Desperate Measures
Princewater Palace, October 1539
Thoughtfully, Jace gazed down into the royal cradle at his newborn baby daughter.
By now Valentine would know of this latest, greatest disappointment to his intended line of succession. But Jace could not feel the soul-smothering weight of defeat, not as he looked at his little girl.
Partly from self-preservation he'd let someone else bear the tidings of the birth to Valentine. He'd also rooted himself here because Jace felt, in the very marrow of his bones, that this was precisely where he was supposed to be. Watching over her.
So he'd stand here, smiling down at his littlest one and shield her from Valentine's frustrations. He'd stand here and protect her from whatever else may come, for however long he needed to.
Their newest daughter, as yet unnamed, looked like him. Her hair, scant though it was, was the colour of spun gold. The eyes blinking up at him with startling focus for one only a few hours old were still a newborn blue, but Jace had a feeling they would darken. Isabella's had. She had also inherited Jace's chin, his nose and his lips. Perhaps she'd inherit his temperament too; be all droll wit and dry pride without any of her mother's sweetness. In that event, he reckoned the child would indeed be unlucky.
Clary had finally succumbed to an exhausted slumber in the grand bed behind Jace. He'd been shut out during the birth again but Jace heard the midwives comment that the labour had been long and slow moving.
It was a mercy that Valentine was unlikely to sweep in and demand to see the child anyway as he had done with Isabella, feigning good cheer. That had resulted in poor Clary being trussed up in a gold trimmed night robe and plaits for decency right after giving birth to receive the King with a smile. This time, they Brocelands were left alone. Clary's women all scattered to the four winds as soon as the babe was cleaned up and quietened. In case they should be blamed for the child's sex in any proximity.
The confinement chamber always seemed to Jace a secretive place. To his mind it was something of a rabbit warren; a dark, hot place always filled with activity not discernible to the eye. Except there was no one left to insist he stay back on the other side of the threshold. So he let himself in to stand vigil over their newborn while Clary took a well-deserved rest.
Until his daughter stirred and began to fuss.
Rather clumsily, for he had never had much opportunity to console a child this small on his own, Jace scooped her up and tried to hush her. He pulled her toward his heartbeat and began to rock her. Her cries only climbed in strength.
Enough so that Clary twitched to life behind him.
Jace tried to protest she would settle in a moment, but Clary was already clambering out of bed on stiff limbs. She shuffled over toward him, reaching out with maternal urgency.
"Give her to me."
"But you have only-"
"She needs fed, I think." Then with a return of her usual wry quickness, "There is naught you can do to help with that."
Having little he could say to that either, Jace passed their child over to his wife without further protest. Clary looked around the abandoned chamber in surprise.
"Where is her wetnurse? Where is everyone?"
"Most of them left us at the first opportunity." Jace admitted. "Though I cannot imagine they will have gone far. She is, after all, still their charge. I can go seek somebody to help."
"Don't bother." Clary was already tugging her shift aside, "Folly, is it not?"
Jace glanced at the door nervously. Noblewomen did not breastfeed their own babies. It was considered unseemly. As soon as Isabella was born Clary's chest had been bound tightly until it stopped leaking. That way, wives were supposed to be ready to conceive again more quickly.
There was no one here to enforce that now. Clary made the most of the freedom and Jace bade himself relax. Even if Valentine found out about this, all other transgressions would be soon overlooked in the face of the Brocelands' second failure to provide him with a grandson.
It was folly to insist upon giving the baby to stranger, Jace could concede, watching their newborn settle at her mother's breast.
"What shall we name her?"
Again, they had resisted discussing possible names before the child arrived. Again, those they had privately entertained were for boys.
"What would you like to name her?" Clary enquired wearily.
"I think you should have the decisive say. Of the two of us, you did all the hard work."
Clary snickered softly. "What about Marie?" She threw it down in quiet challenge.
Jace smiled inwardly and shrugged. Clary rarely bothered with subtlety unless it served her. The blessed Virgin remained fervently worshipped by papists but had fallen out of fashion with the reformists. Naming the baby Marie would certainly throw dust in the eyes of those who insisted the Duke of Broceland was an erring heretic.
"It would certainly serve a purpose."
Clary frowned pensively, "She's only baby. She shouldn't have to serve a purpose." There was a dose of filial rebellion packed into the short sentences. She rocked the babe, who had now snuffled to silence. "We shouldn't give her a name she'd have to grow into."
"Then let us think of another."
They were silent for a long time, each immersed in their own thoughts. Clary shifted the baby over her shoulder and began winding her.
Clary began to peer over the cabinet of lucky talismans placed by her childbed. Rosary beads, a golden cross, a painted and gilded triptych which had accompanied the birth of royal babies in her family for several generations. Clary paced up and down before it, rhythmically patting the baby's back.
"I'd forgotten I had this," she mused, tilting to pluck up another small triptych. Jace peered over her shoulder. The central piece was, of course, a tender rendering of the Virgin mother in hues of cobalt and silver. But the side panels displayed an array of other holy women, all looking up toward the central paragon with humbly rapt expressions. There was St Margaret, patron of childbirth. And St Elizabeth, nursing her sainted son John the Baptist. In the bottom right corner dwelt an incongruous, cropped haired and armour-clad young woman. Clasping her sword determinedly, her eyes staring straight ahead, not at the mother of the saviour or any of the others. Seeing beyond it all, consumed by holy visions of her own. The peasant kingmaker, the martyred maiden. The warrior mystic. The small woman capable of monumental things.
