A/N: *nervous laughter* hello again. Long time no see. Sadly, the aliens still won't abduct me. The good news is that I passed my exams! The bad news is that I read Lord of Shadows and legitimately thought I was going to need therapy for a while there. :'(
It also took me way longer than it should have to batter this out. There are several versions of these scenes sitting in my documents folder and I remain to this moment unconvinced that the ones which made the cut here should have.
Which has prompted me to consider that I might upload some of the deleted scenes or uncut versions of things in a separate story? Some aren't half bad, they just didn't fit in the story at the time. But there aren't that many of them so I may never bother. We'll see.
But for now. Screw it. Here you go.
Obedience
Chapeltoute Hall, Alicante, May 1537
To the dulcet tones of Julie Beauvale's wobbling Latin, Isabelle speared the shirt's fringing with the tip of her needle with the vigour of a Spartan warrior wielding a javelin. An incredibly bored, intellectually wasted Spartan warrior but a fearsome being nonetheless. Pitiful as it were to admit, such pretences were all that kept her brain from shrivelling up and dying altogether during these long days at Jocelyn's side.
She was not sure whether to be exasperated or delighted that the queen's face carried the same weariness she felt at the day's proceedings (or lack thereof), calling out yet another insipid correction to her temporary lady, who toiled onward through the psalms. Jocelyn's eyes had glazed over log ago and now kept drifting toward the nearest window pane, her fingers were wound slackly through the bundle of linen that lay otherwise untouched in her lap.
Apparently through his adolescence and into the early days of his reign Valentine's shirts had been mended by his mother. The old queen, Seraphina of Saxony, had been an even more formidable matriarch that her own mother, a shuddering Isabelle had been told, to the point that even when her gnarled, ageing fingers had fumbled and ached throughout the chore, she had been aligning the Valentine's stiches until her last breaths. Upon which time the torch had been passed to the young King's new and unpopular wife.
It had been a symbolic assignment; the proof that the lady the Privy Council had sneeringly dubbed "the milkmaid from Aconite" was just as regal as her predecessor had been, and was to be treated as the queen her mother by marriage had been. Thereafter Jocelyn had stitched the King's shirts dutifully und unwaveringly until the day she disappeared into Broceland Forest. Then, upon return, she had reclaimed the thimble alongside her crown and gotten back to work. Whoever had taken charge of the vestments' wellbeing in her absence God only knew. Isabelle knew for certain that Clary had never been called to serve, although having seen the King's daughter sew she could not feign surprise at the Princess having been overlooked.
Not long ago Izzy might have feared looking too idle for risk of being called upon to read next, given that her Latin was even more abysmal than Julie's. However through some unidentifiable mishap or favour, she found herself the queen's new favourite. Jocelyn, remarkably, liked her- which was more than could be said for any of the other well born idiots who now tailed Her Majesty's every waking moment.
The only potential source of this new friendship Isabelle could fathom was an occasion not long after the Duke and Duchess's departure, when Jocelyn had first attempted to urge her to a bible reading Isabelle had craved pardon. "Why should you not read as the other girls do?" The queen had snapped and Isabelle, bored, irritable and suddenly embarrassed that her ignorance was about to be exposed, had snapped back just as sharply, "Because I am a fervent Reformist. I scorn the Latin tongue."
There had come an audible gasp and the Countess of Adamant had looked at her daughter as though she were set to end either Isabelle or herself in the following moment, before the stunned queen had looked to her young maiden's unrepentant, scowling face and dissolved into hearty laughter. "Have a care Lady Isabelle," she chided when at last she managed to draw breath again, realising that she should not have giggled in the first place, "That is no laughing matter." While her struggle to recollect herself offered mirthful contradiction one bleak, contrary sense of humour had slyly smiled at the other.
"I do admire your spirit, Isabelle," the queen had told her privately since, "Would that we lived in a world where a girl was permitted to have such character. I profess myself quite in awe that you have managed to keep yourself untamed so long, for want of a better term."
Isabelle had shrugged, "I am an intolerable shrew and the bane of my father's existence. And methinks, in recent months, my mother's." In those days any such utterance was hastily followed with a glance to where Mayrse would glower helplessly while pretending to be enveloped in conversation with someone else. That Izzy no longer felt so furtive in her chats with the queen was telling.
That day was the first that her unease drew comment from Isabelle's companion, "Ah. I suspect you remind Mayrse too much of herself."
Jocelyn could have confessed to being the antichrist and Isabelle would have been less shocked in that moment. Reading her disbelief Jocelyn had laughed again, that wry, brittle sound she reserved only for when they were together, "Oh aye. I suspect that is what scares her so. It must make her so melancholy and unforgiving. You remind her of herself, or the girl she was." After a small, pensive pause Jocelyn added, "As my daughter does me. Like I say, this world is unforgiving to wilful women. I expect knowing and voicing her own mind has only ever brought Mayrse Trueblood sorrow."
Isabelle had been tempted more than once, given their new accord, to urge Jocelyn to comment on one of the darker rumours she had heard during her time in Idris, to ask outright if Mayrse and Valentine had been lovers, or if her teenaged mother had only wished they were. If, perhaps, that explained the sudden arrangement of marriage to her father in the first instance. But that would be going too far, even for the admirably devil-may-care Isabelle Lightwood. Besides, she was not certain she wanted to know anyway. Even had she the knowledge, what could she do with it? Lord it over her mother, use it to urge Mayrse to turn away from this idiotic Jonathan Morgenstern plan? Not likely, with the memory of her mother's face the night she had exposed Robert's debauchery still dug in her heart.
Her remote, tenacious mother was not supposed to be broken by anything, least of all her husband's callous actions and her daughter's untoward words. All that had occurred between them since only evidenced that the fatal exchange had not been forgiven or forgotten. Worst of all, an unwitting Isabelle had fixed her own face to the revelation in Maryse's mind. Now her mother- be it subconsciously or no- wanted to punish her for it, and threatening her with Prince Jonathan was but a small part of that retribution.
Poor as things were with her own mother, she did not think that searching for some maternal affection was what had driven her to Jocelyn's bosom. No, having observed the woman's interactions with Clary and heard the Duchess speak of her, Isabelle was sure Her Majesty was no paragon of motherhood. In fact, she recalled now that had been one of the first things that had endeared Clary to her. Isabelle had decided to befriend her upon realising how alone in the world the feisty but frightened young woman had been. Even where both her parents had failed her Isabelle always had Alec to rely upon, what had poor Clary? Who had Clary, for a protector and confidant that would not betray her to the first lord willing to slip a shilling? Jonathan? The thought was almost laughable, in a dark way.
So Isabelle had put herself first in line.
However much she may despise waiting on the queen less than she had expected, that did not mean she was not desperate to have Jace and Clary back. The two women wrote often of course, but never exchanged anything of serious account, knowing that every line was perused before the missal reached its intended a man who walked and talked with such apparent confidence, Valentine had always found his throne an uneasy seat. There could be no other excuse for the mistrust he regarded everyone with, even his daughter.
Still, Isabelle only had to endure the rigid tedium of life as it was for a fortnight more; then the court would be on progress and soon they would be staying with the Duke at Chatton. Thereafter the Duchess would be back at her father's court and Isabelle would have her partner in crime back. And not a moment too soon.
Unfortunately, thinking of Clary always saw Izzy's thoughts stumble next to Simon. She would be lying if she tried to pretend his snubbing of her still did not smart after the passage of time. She also could reluctantly admit that it was more than her pride now bruised black and blue. It was for the best, of course, that much she rationally knew. But the heart was seldom rational.
In a way, though she missed them desperately, she was close to relief that she no longer had to witness first-hand Clary and Jace's joy. Strained though it might be given the current political atmosphere, it was painful for her to behold the way in which they drew solace from one another. Observing how deeply in love they were only perpetually reminded Izzy of how beached she was in her own loneliness.
