A Day in Ludlow

[Barry Goldwater]

It was a bright Saturday afternoon in Ludlow Castle on the Welsh Marches, with the sun shining brightly in the blue sky and a few clouds drifting lazily in the gentle wind.

In other words, totally unsuitable weather for the news that was to arrive from the capital later today.

Within this castle, which had been the seat and home of the Prince of Wales for eleven years, the young prince - now, unknown to himself or anyone else within the castle walls, King Edward V of England - was spending his time practicing archery and heraldry at the same time. He was not, to the disappointment of his father, an especially great warrior, but nonetheless his guardian the Earl of Cambridge had noted that he would spar and shoot dutifully, if without enthusiasm. Archery was a less strenuous exercise than jousting at a dummy or fighting other squires in the training yard, and as Edward had a lesson on it later at dusk, it was best for him to practice now. As for heraldry, a Cambridge scholar was due to test him on his knowledge of the arms of the English lords on Monday, but surely that would come more easily to the studious lad than the martial arts, and so it was thought to be a perfectly fine idea that his constant companion from childhood, Soleil of Berwick, should quiz him on his knowledge of the roll of arms at the same time that he shot at targets. "It isn't a bad thing to know how to do multiple things at once, you know," Cambridge had said earlier at lunch while tearing into a honey-glazed duck and immediately washing his meal down with mead.

Not that Cambridge would actually be present for the Prince's present practice session, for he was currently on a bathroom break. A long bathroom break. Maybe all that honey wasn't actually good for you.

-------------

"Alright Ned, I've got one. Which house's arms were originally 'azure, a fess between three leopard's faces or'?" Soleil asked the Prince from her seat. While he shot at targets, she was supposed to be helping him prepare for a test on heraldry in two days, and so here she was reading from a book on heraldry rather than just cheering him on from the sidelines as she usually did. The natural daughter of the Earl of Cambridge had grown into a slender young woman with fair skin, honey-blonde hair that descended past her shoulders in gentle curls, and sky-blue eyes set in a pretty face. While not a world-renowned beauty like Queen Elizabeth Woodville, she was not hard to look at either - figures, considering that her father probably would not have slept with her mother if the latter were unattractive - and her pastel blue dress conferred upon her modesty and an austere elegance at once. And while not naturally very active, she had pushed herself over the years to keep up with her brothers and above all Prince Edward, both physically and mentally.

[Gandalfus]

Edward did not mind the heraldry so much, but it was the archery he detested. It was so repetitive, pulling the bowstrings back and forth... and back and forth, missing almost every shot entirely. Heraldry though... He was relatively good at that.

"Urm... De... La Pole." Edward groaned, this time at least hitting the target. A double success. He grinned, despite the sweat and fiery pain that was shooting through his arms.

"Those would have been the arms of Jackanapes, my uncle Suffolk's father." William de la Pole, infamous for his incompetence, was beheaded at sea. Rumour had it that York was responsible, though nobody could be sure.

[Barry Goldwater]

"Right as always," Soleil replied cheerfully, turning the page. "Good work." She turned her eyes first to the target that Edward had struck, then to the prince himself. Sweat and exertion don't suit him, she found herself thinking, They're messing with those golden locks of his. And I don't even want to think about what pulling and releasing that taut bowstring over and over is doing to his hands, and...catching herself staring a moment or two longer than she meant to at Edward, Soleil hurriedly turned her attention back to the book of arms. "Next one: a quartered coat of arms with argent, a saltire engrailed gules in the first and fourth quarters; and or, a lion rampant gules in the second and third quarters." She figured going with a recently extinct house, and one with a quartered armorial at that, might prove more of a challenge to her intellectual friend.

[Gandalfus]

"Hrmm..." Edward let loose another arrow. Not as successful as the last.

"A hint, perhaps?" The heir to England flashed Soleil with a boyish grin, indicating that he hadn't the faintest idea what the device was and whom it belonged to.

