"The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize snares, and a lion to frighten wolves."
-(Machiavelli, The Prince)
Chapter 24: Lions and Wolves
Canal Street, Alicante, July 1537
"Magnus?" The path through the house, whatever its size, was well trodden enough by now that Alec ought to have been able to discard the creeping uneasiness he felt. He found himself lurking with bated breath at the door to the master of the household's private parlour, nudging it open warily with his toe.
Empty.
The peculiar quiet felt as though it were balanced as haphazardly as the mountainous stack of wallets encased in Alec's tremblingly weary arms.
Much too deceptively calm to be comfortable, Alec thought, as he apprehensively shuffled sideways into the wobbling candlelight. Back out in the hall, he felt like an intruder all over again. But he was desperate to see Magnus, reassuring himself that he'd find his company wanted just as badly.
The deliberately empty house had been their first and only haven from a world that would neither understand nor tolerate their relationship. Yet Magnus could delay no longer on hiring to replenish the depleted ranks of his domestic staff. He'd been trickling servants back in; on a practical level such a large residence needed a sizeable cohort of employees to keep it clean and hospitable.
This meant Alec had to contrive an array of excuses to call upon the house, and had to await his announcement before the master would come downstairs to find him. Frequently, Alec must wade through shallow waters of over-helpful stewards, feigning his need for a guide through the tangle of hallways and rooms he had come to know perfectly well.
Today's emptiness cried abnormality.
"Magnus?" he called out again, tentatively, wincing at the clanging echo that bounced around the lofty ceilings and decoratively panelled walls. He deposited his paraphernalia on the nearest available flat surface and stretched out his aching forearms. Alec peered about him. Perhaps he should not have let himself in after all, but he had seen the lights in the upstairs window through the twilight. The gate had been left off the latch for him; invite enough.
And Alec had hawked all these documents all this way, paying twice the usual fare to a boatman who insisted the journey would take him against the tide.
Alec had troubles, troubles he wished to share with Magnus. To indulge in a little self-pity and enjoy his lover's sympathy. Namely, a thickening sheaf of letters from his mother urging him to come home, or go back to Paris. Reminding him that his return was already months overdue. There was no need for a betrothal embassy in Alicante, not anymore. Clary was married. And without this purpose, Alec had no obvious reason for staying in Idris.
His reason was the man of this house by the canal. But there wasn't an official court posting or a royal pension for that.
So he'd claimed to be playing mentor to Jace, his newly ennobled friend. For the patience and diligence he had displayed in assisting with the running of the Broceland estate, Alec was receiving a wage. Just not one as handsome as he would have liked to make the hours of reading and sums bearable.
Alec wouldn't complain. By now he knew the Broceland books as intimately as the gospels. The slice of payment Jace was offering him was as generous as the Duke could afford to.
Ideally, he needed an official court position with Valentine. Alec had contemplated vying for the now open position of French ambassador. But Alec knew in his heart that diplomacy was no more his calling now than it had been a year ago. He had not the charisma or tact for intricate political dealings. His bluntness was more like to inflame foreign tension than dissolve it. Some other position then may have to satisfy him then. Mayhap as some level of treasurer, given his talent for numbers.
Alas, that may have been easier had he any manner of sway over King Valentine. As things currently stood His Majesty had no reason to appoint a foreign born nobody to anything, anywhere. Though Alec could claim to an old Idrisian name through his mother's line, it was not as lofty a one as 'Herondale.' Furthermore, the Idrisian lands that had come in Mayrse's dower had been sold long ago, Alec had been told with crisp candour by his mother.
All he did have was an enigmatic three-day-old letter from the Jace at Chatton, reassuring him that with thanks to some recent development they had a very good reason to ask some favour of the King on Alec's behalf.
Perhaps with the experience under his belt that Alec had not, Magnus might be able to translate or explain exactly what political leverage Jace was insinuating he had.
The ill mood and tension hanging over Magnus's house was enough to silence Alec's clamouring worries in turn. Recently Magnus had been out of sorts, he recalled, grumbling of many ambiguous affairs that might hold him in Alicante and expressing, if anything, reluctance to join the court on progress. In fact, yesterday at Princewater he had muttered an admittance of indecision as to whether he ought to take to the road in the King's train at all. Yet for all his distraction of late and apparent dismay at the season's demands, Magnus would not make himself scare without so much as a farewell or an excuse. Would he?
The unease fizzing along Alec's skin finally settled like a loadstone in his chest. It was not as if Magnus had never disappeared before.
That had been an entirely different situation, he sought to soothe himself even as his footfalls clanged around the eerily barren rooms. This had felt like a mere dalliance then, a fleeting fancy. Before either of them would have dared describe it as love.
That did not dismiss that Magnus had been on edge, or that he had evidently been withholding something. Many somethings. And this still felt tentative enough, and Alec had enough of his own difficulties, that he never pressed or challenged Magnus. Alec suspected he'd only be laughed off and his fears dismissed. Like they always were. Maybe his reluctance to press made him seem disloyal, or worse, uncaring.
Unloading the last of his papered burden, Alec shoved his anxieties aside. By straining his ears he could detect voices. Intuitively, recognising both a female and a male tenor and then detecting the spiked energy of an argument among the climbing volume of the discourse, his first urge was to retreat. He had experience enough of such quarrels from his parents.
As the toes of his leading foot hovered over the lowest step on the stairs, Alec found himself frozen instead. One of those speaking was unmistakably Magnus- he would have known that voice waking or dreaming. And for the other to be a women's in such an altercation… almost of its own accord his foot skipped onward to the second step (the one which did not creak) and the rest of his body followed.
Several more were bounded up in a similar manner, until Alec found himself tensing to a still again, this time more decidedly within earshot.
"How much clearer need I be? I tell you no again and again. Perhaps this time you will heed it."
The woman, whoever she might be, scoffed. "As always Magnus, you flatter yourself." Alec's ears drank in the low, easy surety of her voice; its sensual rasp and flowing confidence. The slightest edge of an accent dragged her vowels. A sense of familiarity scrabbled infuriatingly at his mind. He knew this woman and he had certainly met her before somewhere. Who the devil was she?
"This is strictly business," She continued winningly, "Admittedly I do flatter you in the asking. There is no one else I would extend this offer to once, let alone multiple times." She sighed heavily, and briefly exasperation grated away some of the dark honey of her tone. She drizzled some more sweetness into her next purr, "But for the sake of an old friend, I make an exception."
The answering laughter from Magnus surprised Alec with its sour mockery, "We have known each other long enough, and well enough, to dismiss the pretence of friendship by now, surely?"
