Princewater Palace and late October 1539
On her wedding night Isabelle slept soundly. In fact, she slept better than she had in weeks. Until dawn she was utterly dead to the world, tucked up in one of the softest and unquestionably the biggest bed she'd ever slept in. happily, she had the bed entirely to herself. From the moment she retired until she yawned awake, she was utterly untroubled.
Her new husband never darkened her door.
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The Goat's Eye Tavern, Alicante, early November 1539
The ale was bad, but the music was good.
Jonathan left court with as much dignity as he could muster. He saw no need to lie in the bed the King made for him. He didn't care if Isabelle Lightwood was Helen of Troy reborn, he wouldn't touch her. Because for as long as he didn't touch her, this might still be remedied. An unconsummated marriage could be annulled in the morning. This was a passing fit, a momentary fever dream of the King's. When Valentine's madness broke, Jonathan could offer the relief of an easy fix. He'd have his freedom back and they could return the wench to wherever they found her.
Alas, he had to sleep somewhere in the meantime. This particular haunt was not a favourite of Jonathan's, far from it. Hence his choice. If the King did send men looking him, Jonathan did not wish to be easily found. He'd go back to the court tomorrow. Or maybe next week. Whenever the diversions or his coin ran out.
Although the diversions "The Goat's Eye" offered proved slim pickings.
The Prince and his companion had drunk themselves to oblivion the three nights previous and tonight were set on another. It was not palace pampering Jonathan needed now, it was a very different kind of self-indulgence.
Yet, all seemed designed to offer the Prince only disappointment.
He kept thinking of her. Kept seeing the disdain in those dark eyes, kept hearing the smoky derision of her laughter. He was still longing to trace the curves of her, poured into a tight dress.
Christ, his father had chosen the best possible way to torment him. If it had happened to anyone else, it would be a gregarious jest.
Jonathan wanted Isabelle and had wanted her since he first laid eyes on her. She'd denied him and now, when it smarted his pride most, he was to be given her. Not to enjoy, but to wife. Like any other duty marriage spoiled pleasure. In another circumstance he and Isabelle Lightwood might have enjoyed each other. Even her hatred for him was passion. She could have despised him all she wanted while they fucked. She might even have enjoyed doing so. Instead they were to be shackled together; condemned to a life of domestic drudgery and eventually to wailing children neither of them wanted. Worse, doomed to still live together when she grew old, her looks faded and she hated him in earnest, but he still could not be rid of her.
Jonathan slammed the tankard to the table and glared at Sebastian Verlac.
His friend did not care for his brooding, nor his huffing. He was having a great time. Jonathan had sent the girl he'd thought to hire tonight packing from his rented chamber within ten minutes, throwing her clothes and the coin at her, cursing. Sebastian had no such reservations.
"We'll get you a better whore," The young Earl of Burchetten promised. Jonathan wanted to slap him.
"It is not the acquisition of a whore that bothers me, it is the acquisition of a wife."
Sebastian snorted into his beer, half-drunk and insensitive. "It will not be so bad. She's pretty." He swung around unsteadily, "I am getting married too, you know. You don't see me glowering."
"Because I arranged it for you, idiot."
"I know," Sebastian slurred sullenly, "And I'm grateful. That is what I'm saying. I am most content with the girl." He shrugged, "Her father is dead and she is rich. Thus, I am happy. Though I cannot remember if she is pretty. But yours is pretty." His drunken consolations wound on. Sebastian gestured around them, the contents of his drink sloshing over the rim of their container as he did so. "None of this will have to stop because we are wed, you know."
He clapped Jonathan's arm, "Isabelle is a beauty," He repeated, as though the fact had escaped Jonathan, as if it were all that mattered. "You should be pleased. I would be. I'd love a go with her. There's not a man at court that wouldn't."
Jonathan smacked Sebastian, hard and square in the face.
Sebastian reeled backward more dramatically than the force behind the punch required, his balance already hampered by his inebriation. With a thwack he collapsed gracelessly off the stool.
After a long, bewildered moment, Sebastian scrambled upward, dazed and afeared.
Jonathan replaced his fist with an index finger, from which Verlac still started backward, "Do not," Jonathan snarled, "Speak of her as though she is one of your pox-ridden harlots." Christ, what another preposterous position to be in; defending Isabelle's honour as if she had any. That was not the point. If they were to be bound, and they were bound now, Jonathan could not tolerate such loose talk. Caesar's wife had to be beyond reproach. Such as she fucking was.
The tavern keeper charged over and was berating them to take it outside. Jonathan waved him off impatiently, and upon seeing that Sebastian was not about to swing back, he left them be.
"I did not mean-"
"Just shut your damn mouth." Jonathan found himself suddenly tired.
He'd wandered away from the palace smarting, reeling and not knowing where else to go. Verlac was the closest thing he had to a peer and so they fell into their old pastimes of drinking and whoring because it was all they'd ever done together. Jonathan came here because Verlac let Jonathan wear his name whenever he wanted to lose himself for a time and wanted to behave in a way princes should not. This time none of it had brought any release or satisfaction. Jonathan wondered if any of it ever had.
He had considered it, running away. To deny his father. Jonathan could set himself up at a foreign court. France, maybe, or somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire. Even the Papal States. He'd be received anywhere as a guest of honour. But to do so would be to live perpetually on charity. It would be to relinquish his position in Idris forever. His name, his birth right. Mayhap that was what they all wanted. His father only ever saw the worst in him. As did his indifferent mother, if ever she saw him. They'd both forever prefer Jonathan's sister and her ever expanding wheal of brats. Nothing Jonathan would ever do or fail to do would turn them to the contrary.
