Fiiiiic.
A Knight's Tale fic, now polished and added to, still not finished. 9866 words of girl!Adhemar. :D
Adhemar, when he looked back on that day, could only conclude that whatever providential power was looking after him was only very good at certain things. The thing that it had that day was timing. He awoke before his retinue on the day he jousted against Thatcher, after a year of cooling his heels and persuading himself that he didn't yearn for revenge, and for that, he was eternally thankful, as it meant that they did not witness his discovery that he had a rather magnificent pair of breasts.
He had little belief in superstition, preferring instead to hit problems with sticks until they went away, or cheat outrageously. He had, until that day, discounted all allegations of witchcraft as the world's justified bias against unattractive women, who should be put in ponds where possible as a punishment for having warts, regardless of whether they were servants of Satan. He was forced, on that day, to rather rethink his firmly held views. Remaining extremely quiet, he tentatively looked down at the rest of his body. Yes. He was a woman, and were he not jousting that day against Sir William Thatcher of a line so ancient it had faded into obscurity, he would have left the tournament. As it was, he took a roll of linen cloth from the fabric chest, noting with grim satisfaction that Germaine's dress was still there, bound up his breasts, dressed hastily before anyone could enter the tent, resigned himself to wearing armour for the whole day and took one of the writing slates he used for ordering lances out of his saddlebag. On it, he wrote 'You are all commanded to go to my mother's estate immediately. Leave the fabric chest, and my weapons. Bring all extraneous items. She has need of you,' signed it, briefly contemplated using his seal then decided it would look absurd, and put a generous amount of coin on the board. Then, with much difficulty and no little amount of clanking, he put on his armour unaided, a process that left him grumpy, sweating and with the inescapable realisation that he was slimmer, lighter and with less muscle than before, and narrower shoulders to boot.
Firmly resolved to exact painful retribution on the person of the first idiot who crossed him, he went to the stable, mounted his horse by dint of clambering onto barrels and falling over a lot, before a stable boy came to his aid and, because he didn't laugh at him, became his temporary herald and squire. 'But my lord, how am I to announce you?' the boy asked, staggering under the weight of the lances. Adhemar took his helmet off and looked at him, mind very much elsewhere.
'Tell them I'm Count Adhemar,' he whispered, unwilling to test his voice.
'And should I say something nice about ye? The heralds I've heard say nice things.'
'Yes, yes, by all means,' he said then promptly dismissed the conversation from his mind. The joust was in ten minutes, and he decided that staying on his horse would be the result to aim for. They made their conspicuously ungainly way to the field, the stable boy puffed up with pride. Thatcher's lot were at the other end, huddled in a group. He nodded to the officiators, put his helmet on before anyone could get a good look at his face and watched his boy propping the lances off, muttering to himself. Nothing really mattered aside from Thatcher, not even his herald- 'William Thatcher, son of John the Thatcher, profoundly common but will put up with me so naturally he's amazing blah blah'. His boy stood in front of the crowd and puffed his chest out.
'My lords and ladies, Count Adhemar! Son of...someone really noble. He...um, he has really beautiful eyes and shiny armour!'
It would do. He accepted the lance, nodded his thanks, and rode at Thatcher almost before the flag went down. This, he thought as he struggled to keep his lance in line, was going to hurt.
He was right. By a miracle he broke his lance on Thatcher's chestplate, by dint of throwing his weight forward right before impact. Thatcher's lance broke, too. He sighed and resigned himself to another dangerous ride at more pain. The next ride, his lance didn't break, Thatcher's did and he was thrown back in the saddle, looking at the sky through his visor as he tried not to swear too blasphemously. The third ride, both their lances broke, mainly because Thatcher was off-balance and had slowed down his horse a few yards before they clashed. Adhemar was just glad it was over, and ignored the crowds and his herald, rode off the field and sat on his horse in the stable for the two hours between tournaments, hungry, needing to relieve himself and unwilling to get off the horse, feeling the clear certainty that he wouldn't get on again.
The next joust was against one of the lesser Percys, an untried youth. He didn't unhorse him, but thankfully it wasn't like being hit with an anvil, and he was coming to enjoy the boy's introductions. His hair was very well brushed and he had a fine bone structure, the boy was right. He won by one lance, rode back to the stable, dismissed his boy with a generous amount of coin, moved his horse over to a large pile of feed then tumbled off with a clatter, sat up and remained in the hay, his head in his hands, for a long time.
Once he had prised his armour off, he went back to his tent, which now looked stark and bare. The dress was still in the fabric chest. It was an odd colour, but would suffice. He had never been so glad of having a man so fond of the feminine side of life in his pay. Determined to do something before the pain from his jousts set in, he put it on, with a tunic over it, tied a cloth over his hair like a peasant woman put on a cloak and left the tent, still in his boots, the feeling of the dress over his breasts distracting. If he had some underclothes...
He had decided that this change must have been caused by a witch, as was traditional, as he had done nothing to warrant divine retribution. Nothing at all. So he asked every passer-by if there was a witch on the encampment, was directed to numerous unattractive but nonmagical women, and was on the point of giving up when he saw a woman with red hair, freckles and green eyes. She probably had warts somewhere, but the main clue as to her fiendish identity was the way she burst out laughing when she saw him.
'You are an odd woman, and no mistake,' she said when she had calmed down enough to invite him into her tent.
Adhemar counted to ten, then drew his knife and had it at her throat before she could say anything more. 'Remove the spell, or I will gut you. Slowly.'
She gulped. 'I- well, this is all a misunderstanding, I'm sure. Why don't we sit down and talk this through, I'm sure--'
'Remove. The. Spell.'
'Well, you see, it isn't that simple. You--'
She broke off again. Adhemar nodded, in an encouraging way, and pressed the knife a little closer, also in an encouraging way. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. 'Youhavetobecomeawiserandbetterpersonandtreatwomenbetterthenthespellwillbreak,' she finished in a rush. 'I saw you strike one of your men yesterday, and have heard bad things of you, and I wanted to teach you gentleness. Obviously, turning you into a woman wasn't the best course of action, I see that now.'
'Because I am already wise and good, and need no improving,' he told her, causing her to twitch, open her mouth and then close it again.
'Yes. Ah, clearly. But I can't remove the spell. I'll have to-- please don't stab me, I'm thinking-- three months. I can change the spell from being conditional to being of a fixed time. Generally, three months is the length of time it takes for obtuse men to learn new things.'
Reality didn't so much illuminate like light through stained glass as crash over his head. 'Three months. As a woman. WIth all the requisite...things.'
'Yes. All the things.'
She was laughing at him.
'So were I to lie with a man...'
'Well he'd be a bit annoyed, I mean honesty's the best policy-'
'Fonging, madam witch. Fonging. Would it result in a child?'
Her eyes widened, she put a hand to her mouth and made a sound suspiciously like a laugh. 'No, Count Adhemar. Of course not. A man carrying a child would...well, I suppose the armour could be modified, but...'
He turned on his heel and left. Three months. Three thrice-damned, poxridden months. There was nothing for it- he would be unfit to lead his men. He'd have to tell the Prince, loath though he was to tell anyone. Any withdrawal of his service would be construed as rebellion and he had no wish to be further chastened. Thankfully, an unheard-of knight with flawless technique and a suspiciously familiar herald, Sir Giles of Monmouth, was storming up the lists, which saved him the emissaries and long journey. He tugged his cloak tighter around himself and made his way to Sir Giles' tent. It was guarded, of course. The quiet string of oaths that issued forth from his lips made a passing blacksmith make the sign against evil and he rolled his eyes, wishing he had worn full armour, not this cloak.
'I request audience with Sir Giles,' he said to the guard, then sat on a nearby barrel to wait. He was tired and bruised, vexed beyond measure, and tried to summon calm from somewhere.
'He is currently dining with Sir William, Lady. I can inform him of your presence, if you desire it...'
'I can wait,' he said, somehow not swearing, and, to pass the time, mentally recited the name and manner of death of every French martyr he could recall. When Thatcher finally left, he was cold and hungry as well as fatigued, and couldn't summon up even a glare for the upstart. When asked his name and business, he lost what patience he posessed, lifted the guard up with sore arms, deposited him to the side of the tentflap and stormed in, let the cloak drop from his shoulders and stood, in his mantle, sword around his waist, in front of the Prince, in silence. For long moments, the Black Prince simply looked at him, a smile hovering around his mouth.
'Well, It explains the change in your jousting. It was all Sir William could talk of. He thought you were doing it on purpose to unsettle him.'
Adhemar, the proper etiquette for dealing with royalty drummed into him from boyhood utterly forgotten, picked up the unfinished goblet of wine, drained it, refilled it, drained it again and then swore with a fluency he did not know he posessed. Then, calmed if a little lightheaded, he offered the Prince a low bow. 'I regret that I am unable to command my men at this juncture should you require it. Please be assured, Sire, that were I able to I would do so, I would.'
His army had been the bargaining tool used by both men in their exceedingly polite and chivalrous but very public spat. It was a rather pleasurable way to argue- a polite withdrawal of men, a slowing down of infantry moving to the battlefield took the place of heated words. This time, his regret was sincere, if only because he happened to rather like beating the shit out of other men for the sake of it.
'Your second in command, presumably, could replace you,' the prince said, expression neutral.
'Sire, my second in command is utterly unfit for anything more complex than tying his shoes. It keeps the men loyal if there is no one decent to replace me were I deposed or killed. They rebel if any other man commands them.'
'Or woman, I suppose,' the prince murmured, then looked into his eyes until he was forced to return his gaze. 'You are uncommonly blunt tonight, Count Adhemar.'
'I have little choice. I am forced by circumstances beyond my control to be impolitic. I am unmistakeably a woman, and because of this cannot lead my men into battle for fear of discovery. I would be burned for a witch, however much I resemble, well, myself. I do not, however, have any wish to displease your highness.'
'This time.'
Adhemar looked down, shifted uncomortably on his feet. 'I have no choice but to tell you, and ask for your protection. I will be a woman for three months. I am, moreover, a woman with no retinue, a tent, horses, armour and lances to move to the next tournament, and a desire to compete.'
'Why do you wish to compete?'
He smiled thinly. 'I wish to win, as a woman. It is an amusing, though necessarily private, joke.'
'Very well. On two conditions.'
He braced himself. This was going to smart. He had carefully avoided any situation in which he owed the Black Prince anything. 'Name your terms, Sire.'
The Black Prince smiled, slowly, and Adhemar felt as if he were a rabbit in the clutches of a deceptively friendly looking eagle. Something deep in the pit of his stomach became oddly heavy, too, and he realised with a dim sense of curiosity that the man he was unchaperoned in this tent with was still very, very attractive. 'One: You accept the protection of whichever knight I put you with. Two: You will not withdraw when you tilt against me in the lists. I admit I relish the chance to give you the pounding you so richly deserve, even if it is not in the name of the Crown.'
Adhemar liked his instincts. They had saved him from many potentially dangerous situations, boring dinners and protracted and unsuccessful courtships. At this juncture, they were collectively screaming at him to get out of the tent, bargain and tournament ground very very fast. He knew who the knight was going to be, because he knew the prince, and the workings of his mind were similar to his own, twisted through though they were with a whimsical sense of honour, mercy and chivalry. 'You're putting me with Thatcher,' he said wearily, and sank into the nearest chair. 'You're going to unhorse me on the jousting field and humiliate me off it.'
The prince, to his credit, did not laugh, just poured him another goblet of wine, then sat across the table from him. 'You know, you make an oddly handsome woman. The fact that you could and probably would gut me in my sleep adds a certain something, too. This spell- I assume it did not happen naturally. What was it meant to teach you?'
