Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 17

*Before….Angeline

I remember looking around and seeing just him and me and then my strength went out and I fell.
I thought that I was dying as the battleknight walked towards me shining in the sunlight.
Light brown enameled plates trimmed with brass and with some very old fashioned designs to it and the coat of arms a bears head and swords in gold on a shield with red as the color for the field.
The rig, the battleknight looked old but the coat of arms looks new…gold leaf? It was shiny.
The rig cage opened and this man jumped out and he was wearing brigandine armor and a woolen cloak that he took off and wrapped around me. He had long wild and unruly curly brown hair kissed with sun fade and this thick but not too long beard to match.
He pressed a skin to my lips and water had never tasted so good.
“I saw the light lady what happened.”
(Coughing.) “Lyonnes…it’s fallen, I was sent here by a friend…an aunt.”
“Lady Blackhand.”
I nodded.
“And you would be lady?”
(Coughing.) “Angeline…Angeline Lyonnes….eldest daughter…”
He looked surprised and maybe a little frowny?
“King Wyatt Braithe my lady, your husband to be.”
And that’s when I fainted again.

*And Now…

I think that I was fevered because I felt like I was both shivering and burning up and I think that I woke through part of what seemed like a journey but I’m very unsure.

Shock?

Very likely.

And I think I remember being manhandled and it ways that as a lady that I’d likely have protested even if I am not blushing maiden.

Well technically I’m to be considered a maiden. I’ve never shirked my duty in keeping myself from the carnal pleasures of the man and woman equation…unlike my sister Gracia.

Grace was well…she was one of those noble girls that thought that beauty was more important than most things and that it was going to keep her honor from being besmirched.

…..fur…I smell furs and treating oils and I smell wood and it’s strangely fragrant and I’m warm and my arm hurts.

I got to rub it and I feel bandages and the stub.

Oh…dammit right.

I’m maimed.

And that…I’m here in my betrotheds castle I think and right now very much at his mercy and beyond because of the loss of my home and family and being damaged goods he doesn’t exactly have good reason to treat me in any sort of regard.

I have my name and title but I’m grown enough to know that just might not mean a bloody thing.

I open my eyes and I’m in a bed that’s fair sized and it’s carved from heavy timbers and stained and polished with animals and knights and bears. I’m on a mattress that seems quite heavy and thick but not feather bed soft and it seems to be softened by the layers of woolen blankets and quilts.

I sit up and there’s this semi chill in the air and I look around. I can see there’s a battle with the frost at the windows and that they’re shuttered with a small space for a hole to peep from and I can see racks of weapons and body torso like things you’d use for dresses but with armor on them and there’s oil lamps on the walls that are unlit and a small fire in a hearth…I see a small table set before a nook with a seating bench and behind the bench in the wall are bookcases.

He’s at the bench leaning over the table asleep using his arms for pillows and he’s dressed in a red woolen tunic over a simple linen work shirt and he has his gambeson draped over him like a coat and a blanket both.

I can’t help but to start coughing as I wake and shift. I notice I’m wearing one of his shirts and it’s a brown linen plaid and it’s almost a robe on me. Thank the light I’m still in my underwear.

He lifts his head and he’s staring at me. “Hello.”

He looks like some wild man of the north rather than a king, I see no crown either on his head.

“Good morning your majesty.”

“Wyatt.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Wyatt.”

“But you’re a king.”

“And you’re my betrothed; I think that gives you some dispensation.”

Oh…well he sounds educated though.

“Wyatt it is then. I am Angeline Lyonnes.”

“Should I call you princess?”

“No…if you’re going to keep to us being betrothed then I should think that you can call me Angeline.”

He blinks looking surprised. “Why would I not keep to the betrothal?”

I hold up my stump. “I’m not whole; I’m likely landless and much more likely penniless you are a king so you have no real need to keep someone like me around for marriage.”

“Angeline…you survived, you survived the attack, the loss of a limb and the trip and those trolls. You are not your wounds and I’d never treat you as such.”

I smile…and I’m blushing.

Courtiers are one thing; I have always been able to handle men like you’d meet in court with cool detachment.

But meeting a man that is honorable and genuinely nice.

It’s something I’m not good with.

Wyatt gets up and he stretches and I wince as I hear things crackle in him and pop and he goes to the fire and he takes off a camp pot that is there on a swing plate and he gets two clayware jacks from a cupboard built into the hearth and he pours out something the color of mud and smells acrid and sharp and a little foul?

“Coffee?”

“Coffee? I…I’ve heard of it but never had it.”

“Really?”

I nod but take the jack he offers. “I’ve no cream here but I have sugar if you’d like.”

“We don’t trade…we didn’t trade for such things too much and my father said that it was far too expensive to bring in from other traders.”

I take a sip and it’s hot but not too much and it’s bitter and acrid and tastes just…it’s not tea.

He smiles at me and this close and not in shock or mortal danger he’s actually not bad looking. “I am unused to young men with beards.”

He nods and passed me a dish with sugar in it and a spoon. “Sorry it’s winter here and I tend to let it grow out to ward off the chill. Should I shave?”

“I wouldn’t presume…” Dammit he has me blushing again.

He has this look to him that is earnest as a bear cub.

Not that I’ve ever seen a bear but still.

And I am so not good with this.

“Maybe I will shave.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Maybe I want to; it’s not every day that I am within sight of my betrothed. I’d have made myself fancy when the time had come for me to go to Lyonnes and meet you.”

That’s an appealing thought, Wyatt but not like this but in what he’d do for court.

Okay…this coffee is better with sugar.

But twice I reached for something that I could not reach for.

And I think that I might need to cry.

“Is there a jakes? Or a bathchamber?” (Sniffle.)

“There’s both, here let me so you.”

He…he walks away from me and he’s not helping me from the bed or even taking my mug.

That’s sort of…I don’t know? Insulting? Boorish?

And he’s watching me.

I take a breath and another drink of the coffee and it’s kind of growing on me and it’s certainly clearing my head. I set the coffee down and I get out of the bed and again I sort of ended up trying to use something that wasn’t there.

Dammit just getting out of bed.

And he doesn’t help me.

I take a seriously chill shocked breath as I put my feet on the floor and there’s several rugs but I can feel the cold still. This isn’t the warmed stones of my father’s house; there are no pipes of hot water from the boiler’s here.

I’m a little shaky getting to my feet and he does almost move then. He was prepared to come and catch me.

Hmmm…he’s not hovering or coddling me.

I bite down on that bit of spoiled girl in me and let the practical me out. That’s actually the real me the one that’s always had a thing for just things being real and truth over flattery.

Life’s damned confusing as it is people make it a hundred times worse and I’ve no tact…I never have. Social situations have always escaped me. Oh I can handle myself mostly because mother and my tutors helped with that and I know what to say sometimes…usually like filling in a crossing words puzzle.

I am better with numbers, with facts and truth.

Wyatt’s being true I think.

I walk and go with him to the doors and then to this other room that’s like a small common room or a receiving room and it has a few other doors here and a few couches and there’s some nice paintings displayed on the walls here.

I mean nice by they look like something and the colors are close to what you would actually see.

All of that subjective art stuff is beyond me as well.

“The smallest door is the bath.”

“Thank you.”

I head inside and it’s lit by several really large candles in round glass bowls that help to make more light and they look like they’d last a very long time and they’re scented with lemon oils and make the place smell decent.

There’s a large stone sink with two water pumps and a similar bathing tub that is crude and just some big rectangle but it looks very big and there’s a real porcelain toilet like from home there in an alcove along with a roll of fine, fine thin cotton paper like gauze?

It takes me a little doing to work things around…and some cursing which I didn’t mean to do.

I look at the roll of paper again. “Interesting wipes.”

Wyatt talks through the door. “It’s toilet paper, and we get it from the dwarves.”

