9. Old Wounds

Clarisse walked aimlessly through her gardens, not seeing the lovely colours of her roses. The scent of their full blossoms normally calmed her no matter what the situation. The only other time her garden had not provided peace and calm, or comfort had been the day Clarisse found out about Phillipe's death.

Miserably she noted that the sun was burning down on her and the roses around her were in full bloom, begging her to step closer to them and sniff their delicious perfume. Clarisse paid heed to nothing but her inner turmoil. A stormy night with freezing rain and lightning would have suited her mood better than this sunny paradise. But since when was anything in her life as it seemed.

"You have the unmitigated gall to say such a thing to me?" Her voice was so high, it came out as a thin and vicious whisper. "You blame me?"

Joseph stopped then, chest heaving as he caught his breath.

"No. No, I can't blame you in all fairness." He turned aside, blindly. "How could it have been your fault? You were trapped in a loveless marriage ... but you wanted to leave him for me if the boys hadn't been born."

"I did, the more fool I," Clarisse said. "You reminded me of the duty I had, still have, to my country. And now you what to blame me for staying with Rupert?"

The words resounded in her very soul. How dare he insinuate that it all had been her fault? How dare he tell her to the face that she had put their relationship on hold? She clenched her fists and tightened her jaw. She was more hurt than ever before. Her insides were twisting and churning. No tears escaped her eyes even though they were red and burning.

With the words of their recent fight still on her mind she remembered their last fight on that particular subject.

"Duty? You talk about "duty"?" Clarisse all but yelled at Joseph, standing on the opposite side of her desk, glaring at her. She was pacing angrily back and forth. Had he not understood her? Had she not made clear that she wanted to leave Rupert and return to France with him, Joseph, by her side?

"When duty and safety are served by the same ends, then, yes, I do!" Joseph answered evenly, trying to maintain his cool.

"I cannot believe you're saying this. You, who I've relied on all this time?"

Her voice shook, betraying her hurt feelings and deep desperation.

"Have I ever lied before?" he asked her, beginning to get angry himself.

"You stand there and tell me it is my duty! After all you promised me?"

"I've broken no promise! I love you and I always will but you have to stay by the King's side, for all our sakes."

"You're forcing me to do the very thing you know I'd fear most," she whimpered, hugging herself. "Please, don't make me go back to him."

"For God's sake, Clarisse, I'm trying to see you safe! You will always be a Queen of Genovia and people, especially the press, will never stop following you. I can't protect you outside the palace!"

"I will not hear any more about my safety! You made me a promise, and now you've broken it!" she yelled, anger flaring again.

"When I guided you to all those public events, come rain or shine, because I knew it was my job and I would even do it without being paid, when I got the princes off your back just to give you a bit of peace, when I saw you safe from home to home when you didn't even know if I was there, all I ever thought about was you!"

Now he yelled at her as well, angry with her and himself. All he wanted to do was to shake her, very hard, until she would come to her senses. And now she just made it worse.

"Then why send me back to Rupert?"

"Because I have to!" he yelled.

Silence descended over both like a sheet while they stared at each other. Clarisse's eyes shone with tears as she stood trembling behind her desk. Joseph stood at the other side with his hands braced on her desk. "Will you not listen to me, Clarisse?"

"Do not presume to talk to your Queen in that manner," she said very quietly with a steely note to her voice.

Her eyes were distant, with the Queen facade over them once more. As she left the room without looking back once, Joseph stared after her with defeat in his own eyes.

With her thoughts focused on her memories and her eyes unseeing, blinded by tears once more, her body had moved on its own accord. Her feet had carried Clarisse to a little cemetery tugged away behind the palace's luxurious gardens and far away from any visitor's prying eyes. When she finally emerged from her thoughts, she was more than disturbed to find herself in front of her daughter's grave.

It was a small stone, made of a soft white marble. A pair of cherub's wings spread out across the top, sheltering the single word that was the stone's only other decoration. "Hope" it read.

Clarisse stood looking down at it until her vision blurred. She knelt down and laid her hand on the stone, stroking the curve of one wing with a finger, as though it were a baby's cheek.

The Archbishop saw his Queen kneel in front of her daughter's small grave. The Queen's relationship with her bodyguard Joseph might have been an open secret but only very few people knew of the Queen's miscarriage. She had been only four months pregnant when it had happened. Since she was always slim, even in pregnancy, she had just started to show a little and she had had decided with the King to announce it the following day during the celebrations of Rupert's coronation anniversary. Slowly he came over to her but she didn't notice his presence.

