Chapter 22: Ego te Absolvo
Chapeltoute Hall, Alicante, March 1537
At long last, Spring had taken hold. The wind oft came now more as a breeze than a gale and did so with far less bitterness. Taking that and the finally lengthened days as good a sign as any, the first flowers were out. They'd begun to venture upwards weeks ago, some daffodil buds poking restlessly above the earth. The snowdrops, faithfully first each year, had long since been standing up to attention in the flowerbeds. Resolutely, they allowed their white capped heads to be rattled in the continuing wind and rain. By the middle of March, the banks of grass were crowned by swathed coronets of white and the first gold daffodils in earnest.
It was still cold, Jace admitted, though he had borne winters that had dragged on longer than this one had. One year, in Adamant, the snows had lain on the ground until well into almost the end of March. Milder though the present newborn season was in comparison, he was not prepared to dispense of his furs just yet. He stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets.
The King had been chomping at the bit to return to his outdoor pursuits. After the latest cold snap had relented, Valentine was the first one through the palace doors. However, for the past fortnight the ground had been too wet for long bouts of riding out. So today His Majesty had reluctantly opted to leave his mount in its stall and turned instead to the carefully kept tennis lawns.
The indoor courts were the usual haunt for such sport, but the King found himself unable to allow the first truly sunny days of the year to pass by with his being stuck indoors, so had ordered the games to relocate.
The players had stripped down to their shirts and breeches in spite of the cold, each sweating profusely in what could have been a life or death game of tennis, given the intensity with which it was played.
The older men had yielded the court to the youth; now it was young Jon Cartwright and Sebastian Verlac who were battering the ball back and forth.
Although the other watching lords were offering hoots of encouragement and laying bets, Jace had lost interest in the game some time ago. His eyes kept straying upwards, to a certain line of glass panes in the grey stone walls of the King's most recently refurbished city residence. His Duchess's windows.
Clary could have been here if she wished it, several of her ladies were present. Aline and Helen were not far from where Jace stood, arms interlinked and paying the game before them no heed, wholly wrapped up in whatever the other was saying. Several of the other new maids, whose names escaped him but faces brought a twang of recognition, were lining the edges of the tennis court too, some trying with an awkward lack of subtly to catch his attention. Jace's wife herself, however, though she had obviously granted permission for her ladies to attend, had refrained from making an appearance.
Jace knew Clary was avoiding him. They had gotten past that first dreadful night, just about. He'd returned apologetically to her dinner table the following day, and they continued as if it had never happened. Almost.
He feared he had broken her heart, or possibly something more when he had shouted at her. It was for her own good, he told himself miserably every time he caught her watching him warily from the corner of her eye. They remained perfectly amiable to the outside eye. Though Clary did not laugh as she used to, nor did she light up whenever he walked into the room. Now she stiffened and checked herself, afraid to spark another outburst.
Once being feared would not have been an unwelcome thought. He might have imagined that it amounted to being respected, God knew that was how Valentine made it seem. But never in the eyes of his own wife.
Jace hated it and hated himself. But each time he longed to reach out to her he remembered who he had become and what he had done. That man did not deserve to touch her.
He had been spilled blood and been to war before, of course, but this was different. There was no righteous cause here. There had been many nights when thinking of Clary, far away, safe, innocent and happy in Alicante had been all that kept Jace sane.
So, beyond the perfunctory hand in hand entrance to a state dinner or offer of his arm while they paced the garden or gallery in uncomfortable silence, he had not touched her. Every night the two of them went to bed apart, something the King could not be ignorant of.
Valentine would have no patience with Jace's guilt. Sooner or later the King would pull him aside and ask Jace why the bed that had been so meticulously made for him, with no small amount of trouble, was suddenly too good for him to lie in.
He had yet to decide how he intended to reply.
Jace hooked his gloved fingers hooked in his belt, mind drifting. Luke Graymark sidled up. "One of the more entertaining matches, would Your Grace not agree?"
Jace started at the sudden voice, then blinked and laughed uneasily, "Forgive me. My thoughts were elsewhere."
Luke donned that understanding smile of his, the one that pressed for nothing further while somehow still retaining the impression it grasped the situation entirely. "I can imagine. Is the Duchess well? It is not like her to stay indoors when there is an alternative."
Jace nodded his agreement, "She is perfectly well, my lord. Merely taken with a slight chill and a good read this afternoon."
It was not entirely a lie, though Jace knew the red rims to her eyes were not the product of sneezing. He had tried to soothe her unhappiness somewhat by officially extending his book collection to her, though he had noted in his absence some of his copies had already gone astray. Clary was, as far as he knew, truly enraptured with his Latin copy of Caesar's Civil Wars. He had glanced in earlier to find her planted happily at her writing desk and embarking upon a translation, one set to amuse her for the next few hours, if not weeks.
He told Luke as much now, to which he nodded approvingly, "I understand that Her Grace is much gratified to have found a husband who will not only allow a continuation of her studies but encourages them. She feared that she may have to curb or surrender her work after she were wed."
Jace found himself surprised. It had never crossed his mind. He loved having a partner so well read. Once he would have spent hours comparing what he had read with what she had, then sparring with her on the meaning of certain pieces. Once, he recalled now, he had listened to her complain that her Greek lagged far behind her Latin and fully planned to tutor her himself, or better still, find another scholar of renown who would.