“Dwarves you’ve met Dwarves?”

“Yes we have some living here.”

“Really, I’ve never…what are they like?”

“Well you’ll see once you have a chance to meet them when you get to have a tour of The Hold.”

I’m actually very interested in this. And I’m interested in Braitheholde. Why here of all places I mean beyond the fact that he’s a king or well his father was and he must have died since our betrothal had happened but this place, it’s so remote and so far away.

I know it was a key player in the battle that saw the defeat of Rory Blackhand but I know father and mother…knew…regardless either one wouldn’t send me to marry for just honor.

And I will admit the dwarves being here changes everything.

You never see dwarves leave their mountains, you never see them in The Middle Kingdoms just their goods.

Wiping was interesting and required me holding the shirt with my chin and then I flush the toilet paper away and go to the sink to wash.

I like the soap, it’s a common enough one really made from fats with some other things but this is also brewed and set with lavender flowers in it and it’s quite nice.

I try and find things to make myself look more presentable and I hear noises of people out passed the door and I call out. “Your Majesty?”

And that brings some laughter and I heard women’s voices.

“My chamberlain, matron of walls and the seamstress are here with some things for you Angeline.”

I peek out and I see two older women and a crate box of things and a barrel with wheels and this woman that’s really strong shouldered despite her height and wearing trousers and a blouse but with a vest and tools and a pocket watch and she…she has a beard.

She’s a dwarf.

And she looks like a short human that is quite stocky, her arms are longer than ours would be but not much and her legs are shorter but not what the stories would say and her hair is in a pair of braids down the front where a man would have sideburns and another pair behind her ears that are pulled behind her head and tied almost like a head cloth to keep things neat.

Her beard is fine and soft and short and trimmed close and neat and it’s a shiny soft brown.

I come out and Wyatt introduces me. “Angeline this is Sally my chamberlain and Kate my matron of walls and Mistress Bette Lacecraft.”

Mistress Bette is the dwarf.

I attempt a curtsey and they wave it off.

Sally looks at me and she’s a greying haired woman in trousers? And she has a vest of soft leather sewn into a cord and quilt jacket and she carries a satchel with what looks like writing gear and books for her work and a very large knife.

“Nay don’t be stressing about fine manner M’lady with the likes of us.”

“I’m sorry I was raised to do so.”

The one called Kate a hard looking dark brown haired woman of little breast and strong looking features dressed in trousers as well and another quilt mail jacket says. “Manner are fine princess but you’re still recovering it’d be ill mannered to ask you to do so.”

Okay Sally seems commoner backgrounded and Kate seems educated, like nobility or maybe an officer.

I nod and we shake hands and it’s my first time for really doing that and I offer my hand to the dwarven woman who shakes my hand and her hands are quite soft and she has except for the callus marks of one that works with needles and thimbles and such.

I was my father’s chamberlain of sorts and I knew all of our tradesfolk.

“It’s very nice to meet you Mistress Lacecrafter.”

“And you princess.”

She has a sort of accent but she speaks kingdom quite well.

“Please call me Angeline.”

“And you can call me Bette then and thank you for the honor you do me for the informality.”

“And you as well.”

Sally just looks amused and Kate is looking me over and more than my arm it’s the weigh and measure that soldiers have.

I look to her and sit and try to do it gracefully as I can right now and ask. “Matron of walls, I’ve never heard of such a thing?”

Kate looks at me. “It’s a hard place here in the northern lands and there’s a lot of times when it’s just the women folk here to defend things in an all-out battle or when there’s more wounded than able men. King Wyatt’s father appointed me to be their trainer and captain…or rather matron.”

I nod, it’s very odd and yet it’s very wise really given where we’re at. “Can I ask? About the trousers?”

Sally laughs. “Aye tis a good idea really, we took some hints from the dwarven folk and if your job would be easier with them than a buncha skirts then ita just makes good sense t’not hobble yerself.”

I bite my lip and I look at my legs. “Could I have some?”

They all smile and Sally laughs. “Aye we’re here t’get ye kitted up.”

Wyatt comes in…he had slipped out and he has my coffee and a tray with mugs on it and more coffee in the pot he had and there’s some slices of this dark cake. It’s molasses cake and home that was something we had for the men and the guards but it was never a thing we had at our table.

And I love it actually. Simple and moist with a nice sweet flavor that goes good with tea and you can even not bother frosting it or can if you like and all of that.

I almost make a moan around that first bite too, I’m hungry and this is good.

And a king just served the four of us…

The others called him majesty except Kate who called him my liege and I’m fairly sure that maybe they could be doing this around me.

I hate that I do that and make people uncomfortable.

He takes a coffee with him and he slips into the bathroom.

Mistress Lacecrafter looks to me. “Well we should get started with your measures then princess.”

***……………….. It takes some time and a lot of things are me trying on used clothes? They’re finery still for the most part and different things and some I’m told were the clothes of the queen who’s not alive to wear them and they are too nice to throw out or give away.

And that idea suits me actually.

I am sixteen years and I have or had maybe three hands of dresses and gowns to my name from fancy to common-day, and for all the seasons too.

Gracia had literally a room for her clothes instead of a simple closet…why own things that you will never wear?

I get measured and Mistress Lacecrafter does that extremely accurately with all my parts and curves and standing and sitting and how round things are and how long my fingers are and all of that…even my feet and my womanly parts.

But I get some clothes that fit me reasonably and others and underthings will follow and they are all offering me hand-me-downs of my own as well and Kate is testing my grip and my heft with these weighted handles? I don’t know it has something to do with me and weapons?

“Me fight?”

She nods. “It’s the law here, Everyone fights, Nobody quits.”

“I’ve just the one hand.” There’s a lump and it’s still raw the loss of it and it hurts…my hand that isn’t there hurts. I’ve heard barracks tales of such a thing or even workmens accidents but I thought…I mean I thought that I was immune.

“Then we will get a buckler to be strapable to your stump princess but everyone fights.”

I nod as she’s staring into my eyes like she’s dead serious.

I take a breath. “Nobody quits.”

I say that and she nods as do the other women and I think that I won a little bit of respect here or something.

I am so unused to plain speaking people.

And then Wyatt comes out from the bath room and he’s washed and he’s cut his hair and he shaved.

He looks like one of those… he’s still sort of tanned or slightly dark complected and his hair is almost black from being wet and his face has that nice cheekbones with the hint of possible dimples and a strong but not jutting chin and without the beard to distract from his eyes…deep breath Angeline.

You’ve seen handsome men before.

Actually no I haven’t not like this.

And his shirt is off and he’s still drying off and he has the body of a battleknighter. Sculpted and powerful with all this muscle but it’s not just muscle for the sake of having muscle it’s from working in a rig all the time and then wearing armor and doing all those other things.

And his abdominal muscles lead down and down and to his waist and I can see that spot…that place where his trunk meets hips and pants and teases me with all of that.

I am usually not this mentally poetic when it comes to men but I have never really seen a man like this and I have certainly never seen a man like Wyatt up close.

And he sort of blushes some too which is nice since I am used to a different sort of noble and he excuses himself and heads into his bedroom.

All of the women are smiling and grinning at him as they watch him go.

Even me a little. “I do not know what I was really expecting about him but this has all been very surprising to me.”

And I add. “In a good way, with all of you too.”

Wyatt comes out with an armful of armor and slips past us. “Excuse me ladies, princess.”

I cannot help but to watch as he passes them to a burly looking man in armor who gives us a head-bob and the process seems to continue.

I look at him as the armor is gone and the weapons are gone and now it’s his clothes?

“King Wyatt? Are you traveling somewhere?”

He stops and he looks at me like he’s surprised. “Oh…sorry princess but you arriving caught us really not prepared so I’m moving out and these are your quarters now.”

I blink.

“Mine? How so?”

