Laura Kinsale’s
FOR MY LADY’s HEART

>What if Gawain and The Green Knight did more than just kiss - and one of them was a woman, and the other was autistic.

For My Lady’s Heart is a complex work that engages with a mix of themes and ideas. Layered among them is a character who subtly but clearly depicts the experiences of an autistic man in medieval times.

Ruck and Autism

In the character of Sire Ruadrik of Wolfscar - also known, when incognito, as Sire Ruadrik d’Angleterre, the green knight, and simply Ruck - Laura Kinsale has presented a subtle and masterful depiction of a man on the autism spectrum. Ruck’s life is profoundly shaped by his autistic traits. Ruck faces challenges in a world with neither accommodation for him nor awareness of his experiences. His autistic traits are presented both in terms of his unusual choices and the resilience with which he holds to them, and the ways he chooses to cope with his world. Notably, Kinsale does not present Ruck as overtly disabled, and neither infantilizes nor oversexualizes him (as can be a common pitfall for authors presenting neurodiverse characters). Ruck’s autistic traits deeply inform his life and behavior, and are part of both his suffering and his eventual successes.

Because this aspect of Ruck’s character is rarely discussed, I seek to provide textual support and examples.

Flat affect when speaking

As a character, Ruck is introduced to readers in the opening chapter while his young wife is sitting in a muddy ditch, in the rain. She is yelling and crying. They are in a dangerous bandit-infested forest, she has been screaming after a group of pilgrims who have now abandoned them, and the storm is quickly getting worse. 

>“They ne harketh to me,” she sobbed. “They taken no heed!”
“Ye drove them off, Isabelle,” he said tonelessly.

Ruck is frustrated, physically uncomfortable and acutely aware of the deadly peril of their situation. “Tonelessly” is the first adverb Kinsale uses for Ruck’s behavior. The choice of “tonelessly”, here, sets a noteworthy precedent. 

Literal thinking and direct speaking

In social interactions, Ruck is often very literal and may be direct in ways that unsettle or annoy other characters. 

For example, in the same opening scene with his wife, Isabelle:

>“It is their wickedness! They nill heed me! I was having a vision like to Saint Gertrude’s.”
His gauntleted hand still held steady, glistening with raindrops. “Is it full finished now?”
“Certes, it is finished,” she said testily…

Isabelle has just been introduced as a raving religious ecstatic, and readers may find it difficult to credit her annoyance at Ruck’s question, but she responds as if this should be obvious. And, on reflection, it seems obvious to the reader, too. Still, Ruck is not being sarcastic, but asks in earnest. Isabelle is not puzzled by his question but exasperated, suggesting an established pattern between them.

Ruck seems to be aware that his directness can be socially awkward or inappropriate and is often unusually reticent - but still commits acts of verbal recklessness in moments of exasperation or extremity. For example, he tells an injured and angry lord Lancaster:

>“My lord,” he burst out, “reconsider! Your head pains you to folly.” He sucked in his breath, as if he could take back the brazen words as soon as they escaped.

This isn’t plucky impertinence but dangerously indiscreet; >!Lancaster is seriously considering having Ruck executed for treason, rebellion be damned, after Ruck just kicked his ass in a public tournament. !<

Or, to Melanthe:

>“Oft have I thought me that you are a witch.” He said it outright. He was determined to know, yeah or nay, even if she should slay him for it.

She might have, but - he is very cute.

Unusual eye contact - avoidance and staring

Ruck is often described as looking away from others, maintaining unusual patterns of eye contact, or as staring in ways that unsettle other characters. Again, as we are first introduced to his character, with his wife, Isabelle:

>He lifted his face and looked at her. The rain slipped off strong dark brows and dewed on his black lashes. He was seventeen, and already carried fighting scars, but none visible on his upturned features. Water coursed down, outlining his hard mouth and the sullen cast of his green eyes. The girl pushed away from him sharply.
“I believe thou art Satan Himself, sir, if thou wilt stare at me so vile.”

Kinsale pulls us into sympathy with Ruck in this passage. As she wrote in her Essay, The Androgynous Reader:  Reader identification is subjective: the reader becomes the character, feeling what she or he feels, experiencing the sensation of being under control of the character's awareness.

We identify with Ruck. Referring to Isabelle as “the girl” underscores this, as does - to a modern agnostic - Isabelle’s language that Ruck is “Satan Himself”. >!We also don’t know, yet, that Ruck has raped his wife in the past, which seems material to her response!<. Still, it is the stare she cites.

And she is not the only one - Ruck’s staring will play a pivotal role in his life.