Again, as it always did when he thought of Clary, self-loathing speared his thoughts. Jace shrugged and then stuttered from his dry mouth, "I would not have a stupid wife," He shrugged and nudged toward humour, "If the only other men Clary cares for the company of are Aristotle and Virgil, I shall think myself a most contented husband indeed."
Luke laughed, mercifully, then sobered. "I shall understand entirely if you berate me for venturing beyond my place, but I speak only as a friend …"
Jace glanced at the older man sideways, "Lord Graymark, I have always prized you as one of the few who did not mince their words to me."
Luke accepted the jibe with a nod and a wry smile, "Of course. I mean only that you do not always strike me as a man most contented. I would not presume to hassle you for the cause, only to ask if there was aught I could do to lessen the trouble?"
Jace could chase him away, he supposed, with a sharp chastisement and a stern denial anything was wrong. But he no longer had the energy to stand on his pride, and there was in fact some help Luke could offer.
He began with a sigh, and turned his head more decidedly to Graymark's, thankful now for the rising wind which would drown out his words. "I would be glad of your advice, as it happens."
Luke smiled by way of encouragement.
"I know my wife has availed of your guidance in the past, perhaps I too might? If she holds you in her trust, then so do I."
It was not a wholly heartfelt declaration, but nonetheless, one he deemed necessary. Yes, Clary had come to trust the man, and he had expressed a very real concern for her wellbeing in the past. Jace was not about to put his life in the man's hands, but he believed he could rely on the lord of Aconite's interest in Clary's happiness. Besides, he needed some lordly advice, and though Alec was useful to an extent, he had not the experience of solely running a sizeable estate. Luke did.
"My relationship with the people of my lands," Jace began tentatively, "has become- how do I put this delicately?" Destroyed? Obliterated? "Strained by recent events."
"I see," Luke nodded slowly, fixing on Jace that deep gaze that really did see his problems. "You remain their lord. You still have duties in Broceland." Whether you like that or not, he did not need to add aloud. "If you wish to make any kind of reparation, you need to do so now."
"Can reparation be made?" Jace dared speak it, albeit not very loudly. He meant what he had said, Luke was one of the very, very few he could trust to give him the undiluted truth.
"Reparation can always be made," Luke spoke with quiet conviction, "Is that not the essence of Christian belief?"
Jace tilted his head back, feeling the first droplets of rain splash upon his cheeks.
"No one and nothing beyond salvation. And I am no green boy proclaiming such a statement in naivety," Luke concluded with an astonishing amount of feeling.
Jace chanced a look at his companion, following Luke's gaze to where the King stood by, clapping and laughing at one of his lord's quips. Admittedly, Luke could not be short on faith if he continued to cling to Valentine and counsel him. Believing that perhaps one day he would wake up and see in his monarch again at long last the shining Prince he would have followed blindly to hell in his youth.
Those intelligent, unwavering blue eyes returned to his, "If you do not go to Broceland soon, you never will. When a child takes their first tumble off a horse you brush them off and tell them to get back in the saddle immediately, else you know they will never have the nerve to. It is just so now. No, I daresay that there will be no fanfare of welcome, you may even have to slip into your own home like a fugitive. But once you are in position you can start to make amends somehow. Meagre as you may find them to be, they are far more than you will achieve in Alicante." His tone softened once more, "I also expect it will do the Duchess a world of good to breathe some country air again. You would be surprised at what wonders being alone with her will do."
Jace felt himself redden. He had not only been referring to his relationship with his tenants, but had not expected Luke to address that so explicitly. "We shall have to see," he muttered, looking back to the King. And, of course, persuade His Majesty that Jace was of the most use to the Crown in Broceland. Honestly, he doubted that Valentine would resist his plans if he thought it would provide him a grandson.
-000000000000000-
"Clary?"
Engrossed as she had been in the rolls of parchment before her, the Duchess had yet to spare a glance at whoever had just entered her rooms. She knew it could only be a select few, to enter unheralded and without being apprehended. Probably Isabelle or Maia. It was not until the voice was right beside her that she looked up.
Feeling her guard rise, Clary fixed what she hoped was a bland, indifferent face in place. Swallowing and laying aside her pen, she turned in her chair to face her husband. Fixing the flap of her robe over her nightgown, she was glad to duck her head away temporarily while she attempted to come to terms with the fact that they were alone together.
"Are you busy?" Jace sounded every bit as cautious and uncertain as she felt when she looked at him properly. She absorbed the hands he was slowly wringing before him and the broken skin on his bitten lower lip.
"I was just about to halt for the night," Clary admitted honestly, clasping her hands together in her lap.
He nodded, then let his eyes flicker back to hers, still glowing with apprehension. "May I speak with you?"
She could send him away, Clary considered. Give him a taste of his own medicine. "I am tired," she could hear herself saying, waving him away imperiously. She wagered he would take his leave without an argument, given the way he was hunched in on himself now. But to do so would be too like kicking a puppy for her to stomach. Instead, she gestured for him to take the next seat. Her father would be delighted to hear the two of them had been alone together in her rooms of an evening, if no other good came of it.
Jace seemed at a loss for words, for all her invitation to speak. For a time, Clary waited in silence.
