☆ Round Two!

[jsmn_kink]

Welcome to the second round of the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Kink Meme at jsmn_kinkmeme!

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Fill - Fathers and Sons 2/2 (Childermass & William of Lanchester)

[(Anonymous)]

The Raven King's seneschal looked at him mutely, centuries worth of weary sorrow in his gaze. Childermass did not want it. He could not breathe, and he did not want it. He would not have pity. Not for this. Not for anything. His mother had not raised him for pity. Black Joan had known there was no use for it. Mercy, that was worthwhile, and compassion, fellow-feeling, but pity was a thing that 'betters' felt for those beneath them, and Childermass would not have it. In that, he was his mother's son.

"... Things are done differently in Faerie," Lanchester said at last. "I do not think my king entirely understands how much so. Your mother was ... She did not ask for help. She did not need it. That you grew to the man you are only proves it. You have earned your life, John Childermass, on your own merits and on the strength of what you were taught. That is what matters in Faerie. It was not ... He would not think of it as a test, or a cruelty. He would have stepped in, had either of you ever asked it of him. Neither of you ever did."

No. No, they had not. But then, why would they have? Things were not given in life. They were exchanged, or they were earned, or they were stolen. They were not given just because someone might ask, or only very rarely. They would not have asked for what they had not earned. They had never had a use for pity, his mother and he. Not even from kings.

Kings. His king. The Raven King. His father ... His father was the Raven King. God above. But he could not think of that. Childermass could not wrap his mind around the ramifications of that just yet. Not if he hoped to remain sane.

There was another question, though. An old one, very old. One that Childermass had longed to ask someone, anyone, for a great many years.

"Do you know what happened to her?" he asked softly, in a voice that did not crack. It did not break, though perhaps more because it was still so distant from him than because it did not want to. "My mother. Do you know what became of her? She vanished one day, after I had gone about into the world. No one I met with could tell me where or why she had gone."

His eyes, which had drifted downwards, looked up at the other man again, and he saw a smile now on William of Lanchester's face. Not a large one, nor a mocking one. A small, secretive one, that spoke of a great and happy amusement.

"She did not ask for help," he repeated softly, with that little curve of his lips. "Our king is not accustomed to being ignored with such ... aplomb. Nor is he particularly patient. That winter, when you tried to look for her. It was unusually warm, was it not? The weather was contrary."

Childermass blinked at him. He did not immediately take his meaning, but then he remembered. One of the first sayings he had ever learned. When the weather is contrary, we say that John Uskglass has fallen in love again, and neglects his business.

"He came for her?" he asked carefully. "My ... My father came for her?"

He did not mean to sound so young, so childish. It was only that he had searched for her, on and off for years, whenever he had an opportunity. Not necessarily because he wished to find her, if she did not wish to be found, but only to be sure that nothing had befallen her. And he had never had a father. His voice did not know how to ask such a question otherwise.

There was pity again, in Lanchester's face. Or perhaps it was only compassion. He smiled as he nodded, with the shadow of amusement still in his eyes.

"If it is any consolation, I believe she yelled at him somewhat as well," he said, with a certain wryness. "On your behalf, rather than her own. A fine time for him to be showing up, when you were a man already and had no need of him. I'm not sure if she had learned yet who he was at that point. If she knew that he was the King. I'm not sure it would have mattered even if she did. He asked her to come to Faerie with him. You were a man then, by Faerie lights, and her duty was done. It was not stealing from her to ask it then, nor from you either. She wavered, but she went. I think she trusted you by then to survive most anything."

Childermass snorted softly. His mother had trusted him for that well before then. He had been a survivor of the first water from the day he was born, even if he was also possessed of a stubborn insolent streak as well. He did not keep his head down very well, but to compensate he had become quick and clever enough to manage most of what it brought him. When he had left her company, headed to Whitby and otherwise out into the world, she had told him that she loved him and to carry his head high. Even then, perhaps they had not really expected to see each again, or at least not soon. They were thieves. They knew how fragile their company might be. They always had.

"She is well, then?" he asked, meeting Lanchester's eyes with a lighter sort of calmness. "She is happy enough?"