[Barry Goldwater]

Soleil felt her heart flutter when Edward grinned at her, and tightened her grip on the book to steel herself. "Um...they went extinct very recently, but I hear this heraldry's being reused by their successors." She replied, a shade of pink creeping into her cheeks. She never could resist Edward's winning smile. "And they held lands in the Marches, under your, er, jurisdiction as Prince of Wales and head of the Council of Wales and the Marches, actually."

[Gandalfus]

"Oh! Those would be the arms of Tiptof, borne now by that... Mercer, is it?"

Edward was clearly delighted with solving that particular conundrum. What a strange man that Worcester was. His only memory of the man was that he had claimed to have slain a boar, single handed, with nought but the sword at his hip.

"That was a tricky one. You nearly caught me out there, you know." Laughed the Prince, who was now momentarily distracted from his archery... Simply, he stared, trying to find something clever to say. Instead, he simply gave a smile filled with all the naïveté and innocence of childhood.

[Barry Goldwater]

"Right again." Soleil responded with a smile of her own. She turned fully to face him. "This must be a first. Normally you're the one running circles around me when it comes to stuff like this." Cambridge's daughter joked with a small laugh.

"You know...this has got nothing to do with heraldry," Soleil began, suddenly nervous even as she tried to keep her smile on. "But if you have the time to spare after your archery lesson, do you want to meet at the River Teme again? Just to chat, of course, and we'll be back here for supper as usual," She added hastily at the end. Those were her favorite memories Ludlow over the past eleven years: the times when they sat under a tree while the river below Ludlow Castle flowed over her bare feet, her shoulders touching the Prince's as they smiled and laughed and talked about nothing. As she grew older though, it occurred to Soleil that that may no longer be possible, as Edward was to be a king sooner or later and kings generally didn't rub shoulders with earls' bastards. How can I avoid that and keep us together? Could I ever follow the Queen's footsteps and possibly even...but that was a line of thought that always made her blush, and right now Edward was staring directly at her, so she fought to repress it. For now at least, she had no answer to the questions increasingly troubling her as she grew into her puberty years and began to feel something more than friendship towards Grafton, so she was instead just determined to spend as much time with him as he could.

[Gandalfus]

"Happily, if I can escape from uncle Cambr- I mean, your father." Nodded Edward, now looking forward to being able to put down this burden of a longbow even more than he had before. Such feelings were often the case, he found, whenever Soleil was involved in the situation.

He would be King one day, after all. And couldn't the king do as he liked? Like legitimise a bastard. Or even marry one.

"I don't ever want to leave this place." The Prince said, suddenly and contemplatively all at once. Being a King was not about one's whims and wants, as that fearsome Dominican had often told him, but about serving God and one's subjects. The King was the instrument of justice and righteousness, and shouldn't bend laws at a whim. It was too much responsibility to think about for one so young, and so, if he could choose, he'd stay away from London forever, and the dour duty of ruling that came with it.

But then, why did father marry his mother? That was surely on a whim, as were the numerous bastards he sired, and the second wife he then took - which was against every law of God and man. Sometimes, he felt that rules were written and then broken by those that wrote them. It was not a conundrum he had yet been able to solve. Here, he could solve whatever he desired...

The Prince, who was now King, gave Soleil a long look.

[Barry Goldwater]

"Oh, don't worry about Father. I can help with him," Soleil said with a wink and a giggle.

"You know something, Ned? I don't either." She admitted in response to his second statement. They'd spent most of their lives at Ludlow Castle than where they were originally born, after all. "Ludlow feels more like home to me than Westenhanger ever did - it's so peaceful around here, and the forests and rivers are beautiful. In fact I don't think I've seen Westenhanger since I was three. Harry and Tom might feel the same way too, but they're not here, and they got to see more of Father's home than I did. And of course, you don't live at Westenhanger." It took her a moment to realize what she had blurted out at the end, at which point she visibly blushed and hastily stammered, "B-but who doesn't like living with friends, am I right?"