This was not a tolerable silence, and so her patience soon ran out, "Jace?" She started, a little exasperated, only for following words to die on the tip of her tongue. His hands were shaking. They were also close enough, the closest they had been in weeks, for her to appreciate the blueish bags under his eyes. Contrary to whatever thoughts she had tormented herself with into late hours, he had not been sleeping soundly without her.
It had taken no small amount of effort to wrangle reports of what precisely had occurred during Jace's mission in the counties. They had been disturbing but, she had trusted, greatly exaggerated by the King's enemies. Clary halted that assumption as her husband finally looked her in the eye. His gloomily leaden expression set her on edge. She did not attempt to urge him to speak again.
"I need to apologise."
Heart thundering, Clary bade herself sit still. Regurgitating what she had heard would do neither of them any good. Difficult as it may be, she needed to avoid putting words into Jace's mouth. They had come too far for her to allow him to slam down the defences again, much less urge him to do so. She would hold her tongue and take what he saw fit to give.
"I have behaved terribly towards you." He addressed the carpet rather than her face, which Clary tried not to grow too upset about. "And many others besides."
There came another audible click as he swallowed in the silence, then nothing more. Sensing that her still tongue was starting to do more damage than it was preventing, Clary sought to stoke a deeper confession.
"I know that there are parts of yourself you have not shared with me. Things you have shared with no one. For whatever your reasons, a part of you has always been hiding Jace. There may always be things you keep from me. I do not demand for your soul to be laid bare before me, nor shall I ever. You need not admit me where I am not wanted. Just know that I will always be here and willing to listen. Whenever you may need me, whatever you might need of me: it is yours, as am I. Always." She reached for the quivering hands before her, stifling her relief when he did not flinch away.
Jace regarded her with mingled distress and astonishment. "Clary, you know not what you are saying. You know not what I have done."
Though his protest rose with perfect earnestness, he failed to remove himself from her touch. He did not want to pull back, Clary realised. He never truly had.
"Then tell me."
And he did.
Each and every sordid detail, with voice often breaking but contrition never waning.
"Tell me why."
"What?"
"Your actions do not matter as much as the intent behind them. Why did you do all of it?"
Jace swiped his tongue over his cracked lips before starting again. "For you." His eyes shot to hers with urgency, "I am not blaming you. There was nothing you could do, and you had no part in any of this."
That was not strictly true, Clary considered ruefully, recalling it was to attack her Jonathan had diverted that fateful path to Oldcastle in the first place.
"I knew that if I refused, your father would use you to punish me. I was frightened that he would take all of this away." He swallowed again, face holding such distress that Clary wanted to weep on his behalf, even as her anger began to stir. Her husband's attention fell again to their joined palms, where her white, soft, lady's palms cupped his tanned, scarred soldier's fingers. "These hands you hold have innocent blood on them."
She could dispute the claim of innocence, Clary supposed, considering many of the would-be zealots were little more than ruffians who had taken to the roads thanks to the appeal of a day's looting in Alicante. Months later she could still feel intrusive hands in her hair, her skirts, the bite of that dagger at her throat. But all this paled to a technicality, as Clary's wounds were not the ones open and bleeding.
She raised his hands to her lips instead, focusing all her compassion into the gaze she levelled to his, kissing each of his fingers in turn. Jace watched her, speechless. His eyes glistened with restrained tears as she leaned in, closing the gap between them.
Not to kiss him but to whisper the words she prayed would set him free. "Ego te absolvo."
Jace pulled her into his arms, pressing his dampened cheek into her braid.
Clary wrapped her arms around him in turn, holding him just as fiercely. She closed her eyes, breathing in the familiar leather and ink scent of him, the one she had missed so desperately. Much as she might know that wrenching a promise to never leave her again from him would be futile- Jace would have to go wherever the King sent him-she longed to hear such an assurance.
When they finally drew back, he kissed the tip of her nose and carefully swiped away the tears from under her eyes. She offered a trembling smile, caught a breath and closed the gap between them for a kiss. The one she had waited for. The kiss that warmed her entire body and cleared her mind of anything but him. An embrace that made all in her world well for as long as it lasted.
She knew not how long they kissed, it might have been minutes or hours, but when they broke apart she settled herself in his lap, relaxing into him. After the briefest pause, Jace's arms came around her and his head rested upon her shoulder.
"I spoke with your father."
"Oh?" Clary fought the spike of dread and endeavoured to reply neutrally, "To what end?"
His low voice rumbled into the quiet and Clary revelled in its thrumming through her body, "I asked him for permission for us to retire from the court for a while. To go to Broceland, as we planned to, before." He trailed off and she felt him swallow before adding, "If I am ever to establish myself as their lord, I need to meet these people properly. Establish myself amongst them as more than a hangman." He stopped again, before concluding, with a nervousness that almost broke her heart, "I thought you may want to join me." Her answer did not come immediately, and he panicked, "You do not have to. If you would rather stay here, if you wish for us to spend some time apart."
"Jace," Clary turned unsteadily to face him, catching his face between her hands.. She informed him with perfect honesty and clarity, "The last thing I want is for us to be separated again. As for escaping this court, I could not get far enough away. At this moment, Broceland sounds like Byzantium."
When he smiled at her again it was a purer, happier one. It was not quite the smile she had fallen in love with. It was still the closest she had seen to it in so long. It was enough to warm the hope stirring inside her.
"I am glad you think so. This could be good for us." He dropped his head forward again, laying it in the space between her neck and shoulder as his fingers tightened their grip at her waist, holding the two of them together, in spite of everything, in defiance of it all.
