Thank you lone reader!
Chapter 2: It became a possibility.
Once we arrived at home father gathered four of his favorite workers to serve as my companions. The first I worked with was the blacksmith, Thomas. He was a burly man who was two heads taller than I. He continually kept his head shaved except for a large mustache, which only added to his intimidating demeanor.
"Well, you'll need armor that makes you less…" he paused for a moment.
"Girly, I know! You don't have to treat me like a child or a lady anymore, Thomas." I smiled.
"I don't know how you will pull this off, but I will make you the armor as best as I can. That's a promise." He measured me and sent me to Franklin, our horse tender. Compared to Thomas, Franklin was a skeleton. He may have been equally tall, but he was nowhere near as massive. He picked out our strongest horse, a black beast of a thing named Shadow.
"I will have you training with her every morning and night. He doesn't trust easily, but if you can get him to like you we might have a shot." Riding Shadow was the scariest and most exhilarating thing I had done. My childhood horse was a dainty mule compared to his thunderous strides. He would buck and turn against the reigns at any chance; when I walked past him in the stable after our first ride he even tried to bite me. "It's going to be a long road between you two, Lady Charlotte."
"I will not give up on you yet," I said to the beast. "You won't be able to call me Lady Charlotte much longer, you know."
"Yes, I know. That is precisely why I plan to say it as much as possible while I still can." He laughed.
"Where is Christopher? Dad said I needed to see him."
"I believe he is in the main house, Lady Charlotte."
"I'll see you at dinner, Mister Franklin," I stuck my tongue out at him as I left. When I found Christopher he was slumped over some papers in the parlor.
"It is lovely to see you again, Sir Charles."
"Excuse me?"
"Your name, Sir Charles? Now you are going to have to do better than that if you are going to pull this off. Men don't stand like that."
I looked at my old tutor in sheer puzzlement. "How do they stand?"
"We, my dear! How do we stand?"
"Fine, how do WE stand?"
"Well, see how you are standing? Do the opposite. Don't hold your hands together, don't be meek. This is a man's world, this is your world now. Act like it!" I did my best to stand manlier. Christopher laughed. "How about this, act like the most unsophisticated person you know! Like Franklin. He hunches, he swears, he spits. The more disgusting you can be the less people will question your manhood."
"I can try that, it's just hard in a dress. Don't I need new clothes?"
"Your father sent out Tom's wife to get them. Don't worry, I told her to try to find as many codpieces as possible." We laughed.
"Didn't you once train with a knight?"
"Yes I did, and you father informed me that I will be training you on the joust, and any other sport you choose."
"I liked sword fighting with Father when I was young, how about that one too?"
He took a sword from off the wall and threw it at me. I clumsily caught it and fumbled a bit before composing myself and striking a beginning stance. "I guess we can work with it," he sighed. "You have an assignment today." I perked up to listen. "At dinner you must act like a man."
"How?"
"Take big bites, drink too much wine, and whatever you do don't use your fork."
I looked at him skeptically, "But father?"
"He knows what he signed up for."
Thomas's wife, a petite and kind-faced woman, entered the room. "Lady Charlotte, I am to help you into your new clothes before dinner."
"It's Sir Charles now, Madame." Christopher laughed.
"Oh yes, sorry miss. Sir! Sorry Sir!" I followed her to my room where the new clothes were laying out. "First we need to bind your chest." I nodded and she helped me disrobe. The binding was almost as painful as when I had to wear a corset, but nothing I couldn't handle. "Now we just put this loose shirt on top," she slid it over me. "And the trousers." I had never worn pants before, it was quite strange. So confining. Then she put boots on my feet and laced them up. "It is quite strange seeing you like this, my Lady. Or Sir, I am so confused."
"I know, it feels strange, especially this," I laughed motioning to the codpiece. "Do I look like a man?"
"Your body does, your face and hair do not. How are you supposed to grow a beard?"
"I have an idea," I put my hair into a pony tail and shook my hands over it to make it messy. "Better?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And Christopher gave me an idea for the beard problem, come with me. I want to know if it works." She followed me outside where I found a small patch of mud in the dirt. I rubbed my face with it around the jaw line and a bit in my hair. I looked up to her from the ground with a smile, "Better?"
"Yes, Sir."
"No really, you can tell me the truth."
"I am afraid that may be as good as it gets. You can tell them you're young! That might work."
"Good idea, darling." I practiced my manly walk into the house, trying to hold in my laughter. When I entered the dining room my father and Christopher both looked at me in surprise. "Hello father, it is I, your son Charles! Come home at long last to feast and drink and tell tales of my daring deeds!" Christopher smiled but my father's expression was far more complex.
"Well, you look the part almost. We will have to build up your muscles first, then I think we might be able to pull this off." I took the seat across from Christopher. As the meal began so did my life as Sir Charles of Winchester.