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Chapter Seven: Winter, a Tipping of the Scales
The room was dark. She didn't know which way was up or which way was down. She was looking at a clock. It was digital.
No, this was... wrong.
This wasn't... Where was she?
She couldn't remember having a digital clock before now. Did they have clocks here? She didn't think so. But now...
Was she awake?
Was she dreaming?
She turned from the clock. And in the darkness, she found she was seated.
There was a chess board in front of her. It stared up at her. It seemed almost accusatory.
She was alone in the darkness. She could not see him, but she knew... she knew because she had been here before and he had been too.
Across from her was Hugh de Clermont.
She looked up into the mouth of the void. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was there.
There was only darkness and a chessboard. There was the clock she couldn't remember buying. But the clock was out of time. It didn't—
She shook her head. It didn't belong here. Wherever here was. It didn't—It didn't fit.
This was wrong. Hugh was here. He was... just there. Right there. But she couldn't see him. And he was... wrong.
He shouldn't be here.
She looked down at the board, and watched the pieces begin to move. And once again had the vaguest sense that Hugh, himself, was telling her what to do.
He moved.
She moved.
Over and over again in the darkness.
Moves and countermoves.
She glanced at the clock and saw that the hour hadn't changed. It was three a.m. Just as it had been when the game started. Just as it had been perhaps forever. Addison stared at the clock and wondered how long they'd been playing this game. She could feel his eyes on her. Watching her while she played. How long had they been playing this game, her and him?
How long?
Where was she?
When she turned back to the board, the pieces were fixed into place. No more moves. No more turns.
This was the end game.
The queen in black remained standing. The knight in black was tipped on his side. A bishop loomed over him, white and foreboding. It had caught itself in the worst sort of light.
The king in black had been moved – as she already knew he would be – off to the corner of the board. A rook in black stood beside him, between the king and the rest of the board.
Addison's eyes fluttered in the darkness. Wishing in vain that she could make sense of this game she didn't even know how to play. Her throat was caught, and she knew in her gut that she was staring down at a game she didn't have a chance of winning. She was playing a losing game.
And she didn't even know the rules.
The moves had been compulsory. She just did what she was told to do. And Hugh had given her a losing hand. But why would he? Why would he set the board up for losing... it didn't make any sense.
What the hell was he playing at?
The clock ticked, and Addison turned. She watched one bright red digit change.
She held her breath. She'd forgotten this was coming. 3 a.m. turned to 3:01.
And then a crash sounded. And there was a persistent scratching sound. And then a voice sounded. One she'd heard a thousand times.
She whipped around to face him. Knowing exactly what she would find.
Hugh was across from her now. He had finally appeared. Caught in lightness, trapped in the shadows.
To behold him now was to behold a truly terrible thing. And when he spoke, her heart leapt, her stomach plummeted. Her mind turned, and her spine sung with the urge to get away.
"Run."
Addison had no choice but to obey.
Addison jolted up in her bed. Panting and sweating. She was cold. Her room held little heat. Addison blinked. There was darkness all around her. She blinked again. She couldn't see.
Where was she?
Where was she?
She shook her head. Where was she, again? She couldn't remember. What year was it? Which bed was this?
The scratching sounded again, and Addison turned toward the door, staring hard through the darkness, willing her eyes to adjust.
Moonlight filtered in through the curtains to her left. A whine sounded, and then an old familiar canine snort. The scratching continued, and Addison breathed a sigh of relief. She could finally make out the outline of the door.
She brought her hand up to her face, pressing it to her forehead as though to calm her spinning brain.
It was just Bijou.
She was home.
She was in her chambers. In Hugh's tower.
She wasn't in California. She was still in the Auvergne.
Addison threw back the covers when the dog began to bark. Hopping out of bed and regretting it instantly. The floor was freezing. Her bare feet stung when they made contact with compact stone. The fire in her hearth had died down back to embers. She was never awake at this time of night. When she fell asleep the fire was burning, and when she awoke it had always been lighted again. She usually slept through the cold, bundled up in a pile of blankets and furs.
She padded her way quickly over to the door, following a trail of moonlight that cast her room in a silvery glow. She turned the latch and cracked the door open, allowing enough space for Bijou to clamber his way in.
"Oh," a voice sounded.
Addison jumped and looked up. Hugh was standing in the stairwell. Just a handful of paces up. He had a book in hand and a robe draped haphazardly over his shoulders.
Bijou brushed past her, eager to take his place in her room.
"Hi," Addison croaked, squinting up at him in the darkness.
"I had hoped to stop the dog before he woke you," Hugh informed her.
Addison yawned and offered a tired grin. "No harm done."
Hugh nodded and studied her a moment. "Are you well, child?"
Addison felt an old familiar pit open up in her stomach and expand. Her smile turned a bit forced.
"Of course," she said. Though behind her in the darkness, she could hear him warning her in her dreams, and her spine still sung with the urge to listen. Her body still buzzed with the need to run. She still felt utterly disoriented. And though she knew now where and when she was, something itched in the back of her mind that told her there was more to this story. There was more to these dreams. There was more and she had questions, but she couldn't ask them. What on earth did it all mean?
Hugh seemed to sense this. "I know I'm not your father..." he said. "But you can tell me if—"
"There's nothing wrong, Hugh," Addison said a bit more forcefully, not bothering to wait for him to finish.
He didn't look convinced. "Of course," he said.
And Addison had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. He sounded like Ysabeau. He nodded toward her chambers, silently encouraging her to go back in.
"Sleep well then, Fernanda," he said.
Addison felt a pang of remorse. She hadn't meant to snap at him, but she didn't understand. Her mind was haunted by the pieces on that chess board. Frozen in the darkness. Frozen in space and time. It didn't make any sense.
Queen. Knight. Bishop. Rook. King.
She stood there, frozen in her doorway. With Hugh quietly waiting for her to go. And she couldn't move. She couldn't move. She couldn't think—
Why was he telling her to run?
She wanted to ask him. He was standing right there. But—
She shook herself. Hugh wouldn't know. It was just a dream. It wasn't real.
She looked up at him, but she couldn't meet his eyes. His face was smooth, but she could see the questions turning over and over in his mind. Hugh liked puzzles, she remembered, and he was puzzling over her now.
"Goodnight," she whispered. He nodded and waited to leave until she closed her door.
She retreated back into her chambers. The door closed with a soft snick. She sighed and pressed her forehead into the frame, banging her head against it a few times before turning her ear to listen for his retreat. And then she remembered he was a vampire, and she knew her efforts would be in vain. She was the only one that ever made any noise in this place.
Bijou had already clambered his way up and onto her bed. Addison groaned. Jacqueline was going to have a field day in the morning. But the room was cold, and Bijou was undoubtedly warm. Shuffling back over to her bed, she nudged the big dog over and crawled back under the covers.
Addison groaned in relief when her head hit the pillow, and Bijou shifted to press himself more securely into her side. She huffed out a laugh and dragged her nails through his fur, taking the little comfort the old mastiff had to offer. But tired as she was, Addison found she couldn't close her eyes.
It was too dark right now. Too quiet. The silence rung in her ears. And somewhere in the shadows, a clock ticked. And she hated it. It was a truly awful sound.
Addison rose the next morning before Jacqueline could come to wake her. She was sick of lying there, and after her dream and her encounter with Hugh in the stairwell, she hadn't been able to fall back asleep.
Groaning, she rose from her bed. She donned her own stockings, and slippers. She wrapped herself up tight in a dressing gown. Addison left Bijou to sleep. The old mastiff had stretched out long to take up extra space in her bed.
Making her way over to the window, she drew her curtains back and looked down. The courtyard was busy. The human servants had only just risen and were beginning to attend their daily chores. There was ice on the edges of the windowpanes, and Addison traced her finger along the condensation, drawing herself a little smiley face. She smirked before wiping the image away.
Beside the window was her desk. Pulling her chair back, she glanced out at the battlements and the knights that stood watch on the wall, trying to spot Gallowglass there, but unable to tell him apart from the others when they all had their armor on.
She sat down at her desk and reached for the letter from Fernando. She'd already read it twice. But the night had been long, and her mind hadn't stopped turning.
So much had happened, and she missed him.
Cariña, it read.
I have searched and searched for the words to express how glad I am to hear of your safe arrival, but still those words evade me. Although I have long awaited to hear from you once again, it still surprised me to no end when I received your letter, written in your own hand. And though I am glad to know you are safe, I am saddened to know that you've returned only to find me so far away. I deeply regret that you have found yourself so far from the familiar comfort of our family home.
I know not the details of your arrival, as Hugh has seen fit to protect you for now from your own candor. You must understand, the road is dangerous and there are many who would seek to use your words against you. You must take caution when you pen your thoughts for others to read.
Be that as it may, I do know that you arrived, and that, when you did, you were not where you anticipated you would be. I can imagine your fear, having found yourself in such an unsettling predicament, but I have no doubt you conducted yourself admirably through the confusion. Do not trouble your mind with doubt. You are safe, and you are home, even if home is not how you remembered it to be. I trust that you will be well, though it pains me that we cannot be nearer to each other after so long apart.
I have thought long of you in your absence, and my mind has conjured a million questions I have yet to ask you. The answers to which a father – if he wishes to call himself a good father, that is – is inclined to know about his child. You told me once you were born in February, near the sea, in a place I have not yet come to know. And I have long imagined you there by the ocean, in a place of endless peace. I wonder if perhaps you could tell me something of that place from which you hail so that I may picture your life more vividly, should I lose you again in the spring. I hope that you have been happy, and safe, in your time away, but I fear in my absence that you have not been. I fear that I have failed in so many ways by you, to do more.
Hugh has told me where you reside as we venture now into winter. It is a magnificent place you have found yourself in. Magnificent and terrible, in its way, I suppose. Sept-Tours is a fortress first and foremost. Have you gathered that already, yourself? I imagine that you have. But we have been apart for so long, and I fear I have more imaginings of you than I have knowledge of who you truly are and how your mind works separate of my own.
I know you have no love for knights or fighting men, and I know you will find yourself in the company of many there whether you wish it or not. My only advice to you is this. Keep your chin up, Fernanda. Keep your eyes down. Let your mind be sharper than any blade. And do not allow friend or foe to tame your wit or your spirit or your perpetual sense of wonder. These are not things to be treated lightly, and they are not lightly to be stolen from you. De Clermont wills and ways are set deep in the heart of the Auvergne, and there are those who would see you submit to them out of malice. There are others who, unbeknownst even to themselves, would rob you of your spirit in the name of goodwill.
There, I am certain you will meet kindness in strangers. There, you will meet danger in the shadows. You will meet foe and think them friend. And you will meet others who hide themselves from you so adeptly that you will not be able to tell their make or their matter no matter how hard you try. This is okay, Fernanda. It will all be okay. I bid you now to find, in yourself, some semblance of peace that will exist even in uncertainty. Surround yourself with those who you can consider true friends, so that even when your peace is shaken, you will be steadfast in your allies and certain of their goodwill.
It is my hope that by the time you are reading this, you have found your way back to Jacqueline. It is my even greater hope that young Eric has made his way to you. These are the people who deserve your trust, and I would advise you to lean on them, cariña, for they will not lead you astray.
Philippe, as I am sure you have gathered, is a very important man. A very powerful man who holds more influence than you can imagine. This makes him... well... in all my years I have never found an adequate word for it... but it makes him that, and I am sure you know what I mean. While I may not consider him a friend to you, child, I would not discount him as an ally yet either. Tread lightly in his presence. Show him the respect he deserves. He is fond of telling stories. If you ask, I'm sure he will regale you with myths and truths long forgotten from the worlds of old. I remember well how you sought such stories from Idir so long ago... though I imagine it was only last fall for you... was it not?
How odd time is. It baffles me still, and I have seen a good deal more of it than you can imagine. If you can find it in yourself, Fernanda, seek out his company. Seek the stories he is willing to tell. No matter what you hear, and I fear you will hear much, my dealings with Philippe de Clermont need not be passed down to you. If you can find it in yourself to know him without compromising your wit or spirit or wonder, I would advise you to do so. It would be wise to earn and keep his favor. Knowing you, cariña, you will come by this naturally, and perhaps have already done so in the time it has taken my letter to reach you.
Please, listen to Jacqueline. She takes your education far more seriously than I could ever have asked of her. Be diligent in your lessons. Make peace with Ysabeau though I imagine it may be hard to do. Go to church. Say your prayers. Curtsy for your betters. And please do not tamper with the wine stores, even if the family has provoked your ire. Leave the libraries to the men, and when I see you again, I will shower you in all the books and scrolls your heart desires.
It is warm here though the year slowly comes to an end. The bazaar is loud and vibrant and full of music and laughter and good food I know you would be so eager to try. Idir is with me, and he has asked me to convey his deepest regrets that you have not appeared here to us in the land he had promised to show you one day. Your chambers here have been ready and waiting for months in the chance that you stopped here first during your travels. And while I wish for you to be here, and I wish for you to see the many vibrant wonders of the world, I am glad you have not witnessed the events that have taken place here in the last year. The fall of a dynasty is nothing compared to the glory of its heyday. We will never see anything quite like we saw during the long reign of the Almohad Caliphate.
Stay warm where you are. Eat well and rest easy. I have missed you terribly.
Until we meet again,
Fernando
The door opened behind her. Jacqueline never bothered to knock in the mornings. She heard the other woman gasp and hurry over to her side.
"How long have you been awake?"
Addison folded Fernando's letter and set it down on her desk before offering Jacqueline a tired shrug.
"A few hours," she told her softly.
"A few hours?" Jacqueline asked, crouching down by her side, and trying to look her in the eye.
"Why did you not call for me, my lady?" she asked. "I would have lit a fire for you. Were you not cold?"
Addison fixed the maid with a wry smile. "You don't have to attend my needs all day and all night, Jacqueline. I was fine. Bijou kept me warm."
Addison gestured to the dog in her bed and Jacqueline scowled. "I was willing to overlook the mutt for the moment," she said. "But since you brought him up..."
Addison laughed and shook her head. "Let it go," she said.
Jacqueline's nostrils flared, but her eyes glittered with silent laughter. "Of course, my lady" she said. "And to your other point... I am meant to attend you, all night and all day. It is why your father pays me so well."
Addison rolled her eyes. "You're entitled to a few hours that don't involve me."
"I beg to differ," Jacqueline jutted her chin defiantly. "As would Madame Ysabeau, and Lord Hugh."
Addison waved her off and pushed her chair back so she could stand.
"I was thinking the grey dress today, Jacqueline," she said. "Something warm for when we head down to the village."
"Very well," the blonde said and turned to retrieve her dress from the wardrobe.
"And it looks like there is frost on the ground..." Addison added.
"There is."
"I think I'd like a scarf for my hair," she told her friend.
"I thought much the same, my lady," Jacqueline informed her with an approving nod.
Addison was tugging on her sleeves to adjust how they rested on her arms, when a knock sounded at her door. She looked up, and Jacqueline made a sound for her to sit still as she finished pinning her hair.
"Who is it?" Addison called, wincing when one of the pins dug into her scalp.
"It's us, mo chridhe," Eric called quietly from the corridor.
"You can open it," she said and glanced once more at her vanity mirror as Jacqueline turned to fetch her scarf.
The door opened, and Eric stepped in. Hugh waited just a couple paces behind him. Bijou grunted and hopped off the bed, and Eric watched the dog cross the room with a wearisome look.
"I'll speak with the kennel master about him," he told her.
"Don't you dare," Addison scolded. "I don't know what you all have against him, but Bijou hasn't done anything wrong."
Eric shot her an exasperated look, but Addison only raised her chin. Hugh chuckled and stepped aside so the lazy old mastiff could meander past him and out the door.
"He's not very good at his job, is he?" Hugh asked, seeming almost delighted by the stray mutt.
"No," Eric frowned. "He is not."
Jacqueline hummed in agreement, and Addison rolled her eyes at the look of smugness that crossed her maid's face.
"Honestly," she whispered to Jacqueline. "What is it with you and this dog?"
"He is poorly trained, my lady," Jacqueline muttered primly and stepped back to examine Addison's hair. She smiled and gave a nod of approval, and Addison smiled her thanks.
She turned back to Hugh and Eric. "Where are you off to?" she asked curiously, wondering why exactly they were both standing in her room.
"The morning meal of course," Hugh said as though the answer should be obvious.
Eric held out his hand for her to take, and she accepted, turning back to Jacqueline before she departed.
"Can you bring my shawl when breakfast is done?" she asked.
The blonde nodded, already setting about making her bed and fluffing her pillows. "Of course, my lady," she said. "It will be cold in the church this morning. Father Maynard does not like to light the torches unless he has to, and you know how cold stone can be."
