Recent Posts

Aoife de Archer already didn’t care much for Camelot. It wasn’t as scenic as her native Mercia was, and she held her head up as she rode through the forest, taking in everything that she could manage. There was only a small party of people to escort her to her Aunt and Uncle’s home in Camelot, and it had already been made clear that she would not be their ward for long. Her father had made it out like she was going to just be an extended guest at their house, and that was it. She had of course wanted to stay in Mercia, but her father hadn’t remarried yet, and she couldn’t look after the house by herself just yet. Maybe her father would let her try again in a year or so, she pouted slightly, but then remembered there was no one here who would pay her any attention.

She pressed her lips together and nudged her horse on, as someone shouted they were nearing their destination. Even Aoife couldn’t deny she was curious to see the place. It seemed strange there was a little hub of Mercian’s living in Camelot. Well, her Uncle wasn’t Mercian, she wasn’t sure what he was, but he wasn’t Mercian and that was all that mattered to her. Nudging her horse onwards, she saw a large manor come into view. Well, it was larger than her home in Mercia had been, that was a start. Her lips didn’t change into a smile at all, but they were soon at the estate, and one of the men helped Aoife off her horse. “Welcome to Camelot my Lady.” The man had a thick Mercian accent, which didn’t really work with what he was saying. Aoife just nodded at him. What she wouldn’t give to be back home, and not having to bother about making a good impression.

Aoife remembered Richard telling her about this Aunt of hers ages ago now. She’s just been toying with him, and teasing him, but she’d never expected to meet the woman in question. Aoife still couldn’t understand why her other Aunts and Uncle’s wouldn’t take her in, it was all incredibly insulting. It wasn’t like she was a handful or anything, all she needed was a nice gown here and there, her mare and that was it. She just looked about her, Camelot just seemed very plain, and that was it. She wasn’t that impressed. “Shall I show you inside my Lady?” Aoife looked around, put off there was no one here to greet her. What could be so important that her Aunt and Uncle couldn’t spare a few moments to come and see her in? It was just rude, didn’t they know that? True, she was a day or so early, but they still should have been expecting her. This was so unorganised.

“Yes, thank you.” Aoife said to the man who began to lead her into the manor. It was quite splendid, and Aoife could imagine living here. It would never be her home of course, and she already just wanted them all to take her back to Merica. What was she going to do in Camelot? She’d never wanted to come here anyway.

“My Lord and Lady Aubert are in the solar, shall I show you through my Lady?” A fresh faced maid had appeared in front of her. Aoife didn’t really like her accent, but she nodded and the man by her side released her, telling her they would start unpacking her things before they went back to Mercia. She wanted to go back with them, was that so much to ask? The maid rushed off and Aoife was stood there rather awkwardly with her head held high, waiting to be introduce to her Uncle and Aunt.

Well why hadn’t he introduced himself? Didn’t he want the Mercian royal family to know who he was? The Royal family was one of the most important, if not the most important in all of Albion, so she couldn’t believe Richard was being so silly about this whole thing. “Why not?” She chirped back to him, because if she was of another royal house she would probably be incredibly excited about introducing herself to the royal family of Mercia. Everything Richard did just confirmed the fact he was an incredibly strange individual.

Aoife knew Richard was being sarcastic, or at least she thought he was being sarcastic. It would be rather strange if he hadn’t been being sarcastic. She pulled a face at him, “Well she is a de Archer, I can’t see why you wouldn’t love her.” Aoife’s wit was yet to come to maturity, but she did have occasional moments. Though Aoife loved her comeback, and she would be telling everyone just how quick and clever she was at such a response. She knew now though that that would be her only half decent come back of the night which was a little disappointing, but she had made her point to Richard at least.