It was as astonishing as it was painful to her, how icily Simon had distanced himself. For all those days she had spent thinking him the warmest, most open-hearted person she had ever known, he had in fact proved to be so very cold. Mayhap the person he thought her to be deserved such isolation as punishment, but the exile did not enable her to explain that she was not that girl at all. In the weeks she had been left with little better than her own thoughts to amuse her she had come to that realisation at least- that she did not want to be thought so ill of after all. She did care. She cared so much it lay like a tonne weight upon her chest. All her pretence of carelessness and freedom had crumbled down, dissolved from the air and now it lay a deadweight on her shoulders.
She cared about him. She cared for him.
All the while she privately scorned Jace and Clary and even now from what she glimpsed of Magnus and Alec, she could not resist looking at what they had and wanting it. Not necessarily a simple, uncomplicated love, now she was doubtful to her very soul such a thing existed, but a love all the same. Someone who might make all the dreadful things in this world worth enduring. She wanted that unconditional support and that precious thing beyond companionship that both her brothers' loves offered them: honesty.
And yet, the true, bitter irony beneath that secret wish seeped sourly into the confession to herself and ruined it all; the admission that such a thing might always be hopeless for her, who had not even the courage or trust to be honest with herself.
All these years she had pranced about in low cut gowns, tossed her hair and flicked up her skirts to scandalously flaunt exposed ankles, she had been carefully embellishing a mask. Baring as much of her flesh as she might so other, more important things might never peek to sight. Ensuring no one might know the scared little girl beneath, afraid of her mother, overlooked by her father and protector of her brothers. The girl who had realised with dread by the time she turned thirteen and her innocent body began to betray her into a woman's shape that her face would be uncommonly beautiful. That her best asset would be her life's hindrance. Her greatest blessing and her greatest woe.
Once a girl was pretty that was all she would ever be. Men would desire her for it while women would despise her. Even her own parents believed it when they terminated her education soon after her first arrival at the French court, noting how easily she turned heads. They had assumed, and not incorrectly, there was no need for her to be clever or talented; with looks like hers she needed no skill or learning. Isabelle spent the years of her adolescence playing into it all, keeping everyone who was neither Jace nor Alec at arms-length before Clary had come along, in that bull-headed, hands on hips, no-arguments way of hers and refused to be held at bay.
But now with Simon her carefully built up armour had been bashed in around her and Isabelle was trapped inside it. The one boy who had begun to see past it and not turned on his heel had eventually caved to the assumption. No one would love her for her heart, or for the person underneath the elegant clothes and dry wit. Who could blame them? Isabelle barely knew who that girl was herself.
Even if every time she drifted past the lutenist her heart faltered in her chest and her breath snagged, even when Isabelle longed to catch him by the sleeve and bid him listen to her, to explain that she was never a heartless whore, nor ever would be. She remained exactly as she had been a year and a half ago, a petrified, trapped little girl rattling in futile at the bars of a caging sex. Playing the harlot to evade being the wife: ending up just as Mayrse had, a faded beauty, the bitter and abandoned bride's whose years of fidelity were repaid with replacement by a younger, prettier model with the strings to her husband's heart and coin purse.
And yet what good would any of it do? What would she achieve in telling Simon the scandal that had driven her to Idris in the first place was the same as the rest of her reputation, an elaborate lie that had gotten out of hand. Just another falsehood she had absorbed and made her truth.
He may well not believe her at any rate. On the sole circumstance she had inadvertently cornered him leaving Jocelyn's parlour, she had donned a chilly indifference so she could avoid his searching gaze upon her back after they had faltered their way past one another. "I will make no apologies to you" she had bitten out before she could master the sudden swamping of emotion.
"I would never dare presume, my Lady."
"It was destined to end anyway" she had reminded herself aloud as she sped away from him again, just loudly enough that Simon could overhear.
Yet she was driven to admit to herself now that she had not shrugged him off at all, that she still missed him in the achingly vacant hours she was left to her own devices. Who was she supposed to whisper her concerns to now? Who here cared that she dreaded what the future could hold now more than ever with her mother's ceaseless plotting or that she was frightened for Alec, for what may become of him when things with Magnus ended.
All things ended and their relationship could be no different. It would either implode and leave her brother's most delicate, tender heart in pieces or worse, it may explode into the public eye and the consequences of that did not bear thinking about either. She could not even bring her mind to contemplate his fate in that case, one not even she for all her devotion could save him from. As for Jace, she was not convinced he was any safer. Perhaps in that Clary was less like to be the cause of his hurt, she knew the Duchess better than Magnus Bane after all and dared trust her friend a little further, but that did not guarantee Jace's safety or happiness. And for all his stern bravado he was even more vulnerable than Alec. At least should Magnus break his heart Alec was likely to piece it together again eventually and find it in him to love again. Once entrusting his heart Jace had given it for good.
Focusing on the present and on her brothers provided a limited reprieve, but she supposed anything was better to occupy her mind than contemplating herself, either in the immediate distant future.
Letting her eyes flit back over Jocelyn she found her mistress continued to be no more enraptured with Julie's devotions than she was. In fact, where her mind shirked from the months to come, the queen's seemed to dwell only there.
For all her ingratiating herself with Jocelyn Isabelle could not pretend to know what exactly the lady's carefully, constantly churning thoughts might be. She liked to think for Clary's sake that her mother was contemplating how best to smooth relations with her daughter, or make reparation in some form. Izzy could not imagine that even in the years of Clary's childhood Her Majesty had ever been open hearted with her daughter, or indeed a woman often compelled to offer open arms to her child either. That was not to say she had to wonder if Jocelyn loved her child, in fact Isabelle would hazard that the opposite were true. Jocelyn loved her daughter too much, if anything. An entirely repressing, consuming love, though the queen would not see it that way.
Hopefully this season's progress could resolve that somewhat. Once Jocelyn realised that she had not lost Clary entirely as Valentine's puppet she might allow for a rekindling of their closeness. Ideally a model of intimacy that allowed for her claws to loosen their grips slightly. The young Lady Lightwood might even be inclined to assist those efforts, having realised that Jocelyn was every bit as desperate and guilty as the rest of those creeping furtively around the edges of this court. It must be painful, glimpsing that for all her former impact upon the King she had only been viewed as a misplaced possession for some time now. Even queens remained women, and thus just as shackled by their sex as any other female.
If only Isabelle could be optimistic about repairing matters with her own mother. She knew better people than her had tried and failed to thaw out Maryse's rage, and much as domineering mothers were familiar terrain Izzy found she would sooner throw her lot in with Clary's. She may be largely Valentine's consolation prize for a decade of patient loneliness presently, but Isabelle was not prepared to underestimate Jocelyn's value as an ally.
During the many nights she had lain awake into the small hours with her mind whirling faster than a spinner's wheel, Alec's remark that it would be His Majesty who would choose the bride and terms of the Crown Prince's marriage kept leaping to the forefront. Sadly, as one of the queen's many ladies in waiting, Isabelle could not flounce into the audience chamber and urge the king to join her by the lily-pond for a heart to heart.
Instead she had to make do with drawing out the queen's memories. From what covertly honest discussions she had enjoyed with the queen Isabelle had begun to understand King Valentine better. At an agonising pace she came to know the lonely boy, an only child of cold, hard parents who dared demand nothing less than excellence from their sole heir. A boy who had been isolated all his life, a child forced from birth to shoulder the burdensome shadow of the man he must grow to be. The strong leader Idris needed, the Morgenstern dynasty needed. As singular and untouchable as the lone star that dotted his family banners, only this boy could not afford burn up and fall to earth.
