2. Alaïs & Faramund[1]
What Alaïs lacked in muchness, she made up for in beauty. Or, so I am told: I do not care for the appearance of human women. A good quantity of fur would improve them mightily, in my opinion, which I fancy to be the most important opinion in all of Underland.
Alaïs fainted dead away the first time she met me, which spoke to her lack of fortitude, but Faramund did not hold this weakness against her. Indeed, when he found her unconscious on the forest floor, he may have thanked the stars above for his good luck: given her state of distress, he might be able to do this fine lady a good turn.
"What did you do to her, foul creature?" he demanded, scooping the limp mass of femaleness up from the ground.
Ready to rise to the defense of the Alice right from the beginning this hatter was.
One could not see her long flaxen tresses beneath her white veil, but they were under there, waiting to be discovered. I imagine there was a great expanse of fair flesh underneath her very superior high necked and long sleeved tunic as well, but Faramund would have known better than I about that truth, once he took her for his own.[2]
Which he did almost immediately.
Although she was not strictly free to be taken. Alaïs was married—or, rather she had been, Above. Unhappily, it would seem, by how eagerly she accepted Faramund's tender advances.
One can get very bored when one lives Forever, and I had taken to following about the humans that I found most interesting. Therefore, I followed Faramund when he discovered Alaïs, wrapped her in his cloak, and heaved her over his shoulder to take her back to his cottage. [3]
His home was not as refined as Alaïs was accustomed to: one could see that immediately when her eyes went wide, glancing around the humble abode. Nevertheless, she was soothed by Faramund's calm manner of speech. His trade—the making of the coif and couvre-chef for those at court—did not cause the madness as modern day haberdashery does, and he was accustomed to speaking with fine ladies if not having them sit in his home.[4] He may not have been expecting a lady of this quality to fall from the sky, but once she did, he knew just how to deal with her.
"Where did you come from, my lady?"
Language was no longer a barrier in Underland, as both it and I had grown more magical in the interim, so she was able to understand our Faramund's inquiry. Standard Underlandish is understandable to all, and we are able to understand all whom stumble upon us.[5]
"I came from the stairwell," she answered quite illogically, but then, we came to learn that while Alaïs was pretty and kind, she was not the sharpest needle in the cushion.
Although to be fair, she always kept to that stairwell story. As she told it, she had been sitting at the High Table, when the castle had fallen. Her husband should have had her removed from the castle, she insisted, but he had not. She had been left undefended with only a host of serving ladies, as enemy knights had stormed the castle. [6] Hiding had been her only recourse. Taking the route through the paneled door behind the High Table, she had slipped down the slippery stone spiral staircase, tumbling all the way to Underland.[7]
Faramund intended on wiping away all of that past unpleasantness by making her life here with us inimitably pleasant. He made his new wife a never ending series of beautiful things and Alaïs made him a passel of very boisterous children that would have pulled my tail if it were not for my evaporating skills. She grew accustomed to some of our Peculiarities, like talking dogs and cats (miserable mice were not yet gifted with speech being of the lower order of beasts); and we grew accustomed to the hatter's lovely wife, who gently managed not only her own household but the lives of all her husband's Nearest and Dearest. The beloved woman made the most delicious potages and thought nothing of sharing them with a cat, even a chatty one that had once frightened her.[8]
When the fated day came, there was no question of Alaïs taking up the Vorpal sword. The Oraculum was wrong, Faramund assured everyone most fervently. "I won't have it!" was defiantly shouted countless times.
There was nary a person willing to disagree with Faramund, for while the Oraculum showed the Alice fighting the beast, no one could picture a world where our Alice could do such a thing. There were things she was good at, but donning chainmail and wielding a sword were not among them. Perhaps we were not imaginative enough or perhaps Alaïs was another Alice who was simply not Alice enough.
