Archive of Our Own ^beta

Now, let me tell you another version of this story in another way, which could be called Eliduc, Guideleuc and Guilliadon.

Guildeluec loved her husband Eliduc as one loves someone out of respect and for years of long knowledge.

Likewise Eliduc loved Guildeluec in the same fashion.

The estate where Guildeluec grew up was neighbour to Eliduc's own.

Eliduc was fostered in Guildeluec's own home. As children, they laughed together and found comfort with each other in times of sorrow. There was some need of comfort, as Guildeluec was often chided by her mother for being too loud or boisterous. When stories were told, Guildeluec loved the stories best where ladies took up the sword and played a knight's part. She always clapped during the tale of "Yde and Olive" when Yde married the Roman Princess, Olive, and was by an angel transformed to a man's part. She enjoyed the Romance of Silence too. Although, she greatly disliked the ending where Silence was forced to marry the King.

After her mother would chide her for this unnatural dislike, Eliduc would entertain Guildeluec by telling her a completely different ending for Silence. Sometimes, he told her Silence ran away to Byzantium, became the head of the Emperor's army, and married the Emperor's youngest daughter. Sometimes, he told her that a Fairy Queen met with her on the road when she returned with Merlin, and that Queen took Silence up as her champion. There were many variations. But the common theme was that she would wipe away her tears.

Nearby to the seat of the estate, there was the home of a hermit, where they would go for both laughter and comfort. Although that good man spent his life in the contemplation of God's grace as expressed in the greenwood, he was not adverse to their company. It was he that advised that Guildeluec take up Saint Pelagia as her personal saint for the years that holy woman spent in tonsure, as a monk, having abjured the sins of her former life as an actress with followers both male and female. She was also to honor Saint Marina for the years that woman suffered to conceal her gender.

On the way to and from the hermitage, there was a sort of bower that the children found where a tree had been cracked in half by lightning and then as if refusing to die, grew sideways over a hollow in the earth. In the spring and summer, its branches were rich with perfumed flowers and thick with leaves. To the two children, this bower was a castle or a city or fairy land. Guildeluec would take up the role of Silence or Yde or Pelagia. They played boisterous games that brought them both great joy.

Now, as it was that they were often together, and thick one with the other, no one remarked on it that one might finish the sentence of the other. No one said much if one would say, "Oh, like the white," and the other would laugh, "yes, the oxen." They had at times, it seemed, an entire language made up of references that only had meaning for the two of them.

It was only natural that as they flowered into adulthood, the two grew closer yet. No one thought that perhaps they should be kept slightly from one another as she transformed into a young woman and he took those first steps into manhood.

It was in their bower with the rich scent of flowers drifting their perfume that they made their first innocent touch of hands. It was there that they sat side by side and pressed their lips together. Their kisses and touches were at first quite innocent. They formed a part of their rough play.

Guildeluec's lips were firm and Eliduc loved to part them and taste within. It was Guildeluec who unlaced her bodice that Eliduc might slide his fingers within and bring sweet delight with that exploration. She cried out to Saint Pelagia in truth then, though not for the reason the monk might have wished.

It was Eliduc, who helped her with the clasp of her girdle that he might further delight them both with sweet kisses. He was not long for his clothing either.

They made of their bower a bower in truth and coupled freely and with great joy.

They felt no shame in it, and in truth the ways in which they explored each other would have been frowned upon had it been known. But they kept of this a secret.

All spring and summer, they went often to the bower to enjoy its use and all the ways they might freely use each other.

It was with great sorrow that the winter came and they were to the castle confined with no outlet for their affections.

Though they were still in their youth and in truth too young to wed, they both pined one for the other. Eliduc begged his parents that he might wed Guildeluec.

Guildeluec prayed to her parents that she might wed Eliduc.

Now their parents had no great objection to the match and every hope for it. Their only objection was the youth of both Guildeluec and Eliduc. After Guildeluec's confession to her mother that she and Eliduc had already greatly enjoyed each other, the wedding was swiftly arranged. In truth, her Mother was relieved as she had feared a far greater sin for her daughter and the heir to their house. That any child they might have occasioned with sinful play might be within wedlock, the vows were conducted by Twelfth Night's feast.

That first winter, they spent little time out of their chambers. No one remarked on it, as it was a cold and bitter winter. Although, neither of them found it to be so.

