We know what we are
…but not what we may be.
-Hamlet, William Shakespeare, 1601
It was announced at breakfast the next morning that Claude and Helena had pledged undying love to each other and meant to be married. Despite the frequency of this occurrence in the general population, everyone was as excited as if he was the first man and she the first woman to have ever fallen in love with each other.
A similar phenomenon occurred with babies, Edmund decided; it was always declared that each new one was the only star in the heavens, even though they were all equally wrinkled and distressingly Loud. As it was, rejoicing overflowed like beer brewing gone wrong.
Claude proposed that they all ride out hawking and this plan was seized upon immediately by everyone. Peter thought it was a splendid idea and the ladies agreed; Edmund noted that Peter's sprained shoulder only became excruciatingly painful when he was presented with something he didn't want to do.
Lord Peridan (who had yet to complain about his finger), ordered the horses be saddled, and they all sallied forth with the falconers and two spaniels. Edmund wondered once again why Claude had fallen in love with Helena when her cousin outshone her as the sun outshines the moon. Lady Beatha was perched on her white horse in a brown habit, with a gray feather curling from her hat, and eyes that flashed like a whipcrack. It was a question which Edmund did not care to unravel; Claude had never made much sense to him.
Their hawking party was not particularly successful. They spent more time identifying wildflowers than flying the peregrines. Once or twice, they spotted a deer, or a wily fox, or heard the quick feet of a wildcat. They came out of the forest into farmland where miles of wheat billowed like a silvery-green sea, and golden hay was drying in the noonday sun. It was a hot day, and the clouds that were piling dark gray beyond the brilliant sunlit trees spoke of a coming storm.
They met a few travelers coming down the narrow road. As was his way, Peter asked each one to stop and break bread with them, but they were all too busy, all in a dreadful hurry, all completely unaware that they had just been offered hospitality by a king. Peter smiled a little at it and shook his head.
"People like that are always going somewhere and somehow never get there," he remarked. "All of life unfolds around them and they never see it."
Some distance up the road, they saw a scarlet figure on a white horse. As they approached, they saw that it was an old woman, hunched and misshapen. Her mantle was made of red velvet and she had a broad-brimmed hat upon her head; beneath her wimple she was ruddy-faced and had a ready gap-toothed smile. Her hands were twisted and arthritic, but she held the reins dexterously and checked her horse at the sight of them.
"Well met, my lords and ladies," said she.
"Well met, lady," Peter replied, bowing in his saddle. "We are stopping for noonings. Could you be persuaded to join us?"
"How could I not be persuaded by such a gallant offer?" she asked. Peter threw back his head and laughed.
They dismounted from their horses near a stream and walked to the shade under the trees. It had fallen to Edmund to lift the ladies down from their horses since Peter's shoulder was still sprained (could he ever forget?) and Lord Peridan's finger was still broken.
Food was produced from saddlebags, it was simple fare, but they were a joyful party, and anything would seem like a feast to them. The talk washed back and forth like waves in a harbor and presently they began to tell tales of knights and dragons and damsels in distress.
When the woman (whose name was Alison) was called upon, she told the tale of Troilus, a young warrior, who mocked romance and was punished when he fell in love with Criseyde, the daughter of a seer. They broke faith with each other; she, after she was traded for a hostage and saw the impossibility of going back, and he, when he gave up an attempt to rescue her after seeing her flirting with another man.
"We see her after the war, wandering the enemy camp, struck with leprosy, her beauty and youth taken from her," the old woman continued. "Many years later, Troilus passed by her as she begged on the roadside, but it was too late; she was blinded by her illness and could not see him, and he was overcome with grief, but did not wish to know her... 'Then rode away, and not a word he spake.'"
"What became of her?" Beatha asked in the hushed silence.
"She died."
"Romance is not what is told in stories," Beatha said, and her voice quavered a little. "They swore love, but perhaps they had both been fools when they swore it. Must two people be bound together forever because of a hasty, misguided promise? Must the ending of such a story always be a tragedy?"
There was silence. Peter glanced at his brother, but Edmund did not care to speak.
"That is the thing I like best about stories," Peter remarked, breaking the fragile silence, "The endings can always be rewritten; the flaws corrected. Sometimes in life itself the ending can be changed, the tale made to take a new course. It does not have to be set down in stone."
~o*o~
That afternoon, after they had returned from their hawking expedition, Edmund and a book of Philosophy went out to the garden together to read under a rose trellis. Lady Beatha's comment about becoming mildewed had struck home and he decided to kill two birds with one stone by reading outside. It was a valiant decision, seeing as the insect world sent up a general call to arms when he was sighted and came charging in for an attack. He could almost hear bugles blowing.