"I do," Addison agreed. "Thank you, Jacqueline."
"You're welcome, my lady," the blonde said and waved her off half-impatiently, eager to get on with her chores while the family was eating.
"You look lovely," Eric murmured in her ear as they made their way downstairs.
Addison smiled back at him. "Thank you," she murmured back. He grinned and then narrowed his eyes when he caught his father's smirk.
"Tell me, Fernanda," Hugh said as he led them down into the corridor. "How was your journey home?"
"Oh," Addison stuttered, wracking her brain. "Um... which do you mean?"
Hugh glanced back at her, an arch in his brow, his expression thoroughly intrigued. "The place you grew up," he said. "Did your time back their treat you well?"
The invisible wound in Addison's chest gave one slow, painful throb and she kind of just gaped at him for a moment. She didn't know why, but she hadn't anticipated this question. How was... home? This was her home now. The twenty-first century was a sentence to be served. A graveyard of memories that no longer brought her any joy. A house full of loneliness, and a street with a car on it that never seemed to leave, and the whole time it was too hot. She feared some days she would die from the heat. She never thought she'd learn to hate the twenty-first century, but she did now, in a way, and part of her had become hollow for the loss of love for it. She ached for the home she loved in her childhood. All that was left of it, these days, were skeletal remains.
"Oh," she said. "It was..."
But she couldn't think of what to say. She just, kind of, fell quiet. Her mouth hung open around a word she couldn't form. Hugh stopped. He turned to look at her. And she came to a halt behind him, one step up and looking down. Eric stopped too, bringing a hand to her elbow, and furrowing his brow.
Addison cleared her throat and found it suddenly difficult to breathe. "I hadn't been ready to go back," she told them, half evading the question, but speaking the truth as best she knew how. "It's very... different there. And it has been difficult to go back and forth so frequently."
Hugh's eyes were dark as he studied her. They were sad too, she thought.
"I..." she cleared her throat and glanced at Eric. "It's difficult here too. And there I am technically... free?"
"Free?" Hugh asked, intrigued.
Addison cringed. She didn't know what to tell him and what to leave a mystery. "It's kind of a..." she was going to say democracy, but she couldn't get the word out.
"Women and men are treated differently there," she said instead.
"Oh?" Hugh asked.
Addison hummed her affirmation. "But... despite that..." she said, gut churning guiltily, as though, if she were to admit this, she was committing a serious crime against herself and the feminists she'd learned from in the twenty first century.
"Despite that... I want to stay. I don't want to go back in the spring. I want to stay here with you," she said, and glanced from Hugh to Eric, whose eyes had become impossibly heavy with remorse. His face lined in grief. She cleared her throat and looked down at his hand on her elbow.
"I have a family here," she said. "And I don't want to go back."
Hugh studied her shrewdly, and she pressed her lips together trying to contain a sudden onslaught of unwanted emotion.
Eric took her hand and pressed it to his lips, before weaving their fingers together and giving a little squeeze.
"I want you to stay too, mo chridhe," he told her softly. "I'd do anything to make you stay."
Addison made a small noise of acknowledgement, heart aching at the raw emotion that crossed over his face. Eric was changed. In the time she'd known him, he had changed so much. And so had she. They had come so far and seen so many things. More than anything Sorley and Malvina could ever have dreamed of.
But she longed for more. They never had any time. There was never any time. And she wanted to be by his side. She wanted to see the things he had seen. And she wanted him to know her world. She wanted him to know her. She didn't want secrets, and long absences. She wanted to be with him, the way she knew in her gut they were meant to be.
"I would like to discuss the matter of your travels with you," Hugh cut into their exchange as gently as he could. "There were many questions fifty years ago that we neglected to ask you, Fernando and I. And I think it would be beneficial to get to the bottom of things before you leave again."
Addison turned to look at him in surprise. "You think you can find out what's happening to me?" she asked.
Hugh gave her a doubtful look and a contemplative frown. "I think it is worth trying, Fernanda," he said. "What's happening to you... it's not happening naturally. Magic has somehow interfered with your life. And it is tied now to this family."
"You don't think it's a coincidence?" she asked, though even as the question left her lips, she knew it was likely absurd.
Hugh offered her a wry smile and a knowing look. He knew she was smarter than that too.
"Matters such as these rarely are coincidence," he said gently. "Not in this family."
When they reached the bottom step, they were met by Alain.
He stood in the center of the corridor, and when Hugh's eyes met his, a dark cloud seemed to gather above them. It hung heavy in the air over their heads.
"Your presence is required in Sieur Philippe's study," he murmured and bowed to the group.
Hugh nodded and turned to Eric and Fernanda. "Continue to the great hall without me," he told them. "I will join you there shortly."
Alain looked up and shook his head apologetically.
"You misunderstand, my lord," he said. "Sieur Philippe requires the three of you in his study, at once."
Addison had only ever been in Philippe's study once. It had been a surprisingly cluttered place full of books and maps, trinkets, and inventions. It had been dark too, though Godfrey had sat beside a window and insisted on the curtains being open at the time.
Now, she understood why.
Philippe lived in darkness. He thrived in it, even, she supposed.
Hugh led them to his father's study. The door had opened. They filtered in.
Godfrey was already there, though this time he did not sit by the window.
This time the curtains were closed. He stood, tense and quiet, before his father's desk where Philippe was seated and silent. Standing over Philippe's shoulder was Baldwin. Philippe's second son appeared to her more statue than creature. He looked as though someone had carved him from stone. His arms were crossed, and he stared just beyond Godfrey's shoulder. A dark look directed at the back wall.
He turned to study them when they filed in.
Philippe did not.
The de Clermont held a piece of parchment in his hand. And he seemed to be reading it over and over again. He was definitely ignoring them. Hugh stepped to the side and nudged Addison forward, to stand beside Godfrey in the center of the room. Eric shouldered his way between them, still not entirely trusting his uncle in close proximity with his mate. Not after the man had threatened to drain her once for the sake of the family.
Hugh studied his father for a long moment – a sharp look in his tired eyes – before he too slowly made his way to the center of the room. He stood with a slight lean, as though deliberately slouching. And he took his place beside Addison without comment. When she looked up at him, he offered her a wry little grin.
He was tense. She could tell by the set of his shoulders, the lines in his face. But he was calm. Perhaps... even... amused, if such a thing could be believed. She frowned and turned back to Philippe.
The man who had summoned them had yet to look up or acknowledge them in any way. He stayed seated. He remained silent. And they all stood there waiting to know the reason they'd been called into this room at this time of day.
Baldwin continued to glare, stoic and loyal at his silent father's back.
A line had been drawn.
She looked down at her feet, uncertain what to make of Philippe or Baldwin. They made quite the forbidding pair.
Unlike dinner at the high table two nights ago, there was no mistaking the division here. The sides that had been taken were abundantly clear.
The only sound in the room was the sound of the fire crackling in the hearth and Addison's own breathing. She had fallen into the habit of holding her breath when confronted with uncertainty, and, in vampire company, this backfired often. Her breathing grew heavier, more conspicuous, and harder to maintain. She locked her knees to keep from fidgeting, and she sucked in another breath, hating how loudly the sound filled the room.
The paper in Philippe's hand shifted and crinkled as he turned it over to glance at the seal. Then he turned it back, reread the words again, and sighed before glancing up at the group gathered before him. His eyes were serious. Stern. Like a cop in the middle of an interrogation, he looked up and Addison felt the spotlight loom. She was entirely exposed here. And it no longer mattered that she stood between Eric and Hugh. Each one of them was alone when confronted by the man across the room. It was as though Philippe de Clermont had become his own personal sun, and his gravity was slowly pressing them all into the ground. Compressing on their insides and making it harder to take in or keep any air. It was hard to keep her eyes up. It was hard to keep from squinting under the glare of him.
Addison shifted and released a shaky breath of air.
Philippe stared, first, at Godfrey. He stared at his youngest for a long while. Then, his eyes shifted to Hugh. Something flickered in his expression. He did not look at his eldest for long.
And then Philippe landed on her.
Addison squirmed.
Philippe held up the parchment and stared at her. He cocked his head in interest as though he was waiting for her to explain, but Addison was trapped in his gaze. Unable to speak. Not knowing what he wanted her to say.
He arched an eyebrow when information was not forthcoming.
"Well?" he asked.
His voice rolled like thunder through the room. "What have you to say for yourself?"
Addison opened her mouth as though to answer, but she wasn't quite sure what he was asking. And she wasn't sure what to say. And she couldn't breathe, and her chest ached from the stress of it all.
A hand came down on her shoulder and Addison jumped about a foot in the air.
Philippe maintained his expectant expression, but Baldwin shifted to look at her. And Godfrey sighed in frustration and made his way to a chair.
"Did I say you were dismissed?" Philippe asked Godfrey.
Godfrey sighed and rubbed a hand over his tired face, raking it through his disheveled curls and shaking his head.
"Honestly, father," he said, and Addison thought he sounded very old. "We all know why we are here. Let us cease with the theatrics."
And then Godfrey dropped down into his chair, reaching for the curtains and drawing them back, flooding the room with light from the world outside.
Philippe's eyes flashed but Godfrey only dropped his head into his hands and waited for his father to get on with it. He'd accepted his fate. Whatever it was. He'd known this was coming.
Philippe's glare turned from his youngest son back to her, and it was all Addison could do not to take a step back.
"The fault is mine, sieur," Hugh murmured, in attempt to draw his father's attention away.
Philippe didn't look at his eldest son. He simply held Addison's gaze, willing her into submission, and she had now idea how she was meant to escape.
"Hardly, brother," Godfrey snorted when it was clear his father would not reply. "You have not the wits for it. The idea was mine, father."
Philippe's eyes flickered from Addison's to Godfrey's, and it appeared as though he was holding back a long-suffering sigh.
"I am aware of your role, son," he said to Godfrey.
While Addison would have been pissing herself to receive such a look from Philippe, Godfrey seemed more satisfied than anything. He sniffed and nodded haughtily in his father's direction, before returning his head to his hands.
Philippe turned then to Hugh. "And you?" he asked.
Addison glanced up at Hugh who remained his tired, rumpled self. But he was smiling at his father, and there was a lightness to him that she couldn't quite comprehend.
"I consented to his plan, yes," Hugh supplied honestly. "Much has happened in the last fifty years between us. Back then, I was not so sure..." he trailed off and glanced down at her before looking back to his father. "She is in a precarious position. The knights were her best option. I could only trust that you would look after your own, in the event that I could not."
It was at this unfortunate moment that Addison's stomach released a loud rumble. The vampires fell silent, and Addison's face burned. Godfrey looked up at her, utterly appalled. Hugh's hand fell from her shoulder. And Philippe gave her a dull look.
"Are we inconveniencing you, Lady Fernanda?" he asked.
Addison was tempted to tell him that they were, but the look on his face had her biting his tongue. She cleared her throat and shifted, accidentally bumping into Eric, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders and cut in.
"Surely, this matter can wait until after she has eaten."
"Can it, surely?" Philippe asked with a predatory grin. His teeth glinted at his grandson in warning, and Addison leaned a little more uncertainly into Eric's side.
"This matter can be discussed without Fernanda, then," Eric argued.
"The matter is about Fernanda," Philippe countered. "Her presence is required in this room."
"She is human," Eric bit out when her stomach growled again.
"Yes," Philippe leaned back with a great booming laugh. "And a woman too," he snapped and smacked the parchment hard onto his desk. Addison yelped and jolted back and watched in alarm as a crack formed in the wood beneath his hand.
"If ever I were to induct a woman into this order – against papal law – the first would have been Verin or Freyja. Not this—" he gritted his teeth and his gaze raked over her scathingly. "Not this child. She's soft, Eric. She is no knight. She has no business in the order."
Eric tensed and Hugh issued him a quiet warning. One the young de Clermont seemed keen to ignore.
Addison reached for his hand and squeezed it hard. "It's just one meal, Gallowglass," she whispered though the whole room could hear. "It won't kill me to miss one meal."
Eric worked his jaw tediously in an effort to contain an unwanted outburst. When he glanced down at her, his eyes were blazing.
"He can say what he wants, Fernanda," he said to her. "But don't start thinking you're soft because of him."
Addison's eyes misted over and began to burn. She curled her fingers into a fist and dug her nails into the scars on her palms, hating them and hating this feeling that seemed to settle itself inside of her. But Eric was sharp, and his eyes saw everything. He reached for her hand and uncurled her fingers from her palm. Gallowglass studied her scars and rubbed his thumb over them lovingly before returning her hand to her side.
Addison's skin tingled from the sensation of his touch, and she wrapped her arms around her middle to protect her precious insides. All too aware of his family and their eyes that watched her and Eric's every move.
The tension had dissipated into something else now. Even Philippe seemed to have lost some of his ire. It was Hugh who decided a change of subject was in order.
"Where is Matthew?" he asked, casually, as though this question were not completely out of the blue.
Addison snapped up to look at him. But he was staring at Philippe, and his eyes were sharp. The expression on Hugh's face was entirely new to her. She'd only seen glimpses of the man behind the sleepy façade, and now he was sharp as a blade. Eric reached for her again, this time to tug her slightly behind him. But she shook herself of his grip and stayed in place.
Philippe fixed his eldest with a withering look and Addison narrowed her eyes.
Hugh's eyes shifted down to her and he brought a hand up to her shoulder, squeezing once, and keeping it there as though he were staking a claim.
"He is here and there," Philippe supplied, not appreciating the turn in their conversation.
Addison was surprised to see a shift in Baldwin from where he stood across the room. He glanced at Hugh beside her, and the two men traded a look that was impossible for her to translate.
Godfrey rolled his eyes, perhaps at Hugh's question. Perhaps at Philippe's vague response. Perhaps at the mention of the brother Addison had never met before.
Matthew de Clermont.
Ysabeau's son.
"Here and there," the blonde drawled mockingly, repeating his father's words. Godfrey looked to Hugh. "Skulking in the shadows, as always, brother."
He reached over to the bookshelf beside the window. He picked up a rosary and swung it lazily. He watched with boredom as the little crucifix at the end danced and twirled in the air. It was entirely subject to his whim. Addison followed its motion, half caught in a trance by the rosary's pendular swing, and half disoriented by the heat coming off of the fire in the hearth, the prospect of missing the morning meal, and the suggestion that she was, in fact, a knight.
Her stomach churned with uncertainty. Her spine sung to her its desire for retreat, and she shifted from foot to foot, demonstrating to every person in the room, her discomfort, and her desire to run. But Hugh's hand was still on her shoulder. And Godfrey's eyes ticked up to meet hers as the rosary continued to swing.
"Fighting demons," he said, and his lips stretched wide into a predatory grin. His eyes sparkled with mirth and Addison jolted. Godfrey was still staring at her.
Godfrey saw her jump and his grin widened. And a growl sounded, though she couldn't say from whom.
"That's enough, Godfrey," Philippe ground out.
Addison's eyes flickered to the de Clermont sieur, watching in a distant sort of fascination, as his hand came to lay flat on the surface of his desk and his eyes locked on his youngest and most ornery son.
Godfrey's smile twitched and fell. He uttered not another word. But still, Addison noted, the tone of Philippe's warning did nothing to kill the levity in his expression or the imperious look in his eyes.
"A document has come to be in my possession," Philippe said, turning back to the parchment on his desk.
He turned back to her. The room was quiet. And everyone seemed to breathe easier now. It seemed as though the vampires in the room had relaxed, if only a little. But she could not pinpoint how or when or what had broken the tension.
She felt entirely adrift here, in the company of these men. Nothing was explained here. And everything seemed to carry with it a secret message. It felt as though they were speaking in code and half thoughts.
And she supposed, perhaps, that they were.
She didn't know how old they were, but if Eric was the youngest, she could only imagine. After so many centuries, perhaps they really wouldn't need to finish their thoughts. Perhaps they used codes so that they didn't kill each other from the tedium. God knows she'd kill Godfrey if she'd spent centuries listening to him always explain, in explicit detail, the meaning behind every snide comment and haughty remark that tumbled out of his dickish mouth.
"A document that contains several concerning assertions about you," Philippe continued, drawing her attention back to him. "You've been busy, Lady Fernanda, for a girl who was here for six months, fifty years ago."
She didn't know how long they'd been at it, but somehow, she had found her way into a seat. And the men hadn't stopped talking. All at once. One over the other. In different languages. At a myriad of volumes. All around her, to no foreseeable end.
Godfrey had taken the blame. Hugh had let him after first attempting to do the honorable thing. Eric was adamant that Philippe forgive her for her involvement, strip her of her knighthood, and send her on to her morning meal. But Philippe had turned his only grandson a deaf ear.