His father's voice kept ringing in his ears, louder than any barmaid's cackle or tavern brawl. Without his name, without his father's name, Jonathan was indeed nothing. A Morgenstern outside of Idris was just a man. Marrying the girl his father chose for him may not bring any honour to that name, but Jonathan would not let this cost him it. He wouldn't give up his birth right and all that was owed to him in this world because of a girl.
"Drink up," He told his old faithful companion, stupid as he was loyal, "We are returning to Princewater on the morrow. I expect to be at court until Christmas." Even after that, maybe. Perhaps now Jonathan had a wife Valentine would let him stay at home, with the rest of the family. There had to be some silver lining to calling Isabelle 'wife.' There simply had to.
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Bellgate Hall, Lakelands, Southern Idris, November 1539
The boys were sparring again in the sharp, late season sunshine. This, anticipated to be one of the very last fair-weather days of the year, had to be capitalised on. The ring of metal on metal sang out across the yard, kept in time by the sharp interjections of the Duke of Lyn's instructions.
It was his eldest sons at play, hammering toward one another with the relentless refusal to give an inch which only a carefully stoked sibling rivalry could sustain.
And yet, their father's criticisms fell weightier on one son than the other.
"Hold it. Twist your wrist. Shift your weight. Legs wider! Quicker, Jules!"
Julian remained the smaller of the two, though he closed that gap a little more each day. For now Mark still had the advantage of height, weight and better practised technique. Julian struggled to block a blow a beat too late and the edge of his sword slid along his brother's. Pressing the advantage, Mark easily pushed him off balance and Julian toppled backward onto his backside. His brother also staggered forward as he fell, lurching the tip of his blade away in the very nick of time.
Their practice swords had dulled blades but they were still sharp enough to cut, though not deeply. As Mark swooped the tip of his sword away, a spurt of blood welled up from a scratch on the younger boy's cheek.
Julian's sword clattered out of his hand.
The Duke of Lyn swore.
"I told you to spread your weight."
Julian touched a gloved hand to his bleeding cheek, eyes blazing. His pride stung more than the cut. Nevertheless, Julian's anger remained silent, simmering beneath the surface. Directed inward.
"Dead in a real bout." Andrew Blackthorn declared bluntly; his voice packed with frustration. He snapped his fingers, "Up on your feet, boy. Go again."
"It was not a real bout," Mark reminded, placatingly, sheathing his sword and sidling over to his younger brother. "This is just for practice, so that you don't get killed so easily in a real fight."
At any rate, Idris had been at peace for a generation. Even their bigger warmongering neighbours on the Continent, France and Spain, still held in a tentative peace. War games were just that. Games. These Blackthorn boys were warriors for court tourneys, not combat.
Mark reached down to his younger brother with sympathetic understanding. "Everyone has to get knocked on the arse once or twice before they learn anything," He reassured.
Julian took his brother's hand and hauled himself back to his feet without reply or complaint.
The Duke of Lyn was always harder on Julian because, despite being the Duke's second son, he was his heir. Mark, with his pale gold hair and delicate, distinctive features favoured his mother- a Milanese noblewoman Andrew had loved in his youth. Andrew never denied the son and daughter from the affair, a result of the years he had spent brokering trade relations for his King in northern Italy. When the love affair had ended, the lady returned to her husband while Andrew came home to marry the Idrisian girl he had been promised to. He'd also brought the infants, Mark and Helen, back to Idris with him and established them at Bellgate. Andrew had seen to it they were well fed, clothed and educated. He gave them his name and even sent them to court to serve in the retinues of the young Prince and Princess. And Eleanor, his first Duchess, had loved Andrew's eldest children just as fiercely and fondly as she had her children when they arrived. There had never been any obvious distinctions drawn between Mark and Helen and the lawful children followed them. Except, of course, the unspoken but undenied awareness that Julian- the firstborn, legitimate son- would one day inherit their father's title, his lands and his great house. Mark might have a place at court, but it was Julian who would one day have a seat on the King's Council.
It would have been easy under those conditions for resentment or jealousy to fester between the boys. It never had. Whatever difference awaited in the future they had always been treated with parity here at Bellgate.
If Mark ever begrudged the fact that he had grown up in the shadow of his younger brother, deferring to him before he was even a babe out of swaddling bands, he'd never outright shown it. There was no changing the natural order of the world. If anything, as the years went by Mark even seemed to pity his younger brother. Julian also often felt Mark that had the better lot- growing up all of Andrew's affection and none of his expectations.
It was to Julian Andrew looked for the future of their name, their family. It was for him to live up to their ancient legacy, for him to bring yet more honour and fortune to the Blackthorn name. Julian was constantly looked to and he rarely felt as though his father liked what he saw.
He was bruised and aching, sweating through his light doublet even on the colder day. The winters to the far south of Idris were rarely as harsh as those further north. They never saw snow, they seldom even glimpsed sleet. Nevertheless, the intensity of the exertion made him hot. Julian was also still bleeding, though the initial spurt had ceased. He doubted his father would permit any reprieve. Andrew was strict, though generally fair. However, since the death of his beloved wife and the sudden catastrophe of the Earl and Countess of Chene's execution, the Duke often short on patience and jumping at shadows. Whatever portents of doom Andrew alone could see, he was doubling down on his children's training. He now had Julian and Mark sparring every day.
