“Fighting like this is beautiful, in a fashion,” I said, slow now. “No one is hurt for true, and there is grace and power in it. The horses, the riders, I even like the armor.”
“But you said foolish too.”
I swallowed. Fool tongue. “Yes, my lady queen. These ain’t—” I coughed hard, blood rushing my cheeks. “These aren’t the men that would ever be called upon to fight. There is a war and they are not part of it. And the men that watch them, shivering from the far side, will fight and die as soon as King Richard has need of them. And yet they do not have the money to practice, and not the money to protect themselves from such fates.”
She pulled her fur closer to her neck, and its hairs stood tall like the animal had its hackles up. “Such a difference is not just in the poor and wealthy, Lady Marian. It is strange as a mother to see one son play at war while the other wipes blood from his face each night. But I can see the beauty in a joust as well, and as a mother I wonder if this is what young men see when they dream of war. We women often don’t see what the appeal is, but they crave it.”
“You know yourself in a fight,” I told her. “There’s no lying about your skills. About what you can do. It’s a good feeling.”
“You can’t feel if you’re dead,” Isabel said. “There’s nothing good about fighting.”
“Then you utterly mistake the role of women, Isabel. We fight for different things, but women are the most natural of fighters.” The queen inclined her head to the princess. “Something I have liked about you from the first, Isabel, is that you have defiance and pride within you. That is a form of fight.”
Isabel’s cheeks went to blush but I weren’t so sure she liked the compliment. “In my experience women don’t get to fight for what they want,” she said, her voice low and careful. “We don’t understand war because we are not allowed to.”
“You can always fight for what you want,” I told her, overfierce, sitting forward. “Always. People try to take that from you no matter your station, but you can always fight.”
She gave a snort. “If I were some peasant heathen I’m sure I could,” she said.
“I ain’t no peasant,” I said hot.
“Just a heathen, then,” she said, peering past the queen to smile tight at me. “How does Guy put up with you?”
It took me a moment to remember Guy were Gisbourne’s given name.
“I’m not a heathen,” I ground out, careful to say the words right. Christ, I were out of practice with this. “And you bare seem to know what the word means. I make no apologies for the way I talk—I only started doing it because nobles and men with power and heavy fists don’t bother with a lowborn churl, and I chose safety over fancy words when it came to the streets of London. And I don’t look the part of some noble truss, but I spend my life trying to help people that can’t help themselves. People hurt by the cruelties of their lords. Say that I’m a heathen like I don’t serve God, but all you’re doing is making yourself look the fool.”
Her face went fair sour. “Oh, this is how you help people? From up here on your high chair in your expensive furs, watching your husband tilt?”
“Perhaps I ought to be lower,” I told her, standing. I dipped to Eleanor. “My lady queen.”
I heard Isabel make some tittery noise behind me, but I turned my cheek from her and walked down from the dais.
Stepping from the stage for nobles felt good, but there weren’t nothing normal about walking through people in skirts, in fine clothes, watching them step away from me to let me pass. I couldn’t fade to shadows; I couldn’t not be noticed. I hated it.
“You look a little lost.”
I turned to see Much steps from me. He smiled under a big farmer’s hat in his crooked, half-sure way, and I hugged him.
He hugged me tight with a laugh. “John and Rob are awfully boring without you around.”
I mussed his hair with a laugh. “I’m certain they are. So what do you reckon, will someone make me a widow today?”
We went and leaned on the fencing that were meant to keep the common folk from the grounds. We were low, back, and to the side, and from there the whole thing looked vicious and fierce, less like a game and more like gods stomping about for notice.
“I doubt it,” he said, honest as ever. “Gisbourne is a very good fighter.”
I rubbed my still swollen lip. “I know.”
“He slept, you know,” Much told me. “Last night, whole way through.”
This thrilled my heart like a holy fire. “It’s fair strange, talking about Rob like he were an infant or such.”
“It’s good news.”
I shivered. “It’s perfect news.”
“I’m scared for you, Scarlet,” he told me, nudging closer. “Those bruises aren’t all from Rob that night, are they?”
“No.” I slung a grin his way. “When were I ever afraid of a little bit of purple?”
“I’ll find a way to help,” he promised. “I’ll find a way to make sure you’re not alone.”