Chapter 15: Actions and Words
Eyes wide as the pewter plates she now ate her meals on, Clary surveyed the wreckage before her. From where she stood (or rather leaned fearfully) by the doorframe, she could see a strange man clad in coarse wool and stained brown leather tottering around her inner chambers. He was taking large, swooping swigs from an incongruously bejewelled goblet.
The noises of distress she'd heard had come from a horrified Helen Blackthorn. Another simply dressed man had taken firm hold of her. His dirty, bruised hands stood out garishly against the finely styled spring green satin of the Duke of Lyn's eldest daughter. She tried to push the vagrant away. Helen was doing a rather admirable job of keeping him at arms-length, aided by his intoxication. Helen gave a well-aimed shove and he toppled with inebriated inevitability down to the floor. Where he rolled and cursed, his limbs tangling in the fruits of his plunder, a blue, fur trimmed cape. Clary's cape.
At the jolting indignation of that observation, Clary forced her eyes to scan the rest of the rooms around her. The chairs were upturned, a vase of summer water lilies smashed upon the floor- what had once been their sustenance now forming a shallow, watery grave. Chests had been opened thoughtlessly. The handful of men flitting about the Princess's tower like greedy hornets had even laid hands on her candlesticks. One of them dared haul a costly tapestry off the wall and started to flounder and flail under it as it came down.
Clary swallowed the lump of panicked disgust in her throat as she realised her very bedchamber was now open to scrutiny. Another two tipsily giddy intruders, younger than the others -one of them could not have been more than fourteen- were wrestling her bedsheets between them in a vile tug of war. Maia was bolting about the rooms and trying to salvage what she could, her arms already clinging to Clary's engraved box of jewels. Her youngest maids were weeping where they cowered in the corners.
Clary forced her cramped, anxious hands to loosen on the door handle and stepped into the room, not that anyone had noticed. She advanced inwards, counting five or six intruders in all. She made it no further before her limbs were seized in a wretched trembling, and her heart sped unforgivably. These were the rabble of enraged faces that had haunted her nightmares. It was their sneering hatred that had almost killed her before. This time there would be no Jace to save her.
Where in hell was Jonathan? The men who were charged with the protection of her life? Every scraping laugh, every rip of rich cloth seemed magnified in the closeted space. A sixth vagrant appeared from the doorway to her inner rooms, sweeping the door open with an unholy bang.
Dear God, nothing was sacred. Her beautiful burgundy bed-curtains had been torn down and were now piled in the arms of a man who could well be a sheep farmer. Clary's very undergarments were strewn carelessly across the floor.
A small, black velvet purse in which Clary had kept a few coins her father had given her was being held upward in a ruddy triumphant fist. The gold and silver within jingled traitorously.
A chorus of coarse cheers sounded at the discovery. Astonishingly it was sweet, loyal Rebecca who started to curse in protest, "You villain! Unhand that you devilish-" She made to lunge for it, the man caught her arm and twisted. Becky yelped, and her assailant laughed in her face. "Now now, my pretty one! Let me show you that better sport can be had from that dirty mouth." He grinned and his company goaded him on with raucous, ribald laughter.
Rebecca tried again to jerk backwards out of reach, but the stale, drunken mouth had already swooped down toward hers.
The sight of her maid quailing finally blasted bolts of heated feeling through Clary's shaking body.
"Enough!" The command sprang from her, loud and outraged, "What, in the name of God and all the saints do you suppose you are doing?"
All movement stopped.
The man who'd been trained on Rebecca swivelled his attention to Clary. Rebecca tore herself free and fled to behind Clary.
Clary held herself still, chin high even as her heart climbed to her mouth. The man who'd tried to kiss Rebecca advanced on her. He sneered at her through wine-stained lips. "Something the matter, sweeting?"
Clary managed to shoot out a retort, "The matter would be your presence in my chambers!" Belatedly she considered if admitted if claiming possession was a grave error.
It certainly seemed to awaken a gruesome, threatening delight in her foe's face. "Princess!" He cried with crass celebration, "At last, the Morgenstern welcome we deserve."
Now he was close enough for her to smell his alcohol sullied breath, close enough to see the broken veins and ruddy colours to his cheeks.
Clary dared not unlatch her eyes from the man before her. She could hear the shallow, frightened breaths of her ladies and maids, alongside the anticipatory huffs of the rebels.
"What are you doing here?" Clary demanded again, letting her anger level her tone instead of raising it. She had first-hand experience of the effectiveness of her mother's cold, quiet wrath, so she tried mimicking it now.
He leaned closer still Clary could feel the slow burn of bile creeping up her throat.
"I've come for some damn justice" his spittle showered her face. But if there was one thing Clary had learned since leaving the convent in Broceland forest it was that pretence was the bread and butter of any courtier. Master false confidence and you could accomplish just about anything here.
She made her eyes flit around the chamber with an air of unimpressed cynicism, "And you thought to find it amongst my undergarments?" She punctuated the scathing enquiry with a sole raised brow.
The man before her reddened further, now from real anger. "We are a force to be reckoned with! The bringers of justice! And with the Duke at our head-"
"The Duke?" Helen interrupted with harsh anxiety. Naturally, in her mind there was only one duke, her father.
"The Duke of Broceland," the rebel crowed, something close to smile splitting his glowering expression.
Clary ignored that, his haughtiness just as intolerable as his rifling through her most personal belongings, "The bringers of justice?" She scoffed, holding her back straight. Though the half inch the raised chin added to her height did not bring her even close to her opponent's level, nor make her intimidating, the movement did make her a tad braver. "You wage war on women and a wardrobe? How grateful the common folk of Idris must be."
There came a yelp of steel, and the next Clary knew there was nipping sensation at her throat. Confusion mingling with surprise, she attempted to look down, only to feel the cold bite of metal in earnest and the answering heat of her own blood starting to slide down her neck. She jerked her head upwards and back from the dagger pressed to her throat, her stunned eyes consequently skidding back to her assailant.
Mayhap he had not intended to really harm her, for he had eased up the pressure on the knife. But he'd kept it against her vulnerable flesh. At the sight of her new danger one of her women screamed. Even drawing a sword in the Princess's presence was death, the act of drawing her blood was beyond unthinkable.
