Chapter 23: Obedience
Chapeltoute Hall, Alicante, May 1537
To the dulcet tones of Julie Beauvale's wobbling Latin, Isabelle speared the shirt's fringing with the tip of her needle, channelling all the vigour of a Spartan warrior wielding a javelin. An incredibly bored, intellectually wasted Spartan warrior. A fearsome being nonetheless.
She was not sure whether to be exasperated or delighted that the Queen's face carried the same weariness she felt at the day's proceedings. Jocelyn called out yet another insipid pronunciation correction to her temporary lady, who toiled onward through the psalms. Jocelyn's eyes had glazed over long ago, her fingers wound slackly through the bundle of linen in her lap.
Apparently through his adolescence and into the early days of his reign Valentine's shirts had been mended by his mother. The old queen, Seraphina of Saxony, sounded an even more formidable matriarch that Isabelle's own mother. To the point that even when her gnarled, ageing fingers had fumbled and ached throughout the chore, Seraphina had been aligning the Valentine's stiches until her last breaths. Upon which, the torch had been passed to the young King's new and unpopular wife.
It had been a symbolic assignment; the proof that the lady the Privy Council had sneeringly dubbed "the milkmaid from Aconite" was just as regal as her predecessor and was to be treated as such.
Thereafter, Jocelyn had stitched the King's shirts dutifully und unwaveringly until the day she disappeared into Broceland Forest. Upon return, she had reclaimed the thimble alongside her crown and gotten back to work.
Whoever had taken charge of the vestments' wellbeing in her absence God only knew. Isabelle knew for certain that Clary had never been called to serve, although having seen the King's daughter sew, she could not feign surprise at the Princess having been overlooked.
Izzy might have feared looking too idle for risk of being called upon to read next, given that her Latin was even more abysmal than Julie's. However, through some unidentifiable mishap or favour, she found herself the Queen's new favourite.
It hadn't taken much to make Jocelyn like her.
The first time Jocelyn attempted to urge her to a bible reading, Isabelle had craved pardon.
"Why should you not read as the other girls do?" The queen snapped and Isabelle, bored, irritable, and suddenly embarrassed that her ignorance was about to be exposed, had snapped back just as sharply, "Because I am a fervent Reformist."
There had come an audible gasp. Thick silence struck, until the stunned Queen looked to her young maiden's unrepentant, scowling face and dissolved into hearty laughter. "Have a care Lady Isabelle," Jocelyn chided when at last she managed to draw breath again, realising that she should not have giggled in the first place, "That is no laughing matter." While her struggle to recollect herself offered mirthful contradiction one bleak, contrary sense of humour had slyly smiled at the other.
"I do admire your spirit, Isabelle," the Queen had told her privately since, "Would that we lived in a world where a girl was permitted to have such character. I pray you find little cause to dull it."
Isabelle had shrugged, "I am an intolerable shrew and the bane of my father's existence. And methinks, in recent months, my mother's." In those days any such utterance was hastily followed with a glance to where Mayrse would glower helplessly while pretending to be enveloped in conversation with someone else.
"Ah. I suspect you remind Mayrse too much of herself."
Reading Isabelle's disbelief, Jocelyn had laughed again, that wry, brittle sound she reserved only for when they were together, "I suspect that is what scares her so. It must make her so melancholy and unforgiving. You remind her of herself, or the girl she was." After a small, pensive pause Jocelyn added, "As my daughter does me. This world is unforgiving to wilful women."
Isabelle had been tempted more than once, given their new accord, to urge Jocelyn to comment on one of the darker rumours she had heard during her time in Idris, to ask outright if Mayrse and Valentine had been lovers, or if her teenaged mother had only wished they were. If, perhaps, that explained the sudden arrangement of marriage to her father in the first instance. But that would be going too far, even for the admirably devil-may-care Isabelle Lightwood. Besides, she was not certain she wanted to know anyway. Even had she the knowledge, what could she do with it? Lord it over her mother, use it to urge Mayrse to turn away from this idiotic Jonathan Morgenstern plan? Not likely, while the memory of her mother's face the night she had exposed Robert's debauchery still dug in her heart.
Worst of all, an unwitting Isabelle had fixed her own face to the revelation in Maryse's mind. Now her mother, subconsciously or no, wanted to punish her for it. Prince Jonathan was part of that retribution.
Poor as things were with her own mother, she did not think that searching for some maternal affection was what had driven her to Jocelyn's bosom. No, having observed the woman's interactions with Clary and heard the Duchess speak of her, Isabelle was sure Her Majesty was no paragon of motherhood. In fact, she recalled now that had been one of the first things that had endeared Clary to her. Isabelle had decided to befriend her upon realising how alone in the world the feisty but frightened young woman had been. Even where both her parents had failed her Isabelle always had Alec to rely upon, what had poor Clary? Who had Clary, for a protector and confidant that would not betray her to the first lord willing to slip a shilling? Jonathan?
Isabelle had put herself first in line.
However much she may despise waiting on the Queen less than she had expected, that did not mean she was not desperate to have Jace and Clary back. The two women wrote often but never exchanged anything of serious account, knowing that every line was perused before the missal reached its recipient.
Valentine had always found his throne an uneasy seat. There could be no other excuse for the mistrust he regarded everyone with, even his daughter.
Still, Isabelle only had to endure the rigid tedium of life as it was for a fortnight more; then the court would be on progress. The Duchess would be back at her father's court and Isabelle would have her friend back. Not a moment too soon.
Unfortunately, thinking of Clary always saw Izzy's thoughts stumble next to Simon. She would be lying if she tried to pretend his snubbing of her still did not smart after the passage of time. She also could reluctantly admit that it was more than her pride now bruised black and blue. It was for the best, of course, that much she rationally knew. But the heart was seldom rational.
It was as astonishing as it was painful to her, how icily Simon had distanced himself. She'd once thought the warmest, most open-hearted person she had ever known. He had proven since to be very cold. Mayhap the person he thought her to be deserved such isolation as punishment, but the exile did not enable her to explain that she was not that girl at all.