So, then there was bargaining. A back and forth that had her head spinning from trying to keep up. Hugh and Godfrey piled on addendum after addendum, compromises and loopholes abound. They proposed punishments to their father that they would both be willing to suffer for going behind his back, but Addison thought, even they must have known such efforts would be in vain.
Philippe had met this portion of their meeting with a wide, humorous grin. "You're home, my son," he said to Hugh. "Why on earth would I punish you on this most joyous occasion?"
Everyone had fallen silent at that. Hugh wisely ceased his arguments and averted his gaze. Alain chose that moment to knock on the door.
"Enter," Philippe called out.
Alain entered reluctantly before dipping into a half-hearted bow. Behind him, Addison could see Jean Luc and others. The retainers, she realized. They were all waiting in the corridor for the family to begin their day.
"Mass will begin soon, sieur," Alain murmured. "Madame wishes me to remind you. The family is required in the village."
"Yes," Philippe said. "Thank you, Alain. Tell Ysabeau we will join her shortly."
"Very well, my lord," Alain said and bowed again before retreating quietly back out into the corridor.
Addison's skin prickled and she turned to find Baldwin was watching her. He did not seem bothered about having been caught. He studied her and she did not know what he was looking to find. She wondered what it was he saw in her face.
He didn't seem angry, really. Nor overly friendly. No... Baldwin only seemed to be measuring something. And Addison thought that perhaps he'd been measuring the same thing in her since they met on that road so many nights ago. She got the impression he'd be watching her for some time.
She furrowed her brow at him and cocked her head to the side. His eyes squinted a bit, though she did not know if they did so in judgement or humor. The corners of his eyes crinkled. He looked away.
Baldwin turned, instead, to look out the window. To look down on the world that existed beyond his father's study. But she didn't think he saw whatever was out there. His eyes seemed very far away.
"Let us not exhaust the matter," Philippe said, fixing her with a pitying look. "I am sorry, my lady, for the role my sons have played in your fate..."
His face morphed into a look of regret, but she didn't buy it. Something didn't sit right. His tone was wrong, and Hugh seemed tensed for something. Godfrey's head snapped up. Baldwin shifted, turning to look down at his father. And Eric was seething.
"And for the circumstances we have found ourselves in, together, now," he sighed and shook his head. He met her eyes, and Addison found she could not look away. How many faces could Philippe de Clermont claim? He was never the same person twice. It was... dizzying. "It is regrettable, to say the least, that a child must pay for the sins of her father."
Eric hissed but his grandfather silenced him with a look. Godfrey seemed almost dumbfounded. She could not see Hugh's face, for he now stood, just slightly, between her and his father. But she did see how his hand flexed, and then curled into a fist, and then opened up and flexed again, as though it were trying to decide how to respond.
But Philippe was looking at her. He kept looking at her. And Addison looked back. They were caught in a loop her and him. And she couldn't quite figure out how to break it.
Finally, Addison spoke. And, naturally, she chose the one thing to say that would make Godfrey lose his head.
"I don't understand."
But Godfrey didn't make a sound. Not like he normally would. Instead, he quietly murmured to Philippe. And Addison was shocked by the regret in his tone.
"Father..."
Philippe shook his head. Godfrey looked away.
"You asked me for something, Fernanda, in your first week here," Philippe said, ignoring his son. "Do you remember?"
Addison frowned and wracked her brain. She had asked him to send word to her father. She'd asked him to send word to Eric too.
But neither had worked and she'd grown frustrated. The only other thing she had asked him for was—
Addison's mouth popped open in a shocked little 'oh,' and her eyes snapped up to his in alarm. She shook her head.
No.
No. He couldn't be serious.
He couldn't possibly mean what she thought he meant.
It was ridiculous. She didn't want to. She refused.
She looked at Hugh, desperately, and then up at Eric when Hugh didn't move. Gallowglass stared down at her, curiously, no doubt wondering what on earth she had asked Philippe for.
"An education," she said, and her voice cut the silence like a blade.
Eric's eyebrows shot up in alarm, and Addison had to look away. Face burning with shame, feeling as though she had somehow set herself up for this, but – upon looking back – she could not pinpoint how.
Philippe's eyes glittered and he nodded once, looking once again to the parchment that lay on his desk.
"An education," he said, repeated her words. "See, Lady Fernanda, my eldest son... my heir... has already done wrong by me once..."
He tapped the document with his finger. "And he has performed his fair share of penitent acts."
He glanced at her as though to ensure he had her attention. Addison gulped and nodded, unable to hide her nerves.
"Very little seems to faze him anymore," Philippe's lips quirked. "He's even seen fit to end his punishment forty-five years prematurely."
Addison's hands twisted in her skirts, and she averted her gaze.
"What can I do to him?" Philippe asked her, though it was no doubt hypothetically. "What can I possibly do to him other than kill him or maim him or seriously injure him? What can I do?"
Addison's heart stuttered and then thudded hard in her chest. Her stomach churned at the thought of Hugh facing such a terrible fate. She turned her face. Hugh murmured to his father a quiet plea for him to spare her, but Philippe only shook his head. He eyed his eldest son, sadly, and then let out a sigh.
"And then there is the matter of my youngest," he told her. "He wears his insolence like a badge of honor. I'm sure you've noticed."
Addison quirked an eyebrow and nodded a bit to herself, thinking back to Godfrey's many, many acts of narcissism. Philippe may have a point about that one. The de Clermont chuckled. Godfrey made a noise of protest. Addison worried her lip.
"The only confidence I have in this matter," Philippe said. "Is that my grandson was not also involved. That alone is quite clear to me."
Addison nodded. It was true. Eric was not involved. He shouldn't take the fall for any of it. He only wanted to undo it and spare her.
"So where does that leave me?" Philippe asked her.
Addison's face burned and her chest hurt, and her stomach worked itself into knots.
"I think," Philippe continued when Addison chose silence. "That we will do this your way, Lady Fernanda. You asked me for an education, and you asked so politely. What kind of host would I be if I refused?"
She expected arguments to come next from the others in the room. She hoped for protestations, as there had been just moments before. but there were none.
The room was silent.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for Addison to speak. Waiting for Addison to make her move.
Moves and countermoves. It was the de Clermont way. But she didn't know what she was supposed to do. She didn't understand this game she had been asked to play. And they never spoke clearly. Everything was always a riddle.
He couldn't possibly mean it.
He couldn't be serious.
She refused to believe what he was suggesting.
The room shrunk in around her, and the water was rising once again in her ears. Her hands were cold, but her body was hot. And there was a clock ticking somewhere, out of sight and out of time.
"Now, far be it from me to enforce an old formality," Philippe said dryly, leaning back in his seat and watching her where she sat.
Addison startled at this. What formality?
What the hell did that mean?
She glanced at Baldwin who stood still behind his father. He had a stern look on his face as he stared down at her, and then he nodded. As though that were supposed to mean something too.
She frowned and shook her head at him. Mouthing, 'what?' but he didn't answer. He only smirked slightly and shook his head. She turned then to Eric, hoping he would be of some help to her. But he was far too focused on his grandfather to look down at her. He was grinding his teeth down to nothing in his anger, his jaw ticking in aggravation.
Eric didn't say a word.
It was Hugh who finally showed her mercy. He leaned down and whispered into her ear. "You have yet to bend the knee, Fernanda."
"The knee?" She asked, whipping her head around to face him. "What on earth does that—"
Hugh fixed her with a look and gestured to Philippe. "It is customary for a knight to kneel before the grand master and pledge their fealty."
"But I don't understand..." Addison started heart thudding in her chest, hands shaking.
"Yes," Hugh said. "You do."
"But I can't be a knight," she shook her head up at him. "This is a mistake."
"It is not," Hugh told her gently.
"But I didn't know what I agreed to."
"Then you should not have said the words," Philippe cut in. "A lady of your position is only as good as her word, Fernanda, surely you understand."
"But..."
"Mo chridhe," Eric said softly.
Addison turned to him, trying not to feel betrayed.
Though he spoke to her, his eyes remained on his grandfather.
Addison wished she could reach for him, but she was frozen in place. To move in any direction would surely rip the chair right out from beneath her, and she would fall. Addison feared that she would fall and keep falling. That she would fall through the floor. Through time and then through space. One move in any direction was sure to send her careening out of orbit. The only thing left that was hers to control was how she breathed and the way her nails dug into the seat of her chair. The only thing left for her to decide was whether she moved, when she did it, and whether she refused to.
"You're already a knight," Eric said to her.
He spoke the awful truth plainly. He told it to her straight in a way no one else had done yet.
"You swore your fealty to the brotherhood fifty years ago. This is but a formality. The damage has already been done."
"If the damage has already been done, then surely there is nothing more for me to do," Addison argued, looking desperately between Eric and Hugh.
"Christ but you're difficult," Godfrey said, though his voice lacked its usual bite. "You are already subject to my father's command. Bend the knee. Swear to him your fealty and be done with it. For now, we must accept this small defeat for what it is."
"But..." Addison started again but Godfrey fixed her with a tired look, and Hugh and Eric remained conspicuously silent. She turned instead to stare at Philippe. His expression was inscrutable. His eyes light but shadowed too.
"I would have spared you this fate, if I could have, child," Philippe said, voice laced with a pity that did not match his eyes.
"But it's illegal," she told him.
"The Knights of Lazarus protect their own," he said. "You need not worry about the law where this matter is concerned. Now... shall we? My wife will not look kindly on us if we make her late for church."
Addison pressed her lips together and moved. It mattered little her reluctance. Slowly or quickly, it wouldn't matter in the end. Every eye in the room was fixed on her. She was tired of all the dramatics. This was absolutely ridiculous.
Despite her frustration, Addison stood from her chair. She stepped forward and it was as though the ground had left her. She felt as though she was floating, and she could not find the floor. This was a losing game she was playing. Addison had known it from the start. She made her way around Philippe's desk and tried not to step back in alarm when he stood abruptly from his chair.
She held out her hand for his before he could offer it. Impatient to be done with their exchange, Addison was eager to escape. Eager to leave them behind her and, perhaps, have herself a good cry. She waved her hand at the de Clermont in order to hurry his hand up and into her own.
Someone snorted at her attitude, and the lack of decorum with which she approached their father.
In the end, Addison didn't bend her knee. She did not lower herself to the floor.
Philippe de Clermont was already taller than her. He was larger and more powerful, and in this moment, he was winning. She was doing this on his terms. Why should she give him all that, and also do it from the floor? The power gap prominent enough, there was no reason to widen it.
Philippe let her take his hand. Addison brought his knuckles to her lips. She kissed the ring on his finger resentfully and lowered his hand back down to his side. Dropping it without decorum.
"Je suis à votre commande, seigneur," she said.
Addison drew back, stepping carefully out of his space almost as quickly as she had entered it.
She crossed her arms over her chest, and, feeling suddenly homesick, cocked her hip out to the side. Hardly a medieval way of expressing one's displeasure, she still somehow seemed to get her point across, but Philippe de Clermont only grinned.
He didn't care about her insolence, her annoyance, her odd mannerisms, or even her unfortunate twist of fate. No, if anything, Philippe seemed to find the humor in it. He seemed to be laughing at her.
Addison frowned.
She did not share his mirth.
But she kept her mouth shut, and her thoughts to herself.
It would not do to dig herself a new, even deeper hole, while she was still trying to claw her way out of the last one.
They filed out the way they filed in. As though nothing had happened at all, they made their way together to the great entrance hall where Ysabeau was waiting for them.
Behind the de Clermont family, and their young Gonçalves charge, a gathering of retainers trailed behind. Murmuring amongst themselves, the men at their backs compared schedules and discussed matters that would need attending during the day that had yet to truly begin for those who walked ahead of them.
Jacqueline appeared from the shadows, and draped Fernanda with light blue shawl. A color that would no doubt endear her to the villagers and win the priest's favor. When Addison had scrunched her face and asked why, Jacqueline only frowned and shook her head in dismay.
It was Eric who told her, as they descended the steps into the courtyard, that this blue was tekhelet – the color of the virgin.
"Your father bought it for you in Jaffa, when he was on crusade," he told her.
"Crusade?!" Addison cried out and looked at him in alarm.
"Aye," Eric said, appearing almost confused. "He is a Knight of Lazarus, mo chridhe, we are known, on occasion, to fight in the holy land."
Addison gaped at him and shook her head. "In the time I was gone, my father went to war?" she deadpanned.
Eric cringed. "Well... I wouldn't call it a war. At least not that time," he shrugged. "It was more of a diplomatic mission... in its way."
"A diplomatic crusade?" she asked skeptically.
Someone snorted and Addison whipped her head around to find Baldwin smirking at them. Hugh grinned at his brother, looking smug.
"What?" she asked them.
Baldwin only shook his head and continued down the path. Hugh looked back at her and winked, but he too remained silent.
When they chose to ignore her, she turned back to Eric, fuming. "Have there been any more wars that you people haven't told me about?" she asked scathingly.
Eric gave her a nervous look. "Och... well..." he started and trailed off, before conveniently falling silent as he walked there by her side.
"Well?" she asked, thoroughly exasperated.
But Eric only winced and glanced down at her. He shrugged. He seemed at a total loss for words.
She narrowed her eyes. "How many?"
"Well..." he said again, like a broken record. A giant broken Gaelic record.
"Gallowglass..." she said lowly. "How many?"
"To be honest, lass" he said haltingly. "They've all blended together. I cannot remember."
Addison's jaw dropped. "How many Gallowglass?" she asked again, more sternly.
He cocked his head to the side and put on a fair show of trying to count the battles and wars he'd been in since he'd seen her last. Ticking each of them off on his hand. But he kept shaking his head and starting over. He looked up at his father and uncle for help, but both men had wisely kept silent and were walking ahead of them at quicker pace – shoulders shaking with silent laughter at his predicament.
"Gallowglass!" she snapped.
"What?" he snapped back, still holding his hands up, mid count, in the air.
"Really?" she asked him, gesturing in disbelief at the fingers he still had up and in the air. "Seven?"
"Well..." he said again and kind of just stared at her as though he wasn't sure what to say. "Like I said... mo chridhe... fifty years... it's... my job."
It was at that point that Addison kind of just made a noise – a squeak really – of shock, exasperation, disbelief, and turned back toward the path ahead of them. Quickening her step to keep up with the rest of the family.
Eric matched her easily, but wisely he fell silent. He bumped her once, playfully, as they walked, and Addison couldn't help but crack a smile when he did.
Hugh and Baldwin were a good distance ahead of them, behind Philippe and Ysabeau who led their odd little group. Godfrey sulked a few paces behind, whispering with his retainer and Jean Luc. Addison turned and caught a glimpse of Balder and Guillaume trailing even farther behind. As they and several others followed the family down to the church, whether out of faithfulness, ritual or to make the household look nice, Addison had no idea. But she decided to roll with it and smiled ruefully when Eric once again caught her eye.
"Are you well, love?" he asked softly, aware of the many ears that surrounded them on all sides.
"Well enough, I suppose," she said, not entirely truthfully. Her stomach growled and Eric frowned.
"They should not have kept you from your meal for this," he said.
Addison sighed. "Let it go for now, please," she urged him.
He shook his head and turned instead to look down the path they were walking. The bells sounded from the church in the village, and Addison could make out the people below slowly making their way to their morning mass too.
"I'll head to the kitchens when we return," she told him.
Eric scoffed and furrowed his brow. "Why not just have them bring you food?" he asked.
Addison narrowed her eyes. "Not you too."
"What?" Eric asked.
Addison snorted. "You know what," she said and nodded toward his family that walked ahead. "You're just like them sometimes, you know?"
"Oi," he said, feigning offense. "Is that a bad thing then?"
She laughed softly and bumped him with her arm. "No," she said, half-truthfully. "It's just a thing."
"Speaking of the kitchens," he continued, changing the subject, and glancing down at her from the corner of his eye. "What news of the chef?"
Addison's mouth popped open around a response she did not yet have. Out of her periphery she saw Ysabeau turn her ear slightly toward them, as though she were listening,
"Oh," Addison said, airily, trying hard not to show her losing hand. "You know... nothing out of the ordinary."
"Oh?" he asked, intrigued.
"Yeah," she laughed and shrugged. "You know what they say..."
"I don't, actually," he grinned. "Why don't you tell me?"
Ysabeau was still listening, Addison noted. The bells still tolled as they neared the church. They were entering the mouth of the village now, and Eric seemed far jauntier than he usually would be at this time of day.
