A/N: So this was supposed to be up like 2 weeks ago, but this semester was killer. But I'm finally free so this is actually going to be updated at least once a week for the next month at least.
Now we get to meet our knights and ladies and squires and, of course, Fitz and Simmons - brilliant, curious, and the bane of their governess's existence.
Enjoy!
"Prince Leopold!"
A young curly-haired boy let out an exasperated sigh. "It's 'Fitz,' Lady Hand. How many times do I have to tell you? Jemma always gets it right."
"Well, Miss Simmons has been reared rather wildly," replied Lady Victoria Hand, governess to a seven-year-old Prince Leopold Fitz Coulson and his possibly even more rambunctious best friend Jemma Simmons, "much like yourself Prince… Fitz." She finally acquiesced to the young prince's insistence on being called by his middle name.
"Wildly?" piped up a small voice from behind a tapestry. A tony freckled face peeked out, its nose wrinkling. "I have not been 'reared rather wildly!" Jemma Simmons cried indignantly.
Fitz nodded his head in agreement as Lady Hand started to reply.
"Well I never-"
"I think Jemma's been raised perfectly adequately," an older voice came loudly from behind the group, interrupting Lady Hand's retort. "Fitz has as well."
"Dame Isobel." Lady Hand nodded at the older woman in greeting.
"Lady Hand," Dame Isobel Fitz replied with a nod of her own. "I was wondering if I could borrow these two hooligans for tea."
Fitz and Jemma grinned at the description of them as hooligans.
Lady Hand sighed and waved her assent. "They're your problem now, Dame Isobel." She looked down at the children. "Behave yourselves, and I'll see you after tea, hopefully being better behaved than you've been this afternoon," she added pointedly and then swept off down the hall.
Jemma stepped fully out from behind the tapestry, a smile on her face as she stared up at Dame Isobel. "I was sure Lady Hand was going to yell at us for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks for saving us, Dame Isobel."
"Anything for my favorite rabble-rousers," Dame Isobel replied jovially. "The palace would be so boring without you two. Now come along! Sir Alphonso and Lady Mackenzie are coming for tea as well."
Jemma's grin widened at Dame Isobel's words. Lady Mackenzie was her mother's sister, and Jemma relished any time she was able to spend with her aunt and uncle.
The trio made their way back to Dame Isobel's quarters, Jemma and Fitz skipping around the older woman's feet.
"Auntie!" Jemma cried as they arrived at the door, a burly, but kind-eyed knight and a slight and rather pale woman waiting for them.
Jemma's exclamation brought a smile to the pale woman's face as she picked up her niece. "How are you, my darling?" she asked softly.
"Wonderful!" Jemma replied, wriggling around with excitement. "Fitz and I have been exploring!"
Fitz's name caused the woman's smile to falter slightly before it returned, full-force. Jemma appeared not to notice, but Fitz did.
Dame Isobel had told him a few years ago that while his first name came from his grandfather, his middle name came from a knight that had given his life protecting him as a baby. That knight had been Lady Mackenzie's first husband and Dame Isobel's son. As soon as he had heard the story, Fitz had decided that he wanted to be called by his middle name rather than his first one, which he had never particularly liked anyway, and so he had ceased to be Prince Leopold and had become instead just Fitz, at least to Dame Isobel and he and Jemma's other friends in the castle.
"And how are you today, Your Highness?" Sir Alphonso bowed slightly to Fitz with a wink to let him know that the formality was just for show.
"Quite well, Sir Alphonso," Fitz replied in his best imitation of his father. "And how was the campaign?"
The older man's face fell slightly. "Not quite as successful as we had hoped, but perhaps we are making progress."
Jemma sighed dramatically as her aunt set her back onto the floor. "I wish you'd tell us what you and the rest of the cavalry are doing off all around the kingdom, Uncle."
Fitz nodded his agreement. "I know my father's sworn you all to secrecy, but it's just me and Jemma, Mack; you can tell us." Fitz had taken to calling the older man "Mack" when he was very young and the nickname had stuck among their closest friends.
Mack just shook his head, laughing at the children, and turned to Dame Isobel instead. "Thank you so much for having us, Isobel. It's always so lovely to see you." He pecked her cheek in greeting.
Dame Isobel smiled and ushered her guests inside.
The sitting room was very familiar to Fitz. He and Jemma had practically grown up here, always running away from Lady Hand to go find Dame Isobel or Jemma's mother or Mack and Lady Mackenzie.