Isabelle did care. She cared so much it lay like a tonne weight upon her chest. All her pretence of carelessness and freedom had crumbled down, dissolved from the air and now it lay a deadweight on her shoulders.
She cared about him. She cared for him.
All the while she privately scorned Jace and Clary and even now from what she glimpsed of Magnus and Alec, she could not resist looking at what they had and wanting it. Not a simple, uncomplicated love, now she was doubtful to her very soul such a thing existed, but a love all the same. Someone who might make all the dreadful things in this world worth enduring.
And yet bitter irony seeped sourly beneath that secret wish. Such a thing might always be hopeless for Isabelle, who had not even the courage or trust to be honest with herself.
All these years she had pranced about in low cut gowns, tossed her hair and flicked up her skirts to scandalously flaunt exposed ankles, she had been carefully embellishing a mask. Baring as much of her flesh as she might so other, more important things might never peek to sight. Ensuring no one might know the scared little girl beneath. The girl who had realised with dread by the time she turned thirteen and her innocent body began to betray her into a woman's shape, that her face would be uncommonly pretty. And thus, her best asset would be her life's hindrance.
Men would desire her for it while women would despise her. Even her own parents believed it; they'd terminated her education soon after her first arrival at the French court, noting how easily she turned heads. They had assumed, and not incorrectly, there was no need for her to be especially learned or talented. Her looks would be all Isabelle would need.
Isabelle spent the years of her adolescence playing into it all, keeping everyone who was neither Jace nor Alec at arms-length. Until Clary had come along, in that bull-headed, hands on hips, no-arguments way of hers, and refused to be held at bay.
But since Simon, her carefully built armour had been bashed in around her. Isabelle was trapped inside it. The one boy who had begun to see past her façade had eventually caved to the assumption. No one would love her for her heart, or for the person underneath the elegant clothes and dry wit. Who could blame them? Isabelle barely knew who that girl was herself.
Even if every time she drifted past the lutenist her heart faltered in her chest and her breath snagged, even when Isabelle longed to catch him by the sleeve and bid him listen to her. She remained exactly as she had been a year and a half ago.
Playing the harlot to evade being the wife and ending up just as her mother had. Bitter and abandoned.
Letting her eyes flit back over Jocelyn, Isabelle found her new mistress continued to be no more enraptured with Julie's devotions than she was. In fact, where her mind shirked from the months to come, the Queen's seemed to dwell only there.
For all her ingratiating herself with Jocelyn, Isabelle could not pretend to know what exactly the lady's carefully, constantly churning thoughts might be. She liked to think for Clary's sake that her mother was contemplating how best to smooth their relations. That was not to say she had to wonder if Jocelyn loved her child. Jocelyn loved her daughter too much, if anything. An entirely repressing, consuming love, though the Queen would not see it that way.
Hopefully this season's progress could resolve that somewhat. Once Jocelyn realised that she had not lost Clary entirely, she might allow for a rekindling of their closeness. Ideally, a model of intimacy that allowed for Jocelyn's claws to loosen their grips slightly.
Jocelyn was every bit as desperate and guilty as the rest of those creeping furtively around the edges of this court. It must be painful, glimpsing that for all her former impact upon the King she had only been viewed as a misplaced possession for some time now. Even queens remained women. Shackled by their sex.
If only Isabelle could be optimistic about repairing matters with her own mother. She knew better people than her had tried and failed to thaw out Maryse's rage, and much as domineering mothers were familiar terrain, Izzy found she would sooner throw her lot in with Clary's. Jocelyn may be largely Valentine's consolation prize presently, but Isabelle was not prepared to underestimate Jocelyn's value as an ally.
During the many nights she had lain awake into the small hours with her mind whirling faster than a spinner's wheel, Alec's remark that it would be His Majesty who would choose the bride and terms of the Crown Prince's marriage kept leaping to the forefront.
Sadly, as one of the Queen's many ladies in waiting, Isabelle could not flounce into the audience chamber and urge the King to join her by the lily-pond for a heart to heart.
She'd make do with drawing out his Queen's memories. Through them, Isabelle had begun to understand Valentine better. At an agonising pace she came to know the lonely boy, an only child of cold, hard parents who dared demand nothing less than excellence from their sole heir. A boy who had been isolated all his life, forced from birth to shoulder the burdensome shadow of the man he must grow to be. The strong leader Idris needed, the Morgenstern dynasty needed. As singular and untouchable as the lone star that dotted his family banners. Only Valentine could not afford burn up and fall to earth.
Isabelle could not imagine growing up like that. She had spent much of her childhood sealed up in the family keep, yes, but she had always her brothers or servants' children to rough around with. A small pack of them often yipped around the battlements like a litter of overexcited pups. For Valentine, without living siblings, he was taught to treat all his court friends with suspicion. To accept that for all they offered, they'd only offer as much as benefitted them.
And yet there had to be some perks to being a king in waiting from one's first breath. Emotionally aloof as his parents were, at any given opportunity the court and world were reminded of the importance of that little boy. Of his divinely ordained destiny to rule. He had been overprotected, every Morgenstern supporter painfully aware that they were one mishap from losing their only heir and therefore everything.
Ironic, really, that the boy gained so much power at the cost of all his freedom.
That, according to Jocelyn, was how Lucian Graymark had found Valentine. Restricted to the point of strangulation in ermine trimmed robes. Luke had never been to court, Jocelyn explained one day as they flipped through pattern books in a bay window, with an expression even Isabelle's years of practice could not read. She had babbled on about his father not trusting Luke not to shame them all if he went, convinced that his son was too quiet and reservedly awkward to make the desired impression. He and Jocelyn had come of age on their respective estates in Aconite, and being the only two well born people of an age in the region, became fast friends. Even now the queen could admit they had not been satisfied, "We would spend the bleak winters and yawning summers pacing the hedgerows and waiting for our lives to start."
