A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war, its methods and its discipline, for that is the only art expected of a ruler. And it is of such great value that it not only keeps hereditary princes in power, but often raises men of lowly condition to that rank.
-Machiavelli, "The Prince"
The Prince and the Duke
Chapeltoute Hall, Alicante, early November 1543
The snow continued to fall over Alicante, thick and fast.
It had been snowing steadily since sundown yesterday and showed no signs of relenting. Through the falling flakes, the sky trudged from the night's black to the grey of another winter day.
Jocelyn was glad of the snow as she saw out the darkest hours of the night. She alone urged on the freeze of the past week and she alone welcomed it. She prayed the snow and ice might freeze time too. If the roads were blocked by drifts, if the serfs and tenants could not be dragged from their fires, then the great men of this land may just hesitate. The cold did not fan hot words into actions. It might prompt some to reconsider, to tarry. It could keep swords in their sheaths for just a little longer.
If nothing else, Jocelyn's life had taught her the value of a little more time. She urged herself, time and again, when her endurance threatened to wear thin and her well of faith ran close to dry- Hold out, just a little longer. You have borne it thus far, now bear it until the dawn. Just until the dawn. And then, when the sun rose, she would urge herself to try bear it to sundown. And on again.
She'd tried to plan for this moment, but the timing did not feel right. She wasn't ready. They weren't ready. So Jocelyn prayed, and she waited, and she begged silently of God and the King dying beside her, for just a little more time. As though a few more hours or days could put the pieces into place the way she wanted them.
No, a bishop had bestowed the Last Rites to Valentine hours ago. There was only one way this ended.
With whatever authority she still possessed, Jocelyn held the rest of the world at bay, discouraging what was left of the Council in the capital from sending for the King's children. Not yet. It would only complicate things. It was much better to have Jonathan at Estoncurt, far away, and Clary safely tucked up at Havenfoile, only a boat ride away. Jocelyn convinced the Lords who hadn't already hastened to their own hearths or fled the deathly hush of the court that the situation was not so dire. They all wanted to believe her- because though Valentine might sicken, it seemed to defy logic that there should be any greater threat to him than that. Jocelyn pretended this was brief sickness he would recover from, as he had done before, and they happily believed.
Then, once the weather had turned and the roads became treacherous, it became impossible to send for the King's heirs.
Jocelyn wondered what these men who still waited on the King saw when they looked at her, laying cloths on the clammy brow, holding the hand that already felt heavy and cold in her own. Did they see duty, or penance? The physicians stood idle, defeated. Most of the nobles had already scattered to the four winds, a few lingered in fearful disbelief. The priests were a constant, chanting and hefting thick clouds of incense that could not stifle the stench of bile and death.
During these small hours, neither day nor night proper, Jocelyn was relatively alone. There was always a priest, but it was Father Jeremiah tonight, an innocuous little man who had been a chaplain of the royal household for decades. He mumbled his prayers to himself, feeding the rosary beads through his fingers.
"Glory be to the father; glory be to the son."
Jocelyn stared down at the sunken face of the man she had once thought all powerful, whom she once lived for and lived even longer in fear of. She could not say what kept her perched on the end of this bed. Jocelyn could not decide whether it was more an act of love of fear.
She'd been living a half-life for years, somewhere between sleeping and dreaming as she wandered through the halls of the city palaces, going through the motions and doing only what was expected of her, watching and hoping all the while. She would not abandon her post now.
When her marriage first soured, Jocelyn told herself that this was the man she chose. That this was the life she chose for herself.
Later, in the solitude of Broceland forest, Jocelyn concluded it was rather that this man had chosen her and everything had fallen into place around that choice, because Heaven and Hell would move to give King Valentine what he wanted. Except, less so, of late.
Valentine always stated that anointed sovereigns trod the line between angels and men, more divine than they were mortal; chosen by God and confidantes to Heaven's desires.
The wills of Kings were the will of God. Jocelyn did believe that. Tonight she was reminded that Kings were also men; men who withered, men who died. And over the years Jocelyn had seen plenty of weakness in her husband; his foetid jealousies, grudges, bias.
Momento Mori! Clerics thundered it from the pulpit, for as long as Jocelyn could remember, to frighten their parishioners into goodness. "Remember you will die." In other words, think not of your worldly cares but of the eternity yawning before your soul. You would either perish in a cleansed state of grace or suffer hellfire forevermore. Once, not so long ago, nobody questioned it. Until some began to resent that a state of grace could be bought and sold from clerics with as easy as one might a side of ham.
These days, men questioned everything. They questioned the place of everything, the order of everything.
Valentine held this great inevitability at bay as long as he could, Jocelyn had no doubt of that. If sheer will power could keep a man alive, Valentine Morgenstern would be immortal. Alas, he was not.
As the hours and minutes ticked by, each breath rattled in and out with more difficulty than defiance.
Valentine could not stop his own death. He could not stop whatever came next.
He had not, despite his once so clear conviction, been able to pull all his desires from the air and into matter. It proved as illusive an art as alchemy. It would seem there still was something more powerful than anointed kings.
Jocelyn gave this man thirty years of her life. She would see this to the very last. Then into whatever lay after that.
With startlingly little fanfare, in the quiet space between a sigh and the hiss of another breath which never came, Valentine II of Idris breathed his last.
The priest, distracted by his beads and his obligations, muttered on obliviously, "World without end. Amen."
Jocelyn's tears lay heavy on her soul, unshed and the snow continued to fall.
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Estoncurt Palace, northern Idris, early November 1543
Isabelle seldom slept soundly. Of late, it was more than just the spectral moaning of the wind through the turrets and the restless drumming of sleet and snow against the stone walls that disturbed her.
No, even in silence and solitude, she found no peace. She abandoned the attempt at slumber and rose in the hours before dawn, lighting the candle tapers for herself with a tremoring hand.
She had little need of them. Though the sun was dragged from its bed with clear reluctance by the end of the year, a fresh covering of snow had fallen during the night. What little light the slow dawn offered was now magnified by the downy sifts of white along all the sills, steps and garden hedges.
Isabelle dressed herself with numb, pinched fingers, struggling to get her grip on the ties. Once she was decently clothed, she scrabbled her way into a furred cloak. Her hair she left as it was, lank about her shoulders. Alone and undisturbed, she stole down the stairs.
There was a small chapel attached to Estoncurt, which even possessed a modest bell tower. The bell clanged and echoed discordantly as Isabelle approached, stirred by a clawing gale rather than by a trained hand.
Her footsteps were the only marks upon the glistening blanket. In the paltry grey pre-morning light, the flakes falling to her feet might have been ashes and Estoncurt a fallen, lost city never to see daylight again, a Pompeii. The sense of desolation would not lift; the torch she took to guide her was snuffed out by the wind early on her crossing. Isabelle let it topple from her hand and headfirst into the snow at her heels, the last of its heat hissing away defeatedly. It didn't slow her.
Inside the chapel was barely warmer and no lighter. Only the light of the Scared Heart candle, one to be tended and shielded perpetually, was aglow.
Isabelle's legs carried her over to the small alcove to the right of the altar, to the plaque there. She halted before the memoriam carved boldly on fresh stone, stone so freshly carved Isabelle could almost smell the rising dust of it still. She imagined if she pressed her palm out she might still feel the heat of the chisel. Or the heat of anyone.
Isabelle fell slowly to her knees.
She knew there was no grave here. Under her knees was simply cold tile and colder earth; the baby's remains were far away in Alicante. But this was her house, and her child should be remembered here, even if he'd never walked these floors or slept under this roof. This slice of stone was all she had to remember him here. And Isabelle could not bear to think of her boy being lost entirely, forgotten as one who never was. She couldn't bear for this deep chasm in her soul to create no mark, no ripple on the surface of history.
In memory of Alexander, Duke of Ash. Much loved, but unready.
Isabelle's thumb swept over the inscription. At first, she came down here every day. Then, as the seasons changed, she found there were days she couldn't face coming down at all. On those days she felt wretchedly guilty afterward, sometimes.
