For As Long As I Live

When next I waken, my leaded eyes come open with intent. Purpose tugs immediately upon the marionette strings so bidding me to rise and my feet find their place upon the chilly, wooden floor of my bedchambers.

I fix the metal chain of my mother's delicate cross like a cold, gilded kiss of my neck before bundling the long, wild length of brown hair draping about my chemise and retrieve my brush to begin working it straight again.

By the time I call for Maud, her hastened footsteps approaching my chambers, I've made great time in my newly driven efforts and have seated myself before the mirror, having already just about finished getting ready for her help in pinning my hair.

“I see you've already risen,” she says as she enters. “Oh, Lady Ellie, you are quite ready to go this morning, aren't you?”

I nod firmly.

“Today, I am going to be as I should," I so declare. "For my beloved's sake.”

Maud draws my hair together behind my back, beginning her process of taking my hair up for me.

“Well lady, you'll have to forgive me for making sure to remind you not to strain yourself,” she says, placing the first pin. “I know not how you do it, staying awake late into the evening hours and still seeming so sharpened…Lady Ellie?”

She pauses as my eyes finally catch hers through the reflection of the mirror.

“You're right, Maud…” I offer, resting my eyes closed for only but a quiet moment. “I am exhausted." 

My words are a quiet admission, mourning the sleep I had not the fortune of claiming in the evening before this dreadful day had begun.

This incredibly long, hellish day…

“...So utterly exhausted…”

I open my eyes, bidding a somber farewell to the abandoned rest.

“But I suppose what's done is done and I should try to make the most of the decisions I've already made.”

Any moment now, I should expect some form of scolding; to be told that I should go back to bed, that I do not look well or like myself, or that I should perhaps hold off on seeing Larkin…

…But no such concerns come to be levied. Instead, Maud simply offers a reluctant but affirming nod as she finishes with my hair and begins moving to fetch my cotehardie.

“Just promise you will get some proper rest at the end of the day, okay?”

…I grimace at the lady looking back at me in the mirror and then turn to offer a smile at my dear friend, waving away her concern.

“Oh worry not, dear Maud, I am quite certain that you won't have to concern yourself about that at all.”

—

I am out of my chambers and into the hall in record time, following its length toward the stairs leading down into my brother's foyer when I hear exactly what I have been anticipating at their end.

“God be with you, goodwife. Might I have the pleasure of visiting with Lady Eleanor? Is she able to accept company?”

I stop at the top of the stairs, choosing instead to quietly observe.

“I shall go and let her know that you are here, sir,” offers Elizabeth as she steps away to hold the door open for my visitor. “Perhaps you would like to step inside and allow my husband to prepare you something to eat?”

He smiles warmly but holds up a declining hand, stating, “I'll just patiently await your return out here.”

Elizabeth only offers an unamused stare before plainly stating, “if you would allow me one moment then please,” only for her to perk up upon seeing me already at the top of the stairs.

“Ah, Lady Ellie, you're here,” she says with a look of understandable surprise as I come down. "Sir Laurence is here to visit you."

“And good morning to you, Elizabeth,” I say with a polite nod before turning to Larkin.

“My love, you'll always be welcome here, you know.”

But, as always, he only smiles and tells me, “I'd never so dare intrude upon you, Lady Eleanor,” with that stupid charm of his.

Though I cannot help but feel a kind of relief in those words. Already it feels as though t'is been ages since I'd last been able to speak with him like this; ages since I've been able to feel this way, like an outpost in the middle of wasteland—his adoring voice, those lovely, earthy curls of his—It's enough to have made me weak at the knees after all I've been through.

…How I wish I could forget the things that now so anchor me from floating away…

Our conversation carries on about as it should; not bringing up the coming battle, only drawing his mind from it. The chatter of small talk makes the event feel so much lighter, as though it were only but an early example of the many more talks we might have had to come. He asks of how I slept and I tell him much the same as what I had told Maud.

And he too expresses concern but still allows me to passively excuse it.

“I have good reason for it, though. One which I'm certain you might approve of!” I say, my voice even managing to harbor a bit of joviality within.

“Oh?” He questions, playfully leaning into the bit. “Pray, what might this reason be that is of such great importance that my love must so relentlessly fatigue herself?”

“Close your eyes,” I command. He does so and I move to his sword arm, snapping for him not to peak when I spy him ever so slightly glance my way and then come about with a sly idea.

I draw around behind him instead, producing the finely embroidered ribbon from my sleeve and then pull it across his eyes before securing it tightly.

“This is a fine silk,” he says almost making me ruin the whole show with a stifled laugh when he asks, “what kind of woman carries around such an expensive handkerchief?”

Just to further tease him then, I lead him by the hand, pulling him around in a circle before turning him about to face me.

“Alright,” I say, “go ahead and look now.”

He draws up the ribbon, looking around and then down at me again expectantly.

“...Well, what is it?”

“What? Do you not see it?” I tease. “My love, t'is written all over your face.”