'A lesson which, according to the witch who cast it, I am incapable of learning. I believe it was meant to teach me humility, gentleness and kindness. Having a womb does not do that. Just look at my mother,' he said with no small amount of pride. 'So she changed the terms of the spell to three months, as being a woman would serve me no useful moral purpose. If anything, I am rather less merciful. Still, I must be practical. I accept your terms, Sire.' The 'you utter bastard' remained unsaid, but the prince, by his smile, still heard it.
'You know, it's times like these that I remember how much I like being a prince,' he said with a broad smile 'It makes it all seem worthwhile, somehow.'
Adhemar looked with slightly drunken focus into the wine remaining in his goblet, seeing three months of sharing a tent with an angry redheaded man, a herald who had written some frankly shocking poetry and the young upstart and his beautiful bride. Oh, and her maid and the burly man who was utterly besotted with her and an unnatural blacksmith with more skill in her little finger than anyone he knew in that trade. This, surely, was purgatory. 'I vow to accept the protection of the knight with which you put me, and to tilt against you should we be matched in the lists,' he said, meeting the prince's eyes, putting his hand out across the table. The prince grasped his wrist, hand warm and callused.
'As you uphold the terms of our bargain, I extend my protection to you, your lands and your company and will prevent retribution upon your person should you be discovered to be a woman.'
It was a generous vow, more generous than Adhemar had hoped for, a vow that would protect him from being burnt as a witch, losing his army or becoming disinherited in the event of discovery. 'Thank you,' he said, and meant it. Apart, of course, from the company he would be keeping. Even that, though, was sensible- Thatcher was the only knight foolish enough to support a woman who wished to joust. He would doubtless think it romantic. Progressives always did. He stood up, only swaying a little, bid the prince goodnight, refusing an escort, and then skirted round the campfires to his deserted, fireless tent. He undressed in the chill, lay down and waited for sleep to overtake him. It was a long time coming.
*
'My Lord, I fail to see what this request has to do with Adhemar.'
Adhemar hastily pulled a shirt over his head, covering the chest bindings. 'Count Adhemar, are you decent?'
He undid the tent fastenings, and stepped back to let the prince and Thatcher through. The boy said nothing, just stared at him with a slight frown.Then, with lightning swiftness, his face cleared and he grinned, bouncing up on the balls of his feet and looking at the prince excitedly. 'I knew his jousting was off!' Adhemar longed briefly for more wine, despite his headache. 'I mean, now that you--I mean, you haven't much in the chest department, but you're a girl ,an actual lady girl!'
Adhemar felt bizarrely affronted. 'I have perfectly adequte breasts, Thatcher. I merely bind them.'
'Do they get in the way? I mean, what with being all--'
He made an obscure gesture in front of his chest, then, at Adhemar's blank look, repeated it. The prince, damn him to hell, did nothing to suppress the whelp's questioning, preferring instead to stand around looking very amused. 'You are, I assume, aquainted with the concept of armour? Mine does not currently look like something the Madonna would wear, were she to joust, does it? I bind them when necessary.' He stopped short of casting aspersions on Thatcher's intelligence and breeding and hoped that the prince would give him a damn good fee for his soldiers as a reward for this fortitude.
'And you're competing- but your retinue-'
'I dismissed them. You do well enough with the peasants you have picked up, I thought I should follow suit. It shall be a fashion soon enough. After all, they are even competing, are they not?'
As he ducked the punch and threw one of his own, he mentally waved goodbye to any sort of fee. There followed an exceedingly satisfying skirmish, stopped only when the prince grasped each of them by the ear and shook them. 'Enough.' he said quietly, letting Thatcher go. Adhemar was sorely tempted to try his luck against the prince-- he wanted to be treated like he was not royal in the joust, after all, why not here?-- but decided not to, given how his week was going. 'I see I should have made being polite a condition of your protection,' the prince told him, his grip still painful on his ear.
'No- hang on. Protection? He's- I am to provide an escort for him? He'll drive us mad, he'll kill us in our beds, there are women with us. He'll do unspeakable things to them- well, scratch the women part, but I have no desire to be poisoned.'
'It is in my interests to keep you alive and remain a part of your group, Sir William,' Adhemar said, still itching to elbow the prince, as his proximity was addling his thought processes. 'Therefore, it is in my interests also to remain civil. I apologise for my previous impoliteness.' Thatcher did another creditable impression of a grounded fish, and Adhemar counted to ten silently.
'Five,' the prince murmured in his ear, breath warm on the back of his neck. Andhemar jumped, making the prince release his ear, and hoped fervently that mindreading was a newly acquired skill. 'Your lips move. It's not very subtle,' he explained apologetically, and then beamed at Thatcher. 'So it's settled, then?'
Thatcher bowed low. 'I owe you more than this service, Sire,' he said quietly. 'We move on tomorrow. I will find you after the day's jousting. I have a herald, should you desire one, and squires to arm you.'
'I thank you, but I need no aid today,' Adhemar said, ear still smarting. Thatcher left with another bow to the prince.
'You joust in an hour,' the prince said. 'I will help you get ready.'
If he wanted to debase himself by playing squire, Adhemar saw no reason to stop him. 'I would be honoured, sire.'
'Please, call me Jack,' the prince said, with a wink. There were rumours of a strain of insanity running down his mother's line. Adhemar had never believed them more than at this moment.
He stood no chance of winning the tournament now, but Roger of Cardigan was a vain and boastful man, skilled but rash, and Adhemar was confident of his ability to win this joust at least. He prompted his horse into a charge, and kept his lance slightly to the left of where he was aiming, letting it waver enough so that Roger thought the rumours of his decline were true, then at the last second, aimed straight and true, putting more of his weight into it than was wise- he risked unhorsing himself in this strategy- and making a small twist that made his arms twinge with exertion. Roger flew in a satisfying arc and Adhemar nodded to Thatcher, who was standing at the front, looking unwillingly impressed. Thatcher nodded back, and he rode back to where 'Jack' was standing, in plain clothes he had obtained from lord alone knew where. The prince held his horse as he dismounted, then clapped him on the shoulder with a clunk that seemed to reverberate all the way up his arm. 'A brave technique, sir,' he said quietly.
'Aye, and not one I'll be able to repeat for a while,' he said ruefully, attempting to rotate his arm in the armour. It squeaked. Another afternoon spent caring for it. He missed his squires.
'You are injured?'
'I am unused to this body. In a week I will have mastery of it, and in three months I will be rid of it. Until then, I wait.'
'Only mastery?' the prince asked, and there was something of last night's smile in his eyes. Adhemar noded, his throat suddenly dry.
'There is nothing else, Jack.'
'There is pleasure, too,' he said, softly enough to ignore. Adhemar kept walking; he knew that the prince would not press the issue. He was, after all, an honourable man. When they were in his tent, he was concentrating too hard on not whimpering or cursing to give thought to the confusion his situation had brought. Sweat dripped off him, his muscles protested with every movement. He endured, as he methodically cleaned and oiled his armour, not allowing a sound to pass his lips. He was told that childbirth was a painful experience. He doubted it measured up to jousting in full armour with an unpracticed body and a mind that thought he was heavier and stronger than he was. Hopefully, he would never have to make the comparison. He started from his work when a damp cloth was draped around his neck. He had forgotten the prince was there.
'New armour. Lighter stuff. Mistress Kate, who travels with Sir William is in demand, and hers is light and strong- I scarce know how she does it. You would need to charm her, but I have faith in your ability. This armour's all very well, but it's heavy, and may start to rust- you haven't the time to look after it properly.'
And it would look as if he and Thatcher were firm friends, he realised. The prince didn't do anything without at least three good reasons. Adhemar reached up and brought the damp cloth down his arms, across his collarbone, the cool soothing it. 'Thatcher has no reason to allow her. The armour is a boon to him.'
'He will not stop her. She isn't his property.'
Contradicting the heir to the throne was rude. Adhemar kept silent as the prince took the cloth back and dipped it in more cold water, squeezing it over his head this time. He wished it was possible to bathe in the river, but he couldn't, not in daylight. He couldn't slake his lust on a tavern whore. He couldn't compete with the sword, or wrestle, or go to banquet--
'I am weary of this,' he said, his voice harsh. Small mercies-- he didn't have a high voice. That would have been intolerable. He put down the gauntlet very gently, stood up and faced the prince. Had he more time before Thatcher left, a nice tavern fight would have done nicely, but as it was...'you mentioned pleasure,' he said, meeting the prince's eyes squarely. It was, after all, nothing they had not done when he was in a man's body, many years ago. Most men did, in the field, then settled it with the church with a heavy purse, or a crusade if they had really really enjoyed it. He had been maneuvred into this request, but he didn't mind it too much, not when past pleasures promised future bliss.
The subsequent hour meant that when the time came to meet Thatcher's merry band of idiots, he was walking oddly but feeling exceedingly smug. He had forgotten to rebind his breasts, and there was a bruise on his collarbone. The prince had disappeared, no doubt wanting to try his hand as a serving wench in disguise or something, and he stood in his tent as arguing voices heralded the group's approach. The loyalty Thatcher commanded in them was impressive; their conversation was not. He checked the bed for signs of the past hour's leisure once more, and found none.
'I swear I will fong him and you besides if you don't tell me why in the name of Jerome and all the saints we are doing this, and for three months besides!'
The angry redhead burst into the tent, then stopped, looked, rubbed his eyes and looked again. 'Please tell me that's his sister, not him punished by God, as I haven't gone to confession this past month, and have no wish to be punished' he said, his voice trembling.
'It's funny, neither had I, and apparently there's no fixing it,' Adhemar said mildly, then watched with detached interest as he unfastened his trousers, checked twice and crossed himself, then looked at him again with an oddly cross-eyed expression of longing.
'You're all...you have- and- but God if you weren't a man and a bit evil and probably can't cook I would marry you,' he breathed. 'Count Adhemar, you have the most magnificent chest in Christendom.'
Outside, he could hear laughter hastily stifled, and silently promised retribution for Thatcher. Possibly in his sleep.
'Chest?'
The herald-- Chaucer-- barged in, elbowing Wat out of the way of the tent entrance, stopping dead as he saw Adhemar, and, by extension, the chest. Adhemar was feeling more tetchy with each passing minute, and resolved to make it two hours of pacifying fucking next time. He smiled slowly, executed an impeccable bow, and then smiled some more. 'Your eyes, milady, are like oak leaves at the turn of Summer, your teeth are like the snow, and your hair like a raven's wing, and your throat like marble, aside from the bruise, and were I not already married, and were you not an unmitigated scumbag, I too would marry you,' he declaimed. Adhemar's fingers twitched, and he counted to twenty, taking care to keep his mouth closed.
'I saw him first, you-'
He only enjoyed ending their fight by knocking their heads together a little. Well, a lot. At the sounds of the fight, the rest of the group piled into the tent, and he braced himself for another proposal of marriage. The burly man chuckled and clapped Thatcher on the shoulder. 'It explains why you complained he tilted like a girl, eh, lad?' he said, then rubbed his hands together. The smith, Kate, looked him up and down coolly, appraisingly.
'How long have you been like this?'
'Three days. A witch's curse. I have three months more.'
'You'll be wanting new armour, then. Your old armour fits poorly. You'll build the strength to wear it in time but you need it smaller, and lighter armour would aid you.'
She would get publicity from this- Thatcher's sworn enemy using her armour would silence at least some of her detractors. He had expected Thatcher to protest, but he merely watched quietly. Adhemar bowed. 'I would be in your debt, madam.'