Astonishingly, the first person to vocally protest was another of the rebels. "Christ!" he cried into the gasping quiet, "She's near a child! And a mousy little thing, you dolt." At any other time that would have been insulting, Clary's apparent maturity and assessed appearance was the very last of her objections here.
"The mouse squeaks too much" Clary's assailant snarled, unrelenting. "I'll keep her quiet until the Duke gets here."
Clary's blood was pounding in her ears louder than ever, as though it was aware some had been spilled. The slow ebb of it from her wound sluggishly trailed down her stiff neck and began to seep into the lace chemise peeping above the neckline of her bodice.
Helen asked the question Clary wanted answered, "What do you mean by that?"
The more rational of the intruders present, the one who had reprimanded the dagger, replied. "We came through the gates at dawn. By now Tiller and the Duke ought to have come to an agreement. They will come through into the city together in the second wave and take Alicante."
He sounded as though he believed it. Good God. There were more of them to come.
The muscles in Clary's neck continued to ache with the effort of holding herself still, "Clearly you do not know the Duke of Broceland very well. His purpose today is to act as the King's representative. I can assure you that it is to our interests he works today, not yours. The last thing he will do is take your part. He is one of us."
"Shut up."
He reminded Clary of the tempestuous tantrums Jonathan used to have as a child, all stamping feet and shrieking. A sullen child being told something he did not want to hear. The sight stoked her courage.
Once she had been afraid. But this was not Oldcastle, and she was not the weak, scared little girl she had been three months ago.
Not so long ago the man she loved had pushed a legend into her hands. He'd told her she would be comparable to some of the greatest queens in the world, her cherished heroines from the histories. Clarissa Morgenstern refused to recoil from the sting of battered steel and stared down the man holding it.
This was her house. Her family's keep. No one could stride in here and make her feel small.
The knife dug into her again, and Clary could feel her quickened pulse at the edges of the blade, trying to push the peril away. "Go ahead" she snapped out, feeling the challenge as ferociously as she said it. "By all means, cut my throat. See how susceptible your Duke is to your justice then. See how eager he will be to fight for you. He shared my toys as a child. He has shared my table and kept my secrets as an adult. If he learned you had harmed me, he would destroy you. Return every mark on me tenfold."
Jace did not belong to these thugs. He was hers. The zeal in her assailant's expression dimmed and Clary welcomed the success with a wide smile. Not the dainty, sweet smile she painted on when speaking to her father or the court, oh no, this was a wide, savage grin. "You are divine retribution incarnate, so please. Seize an empty castle and murder a seventeen-year-old girl, after you have pilfered the price of a new pie from her petticoats. How joyously your children will remember you then." She let her voice drop again, "For that is all you will give them to remember. Your failures. It will be a race between my father and the Duke of Broceland to kill you. Have you not tasted enough of His Majesty's vengeance?"
She knew by this ruffian's accent he had to be from Broceland, that and the reverence with which he spoke of the Herondale duchy. Even should he not be from Oldcastle itself, he had to be from nearby. Clary would not waste her possibly numbered breaths on empty blows. She knew she had struck a tender spot by the loosening grip on the dagger hilt. The two of them kept staring at one another wordlessly, until Clary's fearful impatience flickered once more, "Unhand me, you braggart!"
Flinching away from her rough demand, he stepped backward and shoved his blood-speckled knife back into his belt. The removal of the dagger's press sent another course of hot blood from her nicked skin. Clary, normally so squeamish, felt her right-hand drift upwards. When she peeled her fingers away from the cut, they were stained dark red. Clary found herself recalling summers at the convent, when she had spent her free evenings picking blackberries for the nuns.
The shaking starting to return. Clary grasped at what remained of her composure. She raised her bloodied fingers and spoke slowly, loudly, and frostily in her reprimand; "No man is permitted to lay a hand on a Princess of the blood without her express permission. Yet..." she moved her fingers slightly in theatrical disbelief, "I am bleeding." She paused for effect, finding in a perverse way that she was enjoying the sight of these brawny men starting to quail before her. They were puffed up on a sense of righteousness and too much to drink, but the group had broken in here expecting no resistance from a crowd of hysterical women and thought her belongings being easy pickings. They were here because they wanted to avoid the conflict and the main action. But they had made a catastrophic mistake in injuring Clary, however slightly. It was not justice any longer, it was treason of the highest order.
"Now. I'd say you have less than an hour before His Majesty returns here with a host of highly trained soldiers. I do not expect him to be pleased that his palace has been invaded. There is the army loyal to the King less than a day from the capital. They shall gladly rout you all from wherever it is you think you can hide in Alicante."
She took a step forward and the closest men stumbled back from her. Clary must look eerie, her already pale skin bleached with the shock and strain of the encounter and a thin rivulet of blood slowly leaking down the arch of her neck. Still Clary kept speaking with her now mastered light, cheery threats, "Were I you, I would want to make it out of here as quickly as possible. I would hasten from this city while I still could, and hope that I outrun the King's wrath. Unless you all have a burning desire to be hung, drawn and quartered, that is." The graphic, barbaric truth of the penalty for treason was the final shove needed to propel them toward the exit. Little coins were still falling free of stolen garments and crammed pockets, thudding noisily onto the floorboards. They rolled back toward their mistress.
"Oh!" Clary said drily, as if it had just occurred to her, "And I should not imagine that I would want to be caught bearing anything that might connect me to the Princess's person, once the hunt for the man who wounded me begins."
It might have been funny had she not been dreadfully lightheaded, the manner in which they flung all their loot from themselves as if it had just caught fire.
Their whole campaign struck Clary as tragically farcical, once she beheld this unfortunate band of moral clowns speeding back onto the streets.
She almost pitied them their inevitable deaths.
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This new flash flood of alarm in the pit of Alec's stomach did not manifest itself immediately into action. He was frozen in shock and dread, watching the grotesque tableau of their demise unfold. The heron flag being slapped repeatedly by the rising wind seemed to mock him.
Perhaps the Church was correct; he was a monstrous sinner. Why else would God curse him with the fate of dying under the banner that had rallied their enemies in the first place?
"Alec, I need you to stay here. For the love of God, for whatever love you bear for me as your brother, I need you to not move. Not a single inch, unless you wish to guarantee I die." The words were brisk, each syllable sharp with purpose.