Then one day, they had.
On the royals' summer progress, the two boys crossed paths. Both sheltered in different ways, one by obscurity and one by the very opposite, both unspeakably lacking company. "I suppose fond as Luke was of me, I was a girl. But I was his childhood and he was ready to grow up and venture into the real world. I would never be enough." Jocelyn confessed, hard-eyed and matter-of-factly, but the wistfulness was traceable.
Given her mother's offhand comments and the way in which Luke tracked the queen around the room, Isabelle could guess Jocelyn Fairchild would have secretly been more than enough for the young Lord of Aconite.
Regardless, Lucian became the first man to ask nothing more of Valentine than friendship, to truly care about what went through the head under the crown. Certainly one of the first to dispute with him on the rare occasion that a detail for their shared, gleaming vision for Idris's future was not identical.
Soon Luke introduced his new friend to his oldest. Thus, Jocelyn's fate was sealed. From what she had felt herself being under that frank gaze of Jocelyn's, Isabelle could imagine how exhilarating it must have been for the then Crown Prince, to find a woman who refused to bandy her words. A woman who saw an unloved young man behind and offered him the simplest kindness: unconditional affection.
Better still, Jocelyn supported his ideal of a reborn Idris: a new nobility and a court founded on loyalty and obedience above riches. A country cleaned of the undesirables: the heathens, the idle poor, the sinners.
How spectacularly that picture perfect reign and union of kindred spirits had shattered was one aspect of her history Jocelyn did not touch upon.
All Isabelle knew was that Valentine remained resolutely oblivious to both his dream for Idris and their marriage being dead in stagnant, rotten waters.
Isabelle calmly received all this information with open ears and a closed face.
In fact, as the days wore on Isabelle became increasingly convinced that this uneasy compromise between herself and the Queen was all that sustained them both. Sharing her history, willing some self-explanation and cautionary message into her reminiscing, Jocelyn imparted all of this to Isabelle while wishing it was her daughter to whom she spoke.
Equally, Isabelle listened attentively, mourning privately that she would never have a similar conversation with either of her parents.
Dwelling on anyone's private unhappiness or past was not enough to safeguard Isabelle's future.
Izzy keenly set about aligning what she now knew of the younger Valentine with the present one. The lonesome boy had become a mistrustful man, who looked around and no longer simply saw a circle of opportunistic leeches but plotters and assassins. The woman whose love he had once been so grateful for was now his entitlement. The boy planted on a pedestal all his days was now a difficult man to rein in. One who knew his own mind and his power and would allow neither to be negotiated with.
Isabelle was dragged from her less than holy contemplations by the arrival of the King in flesh.
He may be unaware of the power he had over her destiny specifically, but Valentine still moved with the quiet, unquenchable confidence of one who had apparently never lived a day in doubt of the immeasurable influence he did possess.
Grateful for Julie's instant silence and scrambling hastily to her feet with the rest of the women to sink in unison to their display of submission, Isabelle tactfully tilted herself forward with the curtsey and puffed her chest out.
Though her resented armour may have trapped her, it remained armour nonetheless. Still protective.
Now was a moment of genuine thanksgiving, for her decision today to wear a dark blue that brought out the unblemished whiteness of her skin and drew so nicely on the sloe dark eyes she lifted with deliberate coyness to the waiting monarch.
Lastly, a note of self-congratulation to herself for having secured the stool next to Jocelyn. However attractive the queen may remain for a woman her age, she was still halfway through the forties. The body that carried those years only served to make Izzy's face fresher.
Valentine's eyes could not but turn momentarily to her.
If was impossible to tell if he approved or disapproved, but for now it was enough that Valentine looked.
Isabelle Lightwood could do much with that look, either way.
However little Valentine might think of his son personally, no father welcomed whores into their families. Especially not when that family had a reputation to uphold and a legacy to continue.
"Your Majesty," Jocelyn greeted her husband quietly as she was bid to rise.
"Good afternoon, dearest." The King laid a token kiss on the back of her hand and accepted the vacated chair beside her while the rest of the women scattered to a host of other tasks, all circling outwards from the Queen as ripples in a lake disturbed by a sinking stone. Isabelle did not go far, opting to sort through the small vase of flowers on the sill just behind Jocelyn, well within His Majesty's line of vision. Dutifully, paying the smallest scrap of attention she could spare, Isabelle set about plucking out dry stalks and crumpling withered flower heads between her fingers, listening avidly all the while.
"I have news from Broceland I thought I might share with you." Isabelle could imagine the hunger on Jocelyn's face as her husband dangled this before her. Jocelyn was desperate for any word at all from the daughter who would not respond to her letters with any more than the most bland, brief comments.
If Valentine had received other news, it must be noteworthy indeed.
"Apparently our son has made quite the impact already."
"Our son?" The Queen's shoulders darted up and then plummeted again as the realisation dawned. "You mean Jace."
Valentine nodded, the edge of some sour humour marking his face as he beheld his wife's reluctance to acknowledge a familial bond with her new son-in-law.
"Yes," he agreed shortly, "Apparently he is offering shares of his grain to the tenants. What was stockpiled for his own kitchen is now, I hear, going home in the buckets and pockets of every nameless John in Broceland for the winter. Meanwhile the local Church roof has been replaced, amongst other monetary encouragements for parish charity. On another, uncorrelated count I am sure, the jewellery I gifted Clarissa for her wedding has disappeared."
Isabelle had to nip at her tongue to keep a giggle or a smirk at bay. Here she was, unable to get her father's attention at all, while Clary's very jewel box was being scrutinised.
Isabelle amused herself by imagining Jace squinting at the scales, tongue poked out in concentration before shrugging and tipping the whole pan of grain into the upturned apron of a farm wife. Then she envisaged Clary beside him, with her sleeves hawked up and her freckled face flushed and smeared with flour kneading a flop of dough. Surprisingly, the fantasy was not difficult to conjure at all. On either count.