'On one condition.'
Always conditions. Damn them. 'Name it.'
'No more tipping.'
She took a risk, a commoner dictating a nobleman's behaviour. It stood to lose her a valuable and powerful patron, and she knew it but didn't budge. 'Agreed,' he said, and because he was being polite, he shook hands on it and didn't wipe his hand on his shirt afterwards, though he itched to. He felt Lady Jocelyn's eyes on him, and bowed to her, then to her maid. 'I will take Sir Roger's horse, as my best horse is in your hands,' he said, in a surprisingly even tone, he felt, then looked around the room with the mildest expression he could muster, stopping their smiles in their tracks. 'I will aid you in packing, when I have, ah, dressed properly, and then I need help with my tent.'
It was no surprise that they all looked to Thatcher for confirmation, but it rankled all the same.
He dressed as swiftly as he could, cursing as his arms protested being lifted in any way. Satisfied that his breasts were sufficiently flattened, he put on a coat to hide the curve of his waist from behind, and strode out of his tent. Thatcher's decamping was done with a surprising amount of efficiency and an unsurprising amount of swearing. The burly man- Roland- gave the orders with a quiet assurance that Adhemar reacted to with instinctive obedience, and the tent was taken down, the lances bundled and lashed and in the back of the wagon efficiently. There were shocked looks from passers-by at the spectacle of Adhemar helping a rival in such a way, and he devoted himself to happy fantasies of beating the black prince in jousting-- there were a surprising number of ways a man in armour could leave a saddle, each pleasurable to consider. When he was handed a box of tools that he wasn't expecting to be heavy that his thoughts evaporated and pain shot through his arms. How he didn't curse he had no idea. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and carried the box to the wagon.
'Are you well?' Thatcher asked. He nodded, and continued to work. He had his pride still.
His tent was easy to pack up. He had ensured that his retinue had taken most of the unnecessary things to his estates, and what remained was his armour and tack, his tent and bedding, and a few clothes. It made the interior sparse, but he had no one he needed to impress. He didn't participate in any of the idle chatter, or the ballads Wat kept half singing then losing interest in. There was the smell of campfires being doused hanging in the air, the sun lowering in the hazy sky, laughter floating across the encampment. There was a banquet that evening, but many of the competitors wished to travel through the evening, settling down on the floodplain half a day's ride from the next tournament. Thatcher, he knew, rarely went to the banquets, preferring the tavern with his men.
Roger's horse waited next to his own in the stable with full tack, all well polished. It was a noble gesture to groom the horse, and to produce it without having been first asked. A fine animal, eager but sweet natured, lipping his shoulder as he checked his flanks. He was a gelding, but a large one, black with a blaze on his forehead. There were no spur scars, and his lips looked as if Roger was easy on the reins, which was a mark in favour of both horse and rider. 'I can see why you put horses before women.'
He turned around. Thatcher stood in the entrance, a slight smile on his face. 'You have three horses stabled here,' he began, hesitation in his voice. 'That would be enough for each of us to ride, with one pulling each wagon, if you are willing.'
'It is practical to do it that way, yes,' Adhemar said mildly. 'Mistreat my horses, and I will gut you,' he said in the same tone, and went back to checking the horse. Thatcher huffed, then left. 'Peasant,' he muttered. The horse whinnied softly. 'Not you, my beauty. You are a thoroughbred, and a fine one at that.'
'Sweetening him up? You save soft words for your stable I see,'
He turned again. The prince was standing there in the garb of an ostler of all things. With a swift prayer to any listening God for patience, Adhemar led the horse out. 'If I ever find out who started the rumours about me and my steeds, I will exact retribution,' he said, very calmly he thought. The prince just grinned and threw him an apple.
'Your escort awaits.'
'Thank you, Jack.'
'Actually, it's Walter. I can see why you would make that mistake, though,' he allowed, generously.
Insanity.
With 'Walter's' help, he tied the horse to the wagon, and led all three down the slope to where Thatcher's group were waiting. Before he could be seen better, the prince veered off down one of the lanes of the camp whistling loudly. Adhemar took a bite of his apple and spent a few blissful seconds looking at the heir to the throne's arse. There were moments when life was pretty good.
Roland and Wat drove the wagons, and Adhemar his new horse, ignoring the smirks from the others, and the mutters of 'I suppose that's allegorical too, then' between Wat and Chaucer. Mistress Kate, who was on his current charger, began the singing, her voice clear and sweet and the ballad filthy. Soon they all joined in- it was the ballad of the three geese and the lonely witch, a particular secret favourite of his, and he sang the harmony, only momentarily discomfited by the sound of his new voice. It was a good thing they were ahead of the other travellers, and he relished the freedom to speak and sing between villages. They moved on to the ballad of the grey goat and the Bishop of Nantes, which he happened to know was at least partly factual, and when it was his turn to add a verse, he told the part that was true, which made Chaucer's eyes narrow speculatively and Christiana to laugh until she almost fell off her horse. If he were to inform Lady Jocelyn's father of the company she kept, Thatcher would be disposed of. It was always good to bear that in mind, he mused, at the same time knowing it would be impractical to wed a woman so given to free and wild behaviour. No crime in daydreaming, though.
'Adhemar, if the wind changes your face will stick that way.'
'That happened to you, I suppose, Fowlehurst?'
Wat was only prevented by launching himself out of his seat on the wagon by Jocelyn inserting her horse between them, and Adhemar carefully rearranged his features into something bland and pleasant. By the look she gave him it was not entirely successful.
Five ballads later, and they were at the camp.They chose a spot near the river and set up swiftly, taking advantage of the last of the sunlight. They slipped into working together well, and Adhemar, by dint of staying quiet, avoided dispute. He took it upon himself to tend to the horses, ignoring Wat's wink, feeding and watering them, then brushing them down. They were not too badly tired- the pace they had set was fairly gentle- and Thatcher's horses were all well cared for, so his job was an easy one. Having finished his task, he picked up his cloak and walked downriver, ignoring their shouts. He wanted to wash. It was not a womanly thing; he liked to be clean, or he became annoyed. 'If I do not bathe in the next five minutes, I will not be responsible for the consequences,' he said to whoever was following him.
'I am responsible for your safety. I will not discard that responsibility.'
'Fine, why don't you bring along the whole merry crew for comany, then,' Adhemar said with lofty sarcasm, a sarcasm that was clearly too lofty for Thatcher, as he gave an earsplitting whistle, and beckoned at the tent. He was being punished. He was sure of it.
Ignoring the chatter of the others, he stopped where the river was lazy and deep, edged with willows, removed his cloak then his clothes, and dived in, the cold shock of the water making him laugh as he dived to the bottom, sending bubbles up to the surface. He felt relaxed; even though warm water would have been better for his aches, he was getting clean.
Geoffrey was the next to enter the water, swaggering far too much for a lanky naked man, then Wat and Roland both jumped in, knees up to their chins with gleeful cackles and impressive splashes. Thatcher dived gracefully in, then the women in their chemises walked in, serene and beautiful in the moonlight. Adhemar ignored their horseplay as they did their best to drown each other, and took stock of his injuries. He was bruised badly, but his ribs were not broken-- the dive would have been agony if they had been. He was scraped and grazed, but not deeply, and none of his cuts were infected. His muscles would hurt for a while but nothing was torn. He was damned lucky.
'Adhemar, your back,' Christiana said quietly, standing away from the group. Adhemar raised his eyebrows, turning his head to look back at her. 'It is badly bruised,' she clarified.
'I believe, milady, everything is badly bruised. It comes of rattling around for two days in too large armour and letting big men ride at me carrying sticks.'
'You still helped with carrying and lifting, without complaint. Had I known you were injured, I would have given you lighter duties,' Thatcher said, and suddenly the attention of the whole group was on him. Selfconscious, he ducked under the water until only his head showed.
'Doing painful and foolish things when injured is part of a knight's job, Sir William,' he said with a frown.
'Yes, I know about knightly duties- Prince Edward instructed me for a week last September, wearing a monk's robes for some reason, but I didn't think you had...I didn't think you adhered to them.'
'I like fighting and winning. The duties of the noble are to carry on the line, to increase the honour of the family and to gain power and influence. My older brother has the happy duty of fornication, leaving me free to fight and win, which increases the honour and influence of the family. Being polite stops me from having my throat slit as I sleep. The rest of chivalry is ornamentation, a fine cloak for a plain woman. I am a practical man, Thatcher.'
'It is a bleak view of the world. Is there nothing else to it for you?'
Adhemar shrugged. 'I like horses, too.'
Wat's snigger was stifled hastily. Thatcher still looked perplexed. Adhemar let the debate go with a vague sense that they would never see eye to eye on this matter. Besides, Roland and Wat were engaged in a farting match. Accompanied by that odd music, Adhemar allowed his mind to drift as he floated, ignoring everything else as he looked up at Thatcher's precious stars, thinking of nothing in particular.
The next morning he rose early, picked a practice lance and took his horse to a broad, flat stretch of land near to the campsite. It would have been easier with someone holding a target for him but he had made a study of jousting, had memorised every joust he had done, every height his lance had had to be to hit the heart. He rode each joust again now, the lance steady and true and at a different angle each time, riding for a greater distance than was necessary each time. Accuracy would not be enough, now. When he was young, he was called 'leadbottom' by his peers, for his ability to stay in the saddle, to take a blow and stay there, to get hit backwards and stop his flight. He would, given a month, relearn that, but the next tournament started in two days. He let his lance rest on the ground, looking across to the camp, the distant sounds of people waking up, invariably in the wrong bed with the mother of all headaches accompanying the birds. He looked down at his horse, who stood calmly, breathing gently. 'How fast can you go?' he asked him, smiling as his ear tilted back. 'Charge,' he whispered, lifted his lance and leaned forward as the horse took off. It had the familiar sensation of riding on an avalanche, but he concentrated on keeping his arm steady, the lance straight and true, on locking his body into a position where, were he hit, he could stay on the horse. He pulled the reins back gently, and let the horse get his breath back, shaking his shoulder out. It might work. It might kill him, going that fast, but it might work. He tried again, this time moving his lance from Thatcher's height to Coleville's mid-ride. It worked. He dismounted, feeling giddy as a nun at a tavern, hefted his lance onto his shoulder and made his way back to camp. His horse was still eager, not even a bit tired. Roger must be seething right now. He smiled again. Good.
'Good lad,' he murmured, brushing him down and giving him an apple. 'We'll go far, you and I.'
'When you've finished with your horse, breakfast is ready.'
He turned, scanning Wat's face for any hint of amusement. He found plenty, and temporarily gave upon defending his reputation with horses. This was a losing battle.
Breakfast was a quiet affair- none of them were cheerful in the morning, which had been one of Adhemar's main misgivings in this excursion. There was nothing worse than someone happy with no reason to be. It was why peasants were so damned annoying, with their toothless smiles and their poverty and their lice.
'The bread is to be eaten, not strangled,' Roland commented. Damn. Adhemar loosened his grip and smiled benevolently. They all shuddered a little, so he settled for a neutral expression, and started delicately nibbling the bread.
On a whim, when breakfast was done, he changed into the few women's garments he had in his tent before his change-- Germaine: the man was as bent as a recurve bow-- and went wandering through the camp, taking advantage of his companions' occupation with a protracted way of determining who would be potwasher. His short hair he covered with a veil, and in his sleeves he had three daggers strapped in wristsheathes and a vial of poison. The disguise was rather fun, but the looks of the men reminded him of being in that Greek monastery when he was fifteen. He kept a hand to his knives and tried to remember that, generally speaking, women didn't stride.