Marie was the safer bet, Jace knew it. By far the more acceptable. And yet, even though he'd deferred the naming to Clary, Jace's lips parted.
He should let his daughter's namesake be the traditional, beloved and admired mother of Christ. He should not stir anything up by suggesting a name which belonged to a saint burned for heresy, of all things. Yet Jace had always possessed little inclination to do as he should.
He couldn't resist, "Could she be a Jeanne?"
Clary had followed his thoughts as easily as ever. A small, defiant smile of her own flitted up. " After Jeanne D'Arc? The girl who they burned for dressing as a boy? You are wicked, Jace." Then she burst into a sudden, roguish hail of laughter. "And yet, I do think she does look like a Jeanne."
Once they crumbled into teary laughter, they could not stop.
-000000000000000-
Before word of the birth of the King's granddaughter spread beyond the city, within days of her birth, Valentine ordered his horse saddled.
He sent his daughter no word of congratulations.
He sent word instead into the city, to the Gard, where he had decided to remove to with a select few of his court.
A small note printed in His Majesty's own hand informed Isabelle Lightwood that she was to be one of them.
Having already greeted the newest addition to the Broceland family with a smile on her face and dread in her heart, Isabelle supposed this was the time for her to name her price.
-000000000000000-
Alec stared at the latest letter from his mother for quite some time before he relented into admitting staring at the neatly printed lines in his mother's hand was unlikely to make her words make sense to him.
According to Mayrse, the long-awaited repairs to the family keep were underway. All of it to be paid for by no other than King Valentine himself.
Jace had no part to play in this. If he could sweet talk Valentine into such generosity, he would have done so months ago when Clary's belly was still high and they had reason to hope of a son. Anyway, Alec had warned Jace off trying to help with such a ferocity that he knew his oldest friend would respect those wishes. There was only one other person at this court with enough of a vested interest in the towers of Castle Adamant who could be responsible for this foreboding windfall.
Alec found his sister parcelling up her things with the well-practised and diligent methodology that could only come from a lifetime of itinerance at the courts of Europe.
She glanced up at Alec's entrance, just long enough to bury a sigh. There were small piles of vaguely sorted items on the table before her- small items of clothing like stockings and coifs, a smattering of chains and jewels, a low tower of books.
"Izzy, what the devil were you thinking?" He demanded.
There was no point to either of them feigning ignorance as to what the subject of this discussion was to be.
Isabelle rolled her shoulders back, "I was thinking that the walls of Castle Adamant are not going to fix themselves," she answered blandly, her drawl at odds with her hands' flurry of activity.
Alec bristled, "Valentine is the last man on earth I would take such money from."
Isabelle barely looked up, continuing to methodically fold and stack her things. "Not even for Mother? Not even for Max? Now who is being stupid? Gold is gold, brother. God knows we have need of it."
Alec kept his voice as even as he could. Where anger and frustration made others heat up, his insides cooled. Until his actions became swift and icy. Instead of raising, his tone lowered. "Valentine's gold will come with consequences. With a price. I would not have anything of yours be that price."
His sister shrugged, tucking a spare pair of leather riding gloves into a corner of the chest by her feet.
"Come, Isabelle. Do not indebt yourself to this King. You have been at this court long enough. You have been in this courtier's world for long enough. You know better than that."
"Stop pretending we beggars can afford to have a choice!" Isabelle snapped, with sudden briskness.
"We do have choices! Jace-"
"Jace is a fool in love." Alec stuttered to silence. Isabelle had teased and jibed at her brothers many times growing up, but she had never been mean before. Alec felt himself recoil at the strength of the sting in her voice. Her dark eyes narrowed with an exasperated disdain as she looked to him, "And you are little better!"
Alec's mouth dropped open uselessly.
A break in her stride, Isabelle tossed a prayerbook into the lip of the trunk with a thunk. "Father should not have bet the last of our mother's dowry on a cockfight. Jace should be able to see further afield than Clary's bed. You should have married Aline Penhallow when you had the chance. That would have brought you enough coin to remedy our problems- and then some! But no, Alec; you decided to stand on your pride, and on your principles. Now it is too late." She looked him in the eye at last, so full of disdain and disappointment that it was Alec who broke the stare. He looked away with a lump in his throat.
"What am I supposed to do?" Isabelle demanded of the walls, "Sit around and worry my thumbs in a thimble while I wait for the blockheaded men of my family to do something?"
She tossed her head in a scoffing shake and crossed her arms. "After years of preaching duty, you of all people have no right to stand there and lecture me about what I should do."
Alec recoiled, for her words sharp as an adder bite and twice as piercing.
Isabelle put the small prayerbook on the top of her case, crossed her hands over it and pressed down. All her frustrations and anger were pushed down into her palms. "I have had enough of waiting and trusting. It had become obvious that no one else was going to do anything and I feared what another winter of storms and weak ceilings would do to Castle Adamant. Things were dire when we first came to this court. That was almost four years ago. We are quite beyond playing nicely. The time for mild measures has passed. It's time to stop being other than what we are- desperate."
Alec flushed from his ears to his toes. He began to tremble, shame and anger clashing together in his gut. "I was going to-" he began, unsure of what he was about to try and say.
A new weariness whined through Isabelle's dry reprimand. "Perhaps you were 'going to' Alec, at some point or another. But I 'have.' That is the difference." She speared him with the final four words.