The unnoticed eavesdropper on the stairwell chanced some more weight on the banister, craning to see if he might snatch a glimpse of the mystery lady whom his lover claimed to know so well. "I know how happily and unscrupulously you mix business and pleasure. Your business-" Magnus sounded as though there were a plethora of unsavoury names he might substitute for the term- "has no place in my life now. Nor do you."
All Alec could glimpse to his frustration were the flickering shadows of the two figures cast on the Arabian carpet before the ajar door, as the duo paced and circled one another. The returning feminine laugh was sultry as it was cruel, her next speech silky soft and sweetly chiding "Oh Magnus. You make such a pretty picture on your high horse. It is almost a shame to knock you off it." Even her teasing tuts fell nicely on the ear, "So quick to demonise. Do think twice before you spit on me, darling. You forget when you do so that you and I are the same."
Magnus made to protest, "We are nothing alike, Camille."
The name. It was familiar. Infuriatingly so. Alec scrabbled to put a face to it.
"God, you still delude yourself. Though you never quite succeed, dear, do you?" Her voice hardened, the words now clear and sharp as diamonds, "What we come from, where we come from, what we are. It cannot be escaped. Come. Stop running."
"You share my past, which I cannot deny." Magnus corrected, almost too quietly for Alec to hear, "Not my present. Certainly, never my future."
"You never have been a fool, Magnus." The level of teasing admonishment remained, but the underlying viciousness kept mounting. Alec watched their wavering shadows move closer and merge. "Do not start now."
He longed to barrel through the door and push this Camille away, possibly even out one of those mighty windows, but Alec stayed where he was, tense and desperately curious for whatever clues to Magnus's elusive past this woman might drop, however maliciously.
"You know my house is profitable. A man like you can always discern where money is to be made and wants to make it. You will need to make it. Come, you must know your days at court are numbered. Yes, Queen Jocelyn liked you and the King tolerates you. But you know you disgust the lot of them. A gutter rat from the docks, living a better life than most of those who have got titles stretching back centuries? That must be scorned. All that revulsion is for your common origins alone. Imagine if they knew just how sordid those beginnings were? Imagine the catastrophe of their learning how that first windfall fell into your lap?"
"Camille." A warning growl.
The whistling rustle of what might have been a feathered fan did nothing to veil the biting laughter," You expect any of those noble pricks to care for you? You will always be city scum from the slums. Even that precious blue-eyed lord of yours thinks it, even while he fucks you."
"Do not dare speak of him!"
Alec bolted soundlessly down the few steps he had climbed. His clammy fingers curled tightly around the base of the wooden ball at the foot of the banister. Tight enough to hurt.
The voices grew in pitch. The distance Alec had put in place was not enough to muffle the,
"I have never lied to you Magnus and I do not mean to start." Camille's tone went from whip to bandage. "He may bed you for now but never imagine he loves you. You're his dirty little secret, that is all. He'll marry a pretty gentlewoman when the time comes and keep you buried with his shame. You will want me, then. Who else could ever know all of you and love it?" The malice plummeted from her now as if it had exhausted her. When she spoke again it was persuasively pleading, "Why fight me? You know where you belong. You know to who you belong. I have always taken care of you." She proclaimed it in something of a wounded whine.
"You have always used me." Alec had never heard Magnus sound so pained. It drove him to angle himself in the clustered shadows so that he could finally peer properly up through the brightened slice between ajar door and wall into the upstairs room.
He could only see the profile of Magnus's face, a furrowed brow, long nose, and quivering pearl earring. Of Camille, all that was visible was a raspberry-coloured sleeve ringed by Magnus's slim fingers as her hand was snatched away from his face.
"No matter where or with whom, I'd always be better off than I would be with you. If you cared so much for my happiness you would leave me be. Let me enjoy the life I built for myself. You have no right to be jealous of it Mille, nor any cause to despise it. Other than, mayhap, when I offered to share all I had with you honestly, you refused." For a moment, he sounded pitying, "Now the offer is no longer on the table."
"Magnus!"
"Nothing could compel me to take anything more to do with your business for as long as I live. Not even you. Would I could wish you success with it, but we both know I cannot." Softer, he added, "It is not too late for you either. You are still young, there is still time for you to learn a trade or find a husband. Sell the house, buy a fare abroad or a country manor. You are not beyond saving."
Camille just laughed in the face of Magnus's earnestness, at the softness no one else would retain after all the ugly things she'd said to him.
It dawned upon Alec too late it was a parting blow and the chamber door was whipped open to reveal his loitering.
Firstly, he took stock of an ashen Magnus, looking down on him sickened with worry. Plainly wondering how much of the previous exchange he had been privy to.
Alec turned to look properly upon Camille for the first time.
Contrary to Magnus's dumbstruck distress, the only emotion upon this woman's exquisite face was a snide quirk to the corner of her mouth. Even Alec, who had less cause than most to care for a woman's physical beauty was arrested by her; the creaminess of her skin, the sweet symmetry of her face, the ripe plumpness of her lips and long, curling lashes around jade eyes.
Camille was bareheaded, he noticed next, though she must have been nigh on thirty and surely no maid. Flaxen curls were pinned up not by a hood and veil, but in what looked a series of complicated, elaborate twists and braids, under a tortoiseshell clasp. From it sprouted also a swathe of black feathers, more of the same in the fan clutched laxly in her right hand.
Now he remembered when their paths had first crossed. The night of Magnus's party, the night Alec had first met him. She'd been clad in only her underclothes then, he blushed to recollect, and stoking up an argument on that occasion too.
He was innately immune to feminine charm, but beyond that, Alec liked to think that not even her dazzling loveliness and the siren's call of her lyrical voice would make him forget the awful things she had uttered. Particularly about him.
Camille swayed to a halt, right before him. While he towered over her, it took the whole reserve of Alec's self-control not to take a step backwards. "Ah!" she declared, as though she had just been handed an unexpectedly delightful gift. Her eyes skimmed up and down Alec as if she were assessing the breeding capabilities of a prize horse. Without dropping or dimming her smug smile, her hand shot out to cradle Alec's face. Carefully cut nails nipped into his flesh as she tilted her head and let that smile grow, "Oh you are pretty," she crooned, finally letting her hand drop, fingers lingering just below his jawline.
She abruptly landed what could have been a maternal double slap to his cheek- had they not been landed a tad too sharply.
Allowing his jaw to tighten, Alec let a stiff, quick breath skid down his throat. If only he had some clever, scathing comment at his disposal to parry with. Any coherent thinking was lost in the blank hostility wiping his mind slate clean. He stood unmoving, determined not to let anything other than distaste become apparent in his stance or expression while he stared Camille down.
Perhaps because she despaired of provoking him to a fight, or because she deemed herself already the victor, Camille breezed past Alec and for the doors. Moving with all the measured poise and deliberation of a dancer, timing perfectly the provocative rolling of her shoulders and hips.
