Prince Hal had been looking forward to fencing class. As he was destined to be Henry the Fifth, he was excited to see how he’d measure up to the other students. The only downside was the early hour. He would barely have time to eat breakfast and get out onto the grounds.
He got out of bed sluggishly, his head still feeling like lead. The approaching morning was just a dim haze of blue through the window lattice. He was astonished to see his roommate had awakened first, fully alert, buttoning up his black military jacket. A rapier already hung on his belt. Was Hal supposed to have his already?
Hal dressed himself while Hamlet inserted his black skull-shaped ear studs and left without saying a word. Hal sleepily followed him out the door and down the drafty staircase to the hall. Hal found it and his friend Benedick, who was waiting for him. He was sitting at one of the long wooden tables, his bowl already finished. His white military jacket was easy to spot in the gathering morning glow through the narrow windows.
“Making love to thy pillows? Break thy fast in haste lest we miss the appointed time!” said Benedick.
“Ben, I’m not in the mood to practice speech this early in the morning.”
Hal sat at the table with him and dunked the last chunk of bread on the cutting board into a pot of jam.
Ben frowned. “Wast thou carousing all night?” he said.
Hal groaned. “As routine to me as the sunrise is to the sky.”
“Before our fencing class? Art thou not afraid to put thyself, thy ancestors and thy countrymen to shame?”
Hal wasn’t listening. He had heard it all a hundred times before. Hal stuffed the rest of the bread and jam into his mouth and followed Benedick. They went outside onto the fortress grounds. It was a tropical morning with a hot wind from the south, the kind of weather that Hal needed to wake up fully, but not the kind he welcomed. The palm trees swayed to and fro on the edge of the grounds. A group of students were lounging against the wall of the gatehouse. Hal waved to Mac, who was rubbing his bare tattooed arms.
Hal got up against the wall with the stocky Scot, if only to have a place to seek shelter against the wind. He looked up past Mac’s broad shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t have to fight him in whatever lesson they would get. Hal looked down the line at the other students, trying to see if the tropical wind was affecting any other cold Britons. Everyone else’s skin was far more tanned. Romeo, on Hal’s other side, looked quite comfortable in the hot wind, even casual as he scrolled through his mono-loguer.
Finally Hal recognized which one was the teacher.Orlando, a Frenchman not much older than the rest, spoke English well enough that he could even be understood by Mac, although beside Mac he looked a bit twiggy. Hal smirked. Orlando still wore a peasant’s shirt and vest though he was of noble birth, and he, like Romeo, was tanned and looked far more at ease with the climate. Hal was already starting to feel sweat trickling down his back under his leather jacket. He had clearly packed the wrong clothes for school.
Orlando cleared his throat. “Are ye all gathered here to learn your foils?”
The students murmured generally.
“What was that, the wind? Speak up!” insisted Orlando.
“We are met even so, Orlando.” said the students in a drone.
He unclipped a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the door to the gatehouse.
“Ye will find your fencing gear arrayed inside. Dispense it among yourselves until you are armed. Then meet me on the lawn.”
Hal groaned again. First he had to get out of his comfortable bed into the humid morning, then into a tropical wind and now he had to change into even more uncomfortable, perhaps ill-fitting protective gear? This was really killing his enthusiasm for fencing. They changed in the gatehouse.
“Change off in yon corner. None of us wants to see your ugly hump,” Hal heard Romeo say.
He heard angry grumbling from someone, but he was too busy trying to get his plastron on. They had to pass some of the breeches and jackets back and forth until each of them found one that reasonably fit. They carried their caged headpieces under their arms and came to the other end of the armory where Orlando showed them the rack of rapiers and daggers. Mac laughed out loud.
“What, we be fighting with these wee pig stickers?”
Orlando shushed him. Hal finally felt better about this lesson, knowing Mac would not be using the gigantic broadswords he had seen him whirling about on the grounds. The guards were all fairly plain, simple practice swords, but there were many of varying sizes and grips. The first one he tried felt light as a stick and the blade was so thin it wiggled. He could hear many of his fellow students trying them out and whipping the flimsy swords in the air like batons. Orlando shouted for them to stop until they were outside.
Hal finally found a sword that didn’t feel too springy and joined his classmates outside. They all looked like beekeepers in their white suits. The only jacket Richard had been able to fit into was one too large for the rest of his body, but just big enough to accommodate his hump.
They all rushed around to find partners. Hal looked for Benedick but they all looked the same in their matching gear. They stood facing each other in two spaced rows, and waited. From the other end of the line it looked like Romeo had got a little excited with his own sword and was whipping it around like a jump rope. Hal’s belly grumbled. His breakfast hadn’t been enough to alleviate his hangover. But he trusted Ben wouldn’t work him too hard.