A group of five men blocked his path when he'd passed Anjou's tent. 'A kiss to pass,' their leader said. Adhemar knew he was smiling rather too widely for maidenly virtue, but damn if this wasn't the perfect chance for a nice civilised brawl. He ducked his head, pretending bashfulness rather too late, but men were idiots.
'One kiss, sir?' he asked, keeping his voice soft and breathy. He advanced, swiftly putting the vial of poison down his dress, away from accidental breakage.
'Aye. Sweet maid, ye know what a kiss is, now?'
He stood close to the leader. 'Yes, sir. From my study, I believe it is something like this,' he said, then delivered a punch that sent the man's head snapping back. 'Does anyone else wish for one of these kisses?' he asked, then, as the men stood, stunned, punched the second in command in the stomach, knocking the breath from him. The ensuing fight was fast,brutal, and didn't even require him to take his knives out. The men were poorly disciplined, and he told them so once they were incapacitated sufficiently. He had reached the part of his lecture when he dealt with their hygeine when he heard a groan behind him.
'They attempted to detain me, Sir William,' he said, then nudged the leader with his boot. 'Detaining women is wrong, is it not?' A groan was as good as a yes, Adhemar decided, and left them deciding precisely whose fault this was among themselves.
'You know, I do love a good fight,' he said to the world at large, testing his split lip gingerly with his fingers. 'It's bracing, puts the world into perspective. Helps one to relax.'
Thatcher was still having trouble speaking. 'Detaining women is wrong?'
He really did flounder sometimes. 'Of course it is. Impractical, besides. One shriek from me and they would have been beset with hotheaded young knights, eager to prove themselves. The tournaments are full of them. It was a poorly thought-out plan, performed by an inadequately trained group of idiots.'
'You object to their strategy?'
What else was there to- oh. The moral aspects. Adhemar decided to make it easier for Thatcher to reconcile himself with the world. 'Of course, it goes without saying that treating a woman that way is shocking, and shouldn't be allowed,' he said as he tested his right hand and then his left. Thatcher subsided a little, and they got back to the tent without further misadventure.
He was oddly disappointed at the lack of idiotic fussing, but was grateful for the warmed water and Wat's surprisingly steady hands as his split lip and a small cut above his eyebrow were cleaned. 'You fonged 'em good, then?' Wat asked, with a grin. Adhemar nodded, pleased. For an utter simpleton, he clearly had a fine understanding of the delights of combat. 'All ten men?'
'There were five, and they were out of shape,' he corrected. No point in gilding the lily. 'But I fonged them thoroughly.'
'Good. They deserved it. Kate carries a hammer wherever she goes, and uses it, more often than not. Or used to, before they were tired of broken bones and cracked skulls. Her fame has reached that far that they don't trouble her that much.'
Fame. That whole group was famous. There were ballads about them, sung by the commoners. Among the nobility, well. Thatcher's 'ancient line' was not believed in any way. He had carefully avoided the gossip, did not venture an opinion even when pressed. He knew when he had pushed the prince's patience far enough. Besides, a graceful silence had gone a long way towards healing his tattered reputation. The wedding gift he had sent them upon their marriage didn't hurt either. It was his second best silver platter, but it was still a generous gift. It just happened to look horrible, if very very shiny. Thatcher being accepted by the nobility would take time, patience and the type of hard work Thatcher had no skill at. He could...nudge people in his direction, though, if only because Thatcher promised to be an amusing diversion, were he to attend banquets.
'You know, there are the strangest stories travelling around camp, about a seven foot tall woman with red eyes. Please tell me they are untrue.'
Wat jumped, stumbled to his feet and attempted a bow. Adhemar looked up at the prince and was just about to speak when he was hauled unceremoniously into his empty tent.
'Have you no self preservation, Adhemar? Or are you so addled with the knocks to your head that you deliberately go out in a dress then fight like a man? People will talk, there are already rumours and when Adhemar is seen with a split lip and a slender waist--'
The prince stopped, and folded his arms. 'All of which, of course, you knew. Was there a purpose to this rebellion?'
'The rumours are of a demonic woman. I am not seven feet tall. The men I fought are prone to exaggeration, and did not want to be seen to have been beaten by a slender woman of a little above average height. Rumours change as they fly around camp and by this afternoon they will be forgotten. Sire. I knew this when I started the fight. Would you have had me kiss them to be let through instead?'
It really was a glorious sight, watching the prince garner patience from somewhere. 'Was there a purpose to this rebellion?'
Adhemar contemplated the floor of the tent for as long as he could. 'No. None at all.' He could only conclude that he was being influenced by some sort of devil. A sensible man would have left it at that. 'But it was really really fun.' His last thought, between the prince's muffled roar and the fist arcing towards his jaw was somewhere between 'oops' and 'huzzah'.
Ouch. Oh, damn. He didn't open his eyes, just concentrated on regaining consciousness as slowly as he could. 'I thought it was just Wat who punched like that.'
He opened one eye. Chaucer was sitting on the floor next to his feet. With the pain in his jaw came a sense of giddy triumph. 'I did it. I bloody did it. I mean, my god, my teeth rattled, but do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get the prince to completely lose his temper?' As he laughed, he held his forehead to keep his brains in his skull, but the pain didn't dim his triumph at all. 'I am champion. The champion of everything. Has Thatcher been punched by the heir to the throne? No! No, he hasn't! I have.'
Chaucer looked at him, head tilted to one side. 'You are a very odd little man,' he said after some contemplation. Adhemar shrugged.
'My cousins all marry each other, and have done so for years. I don't stand a chance of sanity.'
He floated about in a happy if painful cloud for the rest of the day. Kate took his measurements for the armour, and they discussed ways to create an artificial shape for the armour, broadening his shoulders and thickening his waist, puzzling over the problem with little success. It was a problem, certainly-- he had no wish to rattle, and padding only worked so well if there was a gap between body and armour. They decided in the end to risk the smaller armour around the shoulders, and some padding around the waist, which would be hot and uncomfortable, but not unmanageable. 'I would prefer to fit it to your proper shape, breasts and all. Still, it will be lighter,' she said with a sigh, looking down at the slate with his true shape and the difference needed for a convincing male outline. She brightened suddenly. 'And if any woman should come to me, desiring armour- but no. Burnt at the stake. It should be no surprise, that to surmount your sex, you have to be a nobleman.'
'I cannot change the world.' Odd. It must have been because of the blow to his head, but briefly, very briefly, he rather wished he could. 'I think I need to lie down,' he said, and shakily took his leave of her, then lay in his tent until it passed.
His mental recitation of the number of ways Harold had been killed at Hastings was interrupted when a pile of clothes was thrown onto his head. He swore and sat up, batting away something made of very thin fabric that was surely impractical. The prince stood, arms folded, and nodded at the dresses. 'As I believe your dress was irreperably torn,' he said, still sounding somewhat grumpy.
'Well, you have better taste than Germaine.'
The prince blinked. 'You know of his...proclivities?'
'You know, were you not royalty, I would be somewhat injured by your assumption that I am an imbecile. Germaine regularly hums the melodies of Minstrel Kyle of Minogue, and has attempted to engage me on the subject of my feelings on five counts thus far. He also described Thatcher as 'dreamy' when he thought I was out of earshot. I often wonder if a more manly right-hand man would smooth my progress through life. As it is, his taste for dresses has been more of a help to me than he realises.'
He stopped speaking, knowing that 'ha ha, you hit me' was an imprudent thought to voice.
'But the dresses-- doyoulikethem?' he asked in a rush.
'Oh, Prince Edward, they're- they're beautiful,' he said, in his breathiest, girliest voice, clutching his furs to his chest and looking up through his eyelashes. 'But for me? Oh, I don't know what to say. You're so manly and generous.'
'I'm not going to hit you. I am in control of my actions. I am a stone in a still pond.'
Adhemar ostentatiously rubbed his jaw, but, to his credit, only started laughing when the prince had left the tent in a whirl of swishy coat and swearing.
They left the next morning, singing one of the most protracted versions of 'When the bishop of York went a-pillaging' he had ever participated in. They were the first to leave the campsite,so once more Adhemar joined in. After all, the bishop could hardly object to the song- he had an eye for an expensive trinket and a mean cudgelling arm. The tournament was in a big town, on the banks of the river, and Kate wasted no time in setting up her forge, the rest of them went to the tavern and Adhemar remained in his tent, having promised upon pain of a thorough fonging to stay there until they were back. It was no hardship; he had to care for his armour and work out how on earth to reply to the latest letter from his mother, whose spies had not written to her in three months. Admittedly, this was mainly because he had knocked them out and put them on a cart delivering silk to Antwerp, but he couldn't afford for her to know about his predicament. She had already attempted to have him declared insane once. God, he loved her. Best woman he knew.
He decided to polish and oil his armour instead, humming absent mindedly. He would have to compete in it tomorrow, and squeaky armour was undignified.
Dear Mother,
I regret that I have not encountered our cousins on their pilgrimage, and hope that they remain safe and unharmed. I had no idea your sister was quite so prolific, that is the seventh pair of cousins who have gone astray. I am only grateful that I have not inherited your family's poor sense of direction, and wonder at them being allowed to travel unsupervised at all. I am well. Yesterday, Prince Edward punched me in the jaw and then gave me a dress to make up for it. Please advise on the most flattering style of veil, as I am having trouble with the ones I have tried on thus far. I joust today at Rouen; I only hope that my breasts do not get in the way. Give my regards to father; I hope he hasn't been gnawing any more chairlegs.
Salutations,
Your daughter.
*
'Sir GIles of Monmouth. Isn't that--'
Adhemar nodded at Wat, feeling an icy weight settle in his stomach. He was going to die. Actually die. Wat crossed himself. The prince's herald finished speaking and then Chaucer announced him. He didn't pay any attention to the words, just wondered idly if his corpse would revert back to male form upon death. He was going to be thrown into the air, soar in an arc--
'The flag's dropped! Go!' Wat yelled. Adhemar took a deep breath.
'Charge.'
It was a glorious ride. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, his lance was steady and true and he was braced as well as he could be. Thinking fleetingly of Thatcher, he made sure to keep his eye on the target, to keep his speed up as the prince came closer, ever closer. He forgot that this was the heir to the throne, it was just a man to unhorse, an enemy-- at the last moment he threw himself forward, distantly aware he was shouting, and then everything was a whirl of sky and ground, then black
*
'You know, I don't think there's ever been a joust where both knights have been unhorsed.'
Adhemar opened one eye. His tent. Thatcher's grinning face. 'Is this hell?' he croaked, then lost consciousness again.
'They both flew backwards! I had no idea that was possible.'
He opened his other eye. Wat. 'This is still hell,' he said hoarsely. 'Wake me up when it's Kate's turn. She has a good face. Pretty.'
'You're delirious.'
'You're ginger. I wouldn't worry about it.'
Sleep.
A hand on his face, gentle. He smiled. 'Hello, beautiful,' he murmured.
'Hello, sunshine.'
Roland. damn. 'You have soft hands.'
'Thank you. Sleep, now, lad.'
Peace. He dreamt of the covent full of naughty nuns in Turin. Well, they had claimed they were nuns.
Someone climbed into his bed next to him. 'If you're Chaucer, I will stab you,' he promised sleepily. The man laughed warmly. The prince. He smiled. 'I unhorsed you.'