Clary leaned backwards into him properly, reminding herself of how far they had already come. Thus far they had overcome the ignominy traitor's deaths and the designs of some of the most powerful rulers in Europe.
Clary could not but smile, drawing further comfort from the quiet seed of optimism lacing Jace's voice as he repeated, "This could be good."
-000000000000000-
He came back to her bed.
Clary was less elated and more relieved, Jace presumed. He had missed lying beside her, falling asleep to the sound of her calm breathing and then waking up to her warmth on the sheets.
He stripped to his undershirt and slipped under her covers. He sat there uneasily, hands fisted in the sheets, waiting impatiently and uneasily for Clary to reappear. She had excused herself to pray, leaving Jace to wonder what for.
Thanksgiving that they had finally begun to make amends? For the strength and patience to attempt to piece her husband back together again? He wished he had faith constant enough, and conscience clean enough, to offer prayer alongside her.
When his wife finally did slip through their bedchamber door, she neatly closed it after her. She paused, clasping her hands together at the base of the candlestick she carried. The sole flame on the wick shone steadily, there was no tremor to her hands at all, remarkably. Against the white of her nightgown her hair seemed especially bright, but her face was every bit as pale as the flimsy fabric as she drifted toward the bed, hesitating only for the smallest moment.
Clary slipped into place beside him silently and flipped over on her side to face him. Stubbornly keeping his own eyes stuck on the tester far above them, Jace lay on the flat of his back, hands folded above his stomach.
He resisted the temptation to drum them together as he waited anxiously, endeavouring to concentrate on keeping a steady, rhythmic flow of air to his lungs.
He knew not whether to focus on Clary's presence or pretend she was not there at all. On one hand, he hoped her being here would at last banish his ill dreams. On the other, he feared she might make them worse.
"Jace." She whispered it, though they were entirely alone.
He could not help recalling the dozens of times she had hissed his name to distract him during lessons. He could still see her, all plump cheeks and wild red curls unravelling their way out from under her cap. Disgruntled that she couldn't join the boys' lessons and less than impressed with being confined to her horn book again. She had adamantly wanted to learn arithmetic like the boys, leaving her sullen and trying to catch his eye while her governess was gone and his tutor distracted, eager to persuade him to invent some game to entertain her.
Now he had no choice but to look at her. Not even he could convincingly play at having fallen asleep that quickly. Clary lay perfectly still, with hands aligned and the tips of them disappearing beneath her pillow. A curl had escaped from the top of her braid and rested against her cheek. He longed to tuck it behind her ear, but he dared not touch her. She doesn't deserve this. The man I have become should not touch her. What I am to blame for cannot touch her.
He tried frantically to quiet his inner protests. Clary knew the sordid details in full now and she loved him still.
What choice does she have? That poisonous little voice sniped again. She was irrevocably bound to him, for better or for worse.
She needed to make the marriage that had come at such a cost work.
Jace slid his eyes to hers. The loving little smile Clary offered him sent his traitorous heart skipping like a milk maid. There came the soft rustling of the costly cotton covers and she took his hands in one of hers and pulled them over until they lay between them.
She freed her other hand from the fringe of the pillow. She curled it around the open collar of his shirt, feeding the material through her forefinger and thumb as she followed it slowly down to the vee. She paused there, just a moment, before slipping her hand inside, brushing his skin. Clary's fingers were cold, but that was not the only reason he shuddered.
It was astonishing, the things that even a fairly innocent touch did to him. The things it brought into his mind.
"Jace" she whispered again, with more obvious intent. She had shimmied closer too, closing in across the ridiculous mammoth sized bed until they were face to face. Closing his eyes once more and swallowing Jace made himself count backwards from ten in Latin. Trying to think of anything but her warm breath on his cheeks, or of how close her lips were. How her left hand was lifting his, laying his palm at her waist. Where he could feel the beginning of her curving hip and the heat of her flesh. Instinctively his fingers tightened, gathering the silk, pulling it upwards as his lips skimmed hers-
Go back to rutting with your Morgenstern whore! It Not a voice he knew or had bothered to identify. Not one he had punished for the outburst as he had ridden by. Not one he could forget either.
Jace wrenched his hand away as if her skin were an oven plate.
He jerked several inches backwards, knotting the sheets around his legs and twisting the warm with the colder, untouched folds. Clary's fair lashes fluttered as she opened her eyes peered up dazedly at him, roused from a particularly pleasant daydream.
He could only stare back, horrified and desperate.
Clary glanced away. Her hand strayed nervously to her hair, drawing the braid back over her shoulder and worrying the end of it, "I'm sorry."
Jace stuttered out something about how she need not apologise, but she refused to heed it, "No, it is too much. I presume too far." Now she was the one fixing her eyes on the tester "But." Jace's eyes were drawn to her throat as she swallowed, "Just know that we can, whenever you wish it." Her cheeks caught fire, as she wriggled further under the blanket she hastily replaced, and pulled up to near her chin, "I want to."
Jace uttered a breathy exclamation of something thoroughly blasphemous. "God, Clary." She was reducing his restraint and reservations to splinters much faster than a lumberjack could a log. He pressed his eyes shut and contemplated, for all of a heartbeat, keeping them that way.
