FIC: Seals of Love (1/?)
Title: Seals of Love
Genre: Much Ado About Nothing
Rating: T (some implications)
Author: tkel_paris
Summary: Written as a Christmas present for sykira. A what if inspired by my writing “Glance of Love” and the indications of what might have been for Benedick and Beatrice had their merry war not been triggered.
Disclaimer: Good lord, I'm writing fanfic about a Shakespeare play! Do I need to write that I own nothing? Especially when it's inspired by a particular stage performance?
Dedication: sykira. Merry Christmas, love. :D With thanks to bas_math_girl for beta reading.
Author's Note: When my Muse got the bug that later became “Glance of Love”, she got a few other ideas as well. And now that NaNo's over, I'm working on the Christmas stories. Thank goodness some of them were already done. :D
And I picked names out of my character name book. I was on a meaning kick, so that explains the five I chose. :)
And sykira, so sorry this isn't completely finished. Muse was being fickle, and I couldn't make good progress with this or with Flipped 2. But I was determined to have something of this to post for you. Please enjoy, and send any ideas you might have - the end is still open. :D
Seals of Love
Started December 4, 2012
Finished December 2012/January 2013
CHAPTER ONE: THEY ARE RETURNED
It was a fairly quiet moment outside the governor of Messina's house. His niece, Beatrice, lay on a lounge chair, feet resting up on the head as she read a magazine on the latest news. Sunglasses covered her light eyes, and her ginger hair was offset by her purple shirt and her blue jeans.
Near her, sitting on the ground and playing with blocks, was a two years old girl with hair that nearly matched Beatrice's - the only difference was the brown tone. She smiled at the sight of Sienna, who looked briefly at her with a grin and shining dark eyes before returning to her creation.
In front of the other lounge chair, her blonde cousin Hero stood - equally barefoot - in a fluffy pink skirt and a nearly matching pink bikini top. Her bum bag was open, ready to hold the music player she was setting. She quietly gave instructions to the nine years old girl next to her. The girl's completely ginger locks declared her connection to Beatrice, but she listened in rapt attention as she followed her older cousin's directions. She wore a pink dress that swirled if she spun quickly. She also carried a bum bag and held a music player in her hands, turning it on when directed to.
Hero whispered, “Now back inside.” She demonstrated how to place the player in the pack, and smiled as her cousin copied her. “Now we're ready, Rue.” She began a sort of marching before launching into a dance. Rufine copied her almost perfectly, if a beat off at first.
Beatrice looked up as the shadows caught her attention. Her mouth dropped, followed by her head. Oh god, what was this? Her eldest child, and she was such a girly girl!
Rufine loved feeling like a big girl, like her cousin. She was so caught up in copying that she was startled when Hero suddenly pulled her earphones down. Looking in the same direction, she copied Hero as her great-uncle - whom she treated as a grandfather - had come.
Leonato declared, pulling his cigar out of his mouth, “I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon comes this night to Messina!”
The news sent Hero scurrying away in silent excitement to put on a dress. Squealing, Rufine and Sienna ran in the opposite direction, going to tell their siblings and great-aunt the news.
Beatrice was struck silent. This was the news she had been waiting to hear for months, but she lacked the critical detail she needed. She barely heard her uncle speaking with the prince's messenger, for her mind was overcome with concerns that her daughters would not be thinking of. Indeed, she had in many ways sheltered her children from certain realities of the world, although the two eldest had to be close to realizing the unpleasant truth that not everyone who went to war came home.
Having slipped her sandals back on, she leaned against a pillar with a lager in hand. She could hear Hero and Margaret giggling to each other about a lord named Claudio, who Beatrice remembered her cousin favoring when the army left on this ended action. When the messenger paused in his praise of Claudio, Beatrice pushed up her glasses and spoke. “I pray you, is Senor Mountanto returned from the war... or no?” Her words were careless, but she felt like she was trembling as she waited for an answer.