'Likewise. Go back to sleep.' He obeyed, with the prince wrapped around him like a limpet who also happened to be the heir to the throne.
Adhemar, when he looked back on that day, could only conclude that whatever providential power was looking after him was only very good at certain things. The thing that it had that day was timing. He awoke before his retinue on the day he jousted against Thatcher, after a year of cooling his heels and persuading himself that he didn't yearn for revenge, and for that, he was eternally thankful, as it meant that they did not witness his discovery that he had a rather magnificent pair of breasts.
He had little belief in superstition, preferring instead to hit problems with sticks until they went away, or cheat outrageously. He had, until that day, discounted all allegations of witchcraft as the world's justified bias against unattractive women, who should be put in ponds where possible as a punishment for having warts, regardless of whether they were servants of Satan. He was forced, on that day, to rather rethink his firmly held views. Remaining extremely quiet, he tentatively looked down at the rest of his body. Yes. He was a woman, and were he not jousting that day against Sir William Thatcher of a line so ancient it had faded into obscurity, he would have left the tournament. As it was, he took a roll of linen cloth from the fabric chest, noting with grim satisfaction that Germaine's dress was still there, bound up his breasts, dressed hastily before anyone could enter the tent, resigned himself to wearing armour for the whole day and took one of the writing slates he used for ordering lances out of his saddlebag. On it, he wrote 'You are all commanded to go to my mother's estate immediately. Leave the fabric chest, and my weapons. Bring all extraneous items. She has need of you,' signed it, briefly contemplated using his seal then decided it would look absurd, and put a generous amount of coin on the board. Then, with much difficulty and no little amount of clanking, he put on his armour unaided, a process that left him grumpy, sweating and with the inescapable realisation that he was slimmer, lighter and with less muscle than before, and narrower shoulders to boot.
Firmly resolved to exact painful retribution on the person of the first idiot who crossed him, he went to the stable, mounted his horse by dint of clambering onto barrels and falling over a lot, before a stable boy came to his aid and, because he didn't laugh at him, became his temporary herald and squire. 'But my lord, how am I to announce you?' the boy asked, staggering under the weight of the lances. Adhemar took his helmet off and looked at him, mind very much elsewhere.
'Tell them I'm Count Adhemar,' he whispered, unwilling to test his voice.
'And should I say something nice about ye? The heralds I've heard say nice things.'
'Yes, yes, by all means,' he said then promptly dismissed the conversation from his mind. The joust was in ten minutes, and he decided that staying on his horse would be the result to aim for. They made their conspicuously ungainly way to the field, the stable boy puffed up with pride. Thatcher's lot were at the other end, huddled in a group. He nodded to the officiators, put his helmet on before anyone could get a good look at his face and watched his boy propping the lances off, muttering to himself. Nothing really mattered aside from Thatcher, not even his herald- 'William Thatcher, son of John the Thatcher, profoundly common but will put up with me so naturally he's amazing blah blah'. His boy stood in front of the crowd and puffed his chest out.
'My lords and ladies, Count Adhemar! Son of...someone really noble. He...um, he has really beautiful eyes and shiny armour!'
It would do. He accepted the lance, nodded his thanks, and rode at Thatcher almost before the flag went down. This, he thought as he struggled to keep his lance in line, was going to hurt.
He was right. By a miracle he broke his lance on Thatcher's chestplate, by dint of throwing his weight forward right before impact. Thatcher's lance broke, too. He sighed and resigned himself to another dangerous ride at more pain. The next ride, his lance didn't break, Thatcher's did and he was thrown back in the saddle, looking at the sky through his visor as he tried not to swear too blasphemously. The third ride, both their lances broke, mainly because Thatcher was off-balance and had slowed down his horse a few yards before they clashed. Adhemar was just glad it was over, and ignored the crowds and his herald, rode off the field and sat on his horse in the stable for the two hours between tournaments, hungry, needing to relieve himself and unwilling to get off the horse, feeling the clear certainty that he wouldn't get on again.
The next joust was against one of the lesser Percys, an untried youth. He didn't unhorse him, but thankfully it wasn't like being hit with an anvil, and he was coming to enjoy the boy's introductions. His hair was very well brushed and he had a fine bone structure, the boy was right. He won by one lance, rode back to the stable, dismissed his boy with a generous amount of coin, moved his horse over to a large pile of feed then tumbled off with a clatter, sat up and remained in the hay, his head in his hands, for a long time.
Once he had prised his armour off, he went back to his tent, which now looked stark and bare. The dress was still in the fabric chest. It was an odd colour, but would suffice. He had never been so glad of having a man so fond of the feminine side of life in his pay. Determined to do something before the pain from his jousts set in, he put it on, with a tunic over it, tied a cloth over his hair like a peasant woman put on a cloak and left the tent, still in his boots, the feeling of the dress over his breasts distracting. If he had some underclothes...
He had decided that this change must have been caused by a witch, as was traditional, as he had done nothing to warrant divine retribution. Nothing at all. So he asked every passer-by if there was a witch on the encampment, was directed to numerous unattractive but nonmagical women, and was on the point of giving up when he saw a woman with red hair, freckles and green eyes. She probably had warts somewhere, but the main clue as to her fiendish identity was the way she burst out laughing when she saw him.
'You are an odd woman, and no mistake,' she said when she had calmed down enough to invite him into her tent.
Adhemar counted to ten, then drew his knife and had it at her throat before she could say anything more. 'Remove the spell, or I will gut you. Slowly.'
She gulped. 'I- well, this is all a misunderstanding, I'm sure. Why don't we sit down and talk this through, I'm sure--'
'Remove. The. Spell.'
'Well, you see, it isn't that simple. You--'
She broke off again. Adhemar nodded, in an encouraging way, and pressed the knife a little closer, also in an encouraging way. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. 'Youhavetobecomeawiserandbetterpersonandtreatwomenbetterthenthespellwillbreak,' she finished in a rush. 'I saw you strike one of your men yesterday, and have heard bad things of you, and I wanted to teach you gentleness. Obviously, turning you into a woman wasn't the best course of action, I see that now.'
'Because I am already wise and good, and need no improving,' he told her, causing her to twitch, open her mouth and then close it again.
'Yes. Ah, clearly. But I can't remove the spell. I'll have to-- please don't stab me, I'm thinking-- three months. I can change the spell from being conditional to being of a fixed time. Generally, three months is the length of time it takes for obtuse men to learn new things.'
Reality didn't so much illuminate like light through stained glass as crash over his head. 'Three months. As a woman. WIth all the requisite...things.'
'Yes. All the things.'
She was laughing at him.
'So were I to lie with a man...'
'Well he'd be a bit annoyed, I mean honesty's the best policy-'
'Fonging, madam witch. Fonging. Would it result in a child?'
Her eyes widened, she put a hand to her mouth and made a sound suspiciously like a laugh. 'No, Count Adhemar. Of course not. A man carrying a child would...well, I suppose the armour could be modified, but...'
He turned on his heel and left. Three months. Three thrice-damned, poxridden months. There was nothing for it- he would be unfit to lead his men. He'd have to tell the Prince, loath though he was to tell anyone. Any withdrawal of his service would be construed as rebellion and he had no wish to be further chastened. Thankfully, an unheard-of knight with flawless technique and a suspiciously familiar herald, Sir Giles of Monmouth, was storming up the lists, which saved him the emissaries and long journey. He tugged his cloak tighter around himself and made his way to Sir Giles' tent. It was guarded, of course. The quiet string of oaths that issued forth from his lips made a passing blacksmith make the sign against evil and he rolled his eyes, wishing he had worn full armour, not this cloak.
'I request audience with Sir Giles,' he said to the guard, then sat on a nearby barrel to wait. He was tired and bruised, vexed beyond measure, and tried to summon calm from somewhere.
'He is currently dining with Sir William, Lady. I can inform him of your presence, if you desire it...'
'I can wait,' he said, somehow not swearing, and, to pass the time, mentally recited the name and manner of death of every French martyr he could recall. When Thatcher finally left, he was cold and hungry as well as fatigued, and couldn't summon up even a glare for the upstart. When asked his name and business, he lost what patience he posessed, lifted the guard up with sore arms, deposited him to the side of the tentflap and stormed in, let the cloak drop from his shoulders and stood, in his mantle, sword around his waist, in front of the Prince, in silence. For long moments, the Black Prince simply looked at him, a smile hovering around his mouth.
'Well, It explains the change in your jousting. It was all Sir William could talk of. He thought you were doing it on purpose to unsettle him.'
Adhemar, the proper etiquette for dealing with royalty drummed into him from boyhood utterly forgotten, picked up the unfinished goblet of wine, drained it, refilled it, drained it again and then swore with a fluency he did not know he posessed. Then, calmed if a little lightheaded, he offered the Prince a low bow. 'I regret that I am unable to command my men at this juncture should you require it. Please be assured, Sire, that were I able to I would do so, I would.'
His army had been the bargaining tool used by both men in their exceedingly polite and chivalrous but very public spat. It was a rather pleasurable way to argue- a polite withdrawal of men, a slowing down of infantry moving to the battlefield took the place of heated words. This time, his regret was sincere, if only because he happened to rather like beating the shit out of other men for the sake of it.
'Your second in command, presumably, could replace you,' the prince said, expression neutral.
'Sire, my second in command is utterly unfit for anything more complex than tying his shoes. It keeps the men loyal if there is no one decent to replace me were I deposed or killed. They rebel if any other man commands them.'
'Or woman, I suppose,' the prince murmured, then looked into his eyes until he was forced to return his gaze. 'You are uncommonly blunt tonight, Count Adhemar.'
'I have little choice. I am forced by circumstances beyond my control to be impolitic. I am unmistakeably a woman, and because of this cannot lead my men into battle for fear of discovery. I would be burned for a witch, however much I resemble, well, myself. I do not, however, have any wish to displease your highness.'
'This time.'
Adhemar looked down, shifted uncomortably on his feet. 'I have no choice but to tell you, and ask for your protection. I will be a woman for three months. I am, moreover, a woman with no retinue, a tent, horses, armour and lances to move to the next tournament, and a desire to compete.'
'Why do you wish to compete?'
He smiled thinly. 'I wish to win, as a woman. It is an amusing, though necessarily private, joke.'
'Very well. On two conditions.'
He braced himself. This was going to smart. He had carefully avoided any situation in which he owed the Black Prince anything. 'Name your terms, Sire.'
The Black Prince smiled, slowly, and Adhemar felt as if he were a rabbit in the clutches of a deceptively friendly looking eagle. Something deep in the pit of his stomach became oddly heavy, too, and he realised with a dim sense of curiosity that the man he was unchaperoned in this tent with was still very, very attractive. 'One: You accept the protection of whichever knight I put you with. Two: You will not withdraw when you tilt against me in the lists. I admit I relish the chance to give you the pounding you so richly deserve, even if it is not in the name of the Crown.'
Adhemar liked his instincts. They had saved him from many potentially dangerous situations, boring dinners and protracted and unsuccessful courtships. At this juncture, they were collectively screaming at him to get out of the tent, bargain and tournament ground very very fast. He knew who the knight was going to be, because he knew the prince, and the workings of his mind were similar to his own, twisted through though they were with a whimsical sense of honour, mercy and chivalry. 'You're putting me with Thatcher,' he said wearily, and sank into the nearest chair. 'You're going to unhorse me on the jousting field and humiliate me off it.'
The prince, to his credit, did not laugh, just poured him another goblet of wine, then sat across the table from him. 'You know, you make an oddly handsome woman. The fact that you could and probably would gut me in my sleep adds a certain something, too. This spell- I assume it did not happen naturally. What was it meant to teach you?'