On shaking, numb legs Alec climbed the staircase. Towards Magnus.
On the landing he hesitated, leaving their eyes locked, then stepped past him and went onward into the chamber. Magnus tilted his body to the side and let him pass, turning around to face Alec again with a stronger look of grieved acknowledgement.
Time to have the conversation Magnus always shied away from, the questions he had always batted aside with an easy jest. No more secrets.
Magnus gestured defeatedly to the seat opposite, as though he expected some harsh words and a bolt for the door to be the more likely outcome, but Alec only retreated until the backs of his legs skimmed the edge of the cushion.
He refrained from sitting, hoping that by remaining standing he would gain more answers. Shakily, Magnus poured himself a cup of wine and lowered himself back into his own seat. A sudden slice of withering sunlight from the window darted off the metallic rim like a spark as he cast his arms wide in a half shrug, half surrender motion. "What can I say?"
"Who is she?" Alec growled, unease and impatience rendering him dogged. Then, pushed further into dissatisfaction by Magnus's continued tight-jawed silence, he tried to lure out more information with a prompt. "The last times our paths crossed you called her Lady something. Yet she had never appeared at court. Not during in my time here."
Magnus yielded a scoffing laugh. "Camille Belcourt is as noble than my bootlaces. No, She styles herself 'Lady Belcourt' in mockery. Because she has had so many 'dealings' with the nobility she declares herself eligible for a title. Given she spends more time with the gentlemen of Idris than their wives do." His lips lifted in what could have been a grimace, a smirk or a sneer. "She is by profession… I believe the term she prefers is courtesan."
Alec was suddenly glad of the chair behind him. His knees weakened and he sank into it.
He was not entirely simple. Every city had its sordid underbelly, Alicante was no different. Then again, it was one thing to know such things existed and another to face them in his lover's lobby. For several reasons Alec had never found cause or desire to encounter a lady of the night, but he was certain whatever preconception of such a woman he had was challenged by Camille Belcourt.
"Or rather she was." Magnus amended gruffly, "I do not believe she sells her services any longer. Now she sells those of others instead. She is Madame of the city's most profitable brothel."
After a long, uncomfortably tight moment of silence, Alec ungritted his teeth long enough to voice the real cause of his agitation, "You speak as though you are well acquainted."
Magnus did not meet his eye, glancing sidewise at Alec and then focusing on some freshly fascinating spot behind him. "If it consoles you any, I have never paid for her services." Magnus closed his mouth and swallowed laboriously, like he had a mouthful of dirt to chew and digest, "I have known her for a very long time."
"You are friends?"
"Lord no. Camille has no friends. Only investors, clients and the poor girls she calls investments." He said nothing further, just took another swig of wine and swirled the cup in his hand afterward distractedly. Alec was made to contend with the now all too familiar feeling that there was something Magnus was not telling him. It bothered him worse than ever. He had spent the weeks since his return to the city slowly verbalising the thoughts that haunted him. The things he had witnessed and done in the King's service, things he could not speak of even to Jace, who had been with him all the while. Alec had bared the ugliest parts of his soul to this man. But getting Magnus to utter aught personal remained an exercise akin to pulling teeth.
He sought to say as much now, "Considering all that has passed between us, I doubt there is much you could say that would shame or repulse me."
"Is that so?" Temporarily his eyes flickered over Alec's, the fast-fading natural light shadowing half his face again as Magnus turned back, "It seems otherwise when the word courtesan- and it is the nicest one for such a thing there is- seems enough to make you either vomit or swoon. Possibly both."
Alec had experience enough with sarcasm as a deflection technique to remain on course, though he did flinch at the hurt in Magnus's voice. He knew it to be purely defensive. Magnus simply could not bear for Alec to judge him harshly.
He cleared his dry throat with a grimace, "Common misunderstanding. I am not snobbish, simply awkward. I forever fail to say what I mean and when I do try it comes out all garbled and wrong. Picking the right words is nigh on impossible, however much I endeavour to. I think you will be the first to believe me when I say this; women in general put me in edge. Being confronted so overtly with their sexuality renders me beyond uncomfortable."
Magnus laughed a little and rubbed roughly at the shadow of stubble covering his chin. When he next spoke, he sounded distant and more than a little lost, "I have known Camille a very long time. We grew up together, she and I." Another interminable pause and then, so softly Alec almost failed to hear it, "In a pleasure house on the strand."
Alec said nothing. He suspected that if he left Magnus to say whatever he felt able to at his own pace, he would hear more. Magnus's nimble fingers tugged on the end of the chain around his neck as the next array of words came tumbling slowly out. Firstly, as a pebble rolling down the mountain. Then as an avalanche of confessions.
"I was born a long way away, it matters not where or to whom. I have never known who my father was, only that he and my mother were never wed. She did marry when I was just a babe, out of desperation. To put a roof over our heads. The man she married, well he was more of a bastard than I ever have been. Just not by birth. He was a small-time merchant who expected absolute gratitude and obedience from Mama because he had stooped to take her to wife in the first place. She was younger and prettier than he could have hoped for anyway.'
'When I was about seven, we travelled to Idris to prop up my stepfather's floundering business. Sadly, my mother perished on the voyage here. Upon arrival, my stepfather took me to the nearest brothel and sold me. I never saw him again, for which I can only be grateful. I was small and obedient and had my mother's fair looks so I was brought into the house. As a cup bearer, to begin with.
'I suppose I could be thankful for that man's greed, for it drove him to a higher class of whorehouse." He drank some more before going on, "On my first night there I curled up by the kitchen hearth. An orphan in a strange land where I spoke very little French and no German at all. I understood naught that was said to me. Grieving, frightened and half starving, I lay there crying myself to sleeping and wishing I could die so that at least then I could go to heaven and be with my mother again. That was where Camille saw me. She was sixteen or so, and already one of the working girls. I understood none of that then, to me she was simply the only one who took pity. She brought me a cup of water when my throat was so dry from sobbing I thought I might choke. She gave me her shawl as a blanket to sleep in. She was the one person in the whole world apart from my mother who had ever shown me such a kindness. It also helped that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen." Magnus added the final comment with a whisper of a smile. "I can still remember than shawl you know. It smelt of her, and it was green like her eyes. By courtesy of her charity, Camille remained the most beautiful woman in the world to me, even after I met the rest of the girls, all of whom had to be especially lovely to work in that establishment. They were pleasing lords and the very wealthy, you see. A night with any of them cost."
"I started off scrubbing the floors and aiding the cook, then in the evenings they would clean me up and have me carry a platter of wines or sweetmeats to the clients. At first life there was hard. I was never paid a wage, I laboured for my little slip of earth by the hearth to sleep on and a crust of bread or so from the table. Sometimes Camille would sneak me a cut of meat from her own plate.
