Ponderings

Summary: Kate thinks.  Then Will does.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer:  Not mine and I do not own them at all.

Notes: Point of view fascinates me, what can I say?

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I admit, I do find Will attractive in an 'is that not truly beautiful' way.  He is big and blonde and fun to be around.  He is also too noble for the likes o' me.  I am just a peasant girl content in her trade and her place.  No rising to the stars and changing them about for me.  I prefer a simpler man, one uncomplicated in his passions, as my late husband was -- God rest 'im.  Someone content with where he is in life.  'Tis hard to find someone like that.

What I mean as 'noble' is that Will, although starting life as a peasant, was never actually a peasant.  Not in his heart or soul.  Prince Edward might as well have been telling the truth about Will's lineage.  Most o' them nobles pretend they are noble, with their fancy clothes and such, but Will has got them all beat in the nobility area.  He is their ideal of a knight, chivalry oozing from every pore.

As for my remarks about her.  I mean, actually saying that her breasts were not that impressive is hardly complimentary.  I have said more than that and my tongue is a shame to me now that I know her somewhat.  Truth be told, she's not the arrogant, selfish noble she appears to be.  I had predicted that she would lose interest in Will the second her comfort was compromised.  I was wrong.  She is full of surprises and now Geoff has gone away to his home with some of my earnings.  That will learn me to wager with him while he's playing innocent.

Jocelyn has taken to our way of life in degrees instead of plunging, setting aside her noble ways one by one and embracing simplicity.  Her clothes are not as sensational and she wears her hair in a plainer style as before.  Although that could have much to do with Christiana being gone.  I cannot style hair.  I am doing well to get my own into a clasp in mornings.

She fought for Christiana.  That alone won her much in my eyes.  Oh, I knew Christiana's true station in life.  Indeed, her dress gave her away.  No middle class peasant working as maid could wear those fabrics and, after paying the fine for doing so, have enough wage to live on or send to family.  It never occurred to Roland to question the fabrics, though he of all should have known better.

When the first letter on marriage came, Jocelyn did all she could to stop it, going so far as to suggest that her yearly monetary allowance be used to purchase Christiana from Hugh and free her of familial obligation.  I had never heard of such a thing, but Jocelyn assured us all it did happen from time to time.  Christiana refused.  She explained the duty of a daughter, which all women know.  Jocelyn fought until the minute Adhemar was leading Christiana from the circle of our tents.  She watched Adhemar help Christiana onto one horse and, once that occurred, Jocelyn collapsed.  If Will had not been holding her, she would have slumped onto the forest floor.  It was as though she had been physically struck, and I have never before seen such a look of utter despair on Jocelyn's face.  One might think someone had died.

As for Christiana, she refused to burden us with her own fears, choosing instead to calm Jocelyn and speak with optimism on her own future.  Whatever befalls her at Adhemar's hands....Christiana is a survivor.  Like my first opinion of Jocelyn, I had thought Christiana to be silly and useless, even vapid.  If I keep being so wrong about people, I am going to start doubting my ability to tell friend from foe.

I find myself to be Jocelyn's sole confidante, a position that is somewhat absurd to me.  This fancy noblewoman wants to be bosom friends with me, Kate the farris.  Imagine that!  My friends at home would not believe me.  They would call me daft for uttering such a ridiculous thing.

She followed me to the stream a couple days after Christiana left and sat down on a rock.  I paid her no matter, getting my bathing done before Wat could come down and leer at me as he has taken to doing of late.  That man is a whole other kettle of fish to think on.  My feelings for him are definitely mixed.  It bothers me and yet it does not to have him watch me as though I am a delicate pastry he plans to devour at some later date.  The last time he caught me in the altogether while bathing, his eyes grew wide as he glanced me up and down and he exclaimed, "Sweet!"  before taking a bite of an apple.  I have not decided if he was referring to the apple or to me.  It could be either knowing him.  Or both. 

As I dried, Jocelyn roused herself enough to speak.

"We've not talked much, you and I.  I should like to remedy that."

I shrugged.  Mmm-hmm.  Sure.  Whatever you say.  My comb did not want to go through the wet tangles in my hair and I grimaced as I combed.

"Would you speak with me Kate?  I would so like a friend in you.  Us women need to stick together among so much rampant maleness."  She was trying to be sunny and cheerful, but I saw that her hopeful smile was a poor one, sadness coating her as that perfume she wears.  Her expression was so pitiful that I gave in without a thought.  What would it hurt to listen to her ramble on day in and day out?  It wasn't like she would expect a reply.

Was I ever wrong.  The first time Jocelyn asked my political opinion, I had to admit I did not know what she was talking about.  I am a simple peasant girl who cares not one whit for the intricate details of some political intrigue.  As long as I can make my living, I do not care.  She explained both sides of the issue to me and again asked my opinion.  Thus, this strange friendship began.  She can be silly and much a girl in her thinking, but she is not stupid.

The small of my back begins to ache from my work and I groan as I find a stopping point.  I am pouring myself a cup of mead when Jocelyn steps into my work tent, her face averted and hair long and loose.  The bright yellow of her gown is like the rays of the sun in the dark shadows of me tent.  I have come to know that she tends to wear brighter colors when she is uncertain of herself and is pretending a confidence she does not have.  I give her the mead I'd poured and find another cup for myself, then wait for her to speak.

"No letter today either."  She says, voice thick and husky, and when she looks at me, I see why.  Jocelyn has been crying.  Still is crying, her nose red and eyes all puffed.  She does not cry prettily, not when she is honestly upset and hurting.  Her pretty crying, those light tears, are reserved for times when her emotions are not raging out of control.  I realize her hair is down to hide her face and obscure her tear streaked countenance from view.

