The White Falcon
Princewater Palace, Alicante, March 1540
Even after he was fully dressed, the King remained dazed. Clary suspected it was a residual consequence of whatever draughts and potions Valentine slugged in search of some solace. She hoped his head would clear on the journey. Or at least that the worst of their effects could be slept off.
It was she who gave the order to make ready the royal barge to bring the King home. Valentine said little as she did so, and he leaned heavily on Clary's arms as they made for the water gate to board the barge.
As they bobbed down the river toward the palace, Clary strove to fill Valentine in. Not of all that had occurred in his absence, but of the most pressing issues he'd have to address.
"The Duke of Lyn is dead. You will need to appoint a new liege lord of the southern provinces."
"He has sons," Valentine asserted into the edge of his handkerchief. He was clinging to it for dear life, "Plenty of them. The one at court is the eldest, no?"
"Mark is his bastard son" Clary corrected, fighting to keep her voice from wobbling with her impatience. Moreover, Mark was currently ensconced at Estoncurt, though she'd move cautiously toward that one. "The Blackthorn heir, Julian, is only fifteen. He cannot rule as Duke yet. You'll have to appoint a guardian to the estate and lands." Clary twisted her sapphire ring around her finger, slipping it over the knuckle and back into place again, "Andrew had a younger brother, the boy's uncle. I should imagine him the best and most obvious candidate."
Valentine nodded. Easy acquiescence from her father was most unsettling. It almost made Clary wish to recoil. She'd have preferred signs of leprosy. However, there was no room to dwell or panic. Not now. The Princess forged on, "Then there's the betrothal."
"Which betrothal?"
"The Verlac betrothal, the one that started all this trouble." She exhaled as the boat surged suddenly under them, the narrow prow tilting back downward again. Valentine also appeared nauseated. The waters were rough indeed, but not so much that they warranted turning back to the Gard. "Lyn said that his son and Emma Carstairs-"
"I will hear no more of it!" A trace of Valentine's old, iron authority peaked. He removed his fist from the lower half of his face, nostrils flaring. "There has been too much cavilling over this arrangement with the Carstairs girl. She is a ward of the Crown, and the Crown has chosen. It is done." Valentine's left hand fanned and retracted over the edge of his sable. "We will hear no more of this bickering over betrothals and airy promises like city trade wives. Our word was given, it does not renege nor reverse. The Crown's word is my word and it is final." Valentine's words tremored as he spoke. An angry Valentine was more familiar to Clary but it wasn't with his usual, righteous fury that he spoke with today. The syllables of his speech seemed as rattled as Valentine himself was. "I will not have my word picked at." He sharply dragged the hand with the kerchief through the air in a tight fist, "Let there be no more word of betrothal. Let's have the girl married and the whole matter done with."
"Father, Emma is still too young."
Valentine's hand struck the side of the barge, as much for purchase as it was to accentuate his stance, "Mine own mother was barely of age when she married my father. The match is settled, let it be settled." Clary swallowed past her dry tongue. She wouldn't challenge Valentine on this, not here and now. She needed that ire and she needed that pride to ensure the King curtailed his Council. Today. Idris needed Valentine to exercise his authority. Later, when the hounds were back in their kennels and the dust better settled, Clary would broach the matter again. She'd ensure Emma Carstairs was not married until next year at the earliest.
She locked her fingers together in the warm cocoon of her muff, "Aside from matters in the south, there is risk of trouble in the north. Father, I think it time you summoned Jonathan back to court." Back where Clary could keep an eye on him. More importantly, back where she would see Isabelle and be able to speak to her. They'd make more progress if there were only corridors between them instead of mountains. Clary wouldn't outright accuse her brother of anything; she dared not without a shred of proof. She wasn't sure having Jonathan in Alicante would make him any less dangerous. At least here he'd be within her line of immediate sight.
"Did you come to tell me you were with child, Clary?"
Only the creaking of wet wood and the slap of the river on the sides of the boat answered the King. "I-" Clary caught her breath and wet her lips, "It is too soon for me to tell." That non-answer would serve her better than an outright 'no.'
Valentine's eyes shuttered, "Then your brother remains where he is." His point made, Valentine's back returned to the cushions. He didn't seem much relaxed, his shoulders sagging. It was as if there were a heavy sack laid upon them that only Valentine could see or feel.
Even without saying it aloud, Valentine had made himself irrefutably clear. Jonathan would remain. Not just in Estoncurt, but in the line of succession.
It would appear Clary had made much progress, yet none at all.
-0000000000000000-
Within hours of the King's return to the palace, the Council was told to make itself ready. It was high time it convened.
While the great men of the realm sat around Valentine's table to put the world to rights, Clary sought out her mother.
These days, the Queen of Idris made herself scarce. She might have left the convent, but she simply seemed to have re-planted her life of seclusion and self-reflection within the walls of Princewater Palace instead. Jocelyn spent her days indoors; praying, reading and sewing.
She was far from disinterested or uninvested, though Jocelyn no longer strode about the palace halls talking with councillors and ambassadors and she no longer lurked in the background of the King's apartments eavesdropping. Clary didn't know if that was wholly by choice or because Valentine would no longer permit his prodigal wife to do so. She didn't know if Jocelyn had asked and been refused more of the position she'd held prior to her abandonment of Valentine, or if she dared not ask on her return.
Clary supposed it didn't matter. The world came to Jocelyn.
As Clary was announced Jocelyn looked up from her sewing. "That'll do, Julie."
Julie Beauvale wobbled off mid-sentence, ducked a curtsey and made herself scarce.
"Julie's Latin has much improved."
"Yes," Jocelyn set aside her needle and thread, "Time breeds better understanding." The Queen got to her feet, straightening the fall of her skirts around her. She arched a brow, "Does it not, daughter?"
"It's a fine day," Clary offered instead, "Cold, yet dry and bright. Shall we take a turn about the gardens?"
Only with cracking pebbles underfoot did they begin to talk properly, as they ringed the stone fountain. The barest fleck of a haphazard drizzle touched Clary's cheeks.
"It worked, then?" Jocelyn's legs were still a little longer than her daughter's, yet she was the one fighting to keep up with Clary's strides these days.
She could see as much for herself. "The King is back and the Privy Council in session. Called upon to serve."
"As it should be." Brought to heel like the fickle, fearful and blindly loyal hounds that most of them were. It was strange to picture Jace, the lion of Broceland, among them. The hesitance, bickering and self-interest of the others must fatigue and frustrate her husband indeed. Small wonder Jace thrashed. It wasn't surprising that he seethed at having to twist and dance and cajole to get real progress made. Small wonder he was tempted by the prospect of sitting at the Council's head and getting the final say. No matter. Clary's mind on the matter was settled; getting Jace a regency was not the goal here. It would only reap the kind of discord Clary was striving to avoid. It would roughen their son's road to succession rather than smooth it. More pressingly, it was a pill of poison doused in honey. She wouldn't sit back and let her husband swallow it.
Clary's fingers circled the inside of her muff. Her mother was looking at it, "I am glad to see you are getting use of that," Her mother's voice softened infinitesimally.
