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ricardian-werewolf · 2 months ago

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When I am king, you will be first against the wall

an original novel of nuclear winter, fae romance and intrigue.

1. Now is the winter of our discontent.

Summary:

40 years after nuclear war broke England's societal fabric, the North of England has come together in a medieval-esque form of feudalism that embraces religious theology and rejection of modernity. For 5 years, 21 year old Princess Cecily-Anne has endured tourney after tourney for her hand with no end in sight. However, a last-minute addition to the lists changes all of that.

TWs: Violence - this a tourney to the death, it's not pretty.

wordcount: 6,204.

Taglist: @lordbettany, @dreadbirate, @malkaleh, @calamitous-magpie, @rmelster

@portiaadams, @nealsneen, @theboarsbride, @keptalivebymagic, @rovinglemon

Tag me if you want to be added!

Middleham Castle, 41 AD. (After the Devastation)

Winter had come early that year. Earlier, than most years, in fact. While the coldness and harshness of this eternal chill had become normal over the past 40 years, the fact that the winters - which had been steadily lasting for more and more of the liturgical year - were now beginning just after Michaelmas, was a cause of alarm.

But those were for the priests and clergy to fuss and cluck over, buried away in their monasteries. They were of no concern to the nobility who had eked out survival by retreating into the ruins of their castles and sent out their knights and stewards to make order from chaos. To them, as long as there was wine and plenty of good food, they could turn their minds to the simple pleasures of hunkering down for the long, dark months.

And that was no truer the case than in the castle that loomed over the small northern village of Middleham, and its surrounding, scattered kin. For up in the high keep with its richly adorned curtains of heavy velvets and brocades which chased away the chill, there were more serious matters at hand. Namely, that of the eldest daughter of the Lord of the North. A mere scant month ago, a tourney had been announced for her hand.

A tourney had been called for her hand for the past 5 years, and yet no noble suitor had made it from the field of victory to the marital bed. Tongues wagged on the why of this happening, but again, no one was much concerned. Behind gloved hands and over crystal wine glasses, the more opportune piece of gossip was the Lord of the North’s sickly only legitimate son. It was a shame, the hapless nobles murmured, that god had given such misfavor to such a bright boy. With his legs encased in iron rings held up with calves leather splints, he was not at all much of a ruler.

Those wagging tongues were swiftly silenced of course, when the boy’s father happened to glance in the gossiper’s direction with eyes burning with hellfire and cold, tundra-chilled fury. Even if he, publicly, did acknowledge him as his heir, no one could quite ignore the look of shame in Richard Plantagenet's eyes when faced with what many and he himself saw as a sign of God's misfortune with his House.

But, all of that was set aside swiftly for the tourney happening on that morning. For, in Middleham Castle’s tower room given solely to his daughter, Cecily-Anne awoke to the sight of her maids banking the fire roaring in the hearth and setting out her toilette. Partitioned by screens of what had once been theatre curtains led to a tiled bathing chamber with a window seat stacked high with cushions. Those were fraying a little here and there, as did the curtains showing the beginnings of mould from the chill, but they were expensive fabrics and that was what mattered. Prestige and nobility over quality and care. Besides, why would one wish to be picky when these pieces were coming from the poor souls made into hapless scavengers, blind and half contorted from the ravages of radiation sickness? They had barely eyes to see let alone know taste!

Cecily-Anne stood, shivering in her smock, and padded toward the bathing chamber. Once free of it, she allowed the maid present - a once sickly girl named Anise, to pour warm water over her hair and body. A sponge was handed to her, along with a fine bar of pre-devastation soap. Her mother, Lady Anne, had paid a fine fortune in pennies to ensure the household was able to be clean and presentable, from the lowliest scullery maid to Richard himself. It had cost her a fortune, but was well worth it. The fact that they were able to have enough wood on hand to heat the several castle’s furnaces, hearths and so forth was a testament to their wealth more than anything else. In this day and age, a show of heat and cleanliness outstripped martial prowess or the number of indentured peasants one had in their employ.