No one needed to ask who would fight if Alaïs did not: Faramund would stand in her stead. It seemed a good compromise to all involved. Faramund was no hearty specimen of a hero, but he seemed more suited to be our hero than his fine boned wife. Furthermore, he took on the role with a confidence that bred the same in those around him.
Indeed, Alaïs was happy enough to let him to stand up for her, for she finally had a husband who would be her Champion, who would not leave her undefended. She shined his armor, mended his tunic, and sent him off to battle with a full stomach and a kiss.
Unfortunately, Underland does not want a hatter for a Champion. Hatters have their role to play, but Underland requires an Alice. It has been said that if the Alice does not slay, then the fell beast does not die. Such was the case with Faramund and the Buganwyrm.[9] Faramund bravely wielded the Vorpal sword for naught.
Alaïs was not there to see her husband fall to the poisonous, gaping maw of the serpent. It would have broken her frail, human heart; and it is not only eggs that the king's horses and the king's men cannot put back together again. Nevertheless, it was a short-lived reprieve: she and her children did not survive the coming darkness.
It was a shame, because she always very kindly scratched behind my ears. And the potages, I missed the potages.
[1] Alaïs is the Old French form of Alice. Faramund is Gaelic and means thunder.
[2] Alaïs came from Northern France, ca. 1000. French women of this period wore very tight tunic gowns that reached the floor. The gown came so high as to completely cover the neck. The sleeves closed at the wrists and the gown fastened at the waist. This style of dress was known as the cottes-hardies. Additionally, wealthy women wore another tunic over this gown, which was sleeveless, and a long cloak lined with ermine. All women wore a veil that completely surrounded the neck and fell both forward and backward.
[3] Faramund's people originally came to Underland from Galloway, a region in Southwestern Scotland. English dominance of the region was declining between the 9th and 11th centuries with Gaelic dominance in ascendance. Whether Faramund would have been more Anglo-Saxon or Gaelic is unclear, so a mix might have been probable. Men and women of Gaelic origin wore linen or silk tunics (leine) and oval cloaks (brat). Tunics were generally white and came to mid thigh on men. Hats were unusual, although cloth bands or gold circlets were sometimes worn. Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, wore short tunics, cloaks, and trousers. Piercings and golden bracelets were popular for men, as was shorter hair and beards.
[4] Amongst Anglo-Saxons, coifs (flat round caps) became popular head-coverings for men and all but the youngest of women wore a head-rail (couvre-chef) that was the ancestor of the wimple.
[5] Why does Alice not understand Outlandish? Outlandish is not Standard Underlandish, of course. The magic works to make Underlandish intelligible to those who speak Outlandish and vice versa, but unfortunately it cannot make Outlandish intelligible to an Englishman, nor would it English to a Frenchman.
[6] Alaïs lived during very early Capetian France, when the French king had not yet successfully regained control of the country beyond his personal domain (Ile de France, a strip of territory centered on Paris). Lords were in a constant state of warfare with each other, as well as with the king. It was commonplace for even clergy and peasants to come under attack from marauding armies. The Church was attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to curb the violence of the nobility, but it remained a highly turbulent era.
[7] The rabbit hole in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland perhaps owes its inspiration to a door located in Christ Church College's dining hall. Senior members of the college, such as Alice's father, would have dined at the High Table. After the evening meal concluded, senior members would not have walked amongst the undergraduates, but exited through a paneled door to a very narrow, spiral staircase, which led to Tom Quad.
[8] Potages were very common in Northern French cuisine in the high middle ages. A potage is either a stew or porridge where meat and vegetables are boiled in water until they become very thick.
[9] Beowulf is the oldest heroic poem in English and the first to portray a both a typical European dragon and a dragon slayer. Beowulf's dragon is referred to in Old English as draca (dragon) and wyrm (serpent). The dragon is described as having a poisonous bite, being nocturnal, treasure hoarding, inquisitive, vengeful, and fire breathing. Its movements are described by the verb bugan, which means to bend. Therefore, the Buganwyrm is a bending serpent akin to a dragon.