A/N: Wow….So it's almost been a year…Sorry? I promise I never meant for it to be that long, but…writers' block, and school and life – I know, it's no excuse especially because the story so close to being completed. FORGIVE ME!?
Thanks: BamaRose19, oz1dke, xshynestarx, CA
Several weeks later found Francesca and her knight mistress near Arenaver, preparing for the tournament the next day. They, along with Sirs Nealan and Merric and their squires had arrived two days before that. The three squires had rushed off to find their other friends as soon as they had been released from service. They found Alan and Liam together; this cheered Francesca because ever since she'd mentioned her prophecy to Lady Keladry, she felt that she ought to tell her friends. She hesitated for two reasons.
One was that she wanted to tell them all together, even if her reasons were – in part at least – procrastinating. The second was worry about how they'd react. While Alan had knew she'd had a prophecy, he didn't know the specifics; finding out that a friend had known for years that most of your family might very well die, and hadn't said anything would upset anyone. The other, she expected, would be mad she'd not told them anything. Part of her was at war with that; Francesca felt that it was her business who she chose to tell or not to tell about her visions or the prophecy. Yet, at the same time, her mind rang with the warning that Shakith had given her, through Irnai.
She pushed the issue from her mind for the moment. They greeted each other warmly, and traded stories of their knight masters – or mistress. Liam had by far the best stories, mainly because his knight master was the oddest of all. Sir Owen of Jesslaw, was, in Liam's words, 'too cheerful to be likeable, and yet impossible not to like'. He told several stories in which Sir Owen charged into a situation without a fully – or even a partially – formed plan, yet almost always through an abundance of spirit or the gods' own luck, managed to escape with minimal damage.
As they traded stories, the five squires were wondering around Arenaver. As Alan began a story of some of the pranks the King's Own pulled, Francesca let her mind wander a bit. They were walking near the temples, and part of her wondered if the temple to Shakith was the same as she remembered it.
The last time she'd entered the goddess's temple – until she'd gone several years ago in Corus – had been here, when she'd been visiting her mother's family. Francesca was just beginning to wonder if she should send word to her uncle that she was near, when she nearly ran into a cousin.
Her cousin, Orwell was a newly made knight. He was dark-haired and eye-ed. A year older than Francesca, he was not much taller, taking after his mother's height. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn't that surprised to see her.
"There you are," he announced, looking slightly annoyed. "Come on," He grabbed her and started to drag Francesca down the street before any of her friends could fully register what had just happened.
"What," Francesca asked, stumbling after her cousin. Behind her, she heard her friends called out in shock and hurried after them. Finally she planted her feet and jerked her arm from her cousin's grip, and frowned at him.
"Do you mind," Francesca said in a dry voice, "telling me why you are dragging me around?"
"I'm hardly dragging you," Orwell protested, barely giving his cousin's friends – who'd now caught up to the pair – a glance, they looked from one to the other. "Grandmother heard you were around," Orwell told her finally, when Francesca just stared at him. "She sent me to Shakith's temple, said that you'd probably go there – you always went there when you were younger."
Francesca saw her friends exchanged surprised looks; Francesca had told them that she never prayed to the goddess or visited her temple. They had assumed that meant that she'd never done so, now they were finding out more about their friend.
"You can't just drag me off," Francesca told him, exasperated. "I'm a squire; I must get permission from my knight-mistress."
Orwell shrugged, not bothered or apparently surprised by the news. "Grandmother says that it won't be a problem. She wants you to come and see her." Francesca hesitated – like all of her family; she usually bowed to her grandmother's authority without question or farther thought, even her father did so, and he was only related by marriage. Finally she shrugged. Her grandmother was a seer of some strength, and had taught Francesca the basic skills she needed to prevent herself from going mad from the visions.
Turning to look at her friends she asked; "You'll tell Lady Keladry if she asks after me?" They nodded, and Francesca heaved an inward sigh – they'd grill her with questions when they saw her later. She waved in farewell and nodded to her cousin and they headed off towards the keep. As they walked, Francesca idly noted that not much had changed since she'd last been in Arenaver many years ago.