When they reach Avignon, he stares at Melanthe. Melanthe then uses this interaction for her own ends, and so describes it to others:

>“He stared at me full bold yesterday in the Hall of Great Audience, causing me much uneasiness of mind.”
A low sound of protest escaped Ruck’s throat. But he could not deny it. He had stared.

Many years later, in her own thoughts as she understands that she loves him, Melanthe reflects again on that moment:

>The strong lines of his face were no softer in sleep: only his lips, slightly parted, and the smoothing of the stern lines about his eyes and brows made him seem younger, more like to the youth who had stared at her so hotly those many seasons ago in the Pope’s palace.
He had amused her then, and flattered her – such a look, and from a boy who had not even anything to gain by it. She had noticed him. >!And when she had seen what mischief they were about, the bishops and priests, she had saved him, little though he appeared to know or thank her!<

Melanthe has no difficulty understanding complex social interactions, although she often projects her own values and cunning onto others. She instantly recognized how atypical Ruck’s staring look was. Perhaps, at some level, she intuited, even then, how atypical Ruck himself was.

Examples where Ruck avoids eye contact are numerous. He only once looks at the Archbishop, when startled and is instead described as gazing at the man’s shoes, the hem of his robes and his knees. He avoids eye contact with both Melanthe and Lancaster when he appears as the Green Knight at Lancaster’s feast, and is seen from Melanthe’s perspective to be looking at the ground or his own feet. 

>But he kept his eyes well cast down, focused on some spot below the table at Lancaster’s feet, showing mostly a head of black hair cut short and unruly.
…
The knight glanced at Melanthe for an instant, then away, as if the contact startled.
…
His gaze hit Melanthe and skewed away again.
…
The knight came to his feet, his eyes downcast again. 

He often avoids looking directly at Melanthe even after they marry, as when he seems to look down at his knees as he relates to her how his family died in The Black Death, and he cannot prove his name. Usually described from Melanthe’s perspective, Ruck’s averted gaze is something she often remarks.

Persistent and profound difficulty in social situations

Ruck lives his life under significant burdens of misunderstanding arising from complex social interactions that he does not fully understand. Even as he is matched with cunning Melanthe, he is not a stupid man. Ruck’s difficulties with social interactions are a specific deficit that he is at least partially aware of. Others around him notice and may be puzzled by his behavior or try to exploit his blindsides. 

His rigid focus on specific aspects of complex interactions - while apparently unaware of others -is well illustrated in his dangerous interaction with the Archbishop, his wife, and Melanthe, in Avignon. In this scene, it’s possible that his wife has intentionally lied and has given promises on Ruck’s behalf without disclosing these to him. Or they both may be manipulated by the Archbishop. Ruck is deeply aware of how dangerous a charge of heresy can be, and how likely it is that such a charge may be leveled at his wife. However, as the questioning turns onto him, he seems fixated on his self-percieved inadequacy to make everyone behave according to the rules as he understands them. He remains dangerously oblivious to his own peril.

>“Sire Ruadrick –do you believe this woman’s visions are given to her by God?” he asked mildly.
“Yea, my lord.” Ruck knew well enough to answer that in a firm voice. Any other reply, he felt, could be twisted to mean that they were Hell-inspired.
“You follow her in her preachings on that account?”
“She is my wife,” Ruck said, and then felt a flush of embarrassment rise in his face. “She was. My lord –I–could not let her go so far alone.”
“You did not require her to stay modestly at home?”
He stood in shame, unable to admit that he’d found it impossible to command his own wife. “Her visions enjoin her,” he said desperately. “She is God’s own servant.”
His words died away into a profound silence. He felt they were laughing at him, to offer that as an excuse.

>!His fate at the hands of the Inquisitors would have been sealed, if not for Melanthe’s intervention!<. Ruck neither understands this in the moment, nor for more than a decade of errant knighthood following, during which he reflects obsessively on how this social interaction changed his life. He only understands when Melanthe eventually provides him with an explanation. 

Black and White thinking and other cognitive distortions

Ruck is profoundly rule-abiding and overly literal. He does nothing by halves.

>They called him by this north-name of bersaka with good reason. Melanthe was accustomed to games of combat, the innumerable hastiludes and tournaments and spectacles she had attended, celebrating every occasion from weddings to foreign embassies. A plaisance –pleasantries, as Lancaster had promised. But with his blunted tournament weapons, her Green Knight fought as if he meant to kill.

He frustrates and aggravates his colleagues by taking everything too seriously. 

In another life-changing and unusual choice, Ruck follows his own rules of conduct and his highly literal interpretation of Chivalry to an objectively self-destructive act when he >!challenges the knights of the Black Prince and Lancaster’s court, infuriating his Lord Lancaster!<.

