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Dearest Clarity,
We missed you on Samhain, darling. Your mother said you were out helping with some flood or other, but really, could it not have waited? Did it have to pull you away from your family, coming together to remember our ancestors? I burnt an extra stick of incense for you, but this foolishness will catch up with you sooner or later. Best come to your senses now before you make the ancestors and the gods angry.
Now, I'll take no excuses if you are absent during Midwinter this year. I've made inquiries and learned that those Riders of yours make sure everyone gets at least two nights of the holiday free, and half if there's no trouble, so I expect you here for the townhouse party, and that you will accompany me to the palace functions whenever else you're free. They'll be plenty of young men, and while they'll probably have their eyes first on the younger and more femininely skilled women, they'll see the gem that you are, given the chance. You've got a very good name with a decent inheritance built into the estate, and you're kind with a good head on your shoulders. Your mother says you're leading a whole group now, and those skills will serve you well in running a castle. If you only tried, darling, you'd see that it's not too difficult to catch their eye, and only slightly more so to keep it. You've always liked a challenge - isn't that why you were so drawn to those Riders in the first place? Well, I've got one for you. Catch some young (or older, if you like) man's eye. You don't have to marry the first one who courts you; just give it a try. I know all that danger with your Riders is exciting, but you aren't getting any younger. You might find the slower pace of womanly court life suits you now.
We’ll see you at Midwinter (or I'll know why),
Your loving aunt, Margaret
Clare sighed as she finished reading her aunt's letter. It wasn't like her attitude was new, but she'd thought that her mother had been getting through to her aunt. Her mother at least was supportive; as much as she wanted grandchildren, it was clear that Cleon would settle down in a reasonable amount of time, and Ermelian would make a good Lady of Kennan. And while her mother cared for the fief and its future, she also cared very much for her children's happiness, and she could tell that for Clare that was with the Riders, at least for now. The rest of the family though-- apparently they were still determined to push.
There wasn't much anyone besides her mother and brother could do, legally speaking, and Cleon was even more supportive of her than their mother was, even more so in the past few years since he'd apparently become close friends with the new lady page. The rest of the family could still make things difficult though, and Clare was not looking forward to enduring the parade of bachelors her aunt was doubtless preparing for her.
"What's troubling you, rider?" a voice asked, and Clare started slightly as Commander Buri plopped herself down on the bench next to her and plucked a roll off of her plate. Buri chuckled as Clare blushed and collected herself.
"Letter from my aunt," Clare said, gesturing. "She's being..."
"Difficult?" Buri asked wryly when Clare trailed off.
Glumly Clare nodded.
"Is it 'come do something sane and safe', 'find a husband and settle down', or 'you should be paying more attention to your family than to those barbarians you joined up with'?"
Clare grimaced. "A little of all three. And she seems determined to solve them all this Midwinter."
Buri chuckled. “Good luck to her. But I’m sorry that it won’t be pleasant for you. I can prioritize you on the duty roster if you’d like the best chance of getting out of it.”
Clare sighed. “No, I should go and appease everyone. There’s just going to be so many bachelors…”
“Tell them you get enough of bachelors when you’re working alongside the Own.”
Clare snorted. “Then they’ll want to know why I haven’t snagged one yet.”
Buri hummed. “You could tell them that you have?”
“Ah, but then they’d want proof.”
“You know, I was proof enough for Raoul’s family a few years back. Of course, it ended up being more than just for show, in the end. But it was a good plan.” She chuckled. “They didn’t know what to do with me, me having status but not exactly a noble, but it kept the single women from doting on him, at any rate, even if his great-aunt still tried to convince them to.”
“That sounds nice,” Clare said wistfully.
Buri elbowed her. “So ask someone. Show up with an eligible bachelor you can have a nice time with. Just be honest with him up front about what you’re asking for.”
“But I’m a group commander,” Clare protested. “It’s…messy if I ask anyone ranked lower, and of the male commanders…”
“Is there anyone from the Own?” Buri asked. “They’d come with a built-in excuse for holding off on marriage; you’re waiting for them to finish out their career, and you might as well be useful in your own way while they do.”
“That’s true,” Clare said, considering. “Fulcher might, but…I’d still feel badly leading someone on like that.”
“That’s why you tell them up front what you’re looking for,” Buri reminded her. “If they don’t believe you, that’s on them. But you might be surprised. You already know that one of the goals of the Riders and the Queen's Ladies is to provide opportunities for women to gain status without marriage?"
Clare nodded.
"For some of the nobles, the draw of the Own is the prestige, but for many of them, especially the commoners, the excuse to not marry is why they choose it over the army. Not everyone of course; people do leave to marry often enough. But most of them aren't in any more of a rush than you are, and being in the Own pays enough to keep their families happy and gives them a perfectly good excuse to deflect any family inquiries about settling down."
