by Finley Aaron
“It tore a hole clean through the leaf,” Henry explained to him.
Still standing on Bastian’s back, Ella urged the horse to trot ahead faster. She slowed the stallion as she reached the branch and snapped off the lower portion, purposely not touching the leaf in question, so that none of them could accuse her of tampering with it.
The horse cart caught up to her, and she tossed the piece of branch onto Jerome’s lap.
“There’s a hole in the leaf,” she told him, and then went to fetch the arrow.
So they had dinner at a tavern that evening, and slept at the inn instead of pitching their tent. There Ella heard, for the first time, Jerome’s singing, which wasn’t so terribly awful until the dogs began to howl, and then several large men threatened to sit on his face until he died for want of air, so he shut up.
It took them three days to reach Bonn, and along the way Ella and Henry practiced at fighting, as well as riding tricks.
It wasn’t until the second day that Ella decided to show off her skill of dismounting from Mirage with a back handspring.
She landed on her feet on the dusty road. Sigismund applauded with great enthusiasm, and even Jerome clapped his hands together a few times.
Henry applauded as well, but he shook his head as she remounted and fell into pace beside him. “Aren’t you afraid you might land wrong, and hit your head or break your neck and die?”
Ella considered his question, and thought of the long days toiling away at Madame De Bouchard’s estate, when her stolen moments riding in the field were her only opportunity to feel as though she was anything more than Madame De Bouchard’s work horse.
“I am afraid,” she admitted. “But I’m more afraid of not living, than of dying.”
Chapter Fifteen
The days began to run into weeks, and they fell into a rhythm—traveling, competing, traveling, competing again. There was little to separate out one tournament from another. Sometimes they did well. Other times, they were thrown, and Ella had to hide her pain as well as her bruises.
It wasn’t always easy for her to hide who she was, especially because most of the larger tournaments had dances, and she found it difficult to come up with excuses not to attend. The dances included feasts, and some went just for the food. Even Sigismund and Jerome looked forward to the events, and couldn’t understand why Allard’s aching ribs or need for sleep took precedence over the celebrations.
Perhaps she could have figured out a way to go, though she had no appropriate clothes for such an event, but her biggest reason for avoiding the dances was that, with the camp nearly emptied as its occupants attended the dance, they provided her best chance at bathing in private.
The tournament grounds, and especially the camping fields, were nearly always located by a lake, river, or major stream, which served to provide water as well as a place for those who wished to avoid the expense of the local bathhouse, to bathe. Not only did Ella place a priority on bathing (a position which, judging from the scent of them, many of the men did not share), but she wished to do so with as much privacy as she could manage.
Though Henry never insisted she attend the dances, he tended to take Sigismund and Jerome’s side, and when she insisted, time and again, that she was too tired or hurt to go, he countered by telling her, “You may miss this one, but you’ve got to go to the ball in Paris.”
“The ball?” Ella asked, unsure what elevated the Paris dance to higher level nomenclature.
“It’s the grandest affair,” Jerome offered. “Free ale and wine—all you can drink!”
“And sausages,” Sigismund added. “All you can eat.”
Ella still wasn’t clear on how that made it a ball and not just a dance.
“And it’s a masquerade,” Henry noted. “A masked ball.”
“Masked?”
“Yes, everyone wears masks so you don’t know who they are!” Sigismund said.
“Brilliant idea. They’re less likely to turn you away for drinking too much if they can only see half your face,” Jerome informed her.
“If you only go to one ball all season, Paris is the one to attend,” Henry said.
Ella nodded solemnly, but protested, “I don’t own a mask.”
Sigismund laughed.
Henry shrugged. “They’ll have plain ones at the door if you need one, but all the shops downtown will do masks to match your suit. And the costumeries rent out ensembles. If you go in earlier in the week, they’ll have your outfit made ready to fit you by Saturday.”
“Isn’t that expensive?” Ella protested. She had money—Henry had paid her every Friday when he paid Jerome and Sigismund—but she’d been saving as much as she could to take home to her parents. She took seriously her father’s financial concerns, and actually felt good about having something to contribute. She didn’t want to blow it all on something as frivolous as a dance.
But Henry shook his head. “Far less expensive than buying clothes. Are you afraid you can’t afford it? Come on, I’ll chip in. You’ve got to go.”
They urged her like this every week, so that by the time they arrived in Paris, Ella not only wanted desperately to attend, but she’d come up with a plan for doing so.
They’d come straight from the tournament at Melun, and since the town was close enough, they’d made the trip in a single day, Henry having risen early in spite of late meetings the evening before (the tournament council was still stuck on the re-mounting issue—the fact that Allard had done it again the week before only divided them all the more).
Henry was quite pleased with their travel time, and when Ella began to help with the unpacking and pitching of camp, he waved her off. “Sigi and Jerome can handle everything. This is Paris. Go—see the town before the sun sets.”
Ella had hoped to sneak away the next day, but since they’d arrived ahead of the bulk of the tournament crowd (many others had taken advantage of the short distance and decided to rest up in Melun another day or two before setting off), she realized her best chance of visiting a costumery without being recognized, was to go now.