When her parents had discovered that she was a seer, they had immediately taken Francesca to her maternal grandmother, Lady Suzann of Arenaver. She'd spent most of the next five years of life in Arenaver with her grandmother. The last conversation they'd had still rang clearly in her memory.
Francesca had been having tea with her grandmother; relaxed in the familiar solar that the old seer had insisted of having built when she herself had been a young woman. After some time, Lady Suzann stopped studying her granddaughter in silence and spoke.
"Well, darling," the elderly woman said, her voice soft and musical. "We have very important matters to discuss."
"What matters, grandmother," a young Francesca had inquired curiously.
"Your future," was the simple answer. Then and now Francesca's reaction to the phrase was the same; sharp annoyance and gnawing worry. She'd never asked to see the future but it worried her that when she did have visions of her future, it was nothing that truly reviled anything – and all of them were merely possible futures not definite ones; meaning that they were hazy and it was difficult to focus on details.
Frowning, Francesca had asked in a petulant tone, "What about it?"
"You have more choices in front of you than most girls of your rank." Lady Suzann told her, her eyes never wavered from Francesca. "You may go to the City of the Gods, for proper training, or you may go to convent school to become a lady."
Francesca had frowned then. Neither option had any appeal to the girl.
"Those are my only choices," the girl had said melancholy.
"Of course not," Lady Suzann told her, letting out an un-lady like snort. "You, darling, are a seer." She looked the girl in the eyes, making sure she was paying attention. "You are a seer," she repeated, "your future is up to you. Why else do you think that you never see more than a few months or so into your future? Because you, more than any other, has the opportunity to change what may lie in store for you."
The present day Francesca blinked as she enter the once familiar solar; it was more crowded than it had been the last time she'd been here. Her uncle and aunt and one female cousin sat with her grandmother. At first, Francesca thought that they didn't realize that she and Orwell were there, but she was quickly proved wrong.
"Francesca, darling, don't just stand there. Come closer, so that I can see you better, you know my eyes aren't what they used to be." Her grandmother said in her musical voice. Francesca obeyed, thinking that her grandmother's voice reminded her of a person whose mind was some other place – soft and distant, slightly distracted. She also doubted the woman's claim of failing eyes; her eyes were sharp and missed nothing.
"Grandmother," Francesca greeted the woman with a soft kiss on her cheek. "Uncle William, Aunt Catherine, it's been a while." Her family greeted her pleasantly, and with obvious warmth, which was a slightly novel experience for Francesca, especially considering the fact that these were her mother's relatives. She didn't realize that her grandmother had been studying her until the old woman gave a decisive nod.
"Good," she said in a brisk tone. "You haven't let your mother turn you into something you're not." Francesca was surprised at the look on Lady Suzann's face when she spoke of her daughter. Francesca's grandmother seemed to regard her daughter with equal parts contempt and pity.
"Grandmother," Francesca asked hesitantly.
Lady Suzann sighed and shook her head. "Your mother, has always been… shall we say, difficult." Francesca's uncle snorted at the understatement. "She always was jealous that she wasn't the next seer in the family." That surprised Francesca even more – she'd never had any idea.
After that the talk strayed to what had changed and what had stayed the same in her relatives lives. Francesca made a show of paying attention, but her mind was elsewhere. After an hour had pass, Francesca made up her mind. When there was finally a lull in the conversation, she spoke.
"Grandmother, might I speak with you privately?"
"But of course darling," she glanced pointedly at her son and his family. They took the hint and stood. Before they left, her uncle informed Francesca that he would be sending an invitation to her knight-mistress to dine with them for the following evening.
When they were alone, Lady Suzann looked at her granddaughter expectantly, having some vague inkling of the reason the girl wanted to speak to her.
Francesca took a deep breath, and told her grandmother everything – about the prophecy, her hesitation to tell anyone and the message from the goddess via the young seer Irnai. As she spoke, Lady Suzann's eyebrows rose steadily until they could go no higher.
"Well," she said finally, when Francesca had told all. "Well."
"Yes," Francesca agreed softly. "That's about how I feel."
"I understand your reluctance to tell anyone about it," her grandmother began slowly. "But the goddess did send you a message. You can't do this alone." She shook her head. "The decision is yours, darling. Just don't let fear rule your choice."