The Messenger didn't notice Leonato rolling his eyes. “I know none of that name, Lady. There was none of any sort in the army.”
“What is he that you ask for, niece?” asked Leonato, knowing the answer.
Hero spoke, wanting to stop this nonsense. “My cousin means Senor Benedick of Padua - her husband.”
The Messenger's eyes lit in recognition, and, as he answered, looked at Beatrice with newfound curiosity. “Oh, he is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.”
Beatrice all but sagged against the pillar. But her wit would not be suppressed. “I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed, for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing,” she finished, gently nudging the Messenger's arm.
“Faith, niece!” interjected Leonato as he walked past them. “You tax Senor Benedick too much, but he'll be meet with you... I doubt it not.” He glanced back at her before he left to summon his wife and the rest of Beatrice's family. Although he guessed that his young great-nieces had already spread the word.
As Beatrice walked in the opposite direction, the Messenger engaged her in conversation, curious to learn for himself what the Senor's lady was like. “He hath done good service in these wars, lady.”
She turned, grinning. “You hath musty victual, and he hath helped to eat it; he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.”
“And a good soldier, too, lady,” the Messenger added, watching as she pulled out her pack of cigarettes.
Oh, she liked an opening when she had one. “And a good soldier to a lady.” It rendered the Messenger confused, allowing her to continue her fun. “But what is he to a lord?”
“A lord to a lord, a man to man, stuffed with all honourable virtues.”
She suppressed a laugh. These soldiers were so ridiculous with their pomp and circumstance, and she wished that their subject was there to participate, for she knew he would have an excellent answer for that. “It is so indeed, he is no less than a stuffed man.” She rounded the Messenger, ignoring that her aunt had arrived, bringing Rufine, Sienna, and their siblings: Rufine's twin, Adrian; the almost seven years old Crispin, named for his hair; and fours years old Ignac, named after his high spirits as much as his also having his mother's hair. The children were, after all, used to hearing her mock their father - and she had some cause since he had persuaded her to name all their children for something connected to their hair. “But for the stuffing, well... we are all mortal,” she added around her unlit smoke.
Leonato had to speak, to explain the situation to the baffled Messenger. “You must not mistake my niece. Doubt not that there is a deep love betwixt Senor Benedick and her,” he insisted, motioning at the five children standing next to Innogen. “And yet almost since they were introduced there has always been a kind of merry war between them. They never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them.”
Beatrice spared her uncle a glance. “Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict, before he left to fulfill his duties to the prince, four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one.” The others laughed, the Messenger uncertain. Her children shared a long-suffering look, shared only by those silently bemoaning their elders' behavior. Beatrice's wit would not remain silent. “Who is his companion now?” she asked the Messenger, who practically sat on his heels. “He hath every month a new sworn brother.”
“Is't possible?”
“Very easily possible: he wears his faith with the fashion of his hat, it ever changes with the next block.”
The Messenger stood. “I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.”
“No; and he were, I would burn my study.” Her children all rolled their eyes as she stood. “But I pray you, who is his companion? A lady needs to know if there is no young squarer now who will make a voyage with her husband to the devil.”
“He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio,” the Messenger answered, pointing with the hand holding a lager at Hero, suspecting the lady's preference.
Hero and Margaret grew excited, but Beatrice all but groaned. “O lord! He will hang upon him like a disease. He is sooner caught than the pestilence and the taker runs presently mad.” She motioned Hero's way. “God help the noble Claudio, if he hath caught the Benedick,” she spat. “It will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.”
“I will hold friends with you, lady,” the Messenger declared.
“Do.” Beatrice winked with an accompanying sound, drawing wordless respect and admiration from the Messenger's lips. “Good friend.” She lit her cigarette.
“You will never run mad, niece?” Leonato asked pointedly, motioning at the evidence of her contact with Benedick.
She grinned as she blew out smoke. “No, not till a hot January.”
