First Blood
The Gard, Alicante, January 1544
Emma only thought she'd hated the Gard before. Until now it solely occupied her nightmares, where it was easily banished into night time shadows, its horrors split apart and made less fearsome by the dawn.
Except, her nightmares were no longer so easily scattered by first light.
No, today they traipsed brazenly into noon and into the evenings, a little further each day. For the thing Emma feared most was here beside her, in this city she loved. An Inquisition was operating at full power, fully chartered by the Crown, far reaching and all seeing. Striving for the omnipotence of the God it scrutinised.
Emma knew her parents hadn't burned. Yet, ever since the day they'd been condemned she'd been haunted by notions of fire and agony, by visions of charred bones and choked lungs. She often thought of how excruciating it must be to burn alive. Her preoccupation only grew with each passing day. Though she did not fear hellfire, for she knew in her soul her parents had been right in all they believed, Emma remained only flesh and blood. The Apostle was correct; the flesh was weak. Flesh was flammable. Assurance of salvation after death didn't stop Emma from fearing death. It didn't stop her fearing the burning. It certainly didn't remove the images of blackened, shrivelled limbs that once belonged to people she'd loved staggering into her dreams.
"It's today, my lady!" The sharp sound of her maid's voice startled Emma's quill to stutter to the table, narrowly missing the rim of the pot. She looked up, only to find her alarm written back at her. Ida was better than a good maid; she was an excellent one. This was something Emma had grown to value more highly than gold brocade or pearls. Ida had been with Emma since she was a girl, following her to Bellgate and onward into marriage. After all she'd seen beside Emma, Ida was not prone to hysterics or panic, not unless warranted. She was deathly serious.
Emma caught her meaning at once, "When?"
"An hour hence."
Emma got to her feet at once. "My cape, Ida, the maroon one."
"Madam, you cannot possibly attend!"
Emma was already fumbling around for a pair of gloves, "I can, and I shall."
Ida's lip wobbled but she did not protest further. She had indeed been with Emma for a very long time. "You cannot go in so fine and recognisable a cape, my lady," she amended. "You had best take mine."
Emma did precisely so.
The chaos of the vibrant city beyond the walls of the Gard always seemed a little wild and unpredictable. The very first time she'd ever gone into Alicante proper as a fresh eyed child from Chene, Emma clung so tight to her father's hand she might have broken it. She'd been into towns before, even big ones like Louren, but at eight years old Alicante was huge, noisy and daunting to her. The streets seemed to have little rhyme or reason to them, the people shouted and pushed and one had to be careful to avoid buckets being emptied from above or ending up under the hooves of a horse. John held his daughter in an iron grip on their first adventure. She remembered it light it were yesterday, because even in the midst of all the chaos John was sure footed. While with her father, Emma found it impossible to be afraid of anything.
She felt him with her today as she slipped out the water gate with her hood up and the pretence of an errand under her arm. Emma could feel John's longer strides tugging on the tempo of her steps. She could feel his urgency and his purpose.
Emma also felt a silent certainty that she was doing the right thing. That didn't cease it being frightening. Her grip on the coarser folds of a cloak than she was used to tightened, just below her throat. John Carstairs always did what he believed to be the right thing. Now John was dead.
Though she'd never attempted it before and did not know what to expect, Emma slipped from the Gard into the city streets without being apprehended.
King Jonathan could not maroon his entire skeleton court at the Gard; they still had to eat and they still had to clothe themselves. To that end, their servants had to be granted a degree of freedom in and out of the city. It was enough so that no one looked twice at a plain dressed women moving toward the markets with purpose.
Perhaps it might have been exhilarating if Emma's heart wasn't already at speed. Once, she and Julian played at being runaways. They'd concocted a range of disguises they may avail of, Emma's favourite of which was one where she'd cut her hair, don breeches and learn how to wield a sword. They'd talked of stowing away in an explorer's ship and sailing to some unchartered world like Cortez or Magellan. They'd dreamed of making fortunes out there and gorging themselves on fruits which did not grow in Christendom. Emma didn't know what Julian would make of this particular endeavour. She didn't know if he'd approve or despair of her reckless loyalties. A solemn degree of both, she suspected.
At least it helped that Emma was joining the flow of the crowds.
Even after weeks of them occurring with gruesome regularity, the novelty had yet to wear off with the commons. The burnings always attracted a crowd.
The first burnings occurred on the Gard green, where Emma's mother and father's lives were snuffed out on the scaffold. The burnings moved since then, for the screams of the dying tended to put a King off his supper. For the common people, they proved popular. Some genuinely revelled in the pain of others, while some feared that if they did not respond with excitement, their faith and loyalty to the King and Cardinal's church would become suspect next.
As Emma got closer to the stakes there was a great deal of jostling, even arguments breaking out over whom had stood in which spot first.
Emma may not have siblings, but she'd spent enough time at Bellgate with enough other children to know how to make use of her elbows and shins. She fought her way into a space which would serve and held firm there. Emma stood her ground in the midst of the jeering and jostling of the spectators as the cart of the condemned was rolled out. She stood tall as she could, and as the cart jerked and pulled its rickety way past her, she ducked her hood down at the last minute. She pushed her head above the churning crowd.
It worked.
Anselm Nightshade saw her. In the hail of rotting fruit and fish guts levelled toward him, his eyes found Emma's. Even behind sunken cheeks, there were still signs of the man he'd once been; the firebrand, renegade priest exiled from his seminary for agreeing with Luther too much. Emma's family welcomed him in Chene, where he'd dined at her father's table many times. He'd even taught Emma Greek and snippets of rhetoric during his stay at Hendonne. He'd praised her for reading so far beyond her years and given her a peach, once, with a wink. She remembered it well, for he was one of the few men in her life not her father to treat her with kindness and good humour.
Anselm believed as Emma did. He argued as Emma wished to. It may as well be her bound to that stake. It was only for the grace of God and- though it bothered her to admit it- the grace of being married to Jonathan's longest ally which kept Emma free of suspicion thus far. Powerful men like the Cardinal tended not to think of women as having their own conscience. He measured them against their husband's fidelities of faith.