'Because they did feed me and I was not cast out to beg on the streets, I was expected to be grateful. Then, as I grew older I grew into the good looks the Madame had glimpsed when she had thrown a few pennies down to keep me out of the gutter. At sixteen, I was put to work like the others. For the first time in my life, I had my own bed and regular hot meals. Of course, all of that came at a cost, but I stayed there because I had nowhere else to go. I could not read or write and I had no training in any trade. It was my only option and at times I almost managed to convince myself it was not a bad one. For years Camille was the only one who gave a damn whether I lived or died. I never forgot her care. In time we became close in earnest. We soon became the most popular there. My ability to please men and women alike made me much sought after. As you have witnessed yourself, Camille has her own special charms. We became the Madame's favourites, afterward her protégées. I did not spend my free hours in idleness, I learnt to write gradually and by wandering the docks I picked up a comprehension of many tongues. Camille and I were not like the others. Unlike everyone else in that house, were not ignorant or devoid of hope that better lives were possible. We cared how the money was made and how the business was run. The Madame delighted in showing us. Eventually, Camille and I found our friendship grow into something more.
"We became lovers," he confessed quietly, unashamedly and a touch sorrowfully. "At the time I imagined no one had ever loved as we had. That we were soulmates. In hindsight, I suspect Camille played at returning my affections because she saw me as a rival for the brothel. The Madame was old and sickening, so she wished to make sure that even in the worst case scenario- should I inherit the business- as my lover she would still have some stake. I think, having sold herself for most of her life, Camille is unable to view such a thing as not having a price. She cannot love simply for the sake of being loved in return.
"As it transpired, we both inherited half the business. But I had no desire in remaining as I was, nor in putting others through all I had endured so I could take a profit. Camille thought otherwise. I convinced myself that she was frightened because she had known nothing else. That we had all been raised to see that brothel as all that stood between us and destitution. I merely had to convince her there was more. I was content to sell my share in the house and Camille gladly bought it, at an unfairly low price. I was young and still naïve and still too blinded by what I thought was love to see that she was steering me exactly where she wanted. I thought to make an honest woman of her, so I urged her to sell the brothel altogether and marry me."
He shrugged with unconvincing carelessness and snorted as he looked over to catch Alec's brows shooting upwards toward his hairline. "It sounds as ridiculous to me now as it did to her then. She laughed in my face and waved me on my merry way. That was five years ago."
"Still, I cannot pretend Camille has given me nothing in this life. She taught me to be cunning and how to survive. She also, unwittingly, showed me how to recognise those who would trap me, especially when they would do it with sweet words and insincere promises."
Magnus cleared his throat, clearing his mind too to the present. Some colour stained his face at last, while his focus returned to the present and to the man perched avidly before him. "For a time I did have to live rather modestly, believe it or no, until I made my first court contact." With that, the portcullis began to clatter down around his heart once more. Shielding more recent, tender hurts and travails as Magnus quietly insisted, "Which is a story for another time, assuredly."
After pushing his cup onto the precarious ledge of the nearby table, Magnus let his hands drop and faced Alec at last. He let his fingers wind together, not before Alec had noted them shaking, and stared at his knees. "You would think, enduring all she has in this world, Camille would at least run her business more humanely than her predecessor. I certainly know she has a capacity for kindness. Alack, by all accounts she has emerged the exact replica of the Madame she was moulded to be.
"My endeavours, on the other hand, have proved to be equally as lucrative and more honestly conducted, for the most part. Several years ago, she approached me again. At first to rekindle our romance and later, when that did not end to her satisfaction, she tried to tempt me to invest in the brothel again. Camille still returns with her offers, every once and a while. Like today."
Now Alec did baulk. He found himself more greatly disturbed by the prospect of Magnus falling back into the arms of an old flame, one he had such history with and had admitted to loving deeply.
"You never thought to accept her?" His throat felt twice as thick as normal, but he managed to grate out the worst scenario he could envision, "Or rephrase your proposal?"
Surprise quivered across Magnus's face, that after all he had just spoken of this was the part Alec wanted to discuss. "Once I did think I might get the happy ending I dreamed of as a boy. Eventually the time came to admit I have always been more in love with the thought of Camille. I have adored the person I want her to be rather than the one she is. She cannot bear to have me happy. She cannot bear to think that when all has been said and done, I came out the other end better than her. That I could be complete without her."
Now Alec ducked his head, thinking furiously how to phrase what he wanted to ask next, "And…" he played with a loose thread at his sleeve, "Do you truly think you can be?"
"Alexander," Magnus said his name so crisply Alec had to look back properly at his disbelief, "Is that truly what you wish to ask me most?"
Alec spent the next, lengthy minute in fervent thought before concluding honestly, "Yes."
"After all I just said. About who I am. What I have done. I worked as a whore for seven years!"
"Yes. I heard and fathomed that detail." Alec blinked, "I am sorry Magnus."
"As am I."
He had never seemed this upset before, always even in their most solemn moments there had been touches of bravado or teasing, "I cannot blame you. What could someone like you possibly want to do with the likes of me?"
"What?" Alec demanded sharply.
Magnus hesitated again, "You are sorry, but you cannot see me anymore? Not like this? Is that not what you are trying to say?"
"No! God no!" Alec made himself take a deep, slow, steadying breath. He could not afford to verbally blunder here. He knew he may not survive the loss if he did. He was shaking too when he did get words out, "I am sorry for all you have had to suffer, is what I mean to say. But I do not think that changes anything. It does not alter what I think of you."
"No?"
"No that was not wholly true. I think more of you now, to be truthful."
Shock and then profound emotion rippled across Magnus's features, "Alexander-"
"You are not to blame for anything that happened to you. You deserved none of it."
"You do not think of me as the worst kind of the despot the world has to offer?"
"On no account," Alec insisted sternly. "I think you someone who has had an unjustly difficult life. Someone who has had to survive the hardest of times, make the most difficult of choices. You have been unfortunate and you have had to do unfortunate things. I pity you for it, I do, though I admire you far more. Magnus you survived. You are a survivor. Someone who against all odds, despite the worst of circumstances and the worst of people, has emerged with kindness intact. With hope and courage. Camille has became what she hated. You are better, braver. You dared to dream that there was goodness in the world, so you gave goodness to it. You let yourself live and love. That is remarkable. You are remarkable."
Finally, he let his voice shake. Magnus was looking at him with wide, damp eyes. Staring at Alec as though he had just found something new, miraculous, and wonderful. As if he had been lost at sea, alone and adrift for months, and was at last witnessing the tantalising, tremoring line of land on the horizon. A man staring with amazement, upon some undiscovered, untouched new world. Something new, something dangerous, something blessed. All that should not have existed and yet was here. Very real after all.
