The horse-drawn carriage was jostled for what felt like the hundredth time. The roads were not as well maintained here, on the rough coast of England, as they were in the park at the manor. Bella felt excited, though, for the first time in a very long time. The rugged landscape offered unlimited food for thought for her hungry eyes, eyes that until recently had mostly seen the inside of the small stark room at the manor. After the resent death of Bella's aunt she had no living family, and the king had controlled her estates since her parents' death. She had only vague memories of a pair of beautiful sparkling blue eyes, and of a red smiling mouth that she knew belonged to her mother. Bella would get a fleeting sense of comfort and then of loss every time she thought of her, so she did her best to suppress the memories. People said Bella looked exactly like her mother, famed beauty of the Northmen, except for the eyes; she had her father's eyes, the deep brown of the Irish soil from whence he came.
The land outside the carriage window continued to change, as stark broken rocks gave way to tufted hillocks, and gently rolling hills. This was the last leg of their journey. First they had gone by ship from Ireland to England, in itself an adventure, and then they had travelled by carriage for 5 days on the road. It was the king of England himself, who had ordered Bella and her guardians to leave the country of her birth and join his court. Bella had never cared much for her aunt, who believed children should be neither seen nor heard, and the young girl looked forward to experiencing new things in London. Little did she know that she was merely replacing one form of captivity with another.
The carriage had reached a crossroads, and the driver halted the horses, causing the chaperone, Mrs Mallory, to awake abruptly.
"What in the good Lords name are you doing child? Get away from that window at once!" she screeched, reaching over to yank the window covering from Bella's grip. She let go reluctantly, and mourned the pretty view that was no longer available. Needless to say, Mrs Mallory was an evil hag, but because she was appointed by the king to accompany the royal ward on the trip, Bella had to obey her. In fact, she had to obey everyone. The king controlled her lands and estates until she would eventually marry, and he reaped the riches right into his own pocket. And when she married she would have to obey her husband. Bella knew she was unlikely to ever be wed, however. A few years back she had overheard her aunt speaking to her only friend. The girl had not understood it at the time, but she thought she might have an inkling as to what her aunt had meant now that she had reached the respectable age of fourteen.
"That girl is the greatest money-machine the Crown possesses right now. The king is greedy and lives extravagantly. He cannot afford to ever let that little goldmine go. It is so unfair! I am her guardian! I take care of that little brat and only I should benefit from her fortune. I may not be related to that girl by blood, but I have raised her and shouldered the burdens of that girl's upbringing. I have done much more than I ought to, to honour my late husbands niece, may he rest in peace. It is only fair that I benefit in some small way from the hassle…" Her aunts' tirade was agreed upon by her friend, a spineless woman who was quick to agree to anything her higher ranked friend said. Bella has been coincidently passing the room where the two gossips sat, and since she could not in good conscience continue to listen at the door, she moved on. But the conversation stayed with her, and contributed to a feeling of despair that sometimes overtook her, whenever she envisioned the very real possibility of never getting away from her controlling aunt.
Another bump in the road brought Bella back to the present. Her strict aunt was no more, and though the Crown had appointed Mrs Mallory as a guardian and chaperone, Bella had high hopes that she would experience more freedom at court, than she had at her beloved, but isolated childhood home.
Mrs Mallory had fallen asleep again and was snoring softly in the corner. Bella took the opportunity to once again enjoy the view. Everything was so fresh and somehow gentler than she was used to. The Emerald Isle was undoubtedly a beautiful place, but Bella thoroughly enjoyed new things, since her life for the last few months had been so lacking in them. Another break in the monotony of the creaking carriage and the snores from her companion was the fact that it appeared another traveller had joined them on the road. The dark figure was on an immense horse, a warhorse of the kind Bella vaguely remembered her father owning and breeding. As he drew nearer Bella could see that beneath his black cloak, he wore the white coat embroidered with the red cross that symbolised the Knights Templar, or at least a pilgrim to the Holy Land. This was obviously a skilled or fearless man; to be travelling alone on such an expensive steed showed either a total confidence in ones own ability to defend oneself or a reckless abandon for personal safety.
As he drew even nearer it seemed to Bella that it was a bit of both. The knight seemed totally at easy on the big horse, and sat tall and strong on it. But at the same time he looked… defeated. Defeated, and oh so tired. Not so much in body as in mind, he gave the impression of a man who had just rallied his last troops and was riding into certain doom.
Bella found him fascinating.
When he passed the carriage she moved the curtain aside, anxious to see him fully. He was breathtaking. In Bella's limited experience she found him very handsome indeed, the strong jaw, the dark brows and the brilliant eyes burning into her memory. For a few short seconds their gazes met, and Bella's heart stopped beating. His eyes where so green, so beautiful, but with the aforementioned soul crunching tiredness, that she couldn't breathe for a little while. She could only stare at the face of one of the most revered heroes of her time, a pilgrim bound for the Holy Land, and suddenly with her whole heart wish that he might one day return from the scorching desert, and not perish in the sand as so many had.
Sir Edward of Aquitaine noticed the huge dark eyes first, the beautiful face second. The young girl looked like she would become a true beauty one day, and Edward who had looked forward to escaping England almost as much as he wanted to defend the Holy Land, suddenly felt a sense of hope he could not remember feeling since a year ago when his life had fallen apart. He found himself actually wanting to return; return and repair what had been torn apart.