Clary kept her eyes forward, on the well-worn but sparsely populated paths. Everybody was in turmoil over the King's sudden return. It would seem only his wife and daughter had the time for idle strolls and chit chat. As if there was such a thing in their family. "It was a fine Christmas gift." Clary sighed, reckoning they were as close to exchanging confidences as she and her mother ever did these days. So she asked, "Did you seek to simply keep my hands warm and dry, Mother, or did you hope to keep them clean too?"
Jocelyn caught Clary's elbow and swung her body towards her, drawing them closer, "If it were twenty years ago I would have gone for Valentine myself. But it is not. Thankfully, the mirror image of me twenty years ago still lives and breathes." Her eyes cut into Clary's "Sometimes, when we cannot take up arms ourselves, we must appoint a champion. I should think you could arrive at such a realisation by now yourself."
Clary fought to get her arm free, but Jocelyn's fingers were tight as her words were sharp, "You did not complain as heatedly as you might have done about sending the Lightwood girl to Estoncurt. That suggests to me you are learning, Clary. You are learning what it is to make difficult choices." Jocelyn inhaled, her eyes darting over Clary's shoulder, in search of whom, she knew not. "As I did not thrash and fight like I wished to when you left Broceland Forest to return to your father."
Clary shook her head, all her old resentments circling as she picked up the pace. These things were tough to chew on. She didn't agree with the comparison; she and Isabelle made a pact, Izzy had gone to Estoncurt with her eyes wide open, whereas Clary had been packed off to court that first time as a dizzy daydreamer, much to her detriment. And yet, even as it smarted, maybe there were some similarities between the cases. Clary plotted with her mother to go to the Gard in her stead and entice Valentine out. She hadn't discussed any of it with Jace because she didn't wish to waste any time disagreeing with him about either the necessity of Isabelle being where she was nor this morning's outing. Clary had come to value an almost selfishly callous expediency too. The kind she'd learned at her mother's knee.
"Truly, how much have we achieved since then?"
"A great deal, Clary. Believe me. And we will achieve a great deal more, in time. We play a long game."
"I suppose I must continue to cultivate patience. Impudence doesn't always prosper."
Jocelyn agreed. "The Duke of Lyn was impudent, now he's dead."
"My brother is also impudent," Clary added acidly, "It's a quality not foreign to my husband either, on occasion." She didn't know if it was bad thing, all the time. Jace was honourable and selfless, to a degree that it frightened her at times. He would throw himself into the lion's den and charge uphill alone against an entire army if he thought it would inspire the world to change for the better. Clary doubted this was the last occasion she'd need to pull Jace back from the brink. As for Jonathan… she didn't know if anyone ever could pull him back from the brink. It would never sit well with her that she'd permitted Isabelle to try.
Although she'd grown up, it was still to her mother Clary ran when she feared monsters under the bed and demons in the shadows, "Sometimes," she admitted, weary and permitting a small instance of weakness, "I wonder if it is worth it. I wonder if I shouldn't just take my husband and my girls to Chatton and let Nero fiddle while Rome burns." Let Jonathan have his crown, in other words. It seemed the path of least resistance. It seemed the easiest surrender she might make. As country gentry Jace and their daughters would be safe. And yet, even as the thought passed Clary's lips it held no substance. After a month or two at Chatton both she and Jace would be bored. As for their heirs… Isabella, Jeanne and whoever else may follow them into this world would always be claimants to Idris's throne, even should they never wish to press it. They'd always belong to Idris's oldest and most celebrated dynasty; they'd always hold the blood of old Ithuriel and the blood of the first brave King Jonathan. That blood was coveted, that blood was dangerous. And that blood called its duty.
"I know." Jocelyn neither refuted nor chided Clary for her slip. Jocelyn did know. She knew the struggle not only of pushing uphill but doing so in skirts. Clary wondered how many times Jocelyn strove to rein in her husband, to influence him, to try to temper the impulses of a powerful man who loathed disobedience and who railed at challenge and criticism.
"It's not in your nature to do nothing, Clary. Nor is it like you to allow bad things to happen when you could circumnavigate them. Ever since you were a young girl and first learned to read, you loved your heroines from the histories; the grand and bold queens of days gone by- Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc, Empress Matilda… the more audacious the better. They didn't always have to succeed in their endeavours to bear esteem in your eyes. Glory belonged to knights and Kings, you told me once, but the mark of a good queen was wisdom and fortitude." Jocelyn snickered damply, "And you were only perhaps twelve when you said it!" Her mother shook her head and grew sombre again, with dab of her old rebellion, "To secure your admiration it was enough that those women from ages gone by were willing to fight, to challenge, to question. Oh, how could I forget to add our own Queen Abigail, the consort of Jonathan I. How you adored the idea of her donning armour and riding after her husband's army, all while the holy sisters of Broceland urged you to venerate Saint Agnes!"
Jocelyn's smile faded, "Sometimes Clary, you can only do what you hope is the right thing for the right reasons, however difficult. I think in this instance you were indeed right."
"I don't know if Jace will agree with you."
"I think, even if only in time, Jace will learn to be grateful to have been spared."
-000000000000000-
Estoncurt Palace, April 1540
Jonathan seldom bothered her after supper, when Isabelle took to her rooms and undressed. What he did with his evenings she was glad not to know. From what she could gather, it was all conducted from within his chamber at the far end of that connecting hall, behind a door which remained shut. It was a door which Isabelle would not rattle and a door she would not knock.
Not unless there was an emergency and there hadn't been another.
There was no cause for her to seek him out at odd hours at all. Though the mountain roads began to thaw, still they remained quiet. Whatever Mark wrote to his brother at Isabelle's urging, it appeared to have worked.
The news from Alicante was scant. The most significant thing to make it up the passes to Estoncurt were Isabelle's new dresses.
Now she had jewels to match them, she thought wonderingly, her thumb gliding over the dark stones in their box. Black pearls, a long rope of them. Jonathan surprised her by producing them at their breakfast table, passing them over without a kind word or note to accompany them.
"What's the meaning of this?"
He barely looked up from his kippers. "They're yours."
Isabelle hadn't ordered anything of the sort. She thought she'd remember having added rare and expensive jewellery to her shopping list. No, on the contrary, she'd been most careful and economical with the funds Jonathan granted her to spend. The figure had been liberal and Isabelle did make it go a long way, just not this far.
With something like pain Isabelle closed the clasp on the box and set it down. "I did not send for these."
"Christ," Jonathan rolled his eyes, his voice packed with all the annoyance he reserved for her these days, "Second day of the third month? It is your birthday, is it not?" It was. Until he'd mentioned it, Isabelle hadn't spared it a thought. Somedays it felt like she'd been at Estoncurt for a week, others it felt she'd been here a year. But Jonathan was right. It was April already. She was twenty-one years old.
"How did you know?"
Jonathan swilled down some ale, looking at her as though she was asking him to help her solve some very basic arithmetic problems. "I asked around." This too was presented as the most obvious thing in the world, as opposed to being among the most uncharacteristic things she could imagine him doing.
