The Soldier on the Ridge
"The marriage of convenience has this to recommend it: we are better judges of convenience than we are of love." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
The rain fell in slow heavy drops, soaking into his charger's mane then dripping from his flanks to join the rivulets in the mud. From the top of this ridge Cleon could normally see his fief stretch before him. The fields closest to the river carefully divided into a jigsaw of narrow strips of barley and wheat. For every two strips in use there would be one strip at rest. At this time of year the crops would have been harvested, a five o'clock shadow glowing gold on the fields; the barns would have been full to bursting, gain saved for the harsh months to come. Further up were the fields for livestock. These fields were bigger and would have been dotted with silvery dams in the late afternoon sun. Atop it all, looking over the farmland and the village, the Castle Kennan's spires reached into the sky, a castle for romance far from the borders and battlefields. A home from his childhood.
Cleon dismounted to descend the old, curling road. The rain had washed away the gravel to leave thick mud, dribbling down the hill like molasses and Cleon would rather walk in wet boots than risk laming Bison – the behemoth horse and he had travelled a long way. This road would normally travel down through the village before going back up to the grand gates of the castle. But the village is flooded and a new path has been made.
"My Lord!" Men Cleon remembers as mere boys call out to him, they are all within the castle walls. Safe.
"Tomlin! Good to see you well. How is the butcher?"
"You are speaking to the Master Butcher, but old Matchek is keeping an eye on me. Send your family my best, and come visit us soon – I have a new wife I want you to meet!"
The butcher's apprentice had been one of Cleon's closest childhood friends. And now he had married the girl he loved. The sight of the cheerful refugee camp that had sprung up in the main courtyard cut down Cleon's fast jealousy. His shoulders flexed and rolled beneath a maroon tunic and a straw dress shirt, darkened by the ever-falling rain. Duty. Duty.
"I received your letter." Perhaps it was an unusually curt greeting from a young knight to his mother, but Cleon was not expected to play the loving son in front of the lady's maids and pageboys. Private conversation here would always be halted.
Cleon's mother sat diminutive in her throne; her frail figure had been sapped of its vibrancy by the events of a lifetime – this latest flood, the struggle to try and run a fief under a long line of debts, the degradation of crawling to filthy bankers, and the deaths, all lined up, her father, her infant son, her husband. And Cleon was going to try and argue the case of love with such desolation?
"I have arranged your marriage to Ermelian." His mother was tired.
Identical grey eyes met across the great hall – a room built in the old style: a stormy stone floor, walls made of great slabs of stones, matched so well in size and cut they must have been brothers in the local quarry, slate ceilings imported from the western provinces and grand marble arches. Four shades of grey. Hundreds of shades of grey in the smoke stains and the wear and water marks. But it was all grey. It was all loss.
Cleon could see how the conversation would play out if he argued with his little mother. When he mentioned marriage to Kel his mother would look about the hall in confusion, take his sister's arm as she made her way to window and tears would drip from her eyes as she said no. Mourn his loss with him so sincerely it would be impossible to rage at her, to fight as his blood frothed in his veins.
"I will propose formally when we next meet."
Cleon had met Ermelian before, when he was a naive little boy convinced he could marry his calf love and solve the fief's problems with the tip of his sword. The audience had a distinctly different flavour with the weight of a ring in his pocket. The words he would say slowly revolving in his head – none of the panic that seized a man in a love match, the answer was secure – taking on new forms to flatter the prospective bride, to retain some truth, to suite tradition. The motions in his mind almost sickening, but still, she was a pretty girl. A pretty little convent girl. He was lucky.
Cleon looked almost comical sitting in the ladies parlour at Aldron: his knees pulled up into his chest as he sat on the low divan, the knee protector's of his dress armour almost grazing his exposed throat and his helmet clumsy in his hands. And his armour! Even his dress armour, burnished to show a perfect reflection and decorated with the archaic pattern of laurel leaves that had always been his family's emblem, was out of place here. Too much a celebration of violence to enter this room swathed in rose silk and snowy muslin. And yet, his father had proposed to his mother wearing this armour. Probably on their second meeting. Probably accompanied by Cleon's grandmothers. Probably in a room not unlike this one.
Cleon's mother and Ermelian's had left the young couple a little space as they chattered on their own. At moments like these Cleon often felt that the young ladies at the convent were trained to speak to knights – to act naturally and gracefully, to always seem entertained and given a list of comments they could use in every situation – while knight's were left to flounder, captivated by the titivating young women and unable to speak a word.
"Your armour is so beautiful, so refined! And still undamaged even through the fighting at the front. Why, it almost seems you haven't been to battle at all." Cleon could tell Ermelian was teasing only to invite him to speak, to allow him to tell some story of valour. It had always been so easy to speak candidly with Kel about such moments.