Her head had fallen to the side again and he knew without moving that she was still looking at him in that blessed way of hers. With patient hope. Trusting him even we did not trust himself.
"What kind of man am I?" He laughed with bewildered bitterness, "For you to want. For anyone to want."
She shuffled closer one more, gripping his hand and placing it over her heart, so as he might feel it pound under his touch. "The man I fell in love with." She affirmed simply. "I'll always want you." Her tone turned a touch apologetic, "I do not have your way with words. I know not what else to say."
He shook his head slowly, opening his eyes at last, "You have already said enough," he told her honestly. "If you truly mean that?" Jace ought to have hated himself for the blatant insecurity, but he was doubted his ability to hide anything from her.
Clary nodded solemnly, enclosing both his hands in hers with finality, "You have given me no cause to surrender you. None." She spoke quietly but forcefully, with not a trace of hesitation or regret. She made to say something else, but his lips were already on hers.
Clary dissolved slowly and uncertainly into the kiss at first. Then her hands were closing decisively on his upper arms and shoulders, while Jace's fingertips dug into the soft skin at her hips.
This should have been gentle, reconciling. Perhaps it was at first, but it did not remain so for long. It melted into something more intense.
Jace ought to be careful with her, gentle in the way he touched her and conscientious of what he was doing, but all such concerns were fast fleeing Jace's head. He ceased simply hovering over her and pressed his body into hers, crushing them together. He yanked her hair from its ties in a manner that could not have been painless, but she moaned, and he was a man half-crazed.
He could sink his fingers into her hair at last, just he had wanted for weeks. Clary gasped into his mouth, so he released her lips- but slowly, dragging the bottom one between his teeth on the retreat.
Jace abandoned the long torment of his mind and let his body take over.
All that mattered now was what he wanted, what he really wanted.
Clary must have felt the same, for she kept scrabbling at his back until removed what remained of his clothing and then promptly tore her gown over her head. Once there were no more barriers, he gripped at her breasts and again at her hips, properly now. Je roughly hitched her legs over his waist. Her wild breaths drove him wilder, pulling her body tight against his again.
He pushed inside her and held her tight enough to leave marks, possibly bruises. But she left her mark too, sinking her nails into the flesh at his arms and back and her teeth into his neck.
Before their couplings had been slow, sweet, confirming. This was a claiming.
There was little preamble and no restraint. Nor were there soft words or kisses to accompany this. Jace slammed his eyes shut, caught up in their movements and in how her panting was rapidly being replaced by enraptured cries. Until she was losing control entirely, her body shuddering and clenching its way through climax until he joined her there.
Afterward, gazing back up at that angel tester, Jace was more than a little dazed. He could scarce believe he had just done what he had and in the way he had. Even more remarkably, Clary had not protested. On the contrary, she was still curled around him, pressed snugly into his side. Her arm looped around him. fingers closed tightly over his bicep.
As if she feared he might disappear again in an instant. He almost laughed at the notion. Surely he had just proven beyond a trace of doubt how entirely a creature of flesh and blood he was.
He was tired, he realised, but it was a different kind of weariness to the one that had plagued him for days. It was his body and not his soul which felt so thoroughly worn out.
Jace meant to speak to her, say anything- but he was not sure there was anything left for him to say. So he closed his eyes, meaning to savour the moment, only to find he had no energy left to fight the sleep that moved in to claim him next.
-0000000000000-
Clary opened her eyes to darkness. Slowly, she grappled in her sleep addled state to come to terms with what had woken her. She kept blinking into the black chamber, trying to recall the frantic movements that had roused her.
Her next observation was that she was alone in the bed. Her hand floundered about in the dark, tips skimming a still warm pillow.
Jace had slept restlessly, she recalled, for she had lain awake watching him for hours. Her mind had been too active for her to fall asleep immediately. She'd held him, tracking the rapid movements of his eyes under his lids and listening to his deep, balanced breaths. He'd twitched and jerked in his dreams. That had compelled Clary to hold on tighter.
In all his fidgeting Jace must have settled long enough for her to fall asleep. Clary had no recollection of having done so until her tired eyes were protesting at the prospect of reopening. It did not feel as though she had been over for long at all.
She started to call for him, but a choking sound reached her before she could make a noise.
Bewildered, she shrugged off the matted blankets and crawled to the edge of the bed.
Several mild mishaps with the tinderbox later, a flame idly fluttered to life.
In the meagre light she found Jace, bent over the pot and dry retching.
Alarm singing through her, Clary snatched her robe from the end of the bed and tugged it around herself. She hurried over until she was on her knees beside him, setting the candle on the floorboards behind her.
"Jace!" She reached for him. He shivered miserably as she came in contact with his damp, cold skin.
"I am sorry," He mumbled, turning his cheek away, "It will pass." He swallowed with difficulty, "It will pass in a moment."
When they had first met, he'd reminded her of a lion, she remembered. All unshakeable pride under that mane of gold hair. She tenderly prised the fringe of it from his sweating forehead, laying her other arm over his shoulders.
He closed his eyes wearily and kept mumbling apologetically, "I did not want you to see me like this. Every night."
She kept stroking his brow, breaking away from him only long enough to pluck a rumpled blanket off their bed and tuck it around his trembling body. "There is nothing to be ashamed of, my love." He leaned into her, dropping his head in exhausted defeat against her shoulder. She held him in the quiet for a time, then attempted to coax him to move as best she could, "Come back to bed."