Isabelle could not imagine growing up like that. She had spent much of her childhood sealed up in the family keep, yes, but she had always her brothers or servants' children to rough around with, always a small pack of them yipping around the battlements like a litter of overexcited pups. For Valentine there had only been the gaping hole where familial love should have been. Without siblings, he was left alone with parents who would choose on every count to be monarchs before a mother and father, for they fretted too much affection would leave their boy soft and needy. Instead they taught their son to treat his court friends with suspicion, to know that for all they offered it would only be as much as they felt could benefit them in turn.
And yet there had to be some perks to being a king in waiting from one's first breath. Emotionally aloof as his parents were, at any given opportunity the court and world were reminded of the importance of that little boy, of his divinely ordained destiny to rule. He had been overprotected, every Morgenstern supporter painfully aware that they were one mishap from losing their only heir and therefore everything. Ironic, really, that the boy gained so much power at the cost of all his freedom.
That was how Lucian Graymark had found him, restricted to the point of strangulation in ermine trimmed robes. Luke had never been to court, Jocelyn explained one day as they flipped through pattern books in a bay window, with an expression even Isabelle's years of practice could not read. She had babbled on about his father not trusting Luke not to shame them all if he went, convinced that his son was too quiet and reservedly awkward to make the desired impression. He and Jocelyn had come of age on their respective estates in Aconite, and being the only two well born people of an age in the region, became fast friends. Even now the queen could admit they had not been satisfied, "We would spend the bleak winters and yawning summers pacing the hedgerows and waiting for our lives to start."
Then one day it had.
On the royals' summer progress the two boys' paths had crossed. Both sheltered in different ways, one by obscurity and one by the very opposite, both unspeakably lacking company. "I suppose fond as Luke was of me, I was a girl. I was his childhood and he was ready to grow up and venture into the real world. I would never be enough." Jocelyn confessed, hard-eyed and matter-of-factly, but the wistfulness was traceable. How different their worlds might have been had Jocelyn and Luke been enough for one another. Given her mother's offhand comments and the way in which Luke tracked the queen around the room, the sorrowful anger buried behind those bright eyes and the swiftness with which they were averted when Her Majesty's hand slipped into the King's, Isabelle could guess Jocelyn Fairchild would have been more than enough for the young Lord of Aconite. Even then.
Regardless, Lucian became the first man to ask nothing more of Valentine than friendship, to truly care about what went through the head under the crown and certainly one of the first to dispute with him on the rare occasion that a detail their shared, gleaming vision for Idris' future was not identical. Soon Luke had introduced his new friend to his oldest and thus Jocelyn's fate too was sealed. From what she had felt herself being under that frank gaze of Jocelyn's, Isabelle could imagine how exhilarating it must have been for the then Crown Prince, to find a woman who refused to bandy her words, who saw behind that kingly mask to the unloved young man behind and offered him the simplest kindness of unconditional affection. Better still, she supported his ideal of a reborn Idris: a new nobility and a court founded on loyalty and obedience above riches. Then a country cleaned of the undesirables; the heathens, the idle poor, the sinners.
How spectacularly that picture perfect reign and union of kindred spirits had shattered was one aspect of her history Jocelyn did not touch upon. All she did know was that Valentine remained today resolutely oblivious to both being dead in stagnant, rotten waters. Isabelle calmly received all this information with open ears, a rapidly working mind and a closed face. In fact, as the days wore on Isabelle became increasingly convinced that this uneasy compromise between herself and the queen was all that sustained them both. Sharing her history, willing some self-explanation and cautionary message into her reminiscing, Jocelyn imparted all of this to Isabelle while wishing it was her daughter to whom she spoke. Equally, Isabelle listened attentively, mourning privately that she would never have a similar conversation with either of her real parents.
But dwelling on her private unhappiness or past was not safeguarding her future. So Izzy keenly set about aligning what she now knew of the younger Valentine with the present one. The lonesome boy had become a mistrustful man, who looked around and no longer simply saw a circle of opportunistic leeches but now increasingly saw plotters and assassins. Meanwhile, the woman he had once been so grateful for was now his entitlement. The boy planted on a pedestal all his days was now a difficult man to rein in, he knew his own mind and his power and would allow neither to be negotiated with.
Isabelle was dragged from her less than holy contemplations by the arrival of the King in flesh. The one person who could be all that stood between her and union with Beelzebub may be unaware of the power he had over her destiny specifically, but he still moved with the quiet, unquenchable confidence of one who had apparently never lived a day in doubt of the immeasurable influence he did possess. Even knowing he feared a blade in every shadow that was not his own, Isabelle almost subscribed to the façade being reality.
Grateful for Julie's instant silence and scrambling hastily to her feet with the rest of the women to sink in unison to their display of submission, Isabelle tactfully tilted herself forward with the curtsey and puffed her chest out a touch. Though her resented armour may have trapped her, it remained armour nonetheless. Still protective.
Now was a moment of genuine thanksgiving, for her decision today to wear navy that brought out the unblemished whiteness of her skin and drew so nicely on the sloe dark eyes she lifted with deliberate coyness to the waiting monarch. Lastly, a note of self-congratulation to herself for having secured the stool next to Jocelyn. However attractive the queen may remain for a woman her age, she was still halfway through the forties and the body that carried those years only served to make Izzy's face all the fresher. Valentine's eyes could not but turn momentarily to her.
If was impossible to tell if he approved or disapproved, but for now it was enough that he looked. Isabelle Lightwood could do much with that look, either way.
However little Valentine might think of his son personally, no father welcomed whores into their families. Especially not when that family had a reputation to uphold and a legacy to continue.
"Your Majesty," Jocelyn greeted her husband quietly as she was bid to rise.
"Good afternoon, dearest." The King laid a token kiss on the back of her hand and accepted the vacated chair beside her while the rest of the women scattered to a host of other tasks, all circling outwards from the queen as ripples in a lake disturbed by a sinking stone. Isabelle did not go far, opting to sort through the small vase of flowers on the sill just behind the queen, well within His Majesty's line of vision. Dutifully, paying the smallest scrap of attention she could spare, Isabelle set about plucking out dry stalks and crumpling withered flower heads between her fingers, listening avidly all the while.
"I have had an update from Broceland I thought I might share with you." Izzy could imagine the hunger on Jocelyn's face as her husband dangled the tidbit before her. She was desperate for any word at all from the daughter who would not respond to her letters with any more than the most bland, brief comments.
If Valentine had received other news it must be noteworthy indeed. Something significant must have happened. He would have no interest in the small talk, nor would he go out of his way to flaunt having received it before his wife.
"Apparently our son has made quite the impact already."
"Our son?" The queen's eyebrows darted up and then plummeted again as the realisation dawned. "Oh. You mean Jace."
Valentine nodded, the edge of some sour humour marking his face as he beheld his wife's reluctance to acknowledge a familial bond with her new son-in-law.
"Yes," he agreed shortly, "Apparently he is offering shares of his grain to the tenants. What was stockpiled for his own kitchen is now, I hear, going home in the buckets and pockets of every nameless John in Broceland for the winter. Meanwhile the local Church roof has been replaced, amongst other monetary encouragements for parish charity. On another, uncorrelated count I am sure, the jewellery I gifted Clarissa for her wedding has disappeared." Isabelle had to nip at her tongue to keep a giggle or a smirk at bay. Here she was, unable to get her father's attention at all, while Clary's very jewel box was being scrutinised.
Isabelle amused herself by imagining Jace squinting at the scales, tongue poked out in concentration before shrugging and tipping the whole pan of grain into the upturned apron of a farm wife. Then she envisaged Clary with her sleeves hawked up and her freckled face flushed and smeared with flour as she pummelled and kneaded at a flop of dough alongside a wrinkled cook. Surprisingly, the fantasy was not difficult to conjure at all. On either count.