Although Jonathan had proved surprisingly observant of late. Since he'd accepted she wasn't going to knife him in his sleep and decided not to completely ignore her, Isabelle began to notice numerous small things. The trout native to the mountain rivers which Isabelle had taken a liking to often graced their table. A painting of the huntress Atlanta in his solar she'd briefly complimented relocated itself to her bedchamber. And since her complaints in his sick room so long ago about the dearth of reading material that wasn't religious, two small volumes of poetry had also wandered among Isabelle's possessions without being sent for.
If it were anyone else, Isabelle might have found this endearing. Then she'd remember Mark Blackthorn, still confined to quarters and her brothers in Alicante, both of them with ample reasons to fear the inquisition which Jonathan paid for as assuredly as he had her pearls.
Yet there was little use ignoring it. Perspective was difficult up here, alone. Up here, alone, Jonathan was… not so bad.
"Thank you." It was tinged with sincerity. This was the grandest birthday gift she'd ever received. The pearls were breathtaking. Just looking at them made Isabelle feel giddy.
Jonathan hummed, pointing with the rim of his cup, "I thought they'd suit you."
They would. If only she had cause to wear them. Perhaps, if the Prince and Princess's last guest had survived the night, then others might be more inclined to come visit.
"That reminds me," Jonathan sniffed, "I sent to Adamant for a painting of you. One ought to hang here somewhere; my grandmother's still on the wall upstairs and she hasn't been mistress here for decades. It warrants replacement. Yet thus far my search has yielded little results."
Isabelle did not dwell on what could possibly have prompted Jonathan to want her on the wall. It certainly wasn't sentimentality. Perhaps his vanity was a match for hers. He'd called her a beauty in mocking when they'd wed, but there had been a splice of truth to it. Men liked to boast of beautiful wives, even if they didn't care for the woman herself. That was why rich men had their wives and daughters rendered to oil and canvas; to boast at the good looks and good health of their family.
She cleared her throat, "Nor will it. I've never been painted."
Jonathan nudged his last kipper onto his knife. He looked up incredulously, "Never?"
Isabelle shook her head. "I was born as good a nobody, Jonathan." She'd grown up in a compact castle, not unlike this, though nowhere near as big and isolated. Castle Adamant was the guardian of the main thoroughfare between France and Idris, a gateway through which many passed with their wagons of livestock, food and bolts of fine fabric, yet seldom stayed. The family who owned and lived in the keep were themselves minor gentry- granted title to sweeten them and keep their gates open, but rarely called upon for more than that. Even if they'd had prestige, the Lightwoods didn't have coinage to spare on frivolous things like paintings. "There might have been a sketch of me done once. That's about the height of it."
Isabelle believed the vaguest outline of her features was rendered in charcoal around the time she turned sixteen, when there was first talk of her marrying. There hadn't been cause or coin for anything more than that. Unlike Clary, none of Isabelle's suitors were princes.
Jonathan set down his knife. "You're not a nobody anymore. You're a Princess of Idris. It's a travesty." It was unclear if he felt the travesty was she'd never been painted, or if the travesty was her being a Princess of Idris. Isabelle did not seek the clarification, and Jonathan pressed on, "You cannot pass through history and have no one remember your face. Not when you wear a name that will be remembered." He snapped his fingers, "I'll send for Cartwright. He's the best we've got. He can paint you."
Isabelle supposed it was nothing to relish, that Jonathan wished to put her in a frame and celebrate her as another pretty possession. Yet, she didn't object. She liked the idea of being painted, she liked the thought of being preserved and celebrated. It would be good to finally have proof she was of some import to the world, that what she did mattered. Posterity was a very male thing, she supposed. It was centred around what they could pass to their sons, what would be remembered of their name's greatness through the centuries to come; for Kings and Princes would write much of their own histories. The more successful you were, the more power you had over your legacy.
Women didn't get to keep their names. They wore their father's name and then their husband's, as did their daughters in turn. Often all they had deemed of value was their faces and their bodies- for there lay their allure to important men, as well as the wombs they offered for carrying sons. Why not have her face immortalised while it was still young and pretty? Why not have something of herself inscribed, something that was not just a name on a family tree? Why not create a piece of self-mythology for the ages? For herself?
Here is Isabelle of Adamant, Princess of Idris. Look upon her, pause and think of her. Admire even, if you will. She did something, once.
Isabelle exhaled, "Thank you," she heard herself say again.
She didn't think much more if it, until she was admiring the pearls again in the gloom of her bedchamber after hours. Like her thoughts of him cried out, Jonathan appeared on her threshold with a spark in his eyes. Isabelle's hands shot off the pearls at once. Did he really think that with one necklace he'd bought her? Did he earnestly believe that one gift and the promise of a portrait would sweeten her sufficiently to permit him into her bed?
He stood on the crossing but came into her room no further. "Come," Jonathan beckoned her, holding out his hand.
Despite Isabelle's initial concerns, he didn't lead her to his rooms. He took her to a staircase. Together they climbed.
Isabelle's heart started to hammer against the sound of their footsteps on heavy stone.
As Jonathan led her out on the parapet, Isabelle thought of Andrew Blackthorn.
But Jonathan kept hold of her hand, his fingers loosely curled around hers. If she slipped or toppled, she'd assuredly take him with her. There was a high colour on his cheeks, though it wasn't from rage or impatience. The brightness still hadn't faded from his eyes either.
"Look," he beckoned to her again, this time toward the edge of the wall. Her heart still high, her hand still in his, Isabelle followed to the edge of a wall built for raining arrows or pouring boiling oil. Once there, Jonathan gestured for not to look down, but upwards.
With some difficulty, Isabelle prised her eyes away from his face and the strange expression of awe that sat there, obediently looking to the heavens.
What she saw made her breath catch.
"This," Jonathan spoke from beside her in a voice scarce more than a whisper, "Is the highest tower in the kingdom. Here, we are as close to the stars as anyone in Idris can get." He inhaled, the soft whicker of his voice like fine velvet over stone, "Astronomers once flocked here."
She could see why. Isabelle knew astronomers designed special glasses to survey the skies and stars with, yet she felt that up here they'd have little need of them. It felt like they standing among the stars. The stars seemed to be just above Isabelle's head, where she might reach out and touch them. If she stretched out just as far as her arms would let her, the stars might scatter into sparkling dust against her very fingertips. Isabelle had looked to the stars before but she'd never seen so many of them, so unrestrained in their brilliance.
The night sky above Estoncurt was utterly unencumbered from the smoke of city fires- there wasn't another soul for miles around. There wasn't a single cloud scudding the sky.
"This is the first clear night we've had this year."
Isabelle, her neck still craning, didn't turn to him. "It's so beautiful." The word felt paltry, yet it was all she had. If she were more fanciful, Isabelle might imagine she and Jonathan were the last man and woman in the world, standing together as the sky fell around them.
"I know. Her skies are Estoncurt's only beauty. When I was a boy, I used to beg Starkweather to take me up here to study the stars, the moon, the constellations. Once, I knew them all." He tilted his head, closed one eye and squinted. "Look- there's Ursa Major. Yonder, Ursa Minor. And Canis Major, or Sirius, the dog star." He traced them out for her in turn with a slow fingertip.