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Chatton House, Broceland, late July 1537
It was a small miracle Clary had disguised her condition this long. After days of expectant glances at his daughter and keen appraisals of every exchange between the Duke and Duchess of Broceland, Valentine could sustain solely on suspicions no longer. He soon reached his limit of waiting for his daughter to break the good news of her own accord.
Clary had spent the morning packing the last of the things that would come on the road and back to court with her. It was a tedious, stressful travail at the best of times but now it was all the harder. Apparently once a man entered wedlock, he lost the ability or inclination to pack for himself. Now Clary was also burdened with the duty of deciding which of her husband's belongings to take too. She was irritable with the prospect alone, since the Duke and Duchess had already moved themselves and their belongings out of the house's best rooms so that the King could have adequate lodgings a fortnight ago.
Now she had to move all their things again, and quickly, for they would were due to be on the road later today. Mercifully they had not too many things, having travelled relatively lightly from Alicante in the first place. That did not alleviate the tedium of putting the final touches to their departure.
Thus far she had only spoken of her pregnancy to Isabelle, who would have guessed soon enough anyway, and then to Simon, who had received it all in a shocked silence and seemed to be tottering around in a state of hazy disbelief ever since.
Much as the beloved trio she had told of her pregnancy meant to her, and however much happiness their joy in the news had brought her, faced with the sudden reality of impending motherhood, the one person after her husband Clary had longed to tell most was her mother.
She itched to confide in Jocelyn on every occasion their paths had crossed. Yet each time the words had swelled up within Clary, something halted her.
Since her return to court, all Jocelyn had done was silently shadow the King. She had become an entirely mute, meek presence on Valentine's arm, adopting an utter passivity with an ease that astonished Clary. She had grown up with a fiercely thinking and fiery spoken woman, not to mention the definite sense of a crackling animosity between her mother and absent father. Now she was faced with a woman who seemed as if she had never been other than Valentine's creature.
That fed Clary's sense she needed to hoard whatever secrets she could. The instant Valentine became aware that his greatest plan was finally bearing fruit, he would want and need complete control over Clary again. She'd be bundled back into Valentine's safekeeping, only even more intensely watched and controlled than she had been before. After what little respite she had tasted from his domineering Clary was not sure she would ever be ready to surrender, however temporarily, the small freedoms she had tasted since becoming Jace's wife.
Now she had to accept that her time was up. The final, undeniable proof that the last grain of sand had landed in the bottom half of the glass timer came with a young Morgenstern liveried page's quiet order for the Duchess to attend an audience with the King. With a final scan around chambers heaving with the final frenzy of activity before taking to the road, Clary concluded that her women had matters well in hand and her presence would not be missed for the time being.
If only the fates had been kind enough to offer her some excuse to postpone the anticipated annunciation a little longer. Alas, short of having been fatally maimed Clary could think of naught else she could beg to be excused with. Sullenly she fell into step behind the page sent to fetch her (as though there were some risk of her getting lost on her way to Valentine in her own house!) and soon was warily skirting her way into his newly adopted presence chamber.
"Her Grace the Duchess of Broceland, Your Majesty" The herald boomed before her. Clary hastened onward. From the way in which the distracted muttering of the loyally loitering handful of lords momentarily lapsed and then resumed more vigorously once Clary passed, she realised her unexpected female presence would be stirring imaginations for at least the next half hour.
While Valentine may forge south annually to chase the best weather his kingdom had to offer, he could not devote the season to leisure alone. The cares of state tailed him in the form of these lords and secretaries, all of them needing some legislation signed off on or amended, or coin for some scheme, or even just the King's attention while they pursued some position. And now these forever disgruntled, conceited band of toadies seemed set to pry on Clary's most personal matter of all. With some dejection, she also had to accept that Jace was not amongst them, leaving Clary alone to fall to the necessary round of obeisance with even less enthusiasm than she customarily had for such things. Privately, a small curtsey would have sufficed, but as she was to be cursed with an audience, Clary had to fall almost to her knees and settle for peeking reservedly up at a pair of neatly polished boots.
Valentine rose from, his throne. To Clary's mingled dread and alarm, he raised her from her curtsey not with a calm command, but with a fatherly chuck under the chin. She lifted a small smile with the rest of her body as she met the King's ardent gaze. He wasted no more time, beckoning to her almost playfully as he jumped down from his borrowed pedestal in the rooms that would forevermore in Clary's mind be hers, and ushered her into the adjoining private chamber.
"Clarissa," Valentine waved another posted page away, only stopping him sort of closing the door. He could not bear to have no witnesses at all for this, even if the magnitude of this moment would escape them for the time being. All of which enabled Clary to see for herself the dissatisfied curiosity she had brought upon His Majesty's minions. They were exasperated that she was wasting the precious time they could have used to bask in the King's interest.
In the absence of any immediate retainers, Valentine took it upon himself to pour a glass of wine for her. Carefully, Clary took the delicate glass vessel and then the chair her already seated sire signalled for her, holding her face as pleasantly neutral as possible while Valentine expressed his affectionate concern for her health.
It would seem a dutiful whisperer had dropped into his ear that the Duchess was recoiling from certain foods she had until now always loved, while conversely was expressing ravenous desires for others she had never been fond of before.
"Are you well, daughter? It seems this ague is disinclined to lift. We can send for a city physician."
Clary buried a sigh in the thrumming silence which followed the inquisitive commentary. It was not as though she could have kept it hidden indefinitely, but her luck had held far enough that she had dared to think it could endure a little further. At least while all of this was still becoming slowly real to her with each startling new change in her body.
Even when the court had come to Chatton and she knew it to be proclamation to be impending, Clary had imagined she might let Jace impart the news. Doing so should serve to remind her father of his young Duke's service and value. Better yet, it may dilute the horror of the last report Jace had made. Now she found herself trapped between the King's impatient expression and a room full of lords craning to see what manner of conversation they had been excluded from.
She could shrug it aside no longer; not when Valentine could not disguise a desperation for her to confirm his suspicions so intense it looked not unlike physical pain.
So, sweeping her reluctance and resentment away Clary spoke with soft conviction. "Nay, Sire. I am perfectly well. I refrained from confiding in you before as I wanted to be certain it was true and proceeding as it ought to," She dragged out a pause as long as she dared. God it was delightful to have Valentine hanging on her every word for once. It made her feel powerful, "I am to have a child."
She had also pictured several times how exactly the King might greet the news that his ambitions were to be satisfied. Her wildest conjuring could not have prepared her for how Valentine sprang out of his seat like an excited schoolboy, his face holding perhaps the most emotion Clary had ever seen upon it as he seized her hands and swooped in to land a kiss on her cheek. "This is glorious news indeed!" He kissed at her hands too, from outside the ajar door to the audience the anxious, curious buzzing of the abandoned courtiers and advisors rose at the exclamation. Clary froze, watching bemused as her father straightened again. "When?"