"As a result, I hear a begrudging respect has arisen for the new Duke among the people. Now they have both felt a strike from the back of his hand and grown to appreciate the good fortune that can come from his open palm, I cannot imagine they will be keen to rise against their lord or his ilk again."
Valentine sounded as pleased as if he had achieved all of this himself. He was thoroughly chuffed, Izzy noted from another feigned nonchalant peep over at him. Since he took credit for shaping the man, he also took credit for that man's deeds. Although Izzy guessed the King's approval stemmed from the cunning he assumed drove Jace's actions. It would never have occurred to him that Jace might act because he believed it to be the right thing to do.
"Good news at last," Jocelyn murmured, dipping her head and speaking more to her shoes. Upon His Majesty's entrance she had at long last found the interest and motivation needed to continue her sewing. Valentine helped himself to a goblet of wine Lady Penhallow had scurried over with, lounging back in his chair. Or at least, as close to lounging a man like Valentine could get. There remained a tense tremor to his shoulders and a straightness to his back.
"Indeed." His Majesty tinged his words with some further dry amusement. Listing the exploits of his newest nobles as if they were a duo of children sneaking sweetmeats from the pantry and he, the fond parent, pretending to turn a blind eye. "I wonder if the Brocelanders will ever recover from the shock. To think, they've gone from haughty Stephen cantering by with his nose in the air to his son rolling bales of hay with them! He and Clary wish to play at country nobles." He paused for another smug sip, then cast a mocking, glinting eye at his wife, "In her blood, I suppose. Small wonder she has taken to the shires like a duckling to a pond."
Jocelyn's head shot up as if he had landed a kick to her shin, "I- How- she…" It was shocking to find her speechless. Just as quickly she recovered, pushing her shoulders back and crisply corrected herself, "Not enough to dilute the Morgenstern, presumably."
Valentine flashed his signature slow, serpentine smile, "I should think not," he concluded in the same low, wry voice. The one that suggested he was privately laughing at some jest he had no intention of sharing. It was as irksome to Isabelle as it was intriguing.
Upon taking another long draught of his drink the King's keen eyes strayed upwards, to where Isabelle hovered, looking over her shoulder to the royal couple. She had meant to keep catching quick glances to measure Jocelyn's behaviour and deduce from it whatever she could of the strange tension crackling between husband and wife. As her eyes snagged Valentine's she was faced a dilemma. Ideally, appropriately, she ought to lower her gaze but instead, with a sudden flush of daring, she held the stare.
She spared all of an instant to allow his temper to explode, or for him to land some withering complaint of her. When it was not forthcoming she readjusted her shoulders so she was half facing him. Then, (considering sheep, lambs, hanging) Izzy decided to push the limits a little more, so she fired off a little half shrug and lifted her brows, twirling a drooping rose between her fingers as if to say What? Before oh so slowly and deliberately turning back to her task.
Turning her back to her king.
Her heart pounded lamely and she felt a tad dizzy as she became falsely immersed in the dry petals again. She had just broken the first piece of court etiquette she had been taught. One never, ever turned their back on their king. She knew not even what the punishment for such an offence would be, having never known anyone brazen or ignorant enough to behave so disrespectfully. She only knew her desperation was such that it gave her the gall to try.
Isabelle also had enough experience to trust her feeling that he remained staring; attuning to the male gaze now came as a sixth sense to her. No more was needed for the moment, not with his eyes burning a hole in her shoulder blades and the light from the window illuminating her silhouette of perfectly curving hips and a tiny waist.
And Valentine was not a man to ignore or tolerate such a breach. This was a man who inspired enough fear to command absolute obedience, each man knowing that severe chastisement would follow even a momentary lapse.
If he did have her flayed, what of it? She should have been frightened, but that razing numbness in her chest expanded instead. Let him do his worst. If anything a few lashes might serve to divert her. She was sick of only aching on the inside.
Uninterrupted, Valentine kept up his stream of small talk with the queen, asking her about some noblewoman Isabelle had never heard of returning to court. Still her heart hammered, still her breaths seemed to come and go too lightly to stop the spinning of her head. Until, just as she heard Valentine take his leave with the scrape of a pushed back chair and a soft farewell to Jocelyn a parting purr was directed at her, "Lady Isabelle."
None of the other women received a goodbye by name and she should have been dizzy with joy that the king of Idris even knew her by name, but at last the whirling of the room came to a halt and Isabelle's world steadied and sharpened.
Damned if she did, damned if she didn't, Isabelle Lightwood, swivelled. Never the gushing, startled maiden; there would be no, Who, me? It was with a side smile and cold, proud amusement that she turned, making herself as lovely as ice and twice as deadly. Of course, me.
Silently, more than a touch theatrically, she lowered herself to another curtsey and dragged her most teasing, sultry smile out of retirement for Valentine Morgenstern.
An alliance with Jocelyn was all well and good but the final decision would still be made by the King. Why should his wife alone sway him? Why let a prince ruin her when Isabelle could do it for herself with a King? Besides, past experiences had proven he need not lay a finger on her for it to be achieved. The mere insinuation should be more than enough.
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Chatton House, Broceland, Mid June 1536
It had taken Clary longer than she had imagined it would to grow used to waking to the sound of birdsong rather than church bells. Quelling a yawn, she stretched out her limbs lazily, blinking her eyes open to evaluate the hour of the day. The cocoon of pale reddish light cast by the haphazardly drawn bedcurtains told her it was still early morning. Without doubt, she was more at home in Broceland than she had ever been in Alicante, which was no surprise given that she had grown up in the convent nestled at the heart of its vast forest. But it was still odd not having a euphonic harmony of the city's many chapels to herald in the arrival of every hour.
She stretched out again, relishing the drowsy relief of her loosening muscles, and smiled to herself as her toes bumped against Jace's ankles. It failed to rouse him, thankfully. Rolling over to face him, Clary huddled under the covers and appraised her slumbering husband. It was rare for her to wake before him, normally he was up and about at first light of the early summer mornings. It pained Jace to waste a moment, he seemed to have too much energy and too many things to do to rest for more than a few hours. Especially not when he had so much to occupy himself with. In the weeks they had spent here Jace had been extremely busy, making ties with his neighbours both lowly and noble. For the most part he had left Clary to deal with the latter, hosting an array of dinners and accepting a swathe of invites. By riding out with George Penhallow's younger sister (who was nearing the end of her widow's mourning period and inching her way back to public life) praying with Lord Ravenscar's elderly mother and frequently entertaining Lady Carstairs, hour by hour Clary befriended the women behind the lords of her father's Council. To her surprise, it had been nowhere near as tedious as she had feared. Annemarie Penhallow was considerate and pleasant, Jeanne Ravenscar was wise and witty while Cordelia Carstairs was kindly and approachable in her own way.
She had to fill her hours somehow, since Jace was seldom out of the fields; learning the crop rotations, listening to the harvest preparations and assisting wherever he could. He heard suggestions and he made them, thus he offered his people every hour he could spare. Thankfully the quiet of the Privy Council allowed him to do so; there had been very little royal correspondence from Alicante beyond a confirmation of the date for the King's impending arrival from Pangborn. Mercifully he would not tarry long in their house, Clary had been worried they would not have enough food to sustain the whole court. As she would be the one playing hostess, the buck fell to her to ensure all went smoothly, but with Jace's generosity to their tenants and decision to forget all existing rent arrears she was feeling the pinch. Thank Christ for the Countess of Chene, whose subtly guiding hand and years of practice entertaining His Majesty at Chatton had made her indispensable of late. Beyond that, she had reason to hope the King would be eager to hunt for his own meat in the grounds, which should leave her able to just about scrape by.
But none of that needed to be dwelt on right this moment, not when she had a rare spot of peace to be thankful for her husband sleeping soundly. At long last. That too, she had come to appreciate, was a rarity.