'A lesson which, according to the witch who cast it, I am incapable of learning. I believe it was meant to teach me humility, gentleness and kindness. Having a womb does not do that. Just look at my mother,' he said with no small amount of pride. 'So she changed the terms of the spell to three months, as being a woman would serve me no useful moral purpose. If anything, I am rather less merciful. Still, I must be practical. I accept your terms, Sire.' The 'you utter bastard' remained unsaid, but the prince, by his smile, still heard it.
'You know, it's times like these that I remember how much I like being a prince,' he said with a broad smile 'It makes it all seem worthwhile, somehow.'
Adhemar looked with slightly drunken focus into the wine remaining in his goblet, seeing three months of sharing a tent with an angry redheaded man, a herald who had written some frankly shocking poetry and the young upstart and his beautiful bride. Oh, and her maid and the burly man who was utterly besotted with her and an unnatural blacksmith with more skill in her little finger than anyone he knew in that trade. This, surely, was purgatory. 'I vow to accept the protection of the knight with which you put me, and to tilt against you should we be matched in the lists,' he said, meeting the prince's eyes, putting his hand out across the table. The prince grasped his wrist, hand warm and callused.
'As you uphold the terms of our bargain, I extend my protection to you, your lands and your company and will prevent retribution upon your person should you be discovered to be a woman.'
It was a generous vow, more generous than Adhemar had hoped for, a vow that would protect him from being burnt as a witch, losing his army or becoming disinherited in the event of discovery. 'Thank you,' he said, and meant it. Apart, of course, from the company he would be keeping. Even that, though, was sensible- Thatcher was the only knight foolish enough to support a woman who wished to joust. He would doubtless think it romantic. Progressives always did. He stood up, only swaying a little, bid the prince goodnight, refusing an escort, and then skirted round the campfires to his deserted, fireless tent. He undressed in the chill, lay down and waited for sleep to overtake him. It was a long time coming.
*
'My Lord, I fail to see what this request has to do with Adhemar.'
Adhemar hastily pulled a shirt over his head, covering the chest bindings. 'Count Adhemar, are you decent?'
He undid the tent fastenings, and stepped back to let the prince and Thatcher through. The boy said nothing, just stared at him with a slight frown.Then, with lightning swiftness, his face cleared and he grinned, bouncing up on the balls of his feet and looking at the prince excitedly. 'I knew his jousting was off!' Adhemar longed briefly for more wine, despite his headache. 'I mean, now that you--I mean, you haven't much in the chest department, but you're a girl ,an actual lady girl!'
Adhemar felt bizarrely affronted. 'I have perfectly adequte breasts, Thatcher. I merely bind them.'
'Do they get in the way? I mean, what with being all--'
He made an obscure gesture in front of his chest, then, at Adhemar's blank look, repeated it. The prince, damn him to hell, did nothing to suppress the whelp's questioning, preferring instead to stand around looking very amused. 'You are, I assume, aquainted with the concept of armour? Mine does not currently look like something the Madonna would wear, were she to joust, does it? I bind them when necessary.' He stopped short of casting aspersions on Thatcher's intelligence and breeding and hoped that the prince would give him a damn good fee for his soldiers as a reward for this fortitude.
'And you're competing- but your retinue-'
'I dismissed them. You do well enough with the peasants you have picked up, I thought I should follow suit. It shall be a fashion soon enough. After all, they are even competing, are they not?'
As he ducked the punch and threw one of his own, he mentally waved goodbye to any sort of fee. There followed an exceedingly satisfying skirmish, stopped only when the prince grasped each of them by the ear and shook them. 'Enough.' he said quietly, letting Thatcher go. Adhemar was sorely tempted to try his luck against the prince-- he wanted to be treated like he was not royal in the joust, after all, why not here?-- but decided not to, given how his week was going. 'I see I should have made being polite a condition of your protection,' the prince told him, his grip still painful on his ear.
'No- hang on. Protection? He's- I am to provide an escort for him? He'll drive us mad, he'll kill us in our beds, there are women with us. He'll do unspeakable things to them- well, scratch the women part, but I have no desire to be poisoned.'
'It is in my interests to keep you alive and remain a part of your group, Sir William,' Adhemar said, still itching to elbow the prince, as his proximity was addling his thought processes. 'Therefore, it is in my interests also to remain civil. I apologise for my previous impoliteness.' Thatcher did another creditable impression of a grounded fish, and Adhemar counted to ten silently.
'Five,' the prince murmured in his ear, breath warm on the back of his neck. Andhemar jumped, making the prince release his ear, and hoped fervently that mindreading was a newly acquired skill. 'Your lips move. It's not very subtle,' he explained apologetically, and then beamed at Thatcher. 'So it's settled, then?'
Thatcher bowed low. 'I owe you more than this service, Sire,' he said quietly. 'We move on tomorrow. I will find you after the day's jousting. I have a herald, should you desire one, and squires to arm you.'
'I thank you, but I need no aid today,' Adhemar said, ear still smarting. Thatcher left with another bow to the prince.
'You joust in an hour,' the prince said. 'I will help you get ready.'
If he wanted to debase himself by playing squire, Adhemar saw no reason to stop him. 'I would be honoured, sire.'
'Please, call me Jack,' the prince said, with a wink. There were rumours of a strain of insanity running down his mother's line. Adhemar had never believed them more than at this moment.
He stood no chance of winning the tournament now, but Roger of Cardigan was a vain and boastful man, skilled but rash, and Adhemar was confident of his ability to win this joust at least. He prompted his horse into a charge, and kept his lance slightly to the left of where he was aiming, letting it waver enough so that Roger thought the rumours of his decline were true, then at the last second, aimed straight and true, putting more of his weight into it than was wise- he risked unhorsing himself in this strategy- and making a small twist that made his arms twinge with exertion. Roger flew in a satisfying arc and Adhemar nodded to Thatcher, who was standing at the front, looking unwillingly impressed. Thatcher nodded back, and he rode back to where 'Jack' was standing, in plain clothes he had obtained from lord alone knew where. The prince held his horse as he dismounted, then clapped him on the shoulder with a clunk that seemed to reverberate all the way up his arm. 'A brave technique, sir,' he said quietly.
'Aye, and not one I'll be able to repeat for a while,' he said ruefully, attempting to rotate his arm in the armour. It squeaked. Another afternoon spent caring for it. He missed his squires.
'You are injured?'
'I am unused to this body. In a week I will have mastery of it, and in three months I will be rid of it. Until then, I wait.'
'Only mastery?' the prince asked, and there was something of last night's smile in his eyes. Adhemar noded, his throat suddenly dry.
'There is nothing else, Jack.'
'There is pleasure, too,' he said, softly enough to ignore. Adhemar kept walking; he knew that the prince would not press the issue. He was, after all, an honourable man. When they were in his tent, he was concentrating too hard on not whimpering or cursing to give thought to the confusion his situation had brought. Sweat dripped off him, his muscles protested with every movement. He endured, as he methodically cleaned and oiled his armour, not allowing a sound to pass his lips. He was told that childbirth was a painful experience. He doubted it measured up to jousting in full armour with an unpracticed body and a mind that thought he was heavier and stronger than he was. Hopefully, he would never have to make the comparison. He started from his work when a damp cloth was draped around his neck. He had forgotten the prince was there.
'New armour. Lighter stuff. Mistress Kate, who travels with Sir William is in demand, and hers is light and strong- I scarce know how she does it. You would need to charm her, but I have faith in your ability. This armour's all very well, but it's heavy, and may start to rust- you haven't the time to look after it properly.'
And it would look as if he and Thatcher were firm friends, he realised. The prince didn't do anything without at least three good reasons. Adhemar reached up and brought the damp cloth down his arms, across his collarbone, the cool soothing it. 'Thatcher has no reason to allow her. The armour is a boon to him.'
'He will not stop her. She isn't his property.'
Contradicting the heir to the throne was rude. Adhemar kept silent as the prince took the cloth back and dipped it in more cold water, squeezing it over his head this time. He wished it was possible to bathe in the river, but he couldn't, not in daylight. He couldn't slake his lust on a tavern whore. He couldn't compete with the sword, or wrestle, or go to banquet--
'I am weary of this,' he said, his voice harsh. Small mercies-- he didn't have a high voice. That would have been intolerable. He put down the gauntlet very gently, stood up and faced the prince. Had he more time before Thatcher left, a nice tavern fight would have done nicely, but as it was...'you mentioned pleasure,' he said, meeting the prince's eyes squarely. It was, after all, nothing they had not done when he was in a man's body, many years ago. Most men did, in the field, then settled it with the church with a heavy purse, or a crusade if they had really really enjoyed it. He had been maneuvred into this request, but he didn't mind it too much, not when past pleasures promised future bliss.
The subsequent hour meant that when the time came to meet Thatcher's merry band of idiots, he was walking oddly but feeling exceedingly smug. He had forgotten to rebind his breasts, and there was a bruise on his collarbone. The prince had disappeared, no doubt wanting to try his hand as a serving wench in disguise or something, and he stood in his tent as arguing voices heralded the group's approach. The loyalty Thatcher commanded in them was impressive; their conversation was not. He checked the bed for signs of the past hour's leisure once more, and found none.
'I swear I will fong him and you besides if you don't tell me why in the name of Jerome and all the saints we are doing this, and for three months besides!'
The angry redhead burst into the tent, then stopped, looked, rubbed his eyes and looked again. 'Please tell me that's his sister, not him punished by God, as I haven't gone to confession this past month, and have no wish to be punished' he said, his voice trembling.
'It's funny, neither had I, and apparently there's no fixing it,' Adhemar said mildly, then watched with detached interest as he unfastened his trousers, checked twice and crossed himself, then looked at him again with an oddly cross-eyed expression of longing.
'You're all...you have- and- but God if you weren't a man and a bit evil and probably can't cook I would marry you,' he breathed. 'Count Adhemar, you have the most magnificent chest in Christendom.'
Outside, he could hear laughter hastily stifled, and silently promised retribution for Thatcher. Possibly in his sleep.
'Chest?'
The herald-- Chaucer-- barged in, elbowing Wat out of the way of the tent entrance, stopping dead as he saw Adhemar, and, by extension, the chest. Adhemar was feeling more tetchy with each passing minute, and resolved to make it two hours of pacifying fucking next time. He smiled slowly, executed an impeccable bow, and then smiled some more. 'Your eyes, milady, are like oak leaves at the turn of Summer, your teeth are like the snow, and your hair like a raven's wing, and your throat like marble, aside from the bruise, and were I not already married, and were you not an unmitigated scumbag, I too would marry you,' he declaimed. Adhemar's fingers twitched, and he counted to twenty, taking care to keep his mouth closed.
'I saw him first, you-'
He only enjoyed ending their fight by knocking their heads together a little. Well, a lot. At the sounds of the fight, the rest of the group piled into the tent, and he braced himself for another proposal of marriage. The burly man chuckled and clapped Thatcher on the shoulder. 'It explains why you complained he tilted like a girl, eh, lad?' he said, then rubbed his hands together. The smith, Kate, looked him up and down coolly, appraisingly.
'How long have you been like this?'
'Three days. A witch's curse. I have three months more.'
'You'll be wanting new armour, then. Your old armour fits poorly. You'll build the strength to wear it in time but you need it smaller, and lighter armour would aid you.'
She would get publicity from this- Thatcher's sworn enemy using her armour would silence at least some of her detractors. He had expected Thatcher to protest, but he merely watched quietly. Adhemar bowed. 'I would be in your debt, madam.'
