Morning.
The stable. The mountains. The inn.
Endless horizons.
Lord Darcy and Elizabeth sleep late. Then they make tea by the fire, just outside. Around them travelers get ready to depart. The water boils in the kettle.
Lord Darcy wonders. The Bennett family is not very traditional, but he just spent a day and a night with an unmarried, genteel born woman. A more ambitious father than old Bennett could try to force the union. Of course the rules are more lax now, after the Calamity, and if tongues begin to wag, Darcy could always find witnesses to his and Elizabeth's chaste behavior – in this very stable, for instance. But he does not think it will happen. Old Bennett may be eccentric and somewhat obnoxious, but he is not ambitious, or greedy.
Elizabeth sips her tea. She seems happy.
Lord Darcy cannot picture himself married to Fair Maid Caroline.
He cannot imagine her sipping tea at his side.
-P-
When they come back home the point is moot though – nobody cares about Elizabeth's honor. Because there was a blood moon, and something went very very wrong.
The land is under attack. Lord Darcy's domain, his people, his responsibility. The twin peaks have fallen; hordes of monsters surge inside the natural frontiers of rock, trees and traditions that constitute the realm of men. The Bennett domain – Longbourn Stronghold – is on the path of the creatures, and it is already under siege.
The fortress has to hold. If it falls, everything is lost.
Six hours later Lord Darcy is on site with half of his army; the other half patrols to protect paths and passes; another attack, on the flank and they would be overwhelmed.
Yes. Longbourn has to hold.
-P-
The siege lasts for a hundred days and one, and then some. But on day one hundred and one, Lord Darcy proposes marriage to Elizabeth Bennett in the Hunsford drawing room.
He has to. His misguided passion for this woman has become an obsession he has to get rid of. When you're in the midst of battle and your thoughts turn to her, when you walk on the wall thinking about tactics above a sea of mortal enemies and your mind wanders, when you enter Longbourn's great hall and instead of looking at the hundred dead or dying soldiers lying on the stone floor, your eyes go and search for her, you do not make a good leader of men.
So yes, proposing is the only way Lord Darcy has to regain his sanity. And also – he cannot wed Fair Maid Caroline. Not now, not after those weeks of bravery and bloodshed – not anymore. Can you imagine Caroline – her jewels, feathers and manners – in such a situation? Tending to hurt soldiers. Blood and gore and vomit. Running up and down the stairs of the towers, carrying supplies or water or whatever else is needed on the walls.
Each time Lord Darcy's hungry eyes find Elizabeth (and to his shame it is often) she is acting like the lady of the manor, being in the midst of it all, distributing food, tending to the wounded, directing women and servants so Longbourn fortress runs right, allowing the men to focus on their grim duty. Yes, Elizabeth is directing it all. Maybe that role should have fallen to Fair Jane, as the eldest, but command is not in the character of that sweet creature – Fair Jane does not lack occupation though, she spends her time in the infirmary, or consoling men in their agony – of course the Bennett mother had locked up herself up in her room to wail.
Charles fights like a knight, like a lion. They take turns on the walls. When it is Charles' time to sleep, he goes down to visit Fair Jane, to hold her hand in his, just for a moment – and oh the way she looks at him – Lord Darcy sees Charles steal a kiss once – he averts his eyes – envy is not a pretty feeling.
Another reason for him to offer marriage to Elizabeth, and fast.
-P-
Lord Darcy convokes Elizabeth Bennett in the Hunsford drawing room, turned into a makeshift armory. She arrives with a hurried air, tense and tired, but eager to do what's right. Lord Darcy quickly tells her of his intentions – he is in a hurry as well. They could marry from here, he explains, in Longbourn chapel, he just has to send for his priest, in Pemberley – he'd rather have a more competent minister to bless their union than the old and ragged monk on Bennett land, that pretends to serve Goddess Hylia on the crumbling ruin he calls a temple.
Elizabeth is stunned.
"T-thank you, my Lord," she answers after a short pause. "I… I am honored… obviously…" She seems to hesitate. No, she actually hesitates. "I am sorry," she finally adds. "I do have the greatest admiration and respect for you, but…"
His mind struggles to adjust. "But," she repeats, "we would not suit. You are a very serious man – which does you honor, my Lord – but I… I do not… I do not wish…" Her voice falters.