"The start of the New Year, I believe."
Valentine's eyes shone like sleekly polished onyx as he cast them heavenwards, "God bless you." Then, on an afterthought, as if all of this had been the Lord's doing and had nothing to do with her at all he turned back to his daughter with low triumph. "May He send you a happy hour."
"Amen," Clary murmured, dipping her chin again, the din of her hammering heart clamouring her ears louder than Valentine's prayers, as if she had just run a race.
She could admit to herself now she had started to wonder whether Valentine's plan to make her issue his heir still stood or no. When he had first told her of it the whole thing had sounded closer to madness than genius and besides, even had he discarded that plot, her father would likely not have thought it necessary to inform her. Judging from his elated response, his intentions had not altered from Christmas.
Her thrill at that confirmation startled Clary. Though, come to think of it that should be nothing unexpected. She was, whether she liked it or not, a Morgenstern. It would seem she had ambition as fierce as the rest of them and now it had just been woken.
My son will be King. I will be Queen Mother. Never a nobody again.
Not long ago she might have feared or resented such responsibility. Now the thought sent an excited determination forking through her veins like lightening.
It left her dizzy.
Clary broke away and lowered herself downwards to the seat again slowly. "Forgive me," she muttered, starting to form some hasty excuse.
Valentine waved it aside, sitting opposite her again. His folded hands rested on the little table between them, thumbs tapping against one another as he grew thoughtful. "Is travel advisable?"
Clary was unsure if the question was directed to her or a rhetorical rambling aloud. She strove to answer it regardless, "I see no reason why not," Then, wincing, added, "I think perhaps doing so on horseback may not be wise." Given her previous experiences, Clary could not say with confidence that frets of her taking a bad fall which might harm her precious child were unfounded.
Valentine was nodding readily, "Assuredly. There must be a litter somewhere in this house." Evidently, the King had not thought to bring one; it had not occurred to him it would be necessary. There was a sort of humour in that itself, Clary considered with a tiny, rebellious twinge of mirth. One would think with the strength of his demand for a child from her it would have crossed Valentine's mind to bring some sort of symbol to remind her of the debt to him and Idris.
As though her thoughts on what the royals owed Idris had been read, the King's eyes and focus returned to the doorway and the many inquisitive ears and minds beyond. "I am afraid I must take my leave of you, my dear. My duties elsewhere demand my attention." He rose, but not before he brushed his hand against her cheek, staring down at her with a wistful awe and clear pride at the vessel of his divinely guided plans. The little girl that Clary had been not so long ago basked in the approval. She had come to court with the hope of knowing her father at last, of finding the fatherly love she had lacked all her life and proving herself a child he could be proud of after all. But that girl was buried and half-forgotten inside the hardier woman this man, his court had the demands of both had shaped.
Practicality re-established itself. His Majesty spoke again more briskly, though his exultance remained strong, "I shall issue new orders, we need not leave yet. There is time enough upon the morrow. You are not to be hurried or harried, we will not be pressing for Garrotway before nightfall. A delay should allow for travel at a more civilised pace."
Hearing the implicit dismissal, Clary rose tentatively. "Take care of yourself," Her father went on to instruct, as though that remark was all that might dissuade her from an evening's deadly snake charming. The Duchess bridled an eye roll just in time.
She may as well adjust quickly to doing as Valentine said again. He had laid claim to the child in her womb and by proxy that meant Clary too, while she carried his new heir. "Send your husband to see me. He shall also have our congratulations immediately," The King called over his shoulder from the door in conclusion.
With that bidding, Clary willingly made her escape behind him, pausing only to dip a light farewell curtsey below her father, reinstated on the throne. Not very long ago she would have scurried away with her chin down, blushing at the heat of so many attentive eyes being on her. This time, she found she relished it. Let these men of the world look all they wanted. She finally appreciated that they had wondered for so long if Clary, the youngest Morgenstern, would prove to be someone worth watching.
She was.
Clary answered the searching stares of the King's men with an aloof nod. Their plaything no longer. No longer some toy they could amuse themselves making games with. Nay, now she was one of them.
She had her own stake in the game.
And Clary Herondale she was not going to humbly pass her child over, no matter what her father thought. It was her child, not Valentine's, and thus it would stay. While she carried his grandson, his preferred heir, she held considerable sway over her father. That gave her room for manoeuvre and everything to play for.
Fuelled by this new, foreign sense of confidence and an unusual exhilarating feeling of empowerment, she strode out of the room with more energy than she had felt in days, bolder than she had felt in years.
Clary moved with an unshakeable self-assurance, as though she had just been crowned and anointed queen. As her clasped hands bumped against the tiny, almost insignificant bulge of her belly secreted within the swell of her skirts, she reflected that she may as well have been.
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Of course, it was then only a matter of hours before the whole court knew.
The King had not crowed his triumph from the rooftops as he had longed to, cautioned by someone with sense that with Clary was still in the early, precarious days where too much untoward excitement was bad for her. Nonetheless, the circling, breezing rumours had quickly whipped to a hurricane once the King, though Clary was technically no longer his responsibility, had gifted her with a small chest of jewels.
In the light of the following day, Clary was sharply aware that she had not put a son in the cradle yet. Any number of things could happen between now and then. Sober and prudent once again, Clary thought upon how she had witnessed enough of the fleeting nature of Valentine's esteem to know she should capitalise while she could.
Valentine, true to his word, had dug out a litter from somewhere. Undeniable substance to the rumours about the Duchess's new, happy condition. It also provided confirmation of exactly how tedious and slow the court's progress westward was to be for Clary. She stood in the courtyard, confronting the cumbersome form and thought about how ardently she would prefer to remain at Chatton.
No good would come of her complaining. Clary would have to grit her teeth and hope that another of the baffling changes pregnancy had brought upon her would be a lengthening of her patience.
Surely anything ought to be better than her last calamitous journey with the court on the progress.
Clary reluctantly bade her final farewells to her staff and plucked up her skirts to climb up the stairs to the litter. Wincing a little as she flicked a dated, slightly moth-eaten curtain aside, her paltry attempt at optimism rapidly fading.
Clary glanced over her shoulder, seeking some kind of comfort or encouragement. Instead, she caught sight of Jonathan, stepping out of the shadowy gateway into the flashing sunlight. He blinked impatiently as his eyes struggled to come to terms with the sudden brightness. By the time the sun retreated behind another cloud and he could see clearly, he instantly wore the look of someone wished he had stayed half blind.
One could be sure the Prince had been among the first to get wind of any gossip being bandied about the court concerning his sister, but he must have given it no credence. Until now.