If only Julian could see his persistence pay dividends. They had graduated from wooden swords to real ones, but the blade still felt cumbersome in his arm, too long, too heavy. Swordplay did not come naturally to him. He would practice until he was passable, but Julian could not see why he needed to exhaust himself like this. He would be a lord, not a mercenary. His life would play out in royal privy chambers and palace hallways, not on killing fields.
Today he was spared a rematch by the thunder of hooves. The boys turned in time to see a Morgenstern liveried messenger slow to a trot through their gateposts. They exchanged a curious look as Andrew shucked off his gloves and straightened his cap. "We shall correct that tomorrow," He declared in his sons' direction by way of excusing himself.
After their father had departed, making back toward the house where he could receive the royal messenger in the hall formally, Mark and Julian hastened to store away their weapons and shuck off the supple, protective leather pads they always trained in.
"Here," Mark offered to take charge of Julian's sword for the perfunctory aftercare. He gestured with a nod back toward the house, wordlessly indicating Julian should go in pursuit of their father. A delicate indication of where the line between their worlds was drawn. Julian's place was indoors, at their father's side, listening to whatever tidings came from court. Julian was relieved at the prospect of dismissal. He already itched to be in there, at the thick of things. He was not a child anymore. If his father really wanted him to take greater part in the intricacies of their dukedom, then he ought not to exclude him out here in the cold.
Gratefully, he passed his sword to his brother, tucked his thick sword mitts into his belt and went in pursuit of his father.
Once he was inside in earnest, Julian hesitated outside the door of his father's privy chamber, arrested by the rumble of low voices just beyond. As anyone who no longer fit quite neatly into either childhood or the adult world, Julian hesitated to step immediately into the light and make his presence known. He was painfully aware of how conversations were halted, or amended, according to what adults proper felt he should know.
"…Eager to see the girl," The unfamiliar voice was wheedling.
"What does it matter what she looks like?" Andrew replied starkly, "She is who she is. Her father's daughter. That is what she'll be wed for, in the end. If his lordship is so keen to take his own measure of the girl, he can come see her for himself. He knows how to get to Bellgate. We would be more than happy to receive him."
The messenger hummed uncertainly. Julian sympathised; this man too was caught between extremes. Bound between the contrary wishes of powerful men. He ought to have known better than to stride into Andrew's house and start issuing demands. Andrew Blackthorn was unyieldingly proud.
"I am sure his lordship will be content to proceed as we are. Though he will be grateful to hear of your proffered hospitality."
Sensing the audience was ending, Julian jerked back out of the way in time for the messenger to make his exit, barely sparing the lanky boy loitering in the hallway a second glance.
Mind whirring, a sick feeling beginning to unfurl in the pit of his stomach, Julian edged forward into the room.
He found Andrew glowering thoughtfully downward at a letter in his hand. The large window behind the Duke illuminated his large, lithe frame. The onslaught of sunlight turned the tips of Andrew's dark hair white, though Julian noticed of late that more strands of steely grey were slipping into his father's hair and beard. As a boy Julian always looked to his father as an invincible, ageless figure. Someone who had always been in Julian's world and always would be. The past few years had corrected other such naïve assumptions. Julian's mother had since died, her life snuffed out by a vicious fever just hours after she introduced him to his newest baby brother. Not long afterward Emma's parents had also died violently, in blood and disgrace, for the sake of a few prohibited pages and daring to debate.
And yet throughout all of that, this chamber remained the centre of the known world to him; a golden Jerusalem around which the world map had been sketched out in centuries gone. The gilded, sacred centre of the known world, the certainty which banished monsters and other oddities to faraway lands in the crevices.
Julian sidled up toward the writing table under the cool, aloof gaze of Cato and Julius Caesar, his namesake. Andrew was obsessed with the glory of old Rome, of the histories and philosophies from its thinkers and leaders. The greatest this world had ever known. Of all those who had embraced the rediscovery of Europe's old civilisation, Andrew was among the most enthusiastic. He named all his children after prominent figures, setting each child up in turn for glory. He also relished the small touches of irony, like putting busts of Cato and Caesar side by side. Two deadly enemies emblematic of two pillars- Imperfect Republic and Doomed Dictator- between which Andrew himself laid out his personal thoughts, translations and replied to pressing correspondence. Like he did today.
He glanced up at Julian's approach and did not seem surprised to see him, "Listening at keyholes, are we?" The Duke tutted, looking back to the incendiary missive, "You know eavesdroppers seldom hear good."
Julian shrugged, then stiffened his shoulders. He had a say in this conversation. If Emma would not get to speak for herself on this matter, he would speak for her.
"Who is it?" He asked, dry mouthed. "Who have they chosen?"Over me.
Andrew laid the sheet down decisively. Then he laid his fingers down over it, caging the words in as though they might take flight if left unattended. He eventually met his son's gaze, his turquoise eyes a shade greener than Julian's.
People always swore that Julian favoured his father, as all his siblings did, excepting Ty, who had their mother's colouring. But Julian always felt his eyes drawn to the differences. Julian's nose was shorter, snubber. The sharp dip of the cupid's bow on his upper lip was another trait he shared with all his full siblings too, but not Andrew. Or perhaps it was more difficult to see the outline of the Duke's lip under the greying beard. Still, Julian believed those who told him that the face surveying him now was the one he would meet in the looking glass in thirty years' time.