"I hear a begrudging respect has arisen for the new Duke among the people. Now they have both felt a strike from the back of his hand and grown to appreciate the good fortune that can come from his open palm, I cannot imagine they will be keen to rise against their lord or his ilk again."
Valentine sounded as pleased as if he had achieved all of this himself, Izzy noted from another feigned nonchalant peep over at him.
Since he took credit for shaping the man, he also took credit for that man's deeds. Although Izzy guessed the King's approval stemmed from the cunning he assumed drove Jace's actions. It would never have occurred to him that Jace might act because he believed it to be the right thing to do.
"Good news at last," Jocelyn murmured, dipping her head and speaking more to her shoes. Upon His Majesty's entrance she had at long last found the motivation to continue her sewing. Valentine helped himself to a goblet of wine Lady Penhallow had scurried over with, lounging back in his chair. Or at least, as close to lounging a man like Valentine could get. There remained a tense tremor to his shoulders.
"Indeed." The King tinged his words with some further dry amusement. Listing the exploits of his newest nobles as if they were a duo of children sneaking sweetmeats from the pantry and he, the fond parent, pretending to turn a blind eye. "I wonder if the Brocelanders will ever recover from the shock. To think, they've gone from haughty Stephen cantering by with his nose in the air to his son rolling bales of hay with them! He and Clary wish to play at country nobles." He paused for another smug sip, then cast a mocking, glinting eye at his wife, "In her blood, I suppose. Small wonder she has taken to the shires like a duckling to a pond."
Jocelyn's head shot up as if he had landed a kick to her shin, starting as though she'd been unexpectedly accused of something, "Not enough to dilute the Morgenstern, presumably."
Valentine flashed his slow, serpentine smile, "I should think not," he concluded in the same low, wry voice.
Upon taking another long draught of his drink, the King's keen eyes strayed upwards, to where Isabelle hovered, looking over her shoulder to the royal couple. A
s her eyes snagged Valentine's, she was faced a dilemma. Ideally, appropriately, Isabelle ought to lower her gaze. Instead, with a sudden flush of daring, she held the stare.
She waited for his temper to explode, or for Valentine to land some withering complaint of her. When it was not forthcoming, she readjusted her shoulders so she was half facing him.
Considering sheep, lambs and hangings, Izzy decided to push the limits a little more. She fired off a little half shrug and lifted her brows, twirling a drooping rose between her fingers as if to say What? Before slowly and deliberately turning back to her task.
Isabelle felt a tad dizzy as she became falsely immersed in the dry petals again. She had just broken the first piece of court etiquette she had been taught. One never, ever turned their back on their king. She knew not even what the punishment for such an offence would be. She only knew her desperation was such that it gave her the gall to try.
Isabelle also had enough experience to trust her feeling that he remained staring; attuning to the gaze of a man now came as a sixth sense to her. No more was needed for the moment. Not with Valentine's eyes burning a hole in her shoulder blades, not when the light from the window illuminated her silhouette- all perfectly curving hips and small waist.
Valentine was not a man to ignore or tolerate such a breach of respect.
If he did have her flayed, what of it? She should have been frightened, but that razing numbness in Isabelle's chest expanded instead. Let him do his worst. A few lashes might serve to divert her. She was sick of only aching on the inside.
But Valentine kept up his stream of small talk with the Queen, asking her about some noblewoman Isabelle had never heard of returning to court. Until, just as she heard Valentine take his leave with the scrape of a pushed back chair and a soft farewell to his queen, a parting purr was directed at her, "Lady Isabelle."
None of the other women received a goodbye by name. She should have been dizzy with joy that the king of Idris even knew her by name.
She would never be the gushing, startled maiden; there would be no, Who, me?
It was with a side smile and proud amusement that Isabelle turned, making herself as sharp and lovely as ice. Of course, me.
Silently, more than a touch theatrically, she lowered herself to another curtsey and dragged her teasing smile out of retirement for Valentine Morgenstern.
An alliance with Jocelyn was all well and good, but the final decision on Jonathan would still be made by the King. Why should his wife alone sway him? Why let a prince ruin her when Isabelle could do it for herself?
Besides, past experiences had proven Valentine need never do more than smile on her for it to be achieved. The mere insinuation would be more than enough.
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Chatton House, Broceland, Mid-June 1537
It had taken Clary longer than she had imagined it would to grow used to waking to the sound of birdsong rather than church bells. Quelling a yawn, she stretched out her limbs lazily, blinking her eyes open to evaluate the hour of the day. The cocoon of pale reddish light cast by the haphazardly drawn bedcurtains told her it was still early morning.
She was already more at home in Broceland than she had ever been in Alicante. This was hardly a surprise; she had grown up in the convent nestled in its vast forest. It was still odd not having a euphonic harmony of the city's many chapels to herald in the arrival of every hour.
She stretched out again, relishing the drowsy relief of her loosening muscles, and smiled to herself as her toes bumped Jace's ankles.
Rolling over to face him, Clary huddled under the covers and appraised her slumbering husband. It was rare for her to wake before him. Ordinarily, he was up and about at first light of the early summer mornings. It pained Jace to waste a moment. He had too much energy and too many things to do to rest for more than a few hours. Especially not when he had so much to occupy himself with.
In the weeks they had spent here Jace had been extremely busy, making ties with his neighbours both lowly and noble. For the most part he had left Clary to deal with the latter, hosting an array of dinners and accepting a swathe of invites. By riding out with a young widow, praying with an elderly one and frequently inviting small parties to luncheon and dancing, hour by hour Clary befriended the women behind the lords of her father's Council. At least, those in her neighbouring vicinity.
Clary had to fill her hours somehow, since Jace was seldom out of the fields. He was learning about crop rotations and harvest preparations, assisting wherever he could. Jace heard suggestions and he made them.
He offered his people every hour he could spare.