Lanchester smiled. "Shall I show you?" he asked, gesturing with one hand towards his ale. It was not quite a silver basin, but magicians could make do at a push. Childermass nodded, trying not to do so as eagerly as he wished. He was not sure if he succeeded, but perhaps it did not matter. Lanchester quartered the liquid in the pewter mug, and Childermass leaned unabashedly forward to see what image might come of it.

The woman sat at a window, inside a great stone embrasure. Her hair was dark still, though streaked with grey. She wore a beautiful gown, deep red and cut of a mediaeval style, and there was a necklace of garnets and jet at her throat and pendants at her ears. Her feet were bare beneath the hem of the gown, though. He could see dirt and mud upon them even against the murk of the ale. She had a battered black briar bowl in her hand, and seemed to be smoking quite cheerfully on it as she looked out over whatever landscape lay beyond the window. She looked sated and content, and not the slightest bit tame. She looked beautiful. All sons think their mothers so, but Childermass dared anyone to say different here. Her name was Black Joan, she was his mother and the lover of the Raven King, and she was beautiful.

"You may see her, if it is your wish," Lanchester told him quietly. "My king would prefer it if you would consent to see him first, but you may see her also. She doesn't ... Ah. She has not yet been informed of this meeting. Or even of his intent to tell you who you are." He grimaced again. "I did warn him that that ... might not be wise, but he would not have it otherwise. He has never been particularly clever when it comes to love. Or family, I suppose, but then he has had little enough of that. Until ... until now."

Until you. It was not said aloud, yet Childermass heard it nonetheless. He looked up, looked away from the image of his mother, happy and content and wearing a lady's gown over a thief's bare feet. William of Lanchester looked back at him. There was that expression about him again, that mixed fondness and exasperation, that weary and uneasy care. He loved his king. Childermass could see that, could understand it very well. He had done so too, when that had been all the man was. A king, a distant figure it had been his life and his pleasure to serve. Yet it was not ... To imagine him as a father was not ...

"What does he wish of me?" Childermass asked his father's seneschal softly. "What does he want, my lord. As my king he may ask for anything, but ..."

He trailed off, shook his head helplessly. He did not know how to finish that. He didn't even know what he meant himself. But. His king might ask for anything, but. Why? What right had he to hold anything back? Why did he want to, when he had never wanted anything save to serve his king? And yet. There was a 'but'. He did not know why, but there was. A father was a different thing. A father he had never had, and some part of him did not know if it was a mastery he wished to allow anyone to have over him. Not even his king. He had never needed a father before. He did not know if he wanted one now.

"... He wishes to know you," William said at last, and very gently. "I do not think he entirely understands what he wants himself, but I think that is the base of it. He wants to know his son, as his son. Not as his servant, however brave and valuable a servant he might be. And you have been, John Childermass. That much at least, you must not doubt. The regard in which you are held is not an empty one, based on blood you did not know you carried. You have earned it, in blood you have spilt and battles you have fought. Fairies fight for what they inherit. There is nothing you have not earned, not in either world. Your duty is done. It is not stealing to ask this of you now. I think that is why I am here."

Childermass bent his head, a wry little twist about his lips. He laid his hand across the Emperor card, still laid out on the table between them. "That's just it," he said. "I am a servant, sir. Not a very good one, perhaps, but I am. I do not think I would know how to be a king's son."

A hand touched lightly against his, turned it gently and gripped it with casual strength. Childermass looked up, into the ancient, wry and weary eyes of a man who had loved and served a difficult master for many years. William of Lanchester, seneschal of the Raven King, patted his hand gently and smiled at him.

"Then be John Childermass," he said softly. "Be the man Black Joan raised, the man who has dealt with everything in his life without ever asking for help, the man who has earned his victories regardless. Be John Childermass, meet with your father, and let the rest fall where it will. We have survived some centuries, you know. Your father's court. It may not be easy, but it is reasonably likely that we will survive you as well."

Childermass laughed. He could not help it. He liked this man, he thought. His father's servant. He thought that he and William of Lanchester might have a thing or two in common. A certain aplomb in the pursuit of their duties not least of all.