If thinking for yourself, if refusing to blindly follow and if challenging what you felt to be wrong made you a heretic then yes, Emma Carstairs wholeheartedly was one.
But she couldn't save Anselm, no more than she might have saved her mother or father. If she did fall afoul of the Cardinal's interrogators, Emma did not know how she would hold a second time. She did not know if she would have the courage of conviction her parents did. She hoped she'd never find out. All she did know was that if it were her headed to the stake, she wouldn't wish to face it alone.
In Anselm's final hour Emma couldn't offer him much more than a slip of her courage. His eyes latched hers, stricken, and Emma nodded. She made the sign of the cross; reminding Anselm that he was not alone today and he would not be forgotten tomorrow. Heaven did await him, whatever the Cardinal's torturers said.
The cart trundled on, bringing a brilliant man, one of too many, to his death.
Emma did not linger to watch her family's friend die under the same charge as her parents. She pulled her hood back up and went on her way.
Chased by fire, she was chilled to her core.
There was more than life and death at stake here. More than Heaven and Hell, even. In this Idris which King Jonathan VIII would make, no one was allowed to think for themselves. No one was allowed to think, or say, anything to the contrary of what their King told them to. That was the most dangerous kind of place. That was a hell all its own.
Emma shuddered and blessed herself again, signing off a desperate prayer for the souls of more than Anselm and her parents.
God, Jace. This madness cannot prevail. You have to win.
-00000000000000-
Durre Castle, Broceland, February-early March 1544
The war Jace declared with such apparent rashness was slow to start. Raising banners and raising armies were too very different things, Jace discovered. And then there was the rain.
It was relentless, shivering off the shingles over their heads and dripping down stone walls until the guttering gurgled. The surrounding shrubbery slouched under the weight of the water, the river Durre swelled and choked its banks. The bridge built just last spring was drowned and when the water did begin to retreat, the bridge was smothered in silt.
And yet, as the weeks passed and the rain broke off in fits and starts, people came.
The erring and the second sons. That was to be Jace's army.
Jonathan did not come to challenge them in person. Nor did he expend men doing so. Not yet. He'd be a fool to. No, he would sit comfortably in Alicante and let Jace come to him. Though Jace's heels itched, he was not ready to do so yet. Counterintuitive though it felt, he needed to wait a while longer. He needed to wait until there were more men, until the men already here were better organised. Each day, someone else declared their colours. Each day, some did so for Jace, but others held fast to Jonathan. Jace needed to wait until he had the men, the swords and the means to feed an army on the march before he could march it anywhere. Above all, he needed the mud to dry.
Jace was already starting on the back foot here. It was a foregone conclusion that his would be the offence. Jonathan's men would sit back comfortably and watch his advance. They'd watch Jace's forces tire themselves on the move and then sweep in on fresher legs to cut Jace's legs out from under him.
The number of pieces Jace had to hand were scant. Thus, the moves he did make needed to be the right ones.
So he waited, and he whet his blade, and he trained with his men. Every night, as he lay awake in the dark, he counted his allies. Aconite and Fairchild. Wayland and Adamant. And the troops of Edgehunt, who bade Alec's call after all.
The difficulty was not the men his allies brought, nor their mettle and obedience.
The difficulty was Jace's own. The men Jace was least certain of, the men who had been shockingly tardy in their response, were the men of Broceland.
Jace could hardly blame them. He knew the adage well. The once bitten men of Broceland were loath to rise against the throne again.
He strode down the hall with more confidence than he felt, the ever-present clink and rattle of metal on his person keeping his mind elsewhere. In Oldcastle, to be precise. The thorn in his side which remained disinclined to budge, even after several years.
Jace wondered when he'd start feeling a King. He tested out moments of new authority and flickers on the imperial theme; like now, waving toward a door with the back of his hand until somebody else shut it for him. Acting the part had yet to make it feel cohesive or real. But he dared not show a hint of uncertainty or weakness. If he let a chink of doubt about what he was doing grow visible, Jace was a dead man.
"We sent for an army," he declared, "It is not oft an army sends an emissary first."
Before him, a jaw clenched. Jace did not let his surprise show. The face Broceland's insolence wore was surprisingly young.
That was how it was. When he called for the men of Broceland it was boys who came. Boys were all the county had, since too many of the young and strong had been smite for their treasons after the rebellion. Now all that remained were their younger brothers and their not-quite-of-age sons.
And for the most part, they were reluctant. The fellow before Jace bowed, but just about. The self-advanced leader and mouthpiece of Jace's tenants looked younger than Max, shaggy haired and square jawed, of wiry stature and with chapped hands. Then again, by the time he was this lad's age, Jace had seen battlefields. Youth did not equate innocence.
Jace's fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, a reflex when he did not know exactly what he was facing.
"You'll forgive the lack of haste, I pray, Majesty. The men in my county are slow to rumble. The men of my town slower still. Be assured, we have no wish to displease the Crown."
It was a clever twist, Jace had to grant him. The crown could be him, or it could be Jonathan. It would depend on who you asked.
Though his chin was lowered, the brown pair of eyes on Jace held more challenge than obeisance. Slowly, they dipped to the tips of his boots, "And the weather has been poor."
Reluctance, Jace could understand. He did not know where or how this venture of his would end, but he knew one thing that unavoidably awaited. Blood. Men would die, and many of them. Among the fallen would also be boys. Boys like this one. And that would be on Jace's command.
But if this youth thought Jace took the blood of more of Broceland's boys on his hands lightly, he did not do so. In truth, he had nothing but scruples. He dared not let them show, however, and he could not afford to let them dictate his actions. This was the course he had chosen. It was the course of action Jace was left with. Even if Clary were not Jonathan's prisoner, Jace would be insulted and incensed by Jonathan's persecutions. He could not let that go unchallenged. An Jace was the only one able and willing to challenge Jonathan's authority.
Perhaps Jace ought to flex his might here. Perhaps he ought to call on the order of Heaven, to remind this young man and all those like him- those with short lives shouldering long grudges- that he was their King, their lord. Thus,he was owed their loyalty in return for the ground they stood upon.