He laughed silently, marveling again at how well she and her husband suited.
Two of Leonato's men opened a nearby gate quickly. “Ah,” the Messenger announced, handing his lager to a nearby woman, “Don Pedro is approached.” The women of the house scrambled about as five soldiers entered on a march, Hero and Margaret rushing away for admiring looks. Beatrice strolled slowly away, snapping her fingers for her children to attend her. They did, eying their cousin and her gentlewoman's sighing aloud in delight. It was more interesting to watch the Messenger greet Don Pedro with a salute, and how the others saluted a moment behind Don Pedro.
Then a horn blasted musically, and a golf cart rolled into sight while Don Pedro spoke with the Messenger. The other four soldiers parted to make room for the beaming man driving the cart, all but one grinning at the sight. The children grew excited, the youngest bouncing with joy. They barely waited for him to stop the cart, step out slightly and toss his hat in the air before swarming him. “Father!”
Benedick barely had the time to fully hop out and push his sunglasses up on his head. His already huge smile grew as he managed to open his arms to let them all into an embrace - with his eldest son having unerringly caught his hat first despite several being in the air at once. He returned their exclamations about missing him with quieter assurances.
He lifted his youngest onto his hip and let her cling to him as he had his other children help him pass out items from the cart while he let them speak of their latest accomplishments. Adrian had the task of helping give out the lager while Don Pedro greeted Leonato.
The words flowed happily between father and children until they were stunned to hear Leonato say, “Her mother hath many times told me so.” They looked at him with confusion.
The indignant look on Innogen's face told Benedick what the topic had been. To try to prevent a scene, he asked a joking question as he tossed Don Pedro a lager. “Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?”
Leonato removed the cigar. “Nephew, no, for then... were you a child.”
Benedick's smile wasn't as big as Leonato's or the prince's. He didn't consider this something worth joking about, and remained silent through Don Pedro's comments, until he had an opening. “If Senor Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.”
His two eldest understood the words. The younger ones frowned.
Beatrice, who had remained seated and refused to join in the greeting, could not resist. “I wonder that you will still be talking, Senor Benedick: nobody but your children mark you.”
Benedick's frame froze upon hearing the voice he had been without except for his memories for months. He moved slowly to place their youngest on her feet, and turned even slower to face her and strolled over as he spoke. “What... my dear lady Disdain... are you yet living?” But he stopped near her, waiting for her to let him know what she intended.
She pushed her glasses up, and grinned as she stood. “Is it possible disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it as Senor Benedick?” They clinked their lagers, letting their fingers touch afterward briefly. It was past time for a sparring match. “Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come into her presence.”
“Then is courtesy a turn-coat,” he challenged. “But it is certain that I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted, and I would that I find I had not a hard heart for truly... I love none.” He took a long sip.
Their children watched with frowns. The oldest might remember their parents engaging each other in such a manner before, but it still made little sense.
Beatrice hardly waited. “A dear happiness to women! They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor.” Even a challenging look from her husband, which was evident through his usual smile, encouraged her. “I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that; I had had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
“If thou were still unwed, I would that God keep your ladyship still in that mind so some poor gentleman or other shall escape a predestinate scratched face.”
“Scratching could not make it worse, and 'twere such a face as yours were.” She drank.
He flinched. That one stung, even knowing her as he did. “Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.”
“A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.”
He pointed at her with his lager-holding hand. “I would my horse had the speed of your tongue and so good a continuer.” She gestured a granting of a point to him, and he promptly held up a hand. “But...” He placed his lager on the ground. “Keep your way, a God's name, I have done.”
She hid a slight frown, even as she put down her empty lager and put her cigarette inside. “You always end with a jade's trick... I know you of old.”
His eyes flashed. “Peace! I will stop your mouth.” He immediately drew her into his grasp, head first, and then they were ignoring everything as the weight of missing each other drew him to lower to a seated position on a step and her straddling him.
