Chapter 6: Manuscripts and Reminiscences

The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the thick glass of Rosalind's small workroom the next day. She sat at her desk, which stood near the window, positioned to capture the light and thereby ease the strain that hours of detailed work could cause her eyes. But nothing, she thought as she stretched her fingers, frozen from being locked around the pen, could forestall the cramping of muscles. The monks believed that writing fulfilled their mandate for manual labor, and as she moved her aching shoulders she thought they might just be right. She sat on a stool at her slanted writing desk, a piece of parchment tacked to its surface, the wood of which was a mottled constellation of holes from being used in this way for many years. She wanted to finish the final line on this sheet before stopping for the day, so she sighed, rolled her shoulders, and picked up her tools: in her left hand, the blunt knife she used to anchor the parchment, stretching it taut in the area on which she was writing. Then with her right hand she reached for the quill pen that rested in the inkpot on the topmost part of her desk, which was flat. She blotted the excess ink lightly on a spare piece of parchment and then refreshed her memory of the next passage in the text before putting the pen to the animal skin. The satisfying sound of scratching filled the tiny room. She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth, her concentration absolute, as she finished the last five Latin words of the chapter. The end of the final word did not quite reach the end of the line, which would spoil the perfect box of text on the page, so she drew a small flourish to fill the remainder of the line and render the effect harmonious. Sitting back, she smiled down at her work. And then jumped as a voice spoke from the doorway.

"What text are you copying?"

The Doctor had not meant to speak to her. He had not even been looking for her, but rather had been wandering the somewhat labyrinthine corridors in search of Blanche's chamber, hoping to find Donna, when he happened upon the half-open door to the tiny sunlit room. Rosalind was in it, bent over her desk, the highlights in her hair golden and green in the dappled, refracted sunlight that shone through the window. His heart in his mouth, he considered her, forming the beautiful letters on the parchment, her tongue—gods help him—poking out between her teeth at the corner of her mouth.

It was a strange and a fascinating thing, this setting on the chameleon arch. He was himself and he could inhabit solely his own brain and memories when he chose. When he did so, it was hard to see Rosalind as anything but Rose in period costume. So much was the same: her intelligence, her wariness, her empathy shielded behind defensiveness. Her face was identical. Her eyes… And of course for him, for the Doctor, her quirks, the things that made her unusual in her time and place, were only positive qualities that made her more compelling.

But what did her contemporaries see when they looked at her? And here the chameleon arch came into play. He could allow himself to sink into Philip's thoughts, expectations, and memories and draw upon them, while remaining conscious himself. Sort of like putting on someone else's glasses. Well, someone else's glasses you could actually see through. Well, full-body glasses with emotions involved. Well…oh, fine, the metaphor wasn't working. Point being, he could make the choice to see her through Philip's eyes. He had not done much of this, as he had been relishing being with her himself. But now, in an attempt to achieve some modicum of perspective on the girl, since her attention seemed safely fixed upon the page in front of her, he did so, immersing his mind in that of the French king. Opening his eyes, he felt the shock of seeing a young woman who was not a nun engaged in writing a book. In Latin, no less! A daughter of an earl dressed in a remarkably disheveled and unpolished way. A girl, in short, not fulfilling the expectations of her role in life in any visible way. Cold realization settled in on the Doctor, and he saw the truth of what Robert and Donna had said to him—that she was, in some way, unfit for her own life.

But then the tone of Philip's thoughts began to change, and the Doctor sucked in a breath, getting an inkling of the remarkable man Donna had seen in their brief conversation in the woods. For, as Philip continued to look at Rosalind, as he saw over her shoulder in this tiny room the beauty of the text she was writing, as he remembered the sight of her flying ahead of him on horseback on that steep riverside road, his chill dismissal of her strangeness began to warm into appreciation of her uniqueness. And, the Doctor noted, Philip's eyes did not miss the fine shape of her ink-stained hands, the wheaty abundance of her hair, the beauty of her amber eyes, the line of her lips. Philip, he realized, would have appreciated this girl, once he got over his initial shock. Philip might even have loved this girl, given time, were he here, being given the opportunity to do so. And now the Doctor felt a flash of guilt, that in attempting to ensure the marriage of Robert and Blanche, he might have denied Rosalind her own chance. But then he shook himself, realizing that Philip was a king, not free to follow his heart in these matters. It was probably for the best, he reasoned, that Rosalind was not set up for disappointment. Before he knew it, he was asking her what text she was copying, and she whirled around in her chair, startled.

"My lord Philip. I did not realize you were there."

"I was looking for my sister's quarters. I think I got lost at some point. Your door was open. Forgive my intrusion."

"Not at all." But she looked uncertain, as if bracing herself. She did not know, he realized, how Philip would respond to her activity. So he asked again.

"And what is the text?"

"Oh. It is by Fulcher, a cleric of Chartres—his history of the expedition to Jerusalem. The crusade. I just finished copying the section on the battle of Antioch."

"I know the text. It is a long one to copy."

"It is, but I do love to read stories of the Holy Land and other faraway places. And I wanted my own copy, so the clerics of the cathedral stop bothering me to return theirs."

"And, no doubt, you admire the bravery of the knights who won Jerusalem." This was Philip speaking through the Doctor, who suddenly remembered that Philip had gone on crusade too, very early in his reign, in the company of the famed English king Richard the Lionheart. Philip had returned to France early, without engaging the enemy, to the mockery of much of Europe. Rosalind had stumbled onto a dangerous subject, therefore.