She had surrendered countless hours sleep sitting awake with him during the long hours after he thrashed awake from another nightmare, talking to and holding him until he drifted back to a slumber. After the first few weeks he had ceased being sick after jolting awake, until after a just over month of being established at Chatton House they had slept undisturbed through the night. After some nagging Jace admitted to still being plagued with an array of ill dreams, but he no longer surfaced from them violently enough to disturb her. She had urged him to wake her if he needed to, yet Jace maintained seeing her upon waking was enough to calm him. "That you are here is enough," he had stipulated quietly and seriously. Clary had relented and let the issue be. Now she thought of it, they had not had a major incident since. She had come awake twice after that, but respect for his pride had held her still, pretending to be asleep until his harsh, ripping breaths slid back into a more measured pattern of slumber.
This morning,through a crack in the curtains a band of white dawn sunlight had fallen upon him, illuminating the skin of one bare shoulder and turning the tips of his curling hair a mellow gold. One hand was reaching across the mattress toward her, the other was tucked away under the pillow he lay upon. It was such a position of such innocent vulnerability that Clary was struck for the first time by how young her husband was. The few years that parted them had always seemed an age to her, in that time Jace had seen so much more than her, knew so much more. Now she realised that twenty-two was not very old at all. If he had ghosts aplenty, enough for man twice his age, he should not. She could think of no one who less deserved all that had happened to him.
Through slightly parted lips his breaths still came evenly and deeply and despite her determination not to disturb him, the surge of affection that came upon her left Clary with no choice but to prop herself up and lean over to drop a kiss on his cheek. She also slid her fingers into the gaps between his on the hand splayed between them and made to settle herself back down to doze again. But before she could she was arrested by a sudden stab of nausea in her gut.
In her confused alarm, her hand shot to the silk of her nightgown, bunched against her stomach from the way she hovered, half-rising and half-sitting. Then, as the tell-tale flood of liquid rose from her throat to her mouth she was forced to clap that hand to her mouth. Panicked, she flung the covers from her and tossed the curtain out of her way as she stumbled in the direction of the privy pot, praying that she made it in time.
Once the sickness subsided enough for Clary to recollect her composure and thoughts, she rocked back, wiping at her mouth.
"Now you?"
She turned uneasily and padded back reluctantly to face a concerned, very awake Jace. His hair may be a mess and his mouth stretching in a yawn, but she sensed he would not be easily brushed off. She shrugged, shuffling over toward the small table which mercifully still held a jug of wine from the night before. She swallowed eagerly several times to wash out the lingering stale taste in her mouth before replying. "Broceland's food disagrees with me."
"Hmmm." His thoughtful gaze stayed keen on her face, while he struggled into the sleeves of his robe and came over to her. "We have shared every meal thus far and I feel fine." Jace knotted the garment around his waist, "Then again,I suppose I have choked down some grim fare in my time." He shrugged "If you had ever sailed la Manche on a standard sailor's meal in the middle of December you would develop a strong stomach too."
Clary brightened as her curiosity was snared, "You've been to England?"
He winced, "Not exactly. I have glimpsed the lights of Southampton through the pouring rain." He sighed, "The seas were vile. We got halfway there and then the captain panicked. Between the storms heaving and half those on board also heaving, he felt it best to return to Le Havre quickly. End of adventure." He had turned a little green at the memory and folded his arms. "My least favourite near death experience to date. Come to think of it, I have not been on a boat since." Then he slid his eyes over her again and abandoned the tangent, "But I doubt you are seasick."
"No," she agreed, glancing up at him in fond disbelief as he played doctor.
"You do not look feverish," he smoothed her hair away and laid the back of a hand to her brow, "Nor feel it."
The Duchess swatted him away, laughing lightly. "God help us! Enough with the fussing."
He played at reaching for her again, and briefly they tussled as she attempted to push him away, "Should I call for a physician?" He called over as she poked at his chest, "You seem quite recovered."
Indeed, the sudden nausea had passed. In fact, Clary found herself anxious to break her fast now. He seized at her distraction to catch her wrists and hold her still. "But really Clary, it is not like you to be ill. Was it getting caught in that rainfall yesterday? I could have anticipated a chill but that does not explain the vomiting. Mayhap you should lie down again while I should send for someone."
"Honestly, whatever has come over you? You have become quite the old woman. I am not a child and I certainly do not require my husband mothering me." No sooner had the word left her tongue than her laughter shrank away. Watching her smile drop and her face tense, Jace immediately sobered too. "What is it?" He danced back, releasing one arm and clearing her path to the pot, misinterpreting her sudden silence and anticipating another bout of sickness.
"No, I…" she trailed off, her voice sounding faint and echoic, her thoughts already a mile ahead. Clary made herself swallow past her now dry mouth, "It is likely nothing." She ought not to get ahead of herself. "I feel better now," she insisted,"With a proper meal in me I will be entirely restored."
Jace hesitated only a moment more before extending a hand to her again, "If you are sure-" To which she nodded emphatically, "Then let us scout out something to eat. We have a busy day ahead of us."
"As always. I have begun to wonder if there is another kind. Another expedition with John Carstairs?"
"No," Jace replied cheerfully, "First I want to monitor the granary. Or what remains in it."
Clary feigned a gasp, "Such excitement so early in the day! I fear I cannot cope."
He rolled his eyes at her, "You are back on form already, I see. I am afraid I must deny you that particular thrill. While I am up to the elbows in grain with the servants one of us must play at being gentry. I believe you have another luncheon planned with the Countess. Provided you are feeling up to it."
Clary refused to be distracted, "You do not want me to play farmer's wife?" She had ridden out with him before, to the cottages of all their tenants so she could learn all by face and name.
"No. Unless you have a particular interest in wheat farming." His tone darkened as he finished, "Only one of us need reconcile with the commoners in these parts."
His wife kept her tone light, "But I can be very charming." And truth be told she wanted to do away with the myth the King's daughter was some entitled brat and an insufferable glutton, who did not care a whit which of her subjects lived or died so long as they did it in obedience. She was nothing like her father and brother and she wished for the people of Idris to see that. But besides one or two obligatory rounds to show herself to the locals Jace kept her distant from them. His own safety something he could more gladly risk, whereas he was not entirely at ease with her being among them. God help them, she suspected that if a disgruntled farmer did attack Jace he would nod and agree they had cause to. Clary, on the other hand, was never to be in any risk whatsoever.
Her spouse was a match for her in every way, including her stubbornness, as he reminded her now. "Exactly. Which is why I need you to flutter your charming lashes at Lady Cordelia and her daughter."
The additional unexpected guest propelled her to protest in earnest, "Jace, I think I have Cordelia well and truly beguiled by now. I see her every other day and the last thing I need is a widening throng of Carstairs women. There is no need, we have triumphed on that front, I can assure you!"
"Woman," he corrected gently, "Emma is still a child."
"So I am to play nursemaid?!"
A shallow frown appeared on the Duke's forehead and when he next spoke it was firmly, "Quite frankly, yes. If that should be what it takes to fasten the Earl to me once and for all. If we cannot win the loyalty of a man whose eyes blaze like lamplights at the mere mention of the Herondale name, we are in a sorry state indeed. We need the approval of someone other than your father, Clary. I need it, if I am ever to have some room for manoeuvre in the Council chamber, or to have the ability to compromise with the King on anything." To lengthen the leash Valentine would keep him on, since breaking free of it altogether was not a feasible option so long as he called the sovereign's daughter 'wife'.
Clary rolled her eyes, "I know all of that," she began with exasperation, then the young Duchess trailed off and nipped at the corner of her mouth. She opted to run her tongue under her front teeth rather than moving it to words, realising there was an order woven through those words and quiet authority thrumming in every syllable. He would not demean either of them by barking commands at her like he might a servant girl, but nonetheless Clary was his wife and he expected conformity from her. He was not the sort of husband who would throw his weight around and snipe at her constantly for subservience, but he was her husband just the same. He had made what was expected of her clear and marked the conversation closed, turning away and beginning to get dressed.