Before Alec's lips dared even start to shape a protest or question- whichever might come first- Jace dug his heels into Wayfarer's sides.
At least one lesson had been learnt in the past few minutes, the only move Alec did dare make was to fling his weight to his stirrups as he stood upright in the saddle and made a forward lunge for the bridle of Cartwright's mount. His fingers curled urgently around the leather straps, and although it wasn't graceful or heroic, Alec succeeded in stalling Jon's attempt to charge after Jace.
Having averted at least one more disaster, Alec allowed his head to snap back in Jace's direction.
His friend was cantering, alone, toward the assembled rebels.
Fearlessness personified, he looked as though he belonged in a painting. A one man cavalry charge, his voice booming out not a challenge but a command, a rallying cry.
"Hold!"
A shaft of sunlight turned Jace's armour a blistering silver and illuminated gold curls. They shone brighter than any crown.
Not one arrow was launched, not a single soldier charged. Where there had once been bays for blood now was silence. Like Alec, every man was holding his breath. Waiting, waiting for Jace's next move, his next word. Jace drew up his warhorse just before the first of the enemy lines, still bellowing that sole command:
"Hold!"
Remarkably, miraculously, they obeyed.
They were enemies no longer, Alec realised, shaking his head with dizzied disbelief. His friend was riding up and down the rebel frontline, still calling out orders and a promise. He was their leader now.
Riding down that road without so much as a drawn sword he had put his fate in their hands. Now they would put theirs in his.
The spell was finally broken by the scramble of King's men behind them and their disjointed, confused rumbling. "We need fall back, make for the Gard." Cartwright spluttered out hoarsely.
"Or engage. Attack while they're distracted" an older, scarred city watchmen suggested in a growl, alerting Alec to the fact that much of their own following had drawn level with him. "You heard the Duke of Broceland" he snapped out, swiping his eyes over the uncertain expressions, his low urgent voice making him sound older than he felt.
"But- he is with them now." Cartwright pointed out, face flushed and more beads of sweat popping up on his forehead.
"If he were with them" Alec began, in a low and intense voice which made him sound much older than he was, "Do you imagine we would still be alive? They would already have attacked and killed us." The tussle for dominance ended as quickly as it had begun, Jon's head dropping in a submissive concession.
"We hold" Alec repeated, loud enough that all the assembled royalists awaiting orders might hear. His voice sounded a weak imitation of Jace's unyielding, daring authority, but for his friend's sake, for all their sakes, Alec persisted: "We hold."
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Ultimately there was a thin line between the pragmatism of self-preservation and cowardice, no one could argue with that.
Jonathan Morgenstern chose to believe that his actions veered more on the side of the former than the latter. After all, upon hearing that some of the useless, pox-ridden commoners that lived and worked in the Gard had opted to admit some of the rampaging peasant force of peasants into the fortress, he failed to see his strategic retreat as anything other than the wisest course of action. Engaging them would not have been admirable, it would have been suicide.
As it were, he was far from alone in his preference to continue living rather than dying stupidly. How could the Crown Prince be expected to make a stand when none of his own men were inclined to? Besides, there was no honour in ambushing a man in his own home, so there was no reason to reciprocate with some gesture of idiotic chivalry.
Jonathan opted to retreat to the small barracks within the Gard's walls with the group of men who clustered around him. He did not particularly care if that order had been met by a look of disbelieving disappointment from the man who had brought the word that they had been breached. His primary concern had been getting himself out of the open and finding as many men as he could who were prepared to make a stand where they were strongest.
It was not as though he'd been lounging in luxury while the world went to hell, for the barracks had been one of the vilest places he had ever been in his life. It had stank of unwashed bodies, unemptied chamber pots and bad wine.
Still, word that the King had returned and had sent for him did not come as a relief.
His Majesty had returned from his meeting downriver, to discover his supposedly impregnable fortress had been breached by a mob of drunk farmers. If Valentine had been angry before, he had now crossed the line into an unrestrained rage. The sound of his roared reprimands could be heard echoing down the hallways even levels below his rooms. Hence Jonathan's incessant mental repetition of his defensive arguments.
Approaching the King's quarters his son found himself throwing most of his weight forward into his toes, as though he were a child once more, attempting to tiptoe past the doors.
"The Crown Prince" the herald preceding Jonathan mumbled warily before making his own hasty escape. Fastening his clasped hands behind his back and fixing an innocently blank expression upon his face, Jonathan marched into the room with solemn purpose. A good soldier reporting for duty.
"Your Majesty," the formality slid from his mouth softly. There was no need to stoke the already blazing temper by trumpeting his presence. Jonathan held himself in a low bow for as long as he could, only daring to glance up questioningly when no snapped order to rise was forthcoming. The bunched muscles in his back where beginning to whine in discomfort.
Valentine was striding back and forth, either oblivious to or actively ignoring his eldest child. He continued to verbally flog the captain of the guard to within an inch of his life. Valentine's younger child was sat before the empty fire grate, her green eyes on Jonathan; sharp with the accusation that Valentine had yet to voice.
Clary looked even paler than usual. She capitalised on their father's preoccupation to express the unveiled hatred she levelled at him now. Jonathan shifted an involuntary step backward. He caught himself. The girl was just that- a girl. He had absolutely nothing to fear from her.
Oh but you do that acidic little voice in his head hissed once again. Every day these little doubts and fear corroded a little more of his confidence, his peace of mind. It had been months since Jonathan had first recognised Clary for the threat she was to his inheritance, yet despite all his schemes and one gruelling ride to and from France, he was no more secure than he had been. Yes, he had weeded out her union with the Dauphin, but that was merely a stay of execution. He could not dispose of every suitor in Europe. Sooner or later Clary would have a powerful husband at her side and an army to buffer her own claim to Idris's throne if need be.
In fact, for all Jonathan had done and risked, his position was worse than it had been when she had first arrived at court in the spring. Now the realm had a Herondale duke once again. Yet another alternative heir to the throne. Valentine could not acknowledge the legitimacy of Herondale's title without acknowledging his claim.