“There’s only one royal suite and this is it so you should have it.”

That can’t be.

“Only one in the whole castle?”

“Holde Princess this is a Holde not a castle.”

“What’s the difference, I though holds were part of ships.”

“They are and my people and my charges are first.”

“But you should have the rooms then you’re the King.”

“Angeline, I have my manners and my pride I’ll be staying in the knights barracks with the men as I always have.”

Oh…yes Wyatt being king is a new thing here.

“You didn’t have your own rooms?”

“No I lived here until I was nine and when I hit my tenth birthday I was sent to the pages to live and train with them.”

“Oh…”

I’m unsure of what to say really, that’s so outside of my experience. I mean my brothers well the oldest two were sent away for a couple of years to squire in other peoples lands but that was different.

This was sending your noble son to sleep with the…well they were pages and squires so they’d likely be not the same as living with commoners in commons barracks.

I’m cringing a little inside at some of that. I am not the sort of woman to judge on title it is just though where I come from nobility is a separatist kind of culture.

So often I met spoiled men no more than brats with titles and coins that though they were born better.

Okay…now that I’m thinking about it. It’s a good idea to do that if you wanted loyalty.

And not just from your knights but from the ruler to his knights, they all would have grown closer.

I look at Wyatt and smile. “I’ll accept your gracious offer your majesty.”

He nods and we lock eyes for a minute and for that minute I can’t help but get lost there. He is very distracting, I forget about my arm for a little bit.

And then he’s all moved out and the ladies help me move things in.

He left the books and the other odds and ends there and that was nice I suppose and it will help me get to know him more and his family.

There’s some good reading there by the looks of things and some of what looks like journals and family histories and things that will definitely help me.

I look to Sally. “Is there a chance that I could see The Holde?”

“Aye widcha like fer us t’do or would ye want The King t’ show ye about?”

“Would I be a bother to any by asking? Or should I wait?”

Mistress Lacecrafter says. “King Wyatt will very most likely give you a tour of The Holde, but I think that he is waiting for you to be better rested.”

“I don’t think I can be more rested, I’m injured and I’m in a bad way in other respects so I don’t relish the thoughts right now of having too much to think on. He’d be doing me a kindness.”

All three nod and then Kate gets up and with a dip she heads out and then other two are still there with me until Kate comes back with Wyatt.

He’s looking at me and he’s doing that awkward rubbing at his face and chin or habitual like from when he was wearing his beard.

“You wanted a tour?”

“Please that would be nice.”

“Are you sure that you’re up to it?”

“I’d rather be up and doing than sitting and thinking and reliving things.”

He looks at me and he looks like he’s going to say something but he just nods and says something else. “From Top to bottom then?”

“Alright.”

He offer’s me his cloak and I try to slip it on and fight with it a little. I’m not used to doing things with one hand and it is very frustrating just dealing with then clasp is…I use my teeth very unladylike in the end and Wyatt looks like it never happened or that I didn’t do anything wrong.

That’s when we set off on the tour of Braitheholde.

I will say there is a lot of stairs here and yet the halls are cold they’re thick and they’re sturdy and at just about every landing we come to that is on an outside wall there is arrow slits. They’re stuffed with a padded lid to keep out the drafts but there it is, the place has places to shoot from all over and those landings too…they have doors.

Big full doors with a drop bar on a swivel and a bolt thing that fits a hole in the floor and they reek of some kind of very minerally smelling grey paint or shellac that’s on them? I touch some with my hand and I know this compound.

“Fireban?”

“Yes with most of the doors here and the timbers in case of accident or siege.”

Fireban is a dwarven invention that has been around for ages it’s a type of shellac that has a kind of glue and clay mixture in it. It does not burn well at all and as it gets hotter it actually bakes into a ceramic like glaze. It’s fairly expensive but not uncommon and many places like smithies have it.

We had it home both in the kitchens and our smithies on the walls.

And each landing has two doors…and so do some of the corners in the halls.

There are a lot of doors here.

There’s mounted weapons too here and there looking like decoration but also not…a shield and two spears usually and there’s a pennant too there but it’s a repeating pattern.

“You could literally fight your way through this Holde and arm those that aren’t couldn’t you?”

Wyatt nods. “We have in the old days of my grandfather and his grandfather.”

I look at him. “Why?”

He looks at me. “Why what?”

“Why be here at all?”

“We have a duty, unlike the middle kingdoms my ancestors ships came down in places close to here and after Stonewood was a thing and barely any survived it and we were here buried deep in the caves trying to survive when my ancient ancestors found the dwarves that were out here in their outpost or the other way around and oaths were formed and bonds in blood and battle.”

“So allegiance?”

“More…we watch The Moors on the other side of these mountains and we watch Stonewood too.”

“I know the Moors that’s where our parents fought The Witch king.”

He nods. “Stonewood was part of the elvish realm during the war of ages when the gates were still going and there was some terrible thing that happened there and a huge battle that destroyed their realm and caused the great forest it was to turn to stone and as it became the haven and home to a great evil.”

“They haven’t run out of troops and the like?”

“It has an ecosystem Angeline, it’s brutal and hellish down there but it had evolved into a sort of living place for all manners of evil.”

“Oh…”

“And they trade…”

“Trade? With who?”

“Whoever dares, Rory Blackhand made pacts with them, there still sometimes hunt the Moor’s in the far northwest sweep of it and then of course they raid others, dig and raid in the under-realms and more often than not then eat each other off.”

I swallow. “Does the High King know this?”

He nods. “He does as do many others but in many lands what happens here is too far removed and it’s fanciful tales….For me to get to you by horse from here to Lyonnes would have taken me a month or better travelling Trolls never travel far except in large, large numbers and with the promise of food and Wargs and Goblins seldom travel further than a few days from where they feel safe…We are one of the buffer zones, one of the places that keeps these monsters from expanding their places and to come at the rest of humanity.”

I’m frowning as we walk because I don’t like the idea of not knowing something and at the same time if someone came to Lyonnes and told me of life here I would just have thought them spinning tales.

“This sounds like an important post then.”

“You sound like you have questions?”

“I do, like why Braitheholde wasn’t attacked and Lyonnes was?”

“Vulnerability, we’re very hard to attack and to break by design your realm was not by the sounds of it.”

“No…we fell fast.”

He nods as we go and he’s in thought. “I’d say that it might be political, your father was quite the social rebel from the things that I had heard from my parents when we were betrothed and the alliance to lady Blackhand and having her given the title of lady and even some small lands well that was likely seen as an affront to many.”

I look at him. “She built a town, well a village for women and midwives.”

He nods. “Witches too and many though, even if not actual witches they were women living free of men.”

“They were under father’s rule.” I say and maybe a bit offended.

“There are those that wouldn’t see it that way Angeline, they’d see her hand in ruling there.”

“But that’s not true she was barely around.”

“That wouldn’t matter.”

I sigh… I know this to be true as well and I do know that there were some that did not trade fairly with us because of Lady Blackhand and her not being liked.

“I just wish that I had answers.”

He nods. “I’ve sent messengers and birds.”

“Will they get through?”

He looks at me. “I sent several, no offense princess but in many ways your world is more dangerous than mine.”

I shake my head. “It’s not my world; I never did well in these things that would be my sister.”

Wyatt actually smiles at that and he opens a large door at the end of this hall we’ve been walking it. “That’s a boon to me then Angeline I’m a knight and a warrior not a politician.”

He does this grand gesture as he open the door. “Be welcome to the garden of the clouds.”

Oh…

We’re on the roof, but not the roof. It’s the old roof if I am to judge and there’s new walls of stone and there’s a copper roof on the inside that shines like new and all around us and even in the ceiling there are windows, big windows with very clear glass in them and there are three panes here and it’s warm and it’s incredibly bright in here and inside the place is a garden.