It was not unreasonable, what he asked, Clary reminded herself as she followed him.
Anyway, most of the time they stayed in relative equilibrium as a couple, the occasional butting of heads aside. It was rare that he tipped the balance so explicitly. Much as he might jest of her unruliness, Jace was her lord and would only tolerate it so far as he could allow. When it came to matters of import, things he truly wanted or needed, then she would have to fall in line.
Perhaps that only sat a touch uneasily with her because she had grown up in a community of women, where besides the existing hierarchy of a mother superior she still lived within a sisterhood. There she could expect to be heard and heeded among brethren who were aware that she was a royal child and had delicately deferred to her.
Tucking her hair behind her ears and moving in the direction of her wardrobe chamber, Clary scolded herself internally. She ought not to be irrational. It should not trouble her to abide with the wishes of the man who loved and protected her. It was for both their sakes after all. God knew, there were worse men to obey.
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Through the gap between Wayfarer's ears, the world looked much simpler: a small patch of green land or dirt road below the sky, limiting all that mattered to a few square feet directly ahead of him. Sadly, these days Jace was all too aware of the bigger picture and of the pressing need to try and plot months, even years ahead.
In his previous life of diplomacy he had never cause to think beyond a matter of weeks. In spite of his skill, his tender age had always made Francois reluctant to give him a permanent posting at any foreign court. Jace, with an unquenchable wanderlust, had never been incited to protest. He had no name, no family and no land to worry about or to tie him to any geographical sphere at the time. Remaining the lone wanderer had been appealing, and heaven knew there still were times as he paced up and down crop lines that the thought of an open road across Christendom seemed more tempting than ever. Nevertheless, now he did have an estate and name to uphold, not to mention a wife to support, all of which necessitated long term planning.
Presently he pulled his faithful mount to a halt by the roadside, stuffed his reins into his left hand and swung himself over Wayfarer's back and to the ground, whereupon he noted with some pleasure that the ground his feet struck was damp and soft, his boots sank into the soil easily once they took his weight. A wet summer may leave many a nobleman or woman disgruntled as it made outdoor sports unattractive, but for the new Duke of Broceland the almost unrelenting rain was a blessing in disguise. Certainly, as far as the eye could see the fields were lushly green and the waving green stalks of umpteen rows of crops were well watered. Reaching over the low fence to run an approving hand one swathe of healthy sprouts, Jace noted with satisfaction that droplets of surplus water dotted them in tiny diamonds. By the time he drew his palm away it was nicely soaked. He flicked his fingers dry, breathing in deeply the clear air, filled with scents of damp flowers and the coppery tang of more rain. Leisurely he paced onwards, reflecting that when he had first travelled from Alicante the rain had left their entourage miserable. The mud slick roads had been dangerous, and the baggage carts had been forced to navigate around the big, murky puddles that spread out from every hollow while also avoiding deep, drowned ditches which would prove fatal to their wheels. Thankfully, the risk of flooding had come to naught and a subsequent dry spell for most of the previous month had evened scales again.
For the moment, the rain showers when they came fell frequently and lightly, meaning the county's precious crops were not choked or drowned. God knew, the thing Jace needed most in this world at the present moment was a good harvest. His change in circumstances dictated that his priorities abruptly and completely change too. A year ago, had he even thought those words let alone uttered them, he would have laughed at himself and then contemplated taking up residence in a madhouse. He smiled to himself now at the very thought, watching the frail, pretty form of a cabbage white butterfly flutter unconcernedly past him, wings like apple blossom petals carrying it along easily on a breeze.
Idris remained renowned for its fertile soil, the planes of Broceland in particular, he remined himself as he strolled further down the roadside with his horse at his shoulder. This southern part of his shire- the parts which bordered the Lakelands- had a mild enough climate and the bounty of good soil lining the banks of the river Durre, all of which made prime conditions for a high yield each year. God willing, this year would be no different.
Besides, this year there would be less mouths to feed.
Conversely, with so many dead for their part in last summer's riots there were also markedly fewer men to work the fields. While Jace could not conjure labourers out of thin air, he had done the best he could. At one point he had even contemplated hiring migrating landless labourers out of his own pocket to work the fields of Chatton, but the sorry fact was that the coin for such an endeavour did not exist. Instead he had to focus his energies elsewhere, mainly on offering what charity he could. Relief could only come from the parishes, so Clary had set about sweetening the local church, paying for renovations and buttering up the clergy, even rekindling some contact with her old girlhood friends in the convent east of here with donations and favours. Anything to encourage a more proactive approach to the destitute in the community.
For his part, Jace had taken a more direct approach. Looking around the flourishing farmland now he recalled how he had once struggled to comprehend how anyone here could starve when the land was so fruitful.
The answer to that question had been discovered in his own kitchen. The stores of food he had found there proved stomach turning rather than appetising. "How much do you expect us to eat?" He had enquired of his cook incredulously, pacing from one packed, cool storehouse to another. One crammed with tray upon tray of soft beige eggs, another lined with more fresh fish than Jace had ever seen in his lifetime. He might have accepted the quantities easier had he not been shown by Clary the simple, sparse allocated meals for the staff listed in their accounts. She, as it happened, was the one who alerted him wide-eyed to the "marketplace" of foods downstairs which she had discovered. Technically, the domestic affairs within his walls were entirely Clary's realm, but having listened to his stewards confirm his suspicions, Jace had to acknowledge his claim on the goods was slim. Much of it came into the house to bulk up rent payments, as the local subsistence farming families had little coin to hand. But no storehouse in the world could keep all of it from rotting over the summer, so what was not consumed by the resident family would be sold onwards for a profit, usually in cities such as Alicante or even overseas. Well no longer.
After having Clary section out the minimum of what might be needed in the immediate future and with some book balancing, Jace had been able to offer just over a quarter of his supplies to his tenants. Granted this year's harvest provided they should have enough to see them through the winter and well into the following year. His ambitions to help improve his people's lives had not been satisfied there. Instead, with the help of the Earl of Chene, he had recently compiled a scheme whereby some new high yield and high profit seeds could be introduced to the land next year, funded largely by the Duke himself. He just prayed that he had understood what had been told to him by those locals whom he had spoken to fully, and that this was not to prove a disastrous investment.
Two such farmers lumbered past him now, men with lined, dirty faces and gnarled hands curled around heavy wicker baskets, too old to have partaken in the riots which had doomed so many of their younger neighbours. Sons even. Each carried a course sack over his shoulders, proof that they had just come from Chatton. With a mumbled "M'lord" they doffed their crude straw hats to him and scuffled on. These two had not quite met his eye, but spoken thankfully all the same. While the gratitude writ so plainly on the faces of some who had hastened to the manor house for their helpings of foods was striking, there were also those who received it all with grim pride or bitter resignation. Accepting what he offered because necessity and hungry children demanded it, lifting baskets and jars with brisk, snappish movements. None of them forgetting that the man whose charity they had to fling themselves on was the reason they were in widow's weeds in the first place. Jace did not know whether to be outraged or relieved how easily many of them accepted their lot, knowing that whatever their lord might do to them he remained their lord. How willing they were to bow their heads and accept that hope for anything better for their children was foolish and any promises of change were empty. Valentine had been right after all, Jace had come to realise. At the first crack of the whip these people would fall back into miserable line. They had no choice if they wanted to survive.