“Any news from the field?” Cecily asked as she scrubbed at her arms and tsked over the flakes of skin that fell into the soapy water. She hated to wash herself, but days of grease buildup in her hair was worse than anything - except having her nails trimmed down to the pink bits and being asked to touch anything more dry than velvet. She winced, and cast a raised brow to Anise’s sister, Beatrice.

“The suitors are arriving en masse, My Lady. Many come with a retinue one can expect. Squires, footmen, and so forth. I have with me the list.” Beatrice reached into the belt of her gown and pulled out a pen and slate. She had only a servant’s education in the source of a dame school in her village, but it had taught her letters and numbers, and most importantly her prayers. With the cold winters and shorter seasons of planting, education in the North especially became a way forward for a way out of the life of a Scavenger.

“Lord Bembridge, of Lincolnshire,” Beatrice replied, trailing a finger down the list. “Sir Rupert of Derbyshire, Horace of Rutland…” Some of the ladies tsked at Horace’s name being on the lists. He was a brute according to his own peasants, a man much inclined toward forcing them to work in planting and harvesting before and after the year’s thaws and freezing. Beatings were much a favourite of his. Sir Rupert was a notorious womaniser, but apparently holding some form of degree from Knight’s college in Brighton. Bembridge Marlborough of Lincolnshire was in no way inclined towards Cecily’s hand. She and her ladies much suspected that he was here to try for another knight instead. She didn’t fault him one jot, and he was something of a friend to her, as much of these men could be.

“Anyone else?” Cecily raised a dripping arm and took her cup of tea from Anise’s other sister Lisa. The three sisters and their cousin Lillian constituted her maidservants. Hailing from Scarborough, they four had been living a rough life of being scavengers for the lord of South Yorkshire, Lord Percy. He had been a cruel man and died a few years after the devastation in his solar. Poisoned wine was the reason, according to what Cecily had heard from behind her father’s solar door. His sickly and frail son, a sweet boy named Robert, had tried for Cecily’s hand when she’d been 15. He’d been forced to withdraw when a riot sprang up against his mother, the Lady Percy.

“Lord Percy the younger is trying again. Oh, and Ronald of Lancashire. His first wife died. Poisoning?” She cast a gaze to Lillian, who shrugged helplessly. So many wives died of poisonings or their husbands were pushed from the battlements and drowned in the moors that the lists of who owed their fealty to Cecily’s father were constantly being shifted around. With the shires of the North: Yorkshire - once divided into the Three Ridings and then split in half - her father ruled North Yorkshire while the Percys once more continued to throttle South Yorkshire. Neighbouring Lancashire, was as Beatrice mentioned, in the hand of Ronald of Lancashire. Northumberland and Cumberland had merged due to their closeness to the Scottish border. Those lands were being overseen by Cecily’s brother Johnny, which reminded her…

“Will Johnny be here for the tourney?”

“Not as we yet know, my Lady.” Beatrice replied, gesturing to one of the younger maids for Cecily’s towel. The water was going cold, and no one wanted her to catch her death of chill on such a day! Cecily let herself be wrapped in the towel and her hair combed out before the roaring fire. She continued to go down the long list of lesser and lesser knights, before her finger stopped on a name.

Sir Henry Marchwood.

“Who’s he?” She asked Beatrice.

“Some lesser Knight, My Lady. A former squire, I believe.”

She turned to fussing over Cecily’s gowns finely embroidered hem. While Beatrice and her kin were Cecily’s maids, through her own stubbornness, they were also her ladies and companions. Under her mother’s close tutelage, they dressed not as maids but as ladies of status, and both Lillian and Anise were married to knights of Richard’s household. They wore their husbands’s heraldry on their gowns with pride, and their colours too, segmented with Cecily’s emerald green and White Hart.