Thankfully, the quiet of the Privy Council allowed him to do so. There had been very little royal correspondence from Alicante beyond a confirmation of the date for the King's impending arrival from Pangborn. Apparently Jace and Clary had the honour of hosting Valentine and his court on their first stop in the summer progress. Thereafter, the Brocelands would rejoin the court.
The good news was Valentine would not tarry long in their house. Clary was worried they would not have enough food to sustain the whole court. Since she was the one playing hostess, the buck fell to her to ensure all went smoothly. Yet with Jace's generosity to their tenants and decision to forget all existing rent arrears, Clary was feeling the pinch. Thank God for the Countess of Chene, Lady Carstairs, whose subtly guiding hand and years of practice entertaining His Majesty at Chatton had made her indispensable of late.
Clary still just had to hope the King would be eager to hunt for his own meat in the grounds, leaving her able to just about scrape by.
None of that needed to be dwelt on this very moment. Not when she had a rare spot of peace to be thankful for her husband sleeping soundly. That too, she had come to appreciate, was a rarity.
She'd surrendered a lot of sleep to sitting awake with him for the long hours after he thrashed awake from another nightmare. After the first few weeks Jace had ceased being sick after jolting awake, until after a just over month of being established at Chatton House they had slept undisturbed through the night.
After some nagging, Jace admitted to still being plagued with an array of ill dreams. He no longer surfaced from them violently enough to disturb her. She urged him to wake her if he needed to, yet Jace refused. "That you are here is enough," he insisted.
Now Clary thought of it, they'd not had an incident since.
This morning, through a crack in the curtains, a band of white, dawn sunlight had fallen upon him, illuminating the skin of one bare shoulder and turning the tips of his hair mellow gold. One hand was reaching across the mattress toward her, the other was tucked away under the pillow he lay upon. It was such a position of such innocent vulnerability that Clary was struck for the first time by how young her husband was.
The few years parting them had always seemed an age to her. In that time Jace had seen so much more than her, knew so much more. Now she realised that twenty-two was not very old at all. If he had ghosts aplenty, enough for man twice his age, Jace should not. She could think of no one who less deserved all that had happened to him.
Through slightly parted lips his breaths still came evenly and deeply. Despite her determination not to disturb him, the surge of affection that came upon her left Clary with no choice but to prop herself up and lean over to drop a kiss on his cheek. She slid her fingers into the gaps between his on the hand splayed between them and made to settle herself back down to doze again.
That hope proved short lived. True to form, even under her lightest of touches, Jace stirred awake. He stretched and sat up, shimmying feeling back into his limbs.
Clary watched, smiling to herself. The novelty of watching him wake up, facing the first moments of his day utterly unguarded and with his hair all rumpled, was not due to get old anytime soon.
His mouth stretched in a yawn. "Morning."
"Morning" Clary agreed sleepily. Jace rubbed at his eyes, thrice, blinking his way back fully to consciousness. He wasn't wasting time waking up any slower than that.
"Are you hungry?"
"A little," Clary appeased, though she was rather nauseous. Likely because her stomach was empty.
Jace began to throw off the covers, "Let us scout out something to eat. We have a busy day ahead of us."
"As always." Clary watched him pull on his robe and accepted the offer of hers when he passed it over. "I have begun to wonder if there is another kind. Another expedition with John Carstairs?"
"No," Jace replied cheerfully, "First I want to monitor the granary. Or what remains in it."
Clary feigned a gasp, "Such excitement so early in the day! I fear I cannot cope."
He rolled his eyes, "I am afraid I must deny you that particular thrill. While I am up to the elbows in grain with the servants, one of us must play at being gentry. I believe you have another luncheon planned with the Countess of Chene."
Clary refused to be distracted, "You do not want me to play farmer's wife?" She had ridden out with him before, to the cottages of all their tenants so she could learn all by face and name.
"No. Unless you have a particular interest in wheat farming." Jace's tone darkened as he finished, "Only one of us need reconcile with the commoners in these parts."
His wife kept her tone light, "But I can be very charming." And truth be told she wanted to do away with the myth the King's daughter was some entitled brat who did not care a whit which of her subjects lived or died, so long as they did it in obedience. Clary was nothing like her father and brother and wished for the people of Idris to see that. But besides one or two obligatory rounds to show herself to the locals, Jace kept her apart from them. His own safety something he could more gladly risk. God help them, Clary suspected that if a disgruntled farmer did attack Jace he would nod and agree they had cause to.
Clary, on the other hand, was never to be in any such risk.
Her spouse was a match for her in every way, including her stubbornness, as he reminded her now. "Exactly. Which is why I need you to flutter your charming lashes at Lady Carstairs and her daughter."
The additional unexpected guest propelled her to protest in earnest, "Jace, I think I have the Countess well and truly beguiled by now. I see her every other day. The last thing I need is a widening throng of Carstairs women. We have triumphed on that front, I assure you!"
"Woman," Jace corrected gently, "Lady Emma Carstairs is more of a child."
"I am to play nursemaid?!"
A shallow frown appeared on the Duke's forehead. When he next spoke it was firmly, "Quite frankly, yes. If that should be what it takes to fasten the Earl to me once and for all. If we cannot win the loyalty of a man whose eyes blaze like lamplights at the mere mention of the Herondale name, we are in a sorry state indeed. We need the approval of someone other than your father, Clary. I need it, if I am ever to have some room for manoeuvre in the Council chamber, or to have the ability to compromise with the King on anything."
Powerful friends of his own to lengthen the leash Valentine would keep him on. Since breaking free of it altogether was not a feasible option for Jace, so long as he called the sovereign's daughter 'wife'.
Clary tugged at the sheets, "I know all of that," she began with exasperation, then the young Duchess trailed off and nipped at the corner of her mouth. She opted to run her tongue under her front teeth rather than moving it to words. Jace would not demean either of them by barking commands at her like he might a servant girl, but nonetheless, he expected conformity from her. Jace was not the sort of husband who would throw his weight around and snipe at her constantly for subservience, but he was her husband just the same. He had made what was expected of her clear and marked the conversation closed, turning away and beginning to get dressed.