She still frequently woke with the gnawing ache to come here, to remind herself, to be near her loss, as she did today. But it had been some time since her last visit. Isabelle wanted to stop and yet she knew she could not forget, however badly she wished to move on. Then it occurred to her even wanting to move forward from this felt a sin.
It was not her only sin. Still pressing on her soul and smothering Isabelle months later was the feeling this was her fault. She never wished for a child, had never sought one. When she'd learned her baby was coming, her first and only thought was that she was petrified. And yet, as he'd grown inside of her, he grew in her heart too. Perhaps she still hadn't loved him enough. Perhaps her fear squashed him inside her when her body ought to give him life and strength. And perhaps seeing her doubts and her maternal treacheries, the God who saw the inside of everyone's heart decided to take her son away.
But Isabelle had wanted him. She had loved him, more than she'd ever thought herself capable of loving anything. When she first held him, Isabelle felt nothing but an enormous sense of rightness, for her Alexander was perfect and delightfully unspoiled by this awful world.
Isabelle dipped her hand to dash away the remains of the last flowers of the season, ice bitten and petrified before they could wither. The frost got them.
This morning Isabelle had no fresh buds to replace them with. There wouldn't be any more flowers until the spring and even then, very few grew at Estoncurt. She didn't know if she'd still be observing this ritual come the spring. From inside of her cape, Isabelle withdrew the only gift she could find to bestow, the only token she could think to give her lost son.
A baby's silver rattle, a gift from the King. A toy Alexander never got to play with.
She didn't know how long she knelt there in the quiet, unable to summon either tears or prayer.
In the end, she just laid the rattle down in the midst of the silence. No words or gesture would ever prove sufficient. Nothing could bring him back to her and thus nothing could make her feel whole.
The words that did find Isabelle's lips were the same as last ones she ever gave her baby, leaning down with a kiss into his cradle, not imagining it'd be the final time she'd feel him warm.
"Sleep well, my little one."
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Havenfoile House, South of Alicante, mid November 1543
Come rain, hail, or snow the girls wanted to see the ducks. Contrary to Clary's hopes they might be content to nestle up by the well-stocked fire in their nursery, the sudden snowfall gave Isabella profound anxiety for the ducks' welfare. She would not settle until she had seen for herself that they were well, and not starving on account of the river having frozen and sealing them off from their fish supper. So, it was to be furs and boots and a trek down to the banks of the Princewater. Armed with some crusts of stale bread Cook had supplied them with, Clary bundled up her daughters as tightly as she could and trudged downstairs with them.
"Is Papa coming?" Jeanne enquired, popping her thumb out of her mouth.
"No." Clary fought to keep the laughter out of her voice. "Papa doesn't like the ducks." Jace, for reasons unknown to all but himself, vocally despised the creatures. Especially the ones at Havenfoile. Clary suspected there was an incident at some point in his early childhood which put him off waterfowl for life.
"Good only for shooting." He'd huffed as they broke their fast together this morning, after his Duchess had relayed their daughters' request.
"Small wonder they dislike you!" Clary scoffed.
"Be careful, with the girls. Keep an eye on their fingers and toes."
Clary had rolled her eyes. To think, how often he chided her for fretting too much when it came to the children! "They are birds, not wild tigers. I do not think they have developed a taste for the flesh of small children."
"Yet," was all Jace mumbled, mutinously.
Jeanne, whose legs were too short and unsteady to navigate the slippery paths, soon waved her arms impatiently for Clary to lift her. Isabella, a sturdier soon-to-be-six-year-old ploughed ahead.
"You really are getting too big for this, sweeting," Clary told Jeanne softly, transferring the small sack of crusts to Maia, whose shoulders were squared and teeth already chattering in the cold. Clary bent to scoop the child upward, settling Jeanne on her hip. The little girl latched her arms around Clary's neck immediately.
The Duchess wasn't lying, Jeanne was getting heavy and it wasn't long before Clary's arms ached. The extra weight also slowed their progress, and the distance between them and Isabella kept growing. Clary soldiered onward. She still, though she and Jace had set up house permanently at Havenfoile during the summer, felt she saw less of her children than she would have liked. They were growing up too fast. It seemed like every time Clary looked away, even if only for a moment, when she glanced back they'd shot up another few inches or learned a dozen new words.
Isabella was a proper little lady now, with her own mind and ideas about doing things. She was already towering well above Clary's hip, however that happened. She'd have her father's height, it would seem.
Bel had long since graduated past her horn book and basic grasp of arithmetic and languages. She was a quick leaner, too quick in fact. There was nothing more her present governess could teach her. A tutor proper was to join them here come the spring, though as of yet Clary and Jace could not agree on who to employ. Clary wanted Father Jeremiah, her mother's trusted chaplain, or even the old stalwart Starkweather, who would be glad of an excuse to retire from the court and devote himself to teaching again. Jace had other ideas. He kept supplying the names of new, untested thinkers who were, Clary was assured, brilliant. Just utterly unknown to her.
As if Clary could not guess what that meant. She would not have it. She would not allow her daughters' nursery to become some manner of reformist retreat. It was one thing for Jace to play with fire where his own conscience was concerned, but Clary would not, under any circumstances, have some rogue, renegade scholar here corrupting her children.
Jeanne wriggled in her arms, tilting her head back and giggling as she stretched her tongue out to try and catch some of the straggling snowflakes drifting down from the clouds. It had been trying to snow properly for hours to no avail. It was more rain and sleet falling. The thaw would soon be upon them.
Clary tightened her grip on the little girl in her arms and tried to adjust her weight. Though her shoulders were already aching and her back beginning to protest, Clary refused to relent and put the child down. This was precisely the kind of coddling all the nursemaids had been afraid of. Clary did not care. Children needed reassurance and approval from their parents. And Clary still felt they were making up for lost time, for all the years the Duke and Duchess had been away at court and half-strangers to their daughters, even if they had been too small to properly comprehend much of the absence.
Jeanne, as Clary's whinging joints attested, was not a baby anymore. Yet she remained, by circumstance and calamity, her mother's baby. That was reason enough to coddle her, just a little, from time to time.
Valentine's prayers for a grandson remained unanswered. Clary did not think she could withstand the heartbreak of another tiny grave in the corner of the churchyard. She tucked her cheek against the top of Jeanne's head, feeling the tickles of a few errant golden ringlets unwinding from under the child's cap. She tried to think about the warmth and quiet laughter of the child in her arms who was in her arms now, and not to dwell on the little boy she should have been holding.
The latest loss had broken some last, precious hope within Clary.
Her son came much too early, last May, and there had been too much blood. She'd known immediately it was hopeless. He'd never been christened, for he never lived, that little boy who had been longed for. Clary and Jace named him anyway, privately, for themselves. They'd called him Jonathan, not for of any grand dynastic ambitions. He was named for his father, not by Clary's.
His loss was not their only misfortune. It was the second baby Clary lost much too soon in two years, though the latter she'd lost so late in her pregnancy that the loss felt more immediate. She'd laboured for him, she'd felt him kick and turn inside her.
She hadn't emerged from the ordeal physically unscathed either. After her son came stillborn, Clary fell thoroughly unwell afterward, wracked with a near deadly fever on top of her grief.
It took her several weeks to come around fully. Once her fever broke and Clary grew gradually stronger, it was Jace who broke the last of the terrible news, as gently as he possibly could.
Jace confessed to her, eyes gleaming with tears and his hand in hers that the physician told him that things had gone so badly wrong during that final labour it was unlikely Clary would ever have another child. It was unlikely she would even conceive again. It was difficult to reconcile herself with the blessing of having been already given two healthy children.
Months later, Clary had yet to fully digest that there would not be another, or to believe it. She did not think Jace had either. They could never bear to speak of it. There could be no request for another of the King's physicians to venture a second opinion. All the serving royal physicians were abruptly dismissed in the aftermath of the tragedy. The one who gave Jace his dreadful suspicions had never been seen again, afterward. Clary wouldn't be surprised if Valentine ordered his tongue out, or even his head off. She did not want to think about that either.