Cecily let herself be dressed in her smock and kirtle, then the heavy, satin and velvet gown of hunter green draped over her. The deep and wide collar was edged in ermine fur, and the cuffs, hem all matched. Spilling across the skirt’s front was a massive embroidered visage of the white Hart in rampart. Its gold antlers stretched across her stomach and curved up to brush the bottom of her finely embroidered belt, with its ring for her purse and rosary. Cecily watched in the hand mirror that Lisa handed her as Beatrice and Lillian brushed and parted her hair. Lisa turned to applying delicate perfumes of rosewater and lily to Cecily’s neck and wrists.

“What style would you like, My Lady?”

Cecily glanced at herself again, and sucked at her teeth. She would need to wear a piece that could very easily be undone by a man’s hands, whether rough or gentle. But something to cover her hair would be needed also. She glanced around the room and sighed.

“Could you undress me?” She asked, knowing they would assent without a word of protest. The heavy skirts made her feel uncomfortable, and the low neckline would cause a draft while she was stuck in that box.

A shudder ran through her, but it was not the cold. As she was laced out of the gown and another one bearing her device was slid over her head, Cecily breathed a sigh of relief. She could have her hair merely braided and looped up, then a wimple and veil placed over it. The small fluttering veil adornments on her arms would go fetchingly, dyed in their customary black. The fur edging of this gown was black, wolves fur, and the black buttons that stretched from the neck to the navel offset the green, white and gold of her heraldry. Thick woollen stockings (ones knitted by her sister Kathyrn) encased her legs, and fine shoes of expensive leather not rotted or corroded by the elements outside slid over her feet. She allowed her waist to be belted in and once more her purse and rosary were on her person.

With that completed, Cecily let her ladies whisk her from her bedchamber and to the tourney field set up just outside the castle’s high walls.

With the air as cold as ever, Cecily drew the hood of her cloak up over her face and glared at the heavy cloud cover which cast a pallor over everything. She had hoped for some sun to-day, yet remembering the sight of so many workers bearing cataracts and malformations from the bright orb suspended in space, she dashed that hope. The heavy wolf’s fur of her cloak’s edge and lining kept the wind from biting too much at her exposed face. She reached for one of her ladies hands, and let herself be led up the worn and well-sanded wooden steps to her box. The path was familiar, and she was pleased that the steps leading not only to her box but to the lower benches had been swept clean.

The tourney seats were packed. Even though this had been the fifth year in a row of such an event for Cecily, the people still clamoured for the courtly ceremonies of centuries past. Other boxes, made of fine woods embellished with the house sigils of the major northern houses, surrounded each side of the tourney’s field. The stands were arranged in a circle with two rounded gates at each end, which behind, the knights of the day’s fight waited. The suitors, numbering originally in the triple digits since it had been a country-wide call, had been shaved down to a scant 15. Cecily had discussed many with them already, but her gaze cast to the scoreboard that was set into the opposite wall from the royal box. Bearing the sigils of the major houses participating, a servant or the herald would remove the sigil card when one fell in the fights to come.

Eventually, only one would remain.

Cecily cast her gaze to her box’s detailing with its lattice wood screen and the curling woodwork above it, which displayed in delicate gold her sigil: The white Hart in rampart, its antlers stretching skywards. Below the golden hooves were the words: Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Thus Always to Tyrants.

Tugging back her hood, the crowd erupted in a mad frenzy of cheers and much delighted cries. The clapping of their hands and calls of Princess Cecily! Over and over made her pulse race. Not only did the tourney bring great pride (and admittedly frustration) to her father, it was also one of the instances where they were able to show off their wealth and ingenuity to the masses for who owed their fealty and existence to the house of Gloucester-Neville. Cecily curtsied to her parents in their box, and gave her brother Edward a wave. Above their heads was the Neville Bear with the Ragged Staff and the Whyte Boar in Gloucester, both in Rampart. Richard’s own motto was inscribed under the boar: Loyaulté Me Lie, and Anne’s, Alea Iacta Est:

Loyalty Binds Me, and The Die is Cast.