"So what news from the cavalry, Mack?" Dame Isobel asked as they took their usual seats around the room – Mack and Lady Mackenzie on the sofa, Dame Isobel on the chaise, and Jemma and Fitz perched on the ottoman – as a servant appeared with a pot of tea and a tray piled high with Fitz and Jemma's favorite cakes and cookies.
Mack took his cup of tea with a word of thanks to the servant, and then he turned back to Dame Isobel. "Well, our favorite squire is being knighted within the next week."
"Lance!" Fitz and Jemma exclaimed at the same time.
The adults laughed at their exuberance.
"Yes, indeed," Mack replied, smiling. "Our Lance Hunter is about to become Sir Lance, Knight of King Coulson's cavalry."
"Maybe Bobbi will agree to marry him now that he'll be a knight," Jemma mused.
"Jemma!" Lady Mackenzie chastised, the smile in her eyes taking away from any reprimand. "Who Lady Morse decides to marry is none of your concern."
Jemma shrugged. "Bobbi told me that she was waiting for Lance to 'grow up.' If he's gonna be a knight, that means he's definitely grown up."
"Just because someone's older doesn't necessarily mean he's 'grown up' the way Bobbi means, my dear," Dame Isobel added seriously.
Lady Mackenzie sighed exasperatedly. "Honestly, Isobel, you're as bad as the children."
"I don't have any idea what you're talking about, Margaret." Dame Isobel flashed a quick wink at Fitz and Jemma.
Fitz grinned before looking thoughtful. "It'll be weird, Lance being a knight," Fitz said half to himself.
"Really!" Jemma agreed, nodding along. "I can't remember a time when Lance wasn't my father's squire."
"That's because Lance has been a squire since before you were born," Mack explained. "Your father took on Lance just a couple weeks after Fitz was born, right before your mother had you, Jemma."
Fitz smiled over at his friend smugly. "Twenty-three days older than you!" he proclaimed in a sing-song-y voice. It was a common argument between the pair of them, one that had been going on for years.
As a toddler, Fitz had regularly been taken to play with the other palace children, but Fitz and Jemma had taken to each other right away. As the other three-year-olds toddled around and played with toy horses and carriages, Fitz and Jemma would sneak off and explore the castle. They wanted to know everything from the names of the flowers in the garden to the food that the horses ate in the stables to the contents of all the books in the library. After more than a year of trying to get them both to play with the other children, the King and Queen had given up, tired of responding to messages of "Prince Leopold and Jemma Simmons have run off again and we're not entirely sure where they went this time," and Coulson had hired a personal governess for Fitz when he had just turned five. Upon hearing he was so be separated from his closest friend and partner in crime, Fitz, only just beginning to go by his middle name, had begged his father to let Lady Hand be Jemma's governess too. Coulson had smiled and said he didn't have a problem with it, and from that point on, while the rest of the palace children were taught as a group or with their own governesses, Fitz and Jemma stayed together, much to Lady Hand's constant exasperation.
They made friends with the few knights that lived in the castle, like Mack, and heard the news from Jemma's father's loose-lipped squire, Lance. Though the other ladies-in-waiting were clearly unwilling to accept responsibility for the excitable children, their favorite, Bobbi, gladly hid them in closets and under furniture and denied any knowledge of their whereabouts when questioned by their, usually irate, governess. Dame Isobel and Lady Mackenzie would often have them around for tea, treating them like adults, rather than young children. They were the darlings of the cavalry, Jemma's father being high up in its ranks and Fitz being the actual prince.
Not that Fitz was particularly spoiled by his position. Anyone outside the palace would never had known that he was anything more than the son of a nobleman. His manners were a little more refined than Jemma's, since he occasionally had to spend an afternoon sitting respectfully at a dinner table while his father entertained a foreign dignitary, but in all other ways he was an ordinary child of the palace.
The afternoon turned into a light-hearted argument between Fitz and Jemma about whether or not it mattered if Fitz was 23 days older, while Dame Isobel and Lady Mackenzie talked of other matters.
As the conversation lulled, Mack stepped in. "Fitz, I do have some news from your father."
Fitz sat up straighter at Mack's words, giving the older man his full attention.
"He wanted me to tell you that he's sending several tutors to live at the castle for your lessons," Mack said seriously. "He believes it's time your education went beyond what Lady Hand can teach you."