"No one ever taught me astronomy." No one ever taught her much. Anything that was worth learning in this life, Isabelle taught herself.
Jonathan shrugged, "I've forgotten most of what I read anyway. I didn't have the patience for much concerted study of the heavens. All too often when I came up on this turret to gaze, the clouds were thick and stars eluded me. I soon realised I'd better things to do than sit here night after night hoping for a glimpse of this. Nights this clear are very rare."
And he'd opted to share this with her. Isabelle kept her eyes on the sky, her heart starting to beat fast again. Up here it was eerily quiet. Not a night bird cried, nor did a reptile croak. She didn't know why it never occurred to her that Jonathan could appreciate this world's beauty. She defied anyone with eyes in their head to stand on this turret of Estoncurt and not be humbled.
"How did you ever remember all the constellations?"
He shifted his heels, "Well, I sketched the shapes out. I made my own map to label and memorise." A pause before he added in a smaller voice, "It took me an age. You can probably imagine by now how Estoncurt easily offers the time for such tedious pursuits. There were only my tutors and my physicians with me. Father never visited. Nor did Mother, for obvious reasons."
Isabelle's breath caught again. She strove to smother the sound. Yes, she could understand a young boy needing to remind himself that there was a world beyond this castle. That the world was big, and wonderous, and that there were many things besides his fitting affliction learned men did not understand. Not all the unknown was scary. Humanity knew as little of Heaven as they did of Hell.
She could also picture him at a bench in the hall below, straining for the best light and carefully inking in names beside his charcoal sketches, carefully completing his painstaking cartography of the skies. Isabelle imagined he'd possess some skill at it; Clary sketched with a clear talent. Rarely, these days, for a woman- even a Duchess- had little chance of securing a master and serving as an artist's apprentice. Her master was her husband. How interesting, that Jonathan also inherited some of those artistic stirrings.
"Look!" Isabelle pointed out a winking, flickering trail of a falling star.
She heard the edge of laughter in his voice, "Another Morgenstern."
Isabelle realised she was still holding his hand. She dropped it.
He didn't seem to notice, "There's something so lonely about them, don't you think? There's so many of them, and yet they never touch. We've sketched lines between them for a thousand years, but there's no chance of real connection."
"I suppose so. We can never reach them either. No matter what, we must make our peace with forever looking and never being able to touch."
The moment stretched and lingered, the two of them leaning back and gazing up. "I never studied astronomy." Isabelle confessed, "I learned to read and write and to do basic additions and subtractions. But I never learned any languages beyond French and I wasn't encouraged to read poetry or theological musings. I had other skills to hone. My parents sent me to court in Paris when I was twelve. There I learned how to dance and flirt, how to embroider and win at cards. It was a very different kind of education."
"Did you go to Paris with your mother?" Jonathan was looking at her, now. Isabelle dropped her gaze and looked back at him. She'd learned about him. She may as well offer something in return.
"At first. My mother never lingered long in Paris." Isabelle's father would never permit it. Mayrse would become jealous and openly spiteful, she'd pick fights and fling accusations and make it difficult for Robert to see his mistress. Well, Mayrse was never the cause of those fights, but she was almost exclusively the instigator. Watching her parents' strife offered another facet of education. "My mother left me there after about a month."
"They just left you there? Alone?"
She bristled at the prospect of sympathy, "Even then I knew how to fend for myself."
"I don't doubt it."
"And I wasn't alone for long. After a few years my brothers came too."
She could see what Jonathan was prodding at. The notion that Estoncurt hadn't been Isabelle's first kind of exile.
"Didn't you resent it?"
She huffed, "No. Where would be the point? I go where I'm sent."
"As must we all."
Another long, silence. Jonathan regarded Isabelle and she him, each of them puzzling and wary. She didn't know what to say or do.
If all Isabelle had ever known of the Prince of Idris was this; the man who gave her rare jewels and took her stargazing, who matched her sharp tongue and showed her the ways he was vulnerable, she'd feel very differently. If this, these moments as rare as the clear sky were all she had to go on, Isabelle felt they'd be different. Jonathan had a stark beauty in the starlight; it cut into relief his sharp cheekbones and proud nose, the just of his chin and the smooth alabaster of his skin. He wasn't handsome, necessarily. He still had a face you'd be drawn to, one you'd struggle to forget. It was a face made for marble busts and statues of bronze. The expectation of memoriam was there, not just in the features, but how he carried them. Except, Isabelle didn't dare forget why she was here. Just because Jonathan hadn't been dreadful to her didn't absolve him of the dreadful things he'd done before. Did it?
Being a kind of good to her, at Estoncurt, where no-one else saw it, didn't make him good. Mayhap that wasn't the point. Mayhap her great discovery was that Jonathan could be good. That there was goodness in him. That he, like any other man or woman, was also drawn towards light on dark nights.
Because he was looking at her, not the sky anymore. He was looking at Isabelle the same way he had the stars. As something he wanted to map out, to understand, yes, but also as something that might offer him light. As someone who could become a bridge to the rest of the world, a world that persistently misjudged him.
Had she misjudged him? And there it was, that treacherous thought surfacing in the back of Isabelle's mind and not for the first time: What if we were wrong?
If they were the last man and woman in the world and if there was no life beyond this mountains, if there was no Alicante, no crown, no conspiracy against him, a conspiracy in which Isabelle now had an active part… Isabelle knew not what she'd do. She knew not what she would do with Jonathan, nor how she'd feel. How she'd let herself feel.
Jonathan also weighed the night, and Isabelle, and decided. "You know, gazing at the stars was not the only thing I availed of this turret for, growing up."
"Oh?"
"I used it to howl. To vent. Every time my father banished me here, or chastised me unfairly, or simply ignored me, I'd come up here and howl."
"Howl?" She repeated, flummoxed.
Jonathan grinned, his teeth very white in the dark.
Then he leaned forward, so far over the wall that Isabelle's hands jerked out to reach for him, to pull him back, and Jonathan screamed.
He howled from deep in his belly. It was a sound of such angst and rage and yet there was a discernible lick of glee to it. It was not princely, it was far more primal than that. Isabelle clapped her hand over her bodice, staggering away from him with a gasping laugh.
"See?" Jonathan lurched back, grinning still. "You should try, it's quite enjoyable. Quite freeing, you know? When everything goes awry and there's naught else to be done- howl! When nobody in the world seems to hear or see you- howl! When you're stuck at Estoncurt with a spouse you have no liking for, with nowhere else to go and nobody else to talk to-?
"Howl?" Isabelle volunteered into his prompting silence.
"Excellent, you've grasped the concept. Now give it a go and test the theory."
He offered her a place beside him. It could be a trap. Isabelle doubted it. She skirted to the edge of the wall, more unsure about the howling than standing here on the edge. There wasn't much space. Her shoulder brushed Jonathan's.
"I don't know." She laughed nervously.
"Go on, Isabelle. There's no one around. No one but mountain goats and some lost sheep. I'm sure you have plenty to howl about."
Isabelle supposed she did. It was just that she'd always been trained to grit her teeth and smile past the smothering bodice and the tight, pinching shoes. She'd always been taught to keep her anger and any other similarly strong emotions to herself. Anger was unladylike and no one liked a girl who shouted and yelled. Nobody wanted to marry one.