And yet Jace could not pretend there were not those amongst them who still looked at him curiously, sometimes with a glance that almost held pity. As if they had come to realise he was every bit as crippled by his duty and status as they were, that he had to fall into his place just as often as they did. Sometimes he feared the last kernels or glimmering embers of anger he could pick out behind tired, desperate eyes was not wholly directed at him after all. Or mayhap he saw only what he wanted to see. What he could be sure of was that while the tenants may no longer loathe him, they were still far from loving him. That being said, the fact that he now felt safe enough to ride by himself spoke volumes, even if he did always keep a weapon stuck in his belt.
Sighing a little, Jace glanced skywards, noting that the brief moment of warmth from the unsettled late spring sun had vanished, squalls of greyish, smoky cloud obscuring it. Eager to avoid the looming downpour, Jace sidled back up to the stirrups and clambered hastily into the saddle again. From his new vantage point he could see the light brown stone of Chatton not far away, just beyond the overcast patch and so still bathed in sunlight, which left the many windows twinkling an eager blue. Almost beckoning their master home. For home it had become to him, remarkably.
Jace had thought he might miss the intrigue and excitement of court, he had worried that boredom might dull his political acumen and he would soon tire of life beyond urban civilisation. While in part that was true and he did rather itch to return to the opulence of court and above all to Alec and Izzy, Jace had also found himself grateful that the correspondence trickling out to him from the Council had been brief and he had been able to truly disengage from the petty wrangling of the various lords' factions. At least the peace had allowed him to make some progress in his own duchy. Nowhere near as much as he had hoped, but Jace was trying to remain relatively optimistic. This year he would lay the foundations, then next year he would build on them and likewise in the years after that, until his charity was no longer needed. Yes, his personal treasury would feel the strain, but Jace was used to living a modest life and thanks to her upbringing he knew that Clary was too. He would try not bankrupt himself, but one could argue that a starving or dead tenant paid no rent at all. It was of benefit to him too, to prevent them being entirely downtrodden in the future.
Another benefit to the King's daughter having been married within Idris' borders was that there was slim chance of being hauled into any foreign wars on the coat-tails of an alliance. In a time of peace the land and people could recover and Jace would be left at peace to aid that recovery, with or without his presence in Broceland. He had to admit that the latter would be more often the case. He would spend as much time here as Valentine and Idris would allow, but in the meantime he would have to trust an agent to oversee matters here in his stead and keep his plans running as smoothly as possible. Thankfully, with the help of one of Lord Chene's quiet recommendations the current head steward, Matthew Bernard, had proven his ability to step into the role.
A start was something and really all he could have hoped to make in the short months he had spent here. Now he simply had to have trust enough to step back and let some faithful servants carry the momentum. Yet out of all his new duties and roles as a noble, that was the part Jace was finding it most difficult to cope with. He had watched and served enough lords to know how to strike a good imitation, to walk and dress the part, but he was so used to relying on himself and his own wits that it was difficult to loosen the reins on something he felt responsible for. Nor did faith in an underling come easily to him. He was not an easily trusting person and doubted he ever would be. But he could be practical and he would have to. There was no way he could sow seeds into a field at Chatton and be in his seat on the King's council in Alicante at the same time. What he did know was that if he wanted to stay as these people's lord and remain able to help them in what little ways he could, then he would have to pull his weight in the King's service and he would have to personally attend His Majesty to do so.
But for the moment he could be mildly satisfied, he had achieved everything he had set out to when he had ridden for the village just after dawn. Filling his lungs with another gust of clean, earthy country air he followed his nose to a nearby hedgerow in full bloom, admiring the wealth of blooming flora, fancying it betokened the new start he had longed for when he had first ridden fro these lands. The luscious, bold leaves were growing outwards into the dirt road, but Jace did not let it trouble him, edging Wayfarer over and letting the horse take a mouthful as he made instead for the cream and gold clusters peeping out from among the greenery, hanging languidly within easy reach of his fingers. Tentatively, with mild amusement as he recalled the first time he had done so, he plucked at the honeysuckle stems and brought the little bundle to his lips, relishing the brief sensation of sugary sweetness on his tongue. Clary had been the one to show him how, laughing incredulously at his incomprehension. She could not believe he had never sucked honeysuckle before, "But they must have grown in Adamant!"
"I am sure they do but anytime I rode out I was on the lookout for potential quarry, not plants." Then, bemused and half-certain he was about to die as a result of ingesting some kind of poison he had mimicked her, unable to withstand her insistence. Now he gathered a small clump for her, hoping all their flavour would not seep out into his pocket between here and the house. She would laugh at him, as she always did, bringing her home clusters of wildflowers. It was the very least he could give her for keeping him sane and for giving him something to get out of bed for each morning. Without her hope and determination, he was not sure he would have found the motivation or the energy to believe he could begin to make things right.
Clicking his tongue, he snipped his heels at Wayfarer's flanks to urge him to a trot. Valentine and his possy would descend within the week, so for what little time he and Clary had Chatton to themselves as master and mistress of their own little world, they may as well enjoy it.
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Chatton House, June 1537
Hours after the humid, lengthy blue summer dusk finally surrendered to night proper all was quiet in the best of the house's bedchambers, the traditional Duke's quarters. Still, the Duchess lay wide awake and absentmindedly watched the reflected firelight pick out the bronze threading in the watchful Angel stamped tester above her, until those strands of fabric simmered with light, like running veins of molten gold. Another overlooked piece of royal propaganda from the house's previous inhabitants. Technically, marriage could not change the blood in her veins and so she was still a royal. There was nothing wrong with Clary continuing to sleep under it.
That thought was accompanied with a twisting discomfort in her gut as she considered that the design may have sheltered a slumbering Herondale master or mistress of Chatton long before any of her family forbearers. She had briefly wondered in her first nights here how she could tactfully have a servant remove and replace it without seeming a whimsical, spoilt little madam with nothing more important to worry about. She had dismissed the suggestion almost immediately, knowing such a request would sound ridiculous regardless of how she voiced it. She had made herself consider it another way, as rather apt. Neither a heron nor a star, so it could belong to both her and her husband equally. A reminder of their common Idrisian heritage, whatever family feuds had emerged in recent generations.
And more than those ancient blood ties bound them now, she thought with a small smile, her limbs still entangled with a dozing Jace's under the covers. Turbulent as her mind was, the only sounds were their lazily pattering heartbeats and the measured breaths lightly teasing the exposed skin at the base of her throat, not quite touched by Jace's lips. The candles which had not been blown out had long since guttered out and the muted light from the dying fire made the room seem all the warmer, the safer. It ought to have lulled her over, but Clary's eyes stayed open, watching how her bare flesh took on a pearly sheen in the gloom but the hair swept over her shoulder still caught the dying, tawny light so the lock she pushed carefully behind her ear shone a dim russet, more brown than red in the semi-dark. She shifted, rolling over a little to gaze out into the faintly glowing embers, watching the single flame that still bobbed and fluttered weakly in the grate, completely lost in her own thoughts.
Jace stirred behind her, sliding his arm down her side and pulling closer. She sighed contentedly at the warmth of his bulk against her while their legs twined tighter. "What keeps you awake?" His voice was roughened by the edges of sleep and a reviving lust at their proximity, "Have I not worn you out enough?"
Even in the weeks following their reunion in Alicante there had scarce been a moment spent alone together that had not ended in their pouncing on one another and eventually tumbling into bed, or (as Clary was only slightly ashamed to admit) any surface at all. She had found herself hoisted onto tabletops and even once pressed against a wall-none of which she could ever take to a confessional. For all that, she had never been inclined to rebuke or discourage Jace even slightly, in part because she knew this new need for an almost constant physicality was one way he sought to recapture an intimacy between them.
Much as he tried, it remained impossible for him to remove her face from the thoughts of what he had done the last time he had been to Broceland. Her father had clearly mastered the art of dangling her in front of Jace like a particularly ripe carrot. He had played on what would befall her were an uprising successful by flinging up her past narrow escapes from the rowdy peasantry and offering the idea of her waiting happily at home for him her all the while as the end prize in measured doses. Only Valentine Morgenstern could manage to marry his only daughter off and retain the ability to use her to barter with his new son in law. Trying to untangle a way to undermine or flip that influence over Jace would take more than a summer.