It was what Jonathan would do. It was what Valentine would have done. It was what Jace would not do, he realised. He didn't want to be exactly like them. He didn't know what sort of a King he was, for he'd scarce had a moment to learn, but he knew he wanted to be a different kind. Jace would be a break away from all that came before.
"I do not hunger for this war." Jace heard himself say, an admission his father and his foe would each read as weakness. But brute strength would not endear Jace to the people of Oldcastle. Far from it. "If there were another way ahead, I would take it. But this…" He tugged himself back, made his voice steel with all the conviction he wished for, "This is what must be done." None of them had to like it. "We all must now do what must be done."
The youth, the farmer's boy turned soldier, simply and soundlessly rested his thumb in a reflection of Jace, against his blade. Except, where Jace had a sword, this lad possessed only a crude dirk. It looked like a blade you'd use to skin rabbits, not wage war. Though it sat small on his hip, if anything, for a fleeting flash Jace felt it ought to look too big.
With sullen, unreadable eyes he proclaimed, "You pledged to be our blade to us, once, my lord. Now you would command our blades."
Jace's eyes snagged on the sheathed blade at the boy's hip again.
These words were not a pledge, nor a question. They were an echo.
"I know you." Jace tensed right to the tips of his toes. The sharp eyes, the uneven shoulders, that furtiveness. It finally struck him. "I remember you. You're the boy. Tiller's boy." And he was still little more than a child at that.
The youth's face set firmer. "I'm a child of Broceland, Sire."
"What's your name?"
"Tom." He admitted, at length. "Thomas. Thomas Tiller. It's my sister's surname, but she took me in when my mother died. Even as a young widow, she looked after me as one of her own. So as I approached manhood, I took her husband's name to honour their sacrifices. It's a name that has value, you see, in our parts."
Jace almost laughed. They locked eyes, assessing, each awaiting the other's next move. Eye to eye- or not quite. One Broceland dynasty stared another down.
The spell was broken by a soft fissure of movement at the door behind Jace. He turned just in time to catch sight of a curled white hand disappearing behind the door and a gold eye turning away.
"Bel?" Jace called after her anyway, "Isabella?"
Her only response was the slap of small, hastily retreating feet.
Jace's stomach clenched. It was difficult to tell how much the girls understood. In Jeanne's case, it seemed very little. She still asked for her mother every day. Those kinds of questions had ceased with Isabella weeks ago. She was a little older and much quieter than her sister. What she had done was develop a habit of listening at keyholes. It seemed the more Jace tried to shield her, the less he succeeded. She saw and heard a great deal. What Isabella made of it, Jace knew not.
With difficulty, Jace turned back to the subject before him. Perhaps it was best that Bel wasn't here. The sight of her may only have inflamed the ire of a man whose family had suffered greatly at Jace's hands and at Valentine's bidding.
He assessed quickly it was not so. Tiller the Younger was looking at Jace anew. He watched the droplets of realisation settle on his uneasy bannerman that Jace had a family he'd sworn to protect too. Tiller began to see that Jace was not merely some feudal lord demanding service but also a husband and a father.
"She's six, just gone." Jace felt compelled to share a little more of that side of him, "She gets herself into all sorts of trouble and places she shouldn't." It wasn't entirely Isabella's fault. She was without tutors or nurses here the way she had been at Havenfoile and Isabella bored easily. Maia Roberts was still chiefly responsible for the girls, since Clary left them with her and there were no other noblewomen to hand. Durre was a fortress and a base from which war was to be waged. Wives and sisters were to be left out of it. With no other potential governesses around and Jace busy planning a war strategy, Isabella easily slipped the net and went on her own explorations around Durre. Or more specifically, she'd taken to shadowing Jace. He suspected much of it was born of an anxiety that her only remaining parent might be misplaced as easily as one of her toys. Jace also felt Isabella was taking a sharp interest in what it was her father did, that she was curious about what it was to rule.
"Children do that." Tom was assuredly thinking of his own case. "I have a niece around that age," Tom admitted further, "A little older. She's the only child Jacques and Sybbie have. A child we never expected to live." Another flash behind his eyes, "Your little girl never goes hungry, I'll bet, Majesty."
"No," Jace admitted quietly. Though when they'd first come to Durre, Isabella went through a phase of having next to no appetite. She was a worrier, was his Bel, "Though her life is not without its strife, young as she is." Desperately, he threw a plank out that just might build a bridge. "That is what we fight for in the end, do we not? All of us? For our families?"
If this Tiller was moved, he did not show it. The last man named Tiller who'd looked to Jace to lead him got a bolt in the heart for his efforts.
This boy had been there to see it, and he would not forget it. It was a mistake, Jace longed to plead. An error not mine. What then of Valentine dispatching Jace as his fist of retribution? Those deaths were of Jace's doing, yes, and he would never find absolution for it. Forever that would weigh on his soul. I'm sorry. That was what he longed to say here most, but it wouldn't give this adolescent his childhood back. It would not make amends in Broceland. And Jace was no longer only their contrite Duke. He was trying to make himself King. Kings were God's choice, God's exceptions. They did not admit to errors, least of all to farmer's boys, not unless they wanted to compromise divine right and forfeit their heads shortly thereafter.
"We all do things we regret for our families."
That was as much as he dared give, and Jace could still hear Valentine howling in his head it was much too far to give.
Tom Tiller blinked, but he did not move. Nor did he relent.
He could not forget, and he would not forgive. Which left Jace stuck in the same place in the board; a King hemmed in by his knights and castles but unsure what colour these pieces were and which way they faced- with him or against him? Tiller spoke for many, too many. They owed Jonathan Morgenstern no love, but Jonathan Herondale had spoiled their loyalty not so long ago. He'd sullied it in their own blood. Without the men of his dukedom fighting behind him, how could Jace ever hope to rule a kingdom?
Jace wished to give them a fresh start, a clean page. He just didn't know how, not when the people of Broceland still looked to a Tiller before they did him. Tiller did not want to help Jace turn the page. Tiller may even wish to burn the book altogether.
Jace dared not march with men he could not be sure of. Thus, he dared not march at all.
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Upstairs, the men tried drying out by the fire. Jace had sweated drilling with his infantrymen, but it had not blunted the edge of his concerns. The frustrations Tiller brought to his hearth remained the most disconcerting topic for discussion.