That didn't mean women didn't get angry. On the contrary, Isabelle suspected no one could be sewn into square bodices and jutting farthingales, pressed down with weighty headdresses and carted out to dance with old men while their brothers learned Latin and weaponry and not nurse a deep burning rage. And she was married now. To Jonathan. She wasn't sure who she was trying to impress or pander to, nor whose idea of good manners she'd need to defer to.
So, after the final, tittering fit of self-consciousness, Isabelle planted her palms on the chilled hewn stone, and she screamed.
She howled for the little girl she had been, she howled for the woman she was. She howled for all the times she'd been diminished, or mocked or blamed for things not her fault. She howled for the times she'd been called a whore or treated like a man's plaything. She howled for the injustice of being stuck here, miles away from anyone she loved, and for all the confusion the man beside her caused her.
Isabelle howled until she ran out of breath. Then, when she scrabbled some air back into her lungs she started to laugh again. Jonathan was right. It hadn't changed things a jot, but she did feel better.
She barely heard the rattle of the latch behind them until Jonathan spoke, his voice ringing out with command, "Away, man!" He barked at the steward, trembling with a shuddering torch flame to hand, "Hear you not that the Princess and I are howling?"
The steward mumbled an apology and hastily retreated.
When he was gone, Isabelle and Jonathan laughed together, Isabelle chortling into her fingers and pressing her eyes shut like a mischievous child in the schoolroom.
"Shall we go again?"
Isabelle found she wanted to. She did indeed have much to howl about.
She kept standing beside Jonathan and they howled together until their voices gave out. Side by side, under the dispassionate and distant gaze of the faraway stars, two young people each decreed hopeless threw the anger of their voices out into the mountains and through the centuries.
-0000000000000000-
Chatton House, Broceland, May 1540
Jace rode ahead of the seasonal progress to ready the house. He had every doorway swept, and every candelabra loaded with fresh tapers. He had the rich forest around them emptied of game and his larders subsequently filled.
Valentine was eager to make up for the lack of a courtly progress last year, and even more eager to banish lingering rumours about his health. Let the people come to see their King, straight backed and waving in the saddle. Better yet, let his lords look upon his appetite and fine humour as they strove to feed and amuse the King and all his retinue in their halls.
Jace knew it was an honour to be among those chosen to host. It was also a pain in the arse and a greater pain in the purse. But he smiled, and he did as he was bid. The very last thing the Duke of Broceland could appear to be in this moment was over-mighty. Whispers of fruitless conspiracy still buzzed around him and haunted sleepless nights.
It didn't help his overactive head that his bed was empty. He needed Clary. He needed her grit and her tenacity. He needed her kisses and her faith in him. Still, Jace could see that he needed her more exactly where she was- at Valentine's side. These days the King turned to Clary for reassurance, not Jace. It was difficult to swallow, but he supposed it was just. It was Clary who'd sought Valentine out in the Gard and gone on her knees to pledge fealty while others faltered and fled. Jace included. It was Clary who proved herself to Valentine as a lone beacon of fidelity. Clary's carefully calculated constancy proved the balm to the wound of Jocelyn's abandonment. Perhaps not something that might cure the depth of that wound, but something that would at least alleviate Valentine's pain.
She'd turned the tide, restored Valentine's favour to the Brocelands. His wife, not him. Jace didn't want to question what it meant for him, nor what it meant to him. At the crossroads Clary hadn't enthusiastically urged Jace on to greatness, she'd seen only peril and hazard. She'd taken the initiative. It wasn't out of doubts for Jace's capability, she'd sworn since as she kissed him soundly, but because she doubted the necessity for them to take such a gamble.
"We stay the course," she'd urged, her palms gentle as they'd framed Jace's face, her voice firm as an anvil.
Stick, not twist.
"We stay the course," Jace agreed.
So he'd let her continue to do what she'd done thus far most excellently. Clary sat at Valentine's side, she followed him around and quietly cautioned or guided him whenever she felt she could. She'd earned herself a thing more rare and valuable than the finest of gems, deep in the bowels of a mine in New Spain. Valentine's trust. Or whatever passed for the King's trust, these days.
Best not to squander it. So they'd parted in Alicante and Jace shouldered the domestic drudgeries. He was sure some other lords mocked him for playing wife and letting his wife play courtier in his stead. It rankled, Jace wouldn't pretend otherwise to himself.
He was still learning prudence. And he'd made errors enough before out of pride.
This was temporary. It was but a few days of overseeing clean beddings and bread dough. Then Clary and the King would be here and things could resume a more comfortable normality. Jace would be back to making policy and helping the King govern soon.
If the other lords of the realm might mock Jace for letting his wife take point with the King, they'd make even more merriment of his standing pressed to the window casement for sign of her return. Jace didn't care.
He watched the approach of the court from the house's upstairs windows. He'd go down and welcome Valentine personally when the time came, along with all the servants already lined up by the doors for the great reception. For now, he let his eyes pick out the approaching noble standards.
They were predominantly family banners. He saw a raven with a knife in its beak, Ravenscar. Then the bolt of lightning, Starkweather. A coiled serpent heralded Verlac. They were interspersed with some personal badges, those which spoke to individuals rather than families. Jace still had the lion Clary designed for him, he glimpsed several other noble equivalents among the procession. Like Alec's black horse and Valentine's personal badge: the outline of the Gard overcast by a crown. To the King's left Jace glimpsed Jocelyn's; a kneeling maiden with her golden tresses flowing free and a unicorn laying in her lap. These badges were not just personal, they were political campaigns. Jace's mouth quirked to a half smile at the queen's, one which had been chosen for her upon her marriage. It offered a rather over-egged portrait of maidenhood; not just one but two obvious symbols of virginity melded into one. It had been chosen for her, born of a wish to imprint upon the court and the country that Jocelyn was pure and thus so was her marriage. Above all, it'd been necessary to quell the nasty speculation and innuendo surrounding Jocelyn's relationship with the King. Apparently there was strong inference at the time that she'd been Valentine's lover prior to exchanging any vows and that she should have stayed as such- a woman better suited to royal mistress than royal wife.
Jace's eyes moved of their own accord to the badge to the right of Valentine's. It wasn't Clary's, as he'd hoped. Squinting and frowning, Jace pondered the image. It wasn't that of any noble house, nor any nobleman he knew of. That was perplexing. Had Valentine brought a significant foreign emissary or visitor with him, Clary would send word of warning to Jace.
With a grunt of frustration he collared one of his squires. "Who is that?" He asked of the fellow whose keen eyes had served him well as the Duke's sentry on the roads before. "Who rides to the right of the King? Who is under that pale… bird?"
The squire also squinted before he clarified. "I believe that to be a white falcon, Your Grace. And under it appears to the Princess."
"That's not the Princess," Jace countered impatiently, "I can see my wife there, riding just behind the Queen."
"Forgive me, sir, I did not mean Her Grace the Duchess. I meant the other Princess. The Princess Isabelle."