Unable to go on staring, Clary quickly ducked inside her litter. Unhappily, not before she glimpsed the dangerously brittle surprise that flicked across her brother's handsome face like the crack of a whip.
She sat, and by the time she did peer out again Jonathan was on the move-not toward her, but with the darkening genesis of a new tempest buried in the terseness of his expression. She now knew him well enough to grasp that he was holding onto his composure, but not without supreme effort. Jonathan's unsettled state spoke of a mind lurching around, trying to puzzle out what exactly Clary's pregnancy could mean for him. Beyond an extension of his least favourite family.
Whatever Jonathan imagined could hardly be worse than the reality, Clary had to acknowledge, even if only to herself. It was not as if he had not been threatened with the prospect of her having a child before now. By God, Clary had voiced threats to that effect herself. She just had to pray that the fact the father was not the King of France would make Jonathan feel secure enough to leave her and her child be. Jace had no army, no coin and nothing tangible with which to endanger Jonathan, not yet. But if the King kept making such a fuss, soon even the scullery maids would detect there was more to this than there seemed.
Clary squirmed upon the plump cushions which lined the bench beneath her. She was wrapped up in her fearful thoughts so deeply that when the curtains were hauled back again without warning she leapt out of her skin.
Isabelle smirked down at her, oblivious to her palpitations, "I think your brother is going to be sick."
"I think I am going to be sick" Clary said shakily, her heart thumping so fiercely in her throat that she felt she had swallow it back into her chest. This constant nausea… well for loss of a more appropriate term Clary was sick of it.
Izzy rolled her eyes.
"Are you coming in here with me?" Clary enquired hopefully.
"Well, not when you invite me in the same breath you threaten to vomit with."
"I will fight it. I am getting very good at supressing the urge to retch."
"No," Her friend corrected loftily, "I heard Lady Penhallow telling you that once you passed your third month the sickness would ease off." The merriment faded, "Speaking of the Marchioness, much as we both appreciate and respect her, think you not that you should be hearing such assurances from your own mother? You are lucky enough to have one that cares."
Clary tensed. "Ah why should she? Not when she has a new lapdog, surely."
If she had expected Isabelle to flinch, she was mistaken. Honestly, Clary believed a wild tiger could be set on Izzy and she would simply fix it with an unimpressed, disdainful stare crippling enough to send the creature whimpering back to its mother like a kitten. She barely blinked, "That is not true. As well you know, the likes of me do not make for obedient company." Then her dryness gave way to a sincere softness that made Clary almost wish for the irony back. "Truthfully, your mother was very upset that she had to hear from someone else that you were expecting."
Cursing her perpetually raw emotional state, Clary had to swallow again, this time to force down the heaviness of a sob. "Then she ought to have been there. She ought to have at least spoken to me, said something of more consequence than 'more wine?'"
"I know you blame her for a great deal Clary. I do understand. You think that had she been more open about the kind of man your father was and how he operates you would have been less naïve when you got here. That you wouldn't have been so helplessly malleable, that Valentine would not have manipulated you as easily as he did." She dipped her voice lower still, leaning even closer, "I earnestly doubt anything would have prepared you for this court. It is a sink or swim environment. As for the rest…"
"The rest?"
"The rest of what you consider Jocelyn culpable for. It has occurred to you, more than once I'd wager, that she is the reason the King is this way. Mayhap, had she not thrown a tantrum when she stopped getting her way all the time and run away, had she stayed with him, then he may not be so unforgiving. Or have become a man who trusts so little he needs to know how often his own daughter hems her petticoats, and you are his own blood and not under serious suspicion. Furthermore, you blame her for Jonathan. Had he not been left an angry, confused little boy who grew into adulthood wondering why his mother never loved him enough to stay, had she not left that boy with a man like Valentine who plays such emotions as easily as Simon plays the lute, then perhaps he would not be… as he is. Well, all of that has occurred to your mother too."
Words eluded Clary.
After permitting only a moment of that stunned, affirmative silence, Isabelle broke out a laugh and reverted to her old, infinitely amused self.
"There you have it. I am more than merely a pretty face."
Clary forced a smile in return. "Evidently. Are you quite certain the applause of it is not enough to convince you to stay with me and talk?"
"You do not need to talk; you need to think. At any rate, all conversations I have with you these days sooner or later turn into you whining about how awful and uncomfortable being pregnant is. And you have only been pregnant five minutes."
"Some three months," Clary corrected, feeling unjustly slighted, "Three very long months."
Isabelle smiled and reached over to pat her cheek. "I love you, but not enough to hold your sick pan. Not again."
The Duchess laughed, a little less queasily than before, "I love you too."
"Ah. Speaking of love, your husband approaches. We will speak later, properly, should you wish it. For now, I leave you in his capable hands and go saddle up. Someone has to exercise that lovely palfrey of yours." She gave a teasing wink and then whisked away.
Clary squirmed again, trying to get comfortable as best she could and resist the stream of unflattering, unbecoming phrases she could apply in lieu of "lovely" to that creature she had been threatening to sell to the knacker's yard for over a year now.
True to Isabelle's sentry skills, Clary's husband clattered up the steps next and sprawled himself across the cushions opposite, smiling over at her lazily. Clary might have promised devotion and submission of her body, but now she was aware that submitting her body had gotten her into this situation of tiredness, crabbiness and an uncomfortably active bladder in the first place. And now she had to survive the long hours that lay ahead of her being swayed and jolted about in this glorified box.
It all promoted her to kick at Jace's languidly sprawling ankles now. "What do you want?"
Jace started to sigh, then seized back the sound of exasperation. He no longer rose to her jibes. On the sole occasion he had lost his temper and snapped back, she had broken immediately into hysterical, unstoppable tears and scared him half to death.
"I merely wanted to see you were comfortable, my love. We have a long journey ahead of us."
"Some of us longer than others," Clary reminded him coyly.
"I will not be far from you," Jace assured her gently.
"Hmm. You say that now, but I know that once you have your feet in the stirrups and feel the wind on your face you will gallop halfway to Garrotway before you have another thought of me."
Jace gasped theatrically, "What vile slander!"
"Harsh truths," she insisted drily.
"Well since I am so uncaring and so poorly cared for, I suppose this will be unnecessary." He drummed his fingers against the flimsy cover sheet of the book he untucked from under his arm. "I do not think my poor bruised heart can bear the sight of it being flung from the litter behind me."
Clary's hands twitched forward, "I am repentant. Utterly."
Jace flashed her a half smile and tossed the book into her lap.
"What is it?"
"Petrarch, sonnets. For my own heartless beloved."
"I am not heartless." She protested, with the beginnings of a laugh scratching at the back of her throat. "Not truly. I felt the stirrings of sympathy for Jonathan mere moments ago."