"You cannot abide his insolence. Not from your own men." Alec was, as always, perfectly and infuriatingly right, if a little bleaker than it was necessary to be aloud. "If you cannot command your own tenants Jace, then we may as well all leap on our own swords now."
"You are his liege lord. You command him and all those like him! Their arms were not a request!" Max remained astonishingly hot-headed.
"I think it not the best idea for me to remind him too heavy-handedly of that," Jace insisted drily. Further force would not win him the hearts or the sword arms of Broceland. It would likely only spur on mutiny.
"Then I will," Max suggested, always eager to get the chance to play the lord, to play the grown up. Max's loyalty was beyond question and Jace envied him his spritely enthusiasm, much as it made his temples ache.
"No, you won't," Alec corrected his brother with decisive curtness.
Max shot Jace a beseeching look, "Your moment to prove yourself will come, Max," Jace tempered the disappointment with some reassurance, "This is not it. I am, as you say, the lord of Broceland. These are my people. This is my vexation to solve."
Magnus sipped his wine and said nothing. On the finer points of war, he seldom ventured an opinion. Jace never pressed him. It was a marvel Magnus was still here at all, and it was evidently not for Jace's sake. He was here because of Alec, for love of Alec. It was all the proof Jace required of his theory. Love was as potent as fear when it came to purchasing loyalty. Jace had tasted the Brocelanders' fear. He would have no more of it.
"Can you blame Tiller?" Jace rolled his shoulders. They remained tense and aching. "All over Broceland there are young boys who've grown up missing brothers and fathers just like him. They're young and they're angry. Worse, they've inherited their mothers' fear. Naturally they tarry. Half of them fear that if they do not fight when I call, I'll have them hung too. The other half fear that if they do, I'll be struck down and Jonathan will have them hung for fighting under my banner. At any rate, would you be so quick to lift a sword for a man who had your father hung?"
Alec shrugged, "I would if he was the only reason my family survived the past six winters. And yes, Jace, I can blame them. I can blame Tiller and his followers easily if we get routed and killed because they baulked at the crucial moment. Or worse, because they were never there with us in first instance." Alec's fist rested on the table. He exchanged a long look with Magnus.
Of them all, Alec was most tired. He was the one run ragged amassing troops in Adamant and ensuring his wife's people flocked there too. When this storm broke, Alec would be Jace's right hand; it would be he who rode at the head of Jace's column to the north.
The men of Western Idris already sworn to him Jace would lead himself, if they'd follow. If the Brocelanders did not rise under Jace, or worse, if they declared for Jonathan, then that would be that. What other few allies Jace amassed would soon lose their fervour and no hope of Reformation or intellectual freedoms would be enough to inspire them otherwise. Jace didn't know what to do. He'd hoped that by taking this great step, everything would finally begin. He'd hoped proclaiming himself King would be an end to all his agonies of indecision. The opposite seemed true.
"They'll come," Jace tried to sound sure, "I will rally them somehow."
Alec remained sceptical. There was also a dark look in Magnus's eye Jace did not know how to judge and Max remained all tightly wound impatience. "We have to march, either way. We cannot just sit here and wait for Jonathan to come kill us. If we have to move without Broceland, let us. We still have the men of Adamant, and Aconite and-"
Jace halted Max's desperate list by unsheathing his sword. The clean, whistling sound the metal made as it was bared would forever sing to Jace's blood. Max was right, in one regard. If Jace was going to die, this was how he wished to. With sword in hand.
For now, he laid the blade on the table, glistening and deadly but at peace. "There's a reason we do not ride into battle with these alone. There's a reason we can't fight with one arm."
Max's colour bloomed.
Just as he had coached him through the more complex sums in the schoolroom, Jace gently urged, "What's the other arm for, Max?"
"Well… a shield."
"Exactly." Jace pushed his hands into his hair. He wondered if he'd have any hair left at the end of this. "For a shield. That is as much a part of surviving a battle as any, my brother; knowing when to charge and knowing when to guard yourself. If our families are to survive this, we have to consider that too. We must always think how to guard ourselves, in this instance from insurgency. We cannot blindly charge in the direction of Alicante and hope."
This time, knowing the men amassed in the room, Isabella did not hover by the keyhole. She charged straight in with a gasp. Jace saw his daughter's face wobble in the reflection of the naked steel laying on the table. He wheeled around to face her. Several paces away from her father, Isabella stopped.
"You're going away." The accusation came steadily, "You're going away, just like Mama did."
"Yes." Jace wouldn't lie to her. Not to her face. "I will be going away, likely quite soon. Only because I must, Isabella."
Isabella wasn't easily moved to tears. Come to think of it, even as an infant she never had been. She still trembled, though.
Jace wished he knew for certain that what he was doing was the right thing. He'd gone to fetch the girls from the convent himself, though he'd almost had to wrestle them off Amatis, who swore they were safest on sacrosanct ground. Jace disagreed. He would not put it past Jonathan or his cronies to plunder holy ground in search of Jace's heirs. Even that desecration wouldn't turn the Cardinal from him, not when Jonathan was the only ruler for Idris that Rome could be sure of.
No, Jace wanted his girls here, behind the walls of Durre Castle. These walls were higher, they were walls that were manned and fortified. He wanted them where he could see them, and yes, he wanted them where he could hold them and kiss them before bed every night. Perhaps that was selfish. Jace didn't care. He'd had his wife wrenched from him and he would not squander another second without his daughters.
Leaning down, Jace cupped Isabella's cheeks, so soft and warm, between his roughened palms. Her heart shaped face and that tilt to her head as she looked at him reminded him fervently of her mother. Small, yes, but never weak. Trusting and loyal but much stronger than she knew. She truly did have the best of both her parents. Looking at Isabella, wide-eyed and frightened, all Jace's doubts swelled again. She was frightened for him and frightened because of Jace, because of the war he'd started.
This was unfair. Isabella was only a child. She should never have to know such turmoil, nor such distress in her lifetime. He'd sworn at her birth she'd never have to weather the kinds of uncertainties Jace had as a child, yet here they were. He'd reneged on that oath. If not for Jace, perhaps his family would have been left alone at Chatton. If he'd gone to Jonathan and submitted, perhaps Isabella and her sister would be at home by now, safe with their mother.