-000000000000000-
It was late in the afternoon, during the courtly lull between dinner and supper. The King retreated to his chambers, Clary was down in the cellars assessing the damage of the latest feast and Jace was fretting over his own papers. He was wrangling out how the devil he was going to find the coin to complete his ambitious water scheme for Alicante. He was attempting to circumnavigate having the King convene the Clave to discuss a tax raise, knowing precisely how unpopular a move that would be. It would be poorly received by court and parliament alike.
However, Jace's pockets were of a finite depth. The King's allotted funds for the task had been a conservative estimate. Valentine would be frugal with his people. Jace reviewed and recalculated, but he could not conjure gold from thin air. He would have to go to Valentine again with the begging bowl, but Jace knew the King well enough to know he had better have some manner of half-contrived solution for his funding problem before he approached the dais. Otherwise, Valentine would put the metaphorical bowl over Jace's ears and box the sides with a spoon.
He sighed, massaging his temples, when movement at the door to his chamber alerted him to a more immediate problem.
His page tripped over his own feet as he stumbled inward and to attention, "Your Grace, Her Highness-"
"Yes," Jace interrupted hastily, "I can see for myself. You can go, thank you."
Isabelle strode over the threshold, possessing all the composure the serving boy had lacked, cool faced in bright skirts. She was dressed like she this was merely a stop on her way and she was going elsewhere afterward, somewhere grander and more exciting. There was a black feather wobbling in her cap. The dress had a high collar, puffed sleeves, cinched at a tiny waist. It was a bold burgundy.
Nothing Isabelle wore was ill considered or coincidental. This was to be a blending of her usual favoured reds with purple, the colour of kings. Isabelle had a right to wear purple now, of course. As much as Jace did. Though he wasn't sure he'd have the daring to don it. In his experience, crowing about crowns was a sure way to get yourself killed.
Though Isabelle was nothing if not a provocateur. She'd always been a woman of taste, Jace reflected, just seldom of funds. It would seem a Prince's coffer made for quite the wardrobe.
He unfolded his legs and straightened in his chair. "Royalty suits you, sister."
Isabelle lifted her chin, "Come riding."
Jace had a dozen other, more pressing matters to attend to right here, at his writing table. But he got to his feet, hoping she was asking for what he thought she was.
A chance to speak, alone, out in the open air. Less chance of being overheard.
Even at Chatton, his own house, Jace was not stupid to presume the only ears perched to listen were being paid by him.
A quarter of an hour later their horses were saddled and cantering through Chatton's gates. Isabelle pulled back to let Jace lead by a half-stride, with some reluctance. He did, after all, know this land better than her. She hadn't even visited before, Jace realised with a jolt. Not without the court in tow, restricting her to the revels at the manor.
He hadn't shared much of the house that had become his home with her, though she'd shared all the secret passages and prime berry picking spots at Castle Adamant with him.
Jace decided to share a favourite spot on the estate with her. He led her through the groves towards the hills. He didn't have to worry about checking his speed because he knew Isabelle liked fast horses. Nor did he consider the easier, better worn paths. Izzy loved a challenge, and she was as skilled in the saddle as Jace.
The letters between them had been curt and heavily scrutinised by second and third parties, these past months.
They ended up alone on a hillside, fringed by the pines of the forest, on a cliff which provided a pleasant vantage point. A nice height from which to survey the valley beneath them, to see the fields and the dotted thatched cottages. The livestock dotting the grazing pastures looked like some of Isabella's toys at this distance. There, nestled at its heart, the sandy stone of Chatton House.
Jace and Isabelle tethered their horses and made their way to the cliff view on foot. It was a fair day, warm and dry. There was a sweat prickling Jace's skin. He wasn't sure when he'd last broken a sweat on a ride. They seldom hunted now, for the King was seldom in the mood and Clary was never going to suggest they ride out for pleasure. Of late, Jace only stayed in the saddle long enough to travel at a careful pace to his intended destination. He supposed he was becoming that which he had scorned for so long; a soft lordling, spending too much time on his arse and more time eating game than hunting for it.
He peeled off his riding gloves and stretched out his fingers, a little cramped form working the reins. Isabelle, despite her fine and doubtlessly expensive new riding clothes, flopped down onto the grass and propped herself up on her elbows. She swept her cap off and batted a breeze briefly around her face with it. Her cheeks were pink too, the edges of her dark hair pressed by perspiration to the sides of her face.
Jace, shrugging out of his coat and tugging his wineskin free of his saddle bag, gave his panting bay hunter a pat and moved to join her.
She accepted the drink, then they sat side by side in silence. They watched the skylarks dip and dive against the clouds. The birds in the trees beside them and the scuttling of other small animals in the shrubs made it impossible to hear their song.
Jace, for once not knowing what to say, let the quiet bob along.
"It's beautiful here," Isabelle commented at last, "In a placid, farmish sort of way."
Jace opted to take that as a compliment. "I am proud of it. God knows, life in this county has not always been peaceful, but its people certainly possess a resilience."
"Edom has its own beauty. It's different, distinct. There's a rugged wildness to it."
He watched her out the side of his eye. Jace once thought himself well practised at reading Isabelle. As a young girl she'd made no effort at all to disguise her passions, which were often as strong as Jace's. When she was pleased, when she was annoyed, it was ever plain upon her face. Then she'd been sent to Paris and quickly learned the hard way to disguise her heart.
"I hear the winters are brutal."
Something not unlike a smile flashed across her face. "They bring a certain peace. Edom demands another kind of resilience."
He awaited an elaboration for as long as he could. Jace found none forthcoming.
"Izzy," he began, damned if he would squander this rare, crucial moment alone with her to comparing climes, "Are you honestly suggesting -"
"Jace." She stoppered him as assuredly as she screwed the cap back on the wine skin, "I am fine."
"Alec has torn out his hair for months, worrying about you."
"He frets worse than a mother hen. Alec imagines dangers where there are none."
Jace fisted his fingers in the grass, resisting the impulse to haul it up by the roots. "I do not think for a moment your peril is imaginary." He turned toward her and turned pleading, "Do not return with him. Stay here with us. Clary and I will move on with the court soon and you can have Chatton all to yourself. You can be lady of the manor, your own manor, as you always wanted. I will fend off the King and your mother. We'll them you're ill and need some time in the country to recuperate."
Isabelle looked back at him with pity, "What good would that do?"
"What good would it not do?" Jace was flabbergasted she should expect him to explain himself further than that. "Alec would sleep through the night again, for a start. As would I."
Isabelle shook her head, more in disbelief than defeat.
Jace measured the subsequent pause, the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze, the soft whicker of a horse behind them. He knew he would not get this chance again.
"What about Andrew Blackthorn?" He demanded in a hiss.
Isabelle looked him dead in the eye. "That was an accident."
"A terrible one, to be sure." He shook his head, "Jonathan is lucky Andrew's son isn't of age, and thus not in a position to garner and army and march for revenge." He punctuated this with a pointed finger at Isabelle. A harsh reminder of the peril that 'accident' had put her in, "He could have a civil war on his hands."
"Exactly," Isabelle plopped her hat back on and straightened it, looking back over the valley, "Jonathan isn't that clumsy. He hadn't anything to gain by Lyn's death."