Valentine had been silently distraught, at the final, most cruel blow the year had dealt him. Twice, in the space of three months Valentine's greatest hope ended in tragedy.
Afterward, he had been unable to even look at Clary or her husband. For Clary's sake, Jace suggested they remove to Havenfoile once she'd recovered. It was enough that she had to learn to live with her own disappointment, without smothering in Valentine's too.
It truly did feel as though the world had been pulled out from under her. Clary knew not all pregnancies ended the way you wanted them to; she knew not every child made it to adulthood. You would be hard pressed to find a married woman in this world who had not lost a child. She'd learned this first hand from her mother and the other matrons who attended her at court. They each reached out to console her through each tragedy, murmuring of their own losses.
They said the first five years of a child's life were the most treacherous. Isabella, thank God, had crossed that threshold. Clary hugged her youngest tighter still, inhaling the scent of her soap. Jeanne was almost there too; she'd just turned four in the autumn and remained a robust, curious child.
Her girls needed her less and less every day. Clary always assumed there would be more children. She had never stopped to ask herself if she wanted more, for that would be a pointless question. Even if Valentine was not demanding an heir, Jace still needed one. They needed a boy for that, a boy to be Duke of Broceland one day after Jace was gone. Clary thought not just to have a boy, but that eventually there would be boys. She was still young; her husband was still young. She'd carried every expectation of filling Havenfoile and Chatton with their children. This was taught to her as a wife's greatest purpose in this world; she provided heirs first and then helped her husband in his other ambitions besides.
To confront that this would not be the case, that her daughters were hurtling out of childhood and there would never again be a baby of her own for her to hold, was astonishingly painful to contemplate.
Clary once resented being reduced to a walking womb. Now Valentine's grand hope for her winked away into nothing, all Clary could think of was how empty she felt without it. A hollow husk, a broken compass needle.
Jace, she knew, was quietly reeling too. She knew how alone he'd felt for so long, before they had the promise of building a family together. Now he was back to being the last Herondale. Yes, they had Isabella and Jeanne, but it was not the same. They were girls, who would one day marry and take the name of their husbands. Clary and Jace's grandchildren would not be Herondales.
Another man might have despised Clary for it, for denying him the one thing all men wanted. Another man might have pressed Clary back into the convent she'd grown up in and remarried to get the heir he longed for. It was precisely what Stephen did when confronted with the realisation his first wife would never give him issue. But Jace was not his father. He remained, refreshingly and reliably, her Jace. He was attentive as ever. He scarcely left her side, during those long weeks when her weak body struggled to heal from the ordeal. He'd been just as resolute in helping Clary's heart to heal. Jace held her hand and managed to make Clary laugh on days when she felt incapable of ever laughing again. He shielded her from the rage which surely followed Valentine's grief. He even smuggled Isabella and Jeanne into her confinement chamber wriggling and giggling, one under each arm. He'd placed one on either side of Clary's bed and instructed them to give their mother kisses and tickles until she smiled again.
For their children too, the whole situation had been perplexing. They had seen Clary at the start of the spring with her big belly and could not comprehend that they were not to have a baby brother or sister after all. However, intuitively they'd understood their mother was hurting and she needed them. Obediently, her girls showered her with their trusting love.
Valentine also relented, eventually. He had acquiesced to Jace's request to take Clary to Havenfoile and left her alone to recover there. She knew Valentine's health had not been good either of late, that he had been plagued with coughs and fevers all winter. In truth, Clary had seen little of him. Valentine opted evermore to keep to his rooms. He did not send for her, and Clary felt no urge to visit the King. Nor did her brother.
Even before this cold spell, relations between the King's children remained frosty.
Jonathan and Jace could hardly speak without risk of it coming to blows, so they mostly opted not to speak to one another. Doubly troubling; during the end of the Prince's last, short spell in the capital during the summer, Isabelle did not appear to know what to say to her husband either.
Isabelle sat through the feasting and capers pale-faced beside Jonathan, faithfully in her finery. It was shocking too, that so quickly Clary became accustomed to the surreal sight of Izzy reining Jonathan in with a soft word or a touch. Isabelle had become so adept at scattering the storm of his furies with a well-placed jest that it seemed natural. Everyone else began looking to her on instinct whenever things with Jonathan got tense, or one of his notorious outbursts seemed on the horizon, expecting Isabelle to quell it. Everyone felt safer in the knowledge that Isabelle could quell it.
It truly seemed, that first year or so after the farce of their wedding, that Isabelle was as good as her word. Isabelle Lightwood, the dark horse in this game none of them saw coming, just might prove to be their salvation.
She started to soften Jonathan, she started to temper his worst impulses. Clary only watched from the side-lines, had only heard by word-of-mouth rumours that scarcely seemed credible, just what Isabelle was doing.
Oh, Isabelle had changed this game alright.
Clary did not think it was love that had bound the Crown Prince and his bride together, but whatever that attraction was, it had proved potent. Clary hoped and Jace wondered if some of the good in Isabelle might rub off on Jonathan. It seemed, briefly, like it had. Except, of course, some of Jonathan's darkness had rubbed off on their Izzy in turn.
At first the Prince and his wife had ceased visiting the capital. Then the stream of letters to Clary, each shorter and vaguer than the last, stopped altogether.
Jonathan and Isabelle set up their own rival court of outcasts, high in the hills of Edom. For the first time in almost two centuries, people began to flock toward Estoncurt. At first it was mainly religious fanatics, those who wanted Jonathan's protection and support in challenging heresy with violent rigour in Idris. Then came a trickle of upstart new nobles eager for the chance to prove themselves and earn a title from the heir apparent, the king in waiting. The more retiring and withdrawn Valentine became, the more Jonathan's court shone. People flocked to hear the Prince's gospel, his vision for a new Idris. From what snatches Clary had caught, she could see how it might appeal.
In dark times of uncertainty, Jonathan sold a world of law and order to anyone who would listen; he spoke of refreshing sacred, traditional values. He also promised to push Idris higher up the European pecking order- no longer caught between France and Spain, currying favour in marriage contracts and trade deals. Jonathan would do so by spreading Idris's influence beyond Idris. He would have a slice of the new world of empire in the Americas. He sang the praises of the counter-Lutheran thrust out there, the converting of savage infidels en masse, of baptising by friendship or by force until there were a dozen souls for the true faith for every soul Luther's heresy had claimed in Europe.
Yes, Jonathan's dreaming bought him acolytes aplenty. Zealots, opportunists, schemers.
Even those who were not won over by Jonathan's vision found other reasons for voyaging to the edges of the kingdom. People flocked to see his Princess too. Some of the more ambitious social climbers sent her their daughters rather than to Jocelyn and Clary in Alicante. They came to marvel at Isabelle's beauty, to gasp at her fashions and now famously cosmopolitan manners. Poets and singers had flocked to serenade her with words of admiration, and love. Clary felt she alone could see the irony in that.
Truthfully, as many came to worship at Isabelle's feet as they did Jonathan's.
Until just after last Christmas, came the most astonishing news from Estoncurt of all, when Clary's latest happy announcement was shockingly supplemented by one from Isabelle.
Isabelle greeted an astonished, incredulous Clary bursting into the other Princess's chambers at Princewater to find her gown unlaced and the proof of a pregnancy not as advanced as Clary's but unmistakable nevertheless right in front of her eyes. Isabelle simply shrugged, "Well, our plan held merit, Clary. Though I fear our execution of it left something to be desired."
Isabelle pressed her hand to her curving belly then, an undeniably protective gesture, and she fixed Clary a look that was sorrowful but unapologetic.
"This is quite the complication." Clary had to agree.
Isabelle was placed in the care of the very same midwives Valentine collected to wait on Clary. At first, the King's daughters shared them. How the palace had fussed and flapped over the logistics of arranging two confinement chambers in quick succession! Unnecessarily, as it developed. Clary's unhappy outcome surrendered the entirety of the force to Isabelle.