"You should go back to sleep," He agreed, "I will find no more rest tonight."
"Well, we cannot sit on the floor all night," she pointed out with calm practicality, laying emphasis on the 'we'.
He argued anyway, naturally, "You need not."
"I think I do. I remember swearing to be a loyal, loving partner for the rest of our days."
"There was also a promise of obedience," Jace muttered, "Not that I expect it has, or will be, observed."
He did follow her back to the bed. Upon returning, Jace lay so his head was against her heart. Clary kept running her hands through his hair as soothingly as possible. She kissed his forehead, "If I ever do as am told then you will know I have been replaced with a changeling."
Jace made the vaguest hum of agreement, but his eyes did not close as she had hoped they might. A traitorous part of her did long to slip away to sleep, but he had fought his demons alone all his life. Jace needed to realise that he need not do so any longer.
In good times and in bad, she had sworn to love him. Unlike most women in her position, when she had done so Clary Herondale had meant it.
She saw out the remaining hours of darkness with him, talking about nothing in particular. She filled the silence with every boring, petty detail of what had happened at court while he had been gone.
It was so unfair. Neither of them were saints, but they did not deserve this.
This was supposed to have been their happy ever after. Like all the romances, their troubles were supposed to be tied up and swept away by marriage.
This was only a setback, Clary strove to reassure her unquiet mind.
In time, with her help, he would heal. A few months in Broceland, away from the city and her father. All would be well.
Jace had saved her, whether he knew it or not, from a life of unhappiness and a faraway, loveless marriage. Now it was her turn to save him.
She had to.
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There was a reason, Alec Lightwood reminded himself furiously, that he abstained from recklessness. Given his ill-luck, he should have foreseen that on the one damned occasion he decided to indulge- he got caught.
Isabelle had concealed liaisons Alec was glad he did not know the number of, meanwhile Jace had successfully sustained an illicit dalliance with the King of Idris's very own daughter.
Alec must have been absent from lessons the day they had learned the skills to do so.
Before things had gone to hell, he had been having a particularly pleasant morning. Ordinarily he was relatively careful, he usually only ever spent the night with Magnus at his house. That way there was no chance of a wayward servant stumbling upon something they ought not.
But since he had returned to the city, nothing felt uncomplicated anymore. Being with Magnus had once been his escape, now it was just another of the many sins Alec could not confess and knew not how to live with. With all that was whirling around in his mind, Alec was not finding sleep an easy companion. Last night Magnus had been detained at court until the small hours of the morning, by which time he had stumbled back to Alec's rooms looking as bone weary as Alec had felt.
"Another party on the horizon?"
"Would that it were so. No, His Majesty was grilling me for a progress report."
"Progress on what?" Alec had waited, the way he always waited when he invited Magnus to offer him details.
"Believe me, ignorance is bliss."
Alec had scowled, "Easy for the one with the knowledge to say."
"Alexander," Magnus's voice had been jadedly chiding and he had turned to properly face Alec at last, reaching for him. Trying to ward off a squabble, ward of any further talking at all.
But Alec was tired of it, of others pretending they knew what was in his head, telling him what to think. He hated it, and in that moment, looking up at Magnus and his forced smirk, Alec had almost hated him too.
"And you are well enough disposed to know what my mind is, all of a sudden? God, Magnus, I thought you the one person who knew better than to tell me what it is I should want."
Magnus had flinched, making to withdraw his palms from Alec's face.
Until Alec had caught at his wrists. "Stop. Just stop." Heart pounding, head wheeling Alec tried to make him understand, "Cease treating me like a child, as if I were something that has to be protected. I am not. You think you have done bad things, been in bad places?" He had to exhale a scoffing laugh, "Well, as have I."
They had never fought before, not beyond their usual well-intentioned bickering, and Alec sensed even before the shock on Magnus's face gave way to a new intensity that he had tipped the balance here. What they were to one another, that was changing. And not in the way Alec was used to perceiving such things; the cooling of passions, then the falling apart.
"I know you are not." Magnus's eyes seemed luminous in the throbbing candlelight, "But, Alec, you still do not know what it is you mean to me."
"Enlighten me."
"I do not want to drag you into it. My mess, my darkness. There is plenty of it and you," He locked their fingers together, "You are a light for me."
Alec swallowed, flicked his eyes up and down the man staring and fidgeting before him."
"I am not a toy. You cannot just use me as your escape, then drop me and go back to the real world whenever you feel you have to."
"No," Magnus agreed slowly. "You are much, much more than that Alexander."
The new intensity was frightening as it was wonderful. "Prove it."
The memory of Magnus, of his mouth on his, and indeed all over, brought Alec slowly back to consciousness. Still half in the world of dreams, Alec tightened his arms around Magnus and pressed his face further into the mess of dark hair on the pillow beside him as he relished the mild sunlight seeping through the window and warming his back.
The room had been filled with soft, slow breaths, now it was split with a gasp.
Alec was fully snapped to wakefulness by another choked, "Oh- Sweet mother of God!"
He whipped himself upright, joining the room's new occupant in being appalled.
"God. Isabelle!" Another horrified pause, then all Alec could proclaim was, "Shit!"
His little sister made the perfect stereotype of horror, hand stuck to her mouth, eyes wide as a fish's. Between all the shouts and Alec's scramble for the bedsheets Magnus had been thoroughly roused. He shoved a long lock of hair off his face, "I thought you told me she knew?"