Oh there’s some herbs and flowers and what you might find in a regular garden but far, far more do I see stone boxes and buckets and planters full of peas and beans and there is lettuces and chards and here and there I see bushes with berries and things that climb and there’s these small short apple trees and plums and pears that are only six or eight feet high but bush out very much and some are bearing fruit and others not so much.

He has two, two lemon trees.

There’s planter pots hanging from chains with finer chain nets around them like a skirting and in them I see melons and cucumbers and small pumpkins and squash anything that throws vines and climbs.

And in between the windows in places there are racks and tables for tools and for drying things.

I wander…look out the windows and I can see the world…this place is vale on vale of snow but I can see some stone structures here and there peeking through the snows in places, trailing wisps from their chimneys. Further out I can see the world below the peaks and I can see this grey-green-brown expanse and eventually a thin line of deeper grey.

“Those are the swamps? The Moors?”

He nods. “And behind them the sea.”

I sigh. “That’s too far by any means to hit open water to get a ship out.”

These swamps, the only reason that I’m seeing an end to them is the heights I’m at. The place could swallow Lyonnes it’s is huge.

“Are there beasts in there?”

“Yes, there always has been I think but there are more since Rory Blackhand’s days. Though nothing like the clans of Goblins and the Trolls that abide in Stonewood. Mostly beasts and a few tiny tribes of creatures.”

“Creatures?” Just the thought gives me the shivers.

“Fenn trolls, Gillans, Tainted tribes of men…”

“Barbarians?”

“Worse than that but yes.”

“So no one lives there?”

“Not since Blackhand himself secure in the knowledge that such a place was defending him.”

I nod. “Father fought in The Rampant then, how did they get to the citadel?”

“Hard, hard work they built a huge causeway.”

I look. “I don’t see it.”

“We…they pulled it up after them when they burned Thornguard down.”

“Oh well…that must have taken a lot of work.”

He nods. “There were thousands of men and others there from the records of such and much of the work for that army was done out of Braitheholde.”

“A wealthy time then?”

He shrugs. “It was but that was also a hard time too, it taxed our resources greatly especially when winter came.”

I move from the view. “I can’t even imagine this place must have been full to the rafters.”

We start walking and he nods. “And every hall that could spare the room in these high valleys.”

He leads me out those doors and down some stairs to another series of halls and stairs and here I can see other things like rooms and some offices and more of the same until we go lower than we started at and we’re in the main halls of The Holde.

The halls are decorated some and still it’s designed for sectional fighting but I get to see bigger rooms and sections here with the library and there is a map room (Both small) and the room for the messenger birds and another with some electric equipment…that I wonder on and it’s not a power maker but there are wires and many, many things that I have no idea about and there are two dwarves there both men and they’re doing things with tools and taking notes.

“What is that?”

“That is a marvel from the ancient days that is called a ray-dee-oh.”

“Ray-dee-oh?”

“In the ancient times our peoples used them to talk instantly over distances we’ve been trying to repair this one and make it work for close to forty years now since we gained it. There’s tales of the High King having such a device and we hope to bridge the gap between places with such a thing.”

I look at him. “The High King does not have such a thing otherwise he would have sent others remade from the plans of his out to the realms.”

Wyatt just looks at me. “…..yes, yes of course he would.”

I nod. “Still this is an incredible effort.”

He nods and we move on.

There is a lot here that is like a fortress I would assume it’s very castle like but there are fewer fanciful things here that I am used to seeing and at the same time there’s things I am not used to.

Like the barracks for the knights and the soldiers being inside the keep…The Holde and not in outbuildings, the fact that the dining hall is communal with a table for the king and the queen and their knights but there’s no wall nor a raised dais to make it a high table and there’s the oddest thing I have ever seen and that is a counter along one wall between the kitchens and the dining hall and they serve food from it….and people come to them and get their own.

I see people doing this and men in knight’s jackets with their crests in line with the commoners and not just the warriors and they are holding trays with dishes and cutlery and bowls and they are being served all the same.

The only ones being waited on by people here are the walking wounded.

There are people here hurt, scarred and burns and some are bandaged and others are doing duties or eating with some and…I see missing hands and legs…but there’s metal fitted fake limbs? I see a leg with moving metal pipes and springs but with what looks like a foot that has been made to move?

“You…there are a lot of people hurt here, still doing things here?”

“Everyone fights, nobody quits.”

“I…” I try and find some words for this, there are people here that would been either pensioned off or cast out from service.

I look at my hand, or the lack there off. “Is there a device that could be used for myself…?”

He nods. “Some, but they are not the same Angeline. We use what we know of the battleknights to make things that make things easier but to actually make a working hand is well beyond us or even the dwarves.”

I nod. “Still perhaps when I’m more healed I can get something that would help me, a hook perhaps.”

He nods. “A hook is the most common.”

I wipe at my eyes…I’m scared, I’m scared for my loss and scarred by it too and it’s throbbing and I’m sort of cradling it and Wyatt lets me lean on him and that’s a big help and I notice that there are some…the injured first getting up and standing and they’ve stopped eating and they’re looking at us, looking at me.

Wyatt whispers in my ear. “They’ve only heard the scantest of rumors Angeline, and now they’re seeing all of you.”

I nod several times and I swallow a hard lump full of wanting to cry and tears and I stand and look at them and I take a breath. And stop cradling my arm…my stump. “It’s new…and I am sorry if I’m being…My home fell, they came with stones and engines and…I want to do right by you…by all of you.”

Someone started clapping and those like me began to tap cups and jacks and flagons.

I have a lump in my throat from something else now.

There’s the sound of steel being pulled and there’s a man in mail and leathers with an eye-patch and a mechanical leg both on his right side. A knights jacket with his coat of arms (A wreath made of silvery thread and a flame inside of it.) on the sleeves and the right breast and he comes over and in front of the pair of us and he looks me in the eyes and I try to meet his look and there’s…respect maybe?

He takes a knee which looks really hard to do and like he has done this with a lot of practice and he offers me the hilt of his sword. “You’re home now Princess, I’ve not renewed my oaths ever lady but for someone like…someone like so many of us…there’s never been such a thing. And if you’ll take a battered blade like myself then I’ll swear my oaths all over again.”

I take the hilt…I…he’s right, I’ve never seen a noble that wasn’t hale and whole that wasn’t hidden away with shame or the like. You have to look perfect…I’m not perfect…before they’d called me scattered or even addled my Aunt Aurora said I thought and learned differently.

The blade is heavy, I’ve never held one before and it’s the weight and the length that makes my hand shake until I figure out how to hold it or I think that I do.

It’s the oddest thing really I was raised in a castle, we had men at arms and knights and this is the first sword I’ve ever held. It’s a weapon, you can feel the balance the more that you hold it and I’m very aware of the edge it has too.

I take a breath and tap his shoulders like I had seen father do.

“Battered but not broken?”

“Yes princess.”

“Everybody fights?”

“Yes princess.”

“You’ll help me then?”

He looks at me like I gave him something… and he smiles. “Yes princess.”

“Then I’ll be grateful Sir…”

“Sir Roland of Martel princess.”

“Rise Sir Roland of Martel and speak your words.”

He gets up and I have the urge to try and help but I hold off and let him do this. It seems to be the way here. He gets to his feet and he takes a breath and he says.

“I am a knight.”
“I wear my heart on my shield.”
“I carry it to rise up against evil.”
“I carry it to defend the helpless.”
“I am a knight.”
“My blade is to speak to justice.”
“I carry it for the weak.”
“I carry it for others.”
“For my blade does not belong to me.”

“I am a knight.”
“My words are my own but my service is yours.”

I swallow and nod…that lump is in my throat again because he just swore to me. It’s my first and it’s one of those things that you can’t truly feel until it happens to you. I saw my parents doing this but I have always felt leagues away from being like or even as competent as either of them.