Fitz began bouncing with excitement, but a glance beside him made him stop. Jemma. He couldn't abandon his best friend. "But Mack, I don't want to have any lessons without Jemma!" he said angrily. "She's just as smart as I am and that's not fair that I get to learn more than she does just because I'm a boy and I'm the prince. You tell my father that I won't do it! I- I- I'll go on strike!" Fitz folded his arms as he sat back on the ottoman with a huff.
Jemma offered him a small smile. "It's alright, Fitz. Don't worry about it. We'll still see each other."
"But it's not fair!"
"Enough!" Mack raised his hands to quiet them both, rolling his eyes at Fitz pouting below him. "Your father also told me that since he assumed you would refuse to do anything without Jemma that she'll be permitted to take all the lessons with you."
"Really?" Jemma and Fitz exclaimed together.
Mack laughed in spite of himself. "Yes, really."
"Hooray!" Fitz jumped up and grabbed Jemma's arm to pull her up with him.
That day marked a change for Fitz and Jemma. Gone were the days of exploring the castle and running away from Lady Hand; instead, Fitz and Jemma read literature and philosophy and learned history and arithmetic and geometry. But what Fitz and Jemma loved more than anything was science.
Finally all the questions they had had about the world were being answered. They went down to the river to look at tadpoles, and they took late-night trips to the palace observatory to learn about the stars. They read books and did experiments and absorbed as much information as they could. Their favorite place was the lab in the basement with its shelves of potions and concoctions and tools for building and book cases filled with volumes of text, both old and new, just waiting to be explored.
Their fellow palace children were growing up as well. Donnie and Seth became pages when they turned seven, and Callie, Jiaying, and Raina received lessons at the palace in preparation for attending finishing school when they turned twelve, in the hopes that they would be able to secure the hand of some wealthy nobleman or other.
Fitz could see that Jemma sometimes felt out of place still in the palace studying as though she were royalty like Fitz, but Fitz did everything he could to make Jemma feel like she belonged. They deliberately didn't spend a lot of time with the other children, preferring Mack and Lance and Bobbi's non-judgmental company to that of anyone else. Fitz didn't care that Jemma was just the daughter of a knight, and the king and queen didn't mind either, so what did it matter? But sometimes when she thought he wasn't looking, Fitz could see that it really did upset his best friend.
"It doesn't matter, Jemma, you know?" Fitz said one night as the pair, now nearing age eleven, was walking back from a lesson at the observatory. Their old astronomy tutor had been forced to return home to take care of his ailing father a few weeks before, and Fitz wasn't sure how he felt about his replacement. Master Sitwell was very knowledgeable, but he treated Fitz and Jemma very differently. To Fitz he was all praise and bowing and attentive consideration, but to Jemma he was much colder, harsher, staring down at her with an air of superiority.
On this particular night, he had pointedly asked Jemma about her accomplishments, and when Jemma had begun to explain about the discoveries she and Fitz had made over the past three or four years, Master Sitwell had stopped her and amended his statement with a "oh, no, I meant womanly accomplishments, Miss Simmons: sewing, playing, painting." Jemma had stared up at him and replied that she thought he was meant to teach her and Fitz astronomy not gender roles. Fitz had been forced to leave the room because he had been laughing so hard.
"Who cares what Master Sitwell says?" Fitz continued when Jemma didn't respond.
Jemma's eyes were locked on the ground in front of her.
"I don't care," Fitz tried again. "And Dame Isobel and Mack don't care and neither does your aunt or your parents or Lance or Bobbi. My parents don't even care, and they're the King and Queen, so that should be enough for anyone. You're just as smart as I am, Jemma. No one should care whether or not you're 'accomplished.'"
"But that's just it, Fitz." Jemma stopped and finally turned to look at him.
Fitz could see tears in her eyes reflected by the moonlight.
"As long as you're around they'll all let it go, but one day your father's going to take you on campaign with the cavalry and then it will just be me, unaccomplished, unfinished… alone." Jemma stared off into the forest.
Fitz didn't know what to say. He'd never thought about that before. The idea that he would someday have to leave the lab and his best friend to go take on the duties of a prince was something he had never even considered. Fitz had always been able to keep Jemma with him, but someday they would, more than likely, have to be separated. As much as Fitz tried to pretend, Jemma wasn't just like him.
The silence stretched between them.
Jemma sighed finally. "We ought to be getting back. Lance is still in the infirmary after he twisted his ankle tripping over that tree root last week, and I promised I'd go visit before I go home… Fitz?"