The children exchanged a mix of amused and disgusted looks. They had missed their father, too, but was this necessary?!
“This is the sum of all, Leonato!” Don Pedro declared, coming back into view. “Senor...” He trailed off, noticing what held the children's attention. He shrugged. Benedick clearly did not need mentioning. “Senor Claudio and all my men, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all! And welcomes his nephew back.”
The only clue Benedick heard was he released one hand to raise his lager - which he managed to find without tipping it over - before putting it down to tangle that hand in his wife's hair.
Don Pedro was impressed - the man surely had practice with that action. “I tell him we shall stay at the least a month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer.”
Beatrice broke the kiss, a little alarmed. But Don Pedro saw and waved her concern off. “Nay, Lady, your husband I shall release from his duties for longer than that.” Benedick's attention was caught then, and the children cheered.
Only Leonato greeting Don John tempered the moment, and Beatrice noticed her husband's raised eyebrows over Don John's words of thanks. They otherwise ignored the tense moment that followed. Beatrice ran a finger over her husband's scruffy cheeks and narrowed her eyes. “Duties got in the way?”
He smiled. “It shall be gone before supper.”
Their children stepped forward, wanting to ask questions, but giggling from Hero interrupted them. They all glanced back to see her running off with a hat in hand and Claudio laugh in delight. The Count turned, and then paused. “Benedick, might I speak with thee privately?”
The older lord sighed unhappily. When a request was put that way, there was no good manner to refuse it with. He gave his wife an apologetic look, and she rubbed his shoulders as she stood. “Come, children. You shall see your father when his friend has said his peace.” She had to hurry the children along through farewells and summon them with her - but not leaving without sending a saucy look to her husband, knowing it would encourage him to conclude the talk sooner.
Benedick's impatience matched his wife's, and he grabbed his lager to steady his nerves. He was sure to finish it within moments, given Claudio's history.
Claudio waited until he could no longer see his friend's family before he began, with a huge smile. “Benedick, what does thou note of the daughter of Senor Leonato?”
Frowning, Benedick answered plainly. “I noted my cousin not, but I looked on her. And you have reminded me that I must still greet her.”
Claudio sat beside him. “Is she not a modest young lady?”
This line of questions puzzled him. “Do you question me as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment, or as a man who treats his cousin like the sister which his wife does, or... would you have me speak after my custom, as a professed tyrant to their sex?” He took another drink.
Claudio shook his head, asking while his friend took a long drink. “No, I pray thee speak in sober judgment, as though you were not her cousin.”
“Why?” Benedick's mind was turning rapidly, trying to follow where the count's mind might be leading him to, and he was not liking the possibilities. Still, he respected the request. “I'faith, methinks... she's too tall for a great praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too lean for a large praise.” He was aware of Claudio's growing impatience, but he wouldn't hurry. “Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than as she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other as she is, I would not have liked her.” He took another drink as his suspicions grew.
“Thou thinkest that I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how gentlemen like her.”
“Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?” Benedick snapped.
“Can the world buy such a jewel?!”
“Yea... and a case to put it into.” He looked Claudio's distracted posture over, hoping he was wrong. “But speak you this with a sad blow. Come, in what key shall a man take you to go in the song?”
“In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.”
Benedick shook his head. “I can see yet without spectacles, and I would have seen no such matter as a bachelor: there's her cousin, who even when possessed with a fury exceeds her in beauty as much as the first of May doth the last of December.” Only Claudio didn't seem to hear him state the truth at all. That made Benedick's blood turn cold. “I hope you have no intent to talk husband...” He trailed off when Claudio turned toward him with eyes that proclaimed his intentions. “Have you?!”
“I would scarce trust myself though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife!”
Benedick stood immediately and walked a little off. As a married man, he could not berate Claudio for wanting to leave the bachelor state. But he could protest when he doubted the man's suitability and his reasons for marrying. The trouble was finding the right words without offending the easily offended man.