It was not unreasonable, what he asked, Clary reminded herself as she followed him.
Anyway, most of the time they stayed in relative equilibrium, the occasional butting of heads aside. It was rare that he tipped the balance so explicitly. Much as he might jest of her unruliness, when it came to matters of import, things he truly wanted or needed, then she would have to fall in line.
Perhaps that only sat a touch uneasily with Clary because she had grown up in a community of women, a sisterhood. And even then, she'd always been gently deferred to because of who her father was.
Tucking her hair behind her ears and moving in the direction of her wardrobe chamber, Clary scolded herself internally. She ought not to be irrational. It should not trouble her to abide with the wishes of the man who loved and protected her. It was for both their sakes after all.
God knew, there were worse men to obey.
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Through the gap between Wayfarer's ears the world looked much simpler. It shrank to a small patch of green land or dirt road below the sky, limiting all that mattered to a few square feet directly ahead of him.
In his previous life of diplomacy, Jace seldom had cause to think beyond a matter of weeks. In spite of his skill, his tender age had always made Francois reluctant to give him a permanent posting at any foreign court. Jace, with an unquenchable wanderlust, had never been incited to protest. He had no name, no family and no land to tie him to any geographical sphere at the time. Remaining the lone wanderer had been appealing. There still were times as he paced up and down crop lines that the thought of an open road remained tempting.
Now Jace did have an estate and family name to uphold, not to mention a wife to support. This necessitated long term planning.
He pulled his faithful mount to a halt by the roadside, stuffed his reins into his left hand and swung himself to the ground.
Jace noted with some pleasure that the ground his feet struck was damp and soft. His boots sank into the soil easily. A wet summer may leave many a nobleman or woman disgruntled, given it made outdoor sports unattractive. For the new Duke of Broceland the almost unrelenting rain was a blessing in disguise.
As far as the eye could see the fields were a lush green. The waving green stalks of umpteen rows of crops indicated they were well watered. Reaching over the low fence to run an approving hand over one swathe of healthy sprouts, Jace noted with satisfaction the droplets of surplus water dotting them in tiny diamonds.
He flicked his fingers dry, breathing in deeply the scents of damp flowers and coppery tang of more rain. Leisurely, Jace paced onwards. The rain had left their entourage from Alicante miserable on the way here. Mud-slick roads were dangerous. They forced baggage carts to navigate big, murky puddles and avoid drowned ditches which would prove fatal to their wheels.
For the moment, the rain showers when they came fell frequently and lightly, meaning the county's precious crops were not choked or drowned. The one thing Jace needed most at the present moment was a good harvest.
A year ago, had he thought those words, Jace would have laughed at himself and then contemplated taking up residence in a madhouse. His change in circumstances dictated that his priorities abruptly change too. He smiled to himself, watching the frail, pretty form of a cabbage white butterfly flutter past him, its wings like apple blossom petals on a breeze.
Idris remained renowned for its fertile soil, the plains of Broceland in particular, he remined himself as he strolled further down the roadside with his horse at his shoulder. This southern part of his shire, bordering the Lakelands, had a mild enough climate and a bounty of good soil lining the banks of the river Durre. All of this made prime conditions for a high yield. God willing, this year would be no different.
Besides, this year there would be less mouths to feed.
With so many dead for their part in last summer's riots there were markedly fewer men to work the fields. While Jace could not conjure labourers out of thin air, he had done the best he could. At one point he had even contemplated hiring migrating labourers out of his own pocket to work the fields of Chatton, but the sorry fact was that the coin for such an endeavour did not exist. He'd focused his energies elsewhere, mainly on offering whatever charity he could. Relief could only come from the parishes, so Clary had set about sweetening the local church. She'd paid for renovations and buttered up the clergy, even rekindling some contact with her old girlhood friends in the convent with donations and favours. Anything to encourage a more proactive approach to the destitute in the community.
For his part, Jace had taken a more direct approach. He'd struggled to comprehend how anyone here could starve when the land was so fruitful.
The answer to that question had been discovered in his own kitchen. The stores of food there proved stomach turning.
"How much do you expect us to eat?" He'd enquired of his cook incredulously, pacing from one packed, cool storehouse to another. One was crammed with tray upon tray of soft beige eggs, another lined with more fresh fish than Jace had seen in his lifetime. He might have accepted the quantities easier, had he not been shown by Clary the simple, sparse allocated meals for the staff listed in their accounts.
She, as it happened, was the one who alerted him wide-eyed to the "marketplace" downstairs. Technically, the domestic affairs within his walls were entirely Clary's realm, but having listened to his stewards confirm his suspicions, Jace had to acknowledge his claim on the goods was slim. Much of it came into the house to bulk up rent payments. But no storehouse in the world could keep all of it from rotting over the summer, so whatever was not consumed by the resident family would be sold onwards for a profit. Usually in cities such as Alicante or even beyond Idris's borders. Well no longer.
After having Clary section out the minimum of what might be needed in the immediate future, Jace had been able to offer just over a quarter of his supplies to his tenants. Granted, this year's harvest provided they should have enough to see them through the winter and well into the following year.
His ambitions to help improve his people's lives had not been satisfied there. With the help of the Earl of Chene, he compiled a scheme whereby some new high yield and high profit seeds could be introduced to the land next year, funded largely by the Duke himself. He just prayed that he had understood what had been told to him by those locals whom he had spoken to fully, and that this was not to prove a disastrous investment.
Two such farmers lumbered past him now, men with lined, dirty faces and gnarled hands curled around heavy wicker baskets, too old to have partaken in the riots which had doomed so many of their younger neighbours. Sons even.
Each carried a course sack over his shoulders, proof that they had just come from Chatton. With a mumbled "My lord" they doffed their crude straw hats to him and scuffled on.