And he’s not the only one either as more and more of these veterans like him come lining up to take oaths with me.

Wyatt’s comes to my rescue by getting closer. “I know this is a lot, and it’s scary but as much as you’ve lost Angeline most rich folk, most nobles they’ve never lost at all.”

He presses close, very close. “Lean on me as you have need to.”

And I do.

I need to lean on him and I do just that and his hands slip to my sides and he steadies me, he sometimes helps me with lifting an offered weapon that I am just not able to lift and my arm hurts my good one and my amputated one by the time we’re done and Wyatt helps me with the ale jack I’m holding since my hand is trembling from the strain and I drink and then hold it for him.

I don’t know, I seen my mother do that with father it seems a married thing.

He drinks and I stare, he is very handsome fresh shaven.

And he’s plain spoken; he isn’t some gilded court man with titles and nothing done to earn them.

I blink and look at him. “Perhaps we should be wed as soon as we can.”

He looks at me and stares and I think that he’s looking for something but I don’t know what?

I say. “I need it Wyatt, I need you and your house and your men and I need to not be a lone and to not be vulnerable and I need someone that will see me instead of this wound and not be scared or ashamed that I am not courtly witted or much more than plain.”

It becomes evident that I’m rambling when he tilts his head and slowly smiles some and says. “Breathe…Yes, yes we can do this as fast as you want Angeline and we can go as slow as you want as well.”

Then he kissed me.

I am plainish, I am good with facts and numbers and things in front of me and I am bad at court things. I know this, I know that for a woman and a noble I am odd enough that I was likely to be a spinster.

Girls like me do not get kissed by Kings, not even in wondertales.

It’s good, it’s scrambling me enough that I am bending my arms at my elbows over and over and I do that and rock on my heels because…I don’t know why I do but I do and it helps me…I do it when my head locks up over things and it’s doing it right now because I think my heart is leading the way.

He breaks the kiss and I’m still doing it and he looks at me and he has this kind smile there. I bite my lip some though. “Sorry…”

Wyatt is still looks happy and kind and it’s like he’s seeing me. “For what?”

“I…I’m not what you think, I’m odd…I do things, sometimes like this.”

“I still don’t know what’s wrong with that?”

“I…you…you don’t?”

“No, I don’t. I do not care in which way thet gods have touched you Angeline. It does not matter here.”

He gets this serious look. “You know what we say here?”

I nod. “Everyone fights, nobody quits.”

He nods. “And Everybody counts.”

(Sniffle.) “We do?”

He nods and says in that low common romantic. “Aye, you do.” And then he kisses me again.

***……………….. Things go fast after that in a hurry. We retired for the night after announcing what had happened home and that Wyatt had every intention of still keeping to the arranged marriage even if things had changed.

I love the fact that the people were all ‘Of course’ about it.

It was hard sleeping but I did once the adventure of it all had run dry in my blood. Then I had some of the healers come with medicines and such for a willow-tea concoction that had a good deal of chokecherry brandy? I have no idea what a chokecherry is but it helped with the pain.

Nightmares woke me.

Wyatt came in through my door fast with a large knife in hand to see if I was okay and not in danger.

That made me scream all the more from fright and surprise.

He blinks and he looks at me and then at my shuttered window and then at me. “You’re alright?”

I nodded. “Yes…I had a nightmare…what’s out there?”

“Nothing but how you came to us I wasn’t sure.”

“Oh…Oh well damn you really had me scared there.”

“As did you when you screamed.”

I nod and I do the struggle of sitting up and again I’m faced with the reality of how much I used that arm for that I just can’t do now.

Wyatt looks at me and he looks like he’s going to pace or start.

He looks like he actually needs to do something and he doesn’t know what.

And by the gods I know that feeling too.

I take a breath and then swallow.

“Lay with me.”

He looks at me. “Angeline?”

“Not like lovers…not yet but just…just come over here and hold me please. I need something that’s reassuring and you’re reassuring to me. I need that or I’ll start going madder than I already am.”

“You’re not mad, you’re recovering.”

I stare at him and I could say things but I don’t know what to say instead I hope that I’m doing the right thing and I extend my good arm. “Please.”

He sighs and he slides onto the bed an we move around and adjust the sheets and his dagger and he slides that actually into a space in the headboard.

I’m sort of wondering hard about the life that I’ll be leading when daggers at the ready are a thing in bed and then I’m surprised at the sensation of Wyatt’s arm coming around me and him settling close and holding me.

I’m surprised that he’s doing it.

And I’m surprised at just how good this feels.

Sleep’s coming up on me fast now that he’s there and it feels somehow better but there’s still…

“Wyatt?”

“Mmm…” He sounds drowsy.

“You’re getting no prize.”

“Why do you say that, I told you the arm’s not a thing?”

“It’s more than that, I’m off.”

“Off?”

“I am bad with people, I’m literal far too often and I don’t do well with things like jests and flattery and all these social graces. I’ve never been…I have to think hard at things and dig for every word sometimes and even them my brain doesn’t work like all the other’s that I’ve seen around me.”

“You seem fine to me?”

“Well I’m not…I’m far from a bargain and even further from a prize.”

“You are too hard on yourself.”

“Aunt Aurora said that I had a different brain but the other healers said that I was touched…and not in a divine way. If I’d not been born a noble I’d be the village idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“No, I know that now, after a long, long time but I’m graceless.”

“You showed a lot of grace today.”

“That was easy and that was different that was swearing to something and telling the truth I’m good with telling the truth.”

“Some men would treasure that.”

“No, no they haven’t…if I can’t say the things that are coming through my head and I know that they won’t be received well I just shut down. I shut down because if I don’t. I will say something that’s true and that gets people angry. It makes men angry.”

“Not this man.”

“It will.”

He turns me over and he looks at me and it’s hard to tell what is going on in his mind but he looks soft right now. He looks nice but I’ve been….

Wyatt kisses me.

And it’s one of those wondertale kisses that’s soft and sweet and him lightly touching my face and it’s wonderful and scary and even more wonderful as things keep going and I suddenly feel it.

That need and heat and wantonness that I heard the keep women home speak of and my mother and my sister…that actual thing that is supposed to happen when a woman is attracted and wanting her man.

I have never felt this before.

It’s burning me up and swallowing me in this good way…in this best way…it makes my foot kick the bed over and over in this happy but my odd way.

The light kicking helps me…usually it’s tapping my feet, or rocking on my heels or bouncing a leg when I’m sitting or I used to tap my fingertips to a surface over and over it was like all the activity made things better inside…Aunt Aurora helped me with finding out that doing that was okay and that it helped me deal.

And according to her it was all normal.

But I’ve never felt it.

But right now I feel normal and powerfully so and I fight and struggle to get out of my nightdress.

“Angeline?”

“Help me get out of this Wyatt, I’m aroused and it’s too hot.”

And as soon as I said it I’m blushed really red but I can’t put the words together prettily like my sister.

He helps me out of it and I get out of the rest and I’m nude in front of him except for the bandages on my stump and he looks at me and it’s a nice way I think of being looked at.

It’s at least not like he’s seen this all before even when he’s likely have.

Some men would be far too smug looking.

And I believe my mother when she said if you see smug outside the bedroom you’ll see it inside of it and those men are the worst of lovers.

He reaches up to touch me.

“We’re not married yet.”

“I know, but I want this, I want you Wyatt because you make me feel happy and you make me feel safe and you arouse me and I do not want to wait. It’s just a ceremony for the public and for the barristers or the priests to sign. I want you now while I’m feeling this way…you make me feel things I’ve never felt and never thought that I would.”

He actually sits up instead of touching me and he’s blushing and then he’s kissing me and we go from there until we’re doing more and more and we roll over, or he rolls me over and then it’s.

It’s us making love.