Francesca left not long after that, reluctantly admitting to herself that her grandmother's refusal to tell her what to do was probably a good thing. She jogged back to the small camp where she and her knight-mistress had their tents pitched. When she arrived, she saw a servant in Arenaver colors leaving the site, Francesca sighed inwardly. She'd hoped to arrive first and inform lady Kel of the incoming invitation.
"My lady," Francesca called as she knocked lightly on one of the tent poles. She entered when the knight bade her to. She was reading the invitation that the servant had brought, her eyebrows raised. She looked at Francesca.
"It appears that we've been invited to dine with the Lord and Lady of Arenaver, tomorrow."
Francesca scuffed one foot in the dirt. "Yes my lady, I'm aware." When she glanced at her knight-mistress, the older woman motioned for her to continue. "They're my relatives, my lady." Francesca admitted hesitantly. She was sure her knight mistress remembered the things her mother had said and she still felt ashamed.
"I see." Was the only reply.
"They're not like my mother," Francesca felt the need to reassure her. The knight was silent for a long time.
"You don't talk about your family much," she noted.
Francesca's mouth twisted. "You've heard the way my mother talks, in private it's even worse." She met Kel's gaze. "To my father, I'm a girl and not even one who will make a decent marriage. To my mother, I'm the reason she can't have any more children and not the daughter she wanted besides." She shrugged; she wasn't complaining just stating facts. "Not all families are happy, my lady. Mine happens to be one of the not happy ones. Talking about it will neither make it better or worse."
Kel nodded slowly, then asked, "And these relatives?"
Francesca shrugged again. "My grandmother lives with my aunt and uncle, so they tend to be more accepting of the unconventional. Besides," Francesca made a dismissive gesture. "I spent more of my childhood with them than with my mother and father. They weren't surprised when I wanted to try for my shield." She grinned suddenly, "Uncle's always saying that only a mad man or an idiot argues with a seer."
Lady Keladry nodded thoughtfully and dismissed her for the evening, Francesca went - she had to check over the knight's gear before the joust tomorrow.
The day dawned cloudy, but no rain fell. Francesca stayed near her knight-mistress until it came time to saddle Peachblossom for her. She met Lady Kel by the tilting field, after checking that she needed nothing else, Francesca left to find a seat in the stands. The lady knight had explained to her squire as Francesca helped to armor her that she preferred to wait in solitude for the tilt to begin. Alan and Liam had saved her a seat. She listened to the knights around her joke and bet.
Several times Neal said that Kel was insane to keep agreeing to joust Lord Wyldon, despite the fact that no one disagreed with him, the knight seemed to feel the need to argue the point. Several seats away some conservative knights bet that the lord of Cavall would unseat the lady knight in the first run. Stealing herself, Francesca leaned around her friends and said in a loud voice.
"Ten gold nobles says Lady Keladry unseats Lord Wyldon." Silence fell in the section she sat in as everyone turned to stare at her.
"You're on!" cried one of the knights, "He's never lost, and he's beaten her twice already now!"
Settling back in her seat she ignored her friends, all of who tried to catch her eye, to see if she knew something that she wasn't sharing. One of the knights behind her leaned forward.
"The point of betting is to choose the option that is likely to pay off," he said kindly.
She did not turn as she responded. "I thought it was to put money on the option you think is most likely to win. I happen to believe that my knight-mistress will win."
In the first pass, both lances shattered. Before accepting their next lances both knights shook out their arms. When the signal came, the two thundered down the field towards each other. They crashed together, and one of the knights seemed to waver in their seat. Each received a new lance for the final pass. The entire stadium seemed to hold its breath. The last time these two knights had jousted, Keladry of Mindelan had been a squire, and Lord Wyldon, who unhorsed everyone, had not unhorsed the female squire. The signal came, and on rushed to two mounts, carrying their knights towards each other.
There was a splintering crash, the crowd watched as both horses danced to keep their riders in the saddle. Slowly, as though he was falling through molasses, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, slipped from his saddle. After a minute more a struggling, the lady knight found her balance, and looked towards her former training master, who was now picking himself up from the ground next to his mount.
The sound – both cheers and shouts of disbelief – was deafening.
Francesca was already headed down to the field to help her mistress. Both she and Lord Wyldon were leading their horses off the field.