Epilogue
It had seemed a little strange to Cinderella to find out that, in a palace where so many rooms and their purposes seemed fixed in place by august tradition, there was no one official royal nursery. Eugene had explained before the birth - as they were preparing a room to serve as same - that this was because the past kings and queens of Armorique had had inconsistent views on how close they wanted their children, and how much they wanted to do with them and their upbringing. Some had kept their offspring close, others had preferred to leave them in the hands of servants as much as possible. Cinderella was definitely in the former camp, as it turned out had been Eugene's mother the late Queen Isabelle, and so the large room on the second floor down from the top of the Queen's Tower - which Cinderella learned had been Eugene's nursery - had been renovated and re-furnished to serve as nursery for her darling girls. The walls were painted in baby blue, blue too the curtains hanging on either side of the large, airy windows which at present were opened to admit plenty of sunlight. A lot of Eugene's childhood furniture had already been taken for Philippe's room, and so Cinderella and Eugene had supervised the refurnishing of the nursery in the weeks leading up to her delivery: a walnut toy-chest, currently empty but probably not for much longer; two oak wardrobes, which might seem a little excessive but wouldn't remain so once the girls became old enough to be picky about sharing their clothes; a set of bookshelves which were mostly empty, but already had some well-worn books of nursery rhymes and fairy tales to be read to the children; a settee, some tables and chairs for visitors, or for the nurses (whose rooms were downstairs on the floor below) to take the weight off their feet. The magnificent crib - they shared at present - sat in the very centre of the spacious room, a birch four-poster with soft blue furnishings, including hangings that could completely enclose the crib proper, much like Cinderella's own bed in miniature.
It was around the crib that everyone was gathered now: Cinderella, Eugene, His Majesty the King and Princess Frederica. Only Madame Clairval stood apart, a few steps back from the others, while Cinderella held Philippe in her hands and dangled him on the edge of the crib so that he could look down upon his sisters.
"These are your sisters, Philippe," Cinderella said. "Isabelle and Annabelle." She spoke softly and gently, so as not to disturb the sleeping Annabelle. Isabelle was awake, but quietly so, she squirmed and fussed but did not cry, as if she were aware the to do so would wake her sister.
Philippe stared down at the two girls for a while, and it seemed that Isabelle was staring up at him with wide, childish eyes. Cinderella bent down, so that her head was almost as low as Philippe's, and smiled down upon her girl. "Isabelle, this is your brother Philippe."
Isabelle reached upwards, as though she were trying to touch him.
"When will they be old enough to play with me?"
Cinderella laughed softly. "Not for a little while yet, I'm afraid." She didn't mention that by the time the girls were old enough Philippe was unlikely to still want to play with them. "Please, always be kind to them, Philippe, and look after them if they need it." She was a little afraid that it would be easy for Philippe to grow up jealous of his sisters, particularly of Isabelle, who would inherit the throne of Armorique one day despite being four years younger than him. She wanted them to love one another, as a family; that was why she had introduced the girls to him as his sisters, not his half-sisters: she didn't want to put any walls between Philippe and the girls if she could avoid it.
"Don't worry, Stepmother, I'll protect them. Like a knight."
Cinderella kissed him on the cheek. "I'm sure you will. A brave knight defending the castle of his princesses."
It had been a few days now since the girls were born - the doctors were amazed that Cinderella was able to get up so soon after her ordeal, but it seemed her fairy godmother had not only saved her life but also sped up her recovery - but the King wore the same bewitched and foolish fond expression that he worn since he had come up to Cinderella's bedroom to first behold his grand-daughters. All tension and weariness seemed to drain from his face in their presence, replaced with a smile and a gleam in his eyes. He was leaning on the side of the crib opposite Cinderella and Philippe, and with one hand he sought to attract Isabelle's attention.
"Coo-ee," he said, wiggling his fingers in front of her. "Coo-ee."