She responded, "I think, my lord, that war is always brutal—even holy war. No doubt it is necessary nonetheless, especially in certain cases. But that does not make it less brutal." She paused. "My interest lies more in the descriptions of the lands oversea. I would dearly love to leave England, to see warmer climes, to sail the Mediterranean. I fear that I will not have such a chance, but I do enjoy reading about it."

"You might not feel the pull of the Mediterranean quite so strongly had you ever been tossed about by it."

She looked eager and gestured for him to sit in the chair that was the only other piece of furniture in the room. "You were in the Holy Land, were you not, my lord? Would you tell me, what was it like?"

He considered her. She was perched on her writing stool, her legs tucked under her, feet hooked on a high cross bar. Her chin rested on her hands, elbows on her knees. She looked very young.

"You are aware, my lady, that I returned from the crusade in a way considered disgraceful by many?"

"Our bishop has spoken of it and of your behavior in scathing terms, yes. He accused you of cowardice."

"Your bishop who is loyal to King John," the Doctor recalled, remembering his initial conversation with the earl.

"Indeed. He said you cravenly left John's brother Richard alone to face the great Saladin." She paused. "But as I listened to his description of your actions, it was impossible to miss the fact that by returning early, leaving Richard to fight in the Holy Land, you gave yourself the opportunity to win back great swathes of English-controlled land in France. I wondered, therefore, if it might have been less cowardice on your part and more strategy."

He couldn't help it. She was so clever. He grinned at her delightedly. "That is exactly it. I knew that the Lionheart was a great warrior—God knows he'd knocked me off my horse often enough in my youth. But I was sure that while he was tied up in Jerusalem fighting Saladin I could get back my kingdom, or at least a large part of it. My father had been unable to stop the English from snatching lands in France. Richard and his father were stronger militarily—it was that simple. If I was to reverse that trend, I needed Richard gone. It seemed a beneficial tradeoff, to save my kingdom at the expense of the opinion of men like your bishop."

She nodded. "It makes good sense. But were you not afraid of being excommunicated?"

"Thrown out of the church? Not really. None of my bishops would do it, and the pope…well, let's just say he saw me as a potential ally against England and Germany. He wasn't going to alienate me in that way. So no, that concern didn't outweigh the other considerations in favor of leaving." He added, "Plus, I had dysentery, along with half the army. That made the decision to leave even easier." He shuddered, remembering, through Philip, his illness and the agony of the journey home.

Rosalind said, "Our bishop briefly excommunicated my father and brother. It was a purely political move, and it was overturned by the papal court." She paused, and then asked again, "But what was it like? The Holy Land? While you were there?"

"Honestly, I did not see much of the place. I was only at the port at Acre." Her face fell, and he felt compelled to do better. "But Acre, even in wartime, is beautiful. The sea is totally different from our seas in the north. The water is turquoise and crystal clear. The city has sea walls that rise sheer from the water up to a great height, and you can walk the length of them. They face west, and in the evening they glow pink from the setting sun." Her face was enraptured, and he continued, closing his eyes briefly to try to conjure the sensations of his brief time in the eastern city.

"The whole city is built of golden stone, punctuated by the towers of churches and mosques. The streets are all so narrow, and you can get lost so easily, but as Christian soldiers we rarely needed to walk them, because the Templars have built a series of tunnels running under the city and they stay cool even in the nailing heat of the day. And the whole city smells of spice from the markets. It's…undefinable. It's beautiful."

Her eyes glowed with excitement. "It sounds wonderful."

He laughed. "Except when you're sweating in your armor and ill from the food and hoping that the next arrow that flies won't pierce your throat."

Spontaneously, she reached out and grasped his hand in both of hers. He gasped at the contact and his eyes flew to her face. She said, "Thank you, my lord. Thank you for sharing that with me."

Oh, he was lost. She was beautiful and brilliant and so touchingly grateful for such a short conversation, a brief recounting of a long-ago adventure. She was lonely, he realized. If he recognized one thing in all the universes, it was loneliness. How would she blossom, given the chance to see for herself the exotic places he described? And what if she saw the stars up close?

Here he stopped the rush of his thoughts, imagining what Donna would say, what he himself should be saying. He was not the Doctor, showing his Rose the stars. This was not even the same as him appearing in the life of Reinette and offering her just a glimpse of worlds beyond her imagining. No, here he was Philip, the king of France, having an innocent conversation with the Lady Rosalind of Northumberland. And yet, his fingers were still entwined with hers. Pushing aside his misgivings, he raised her hands to his mouth and laid his lips on her knuckles. He heard her intake of breath and held her hand still for just a few moments, savoring. Finally he released her and asked quietly, "May I join you on your ride in the morning?"

"Hmm?" She looked disconcerted and far away, but recovered herself quickly. "Yes, of course. I've persuaded Rob and Will to ride too; I know Rob will be nervous and it will help him calm himself before the wedding."

"I will see you then, Lady Rosalind."

"You will."

He smiled at her and left. Had he looked back—had he not been so absorbed with reveling in the slight tang on his lips from where they had touched her skin—he would have seen her rubbing her fingers over the place he had kissed, her face pensive.