Chapter VII
Jane fidgeted in her long blue and gold gown. She had never been comfortable wearing dresses, especially one that was as formal and grand as the one she was currently wearing.
She was finding it hard to breath in the stiff corset that she was forced to wear thanks to her mother and her arm was aching something terrible, making the whole experience all the more worse.
She was still having her arm supported by a sling, a silk blue one to match her gown and though the Court Physician had said that her arm seemed to be on the mend, but the pain she felt with it at that moment only seemed to be growing stronger with each passing hour.
"Jane dear, please stop your fidgeting for one moment." Her mother complained as she and another lady-in-waiting tried to do something with her impossible hair.
Anything they tried to do with it, her hair would simple pull itself free of the pins and nets and whatever other hair ordainments that her mother tried to force into it.
"Couldn't I just leave it out?" Jane asked or rather begged. Her scalp was aching from all the poking and tugging that had occurred in the last three hours. Three hours spent trying to make her hair behaviour. What a waste of her time!
"Oh no dear," The lady-in-waiting - Lady Anna was her name - said soothingly, "Your hair is little too short to be simply left down. No, maybe…" Lady Anna went on to explain to both mother and daughter what she thought they could do with Jane's short and impossible hair.
Jane quickly grew bored with the conversation. What did she care about hair or her hair in particular, just as long as her mother and Lady Anna decided on what they were going to do with it and then do it, so that she could leave and go and find her friends.
Though when it was done, she had to admit it wasn't all that terrible. Her just beneath chin length hair had been braided, twisted and rolled against the back of her head – obviously at least a hundred or so hair pins were holding it all there – with white flowers tucked into it here and there.
"Lady Anna, you truly are a miracle worker." Lady Adeline sighed out in relief as she looked her daughter up and down with delight. Even with her arm in a sling, her daughter looked like a true noble born lady for once.
"Oh, Lady Adeline, don't thank me," Lady Anna chuckled, "thank Lady Regina when you see her. For it was she who gave me the idea for what to do with Jane's hair."
"Lady Regina?" Jane asked, trying to hide her pleasure at the Lady's name.
"Yes," Lady Anna said smiling, as she quickly tucked a stray red curl behind Jane's ear, "You've made quite an impression her Jane."
"Yes, well," Jane stuttered trying to think of something to say in response to that, "She's always happy to listen about my training to become a Knight and so on." She saw both her mother and Lady Anna roll their eyes at each other and felt her temper rise and continued hotly.
"She thinks that girls should be made equal to boys, that we should have all the same opportunities that boys do and to not be forced to simply sit idly by, waiting to be married off and produce heirs, not when there is so much more to life to be experienced."
Even as she spoke – or ranted rather – she knew they were not listening to her. They never listened to her when she started speaking of how unfair it was that girls missed out on so much because they were girls while boys were able to do basically anything they wanted or wished.
She bit down on her tongue to fight back the desire to lash out more when she heard the sound of Jester's voice somewhere close by. He sounded quite agitated.
"Your little Majesty, please come back here!" She heard him cry and couldn't help but smile.
Not asking for her mother's permission to leave she ran from her parents chambers, picking up her infuriating long skirt as she sprinted in the direction of her best human friends voice.
When she came to the little majesties nursery she couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Clearly neither of the royal children felt inclined to dress in their royal best for the night's festivities, finding far more enjoyment tormenting their nursemaid and poor Jester. Though at least Jester seemed to be handling the little beasts far better than their poor nursemaid. The poor girl looked close to tears as she tried to convince Princess Lavinia into her royal best.
"Please, little Princess." The poor girl close to sobbed as she tried to grab the giggling princess who expertly dodged the poor girl's arms.
Possibly shouldn't have taught her that, Jane thought, a tad guiltily as she stepped into the nursery, which was in an even greater mess than usual.
"Balls are boring!" Prince Cuthbert was yelling all the while to Jester – who was looked very close to losing his patience, a very rare thing indeed – who was trying to catch him. "All there is to do is talking and singing and boring dancing!"
"Dancing?" as always, the little Princess interests were immediately snared at the mere mention of dancing.
"Yes, little princess, dancing." The poor nursemaid said hope evident in her voice as she moved closer the princess who had stopped running for the moment. "Lots and lots of dancing. But you must be wearing your royal best or you won't be allowed to dance." This of course was the wrong thing the poor girl could have said.
"That's not true." Lavinia cried on the move once more, "Jane doesn't wear her royal best and she still gets to dance."