Afterward, still sick and in mourning, Clary declined to wait upon her sister-by-law's labour. She felt guilty that she had not been there, but not until it was too late. Clary knew how afraid of the childbed Isabelle had always been. Apparently, she had been a terror during the labour, swearing at the midwife and- allegedly- kicking a physician in the face as he attempted to perform an examination.
Among the uproar, Isabelle and Jonathan's son was delivered in early July. The church bells in every city chapel rang out until the ears of every citizen were ringing too. Valentine's jubilation had been painful for Clary to behold. For him, by that point, a grandson was a grandson. God had not answered his prayers in the way Valentine expected, but so long as they were answered the King asked no questions. He had his new heir, his fresh clay to mould, his legacy in hand.
Clary shuffled in belatedly to offer her congratulations, trying not to stare too long at the baby boy fussing in the same royal cradle which housed her girls, a baby boy with white gold hair.
"Alexander," Isabelle named him, stubbornly. Jonathan, gleeful to have his father's approval at last and relishing having brought Valentine joy where Jace failed, did not gainsay her. "The great!" Clary's brother offered his only supplement, puffed up in triumph, as though he had done the brunt of the work bringing the child into being.
Valentine prepared a lavish Christening for the child and conferred upon his grandson the new title Duke of Ash before the week was out.
The baby duke was gone before the end of the month.
Whatever else had happened between them, Clary could share in Isabelle's grief. And she had. Out of them all, all those esteemed midwives and experienced matrons, Clary seemed the only one fit to comfort her in the aftermath of the tragedy. She was the only one Isabelle would let hold her as she cried.
Clary had no words of comfort; she could only stroke at Izzy's hair until the hysteria faded and she wept herself dry. Could only hold her and remind her in that touch that she was not alone.
Fatally, that was how Jonathan had found them: back in each other's arms.
"Jonathan," Isabelle had moaned his name so painfully, so pleadingly. Asking of him precisely the same thing Clary wanted from her husband when she'd lost her babies. Hold me. See this through with me.
An unspoken plea Clary heard, a plea that anyone else in this world could have heard.
Just not Jonathan. He'd glared at Isabelle with such fury it startled even Clary, who was used to being on the receiving end of his hatred. Even she had never been levelled a look such as that. One that was not only accusation, or anger, but utter betrayal.
Jonathan could not understand it, the loss of his son, because it made no sense. The baby had been thriving, according to all onlookers. In finding no one else to blame, Jonathan blamed Isabelle. He somehow sensed in this a conspiracy between Isabelle and Clary against him.
He stormed off, away from the grieving mother of his child, and never once looked back.
After baby Alexander's pitiful funeral, Isabelle refused Clary's invitation to Chatton in the same breath she refused Alec's plea to come home to Adamant. She'd taken herself back to Estoncurt. To be alone.
Whatever alliance and whatever affection she and Jonathan drummed up beforehand, it hadn't survived the death of their son.
Clary hadn't heard wind of any reconciliation betwixt the other royal couple, though Clary heard little about anything, all but secluded here at Havenfoile anyway- generally by choice. But Jace, who still kept an ear pressed to all the court whisperings, didn't believe the rift to be bridged either. Perhaps Clary was too sentimental, but she had wondered if, with a little time and space, Jonathan and Isabelle might be inclined to try mend their old accord- whatever precisely that had been- in time for Christmas. It did not seem likely.
Clary only saw them together once since their losses; during a state dinner in Alicante in the autumn. At the table in the great hall, Clary caught Isabelle looking to Jonathan when she thought no one else was looking at her, shooting her husband gazes that might have been beseeching. Once, she had forgotten herself and laid her hand over his wrist at the dinner table. Jonathan had shaken her off like a bug on his sleeve.
He'd parted the first hour he could and neglected to take his wife with him.
Isabelle had barely spoken to Clary either, though for very different reasons.
Clary still, even after these years without her, missed their old intimacy. She still turned to her ladies with some jests only to realise they would not truly understand, she had hurried into her wardrobe chamber hopeful of Izzy's opinion only to confront again her absence.
Too many times, Clary's nib had hovered over paper, dripping down great splotches of ink like teardrops until Clary had to confront she still did not know what to say. That ill-conceived pact, contrived in desperation to seal them both together and protect the people they both loved most, now lay between them a scorched field. How could Clary speak to her? Isabelle was mourning and alone, separating herself from those who loved her. In the end, Isabelle was in the position Clary put her in. So no, there was little Clary could say or do to heal what was broken.
The distance between the two women was much greater than the miles between Havenfoile and Estoncurt, their rift deeper than two very small graves.
Isabelle didn't go to Adamant for Robert's funeral either. The pain of that absence cut deep with both her brothers, and surely with Mayrse too, although the dowager Countess had betrayed- as ever- very little of what she thought or felt on the occasion, tight-lipped and cool faced.
Alec resided mostly in Adamant ever since, now formally its lord. Aline often went with him, of course with Helen Blackthorn at her side, though she seemed to quietly favour, as Alec did, the pleasant townhouse they'd purchased with a portion of her dowry money on Canal Street. A house which, it so happened, was attached to Magnus Bane's.
Clary noted Jace felt Alec's absences sorely, even when he knew them to be short lived. Alec remained, resolutely, his fiercest ally. It surprised Clary a little, she had to admit, the stalwart Alec had proved to be. She might have expected him to be the first one Edom-bound, to throw himself behind his sister and learn to love her husband, spinning the situation to his own advantage. Alec had not.
He stuck with Jace, throwing his lot in with Jace and by extension with Clary. Once he had done so, Clary came to value Alec just as dearly as her husband did. He was a breath of fresh air, forever calm, forever reasonable. Sensible, but sweetly hopeful. Alec possessed a knack for seeing the good in a dilemma and in a person. If Clary sent a note to Canal Street asking for Alec to come to her in the smallest, darkest hours of the night, she knew that he would hasten to her at once. He'd proven himself to Clary, as she hoped she had proven herself to him. She whispered fears to him she would have no one else hear. She valued his opinions. Alec was unfailingly honest with her, and she with him. He would not baulk from telling her the harsh truth of it, he would not fill her ears with whatever sycophancy he thought she wanted to hear. Those were the advisors you needed, Clary had learned. The most important kind.
Alec was not the only one to have declared himself to the Brocelands. Or rather, fastened his loyalty to Jace. In recent years, Jace had acquired quite a following. Clary's husband was, undeniably, the sort of man it was very easy to follow- the hero of Tiller's Rebellion, a decisive and dedicated keystone on the King's Council. Jace wasn't only someone with bright ideas, but he also possessed the drive to make them real. It also helped he possessed an irresistible charisma which made you want to swear to him.
And Jonathan had made enemies over the years. Those who feared the Prince's wrath felt there was safety in numbers behind Jace. Especially after whatever happened to Andrew Blackthorn. In the gulf of the absence of a Duke of Lyn- Andrew's successor never left Bellgate- a faction formed at court around "the Duke"- Jace. A faction that remained watching and waiting even in Jace's absence at the King's table. His greatest supporters remained Alec and Luke, as they had been from the start. Magnus Bane, though not the sort to pin his colours to the mast in any court schisms, was also bound to them by association if nothing else. Others looked to Jace for other reasons. The thinkers, the dreamers, those who dared to hope the new world did not have to carved out in blood, hypocrisy and fear. Of course, much though it rankled Clary, Jace gave hope to the reformists at her father's court- whose numbers and names Clary did not want to know- who looked to Jace's influence as hope for a religious reformation in Idris.
When, with each setback to his grand schemes for Idris and his legacy, Valentine became more despondent and reticent, the two factions at court splintered further and the rivalry between the King's sons only intensified. It was a well-known, yet undeclared war between them. Every time a follower of Jace was advanced, Jonathan clamoured to get his own man in a similar position . It began with marrying off Alec and Sebastian and only spiralled since. They jostled over whose supporter got a bishopric, or land deeds, or the next valuable heiress to wed- right down to whose man was appointed a groom in the King's chamber. Clary heard the stories of tavern brawls between the Prince's and the Duke's men, or cross words fired outside the Council chamber. Last autumn there were even a spate of court dismissals when blows were exchanged between some lowlier knights in the King's own hall.