"Sebastian Verlac," Andrew told him bluntly. "The young Earl of Burchetten."
Julian's outrage roiled.
His objections began to pour out immediately. "But he's too old. And he's not a Southerner." The people of the southern counties ringing Lake Lyn were a people of intense pride, especially those to the far southern shore like the Blackthorns. They had their own customs, their own dialect, their own proud history. The ruling families often liked to marry among themselves to preserve those traditions. It was also true that while Lyn had been subject to the Crown in Alicante for several centuries, their nobles and petty kings had been among the last to yield to the heirs of Jonathan I. There would always be seeds of mistrust and misunderstanding between those not born in the Lakelands and those whose forbears proudly hailed from these shores.
Not that any of this was truly Julian's greatest protest, "Sebastian Verlac doesn't even know Emma."
Andrew sighed, "God, Jules. Come, we seldom have the chance to know our spouses in these arrangements. I'd never laid eyes on your mother before I married her, yet I soon grew to love her."
"That is not the point," Julian persisted, breathless with indignation and disgust. He finally spoke to the heart of the matter, "Emma should not have to grow to love a stranger. She should not have to be packed off to live somewhere else. Emma is supposed to be mine."
It was another of the select, unquestionable truths Julian held dear in life. One day he'd be Duke of Lyn and he would own Bellgate in return for serving the King among his most trusted advisors. It would all be done with Emma Carstairs at his side, as his wife. They belonged to each other and they belonged with each other.
They had played together as children and had lived together, under this roof, for more time than they'd ever lived apart. She was family, not in the way his brothers and sisters were, but in the way that only Emma ever had been. As another constant in his life, as his dearest friend. She was the one who held his hand while he wept at his mother's graveside. She'd disembarked her carriage from Alicante as an ashen faced orphan and run straight into Julian's arms, the first and only place she'd been seen to permit herself tears. Because he too had known loss and only he could give any comfort to the inconsolable.
Tucked away in the deepest corner of his heart, Julian always carried the knowledge that Emma was an integral part of his future.
They were promised to one another. It had been whispered from their infancy and then spoken outright as they grew older. It was a truth everyone in this house recognised. The sun rose in the east and set in the west, the Pope was in Rome, God was in heaven, and one day Emma Carstairs would be Duchess of Lyn. She and Julian would rule over this house and their little kingdom by the lakeside, filling Bellgate with their children to rule over it after them.
You could call it instinct, good sense, providence or even fate. Julian cared not. Just so long as you knew that it was.
Plato wrote that humanity were sliced in half by the gods for their impudence and pride. He claimed that ever since, all humans toiled in search of their other half; the one who filled the missing parts of their body and who made them whole. The other half of their soul. He and Emma were something like that.
"Julian-" Andrew began slowly, voice hardening with a warning.
"No. Father, you promised us!"
"I promised her father." Andrew agreed sternly, regretfully. "Now her father is dead." He sighed in the face of his son's unrelenting determination. Julian crossed his arms, a match for hereditary obstinacy.
"Julian, the Earl of Chene and I never put anything legally binding between us. It seemed unnecessary. We knew John was not going to renege, nor was I. There was no need for a formal betrothal, not while you were both still so young. We each understood that it would be done in time, whenever you were both ready to marry. All is changed now. The matter is out of our hands."
"You gave your word." Julian reminded him icily. "Is our word of honour so light?"
Reliably, Andrew bristled, fingers now loitering over the letter closed in a fist. "My word is sound!" He insisted hotly. Then he paused and swallowed. "It has little weight against the word of a King. Though she has been allowed to live here, Emma is the King's ward. It is through his grace and kindness she was allowed to remain in our custody, in the only other home she has ever known. The girl is not my blood, though I have always loved her as though she were. Out of the love I bore her late father I ensured she was treated well here, on par with my own daughters. Indulged, educated, given freedoms, even. To learn as she would, ride out as she would- all within reason. But this match is advantageous for her. You must recognise Julian, that although her wealth remains impressive Emma's family name is marred now. Their standing at court is no longer what it was."
Julian shirked to watch his father so transparently making excuses. Not even very good ones.
"So that is it then? You have decided Emma is no longer the desirable daughter in law she would have been and are content to send her away?" Julian's voice crackled with unease.
The Duke sighed. "I have appealed to the King, of course I have. I made your suit to him myself Jules, several times. I reminded Valentine of the long-held understanding between us and the Carstairs family. I emphasised my willingness to still have Emma for you, my son, even reduced as she was. His Majesty was not susceptible. It would have been folly to press the issue any further, Jules. I will not risk my own position by pressing a lost cause. The safety of our family comes before all else." His father seemed aged and wearied again. "I have lost too much of late to risk bringing any more ill fortune to these walls."
He exhaled heavily, then tried again with his stubborn heir. Andrew moved out from around the table and laid a hand on Julian's shoulder, holding him firm. Impressing the importance of his words and his responsibilities on the boy.
Julian was already tall for his age, had just shot through a growth spurt that still left his ankles and wrists aching. He was always like to be tall for both his parents had been. Julian realised he would probably soon be taller than his father.
"I would not have any more danger visited on my children, not by risking our name too closely with that of a man- though I loved him- who lost his head as a heretic and a traitor. Julian, part of being the paterfamilias, as you will one day be, is accepting that we must always act in the interest of this family. Their safety and security is paramount. The good of the whole family is of greater import than our individual wishes. Our personal desires cannot compare. Family is everything, my boy. It is the greatest gift we have. I would not jeopardise everything I hold dear on a battle I cannot win. The King has decided. His will is the start and end of it all. When he orders, we obey. For our sake, as well as Valentine's."