They looked with impatience over at the gatehouse door, which was not closed. Was someone else coming? Then one more fencer hurried through the door and ran up to the line with the rest of them. Hal thought he overheard Orlando say something to him, something in French.
Orlando then went to each pair of duelists and corrected their stances. Hal and Ben had their headpieces on and had already taken their stance when Orlando came over to them.
“Bend your back leg more! You don’t want to trip if you have to step back.”
“Retreat? I never!” joked Hal.
His adrenaline was running again. At Orlando’s command, he and Ben finally got to cross foils, the ends flailing like a pair of angry snakes. Ben twisted his arm to change the angle and stick at him with his point. Hal ducked under and jabbed him from beneath with his dagger. They both laughed and started again. Their moves got faster as they grew more confident. The foils whipped around like egg whisks. In the end they both took turns twirling their blades like jump ropes and singing songs. Orlando called them all to stop.
“I think perhaps a change of partners is in order. Signor Benedick, you practice with Romeo for a turn.”
Ben groaned and went off to the other end of the line and Hal was left alone on the grounds without a partner. He took off his helmet to wipe his sweaty brow. Orlando called out in French again and the latecomer lined up with him. He was far shorter than Hal; he was tanned and weathered in the face yet his features looked quite delicate, almost childlike. His hair was cut very short so that he was almost bald.
“How do you care to dance?” asked Hal casually to the boy.
The boy didn’t answer. He just looked up at him with a resolve Hal found unsettling. This was a very stern-looking boy and confident for his age.
“I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Hal, the Prince of Wales.”
The boy still didn’t answer him but kept looking up at him with eyes of a rich walnut color. He broke his gaze to look over at Orlando and then Hal finally felt the air come back into his lungs. What was it about this boy that took his breath away?
Orlando came over to them, gave him some pointers about his stance and then helped his mute partner, instructing the boy in French and helping him position his sword.
“Vous ne voulez pas maintenir votre point trop bas ou il peut vous frapper au visage. Continue comme ça, tu comprends?” said Orlando.
“Oui, je comprends maintenant,” he replied.
Only it wasn’t a boy’s voice, even a young boy’s. It was a girl’s. Swordplay was not allowed to females at this school; he hadn’t even shared a single class with a girl before. He wanted to ask Orlando why he was partnered with a girl but the instructor was off trying to keep Mac from beating Richard’s head in with the pommel of his rapier. Hal looked down at the girl.
“You fancy yourself a fighter, Miss Frog? You’re better suited to polishing swords than wielding them, if you know what I mean.”
He gave her a roguish wink. Orlando commanded them to get ready and put their headpieces back on.
“Let’s see if you can stiffen my blade.”
When they began, the girl kept twisting her arm around and attacking from one angle after the other every way he blocked her. He was actively moving backwards, trying to throw off her attacks to the side but she came back with another just as quickly. She was plunging at him, jabbing nonstop like a headbutting ram with minimal motion of her body. She didn’t get any hits on him, but in retreating, he fell over his own feet to the ground.
He heard a few laughs above his head. They only made his steaming head hotter. He threw off his headpiece and got back on his feet. He made such a fuss that Orlando called for them to stop again and came over to them.
“Who is this girl, Orlando? Are you deliberately trying to humiliate me?”
“You and Benedick were too busy playing to actually fight each other. She should be more of a challenge.” said Orlando.
“Challenge? From a girl?”
“She beat you in the last round, didn’t she?”
“No she didn’t, I tripped!”
“Try again.”
Orlando walked off in spite of Hal’s protests. He took his defensive stance again but was determined to be on the offensive this time. She didn’t let up in the second match either, so Hal pressed forward with all of his body strength. He was taller, he was certainly stronger, and what was more, he was English! But her blade moved faster than he could keep up with, especially while still partially hung over. She hit him three times, on the head and then on the shoulders.
“Jesu Christ!” Hal swore loudly, “Will you let up?!”
The woman suddenly barrelled into Hal, punching him in the gut so hard he doubled over. On the ground she kept kicking him over and over, yelling at him in French. Hal was hit so hard his head swam.
“Jeanne, arrête! C’est assez!” Orlando cried.
Hal rolled over in the grass still wheezing and clutching his stomach. There was even more laughter above him.
“‘The Port of Mars’, eh?” a voice jeered.
Hal just lay there, burning with pain, anger and embarrassment. Someone came over and took his headpiece off and offered a hand to help him up. It was Ben, looking sympathetic. Orlando quickly called an end to the lesson so that both Hal and Richard could go to the infirmary and have their injuries looked at. Ben put his arm over Hal’s shoulder to try and block the view of him from the other students they passed.
“Never underestimate a woman, Hal.” said Ben.
Ben walked him down to the infirmary, full of stiff cots and rotten blankets. Helena, the nurse, was friendly enough but Hal wouldn’t let her put any leeches on his skin. He sat on a cot after he changed out of his fencing jacket with his arms crossed, looking sullen.