Clary watched it all, at first with an invested intensity of her own, and then increasingly with astonished despair.
She had to own her share of the blame; she'd been busy urging Jace to make friends and urging noblewomen to let her marry off their sisters and daughters to those friends. She'd even let several noblemen believe they had reason to hope of Isabella or Jeanne for their sons without outright promising anything. Clary rolled up her sleeves and tried to buy the loyalty of as many of the realm's noble families as she could. By the time she had stepped back, exhausted and disillusioned, it was too late.
Technically, her court invitation never expired. But Clary was tired of it, the backbiting and the gameplaying.
What was the purpose of it all, anymore? What was the end? She had been so relentless for so long in making her own position stronger, in shoring up their power so that she and Jace would be ready when the time came to put their son on the throne. It all seemed useless now. Why keep climbing the court ladder on hands that were grazed and bloodied to safeguard the ascension of a prince that would never be? No one outside of Clary, Jace and Valentine knew the depth of their sorrows. Clary needed to be by herself, to be alone with her family. The past year had sapped the last of her energy and her singlemindedness.
At least here at Havenfoile Clary didn't have to scrutinise every face to see if they were like to be enemy or ally.
Here, she could try to extract a slither of happiness from it all. Here, she could pretend there was nothing more to life than morning walks to the duckpond with her girls and nights playing cards by the fire with Jace. Here, the world was no bigger than that.
-000000000000000-
"There's a messenger here for you, Your Grace."
Jace glanced up from his papers, squinting in the sparse grey light from the window. His squire, Henry Greenmantle, shifted his feet on the threshold. He was a good lad, from a loyal Broceland family. He was diligent in all Jace asked of him, but his father's hope this position might help Henry become less timid was not yet entirely fulfilled. Even now, the boy was afraid of his own shadow. He always looked to Jace as though he anticipated a chiding or a hiding. Jace couldn't understand why. He'd never raised his voice to the lad, never mind a hand.
"A messenger from where, Henry?" Jace enquired, taking care not to sound impatient or critical.
The boy's cheeks bloomed anyway, "From the King, my lord."
Jace stoppered his ink pot. That could bode very well or very ill. It was impossible to guess these days. Even after he received his message, clarity eluded Jace. He needed a sharper mind. He hastened to find Clary.
She was still with the girls, drying out sodden stockings and muddy hems by the fireside. Jeanne was clapping her mitts and sending scatterings of snow down to the floorboards. Isabella giggled, sprinkling more snow into her sister's hair like she was dousing her in pinches of salt.
"Papa, we fed the ducks! First they were hiding, then came out once we threw the bread."
Jace made himself pause and smile at his youngest's seriously imparted tidings, "I hope they didn't get a nibble on you, Jeannie."
"No! Ducks eat bread, silly!" She laughed and spun away, already moving onto a new game.
Not to be overlooked, Isabella flitted to Jace's side and tugged hesitantly on his sleeve. He looked down into the honeyed eyes of their firstborn, a near perfect copy of his own. "The river is freezing over. Could we skate, Papa, mayhap?" Bel was always shyer about asking for things than her sister. Jace didn't know if it was a personality trait, the result of being slightly older, or simply an inevitable inheritance of being the firstborn.
"It would need to be completely frozen, dearest. Rock solid." Isabella took the implicit refusal gracefully, but Jace never could bear to deny her much, "If it gets colder, then maybe we could allow for some skating." Though somebody else would be testing the ice first. Even if she wasn't his heir, Isabella was more precious to Jace than any house or title. All his girls were.
There were snowflakes melting in Clary's hair too, small, glittering and pearlescent slithers disappearing into the darkening russet. His wife often went bareheaded these days, especially among the children and while they weren't hosting visitors. Seeing her with her hair down or uncovered always stirred Jace's sentimentality. It reminded him of the woman she'd first been to him, of the petulant but devoted princess he'd first fallen in love with.
Clary caught Jace's eyes and then on the snag of paper in his hand.
"Isabella darling, go help your sister out of the rest of her wet clothes, will you? It's almost time for luncheon."
Isabella accepted her dismissal easily, always gratified to have a direct task to follow. She and her sister scampered away snapping at each other's heels, with much laughter and excited exclamations, like yipping puppies.
For the most part the two girls were the best of friends. Their occasional disagreements were known to be loud and vicious, but generally they were joined at the hip. Jace often thought back to the loneliness of his childhood and was glad they had each other.
"What is it?" Clary came over. A damp strand of her hair was falling out of the pinned coil and curling by her cheek. The cold bleached her cheeks even whiter than usual and drew out her freckles.
"The King has sent for me."
Surprise flashed across her face, then Clary grew sceptical quickly. "To what end? Has he summoned the Council?"
"He doesn't say. It's not a Council summons, it's addressed to me, specifically." Jace passed her the note.
Clary scrutinised the short missive, "This isn't the King's hand."
"No," Jace granted, rubbing at his chilled left cheek. "That's not unusual though, Clary. Most of his directives come from his clerks."
She lifted her eyes to his, uncertain, "What do you think?"
"I don't know." Jace admitted. He paced around her, closer to the flames. "It's the first I've heard from court in over a week." Valentine's spells of silence had become frequent. It wouldn't be the first time since the spring that Jace's letters went unanswered. Nevertheless, Valentine hadn't ignored him for more than a full week before. Jace was still his Duke of Broceland.
Clary was concerned too. She hadn't heard from her mother in that time either. "The roads have been bad," She reasoned. She didn't sound any more convinced than Jace was though. Alicante was no more than an hour's ride away and as Isabella just pointed out, the river was only starting to freeze.
They'd opted to believe no news was good news, secure in the knowledge they'd be back at court in a few weeks for Christmas anyway. Yet, Jace could taste Clary's unease. He shared it. Her instincts were as sharp as his. Jace's gut rarely failed him- and it told him something was not as it should be here.
"I suppose the King has been unwell."
They locked eyes. Neither of them said any more on the subject. They dared not. To predict or imply the King may not recover was treason.
Clary passed him back the note. Whatever was afoot was not to be deciphered in those few slants of impassive ink. She asked the only question that mattered, "Will you go?"
Jace clapped his hand to the back of his neck, slotting his fingers between his nape and his collar. All the fine hairs there were standing up, and Jace didn't feel it was due to the draughty rooms of Havenfoile. "I fear I must."
Clary tensed. Jace touched her shoulder, "I dare not refuse a King's summons. You know your father will not ask twice."
"But why would the King send for you with so little ceremony? Why would he give you no indication of why he wants you?" She nipped her lip, her logic unrelenting, "If it was because his health has worsened, he'd send for both of us."
She was right. Nevertheless, Jace weighed it up. The risks of appearing disobedient were worse. You didn't ignore or defy Valentine's summons. Even if they were vague. Jace would never find out more sitting by the fire at Havenfoile and expecting the world to come to him.
He looked at Clary, Clary looked at him. Both of them were thinking furiously in the same vein.
"It seems the King means for me to stay here." Clary commented at last, her curling lip betraying how little she liked the prospect.
"It does."
The implication of the single summons was that Clary ought to stay at Havenfoile, only a stone's throw from the capital. Here, she'd be out of the King's sight but not necessarily out of harm's way.
No, Clary hadn't been sent for in Alicante as Jace had. If Valentine didn't mean for her to be at court, then Jace supposed it hardly mattered where she was, so long as it wasn't Chapeltoute or Princewater. The Duke of Broceland had other houses. Sturdier, more defensible ones that were much better suited to precautionary measures.
Jace gripped her again and decided, "Go to Durre Castle, Clary. Take the girls with you. Go today. If you leave within the hour, you will make good ground before nightfall, even in this weather. You could get to the Convent of the Holy Cross for the night. They'll look after you until you reach Durre."
Her lips parted, eyes flashing, "I don't want to leave you."
Jace's stomach twisted. He sympathised, he did. He didn't like the thought of being parted from Clary here, at this mysterious forked crossroads and in what felt a treacherous, shifting terrain. That was precisely it. Until he knew for certain that what was going on there was no threat to his family, Jace would not risk them, any of them.