'On one condition.'
Always conditions. Damn them. 'Name it.'
'No more tipping.'
She took a risk, a commoner dictating a nobleman's behaviour. It stood to lose her a valuable and powerful patron, and she knew it but didn't budge. 'Agreed,' he said, and because he was being polite, he shook hands on it and didn't wipe his hand on his shirt afterwards, though he itched to. He felt Lady Jocelyn's eyes on him, and bowed to her, then to her maid. 'I will take Sir Roger's horse, as my best horse is in your hands,' he said, in a surprisingly even tone, he felt, then looked around the room with the mildest expression he could muster, stopping their smiles in their tracks. 'I will aid you in packing, when I have, ah, dressed properly, and then I need help with my tent.'
It was no surprise that they all looked to Thatcher for confirmation, but it rankled all the same.
He dressed as swiftly as he could, cursing as his arms protested being lifted in any way. Satisfied that his breasts were sufficiently flattened, he put on a coat to hide the curve of his waist from behind, and strode out of his tent. Thatcher's decamping was done with a surprising amount of efficiency and an unsurprising amount of swearing. The burly man- Roland- gave the orders with a quiet assurance that Adhemar reacted to with instinctive obedience, and the tent was taken down, the lances bundled and lashed and in the back of the wagon efficiently. There were shocked looks from passers-by at the spectacle of Adhemar helping a rival in such a way, and he devoted himself to happy fantasies of beating the black prince in jousting-- there were a surprising number of ways a man in armour could leave a saddle, each pleasurable to consider. When he was handed a box of tools that he wasn't expecting to be heavy that his thoughts evaporated and pain shot through his arms. How he didn't curse he had no idea. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and carried the box to the wagon.
'Are you well?' Thatcher asked. He nodded, and continued to work. He had his pride still.
His tent was easy to pack up. He had ensured that his retinue had taken most of the unnecessary things to his estates, and what remained was his armour and tack, his tent and bedding, and a few clothes. It made the interior sparse, but he had no one he needed to impress. He didn't participate in any of the idle chatter, or the ballads Wat kept half singing then losing interest in. There was the smell of campfires being doused hanging in the air, the sun lowering in the hazy sky, laughter floating across the encampment. There was a banquet that evening, but many of the competitors wished to travel through the evening, settling down on the floodplain half a day's ride from the next tournament. Thatcher, he knew, rarely went to the banquets, preferring the tavern with his men.
Roger's horse waited next to his own in the stable with full tack, all well polished. It was a noble gesture to groom the horse, and to produce it without having been first asked. A fine animal, eager but sweet natured, lipping his shoulder as he checked his flanks. He was a gelding, but a large one, black with a blaze on his forehead. There were no spur scars, and his lips looked as if Roger was easy on the reins, which was a mark in favour of both horse and rider. 'I can see why you put horses before women.'
He turned around. Thatcher stood in the entrance, a slight smile on his face. 'You have three horses stabled here,' he began, hesitation in his voice. 'That would be enough for each of us to ride, with one pulling each wagon, if you are willing.'
'It is practical to do it that way, yes,' Adhemar said mildly. 'Mistreat my horses, and I will gut you,' he said in the same tone, and went back to checking the horse. Thatcher huffed, then left. 'Peasant,' he muttered. The horse whinnied softly. 'Not you, my beauty. You are a thoroughbred, and a fine one at that.'
'Sweetening him up? You save soft words for your stable I see,'
He turned again. The prince was standing there in the garb of an ostler of all things. With a swift prayer to any listening God for patience, Adhemar led the horse out. 'If I ever find out who started the rumours about me and my steeds, I will exact retribution,' he said, very calmly he thought. The prince just grinned and threw him an apple.
'Your escort awaits.'
'Thank you, Jack.'
'Actually, it's Walter. I can see why you would make that mistake, though,' he allowed, generously.
Insanity.
With 'Walter's' help, he tied the horse to the wagon, and led all three down the slope to where Thatcher's group were waiting. Before he could be seen better, the prince veered off down one of the lanes of the camp whistling loudly. Adhemar took a bite of his apple and spent a few blissful seconds looking at the heir to the throne's arse. There were moments when life was pretty good.
Roland and Wat drove the wagons, and Adhemar his new horse, ignoring the smirks from the others, and the mutters of 'I suppose that's allegorical too, then' between Wat and Chaucer. Mistress Kate, who was on his current charger, began the singing, her voice clear and sweet and the ballad filthy. Soon they all joined in- it was the ballad of the three geese and the lonely witch, a particular secret favourite of his, and he sang the harmony, only momentarily discomfited by the sound of his new voice. It was a good thing they were ahead of the other travellers, and he relished the freedom to speak and sing between villages. They moved on to the ballad of the grey goat and the Bishop of Nantes, which he happened to know was at least partly factual, and when it was his turn to add a verse, he told the part that was true, which made Chaucer's eyes narrow speculatively and Christiana to laugh until she almost fell off her horse. If he were to inform Lady Jocelyn's father of the company she kept, Thatcher would be disposed of. It was always good to bear that in mind, he mused, at the same time knowing it would be impractical to wed a woman so given to free and wild behaviour. No crime in daydreaming, though.
'Adhemar, if the wind changes your face will stick that way.'
'That happened to you, I suppose, Fowlehurst?'
Wat was only prevented by launching himself out of his seat on the wagon by Jocelyn inserting her horse between them, and Adhemar carefully rearranged his features into something bland and pleasant. By the look she gave him it was not entirely successful.
Five ballads later, and they were at the camp.They chose a spot near the river and set up swiftly, taking advantage of the last of the sunlight. They slipped into working together well, and Adhemar, by dint of staying quiet, avoided dispute. He took it upon himself to tend to the horses, ignoring Wat's wink, feeding and watering them, then brushing them down. They were not too badly tired- the pace they had set was fairly gentle- and Thatcher's horses were all well cared for, so his job was an easy one. Having finished his task, he picked up his cloak and walked downriver, ignoring their shouts. He wanted to wash. It was not a womanly thing; he liked to be clean, or he became annoyed. 'If I do not bathe in the next five minutes, I will not be responsible for the consequences,' he said to whoever was following him.
'I am responsible for your safety. I will not discard that responsibility.'
'Fine, why don't you bring along the whole merry crew for comany, then,' Adhemar said with lofty sarcasm, a sarcasm that was clearly too lofty for Thatcher, as he gave an earsplitting whistle, and beckoned at the tent. He was being punished. He was sure of it.
Ignoring the chatter of the others, he stopped where the river was lazy and deep, edged with willows, removed his cloak then his clothes, and dived in, the cold shock of the water making him laugh as he dived to the bottom, sending bubbles up to the surface. He felt relaxed; even though warm water would have been better for his aches, he was getting clean.
Geoffrey was the next to enter the water, swaggering far too much for a lanky naked man, then Wat and Roland both jumped in, knees up to their chins with gleeful cackles and impressive splashes. Thatcher dived gracefully in, then the women in their chemises walked in, serene and beautiful in the moonlight. Adhemar ignored their horseplay as they did their best to drown each other, and took stock of his injuries. He was bruised badly, but his ribs were not broken-- the dive would have been agony if they had been. He was scraped and grazed, but not deeply, and none of his cuts were infected. His muscles would hurt for a while but nothing was torn. He was damned lucky.
'Adhemar, your back,' Christiana said quietly, standing away from the group. Adhemar raised his eyebrows, turning his head to look back at her. 'It is badly bruised,' she clarified.
'I believe, milady, everything is badly bruised. It comes of rattling around for two days in too large armour and letting big men ride at me carrying sticks.'
'You still helped with carrying and lifting, without complaint. Had I known you were injured, I would have given you lighter duties,' Thatcher said, and suddenly the attention of the whole group was on him. Selfconscious, he ducked under the water until only his head showed.
'Doing painful and foolish things when injured is part of a knight's job, Sir William,' he said with a frown.
'Yes, I know about knightly duties- Prince Edward instructed me for a week last September, wearing a monk's robes for some reason, but I didn't think you had...I didn't think you adhered to them.'
'I like fighting and winning. The duties of the noble are to carry on the line, to increase the honour of the family and to gain power and influence. My older brother has the happy duty of fornication, leaving me free to fight and win, which increases the honour and influence of the family. Being polite stops me from having my throat slit as I sleep. The rest of chivalry is ornamentation, a fine cloak for a plain woman. I am a practical man, Thatcher.'
'It is a bleak view of the world. Is there nothing else to it for you?'
Adhemar shrugged. 'I like horses, too.'
Wat's snigger was stifled hastily. Thatcher still looked perplexed. Adhemar let the debate go with a vague sense that they would never see eye to eye on this matter. Besides, Roland and Wat were engaged in a farting match. Accompanied by that odd music, Adhemar allowed his mind to drift as he floated, ignoring everything else as he looked up at Thatcher's precious stars, thinking of nothing in particular.
The next morning he rose early, picked a practice lance and took his horse to a broad, flat stretch of land near to the campsite. It would have been easier with someone holding a target for him but he had made a study of jousting, had memorised every joust he had done, every height his lance had had to be to hit the heart. He rode each joust again now, the lance steady and true and at a different angle each time, riding for a greater distance than was necessary each time. Accuracy would not be enough, now. When he was young, he was called 'leadbottom' by his peers, for his ability to stay in the saddle, to take a blow and stay there, to get hit backwards and stop his flight. He would, given a month, relearn that, but the next tournament started in two days. He let his lance rest on the ground, looking across to the camp, the distant sounds of people waking up, invariably in the wrong bed with the mother of all headaches accompanying the birds. He looked down at his horse, who stood calmly, breathing gently. 'How fast can you go?' he asked him, smiling as his ear tilted back. 'Charge,' he whispered, lifted his lance and leaned forward as the horse took off. It had the familiar sensation of riding on an avalanche, but he concentrated on keeping his arm steady, the lance straight and true, on locking his body into a position where, were he hit, he could stay on the horse. He pulled the reins back gently, and let the horse get his breath back, shaking his shoulder out. It might work. It might kill him, going that fast, but it might work. He tried again, this time moving his lance from Thatcher's height to Coleville's mid-ride. It worked. He dismounted, feeling giddy as a nun at a tavern, hefted his lance onto his shoulder and made his way back to camp. His horse was still eager, not even a bit tired. Roger must be seething right now. He smiled again. Good.
'Good lad,' he murmured, brushing him down and giving him an apple. 'We'll go far, you and I.'
'When you've finished with your horse, breakfast is ready.'
He turned, scanning Wat's face for any hint of amusement. He found plenty, and temporarily gave upon defending his reputation with horses. This was a losing battle.
Breakfast was a quiet affair- none of them were cheerful in the morning, which had been one of Adhemar's main misgivings in this excursion. There was nothing worse than someone happy with no reason to be. It was why peasants were so damned annoying, with their toothless smiles and their poverty and their lice.
'The bread is to be eaten, not strangled,' Roland commented. Damn. Adhemar loosened his grip and smiled benevolently. They all shuddered a little, so he settled for a neutral expression, and started delicately nibbling the bread.
On a whim, when breakfast was done, he changed into the few women's garments he had in his tent before his change-- Germaine: the man was as bent as a recurve bow-- and went wandering through the camp, taking advantage of his companions' occupation with a protracted way of determining who would be potwasher. His short hair he covered with a veil, and in his sleeves he had three daggers strapped in wristsheathes and a vial of poison. The disguise was rather fun, but the looks of the men reminded him of being in that Greek monastery when he was fifteen. He kept a hand to his knives and tried to remember that, generally speaking, women didn't stride.