Addison narrowed her eyes and elbowed him, fighting the urge to hiss. His grandmother was listening. She didn't need anymore of this. Not when she was already in trouble for secretly becoming a knight of Lazarus fifty years ago, last spring. She had enough going on right now and she hardly needed his help in provoking Ysabeau's judgment.
"Just that... well..." she groaned. "I've forgotten how it goes now."
Eric snorted and shook his head. Addison flushed and cleared her throat.
"It's just that... nothing is a good thing, basically," she described.
His eyebrows ticked up as he processed her words. "Nothing is a good thing?"
"Yeah," she winced. "It usually sounds better than that."
"Does it?" he asked.
She shrugged again. "I just mean that... it's like... if you have nothing to report then..."
"Then all is well," he filled in for her.
Addison sighed and nodded. He tilted his head to look at her, eyes full of mirth.
"What?" she asked, face heating.
He smiled and reached for her hand. "Nothing, mo chridhe," he said.
The church was a tall gothic thing, with forbidding archways, and stained-glass windows that loomed overhead. Each one of them set in thick iron window frames. The family filtered in through the doors, and the villagers all moved out of the way. Finding their seats in the back pews and up in the loft.
They entered the church by order of succession.
As Addison was not a member of the family, per se, but a guest in their house, she entered last, after Godfrey.
This also meant that, for this morning's service, she would have to sit beside Godfrey as well.
She sighed and muttered quietly to herself about her rotten luck, until she looked up and caught Ysabeau's glare. The command for silence was obvious. She bit her tongue and held it. When it was her turn to approach the altar, she curtsied and murmured a quick, compulsory prayer.
She turned then toward the pews and made her way to the far end of the bench. Ysabeau always sat on the aisle, so that she would not have to drink after the rest of her family when it came time to take any wine from the goblet.
Addison sighed. It looked as though she would drink last.
Typical.
She perched herself at the edge of the bench, caught between the chill of Godfrey and the chill of the stone wall to her right. If she glanced at it, she knew, she would see a little screaming cherub staring down at her from on high. And beneath the cherub would be a demon, waving his harp at the little baby, with a manic, toothy grin, a forked tongue, and a tiny little ball of fire next to him.
Light filtered in from the skylight above the altar. This was the only light in a church of shadows. Sometimes it lit up the statue of Jesus. Sometimes it hit her in the eye. It depended on the day, and how many clouds were in the sky.
When Father Maynard began his sermon, Addison did her best not to groan. Though, admirably, Godfrey held no such restraint. It was Baldwin beside him who reached over and subtly stopped the blonde's tirade. Addison snickered and Godfrey pulled a displeased face.
They sat through a long lecture on the shortest book in the damn bible, and Addison wished idly that she could bring her cross-stitch to mass in the mornings and sew herself into oblivion. Sitting in church made her itch for a needle. She didn't know how to feel about that, but it was true.
Even still, she had to admit, the Book of Obadiah was a far better story than Leviticus. She'd take someone's eye out if she had to sit through another lecture on unleavened bread and the perils of pork.
When the mass's hour was up, Addison's knees ached from all the abuse. They had done the standing and kneeling. The sitting. The singing. They had taken the body – and Addison had savored that wonderful tiny bit of bread – and then consumed the blood. Addison had to remind herself that even if she was a knight now, and had sworn her fealty to Philippe, snagging the goblet and tossing it back would not be acceptable and Ysabeau would, no doubt, drag her out of the church by her hair.
Then there was more kneeling, standing, singing, sitting, praying and so on.
When mass finally ended, the family filed into the aisle before the rest of the villagers could take their leave. The men bowed at the altar; Addison and Ysabeau gave their parting curtsies, and then they made their way toward the doors.
It was all very haughty and imperious to be honest. It was a display more than a show of faith. It was a gesture to all the world that the de Clermont family was in God's good favor, that they were loyal to the king, that they were nobles worthy of being followed and so on and so forth.
And Addison participated in this now. She was a part of the machine. It had somehow made itself integral to her survival – her ability to thrive. And she did not know if she was pleased or dismayed by this.
Because it worked. People bought into the display. People thrived on it. Consumed it. Drank it in with an unquenchable thirst.
Addison had not met most of these people, but it would not surprise her to learn that she was already a household name.
The villagers watched them intently. Whispering amongst themselves and straining their necks to catch a glimpse of this person or that who they had heard a rumor about at some point in their life.
It was odd, Addison had long since decided, moving through this world at the heels of the de Clermont. It was entirely unsettling to be the subject of so much scrutiny, all because of who had adopted her. She did her best to appear unfazed as the rest of the de Clermonts were. But she was never very good at that.
She smiled at the people who caught her eye. She waved at a little girl who stared up at her in wonder. She saw Agatha toward the back with her husband, the baker, and she reached out to squeeze her hand in silent greeting. This set off a series of intense whispers at her back and Addison cringed, shooting Agatha a look of apology. The other woman laughed and shook her off. She was the baker's wife, Addison supposed, no one would slag her off if it meant she could withhold their daily bread.
There was power in feeding people too, Addison knew, and she wished somehow that she could trade lives with Agatha and spend all day giving people bread. Even more so, she wished that she and Agatha could be friends.
Addison St. James was having a bad day.
It hit her about halfway up the hill.
Though the weather had been cold for weeks now, the sun still burned hot, and Addison's dress was made of thick, unforgiving wool. Her scarf was heavy on her head, and her shawl was an unnecessary burden.
The family led the way back to the fortress they called home. Eric was caught up in a lively discussion with Jean Luc and his father. Godfrey was discussing some matter with Baldwin and Ysabeau, and Philippe was speaking rapidly in Latin with Alain.
Balder and Guillaume trailed dutifully behind her, but the hill was long, and she felt herself begin to lag. Her stomach protested loudly from hunger, one tiny piece of bread and a sip wine being the only thing she'd had since dinner the night before.
"Are you well, my lady?" Guillaume asked, appearing by her side.
Addison's lips were caught in an uncomfortable pout, and she released her growling stomach so she could reach up and rip the scarf off her head.
"Fine, Guillaume," she muttered. "Just warm, is all."
"Allow me to take your shawl, my lady," he said.
She didn't even protest. She just slid the garment off and handed it over to him. One of the retainers looked back. Baldwin's, she supposed; she had never met him before.
That was when she realized how much they listened to everything. She saw that Alain and Jean Luc had also turned their ears, even as they continued their conversations with their respective lords.
Addison frowned and sucked in a miserable breath. Would there ever be any privacy in this place?
She fanned herself and moved her hair off her neck. When did it get so hot? It was almost winter, for Christ's sake.
By the time they had made it back to the gates Addison was entirely done with her day.
She wanted to go back to sleep. She wanted to start it over.
She wanted a redo. This wasn't fair.
It had all started with that stupid nightmare.
Her mind flashed back to the chessboard as she followed the family past the gate's looming teeth and into the tunnel's gaping maw.
A chessboard. And no sleep. She should have asked Hugh about her dream.
Then there had been the matter of Philippe. Baldwin had stolen the document that contained the legal contents of her fate. And now Addison was a knight, officially, and she couldn't back out. Philippe had demanded her fealty. He'd decided she needed an education, whatever that meant. He didn't elaborate.
This was to be her punishment for the decisions Godfrey, Hugh and Fernando had made.
She had missed breakfast, and her head ached from hunger. Her eyes were dry from the cold outside and a night spent wide awake thinking too hard in her chambers. But her body was hot and sweaty and burdened by thick, heavy, horrible wool.
She pulled ahead of the family when they entered the courtyard, tired and hungry and a little angry too. She had stuff to do, and she wasn't going to hang around with this lot just to have them get in her way again as they always seemed to do.
Jacqueline appeared in the entry when Addison strode through the doors, and Balder and Guillaume lingered behind her, waiting to follow her around for the rest of this horrible day. She gestured for Jacqueline to follow. She shot a look to the pair of men. And together as one they crossed the household, cut through a corridor, and made their way down into the kitchens.
"Fetch the chef," she said to Balder.
The man bowed and disappeared.
Addison was tired. She was tired of wasting time. She was tired of men getting the best of her. The kitchen staff was bustling around, preparing bread and meat, roasting vegetables and boiling soups. They were preparing wine to send upstairs and gathering blood for the creatures that lived in the house, who would no doubt be parched after church.
Addison stopped and took it all in, scanning the room for a familiar face in Mary.
The girl in question caught her eye from the corner where she was chopping up fresh beetroot.
Addison nodded at her in acknowledgement, and Mary dipped into a partial curtsy, never once stopping her blade.
There was shout from somewhere down the hall. A clamor and a crash. And then heavy steps on stone flooring, as Balder made his way back to the kitchens with the chef in tow.
"Get your hands off me!" came a disgruntled shout.
Addison turned expectantly toward the ruckus.
Balder appeared with a man caught in his fist. The chef was a tall chubby man, and he was rumpled now too, what with the way he struggled against the knight's superior hold. He sputtered and twisted to get away, but to no avail. "What is the meaning of this?!"
All around them work stuttered to a stop. Knives ceased their chopping. Wine ceased its pouring. There was no more sweeping, or kneading or roasting.
A pot boiled over, but no one scrambled to save the soup.
He was an unimpressive man, the chef, Addison decided. He had unremarkable eyes. A sharp nose. Round, red cheeks. And a wiry mustache.
And he was positively spitting with rage. "Unhand me at once, you great demon!" he shouted, trying to shake himself of Balder's grip.
But the knight only held him tighter by the collar of his shirt.
Addison cleared her throat as they came to a halt in the center of the room. The chef ceased his hissing to look up at her – eyes flashing in recognition. His teeth appeared beneath his mustache as he gritted them in rage.
"You—" he hissed but she held up a hand for silence.
"Hello, Chef," Addison said softly.
She looked him over and then let her eyes drift to Balder who seemed to be awaiting further instruction. She felt a surge of power wash over her. It was wholly addictive and unpleasant. A voice in the back of her mind whispered to her that this was a game that could turn dangerous if she was not careful.
She clasped her hands in front of her and looked away. "Let him go, Balder," she said.
The knight released the chef, and the man drew himself to his full height. Barrel chest puffing out. His face turned puce with rage.
"What is the meaning of this?!" he shouted at her, repeating himself. Apparently at a loss for something more original to say.
"My lady," Addison supplied, raising her chin, and looking up at him through narrowed eyes.
"What did you call me?" he asked, sputtering.
She shook her head. "No," she said, feigning patience. "It is what you have yet to call me. My lady."
"This is ridiculous," he exclaimed, storming over to her, but Balder followed and Guillaume stepped up. Before the chef could get in her face, a hand appeared between them, and the serene knight calmly urged the man to back away.
"Say it," Guillaume said with a dangerous smile.
The chef sputtered and shook his head. Guillaume cocked his head to the side and eyed him like a wolf watches its prey.
"M-my lady," the chef gritted out, sweating profusely from either his nerves or his rage. "What is the meaning of this? I have not the time for—"
"It seems you have all the time in the world, chef," Addison said lightly, stepping forward and into his space.
But all too aware of the niceties she'd been taught to observe, she kept her hands politely clasped in front of her and a smile on her face.
"Every time I am down here to meet you so that we may check the inventory, you have conveniently slipped away."
"A chef cannot be expected to answer a child's every beck and call—" he began but Addison shook her head and cut him off.
"I am no child," she said simply. "And a chef is expected to be at his lady's beck and call. It is this house that you serve. The house does not serve you."
"And you are not of this house!" he snapped.
Jacqueline hissed behind her, but Addison held up her hand for silence.
"And yet I live upstairs, in Hugh de Clermont's tower. I have this key, here," she said, holding up her key to the food stores. "And you live down here where you are paid handsomely by the de Clermont to serve."
The chef scowled.
"Now," Addison continued. "I have been very impressed by your staff. They are hard workers. Those I have met, have been very kind and helpful. They are useful. They do good work."
She turned and looked to Mary, offering her a smile. The other girl smiled shyly back.
"But in all my time spent in search of you," she continued. "I have found you to be the only member of this staff not to be doing any work."
"This is highly irregular!" the chef exclaimed.
"My lady," Guillaume supplied for the other man with a patient look on his face.
"My lady," the chef bit out, taking the command for what it was.
"Yes, chef," Addison said simply. "I would have to agree."
"In all my years at Sept-Tours—" he began.
"I require your key," Addison told him gently, not interested in his tirade.
"My key?!" he exclaimed. "Whatever for?!"
Addison didn't answer him, she nodded to Balder behind him, and stepped back when the knight seized him again and patted him down. After several heated protestations from the chef, Balder finally found the key, and held it up for her to see. She nodded and he released the other man, stepping back and out of the way.
"You can't do this!" the chef shouted, turning from her to Balder. Trying to figure out how best to regain his dignity. "I have my orders. I have my work. You cannot take my key to the food stores. The whole fortress will starve!"
"Mary," Addison said. "Will you come here, please?"
The girl in question set down her knife and made her way over to them, with a nervous twist of her lips. Her eyes flickered between the chef and Lady Fernanda, the knights that loomed over them, and the maid Jacqueline.
"Yes, milady?" she asked.
"What do you know of the food inventory?" Addison asked her.
"I know much, milady," Mary supplied. "What is it you would like to know?"
Addison shook her head and fixed the chef with a smug look. "Mary will accompany me to the food stores, so that I may complete my inventory, and report back to Madame Ysabeau. Chef, you will complete Mary's duties for the day—"
"Me?! The duties of a kitchen maid?!"
"I think you need to be reminded of what kitchen work entails, good Chef," she said with a placating smile. "Mary seems more than capable of helping me take stock of our inventory as we head now into winter."
"This is ridiculous! It's absurd! It's—" he sputtered and looked around him, puce in the face and shaking with rage. It did not help when the kitchen maids began to giggle, and the cupbearers hid their faces.
"That will be all, chef," Addison said lightly, accepting the key from Balder and handing it to Jacqueline.
"Now, if you have need of the food stores," she told him. "You need only come and find me."
Addison strode into Hugh's study as though she belonged there and stopped.
Hugh was at his desk. Jean Luc stood over his shoulder.
Her mouth popped open in surprise. "Sorry," she said. "I forgot."
Hugh waved her apology away. "If we didn't wish for interruptions, we would have locked the door."
Addison ducked her head in acknowledgement. That was fair enough, she supposed. It was odd now that Hugh was here, how the world had shifted around him. Just about a month ago she had been the one seated at that desk. And then Eric came. She moved to the sofa. And now Hugh was here, she turned for the door, staring at it and then looking back to Hugh again.
"I was looking for Sorley," she said.
"He's in the stables," Hugh smiled. "Mucking out the stalls."
"Mucking out the stalls?" She asked, incredulous. "But he doesn't usually..."
Hugh nodded and signed a document Jean Luc set in front of him. "No, he doesn't, usually."
"Oh," Addison said, wondering what that could possibly mean. Her mind drifted back to her conversation with Gallowglass the other evening, about him spending time on the battlements as punishment for Rome.
"Does this have anything to do with the Pope?" she asked Hugh.
He glanced up at her, dripping an ink blot on the parchment laid out on his desk. "He told you?"
Addison shrugged. "Balder asked him about it. He answered. I was there."
Hugh studied her, considering something. After a beat, he nodded to himself and sat back, setting down his quill.
"Yes," he said. "It has to do with the Pope."
"Or the lack of one," she offered with a small smile.
His lips quirked. "Or the lack of one," Hugh agreed.
"Well..." Addison said and glanced again toward the door. "I'll just..."
Hugh smirked and tapped his hand against the desk, a small wrinkle formed in his brow, and his eyes gave way to worry.
"I'm afraid I've been so busy this day that I have yet to ask how you have fared since..."
Since. Addison sighed and fidgeted with a loose thread on her dress. Hugh tracked the movement with his eyes.
"I don't know," she answered honestly. And it was true. She didn't know. On the one hand, it was all very anticlimactic. She had expected more death threats. More vitriol. More cruelty. But that wasn't what she had received.
She wasn't about to burn at the stake. No one was going to turn her over to the authorities.
The Knights of Lazarus protect their own, Philippe had said to her. And now they would protect her. But... Addison feared she couldn't hold up her end of the bargain. She had agreed to this, but Philippe hadn't been wrong. No matter what Eric said, she was soft.
If she was supposed to be a knight, should she not be held to the same standard as the rest of them? Was she not also supposed to protect the knights as they protected her?
She wasn't a fighter, though. She wasn't a knight. She didn't want to be.
She frowned. She didn't know how she felt about things.
"It no easy thing," Hugh said when he realized she would say no more. "To be pressed into a role we do not consider ourselves fit to fulfill."