These two had not quite met his eye but spoke thankfully, all the same. While the gratitude writ so plainly on the faces of some who had hastened to the manor house for their helpings of foods was striking, there were also those who received it all with grim pride or bitter resignation. Accepting what he offered because necessity and hungry children demanded it, lifting baskets and urns with brisk, snappish movements. None of them forgetting that the man whose charity they had to fling themselves on was the reason they were in widow's weeds in the first place.
Jace did not know whether to be outraged or relieved how easily many of them accepted their lot, knowing that whatever their lord might do to them he remained their lord. How willing they were to bow their heads. Valentine had been right after all, Jace had come to realise. At the first crack of the whip these people would fall back into miserable line. They had no choice if they wanted to survive.
And yet Jace could not pretend there were not those amongst them who still looked at him curiously, sometimes with a glance that almost held pity. As if they had come to realise Jace had to fall into his place just as often as they did. Sometimes he feared the last kernels or glimmering embers of anger he could pick out behind tired, desperate eyes was not wholly directed at him after all. Or mayhap he saw only what he wanted to see.
He could be sure that while the tenants may no longer loathe him, they were still far from loving him. Still, that Jace now felt safe enough to ride by himself spoke volumes, even if he did always keep a weapon stuck in his belt.
Sighing a little, Jace glanced skywards. The brief moment of warmth from the unsettled late spring sun had vanished, squalls of greyish, smoky cloud obscuring the rays. Eager to avoid the looming downpour, Jace sidled back up to the stirrups and clambered hastily into the saddle again.
From his new vantage point, he could see the light brown stone of Chatton not far away, just beyond the overcast patch and still bathed in sunlight.
Almost beckoning their master home. For home it had become.
Jace had thought he might miss the intrigue and excitement of court. He'd worried he'd tire of life beyond urban civilisation. He did rather itch to return to the opulence of court and to Alec and Izzy. Jace had also found himself grateful that the correspondence trickling out to him from the Council had been brief and he had been able to truly disengage from the petty wrangling. At least the peace had allowed him to make some progress in his own duchy. Nowhere near as much as he had hoped, but Jace was trying to remain relatively optimistic. This year he would lay the foundations, next year he would build on them. And in the years after that, until his charity was no longer needed.
A start was all he could hope to make in the short months he had spent here. Now he simply had to have trust enough to step back and let some faithful servants carry the momentum. Of all his new duties and roles as a noble, that was the part Jace was finding it most difficult to cope with. He had watched and served enough lords to know how to strike a good imitation, to walk and dress the part, but he was so used to relying on himself and his own wits that it was difficult to loosen the reins on something he felt responsible for. He would have to. There was no way he could sow a field at Chatton and be in his seat on the King's Council in Alicante at the same time.
For the moment Jace could be mildly satisfied. He'd achieved everything he set out to when he had ridden for the village just after dawn. Filling his lungs with another gust of earthy air, he followed his nose to a nearby hedgerow in full bloom.
Jace let the horse take a mouthful, he made for the cream and gold clusters peeping out from among the greenery, hanging languidly within easy reach of his fingers. Tentatively, with mild amusement as he recalled the first time he had done so, Jace plucked at the honeysuckle stems and brought the little bundle to his lips, relishing its sweetness on his tongue.
Clary had been the one to show him how, laughing incredulously at his incomprehension. She could not believe he had never sucked honeysuckle before, "But they must have grown in Adamant!"
"I am sure they do but anytime I rode out I was on the lookout for potential quarry, not plants."
Bemused and half-certain he was about to die as a result from ingesting some poisonous flora, he'd mimicked her, unable to withstand Clary's insistence. Now he gathered a small clump for her, hoping all their flavour would not seep out into his pocket between here and the house. Clary would laugh at him, as she always did, bringing her home clusters of wildflowers.
It was the very least he could give her. Without her, Jace was not sure he would have found the motivation or energy to begin making things right.
Clicking his tongue, Jace snipped his heels at Wayfarer's flanks to urge him to a trot.
Valentine would descend within the week. For what little time he and Clary had Chatton to themselves, as master and mistress of their own little world, they may as well enjoy it.
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Hours after the humid summer dusk finally surrendered to night proper, all was quiet in the best of the house's bedchambers, the Duke's traditional quarters.
The Duchess lay wide awake. Absentmindedly, she watched the reflected firelight pick out the bronze threading in the watchful Angel stamped tester above her. The strands of fabric simmered with light, tiny veins of molten gold. Another overlooked piece of royal propaganda from the house's previous inhabitants. Technically, marriage could not change the blood in her veins. She was still a royal. There was nothing wrong with Clary continuing to sleep under it.
It was just discomforting the design sheltered a slumbering Herondale master or mistress of Chatton long before any of Clary's forbearers. She'd briefly wondered, in her first nights, here how she could tactfully have a servant remove and replace it without seeming a whimsical, spoilt little madam with nothing more important to worry about. She'd dismissed it almost immediately, knowing such a request would sound ridiculous regardless of how she voiced it. She bade herself consider it another way, as rather apt. Neither a heron nor a star. It could belong to both her and her husband equally. A reminder of their common Idrisian heritage, whatever feuds had emerged in recent generations.
More than ancient blood ties bound them now, she thought with a small smile, her limbs still entangled with a dozing Jace's under the covers. Turbulent as her mind was, the only sounds were their lazily pattering heartbeats and the measured breaths lightly teasing the exposed skin at the base of her throat, not quite touched by Jace's lips.
The candles had long since guttered out and the muted light from the dying fire made the room seem warmer, safer. It ought to have lulled her, but Clary's eyes stayed open. She shifted, rolling over to gaze into the faintly glowing embers, watching the single flame that still bobbed and fluttered weakly in the grate.
Jace stirred behind her, sliding his arm down her side and pulling closer. She sighed contentedly at the warmth of his bulk against her, twining their legs tighter. "What keeps you awake?" His voice was roughened by the edges of sleep and a reviving lust, "Have I not worn you out enough?"