This was greater than paranoia. He and Clary had seen and navigated enough together not to have reason to look askance at this, this shout out of the dark, this sudden stirring when nothing had been heard from Valentine in a week.
"Clary, the most important thing here is that I know you are safe. Or as safe as you can be. It's not just you I have to worry about. What of Isabella and Jeanne?"
He watched her, clearly torn. Jace could tell Clary desperately wanted to stay with him and see this out side by side as they had every moment of doubt or peril before. In the end, the mother won out over the wife.
"I'll see the girls to Durre." She agreed. "And then I'll be back for you. I'll come back to you."
She was fierce like this. There was little use arguing with her and certainly no time. Not if Jace wanted all three of his girls in Broceland before the day was out. "We'll see."
Perhaps by then Jace would have ascertained what was happening and could better warn or circumvent her.
Jace called for his horse to be saddled, while Clary sent for her women to make ready. She compiled only the barest essentials she and their daughters would require to get them to Durre.
Though he could scarce tolerate staying still, Jace waited until Clary departed before he made his way upriver. The longer he tarried, the more of a head start Clary got on the westerly roads.
Jace kissed both his daughters, each of them mercifully still too small to grasp the urgency of this great adventure to Durre. Then he kissed Clary and embraced her. Truthfully, making for Alicante without her felt like riding to battle without his sharpest sword. But it was for the best.
Clary's lips were warm against the dread chill. He dispatched her in a rare clear patch between thickening snowstorms.
It wouldn't take Jace long to wish he'd held his wife closer just a moment long, that he'd kissed her deeper or lingered on her lips.
He watched a small barge containing all he held dearest bob away from the quay at Havenfoile. Jace prayed the currents which carried them were swift, that they'd speed down to the bend in the river to transfer to a waiting carriage that would take them further into Broceland forest, a place which kept Clary safe once before. Please God it would do likewise now.
Jace stood on the shore, the breath fogging before his face the only fortuitous wind he could contrive for their voyage and the cold crackling on his cheeks. Only once the small boat was out of sight did he relent and climb back towards the house.
His own journey on horseback was soon arrested. Jace was barely past the gateposts when another rider clattered into sight. He drew his mount up short. She, a spritely bay, whinnied her protest as the clattering bit arrested her.
"Who goes there?" Henry Greenmantle called with a wavering boisterousness.
Jace recognised the green and black livery of the rider, but for once decided to keep his mouth shut a while longer.
"I have a message for the Duke." The messenger bore a southern accent at odds with his colours.
Henry trotted forward to collect it, but the rider refused to pass anything across. "I have orders to deliver this into the hands of the Duke of Broceland alone. No other."
Jace considered. If this was a feint or some kind of ambush, he'd at least prefer to die owning the name he'd fought to hard to reclaim in the first place. He cleared his throat, then pushing back his cap and revealed his face fully, "Then you may do so."
He trotted forward, one hand still tight on the reins, lest he need to move away quickly. His right hand reached forward for whatever Sebastian Verlac's man might have for him. Jace's every muscle was primed for action. To an outsider, Jace seemed more vulnerable than he was; his dominant hand was truly his left, a hand which remained in easy reach of the dagger at the waist he knew himself to be swift with.
It was unnecessary. The Verlac rider didn't stab or strike him. True to his word, once satisfied at the identity of a man he recognised, he passed over a small letter.
The messenger, satisfied with the completion of his mission, trotted off down the same darkening road he'd come up.
Back at a safe distance, Jace looked to the letter properly. It did not bear his name and though the clouds were turning black, it was easily bright enough to discern that the unbroken seal was indeed that of a coiled serpent around the root of an oak tree. This was a personalised seal, one belonging to the man who was Earl of both Burchetten and Chene. It could only be pressed into wax by a signet carried on the ring Sebastian Verlac wore on his finger. One none could falsify or forge. So yes, this mysterious communication must come from Sebastian's person.
Though what precisely Sebastian Verlac could have to say to Jace alone was beyond him.
Again, Jace deemed not knowing more dangerous. He snapped the seal and unfolded the missive.
His eyes flew across a more delicate, feminine hand than he'd expected. Jace gave a scoffing laugh; it was a hand he knew well, for he'd watched carefully over this scribe's shoulder as she made those same letters form sentences in Latin and Greek. He recognised the way she forked her ys and the small flick she used when moving into her ls.
No, Sebastian had nothing to say to Jace, though his men were plainly among those still free to move without scrutiny and bear messages throughout the kingdom, his unbroken seal among the few able to pass from sender to receiver without being scrutinised by another pair of eyes first.
Nevertheless, this writer had taken care not to put her recipient's name in ink and the message within was seemingly innocuous at the first glance. Jace scanned it quickly, reading the brief message twice.
The crows have come to rest. They would put a cat in our tower. Don't come.
It was a hastily scrambled code, something that would appear nonsense to the eyes of anyone else, an idle riddle or trifle. But Jace understood her perfectly. It took him mere seconds to decipher.
She spoke of crows. The birds of death, come to rest. The poorly, fretful King hadn't summoned Jace; the King was dead. Shocking as this was and much as it rocked Jace in his saddle, it was the next sentence which provoked greater alarm. They would put a cat in our tower. The cat was Jace, the one who wore a lion as his badge. Our tower. She referred to the only tower in this kingdom they two shared, the one in which they'd both lost their fathers. The Black Tower, where the Crown housed its enemies before they dispatched them.
And the troubling meaning became clear. Jace was an enemy of the Crown now, or one Jonathan was easily prepared to treat as such. Even should Jonathan struggle to compile the evidence to send Jace's head rolling, he would not permit his nemesis, the Duke of Broceland, to stay at liberty. No, Jonathan would simply imprison him, passing down a sentence which would have no end. By the block or by time, Jace would die in the Black Tower of the Gard precisely as his father had.
Don't come. It was painful to swallow, it was galling to sit back and let Jonathan do as he pleased unchallenged. But she was right. This was a trap. If Jace were to ride to Alicante and the court now he'd only deliver himself to Jonathan and be clapped in irons.
Jace swore. Then he snapped his reins and whirled his horse around. Not in the direction of Havenfoile, where he may as well bob along like the sitting ducks on the river and wait for his enemies to find him.
No, Jace would never have to be quicker or cleverer than he was now. He'd do well to make the most of this time and knowledge he'd been gifted with, at great risk to the faithful watcher behind enemy lines he'd never thought to call upon.
It would appear Emma Carstairs had just saved Jace's life again.
-000000000000000-
Convent of the Holy Cross, Broceland Forest, November 1543
The girls were exhausted by the excitement of the day and overwhelmed by the strangeness of their new surroundings.
God, how had it only been hours since they'd been playing in the snow by the river?
Clary helped each of her daughters to wriggle into their nightclothes; an action always met with some protest and resistance even on nights such as this, when Isabella and Jeanne both struggled to keep their eyes open.
It also felt a lifetime since Clary last slept beneath this roof. It was strange, to be back and under such disconcerting circumstances. Clary wasn't any larger than she was the last time she'd walked these halls, but the convent seemed to have shrunk in the years since she'd left it. She couldn't remember the cloisters being so small, nor the tiles in the chapel being so chipped and the stairs being so cramped.
This place was her whole world once, its walls the borders of her kingdom. Now Clary knew how much lay beyond it. Now Clary could not stop thinking of and itching to return to the world beyond it.
Though the faces were familiar, though she'd been welcomed back so joyously, it was difficult for Clary to return the smiles around her. This wasn't home anymore. The feeling of calm and belonging the convent once offered her was out of reach. Today, Clary felt an outsider and an interloper. One keen not to impose on her gracious hostesses a moment longer than she absolutely had to.
Clary excused herself from her former sisters early, explaining she needed to put the children to bed.
The room allotted for the girls wasn't the same one Clary once slept in, though it may as well have been. All the sleeping quarters were near identical. She tucked Isabella and Jeanne into the truckle bed they'd share recalling how Jocelyn used to do the same for her. Sleepily, Isabella and Jeanne tussled over who was in whose space, but they quietened and settled when Clary fixed the covers over them both.