Clare hummed, trying to remember if Fulcher had ever broached the subject of marriage. She knew he danced often enough, but he didn't really flirt the way many of the other men she knew did, and she couldn't ever remember him having a steady interest in anyone in particular. When he wasn't dancing, he tended to stick close to his squad mates or his friends among the Riders.
"Oh, and do fill out the paperwork," Buri added, "even if you don’t expect it to go anywhere. It saves Raoul and me a headache later in case anyone sees you.”
Clare sighed. She’d forgotten that approach would have paperwork attached. “If we do it, I will,” she promised.
***
“On one condition,” Fulcher said when Clare finished explaining her request. “We go to my family’s Midwinter party too, and we tell them I need more time in the Own under my belt before your family will approve us marrying.”
Clare felt like she was melting with relief. “Deal,” she said.
They shook on it.
***
Notice of Intimacy Intent
We hereby disclose that we are entering a voluntary social relationship beyond the bounds of normal camaraderie. We agree that no action beyond the bounds of normal camaraderie shall occur while any party is on active duty. We agree that such a relationship, while active or afterward in the event of its conclusion, shall negatively impact our duties. We agree to this information being disclosed to our superiors and to others at a superior’s discretion. We understand that a superior may decline to assign us collaborative duties, and that we may face disciplinary action if we do not adhere to the above.
Signed,
Clarity of Kennan, Commander, Sixteenth Group of the Queen’s Riders
Fulcher Wright, Corporal, Sixth Squad, Third Company of the King’s Own
***
The Kennan party fell on the first night of the holiday this year, and Clare collected Fulcher from the Own’s barracks at dusk before setting off into the city. She’d done her best to warn him for what he’d probably be in for, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Auntie Margaret would have something they hadn’t anticipated up her sleeve. With any luck, she’d at least be caught off guard. After some consideration, Clarity had told her mother and brother that she was bringing someone, but begged them not to tell the rest of the family.
Fulcher offered her his arm as they neared the townhouse, and Clare took it with a resigned sigh. A servant opened the door promptly when Clare knocked, and they were ushered briskly into the parlor. Cleon was standing just inside the door -- waiting for them, Clare suspected -- and offered her a hug and then Fulcher a hearty handshake as Clare introduced them. Cleon began to ask Fulcher about how things were with the Own, and Clare breathed a sigh of relief as she took stock of the room and braced herself for the more difficult interactions to come.
It took Aunt Margaret approximately 48 seconds to realize there was an unfamiliar young man in her crowded parlor, and only two more to note that his proximity to her meant that he must have come with Clare. Fulcher hadn’t even begun to answer Cleon’s question before she was on them like a vulture.
“Clarity, dearest, it is lovely to see you! And who might this be?” She eyed Fulcher like he was the prize goose at the palace butcher’s.
“Aunt Margaret, may I present my suitor, Corporal Fulcher Wright of the King’s Own. Fulcher, may I present my aunt, Margaret of Fenrigh.”
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Corporal Wright,” Margaret said.
“It is I who am delighted at the opportunity to meet the family responsible for my dearest Clare, Lady Margaret” Fulcher said, bowing low over Margaret’s hand and kissing it. “I am in your debt for your generosity.”
“Not at all,” Margaret said, blushing slightly as Fulcher straightened. “Any man who has caught Clarity’s eye must be worth investing in, indeed.”
“Auntie,” Clare protested.
Margaret shot her a look that promised there would be words later for Clare having sprung this on her. “You must meet the rest of the family, dear,” she said to Fulcher. “Allow me to introduce you.” She clutched Fulcher’s arm firmly and towed him over to the nearest group of relatives. Clare let out a sigh, endured a pitying look from Cleon, then plodded after them.
“Clarity dear, we missed you at Samhain,” her uncle said as they approached.
“I am sorry to have stolen her away,” Fulcher said before Clare could respond. “But she was invaluable to us in helping that poor village recover from the flooding, and I did my best to soften her pain at having missed your gathering.”
Clare smothered a snort. She supposed it was true enough, even if Fulcher had had nothing to do with either of their groups being assigned that mission and their joint guard-shift had mostly consisted of swapping outlandish ghost stories.
“That’s our Clare, always out and about making herself useful,” Uncle Tomlan said genially. “Ever since she was a little girl, too busy adventuring to come home unless we made her. You’re with the Riders then?”
“The Own,” Fulcher corrected, “but we work together a great deal.”
“You’d think the Own would be big enough to handle its own problems,” one of Clare’s cousins muttered.
Fulcher, grinned, unfazed. “It’s being big that’s the problem, actually. We’re great for regular combat and heavy-lifting, but if you need scouts, or work in tricky terrain, or there’s a lot of civilians to work around, the Riders are who you want. But oftentimes people need a mix of things, so they’ll send us out together.”