With effort, Jonathan looked away from his sister's unspoken promise of vengeance and drew the frantic cogs of his working mind to a halt. Valentine had not acknowledged anyone. For all he knew, Herondale had got the sword in the gut he deserved today at long last. Jace was not anything yet.
Nor for that matter was Clary. There was a long, unpredictable road between the scratched signature on a betrothal contract and the murmured vows at the wedding altar. Anything could happen. Surely his little sister had used up her supply of good luck, having escaped both Oldcastle and now this unscathed in any way that counted.
As Valentine barked a permanent dismissal at the solider before him, who scuttled away having all but soiled his breeches in his distress. Jonathan felt the edge of a smirk teasing the corners of his lips at the observation and the anticipation that one day men who had seen multiple wars would cower before him just like that.
However, now of all times, he had the rare phenomenon of his father's undivided attention. "I would ask where in hell you have been, Jonathan, but sadly I already know the answer to that." The great doors behind him shuddered shut while Valentine closed the gap between himself and his only son, "You seem to have grown a tad too fond of making yourself scarce of late."
Jonathan swallowed back whatever pathetic remark he had been about to make as his eyes flickered away from Valentine's at the derisive attack. He realised that the three of them were now unattended, more alone than they had ever been together. The closest they had come before were family meals in private with the King, during which fine food was consumed and nothing of any consequence was discussed. Now there were not even any hovering servants with jugs of wine whose presence might dissuade the King from unleashing the extent of his sickened disdain for his son. There was only Clary, who watched this all stiff-backed in her chair and likely with hunger rather than distaste.
Worse, now Valentine was not inclined to bother with his royal pronouns anymore Jonathan knew that this was personal. Father to son. Since he'd been a boy, Valentine only divested of his royal persona between them on the occasions of Jonathan's misdemeanours or shortcomings. Then, Jonathan was no longer the Crown Prince of Idris, but merely a boy who had behaved inappropriately. There was no formality for discipline. And while Jonathan was no longer a child that could be pulled over the King's knee and punished with the rod or belt, there were still a great many, much worse things that Valentine could do to him.
"I did naught wrong, Sire." He hazarded a sideways look into his father's eyes with the opening of his vindication.
He was viciously interrupted, "Preciously Jonathan: you did nothing!"
The vehemence with which Valentine hurled his disgusted accusation at his son chilled Jonathan's insides and sent his gaze hurtling back to the floor. "While your sister and her women were left defenceless. The enemy were in the heart of our home and you did nothing to stop them. You made no effort to devise a strategy. Oh no, you cowered and waited until I came back to clean up your mess. I left you here to protect Clarissa, to guard the very centre of our city, our seat of power: and you failed on every count. You beg for the opportunity to prove yourself and for more power, yet when I leave you with the most basic of tasks, to do the very least I would expect from a servant of mine, you disappoint." Each lashing of Valentine's tongue was as potently painful as a whip's, yet the King was not close to done- "Do you know what finally chased the bulk of those scoundrels out our doors? Your sister. She seems to have been the only one with a scrap of courage. She chased them out; my men needed only to round up the remainder of the drunken rabble while they raided the kitchens. "
Jonathan threw a glance toward Clary, taking stock of the way her left hand was gripping the armrest of the chair and her right pressing a blood trimmed kerchief to the side of her throat. She had changed her gown from that morning too, now she was clad in a green which only made her skin seem greyer and the trusty yellow kirtle and hood which normally suited her so well. The arch of the gold over her head made her look like she was crowned with a halo, as the saints painted and hung in the chapels were. How appropriate. Saint Clary.
The continuing torrent of rebukes snapped Jonathan's awareness back to Valentine, "Meanwhile you- you maliciously blockheaded, craven fool- choose to conduct yourself in a way that makes me wonder if you are my son at all?"
He may as well have kicked Jonathan in the stomach. The jibe knocked the breath out of his lungs and made the edges of everything in his vision blur, as though someone had doused his eyes in water. Then Jonathan blinked and it all cleared, though the sting in his veins remained.
The shrill little intake of breath to his left sent another glance in his sister's direction before he could stop it. He had been expecting utter jubilation and triumph, or even dark satisfaction since she could not openly celebrate the opportune repercussions that statement might have for her. What Jonathan found in his sister's face was even more harmful. She was looking up at him with damp eyed pity, their eyes meeting, for once not to taunt or challenge one another, but for a brief second of understanding unity.
"Your Majesty." Clary began to intercede, quietly but determinedly, her voice causing Valentine to break off his next, undoubtedly more destructive round of ranting.
Whatever dreadful chastisement he was to inflict upon his son had yet to be revealed, and the miracle of the Morgenstern siblings' new accord was eclipsed by the announced arrival of the Duke of Broceland.
Whatever hope, whatever concord Jonathan and Clary had been turned toward was shattered instantaneously.
No, Jonathan could not be grateful to her, he could not be thankful for anything in that moment. The doors opened at Valentine's enthusiastic gesture to admit a dusty, grim Jace Herondale.
Clary had been making to rise with her protest, now she fell back to her seat. Jonathan could imagine how her silly little heart started to patter now she saw her love alive and well. His own heart had sunk to find his nemesis falling to a breathless bow, still half-stunned and with a minor scratch on the right cheek. Otherwise, miraculously untouched. How in the name of God these two did it was beyond Jonathan. It was as though they were invincible. Some angels or devil truly smiled on them.
The only grace of the situation was that the King's berating of his son seemed utterly forgotten. Not only was Jace Herondale the apple of Valentine's eye, but he was the only one in his eyes. A moment ago, Jonathan would have thought nothing more painful than his father's words of disownment. Now he realised that watching the glittering praise in Valentine's black eyes as he beheld Jace was much more vexing.
Jonathan had always felt growing up that Valentine wished that his own blood could have a character more like that of the traitor's spawn. A situation that had baffled Jonathan as much as it disturbed him. The Herondale brat had been gifted endless books and toys, then with the same access to scholars and tutors as any true-blooded prince. His childhood had mirrored Jonathan's exactly; down to the same birthday presents. Frustrating as it had been for a lesser born boy to be given the same trappings as the future king, to witness how Valentine softened when he spoke to Jace close to unbearable.