Fitz had stopped paying attention to what Jemma was saying, and he had begun to stare at her with a wide smile on his face.
"What is it, Fitz?" Jemma asked, clearly concerned.
"The infirmary!" Fitz said excitedly. "That's it!"
"What about the infirmary?"
"You! If you're trained up as a doctor, no one can fault you for anything!" he exclaimed, bouncing up and down with excitement. "You can still spend all your time in the lab, but if you help out in the infirmary sometimes, it doesn't matter whether or not you've been to finishing school!"
Jemma stared at him skeptically. "They won't let me be a doctor, Fitz. I'm a girl."
Fitz frowned slightly, shrugging. "I'll bet anything you're smarter than all the rest of them already. And if my father says you can be a doctor, no one's arguing with that." He offered her a half smile. "I know they need all the help they can get over there, especially if Lance keeps getting injured."
Jemma finally cracked a smile. "He does seem rather accident prone doesn't he? Bless his heart."
Fitz grinned back. "He's just lucky Bobbi still puts up with him." He shook his head. "I can't believe they're actually going to get married."
Jemma grinned as the pair started walking back to the castle again. "Took them long enough, Lance pining after her for all those years."
Fitz laughed, and they fell into companionable silence.
Just before they reached the gate, Jemma stopped and grabbed Fitz's arm.
Fitz looked over at her curiously.
Jemma smiled almost shyly. "I just wanted to say thanks. For sticking up for me and for, well, everything."
Fitz grinned back. "That's what best friends do." He paused for a moment. "And anything was worth the look on Master Sitwell's face when you told him that his job wasn't to worry about gender roles."
Jemma laughed and pulled him into a quick hug. "Come on, we should both go see Lance. He needs some cheering up. Mack and the rest of the cavalry have really been teasing him."
"And we're not going to tease him?" Fitz replied, raising his eyebrows.
Jemma grinned. "I mean yes, but that's beside the point."
Laughing uproariously, the pair returned to the castle, Master Sitwell and worries about Jemma's future all forgotten.
When Fitz finally got back to the family quarters, it was past midnight and his mother was waiting up for him.
"Leo," the queen said reproachfully. On nights when he had astronomy class, he was to be back by 10 o'clock.
"Sorry, Mother," Fitz replied sheepishly. His parents were the only people that Fitz allowed to call him Leo, not that he saw his father all that often anyway.
"Master Sitwell said that Jemma was rude to him during your lesson today," Fitz's mother said softly.
Fitz looked up at this, instantly furious. "He said WHAT? That's not true, Mother! Master Sitwell was rude to Jemma, not the other way around. He was making fun of her for not being 'accomplished.'" Fitz's voice turned into a mockery of his astronomy tutor.
The queen smiled slightly. "I figured as much. I told Master Sitwell that Jemma was like a second child to us and that she should be treated as such. Hopefully he won't give her any more trouble."
A smile grew across Fitz's face as he ran over to his mother, throwing his arms around her in a hug. "Thank you."
The queen held Fitz to her tightly. "Of course, Leo." She drew back. "Now, bed! Right this minute. And I'll have some words with Lance Hunter about keeping ten-year-old children out past midnight."
"I'm eleven in a week, Mother!" Fitz complained.
The queen rolled her eyes. "Bed, Leo!" Her face softened. "Sweet dreams, darling."
"Goodnight."
Fitz had to smile as he wandered sleepily into his room. It had been a good day, in the end.
"Fitz made the splint." A twelve-year-old Jemma Simmons gestured to the device now bracketing the injured man's leg.
"And Jemma figured a compound that should help it heal faster," Fitz added, pride evident in his voice.
"I can't believe you made it through the battle fine and then broke your leg falling off your horse. Every single time, Lance." There was more than the smallest hint of a laugh in the voice of former Lady Bobbi Morse, now Lady Hunter, as she sat on the edge of the bed where her husband, Lance Hunter, was lying.
"It wasn't so much of a battle as it was a skirmish, Bob," Lance replied, groaning in pain. "And he bucked! I didn't even do anything! It wasn't my fault!'
"My aunt says that you need to start accepting responsibility for your actions," Jemma said matter-of-factly, smirking at her charge.
Lance turned his gaze from Bobbi to Jemma, his eyes settling into a glare. "Well you can tell Maggie-"
"Lance." Bobbi warned, though there was still laughter in her eyes at Jemma's repetition of Lady Margaret Mackenzie's words.