Despite her reddening cheeks and sudden feeling that she might spontaneously combust under Edward's gaze, Soleil didn't look away from Edward. She stared back, wondering if he was starting to the same thing for her that she couldn't deny she was feeling for him and how best to phrase the question Do you think we could ever be more than friends? when she realized the silence was getting awkward. "So, um," She began while trying to keep herself from wringing her hands and pushing her curls to cover her now apple-colored cheeks, "Do you want to keep going with practice or uh, take a break for a little while? If you need a place to sit, I mean, you could just sit right here. And if you want to keep going, erm, I can too." She looked down at the still-open book in her hands.

[Gandalfus]

Soleil couldn't be sure whether Edward hadn't noticed her comment or just chosen to gloss over it. The Prince's cheeks did indeed redden slightly, but he had already appeared so from the exertion of archery practice. He took a look over his shoulder, to check if anyone was watching. If he was slothful with his duties, they'd beat his 'whipping boy', which was enough to visibly upset England's heir.

Thankfully, they were unobserved, for once.

"I don't wish to do archery anymore." He laughed lightly, pushing the golden fringe out of his vision. Wordlessly, he crossed over to her - clumsily almost losing his footing, which provoked another laugh - and took a seat beside her.

Desperately, he was searching for something to say.

"What... Urm..." Edward then sighed, and looked up towards the sky.

"I can only remember going to London a few times, and I hated each one." He decided to return to what they had discussed earlier, for lack of better options.

"But, its the centre of the world, or so that's what I have been told keeps my father from holding his court somewhere closer." Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn't. He didn't rightly know. The King didn't fuss much over his eldest son, except on his deathbed - though Edward didn't know that.

[Barry Goldwater]

Aw Ned, you're the center of my world, Soleil had to bite back. Instead she said, "Well, London's the biggest city in the country, right? And one of a king's duties is to serve his subjects...so I guess your father holds court in London so he can start doing that duty by helping more people than if he held court in, say, York?" She tried to look at the issue from a king's perspective, or the perspective of her idea of a just and benevolent king. Which conveniently lined up with her impression of the fifth Edward. She didn't know much about the fourth, having only rarely seen him, but he'd left a positive impression on her as a big guy who liked to have fun and wasn't evil at heart or anything.

"I don't like London either, though." Soleil now leaned back, relaxing a little. This conversation was starting to feel more like all those times they talked before hormones started getting in the way, when she'd feel perfectly at ease and as though she could tell Edward anything. "It's so crowded, there's hardly any room to play or even just go out for a walk, I've heard Father complain about court intrigues before, and the whole place just stinks. Literally. I suppose that's why they need the King to live there and help his Londoner subjects first of all." She giggled. "But remember what we learned about Richard II and those other kings? They lived and ruled away from London sometimes, too. The second and third Henrys preferred Clarendon Palace in Salisbury, the third Edward preferred Windsor in Berkshire, and the last King Richard liked Shene. Maybe you won't have to leave Ludlow for London after all, at least not all the time?" The girl finished, sounding more hopeful than nervous.

[Gandalfus]

"You know so much about these things.." Edward smiled, genuinely impressed. It felt good to speak with someone that he saw as an intellectual equal, rather than the dullard squires who were only good for beating things with blunt instruments.

"Yes, I can't imagine anything worse than living there." Edward then paused, as if considering something for the first time. "My... Sister, Eleanor, Lady Percy's daughter, I mean. She has spent her entire life in the Tower. I would hate that, being trapped in that place." The Tower has suddenly sounded terrifying to him, after he'd heard some gossip in the cups last Christmas that the Lady Percy had died in the Tower - poison, strangulation, or a knife in the ribs, perhaps. But they were only rumours, surely?

[Barry Goldwater]

"I learned from and with you, you know." Soleil replied, now grinning.