His turn to be stunned. Then he paces up and down the room, trying to control his irritation, his disbelief. This – this is folly. How can she refuse him? In her position! How – it is all so nonsensical. He tells her so, in a voice that badly controls his anger – that does not control it at all, to be honest. He talks of her father and financial ruin, of Elizabeth's own lack of prospects – he speaks of her ridiculous, farm born mother, of her sisters – the way they dishonor Bennett House each time they open their damn mouths – he speaks of what he sacrifices by proposing to her – what all the oracles say, what the Goddess says – his own family will laugh at him for disgracing himself and stooping so low – Elizabeth is livid.
And soon, furious, too. They fight. It is disgraceful – she flees the room, tears of furor and humiliation in her eyes.
He is left alone.
-P-
He goes back to battle.
He is numb, for days. He kills. He defends, he leads, he harangues – whatever is needed of him. Only a part of his mind is working, but it does the job. Charles comes to him during a gap in the midst of the last assault. Charles has a scar on the left side of his face and his shoulder is bleeding – he seems in a strange state of euphoria. "She said yes," he whispers, eyes shining, joy vibrating, "Fair Jane accepted my offer – we are going to be wed – if we survive the day, that is." Charles laughs – then he takes Lord Darcy in his arms and holds him close – his happiness overflowing, "oh, my friend, my brother, my liege," he whispers, "I wanted you to know –"
Lord Darcy embraces him back. He says what he ought, and the part of him that is not frozen means it. He has been such a fool. How could he think that Charles was not really attached to Fair Jane, when they were dancing together, at the Netherfield celebrations? How could Lord Darcy have misjudged – everything – well at least he did not misjudge the enemy, or the strategy to employ, because after one hundred thirty days and one, at last the monsters are vanquished.
Weeks pass. Dead enemies turn to dust. Dead humans are burnt on large stakes, they are too numerous to bury.
A new blood moon rises, and all the enemies with it, but precautions have been taken. There are new walls, new guards, new patrols, new barriers. Avalanches of rocks are ready to annihilate monsters if they dare enter the passes. Archers with burning arrows mount guard on every bridge. The land is safe, for now.
-P-
That is when Wickham accuses Elizabeth Bennett of being impure.
Wickham announces, for the world to know, that Elizabeth seduced him, laid naked at his side, and committed the sin of flesh. The word of a man is of course stronger than the word of a woman, so Elizabeth is arrested and thrown in a cell.
There will be a trial. If it is established that Wickham tells the truth, Elizabeth will be hanged.
Like Georgiana would be if people knew.
Wickham has played his cards well. For his accusations, he has chosen a day where Lord Darcy is away, in Pemberley castle – if they had met Lord Darcy would have killed him on sight.
And none of this is about Elizabeth, really. This is all about Lord Darcy. Wickham is his oldest friend, his oldest rival, his oldest enemy. Such hatred between the two men, as can only exist between brothers – because maybe Wickham is, as they all whisper, the bastard of Darcy's own father. Anyway – Wickham knows, somehow. He wants to murder the woman who has caught Darcy's heart. For pleasure, for fun. For the thrill of seeing his former childhood companion's face when the maid he cherishes swings dead on a rope, her face blue.
(Maybe Wickham is not aware that Elizabeth rejected Darcy. Maybe he does and does not care.)
It takes four days for Darcy to gallop back to Longbourn. The trial is already underway. Charles has bravely undertaken Elizabeth's defense, swearing on his honor as to his fiancée's sister's purity – ready to challenge Wickham to a duel to the death to prove that truth and the Goddess are on his side… but of course Wickham has vanished.
The trial will go on anyway, without the presence of the accuser. As women, the mother and the sisters cannot bear witness. Old Bennett comes to the bench. To everybody's surprise, his testimony in favor of his daughter is passionate, clever, convincing – but it is really Lord Darcy that saves the day. He walks into the trial room and drops his heavy sword on the judges' table with a metallic clang, and he swears to Elizabeth's chastity. "This is the blade that saved the land," he says. "Do you dare call me a liar, in front of my people?"
The judges do not dare.
-P-
Elizabeth is free, but ugly rumors follow her like shadows. Her conduct must have been at fault, somehow. New stories arise – she being alone in Lord Darcy's sole company, in the mountains, for two days and a night. Maybe Lord Darcy paid the judges. Maybe Wickham was jealous of Elizabeth's favors.