He was somewhere between Aesthetics and Axiology when he heard the sound of voices beyond the arbor. He could recognize Peter's voice anywhere, and Lord Peridan's quieter tones. He thought about hailing them, then heard Claude's chatter and changed his mind.
"…for example, the story that woman told," Peter was saying thoughtfully, "Your sister became quite exercised about it. More exercised, I think, than she would have been had she felt nothing."
"I do not pretend to understand my sister," Lord Peridan replied, his voice measured, "But I must say that there is no man for whom she has shown so much passion as for your brother."
"I think it may be all the wrong kind of passion," Claude interjected.
"No," Peter replied, "I think the lady protests too much; she is too particular about making the world think she hates him. When I mentioned him to her last night, I saw a great sadness there that she tries to hide with her scorn."
"She has an invincible spirit," Lord Peridan replied, "For a long time, I thought her incapable of falling in love, but I am also beginning to suspect that she has. How did they first fall out, do you know?"
"No," Peter replied, laughing, "Nor would I ask if I value my life."
"What of King Edmund's feelings toward her?" Lord Peridan asked, and the gravel crunched under his feet as he turned.
"Edmund always keeps his council close," Peter replied, "But I'll wager he feels more than he is showing. He has never been given to passing fancies; if he loved her once, then he loves her still."
Their voices were becoming more distant as they turned a corner at the hedge, but Edmund had sharp ears and could still make out their words.
"Here's a thought," Claude was saying. "How would it be if we three declared in his hearing that Lady Beatha loves him and is almost sick for him, then in the meantime, Helena and her ladies say in the lady's hearing that he is almost dead for her? In that way, all hostilities would be forgotten as they meditate on love unrequited."
Peter laughed, "It's a tempting proposition, but no. This matter goes far too deep for practical jokes, even if they are well intentioned…"
If he said more, it was lost in the distance.
Edmund abruptly closed his book. Even Epistemology couldn't hold his interest after overhearing such a conversation. He remained where he was until he knew they were gone, then he left the arbor and began to wander around the garden, watching butterflies as the sun began to sink beyond the pink painted stones of the castle.
There was a crunch of gravel and Edmund considered for a moment that he was hallucinating when he looked up and saw Lady Beatha advancing down the garden path. She stopped abruptly in front of him.
"Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner."
"I thank you for your pains," he said, returning her disdain with gentleness for the first time in three years. He smiled at her as he used to, without derision or scorn, and just as she used to when he sought her eyes, she smiled in return.
"If it had been painful, I would have left you to starve," she said.
"I am gratified that there is still a little compassion left in your heart for me," he said quietly.
"Only so much as you might have for a lobster," she replied crisply, suddenly remembering herself. "Cold-blooded and beady-eyed."
Edmund laughed and shook his head. Peter must have been suffering from delusions if he thought she still loved him. He had been called many things in his life, but never yet a lobster. He hoped it was one of those rare blue kind.
"I hope you at least took pleasure in the garden under the afternoon sun," he said. "Some things can offset even the great evil of conversing with King Edmund."
"A little perhaps," she said and much to his surprise, she took the arm he offered her, "But for the most part I must just be strong and try to bear it. I have heard it said that trials build good character. Conversing with King Edmund and passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death are not dissimilar."
"Such sufferings must have built in you character of colossal proportions," he replied, "I would have thought, by this time, it would be apparent to the rest of us."
She looked up at him with flashing eyes. "Ah! There is King Edmund," she said, "I feared for a moment when you behaved in such a gentle knightly way that you were suffering from sunstroke. I am overjoyed that you are well."
Edmund did not attempt to parry her attack and she seemed momentarily disappointed. They had walked in gardens many times in silence, but those silences had been filled with exquisite harmony. This silence was deafening in its discordance.
He wanted to speak, but he couldn't form words, and he found when he opened his mouth that he still had his pride. He had, for a long time, resolved that he would not be the one to bridge the gulf. Let her speak of the past if she wished it. He would let bygones be bygones.
She let go of his arm when they reached the hall, and he knew that she would not be caught dead coming into dinner with her arch enemy.
Production Note: Lady Alison, or the Wife of Bath from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, dropped through a wormhole into this story on her way to Canterbury Cathedral. She's very annoyed that we had her recount an amalgamation of three different versions of 'Troilus and Criseyde' instead of the one spun by her creator. She has since returned to 14th century England, grumbling all the while.