Only Isabelle, the person who had known him best for so many years, could make the wound and salt it in the same breath.
Her skirts whipped along the legs of the tables as she strode to collect some quills and inkpots.
It was only then did Alec realise how thoroughly she was packing. She was not travelling especially lightly, and it did not seem as though she was supplying herself with only the essentials for a few nights abroad.
"How long do you mean to be away for?"
She shrugged again, "Until the King releases me."
Alec pulled in a breath and tried to lay aside his stung pride and guilt. Now was not the time for a swiping match with his sister. Much as Isabelle's venom and her despair wounded him, it frightened him more. "Perhaps I have not been as vigilant as I might have been. You have reason to be vexed with me. But whatever it is you think you are doing, you need not do it alone. You berate me for being caught up in myself, so do not make the same mistake now. Talk to me, Izzy. Think it through with me."
Isabelle swung the lid of her chest down and set the lock.
"I cannot tarry and tattle with you, Alec. We are expected to be established in the Gard for dinner. Just, "She gave another whistling sigh, "Take the damn money and be glad of it. Let me worry of the cost."
"Isabelle!"
She was already striding past him from the room, was already out in the corridor was waving down a servant to move her things down to the carriages.
They had quarrelled before dozens of times, Alec and Isabelle, but never had they cross words such as these. Never had she been so brusque and bitter, never before had she been cruel. Standing alone in her room and surrounded by her things, Alec felt a thousand miles away from his sister.
-000000000000000-
The Gard, Alicante, mid-October 1539
This time when Valentine sent for Isabelle, she knew it would not be to discuss idle trifles. It was made plain to her that he thought his kindness to her family sweetener enough and the time for dallying and 'maybes' was past.
Isabelle knew enough of this world, and now felt she knew enough of Valentine, to lower her head and make noises of acquiescence. There was no refusing him, there never really had been. Girls from nowhere with wastrel fathers did not get to refuse men like Valentine; an anointed sovereign, a master of getting what he wanted by hook or by crook.
The best she could hope to do was negotiate the terms of her sale. By nodding along and playing along. After all, that much Valentine had taught her. Agree to everything, promise nothing. Keep her cards close to her chest.
And yet, though she left the King's chamber at a sedate pace, as the ancient hallways of the Kings of Idris's oldest keep passed her by and Isabelle realised that she had nowhere and no one to go to, her composure cracked.
Once she was out of the inner rooms of the court, when the faces she passed down the corridors faded away, Isabelle picked up her gait. Soon she was running.
Her feet pumped, her long sleeves flapped.
When she had been younger, she prided herself on her speed. Her brothers were bigger and stronger but Isabelle had always been quick as the wind. Before adolescence demanded she present herself as dainty and refined, she'd torn through the hallways of Castle Adamant like a whippet. Her father had always been away and his attendants with him. The emptiness of the family seat had offered her freedom to do as she pleased, as long as she did not get under anyone's feet.
She looked far from seemly now but no one was looking at her and Isabelle did not care.
She fled up the flights of stairs, twisting and winding upward. She had to slow her ascent slightly on the uneven flagstone steps, her right shoulder grazing the walls. The muscles in her thighs burned.
When she had been very little, while Robert had stayed under the same roof of his wife and still observed his familial duties, he had been known to take her up on the parapet at Adamant. He pointed out the various sights of their ancestral domains and offered glimpses of the world beyond them, lifting her up to see over the walls. Up there, small in her father's arms, the world had seemed smaller, knowable. And Isabelle had felt certain of her place in it.
It was likely the most secure she had ever felt. Like all her moments of happiness, it had proved fleeting. She kept trying to reconjure it, as the years went by. When she was upset, rattled, occasionally even pensive, Isabelle sought heights. A battlement, a tower, even up on a windowsill.
This particular climb made her think of another night. Of Jonathan Morgenstern's arms around her, his weight, his breath.
Isabelle burst out into the cold air gasping. She had gone as high as she could. On trembling legs she crossed to the edge. At such heights the wind was always rowdy. It hissed and whistled through the towers. Her hands shot out, on either side, as she inched forward, hiking up her feet.
She looked out over the edge. She might have gone higher still, but to do so would have meant crossing the courtyards, the small green, past the barracks and toward the prison complex. Past the Black Tower. The royal apartments were, for security reasons, in one of the lowest quarters.
It was high enough.
She turned slowly in a circle on the spot. Taking in the two halves of the fortress. Palace under her, prison before her. A hysterical laugh burbled on her lips.
Beneath her the waters of the Princewater babbled, its chattering cacophony echoed tenfold as it slapped against the stone.
Isabelle toed a pebble over the side and strained to see it fall. It rolled off into the dark and the sound of its landing, so far below, was lost in the noise of the water.
She had been calling Valentine's bluff, all these months. She had no doubt the King meant what he had whispered to her so long ago, though she had doubted his ability to make all his wishes reality. There had been too many variables. Not least of which was Jonathan himself. Isabelle had been silently certain the Prince would rage and somehow ruin the whole plot. Ruination was what Jonathan did best.
Isabelle had long since abandoned hope of her own happiness, but she was not prepared to consign herself to misery yet.
She did not want to think anymore, she could not bear to feel. And yet…Isabelle felt it all, up on this tower.