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Even after the messenger departed, Emma did not come out of hiding. She did not appear for luncheon. Nor for her afternoon dance lesson. She knew what the word that had come down from Alicante pertained to. So, she stayed well out of sight and remained utterly indiscernible, lest they try to steal her away right there and then.
Of course Julian was the first to find her and he did so with ease. He could have come to her straightaway, for he'd have known where she was all the while. But he appreciated that in times like these she needed to be alone with her thoughts.
They had played in these orchards as children, tormenting the workers by getting underfoot and filching apples, under the premise of scouting out some for cook's tart. If memory served they'd gorged most of their supply and been punished by the bitter taste of apples not yet ripe. Even once, most infamously, by the discovery of a bug already buried into the fruit. Julian had been spitting and retching for hours afterward.
Emma smiled to herself at the recollection. Years ago she was light enough and brazen enough to scramble all the way up the trees, secure in practised handholds and undeterred by the roughness of the bark on her hands. Now Emma had to content herself by perching on one of the thickest, lower boughs.
She watched her feet dangling in the air beneath her. She'd tugged off her shoes and peeled off her stockings long ago to feel the freshness of the damp grass on the soles of her feet. The tickle of the blades against her toes.
It was a shame to see the branches bare. In the spring the orchards were at their most beautiful, during the weeks of quiet between the harvests. She might have been shielded from view by the flush of white blossoms, their loose petals silky and delicate when they drifted into her palms.
Although the orchards' moment of beauty always remained precisely that; a moment. Within a week the petals would start falling. The beauty of their bloom was pitifully brief. That was what made it special.
Emma heard Julian's approach before she saw him. She knew the way he had of moving, recognised the light yet sure-footed steps of someone who knew these places just as well as she did. Probably better.
He paused a few feet from her refuge and looked up, leaning against the trunk of the neighbouring tree.
"I knew I'd find you here." He folded his arms, expression carefully balanced.
"Well," Emma planted her hands on either side of her hips and readjusted herself, bracing. "I have been sold, then. To whom?"
Julian would not insult her by bandying words, nor by dancing around the subject. "Sebastian Verlac, the Earl of Burchetten." His stance was casual by the tree, though Emma was not fooled. "But you are not a sow, or a field." He stated firmly, "You cannot be sold. You're a person."
Emma snorted, "Not in the same terms," she conceded. "I will be changing hands all the same." She paused for thought. She'd had enough time to ponder the issue, of late. In many ways it was a relief to finally have a name, a destination. Though Burchetten was so very far away.
"He's not too old, at least. Or ugly. He has a good title. And he has influence with the Prince." Emma dusted the residual bark off her hands, glancing down at her dangling feet. They looked very white, suspended over the grass and soil. Kept safe behind closed doors at Bellgate and out of public sight, Emma shirked the clumsy farthingale that would give shape to her gowns, at the cost of bracketing her legs and hips in like an ornate, weighty cage. Emma had made the most of the freedom of movement, hiking her skirts out of the way so she might climb. It was something of a childish move, running away and trying to hide up a tree as though they would not find her.
Now she realised she was a young woman who had put her ankles on display. Flexing defiance, Emma wriggled her unfettered toes. She did not feel self-conscious, or shame. It was only Julian. And they had seen more of each other bodies, though not for many years, during the times they'd been bathed together as infants.
Still, she felt him staring. Emma set no store by it. He was only looking, in the same way she caught herself sometimes looking at him of late. Because he was the only specimen of the opposite sex of an age with her and they each had natural curiosities. She had to look somewhere, and it was either to be Julian or the stable boys. They always smelt of horse and were usually covered in straw and dung.
And for so long they had expected to marry. Emma thought about what it would be like to kiss Julian many times before. She wondered how he would taste, how he might feel. When she thought of kissing a boy her mind went straight to Julian, as it had done for years.
He was handsome, she thought, not for the first time, studying his familiar face. Or at least, very soon he firmly would be. His skin was fair, his eyes that striking blue-green, both bright and reserved, his thick, dark brown hair a customary half inch too long and flopping over his ears and into his eyes. He was still growing into his good looks, bulking out from child plumpness onto muscle. Growing into more proportionate angles at his shoulders, his hips.
Now her kisses were formally intended for someone else.
Julian's eyes darkened, "It would not happen for a year, at least. In fact, it need not happen at all."
Emma laughed drily. It scratched her throat. She folded her hands together, "Did you imagine we would be children forever?"
Julian looked away, pushing up from against the trunk. "For a little longer, I thought." He stared off into the distance, mutinous and pensive, "I thought you and I would be forever, at least."
Emma dropped down from the branch, landing lightly, feet prickling at the sudden impact, "We are," she insisted. She caught at his hand, another thing she had done countless times before, without thinking. A reflex. "We will always be you and I, Jules. Just… differently."
He looked at her again and she could see him thinking furiously beneath the placid façade. Picking this scheme that he misliked apart however he could. He was staring at her with a new, quiet ferocity. As though he was trying to memorise her face. Or extract the cosmic secrets of the world from it.
Emma inhaled sharply, "What happened to your face?" Her fingertips skimmed the graze. He flinched away as though her touch was that of the cauterising iron.
