everything under control.”
“One of these days I shall strangle you, crook-nose.”
“Only if you can reach high enough, oh diminutive little wifelette of mine.”
“Yes, well,” hedged Anne, edging surreptitiously away, “Now you both have company you like I shall leave you to it and go and find some fun.” She clamped a hand to her mouth and turned bright red. “Er not that I am saying I did not have fun talking with you, Eleanor, or anything like that!”
Eleanor assisted in the effort to get the girl’s foot out of her mouth. “Go on. Go and enjoy yourself. You have been more than kind keeping me company, though it meant you shared my exclusion.”
That Anne didn’t remain long enough to make more than a token protest spoke volumes; Eleanor felt slightly wounded. Abandoned so easily by a girl who had once been near-impossible to be rid of.
Fulk said, “You look grim.”
“There are times when I begin to feel old,” Eleanor answered vaguely.
“You’re not yet twenty.”
“Not so far off. A few months, that is all. And that was not what I meant.” Watching the gathering from the background. Considering motivations, noting the comings and goings and the least gestures of the realm’s notables. Marking the activities of the handful of servants who worked for her so that she might be all the better prepared when they made their reports. Eating little, drinking less, socialising not at all - though she might have headed out to impose her presence on people who would have no recourse to be rid of her. All of it, at once familiar and strange. A situation passed through several times before, only this time she had no companion in her watchfulness and she stood in the master’s place. “When did I become Trempwick?”
Fulk’s face fell; he tried to joke the sudden heaviness in the atmosphere away. “Heartling, I hadn’t noticed any such thing. For one you’re a sight more feminine than him. He’d have looked dreadful wearing that dress, whereas you look quite gooseberryish.”
It was true Eleanor’s outer dress was of a rich green. “Thank you for that,” she said dryly. “Now I shall never be able to look at this dress in quite the same way. A pity - I had liked it.”
There was a lengthy silence. Fulk broke it with a question asked in the same tone as her earlier one. “When did I become a man who, if not seeking fights, is not able to walk away as often as he should? When did petty insults begin to reach me again? I thought I had grown out of it all.”
Eleanor settled herself inside his arm and leaned against his body. “I suppose the answer to both is: when we had to.”
“Had to.” Fulk’s arm tightened about her shoulders. “We’d do a damned sight better without other people.”
At which point Eleanor decided that the grander game played over the coronation and following days could be damned. “Tell me, my luflych little knight, do you still rescue damsels in distress?”
“I retired from it. Caused too much trouble with my wife - she didn’t like me bringing all those beautiful young maidens home.”
Eleanor looked up at him, able to see no more of his face than the underside of his chin and lower planes of his jaw. “I think you are a liar, sir.”
“And you, my lady.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re no damsel. Distressing, yes, perhaps more than ever, but damsel, no. Damsels don’t have husbands.”
“If I repudiate him will you rescue me then?”
“Mayhap. Mayhap not. But if you offered a good enough reward I would consider it, husband or no.”
Eleanor affected outrage. “Mercenary!”
He grinned. “I have to pay for repairs to my armour somehow.”
She became more serious. “The request is simple. The reward … well, you may name your price. If it is reasonable I shall pay. Take me away from here, and then tomorrow take me home. I do not think I can stomach any more.”
“The first I can do, if you don’t mind starting a fresh round of gossip.” His fingers tickled the small of her back in a most agreeable manner. “The second … I cannot. I will not have it said that I fled because I knew most in the tournament would be seeking my capture.”
Eleanor wound her arm around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder. “I can handle that. You shall have excuse to leave that none can throw scorn on. Indeed, you shall be commanded to go.”
She felt his body tense. “What mischief are you plotting, oh cunning one?”
“No one will begrudge you being sent back north to deal with a pocket of rebels escaped from the battle and now located, and causing damage to your lands.” She anticipated his protest and headed it off. “Do not worry about being proved misled. There is a small band of outlaws I have been saving for such an occasion.”
He did not say anything. When he did speak the words came ponderously, each like dropping a pebble into a pond. “That is very … Trempwick.”
“I know.”
“Always have an escape route, eh?” Forced nonchalance made the words fragile.
“I shall not be trapped again. Or not easily, at any rate.”