Not just the stinging wind, the shivering of her muscles and the pounding of her heart- her heart- which she swore she would never be ruled by. Pound it did and ache it did, for thought of her family. For Alec, who had trusted her as he did no one else. For Jace, who had given her a slice of his heart despite everything, who had laughed with her, urged on her spirit and gotten her out of many scrapes. For Max, far away from here on the cusp of manhood, who had taken his first doddering steps holding onto her fingers. For her mother, proud despite everything. Sage and determined, even if her love sometimes came harshly. She even thought of her father, who was weak and foolish but had propped her up on a horse for the first time and once showered silk ribbons and pearls on her, his only daughter. The apple of his eye. She thought then of Clary, her dearest friend, the sister given to her by circumstance, not blood. The first person outside of her family to value Isabelle for being herself, fierce and loyal and clever. Who thought Isabelle a worthy example to her daughter. She thought next of little Isabella, her goddaughter, gazing up at her adoringly, in awe, trying to shape her unpractised tongue around the syllables of the name they shared. Then of her other youngest niece, Jeanne, whose birthing chamber Valentine had spirited Isabelle from. Lastly, treacherously, she thought of Simon Lewis. Honest and true to a fault with ample quiet courage and conviction. But whatever they might have felt for one another, once she was torn from the pedestal which he'd placed her on, Simon had not known what to make of Isabelle either.
She had been too much for Simon and too little for anyone else.
Isabelle sucked in a painful breath and staggered downwards.
Her legs crumpled beneath her instantly and she sank to the damp stone floor, shaking. She realised her cheeks were soaked with rapidly cooling tears.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, gasping in several more loud, rapid breaths. It took her a long moment to get her breathing back under control. They could order her all they wanted, these Morgenstern men. They would not own her. She'd never allow it. There would always, always be means of disobedience.
No one else could tell her how to play this hand she had been dealt.
Her legs were still unsteady, but they held underneath her.
She was not helpless, and therefore there was no need to be hopeless. Perhaps Isabelle would never be master of her own destiny. But she did believe she had one.
-000000000000000-
The Crown Prince never dared arrive at court uninvited before.
He thought of it on fleeting occasions over the years. It never seemed worth the risk of an extended exile, or the public humiliation of official banishment.
Clary and Jace resided under the same roof as the King for most of the year while Jonathan was only invited for infrequent, special occasions. It was an unjust and embarrassing vote of preference. Ostensibly, Valentine explained it by insisting that Jonathan needed practice at government and experience which he could only gain in the running of his own household. The fact that this household had been established for him in Edom indicated there was more than practicality to the King's distance. For most of the year he confined his son to a mountainous, rocky province in the far west of the kingdom, days away from the capital or any major city.
Jonathan deemed this matter would be well worth His Majesty's displeasure. In fact, he meant to give his father a taste of his displeasure for a change. Anyway, he needed to see for himself if his father had completely taken leave of his senses. Jesus, a Regency Council might be in order.
Even in the late afternoon the outer chamber saw a few still hopeful petitioners milling about and a few of the lords of the court hugging the walls, clutching their wallets of state papers and muttering amongst themselves. The lulled atmosphere was cast asunder at the Prince's charged entrance. The mud from the stable yard still clung to his boots, the dust from the road still powdered his jacket and cap, but Jonathan's jaw was set as he made for the inner doors.
"His Majesty is at prayer, Your Highness," a guard attempted, placatingly, but firmly.
Jonathan grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him unceremoniously aside. He knew full well none of them were going to stop him. How could they? Drawing a blade in Jonathan's presence was treason.
He wrested the door open and bore on, head down, horns sharp.
The King may indeed have been at prayer, but presently Valentine was dabbing his hands dry over a pewter bowl. He was bare headed and the sight of him thus, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, was the closest his son had ever seen to dishevelment.
"Father!"
He paused there, chest heaving.
The King dismissed the loitering steward with a snap of his fingers. He set about rolling his sleeves back down slowly, deigning to appear irked. "What is the meaning of this, Jonathan?"
"Is it true?" Jonathan threaded his thumbs through his belt loops and clenched his fists.
Valentine sighed, straightening his cuffs meticulously. "Is what true, boy? I shall require some elaboration."
Jonathan was not going to baulk, not this time, fired up on his own righteous fury. "Do you mean to make some manner of ungodly match between me and the Lightwood girl?" It sounded preposterous, hearing it aloud. His father's face didn't quiver with a hint of amusement. Jonathan utterly dismissed it when first he had heard the rumours. Now weeks had passed and still he heard no laughter.
Isabelle was here, not with Clary and Jace who'd been left with their latest snuffling babe at Princewater. Suggesting Isabelle was in Valentine's keeping, being groomed for one of Valentine's schemes. The scheme Isabelle herself hinted at to Jonathan all those months ago.
On habit, Valentine twisted the ring of state on his left hand, aligning the huge sapphire so that it rested perfectly centre. Not that it ever seemed to move far from the position.
"It is high time we thought seriously of your marriage, now that we have your sister settled." Valentine's voice was brisk. He plucked up his resting overcoat from the back of the chair at the head of the table and swept it onto his shoulders. "And I have given it thought."
It was hardly surprising. Jonathan had long known he would wed for the good of his family and for his kingdom, one day. He had also known that King and Council would decide the bride, though he had anticipated some say. The pressures upon him to marry and reproduce were not as keen as they were on a woman, who was shackled to a thin window of childbearing years to produce male heirs. There had been talk of betrothals before, most compellingly to a Danish princess some ten years ago but nothing had ever been formerly brokered.