Aoife pulled a face at Richard. Though she was a girl, and she did find ribbons and things like that quite fun and interesting, it didn’t mean that was all she cared about. She was rather put out that Richard thought that was the level of her interest. She loved many things, ribbons just happened to be one of them. For one, she loved her horses, her father had bought her her own horse and she loved it with all her heart. She loved dancing as well, see there was more to her than ribbons and flowers. Aoife was about to point that out to Richard, but her ears pricked up at the sound of the lutes tuning up into their first piece. She was incredibly excited and turned around to see nobles assembling in the middle of the room. Now she had another idea. She grabbed Richards arm and practically dragged him into the middle of the room to where the dancing was about to take place. Now, Richard couldn’t leave the floor because it would be an insult to her household, and the fact she was a child would just win her sympathy. Aoife was good at getting people to feel sorry for her. Plus, Richard would just draw attention to himself, something she supposed he wouldn’t want to do. “See, I like more than just ribbons and flowers you know. I take it you can dance?”

Aoife was finding it incredibly difficult to keep herself from laughing. She’d never met an adult like Richard before. Most adults wouldn’t even speak to her in the way that he was, they’d just find her father or send her away. Well, Richard had sent her away before but she knew he didn’t have any power over her so she could exploit that somewhat. She still didn’t really believe he was royalty of wherever he was from, maybe he was delusional, that was always possible. Ok, now it really was difficult to keep a straight face. Pressing her lips together to stop herself laughing, she coughed into the back of her hand, a trick her father had taught her so people wouldn’t know she was laughing at them. “So why are you immature? Shouldn’t royalty be more… well…” She couldn’t think of the word and she pressed her lips together, “Learned.” She said rather smugly. If he was some sort of Duke then he should be able to come up with better responses than the ones he was giving her at the moment; honestly.

Putting one of her hands on her hip, Aoife raised an eye brow at Richard. She was only young, but she knew when she was being talked down to. She was a de Archer after all, it wasn’t as if being talked to in such a way was uncommon. Her grandfather was the worst for it. She didn’t have much time for him, he just annoyed her. “So why aren’t you trying to attract women then?” She asked, smugly once again, and looked around the room. There were plenty of young women without partners who were incredibly eligible. Aoife hoped that when she was old enough she would attract better attention than any of them were, “Are you just shy?” She asked in a pitiful tone, if Richard was going to speak down to her, then she was going to bring this down to her level. “Or is it that you miss my Aunt too much?” Now she was on the verge of giggling, and she did let out a small laugh, because everytime her Auntie Caitrin was mentioned Richard just looked uncomfortable.

It was always about business with Richard, for an immature delusional Duke he was certainly all about work. How boring. “What business exactly?” He probably would answer her again, but she hoped that he would, maybe she would even catch him off guard; she lived in hope of course.

Aoife pulled a face at Richard’s answer. Why did he always make things so difficult? Did he just enjoy being annoyed and grumpy? This was the second time she had met him, but neither time he had looked very happy about anything. “Why wouldn’t you want to tell me?” She challenged with a wicked grin, “Is is something secret?” Her immaturity often shone through in situations like this, but she didn’t care, she was too excited at the prospect of actually having sussed Richard out in a sense. “What will it take for you to just look happy as well, this is a feast not a funeral.” The words had her mothers touch all over them. She often said the same thing to her father at such functions.

Aoife giggled slightly as he said her Aunt wouldn’t leave him alone either. She and her aunt were clearly in one mind when it came to annoying Richard, if that had been her aunt’s intent of course. Like she’d pointed out before, she’d never met the woman. She only heard odd things from her family, and most of that was gossip. “Why wouldn’t she leave you alone?” She asked curiously, and with wide eyes. He couldn’t deny her an explanation when he had been the one to say such things could he? Then again it was Richard. When he finally told her to go away, Aoife felt like she had achieved something. Obviously she didn’t want Richard to hate her, but he was now showing that he didn’t like her at all. Now she could fan those flames, as she had no intention of going anywhere, this was much too fun after all! She, unsurprisingly, didn’t move but instead walked so she was stood in front of Richard, rather than off to the side. After all, if she was going to continue to annoy him she wanted his full attention for the pleasure. “You don’t like me very much? Do you?” She asked him with raised eye brows and with her arms folded. A smug grin pressed against her young lips, she had him sussed, or at least that was what she thought, which was the important thing at the end of the day.