In faith, Alec knew his sister was not someone who was easily shocked. But finding him in such a compromising position proved a fresh and unprecedented terror. For them both.
Isabelle recovered enough to unstick herself from her spot on the floor. She stumbled backwards, toward the door, unpeeling her fingers from her lips to mumble out, "Yes, that it was men. I had no idea there was a man."
Magnus relaxed, lounging back against the mattress. "Well then. Good morning to you." He unleashed his best smile, "I do believe we have already met. Introductions seem a touch unnecessary in this circumstance."
Alec thought he may just drop dead, wrenching his attention from his lover to his sister who, to make matters even more astonishing, broke out into a helpless fit of laughter. Magnus remained reclining, propped up on one unconcerned shoulder. Eventually Isabelle strangled her hysterical mirth to silence and began to look a touch nauseated. "I think. I'm afraid I must. Excuse me!"
Isabelle being speechless was a phenomena up there with the rarest of eclipses. Alec was sure soon there would be those who would dedicate their lives to avidly studying it. A new field of philosophy, most like.
He was not at all disposed to bask in the glory of this particular moment, as Isabelle spun on her heel and ran out the doors like a devil was chasing her.
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Jace thought a family dinner was a good idea, right until he found himself trapped at the table. The plan had been to show Clary that wherever her own kin may be lacking she now, through wedlock, had a whole other family unit to rely on for love and support.
It was a sweet sentiment, and ought to have warmed the cockles of his beloved Duchess's heart. But Isabelle's dear brother had, in his desperate optimism, neglected to consider that the other family in question was the Lightwoods.
Even without Robert darkening one end of the table- he still off in Paris doing God knew what (or as may be more accurate: whom) the room was frigid. Alec and Isabelle could not happily meet one another's eyes after that morning's fiasco. Her discomfort was only intensified by the fact that it was none other than Simon Lewis strumming and singing softly from the corner while they ate.
He was not about to look her in the face either, apparently enraptured with his strings, though Isabelle was aware that by now he knew this set backwards, forwards and inside out.
Mayrse was flushed by the wine she had consumed and proving a little too eager in grilling Clary about her brother: his personality, his habits and indeed if he had any intentions to marry.
"I doubt that the royal treasury could sustain another wedding so soon." Clary stated, lips twitching barely perceptibly over the rim of her glass. She concluded curtly, "And Jonathan is hardly the marrying type."
Mayrse laughed shrilly, not even prepared to entertain the notion of being perturbed, "What man is? I would have thought the same of Jace a year ago." She nodded playfully at her foster son, who offered a polite half smile.
Even Jace, whose dark sense of humour was normally thoroughly stoked by awkward situations like this one, was cringing.
"I am a reformed character," Jace insisted drily, nudging at a cut of meat with the tip of his knife. Isabelle sensed he would rather sever a limb with that blade than have his past exploits and dalliances discussed. Clary knew that he had a reputation, how could she not? It did not mean either the Duke nor Duchess wanted it discussed at length or in detail.
"I am sure would the Crown Prince could mend his ways, were he to find the right woman," Mayrse persisted.
Izzy had to stop herself looking to Alec and mouthing dog with a bone to him. She would have to reassure her brother she was not about to report him to the Church courts in due course. She needed at least another day to recover from the shock of what she had witnessed.
Alec cleared his throat, "Or rather, were the right woman to be found for him. The King would choose the bride. Indeed, seeing as he did not get a formal alliance with his daughter, he will certainly look abroad for his son." He shot his mother a pointed look, face sternly set into the man-of-the-family mask, bidding her to hold her tongue. The Countess shrugged and popped a slice of carrot into her mouth, "I was only saying."
"You say too much," Alec chided, then he broke his mother's stare, suddenly remembering the rest of the occupants at the table and their guest of honour.
Isabelle glanced as slyly as she could to the seat beside her, where Clary was chewing carefully and looking at the Lightwoods with surprised interest. She was no dullard, Isabelle noted with fright. In fact, she knew all about Izzy's parents' determination to have her wed. Clary had all the figures; it would not be long until she made the calculation.
Alec laughed with detectable strain, "Why are we talking state politics at a family dinner anyway?" He enquired a touch too loudly and with a hurried shrug.
"Indeed," Jace agreed readily from the head of the table. He strove to change the direction of the conversation. In doing so unwittingly broke the storm, "Clary and I are bound for Broceland at the end of the month." His eyes flicked to his right, to where Clary nodded keenly, sending beams of candlelight sparking off the little gold crucifix at her throat.
It was not the first either of the younger Lightwoods had heard of it, but their mother was taken aback, "Is it wise to leave court with your footing here so unsteady?"
Jace's expression darkened, eyes skipping back to his wife, "It is secure" he insisted, loath to alarm her. That momentary betrayal of tender concern made Isabelle's chest ache. "Besides" Jace pressed on in a lighter tone, "My Duchess misses the country air."
"Who would not?" Isabelle asserted brightly, "The city is so dirty." From the corner of her eyes, she glimpsed Simon involuntarily wincing at the sound of her voice. She realised with a start it was the first thing she had said. Her intention had been to sulk through the conversation. She did not need to make a special effort Clary to feel welcome, she already knew Izzy loved her like a sister, but she had just latched onto an idea.