It was not the idea of marriage that he chafed at, but marriage to her? Isabelle couldn't be further from a graceful, genteel Princess of good breeding, coached and taught from birth to be a kingly helpmeet.
He told his father as much, fiercely, at which some emotion finally clanged across the monarch's face. A more familiar one to his son- irritation, bordering on real anger.
"Isabelle Lightwood is of good Catholic stock." Valentine bit out, in the tone he used with his government ministers, the one that invited no compromise or challenge, "A respected lady of this court from a sound Idrisian bloodline on her mother's side. Her father has rendered me loyal services over the years."
"Her father is virtually your vassal!" Jonathan interrupted, incredulous. One did not need to wed into such families to command fealty. Though the Earl of Adamant was ostensibly a subject of the King of France, it was clear for all to see that Valentine pulled Robert's strings and had done since he'd first inherited his title.
Valentine kept listing Isabelle's assets, with feverish intensity, as though Jonathan had not spoken, "She is young, fit and of fine temperament. Surely you can have no complaints of her looks?"
"I am not marrying some commoner just because you like her face!" Jonathan scoffed loudly; caught in utter disbelief that they should be having this argument in the first instance. "In faith, Father, it is you have taken the liking to her, not I." Anger made him vicious, "You are the King of Idris. You hardly need me to fuck her for you."
"Watch your tongue in my presence." His father's voice crackled dangerously.
Jonathan was not to be so easily cowed. Not today. He did not care to please his father, nor to try earn his respect, not on this farce. He had duties as Crown Prince, he knew that. Duty meant doing what was best for Idris and for his family. This arrangement was not the best course of action for anyone. It would bring Jonathan no advancement, no wealth, nor any prestige. It would bring Idris no alliance that could secure their borders against invasion and bolster the power of the Church against the Lutheran poison. Clary had been squandered to bring the last of the Herondales into the fold. Neither Jonathan nor Idris could not afford from him to bound to a woman so low-born, so poor.
He stamped the floor, "Isabelle is a woman better suited for bearing bastards than heirs. I do not care how comely she is. I will not be so disrespected nor so denigrated as to marry one so far below me, utterly undeserving of the Morgenstern name and my title."
Valentine had turned away from his son as he fumed. Now he whirled back, leaping suddenly out of his seat, thrusting an accusatory, imperious finger thrusting into Jonathan's face. "You will do as your King commands!"
The King voice rarely lifted to this volume to make his thoughts on a matter heard, for it was never needed.
Apparently Jonathan had pressed upon a nerve. An unrestrained ire sprang free from his father. "No one in this kingdom is above my will, nor my command! Not even you! For too long have you pranced around pretending deference and doing as you please behind my back." Valentine banged a fist so hard on the table that it set the floorboards rattling. His eyes were shot with utter fury, spittle flying. His finger raised again, mere inches from Jonathan's nose. "You will marry the fucking scullery maid if I say it shall be so."
Jonathan trembled in place, mouth pressed in a thin line, breaths ripping harshly through his nose. He thought he may well black out. His father had not physically reprimanded him since he was a boy, but he wondered if Valentine were about to put his hands back on him now.
Valentine pressed his hand to his mouth, struggling to regain control his own breathing.
"You are not above it." The King repeated, voice lowered to a normal volume but with an iron will behind it, his hot anger undiluted. "You are like anyone else at this court, boy. All you have, you have through me. The estates you call your own, the monies you spend at will, the titles, even the clothes on your back. All on my word. Mine own blood you may be, but never forget that my word can take away all that it has granted."
The injustice of it all roiled within Jonathan anew but could not spring to words, much less movement. His limbs may as well have been locked in mortar.
"The Morgenstern name you so proudly cite is only yours because I gave it to you." Valentine repeated, he pressed his knuckles into the table top, thrusting his weight downward to the degree they turned white, the blood flow leeching away from the Morgenstern family signet. "Your name would mean nothing if not for me. It is I who will decide who is or is not worthy of bearing it." He swallowed, the fog of his anger simmering down, his old habitual coldness coming to the fore once more, "Now get out of my sight before I have you whipped and dragged from it."
-000000000000000-
It was a crisp, bright morning once the fog lifted. After Prince Jonathan's most unceremonious departure from the court in memory, tongues wagged.
Exiting the King's chamber, Luke found himself detained by a small huddle of councillors. After the King had dismissed them, Pangborn drew the four men together, luring Luke to join with urgent, furtive beckoning. He doubted anyone in passing would look at the circle of the Master Secretary, Duke of Lyn, Lord Blackwell and now Luke and imagine them to be exchanging pleasantries.
In the stone hallways of the palace it was incurably cold, even in a patch of sunlight. Pangborn's breath fogged before him as he spoke.
"I knew you were reluctant to set much store by the rumours, sirs, but surely the Prince's response leaves you in little doubt. The King does mean to make this match. Despite all good sense to the contrary."
"What are you suggesting?" Blackthorn, a tower of a man with grey shot through his hair and beard, glanced around him with all the frantic unease of a schoolboy playing truant.
"To marry the Crown Prince to such an in-advantageous match? It sounds at odds with sound politics, it sounds at odds with reason itself." Pangborn asserted anxiously.
"Careful," Blackthorn grumbled.
"What are you implying, Master Secretary?" Luke demanded, glaring at Pangborn a warning to moderate his words. To suggest Valentine was of anything less than sound mind or body was dangerously close to announcing him unfit to rule, which was treason. Even if the worries had merit.