"One will come"  I say in encouragement.  Her hungry wait for some sign of Christiana's welfare has infected us all I believe.  Even I am anxious for word on a girl I knew only a short while.  "Give it time.  She has not been gone long."

"I've sent two letters already and no reply."  She is not comforted, her hands clasping the cup in a tight grip.  "What if he has hurt her?  What if he has got her trussed up, all beaten and...and hurt?  She cannot write then.  She cannot write if she cannot hold a pen or lift her head to look at the paper."

I sit beside her, sipping at me drink.  "What makes you think he has hurt her?"

The look she gives me is one filled with pain.  "Where you not paying attention over the past months Kate?  Did your eyes not witness the same things mine did?  Adhemar is the vilest of men.  He is capable of anything.  He would not hesitate to harm her any way he can.  Many a man will beat his wife for not obeying his every whim. He will take her and do what he wishes, with every disregard to her being a gentle woman."

"Christiana knows how to serve.  She served you for many years and was happy.  She will be a credit to him and his household."  I try and remain a neutral voice, a calming influence.

"I am not a cruel mistress, Kate.  She was more friend than maid, though I had to call her maid publicly.  Adhemar is cruel.  His men all attest to that.  He is a brute.  If she is not the wife he wants, he will hurt her, plain and simple.  He is the sort of man who thrives on cruelty.  Look at what he did to Will.  He beat him when Will was helpless in chains.  Is that a man who would not enjoy giving pain?  I heard him, with my own ears,  call mercy a weakness, Kate."

"What does he want from Christiana then?"  I agree with her assessment of the man, yet with my past judgment of both Jocelyn and Christiana biting me in my butt, I do not say I agree.

"He wants a woman who is a silent little obedient doll he can show off on his arm.  A woman with no temper, no brain.  He wants a bland docility that no woman I know of could match, a background for the magnificence he thinks himself to be.  He has no thought for another, no feeling in him save hate and envy.  He will stifle the gentle woman Christiana is until she conforms to his standard of wife and if she does not conform, he will force her to, using his love for misery to aid him."

Adhemar's reputation as both soldier and man precedes him wherever he goes.  He cannot run from it, even if he would try.  He is a womanizer and I know it to be somewhat of a truth.  Maybe his exploits among both noble and peasant women alike have been greatly exaggerated.  Or maybe not.  I do not know.  The blacksmiths are not immune to chuckling over Adhemar's prowess with women, so I have heard snatches of conversation here and there.  It would not surprise me to find that while Adhemar was eyeing Jocelyn, his glance was also straying to Christiana, half formed plans of making her his mistress bouncing about his brain.  I wonder if he was initially shocked to find her noble and quickly dismiss the thought.  Not much would ever shock him I think.

"I fear for her safety with him, Kate.  I could not bear to find he has abused her.  My heart would shatter into pieces, for I let her leave us."

"Then give her time to settle in.  I know you cannot help to worry.  But give her time." 

We sit in silence for awhile, then she finishes the mead and leaves me to me work. I think Jocelyn is underestimating Christiana and letting her feelings get in the way of seeing the woman for who she really is.  The woman I had brief acquaintance with was a survivor, someone who takes what life hands out and makes it her own.  She accepted that her role in life was to be Adhemar's wife and went willingly to him.  She did not complain or rail about it, but simply went, keeping it her business and no others.  That is not, in me eyes, the mark of a woman who will ultimately be ruled by her husband, but rather a woman who will make her marriage work on both her terms and her husbands.

God made us opposites, men and women, and Christiana and Adhemar are most certainly opposites.  I pray this joining works and that we shall hear word soon. 

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As the days go by, Jocelyn's worry for Christiana's welfare begins to jump beneath my skin as well as hers.  Out of all of us, I know the sorts of turns Adhemar's vindictive nature can take him to.  I bear the physical scars of his ire and would be saddened to see marks of his leaving on Christiana's skin.  I feel I should have been able to do something that day he came for her.

He just rode up with a garrison of men and demanded her.  No greeting, nothing.  His gaze remained trained above all our heads and he would not look at us directly for more than a few seconds.  He had thought it all out and presented me a document I had Geoff read aloud.  The document was the final terms he had settled with Christiana's father.  There was nothing I could do really, but the feeling remains.  My immediate concern became holding Jocelyn so she would not try and tackle the man to scratch his eyes out.  She became quite the hellcat, screeching and fighting to be at him.

Jocelyn tries to hide the extent of her worry from me.  I cannot mistake her feelings though when she mopes about and sighs as though the world is in tatters about her.  She watches Wat, Roland and I tease one another unmercifully, her face set in a wistful expression.  She does not have the friendships I do to carry her along.  I hope her efforts to befriend Kate work.  I think they are.  Kate gives her such amused looks, as if she cannot reason Jocelyn out.  I see them together sometimes, two dark heads bent together as they speak.  Once, I even heard Kate laugh, a great big belly laugh, some loud lusty sound not in proportion to her slender frame.

I have hopes for us all.  It is not often one such as I can mix the stars about and not remain in stocks until a painful death by starvation takes one home.  I owe Prince Edward a debt I know not how to repay.  In a way, I suppose I owe Adhemar as well.  Without his push into the light, I do not know if I ever would have finished my journey into the man I am now. 

A sobering thought.  As Ulrich, I could not beat Adhemar.  Victory over him was frustratingly out of my reach.  Yet once I returned to my true self, William Thatcher born on Cheapside, strength filled my limbs, the strength of body and of character.  I could not deny who I was.  I had to be myself.  Perhaps I had to choose to be myself for fate to turn smiling upon me.  Perhaps a man has to be what he is and not what he thinks he should be.

And I must admit, I am interested in seeing the man Adhemar has been shaped into by all this.  He did not leave our dance without some change, however slight inside him.  I have a feeling there is much more to come from him.