Maybe she laid with both of them.
Lord Darcy orders Wickham's murder. "Slit his throat in the night," he orders, not to Charles – Charles is too honorable for such a task – but to Darcy's cousin, Richard, of House Fitzwilliam. Richard is a knight too, and very loyal, but he has no problem getting his hands dirty.
Richard looks for Wickham himself, but he also whispers to the world of adventurers, brigands and treasures hunters that House Darcy will give two thousands rupees to whomever brings proof of the man's demise. Two possible outcomes. Wickham is killed, or he is so scared that he disappears forever. Both are acceptable.
Elizabeth Bennett stays a month more in Longbourn. She wants to stand at her sister's wedding – despite the gossip, the insults and the cuts – and she does.
Then, when Lord Darcy comes back into town, he hears that one hour after Fair Jane's marriage, Elizabeth went up into her room, put men's pants on, took her father's old travel sword, and left.
-P-
Three years pass.
-P-
When Lord Darcy hears that Elizabeth Bennett is back, Fair Maid Caroline is long gone. After Lord Darcy had taken Elizabeth's side at the trial, after he hardly looked at Caroline for months on end, Charles' sister surprised everybody by brutally announcing she was marrying a rich, old relative from House Elliott. She went to live with the man, his ambers and rubies in a high castle somewhere in Gerudo.
(Lord Darcy felt a great relief, and maybe Charles secretly did too – Fair Maid Caroline was very condescending to Jane.)
Lord Darcy has no reason to visit Longbourn.
He has no reason to visit Elizabeth. He does not know if he has the right. He does not know if he would be welcome.
Later he learns she is not living at home. She arrived in Longbourn indeed, to embrace her father, mother and sisters, she stayed one night in her old room but then left for the top of Mount Boman, where she resides in a very little house – not even a cabin, almost a hut, rumor says – as a sort of hermit. Lord Darcy tries to know more. Elizabeth is not starving, he learns. She has some money, somehow. And her father welcomed her back.
She just wants to be alone.
-P-
Six months pass. Every morning for six months Lord Darcy wants to take his horse and ride to her.
When he finally does, it is not even dawn. Pemberley Great Hall is dark. Lord Darcy goes down in the kitchens to gather some food. He takes money, wakes up his Constable and Charles, telling them that he will be back in a week.
He does not say where he's going.
When he arrives at Mount Boman three days later, afternoon light is turning golden. The sky is crazy blue, and while it should be blazing hot, it is too high for that. The view is spectacular, Necluda Lake to the west – the air is so clear, one can detect the reflection of glittering snow far away. The sight is familiar. Darcy came here, when he was a boy, to glide with his parents, when they were still alive.
Elizabeth comes out of her cabin (not a hut).
"My Lord," she says, very formally, with a bow more than a curtsey, as she is wearing men clothing (linen, ocher and beige), a curtsey would have been out of place.
She does not seem surprised. Like she was waiting for him.
"Am I looking so strange?" she adds with a smile, and he realizes he has been staring at her this whole time.
"Never, madam," he answers. "I was just noticing the changes – how tanned you are – and how thin." He gestures toward the trousers. "And I see that despite all our debates on rules," he adds with amusement, "you succeeded, at last, to wear what you wanted."
"So I did."
He bows. "And here I was thinking that my philosophical arguments had convinced you."
"Does philosophy ever convince anyone?"
"Not even the one speaking it."
Elizabeth laughs. "Oh my! I owe you an apology, my Lord."
"I doubt it," he says, his voice deep. Thinking of all the ways he has injured her, or the way Wickham did, because of him.
Elizabeth's smile grows wider. "But really, I do. I accused you of being too serious, but I realize now how wrong I was. You do have a calm, discreet, flowing sense of irony, which does not lack for charm, I believe."
He cannot answer. He can only stare at her some more.
She gestures toward the grass, and the view.
"I have no food fit for such an exalted guest, but I can offer you hot sweetened wine, fruits, and a seat in the sun."
"And conversation, I hope."
"And conversation," she confirms.
"I do have many things to say to you."
She hesitates.
"So do I," she finally says.
Then she goes to get the wine, and maybe it is his imagination, but she seems a little flustered.