Oh, Jane thought, cringing a little. She had wondered when she was going to be dragged into this. When her mother came to check on the little majesties and heard why Lavinia was not yet in her royal best she was going to get quite an earful for being such a poor influence on the little princess.
"Oh, I'm sure Lady Jane is dressed in her royal best tonight too." She heard Jester say over his shoulder to the princess while he tried to corner her older brother between a toy box and a stone wall.
Jane fought back the desire to wrinkle her nose at Jester calling her 'Lady'. It sounded wrong enough when she was being addressed by the title when she was with her own 'class' but to hear one of her friends, to hear Jester call her 'Lady' just about made her skin crawl.
"No, not Jane." Lavinia scoffed and once more dodged her nursemaid, causing the poor girl to stumble over a stray toy box that had been shoved to the middle of the room.
It was here that Jane felt that their little majesties had had their own way for quite long enough and that it was high time to bring in the cavalry, which of course was herself, but she had always had a talent for getting the little royals to do as they were told.
"Yes, little princess, even Jane." Jane said making her presence known to all in the room. She had to fight back the amusement she felt when she saw the poor nursemaid come close to bursting into relieved tears at the sight of her.
"JANE!" Lavinia all but screamed as she rushed to the girl squires side, hugging herself close, all the while being careful not to knock Jane's injured arm.
"What's this I'm hearing about your little majesties not doing as you are asked, or rather," she looked sternly between the royal siblings, "not doing as you are told."
"But-but…" she had to fight to keep her stern expression as the two royal siblings fought to come up with some tale, some excuse to get themselves out of trouble with her.
"Come on now, your parents and everyone else in court is expecting to see you both in your royal best and," she sent another stern look between them, "on your best behaviour."
"But it's boring." Cuthbert groaned.
"It won't be all talk, or boring singing and dancing, you know that little Prince," Jane said keeping the boy's eyes trained on her while Jester moved in to grab him while the Prince's attention was on her. "You know that there will be story-telling and juggling and all kinds of entertainment to keep you amused during the night. So be a good little Princeling and just do these two small things," she held up two fingers, "dress in your royal best without a fuss and behaviour yourself during tonight's festivities."
"Oh, all right." Cuthbert grumbled, his face scrunched up as he allowed himself to be surrendered into Jester's care. "They had better be good stories." He added grumpily.
Jane laughed as she ruffled his hair affectionately before the lad was led away by Jester to get into his royal bests.
"Of course, only the best for your little majesties." She added as she ran a hand over Lavinia's dark locks.
It didn't take long after that to get their Little Majesties bathed and dressed in the royal best. By this point they were actually excited about the ball, bouncing on the balls of their feet and impatient for it to begin.
"I'm exhausted." Their nursemaid muttered to Jester and Jane as the three of them watched their royal highness play a 'quiet' game of knights, princess and dragons – a lot of roaring and squealing but at least their clothes were staying somewhat neat and clean. Jane was still trying to figure out how to get this game to evolve into having the royal siblings clean up their nursery as they played but so far was having no such luck.
"They are a bit of a handful, Sara," Jester replied with familiarity that made Jane's chest feel tight. She didn't know Sara all that well as she had been employed as the Royal Nursemaid while Jane was out adventuring with the Knights and their squires still. And due to being injured and trying to keep out everyone's way in the preparation for the Ball tonight, the two had only met a handful of times since Jane's return. "But you'll get used to them."
"Oh, I know." Sara laughed, "It's been a delight taking care of them, just that, tonight…" She pulled a face, "tonight I wasn't expecting such a…"
"Fuss?" Jester supplied with a laugh, "They have always gotten a bit funny when they have to dress up for royal occasions."
"Thank goodness that you came when you did, Lady Jane." Sara said respectively to Jane who jumped and felt uneasy for once more being address as 'Lady' – she really did hate being one, especially now – and from the familiarity that this new girl had with Jester.
Stop it, she chided herself fiercely as she forced herself to smile a friendly smile back at the girl. She's closer to Jester age than I am, she couldn't help but think before pushing that thought away also.
"It was nothing. Their little majesties simply tend to listen to me, that is all."
"She's just being modest," Jester said with a chuckle, "sometimes she's the only person in whole Castle that they'll listen to." Jane felt her cheeks turn red but ignored it, returning to fidgeting in her gown.
"Jane," Jane looked away from her horrid dress to where the little princess was tugging on one of her awful long sleeves. Without a thought about how badly this would crease her dress, she crouched down to the Princess level.
"Hmmm, what is it my little princess?" She asked fondly, her previous foul temper forgot for the time being as she looked into her little highness bright and innocent grey eyes.
"You look like a lady, Jane." Lavinia smile was wide and happy and Jane felt her heart sink.