He still struggling when Don Pedro came back, demanding to know why they were delayed. And sure enough, Benedick had to inform the prince, in as mocking a manner as he thought he could get away with, and saw Claudio act like he meant his words. He tried to interject that neither knew what Hero deserved, but it became clear that he had to speak more forcefully - especially when his previous position as 'an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty' was bandied against him.
“That a woman... conceived me, I have always thanked her.” He ignored the groan from Don Pedro. “That she brought me up, I have likewise given her most humble thanks: but each of thee have forgotten what the vows of marriage mean. Your wife does not just cleave onto thee: thou cleaves onto her, swearing to forsake all others. Why marry if thou hast no intention of honouring that vow? Why choose a wife who thou cannot trust to rule in thy name and who thou cannot respect enough to honour by fulfilling thy vows?”
Their surprised silence worked in his favor. “I had not thought such a woman could exist for me - until I met Beatrice. There was a woman who God had favoured with beauty, virtue, wisdom, a wit that can match mine, and everything a woman ought to be blessed with. But her wit was what captivated me: I had no interest in a woman who would obey me, and here was one who had no intention of doing that to any man. And yet I nearly threw it all away because men are expected to lead. If I had not chanced to see her displeasure and asked what caused it, I assure you I would be standing before you declaring that I would live a bachelor, for she and I would surely be at war.”
Claudio looked at Benedick with a frown. “I fail to see why thou is so perturbed at my inclination.”
Benedick eased himself into the cart's seat, slowly resting his feet over the front. “I will not see my cousin wed to someone who does not respect her, will not leave all dalliances aside forever, and will not forsake his brothers' expectations to protect her. If thou is not prepared to trust her as half yourself, pick out thy own eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, and have thee hanged up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.”
Don Pedro sat, shaking his head. “Well, as time shall try. 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke'.”
Benedick sat up, not liking that his words seemed ignored. “The savage bull may; but if ever the impetuous Claudio prove not ready to bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in his forehead, and let him vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write, 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under his sign, 'Here you may see Claudio, the married man'.” He shook the bars of the cart, mocking the feeling of being trapped that he thought too many men viewed marriage.
Pushing quickly and sharply to his feet, like a military man usually did, Don Pedro held up a hand to stop Claudio from snapping at Benedick's protective streak toward his cousin. “Well, we have kept thee from thy family far too long. Before thou goes to thy home, repair to Leonato's, commend me to him, and tell him I will not fail him a supper; or indeed he hath made great preparation.”
Sighing silently, Benedick accepted the glass from his lord and set it and his empty lager into secure places before starting the cart. “I have almost matter enough in my for such an embassage; and so I commit you -”
Claudio, as irritated as he was by Benedick's words, could not help making sport of him and imitated writing with his own cigarette. “To the tuition of God. From my house, if I am there -”
Don Pedro finished, also imitating with a cigarette, “The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.”
Benedick silently groaned. “Nay, mock not, mock not; the body of your discourse is sometimes guarded with fragments...” He paused to reverse the cart. “...and the guards are but slightly basted on neither.” He pulled forward a moment, but paused to reverse slowly, pointing at Claudio in warning. “Ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I leave you!” He felt and heard a hand slap against the cart as he drove off, suspecting it was Claudio. Which meant that the young lord had not truly heard his words, which would force him to caution Hero about accepting any suit.
Oh, why did he have to have this to deal with? What would it take for Claudio to understand his own limits?
Sighing, he vowed to quickly carry out Don Pedro's command. Then he would return home and have the barber's man come to him. While he was shaved, he would entertain his children with stories of the things he saw on this action, leaving out the details that they were too young to hear. And then... he would seek Beatrice's company. It had been too long since they last... bathed together.
If that made his family late to supper and the revels, so be it. He was a father and a man. The duties of the former and the needs of the latter came first.
Go on to either:
Chapter Two: Make Good Room
or DVD Extra the First