He narrows his eyes, confused.

“Written all over my—…?”

Then he glances up and removes the favour from his forehead to inspect the front of it and his reaction could all but melt my heart.

I take it from him, pulling free the knot before so carefully drawing it around his sword arm once, and then twice, as I ritualistically fasten it to him. “Let this be a reminder of my adoration and my affection; my hopes that you will never forget that you are loved…”

I suddenly find it so unexpectedly hard to contain myself when I wish to say ‘and that you will remember me until it is returned’ but find that I cannot, and a tear errantly escapes down my cheek before I can wipe it away.

“Eleanor…”

“I'm sorry,” I say, gathering what little strength I can. I know not what strength my father saw in me, for I have so little.

“I'm just so happy, my love,” I say.

There's a moment I wonder if he will finally see through the white lies I so tell him…but the moment passes and he offers me a warm smile and envelops me into his chest.

“I will treasure this,” he declares and I know not if he speaks of me or the favour I've given him.

“For as long as it is mine…”

—

The rest of the day plays out much like that, in quiet pain as I once again face my discomfort of arms and visit him at the mustering of the cavalry. I get to meet Salvator again and, once more, reject the opportunity to pet him, and then I have to quietly complete my duty as Larkin's primary source of emotional support as I stand for him and solemnly hand him over, letting the Lord do with him as he so wishes.

I know not what kind of cruel god so dismissively toys with his subjects, but I ask him not, for I already know what his answer would be.

Utter silence.

That afternoon I attend the cathedral, with Maud and the other servants of my brother's household, just as my duty entails. I bid well Bishop Henry, and quietly pray for my love even if I know that nothing will so come of it. I wait in dreadful patience for the battle to come to its painful end and then solemnly stand to depart when my brother's household knights return.

And I go to where my beloved lies again…I look upon his empty eyes, deathly paled skin, and the broken shaft of the lance within his stomach. I come to tearfully kneel at his side, offer a gentle kiss upon his brow, and simply remain as so should the wife I've wanted him to make of me…

…And then I wake again…

Again I so do this; live out the day as my duty demands, for if I know not of how to put a halt to it, then the very best I might otherwise do is to be there for my beloved.

It hurts…every time.

Every. Single. Time. It so hurts to look upon him. To find him so broken and then so full of life and his love for me and then nothing but sanglant emptiness in his beautiful eyes like fine crystal as he smiles upon me, waiting so patiently to come inside.

It warms me.

It chills me.

My heart is so full…

…And yet I am so empty.

I become so good at getting through my day that I've grown to generally anticipate it all. I know by instinct when my love is to arrive, when Larkin goes to muster, when the battle is to begin and end, and when the procession of victorious knights are to arrive at the cathedral. I know not many so exact particularities—perhaps only a few of the things Maud or Larkin might say to me in the mornings—but I am aware enough to work with it as though I were a clothier planning around the daily tasks and logistics of what might be accomplished.

T'is all that I have in my day. That and perhaps seeing him in the morning. I love nothing more in my life than bestowing my favour upon him and seeing the way he suddenly comes to glow like a rushlight. I live for it.

And I live for him.

Which is why I haven't yet given it to him this time. I want to give it to him when it might mean the most and, though I know not when that might be, I have an idea.

The shortcut I've experimented with taking through town has proven quite effective in what is my first attempt of its navigation over toward the western gate. I've not only made it with plenty of time, I've even somehow managed to beat my love—and many of the other men-at-arms—to their muster.

The glow of pride I have must be vibrant.

“Excuse me,” calls a voice.

Odd…I've never been so addressed in any of the other times I've seen Larkin off…

“Yes?” I call, turning to the voice I do not quite recognize at first. But, when I come to spot him, t'is hard not to remember. Just as hard as it would be to ignore him.

The man sits mounted atop a large, ebon destrier, wearing the sort of fluted, linseed-blackened and exquisitely-trimmed, gothic harness of one who wears the prestige of his office and prowess in the field quite literally upon his sleeve.

Earl marshal to the crown, the duke of Caftonshire, and my brother's liege lord, Lord Edmund Cafton.

“Good afternoon, Lord Edmund,” I say with hastened curtsey.

“Good afternoon, young lady Eleanor,” he says in the telltale gruffness of his years in the saddle of command. “You're not here this early to see us off, are you?”

Though he is not quite of an elderly age yet, the duke openly wears the fatigue of his service as the primary commander under both the many years of old Henry V's reign and the current stint of Edward III. The skin under his eyes is creased, balding hair on his head—what has regrown since its total shaving—is white as though speckled with kitchen salt.

But his exterior serves not to detract from the power that radiates from him when posted next to the handful of other knights at his side, and it straightens my back tight in his presence.

“I am here to see my betrothed off with the knights of my brother's household,” I say in tight nervousness as though reporting the status of a guardpost.

I know not even why I am so tense and wonder if he might feel it too, for his expression only brightens in a soft smile.