Out of wedlock, but most of the people that are together did this before they were wed from things that I’ve heard and I am marrying this man.

And it didn’t hurt…not really, it was a shock to be sure but with how aroused I was and how ready it went very easily inside of me and…and…it just got better from there…even the times I hit my stump or bumped it or leaned on it the wrong way didn’t shake the way that this felt.

Nothing in my life actually made me feel so focused on a person before.

The length, his heat, the velvet flesh but iron hardness.

The fact we’re doing it is better than any of those coping actions I do…it’s so pure and good and it’s not just good but it’s getting better.

Oh, oh I think I like sex.

And Wyatt’s a battleknighters…all that muscle and power and strength and all that endurance…I’m take, taken in the best of ways and I really try to keep up and give back…push back…do things even if I’m a virgin and I don’t know what I’m doing.

And the floods of the pleasure he takes me to…the first time it happened and I had what mother and my sister called The sunrise I instantly got the metaphor…and I do not get those very well.

But it was so much pleasure it was like heat and light and more…it was radiant inside of me like a sunrise.

And over and then he fills me with is hot seed.

I honestly, honestly like Wyatt, I think I might be falling in love with him.

Then there’s this feeling that I might…I might welcome his child.

I will certainly welcome trying.

And we keep going hard for him to show me several sunrises.

And he fills me with seed twice more.

And afterwards…after all of it I feel like a barn cat in then strong sunshine.

Happy and satisfied and boneless aching and sweaty.

And Wyatt pulls me ever so close and holds me tight.

***……………….. We slept in four glasses past dawn and we made love again.

And I found out that making water afterwards hurts a little.

And then we wash and we dress and we had to separate for that and Sally comes and she helps me get ready and she has a grin that I think that she knows all of what happened.

I’m blushing as she gets me dressed and that’s mostly showing me how as opposed to actually doing it for me. That’s strange but I deal with it. I chin my blouse together at the top one layer over another until I can do the first button. The trousers are even harder but the same with me pulling the drawstrings and holding it and then tying it off. Sally grins at me and I look at her.

“I did it wrong?”

“Nay I just never seen anyone one hand loop knots before.”

“I…I don’t know any other way to do it.”

“It doana matter lady, here’s yer belt that’ll be easier.”

It’s a war belt, a sword belt only with no sword just a sheath and a really large heavy knife. Then there’s a leather jacket she brought me that’s heavy and it’s armor with layers and quilted cloth-mail under it and it has a sort of corset like set of ribs in it that fit over my middle once it’s zipped and buckled.

I look at her. “Is this really needed?”

“Aye, they kin come hard anytime lady and it’s always prudent to take some care and it’s a fine coat lady fitting mail for ye.”

I sort of look to the sleeve with the stump. “Too bad for this though I think it ruins the look.”

She smiles. “Well we’re getting ye a fitted prosthetic fer thet lady and I think it’ll be a good one.”

I look at her. “A prosthetic arm and hand…will it work?”

“Nay, not without other kinds of doings but until something like thet comes along we can get you a nice looking one that you can use as a good fist, or maybe put a blade to or a buckler.”

I don’t say it because I already know. “Everyone fights”

“Aye, nobody quits.”

I take a breath. “So my needs and plans for the day are?”

“Well we never made the plans as to being formal and such but we’re getting a start for the wedding and we’ll put that together in a day or two once all of the guests that can make it show up and all.”

“That’s fast, with all of this snow.”

“Aye we’ve fast sleighs here and the likes our rangers get around pretty fast.”

“Do I need to supervise things?”

Sally looks at me. “Iffin ye want but tis not the first wedding we’ve had hearabouts.”

I nod. “I’m grateful especially since I don’t know the local customs for this.”

She nods and she passes me this hook for my boots so I can pull them up with the one hand.

I look at her. “Honestly I think I might want a simple hook first.”

She nods. “Aye then that we can do right away. And then dance lessons/”

“I know how to dance.”

Sally taps my big knife. “Not that kind of dancing Lady.”

“Oh…”

We head and we get to the armory and there’s not just the making and care of the armor of the keep but I see a shop where they’re working and caring for the prosthetics I seen before and I get fitted with a hook.

Well it’s first a woolen sleeve like a sock and then there a harness like this really thing vest and that is actually to brace the fine spring coils and eye hooks that connect the leather and wood sleeve that goes over my stump and holds it all in place.

Then the hook gets just screwed into place.

It hurts, it hurts and it’s aggravating but I’m told with the padding and the sleeve unless I bash it end on hard it won’t bleed. I tell myself that it’s like new boots and there will be pinching until I get used to it.

And it doesn’t look that bad with the leather armored coat on.

Looking it the mirror though I surely do not look like Angeline Lyonnes.

I thank each of the men there doing the job and the leather worker he’s…he has a chair with wheels and the look of a man with a broken back but still with purpose.

Broken but still more than needed.

I head off to break my fast and to get to my dancing lessons.

***……………….. It turns out that I can do a lot with a hook, like I can pull dishes to me; I can use it to gently hold my bread in place as I grease it.

Boar grease and bacon fats with ground browned off onion…butter when you don’t have butter.

Because the butter stays in the kitchen and it gets used for just the pastry cooking and the like for all of those in The Hold.

And even Wyatt eats the grease.

And I’m coming to like drinking coffee more.

And Wyatt and myself and all of the staff don’t eat at some high place but with all of the others getting a board of things from the counter as they’re served up.

Bread with grease, oatmeal with dried fruit, blood sausage and fluffed eggs…they’re just a bit of them and they’re all yellow but they’re like little clouds and are very good.

And post sex…I eat everything I way given which is not my usual way of things but I have an appetite.

And then it’s off to Kate’s halls and she’s got an office just off of the main courtyard and it’s small with a bed and a jakes attached a very small quarters for an officer but it’s quarters for a woman officer and that’s an extremely rare thing.

My first lessons are pretty much learning all of the things that I don’t know and can’t do including not tripping over my own two feet and not nearly passing out from exhaustion by using a Hauk… that’s a practice blade and then other things too.

It felt like forever and she just smiles. “Look it’s not that bad you’re no more raw than any other woman that I’ve trained.”

I’m panting. “Oh…we’re all this bad?”

“No I’ve seen worse Angeline, you’re stubborn and it helps. You’re also decent with details so there’s that that’ll help you learn.”

She gives me a sheet that has ink drawings of exercises. “Do these, do them every morning before you wash and then again before you bed down.”

Then she passes me this squeeze-spring thing that looks like open shears with no blades.

“What’s this?”

“It will help you strengthen your grip.”

“Oh...and I need to do that?”

“With one hand the sooner the better even if it’s just for the everyday.”

I nod and I look at Sally who had left but now she’s back. “What’s next?”

“Chores?”

“Chores?” I raise an eyebrow this should be interesting.

It actually was but it was hard too. I find out that there’s things that are all set up in rotations and that even all of us that have no defined job as of yet we fill in the gaps as best as we can.

So I clean stables and use my hook a lot for that and I’m aching from all of the carrying of things and of the shoveling of the straw and the manure and other droppings. I had to use my hook to steady the shovel handle and then lift.

Over and over and over.

It hurts.

But it feels good because it feels useful.

And… there’s the other thing.

Hearing people say time and time again… “Lookit she t’aint turned her nose up at doin the same as us and even wit her hurts and losses.”

It sounded like pride in me?

I had that at home from my family and those close to us but I was never sure of the common folks or some of the keep folks even since I was the odd spinster princess.

This feels good.

Good enough that I don’t mind the blisters.

Although when I’m done it is for the day and I am more than glad to retire to a long bath and Sally brings me strong dosed tea for my pains and she stays to wash my back and my hair.

And then it’s dressing again only this time it’s the under wear and then my harness for my hook and then my dress over it so as to hide some of that and that I look sort of pretty.