Jace quelled that idea. That was not so. Neither Isabella nor Jeanne would ever be just a child. They never were. His girls had the blood of kings in their veins, twice over. There was no world in which they could grow up the unconcerned children of country gentry.
They were the future of Idris, his girls. They were the melding of two great dynasties. What sort of world would their father make for them?
With that arrived another, more jarring thought.
She was Jace's eldest, his heir apparent. That was not all she was, this little girl whose face fit so neatly between his palms. Isabella was next in line, either way. Whether Jace succeeded or not, Isabella and Jeanne were the only ones of their generation in the family. Jonathan had no children. Nor was he likely to father an heir soon, since he hadn't spoken to Isabelle in months. In fact, since he'd crowned himself, Izzy hadn't moved from Estoncurt.
That meant there was only Isabella and little Jeanne after her. Whatever came next, they would be the King's daughters, or the King's nieces. She'd be the heir apparent, either way.
When Jace went from this place, there would be no going back. Truthfully, Max was right, they'd already passed the point of no return. Jace would either come back to Bel to name her Crown Princess of Idris, or he wouldn't be coming back to her at all.
"I love you," Jace told her earnestly, his voice pressed with the weight of his emotions. He kissed Isabella's head and pulled her close. She went without any protest, her arms locking around her father's neck. Jace felt her, small but less fragile than you'd assume in his arms. He breathed in the smell of her, past the tickling strands of her hair, "I love you and your sister more than anything. Please remember that, my dearest heart."
He told no lie there either. Jace loved his daughters more than any crown, more even than Idris, more than life itself. But he had to do this.
He'd learned that the only way a Herondale would be safe in this world was if they were wearing a crown. If theirs were not the hands signing the warrants, it was their death warrants that would be signed for them. For this next generation of Herondales, the blood of old Idris and the new, it was to be the throne or the block.
Isabella was barely six, but she didn't protest or beg. Already, on some level, this daughter of Broceland understood that she belonged to more than just Jace and her family. She also belonged to Idris. Paradox though it may seem, Jace was doing this to protect her. He was doing this to bequeath her more than a crown. He wanted to gift her a better world, a safer one.
A child of Broceland. He thought again of Tom Tiller and all the angry boys he'd brought with him. He thought of Magnus's advice, back on a starry night in Aconite. Jace had blotted his history with those boys. They'd serve him, but they may never love him. If he was going to rally the children of Broceland and bind them, he needed something more. If they wouldn't follow Jace, perhaps they'd be moved by one of their own. There it was; kernel of hope, a glowing ember. The first of its kind Jace truly felt since he'd proclaimed himself King.
What he contemplated now was audacious, that was for certain. Then again, so was everything else which had brought Jace this far.
If he was to be the victor, and in the hope his daughter would one day be the author after him, Jace wished to start writing some history.
-0000000000000000-
In the great hall of Durre Castle, Jace Herondale made his boldest move yet.
Before the allies amassed and the uncertain, reticent youths of Oldcastle, stood a little girl.
She was straight backed, swathed in blue robes which were trimmed with some hastily acquired gold threading. She looked neither haphazard nor daunted as she stepped up onto the dais with pure determination. Though her uncle Alec offered his hand to assist her on the short climb, she did not take it.
Isabella Herondale stood up there with her head high as the hush descended. She looked elsewhere for certainty just once, in the quickest of glances over her shoulder to her father, who rose from his throne and came to stand behind her.
Jace laid his hand over young Isabella's shoulder and he called out to the other children of Broceland. He offered to them on the first bright spring day of the year their new liege; a fresh bastion for their loyalty, so all of Idris may start anew. He gave them not some disinterested lord in Alicante, but one who would always keep an eye to Broceland. One who would belong to them before she would the Crown. In this great show of faith and fealty, Jace gave to the people of Broceland his firstborn. She was a child, yes, but she not one who quailed. Isabella was a Herondale, with all her father's strength and her mother's steadfast courage. She would not baulk, and Isabella would not blink, not when duty called to her.
It was not himself but her whom he raised up, this King to whom Broceland had yet to truly bow. This King would not crush their spirit. He commended them. He answered their pride with his own greatest pride.
"I present to you, Isabella, your Princess of Broceland." She was one of their own, one who could look back to them. With her, he offered them a future they could all share in, a bold and symbolic departure from their old history.
Nothing of the like had ever been done and the first response was a ripple of confusion. Broceland never had a prince or a princess before. It was a new title, a new way of thinking. To name one's firstborn, a little girl, no less- well, what, exactly? Not Crown Princess, which was familiar, and not even Duchess of Broceland, which while also unprecedented and perplexing, at least would have been more understandable. Princess of Broceland was something in between. It was neither one nor the other. It was something of both, yet something all its own.
And yet, after only the barest of hesitations, the murmur died down. For Young Tom Tiller had approached the dais. He looked to Jace once, then to Isabella, her face open yet stern for one so young. She was a child who'd seen strife indeed, a child who'd already known loss and upheaval. A child, innocent and hopeful, just like thousands of others in this kingdom who were worth fighting for.
Thomas Tiller fell to his knees with a battered old knife between his upturned palms. He was the first to swear fealty to the first Princess of Broceland.
And thus the tides of time turned.
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The Gard, Alicante, early March 1544
Jace was the one who'd ventured away from the agreed rules. Determined to forever be his opposite, Jonathan remained predictable. In the weeks which followed Jace's great gambit, what few freedoms Clary had gleaned at the Gard vanished, like fog chased off the riverbanks at the first breath of wind.
Jonathan kept his sister closeted tightly, afraid she may slip away. Or perhaps he was doubly afraid of what havoc she may achieve if he kept her at close personal quarters. It gave Clary ample time to ruminate.
Swearing her innocence of Jace's scheme would make no difference. Jonathan would never believe her. That she had no foreknowledge or role in inciting Jace to name himself King mattered even less. She doubted if it would save her. Innocents died all the time.