"You should tell him he was wise to send you first," he said at last. "You are a better diplomat, I think, and I am occasionally an intemperate man. He was wise to trust you first."

"I shall tell him and gladly," William said, with a look in his eyes that said it would not be the first time. And then he added, while Childermass was thus disarmed by amusement and would not see it coming: "Thank you for the compliment, my prince."

... Prince. It was a good thing, Childermass thought distantly, that he was already sitting. Prince. His father was a king. His father was the king. He was the Raven King's son. John Childermass was John bloody Uskglass' bloody bastard, and he'd earned the right to an acknowledgement of it. He was a prince.

And maybe it was wickedness, maybe it was a streak of his father in him, but for a moment the only thing he could think of was Henry Lascelles, and what the bastard's face would have looked like had he been told.

It was not a reason to accept the honour. Indeed, it might be a reason not to, and be damned to any and all who thought otherwise. The Raven King had earned his throne, risen from slavery to kingship, and Childermass would not have done less. He had little enough use for inherited titles, for he had enough experience of the kind of men who relied upon them, who used them to bring their enemies down. No, he thought suddenly. Whatever about a king's son, he did not think he should like to be a prince.

"Bugger to that," he said, with a mix of warning and amusement. "I am a servant and a magician, sir, but I am not a prince. Nor shall I be. Whatever else may come of this meeting, I do not think I shall agree to that. You may take this as fair warning. I shall have nothing that I have not earned, and by my lights, not my father's. I fear you may both get used to that."

Lanchester blinked at him, his head cradled in one hand as he leaned heavily on the table. "... Likely, I said," he murmured after a moment. "Reasonably likely. You are your father's son, aren't you? And your mother's as well. I always knew one day his romances would get us in trouble."

Childermass snorted. "Aye, well," he said. "If a man does not want that sort of trouble, then he should keep it in his trousers. Otherwise he deserves everything he gets. You may tell him that from me as well."

Lanchester smiled faintly. "Don't be cruel," he said. "Keep some messages for yourself, John Childermass. You have better right to say them, and to answer for them as well."

Childermass blinked at that, and accepted it. He inclined his head in wry acknowledgement. "My apologies, my lord," he said. "You have been the bearer of enough uncomfortable news, and you are right. It would not be fair to ask you to go between us when I may speak perfectly well for myself." He paused briefly, to let the decision crystallise inside him, and then he nodded to himself. "Shall we go, then? You and I? I have a father to meet, and I understand that he is not the most patient of men. There's no time like the present, I think."

William of Lanchester took his hand from his face, and set it about his tankard instead. "Aye," he said, and drained off the last of his ale in one long, fortifying gulp. "Aye, John Childermass. Let's be about it, then. And Heaven help us all."

Childermass doubted that, somehow. He understood that Heaven was not always on the best of terms with his father, or himself either for that matter. But if all else failed, then he thought that he should help himself, or he should die trying, and perhaps his father no less than him. It was, after all, the way they had lived their lives. That much at least, he and his king had in common.

'Twas not the worst of things a man might share with his father, all things considered.


A/N: I figured that, Raven King or no Raven King, Childermass would have opinions on deadbeat dads who'd abandon a woman to raise a child out of wedlock alone and in poverty in 18th century rural bloody England. Even before he realised that this was his deadbeat dad. He's his mother's son, after all. I thought this might be a more complicated reunion than John Uskglass might perhaps have anticipated. Fortunately, his seneschal as a slightly better grasp of such things.

Re: Fill - Fathers and Sons 2/2 (Childermass & William of Lanchester)

[(Anonymous)]

This story was delightful ! I loved Childermass' thougts and words, and I adored poor Lanchester with wuch duties and sometimes such a stupid king...

Re: Fill - Fathers and Sons 2/2 (Childermass & William of Lanchester)

[(Anonymous)]

A!A here. I have all the sympathy in the world for William of Lanchester. Heh. I'm glad you enjoyed!

Re: Fill - Fathers and Sons 2/2 (Childermass & William of Lanchester)

[(Anonymous)]

I love everything about this! I can just picture what the meeting/confrontation between Childermass and the Raven King will be like - and what Black Joan will have to say about it all when she finds out what's happened behind her back XD Brilliant!