That was not the only reason he and Jonathan had not been friends. Jace was hatefully adept at all he turned his hand to; languages, sports, even mastering several musical instruments and receiving training for the high, clear singing voice that was sweet where Jonathan's attempts were sour. That might have been overlooked, but any possibility of harmony betwixt the duo in any aspect of their childish lives was destroyed by Jace's own stubbornness. The two would never like one another, that was obvious, but despite Valentine's beatings and their governess's cajoling, as they got older it grew apparent that the boys could not tolerate one another. At least golden boy's many talents made him easy pickings for the bigger group of boys who orbited the Prince. But where others knew to lie down and take whatever goading or violence the young heir saw fit to inflict, Jace had always fought back. Clearly that insufferable attitude had not paled any with the arrival of adulthood.
"I understand I owe you a great deal of thanks, Jonathan." The Crown Prince had begun to suspect that Valentine only persisted with using their name to irk his own son. Nothing Valentine had to give could be solely his. "As does this city."
"They breached the city." Jace pointed out, which was the exact kind of useless observation that Jonathan expected from him.
"They are being chased from Alicante as we speak. A few burning townhouses and looted shops will be left in their wake, but the damage was not all it might have been." Valentine corrected, backing to a nearby seat and settling himself there. He propped his chin up on his hand and to Jonathan's horror chuckled softly to himself. "Their leader is dead and with him their desire for conflict. You did spectacularly today, Jonathan. Spectacularly." The King repeated himself, packing yet more approval into the phrase.
The contrast with the flaying Jonathan had received made his chest feel as though there was a great weight laying upon it. It squashed his breaths and sent a disconcerting prickling to the backs of his eyes.
Valentine's praise went on, "You salvaged the situation by your show of tremendous courage. Had you not prevented that army from charging the city would be in greater uproar. And a force far more formidable than some petty jewel thieves might have entered the Gard. Men who would not have been so easily hounded out." The King looked to Clary as he reached the end of his appraisal, but unsurprisingly his daughter's eyes were pasted to Jace Herondale, and had been during the entirety of her father's speech.
A speech which to Jonathan's ears sounded too full of "might haves" to warrant the praise that saturated it. Jace must have heard the littering conditionals too, for he was fidgeting slightly before His Majesty, something that Valentine would rage at anyone else for.
Valentine was ignoring that however, turning now to Jonathan once more "You see, my son? It is as I told you, one man can be worth ten if he be the right man." The tart dryness was not lost upon Jace, who glanced at the Prince curiously as Valentine continued, "And this one is certainly worth ten. Which is why he will henceforth have a permanent seat on my Council, as is the right of the Duke of Broceland."
Sweet Jesus Christ. Jonathan stared at his father, unabashedly appalled. Broken vows were like broken eggshells to his father. Jonathan knew that well, having both experienced and inherited his strategic dishonesty. When Valentine had offered the duchy to Herondale his son had not batted an eye. Why should he, when Jonathan would have done the same if he were King- said whatever he had to so the chips fell in his favour. Valentine had said the only thing he could to inspire Jace to face Tiller. He was not supposed to have meant it.
But Valentine was still smiling, as though he were about to end a long race victoriously. Jace was bowing again and murmuring with relief a humble, "As Your Majesty wills it."
Jonathan found himself inspecting the small patch of exposed skin between the back of Jace's collar and the bottom of his hair. He wished he were the axeman surveying that final bump of his spine to mark his target.
Clary, meanwhile, was all but vibrating with desperation to speak to or touch the new duke. The King still prattled on about arrangements for Jace's new apartments and imminent investiture, but from the corner of his eye Valentine watched her, watching him. Clary was staring with poorly stifled hunger and disbelief, a starving woman before a feast. Her hands had fallen to her lap now and so her own war wound was on full display.
Jace's eyes widened as they fell upon the clotted cut and he blurted out, "You are hurt!"
It seemed the events of the day had shaken him more than had been immediately apparent. For a man who had just become a duke, Jace seemed to have forgotten the court etiquette he had once thrived upon.
And Valentine was remarkably forgiving of it, pretending instead that no one at all had spoken as he barked some orders at a beckoned squire.
The shift in attention left Jonathan in a position almost as awkward as he had been while his father had torn him to shreds. He was unable to escape, as no one left the King's presence without a dismissal. Instead, he was frozen in place and subjected to the exchange taking place right in his ear.
He determinedly turned his cheek as Clary's eyes started to glaze over in a way that warned of tears just held at bay. "It is nothing. Naught compared to what you inflicted." Her voice wobbled.
"I can but offer my plea for forgiveness. And beg for a chance to demonstrate my remorse."
"Granted," she replied equally breathlessly, barely a moment later. Apparently, she could only hold grudges against her brother.
Jonathan opened his mouth, to protest at the sickening adoration the two were staring upon each other with or perhaps just to be sick. But Valentine interrupted them with a soft suggestion that Clary retire for the day.
Then he gazed pointedly at the two young men still before him, side by side but with a distinct gap between their shoulders. Whatever line of discussion was to he travelled down next was not for a lady's hearing.
Valentine turned away from them once again, to issue a summons for the Council to meet. It gave the exiting Clary the chance to touch Jace on the upper arm, squeezing as she brushed past. She even strained upwards so she might move her lips in a brief stream of words Jonathan could not hear right by her beau's ear.
After her departure, the King had Jace expand on how he had halted the rebel charge and offered his own services as their ambassador to the King. At this, Jonathan could not resist a snicker- for it implied his foe had come so far and yet nowhere at all.
Yet here they were. A bloodless, peaceful victory. The only condition being that the rebels disband immediately and depart from Alicante, on Jace's word that they would not be pursued. Peace for peace. It would seem Jace Herondale had gained the trust of a great many people today.
Had Jonathan been King, he might have had the stupid bastard flogged for his insolence in straying from the path of orders the Council had laid down for him, and for having the audacity to presume he could speak for both the whole of Idris and its King. But their own army was not as strong in terms of men and arms as they had hoped- were the most recent, alarming reports to be believed- and still a good two day's ride away at best.
Valentine was content to acknowledge a disaster averted. All that had to be addressed now was limiting the damage caused by those still inside the city walls.