So she sat still and she dwelled on a number of things. There was nothing left for Clary to do now but think. She thought about her mother's botched scheme and she thought about Jace. She thought of the girls and she thought of Jonathan's threats towards her.
He swore that he would have Clary's marriage annulled, that he would lean on the Cardinal in his pocket to make it so. Then her brother would marry her off to Morgenstern advantage the way she should have been in the first place. Jonathan even taunted her that it might be easily done, since Valentine never procured the necessary papal dispensation for Clary to marry a distant cousin and called it his surety. Clary didn't believe she and Jace were closely enough related for one to ever have been necessary, but she was not an expert in canon law. What did she know? Once Clary thought herself clever and cultured. The events of the past weeks proved to her just how little she knew. They'd demonstrated precisely the limits of what she could do.
If Jonathan required means to prune Jace off their family tree, she had no doubt he would find it. He was King in this city and the Cardinal would give him whatsoever he needed to make himself King in the rest of the provinces. This was a holy war, now. There was more than a dynasty hanging in the balance. It wasn't just Valentine's heir Jace was challenging, it was St Peter's. At best Jace was a man with reformist sympathies. At worst he was an out-and-out Lutheran. Even Clary couldn't answer as to the state of her unruly husband's soul. All she could tell with any surety was that these were other lines down which her country had split overnight.
Would Jace split Idris from Rome? Clary didn't know that either. She did know that if he prospered the burnings would stop.
She sat by her window in the Gard, precisely the forlorn damsel she swore to herself that she would never be, and she watched the endless rain streak down her glass. Perhaps the saints were weeping after all, just as the nuns at the convent once told her they did for humanity's sins. She thought again of the convent, and the two small children she'd left there with the promise she wouldn't be gone from them long.
All she could fight here was despair and Clary was struggling to. She pressed her fingertip right up against the pane, where the heat from her chambers fogged against the cold glass. She rocked her weight back and forth, then retracted her touch. Clary watched the gap her thumb created close back over almost immediately.
When she was a young woman and she thought her father had saved his grandest plans for her, she'd imagined the chapters of history her life would fill. She'd thought of her hands crafting the new world like the Fates of old had woven it.
That was a child's dream.
Her epitaph would be far less glorious. Clarissa of Idris: daughter of a zealot, sister to a tyrant, wife of a pretender.
At best, the most Clary Herondale would leave on Idris's history was a smudge.
The latch turned and she jumped. Clary was anticipating Emma, or Kaelie, or some of the other clerics who were among the only ones still allowed to attend her. To her alarm, it was Jonathan himself.
"Come."
She followed him, biting her tongue until she knew what to say. As he strode with her down the Gard passageways, Clary realised he was parading her. People stopped as they passed by. A few nodded or curtseyed to Clary, even after Jonathan had passed them.
Jonathan led her into what was once Valentine's council chamber. The doorknobs bounced off the wall at his grand entrance and the black clad councillors congregated startled like nesting rooks. A few of their sleeves even flapped like wings.
"Yes, yes, she's alive, it's all very good, now get out."
Clary wondered what these men would have done if Valentine had spoken to them thus. For a perverse moment, she fervently wished he were around to see it, even if only for a moment.
The surprise wore off quickly. Snappish and sarcastic Jonathan- if not openly spiteful- was evidently something these men were used to. They scattered. Starkweather, hobbling far behind the others, shot Clary a woeful look full of quivering agony.
Clary glanced to the table they left behind. There was a map unfurled across it. It was one of Idris, she realised, dotted with small pins and pieces like a game's board. A war map. One bedecked with strategies and plans.
Helpless, she sidled closer and tried to subtly get a good look. Then she halted herself. What good would it do? Even if Clary gained some insight or significant knowledge, who could she tell? There was no way of her getting any message to Jace or any of their friends. Even if she could smuggle some sliver to Emma, the Countess had exhausted her luck getting that first warning to Jace. She'd be watched now, same as all the others. There'd be no chance of a repeat.
Above all, there was no way Jonathan would be foolish enough to let her see or hear something of such importance that she could wield it against him. He turned, resting the small of his back against the arm of an abandoned chair and folded his arms.
"Princess of Broceland."
"What?"
"Precisely. It's not a damn thing." Jonathan's nostrils flared. Clary assessed him. He looked no more or less angry than he usually did in their fleeting interactions ever since Jace made his bid for the throne. He had moments of more acute venom than others as he taunted or threatened her, but he had seen to it there were no further bruises. Mostly Jonathan looked tired. Deeply, achingly tired. It was the wan face of a man who needed to rest because he was exhausted, yet couldn't sleep. There were ashen shadows under his eyes.
He gripped the arch of the chair, "Yet your traitor of a husband saw fit to name Isabella 'Princess of Broceland' anyway, and then asked the West counties to bow to her."
Clary's heart skipped. "Did they?"
The thunderclouds crossing her brother's expression answered that for her.
Oh Jace. Clary's stomach twisted. Jonathan taunted her with that too, that it was her Jace usurped as much as he would do Jonathan. It was Clary's claim Jace harnessed for himself and her claim he'd disregarded as he leapt over her place in the line of succession. And yes, it rankled. But this…
This was a gesture intended for more than Jonathan. Jace had made the men who would not bow for Clary get on their knees before her daughter. Something as warm and deep as pride surged within her, a wellspring Clary hadn't even known was there.
It was a mighty gesture, to be sure. She didn't know if Jace got wind of Jonathan's warning he'd annul their union and declare their children illegitimate. Doing so would be difficult for Jonathan now. People wouldn't believe Jonathan a bastard after they'd already bowed to him, now Jace reversed this strategy against him. He'd put Broceland on its knees before Isabella and made them swear to her.
"It doesn't matter what he calls either of your brats. He can call the girl Holy Roman Empress if he so wishes; it does not make her such."
Clary shrugged, emboldened by the news, "Names have power. Look what you have done with our father's."
Jonathan's expression turned suddenly and sharply considering. Having nothing else to stand against him with, Clary stared back. "Our father's name." Jonathan repeated, his voice both velvety and raw. He unfolded his arms, pushing upright. "I have decided," Jonathan proclaimed, with all the grandiosity of one for whom decisions still seemed to be increasingly made for him rather than by him, "That you are of no use to me rotting away in a tower."