Fitting words for the two people wholly responsible for the saving of the North from the horrors of this endless winter. Cecily shook her head and swept into the box. She stripped off her cloak, since there was a brazier already burning hot and she would rather be warm than shivering. She took her seat on a finely cushioned chair and turned her head to a maidservant standing quietly in the shadows. At her side, Lisa and her kin sat in a flutter of their richly adorned skirts and furs, casting aside their own cloaks and veils. Sweating through their fine garments did nothing favourable to their image.

“Are your husbands here to-day?” Cecily asked Lillian and Anise, who nodded.

“Alfred is with your lord father’s retinue-” Anise pointed to her husband who stood amongst the brightly adorned knights of Richard’s household guard. He wore the white with the black lions of William Catesby, while Lillian’s husband wore the wolf of Francis Lovell. Despite being part of Richard’s retinue, they were really in the service of Lovell and Catesby for the winter period. It allowed them time away from Middleham and to be in service in more desperate regions of England. Yet, they still wore upon their cloaks the Whyte Boar.

The sound of the herald blasting the horn beginning the start of the tourney rang out, and the maidservants present hastened to pull back the heavy velvet drapes that covered the side of the box closest to Richard and Anne’s. Turning her head, Cecily reached for her goblet of wine and smirked.

“My Lords and Ladies,” Richard got to his feet. Age had given her father strength and many gray hairs, but it had not made him weak in any sense. His health had not failed at all alarmingly, something that could not be said for the noble lords and ladies who crowded the other boxes to regard their Lord. Some were gormless with excess or sins, while others were nothing more than ghosts in clothes that hung limply on their forms. The sinful nature of the darkness that had blotted their sun from the sky and swept the world with fire took more than waistlines and eyesight.

It killed in masses. Cecily sipped her wine again. She knew her father’s tale by heart, for it had been the same at every tourney these past five years. 40 years ere this one, men had been driven to warfare with weapons no person of Cecily’s generation could imagine being wielded. They had brought about tongues of fire and the ash from those world-ending flames had travelled upwards past the heavens until the very sun had become blotted out. The first few years had been a groping darkness filled with discontent and madness. Millions died of hunger and petty illnesses left untreatable. Her teachers of nuns and priests called the world-ending event The Fourteen Days of Fire. However, even though histories had said that the days of fire had been maybe a mere two, the old pamphlets had advised in the event of an attack to stay indoors for fourteen days maximum. One year had turned into two, and then ten and suddenly, men began to finally organise into bands, then tribes, and finally reclaim the wreckage of their villages. Their histories had been destroyed in the fires, so once these villages began to cease killing one another for resources, they banded together once more to create towns.

Within these towns, priests and nuns who had survived the cataclysmic event crept from their houses of worship, and with the knowledge of God they had sustained through the fires, began to work to educate the masses. Some wealthier nobles who could afford to prepare their homes against the fires emerged around this time - they became the first leaders of towns that often took their old place names and adjusted them for a dialect that had slid from discernable English toward Middle once more.

As Richard finished his speech, the knights clad in their heraldic tunics rode out onto the field and Cecily searched vainly for this supposed Henry Marchwood. She spotted him finally amongst a pack of lesser knights, and her heart shuddered in her chest.

The lattice screen of her box allowed her to see out but no knight to see in and view her until she was presented to the victor. But Sir Marchwood’s gaze cut from her father’s herald, past her parents, and locked right onto her stiff, wide-eyed gaze. His eyes were a deep, mesmerising shade of emerald, and Cecily’s fingers tightened around her goblet hard enough to dig the metal into her fingers.

She winced, and Henry’s gaze swung back to be upon her father.

“My lords, I know you fight for splendour and for the hand of my daughter. 5 years worth of men have come before you, who have stood in your places and fallen before. Some of you have returned, eager once more.” Richard’s gaze shifted to one of the men up near the scoreboard who held a red and green flag in one hand each. He opened his mouth again and Cecily noted the maids ready to drop her box’s heavy curtains.