Isabelle grabbed at his finger with both hands, and tried to put it into her mouth (it was for this reason that Cinderella was not wearing and had decided that she would not wear her rings in the nursery, in case either of the girls accidently swallowed them and choked on them), which only made His Majesty chuckled fondly.
"There were times I feared this day would never come," he said wistfully. "Or at least that it would come too late for me."
"A little melodramatic, father, don't you think?" Eugene asked, fondly but with just a touch of weariness in his voice, as though he had hoped that this old argument had been forever put behind them. "You are not so old, and nor are we."
"When you are my age, however old I may or may not be, then you will understand but not before," the King said, allowing just a touch of sharpness to enter his, but not so much as to trouble Isabelle or disturb the sleep of Annabelle. "This palace rang with joy and laughter when you were young. I still remember some of the mischief that you and Etienne Gerard used to get up to as though it were yesterday."
Cinderella smiled as she tried to imagine Eugene and especially Etienne getting up to mischief.
"And yet the years passed," the King continued. "You grew. Your mother left. And the laughter died and this place came to see more like a mausoleum than a home. More recently it has seemed a place of peril as much as of warmth. I hope to see it became a place of joy and laughter once again."
"There may not have been much laughter, your majesty," Cinderella said. "But I've never found this palace to be devoid of joy."
The King glanced up at her for a moment, the smile still on his face, and nodded before he went back to fussing over his slightly older granddaughter.
"I'm not sure," he said. "If you will regret not having sons or not. Annabelle you will eventually lose to marriage and even Isabelle, heir to the throne though she is, you may find that..."
"I hope that they'll still find room in their hearts and lives for us, even after they're wed," Cinderella replied. "And who knows, there's still time for a boy or two." She smiled at Eugene. Strangely he did not smile back, but looked a little awkward and would not meet her eyes.
Frederica cleared her throat. "They are very beautiful, aren't they? With the permission of all concerned may I...may I hold Princess Isabelle?"
Cinderella glanced at Eugene again, and this time he did meet her eyes, and must have picked up on Cinderella's willingness because he said, "Yes, of course princess."
"Thank you," Frederica said, as she bent over the foot of the crib and reached in. "Excuse me a moment, your majesty," she said, as she picked up the wriggling Isabelle in her hands and lifted her up into the air, gripping the infant princess under the arms as Isabelle gurgled and reached out for this new face suddenly appearing in her life.
Frederica raised Isabelle up and held her close. So close in fact that Isabelle was about to reach out and touch Frederica's face, running her fingers along the Norman princess' fine, sculpted features. Frederica giggled for a moment, before her face took on a look of terrible earnestness. "You are strong," she said. "You are brave, you are wise." And having said so, she put Isabelle back down in her crib again. "Your daughter tickles."
Cinderella chuckled briefly. "What was that you said to her?"
"Something nanny used to tell me every night before bed," Frederica said. "You are strong, you are brave, you are wise. It was almost like a charm, if she said it often enough it would come true." She grinned. "I'd say it worked rather well, wouldn't you?"
Cinderella let out a single giggle. "Yes, I would. I'll try and remember that. You are strong, you are brave, you are wise."
"Speaking of wise choices," Frederica said. "Have you given any thought to godparents yet?"
Cinderella put Philippe down on the floor, and covered her mouth with one hand. "We haven't even chosen their middle names yet, let alone godparents."
"Has anyone else asked you for it as brazenly as I have?" Frederica asked.
Cinderella stood up. "Well, no."
"Well then," Frederica said. "Clearly nobody else wants it the way I do."
At this point, Isabelle's wriggling and squirming finally woke up Annabelle, who started to cry.
"Oh, there there," Cinderella murmured, reaching into the crib and scooping Annabelle up in her arms before she could start her sister crying too. She cradled Annabelle in her arms and rocked her gently back and forth. "There, there my little angel. It's alright. It's alright. I'm here, and you're safe in my arms. You're safe and loved. You are so loved." Gently, softly, Cinderella began to sing.