Jace wet his lips, ready to make an argument on both counts, but Isabelle pressed on, "There are a lot of winding stairs in Edom, and the steps freeze in the winter. Winters you yourself acknowledge are harsh. We still had ice on the sills until about four weeks ago. Andrew slipped. It could easily have happened to anyone, but yes, it was unfortunate it was him."
Jace felt as though he were explaining to Isabella why she could not have sugared plums for dinner. "Unfortunate for him, mayhap, though rather convenient to Jonathan. Blackthorn went to challenge him about the betrothal he'd brokered. A betrothal Jonathan designed to counteract the influence Alec- my ally- gained when he promised to wed Aline Penhallow. Andrew threatened to unravel Jonathan's whole plan with discussions of a pre-contract, he threatened to spoil Jonathan's chance to negate an advantage he imagined I had. So yes, it is entirely credible that in the face of that Jonathan lost his temper. Except, no one is going to accuse the King's son of murder."
There was simply no one left to. The Duke of Lyn was the greatest of the realm's peers, the oldest and most respected. Without Andrew, the new Duke was only a boy, sequestered at Bellgate with his stepmother and younger siblings. The only other man of enough standing to bring such grave charges against Prince Jonathan was Jace. And he, with a tenuous hold on the King's favour on a good day- the more he filled the royal nursery with girls and the Privy Council with problems instead of fixes- was not in any position to. Jace thought of John Carstairs, and of his father. A demand for justice could backfire on him much too easily.
Jace bit his lip. He tasted blood before Isabelle continued, "Jace, you must stop thinking of Jonathan as a monster. He is a man. Yes, a man with a temper. Yes, a man with ambitions counter to yours. But he's not some uncontrollable dragon, thrashing around and catching us all in this teeth and claws."
Jace could only stare at her, astonishment and horror beating in his throat.
Isabelle fixed him another of those penetrative looks from sloe black eyes, "Has it ever occurred to you that this envy you are always ready to accuse Jonathan of bearing you is a stream that flows both ways? That you are as jealous of him as he is of you? It does seem ironic that though you seem to bear Valentine's love, it is Jonathan who has the King's name. You do envy Jonathan the powers and privileges that affords. It offers greater security than being married to the King's daughter. Love is fickle. In this world, blood holds power. I think that could be what keeps you and Alec awake at night, as much as anything else. That you have pinned all your hopes to a feeling that could dissipate in the morning with the mists."
"Isabelle, you know what Jonathan is! You know what he has done to Clary, how he has tormented her and plotted against her."
"As though you and Clary have never plotted against him? Never raised a hand against anyone, either of you, both saints?"
Jace flattered himself a good debater. One who knew how to hold his ground and coax his listeners into seeing things as he did. He couldn't seem to get through to Isabelle, he simply couldn't pin her down. She kept flipping this way and that, like an eel. Only ten times more slippery, twisting Jace's words and deeds against him. Every time Jace tried to argue against Isabelle with reason his heart, clattering around at his throat and temples, kept getting in the way.
"I won't deny having said and done much which I regret." He stated finally, "All I have done has not been from sheer pride, or ambition. I try to do what is right. What is right for my family, yes, but also for Idris. I am no angel, not in any regard. My conscience is mine alone. I do know that Jonathan Morgenstern is not a good man." He couldn't believe it needed to be said aloud. Plain fact. He felt as though he were pointing out the obvious again and she refused to see it.
A rogue cloud momentarily scudded out the sun. Isabelle exhaled, pulling her knees up towards her chest, ringing them with her arms. It made her seem smaller and younger.
"He is my husband," She answered fact with fact. "Not one I would have chosen, but such is life. He's not a monster, Jace." She repeated, firmly, "Not to me."
Jace could think of utterly nothing to say to that.
"My husband," she repeated, directed inwardly, "Not what I wanted, but what I have."
The unsteady Duke of Broceland peered out over his lands. Jace's duchy, as far as the eye could see, that which had been his father's before him. The King had loved Stephen too, like a brother, they said. Look how that ended.
Jace disagreed with Isabelle's assessment of love, for the most part. He could not think of all he felt for Clary and imagine it as easily dismissed or put aside. Yet, he couldn't deny he'd never felt uneasy in his fine furs and at his high table. He'd made his presence at court felt, Jace did have power and influence with Valentine. However, Chene and Lyn were both respected and clever in their time. They too were rich and powerful, once. It had not saved them.
Jace snatched up a blade of grass and twiddled it between his forefinger and thumb, "That should be our new family motto, me thinks."
He earned a short snicker.
"You are playing a very dangerous game, Izzy," Jace reminded her, returning to graveness.
"Aren't we all?" There wasn't much argument he could brook with that either.
She clicked her tongue, "Do you remember that story you told me once, about the first pet Valentine ever gave you?"
Jace pursed his dry lips.
"The falcon," Isabelle persisted, in a low voice, watching a small songbird take flight from the trees to their backs and begin to warble over their heads.
"You said it was beautiful, its feathers of the hue of soft, fresh snow yet tipped with dashes of coal. Like ermine. But it wasn't to be stroked or handled like a toy; she also had a sharp beak and a killer instinct. You told me she cut your skin to shreds, that she would not heed you. Yet you persisted with her. Because you admired the fight."
"Valentine had that bird's neck wrung in the end." Jace concluded, hoarsely.
Isabelle wasn't finished "Not before you had the bird under your control. In time and with persistence, you taught her to obey you. Until there was no more bleeding and no more scars."
The sun broke through once more, alighting Isabelle's profile. Jace thought of her dancing with Jonathan in Chatton just last night, of the brightness of the Prince's eyes on her. Jace thought of the way Jonathan tracked Isabelle's every move and breath. How she'd strode out unaccompanied into the middle of the dancing with no one holding her arm; certain Jonathan would follow. As the whole court looked on, Isabelle paused in the perfect centre of the floor and lifted a bare palm into the air with utter certainty, with utter surety that Jonathan's would meet her there. And he had.
Isabelle looked out over the quiet, peaceful fields of Broceland, at the wavering green stalks of a fruitful harvest. "Your falcon yielded to the hoods and the jesses. Though never quite tamed, the white falcon yielded to you a loyalty that offered a kind of obedience. A control." She turned to meet Jace in the eye, "And why? Because you made it love you. Love coaxes obedience and dulls claws on beasts besides your bird, Jace." She sighed, "Valentine taught you love was not the same as obedience. I concur, it isn't. But with a little tenderness you taught that bird to look to you, to fly nearby and always return to you. With a little kindness and patience, you taught a hunter to be gentle. You proved that not everything with sharp claws is beast."
-000000000000000-
When Isabelle returned to her rooms, Jonathan was awaiting her. It wasn't fully dark yet, but Jonathan had ordered the curtains drawn and was sitting in front of the huge, gaping fireplace. In the cast flames he looked sullen and sorry for himself, a cup of wine balanced on his knee.
She nodded briskly to Jon Cartwright, who promptly left the two of them to it.
Isabelle popped the first few buttons free and hooked her headwear over the back of chair.
"Did you have a nice ride with Jace?" Jonathan asked, in a tone that oozed of seedy suggestion.