"You bore Paris easily enough, it is much bigger and far smellier," Jace commented with perplexed amusement. Isabelle made to jab him with her toe under the table, but judging from the way he jolted in his seat unexpectedly, Clary had beaten her to it.
"Of course," the Duke continued hastily, but obviously with less than whole comprehension as to why he were amending his statement, "Given all that has happened in Alicante since this summer you'll be forgiven for longing for the peace of Chatton's gardens."
Mayrse paused in the act of pouring herself another helping of wine and came to attention. "You can long for a little longer. Your place is here, Izzy, in Alicante."
Isabelle refused to surrender her escape route so easily, "My place is with Her Grace," she stated, eyes still on her meal and speaking as though she were merely addressing the non-negotiable obvious.
"The Duchess of Broceland is going for some freedom from the city, Isabelle, and from courtiers like yourself. She will want only a small retinue to accompany her. You belong, as you always have, with the court. You can join the Queen as her lady. I have already arranged it."
"Isabelle is my lady," Clary began, civilly and softly, but forcefully nonetheless, "She goes where I go."
Under the table, Izzy let her hand slip into Clary's. Her unspoken gratitude. The Duchess squeezed her fingers.
The lines by Maryse's eyes had tightened. She smoothed her bodice with her hands, a habit her children were used to seeing as she made to compose herself. "Isabelle will have no use in Broceland." She scanned one of her children and then the other, but neither rose to the bait, united in their silent resistance. Mayrse laughed a little cruelly, "She will be bored within a week and have you tormented."
Ordinarily Isabelle would have snipped out a smart reply, perhaps something to the effect of how if her place were in Alicante, then by all means would Isabelle take it- provided the Countess led by example and returned to where she belonged: Adamant. However, she was not prepared to interrupt the real clash of wills here; the Duchess and Countess.
Since clearly neither party was about to surrender, they stayed locked in their stalemate. Then, in a horrific moment of unison, both hotly gleaming pairs of eyes shot to the only one who had the authority to overrule either of them.
Isabelle's heart went out to Jace, it truly did, caught between the two of them, fire and ice. Mother and wife. It could have been heartily funny, the exasperated beseeching with which both women turned to only Isabelle had not been the rag doll caught in the middle of this tug of war. She remembered fighting with Alec as a child over their toys, and physically tearing a cloth doll between them on the worst occasion. She could all but feel the ache in her limbs now, being yanked back and forth by these women who each had a firmly staked claim on her.
In any other instance she would have heatedly argued her own agency and insisted on making the decision for herself, by herself. But some buried survival instinct held her back, the unshakeable feeling she would be incinerated in the crossfire between the other women.
This had become about something bigger than Isabelle, as was evident in the women's mutual appal upon Jace's hesitancy. The Duke looked a touch sick, and more than a little petrified. Isabelle could see the diplomat in him frantically trying to scout out a middle path here, only to see with dismay there could be none. Isabelle either stayed or went. She could not go halfway to Broceland.
In the end, ten years of obedience won over ten months of devotion. "I think- I suspect-Izzy would you not prefer Alicante?"
She could not blame Jace for being an utter idiot, Isabelle supposed, he was just a man. She could not very well start a scene at the dinner table, unfortunately. Had they been alone she would have thrown crockery about her and not spared a moment's contemplation of the action, but that would put Clary in an awkward position, and she was still hyperaware of Simon's presence. Isabelle needed to prove to him she was not devoid of self-control. She settled for glaring at Jace.
Clary too looked ready to whack her husband about the ears with her spoon too. "That is not fair!"
"She would hate the countryside," the Duke started to babble his defence, looking again between the two younger women plotting his demise, "You hate the countryside!"
"Jesus Christ" Alec muttered under his breath, dropping his head into his hands and mumbling darkly past his fingers something about how no crusade would take him far enough from this family.
Mayrse was wearing the smug expression Isabelle hated most in the world and pouring herself out another generous victory drink.
Isabelle threw her shoulders against the spine of her seat in exasperation. To think she had whirled into this country not quite a year ago sure that she would have herself back in Paris long before the winter snows fell. Now the snows had been and gone and she could not get herself to Broceland, let alone France.
"Alec is staying here!" Jace piped on, and Clary glowered silently, hiding her scowl back behind the rim of her glass. Much as she must have wanted to, Clary could not start an argument with her husband here. Hot headed as she may be, even the Duchess drew the line at bringing what was sure to be one hell of a domestic dispute to the dinner table.
But that was as much as Mayrse was about to put in motion, Isabelle told herself darkly. If she was to stay in Alicante, then so be it. Her mind had struck up the conjuring of a plan already.
Jonathan had been banished back to Edom by now. Who knew what wonders Isabelle could work on the Queen in the meantime?
She trusted no one other than herself with her future.
Izzy tugged Clary's fingers under the table to communicate as much. "Stand down", she hissed to Clary who, with tangible reluctance, loosened her shoulders and allowed the subject to drift onto something less contentious.
Isabelle sat in silence until the plates were cleared, thinking fiercely all the while. These past months had softened her unforgivably. She'd allowed herself to become too distracted by Simon's sweet words and open heart. No more of that.
If she could not relinquish her heart to another, she might dispel of it altogether. She was still beautiful and wicked. Isabelle could kill this Crown Princess idea herself. Hell, she may even have fun doing so.
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