Valentine had never, despite all his outward confidence and conviction that he was chosen by God to rule, felt safe on his throne. Valentine's father had been unpopular and his German mother's brazen arrogance had persistently rubbed the Council the wrong way. The young king that had taken power a quarter of a century ago had much to prove. The latest failed rebellion of Tiller's had rattled Valentine once more. He trusted no one. It made him impatient with his councillors, short with his wife and overbearing with his children. Valentine was afraid. And Valentine's fear was dangerous.
It was alarming to behold Valentine's willingness to ride roughshod over the wishes of his Council and his son. The ultimate power always lay with the King, with God's anointed monarch. However, it never boded well for any realm when the lords and the sovereign were at odds. Kings could be toppled. And this... this was the stuff of civil discontent. The pretext for uprisings. Chilling indeed.
Pangborn scrubbed at his twitching, leaking nose and persisted. "I wonder if the King has been failed by our advice?"
"Failed by us? Blackwell echoed uncertainly.
It was untrue. They had each in turn questioned the prudence of a hasty marriage for the Crown Prince delicately but firmly. Many had grumbled at the haste of the Princess's wedding, not liking the Duke of Broceland's meteoric rise, but they had not been so firmly opposed to it as they were to this. With Jonathan in place to take the throne after his father, there was no solid cause for concern as to whom his sister married. Here, there was much concern.
The opponents' reasoning varied. Some urged the need for a foreign, Catholic princess to protect the realm against religious dissent, others felt that their own daughters were more eligible. The Cardinal did not like rumours he had heard concerning the girl in question's virtue. Some, including Luke, thought it best the Prince remain unwed entirely. Nonetheless, all were united in their protest.
"We have not been empathetic enough to dissuade His Majesty. We were ill prepared for the news and so we have been slow to react, unable to compile the convincing counterarguments effectively."
There was a mild hum of agreement. Their ears perked up, the lords each latched on to the notion that they might be able to remedy the situation themselves. Luke watched, bemused.
"And how might we make such effective counterarguments?" he demanded drily.
Silence descended again.
"The Duke of Broceland is most heatedly against the union." Blackthorn ventured finally.
It was no secret the Duke was livid. He had done everything to dissuade Valentine. He had raged, he had flattered, he had 's pleas had fallen on deaf ears. Valentine had made his mind up.
"I do not know what it is you imagine the Duke of Broceland can persuade His Majesty to do that all of us could not." Luke closed the matter firmly. It would not do to have Jace's name dragged into anything resembling opposition to the King. Not now. It would not do to even allow the insinuation that all these lords were united behind him. Even if it was heartening to see the promise that such a unification could exist. The time was not right. "The King is guided not just by us, but also by God." He reminded them loftily. "If He has shown the King things we could not imagine, then we must all trust in that vision. The ways of God and Kings cannot be known to mere men." He concluded pointedly.
"Amen." They all scrambled to bless the pronouncement and themselves. Devotion was scrutinised and therefore an intense performance, of late.
Luke's eyes flickered around the ragtag group of chastened lords. He amended his previous unease: if this was the best Idris could produce by way of treason these days, it was a wonder Valentine did not sleep soundly.
-000000000000000-
Princewater Palace, late October 1539
It was late afternoon by the time Alec burst into the Brocelands' apartments.
Luke had returned with his alarming tidings to where the King's daughter and her husband remained downriver. Valentine had not sent for either of them, not even Jace, when he had convened the rest of the the Brocelands called an emergency council of their own. Alec was, evidently, the last to arrive.
Clary was still supposed to be in confinement but who was here to enforce it? No one was paying attention to her, not anymore. The Duchess sat dry-eyed and straight backed in her chair.
Magnus sat in the chair opposite, leaning forward, one of Clary's hands clasped between both of his own. He had been saying something to her but broke off and got to his feet at Alec's entrance, already moving toward him and reaching for him.
Not to console or embrace, never in public, but to flatten his hands against Alec's chest. To ward him backward, to placate and restrain.
It was of little use. Magnus broke the momentum of Alec's stride, but he shouted over Magnus's shoulder nevertheless, "How could you let this happen! What did you do?" His voice cracked on the outrage, the humiliation, the fear, "What did you not do?"
Jace had been pacing, his hair rumpled and hands clasped behind his back. He turned abruptly to face Alec's demands.
"I don't know," he admitted.
It was the closest Alec had ever seen him come to defeat. Jace was not bothering to conceal he was upset. He too was at a loss here.
Alec noted belatedly that the Queen of Idris was standing by the far window casement, watching everything and saying little in that disconcerting way of hers. Luke Graymark also loitered a few paces away, his cap mushed together between his hands.
Everyone Alec had come to associate with being on 'their side' the past year and a half or so was here, he realised, deaf to Magnus's attempts to calm him. Everyone except for-
"Isabelle is alone at the Gard" He got out past his heaving chest, "About to be sold like a prized cow. We need to get her out."
"She is not alone." It was Jocelyn who spoke, moving over into the uncertain circle of them properly. As she crossed a small patch of low sunlight, sparks seemed to shoot off her jewelled kirtle. Her voice was even, the rhythm of it sedate and steady, as though she were reading aloud from a chap book. "She will be with the King, all his lords and a magnitude of servants. The eyes of the whole kingdom are on Isabelle now. No ill will come to her while they watch."