“Stupid French!” spat Hal.
Helena was too sweet a lady to look angrily at him so she looked hurt instead and went back to putting a poultice over Richard’s swollen eye. Ben stood over Hal, shaking his head. Hal bit his lip and looked away from him.
“Are you going to calm down and act like a man now?” asked Ben. “Hal, being drunk was the whole reason you…”
“No! It’s because two stupid frogs wanted to make a fool out of me! And why the hell is a woman so good at sword fighting?”
Ben threw up his hands and walked out. Hal didn’t see him again until after lessons. The rest of his school day went on as usual. He attended Kingdom Management, Battle Tactics and Iambics 101 but now with a bad attitude and a sore head. The stentorian teachers went on in sonorous speeches, but Hal hardly paid any attention and he was too angry to goof around. He didn’t quite feel up to putting his feet up on the back of another student’s chair as he normally did. He looked over at the other students from the fencing class and dared them with his eyes to snicker or say anything about what had happened.
He grabbed up his satchel after Professor Titus had stopped talking and quickly walked out before any other students had the chance to remark at him. Every class he shared with Ben he spent trying to avoid him after the harsh words he had said. He was sorry for yelling at his best friend, but it was too late now; he didn’t want him to think he wasn’t still furious about losing to a girl.
After all his classes were over, he didn’t bother with his homework or assignments. He headed straight off towards Jack Falstaff’s ‘office’ to vent and get his drinking done for the day.
Happily, Ben intercepted him on the way there.
“Are you willing to talk, or will you skirt away from me like a chidden child?”
He avoided looking Ben in the face.
“Ben, I am sorry, but I still don’t want to talk about it.”
“Leontes won’t always be around to let you get away with it.” said Ben. “When you become king there will be consequences to your little outbursts of temper.”
“Oh don’t start, you sound like my father!” said Hal.
He made to turn away from Ben and leave him behind, guessing he would get his drink elsewhere. As he turned, he nearly ran into someone shorter, someone who had come up silently behind him.
When he regained his balance he recognized that it was the girl from fencing class. The shock of seeing her paralyzed him for a moment. She wore a plain underarmour gambeson and breeches. Her eyes still seemed to suck the life out of him the longer he gazed into them. Before he could react or register how he felt about her unexpected presence, she bowed.
“Le prince Henri?” she said, “Je suis désolé de t’avoir humilié. J’étais fier de le faire, c’était mal. S’il vous plaît, pardonnez-moi.”
Hal gaped at her, open mouthed, unsure what she was saying or what to say back. He looked over at Ben.
“Do you know French, because I have no idea what she’s saying.”
Ben sighed and stepped over to her.
“She’s sorry she beat you and wants you to forgive her.”
Hal was still speechless. Until now, he thought she had been put up to it by Orlando. Ben shrugged as if Hal expected him to say more and had no idea what else there was.
“Er…”
An apology wasn’t really what he wanted. It was to get his machismo back from the students who had seen him lose to a French girl.
“Well, that’s okay, I suppose.” said Hal.
She looked back up at him. Her deep eyes looked misty.
“Tell her ‘thank you’.” said Hal to Ben.
“Le prince vous remercie et accepte vos excuses.” said Ben.
She straightened back up with a smile. Hal was not prepared for that. Her dark eyes sparkled like a night sky filled with stars. He laughed awkwardly like a small child who couldn’t understand what he was seeing; there was something so strikingly beautiful in those eyes. She never once broke eye contact with him even when Ben translated their conversation both ways.
“Dieu nous dit d’aimer nos ennemis; puisque vous êtes l’ennemi de la France, je dois donc vous aimer.”
He looked desperately over at Ben again for a translation.
“She says she ought to forgive the future enemy of France and be friends with him.”
It seemed preposterous, so foreign an idea that he laughed again.
“Sure! Why not? Tell her we’ll be friends!” said Hal. “Ask her name, I’d like to have a fighter like that watch my back.”
“Le prince souhaite également être amical avec vous. Comment t’appelles-tu?”
He offered her his hand like any gentleman. The girl beamed at him as she took it; her hands were calloused for someone so young and her grip was very strong.
“Ask her if she’d care to join me and Jack for a pint.”
Ben was about to relay the message to her, but she broke off at the sound of the bells for Vespers from the abbey chapel. She went off, skipping down the corridor towards the chapel like a giddy child. She beckoned to Hal to join her but he didn’t. He stood waving back at her. Ben looked disapproving.
“What?”
“You’re just going to be friends, right?”
“What are you so concerned about?!”
“Listen, I talked to some of the other students about who she is and take it from me, you do not want to go down that path.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jean, I think. You’d have to spend most of the day in church just to see her. The students I asked said she’s crazy.”
“Crazy? How?”
“They said she says the statues talk to her.”