Isabelle let him see how much it annoyed her, "Do not make it sound like something it is not," she snapped.
Jonathan swivelled back to that grate. "No," He sipped his drink, "If dear Broceland's eyes or hands should wander his Duchess would likely kill herself- and what good will she be to either Jace or the King then? Herondale knows where his bread is buttered." Isabelle poured herself a drink. She swiped at her face to smooth the wind and exertion from it before she joined Jonathan.
The legs of her chair scraped loudly against the floor until she was level with him. Undressed for the day, their backs pointedly against the huge bed. They'd fallen into it without a word last night. Much too exhausted from the long journey southward to complain or consider the arrangement too deeply. Isabelle since learned there was a separate quarter on the other side of the house available to her. That was courtesy of Clary and Jace, in their house. On the rest of the progress, Isabelle didn't expect to be afforded such an arrangement. She may as well get comfortable sleeping beside Jonathan. Last night he hadn't touched her once. It had been as if there were a steel rod between them.
"What did you and Broceland talk of, then?"
"Falconry."
Jonathan scoffed but must have sensed the breath of her honesty. "Father missed you at supper. He asked for you."
To detect whether or not Jonathan strangled her in a ditch, or out of genuine interest? Isabelle could hardly enquire of either from Jonathan, so she asked instead, "Did he ask for Jace?"
Jonathan snickered again, the wine in his glass seeming black as ink in the shadows of the blanketed dusk. "No."
Isabelle's head quirked up, "No?"
Jonathan shook his head, satisfaction palpable, "He has made himself troublesome of late. The Council's coffers ache to see him coming. Halfpence Herondale, they have taken to calling him. Not to his face, of course. Apparently, Jace is squeezing every penny he can for this waterworks idea of his. Asking us all to scrimp so the commons of Alicante can bathe in clean water, or some such folly. He pours his energies into the queerest of things. Which reminds me- your brother stopped by earlier, seeking you. He seemed gratified to hear you'd gone out with Broceland."
Isabelle toyed with the fringing at her sleeve, wondering how much to say. A little dose of truth could go a long way. She might assure Jonathan he could share in her secrets too, after all she'd seen at Estoncurt. And to pointedly ignore the insults he'd peppered in against her family. "Jace asked me to stay here at Chatton when the King moves on."
"You? In Broceland? Where sheep farmers go to die?" Jonathan's nose wrinkled snidely, "What did you say?"
"I refused him. Naturally. Though in more pleasant terms than those."
"Pity." At odds with this, Jonathan sounded pleased.
She swallowed against the heavy tartness of the first summer wine and got to her feet. "What does happen?" She asked Jonathan, "When we go back to Alicante?" Isabelle braced her hand on the mantelpiece, warm but not uncomfortably hot under her touch, "Do we go back to Alicante? Or will His Majesty dispatch us back to Edom again once the summer progress is done?"
Jonathan shrugged, "I'll push for it." He stated firmly, "I'll assure the King we are of more use in the city. Since Jace is so busy bathing the commons, there must be something on the Privy Council for me to do."
Neither of them acknowledged that with Duke of Lyn's untimely demise, there was currently an empty seat. That, although it had never been said aloud in front of either of them, Jace was sure to be angling to get Alec in it.
"When we go back to Alicante," Jonathan continued evidently warming to the idea, "We'll set up our own household. You won't be serving Clary's meals and picking her jewels, not anymore. You'll be her equal. In fact, as my wife, you'll be her superior. She can follow your train in state processions."
All of this had been playing in the back of Isabelle's mind. She couldn't pretend none of it satisfied her pride, the thought that all of those girls who had mocked her for scuffed slippers and wearing the same gowns two summers in a row would now be curtseying to her.
She'd been a Princess of Idris for half a year now. Isolated out in Edom she'd never had the pleasure of really tasting the privileges that afforded her, or gotten to enjoy the trappings which came with position.
"You'll take her place, at the heart of the court," Jonathan continued, speaking more to himself than her. "On the Council and at the King's side, I'll soon put paid to his."
Isabelle wet her lips. She did want to go back to Alicante, back to the noise and the fuss and her family. And yet- "If we're in Alicante, what do we do with Mark?"
They couldn't keep Mark locked in a tower indefinitely, nor could they clap him in irons or tie him to a chair. He wasn't a criminal. Although he may not be Lyn's heir, he was still a bastard of a powerful bloodline. He was still a member of one of Idris's oldest and most respected families. So they'd let him out, putting into action the pretence that Mark was content to serve among Cartwright, Lovelace and all the other wealthy and noble members of the Prince's household. He helped Jonathan dress, sat with him at meals, helped tend to his favourite horses. All the while he was closely watched. Not that there was any great chance of him running. Even as winter loosened its grip, Edom was an inhospitable place. He wouldn't get far on foot and without a guide Mark would easily get lost. In fact, even if he did make it beyond the castle walls, Mark was more likely to break his ankle or stumble off a cliff than he was to make it all the way to Lyn without being apprehended.
For now, Mark stayed at Estoncurt, thoroughly watched by those Jonathan trusted. There had been no question of having him join them at Chatton or anywhere on the progress. Bellgate was but a day's ride from here. No, they'd committed to keeping Mark as their surety with success. Neither Jonathan nor Isabelle was prepared to squander it. If he were here and Mark did get loose and made it home, he'd tell the world the truth; that Jonathan held him hostage. He was not likely to have much that was nice to say of Isabelle either. He'd call her Jonathan's accomplice.
The line on Jonathan's brow deepened, "Why, he'll stay where he is, of course. We can't have him wandering around at will. Think of the tales he'd tell."
"Yes, but if he's supposed to be willingly serving amongst your household yet isn't among them when you set up in Alicante, how will that look?"
"Isabelle." He caught at the hand dangling by her waist, "Enough with this." It wasn't spoken like a command, so Isabelle pressed onward, "His brother may well then have cause to-"
Jonathan snorted loudly, "How about this; I'll worry about the new Duke of Lyn when his balls drop."
Disappointed, with a scoff of disgust, Isabelle shook his hand off. She moved to the nearest table, lifting the lighting reed waiting there. With her back pointedly to her husband she dipped it into one of the few candles he'd lit. "Do you want to know why it is all of your plans seem to fail, no matter how devious or daring you perceive them to be?"
She paced around, still not looking at him but focused on her task, spreading light from wick to wick with a grace close to tenderness. There was no good to be found from stewing in the dark. They may as well see what they were doing. When she deemed the space to be illuminated enough, Isabelle lifted the rush to her lips. It was burnt almost right down to the pinch of her fingers.
She looked over at Jonathan, whose mocking silence did little to dispel that he was sharply listening.
"You are too shortsighted."
The curl of smoke from the burnt reed wavered in front of her face.
"Did you ever speak to my sister like this, all those years you were supposed to be serving her?"
Isabelle shrugged, "Your sister and her husband are dreamers."
"What do you dream of Isabelle?"
In three short paces she was back at the grate, tossing what was left of the disintegrating reed into the flames. "Nothing. I haven't set store by dreams in a long time. I stay awake and keep my eyes wide open."
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