“May the best man win!”

With a swoosh, Cecily’s box’s curtains dropped and the room darkened. Whistle blasts sounded as the man by the scoreboard dropped the green flag and the crowd let out a resounding, teeth grinding cheer of joy.

The tourney was off to a smashing start.

With Luck, I’ll have a husband by teatime.

Below her, she kept her gaze locked sharply on Henry Marchwood, even putting down an exorbitant 50 crown sum on his head. Lisa and Beatrice tsked over her choice, but said nothing. Cecily’s gaze snapped to them, and she shrugged.

“He is a knight-errant, but he is a good fighter too!” She pointed her fan’s bladed tip at the screen. Through it, Henry was leading his team’s side against the opposing knights and they were brutally slaughtering one another. While tourneys of the Middle Ages were for jests and victories, these ones were about brutal martial prowess.

Knights and sons of noble houses would kill and die for Cecily’s hand. When Ned was old enough, and if he had been born stronger, he would too. Johnny was already riding the length and width of the wasted Midlands to train his skills. Even if he was a bastard, he still carried Richard’s name and banner. His proficiency and skill on the battlefield would assist him in winning the hand of any woman he chose. Even if the fact that so many noble sons were dying in these tourneys, bastardry no longer carried the scornful edge it once did - any children were valuable.

Sickly children were killed or sent south. Only Anne’s protests had kept Edward from being one of them.

Cecily cast her gaze once more back to the field and pressed her knuckles to her chin. Beatrice’s reedy, musical voice lilted as she pressed her cheek to Cecily’s temple. The older woman flinched and tensed instantly.

Stop touching me. She thought, clamping down on her tongue to silence her cruel words. If she said them aloud, her ladies would call her a babe. Spoiled, touchy. Cecily sighed, and tilted her head toward Beatrice’s.

“Hmm?”

“Thinking about your blessed knight?” She asked, noting as Henry skewered two men at once with a lance, then seemingly made a rapier appear from nowhere and drove it through the knight behind him’s exposed neck. Blood splattered his face and hands.

As his helm shifted and he pulled down the visor, Cecily again saw his eye colour turn from muddy, rotting brown to that wicked emerald. She bit her lip and flapped her fan in front of her cheeks.

“Maybe.” Cecily replied noncommittally, and took a note from a maidservant. Her head snapped up to stare at the score-board. Of the 15 knights, 10 were already out! The impact of the choices for this year’s fight were going swifter than ever before. Forget teatime, she’d be ravished and wedded before Luncheon!

“Why s-such a brutal culling?” She whispered, and got to her feet.

“Lower the lattice, please.” She turned to her maidservants, who blanched. The lattice screen could be rolled up or down at Cecily’s command, but not once for the past five years had she done it. Her glare silenced any opportunity of dissent, and the screen was rolled down. As the tourney field came into focus, a wind whipped up, tearing Cecily's hair from its coiffure and extinguishing the brazier’s flames. The score-board in front of her was down to five names:

Robert Percy - 7 kills

Henry Marchwood - 5 kills

Bembridge Marlborough - 2 kills.

Ronald of Lancashire - 1 kill

Horace of Rutland -

As Horace’s kill count was being written into the board, Bembridge shot the man through the eye with an arrow, and then took down Ronald with a second arrow. Robert’s sword whizzed through the air as he drove it into Henry’s arm, but he merely shook the gaping wound off.

“What-” Richard’s voice floated through the air as the lattice screen on her parent’s box was lowered and they too came face to face with the field of carnage before them. The second sons waiting behind the gates to take on any victor of the first round looked uneasy. Even if only three men were left on the field, they all had to attempt to kill one another. The loss of such life was part of the reason for Richard’s frustration - this machine of killing was stripping the knights from the households and wrecking bloodlines.

“Hold it!”