Addison pressed her lips together and nodded her agreement. Her stomach had twisted itself into knots again. And her mind was still haunted – not by Philippe's anger or the role she'd been asked to fill – but by that stupid chessboard. Haunted by the clock that ticked in the air around her. The one she hadn't asked for. The one that was stuck out of time.
She could hear it now, and a little thread in her belly began to unfurl.
She could feel herself unspooling here in the Middle Ages.
She was unspooling in the twenty-first century too.
And Addison didn't know what to do.
Something was wrong.
What happened when she ran out of thread?
What then?
She was strung up high in the air on some string, and it was always so hard to find her way back to the ground. How did you ground yourself, really, when something else was pulling your thread?
Sorley was an anchor for her. He always found a way to reach up and he tug her back down. He gave her his own ground to stand on, and she loved him for it.
But she was floating.
And she would continue to float. High up in the air, caught on some string.
Gallowglass, alone, could not stop that.
Everything was happening so fast.
She had asked Philippe for an education. And he was giving her one.
She had asked for this. And she had gotten what she wanted, and oh how it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Call it what you want – knighthood, punishment, revenge. It didn't matter the mask it wore. It didn't matter Philippe's intentions. It didn't matter how she felt about it at all.
It all came back to the chessboard.
It all came back to her dreams.
It all came back to...
She studied Hugh, and she knew he was puzzling over her.
It all came back around to him. This all had something to do with Hugh.
Her and him. Over and over again. Every single time.
Run.
That's all he ever said.
She dreamed of him, and he only ever said one thing.
Over and over again, an angry voice in the darkness.
Run.
But she didn't know where to run, or how to run. Who did she run to? When? What was she running from?
She didn't know. He never said.
Just run.
Caught there in Hugh's study. A million questions on her lips, and unable to make herself leave. Addison made her way over to the sofa, to the scales Jacqueline had brought for her weeks ago. They lived on the end table now. She tipped them with her fingers. She watched as the scales tilted. She watched them swing.
Addison waited on bated breath for them to find their balance, and still, she couldn't make herself ask Hugh any of her million questions. It was just a dream. It was all just a dream.
Addison looked up to find Hugh frowning at Jean Luc. His most faithful manservant had passed him something while she was focused on the scale, but she couldn't make out what it was.
"I was wondering," she said, drawing Hugh's attention back to her.
Hugh looked up and tucked a piece of parchment away. She let it go. He smiled patiently at her.
"What were you wondering, Fernanda?" he asked.
Addison sucked in a nervous breath. "Could you... I mean... would it be too much trouble if..."
"Fernanda," Hugh said softly, a small smile crossing his face. "Exhale, first, and then ask."
Addison huffed out a tense little laugh and did as he told her. The rest of her air escaped her in one long anxious sigh.
"Could you teach me to play chess?" she asked him.
Hugh's eyes lit up in surprise. He had not expected this.
"You wish to learn chess?" he asked.
Addison nodded. "If it's not too much trouble."
"No," he shook his head. "It's not too much trouble, but..."
He traded a look with Jean Luc who shrugged and placed another paper in front of him.
"It's a man's game, Fernanda," he told her gently. "It would be highly irregular—"
Addison frowned. "So is being a time traveling human," she said. "So is being a vampire. So is being Fernando's daughter for Christ's sake. Honestly, you should see people's faces when they find out—"
Hugh barked out a laugh and stood from his chair. He made his way over to a bookshelf and plucked a scroll off it, dusting it off, and turning her way.
"I have seen their faces," he chuckled and came over to where she stood. He perched himself on the arm of the sofa, and Addison eyed the scroll with interest. "It is one of my greatest joys in life, watching others learn that Fernando is a father."
Addison pressed her lips together, trying unsuccessfully to hide her smirk. When Hugh said it, it was as laughable. When everyone else did, it made her scowl.
"My point," she said gently, sitting on the sofa across from him and leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "Is that I think that... just by existing... I am already irregular. Everyone keeps telling me what I should and shouldn't do based on custom. But... Hugh... there is not a single customary thing about me. Why should I conform to those rules?"
"Some rules are meant to be followed—" he began but she cut him off to protest. He silenced her with a dry look and a shake of his head.
"I'm not finished, Fernanda," he told her.
She sighed and sat back, arching an eyebrow, and waiting for him to continue. Hugh grinned. He toyed with the scroll, considering it for a moment, before setting it down on the table and leaving it there.
"I will not allow you to forsake any rule that inconveniences you. Not while your father is away. When you are in his care, you may challenge him to your heart's content. I will not stand in your way—"
Addison snorted and made to comment, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
"Be that as it may," he said. "You make an intriguing case."
"I do," she agreed haughtily and immediately regretted it. "Oh god, I sound like Godfrey."
Behind her Jean Luc let out a laugh and she turned to stare at him in surprise. He was always so neutral. A reaction was new.
"Yes," Hugh chuckled. "You do."
She pulled a face and turned back to him. Utterly appalled. He shrugged. "All that means is you are aware of your own mind," he told her placatingly.
Addison bit back a million insults she had stored away for Godfrey. She'd have to let the comparison slide and strive to overcome the trauma, in her own time.
"What I intended to say, Fernanda," Hugh said. "Is that I would be honored to teach you. I think chess will suit you, but you must let me be the one to explain it to Fernando."
"You'll teach me?" Addison asked, waiting for the catch, and hoping desperately that there would be none.
"I will," Hugh assured her.
Addison jolted out of her seat and tackled him for the second time in less than a day. "Thank you," she whispered.
And then she turned and fled the study. She left Hugh and Jean Luc to their business for the day, and went instead, in search of Eric in the stables.
And though she paid it little mind, somewhere behind her, a clock ticked on the stairs. Out of sight. Out of time. The clock ticked. And the darkness loomed. A fire burned in Hugh's study.
Back in the twenty-first century a car was waiting, idling in place, across the street from her childhood home. Somewhere in the twenty-first century, a phantom breeze was blowing, and a specter appeared in a window.
Addison made her way through the household, in search of Eric. The stables were her goal. And she took a deep breath and allowed herself to unravel a bit, finally feeling as though she had recovered from the horrible start to her day, but she wasn't sure why. She wasn't sure why learning to play chess felt like the solution to it all. Nothing had changed. Her circumstances were still wildly uncertain, but somehow things now felt less wrong.
But back in the twenty-first century, the specter moved, and the car retreated, and the phantom breeze continued to blow.
Now, if the car had decided to stay... If the man inside the car had turned off the engine, opened his door, and stepped out into the street. He would have noticed that something was out of order.
There, in the twenty-first century, if he had gone up to the door, he would have been delighted, but unsurprised, to find the house was empty.
And perhaps, even, he would have pushed inside and helped himself to more.
While the young Fernanda was ignorant of these occurrences, safe inside the walls of 13th century Sept-Tours, the man in the car was too afraid to leave it. He was too afraid to get out. He was too scared to try the door because there was a specter in the window, and he recognized the face that it wore.
Addison had months left before she had to worry herself again with cars or windows, phantom breezes or falling chessboards.
For now, she figured, the twenty-first century was best left ignored. Though she couldn't keep herself from repeating over and over in her mind.
Queen. Knight. Bishop. Rook. King.
She didn't even realize she was doing it. It was just there in her thoughts. Always there. Always repeating itself. Warning her that she was playing a game meant for losing. Warning her, and yet there was nothing she could do.
In the entrance hall, she thanked the footmen when they opened the doors. She stepped out into the sunlight. She left the darkness behind her.
These were times of peace, here in the Auvergne. It would be centuries before these little pieces met on the right chessboard. It would be a long while before they lined themselves up for war.
Back in Hugh's study, the scales Fernanda had tipped, still swayed – unbalanced and uneven. A scroll sat beneath them, forgotten for a moment, but not forever.
It would find its way, eventually, into Addison's hands.
From his desk, Hugh's attention was drawn to the scales where they kept swaying, and he considered for a moment, Fernanda's tipping of them. He considered, for a moment, the ripple of that little human's touch on the world around her. He considered the indelible mark she was leaving on this world, and he wondered, not for the first time, what on earth she had been doing in his dream that night over four decades ago. He wondered how she had come to be suspended in the dark of that cave. He wondered about the fates. He wondered about the gods. He wondered about the words that had been uttered over the fire, and the woman with many voices, and a familiar face.
Peregrinus Animus. Peregrinus Anima. Peregrinus Cor.
Hugh eyed the scroll doubtfully and turned back to his work for the day. Jean Luc passed him another missive. He dipped his quill in the inkwell. He signed his name.
"Your father said I might find you here."
Eric hauled another pile of hay into a wheelbarrow, and then set his pitchfork off to the side.
"Did he?" he asked, wiping his hands on a rag, and turning toward Fernanda.
She was standing in the doorway, in her grey wool dress, with her hair down. She'd bathed since he saw her last, and her hair was curling at the ends where it had yet to dry. Her cheeks were flushed despite the shade, and she seemed to be fidgeting in place.
She smiled and nodded, and he waved her further inside.
A stableboy scurried past her, with a saddle in his arms that weighed more than him no doubt, and Fernanda paused to give him room before she made her way over to Eric's side.
"Hello," she said softly, as though she had not seen him just a few hours ago.
"Hello," he returned and reached up to pat Penelope as she leaned out of her stall to bump his arm.
Fernanda's eyes flickered to her horse and narrowed.
"I see you've met Penelope," she said, distrustfully.
"Aye," Eric said, furrowing his brow. "Does she displease you, mo chridhe?"
Fernanda's lips pursed and she sucked in a long-suffering breath. She reached for a loose nail on the stable door and tugged at it. "I don't need a horse, is all."
Eric chuckled and reached up to pat Penelope's neck. "A good horse is customary for a lady, Fernanda," he said. "She's not so bad a beast to have, this one."
Fernanda did not appear convinced, but she held her tongue. Eric's smile twitched and faded. "Is something wrong?"
Fernanda shook her head and fixed a smile on her face. "No," she said. "Nothing. It's just been a long day. That's all."
Eric nodded, but he remained doubtful. "Would you like to help me feed her?" he asked, but Fernanda stepped back and scrunched her nose.
"No, thanks."
Eric was already reaching for a large bag of grain and hauling it up over Penelope's stall door. The horse whinnied gratefully and dug in before the bag was even on its hook. He picked up an apple from the top of a stack and tossed it to his mate.
"Catch," he said, and she stumbled to catch the flying fruit before it hit the ground.
"What was that for?" she asked, clutching the apple to her chest.
"It's clean," he said.
"Clean?" she asked.
"Aye," he replied, reaching for the wheelbarrow, and making his way toward the doors. "I know you like to wash your fruit before you eat it. It's clean."
"Oh," she replied, glancing down at the apple in her hands. "Why?" she asked.
"I didn't know if you'd found something to eat after this morning," he shrugged and left the stables.
Fernanda fell silent for a moment. He made his way around back with his pile of soiled hay, and grinned to himself smugly when he heard her take a bite. Her footsteps sounded, and he heard as she followed him out the stables. He turned his ear as she neared him.
Eric dumped the hay into a larger pile a little ways away, and she appeared by his side. Chewing contentedly and scrunching her nose at the soiled mess in front of her.
"What do you guys do with it?" she asked, taking another bite of her apple, and gesturing toward the hay.
"Eh, we scatter it in some places. It's good for the pig pens. Keeps their waste from running off and stinking up the place—"
Beside him Fernanda gagged and lowered her apple from her face. Eric smirked.
"Or we can use it for seeding, it's good to cover the seeds with something when we plant them. Hay tends to do the trick. Or we'll just use it as mulch in the gardens. Depends on the need, really."
Fernanda hummed and stepped back to give him room when he made to turn the wheelbarrow around.
"Hugh said this is part of your punishment?" she asked.
Eric glanced back at her and nodded. "Aye," he said. "Battlements in the evening. Stables on Sundays, for a while at least. Armory at the beginning and end of each week and so on."
Fernanda frowned and nodded. "That sounds like a lot of work," she murmured.
Eric shrugged and fixed her with an easy grin. "It's not so bad," he said. "I've got all the time in the world."
Fernanda frowned and shook her head. "When do you have time for you?" she asked.
Eric stopped, just outside the stable doors, and looked down at her. He furrowed his brow.
Time for him? He didn't know what he'd expected, but he hadn't expected her to ask him that.
"I don't think I understand your meaning, mo chridhe?" he asked.
Fernanda frowned, and he itched to smooth the wrinkle in her brow, but his hands were soiled so he kept them by his sides.
"When do you take time for yourself?" she asked again. "You go to Rome for the knights. You come here for me. You already have your duties, Eric. I've seen you working. You never slow down. And now, there's all this on top of it..." she trailed off as she gestured to the stables.
"It's just what I do, mo chridhe," he told her gently. "This is my life. My duty—"
"But it's too much," she said quietly. "When do you slow down?"
Eric shook his head, and Ampelius called for the wheelbarrow from inside. He glanced in the direction of the old stablemaster and turned back to her, eyes full of regret.
"I best head back in, love," he said.
Fernanda's nostrils flared and her eyes flashed with the desire to challenge him, but she stayed silent and nodded her head. He grinned at her and itched to lean down and kiss her, but he wouldn't dare.
They were courting, but they were not betrothed. He wouldn't put her in such a position, in full view of the rest of the household.
"Can I stay?" she asked instead. And Eric drew back in surprise.
"My lord!" Ampelius called out to him again, hurrying him along. "The wheelbarrow—"
"You want to stay?" Eric asked her, ignoring the stablemaster.
"I do," she shrugged. "If that's alright with you..."
Eric grinned and felt a lightness flood his chest. "It is," he laughed. "It is more than alright. Come," he said. "Follow me."
Addison found herself perched on a bench in the back of the stables, while Eric swept out an empty stall. There was a pile of hay in the corner. It made her nose itch. There was a stableboy up in the loft, eating a bit of cheese and watching the comings and goings down below. A barn cat sat next to him, begging for a bite of his food. There was a horse stamping in the entrance as the farrier tried to check its horseshoes. Ampelius was in the back, bent over a sharp looking saw. And several others working as well.
She had never noticed how involved the work was here in the stables. She'd never spent much time in this space before.
The sun was high in the sky, it burned bright, but there was a chill on the air. Addison had the vaguest sense that it would snow soon, and she did not know what winter would look like here. She couldn't handle another long season, cooped up indoors, while the rest of the household came and went without her.
She couldn't handle dark skies and freezing floors, and sickness and shadows.
"I'm about done here," Eric said, straightening up and looking around at his work. He glanced over to her and then over at a horse across the way. It was an energetic thing, she could tell. And it always seemed to keep Eric in its line of sight.
"Would you like to go somewhere with me?" he asked her, turning his eyes from the horse back to her.
"Yeah," Addison smiled. "Yes, I would like that very much."
Admittedly, it had taken her too long to catch on to what was going to happen next.
The energetic horse was led out of his stall. Eric brushed him down and fitted him with his saddle. The bridle was lifted over the horse's head, and the beast stamped manically in response.
Eric tsked and murmured quietly to the stallion, running a soothing hand over his neck, and patting him on the rear.
Penelope, behind Addison, whinnied at all the commotion. The mare's ears perked up and she peeked up from her nap to peer out at the stallion from over her stall.
Addison jumped and skittered away from her horse now that she was moving, making her way over to Eric's side.
Gallowglass had taken the stallion's lead and begun to guide the horse out into the courtyard. Addison hurried her step to keep up, and Eric smiled down at her, offering his hand. She took it and squeezed, glancing back at Penelope who looked as though she was glaring at the trio as they departed into the courtyard.
"What are you doing?" she asked him, stomach turning in dismay.
Eric frowned down at her. "Preparing Ulysses," he said and jerked his head back toward his steed.
"Ulysses?" she deadpanned, eyeing the stamping horse distrustfully.
Eric grinned. "Aye," he said.
"And you named this... creature...?" she asked.
Eric chuckled. "No," he said. "That would be Philippe. But he's a good horse. He's served me well these last handful of years."
"Really?" she asked doubtfully. "Because he looks... angry."
Eric snorted and glanced back at his stamping horse. "Eh, he's not so bad," he said. "He's much meaner when he's on a path for war."
Addison blanched and drew her hand away. "We're not finished with that conversation, by the way," she told him.
"Oh?" he asked.
"Mhmm."
"What more is there to say?" he asked, almost nervous, and fidgeting with Ulysses' lead.
"You went to war," she deadpanned. Eric winced.
"I've been in several," he corrected.
Addison hmphed and raised an eyebrow, convinced that she'd made her case, but Eric avoided her gaze and kept quiet. He brought Ulysses to a halt in the center of the courtyard, where people had given the vitriolic horse a wide berth, and the young de Clermont an ample amount of space.