The change of topic to the Tower and Edward's half-Percy siblings, though, made her more solemn. "I'm sure your father doesn't treat her unkindly." She said, reassuring. "But...you're right. Living in that dingy old castle, without the freedom to get out and play or even breathe beyond its walls? I can't even imagine what that must be like." Soleil felt a pang of pity for this half-sister of Edward's she had never met, and a bastard like her too at that. "But you won't ever have to live in the Tower, right? I mean, I've never heard of a King of England or a Prince of Wales who lived there for any length of time, much less actually liked it."

[Gandalfus]

"The King has to stay there, before his coronation."

Edward shivered. That would be the worst night of his life, and possibly the worst day too, standing on ceremony like some kind of peacock. But, it was necessary. The Prince was an avid reader, and his tutors had given him plenty of treatises and lectures upon the trappings of royal power, and the supposedly divine gift that the monarch had of being able to cure scrofula with the laying on of hands.

"But, then, I wouldn't do so ever again. That will be the constable's job." ​Wales gave a grin.

[Barry Goldwater]

"I'm going to guess the king isn't allowed to bring a companion into the Tower while he prepares for his coronation?" Soleil asked. If he could, she'd have hoped thought that he'd ask her to be that companion already. Still, she met his grin with a smile of her own. "It doesn't seem fair that he should be so lonely before his big day. But at least you'll have your sister to keep you company in there, I suppose. Do you know her well?"

[Gandalfus]

"Not at all." The unwitting King confessed, suddenly taken by melancholy.

"Mother does not allow us to associate with them, and so I have never spoken to her, only seen her in passing."

They had the same blood, though, and that surely counted for something.

[Barry Goldwater]

"Oh." Soleil responded, sharing her friend's sudden melancholy. "Is it because she's...well, a bastard?" What did this world have against bastards, she had often wondered as she grew up? She, and they, didn't choose to be born the way they were. What justice, earthly or divine, was there in making them bear the sins of their parents on their shoulders?

[Gandalfus]

Grafton grimaced. Soleil already knew the answer, of course, and he hadn't the heart to confirm her fears.

"More to do with the fact that they are Lady Percy's children, by my father." After a pause,he tried to console her, wit a hand gently placed upon her shoulder. The Queen probably saw them as a threat, which her son didn't understand. They were orphans, lost and destitute. He could summon only pity for them.

[Barry Goldwater]

Soleil let out a small sigh and upon feeling Edward's hand on her shoulder, almost unconsciously leaned her head a little in his direction, allowing her hair to lightly brush over the back of his hand. "So..." She began, eager to change to a more cheerful topic. "Did your Uncle Rivers and the Earl of Tankerville give any new books to you at the victory feast last Christmas?" Some five or six years ago, William Caxton had set up England's first printing house and had been churning out books or foreign texts translated into English ever since, under the patronage of the learned Anthony Woodville; and as her best friend was quite the bookworm, she couldn't miss the steady supply of printed literature into Ludlow.

[Gandalfus]

Soleil let out a small sigh and upon feeling Edward's hand on her shoulder, almost unconsciously leaned her head a little in his direction, allowing her hair to lightly brush over the back of his hand. "So..." She began, eager to change to a more cheerful topic. "Did your Uncle Rivers and the Earl of Tankerville give any new books to you at the victory feast last Christmas?" Some five or six years ago, William Caxton had set up England's first printing house and had been churning out books or foreign texts translated into English ever since, under the patronage of the learned Anthony Woodville; and as her best friend was quite the bookworm, she couldn't miss the steady supply of printed literature into Ludlow.

"Yes, a lot, I must say." Smiled the Prince, pretending to not react to the touch of Soleil's hair, "The Canterbury Tales, of course, Chaucer's finest work."

Perhaps it was a little lewd in places, but the Prince considered himself almost a man now. He read frequently, in almost every spare moment. The Legend of King Arthur was another gift from previous years which he had cherished greatly.

"It's... Well, what my mother would call inappropriate. Especially the parts about the carpenter's wife."