The three men did not pause, the blood and guts still dribbling from their weapons. Henry raised his visor and turned his gaze to the box, while Bembridge and Robert circled one another like feral, starved animals. Bembridge lunged, driving his sword’s blade toward Robert’s shoulder. However, it never made contact, and Bembridge fell against Robert with a dull thud. Both men hit the icy ground with a bone-breaking crash, their armour clunking and clinking from the suddenness of the fall. Henry snapped his visor down and dragged the two men apart from one another, his low, deep tones spitting out:

“Will you not listen to your king, you weak, wretched boys?!”

The wind seemed to shift as he spoke, and a bolt of pure adrenaline ran the length of Cecily’s spine. She straightened instinctively, feeling the air grow heavier with the onset of something like the blizzards that pummeled Middleham each winter season. She nervously cast her gaze heavenwards again.

“Be Still!” Anne cried, surging to her feet in a dark blot of sapphire velvet with fox-fur edging. She leaned over the edge of the royal box, her voice carrying across the field. The miasmatic heaviness of Henry’s words lifted, and his gaze snapped upwards. Both Bembridge and Robert ceased their scuffling, and raised their gazes too.

“You all have fought bravely.” Richard spoke finally, clearing his throat. “However, this loss of life in such a short span of time is sudden-” His voice cut off as Robert screamed. Bembridge had driven his blade through the other’s chest and with a sickening, wet thrust, pulled clean. Bembridge, ignoring Richard’s cry to stop!, rushed for Henry.

In a moment, Henry Marchwood moved from being unarmed to brandishing two rapiers. Up until this point, he had fought with the traditional weapons of a knight errant, but now, he moved forward with the grace of something not entirely human.

“Stop this madness at once!” Richard yelled, but neither man chose to heed him. Henry kicked out with his left leg, and tripped Bembridge up. He went down with another thud, flailing like an upturned bug on the ice-sheet of the muddy field.

“Stop-” Bembridge screamed as Henry’s hands thrust down, expecting to be decapitated. The blades crossed just against his shuddering Adam's apple. His pupils dilated, and the crowd gasped as Henry effortlessly shifted his second blade to his left hand and yanked off his helmet.

A whole head of golden blonde curls lay under the dented and scratched helmet, and Henry - or whoever his name was! - tossed it aside. His armoured foot dug into Bembridge’s chest. Pressing down hard on the man’s chestplate, Bembridge’s face drained of colour as Henry loomed closer, and tilted the knight’s chin up.

“You killed Robert in retribution, did you not?” He murmured, turning Bembridge’s face from side to side. “He killed someone important to you?”

Damn him! Bembridge scowled as fat tears welled in his eyes and he clamped his jaw shut to keep from crying. Here, now, on this open field? He’d be cast from his father’s house in disgrace and left to wander the countryside with naught to his name! His younger brother, a brutal monster of a man, Samuel, would gain his position and use it to rein holy terror upon Lincolnshire! All of Bembridge’s hopes and desires would be undone.

“Y-yes.” He shuddered.

“Did you mean to kill me?”

“Never!” Bembridge cried. “I was never intending to take the Princess’s hand!”

“Of course not.” Henry replied, tsking. “I shall let you live with your pride, though I do ask that you trust me.” A strange tone had entered the man’s voice, and Bembridge shuddered again as a strange feeling washed over him. Resistance felt impossible, and he shivered as Henry shook out what looked to be an embroidery needle. In an instant, Bembridge gulped again.

A dagger was at his throat, the edge digging in with enough force to draw blood.

“As I said, trust me.” Henry purred. His hand jerked, and blood welled up, hot and bubbling. Bembridge let out a choked scream, and then abruptly fainted. His face whitened, and then turned the sickly pallor of a dead man.

Henry stepped off of the body and wiped his blade on the edge of his surcoat. Glancing up into the royal gazes of the King, her Queen and his intended, Henry Marchwood realized that at that very moment, he’d fucked things up very badly.

