Chapter Text
Once upon a time, as many of these stories start, there was a king.
Francis was his name, and he was the first of it, so when the name was associated throughout the kingdom with generosity, cleverness, and a deep caring for his citizens, these were traits known to be true to him alone. He was just, if not particularly adept at public speaking; kind, if not always terribly nice; and one of the best strategists the country had ever seen. For the first twenty years of his reign, prosperity thrived.
Then, just after his forty-fifth birthday, things changed.
It was an affliction, those closest to him knew. An affliction that had affected his father as well — had driven him to an early grave — and was the reason King Francis had taken the throne so young.
For King Francis’ father, the affliction had set in when the Queen, King Francis’ mother, died.
For King Francis, it was when Lord James Clark Ross got married.
But this story is not about King Francis or his lost love.
Once upon a time, as many of these stories start, there was a knight.
He was the sixth child of a lord, but he was the first son, and this, he was told from an early age, made him special. He didn’t often feel very special.
He was a good knight: brave, and kind, and smart, though he had no desire to be a lord, had no desire to be like his father — a strict, proud man who rarely had a kind word to say, never a comforting touch or loving encouragement for his children. This was his lot in life though, his destiny, so he swore fealty to a king who had long since given up his deep caring for his citizens in favour of long periods of melancholy and the company of a jug of mead. He swore fealty to his king, and he proposed marriage to his childhood best friend, and his childhood best friend said yes, and for a long time, that was enough.
But this is not a story about Edward Little and his broken engagement.
Once upon a time, as many of these stories start, there was a blacksmith’s son who wished for more.
He was strong, and he was ambitious, and he knew he would be a good knight, if only he had the opportunity. If only they would let someone of his birth, with his rough hands and rougher accent, near enough the castle to train. He could be a good squire, he told himself. He’d never been one for taking orders, but he could do it, if only they would let him. He could protect his kingdom, could get fame and prestige, and he could make himself worthy of the beautiful girl who lived at the end of the lane.
But this is not a story about Solomon Tozer and the way fever took his first love before they could ever be wed.
And once more, once upon a time, there was a kitchen maid.
She was young, barely twenty, when the man first noticed her. She was beautiful, too, with shiny black hair and big blue eyes, delicate hands and a delicate waist, and when he told her he loved her she believed him.
When she told him she was with child he told her it could not be his. Surely, he said, she had been with someone else. A common girl like her, there must have been plenty of others.
The child was born during a thunderstorm, and young Sarah felt lucky to see only her own dark hair and her own bright eyes, nothing to tie this child to the father who had abandoned them both.
The child was believed to be a girl, and so that’s the way she was raised. The palace kitchens were the only nursery she ever knew, strapped to her mother’s back as her mother chopped and scrubbed and leaned over ovens and fires and large, boiling pots of soup. When she grew old enough to walk, to explore, she would spend the time she could in the gardens, with the sweet, quiet Lord’s son who hid there from his lessons, or down in the town around the palace, her hair trapped under a hat, playing with the village boys. Tom, he called himself, when he was in the village, and the boys called him Tom back, and he felt, for the first time, like he belonged.
Tom grew older though, and so did the young Miss Jopson who he had to pretend to be at the palace, and the shape of his body started changing, and his voice stayed the same, soft and high and feminine and all wrong.
His friends down in the village noticed, of course they did, and they started treating him differently, making fools of themselves to try to impress him, begging a kiss, just one kiss, please Miss Tom, one kiss from a pretty lass like you and I can die happy.
There were only two boys who didn’t treat him any differently. The blacksmith’s son was too busy mooning after sweet, pretty Caroline to even consider asking Tom for a kiss, and Tom loved him for it — even if he thought, sometimes, that if Solomon were the one asking he might give him one.
And then there was Edward. Gentle, quiet Edward, who, when Tom had asked him to teach him what he learned in his squire lessons, had agreed without question, who had snuck Tom a bow and arrow for his thirteenth birthday.
It was just after Tom’s fourteenth birthday, and just before Edward’s sixteenth, when Tom told him. Told him about the boys in the village, about how it wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss them. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want to marry a boy one day. It was that Tom himself wanted to be one of them. That he had felt like a boy for as long as he could remember, and he didn’t understand why.
Edward, in exchange, told Tom about his own fears: how he had no desire to take over his father’s lordship, how he was only training to be a knight because it was what was expected, how it was the only thing that would get him out of his family manor and away from the watchful eyes that resided there. How whenever he imagined his future, all he wanted was a peaceful cottage somewhere, a horse, maybe a few chickens. A husband, he added, voice tiny and frightened.
It was just after Tom’s fourteenth birthday, and just before Edward’s sixteenth, when Edward kissed Tom for the first time.
It was just after Tom’s fourteenth birthday, and just before Edward’s sixteenth, when Tom kissed him back.
This is a story about Tom Jopson.