Lance sighed and stared up at the ceiling.
"Are you feeling better?" Jemma asked, concerned, the teasing hint gone from her voice. "I did what I could to stop it from hurting so much."
Lance sighed again and turned back to her, his face softer. "Still hurts, but it's better. Thanks, love. And thank you too, Fitz." He offered Fitz a small, pained smile. "I owe you both. The rest of staff at the infirmary are hopeless compared to you two geniuses."
"It's true," Bobbi agreed with a smile. "We're really lucky to have you guys."
Jemma and Fitz glowed at the compliments.
"So how long until I'm back on my feet, Doc," Lance asked, his tone half-joking, half-serious.
Jemma frowned. "Around two months, I'd think. But it could be worse." Her face brightened slightly. "Your break isn't nearly as bad as Sir William Koenig's was."
Fitz shuddered slightly beside Jemma. He could still see the bone poking out of Billy's leg as the palace surgeons and Jemma set it back in place. Fitz could help with splints and medicine, but when it came to actual surgery, Fitz had no stomach for it. He'd much rather be back in the lab where he was removed from everything. Jemma, however, had taken to medicine as though she was born for it. She preferred their lab too, of course, but setting broken bones and treating colds and even helping deliver the occasional baby had become like second nature to Jemma. Fitz was just around to help out. Whatever Jemma did, he could do too… or help with at least.
Lance shook his head, turning to Bobbi. "And we were supposed to start training them next week too. Mack's just taken on Lincoln, he can't train Fitz at the same time."
Lincoln was Lincoln Campbell, Mack's newly acquired squire. Fitz and Jemma didn't know him particularly well, but they had decided he would make a good addition to their group.
Bobbi offered Lance a half smile. "Mack will be fine training Fitz and Lincoln for a couple months while you're stuck here. And I've got Jemma."
Jemma and Fitz exchanged glances.
"You've got Jemma for what, Bobbi?" Fitz asked hesitantly.
Bobbi turned to him, a mischievous grin on her face. "The king's concerned that you both are too wrapped up in science and academics, so he's asked Lance and I to give you both some physical training."
Fitz narrowed his eyes. "You and Lance?" he asked, confused. "Since when do you…. Ohhhhh…" Fitz stopped, his eyes widening as his mouth fell open. He turned to Jemma to see an expression matching his.
Bobbi and Lance shared a smile.
"So it's true," Jemma said finally, shaking her head. "It's all true."
Bobbi shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about." But the glint in her eyes said otherwise.
For as long as Jemma and Fitz could remember, King Coulson's cavalry had been shrouded in secrecy. No one knew where the king and his men went when they left the castle. The only answer anyone would ever get from them was that they were going "on campaign," but that was it. There was rarely any actual fighting, though skirmishes with bands of smugglers that roamed the outer edges of the kingdom, like the one Lance had been involved in, were relatively common. At the same time, however, the king's fighting force was fairly big, as big as any from their neighboring kingdoms that were always warring with each other. It had always seemed odd to Fitz and Jemma that the king would have such a large and highly skilled band of knights with no real battles.
But there was another secret, a deeper secret, that surrounded King Coulson's cavalry. There were tales of a fighting force made entirely of women, led by a fearsome warrior who had fought off invaders in the years just before Fitz and Jemma were born. It was said that this woman had created a small band to be called on only in the most dire of circumstances. They were Coulson's best, the stories said, the Cavalry with a capital C. And, it seemed, Fitz and Jemma's long-time friend and co-conspirator was part of it.
"Time for dinner, you too," Bobbi said, as though she hadn't just dropped a huge revelation on her two young friends. "Run along home. Lance and I will be fine here."
Jemma and Fitz left, still speechless.
As soon as they were out of earshot from Lance's room, Fitz and Jemma turned to each other.
"The Cavalry!"
"Bobbi!"
They both laughed.
"But training," Jemma said, her eyes shining, "that should be exciting."
Fitz nodded his agreement. "On to the next adventure." His face fell slightly. "It'd be nice to hear news like this from my father for once though, you know? I mean, I understand that he's busy, but it'd be nice to actual know what he wants from me."
Jemma smiled sympathetically. "King Coulson's really dedicated to whatever it is that the cavalry is trying to do. Once they complete their mission, he'll be home more."
Fitz shrugged. "If they actually complete their mission. Whatever that is."
A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are the best!