"Jonathan? Good God. Let not your compassion stray into madness Clary."
She shrugged, dipping her voice a little, "I said stirrings. Nothing dramatic. But to think no one warned him." She gestured to her stomacher, jutting slightly outwards.
The vague merriment swiftly melted from Jace's face. He spoke with quiet but solemn intensity, "Warned him of what? As far as Jonathan is concerned, as far as anyone is concerned, our child is the heir to a duchy and nothing more."
He pushed the hair flopping into his eyes back and shrugged, his eyes wandering from hers. He may be looking out at their courtyard, but Clary felt he was not seeing the horses, lords or grooms. His voice, when it sounded again, was little more than a murmur, for her ears only, "A blind man could see your brother would make a terrible king, a dangerous one even. I can agree with Valentine on that count." He turned back to his wife, "But we needs must have a king." A trace of the unapologetic ambition he had learned from her father darted across Jace's sombre features briefly. "Why should it not be our son?"
While Clary agreed with him that Jonathan was unfit to rule responsibly, she could not accept so easily that was sufficient cause to unmake him the rightful heir. She failed to see how Valentine could overlook the natural order of things. Even should he succeed, the King's doing so could set a precedent and soon everywhere heirs could be denied their rights on any whim. What would become of the world then? Once the established, traditional structures were abandoned the world was plunged to anarchy. No one could have any certainty. Who was to stop the child selected today from being discarded tomorrow?
Clary's hands fluttered down to her stomach alongside her thoughts, fingertips skimming the gentle curve of her belly, as they did so often since she had first detected the tiny bump of her growing child.
It still astounded her, that the tiniest of protrusions in her abdomen was the result of the little life already growing so quickly inside of her. A baby, another person!She was busy coming to terms with that, whatever Jace may think, and she had not cast her mind that far into the future. Not besides yesterday's flash of what she now deemed lunacy. Just another of her condition's wild fancies. She was preoccupied marvelling in the miracle of the present.
Clary supposed it was easier for Jace to think of the years to come. The reality of the baby had yet to strike him as it had her, mayhap, given her body was the one changing. It facilitated his ability to play with ideas of what their child might become.
Guessing at her wandering thoughts, Jace smiled a touch sheepishly, "But your father's plots are his concerns. Not ours and certainly not yours."
"Because I am but a woman? Who need only produce the child and promptly pass it over to others?" Clary demanded, slyly.
Jace shook his head slowly, "In so far as you are the one carrying the child, yes. What you need to do for now is rest and be calm. Forget Idris, I need you safe and healthy. Both of you."
The last of Clary's irritation slipped away. She could not do other than brighten when he said such things. She smiled at him in a manner that was sure to look pathetic to the outside eye. Jace leaned forward for a swift, chaste kiss on her lips, "I fear I have lingered long enough. The King is likely waiting for me."
"You had best go then." Clary admitted reluctantly.
With an ironically flourishing bow he dropped down from the litter and tugged on the lining curtains. "Open or shut?"
"Shut," Clary declared, "I think I will try sleep awhile." She was seldom well rested by the time the unignorably strong nausea roused her for good these mornings and it was catching up with her. Jace nodded obediently and retreated, "Fare thee well for a while at least, my beloved Laura!"
Scoffing fondly at his antics, Clary waved him away again. She would be sure to demand some love poems off him later, wherever they stopped for dinner.
Once the litter was in motion and the grand procession of nobles began to sluggishly chug their way out of Chatton's gates, Clary found herself dissatisfied again. Despite the shade of the curtains, the rocking of the litter proved to be less lulling than she hoped. On the contrary, Clary was certain she felt every stone on the road as they jerked forward at no great speed whatsoever.
Once sleep established itself unmovably in opposition to her, she wished she had left the curtains be so that she might have a final glimpse of her home. It was surprisingly easy for Chatton to occupy the place of 'home' in her mind. Rather than hopping from one great estate to another in the King's train, it had been nice to live the same walls for more than a few weeks.
That was not to say it did not make Clary miss the graceful architecture and the gentle lapping of the river outside her window at Princewater, but she had enjoyed being mistress of her own household. She had taken to it quicker than she had expected; ordering the servants around, observing the rotations of the dairy and commissioning the meals. It had half convinced her that she had been born to be a country gentlewoman rather than a princess. She could quite happily spend the rest of her days running Chatton, with Jace out in the fields or in the counting house. For the first time, they had both started to feel settled. Clary doubted she would see the warm, honey stone of its walls for some months to come. Much as she may have liked him to be, her child would not be born under Chatton's roof.
Slowly as they moved, the court was not challenged or threatened as the passed through Broceland. The mood of the county, though by no means cheerful, was no longer openly hostile. Clary tried not to think about how that was because widows and orphans did not stage revolts.
Eventually giving up on a nap, she struggled somewhat upwards on the cushions and tried to rearrange them. Clary dreaded to think what the later months of pregnancy would entail.
For a time she let her thoughts stray wherever they would, welcoming the quiet and privacy. She could not tell if hours or minutes of their journey had passed. Her restless eyes roamed her interior surroundings, taking in the beech and heron insignias patterning the roof. This litter had been hastily dug out from some dark, forgotten corner of Chatton. The heron was the family crest, but the tree had been Stephen's badge, she remembered, attempting to stretch her cramping legs.
It did not suit Jace. Not at all. Clary remembered having read it was supposed to symbolise resilience and grace. While her husband possessed plenty of both, the tree seemed inadequate for him. Trees were too easily overlooked, too inanimate. Everything about Jace Herondale demanded attention.
He was a true leader of men, noble by character as well as by name, in a world of often devoid of honour, filled with those out only for their own gain. All of whom would gladly see him fall.
Clary shuttered her eyes and tried to imagine how Jace must have looked that day, when he had charged out, barely armoured, into a force of rebels hundreds strong and commanded their loyalty. Someone their enemies should never forget to fear. Jace had been tested over and over, each time he prevailed.
Clary wanted to give him a reminder him of that. Something to carry with him. On him. Show Jace how he looked through the eyes of others.
Jace might wish to play cordially for the time being and make friends where he could, but Clary failed to see how they could overlook their enemies. The Cardinal, Jonathan, Pangborn, these were just a few of those more forward with their antagonism. They'd only been temporarily abated, uncertain of how much influence this new player really had, or how much he wanted.
To the Duchess of Broceland a show of strength was in order.
Clary felt the long dormant impulse to put charcoal to paper. A suddenly vibrant image blazed in her mind's eye.
If Jace really meant his refusal to allow another to pull the strings of his destiny again, then he needed a badge that was all his. One fit for a prince of Idris. Clary could give him that much.
Mayhap they could retain the traditional Herondale blue. But the age of the weak sapling was over.
Hereafter Broceland would have a lion.
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