"Mo chridhe," he said, changing the subject, and instead nodding to the saddle.
"What?" she asked dumbly.
He tilted his head at her curiously, and his eyes glinted with mirth. "Get on," he said and again gestured to his horse.
"Get... on..." she repeated slowly, looking between Gallowglass and the prancing horse.
Eric cracked a smile. "Aye, lass," he said. "So, we can depart."
"Depart," she said again, not catching his meaning.
Eric gave her a look as though he could not tell whether she was serious. And Addison stared back at him, utterly confused.
"You still wish to go with me?" he asked, just to make sure.
"Of course," she said, shaking her head, not sure what one had to do with the other.
"Then come," he said, and tugged Ulysses closer to her. "Up you go—"
"What?" Addison gaped. "No. What do you mean? You can't be—"
She looked between him and his steed, to the people around the courtyard who were milling about as though this was an entirely normal thing to witness. She couldn't get on that horse. They weren't going to be riding anywhere. She thought—
No.
Surely, he meant they would walk.
This was a joke. He was messing with her. Addison shook her head.
"You're not serious..."
Eric furrowed his brow. "What did you think we would be doing?" he asked.
"Walking!" Addison exclaimed, throwing her hands out in front of her in exasperation. "I thought we would be walking—"
"Oh, we can't walk where we're going, mo chridhe," Eric shook his head doubtfully. "It's too far away."
"But—"
"Fernanda," he started but she held up her hand.
"Gallowglass," she said. "I can't. I don't know how. It's—he's" she glanced again at the snorting stallion. "Are you sure he's not angry?"
Eric's eyes lit up in understanding, and he shook his head down at her. "Do you not know how to mount a horse, mo chridhe?" he asked her.
Addison spluttered. "All I'm saying is, he looks angry—"
"Have you ever ridden before?" Eric pressed on.
"Of course, I haven't," she told him. "I don't understand why anyone in their right mind would—"
But Eric snorted and tuned out her tirade, he stepped up, and then his hands were around her waist.
"Wait," she whisper-shouted at him. "What are you doing? Eric! Sorley—"
But then he lifted her up and set her in the saddle. And she was sitting on a horse – perched high on a great stamping beast, looking down on everyone else. She would have yelped if she weren't frozen in terror. She would have jumped down if she wasn't so afraid of the height.
She'd only done this once before – with Baldwin, on the road, when he brought her to Sept-Tours.
Eric mounted behind her and wrapped an arm securely around her waist.
"Relax, mo chridhe," he rumbled, and she felt his voice vibrate through his chest.
"I can't, mo chridhe," she gritted out. "I'm on a fucking horse."
He snorted and clicked his tongue, urging the beast forward. Addison scrambled for purchase, feeling that surely, she would lose her seat, but he held her a little tighter and pulled her back against his chest.
"Sit still," he told her gently. "I've got you. You can readjust when we've cleared the gates."
As promised, when they cleared the gates and left the villagers behind them who walked along the path, Eric paused for a moment to allow her to straddle the horse.
"Better?" he asked.
Addison hmphed and clung to his arm, resenting very much that she had to hold onto him, when he'd kidnapped her and put her on a horse.
"Now, don't go telling granny that I let you ride like a man," he said jovially, unmoved by her ire. "She'd skin me alive, and who knows what she'd do to you—"
Addison scoffed and leaned back more forcefully against him, hitting his chest with her back with a resentful thud and knocking the wind from her lungs.
Eric snickered and shook his head, his tawny hair brushing against her cheek when he did.
"Don't go hurting yourself over me, love," he piped in good-naturedly, and kicked his horse into a trot. Addison yelped and jolted in the saddle, unused to the motion, and clinging to the pommel for dear life.
"Hey," he murmured and pulled her back more securely. "Relax, Fernanda, I'll not let you fall."
"I don't like horses, Eric," she said again.
Eric sighed. "Would you like to turn back?" he asked, slowing his horse, and turning as though to make his way back to Sept-Tours.
He sounded sad. Addison's heart lurched in her chest. He'd asked for her time. And she had wanted to give it to him. She hated his horse. It was a terrible beast.
But... she wanted time with Gallowglass. She wanted to see whatever it was he wanted her to see.
"No," she said loosening her grip on his arm and turning so she could see his face.
Addison accidentally brushed his nose with her forehead as she turned, and it was only then that she realized just how close they were, stuck there in the saddle together. She sucked in a breath, all too aware of the closeness of his lips. The light that shined in his eyes and turned them the most spectacular shade of blue. The scratch of his beard against her cheek.
His Adam's apple bobbed as he watched her. His eyes flickered down from her eyes to her lips. And Addison suddenly wanted to kiss his throat. It was level with her lips.
"I don't want to turn back," she breathed, watching his lips twitch beneath her gaze. He offered a small smile and Addison swallowed, her heart sounding off an extra beat.
A throat cleared behind them and Addison yelped, flying halfway out of her seat. Ulysses reared back, agitated, and Eric cursed, gripping her tight with one arm and calming his horse with the other.
"Christ man," he growled angrily though whether it was at the horse or the man who'd snuck up on them Addison didn't know. She was too busy holding onto Eric as he got his horse under control.
Ulysses came to heel quickly for his master and stamped once his protestation before falling silent and still. Eric patted her down to make sure she was settled before turning to face whoever was behind them.
Addison startled and then flushed in embarrassment. Balder and Guillaume.
They were both on their horses. Both leaning casually back in their saddles, watching her and Eric's exchange. Balder was smirking. Guillaume looked serene as always.
"That was hardly called for," Eric gritted out at them, and Addison wished she could disappear into the ground.
What exactly had they seen? She and Gallowglass had hardly done anything scandalous, but it felt altogether like a violation of something. She had thought they were alone.
"Lady Fernanda wished for us to make a noise when we approached her from behind," Balder supplied smugly. "We only meant to do as she asked."
Eric cursed and chuckled at the pair. And Balder laughed with him. But Addison was utterly mortified, and Guillaume seemed to notice this. He offered her a sympathetic smile and bowed his head.
"Apologies, my lady," he murmured quietly from his horse.
Addison cleared her throat as the other two fell silent. Eric's hand flexed around her waist, and he pressed a kiss to the back of her head.
"It's okay," she said to Guillaume. He nodded and accepted her pardon.
They turned back toward the path ahead of them. And Addison was all too aware of the hooves that trailed in their wake. She tensed and glanced up at Eric, a frown pulling down the rest of her face.
'They don't have to come," she said, but Eric only chuckled.
"Yes, they do," he said. "It's their job."
"You keep saying that," she grumbled.
"Because you seem to need constant reminding," he said happily.
"But I'm with you," she argued. "How much danger could I possibly be in?"
Eric fell silent at that, considering her question, before allowing himself a long unnecessary sigh.
"They are sworn to protect you," he told her. "From anyone who may stand against you. Including me."
"What?" she asked, sitting up straighter and turning to stare at him as they rode.
Eric frowned. "I'd never hurt you, mo chridhe," he said. "But it's not for them to make exceptions. Their duty is to you. They will always protect you, until their oaths have been fulfilled and you release them from their vows. It is just the way of things."
"But—" she started, and Eric only shook his head in response.
"Don't worry your mind about them," he told her, effectively ending their conversation. "They'll hang back. You won't even know they're there."
They entered the trees, and Addison lifted her face toward the sky of sunlit green above them. Allowing her mind to be lulled by the canopy of leaves. There was something magical about trees, she'd come to realize. There was something in the air beneath them. Cleaner and fresher and more healing too. Whenever Addison returned to the trees, she felt almost as though they were reaching for her. Greeting her. Welcoming her into their home.
The horses walked along slowly, and Addison found herself relaxing into the rhythm of their gate.
Eric's chest was solid at her back and his arm was secure around her waist, and it had become alarmingly easy for Addison to drift away into her thoughts and the comfort of his embrace.
Before long, Eric brought his horse to a halt and dismounted.
"We'll walk from here," he said, and reached for her.
Addison turned and braced her hands on his shoulders, allowing him to lift her from the saddle and set her back on the ground. She looked up at him shyly when he held her a bit longer then necessary. Addison smoothed her hands over his shoulders and then down the front of his tunic before remembering they were not alone. She cleared her throat and dropped her hands back down to her sides.
Gallowglass's lips twitched slightly but he didn't comment, choosing instead to tie Ulysses' lead.
Addison watched him do it, unable to hide her curiosity. Behind them Balder and Guillaume were dismounted, but they did not tie their horses away.
Eric noticed her confusion and nodded in the direction of Balder's mare.
"Ulysses has an affinity for mares," he told her. "If it's just him and me on the road, he will not wander. But he's already sired a foal by way of Lovel's horse. He need not do so by Balder's poor docile thing over there."
Eric nodded over to Balder's gentle mount. Addison followed his gaze, intrigued.
"I figured all war horses would be male," she shrugged and studied Balder's horse curiously.
Eric shook his head and tugged on Ulysses lead, making sure it was secure.
"Mares are best in battle, mo chridhe," he told her. "They do less to compete with the horses around them. Stallions are unpredictable on a good day. If you can't get yourself a mare, then your next best in war would be a gelding."
"A gelding?" she asked, not understanding the term.
Eric smirked and glanced down at her. "A male horse," he said. "But one that has less... uh..." he coughed. "Fight... in him, I guess you could say."
Addison's mouth popped open, and she let out a laugh. "Are you talking about horses that have been neutered?" she asked.
"Gelded," Eric corrected.
"Fine," she waved him off. "Horses that can't reproduce then."
Eric flushed and cleared his throat. "Aye," he said.
Addison laughed again. "Are you embarrassed, right now?"
There were chuckles at her back, but she was too focused on Eric. His eyes shifted and he brought his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it awkwardly.
"No," he denied, unconvincingly. "Of course not."
"You are," she said smugly stepping into his side. "You're embarrassed because I know what gelding means."
"No," he said and waved her off, he reached into his saddle bag and retrieved a cloak and a waterskin. "Not that," he said. "It's just... not a conversation meant for..."
"For...?" Addison prompted.
Eric cringed.
"Gentle company..." he said, haltingly.
Addison snorted and pressed her hand to her mouth to hide her smirk.
"I think my honor will survive this conversation, Gallowglass," she assured him. "The mating life of horses is hardly going to corrupt me."
Eric blanched and his friends laughed a little harder now, but Addison only shook her head and reached for his hand.
"Now," she said. "Where on earth are you taking me?"
They climbed upward from there. Eric had helped her clamber over a fallen tree trunk, long liberated of its branches and leaves. There was an incline – a deer trail just ahead – that wound its way up and over the stream where they'd left the horses. Addison tripped on her skirts once and stumbled, but Eric didn't let her fall.
Behind them, Balder and Guillaume made their way up the path, and she wondered at which point they would stop following. Eric had promised her that they would.
It wasn't privacy.
She wouldn't get any of that from them, perhaps ever, but Eric had promised the illusion of privacy instead, and she needed it, desperately.
It had been a long day. And her mind was still reeling. She still felt herself strung up high above the ground, unspooling, somehow.
When they reached the top, she saw what he had brought her here for.
A clearing.
A little meadow in the middle of the woods.
Addison sagged in relief.
The sun shone brightly down on the place beyond the trees, and she couldn't help the giddy twist in her belly.
"Is that where we're going?" she asked him.
"Aye," Eric said. "I thought you might like it."
"I do," she smiled up at him.
Balder and Guillaume tactfully withdrew into the shadows. She didn't notice until they were gone.
In the meadow the birds sung happily. It was too cold, now, for bees, but she could see dead wildflowers among the grasses, and she knew that they would no doubt buzz happily among them in the spring. A rabbit scurried past, and she watched it go, ears twitching in alarm as it spotted her and Eric. It scurried quickly into a hole in the ground and disappeared.
There were still patches of green left though it was nearly December. The brush here had not yet come to terms with the snow that was soon to fall on the Auvergne. Addison hadn't either to be honest.
Eric's hand found hers and he gave a gentle tug.
She looked up at him and he nodded toward an outcropping of boulders that sat off to the side of the meadow.
"Come," he said. "Sit with me."
In a patch of sunlight, at the base of the rock face, he laid his cloak on the ground. It was thick black wool that looked as new as the day it had been made, and it was soft too. Eric helped her sit and then followed her to the ground, propping his back against the rock face and gazing out over the quiet of the meadow.
"How are you faring?" he asked.
"Hmm?"
"With the events of the day," he said. "This morning was..."
Addison sighed and plucked a weed from the grass, giving its stem a twirl.
"It was," she agreed.
Eric was silent. He waited for her to speak.
"I didn't know fully what they asked of me that day..." she said honestly. "Back at La Ithuriana. I wish I could say I never would have agreed. I think part of me wants to believe I wouldn't have agreed—"
Eric nodded his understanding, and she tossed the little weed away. She reached instead for his hand and turned it over so she could look down at his palm. His hands were larger than hers. Rough from years of use. And strong.
Her hands were tired.
They were soft in places and scarred in others. They ached all the time from labor and the cold.
Hers were not a fighter's hands.
"I knew they were asking something of me that was supposed to be a secret," she admitted. "It was obvious, and they refused to answer my questions. They said that any of the bad bits would fall to Fernando, and I just... trusted them... I trusted Fernando, at least. But I knew even then that it felt... wrong."
Eric made a noise of agreement but didn't comment.
"I'm sorry to have caused so much trouble."
"You didn't," he said.
"I have," she disagreed. "I have been nothing but trouble since the beginning."
"That's not true," Eric argued.
Addison scoffed. He flipped his hand and wove his fingers into hers. He gave her a reassuring squeeze.
"You have not been a source of trouble for me," he said. "Neither have you been for Fernando. We all require help from our loved ones, Fernanda. You just require a little more of it right now."
Addison sniffed and shrugged. She didn't know what to say to that.
"What news of the chef?" he asked her instead. Addison groaned and knocked her head back against the boulder they were leaning on. Eric hissed but didn't try to stop her.
"I handled it," she said. "I think."
"Oh?" he asked.
"He's been avoiding me," she admitted.
"Still?" he growled. "I asked you to tell me if he persisted."
"I know," she grumbled and glanced at him. "But I wanted to handle it myself. I didn't want you to fix it for me, and I certainly didn't want your grandmother to know."
Eric cringed. "I only want to help," he said softly.
Addison sat up and looked at him in surprise. "Oh," she said and shook her head. "No, Gallowglass, I know that... it's just... I'm still trying to figure out how I fit in all this... and sometimes help makes it harder to feel my way around."
Eric studied her a beat and nodded his understanding, reaching up and tapping her chin. "I am sorry about my grandmother," he said. "I have asked her to take it easier on you. I know she can be..."
Addison sighed and winced. She turned from Eric to watch a bird land in a patch of sunlight and snatch up a worm.
"It is what it is," she shrugged. "She's just a different..." Addison trialed off and tried to find a polite way of describing Gallowglass's grandmother that wouldn't offend him or get back to Ysabeau.
"Breed," she said haltingly. "She's a different breed, is all."
Eric chuckled. "I'd have to agree with you there."
Addison huffed and laughed with him, pressing her face into her hand.
"Can I ask you a question?" he asked suddenly.
Addison nodded but kept her face in her palm.
"What did my grandfather mean this morning?"
Addison shifted and glanced up at him but didn't raise her head.
"When he said you'd requested an education," Eric elaborated. "What did he mean by that?"
"Oh," Addison said and sat up, dropping her hands unceremoniously into her lap. "Well... In my first week or so here... I had been asking and asking for him to help me contact you and Fernando, but he basically refused..."
Eric's eyebrows shot into his hairline, his eyes darkening with displeasure. Addison offered him an awkward smile and a shrug.
"I mean he didn't flat out say no, but..."
"I'm familiar with his ways," Eric supplied smoothly, though his voice had taken on the quality of ice. It was obvious he disagreed with Philippe's handling of that situation then.
"When I knew I wouldn't be able to get word to you," Addison shrugged. "I asked him for an education instead. You know... books, languages... things like that..."
Eric arched an eyebrow. "And what did he say to that?"
"That manners and morality were subjects for Ysabeau to teach me."
"And you said...?" Eric prompted, intrigued.
"That manners and morality weren't what I meant," she shrugged.
And then she sighed and glanced around them at this giant meadow in the middle of the woods. She couldn't get herself home from here if she tried. She was entirely dependent on Eric, Balder and Guillaume.
"Mo chridhe?" Eric asked.
Addison pressed her lips together and studied him, trying to decide if he'd be receptive to her worries. His eyes were earnest. She scoffed at herself, internally. He'd done pretty well with Malvina, the mute, and with Fernanda, the wimple-burning rebel.