"Ill has already come to her." Alec corrected. He looked into Magnus's face. There was concern and sympathy there, no doubt. His thumbs bracketed Alec's biceps, tracing light circles there, but his expression remained pleading. Beseeching Alec to wait, and to listen.
Alec was inclined to do neither.
"You must do something. Now." He jerked his accusing finger back in the direction of Jace.
"I sent a messenger to her," Jace snapped back, and it was hearing his own fear crackling through Jace's voice back at him that made Alec explode once more.
"You are the Duke of Broceland, God damn you! What good is a messenger to her? You should have her on the back of your fastest horse, making for Adamant."
The dull, listless gold of Jace's eyes regained some of their fire, "You think I would do less than the best I could for Isabelle? Damn you Alec, she is my sister too!"
"We are supposed to protect her." Alec's hand fell back to his side uselessly, even as the rage and guilt roiled within. He had nowhere to put it other than in wounded words, "She is my little sister and she is being fed to the wolves."
Clary interjected, "She is not a little girl Alec, no more than I am." Alec looked to her, incredulous. Clary did not rise from her seat, nor did she raise her voice to match Alec's volume as she added, "Isabelle will have her wits about her, on that we can depend."
"I have been most remiss." Clary admitted under the weight of Alec's scornful indignance, "I should have been paying better attention. I have been distracted." Her eyes flittered back to her husband, "Caught up in myself and in the pregnancy. Although in my defence, I have spent the last weeks locked away in the dark."
"We cannot sit around here assigning blame." Jocelyn spoke before more accusations could fly. She touched Clary's shoulder lightly as she passed her daughter, in those fleeting touches she often used to reassure herself that Clary was still there, or perhaps to remind the Duchess of the hand that would guide her. "What is done is done." Jocelyn insisted, "What we need is a decisive countermove."
"Countermove?" Alec's ears were ringing, "This is not a game!"
"It is a game." Clary insisted darkly, "One with very high stakes I grant you that, but a game nevertheless. One can either be a pawn or a player. I have had enough of being the former." Her eyes loitered back toward Jace, anticipating her next remark may not be well received, "And I struggle to believe the Isabelle we all know would relent to being a mild piece in my father's plots."
"You cannot be suggesting she wants to marry Jonathan?" Jace echoed the appal Alec felt.
"No." Clary clasped her hands together, "But the King will not have decided this overnight. He has known for some time; he has nursed this idea. And Isabelle went to the Gard first, to him. Not to any of us. She must have at least suspected something was afoot, yet she never spoke or wrote of it to either of you." Her eyes flitted back and forth between Alec and Jace.
"Did she go willingly?" Luke questioned softly, "There are many other ways of constraint which do not involve binding hands and strapping someone to a horse."
No one knew how to reply to that.
"Valentine can be most convincing, when he is in pursuit of something he wants," Luke reminded them all, shuffling his feet on the spot, "He could well have charmed Isabelle into thinking she moves of her own volition. Or that this is something they could both have need of."
Jocelyn waved an impatient hand through the tense air, "As I say, it hardly matters why or how this has happened, it matters what comes next." She sliced each of them in turn with her eyes, "What are we going to do about it?"
Their little would-be political faction, this ragtag group of allies were all crammed into this room, muttering and squabbling. They were not, Alec accepted with dismay, a great force to be reckoned with. The acceptance of that fact settled like a ton weight in his chest. Valentine's oft ignored old advisor, his unhappy queen, his children who- although he might love them better than his son- still persistently failed in the duty the King had charged them with. The upstart party-planner. And Alec- just plain Alec, with scare a penny to his name, no title here, no position. A spasm of fresh pain shot through his chest when he thought of how he might have gained all of those things had he agreed to the farce of marrying Aline. He had not, and as it was he had no room to manoeuvre. Naught really, that could help save Isabelle.
Except himself. Alec would sooner carve his own heart out of his chest than let anything happen to his sister.
"If Jonathan lays a hand on her I will kill him."
Jocelyn met Alec's threat with a scoff, "Oh yes, very good. Then you will lose your head for treason." The Queen rested her hands on the back of Clary's chair, the rings winking on her long, slender white fingers. "And when you are dead you will be of no help to your sister at all." She shook her head, "Think!" she beseeched, eyes on Alec, but speaking to the whole room. Jocelyn snapped her fingers in the silence.
"We could make the best of the arrangement," Luke suggested slowly, the most used to offering solutions to the Queen's troubles at her urging. "Use the girl. Have Isabelle he our eyes behind Jonathan's closed doors. It would be beneficial to know his movements and his plans. Whom he sees, what he says."
"I will not have Isabelle used as a spy." Alec stood firm, "And I do not believe you have all given due consideration to how the disaster of this marriage could be evaded entirely. You say it is hopeless, but I have not heard any of you try."
Clary rose at last and crossed to where Alec stood. Magnus stepped aside, and Clary took hold of Alec's hands. His first instinct was to shake her off, but something held him still at the last minute, "Believe me," the Duchess spoke in earnest, "There are few things I desire less than this. But my mother is right. Charging outright against my father's wishes is not the way to get anything done. We have little enough influence on him now as it is. If I'd had a boy all of this would have been different." Guilt seeped into her voice, before Clary steeled herself again, setting her jaw. "But I did not. And the game has changed again." She was still a good head shorter than Alec, she had to tilt her head backward to look him in the eye. "I cannot presume to know your sister as well as you do. Yet I wonder, if a woman must be put in her position, would Isabelle not manage it best? She will not be so easily cowed by my brother, I am sure. And Jonathan… he even likes her, as well as he likes anyone."
