The Archer's Lady

"A simple 'I will' will do, my Lady," I grin.

"Then I will, I will, I will. I do love you Robin. Please marry me tonight? Our priest is ready for us and you know he has championed this Union between us for years. It is now only you that needs to agree to our wedding tonight."

I kiss both hands and arise. "I will embrace and kiss you when you are my bride tonight, Elinor, my love. Now I take my leave and go freshen up, if I may, Sire?" I turn to my King.

"Indeed! Be off with you, the sooner you are both wed, the sooner the bridal break-fast can begin, for I've not vittled a morsel since sun-up and we are well sun-down and the candles be alit!"

Chapter 12

Achambered

No, I was not achambered with my dear friend, the snoring Hugh, nor my old friend and priest mentor Father Andrew, who married my Lady and me before the assembly tonight of family and friends. I am in our own chamber, with my new bride, Elinor, my Lady, my lover, my new best friend. We speak long into the night, entwined in the alternate excitement and comfort of sweet, romantic love, with a little pain and a lot of ecstasy, fulfilling joy and eager experiments in seeking understanding of the differences and the samenesses of our bodies and those feelings that arise to give us pleasure in our joining.

We are one in our hopes for the future and conjoined in our desire for children to grow and fill our joyous lives together. Elinor has run estates before and she will escort me around our continental possessions first. She has no direct claim on Gervaise's properties in Flanders nor those rude estates he inherited in Lancashire and Cambridgeshire, but those possessions that have no clear heir will be confiscated by the Crown of England for Gervaise's acts of treason, says her father, and thereafter charged in trust with both Elinor and I.

"Tomorrow we will work out a scheme by which we will visit all of the places on Rebecca's list of our combined assets. She will accompany us as we visit these places, she is astute in her observations as what we can easily manage between us, with your new duties and bringing up a family, and what would be better sold off or leased out."

"So, do we both have to swear allegiance to Charles in Flanders again?"

"Aye, and be prepared to tell him more stories of our trip to the Caen dungeon and our mighty bluff with King Henry at the stronghold at Falaise. You know, sweetheart, that everywhere I went, in whatever country I was in these recent years, I would hear troubadours singing of the love story of 'Will and Alwen', or sometimes it was the 'Song of the Archer and his Lady', where the heroes in the song both fired darts into the breast of the King her father's would-be assassin, even in places where they knew not that I was the Archer's Lady in the song?"

"So you were constantly reminded of us and my family, that has become our family as one now?"

"Aye, constantly, but I was resolved to never bother you by my presence or my feelings for you. Even Rebecca, who was in constant communication with you and I, knowing exactly where you were, said nothing after the first couple times when she noticed me wince at the mention of your name."

"And Gervaise seemed ambivalent about us."

"Aye, it seems he would have allowed us to be together, if it were to his advantage, but I knew your sensibilities would have rebelled against such a sordid arrangement, as would I. We both know now that Gervaise was never kidnapped but was actually the ringleader of the rebellion, pretending to support William Clito, who was probably yet another of his many lovers, in his bid for the Dukedom of Normandy and the Crown of England through me as the daughter of my father. I think that is what he was pretending to do back in 1121, when trying to tempt out into the open any would-be rebels, he was identifying them for his future use and then hoped to manipulate them into accepting me as Queen and Gervaise as my Consort, once all other claimants were eliminated. The attempt by Henry to annul the marriage, earlier this year, made him show his hand before he was truly ready to carry out his plan."

"Perhaps the letter he carried between kings spoke of the annulment?"

"Aye, the Bishop of Rouen is subject to the ancient Archbishopric of Sens, which is under the control of King Louis. Even the Pope doesn't understand the close relationship between state and church when Kings are at the very centre of power in their kingdoms."

"So the Bishop of Rouen was loyal to King Henry?"

"Aye, he was appointed by my father, not the Pope. He was brave in taking part in the march on the gatehouse."

"He was, but I was more impressed by your archery from the roof of the Chateau, so many arrows, delivered so accurately, in such a short space of time, eleven darts in thirty seconds I counted."

"Ah, I must confess that Alwen fired three or four of them. I wanted them to think that there were half a dozen archers who were able to target them precisely."

"Ah, now you've told me, I remember as a boy of nine, Alwen first showed me how to use a bow made by my father and left behind on his first visit." I muse. "I know not how oft she practised, but I know she can draw and fire a bow."

"She can, Rob, and accurate enough to impress you," she says as she climbs out of our bridal bed, "but now I have something to show you to impress you."

"I am already impressed my love, your beauty in the moonlight is what attracted me to,you in the first place."

She smiles at me as she takes a linen bag from her dresser at the foot of the bed and takes out a fist sized rock from the bag.

"This is what Gervaise wanted, it is worth a King's ransom and more."

She holds up the pear shaped rock and presents it to a beam of nearly full moonlight streaming through the window of our bedchamber. Suddenly the room, walls and ceiling is flooded with flashes of blue light and rainbows, as she twists and turns the Cornflower Jewel in the light beam, creating flashes of light that light up my bride's naked body, making her look even more beautiful than I thought earthly possible.

"Tomorrow, the Jewel will be back in Rebecca's timeless care, awaiting a time when it can be released to buy Breton's freedom or inspiration for independence, or simply lay hid for some future purpose we know not what. But it is a thing of natural beauty that appears greater than any brideprice."

"Aye, Elinor, it is beautiful and maybe it is an inspiration that might make a subjugated nation rise up in its hour of need. But it is also cold and old and only ours in trust, its true purpose only to be guessed at and may not be even be realised in our relatively short lifetimes. Right now the beautiful thing I want to hold is warm and young, and more inspiration to make me rise up than any mere stone, and more important to me through what is left of our lifetime together than any object however priceless it may be. Come back to bed my love and answer my needs."

"Your command is my wish, my love," she says and comes back to bed, the jewel closed in its bag and hidden once more in the dresser, while my beautiful jewel of a wife offers herself up to me once more, on this our wedding night.

The end