How Peter Won Ellen // Lindensea 2

I

The battle was going exceedingly ill, King Peter thought.

Lindensea were at a disadvantage on this miserable muddy moor, kept at bay by the army of Everwick. They were running out of supplies, and the weather was absolutely foul yet again. Did the sun ever shine in Everwick, Peter wondered, or was it a constant grey drizzle day after day?

Oh yes, and someone had just cut his foot off.

All in all, not much of a day so far, and it was only six in the morning, Peter thought, rather muzzy from blood loss, although in too much pain to actually get drowsy.

It was the 25th of October, the Feast of Crispin of the Crescent Moon, in the second year of King Peter's reign, 1411 of the Saxon Era.

It was a day that would live in history, although it had started so badly.

"Who cut off my foot?" Peter enquired of his general, Lord Geoffrey Hetherington.

"Ah, that young warrior right in front of you," Lord Geoffrey said, in some social embarrassment. He did not know the correct etiquette for introducing a victim to his attacker.

Peter peered over to see.

"Not exactly a giant, is he?" he commented to Lord Geoffrey. "Must be half a head shorter than me." For King Peter was a tall man, well over six feet, and strongly built.

The young warrior removed their helmet, and shook out their long golden hair, revealing themselves to be not so much a middling-sized male warrior as a female warrior who was rather taller than average, if anything.

"I am Princess Ellen of Everwick!" she proclaimed. "You shall not take our land, or our freedom! We shall fight until our last breath, we shall give every drop of our blood to protect our realm. Now I have taken your foot in battle, dog, turn tail and run home to Lindensea."

(Sir Geoffrey wondered how exactly a dog was meant to run home with one foot missing. And if they lost all their breath and blood in protecting their realm, how could Everwick possibly hope to win? These sort of things bothered Sir Geoffrey.)

Princess Ellen's face was dirty and bloodied, but it was a fair face beneath the dirt, and her eyes glowed fiercely. They were amber eyes, like a hawk's, almost the same colour as her hair. She cleaned her sword and thrust it back in her scabbard, rejoining the battle without a backward glance.

King Peter gazed after her with an expression something akin to awe.

"Who on earth was that?" said the general's second-in-command, Sir Ranulph Ponsonby, wandering over to see what all the shouting had been about.

"That, gentleman, is my future wife," said King Peter, trying to sit up, and gesturing for Geoffrey and Ranulph to help him.

"But sire, she is the enemy," protested Geoffrey, giving the king all possible assistance.

"That's why we have to win the battle now," King Peter said determinedly. "It's the only way I can ever have her hand. So call the blacksmith to sear my wound, and bring me a fresh horse so I can lead my men."

Barely twenty minutes later, King Peter, one leg now ending in a stump, but looking quite magnificent on his white stallion, rallied his troops.

"From this day to the ending of the world, we shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers - for he that sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother. And gentlemen in Lindensea now asleep in bed shall curse they were not here in Everwick, when any speaks that fought with us upon Crispin's Holy Day," King Peter roared.

"My brothers, there can be no surrender, there can be no retreat, there can be no failure. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength. We shall fight them in the beech woods, we shall fight them on the moors, we shall fight them in the hills and fields, we shall fight them in the streets to the utmost of our strength. Victory can be our only outcome, because victory, my brothers, is our only option. Who fights for Lindensea?"

Hundreds of voices cried, "For Lindensea!" and there were many thousands who shouted, "For Peter!" But in his heart, King Peter whispered, "For Ellen."

Note

Everwick was the Norman name for the city of York, so the kingdom of Everwick loosely corresponds with Yorkshire in our world, just as Lindensea loosely corresponds with south-west England.

October 25th 1415 is the date of the Battle of Agincourt, a famous English victory against France during the Hundred Years War. October 25th is also known as Saints Crispin and Crispian's Day, legendary saints who are the patrons of shoemakers (slightly ironically for Peter). 

King Peter's inspiring battle speech is of course cobbled together from the Agincourt monologue in Shakespeare's Henry V and the famous wartime oration by Sir Winston Churchill.