Well, the night had arrived and of course Aoife was looking her best. She had been looking forwards to his feast for weeks, mainly because it meant an evening away from her siblings, and the house in general. Her brother and sister were just irritating really. Her brother was the apple of her parents eye, so of course Aoife was just left on the sideline most of the time. Indeed, she was only here tonight because her parents loved to socialise. She hadn’t left her father, Bryce’s side just yet, mainly because she wasn’t supposed to. Young women weren’t supposed to be at these things without a chaperone apparently. Aoife just wanted to have fun, but clearly her father just wanted to treat her like she was still six. She wished he would just treat her like a Lady of the court. He wanted her to act like one, but he never treated her like one.

Eventually, Bryce found himself deep in conversation, so he waved his eldest daughter away. Aoife, who now wasn’t happy about being forced away from adult conversation, began to walk around the Mercian court. It was a very colourful affair, and anyone who was anyone was here; it was the way of course. This was where all the deals were made, for wars, marriages and property. Aoife wished she had more to talk about. The women just looked down on her like she was still a child, and the dancing hadn’t started yet so she didn’t have a chance to show off the new steps she had been practising. Overall this was going to be quite a boring affair in Aoife’s opinion.

She had the ribbons in her hair which she had bought two days back in the market. She wondered what had happened to Richard, as soon after he had left her father had taken her home. She had been quite enjoying winding him up. She had asked about her Aunt Caitrin that evening over dinner, and had just been met by irritation by her father. Aoife had only said she had heard gossip down on the market about her, but Bryce had replied with ‘That is of little surprise’. Aoife didn’t really understand, but she wished her father would just be simpler about these things. It wasn’t hard to just make things easy once in a while. Pouting slightly, her eyes ran across the court. Her friends hadn’t arrived yet; that was disappointing. Maybe she could take a walk out in the castle gardens, that would be a fun pastime anyway. As Aoife went to leave, she noticed a man lingering around the door to the great hall and a smirk went across her lips straight away as she approached the man. “Did you find what you needed at the armourers?”

Aoife could tell the man wasn’t wearing armour, and that he wasn’t heavily armed, so why would he need an armourer? He wasn’t dressed to look like he was a knight, and Aoife just found herself not trusting him at all. All his clothes just pointed towards him being some oddly dressed nobleman, and he was clearly just arrogant because he was playing up a rather refined accent. Aoife didn’t really like him at all, so she decided to make it her business to annoy him as much as possible. Her father was only just in the armourers if the man turned nasty. “What do you need the armourers for?” She now asked with a smile, though she forced the smile onto her lips.

Was Richard just teasing her? She folded her arms to show him that she wasn’t impressed with his words. In her mind, he was just bluffing. Nothing about him said he was royalty. Who would hide the fact they were royals? It made no sense to her. She would have loved to belong to a Royal household, you would get everything you ever wanted, and more. “You don’t look like you’re a Royal.” She pointed out with a smirk, it did however amuse her that he bowed to her. “Are you being serious or not?”

Aoife couldn’t hide her shock at her Aunt’s actions. She had run away? And presumably that meant she had run away from Camelot and not from Mercia. Well that made sense in a way, Mercia was a lot better than Camelot and Aoife wouldn’t have been able to understand it if her Aunt had run away from Mercia, rather than Camelot. However, it was still a silly thing to do. Women couldn’t just run off could they?! Aoife didn’t like the sound of this Aunt straight away, she just sounded very different, but her father didn’t have a very high opinion of her either, which was why she was hardly mentioned. “Why did she run away?” Aoife asked curiously, “But it’s a silly thing to do.” She quickly added. Aoife smirked straight away though, as a thought occurred to her. If her Aunt had been brave enough (or stupid enough more like!) to run away, then why would she have just let Richard take her back? That seemed like a stupid waste of time, especially if her Aunt had taken the trouble to run away in the first place. “So she just went with you, just like that?” Aoife raised her eye brows; this man wasn’t very good at lying was he?

Aoife hadn’t really heard much about Sir Lucan. Sure, she knew he was a Knight of Camelot, but that was about it. Her Aunt and Uncle hadn’t talked about him very much, then again they didn’t speak about much which didn’t involve the estate, or the twins, at the moment. Aoife still couldn’t believe how much time the twins took out of her Aunt’s day, it just surprised her. How much looking after could babies take? Sure, she had two so that meant double the work, but they couldn’t even walk or talk yet, how much trouble could they be?