Clarisse was once more lost in her dark recollections. Her eyes were overshadowed and blank, set in a face as pale as snow.

Clarisse lay in bed and was dreaming of her child. Today she had found out that she carried a little girl inside her. Her unborn daughter kicked and heaved in Clarisse's slightly swollen belly. Clarisse's hands went to the mound, massaging the stretched skin, trying to quiet the turmoil within. But the squirming went on. Clarisse suddenly doubled, drawing up her knees as pain washed over her. Her skin was hot to the touch, and her intestines coiled.

"Clarisse! Wake up! What's wrong?" The shaking and calling roused her at last to a fuzzy apprehension of her surroundings. She was still in bed, and it was Rupert's hand on her shoulder, and the linen sheets over her. But the pains continued, and she moaned loudly, the sound alarming her almost as much as it did Rupert.

He flung back the sheets and rolled her onto her back, trying to push her knees down. Clarisse stayed stubbornly rolled into a ball, clutching her stomach, trying to contain the pangs of sharp agony that stabbed through her.

Rupert yanked the blanket back over her and rushed out of their suite, barely pausing to snatch his dressing gown from the stool.

Clarisse had little attention to spare for anything other than her inner turmoil. Her ears were ringing, and a cold sweat soaked her face.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty?"

She opened her eyes enough to see her maid, eyes frantic and hair awry, bending over the bed. Rupert, in his pyjamas and still more frantic, was behind her. Clarisse shut her eyes, groaning, but not before she saw him grab the maid by the shoulder, hard enough to shake her curls loose from her braid.

"Is she losing the child? Is she?"

It was extremely likely. Clarisse twisted on the bed, grunting, and doubled tighter, as though to protect the burden of pain she contained.

There was an increasing babble of voices in the room, mostly female, and a number of hands poked and prodded at her. Clarisse heard a male voice speaking amid the babble, not Rupert. At the voice's direction, a number of hands fastened themselves to her ankles and shoulders and stretched her flat upon the bed.

A hand reached under her nightdress and probed her belly. Clarisse opened her eyes, panting, and saw Monsieur Flèche, the Royal Physician, kneeling by the bed as he frowned in concentration. The character of the pain seemed to be changing; while it grew stronger in spasms, it was more or less constant, and yet it seemed to be moving, travelling from somewhere high up in her abdomen to a lower spot.

"Is she losing my child?" roared Rupert once again.

Monsieur Flèche turned his head upwards to his King and nodded gravely.

"I'm afraid so, Your Majesty. We should get Her Majesty to the hospital as soon as possible."

The pain increased once more, a vice squeezing Clarisse's insides, and she gasped and doubled up once more. As it eased a bit, she opened her eyes and saw the concerned look on the Doctor's face and Rupert's furious glance at her. And then she blacked out.

The Archbishop stood now directly behind Clarisse. He slowly reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder, jerking her out of her misery. Quickly she wiped away her tears and looked up to him, still bleary-eyed.

"I thought I wouldn't cry", she said a little later.

She felt the weight of the Archbishop's hand on her head now, as though in benediction. Clarisse took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks with her sleeve.

"It was a long time ago, anyway."

She rose slowly to her feet and turned to find the Archbishop watching her with an expression of deep sympathy and interest.

"I have found out", he said slowly, "that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is – in the blink of an eye, they can see it again as it was when it was born, when it learned to walk, as it was at any age – and they always will, even when it is fully grown and a parent itself. Especially when they're asleep", he went on, looking down at the little white stone himself. "You can always see the baby then."

Clarisse blew her nose and they turned back along the path to the palace. As they walked slowly back, she noticed all the other stones. It was heartbreaking to think of all the lives which had been stomped out. The headstone on Phillipe's grave brought yet again new tears to her eyes and she felt the Archbishop's hand gently touching her arm.

"You might wish to confide in me, ma'am?" he asked diplomatically.

Clarisse bowed her head and refused to speak at first but her need to confide in someone was stronger. She knew the Archbishop for many, many years now and he was sworn the secrecy. He may be a man of the church but he was not a typical catholic priest. He showed more understanding and sympathy for human nature and behaviour. Clarisse had always confided in him about her horrible marriage and growing feelings for Joseph.