He cocked his head and studied her, his eyes glimmering with speculation and a secret sort of knowledge. Whatever she was about to tell him, he already anticipated a differing point of view. He already anticipated something that would shake up his idea of normal.
He smiled and waited, and she frowned and gestured back to the meadow.
"This," she told him, feeling suddenly exasperated. Her chest was heavy with unspoken emotion, and frustration with the customs of this place. "I asked for help with all of this."
Eric furrowed his brow. "The meadow?" he asked, skeptically.
Addison shook her head, and then she nodded, and then she frowned and shook her head again. Exasperated she stood up and paced around in front of him, scratching the back of her head.
"The world," she said.
"The world?" Eric asked, not following.
Addison groaned. "I don't know how to tell direction here, Eric," she admitted. "I know that's odd to you, but we navigate differently in my time."
Eric's eyebrows rose in surprise and his mouth seemed to purse around a question he didn't know how to ask. Addison ignored it and continued.
"I come and go at random," she admitted. "And I keep landing in precarious situations. I'm sure you know by now that I landed on a road. Just a road. In the middle of the night. How many times can we guarantee that I will be found by a member of your family?" she asked.
Eric's eyes flickered with doubt, and he turned his face, considering her words.
"We can't," he whispered, his voice rough with unspoken emotion.
"We can't," she agreed, throwing her hands up between them to emphasize her point. Eric's eyes snapped back up to her.
"I nearly died as Malvina," she said, and Eric winced. "We both know that's why Ailios sent me to the castle. Eric... I don't know how to find shelter if I need to. I don't know how to build a fire out in the elements – only indoors. I don't know how to feed myself or tell north from south. And Philippe insisted that these weren't things for me to learn, but can you honestly tell me that's true?"
Eric was silent. His Adam's apple bobbed as he worked his jaw, and then he was standing, and he was reaching for her, but Addison was overwhelmed. She was breathing heavy, and she had all this energy and she just wanted to fucking scream.
Where had this come from? Where had this come from?
When had she become so full of all this rage?
She gasped and clutched at her belly. She held tightly to herself, and she hated how the rage overcame her. It twisted something in her. Her face contorted and—
"Mo chridhe," Eric murmured. He stepped cautiously in her direction, but Addison stepped back. She turned away from him and she gasped for breath, and she wanted so badly to scream.
"Let it out, Fernanda," he said gently.
Addison shook her head. He didn't know what he was talking about.
"Let it out, mo chridhe," he said again.
Addison's knees hit the ground. She curled in on herself. She brought her hands up to twist in her hair. She gripped tight until she felt the pull on her scalp and still, she clung to herself. Still, she dug her nails in, gripping tight to her body when she couldn't rein in her sense of control.
Eric's boots crunched in the dead grass between them as he closed the distance between them. A shadow blocked out the sun, and with the absence of the light, she found herself freezing.
He kneeled before her, and he rested his hands on hers where they were still fisted in her hair. He didn't pry her hands away. He didn't force her to unfurl, though she knew he could if he wanted to.
No, Eric simply stroked her fists gently with his fingers and told her again to let it out.
She made a noise of protest, but Eric spoke over it, over and over again. "No one will hear it, mo chridhe," he said. "Let it out. There's no one around. Just let it out. It's not good for you to keep it in."
Addison shook her head. She shook her head and clenched her fists even tighter in her hair and her scalp was burning and her chest was tight and then she was screaming.
Loud, miserable sounds. She screamed and she couldn't stop screaming.
The birds in the meadow scattered at the sound. They scattered and fell silent, and still Addison screamed, and Eric knelt before her with his hands on her fists. And she held tightly to herself in her rage.
He was so fucking understanding all the time.
When did it stop? When would it run out?
How far would this thread go?
How long would she continue to unfurl.
How long could he handle anchoring her to the ground?
Addison dropped her head to Eric's thigh and fell silent. She panted – exhausted – and Eric stayed where he was. He continued to stroke her hair long after her fists uncurled, and her hands fell to the ground.
The grass was cool beneath her palms, it scratched her skin, and left the tips of her fingers numb.
Addison stared out over the meadow, out of breath, resting her head on his thigh.
"I'm sorry," she murmured.
But Eric only tsked and hushed her. "It's okay," he said.
"You must think I'm insane," she said, belly twisting with uncertainty.
"Hey," Eric said sternly, tapping her back to get her to look up.
Addison groaned and did as he asked. When she met him, his eyes were as serious as she'd ever seen them. His mouth was fixed in a hard line. He shook his head and pointed at her, making sure she held his gaze.
"You are not insane," he said roughly. "You've been through too much. You said it yourself the night I arrived. It's been two years for you, Fernanda. Two years. It's been a century for me. A bloody century. You are not insane. The situation is unhinged. This whole thing is out of control and that is not your fault. Do you hear me?"
Addison's face contorted. Her eyes filled with tears. She clenched her jaw, but it began to shake with the effort, and the urge to cry. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to—
"Come here," he said with force and opened his arms for her.
Addison made an awful sound. Inhuman and miserable, and so full of pain.
"I can't be a knight," she whispered when he pulled her to him. She pressed her face into his neck and wet his skin with her tears.
Eric sighed but he didn't say anything he just rocked her back and forth.
"I'm not like you," she whispered and sniffed. "You're like a walking tank," she admitted. "I can't be a knight. I don't even want to hold a blade."
"I know," he said and held her tighter. "I know."
And then after a pause, he asked, "what is a... tank?"
Addison snorted and laughed, pressing her face into his tunic, and giving him a grateful squeeze.
"I don't know how to describe it," she said and drew back. He offered her a curious smile, eyes light and sad and amused and full of worry too. "I don't know... it's like a... war machine."
Eric breathed out a laugh and closed his eyes. "Like a trebuchet?" he asked, doubtfully.
"I don't know what that is," she said with a wince.
"Better keep it that way, if it's all the same to you," he said with a huff and stood up.
Addison made to follow, and he held out a hand to help her up. He brushed off her shoulders, and she dusted her skirts. He ran his thumb over her cheek, and Addison saw the giant wet spot she'd left on his shirt and cringed.
"Let's start now then," he said and gestured toward the field.
"Start what?" Addison asked him dumbly.
Eric fixed her with a dull look and cocked his head to the side.
"What?" she asked incredulously. "Now?"
"Aye," he grinned and turned back to the boulders. He dropped down to the ground and leaned back against the rockface. He gestured toward the meadow.
"Now," he said again.
"Gallowglass..." she said. "I don't understand."
His eyes sparkled but his face was serious when he said. "Find yourself something to eat."
"Huh?"
"Food, mo chridhe," Eric said, and drew a blade to sharpen it while he waited for her to get to it.
"You want me to find... food..." she deadpanned.
"Aye," he said.
"How?"
"I'd start by having a look around."
"A look around?"
He chuckled and shook his head at her. "Just try," he said. "Don't eat anything you find. Have a glance around. Pick a few things and bring them back to me. We'll see how you did."
She sat before him with her legs crossed and a pile of foraged foods in a pile between them. Eric studied the pile, judiciously before glancing up at her.
He held up one of the nuts she had gathered from beneath a tree.
"Hazelnuts," he smiled. "Always a good find."
Addison puffed her cheeks and gave a relieved sigh, glad that the first thing she'd gone for had, in fact, been edible.
He moved on to the red berries she had found near a bush that grew low to the ground. Eric winced. "Sea Buckthorn," he shook his head. "It will not kill you, but it'll make your belly ache something fierce."
He tossed the berries away and picked up a leaf she'd taken from a bit of foliage on the ground. "Bitter dock, hmm?" he turned the leaf over in his palm. "It'll taste like shite, and you'll want to cook it down a bit, but I wouldn't count it out if you're in a bind."
Then he turned to the mushrooms and winced. "No," he moved tossed one over his shoulder. "No," he threw another away. "This one," he said, holding it up for her to see. "Will kill you in three days." And then he chucked it away.
He picked up another and nodded his head. "This one, you can eat," he said and passed it over to her.
"So, all I got were a pile of hazelnuts, one mushroom, and a leaf that'll taste like shit," she said to him miserably.
Eric nodded and shot her a grin.
"Not too bad," he said. "You wouldn't make it far on that alone, but it would get you through the day."
"No," she said. "It really wouldn't."
He chuckled and stood up, offering her his hand. Addison shoved her edible foods into the pockets of her gown and let him haul her up to stand next to him.
"See that tree there?" he asked, pointing to the one across the meadow that shaded the patch of sea buckthorn plants.
"Mhmm," she said.
"There's a bird nest in it," he told her. "Always check for eggs."
Addison's jaw dropped. She hadn't even thought of eggs. He stepped around her and crossed the meadow, turning to make sure she was following behind. Addison hitched her skirts a bit over her ankles so she could jog to keep up with him.
He made his way over to a tall, leafy plant that was sticking high out of the ground. He eyed her conspiratorially and then crouched down next to it, giving the stem a swift tug.
The roots gave way and the plant freed itself from the ground.
"Turnip root," he said, and waved the vegetable for her to see. "Always check beneath the ground. That's where the good foods hide."
Addison shook her head in wonder. She hadn't even thought of roots, but now her mind spun with possibilities, eyeing other plants, and wondering what the ground kept hidden from sight.
Gallowglass saw her wonder and grinned with pride. He stood up and wiped his hands on his breeches.
"You could also have made your way back down the hill," he said. "Back toward the horses."
"Why?" she asked.
He arched an eyebrow. "The stream, mo chridhe," he told her gently. "There are fish in it."
Addison flushed. "Oh," she said.
And then turned the turnip over in her hands. "I don't know how to fish either," she said awkwardly.
Eric nodded. "Then we'll just have to learn."
Addison nodded thoughtfully, staring at the meadow, and wondering what else was out there to find.
"There is also the rabbit you saw," he added as an afterthought, shooting her a knowing look.
Addison blanched. "I'm not gonna kill a rabbit," she protested.
"Not even if it'll keep you from starving?" he asked, voice pitched high in disbelief.
Addison frowned. "I don't want to kill anything."
Eric frowned. "How about... I teach you how..." he said. "And then, if ever the need arises, you can choose what to do with that knowledge yourself?"
Addison frowned and scuffed her boot against the cold ground.
"I'll consider it," she said. "But no guarantees."
Gallowglass nodded. "That's all I ask, mo chridhe."
As they neared the horses, on their way down from the meadow, twigs snapped from somewhere in the woods. Grass crunched beneath heavy boot-laden feet. And voices sounded, speaking softly on approach.
Addison smiled. "That's much better," she said quietly over her shoulder as Balder, and Guillaume made their way through the trees. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, my lady," Guillaume smiled as they appeared by her and Eric's side. She jumped back at the speed with which they approached, heart hammering in her chest. Addison rolled her eyes.
"Well... it's a start at least," she grumbled. Eric chuckled and untied Ulysses' lead.
The two knights made their way to their horses and mounted, waiting for Eric and Fernanda to do the same. Gallowglass helped her once again into the saddle and mounted after her. Holding her tight and helping her adjust her skirts to cover her legs.
Balder and Guillaume turned to go but Eric stopped them. The pair halted on a dime, and turned back to him, with frowns on their faces. A silent question hanging in the air amongst them all.
"Fernanda will be telling us how to get home this evening," he said easily.
Balder's eyebrows shot up. Guillaume offered her an impressed smile.
"Um," she said and elbowed him. "I'd rather you did that, if it's all the same."
"Nonsense," Eric smiled and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "No better time to learn than the present."
Addison's belly flipped nervously. "I—I don't know, Eric," she said softly.
Balder and Guillaume waited patiently.
Eric sighed and released his reins, rubbing his hands up and down her arms comfortingly.
"No one here will judge you, mo chridhe," he told her gently. "And no one here will lead you astray. Give it a try, and if it doesn't work out, we will get you home and try again another day. Hmm?"
Addison sucked in a shaky breath and looked the other two knights over with a doubtful eye.
It was Balder who spoke. "He speaks true, my lady," he said. "If you wish to learn. This is the best way."
They got lost twice before Eric steered her back the way they came. He brought them back to the stream where they'd tied the horses and started over again from scratch.
Fernanda was absolutely done with this lesson, and he knew it. It was time to help her along.
"Home is northwest of here, mo chridhe," Eric informed her when she tried to turn them one again in the wrong direction.
"How the hell is that supposed the help me?" she gritted out. "I told you I can't tell north from south. That's kind of why I asked for help."
"I know," he said gently, and guided his horse down the path that would lead them toward Sept-Tours. Balder and Guillaume trailed behind them, talking quietly amongst themselves about some tournament they'd fought in a couple decades ago. They were entirely unfazed by the many mistakes she had made, and the late hour of the evening. The sky was already turning grey and soon the sun will have disappeared completely from view. Her belly twisted in discomfort at the thought of nightfall and the darkness of the trees.
"Hey," Eric murmured and pressed a kiss to the back of her head. "You must not fear, mo chridhe. All is well. You gave it your best effort. We took a little longer than usual to get home, but we are not, and never were, lost. Sept-Tours is not so very far from here."
"This was a complete waste of time," she grouched.
"I don't think so," he argued gently.
"I've ran us around in circles, twice," she said.
"Perhaps," he conceded. "But you only panicked the once, and you've successfully found food. I'd call that a win. Wouldn't you?"
Addison rolled her eyes. "Don't be patronizing," she sighed.
"Don't be a fatalist," he teased.
"In the next few days, we can return to the meadow and learn how to tell north from south," he said. "If you'd still like to, that is."
Addison frowned. It was entirely unsettling getting intentionally lost in the woods. It was entirely disorienting leading them around and around in circles. But that was what she wanted to learn how to fix right? That was why she had asked Philippe or help all those weeks ago.
Because she didn't want to go around in circles when she was alone.
"Yes," she said and leaned tiredly against his chest, legs aching from the effort it took to stay on the horse. "Yes, I would still like to."
Behind her she knew Eric was grinning stupidly as he guided the horse out of the trees and back onto the path that led through the village.
That night, after Jacqueline left her, Addison once again slid quietly out of bed.
She reached for her toothbrush and toothpaste and made her way over to the bowl of water she kept on her vanity in the evenings. She brushed her teeth and sighed into the taste of mint, and the sensation of the brush. Some things were just better when they came from home, and dental hygiene was definitely one of them as far as Addison was concerned.
Rinsing her mouth, Addison caught her reflection in the mirror and froze.
Sometimes it felt as though she didn't recognize herself anymore. She catalogued her features. She was still her. That was still her face, but...
Addison turned away from the mirror.
She reached instead for the little diary Eric had given her weeks ago in Hugh's study.
Inside, she kept notes from her lessons. Tips on cross-stitching; budgets; inventories. She had notes on different types of currency, and their value in comparison with others. A few names of important people she'd heard mentioned in passing, and a couple prayers as well in case she needed to prove to a priest that she was faithful, or in case Godfrey turned on her and told the church she was a witch.
It was unlikely, she knew, but he was annoying, and it was best to be prepared.
She made her way across the room to the chest in the corner – the one that held her belongings from the twenty-first century and before. It was now home to other items of clothing as well. Her wardrobe had expanded in her time here.
She didn't have to dig far. Sorley's plaid sat right on top.
It was folded neatly, and it was clean.
Addison smiled.
She wrapped herself up in the warm wool and glanced out the window. Reaching for the chair at her desk, Addison pulled it back and sat down. She tucked one leg underneath her and dropped the diary on the smooth wooden surface of her desk.
She flipped until she found a blank page, and then reached for her quill and inkwell.
Jacqueline had been skeptical, but Addison had insisted on keeping her souvenirs from the meadow.
"Why on earth do you need a turnip in your chambers while you are sleeping?" Jacqueline asked with her hands on her hips and a haughty expression.
But Addison only waved her off and said she could take the food down to the kitchens in the morning when she was done with them.
The other woman had scoffed but left it alone. She knew she was fighting a losing battle, even if the young Fernanda's adamance was aggravating.
"Do what you will, my lady," Jacqueline said, throwing her hands up in exasperation.
"I will," Addison replied. "Thank you."
The other woman narrowed her eyes.
Addison laughed quietly to herself and began to carefully draw an outline.
Page One read, 'turnip root.' Beneath the title, she drew a rudimentary sketch. Then she detailed the little things she had gathered about this plant. The time of year it grows. Distinctive characteristics. As well as ideal climate. And so on.
She repeated this with the other bits of food she'd found as well. The mushroom, and the hazelnuts and the bitter dock.
Then, on the final page, she wrote down a list of names to learn more about, sea buckthorn among them. It wouldn't hurt to know which plants were toxic to her and why. Then she carefully blew over the ink to dry it, and gently folded the diary shut. She used a little leather strap to bind it and keep it closed.