Anyway, she dismissed these thoughts from her head and focussed on the task in hand. She was only fifteen, but she was going to try and act like she knew what she was doing. How hard could it be to get rid of this knight anyway? Maybe she could convince her Aunt to come down and deal with him herself, she just wanted to read. Why did adults always think their business was more important than anyone elses? She had things she could be getting on with as well.

As Lucan introduced himself, Aoife curtseyed lowly and bowed her head to him. She knew how to do this perfectly; she had had enough practice, “It is a pleasure to meet you my Lord, I am Lady Aoife de Archer.” She brought her head back up to meet Lucan’s gaze and gave a short smile, “I’m Lady Caitrin’s ward, she’s indisposed at the moment.” Aoife really wasn’t sure what to say past that, and she kept quite stiff in front of the man, “Did you want anything in particular my Lord?”

If this man wanted to speak to the man in the armoury, why was he still standing outside, not going in? Aoife wasn’t completely convinced by the man’s story in any sense. After all, he hadn’t looked like he was in a hurry to go to the armoury. Aoife might be wrong, however, but she was certain that she wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to budge anytime soon. Instead, an idea came into her head, “Well then why don’t you go in to the armourers?” She asked him and raised both her eye brows straight away. She gestured to the door, if he had come to talk to the man, then he could just go straight in couldn’t he? “Where are you from then?” She asked him rather quickly, there, he wasn’t from Mercia so where had he come from?

Aoife would have thought that what she wanted to be called would be blindingly obvious. This man was clearly just ignorant, or perhaps he was just stupid. That wasn’t completely unbelievable. “By my noble title, I am a Lady after all.” She said rather elegantly, and in a more refined accent than her usual one. She even raised her chin a little bit. Aoife was proud of being a noblewoman, and she was proud to be Mercian, and this man was mocking both of those things. “And what can I call you?”

Aoife couldn’t believe this man was so stupid. Did he not know the power the de Archer family had in Mercia? Well, primarily in the army, but still, they were a noble family who demanded respect more than perhaps some of the other Mercian noble families. Aoife wanted to laugh for a moment at the man’s ignorance. “My name is Lady Aoife de Archer.” She curtseyed in quite a low manner, as she wasn’t going to lower her standards just because this man seemed incapable of realising high status when he saw it, “Have you heard of the de Archer family?” She asked with a smug smile, well, perhaps he would now apologise for his foolish mannerism of treating her in such a way. Then again, perhaps seeing as he was not from around here he would not know who the de Archer family was. It was his problem if he did not, seeing as the de Archer’s were hardly ignored within Mercia, especially in the army.

The fact the man had to bend down to speak to her annoyed her slightly. She didn’t like anything which emphasised her height. She had a sort of complex about it, and she already didn’t particularly like this man. His accent wasn’t Mercian, in truth she had no idea what it was. Aoife had never been further than the Mercian borders, and that was the way she like it. “Who said I was lost?” She replied very quickly, her arms still folded as she glared up at the man. She wasn’t quite sure why she was glaring; oh well, she was young and could get away with it. She was playing up her Mercian accent just to make sure he knew that she was from here, and therefore not lost. Though Aoife was young, she was quite sharp, and she knew this man was not from Mercia. “Aren’t you the one whose lost?” She asked with a smug smile, she was sure that she was right, and that this man wasn’t from Mercia at all.

Aoife finished tying off the ribbon in her hair, and looked across at the man. “I know where my parents are.” She replied sharply and kept her arms folded. She couldn’t understand why this man was just standing here on his own. There were so many more things he could be doing with his day than just standing here, being boring. Why were adults so boring? She never wanted to reach an age where she just decided to be boring, just like everyone else. Frowning slightly, she knew her father wouldn’t approve if he knew what she was doing. But he didn’t approve of much that she did, so that was just fine wasn’t it. “What are you doing?” She asked, leaning to look past him to see if anyone was there. There wasn’t, which made it worse and meant Aoife was already confused about what this man was up to.