In the weeks following their reunion in Alicante there had scarce been a moment spent alone together that had not ended in their tumbling into bed or, as Clary was only slightly ashamed to admit, any surface at all. She had found herself hoisted onto table tops and even once pressed against a wall-none of which she could ever take to a confessional. She never discouraged it. She knew this new need for an almost constant physicality was one way Jace sought to recapture an intimacy between them.
Much as he tried, it remained impossible for Jace to remove her face from what he had done the last time he had been to Broceland. Her father had clearly mastered the art of dangling her in front of Jace like a particularly ripe carrot. Valentine must have played on what would befall her were an uprising successful, all the while offering the idea of her waiting happily at home for Jace. Trying to loosen Valentine's influence over Jace would take more than a summer.
In the meantime, Clary had to accept Jace's clinging to her. Keep reassuring it had not all been for nothing.
Secondly, while she could try and reason at being the compliant wife in her mind, Clary knew she could no longer dismiss her own lust as a fiction. She wanted that physical closeness just as much as Jace, on every occasion. The fable carefully filtered to her by her noble friends in offhand anecdotes and clipped off comments had been disproved: the marriage act was not one to be endured rather enjoyed. Or perhaps Clary was simply fortunate in her partner.
Clary smiled against the corner of her pillow and tucked her arm beneath it, turning her head slightly so he would hear her replying lie, "You are the insatiable one, not I."
"Hmmm," Jace hummed noncommittally, fingers curling against her waist while he pressed a weary kiss to the top of her ear.
It was a single needling thought that kept her from sleep, the simple annunciation that had been weighing on Clary's lips for days.
She held her tongue.
Because this would change everything, and not just between them. She'd held her suspicions to herself thus far, knowing Jace had thoughts flying through his head faster than minnows in a creek these days, convincing herself he would not greet any distractions.
She presumed Jace had fallen asleep again and she would have to hold off until the morning- the way she had been holding off for the past four mornings- when he spoke again, "You're all… distracted…. been that way for days. S'wrong?"
Any other time, his sleepy inquisition would have been endearing. Now Clary was too preoccupied to appreciate his sweetness. "Nothing is wrong. Not really." her breath hitched slightly and then, suddenly, the words just slipped out, "I am with child."
For the second that followed Clary could only lay there, stunned she had just blurted the news into the gloom without looking at him. She could not even be sure he had heard her, for Jace was completely still for a very long moment. Then she felt him tense as comprehension sank in.
"What?" This time there was no trace of fatigue in his tone.
"I am with child, Jace" Clary told him again, this time with more conviction. It did not have the effect she had been hoping for, it only pushed him deeper into silence. Clary waited until she could bear it no more. She rolled over to face him. "Speak to me," she tried to instruct firmly in the newly developed lady of the manor voice, her face now very close to his wide-eyed gaze.
The hand reinstated on her hipbone tightened its grip, "You are sure?"
It took a great deal of effort not to shove him. "Yes, I am sure. Almost two months gone, I suspect, for I waited to tell you until I knew for certain."
Jace shook his head slightly, finally emitting a breathless, disbelieving laugh, "My God. A baby. Really?"
The shock had melted off his face and Clary noted with dazed relief that Jace seemed pleased. Better than pleased, judging he grinned at her now. She had not seen him look so happy for many long weeks, not since they were first married.
"Really," she gladly confirmed, allowing a smile of her own to mirror his. Jace's joy and excitement was infectious.
It was precisely what they needed, both of them. Something good to look forward to in the immediate future. A new beginning indeed.
Jace leaned over, kissing her just once, but deeply, adoringly, laughing slightly as he drew hand moved up to her shoulder, absentmindedly brushing her hair over her back and rubbing soothing circles there. "Clary, our child. I cannot believe it."
Clary giggled at his delighted mumbling and scooted back slightly to inspect his face properly, seeking out the best possible view of the smile that lingered there, "Can you not? What on earth did you think all of this," She gestured to their interlaced bodies, "would lead to?"
Jace shook his head again, struggling to absorb the enormity of it. Even in the gloomy chamber Clary could detect the thoughtful gleam sliding into his gaze, "I did not think it would happen so soon. "
Clary shrugged, "I suppose it only takes once," She grinned again at him ruefully, "And it has most certainly been more than once, my love."
"I suppose so," Jace mused before his features froze again. He pulled back, springing briskly up onto his elbow, the sheets sliding further down his hips in a most distracting manner. "Dear God."
"What?"
"You did not tell me. Not before I- A woman in your condition! And the way I just-" He glanced down at her naked form with something close to terror and Clary finally grasped the root of his panic. She laughed until her ribs ached and her eyes watered, the mingling relief at having told him and having received a positive response feeding her merriment just as well as the embarrassment wavering across his face, "Clary! Don't laugh. I am trying to be serious."
"I know," she gasped out at last, slumping back against the mattress and reaching out to pull him with her, "I know you are. Trying to be concerned, that is. Do not be. I am much stronger than I look. I have made some delicate enquiries and learned such goings on will not harm the child. My women were firmly of the opinion that lying with a man during pregnancy does no harm and I will take their opinions on childbearing over a man's any day." She refrained from telling him that she had also been reliably informed she would be inclined to want him even more as an effect of her condition, or that she had already begun to feel the impact of that particular symptom. There was only so much excitement a man could take in one night.
Jace gradually relaxed, returning to press swift little kisses against her nose and lips, wrapping his arms around her once more.
They lay peacefully for a time, her head pillowed on his chest. "Your father will have to be told."
Clary sighed before she nuzzled closer drowsily, lips moving against his neck with her response, "Yes, but not yet. He will know soon enough. I want to keep it to ourselves, just for a while."
To her relief, Jace mumbled his agreement readily. With more than a little satisfaction, Clary began to foresee that her husband would happily enslave herself to her every need and whim for the next few months.
It inspired a little more daring. Clary proposed with a final breath of laughter, "Let us be the ones keeping a secret for a change."
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