Addison sighed and leaned back in her chair, curling up snugly under Sorley's plaid.
It was dark outside.
They hadn't lit many torches this night.
Addison knew now that the amount of light in the courtyard depended on whether the de Clermont expected a late-night arrival. The dimmer the lights, the less traffic flowing in and out of the fortress.
She could feel the cool outside air pressing into her chambers through the glass of her window, and Addison's body gave an anticipatory shiver. She was safe and warm inside Hugh's tower. She had all she could need living here at Sept-Tours. But the coming of winter was enough to keep her wary, and her body buzzed with energy when the cold permeated her chambers now.
Out on the battlements, figures moved back and forth.
She stood from her chair and pressed closer to the window. She leaned her hip against the cold stone wall, and squinted outward, trying to get a better view.
One head turned toward her. And she saw then the length of his tawny hair beneath his helmet. Addison smiled and shook her head, pressing her palm to the glass in a silent greeting.
Gallowglass dipped his head, and turned back toward his work, but every once in a while, she could have sworn he glanced back her way.
She watched until the shift change, wide awake, and yet turning for bed. But she left her curtains open. There was something strangely exhilarating about the warmth of her chambers and the cold of the glass, Eric on the battlements and the full moon looming large above them, hanging alone in the night black sky.
She lay on her side and watched the window for hours that night before she finally closed her eyes.
Drifting off to sleep, Addison's mind was filled with only pleasant dreams despite the horrible start to her day. She dreamed of meadows, and Sorley, the cozy stables, and the scent of hay. She dreamed that he was lying next to her. And dreamed that she could stay here past spring. She could almost imagine his arms wrapped her as she drifted off to sleep.
Outside her window, autumn finally broke in the skies. Snowflakes drifted softly in the moonlight, and clouds made their way downwards. They settled lower and lower into the basin around Sept-Tours. A thick fog descended and blanketed the valley. And the whole world began to shiver.
Winter was finally here.
The first snow did not stick. Nor did the second or the third. The days passed quickly, and Addison hadn't had time to slow down. Winter was here.
It was December, now. And the world was bright with cold winter light and the need to prepare for the holidays.
She had been busy. Eric and Hugh had been too. The whole family never seemed to stop moving. This suited her some days. Others, it was a little overwhelming.
Addison had finally gotten on track in the food stores with the help of Mary, Jacqueline, and Jean Luc. Gallowglass hadn't been able to keep his frustration to himself when it came to the chef, so Addison had been saddled with two guards, a lady's maid, a kitchen maid, and Hugh's most faithful manservant whenever she entered the chef's space.
The chef, for his part, had not forgiven her for the insult. He had taken to cooking her meat extra rare for every dinner. But Addison had yet to issue a complaint. She was at least getting her job done. She'd worry about Venison another day.
Despite the snow, and the chill, she and Eric still found time to go to their meadow. Not as often as she'd like. He was so busy, and Ysabeau kept her constantly moving. There had been no more talk of knighthood, and Addison felt herself walking on eggshells around Philippe and Baldwin. Neither of the men seemed particularly bothered by her, but she still felt distinctly uncomfortable about the lie they had caught her in, and the punishment looming overhead.
Every morning, she woke with dread. Every morning she wondered if this would be the day she found out what kind of education the de Clermont had in store for her. And every night, she went to bed, agonizing over the fact that they hadn't gotten it over with yet.
Bertrand came and went, at one point, and he had been pleasantly surprised to see her face.
"I'm just passing through, my lady," he said regretfully, and ducked down to give her knuckles a chaste kiss. "I must rest my horse before I continue on my journey."
Addison had smiled at him sadly and nodded her understanding. "Is Miriam with you?" she asked, not sure if she hoped or dreaded seeing the intimidating lady. She was as terrifying as Ysabeau to be sure, but at least Addison knew the other woman was Fernando's friend.
Bertrand had smiled sadly and shook his head at her. "Not this time," he said. "But I will be sure to give her your regards."
Addison smiled politely and stepped back as Philippe and his sons all filed into the entrance hall to greet the visiting man. Hugh had gently led her off to the side before he too greeted his old friend.
"Well met, Bertrand," Hugh said.
Bertrand returned his greeting.
"What news?" Philippe asked, getting straight to the point.
Bertrand had cringed and glanced around them. His eyes caught hers and then he looked back at Philippe, pointedly.
"Best discuss it in private, I think," he said to the gathering of men. A few more people shot glances in her direction before they all agreed that it would be best to retire to Philippe's study.
Addison had watched them all file out of the room, her stomach twisting resentfully. She didn't want to be a knight, but she hated secrets. And she wanted to know what was being said when she wasn't in the room.
The next day, Bertrand had gone. He'd left before dawn. There had been no goodbyes. She didn't know where he was coming from or where he was going. And she was sad that he did not stay longer.
Addison had done her best to avoid any unnecessary encounters with Ysabeau. She hadn't fully been able to recover from their odd conversation that day in the drawing room, as the other woman taught her how to play medieval card games and lectured her on the finer points of marriage at Addison's late age of twenty years old.
Philippe's frustration with his wife had been palpable, no matter how many niceties he tossed Addison's way. Ysabeau was up to something, and Philippe did not approve. You couldn't pay Addison to touch that situation with a ten-foot pole. There were a million places she'd rather be stuck than in between a feuding Philippe and Ysabeau.
She had her own issues to work through. She didn't need to know about theirs.
On the eighth day of winter, Addison woke up late.
The sun shone brightly in her eyes. She hadn't closed the curtains before she went to bed.
Addison groaned and stretched, yawning, and rolling over to watch the clouds roll past her window. On the horizon, a dark grey storm loomed overhead.
It was snowing already. Little tufts of it drifted down and collected on the battlements, and her windowsill.
Addison sat up and yawned again, glancing around.
The fire was out. She frowned. It should be burning by now.
Where was Jacqueline?
Addison tossed her covers back and hissed when her skin met cool air. She eyed her stockings mournfully where they sat on the other side of the room.
The floor would, no doubt, be freezing.
She hissed when her feet hit the stone and stepped quickly over to her warmer items of clothing. She tugged her stockings on and then her slippers. She reached for her dressing gown and then she threw Sorley's plaid over it as well.
Much better, she thought with a sigh.
She curled up in the chair before her hearth, which wasn't burning, and allowed her body to shiver out the remnant chill.
What time was it?
She glanced again at the window, as a cloud passed over the sun, and shrouded the world in grey. The wind picked up and snow drifted more heavily down into the valley, and the courtyard below.
It would definitely stick today. She imagined this snow was here to stay.
Addison stood from her chair and padded over to the wardrobe, pulling out the warmest dress she could find.
This should do then, she thought and smiled to herself, but she eyed the laces with concern.
Young ladies of import wore their laces in the back. This was done, theoretically, so it would be harder for them to act in sinful ways. Addison rolled her eyes. She regarded the dress with frustration. She literally could not put it on alone.
It was like a medieval insurance policy.
As Ysabeau had told her, perhaps more eloquently, her body was valuable real estate. The laces on her back prevented devaluation.
Addison's jaw ticked at the memory. She sighed and turned toward the door. Glancing at it doubtfully.
She'd have to go find Jacqueline.
She clutched her dressing gown tighter around her body.
She was in her shift. She cringed.
Making her way to her door, Addison decided to try something else instead of heading downstairs.
"Jacqueline," she called, trying not to shout, but not wanting to be too quiet about it.
No response.
"Jacqueline," she called again, raising her voice ever so slightly.
Nothing.
Addison sighed and banged her head against the door frame. This was so embarrassing.
She shook her head and tried again.
"Gallowglass," she called upward toward his chambers. Hoping, in vain, that he'd be in.
Nothing.
"Fuck," Addison growled, muttering to herself.
"Hugh?" she tried again.
But still no one came.
Addison's nostrils flared. Everyone was busy. Jacqueline had disappeared. And she couldn't get dressed without her.
"Fuck it," she grumbled and made her way downstairs.
Betha was the senior maid for the Gonçalves de Clermont household staff. She was a young girl of perhaps seventeen, with long brown hair and hazel eyes. She was of Moorish and Celtic descent and had grown up in the Bourges house. She was a hard worker and a sharp mind. Jacqueline spoke highly of her, and Addison often admired her honesty.
When Addison made it downstairs, she was dismayed and relieved to find an empty corridor.
Honestly, she sighed. Where on earth had they all gone?
A door creaked open, and a pile of blankets emerged, carried by two steady feet and the grey skirts of a housemaid.
"Betha," Addison hissed, peeking out of the stairwell and into the corridor, staring straight at the girl whose face had been obscured by the cloth mountain she carried.
The maid in question stopped what she was doing and lowered the blankets carefully. She looked up when Lady Fernanda called her name.
"Milady?" she asked.
"Where's Jacqueline?"
Betha's mouth popped open in a surprised little 'oh.'
"She's attending the situation in the courtyard, milady," Betha informed her. "She was called away by Madame Ysabeau."
"What situation in the courtyard?" Addison asked, shaking her head.
Betha frowned. "The new arrivals, milady."
"New arrivals?" Addison asked.
"Yes, milady," Betha said. "We have guests."
Addison couldn't help but pull a face. She hadn't been warned about any guests, and it was December for Christ's sake. Who the hell would come, now, when they knew that they were bound to get trapped in the snow?
A guard walked past quickly, and Addison twisted her fist a little more tightly in the neck of her dressing gown, feeling more than exposed.
Betha's eyes flickered down at the action and the maid gasped in surprise. Taking stock of her state of dress and finally realizing the predicament Lady Fernanda had found herself in.
"Shall I fetch Jacqueline for you, milady?" Betha asked sharply.
Addison cringed and glanced up and down the corridor. She shook her head. "Do you think you could help me?" she asked. "It won't take more than a second. It's just... my laces... they're impossible to do without help."
"Of course, milady," Betha said. She walked over to the stairwell with purpose, her hands full of laundry that she quickly dumped into the arms of the nearest passing footman.
The man frowned at his sudden predicament and looked as though he were about to scold Betha, but by the time he opened his mouth she was already gone.
"Right away," she said and gestured for Lady Fernanda to lead her up the steps.
"Thank you, Betha," Addison breathed as she fled back to the privacy of her chambers.
While Hugh's tower was all but vacant, the rest of Sept-Tours was in a state of utter disarray. The doors to the great entrance hall were wide open as footmen hurried in and then back out again. Cupbearers were hurrying out into the courtyard with trays full of wine, and the maids were methodically sweeping up ice as it was tracked in by the flood of guests and servants that made their way inside, out of the elements.
She saw Marthe directing a Page, and Jean Luc guiding an important looking man. She caught a flash of Alain helping with someone's belongings, and Baldwin descending the steps out into the snow.
Addison whirled around, totally befuddled, and unsure how to make herself useful. Looking for a familiar face to tell her what on earth was going on, but everyone was busy. And the room was a perplexing mixture of hot and cold as snow drifted in through the doors, and torches blazed on the walls to keep people warm.
She stepped carefully around a puddle of melted ice, ducked out of the way of a group of men hauling, what looked like, a suit of armor. And then she stepped aside before she was bowled over by a man carrying a large trunk on his back, all by himself.
Addison's eyebrows seemed to have permanently fixed themselves into her hairline as she took in the scene. Her mind, reeling.
Where was Jacqueline? She frowned and tried to make out the blonde's face in the crowd. She saw Jean Luc glance back at her, as though to confirm he'd noticed she was there, but he couldn't go to her because another man appeared and called him away to another matter that needed attending.
Addison picked her way through the chaos, hoping that maybe Eric or Hugh would be somewhere out there in this mess. She made her way past the footmen, and then out the doors.
Addison froze.
If she thought the entrance hall was bad, the courtyard was bedlam.
From gatehouse to entrance hall, it was packed with bodies and horses, men, and their servants. Trunks and carts and carriages too. There was food being hauled off to the kitchens. Saddles being removed by hassled looking grooms. Messes being swept by stableboys. The farriers were there, and the blacksmith too. All around there were men upon men upon men.
Addison shook her head.
What the fuck was going on?
And then she saw Hugh. He was standing in the middle of a sea of bodies, but he was calm. He had a smile on his face, and he was talking to someone.
Addison furrowed her brow and made her way down the steps. He was talking to a group of people, some of them familiar, but she couldn't quite place—
There are moments in life when we move too fast. The world spins around us, and we spin with it, and sometimes we look back and consider that the world is moving too slow for us now. Sometimes, in trying to keep up with the world, we outpace it and leave it behind. Sometimes there is too much to see, too much to do. And then it hits you. It hits you, and you realize that you're sprinting. You don't know how you started. You don't know how to stop.
You're just aware that you've been running, and that perhaps you should slow down, but you can't slow down. It's not that simple.
Objects in motion, stay in motion.
As she descended the steps, Addison was overcome by a startling sort of awareness.
She'd been moving too fast.
She had been running to keep up, and there had been no one and nothing to slow her down. Addison had done nothing, since she arrived, but sprint.
She couldn't even remember what it was like to feel her feet standing still on solid ground.
There was noise in the courtyard. So much noise. Voices raised in laughter and greeting. Horses braying and stamping their feet. Workmen calling out to each other, their directions. Layer upon layer of lives being lived sounded in the courtyard.
But to Addison it was all just one wall of noise. Just one wall that consumed her. A bubble of chaos that she descended into now.
There was a face in the crowd that was familiar.
He was standing next to Hugh.
She knew him, but she couldn't place how.
Sometimes we move so fast through the world, that the world decides to intervene. Objects in motion stay in motion, but unstoppable forces can be met by immovable objects.
The world can force you to slow.
Just as you can force it to move.
Eventually something will intervene. You cannot run forever. Everyone has to slow down, eventually.
She traversed the courtyard of bodies. She skirted around a stamping horse. She ducked under the arm of a rowdy man. She jogged past a rolling cart and paused for a group of men and the load they were hauling.
And then she was standing there, in the middle of it all, just a handful of paces away from Hugh and his friends.
She was frowning, she knew. Her brow had furrowed, and her mind was spinning.
The man looked up. He was laughing. His eyes were dark, and light, and they locked on her when he noticed her standing there.
And it was like he had seen her before too.
She knew him.
More than that, he knew her.
Addison shook her head and took another tentative step.
She knew him.
His grin twitched and his eyes grew heavy with grief, but he had a lightness to him. A sense of ease.
God, but why did she know him?
His lips moved. He was speaking to her.
But Addison's ears could only hear the roar. The din of the chaos around her.
Hugh fell silent beside him and watched her, knowingly. His grin was easy, and he waved her their way.
"Fernanda," the man said again, and he tilted his head, face melting into concern.
It was like she had hit a wall. He was the wall. And the world had sent him here because she was moving too fast, and her feet were somewhere off the ground, and she was spinning out of control. And he was here.
He was here.
And she knew him and—
"Fernando," Addison whispered in disbelief.
What on earth was he doing here? He was supposed to be in Morocco, but he was here and—
Addison didn't know how, but one minute she was frozen and the next she was running full tilt straight through the chaos and the bodies and the commotion.
People gasped and moved out of the way, yelping, and hissing and uttering scandalized complaints. But Fernando was here, and Addison was running, and his arms were opening and then she pitched herself into his them with a pathetic little sound.
Fernando grunted when she collided with his chest. His laughter was rough, and a little haggard too. Like he'd been through much since she'd last seen him. He seemed almost as disbelieving as she was, but he wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight.
And the world was slow. The courtyard was quiet.
"Fernanda," he said again. "Christ, but you haven't changed."
His voice was a rumble in her ear. It was louder than any noise she'd left behind her. It was warm and perfect and familiar. He was the same as he had been. And he was here.
"I missed you," she said, slightly dazed.
He scoffed and held her tighter. "You missed me?"
Addison breathed out a laugh and he chuckled in wonder. "I did," she said into his shoulder. "I really did."
He rocked her back and forth and buried his face in her hair.
"I missed you more," he said. Her father's voice was stern, as though he had final say on the matter.
She snorted and squeezed him tight, before finally Fernando set her back on the ground.
Just like that. After all that running. He just helped her back to the ground. Simple and easy. Like he'd done it a million times before.
Fernando was here, and winter was in the air.
All around her was chaos, and a perpetual wall of noise.
But Addison felt only quiet. Fernando chased away all the noise.
There would be no more running. No more sprinting. No more spinning out of control.
Fernando was here, and things were changing. Guests were here and the snow was sticking.
None of it mattered much to her anymore.
Her father was home. Addison could finally stand still.
The worst was finally behind her. It could only get better from here.