When later confronted about this by courtiers, he astounds them:

>“You have sworn to her?” the blonde asked, stepping back.
“Yea. I am her man.”
“For the tourney,” the other knight said. “My lord the duke will abide no more.” He gave Ruck a shrewd grin. “It was a bold stroke you took. He’s angry now, but he’ll value you to show him at his finest on the morrow.”
“I am her man,” Ruck repeated.
Sir Jean looked at him. “Nay, you don’t mean to be serious in this?”
Ruck stared back, eyes level, showing nothing. “I am sworn to her. I am honored with her gift. I fight for the Princess Melanthe.”
The spectators began to depart, withdrawing with sidelong glances and murmurs among them.

>!He goes on to royally kick the ass of every knight that challenges him, including Lancaster who is, by then, fighting to kill him. This nearly incites a rebellion, and essentially ruins Ruck’s career.!<

Of course, Ruck’s thirteen years of painful chastity is one of the core examples of Ruck’s rigid adherence to rules and his black and white thinking. The choice, how it is made, and how he maintains it are so central to his character and to the plot that textual evidence is copious and lengthy. Ruck’s self-imposed chastity and his frustration with it deeply reflect his autistic traits and coping strategies. Above all, Ruck does not want to be chaste. He admits to profound confusion, in the moment and also thereafter, as to whether he is actually still married and thereby bound to be chaste. Rather than resolve this through direct social interaction (which, admittedly, has not gone well for him), he simply persists as best he can in isolation. He does not reinterpret the rules as he understands them, nor bend nor break the rules (although he does research them carefully, as discussed below).

He hates and resents both his wife and Melanthe for what he sees as their role in bringing about his involuntary chastity, but also idealizes and fetishizes them. I do not suggest that his sexualization, vilification and idealization of both women - a fascinating Madonna-Whore dichotomy - is an autistic trait. However, Ruck does seem to experience an obsessive interest in Melanthe in the intervening decade. Something akin to an intense, Chivalric Limerence.

>But ne’er have I adultered, or profaned my vows.” He paused, gripping his hand tight in hers. “Nought with my body.”
She stroked his hair, and his back. “Ah, what have they done to thee, these priests?” she whispered sadly. “Hast thou lived in this thought, that thou art wed and yet bound to be chaste, since that day I saw thee last?”
“In troth,” he said, “I have lived in thought of you.” He pulled from her and lay back on the bed, staring into darkness. “Awake and asleep, I have thought of you. Else I were dead of despair a hundred times, I think me, if I had nought you in my mind to bind me to virtue.” He shook his head. “I am no monkish man, I tell you, lady.”

One common pitfall in characterizations of individuals on the autism spectrum, particularly men, is the tendency to depict social awkwardness and direct communication as hypersexual. He acts weird or says weird stuff, but often in a way that leads very directly to sex. However, real intimacy requires communication, and Ruck genuinely struggles to understand Melanthe or make himself understood. Melanthe contributes her own barriers to their communication, but she is very clever and even she struggles to understand him. Their intimacy builds very slowly because of this. 

Social Isolation

Ruck’s only servant and companion, his hunchbacked squire, Pierre Brokeback, is mute. They don’t really get on as friends, despite being together more than a decade. Pierre, like others, seems to think Ruck is too literal and frustratingly rigid. When Ruck insists he will fight his own lord Lancaster to the astonished courtiers, Pierre also tries to provide perspective:

>The spectators began to depart, withdrawing with sidelong glances and murmurs among them. … When he looked up, he and Pierre were alone in the buttery.
The mute squire elevated his eyebrows expressively. He dug in his apron and held out a leather-bagged amulet.
“She is not a witch,” Rick snapped.
Pierre crossed himself and mimicked a priest blessing the charm.
“Curse thee! She is my lady!”
Pierre ducked and genuflected. With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, he tucked his saint’s tooth away.

>!When Pierre dies, !<Ruck’s reflections are of a relationship where he barely knew his one companion. 

>>!The reality of his man’s death was beginning to reach him. !<Pierre, who had been with him for thirteen years, who filched small things, never more than a penny’s worth, who’d learned to squire from Ruck, who’d always been an enigma, mute, faithful as a dog was faithful, but with no outward sign of affection.

He has no other servants. 

>“She had not really expected to be left holding this enormous beast herself, but the broken-backed squire moved away to help his master with pulling the helm and aventail over the knight’s head, quickly smoothing any crimp out of the mailed links that fell over his shoulders. Melanthe realized with some surprise that he seemed to have no other servant.

This is highly unusual. A knight in armour (and Ruck’s armour is described in academic detail throughout the book) would take upwards of two hours for a pair of squires to dress. Ruck is described as tending to his horse, Hawk, himself. 