Well as pretty as a woman with a hook can be.

Which I think I might have been wrong about when I meet Wyatt in the main hall for our evening meal and since I hadn’t seen him since breakfast we have lots to talk about.

He was working with the Battleknights in the shops doing repairs and upkeep and then he was in arms training with the warriors and other knights and then he was doing some of the kingly paper works with the lists and tallies and the reports.

And the evening meal is court of sorts too with stories told and questions asked about things and I listen as it’s plans for the battleknights and they all have specific names and then there’s talks of costs and the markets and what is getting short here and there and things outside of The Hold.

And Sally reads from letters and dispatches that aren’t labeled as private for Wyatt.

Which is something we never did but it’s like we’re letting everyone know very much a lot of the working of what’s going on and then there’s often surprisingly enough people, well men and knights that offer suggestions or to even help with something that comes up or even to just go and do whatever the thing it is.

The thing is it’s still very much the knights and it’s still very much the officers and Wyatt is very much commander and king but the people they feel I think very much more included in things here.

Like this says it’s their kingdom.

And then there’s some games and then there’s some more stories and some music and then a little dancing and then when I’m yawning Wyatt has one last drink with the folk and then he walks me to our bed.

Yes our bed…he does go to leave to head to the barracks but I reach down to his hand and hold him there and walk him into the quarters again.

And yes we make love again.

I’m hurt and sore and I have blisters and aches but I’m dosed and well into my third cup of wine and that’s more than enough to have had me thinking of before and that gets me wanting.

And Wyatt is a man and apparently it took very little for him to be thinking of me that way as well.

I well and truly like sex.

***……………….. It was very embarrassing to wake myself with how hard I was snoring.

And today went a lot harder than yesterday.

I’m unsure if I will ever feel charitable towards Kate ever again. She works me so hard and it’s all just exercises but seriously, this is this almost torture.

I will have much, much more respect for the stablemen and their tasks from now on.

And we have reindeer.

Which I thought were only in wondertales and such.

I got to feed the reindeer.

And we have cows and we have goats and pigs and chickens and we have this huge, huge kennel too.

Wyatt stays the night again but this time no sex.

He rubbed my hurts and I fell asleep on him.

***……………….. It’s just over a week and the arm still hurts but less so.

I still have bad dreams and nightmares.

I still wake feeling like my arm is still there.

Wyatt holds me and he comforts me and he’s very, very kind.

Kate has me finally working not just in the morning but in the late afternoons now too in a storeroom with ten other women and I’m learning how to spar now that she’s worked the office out of me.

It’s nothing close to what soldiers are capable of or what the knights do but we’re all slowly learning arms and what’s easiest to use and how to stay alive. How, just how important a spear is.

And we’re starting to learn to use a crossbow, well a small one called a slurbow but it’s for inside defense mostly and I can pull and lock it with my hook.

I just need to learn how to actually hit something.

***……………….. It’s just past me being here a fortnight when I hear the horns.

Wyatt’s out of bed dagger in had and checking the windows before I’m even up.

Then he’s getting dressed and he’s heading off fast and I’m trying to do the same and Sally’s running in to help me.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s an attack at the second black wall.”

“Second black wall?”

“Aye it’s a wall in the second pass that closes off that vale to Stonewood.”

“Is it close?”

“Aye about’s twelve miles.”

“Can they hold?”

“We don’t know, but they’ll try.”

We’re getting into my things fast and then it’s the harness and my armor then there’s my weapons with the knife and then Sally has my slur bow and a quiver. I look at her. “Will they get here?”

“Aye they might?”

“So I’m to do?”

“Get seen, get to the walls and to the scope house.”

“Scope house?”

“The corner towers, there’s telescopes.”

“Oh…I’ve never used one.”

“No time like the present Lady.”

We head out and I feel it first the thump and vibrations and then there’s this whole thump and rattle of things as the battleknights are heading out at a fast pace and increasing with each stride that they’re taking and I see several more coming out and a dozen are out through the gates and I see another set of doors open and Wyatt’s Battleknight comes out to follow them and I run along the walls as far and as fast as I can to see him off.

Once he’s clear the gates he picks up enough speed that he passes the ones ahead of him and they head for this large outcropping fortress tower.

I get to one of the corner towers panting. “Scope….?”

I get shown to a large brass and glass thing on a turret… I’m seated…yes it’s that large and I see Wyatt and his knights keep going until thy pass from view several miles out.

And then it’s waiting and watching.

And agonizing…until I hear another series of horns getting blown.

I look to a soldier. “What was that?”

“They’ve engaged, they’re there Lady.”

It’s torture to wait and I want to see, I want them to be okay.

Please Wyatt come back to me.

It’s a full glass when I hear this other horn blow and there’s a cheer from the people.

I look to the soldier. “We won?”

“Aye, there’s still danger and might be stragglers but they’ve been sent packin.”

“Wounded, dying?”

“Almost always.”

I get up and head out. “Sally! Do we have healers!”

I hear from below. “Aye we’re making ready!”

“Get the dogs and the sleds ready all of them and all the pages we can spare and anyone that we can spare to sew wounds and bandages.”

“Lady?”

“We’re going to them, there’ll be wounded and those they can’t move!”

“Lady it’ll be dangerous for them!”

“It’ll be dangerous for us, I’m going too!”

“Lady that’s not a good idea.”

“No it’s not but we’re not losing lives we can save by being there fast.”

“Angeline there’ll be stragglers there always is!”

“Everyone fights!”

The courtyard answered back…. In a shout of many voices. “Nobody Quits”

I hear Sally yell. “Aye Majesty!”

I’m not queen here yet but it’s what it means.

***……………….. It’s chaos getting things ready and then there’s the dog drivers and there’s squires and pages and the gear for healing and for surgeries and we have every sled we have with some that are going to be emptied of the younger lighter fighters and I’m well aware I’m taking the young with me to fight.

Then we’re off and it’s fast…fast as any horse that I’ve been on and I am holding on for dear life as I’m headed out with them as the miles are speeding by.

There’s shapes I can’t really see well running to us, some headed to other places and I hear a horrible war scream and I see this filthy creature with furs and yellow-green skin with armor and weapons getting through and it hurls a spear at us missing and I try to aim and my ranger driver yells. “Now fire!”

I fire and it’s good he had a better eye for my arm than me because I drop the horrible thing.

“Congratulations Lady you killed your first Goblin.”

“Thank you for the word Ranger!”

I see others doing the same things and there’s others from our side chasing those on foot as we’re pulling up to this walled fortress…literally a huge wall with sections that look like the buildings for it and.

I take aim and shoot a large Goblin as we pass close by and it’s fighting axe to nasty sword with one of our soldiers. It doesn’t kill it but it does sink deep and it turns to see me and our warrior literally guts it with a sweeping swing.

I was past before I seen too much more.

And there’s these huge, huge grappling hooks of giant stone trees that have enough of the right branches and size to hold weight…and they have large chains that are hooked to it and I see Battleknights there pulling these chains up over the walls.

There’s dead Trolls a good two dozen of them, hundreds of Goblins and other things, things that might have been men.

Blood everywhere soaking and freezing in the snows and it’s a horror to see.

There’s an advantage to my oddness, and that’s I am easy to let myself slip into this hard rationality.

I look until I see wounded as big a knot of them as I ca see and point to there and I’m off and running to help and then it’s just chaos.

There’s blood, so much blood and I’m helping as much as I can and that’s stanching wounds…tying tourniquets and sewing…I’ve one good hand and years of experience doing embroidery and such things and it’s not pretty and it’s not elegant but it’s everything we can do…I can do.

Those we can sort of make stable we do and send off first.

Then the rest.
And it’s getting lighter until dawn strikes and in the blood and the cold and the smell there’s this sound.