A group of five men blocked his path when he'd passed Anjou's tent. 'A kiss to pass,' their leader said. Adhemar knew he was smiling rather too widely for maidenly virtue, but damn if this wasn't the perfect chance for a nice civilised brawl. He ducked his head, pretending bashfulness rather too late, but men were idiots.
'One kiss, sir?' he asked, keeping his voice soft and breathy. He advanced, swiftly putting the vial of poison down his dress, away from accidental breakage.
'Aye. Sweet maid, ye know what a kiss is, now?'
He stood close to the leader. 'Yes, sir. From my study, I believe it is something like this,' he said, then delivered a punch that sent the man's head snapping back. 'Does anyone else wish for one of these kisses?' he asked, then, as the men stood, stunned, punched the second in command in the stomach, knocking the breath from him. The ensuing fight was fast,brutal, and didn't even require him to take his knives out. The men were poorly disciplined, and he told them so once they were incapacitated sufficiently. He had reached the part of his lecture when he dealt with their hygeine when he heard a groan behind him.
'They attempted to detain me, Sir William,' he said, then nudged the leader with his boot. 'Detaining women is wrong, is it not?' A groan was as good as a yes, Adhemar decided, and left them deciding precisely whose fault this was among themselves.
'You know, I do love a good fight,' he said to the world at large, testing his split lip gingerly with his fingers. 'It's bracing, puts the world into perspective. Helps one to relax.'
Thatcher was still having trouble speaking. 'Detaining women is wrong?'
He really did flounder sometimes. 'Of course it is. Impractical, besides. One shriek from me and they would have been beset with hotheaded young knights, eager to prove themselves. The tournaments are full of them. It was a poorly thought-out plan, performed by an inadequately trained group of idiots.'
'You object to their strategy?'
What else was there to- oh. The moral aspects. Adhemar decided to make it easier for Thatcher to reconcile himself with the world. 'Of course, it goes without saying that treating a woman that way is shocking, and shouldn't be allowed,' he said as he tested his right hand and then his left. Thatcher subsided a little, and they got back to the tent without further misadventure.
He was oddly disappointed at the lack of idiotic fussing, but was grateful for the warmed water and Wat's surprisingly steady hands as his split lip and a small cut above his eyebrow were cleaned. 'You fonged 'em good, then?' Wat asked, with a grin. Adhemar nodded, pleased. For an utter simpleton, he clearly had a fine understanding of the delights of combat. 'All ten men?'
'There were five, and they were out of shape,' he corrected. No point in gilding the lily. 'But I fonged them thoroughly.'
'Good. They deserved it. Kate carries a hammer wherever she goes, and uses it, more often than not. Or used to, before they were tired of broken bones and cracked skulls. Her fame has reached that far that they don't trouble her that much.'
Fame. That whole group was famous. There were ballads about them, sung by the commoners. Among the nobility, well. Thatcher's 'ancient line' was not believed in any way. He had carefully avoided the gossip, did not venture an opinion even when pressed. He knew when he had pushed the prince's patience far enough. Besides, a graceful silence had gone a long way towards healing his tattered reputation. The wedding gift he had sent them upon their marriage didn't hurt either. It was his second best silver platter, but it was still a generous gift. It just happened to look horrible, if very very shiny. Thatcher being accepted by the nobility would take time, patience and the type of hard work Thatcher had no skill at. He could...nudge people in his direction, though, if only because Thatcher promised to be an amusing diversion, were he to attend banquets.
'You know, there are the strangest stories travelling around camp, about a seven foot tall woman with red eyes. Please tell me they are untrue.'
Wat jumped, stumbled to his feet and attempted a bow. Adhemar looked up at the prince and was just about to speak when he was hauled unceremoniously into his empty tent.
'Have you no self preservation, Adhemar? Or are you so addled with the knocks to your head that you deliberately go out in a dress then fight like a man? People will talk, there are already rumours and when Adhemar is seen with a split lip and a slender waist--'
The prince stopped, and folded his arms. 'All of which, of course, you knew. Was there a purpose to this rebellion?'
'The rumours are of a demonic woman. I am not seven feet tall. The men I fought are prone to exaggeration, and did not want to be seen to have been beaten by a slender woman of a little above average height. Rumours change as they fly around camp and by this afternoon they will be forgotten. Sire. I knew this when I started the fight. Would you have had me kiss them to be let through instead?'
It really was a glorious sight, watching the prince garner patience from somewhere. 'Was there a purpose to this rebellion?'
Adhemar contemplated the floor of the tent for as long as he could. 'No. None at all.' He could only conclude that he was being influenced by some sort of devil. A sensible man would have left it at that. 'But it was really really fun.' His last thought, between the prince's muffled roar and the fist arcing towards his jaw was somewhere between 'oops' and 'huzzah'.
Ouch. Oh, damn. He didn't open his eyes, just concentrated on regaining consciousness as slowly as he could. 'I thought it was just Wat who punched like that.'
He opened one eye. Chaucer was sitting on the floor next to his feet. With the pain in his jaw came a sense of giddy triumph. 'I did it. I bloody did it. I mean, my god, my teeth rattled, but do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get the prince to completely lose his temper?' As he laughed, he held his forehead to keep his brains in his skull, but the pain didn't dim his triumph at all. 'I am champion. The champion of everything. Has Thatcher been punched by the heir to the throne? No! No, he hasn't! I have.'
Chaucer looked at him, head tilted to one side. 'You are a very odd little man,' he said after some contemplation. Adhemar shrugged.
'My cousins all marry each other, and have done so for years. I don't stand a chance of sanity.'
He floated about in a happy if painful cloud for the rest of the day. Kate took his measurements for the armour, and they discussed ways to create an artificial shape for the armour, broadening his shoulders and thickening his waist, puzzling over the problem with little success. It was a problem, certainly-- he had no wish to rattle, and padding only worked so well if there was a gap between body and armour. They decided in the end to risk the smaller armour around the shoulders, and some padding around the waist, which would be hot and uncomfortable, but not unmanageable. 'I would prefer to fit it to your proper shape, breasts and all. Still, it will be lighter,' she said with a sigh, looking down at the slate with his true shape and the difference needed for a convincing male outline. She brightened suddenly. 'And if any woman should come to me, desiring armour- but no. Burnt at the stake. It should be no surprise, that to surmount your sex, you have to be a nobleman.'
'I cannot change the world.' Odd. It must have been because of the blow to his head, but briefly, very briefly, he rather wished he could. 'I think I need to lie down,' he said, and shakily took his leave of her, then lay in his tent until it passed.
His mental recitation of the number of ways Harold had been killed at Hastings was interrupted when a pile of clothes was thrown onto his head. He swore and sat up, batting away something made of very thin fabric that was surely impractical. The prince stood, arms folded, and nodded at the dresses. 'As I believe your dress was irreperably torn,' he said, still sounding somewhat grumpy.
'Well, you have better taste than Germaine.'
The prince blinked. 'You know of his...proclivities?'
'You know, were you not royalty, I would be somewhat injured by your assumption that I am an imbecile. Germaine regularly hums the melodies of Minstrel Kyle of Minogue, and has attempted to engage me on the subject of my feelings on five counts thus far. He also described Thatcher as 'dreamy' when he thought I was out of earshot. I often wonder if a more manly right-hand man would smooth my progress through life. As it is, his taste for dresses has been more of a help to me than he realises.'
He stopped speaking, knowing that 'ha ha, you hit me' was an imprudent thought to voice.
'But the dresses-- doyoulikethem?' he asked in a rush.
'Oh, Prince Edward, they're- they're beautiful,' he said, in his breathiest, girliest voice, clutching his furs to his chest and looking up through his eyelashes. 'But for me? Oh, I don't know what to say. You're so manly and generous.'
'I'm not going to hit you. I am in control of my actions. I am a stone in a still pond.'
Adhemar ostentatiously rubbed his jaw, but, to his credit, only started laughing when the prince had left the tent in a whirl of swishy coat and swearing.
They left the next morning, singing one of the most protracted versions of 'When the bishop of York went a-pillaging' he had ever participated in. They were the first to leave the campsite,so once more Adhemar joined in. After all, the bishop could hardly object to the song- he had an eye for an expensive trinket and a mean cudgelling arm. The tournament was in a big town, on the banks of the river, and Kate wasted no time in setting up her forge, the rest of them went to the tavern and Adhemar remained in his tent, having promised upon pain of a thorough fonging to stay there until they were back. It was no hardship; he had to care for his armour and work out how on earth to reply to the latest letter from his mother, whose spies had not written to her in three months. Admittedly, this was mainly because he had knocked them out and put them on a cart delivering silk to Antwerp, but he couldn't afford for her to know about his predicament. She had already attempted to have him declared insane once. God, he loved her. Best woman he knew.
He decided to polish and oil his armour instead, humming absent mindedly. He would have to compete in it tomorrow, and squeaky armour was undignified.
Dear Mother,
I regret that I have not encountered our cousins on their pilgrimage, and hope that they remain safe and unharmed. I had no idea your sister was quite so prolific, that is the seventh pair of cousins who have gone astray. I am only grateful that I have not inherited your family's poor sense of direction, and wonder at them being allowed to travel unsupervised at all. I am well. Yesterday, Prince Edward punched me in the jaw and then gave me a dress to make up for it. Please advise on the most flattering style of veil, as I am having trouble with the ones I have tried on thus far. I joust today at Rouen; I only hope that my breasts do not get in the way. Give my regards to father; I hope he hasn't been gnawing any more chairlegs.
Salutations,
Your daughter.
*
'Sir GIles of Monmouth. Isn't that--'
Adhemar nodded at Wat, feeling an icy weight settle in his stomach. He was going to die. Actually die. Wat crossed himself. The prince's herald finished speaking and then Chaucer announced him. He didn't pay any attention to the words, just wondered idly if his corpse would revert back to male form upon death. He was going to be thrown into the air, soar in an arc--
'The flag's dropped! Go!' Wat yelled. Adhemar took a deep breath.
'Charge.'
It was a glorious ride. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, his lance was steady and true and he was braced as well as he could be. Thinking fleetingly of Thatcher, he made sure to keep his eye on the target, to keep his speed up as the prince came closer, ever closer. He forgot that this was the heir to the throne, it was just a man to unhorse, an enemy-- at the last moment he threw himself forward, distantly aware he was shouting, and then everything was a whirl of sky and ground, then black
*
'You know, I don't think there's ever been a joust where both knights have been unhorsed.'
Adhemar opened one eye. His tent. Thatcher's grinning face. 'Is this hell?' he croaked, then lost consciousness again.
'They both flew backwards! I had no idea that was possible.'
He opened his other eye. Wat. 'This is still hell,' he said hoarsely. 'Wake me up when it's Kate's turn. She has a good face. Pretty.'
'You're delirious.'
'You're ginger. I wouldn't worry about it.'
Sleep.
A hand on his face, gentle. He smiled. 'Hello, beautiful,' he murmured.
'Hello, sunshine.'
Roland. damn. 'You have soft hands.'
'Thank you. Sleep, now, lad.'
Peace. He dreamt of the covent full of naughty nuns in Turin. Well, they had claimed they were nuns.
Someone climbed into his bed next to him. 'If you're Chaucer, I will stab you,' he promised sleepily. The man laughed warmly. The prince. He smiled. 'I unhorsed you.'
'Likewise. Go back to sleep.' He obeyed, with the prince wrapped around him like a limpet who also happened to be the heir to the throne.