Just as the lords of the Council were filing into the chamber meekly, Jonathan felt a feathery touch upon his shoulder and turned to find that he and his old ally the cardinal were the only two lingering at the doorway. At this point in the day which had arisen as one of the worst in Jonathan's life, he could not even be bothered to vent his irritation at the interrogations Enoch had botched.
However, that was not what the clergyman wished to speak of. "My Lord, I feel duty bound to comment on how you were outdone."
Cheek twitching with the falling of yet another verbal slap, Jonathan bit off the end of the sentiment before the Cardinal could complete it; "You know of all the courtiers my father tolerates, I used to find you the one least prone to inanely echoing all he said. I daresay there is not much you can have to add, Your Eminence. The King has already emphasised that I was gloriously outshone by that bland slip of a girl today."
"Oh Highness," the corners of Enoch's bottom lip slumped with faux sympathy while he embellished his silkily scathing remark, "That is the very least of your concerns." He blinked up at Jonathan bluntly and gently shook his head, "You are not the one who seemed a prince today."
He swept away to re-join His Majesty then, swiping a hand over Jonathan's shoulder as he passed, either to console or caution further the Prince knew not. But the touch combined with his final comment sent blazes of painful anger through Jonathan once more. He ground at his teeth in frustration.
True, it did not bode well for Enoch that Jace was so firmly in Valentine's favour, since he had most certainly made an enemy of the new Duke. This would be something the Prince could chew on in private. It might strengthen his alliance with the Church for now, but this court was ever changing. No one stayed in Valentine's good graces forever. What bothered Jonathan most was still the image of his sister's blushing cheeks and dainty smile as she leaned in to whisper whatever secret she had to share with Herondale.
Today had made Clary bold, in the way only dancing so close to death and triumphing could.
Separately they were keeping him awake at night, and now when Jonathan pressed his eyes shut, he had a new, freshly revolting vision. Together...
Jonathan wanted to grasp his sister's shoulders and then shake her with sufficient vigour to rattle some sense into her. Anything to make her see that while she may be looking upon Jace through some hazy heartsickness, his sight was assuredly much clearer. Jace Herondale would not be content with being third in line for very long. No, he would soon be reaching out with a lover's caress for second.
He only had to deflower Jonathan's foppish chit of a sister to back Valentine into a corner. If she were no longer a virgin, then Clary would no longer be of any worth at all in the marriage market. No Prince or Lord would want an impure woman for a bride. Jonathan wondered if he ought to just sit back and let it happen, since it was entirely possible that once she'd whored herself out, the King may banish Clary back to a convent and remove Jace's head.
But if Valentine would elevate Jace to a dukedom, then where might he stop? If Clary let Herondale in her bed now, would their father insist Jace put a ring on her finger and stay there?
The first of many questions Jonathan had to answer for himself was whether or not he was prepared to risk it.
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The evening took its time in coming. Despite the many things that had occurred during the morning, they already felt like it had been years ago rather than hours. Once her ruffled but rapidly recovering ladies had been reassembled in her chambers, Clary had them set about repairing the damage as best she could.
It was not over yet, whatever her servants were determined to tell her. Somewhere in the city the remainder of the offensive rebel forces (such as they were) lingered. Their assembled army beyond had yet to fully disintegrate. Even from behind the restored safety of the Gard's mighty walls, Clary could see the dancing red lights of burning townhouses. She had heard that priceless heirlooms of many of Idris's great families were currently scattered in the river.
But she believed Jace when he said that they would disband. That he was taking his role as their chosen champion seriously was obvious. It would still take days for the dust of the whole disturbance to settle. Once it had, Clary had the feeling that the world revealed would not be the same as it had been. That was not necessarily a bad thing.
Much as it almost physically pained her, Clary told herself that after the weeks of turmoil she had spent without Jace, she could survive another few hours. It still took an immense amount of self-control to stop herself staring out the window every five minutes as the sun simmered from white to red and sluggishly slipped toward the horizon.
Thankfully, the upheaval supplied Clary with the perfect excuse to disappear early to her mended quarters.
After bidding herself lie still for what might be deemed a reasonable time, she nudged Isabelle beside her, who was starting to doze off. Clary's cold, bare toes soon remedied that.
"What?" Izzy mumbled, trying to thrash her off huffily.
"Get up and dressed," Clary hissed.
"What for?" A pause. "Clary, I swear to God, if you are about to say Mass-"
The Princess fumbled about in the violet darkness for a candle and flint. She paused only to thump her friend's shoulder as she tried to turn over and huddle back under the blankets, "Isabelle!"
The other girl whined like a scolded hound, "But the danger has passed! You can thank the Virgin Mary in the morning!"
Clary was grateful for the darkness she had not yet lifted and her friend's turned back, for a dreadful heat crept to her cheeks at mention of the Virgin. She did not think that the Holy Mother would approve of the exploits she had in mind. Fortunately, that meant Isabelle certainly would. "I want to see Jace." A small flame finally fizzled to life between her fingers, hissing alongside her whisper.
"Now?"
"He will be waiting."
The sheets rustled and Izzy sprang upright, no trace of fatigue dulling the candidly questioning look she gave her young mistress in the spreading light.
"We need to talk," Clary stated her defence, grappling about for her slippers and looking everywhere but her friend.
"People do not seek out members of the opposite sex at this hour to talk, Clary. Not even a convent upbringing could excuse that ignorance."
Clary did not reply. She set about wresting free the first gown that came to hand and shaking it out. Izzy's hands joined hers on the dark velvet, once her unwavering determination became clear, "Very well then, but why do I need to come?"
"To assist me in my crossing the castle to his rooms, since you seem to have no trouble creeping around with Simon and maintaining your covert relationship. I will also require a lookout once we arrive. There is no one else I trust to do so."
Isabelle scoffed, pretty nose wrinkling. "Combat has changed you." She concluded chirpily.
Clary waved away the proffered headdress, opting to leave her hair loose. She at least had the decency to look indecent while she behaved as such.
"You really are so small Clary. Sometimes you seem so breakable. I have to keep reminding myself how strong you are." The flat, plain praise sent another flush to Clary's cheeks. Getting a good word out of Isabelle was so rare that she was honoured to be held in such esteem.
The good feeling did not last though, and sneaking across the castle entailed several palpitations, and stubbed toe that had to be suffered in utter silence. By the time she did arrive at the necessary doors, Clary felt a little faint.