Princess Cecily-Anne’s gaze locked with his, and he gave her a theatrical bow. He twitched a nimble, ring adorned finger, and the ill-fitting armour appointing his form shifted into a teal sweater with gold details around the neck and cuffs, sea-green breeches with ivy-leaf clasps on the cuffs. Stretching from his knees to his feet were bottle green heeled boots with blue and sea-glass green flower embroidery and gold buttons. The whole affair was topped off with a knee length green cape held in place with gold-leaf shaped pauldrons that draped down his shoulders. His eartips lengthened into points and with a snap of his long-nailed fingers, gold cuff earrings dug into the flesh.

“My lord and ladies.” Henry gave a bow, and smirked. “A pleasure it has been to fight in this tourney of this year of our lord 41 A.D. I hope that the Princess Cecily-Anne has found my martial prowess to be desirable-”

“You killed my friend!” Cecily snarled, leaning over the edge of the box and shaking her fist at him. Anne’s face blanched while Richard’s turned an uncomfortable shade of purple. Both glanced at one another and Richard sighed.

I didn’t. Henry thought, his words meant for Cecily-Anne only. She stilled, and stared at him, mouth agape. Henry bowed again.

“Who are you then, charlatan?” Richard barked. “A shapeshifting demon? A devil, sent to sow discord and sin amongst us?”

Those were the men who I brutally killed and in doing so did your daughter a massive favour. Be at least agreeable to me, you silly man. Henry thought, and then bowed again.

“I go by the name William, Sir. And no, I am neither of those things.” He ran a hand through his blonde hair and it lengthened to curl down around the lobes of his ears. He smirked, showing perfect, fanged teeth, and snapped his fingers again against the knitting needles holstered at his waist.

“I am a king of the Fae, and of the Court of Ivy.”

Stony silence met him, cold and as abrasive as the air surrounding them.

William paused in his tracks, his charm and smile fading. The fact that this response was met with coldness and confusion made sweat bead on his brow, and he glanced from face to face worriedly. Have we really become that well hidden? Is there at least some knowledge of the common folk? The brownies, the little ones?

“N-none of you know of Fae? C-common Folk?” He breathed, sweat crowding in now under his arms and at the base of his neck. He pulled back the collar of his sweater and fanned his face. Richard leaned over the edge of his box, and was about to say something - perhaps send in the second sons of this tourney to stick his immortal head on a pike, when a siren pierced the air.

The low rising wail caused the tourney-goers to rummage around in their seats for their possessions, pull on cloaks and hasten for the field. Soldiers of Richard’s guards and barracks surged onto the field to direct the people into groups, and William fell silent. Something in the air was shifting.

As he cast his gaze to the west, he saw it - a looming wall of cloud and darkness. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight, and his gaze snapped to Princess Cecily-Anne, who was arguing with her ladies. Queen Anne and Richard were directing people and men to marshalling points. In Anne’s arms was the young heir, Edward was his name? Will furrowed his brows, and looked down at Bembridge. The appearance of death was far stronger than he’d anticipated. Will leaned down and with a sharp smack, broke the glamour.

Bembridge’s eyes flew open and he gasped wildly, his hands flailing.

“What’d you do?!” Cecily cried, skidding and slipping toward them. Her boots almost shot out from under her, and Will’s hands reached out, keeping her from breaking her neck on the frozen ground. She fought him wildly, and spat in his face.

“Unhand me! You killed him! You killed him and brought him back! You ain’t a fae, you’se a demon!”

“I swear to you, fair lady, I am a fae, and your friend has not at all been dead in this time.” Will’s voice dropped low in its pitch, magic weaving his words to calm Cecily’s frazzled nerves.

She smacked him across the face, the stinging bite of her ringed hand digging into his flesh. The little lass’s wearing iron rings?! Of all the holy- He caught himself and shook his head. She was resisting his magic! And she knew nothing of fae! Her will and self image would have to be as sharp as diamond!

“Fair Lady-”

“Shut up, you foul beast!”