In the years that followed, Guildeluec sometimes wondered if the fact that she did not quicken with child, no matter the trying for it, was because of their trespass in youth or that she did not always play properly at a woman's part.

But Eliduc would comfort her saying, "Oh, Leuce," for so he often called her, "There can be no trespass, because there is and was no sin."

Then he would comfort her in their wedded bed. Outside of it, she would redouble her efforts to be a goodly wife in the way the world reckoned such things.

Now, they could not always be together, for such was not the lot of a Knight. When Eliduc left her to fight in the service of a foreign king, her heart was heavy and her bed empty. She would find herself trailing sentences with no one to finish them for her. She gathered about herself such ladies that she might be fast in virtue, but this was its own torment. For she found the appearance of soft women most appealing. This was the sin that her Mother had once feared for her.

That she might be true to her husband, she went to their bower of old and lay upon a coverlet there and held her Husband's image firmly. She plucked from the tree an old branch and had it made smooth. She made some use of it as if it were Eliduc, but Eliduc had always been the storyteller. Her mind was made for the receipt of stories. She would chide herself after and applied herself to the maintenance of their estates. For by this time, their parents had gone to God, and their inheritances had long been joined so that it was impossible to separate one from the other.

For Eliduc, the loneliness of parting was much the same. He would be at a feast and he would say, "Ah, blue heron," and there was no one to laugh and poke him in the ribs for the reference. Only eyes turning to him to ask, "Yes, what of the blue heron?"

This did not stop him from falling greatly in love with the Princess Guilliadon. He would call her Domina and gest with her, for he was good with words. She would blush sweetly and look away. All that was feminine and delicate had been gathered in Guilliadon's face and form. This was of good fortune, as she had no Mother to advise her in how to behave in a womanly way.

So it was, she feared to woo a knight, but more greatly feared not wooing him. She invited him to her solar, where he would hold her silk floss as she embroidered. There surrounded by small orange trees in great wooden pots to keep the trees warm, they would while away the winter hours. She would press her kisses on him and he would tremble in her arms. He returned her kisses, but he held back from declaring himself. She was certain this was because of he knew there was no likelihood that they might be wed. For she was the daughter of a king, and he was a wandering knight from another land with estates that could not be joined with her kingdom.

Still, she pulled one small piece of fruit from a fecund tree and peeled it for Eliduc. She fed him sweet slices with her fingers.

He could not resist. He licked at the juice. She could not resist. She did not pull her hand away. He paid court then to her fingers. She gave forth sweet sighs. She placed a piece of fruit in her mouth. She offered that piece to him, which he took. They enjoyed it and each other as if it were the cloven fruit at a feast day that they exchanged by kissing.

Even as troubled as he was by the memory of his sweet wife, Eliduc did what he should not do. He whispered, "Domina, command me."

Guilliadon, trembling with shame and the force of love, said, "Pull the curtains upon the window seat." He did this. She said, "Lie with me." He did this. They lay together on the soft silken bench with its window that opened out on the tree tops. It was bittersweet, and though they took their time, it was too soon over.

Too soon also, Eliduc received word that his king commanded his return. He told himself that he was doing what was best by removing himself with promises that he would return.

It felt a strange thing for his heart to be so heavy and yet filled with such light to see Guildeluec again. He was about to explain some thing or another, and she filled in his words. She told him, "Love, you are the other half of my heart."

He did not know what to do. For his heart was quartered, and he felt he had nothing left of it. He loved Guildeluec and he loved Guilliadon, and neither knew of the other.

He knew that he should not, but he lied to his wife and returned to Guilliadon. He asked that this good and kindly princess accompany him and become his bride. Of course, a storm occurred, and his sweet love learned in the worst way in the world that he had had a wife for many years, and hearing this fell into a suffocating swoon.

He placed Guilliadon's body, which seemed to be a sleep of death in the old hermitage, which now lay empty as the old hermit had died. He grieved for half his heart was gone and even when Guildeluec finished his sentences, there seemed a grief in it.

He did not recon on Love's power. Guildeluec knowing of her husband's troubled heart, came to the place where Guilliadon lay as if in death. As Eliduc had been struck by love at this perfect flower, this budded blossom, so too was Guildeluec struck through the heart on seeing her.

It was as she was weeping that perfection should die, that she saw a miracle. One weasel being slain, another weasel placed a flower in her love's mouth to revive her.