“I confess I want to be gone from here badly enough that I’d walk the distance from here to Carlisle. What must I do?”
Eleanor looked up at him, aiming for coy. “Nothing. Only be ready for a restless night.”
Hi eyebrows shot up and he pretended to be horrified. “Wicked creature! Such propositions!”
“I meant you should expect a messenger to arrive around the middle of the night.”
“Ah. Doubtless I shall find some way to pass the time.” He was playing with the end of her braid now, his hand occasionally brushing against her back.
“Now who has sinful ideas?” she teased.
They paused on the road around a quarter of a mile out from London and looked back on the waking city nestled within its walls. The tournament ground was visible, a collection of stands set in the clear land outside the city. Already people were gathering, claiming the spots with the best view of the melee ground; the tournament was not to begin until the late morning.
“Well?” Fulk asked, impatient at her holding their party up now he was past the point where he could turn back.
Hugh planned to make a minor statement as he opened the tournament; Eleanor was one of the few who knew it. Most would find it a surprise, one akin to being stung by a wasp one had mistaken for a harmless fly. An informal pronouncement which would nevertheless hold weight, nothing important and yet nothing that could honestly be called trivial - a claiming of a traditional crown right some had hoped Hugh would neglect to reinforce. Only the king could lawfully hold a tournament within England. Thus only the king could create a well-loved entertainment rich with occasion to promote one’s prowess at arms and gain wealth; only the king could permit large numbers of armed men to gather for the purpose of combat; only the king could add the entry fees to his coffers. The king’s right and privilege, and Hugh did not intend to let any slip from his grasp which he could safely hold.
She supposed he would do well enough.
Eleanor touched her heels to the flank of her palfrey. “Let us go home.”
Finis.
The end. I feel ... lost. So many years work, completed.
I changed the ending. It took me more than 2 weeks to get it to change, and I wrote all of this in under 3 hours. I had to suggest it to the characters and let them stew on it, see if they would accept it or not. It's not a major change and nothing it altered further on down the timeline. It's just that doing things this way felt more in keeping with the overall tone , and, somehow, it brought back some of that bounce which filled the earlier parts of the work while keeping a faintly melancholy tone. I'm amazed they did accept it; changing anything is incredibly difficult to manage without it crumbling apart because it feels false and won't support weight.
As you can tell from my earlier comments, originally the tournament was shown and Fulk did take part. He fought with the disreputable sons who approached him in the first scene. Predictably enough York came after him, got disarmed and refused to surrender to Fulk. So Fulk smacked him in the balls with his wooden sword and had him carried from the field! Awesome little bit and I do regret its loss. York marched off in a hunched, crab-like manner to complain to Hugh as soon as he could and there was a rather boring bunch of back and forth which ended up with York being told he had asked for it, and Fulk being told that - although acting in correct form for the provocation and insults he had received - he had disturbed the peace and should leave for the north. We then ended up at a mildly different version of that final scene - no bit about Hugh asserting his kingly rights over tournaments because we'd witnessed that for ourselves. Eleanor herself hardly featured which was wrong IMO; it's her story.
No matter how much I worked on the original ending it just would not spark to life. It sat there like a dead, dull thing in my writer's sense and I did not want the story to end on such a low.
So. There you are. The end. Lots left unsaid, lots left open, lots hinted at, lots of things which could go multiple ways - in many ways it is more of a beginning than an ending.
I have 'found' two more Eleanor related short stories I could write. I'm not sure what to do, or if anyone wants to read any of them. I have:
1. Silent's story. Something of a loose epilogue. I'd have to start from scratch as it got destroyed during my recent computer woes. It's about 10 years on from this.
2. Raoul's story. Just a shortish piece that gives some insight into how he became the man he did. It sets up a nice echo of symmetry with the start of this story and with Silent's story.
3. A shortish piece about Eleanor going to retrieve her disgraced sister Adele from Spain. It's several years on from this.
4. Fulk's parents. This one would turn out quite long - though not nearly as long as Eleanor did! - and would be more of a romance type thing. I have certain scenes very vividly and I'm not sure what I'd do about the rest. Discover it as I write, I guess.
I shall return to answer comments tomorrow. It's growing late and I need to be up early for work tomorrow.
I can't believe how lost I feel.