“Princess!” Will snarled back as the siren reached a deafening pitch. Cecily clapped her hands over her ears and cringed at the sound. The wind was howling now, and growing closer. Her ladies were drifting towards the carriages ready to bear the people back to Middleham’s high stone walls and battlements.

“If you don’t leave this field, you shall die!” He added, still keeping ahold of her. Hoisting Bembridge along by the arm and Cecily tucked under his shoulder blade, Will strode across the field as the storm built speed and strength behind their backs. The stands could be destroyed. All of the important bits were clattering back toward the castle.

“Why are you helping me, demon spawn?” Cecily hissed, the shock of losing Bembridge warping her mind. Will sighed again, and knowing that his magic would have no effect, spoke in low tones once more, yet was completely honest. He could twist his words as much as he liked, but he felt that Cecily-Anne, as his wife to be, deserved honesty.

“Because a lady of your station should not be left to fend for herself by her champion.”

Cecily shook her head, and bared her teeth. She was refusing to listen to him, her mind folding in on itself to stay alive. However, he noticed a spark in her eyes, and some smaller, subtler cues that she’d heard him. She ceased her relentless thrashing for once, and was more gritting her teeth against the cold. Reaching the carriage set aside for her and crowded with her ladies, Will pulled the doors open and urged Cecily up the steps. She faltered, overcome with the burgeoning cold and exhaustion. Her ladies yanked her inside and then Bembridge. The doors shut with an audible snap, and Will pulled himself up onto the running board as the carriage lurched to a start.

The wailing siren began to grow quieter, whether from the oncoming storm or because people were heeding the warning, Will didn’t know, but he looked westwards regardless. The chill of the oncoming storm wormed its way under his skin and burrowed deep into his bones. The horses were running at breakneck speed over the icy ground, and Will pressed his hand against the side of the carriage, willing this one at least to hold. The horses knickered their thanks, and the unsteadiness that had begun to tilt the carriage ever so slightly righted itself. Craning forward, Will watched the carriages in front of them round a seemingly imaginary bend in this invisible road. He watched as the carriages in strict formation pelted blindly toward the castle walls, clattering over a frozen moat and into the bailey. As their carriage did the same, Will could see how the peoples within were hustled in a large gaggle, noble and peasant alike to the massive barn.

Built of wood, nails and stone, the barn covered one half of the bailey’s space and from within, it seemed an entire town’s worth of livestock were crammed. Will stepped off the running board as the carriage halted and the horses were swifty untethered and led into the barn. Through the double sliding doors, he noted just how many animals were within in their entirety, and drifted after Cecily and her ladies. Through the barn they went, trailing after the peasants who were so seemingly used to these blizzards being an occurrence that Will noticed how stalls were marked with familial names and had little scrolls with inked timetables for shifts. He examined one of them that held mostly cows and paused. These beasts were quiet, and a small smile broke over his face as a calf mooed at him. Scratching the creature’s chin, Will’s smile turned to a grin.

“Come along, demon!” Cecily’s voice rang from the castle doorway. “Not even you deserve to freeze to death out here!”

Will’s hand dropped from the calf’s chin, and he snorted, scuffing his boot on a strewn rush.

“If your Highness so pleases,” He called back, and headed from the chilling cold into the warmth of the castle’s basement kitchens. Behind him, the final carriage horses were stalled and the stablehands scurried into the lofts to wait out the first of what would become several bomb-like blasts of snowfall that dropped the temperature some 30 degrees in a matter of half-minute increments.

Will heard the doors close behind him, and he turned his head back toward the barn’s doors. The wind howled against the doors, and he shivered. Then, he moved through the castle doorway and let himself be shut off from the world for now.

End of chapter 1.

#richard iii #anne neville #oc: Cecily-Anne #oc: William of the ivy court #post nuclear war #nuclear winter #threads 1984 inspired #tw: blood #tw: death #tw: violence mention #novel: fourteen days of fire

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