She kissed each of them on the brow in quick succession.
"Girls," She watched them both blink alert as they realised she was not going to part with her usual 'goodnight.' "I won't be here when you awaken."
Jeanne made a keening nose of alarm, while Isabella's lips popped to a pout but didn't part.
"I'll come back to you as soon as I can," Clary swore cradling the side of a daughter's face in each palm, "But I cannot stay here with you." Even as she said it aloud, the conviction settling amongst her ribcage only strengthened. If her suspicions rang true, Clary couldn't sit and fret- neither here nor at Durre Castle. She and Jace were one and the same, a sworn pair, and she would not let him face whatever was coming on his own. She'd have need of him, as he would her. They were always at their best when they banded together; her wits meshed with his courage, his valour mixed with her tenacity.
She tried to fix the importance of the two small girls before her upon them, "In the meantime you are going to stay together and look after one other, do you understand?" Clary swept her thumb over Isabella's cheek, "Especially you, Bel. You must be a big girl now. And Jeanne, you must help her, you must look to and heed your sister." Clary doubted anyone could bring Jeanne to heel, even Isabella, who often did take charge as the eldest. Their youngest daughter seemed to have gained all of Clary and Jace's impetuosity combined, and it was an endless cause of amusement to her parents even as it was exasperating.
Jeanne's eyes darkened, her hands fisting in the blankets, "I want Papa!" She'd learned quickly in life that what little she couldn't wrangle out of Clary or her nurses could usually be obtained through a petition to Jace, who had a soft spot for her a mile wide.
Clary choked back her emotions and found a smile for them. "I'm going to find Papa," She explained looking between both children, perplexed and concerned, "I'm going to find him so we can all be together again."
"I want to go home," Jeanne stated it in a much smaller, more deflated voice. Isabella, absorbing all this in an unreadable silence, reached out and took her sister's hand.
"We will go home," Clary insisted, doing her best not to well up, to be as strong as she was exhorting her children to be. "I will come back and take you home, I promise." She filled the declaration with certainty. "In the meantime, Lady Maia and Sister Agnes are going to look after you. You must be good for them. Above all, you must be brave, my darlings. You are daughters of Broceland." She tugged them in close for another embrace, marvelling at how both their bodies still fit so snugly against the heart that almost burst for them and the belly that once carried them, "And you are daughters of Idris. We are brave, we are bold, and we do what must be done."
Clary remained with her girls until they fell asleep, each of them with a hand firmly in Clary's. Isabella stayed awake for a long time after her sister dozed off, staring at Clary with her father's eyes in the gloom. Isabella resisted sleep for as long as she could, knowing that when she opened her eyes again her mother would be gone. However temporarily, however righteous, the parting still felt like Clary was wrenching herself apart. Eventually, exhaustion won out and Isabella drifted off. Clary dared not disturb them with a further kiss. She blew them each one instead, then slipped out of the room.
Sister Agnes was waiting for her in the corridor.
"You're going." Either Agnes was a very patient eavesdropper, or very astute. Her eyes wrinkled with a sighing smile, "You forget Clary, I knew your mother very well. I know what that look upon your face signifies. You will not be kept here. You are not the sort of woman who allows things to happen around her."
"I have a role yet to play in this," Clary insisted, "My place is not here, not anymore. I don't believe it ever truly was." She had a stake in all this, a high one, and she wouldn't let another play her hand for her. Nor would she sit and spectate where she might be useful.
Agnes nodded. Her eyes flickered to the ajar door, behind which a small candle still flickered for Jeanne, who was afraid of the dark.
"Please, Sister," Clary breathed, "Guard them."
The woman who was once a Duchess of Broceland herself reached out to encircle Clary in her arms, "With my life." She swore. Then her face softened, "Your littlest one is very like her grandsire. She has all the best of Stephen."
Clary gave a strangled laugh, weighted with tears, "I often wondered where Jeanne gets her temperament from. She blows from hot to cold in half a thought. Whereas Isabella… some days I swear she is her father's shadow, other days I see only myself. But of late," Clary shook her head, "The more she grows the more I see her become a person yet unknown to me, someone wholly her own." Clary feared for her eldest most of all. She feared for any girl born with royal blood in her veins, especially at a time when peace in this kingdom was so fraught. Clary swore to herself over and over she would not permit her girls to be played as game pieces the way she was, that she would always stand near to guard and help them. Now she was running countermand to that. She was leaving them, and even should she hasten back before the week was out, if this world had changed the way she suspected it had, she wasn't sure how she'd continue holding to that promise hereafter.
"Fear not," Agnes guessed at some of her fears, "No harm shall come to either of those children for as long as I stand here. Anyone that would visit ill upon them shall have to go through me first. I am Mother of the convent; this land knows no Queen but me, Clary. This holy ground we stand upon is sacrosanct and any woman who calls upon its protection shall have it from me. For as long as there is breath in my body and faith in my soul, those girls shall be safe and cared for here. Until such a time as either you or their father comes to deliver them from this place, here they shall remain, beloved and most fiercely guarded."
Agnes kissed Clary's hands, and the two women blessed themselves.
"Thank you." Clary's words of gratitude quivered pale and inadequate between them. She never would be able to express just how glad she was that Sister Agnes was here and that she had it in her soul to shelter and protect these children she might so easily have despised. How rare and admirable a woman Agnes was, to nurture only love and faith instead of grudges!
Agnes made the sign of the cross again, this time over Clary's brow. "May God bless you and keep you, daughter. May He guide you in the days to come. May He give you strength to endure and the wisdom to know His will."
Strength and wisdom. Within these walls, a younger Clary once told her mother these were the best qualities for any woman who wished to be of consequence to nurture.
Clary rode away from the place she'd grown up just as first light flickered on the horizon. Before she reached the nearest town, she heard the bells of its church start ringing. Across the kingdom, every bell in every tower answered and echoed its chime.
The cacophony sent birds scattering from the hedgerows and bats swooping from the belfries, wheeling against the steel of the sky until everyone in Idris knew what the tolling meant.
They had a new king.
-000000000000000-
The Gard, Alicante late-November 1543
The new King's court was a subdued one. Perhaps that must always be the way, given one King's ascension meant the death of another. A period of mourning must be observed by the court, but the thick tension underlying the proclamation of King Jonathan VIII in all the provinces cannot have accompanied all the other ascensions in history.
Then again, what did Emma know? She'd never lived through the death of a King before. Valentine ruled for all her life, and her parents were only children when he'd taken the throne. It was hard to imagine an Idris that wasn't ruled by him.
Perhaps that was the source of the fraught unease which lay across the palace like the thick chicken broth Sebastian's mother swore by to cure all ailments. That all of Idris had now crossed on a voyage into the unknown, that a new chapter of history had begun and its pages of the Chronicles were utterly blank.
Even under happier circumstances, Emma never felt comfortable in the Gard, not since she'd been held prisoner here as a child. Every time she passed through the thick fortress walls Emma feared she'd never walk back out of them. The sturdy battlements and gates appeared to mock her that they were not here to keep her enemies out, but to seal her in. Even empty of a scaffold, the Gard's bare green seemed to suggest its thirst for her family blood was not yet sated.
However, Emma didn't think she was the only one sleeping poorly or who'd lost their appetite. Everyone at the Gard could feel it. Though no clouds visibly gathered in the heavens, there was a weight to the air which promised a storm was about to break.
After Hendonne the Prince and his party first made for Chapeltoute, from whence Jonathan first received word from Starkweather of his father's passing. Upon arrival, they'd discovered the King's remains closeted and meals still being ferried from the kitchens to his privy chambers every day. Half the household had no knowledge of his passing, and the Queen seemed astonished by her son's arrival. She'd looked to the Prince and his companions as if they were lepers who'd gotten past the guards. It was then that all hell broke loose.