"Nothing. A sparring accident."
"Swords are sharp Jules," She reminded with faux gravity. He did not return her smile. Emma's eye was drawn to another cut, just by the pulse point under his jawline. He was still relatively new to regular shaving and these mishaps occurred. She wondered when it was precisely Julian started shaving. When either of them had started changing in these dozens of small, unremarkable and natural ways.
"My father is going to the Prince."
"What?"
Julian blinked. "It is Prince Jonathan who wants you to marry Verlac. Not the King, not really. Father is going to seek an audience with the Prince, see if he can be urged to reconsider."
"But why would the Duke of Lyn do such a thing for me?"
"Because I asked him to. Rather, I insisted."
Emma could only stare at him. For the first time, despite the gravity of it all, as Julian's gaze shot down toward his feet he seemed like a boy of fifteen. Julian had, what all their old nurses and his new stepmother called 'an old soul.' He usually seemed much older than he was. It was only around Emma he let himself be an impish and erstwhile shy adolescent.
"That was kind of you, Julian." Still, Emma feared Julian overestimated the Duke's influence. Julian had not tasted, as she had, the strength of the Crown's power or what came of its displeasure. "Though I do not think it will amount to much. I think my course is set. If not to Verlac, then another. I have to marry. I cannot have my family lands nor our title back without it. I cannot be Countess of Chene on my own." Emma shrugged, the picture of being more at ease with her fate than she felt. If not comfortable, at least resigned. For his sake.
Julian too, in time, would marry someone chosen for him. Even if the thought of another, faceless girl coming to Bellgate as its mistress and bearing Julian's children set her stomach constricting.
"You don't have to martyr yourself, Em."
She shook her head, "I am not. I mean it. Sebastian is young, wealthy and very well placed at court," Emma squeezed on Julian's hand firmly, her voice thrummed deeper as she added, "He's the Prince's right hand. There is no one closer to him."
Marriage to the Earl of Burchetten would get Emma into that very inner circle. It would put her at the heart of the lives of those who had wronged her most in this world. She had scores to settle.
Julian returned the pressure on her fingers, signalling a new promise between them. Bonded. Just not in the way they thought they would be.
Between those innocents, pledging touches occurred a shift. Emma and Julian ceased to be what they had always been to one another and moved toward what they would eternally be, hereafter.
For now, they were just a boy and a girl in an orchard some three hundred miles from Alicante. Far away from the heart of anything. On the cusp, having not quite traversed the gap between childhood and maturity. Aware of these grand power games only as they were played over their heads. Still nestled, for now, in this sleepy little Eden that was all they had ever known.
On that quiet day when everything first changed for them, no one might have imagined, they two least of all, the roles Emma Carstairs and her faithful Julian Blackthorn would play in what was to come.
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Estoncurt Palace, North Eastern Idris, January 1540
Unfortunately, Jonathan returned.
Throughout the Christmas festivities he barely glanced at Isabelle. Until, no sooner had the Yule wreaths come down on Twelfth Night than Jonathan shocked them all by declared his intention to return to Estoncurt willingly. This time with his bride in tow.
Isabelle waited with baited breath to see if Valentine would conjure some excuse to keep her at court.
None came.
So she packed her things and mounted her horse.
The people came to gape along the road at the French beauty their prince was now married to, seemingly against all good sense. To those simpler folk who worked the fields and tended flocks, it was likely presumed this was a hasty match made in a burst of passion. Why else scorn princesses and every well born girl in the realm?
Isabelle was not one for simpering and smiling at the best of times. When her people stared at her, she stared back.
They stopped at various noble houses to break the nights. Each time, without a word, Jonathan took another chamber. At table he spoke over her head to the people around her.
The journey was gruelling and slow. Much that could go amiss did. Travelling to the barren north of the kingdom in the grip of winter was madness. The roads froze thick and hard and were sewn with treacherous patches of ice. Wheels were lost, axels were bent, a horse lamed. Eventually, Jonathan peeled away from the train, cursing.
"Estoncurt can be made by nightfall. You can stay here, with your dresses and your women if you want" He told Isabelle with the degree of spousal concern she had anticipated, none, which she supposed she should grow used to.
Isabelle considered. Why you would bother delaying your route to the gallows when there was no hope of a pardon'or escape?
She clicked her heels to her horse's flanks, "I will come with you."
They pressed on together with only a small gaggle of followers.
The windows of daylight for travel were short. It started to snow. Isabelle did not think she had ever been so cold. Nor had never travelled so far by horseback alone or in such conditions. Her fingers ached and then numbed inside her gloves. Her cheeks stung from being slapped from the gales until she could not feel them either. Snow melted in her hood until it was soddened and useless. The muscles in her back also seized up from shuddering in the cold. The snow fell in a blisteringly cold blizzard so thickly that Isabelle could hardly see the road in front of her. It hardly mattered, she did not know the way. She resigned herself to the relentless uphill pushing, following the tail of Jonathan's horse through the torrent of snow and hail, squinting past the dripping fur of her drooping hood and hair tangling in her eyes.
Her husband betrayed no sense of sympathy or concern. Jonathan did not care for her discomfort. He likely relished it.
Isabelle wondered what would happen if her horse lost its footing and threw her. Perhaps she was fated to freeze to death in this saddle. In a way, that seemed a fitting end to her whole sad, sordid story.
Then the winds carried Jonathan's voice back to her, "At last."