So she grabbed her bag and her money and headed to town. Even as a girl who’d traveled extensively, from Rome to Constantinople to Beijing, Paris amazed and impressed her. The architecture, the shops—the variety of goods sold in the shops—it was almost enough to distract her from her goal.
But she’d noticed many dress shops, and some advertising specifically the rental of ball gowns for the upcoming masquerade, so she ducked into an empty alley and pulled a skirt from her bag. She changed quickly, lest anyone come upon her, freeing her bosom from the corset and her braid from its cap. Then she shook her shoulders to free them from their manly set, and tried her best to walk into the dress shop like a lady.
As she’d hoped, the women in the shop were eager for the expected influx of tournament customers, and since Ella was on the front end of the rush, they practically fell upon her in their eagerness.
Their Parisian dialect was different from Ella’s native tongue, but Madame De Bouchard had taught her the basics of their language. Most importantly, they understood she had money and wanted to rent a gown for the ball. Beyond that, all they had to do was hold up dresses until Ella spotted one she liked.
I was hovering above it all, and I won’t pretend I wasn’t enjoying the fuss. The perfumed shop with its silks and laces was a far step up from the usual throngs of stinky men and horses.
Ella’s face lit up when she saw the dress, a deep indigo purple with silver lace trim.
The shop ladies saw her face light up, too, and bustled her into a changing room.
When Ella emerged a few minutes later to stand before their great polished bronze mirrors, no man from the tournament would ever have recognized her as Allard, even without a mask.
She was a vision.
Even the shop girls, who I am sure had dressed many a lovely lady, stood an awe at Ella’s transformation. They gave her almost a full minute of standing in front of the mirror
, marveling and turning from side to side, before they sprang to work cinching undergarments tighter, pinning seams, measuring this and that, and pulling out coordinating accessories.
Ella picked out a silver mask and silver shoes, and a jewelry set consisting of a necklace of silver with sapphires, and wide cuff bracelets of the same design. This last she wasn’t sure she could afford, but the ladies named their price, and since it wouldn’t dip into her savings too deeply, she decided to rent the jewelry, too.
Maybe it was the way their dialect matched Madame De Bouchard’s, or perhaps it was because the last time Ella had admired her reflection standing in a dress before a mirror, she’d been wearing the dresses Agatha and Bertha later stole. Whatever the case, renting the ensemble made her feel restored in some way, like she was rebuilding something of what had been taken from her.
Ella made sure she understood exactly when and how she’d need to pick up and return her things, paid her initial deposit, and thanked everyone before ducking into an alleyway and turning herself back into a man.
When she reached camp, Henry asked what she’d seen, and she admitted she’d stopped at a shop to look into renting something to wear to the ball.
“Did you place a rental order?” Henry asked. “Are you planning to attend?”
Ella felt a blush rise to her face, and forced her voice extra deep to compensate. “I did, actually. I am.”
Before she’d quite finished talking, Sigismund and Jerome cheered.
Henry laughed and shook his head. “All right, boys. You won the bet. I owe you dinner.”
It wasn’t until the next day that Ella admitted to Henry that she didn’t want to participate in the mounted melee on Saturday. This was largely because she knew she’d need time to dress for the ball—and in secret, too—and also because the mounted melee had always been the event where she was most likely to be injured, and after the way the women at the dress shop had laced her corset tight, she didn’t even want to think about picking up any new bruises before the ball.
But she couldn’t tell Henry any of that, so she simply said, “I’d rather not do the mounted melee on Saturday. My remounting has been causing such a fuss. I think it would be best—”
But Henry didn’t let her finish. “I want you in the melee, and I want you to remount.”
Ella’s mouth fell open. He’d completely reversed his position. The last time he’d expressed any real preference on her participation, he’d urged her not to do the melee at all.
But that had been weeks and weeks before, at Bonn, when he’d still felt bad about her injuries from the week before that.
“Your—your meetings,” Ella stammered. “They go long. You’ve complained—”
“I’ve complained because Raedwald and some of the men who side with him are dragging on the argument. Good sense would tell any man that remounting is an advantageous skill for battle, and therefore one we should encourage, not prohibit. They’re mostly mad because you’ve made them look like fools every time you’ve done it. They want you punished.”
“And you want me to do it again?” Ella had to force her voice into a lower octave. It wanted to gasp and squeak.
“If they can see the benefit—”
“But Raedwald’s supporters are powerful, especially in this area. Aren’t we close to his mother’s ancestral lands?”
“Indeed. And his maternal uncles are part of the problem. That’s why we need to do something visible, something dramatic.”
“We? What are you doing about it?”
“I’m fighting for you at council.”
“And I’m the one getting thrown from a horse and nearly trampled. Who’s doing the fighting?”
“We both are, Allard. We are both using the skills and advantages given to us—”
But Ella was furious, and not inclined to listen. She’d just put down a large chunk of her savings on a dress, and if she did as Henry asked, she might never get a chance to wear it—or she’d be so bruised her chest would match her dress. “Why can’t I argue at council and you remount in battle?”
Henry’s expression softened slightly. “Do you want to argue at council?”