"It is the family dress armour." Cleon knew that. Ermelian knew that. The mothers by the window, listening intently as they feigned a conversation, knew that. Cleon's difficulty was neither anxiety nor temporary paralysis caused by the girlish bodyline of his betrothed.
It was forcing himself to go ahead, to suffocate his last chance at marriage to the woman he loved.
He could see Ermelian was about to give up conversation making, tired of holding this performance with such a woeful player.
"It's the same armour my father wore when he proposed to my mother and they grew to love each other very much." Cleon took a knee. "He asked for her hand in marriage with this ring and I am hoping that, if you agree to marry me, we will share the same love and devotion. I do promise to always protect you and to always cherish you. Please become my wife."
It wasn't the speech girls dreamt about but Cleon didn't know that speech.
He had once thought of stirring speeches: the careful speech explaining to Inness exactly why he was receiving letters from Kel, begging to be allowed private correspondence with his knightmaster's fourteen year old sister. The passionate speech he would recite lifelessly, in a cold sweat, asking for Kel's hand that he never finished writing. The gloating speech to the cocky Domitan of Masbolle he had finished writing. Countless love letters. Unsent.
Ermelian hadn't answered his question. But the mother's were congratulating him. Ermelian's father and younger sisters were in the room. Beating him on the back. Jumping onto the good furniture to kiss his cheek. Buzzing already about white dresses, ice sculptures and bridesmaids. Ermelian still hadn't answered his question.
But the marriage of convenience did not require the bride's approval. Cleon was suddenly ashamed.
"You hate girls like her." Celina always made an entrance, slamming into Cleon's room, yanking the curtains open to reveal the sodden landscape, and let the light in, "She's all 'Yes, my Lord' and eyes on the floor and … meek. What happened to strong women?"
"I've been fighting Scanrans all winter, maybe a meek little bride is exactly what I need. An obedient little wife waiting for me in an orderly house with a hot dinner and eyes that never quite meet mine." Celina never knew where Cleon got a reputation for an even temper, when you knew the right buttons to push… "That's what men want!"
"And that's why you've holed yourself away in your room while you should be celebrating your engagement. You're moping because you're going to be so busy being happy together for the rest of your lives."
"You think you're such a catch, strutting through the palace in breaches so you can show all manor of men your legs, playing at being a soldier, riding with your legs apart like the whore you are. You think men like it when ladies take over their roles? The Queen's Rider's are a joke, an escape for those girls that are too liberal to make a good match."
Tears welled in four matching eyes, forced back by the hard battle training that valued balls over sentimentality. Their 'chats' had always been like this: they forced each other to swallow the bitter poison, forced their passionate psyche to crawl and grovel on the worn stone floor, destroy their own blood, before they would show mercy and nurse the poor sick hope to life.
"I'm sorry. It's not true." Cleon caved first; though chivalry was long dead between the siblings, he could not see his big sister, grown small, cry. "Never let anyone tell you it's true. You're beautiful and spirited and no man could ever be good enough for you."
"Who was she?" Celina pushed her advantage, practicing meek, "Even now you could have brought her back. Mother can never say no to you."
"She wasn't really a that sort of girl. You know I've always had a thing for strong women. And she's tall, and glorious. I can really relate to her, you know, tell her just about anything. Except that I want to marry her and I can never love another now that I've held her. I was warned to stay away from poetry. She's brilliant with children too. All us boys used to call her mother, before I realised what a knockout she was.
"But I was never burdened with the fantasy that she would be waiting with the children for me to come home from war."
Celina was staring at him now, gaping, "You fell for Sir Keladry of Mindelan? I've seen that girl tilt – she'd have you flat on your back after the first run if you told her. Young knights do not get away smearing her honour unscathed!"
It wasn't that Celina doubted her brother had been in love with the Lady Knight, she was probably just to his taste: tall, strong and just progressive enough to let him believe he might get a chance. Celina simply doubted that Sir Keladry would look twice at her brother after riding with the rather dashing officers of the King's Own for the last four years. But that is one of the joys of younger brothers: the women that fall for them generally haven't seen the slow, painful forging of their merits.
"I had more of a chance than you give me credit for! If it weren't for these Gods forsaken floods I would have made an offer soon. After the war perhaps." Cleon was fading into thought now, "I haven't even held her properly in so long… And now I'm being forced to sit in the state rooms at Aldron and all I want is to be covered in mud on the front line."
"And I suppose you haven't even thought about how that's going to affect Ermelian? You think she hasn't considered her options in the past two seasons at court?" Celina smiled as she saw her little brother faulter, "Oh, you really think she's been sitting in her room thinking of you since this betrothal was announced! Imagining your great feats as she danced with all the young men of the court. Think, dunderhead, you're not the only one crying because your favourite toy's been taken."
The idea of Ermelian losing her own sweetheart hit Cleon like a blunt mace to the stomach, "Why'd she agree to this then? What's in this for her? Why is it so important she marries me?"