"Clean towels for the Duke" Isabelle declared sunnily to the grim guard at the door. Clary wondered why he was stationed at the entrance to Jace's apartments. To keep anyone from breaking in? To prevent the new Duke from walking out? Isabelle exhibited the one prop to their hurriedly concocted performance: a basket of linen, while Clary kept her chin pressed against the base of her throat, where it felt as though her heart was pounding.
The only thing the girls had to hand that even resembled a towel in Clary's bedchamber were the clouts used for her monthly bleeds (of all things!) which she prayed might suffice.
The man at the door heaved a sigh and did not spare them a second glance, having clearly never laid eyes on such items. He waved them through. Izzy halted on the threshold, giggling and twirling a lock of raven hair around a finger as she peeked up at the guard from under her lengthy, sooty lashes.
Distraction underway, Clary scurried onward. Her time was limited.
She paused only for a second, steeling herself and patting down her skirts nervously. It had been so long. And Jace had not agreed to meet her, not exactly. He'd had no chance to reply.
Then the bedchamber door fell open and there he was, letting the book to hand flop shut with a thud as Clary crossed the room to him.
Jace's eyes shone with disbelieving admiration, "How?"
She pressed a finger to Jace's lips to hush him, marvelling that they were as warm and soft as she remembered. "You are still awake."
He smiled under her fingertips and she dropped them so he might reply, "You told me to be." She recalled a similar conversation by a water gate, not long ago. It still stunned her; that to his mind there need be no explanation. What she asked he would give.
Jace fell to both his knees before her, tossing the book aside with an abandon she felt she ought to scold him for- but later- for now he was encasing her fingers in his. "Forgive me."
"There is naught…"
He bowed his head, like a man about to knighted, or a penitent pilgrim. "Yes, there is. I was a coward Clary. I left you."
"You were no coward today," She pointed out quietly.
"It does not pardon me for being one then. And I broke your heart, craven fool that I was." He lifted his eyes to her at last, brighter than any candle or star, "But I will never forswear you again, Clary Morgenstern. I will stay by your side, come what may, for as long as you will allow it."
If Clary had thought she loved Jace before, now she was sure of it. The strength of that emotion might have scared her, likely should have, but she truly felt she was stood at the birth of a new beginning.
All could change in a second. Each moment ought to be seized.
"I am yours, heart and soul, and ever will be."
Kissing the hand she clasped, she drew him upwards until he stood over her once more. There was not enough time to say all she wanted to. In faith, Clary could not be sure she had the capacity to verbalise what she needed him to know, all she felt.
Jace attempted to be the voice of reason, "It is very late. I have said all I need to for now, surely you had better-"
Clary leaned forward and sealed his protestations shut with a blistering kiss.
Jace's arms tightened around her.
He was no stranger to young ladies alone and behind closed doors. But Clary was not just any girl.
He bade himself be sensible, but the resolve was not sticking.
His body did not react to Clary's in the way that it did to any other girl's.
He nipped her lips open, she opened for him, her tongue flickering against his upper lip. Tonight, she answered him with a scrape of teeth. That was new.
As was the way Clary gripped him, pressing her body against his. Jace could feel the firmness of her bodice, tight to his chest. Feel the sharp tug of her fingers in his hair, hear the breathy moan that escaped her when he gripped at her hips.
She'd never been so forward before. Her hands had never had such determination, such purpose as they moved up his back, fisting in the thin linen of his shirt.
This was new too.
It was also the most secluded they had ever been together. This was not shadowy garden pathways or forgotten corners of a hall.
It was a closed door, with a lock. A bedchamber.
Should they be discovered, it would not matter what they had or had not done. It would ruin Clary. She could swear on the Bible he had not touched her, nobody would believe her. No one would listen. There would be no more suitors, no more talk of alliances.
Though Jace was touching her, and she him. Devouring him, almost, with her frenzied mouth and her eager hands. She'd tugged her way up under the hem and her hands were on bare flesh now.
It was maddening. Jace was losing all sense of politics and risk, fast. His mind was quick filling with thoughts of Clary, only Clary, of the heat of her breath and the warmth of her mouth, and the array of irresistible, astonishing little noises she was making.
Not to mention those she was wrangling with embarrassing ease out of Jace.
He was no novice when it came to women in his bed. Yet she had him trembling, coming apart fearfully rapidly, and they had barely touched yet.
Emboldened, Clary found spread her hands on his firm chest and gave Jace an encouraging shove backwards.
Jace stumbled and broke off the kiss, his left hand rising to her cheek as he peered down at her curiously. He opened his mouth, to question. Clary cut him off with another shush and a shove in the right direction.
Mutely, Jace let her to steer him backwards to the bed. He half sat and half collapsed back on the mattress as their lips met again.
Clary twined her arms around his neck and pulled herself into his lap, letting instinct and impulse guide her.
Jace emitted a poorly stifled moan when she shifted her weight.
This wasn't a matter of Kings and Princes. It was much simpler than that. An ageless thing, an inevitable, irresistible push and pull of two wanting bodies. A basic human desire that predated crowns and kingdoms.
Jace moved underneath her, until his back was against the pillows. It left Clary's knees planted on either side of his legs, his face perfectly level with her chest.
He couldn't help himself. He pressed hot kisses to her neck, answering her teeth from earlier with swift, sharp little bites he soon soothed with the flat of his tongue. Careful not to sink deep enough to leave an incriminating mark, but insistent enough to show her what he wanted, what he knew.
Clary shuddered, her breaths coming hard.
Jace's shirt made its way to the floor. His fingers traced the ridge of her square cut neckline. She was wearing no chemise, huddled as she had been in the cloak she'd left somewhere near the door. She likely wasn't wearing anything at all under it.
The thought heated Jace's blood further and sent it swooping downward.
He tugged at the back fastenings, a silent plea. Jace was half certain that she would stop him, recognizing this had already gone much too far.
Clary did not. On the contrary, she pleaded.
Jace ripped at the laces and tugged at the pointed bottom of her bodice, struggling to balance gentleness and urgency. The joint effort loosened it enough for his hands to slide under and confirm his suspicions.
She rocked her hips into his when he cupped her bare breast, gasping his name.
Oh, this was sinful.