Jonathan seized upon the secrecy with glee. Alas, his cunning plan went awry as quickly as Emma could make it so, a turn of events which infuriated and rattled the new King no end. No, instead of having his oldest rival and greatest threat swiftly apprehended and detained, stashed away where Jonathan could see him, the Duke of Broceland vanished into thin air.
It disturbed Jonathan as much as it infuriated him. Good, Emma felt smugly. Instead of having Jace somewhere he could see him, the unsettled and uncrowned new King discovered the Duke had eyes on him. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan decided to take up residence in the Gard. A signal, that he adopted his ancestral seat and the keep of Jonathan I. It was also a sign he felt threatened.
Queen Jocelyn was the first one Jonathan ordered locked away. One of his first acts as King was to have his own mother banished to the prison tower. She was not the last. In swift succession, Jonathan had a serving boy accused of an attempted poisoning and a page accused of carrying a knife. As a woman and a former queen, Jocelyn was spared the rack. The other two were not.
Nobody was safe.
All the while, no word came forth from Broceland at all. None of the spies Jonathan dispatched to Havenfoile or Chatton could find Jace. Desperation rising, Jonathan decided a show of strength was in order. He opted to flush his quarry out, to beat Jace out of the bush as he might a grouse or pheasant. To this end he had himself proclaimed King publicly, in every corner of the kingdom. Let Jace know what had come to pass. Judging by his alighting, Jace already guessed or knew, so Jonathan deemed it high time the people finally know Valentine was gone and his son had replaced him. Let all know that King Jonathan VIII sat enthroned, let the people rally to their new monarch. On the contrary, the flood of support Jonathan anticipated and the great wave of subjects keen to throw themselves at his feet and kiss his sovereign ring were not forthcoming. It was more a trickle. A trickle the Gard could comfortably house.
Meanwhile, neither the Duke nor Duchess of Broceland emerged to pledge their fealty. The conspicuous absence was noted from the Lord Chamberlain to the boy who scrubbed the chamber pots. Thus the rumour mill churned. Some had it that Jace was elsewhere in Alicante, eying up the keep. Others said he was already in the keep, disguised as a servant. Some said he'd already gone to France. Accounts on what he was doing in any of these places varied from concealing a dagger to raising an army. The common people possessed quite the imagination.
Emma conceded the more likely case was that Jace fled back to Adamant and took his family with him ,certain his dearest friend the Earl would shelter him. Though Emma failed to see how Jace could have got so far so quickly. She'd made her move as quickly as she dared, and blessedly it appeared to have been fast enough. But Jonathan moved swiftly too. Emma's warning couldn't possibly have bought Jace enough time to get his wife and young children to Adamant, not before Jonathan had the border roads blocked and monitored.
King Jonathan ate privately, not trusting the populace enough to host them in the grand hall, lest an enemy slip in. This left him with limited entertainment at table. Emma loitered as near as she could without attracting attention. She sat in the background sewing, or pretended to be immersed in her reading and kept her ears and eyes peeled for any further opportunity which may yet present itself.
From under her lashes or from the corner of her eye Emma watched him. She watched Jonathan drink, she watched him sweat, she watched him give orders and receive reports, planning his father's funeral and his coronation side by side. While he nibbled this afternoon, a subpar harpist struggled to find the right notes under the King's impatient, disgruntled gaze.
Emma saw with perfect clarity when the King threw down his craving knife, his eyes snagged on her. "Enough," He snapped. Emma looked down, heart pounding, before she realised he was addressing the harpist. "Your fingers must bleed, for my ears do." He tossed a smattering of coins towards the musician. They clattered and rolled wildly about the stone floors. Without any dignity, the player dropped to his knees and scooped them up frantically. Some of them he dropped several times on his hasty retreat.
When the calamity metal on flagstone finally subsided, Emma chanced another look up from her pages. Jonathan was still staring at her. Unsmiling, he crooked a finger, beckoning her forward.
Emma's heart resumed slamming. Did he know what she'd done? A sweat broke out under the fine layers of her black gown, but Emma rose and walked forward with her head high, even as her mouth dried out.
If he'd discovered her treachery, Jonathan would have acted to punish her long ago. It'd been almost a fortnight. The signet ring Sebastian never even missed was returned to his writing desk within the hour and by now her chosen messenger, Cameron Ashdown, would be back at Hendonne with a pouch of gold to reward his speed and fidelity. Emma had covered her trail as well as she possibly could.
"You're still here, Lady Verlac." She lowered herself to a deep curtsey. Jonathan snorted, "You know, I still remember you being-" He gestured with his hand, slicing the air halfway up his torso, then mimed patting a small head. Emma locked eyes with Jonathan as she rose. She was almost as tall as him and could easily look him in the eye. She did so, her face as cold and empty as she could compose it.
Jonathan clicked his tongue, "Sebastian wanted to leave you at Hendonne, as I recall. You were insistent on departing with us."
Sebastian was doubtless aggravated by his wife's persistence, but he knew Emma would simply saddle her own horse and follow them should he try leaving her behind. She was as capable and dauntless in the saddle as her husband, something he'd learned on the few occasions he'd deigned to hunt with her.
Fine, come if you must, but for God's sake keep your head down and your mouth shut.
"And your husband so readily obeyed you. Fascinating." It wasn't voiced as an accusation but held the air of a bad jest. The idea of Sebastian as a henpecked husband greatly amused their King.
"Not as readily as he obeys you, Your Majesty."
Jonathan continued staring back at Emma, his eyes much darker than hers and skin much fairer. Emma's heart quickened again. He hadn't touched her again nor tried to, not since that night at Hendonne. He was distracted by the sudden kingship and the troubling disappearance of the Brocelands. Besides, whenever Jonathan did speak or look directly Emma's way, it was exclusively over her head to Sebastian.
Sebastian wasn't here tonight. He was off running some of the King's errands, the kind he deemed too important to furnish Emma with the details of. Emma didn't press. She could soon prise what Sebastian didn't tell her out of his grooms, and she knew Sebastian would never be trusted with anything too important or permitted much independence of action. Jonathan kept his most loyal hound on a tight leash. This was likely wise- the most simply phrased directives with little room for error was what Sebastian specialised in. Emma would learn more and be in a position to do more if she stayed close to Jonathan and let Sebastian do as he would.
Now she questioned the wisdom of that proximity. Jonathan had yet to send for his queen to join them here. Emma tried to hold a King at bay with her stare. If her face was blank enough and if she didn't show him the faintest interest of any variety, perhaps Jonathan would go back to ignoring her.
Before he could say or do anything further, Sebastian's voice brayed into the chamber. "Your Majesty will not believe what my men found wandering in Broceland Forest."
For once Emma was grateful to hear him. Then again, there were few things worse than Sebastian when he tried to be witty.
Judging by Jonathan's expression, this was a sentiment King and Countess shared.
"What is it now, Sebastian?" He demanded wearily.
Sebastian bounced into the room eagerly, oblivious to having interrupted or irked anyone. Emma was reminded of a day long ago at Bellgate when Ty discovered a field mouse and brought it inside, fascinated by his discovery and eager to keep it as a pet. He'd bounded into their governess at the time proclaiming, "Look what I found!" The poor woman screamed so much the late Duke thought a fire had broken out. As Emma recalled, another serving girl even fainted. In all this commotion, the mouse got loose. Emma and Jules were dispatched to look under the furniture and catch it. It was Julian who succeeded, and he who safely returned the small rodent back outside with minimum fanfare.
There was a similar juvenile excitement alive in Sebastian at present.
When he didn't get the enthused response that he hoped for, Sebastian tried again, "Or mayhap, Sire, I should say 'who?'"
Jonathan got to his feet with a sudden spark of interest. Emma turned equally as quickly, but with a strident dread towards where Sebastian was motioning for the doors to be opened.
One of Sebastian's heavies came into view, a thickset and course man whom Emma always profoundly disliked. Never more so than today.
Emma's stomach sank as Jonathan gave a whoop of laughter.
For there, gripped firmly by the elbow and marched into their view, then shoved before her King roughly by the shoulders, her skirts dirty and a bright, fresh bruise on her face, was none other than the glowering Duchess of Broceland.
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