Clary closed her fingers over one another, the right hand atop the left. A peaceable, patient stance that she subverted by querying him cynically, "I am of use to you?" A flutter too late she added, "Majesty?"
Jonathan took a half-step closer. She could feel the barely contained intensity to him- part desperation, part demand. "I know what you are, sister. I always have." Clary studied him, tracking the features he shared with Valentine, his sharp nose, the black of his eyes. And then to small dotting of freckles arching the bridge of that nose. Just like hers.
"You are a dagger." He exhaled, "A dagger Father kept pointed at my back for years. You are a dagger our Mother would have happily plunged into my back. You protest, over and over, that none of this was ever your intent. I am no fool that will call to your loyalty to me, Clary. I know you have none, however much or little you would actively conspire against me. Mayhap you bear the blood in your veins some loyalty, just the same. There is naught more binding in the world than blood, and ours is the blood of kings and angels. You are a Morgenstern. Thus you were born, and thus you will die, sister. My sister."
Jonathan only paused there, before he announced with as much feeling, "I am the rightful King of Idris." He stated it the way one of Clary's children might their catechism.
"That you are."
The tip of his nose quivered, it was scrubbed red from the cold. "It is time for you to make a choice, Clary. The battle lines are being drawn here. What will you be in this? Who will you be? Your great cause of complaint for so long has been that no one would give you a choice. Well, here is one. In this, I have decided to give you the final choice. What would you be Clary?"
Clary's eyes didn't waver off Jonathan, she dared not. As a small girl with the nuns, she'd once been chided that her eyes laid bare her deceits when she failed to keep them steady. Of course, back then her deceits were small; admissions that she hadn't finished her prayers before going to play or that she did add an extra spoonful of honey to her porridge. In this moment, her mind was on that map and on those plans, this meeting that she'd disturbed.
Someone else may lead the army and carry the swords, but wars would be fought in here as much as by cavalry and infantry. A war could be won or lost in these rooms. Where would Clary be when that happened? Sitting by herself watching her breath fog the glass?
Jonathan wanted an ally, of sorts. He did not want to see this through alone. He didn't want to leverage his claim on family lineage and have no one from his family to stand beside him. He was desperate indeed, to turn to her. A desperate man just might be managed. He could be steered and guided.
Part of Jonathan would always crave being told what to do. Without Valentine around to do so and without Isabelle here to coax and steer him, that position was vacant.
Clary swallowed, then answered with perfect honesty, "Not locked in a tower."
To her surprise, Jonathan smiled. "You see, that is where you and our mother differ, Clary. You are much smarter than she is."
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St Paul's Field, south of Vierre, Western Idris, late March 1544
Beneath the steaming muzzle of Luke's horse, the grass seemed very green. It was still early in the year and crackles of frost spliced the ground at first light.
The bit in Luke's mount's mouth clattered as he champed and tossed his head. War horses could scent the steel and the anticipation of their riders. He knew the order to charge would come soon just a assuredly as Luke did. At least one of them was eager for that order.
Luke was old. Too old, perhaps, the thought flickered at the back of his mind. He'd served for so long, for much of the fifty years he had been upon this earth. That was a long stretch by most estimations. There was as much grey in his beard as there was dew glinting upon the grass here. Once, Luke had hoped that when Valentine no longer had need of him he might be permitted to retire; to grow fat and soft by his fireside like most men lucky enough to make it to old age might. He'd hoped to read and think thoughts that nobody was owed, to plant his gardens and breed horses.
Luke did not have the courage or the faith of the young men to his shoulders, like that of Alec Lightwood, with his archers up upon the brow of the hill, or of Max and Jonathan Wayland, now sworn blood brothers, who were eager to be at the front of the charge.
Usually where he lacked starry eyed idealism Luke could offer a gruff experience. He had none of the sort to offer here. Luke had never been to war before. Not even once. The closest he'd ever come was a tourney. For his lifetime, for all of Valentine's reign, war was kept beyond Idris's borders and even at that, Valentine kept Luke from overseas politics. The few petty rebellions which stirred during Valentine's reign, someone else put down. He'd always wanted Luke close, a courtier through and through.
So all Luke truly felt was inadequate. His body ached with the cold and the damp, his muscles and his stomach cramped from the long march here.
Jace hadn't insisted Luke march with him. He was the oldest here by a solid decade. Cecil Fairchild, for all his posturing, stayed in Broceland and sent his son to lead their men with Jace's blessing. Yet there was no other that Luke could send in his stead. That was what kept him here, what moved him to don armour for a real fight for the first time in fifty years.
There was nowhere else Luke ought to be. He had no heir to send in his place, no wife to hasten home to. All he had was Jocelyn's plea he be her sword. That, and the doubly moving letter tucked against his breast now. It was the last missal Clary sent him, though neither of them knew it would be the last at the time. She'd sent it the week Valentine died, telling him amusing stories of the children, enquiring as to his health and sending her love. Her love.
Whenever the life left Luke's body whatever estate he left upon this earth would go to Clary's daughters, he hoped. His title would be absorbed back into the Crown- and whomsoever then wore it- but he hoped his house would be Clary's. She was the closest to a daughter he had. Luke hoped she would soon be at liberty to go and plant flowers in the gardens at Garrotway, as he'd intended to start this spring. Mayhap Amatis would help her.
The sun beamed out of a clear sky, climbing above the horizon with increasing boldness. It illuminated a sea of sharp blades, of armour on those fortunate enough to own any, it glinted on the spikes of maces, lances and spears.
A few miles off in the valley below them glittered the stout, silvery walls of Vierre. Within the tips of its turrets and visible from higher ground but not from here, would be Bardet Castle. Jace hoped to have it by the end of the day.
Vierre was greatest city in this region, the perfect flashpoint where Jace's eastern army could meet Adamant's men from the north. And Bardet would prove a true blow to Jonathan if it fell. Here was where Jace would draw first blood.
Luke could see him, with his helm off so that the men might see him, golden haired and defiant. Jace looked like a prince from a troubadour's rhyme and he drew upon all the resemblances he bore of the princes of his blood before him; those princes made for tapestries and laid into stained glass.