“Your father ought to have been proud of his children. His son is under the cross and his daughter remains here in her brother's stead, behaving more like a knight than he ever did.”

He smirks, leaning back in the seat of his saddle toward one of his knights before remarking, “I wish half of us here had family as diligent as this.”

He sits back upright.

“Lady Eleanor,” he says and I cannot help but feel such relief in that he is so persistently respectful in calling me by my actual, proper name.

“...Do you want to know something? I can guarantee that most of the common men on the wall to the South—my men of the militia, my armati, and the archers of the yeomanry—they so have already seen their loved ones and are enjoying their company right now. My men here are not always so lucky and they're the ones who will be putting their necks on the line. The wall is the safest place to be in a battle like this and the families of the common folk still go to visit them more!”

He smiles warmly, putting me at great ease as the cluster of arriving knights slowly builds into something more formidable.

“What I mean to say is, I admire the dedication you show to your men and any of these knights would be happy to see the kind of support you offer them.”

…After this many days of simply doing my best in supporting the one I love most, I almost want to cry with that articulation.

“Thank you, my lord. It truly means so much to hear that.”

“I'll do my best to see them back to you,” he says. “Take care of yourself, Lady Eleanor.”

Then, with a nod, he returns to the growing crowd of men, leaving me to scan for Larkin, though it does not take so very long to find him and, upon spotting me, approaches from atop Salvator to greet me.

“Lady Eleanor!” He says, ecstatically pressing the spring catch of his bevor to reveal the astonished smile of endearment upon his lips. He moves to stand in his stirrups, undoubtedly meaning to climb down before getting closer with the intimidating destrier for my sake but I approach of my own volition before he can and, with a confused look, he then rests back down against his saddle.

Salvator, as always, is arguably more concerned with me than the inverse as he seems to nudge himself back at my approach until Larkin suggests him into a halt.

“Shh-it's alright, Sal—My love, what are you doing here?” He asks in befuddled excitement.

“Can your betrothed not come to offer you her love?” I ask, playfully.

If he so keeps speaking to me with my full name as though I were his mother, then I shall give him something that his heart might better consider.

“I am here because I have an obligation to fulfill,” I explain, growing louder in my words as I begin to find my confidence. “To you, I owe not just my love, by every prayer and well wish that might find my lips throughout this day…”

The knights who followed with my love, those present of my household, and a few other men-at-arms look my way curiously as I draw the ribbon from my sleeve.

“...Ellie…”

“Though I am only but one lady, and the prayers of one lowly sinner may not be enough...”

I step closer, coming around to the right of Salvator, looking up into the harnessed frame of my beloved.

“With this, I pray and ask that God bring you the serenity that all might dream of—that I wish for!”

The entire collection of men-at-arms around me has gone silent as I reach up, clutching the pommel plate of Larkin's saddle and try to step my foot into the stirrup so I might climb up to meet him, but I am so very small and, to my utter embarrassment, my foot does not nearly go high enough.

I almost want to give up in my failure until, to my great surprise, someone places down a mounting block at my feet.

I turn to see a squire, a boy of maybe sixteen, who had dismounted from his rouncey and so thoughtfully retrieved the block for me with a simple nod of quiet encouragement before stepping back again.

The smile I give him is perhaps the warmest I've had in days.

I climb the mounting block and then, stepping into where Larkin had removed his foot, I draw myself up level with him and, with his grasp so firmly holding me steady, I wrap the stretch of fine, embroidered cloth around his sword arm.

“Let this ribbon be a token of my favour; of my hope, my adoration for you…!”

I fasten the half-bow knot, carefully tucking it beneath the material.

“...And my everlasting love.”

I smile at him and his stupefied expression, and then lean forward, gripping the rim of his bevor as I place a single, soft kiss upon his cheek.

“To thee I so offer this, for it is all that I have to give…”

I pull back to let myself down but I find my arm grasped tight and drawn back into my love's embrace, wholly and utterly given to the cheer of the men around us…but I hear them not, only my love's voice as he quietly tells me, “...For as long as I live, I will always belong to you…”

…My wrists pull against the rigid steel of his bevor, fingers clutching tightly at the mail of his collar.

…How it hurts to hear such a phrase and know exactly for how long that will be…

I draw myself back and come down from the destrier, freeing Salvator from my intrusion before climbing down to the ground once more and quietly thanking the squire for his kind and vital assistance.

I then visit with my brother's knights and, when it is time for their formation and to sally out to meet the enemy, my eyes fall to those of Larkin as he gently smiles at me.

“Until I return to you, my love,” he says. The words land bitterly upon me and I can only force myself to smile as I respond, “Until I see you again…”

The men then depart, leaving me once again with my heart so full and yet broken…but, for whatever reason, my mind is not on the love I feel for Larkin, nor the coming repetition of his death…it is instead dwelling upon the words that Lord Edmund had said to me. In fact, they are all that I can think about as I make my way back over to the cathedral.

‘The wall is the safest place in a battle like this’…