I think they’re dwarven pipes and that they’re playing out as the sun rises and we’re still here…still alive and that sound echoes out over the mountains.

And angrily I hope down to Stonewood.

I see people slowly stopping as the song is played for a few seconds and there’s this look, some have tears and then we’re back at it until we’re relieved.

I see Wyatt and he sees me and we’re running to each other.

We grab each other and we kiss…he doesn’t even ask.

He just broke the kiss long enough to stare at me then he kisses me again.

We stayed the night there, shoring up things, talking to the wounded that wouldn’t leave their posts. There’s eight house towers in the half mile of wall. We stop, we have a coffee or a hot wine with the men there and Wyatt sent for stores of alcohol and we all have bacon and crocks of beans and bread and real butter…nothing too good for them.

I’ve never shock so many hands and have people look at me in literally blood stained trousers and the armored coat and then the hook.

And I’ve never been so well received I don’t think.

There’s nothing in my heart like a soldier sharing his bunk while wounded and resting and we’re sharing a jack…literally passing a large jack around between four of us in the room full of whisky and hot coffee.

I’m good and drunk half that evening.

I’ve eaten bacon chunks off a stick from over a fire with my fingers.

I hear much to my blushing stories of my two shots and my speech from the wall which I’m having to insist wasn’t a speech but Sally and I yelling at each other.

And all that drink, and after everything that happened Wyatt and I make crazy almost wild love that night.

I’m drifting off literally exhausted as he holds me. “Thank you.”

“Mmmm…?”

“Thank you for coming Angeline.”

“This is home now Wyatt, you’re my home.”

“I love you Angeline.”

I roll over and look at him and I don’t read people well but thee look in his eyes is so truthful.

“I love you too Wyatt, I never though life would be like this, could be like this but it is and I’m happy.”

He tenderly kisses with me over and over until we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

***……………….. We walk home in the Battleknights and I’m riding inside with Wyatt inside and we have our own train with the dog sleds and then the sleds from the Holde and we’re taking everyone that needs to be there to heal and as we see the walls there’s cheers.

And then there’s the pipes playing us all home and there’s people there…all that can be spared there standing to greet us.

And Wyatt open the front hatch and wraps an arms around me.

“Welcome home Angeline.”

He points to the pole where the flag of Braitheholde flies and there’s a second one there now new and on it is the gold on cream flag with the wheat sheaves and the rampant lion on it.

The Flag of Lyonnes and its flying at an equal height to his own.

I’m not sure I can say just how proud this makes me.

***……………….. It was three days later when there’s bells being wrung I’ve never heard. I was reading the books between doing all of the other things that I’ve been doing and Wyatt comes for me smiling. “The Boats are here.”

“The Boats?”

“Aye, the underboats the dwarves are here. Would you want to come?”

“Yes! Very much!”

And I finally see the deep below.

That’s this huge series of stairs that lead deep, deep and almost fearfully deep into the mountain. Down and down until we get to this large underground lake and there’s dwarves here…in the mountain for The Hold we have dwarves here and they live in certain spots doing some mining and other work in this treaty trade and at the bottom there’s a cut right into the rock a small sort of like township and storehouses and there’s boats.

I’m more than unnerved by the lake and the blackness but it’s not my world…ten minutes down on the way here and I was sure of that.

We’re so deep.

But it’s actually fascinating enough to stem my discomfort for too long as well since here; here we have some trade good going back and forth from this place. And the mining is the key here, they want our steel and they mine it and we get a percentage from it in the treaty deal and we use those funds for trade.

And this time there’s gifts, gifts for our wedding which will be at the end of the next fortnight.

Fruit, vegetable that we don’t have, crocks of butter and cheeses and drink and I’m very much at home with the tallies and this work as I help Sally and Wyatt with the counts and I learn and use a few likely badly turned words of dwarven to thank them or ask things of them and thankfully they all speak common if it’s very accented.

And there’s some news.

Gracia is in The Capital in Valhalla and guesting with The High King as things are being found out by The King’s Guard with what happened home. I worry for her at court, if she sees the court there for all I’ve ever heard is that it’s a dangerous place as much as the place is the diadem jewel for all of the lands of men.

Elizabetha is in The Eastlands at the home of our maternal grandfather and she’s safe on City Island in his care. I worry for that because they have had a very odd reputation with things as they can be on the coast.

From what I remember of the east it’s very complex with a lot of small houses and family politics and things but it’s also some of the richest lands there are too and the people I met there were decadent in their own ways.

Wine and alcohol country and all that comes with it. I remember that I saw a lot of swelled bellies in some very young women there. I also remember that grandfather was very odd too.

But then again most people are to me.

There is just tentative word about Stephan they think he’s dead too but we’re not sure of that but I know Justin is dead for sure with him having died with father in the attack.

And then….then I get word from this Lady Tatiana that she will be coming to my wedding?

I show the letter to Wyatt and he stares at it looking shaken. “What? What’s wrong is she a bad person?”

“No…no she’s famous sort of, she’s The Knight Marshal of The Free Kingdoms of The West. And she’s blood-sister to The High King.”

I…

“Why would she come here?”

“I don’t know, all I can think of is that it might have to do with Stonewood…or that she was sent by King Wayland the dwarven king for some reason. She doesn’t leave her lands unless she’s coming to fight and brining her army with her.”

“But she is coming to our wedding?”

He’s looking at the letter again. “Aye and with just a small company and she’s coming by boat over the lakes. Maybe this is something from my parents? They knew her I think or at least a little.”

I look at it again. “But it’s addressed to me, how does she have anything to do with me?”

He looks at me. “Likely word has spread of you through the boats and the like or even birds of what happened at Lyonnes.”

I nod and take a breath. “What should we do?”

“Make room, and send a reply welcoming her. This is something that I never thought that I would have ever thought would have happened in my life.”

I look to one of the dwarves and he smiles at me. “I’va writin desk in my cabin lady iffa ye doan mild setting feet on the poor thing.”

I smile at him. “Thank you captain, I would be honored. And that poor thing I’d wager is a welcome sight in these parts when you show up.”

I get escorted onto the boat and it’s more like a barge with all sorts of dwarven things to it and I’m a little fascinated by the railing which is wood but it’s carved in this sort of a triple braid like way. It looks uniform and it looks by hand and it’s just a pleasure to touch it.

And by escorted I mean with all the manners that a lady would expect. It’s very nice and it’s at the same time very charming too. They don’t bow to me but they give me a head nod and a pull of the forelock or a tip of a cap and nice smiles.

They’re a swarthy lot with the beards and all of the hair and a lot of them have tattoos and they honestly have a smell to them that sort of is good. It’s of leather and of earth maybe, dried fruits and tobacco and of good alcohols.

And they’re neat though, everything is all squared away so tidy and done with care.

That’s soothing.

He lets me have use of his cabin which is an office and a map room and the like and he gets me paper and a fountain pen and that’s a treat since father had but three of them and they were gifts from The High King.

I draft my letter and take my time doing it with the best hand that I can and I finish it and he passes me a tube for it. “I will see thet it gets to her hand personally princess.”

“You don’t have to call me that Captain.”

“No lass I doana but yer a fine lass by word that I’ve been hearing from trusted lips and what I’ve seen from me own eyes.”

I can’t help but to blush at that. “Thank you Captain.”

“Malcolm ye kin call me Malcolm.”

“I will thank you.”

He escorts me off of the ship and I stand with Wyatt as he’s shaking hands and patting backs as the dwarves are starting to ship off and I hear this sound of an engine? Or engines from the boats and they fire up electric lights that shine outwards and you cannot see the decks anymore because of the glare and they all pull away one by one and we stay until they’re out of sight.

I look at Wyatt.

“Can we go and see the sky again please?”

He takes my hand with a smile and he head for the big counterweighted cage called a lift.