"A dream is a wish your heart makes,
When you're fast asleep..."
Far from Armorique, east of the Seine, on the north-east of Burgundy, on the extreme east of the region of Gallia, lay the tiny principality of the Franche-Comte. Culturally and linguistically Gallic, the principality nevertheless lay under the sway of the Holy Roman Empire, though due to the small size and general insignificance of his demesne the Prince of the Franche-Comte never ranked amongst the Empire's great magnates and elector princes.
In this small principality, in the midst of a wood both wild and perilous to the unwary traveller, sat a castle atop a high hill, which rose above the trees even as a prince rises above the lot of common men. As well as being as fine an example of gothic architecture as could be found west of the Rhine, the castle was also ideally situated for defence, with a steep drop on all sides and only a single bridge to allow access.
In a high place in this high castle, a young woman sat in a window seat, her legs tucked up beneath her as the light shone in through the window to alight upon her and on the book which she held in her hands. She was a beautiful brunette with soft, petite features and big, striking, somewhat doe-like hazel eyes which, to an outside observer, might have seemed to convey a certain resignation, or perhaps weariness. She was all alone, and being alone she was modestly dressed and unadorned: her dress was a pretty but not ornate blend of pinks and reds, with sleeves ending in frills below the elbow; her hair was bound up in a simple ponytail, and only a wedding ring, a simple band of gold, glistened on her finger. She wore said ring upon her left hand.
She was alone, undisturbed and unremarked upon, troubling no one.
The library was hers, given to her when she was but a guest here, and it was her refuge, her place when she did not wish to be disturbed.
Belle's lips parted, and a sigh escaped them.
The doors opened loudly, and Adam strode in. His boots squeaked even his footsteps thumped on the floor.
"Belle," he said, his features twisted by a hopeless sympathy.
"Are they gone?" she asked.
"Yes, but that's not why I'm here. A messenger has arrived from Vienna. The Emperor is asking me to go to Armorique on a diplomatic mission...and I want you to come with me."
The End
Author's Note: A couple of you thought that the previous chapter might have been the end of the story. That wasn't something that had occurred to me before, but you made me think and I realised that actually the last chapter would have been a perfectly good place to end the story, possibly a better place than any other; showing Cinderella as a mother could be left entirely for the next story along. The fact was, however, that I hadn't actually ended the story, and so I threw this little epilogue together with a blatant sequel hook (as discussed previously, the next story will a be Beauty and the Beast crossover in which Belle and Adam meet Cinderella) to wrap everything up.
As excited as I am for the next story (and I am for a wide range of reasons), and as much as I hope those of you who have stuck with me thus far will continue to do so, I can't guarantee exactly when I'll get started on it. One of the consequences of my rapid updating of these Rose and the Crown stories has been a number of increasingly narked-off reviews on my Harry Potter/ Game of Thrones crossover demanding to know if I'm ever going to update it, so I should probably put in some work on that before I do anything else.
I want to thank each and every one of you who left a review. I rarely respond even in notes, I never respond in person (until I started leaving reviews on a RWBY fic called RWBY: Destiny of Remnant I had no idea that was something that authors did; I don't do it because I'm not sure that you'd want me to) but I do read them all and I do take them into account. Back when this story started I was very worried about how Anne would be received, and whether I would be able to distinguish her from Serena before her; your reviews, in which you all told me how sympathetic you found her - more sympathetic, indeed, than I had consciously intended - pointed the way to a direction I could take her that was unique, making her as much victim as villain and ending her story with escape rather than defeat. Just one example of how your reviews have helped me along.
I like this story, but I don't think it's quite as good as the first; while I managed avoid the worst excesses of my imagination - I'm not sure why I ever considered the idea of Eugene cheating on Cinderella - I feel as though it doesn't hang together quite as well as the first one, and could possibly have done with more up-front planning and reflection between chapters. Nevertheless, I did have a good time writing it and I have so many ideas that I mean to continue. I hope you'll join me.