“And yet you refuse to treat with me.”
“Because what we had, brief as it was, had run its course,” Francis said firmly.
This conversation was absurd, and Francis hated having it within earshot of the other fencers.
He dearly wished he’d never fooled around with Wittensbach, nor anyone else for that matter, in the year following Philippe’s death.
Francis had been grief stricken, turning to drink and bad company to try and fill the void. But a few months of trying made it all the more clear that he was going about it all wrong, that he needed to grieve Philippe’s loss fully before he could ever move on.
And he hadn’t seen fit to entertain another man since.
He thrust his sword out and nicked Wittensbach’s thigh,steel scraping armour, but Wittensbach managed to land a blow at the same time, sword tip glancing off of Francis’s headgear.
A poor move.
“You didn’t even give me a chance,” Wittensbach complained.
Francis had had just about enough of this.
“It was a fling! We were hardly courting.”
“Because you were still hung up on that penniless captain,” Wittensbach shot back.
Francis saw red. He advanced aggressively, driving Wittensbach back. “And he was.”Thrust. “Twice the man!”Thrust. “You will ever be!”Thrust. Francis landed a point dead centre in his chest with enough force to have Wittensbach stumbling backwards, landing on the grass.
Francis removed his mask and stood over him, sword pointed down. “Don’t ever speak of him again, Wittensbach,” he warned. “And don’t speak to me, either. We are done.”
Wittensbach said nothing but glared up at him.
Duel over, at least as far as Francis was concerned, he turned around and walked off.
He grew weary of these games.
* * * *
On the royal balcony, Queen Fatima squinted through the telescope as she observed the red-haired Stormburg prince leave the field after besting just one opponent at fencing.
Annoying,she thought. After that splendid archery tournament earlier, she’d hoped for a rousing fencing match between the two most skilled swordsmen, and Stormburg was cutting out early.
“Somelimonana, your majesty?” Roxana, her lady-in-waiting, suggested.
“Only if you can fashion a way for me to drink it without my eye leaving this scope,” she answered.
“I’m quite sure we can manage,” Roxana replied. “Fetch the glass straws at once,” she told their servants.
Fatima smirked and did not remove her eye from the scope. She used the handle below to ever so gentle focus in on the fencing matches that were still going on.
A long moment passed in silence before Roxana asked, “Will your husband be joining us today?”
Fatima exhaled through her nose. “Doubtful. He is hiding in the back garden.”
“Mm.” Roxana hummed. “And for supper tonight? Could he be persuaded?”
“I’m sure I will think of something,” Fatima replied. It had been her, after all, dressed as King Omar, hidden behind a screen last night. If the king could not be enticed to dine, she would have to do it again.
Her drink arrived with a long straw, and the servants arranged themselves before her like skilled acrobats to balance the drink and hold the straw for her to sip lemonade without taking her discerning eye off the tournament that she had painstakingly organised.
When the lemonade was finished and the servants gone, Roxana piped up again.