Jace cantered up and down their lines, the wind carrying the sound of his voice but not his words. It did not matter. Luke was beyond words. All that could be said had. The time for actions was upon them. Anyway, Luke did not require Jace's words to stir him.
This was where he was supposed to be. There was nowhere else he would be.
Jonathan wasn't here. It was the Earl of Burchetten he'd dispatched to bolster the garrison at Vierre, aided by Lord Blackwell. It was they whom Jace would face today. It was they who lay between Jace and the city.
Jace had the higher ground here, but Verlac and Blackwell had Vierre's walls, and they would not be moved too far from them. Luke's gauntleted hands tightened on the reins and his horse chuffed his impatience again.
Jace had plainly arrived at this conclusion. So, though it would mean a small surrender, Luke and Jace would lead their mounted charge. They'd strike first, and please God strike true.
Jace raised his arm, on the hill Alec's lifted in return. Filling his lungs just once, Luke raised his arm too. Around him, his men cheered and roared. The charge would be theirs.
Into the beautiful morning came the tempo of hooves, a quickening, clapping heartbeat, twin thunderstorms in the men's ears. Then the storm broke. The peace of the morning was shattered by the screaming clash of metal on metal and the squealing of horses. In its place a new cacophony erupted, one beset by crossed blades and the howling of falling men.
Bright blood splattered onto the very green grass.
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The Gard, Alicante, March 1544
Alicante came alive with the pealing of bells.
Trembling, Clary blessed herself and rose from her pew. With Kaelie at her heels, she emerged from the chapel in a haze of fading incense into a grey morning.
Emma Carstairs met her on the descent toward the ground level. Emma seldom prayed with her, though Clary prayed rigorously of late. She did so not only because she had much to pray for but also because the chapel was one of the few places she was allowed to move without scrutiny. Today Emma looked especially grim. "Glad tidings, Madam."
"The bells?" Clary sought confirmation, with her palms clammy over the cover of her prayer book.
Emma's smile barely touched the sides of her mouth and her eyes not at all. "We must give thanks for the King's victory." The sick feeling within Clary tightened in her throat. It was allayed only when Emma added lightly but purposefully, "And we must pray for many more victories."
Clary only nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Jace was alive.
A battle won for Jonathan then, not the war.
This was not how Jonathan framed the matter over the daily luncheon they now shared.
"A rout!" He declared, doling out some gravy onto his place over zealously. "First blood is ours! We sent Jace running back to Broceland Forest with his tail between his legs!" That Jonathan sat safe and warm in his palace while his war was fought for him did not seem to dull the triumph he was drawing from this. Having won his first battle restored his appetite, it would appear.
As assuredly as it sapped Clary's. She prodded at the chicken before her and said as little as she could escape with. Her sudden position at almost all of Jonathan's tables was a surprising one, though Clary supposed she remained as close to a queen as this court of Jonathan's had. Still he would not send for Isabelle. While there was unrest and rebellion, no one pushed for the King's wife to come to the capital.
"It clear sign of God's approval, Your Majesty," the Cardinal supplied, helping himself to a pinch more wine. He was the other, ever present guest of honour at Jonathan's private meals.
It was wrong, to feel such hostility for a man of the cloth, surely? Clary stared at her spoon and nipped her tongue. Jonathan didn't bother looking to or answering Enoch, however. No, this whole performance was solely for Clary's benefit.
"Not only have we scattered the traitor's sorry excuse for an army to the four winds-"
That 'sorry' army had been sufficient to put Jonathan off his eat and sleep for weeks. Clary still refused to speak.
"-But Verlac managed to seize us a very important prisoner."
Clary froze, then very slowly set her glass down. The red wine within bobbed and shivered. Jace had escaped, that much was clear. That did not make all of Clary's friends who'd followed him to battle safe. However, she did not beg nor ask who. Jonathan would soon tell her. He could hardly lord over her what she did not know. Patience was never his greatest trait.
"He seized Mother's old friend from the field. Our faithless Lord of Aconite."
Carefully, Clary wet her lips. She scraped the sauce and crumbs off the flat of her cutting knife, holding her hand remarkably steady. As steady as she did her voice, now that she'd finally found it.
"You would get a generous ransom for such a prisoner." Clary commented to her over-occupied plate, "Luke is one of Broceland's staunchest and most respected allies. Not to say it would be politic."
"Politic?" Jonathan's disbelief came shrill, "How is it sound kingship to let traitors live? The man would have usurped me twice over! He tried to do so with you too, as I recall. God knows whom he would turn to next if Jace refused him or fell. The milkmaid, presumably. No." Jonathan's mirth iced over, "Graymark does not get to play kingmaker and live."
Desperate, Clary reached for Isabelle. Not in person, for too many miles continued to part them, but she held to her sister's belief that Jonathan could be tempered and guided; Clary watched Izzy do it several times, after all. Clary looked to her brother with her chin still slanted toward the table top. "I was not suggesting a pardon."
You want me here to be smart, Jonathan. Let me be.
"It would be a gesture of good faith to keep Luke prisoner. It would counteract some of your enemies…protests against your reign." It'd counter his previous cruelties, it'd prove Jonathan to be capable of restraint. It would also work to balance against the droves of wavering Christians Jonathan was having all but fed to the lions. In a few short months Jonathan had established quite the reign of terror. Fear of the stake was high enough, there was no need to heighten fear of the block too. Caligula, they call you now, brother. To his face, Clary urged, "A splash of mercy would go a long way, Sire." She glanced to Enoch, "As it would be Christian." Clary laid her hands down on the table, "And it would win your mother's gratitude." If Jonathan was keen to make use of his sister, he might be inspired to do likewise with his mother.
Clary knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she said it. Jonathan's wavering ceased and the glimmer behind his eyes winked out. No, he'd wanted Jocelyn's blood to be the first to spill. Hers remained the most wounding of betrayals.
Jonathan huffed a laugh. "It's much too late for all that, I'm afraid. Sebastian already took Luke's head off. I understand that he's mounted it on the walls of Vierre, beside an empty spike for Jace's to go on next."
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