Jace was going to need months, years in the confessional after this.
He brushed his thumb over her nipple, surging his lower body upward to meet her. Jace felt the nipple harden under his touch, and repeated his ministration, returning his open mouth to hers, swallowing her moans with each darting touch.
They broke apart, Clary's fingers tightening in his hair, tugging sharply. His stuttering hips quickened against her as he kept his right hand pulling at the fastenings until the bodice came further down.
They were designed to push up and plump the breasts, a design choice that had mortified mothers and matrons out a fortune in more seemly lace chemises to lessen the effect. Jace was grateful Clary had dispensed of hers tonight as his mouth followed his hands to cover her breast.
He kissed and sucked a pathway over the gooseflesh pebbled skin, eliciting more gasps and pleas from Clary, her fingernails scraping the back of his neck.
He gave her a much as he could, devoted himself to showing her just how good he could make her feel. He heard fabric ripping and Clary begging him breathlessly for more.
They could have died today. Both of them. They might have perished, and the other never have known what was felt. Jace could have lost her, and that was the only excuse he had for the way he held her now. For kissing her like he never might again, for showing her in desperate, staccato movement of his body what he'd never been able to say.
He broke away momentarily, to get some air, and she returned his greedy touches.
She pushed him down further, until his back was to the mattress and her palms were tracing the planes of his exposed torso.
Jace drank in the sight of her, mouth reddened and cheeks flushed, eyes huge, desperate and hungry in the low candlelight.
Women had grabbed at him in voracious handfuls many times, and Jace had enjoyed it. Yet nothing he'd felt before could compare to the emotions that arose at the tenderness with which she sketched her fingertips over the mottled flesh of his scar.
She didn't seem repulsed, nor did she look with pity.
She took it in with the same eagerness with which she traced the rest of him. This was the newest sensation of all to Jace, to be caressed by hands that loved the soul his body held.
She rocked forward until she could kiss him again, bare flesh to bare flesh.
Her skirts had rucked up, Clary brushed the waistline of his breeches.
Jace's hands moved of their own accord, slipping under her lifted him, sweeping over inches of bare thigh.
Clary placed a stream of perfectly loving, chaste kiss on his bare chest, where she could feel the steady pound of his heartbeat thudding against her puckered lips. Strands of her hair tickled over skin as she moved downward.
"Clary" He tried to warn her, to coax her back to some caution, but Jace's hoarse rasp only spurred her on. Still he wasn't were she needed him most, and she must see for herself the effect she had on his body. Her hand fluttered over the bulge and Jace swore, surging upward into her touch helplessly.
They were fast approaching a Rubicon here, and if Jace did not claw back some manner of control here he would either reach the peak too quickly or do something much worse. Something infinitely more regrettable. Something with real, damnable consequences.
He flipped them over, catching Clary by the wrists and pinning them down.
She stared up at them, her face half in shadow and cast in a haze of lust. Jace's mind was sluggish, he felt almost drunk, looking down at Clary's expectant, questioning face.
Their chests rose and fell too quickly.
Jace was supremely conscious of her legs bracketing him. Of how her skirts had been pushed upward. Of how there were no further barriers under them, evidenced by the stark brightness of her pale leg, right the way up to the thigh, fully on display. He had only to move his hand mere inches, less, probably, to touch that thigh. He could follow its curve all the way up.
She'd let him do this much. Jace didn't think she'd stop him there. He didn't think she'd stop him at all.
Jace swallowed roughly, his pulse thundering in his ears.
He could have her. The King's daughter.
Hadn't he just been thinking that it wouldn't matter what occurred between them if it should be discovered Clary had paid him a visit, late at night, alone? Might be not as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb?
Jace had Clary Morgenstern beneath him in his bed. Dress shredded. Limbs splayed and eager. She wanted him, and he wanted her.
It was an exquisitely simple thing.
And it would be a dastardly one.
He could take her, here and now. Jace was a single impulse and a few minutes away from doing something irreparable.
If she was compromised before marriage, Clary would not be going off to some distant kingdom. She would not be going anywhere. Valentine might have her sealed up in the convent she'd come from permanently, and Jace's head off to boot. Or…
Jace would leave Valentine with but one way of salvaging things. Countering Jace's sin by naming it clean. By insisting Jace and Clary do the honourable thing and marry.
He could have the woman he loved; he could have his way into the King's family. The family he had once thought of as his.
It was a monumental gamble. On another night, with another girl, the Jace Herondale he had been might have made it. May have done what felt good and let all else be damned.
But this was Clary. He looked at her, her puzzlement, her rising hesitation and he couldn't do it.
He couldn't do it to her.
"I cannot."
"But-"
"This. We cannot."
"I-I know."
"Stop. I… have… to stop. While I still can."
She swallowed, more capable of expressing fuller thoughts than Jace.
"I have to be untouched on my wedding night. Yet I still want you."
"I know." Jace echoed, his voice surprisingly tender given the heat of the moment. He stroked her cheek, a starkly sweet gesture despite the heat of the room and their bodies. "You may not be betrothed anymore, but you are not mine to take."
"I do not feel untouched."
Some of Jace's wry mirth flickered back, "In this position, I think it would be hard for anyone to."
True, Clary looked thoroughly ravished. Jace fell back toward sitting, giving her the space needed to sit up and attempt to rectify the mess of her dress.
The two of them jerked apart entirely at a rapid clatter of knuckles on the door.
Jace whistled ruefully, "It would appear our time is up at any rate."
His words were only accentuated by another rap, this one more impatient.
Clary rubbed her hands across her reddened face in an attempt to pull her composure back together.
"Coming!" She called out before Isabelle could knock again, wincing inwardly at how trimerous her voice sounded. She got off the bed on unsteady limbs and continued in her attempt to right her askew clothing. Clary quickly surrendered the losing battle and settled for huddling back into the cloak she rescued from the floor. They must rely on it to hide the damage.
She glanced back at Jace on the bed, where he had propped himself up on his elbows and was trying to use the scattered pillow in his lap to disguise the evidence of how unsatisfied their interrupted rendezvous would leave him.
Clary placed a quick parting kiss on his lips.
"We still have much to discuss." Jace acknowledged with a half-smile, "Goodnight, Clary."
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