Carefully glancing up to him from under her eyelashes, she recalled the small conversation they had had over Joseph after Rupert's death and her visit to San Francisco.

"My husband tried always to make me think more subtly. Of course, he taught me so much, and I can never repay my debt to him … or the ... friendship I feel now. But in truth, I think I am someone … who can only feel things … when they are alive to me. And for that reason, I know I do not have a subtle mind. I know that. But I work hard, and I … try to do my duty. However, I have noticed of late … that … my feelings of grief … are not so strong, and I find myself leaning more … on the comfort of living friends. Friends close to me now," she whispered, sitting in front of the altar of the small chapel.

"Your Majesty, a settled resignation … is more lasting proof of affection than active grief. If the Good Lord sees fit to bring one into contact with … congenial fellow beings, one need not analyze one's reaction too deeply. To allow oneself to be comforted by someone else need not imply disloyalty to the memory of the loved one," he answered softly, choosing every word carefully.

Unknowingly – or perhaps fully aware of it – the Archbishop had settled her mind and given his blessing for the starting relationship between her and Joseph. Now she only felt it natural to trust him with the latest developments.

"Joseph and I had a ... a fight," she admitted, feeling incredibly stupid using the same words teenagers used for describing their bouts. It had been so much more ... and so much more horrible. "It ... we ... I ..." Clarisse was stuttering and she knew it. Clamping her mouth shut, she stared helplessly down on her shoes, fighting back tears over her fight with Joseph and her inadequacy to explain it properly.

"Just take a deep breath, Your Majesty. We can talk when you have calmed down," the old man said kindly, smiling at his sovereign.

Clarisse felt like a young girl being talked down to. Her cheeks flamed angrily and she swallowed the tirade threatening to spill from her lips.

"Joseph has a daughter and I just found out."

It came all tumbling out of her in a rush. As soon as the words were out Clarisse felt slightly better. The words had lost some of their stupefying effect. Breathing deeply in and out, she tried to calm herself down again and gather enough strength to look up into the Archbishop's eyes.

"I ... I see," the man mumbled, somewhat thrown. It was obvious that he had expected something else, something with less impact. "How old is she?" he asked the only logical question coming to mind. He couldn't imagine Joseph building a family with anyone else than Clarisse.

"I don't know really," Clarisse had to admit, realizing suddenly that she had not given him any change to really explain anything and tell her about his daughter. But then again the news had been too shocking. "She sounded like a teenager."

The Archbishop released a breath he hadn't been aware of holding slowly.

"So it was well before your relationship really started?" he asked carefully.

He was well aware of the fact that he had no idea when their affaire had really started or how far the two had gone before their impromptu wedding. Knowing Clarisse, though, he was sure to assume that she hadn't been intimate with Joseph before the wedding night. She was a typical catholic girl of her generation.

"He lied to me! He never told me he had a daughter!" she insisted, anger rising once more at the betrayal of the only man she ever truly loved.

The Archbishop sighed deeply.

"Your ... Clarisse, I might be out of my league here ... but I can't imagine Joseph holding back that information from you for years. When did he find out about his child?"

"He says it was 'recently'," Clarisse replied sarcastically, making it blatantly clear that she didn't believe Joseph's words. "But ..."

"Clarisse," the Archbishop said warningly. "Why don't you believe him?"

Clarisse snorted most un-ladylike and threw back her head in a defiant gesture.

"He fooled around and didn't know he fathered a child. Oh please!"

The Archbishop was surprised beyond words at the unusual behaviour of the Queen. She was not behaving like the rational thinking Queen of Genovia but rather like an impetuous, betrayed house-wife. Taking a deep breath, he launched into a stern speech.

"I think you should talk to him. Joseph doesn't strike me as a liar and I'm sure he has an explanation. After all you swore to love and honour him till death do you part. Don't you want to give him a chance? Don't give up on your marriage ..."

"... and be yet again trapped in a marriage full of lies," Clarisse ended his sentence for him. "No, I won't do the same mistake twice. I will however go back and tell him exactly what I think of him and how I feel about his betrayal."

With that she stormed off, leaving the Archbishop standing in the middle of the gardens. Rounding the corner of a hedge, Clarisse suddenly came face to face with a young girl. She was sitting on the rim of a fountain with a crumpled handkerchief in her hand and tears still streaming down her face.