Estoncurt, the least visited of any of the royal palaces with good reason, loomed before them in the mountain pass. Lights winked in her turrets and Isabelle could have sobbed. Crossing under the stone gateways into the gaggle of voices and lanterns and barking dogs, she tumbled from her saddle like a lump of bricks. Her chilled and aching limbs barely held her.
She surrendered her mount to the nearest groom who stared at her with his mouth open, as if she were a holy or spectral apparition. Maybe she had frozen to death in that saddle and it was a ghost he saw. She stiffly passed over the reins. Her horse was shivering as much as she was. "He needs a good rub down and some warm oats." There. That was her voice, rasping and uneven, but still there. Isabelle doubted anything of the supernatural would say that.
Once discharged of the horse Isabelle looked around her, blinking as her eyes struggled to adjust to the new lighting. She loitered, unsure of who to speak to or where to go. Jonathan was in the midst of giving specific instructions about his own trembling steed.
She steeled herself and limped over on cramped, tingling legs.
"Where are my rooms?"
He ignored her, continuing to speak to his groom.
Isabelle was too cold and too miserable to care that she looked like a petulant child as she unceremoniously tugged Jonathan's sleeve, "I know you are not deaf. I need a bath before my limbs fall off. And some fresh clothes. All of my belongings are still somewhere down the pass, part of a baggage train that is probably perishing."
Jonathan glanced toward her rather than at her, then snapped his fingers, "Henry. Escort the Princess to her rooms."
The man hesitated, "Her rooms, sir?"
Jonathan grunted, "The rooms you would put my mother in, did she ever deign to visit."
"With this weather we were not expecting Your Highnesses until tomorrow at the earliest."
Jonathan clapped his hands, "Get your mother, your mistress, your dog or whoever it is you have in the bed out of it and put my lady in it."
Isabelle's teeth continued to chatter violently. This was no time for pride, or ceremony. She gave the attendant a limp smile, "So long as it has a roof and a fireplace, Henry, any room will do."
There was no further discussion on the issue. Isabelle left Jonathan arguing logistics with another steward and made her way inside the palace. Her new home.
She did not have time to take stock of much, hastening through the main hall and upstairs into what would be her living quarters. True enough a fire had been lit and candle tapers lined the tables. A handmaiden appeared and began prising Isabelle's wet outer garments off her.
It was not until a bath was drawn and Isabelle had lowered herself into it that she paused to take in the results of a whirlwind of servant action around her. Exhaling, she massaged feeling back into her legs under the hot water. Ideally Isabelle would have her bath even hotter but she could not bear to wait any longer tonight.
Her room was pleasant, if a little dated. The furniture was a worn but of good quality, the kind you might expect your grandmother to possess. The windows were high, shutters drawn on the outside and heavy blue curtains drawn against the draughts on the inside. Someone had set up a prie-dieu for her and laid out a small book of hours that also looked like it better belonged to someone's grandmother. In fact, Isabelle did not know anyone other than her grandmother who ever used such a book these days. The tapestry adorning the wall belonged to the last century too. It depicted a woodland scene centred on a demure maiden kneeling with a unicorn laying its head in her lap. New sheets were being put on the bed in the chamber behind her, someone had also fetched a black velvet robe and nightgown and draped them over the back of the nearest chair for her.
Isabelle could almost pretend that this was all a pleasant sojourn, an interlude from real life. That she was visiting here with Clary, or the queen, and not its new mistress. Truthfully, it was not the thought of being lady of the house that perturbed her. Her mother had trained her to run a household, though the scale of this one was perhaps beyond what Mayrse's lessons had catered for. And she had seen the Duchess of Broceland do it. The managing of court intrigue may have come more easily to Isabelle than the balancing of account books, but she did not imagine herself incapable. In fact, she liked the thought of being the woman in charge.
If one simply took Jonathan out of the equation, all this would be perfectly bearable.
Isabelle sighed, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. She could stew like this forever, letting the muffled sound of the snowstorm rage on outside.
Her mother used to marvel that while getting her brothers into the bath had been a travail, it was getting Isabelle out of it that always proved the difficulty. She'd only be tugged form the tub once when the water ran cold.
A cleared throat behind her stirred the reverie.
"Hmmmm?" Isabelle did not deign to open her eyes.
"Shall I have some food brought to Your Highness?"
"I suppose so."
"Will His Highness be joining you for supper?"
Isabelle paused before answering, "I doubt it."
Jonathan had given no indication of wanting to do so. She'd spent married life thus far being ignored. They'd only dined together in the company-and at the behest of- their hosts for each given evening on the journey.
The maid's footsteps retreated.
Only after the girl returned with a small platter of stew and bread and laid it out with some wine for Isabelle, with profound apologies for the blandness of the fare, did she contemplate moving. Reluctantly, she clambered out of the tub, towelled herself off and drew on the waiting clothes. They were too big for her, the nightgown sliding down off her shoulders. The hem of the robe, which had likely been made for a man, flapped over her ankles. Isabelle scoffed, chaffing her hands together by the fire.
She allowed the maid, who informed her in a hushed voice that her name was Beth, to brush her hair out. Before she married Jonathan Isabelle had not had her hair brushed by someone else in years. Her mother had done it when she was a little girl. Once they had lost all their money Isabelle lost her personal maid, and after she went to court to wait on grander ladies there had always been someone else's hair to brush or braid.
Isabelle squealed and thrashed as a child when her mother took out the brush for it was there her temperance at bath time ran out. Now she softened at the rhythm of the strokes. It was nice to be fussed over.