Guildeluec acted swiftly to obtain this flower, which she placed in Guilliadon's mouth while praying to Saint Pelagia for aid for it was weasels, who had brought food to her in her hermitage.

Guildeleuc blazed with joy when this lady, this Donna, for how like the Madonna she seemed to Guildeluec, came back to life. She wanted to know more of this lady whose grace was a comfort to her eyes.

Guilliadon said, "Lady, I am a princess of Logres where I loved a knight, Eliduc, who misled me thinking he was free to love me, while in truth his hand was not his to give. Heart broken, I fell into death at learning this. Now I find myself abandoned by this criminal. Great is a woman's folly who puts her trust in man."

Guildeluec placed her hand upon Guilliadon's. "It may seem so, but I am Eliduc's wife and I know that he grieves greatly for what has come to pass. Knowing him as I do, I know he has been in great torment with his heart so divided. Please, return with me that we might untangle what has been tangled."

They returned to the castle. But facing Eliduc, who wept on seeing Guilliadon, and faced his wife with great shame, there seemed no simple way out of this maze.

Moreover, Eliduc was summoned by the king, who was once more in difficulties.

As he left, Guildeluec told Guilliadon, "Such is it to be the wife of a knight. They wander while we must hold still. Once it chafed at me, until I found smaller circles in which to wander."

Guilliadon nodded and as if she could not contain them, all her fears each time Eliduc rode out the gate tumbled out. Guildeluec patted her hand, because it pleased her greatly to have even this simple touch. She coaxed from Guilliadon words on her own childhood and Longres, and gave her tales of her own.

They became great friends, and divided the work of the estate between them. Guildeluec gladly gave Guilliadon the chatelaine's key's for her interests had always more naturally tended to the good maintenance of the fields and husbandry of their livestock. For this allowed her to ride in the outdoors.

Guildeluec gave over her solar to Guilliadon, and would at times sit at her feet holding her floss for embroidery. Betimes, as they were in the comfort of her own home, Guildeluec put on garb more commonly associated with a masculine length and noted how Guilliadon's eyes followed her legs when so clothed. She often touched Guilliadon's hand at such times and once stole a kiss from Guilliadon's cheek.

Now as it happened, they were walking one day when they chanced upon the bower of Guildeluec's childhood. She said, "Sweet Donna," for so she called Guilliadon, "here Eliduc and I played when we were children."

There was nothing for it but that Guilliadon wanted to see it. They went within and Guilliadon exclaimed at the perfection of this bower. Guildeluec smiled and said, "This was where we exchanged our first kiss. Like this." So, saying, she kissed Guilliadon's lips.

Guildeluec trembled sweetly and asked, "And then what came?"

Guildeluec showed her. She had Guilliadon unlace her bodice and she pressed sweet kisses until Guilliadon exclaimed from it. She cried out loudly and then blushed, but Guildeluec only smiled and said, "There is no one about to hear you. Express your joy. When but a child I took as my personal Saint, the kindly Saint Pelagia, who understands such deeds as we now do. So, cry out your joy." Guilliadon did. She expressed her joy even more greatly when Guildeluec applied the smoothed stick that she had in her lonely time used upon herself, but now rejoiced more in its use upon the one she loved.

Guilliadon marveled that she could feel such love in her heart, and though she feared at her own forwardness, she feared were she not to do as she desired. So, she sought to return the favor to Guildeluec's great delight.

Much flushed after this love play, they returned to the castle to find Eliduc had returned.

He looked from one to the other and asked, "What has occurred?"

Guilliadon blushed and Guildeluec boldly said, "I believe I have found the answer to the tangle in which we are in."

Eliduc was impatient to hear this answer. Guildeluec linked her arm through his and said, "My love, can you not see what it is?"

Knowing her as he did, he said, "The answer is to tangle further."

Guildeluec kissed his cheek and taking Guilliadon by the hand pulled them both to their chambers. They each kissed Guilliadon between them. Such that one called her Domina and the other Donna and it sounded like a song braided with Guilliadon's sweet cries of love.

That winter they were often in their bed, but no one remarked on it for it was a bitter winter. Although, they did not find it so.

Eliduc would often sit with them in the solar telling them tales. Guilliadon would be at her embroidery. Guildeluec would be at tallying the rents from their estates.

Sometimes in the privacy of this bower, they would exchange kisses as if trading an orange stuffed with cloves between their lips.

In the spring, they went to their forest bower and rang the trees with the cries of braided love.