"Only for tonight." She replied, albeit a little stiffly. The little princess cocked her head to one side, looking up at her in puzzlement.
"But you look so pretty." Lavinia insisted and Jane could feel, despite herself, her temper returning.
"Maybe," Lavinia continued slowly, "you could be a lady and knight. So you can still go adventuring but be a lady here in court too."
"A Lady Knight." Jester chimed in cheerfully, but Jane could see something in his face that made her feel even more ill in her gut.
"Maybe." Jane said slowly, tucking a stray lock of dark hair from the princess's face fondly.
"Jane?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think I'll allowed to wear my dragon wings to the Ball?" Jane bit back a smile.
"I don't see why not." Lavinia let out a squeal of delight before running to put on her precious dragon wings.
"You truly are very good with them, my Lady." Sara said sounding quite close to awe as she watched the youngsters more or less keeping themselves out of trouble and their clothes clean.
Jane shrugged her shoulders as she carefully moved to her full height; she was somewhat pleased to notice that she was taller than Sara meaning that she was closer to Jester's height.
But why that has anything to with anything, Jane thought crankily.
She was getting all the more uncomfortable in her gown, her arm was aching worse than ever and Jester was looking at her all strangely and she didn't like it.
She was half tempted to just leave the nursery when her mother came in.
oOo
Lady Adeline was pleased to see that the royal children were in their royal best as well as under the firm promise from her daughter that they'd behaviour themselves during the night's festivities.
What did not please her was the look on her daughter's face, which held nothing but anger. But she didn't have time to grill her daughter over whatever had upset her, though she had a strong feeling that it had something do with the jester boy who was giving her daughter looks that no mother could miss.
She shot him a warning look and he promptly started to inspect his blue boots. She truly needed to get her daughter way from the boy.
Their friendship had been fine when they had been children, but neither were children any longer, with the boy being now fifteen and her daughter thirteen years of age. It would only be a little longer now before she became a woman and Adeline was determined, even with all this wanting to be a Knight business – she is certain that the fool of boy has something to do with putting that nonsense idea into her daughter's young and naïve head – that her daughter would not lose her place in court. She refused to allow that to happen. And certainly not because of some jester boy!
She knew that she was being harsh. She knew that the boy cared for her daughter, he truly did and that her daughter felt the same towards him, but… she had to nip this in the bud before both of them got hurt.
Her daughter was of noble birth, from a long, long line of nobility. And Jester? Jester was even worse than commoner, he was a gypsy!
She could not allow her daughter to fall in love with this boy. It would ruin all opportunities still open to her, for many had closed with the whole squire business. Her daughter's reputation would be completely ruined if anyone were to think that the childhood friendship between her and Jester was something more.
Maybe not now, but Adeline knew, she knew that eventually it would become something more and she needed to stop it now, before the both of them got burnt by their own dangerous love.
She could already see that her daughter was hurting from it. She wasn't blind to the jealous looks her daughter was subtly shooting at the boy and the new nursemaid.
"Jane." Her daughter jumped and looked at her mother in confusion. "Lady Regina wishes to see you before the Ball."
"Oh, of course." Jane said and Adeline didn't miss Jane's relieved smile at having an excuse to escape the nursery.
She shot the jester boy another hard look as she saw him watching her daughter leave the room.
He met her eyes, light grey to dark grey and didn't lower his gaze, as would be expected of someone of his class to do. He gaze was calm and confident and she felt her resolve become solid.
Yes, she needed to get her daughter to spend less time with the boy. She had always felt that he was a bad influence over her, but now she could see that being in her daughter's company for so many years had caused him to forget his place in the world.
Something in her face must have shown something for she saw his eyes widen before he quickly dropped his gaze, turning his complete attention to his young charge.
"Make sure they arrive at the Ball exactly when the King and Queen do. And do try to keep them clean and under control before then." She ordered them before she stalked out of the nursery, her head held high and proud.
Yes, she would put this ember out before it could become a blaze, it would hurt her daughter for a time, but she would soon heal and move on.
But he won't… a voice whispered in the back of her mind, a voice that she shoved away but not quickly enough before it added; and you know that she won't either. You will break them by forcing them apart. Like two sides of the one coin, you cannot have one without the other.
oOo
"Does Lady Adeline not like you?" Sara asked Jester quietly once the Head Lady-in-Waiting had left the nursery.
Jester looked after the woman thoughtfully feeling a little sick in his gut.
"No, no I really think she does not." He sighed and tried to convince Lavinia to not climb the high cupboard and jump off it to see if she could fly.
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