When her hair was smoothed out, Isabelle braided it herself. She chased away Beth's hands, they were out of practice and nervous.
Warmed, fed and enjoying her second glass of claret, Isabelle was beginning to doze off by the fire, the exhaustion of the punishing march from Alicante catching up to her at last. Despite the howling gales without, it was perfectly peaceable until the sudden clatter of footsteps jerked her awake.
Beth had hopped up with a gasp, dipping to a frantic curtsey.
Jonathan had appeared with a robe loose over his undershirt and breeches. He waved the maid away, a glass of wine already in his hand.
Isabelle stiffened in the chair, studying the grate. He could not expect her to scrape and bow when they were alone together. Truthfully, Isabelle did not know how to behave when she and her husband were alone. She'd never really dared dwell on the possibility, for fear her nerve would finally fail her.
Jonathan drew closer, lifting the jug of her wine and sniffing it. "They gave you the best stuff. Good." He laid it back with a crystal chime. "Your things have arrived. I told them to leave everything in the hall until the morning." His voice lowered to a dark murmur as he closed the final feet between them, "I did not want you disturbed."
Isabelle ran her right fingertips over the curve of her left fingernails, watching his movements out of the corner of her eye.
She'd known this was coming. They were married. Initially, Valentine had told her that he did not want issue from this union but that had been before Clary kept delayed his scheme by having girls. By now Isabelle imagined the King was less worried about his heir having Herondale blood and more anxious to have a grandson at all. By any means necessary. That would be a fitting motto for Valentine, come to think of it.
With a sharp jerk of her wrist, Isabelle threw back another mouthful of wine. She cursed her heart for beating so hard, for betraying her loud enough for him to hear it. The last thing she would do was grant Jonathan the satisfaction. She wasn't afraid. Not of him. She refused to be.
It was just sex. A primal act. She'd had bad, meaningless sex before. She could do it again.
It was unusual that Jonathan hadn't touched her so far. She'd convinced herself that he was drawing out the suspense to make it as uncomfortable for her as possible. He wanted her to dread it.
Jonathan had helped himself to the wine on the table, careless of the fact he was mixing it with what remained of the wine that was already in the glass.
The carelessness and poorly synchronised moves betrayed that he was quite drunk. Maybe too drunk. He might only manage to paw at her for a bit and then pass out. Perhaps that was a good thing. Then again, Isabelle partly wished he would just do it and have it done.
To hell with this waiting, dancing around it. Enough with the ceremonials. Isabelle set down her glass and turned to him.
He had transferred the wine haphazardly to his left hand, the right shot out now to tilt her chin upward, his thumb slid around to caress her cheek. His hands, she noted with a jolt, were remarkably smooth. Prince's hands. That had never held a sword for anything other than practice, never worked with anything rougher than reins of the finest leather. Isabelle refused to baulk. This was a man of petty cruelties, of fickle jealousies and impotent rages. A small, pathetic man who thought he deserved the world and had earned nothing for himself. He was no man to respect and certainly nothing to fear.
He would not dare hurt her, not with his father and the kingdom watching. Isabelle had only to look at her maid a certain way and the King's wrath, the thing Jonathan truly feared, would reach him.
"The greatest beauty of the court." Jonathan snorted again, swiping over her cheekbone again, laughing his own joke.
Isabelle stared him down, seeing a minute version of herself reflected in his black eyes, pale faced and glaring.
"I am not afraid of you, Jonathan."
He snorted, "Yes, you are." This was met with the slightest nip of blunt nails under her chin. "And with good reason." Isabelle refused to baulk. She just kept staring him down with her silent challenge.
Jonathan released her, slugging back more wine, "You know, by rights I should have a pure bride."
Of course, out of it all, that was the part that irked him most. Not the lack of a decent dowry, not the lack of an esteemed family name. Just that. Even men like Jonathan were predictable.
"Do you really want a pure woman?" Isabelle asked, tilting her head with the enquiry, not breaking his stare, "Some fragile, pampered little princess? Would you know what to do with her?"
By way of response Jonathan leaned in and kissed her.
Isabelle pursed her lips under the onslaught, sealing him out.
He drew back, grinning, leaving the taste of red wine smeared on her lips. He cupped her cheek as Isabelle braced herself for another onslaught.
"When you write to my father, sweet wife, as I know you soon will, I want you to tell him that I am most content-" He reached down and tugged on the end of one of the damp braids laying over her shoulder, "-with fucking the scullery maid."
With that Jonathan whisked away, still chortling to himself, unsteady on his feet, the door banging loudly after him.
When he was gone, decisively, Isabelle started to laugh herself. She laughed until it wailed of hysteria, until there were tears streaming down her cheeks.
Untouched and alone. After everything.
It must truly have taken great threatening from Valentine to get those wedding vows past Jonathan's lips at the altar. And now, to spite his father, Jonathan would do exactly as both Valentine and Isabelle wanted. It may be deplorable on occasion, but the accuracy with which Valentine steered the world to do precisely as he wished was also admirable.
Jonathan might be forced to promise himself to the woman his father chose, but he would leave the unwanted marriage empty, a thing real in word alone.
It should have been a comfort. It should have been a victory. She'd finally found a purpose and a part to play in all this. She should have been gratified, she should have been relieved. And yet, as the laughter subsided and the tears kept falling, Isabelle wondered why she still felt so hollow.
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