“Hmm. Suppose that makes sense,” Tomlan mused. “She’s the finesse and you’re the brawn, is that it?”
Clare rolled her eyes, but knew better than to argue with the teasing glint in her uncle’s eye. Fulcher just grinned again. “She’s plenty brawn when she wants to be, and it’s lovely to behold.”
Clare elbowed him but grinned back. “And you’ve got plenty of-- well, no, you’re not really one for finesse at all, are you?” she teased.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if I were,” Fulcher said brightly.
The rest of the introductions went smoothly, and Fulcher invited Clare to dance before Margaret could start her next inquisition. Dancing carried them through a good portion of the evening. Clare noted with amusement and a twinge of pity that there were significantly more young men in the room than young women, and hoped her aunt hadn’t given any of them too much false hope.
Inevitably, though, Margaret did catch up with them when they stopped for refreshments.
“If you’re in the Own, you can’t marry,” she told Fulcher, her tone just short of being accusatory.
“That’s true,” Fulcher said, “and I’m not ready to resign yet, but in a few years’ time…I’ll have a good pension, and the credentials to transfer into a role where I could marry.”
“And I’m not in any rush to leave the Riders,” Clare said. “It keeps me close to him, and doing good for the realm besides.”
Margaret surveyed them shrewdly but then nodded. “It’s not the way courtship was done in my day, but I suppose these are new and evolving times.”
That was positively progressive for Aunt Margaret, and Clare did her best to contain her shock. “They are,” she said when she had her face under control. She smiled at Fulcher. “But I think such times will suit us well.”
***
Clare deemed their act at her family’s party a resounding success, and it was with a lighter heart that she set off with Fulcher towards his family home on the fourth night of the holiday. He’d mentioned that his family swapped homemade gifts in a tradition similar to one Clare had seen done at Rider parties, and while he insisted that she need not bring anything, she had spent her free time over the last few days whittling a set of buttons with the Wright family crest. They weren’t professional-quality by any means, but she was proud of them, and in any case Fulcher had assured her that craftsmanship wasn’t the point and his family would be touched that she’d taken the time to make anything at all.
They linked arms again as they approached. Fulcher had written his family generally about her in advance, and the woman who opened the door when he knocked positively beamed at Clare. “You must be Clarity,” she said, ushering them inside and relieving them of their packages. “I’m his mother, Violet, and we’re all so excited to meet you.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Mistress Wright,” Clare said.
“Oh it’s Violet, please,” she insisted.
“Well then it must be Clare.”
“I can smell the roast from here,” Fulcher interrupted before his mother could start her own inquisition. “I hope dinner’s planned for soon, or I fear I will drool over everyone’s fine Midwinter clothes.”
Violet laughed and hugged her son warmly. “Of course, dear, it shouldn’t be long now. But come in, come in.”
The Wrights were no less interested in Clare than her own family had been in Fulcher, but the interest was softer, somehow. They asked her about the Riders and her goals for the future, but also what she liked to do, what she and Fulcher liked to do together, and when they asked about her family, it was not tactful prying about how well-positioned they were but earnest care for how her relationships with them were. Violet clucked sadly when she mentioned her family's wanting to wait to give their approval to Fulcher, but she resigned herself to it with good grace. In turn, Clare learned that while Matthas, Fulcher’s father, was the master wainwright, it was Violet who managed most of the business with dizzying efficiency. She was a merchant’s daughter that had been raised on balancing books, and she had negotiated a share of Matthas’s business in her own name before consenting to marry. Fulcher’s two sisters proved equally sharp, and Clare chatted happily with them over supper about Ethelia’s healing studies and Dolsa’s apprenticeship with the district magistrate’s head clerk.
The exchange of gifts was a lively affair, and Violet was delighted to claim the buttons Clare had made. Clare received a small box of teas with various medicinal applications from Ethelia with earnest thanks. Too soon, it seemed, the city clocks were striking eleven, and Fulcher remarked regrettably that they had best be getting back soon.
They left under a small barrage of hugs and well-wishes. Fulcher walked her back to the Riders’ barracks. The local festivities seemed to have just gotten out, and there were a number of both Riders and Ownsmen milling about on their way to their beds.
Clare pulled Fulcher aside near the barracks’ entrance so that they didn’t block the door.
Someone whistled nearby, and belatedly Clare realized that there was a sprig of mistletoe over the place where she’d taken them. She eyed it warily, but then caught the equally apprehensive look on Fulcher’s face. They both laughed. “Good night, Fulcher,” Clare said, side-stepping out of the decoration’s shadow for good measure as she clasped his arm warmly.
“Good night, Clare,” Fulcher grinned at her. “Happy Midwinter, and here's to another year of unwedded bliss.”