In the meantime she had to accept Jace's clinging to her and keep being his reassurance that it had not all been for nothing, that he had bought them safety and a future. Surely she could derive some comfort in knowing that her husband could have opted to lose himself in much worse than her body.
Secondly, while she could try and reason at being the compliant wife in her mind, Clary knew she could no longer dismiss her own lust as a fiction. Truthfully, she wanted that physical closeness just as much as Jace on every occasion. It had transpired that the fable carefully filtered to her by her noble friends in offhand anecdotes and clipped off comments had been disproved, the marriage act was not one to be endured rather enjoyed. Or perhaps for others it was and Clary was simply fortunate in her partner, who had set about diligently demonstrating to her just how much pleasure their bodies could offer them. To the point that even in the rare moment that he made no advances, like now, at least a small part of Clary craved it.
Despite her many ponderings Clary smiled against the corner of her pillow and tucked her arm beneath it, turning her head slightly so he would hear her replying lie, "You are the insatiable one, not I."
"Hmmm," he murmured noncommittally, fingers curling against her waist while he pressed a weary kiss to the top of her ear. Beyond that he made no move to take her again, curling himself around her and settling down to fall asleep again. She knew that for all that flirtation they had done more than enough for one night and thoroughly exhausted themselves.
It was a single needling thought that kept her from sleep, the simple annunciation that had been weighing on her lips for days and pricking at her tongue. Still she held her tongue. Because this would change everything, and not just between them. Clary had kept her suspicions to herself thus far, knowing Jace had thoughts flying through his head faster than minnows in a creek these days and umpteen plans to hatch and execute as it was, so she convinced herself he would not greet any distractions. She presumed he had fallen asleep again and she would have to hold off until the morning- the way she had been holding off for the next morning for the past four mornings- when he spoke again, "All… distracted…. been that way for days. S'wrong?"
At any other time his sleepy inquisition would have been endearing, but now she was too preoccupied to appreciate his sweetness. "Nothing is wrong. Not really. I-" her breath hitched slightly and then, suddenly the words that had been weighing on her just slipped out, "I am with child."
For the second that followed she could only lay there, stunned she had just blurted the news out into the gloom without even looking at him. She could not even be sure he had heard her, for he was completely still for a very long moment before she felt him tense as comprehension sank in.
"What?" this time there was no trace of fatigue in his tone.
"I am with child, Jace" She told him again, this time with more conviction. It did not have the effect she had been hoping for, it only pushed him deeper into silence, though she knew for a fact he was now wide awake. Hard as it was, Clary held her body and her tongue still until she could bear it no more before she rolled over to face him. "Speak to me," she tried to instruct firmly in the newly developed lady of the manor voice, her face now very close to his wide eyed gaze.
The hand reinstated on her hipbone tightened its grip, "You are sure?"
It took a great deal of effort not to shove him. "Yes, I am sure. Almost two months gone, I suspect, for I waited to tell you until I knew for certain."
Jace shook his head slightly, finally emitting a breathless, disbelieving laugh, eyes shifting away to peer incredulously over her shoulder before falling to hers, "My God. A child. Really?"
The shock had melted off his face and Clary noted with dazed relief that he seemed pleased. Better than pleased, judging by the way he grinned at her now, with pure joy and excitement. She had not seen him look so happy for so many long weeks, not since they were first married. "Really," she gladly confirmed allowing a smile of her own to spring up and mirror his.
At long last she had started take the weight pressing on his shoulders and crushing every guilty breath. Perhaps now, with some concrete hope for the future, he could finally forget the past.
He leaned over, kissing her just once, but deeply, adoringly, laughing slightly as he drew hand moved up to her shoulder, absentmindedly brushing her hair over her back once more and his fingers began to move in soothing circles there. "Clary… a child. I cannot believe it."
Clary giggled at his delighted mumbling and scooted back slightly to inspect his face properly, seeking out the best possible view of the smile that lingered there, "Can you not? What on earth did you think all of this-"she gestured to their interlaced bodies- "would led to?"
Jace shook his head again, as of yet still struggling to absorb it all. Even in the gloomy chamber she could detect the thoughtful gleam sliding into his gaze, "I did not think it would happen so soon. "
Clary shrugged, "I suppose it only takes once," she grinned again at him ruefully, "And it most certainly has been more than once, my love."
"I suppose so," Jace mused before his features froze once more and he pulled back, springing briskly up on his elbow, the sheets sliding further down his hips in a most distracting manner. "Dear God."
"What?" Her heart skipped a beat at the expression of horror he now wore, the harsh query slicing through the quiet room.
"You did not tell me. Not before I- A woman in your condition- and the way I just-" He glanced down at her naked form with something close to terror and Clary finally grasped the root of his panic, which sent her bursting promptly into laughter. She laughed until her ribs ached and her eyes watered, the mingling relief at having told him and having received a positive response feeding her merriment just as well as the embarrassment wavering across his face, "Clary! Don't laugh. I am trying to be serious."
"I know," his wife gasped out at last, slumping back against the mattress and reaching out to pull him with her, "I know you are. Trying to be concerned, that is. Well do not be. I am much stronger than I look. I have made some delicate enquiries and learnt that such goings on will not harm the child. That is a male constructed fear, I have been reassured. An old husband's tale if you will. My woman are firmly of the opinion that lying with a man during pregnancy does no harm, and I will take their opinions on childbearing over a man's any day." She refrained from telling him that she had also been reliably informed she would be inclined to want him even more as an effect of her condition, or that she had already begun to feel the impact of that particular symptom. There was only so much excitement a man could take in one night.
He visibly relaxed, returning to press swift little kisses against her nose and lips, wrapping his arms around her once more.
They lay peacefully for a time, her head pillowed on his chest. "Your father will have to be told."
Clary sighed before she nuzzled closer drowsily, lips moving against his neck with her response, "Yes, but not yet. He will know soon enough. I want to keep it to ourselves, just for a while."
To her relief, Jace mumbled his agreement readily enough. With more than a little satisfaction Clary began to foresee that her husband would happily enslave herself to her every need and whim for the next few months. It inspired a little more daring and as she allowed her eyes to drift closed at last, she proposed with a final breath of laughter, "Let us be the ones keeping a secret for a change."
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A/N: Hurrah! Clace baby! I say 'hurrah' ironically... I think.
Several things. Firstly and most importantly I feel the need to offer an explanation for Isabelle's behaviour. Number one, no she is not attracted to Valentine. Nor does she want to seduce him or intend to do that. She intends to use her bad reputation and gain some negative attention for herself so he will never in a million years consider her for Jonathan's wife. She doesn't yet know Valentine is far more interested in Clary's marriage and what it may produce. Beyond Clary, Jace and Valentine nobody at this point does. Whether or not that remains the case, you will just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, by buddying up to Jocelyn she is protecting herself slightly, she hopes Jocelyn will shield her from Jonathan himself, who will be making a reappearance soon. Overall, Simon breaking things off with her has really hit her self esteem. She has started to think the worst of herself and that no one good could ever want her. Poor hen.
Also, Alec has been laying low for a while, he will be back soon. I just wanted to sort Jace's head out a little and get the Clary pregnancy ball rolling first. I will be delving a bit more into Magnus, whose person and past still remain something of a mystery in this world.
Finally, yes little Emma Carstairs will be taking part in this tale in the near future. While events will effect her, as a child her role will be initially background and minor. Later, not so much :) But that is not going to come into play in the next few chapters so don't get too hung up on it.
I believe that is all for the moment. I will try and update again soon! xx