He has no other friends. He is well regarded by soldiers below his own rank, but peers - his colleagues of equivalent rank - find him odd. He has no relationships with women.

Melanthe is, basically, his only person and when he finds himself in a circumstance where he actually interacts with her, he finds her disorienting and stressful.

Bottom-up problem solving and special interests

Ruck’s special interests consume much of his time, and he studies them in painstaking detail. These include recreating the Green and Silver dragonflies with a falcon motif worn by Melanthe the first time he saw her in Avignon on his armor and Hawk’s tournament finery, complete with emeralds. Her Falcon, Gringolet, also graces his shield. His other special interests include careful research on chastity and sins related to chastity. He discusses this subject in detail with priests, and also consults prayer manuals in English and French when he can access them. He is hilariously and specifically well informed on this subject.

Rigid adherence to rules, structure and routine

Ruck assiduously follows the codes of Chivalry and the social norms and routines of Christian practice. He trains for tournaments and combat, cares for his horse and his armor, and goes to church where he mostly contemplates that being chaste sucks and that his knees are getting older so it hurts to kneel for extended periods. These routines ground him and give important structure and support to his life. Even after >!he leaves Lancaster’s service!<, his role in fulfilling his duty consumes the majority of his time and attention and he often prefers these tasks and takes comfort in them when social interactions or complex feelings become challenging for him.

Ruck’s courtly, courteous speech is another example of his adherence to provided structures. His courtesy is odd, however, because he performs the ritual or provides the words in a way that is, nevertheless, off-putting rather than comforting. He is so blandly mannered, that Melanthe feels unable to understand his true feelings or meaning:

>If some mannered gallant had said such to her, she would have known how to understand it. But she heard naught beyond his careful courtesy in his voice…

In the context of rigid adherence to rules, I want to pause for a moment on Ruck’s relationship to Christianity. It is a complex one. He is often cited as a deeply religious character, but by his own description:

>“I am no monkish man, I tell you, lady.”

Ruck has no desire to deepen his relationship with the church. His experience of faith is bewildered, frustrated and hurt. He maintains his vow of chastity not because he wants to be chaste but because he doesn’t want to burn in hell and he believes that he may do so. To call Ruck deeply religious might be akin to calling a fish deeply wet. He lives in a reality that presents the Christian religion as revealed truth, and he is a deeply literal man. I would not characterize Ruck as a man of deep religious conviction although he is profoundly observant.

Meltdown, shutdown and dissociation

Ruck does not tend to meltdown, but he instead experiences some profound episodes of dissociation and shut down. He has a violent outburst after >!Melanthe flees Wolfscar !<when he rides down the May pole.

>He had no memory of coming down the mountain. Hawk was galloping, pounding down the road before the castle. The May pole stood in the meadow. He sent Hawk flying off the track, drawing his sword, careering down the slope with his arm outstretched.
…He could hear nothing but his own heaving breath and the sound of the point impaling wood. Sweat trickled down into his eye, sharp salt. He wiped it with the back of his leather sleeve.
The cold wind bit his cheeks when he looked up. All of his people stood at the edge of the lists, a cluster of color and silence except for one little girl who was weeping. Their May stave and garlands lay maimed and dismembered about him.

Prosopagnosia

Face blindness, or a difficulty recognizing or perceiving faces is far more prevalent in autistic adults than in the general population. When Ruck initially sees Melanthe, he cannot process her face. 

>He watched her hands, because he could not bear to look long at her face…
…He couldn’t comprehend her face. He hardly knew if she was comely or unremarkable.

Ruck reflects often throughout the book on his difficulty remembering faces, notably his first wife’s, and on how he finds it difficult to know what Melanthe looks like. In the lovely conclusion when Melanthe overcomes her fear of looking at her own reflection in a mirror:

>She turned it all the way, staring down into the glass. Her brows rose in outrage. “Why–I am not comely! I am not!” She slapped the mirror facedown. “I knew it was all dishonest dwele, these songs and praises to my beauty. Wysse, when is a rich woman plain?”
Ruck smiled at her. “Art nought comelych? Is my fortune to be blind, then.”

Ruck’s reception and in conclusion

Ruck is a beloved MMC in Romance, often cited for his capable strength and his love for his strong female lead. The author, Laura Kinsale presented his autistic traits in this book - published in 1993 - with sensitivity and a subtlety. Ruck’s autism is an integral part of his compelling and complex character, and he is neither diminished nor pigeon-holed by it. As depictions of neurodiversity are becoming more widely recognized or appreciated in the Romance genre, I want to celebrate Laura Kinsale’s gorgeous work in For My Lady’s Heart, where Ruck’s autistic traits are just one of a dozen beautiful threads for the reader to discover and enjoy.