She’d have preferred for him to offer to remount in battle. The thought of addressing a group of men, who would all be sitting there scrutinizing her, when she wasn’t in her armor and didn’t have chain mail over her face…well, it sounded dangerous for a girl who didn’t want to be found out. Irresponsible, even.
“No. I do not want to argue, and I do not want to fight. Can’t I miss one mounted melee?”
Henry rubbed his hands over his face. When he pulled them away, he looked tired. Older, even. “Raedwald’s been talking.”
“When doesn’t he?” Ella asked, but Henry ignored her and continued.
“He’s upset that the council is considering changing the rules on your account. They’re not listening to him. They’re siding with me, and he’s furious. He’s said, if you remount in battle once more, and they do nothing to punish you, he’ll leave and go back to the eastern circuit.”
Ella had heard rumors, too. “He’s also said he wants to throw me in the stocks,” she told Henry. “That if I remount in the melee again, he’ll have me publicly flogged. Do you want that?”
“I want him gone, and this is the best way. If he leaves, I can compete without fear of being killed by him. It will be safer for both of us.”
“What, then? I’m supposed to get injured—”
“So that I may live. Yes. I believe that was our original arrangement. You would fight for me so that I would not be killed.” Henry looked at her with weary eyes.
Ella blew out a long, slow breath.
The only way to remount in the melee was to first be knocked from her horse, which meant bruises. On top of that, Raedwald had threatened all manner of awful things against her if she did it again.
But Henry was right. If Raedwald killed him, Richard would be second in line for the throne.
She couldn’t let it come to that.
“Fine,” she concluded in a voice made deep by disappointment. “I’ll fight. I’ll remount, and I’ll endure whatever happens after.” She turned her back on him, then, and walked over to Mirage.
“Where are you going?” Henry asked.
“For a ride,” Ella said simply as she untied the horse. Mirage was already saddled, so she hoisted herself onto the mare’s back and rode away.
I grabbed hold of her cap and held on tight. Ella rode free of the camp, found an empty stretch of road along the Seine, and gave Mirage her head.
Mirage hadn’t been allowed to run freely in some days, and spread out low, sprinting, while Ella clung to her neck, buried her face in her mane, and cried.
Once the horse grew tired of running and slowed to a walk, I grew fat as a mouse and sat in Mirage’s mane, looking up at Ella.
“Why are you crying?” I asked her.
Ella looked at me like the question was a stupid one, but she still tried to answer it. “Agatha and Bertha took all my pretty dresses. I never even got to wear them. Then I no sooner spend half my savings on renting a gown, when I find out I’m probably going to be too bruised to wear it. Am I never going to get a chance to look pretty?”
“I thought you wanted to be a boy?”
“Yes, well, I’m not one, am I? And yet I can’t have any of the advantages of being a girl, either. It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. Nothing about life is ever fair,” I agreed. As a fairy, I consider myself an expert on all things fair.
Life is not one of those things.
“Ugh!” Ella nearly screamed. “I wonder if it’s too late to get my money back on the dress.”
“Why would you want to, Dear?”
“Because I’m not going to be able to wear it.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going to be all bruised! Have you seen the neckline on the dress? My bruises will show, on my upper chest and back. Don’t you think people might
wonder how I got them? It won’t take them long to figure it out, then. Besides that, I’ll look awful. And it will hurt getting knocked off the horse. It always hurts terribly, for days and days afterward.”
“Is there no way around that?”
Ella looked up at the sky and searched the clouds, which were gloriously white and fluffy, indifferent to her despair below. “He wants me to remount. I can’t do that unless I’m unhorsed first, which means bruises. There’s no way around the bruises.”
“Isn’t there?” I flew up higher, since Ella was still searching the sky, and I looked into her eyes, challenging her.
She looked completely clueless, so I gave her a hint. “I’ve seen you dismount your horse a dozen different ways.”
Realization sparked behind Ella’s eyes, but she shook her head, denying the truth I’d prompted. “I can’t dismount and then remount.”
“Why can’t you? Dismounting isn’t against the rules. In fact, if you dismount, then they can’t claim you were ever knocked off at all. You wouldn’t be eliminated before remounting, so you’d be within the bounds of the rules.” I was buzzing with the excitement of my plan.
Ella was half cross-eyed from looking at me flying so close to her face. She shook her head rapidly and grappled with my idea.
“If I dismount without being hit,” she whispered, as though the very thought was too dangerous to speak aloud, “I wouldn’t have any bruises.”
This time when she looked up at the clouds, there was desperate joy straining through the hope on her face. “I could do it. I could do what Henry asked me to. Raedwald would be furious. He might well make good on his threat to leave for the eastern circuit. That would keep Henry safe, which is all I ever wanted in the first place, besides the chance to fight.”
“And, you could make history. They might change the rules for you,” I added.
“Maybe,” Ella acknowledged. “I don’t care whether they do or not. Now I’ve got to figure out the best way to dismount with a lance in one hand and a sword in the other and a line of cavalry bearing down on me. There’s going to be no benefit to any of it if I’m trampled to death.”