"You cannot be endorsing this." Jace visibly smarted from yet another betrayal.
"I am saying the die is cast and the next move is ours." Clary echoed her mother, then sighed and broke away from Alec. "What can we say of what Isabelle wants? Has anyone here ever asked her?"
Jocelyn's tether was evidently being rapidly worn dire thin. She was practiced enough with bearing out a crisis and then looking to the other side. They must all seem like rowdy children to her. "I am fond of your sister, Lord Alexander. I tried to watch over her at this court and I do care for her. However, we must be selective with our battles from here out. Moreover, we must be prepared to concede some battles if we hope to win the war."
"So, Isabelle is to be collateral damage here, is that what has been concluded?" Jace was truly, deeply riled, to have watched so much of this argument unfold in silence. The sarcasm when he did bite betrayed as much. The Duke had folded his arms across his chest, his mouth twitched. Still he would not meet Alec's eye. It was difficult sometimes to find the boy Alec had first learned to ride a horse, shoot an arrow and swing a sword with. They were his family now; the Queen of Idris and her daughter. Alec had always known, deep down, that there would be dire consequences to Jace marrying Valentine's daughter. It was for Jace's sake Alec and his sister lingered here in Alicante, now look what had happened! Alec long dreaded that when the moment came for Jace to choose between the family that had raised him and the family he'd married into things would not fall in the Lightwoods' favour. Today Jace proved him right.
Alec had been so concerned about disaster befalling Jace he had left Izzy unguarded.
"I know it sounds callous," Jocelyn addressed her son by law. "But you cannot let your heart rule every argument Jace. Use your head, for I know you are capable." She dropped her voice to a hum, "If you wish for your son to rule you must learn to make difficult decisions." Jocelyn glanced back toward her daughter, who had dropped back into her seat, more than a touch deflated. "That is what it is, to survive here." Jocelyn raised her voice again, "Making hard choices and learning to live with them."
"We cannot fight among ourselves," Luke urged, "If we are to help Isabelle, if we are to help anyone, we must stand united."
Alec was already retreating, his heels creaking onto the floorboards and away from the carpets. "You are all united" he stated, shaking his head. "I came here for help, for action. Yet you sit here plotting and rubbing your hands together like storehouse wives. You play for power but when the moment comes to exercise it you do nothing!"
"Alec." Magnus tried to reach for him, but Alec was already out of reach.
"The moment is not right," Jocelyn was insisting, "We have to wait a little longer."
"I'll do it!" Alec heard himself shout, "I'll marry Aline Penhallow. I'll marry her. I'll do it."
Isabelle was right. He could hear her accusation from before, slicing at his ears. They were desperate. He was desperate. And to try and save his sister, there was nothing Alec would not do.
His words were met with an echoing silence. Clary and Jace looked at one another, a shared look of practised co-conspirators who did not need words. Magnus, Alec did not dare look to. He did not need to, he could hear the envy and anger colliding inside him. Above all, worse than that, he could feel the pity in the stare the man he loved laid on him now.
Clary looked to her mother, "It could work."
Jocelyn remained thoroughly unconvinced. "It may be too late."
"Alec has a point." Clary insisted, the stubborn jut of her chin sticking out. Jocelyn blinked, surprised her daughter would challenge her. "We cannot sit here on our hands and do nothing. If we are not strong enough to stop this by ourselves, then let us keep making allies until we are."
She turned again to Jace, whose fingers were curled at his throat, who was grinding his teeth.
"I thought I was the one with a penchant for self-sacrificing idiocy." This he directed at Alec.
"Aline and I could come to some arrangement. We understand one another." It was more to Magnus, and to himself, Alec directed this assurance.
Drowning men clung to any kind of driftwood, did they not? Isabelle had wanted him to do something. This was all he could think to do.
Even if his chest felt as hollow as the proposed marriage ploy. Even if he feared Jocelyn was right. That this was all too little too late.
-0000000000000000-
Princewater Palace, late October, 1539.
An insistent shaking to the shoulder roused Clary before dawn. She prised her cheek off her pillow and grappled to understand what was going on. For a half-moment she assumed that Jace was waking her, then she remembered she was back in her confinement chamber and her husband was forbidden from sharing this bed with her.
She wasn't supposed to go outside, she wasn't supposed to see any men at all until she was officially "churched" and cleansed of Eve's sin.
In here, in these rooms, she could only be attended to and touched by women.
Clary returned to her confinement reluctantly, upon word that the King and his retinue were returning to the palace. Trying to pretend she'd never left it.
Rolling over and squinting through the darkness, Clary eventually made out a very pale, decidedly feminine face hovering above her in a small halo of candlelight. A single, flickering flame fluttered on a wick by her bed.
"Quick," Isabelle urged her in a breath, "We won't have long."
Clary sat up, mind still scrambling, as Isabelle tossed a robe at her and started dragging Clary's covers back, exposing her to the stinging cold.
"Isabelle!" She protested.
"Hurry up." Izzy remained pitiless.
Not knowing what else to do and sensing none of her questions would be answered otherwise, Clary followed her.
Isabelle sat on a stool by the embers of the fireplace, her face painted in their reddish glow. An angelic face in a hellish lighting. Though her colouring was grim, her expression was determined.
No, Clary thought to herself as she sat down opposite her, Isabelle was no wilting, wailing white lamb waiting to be led up the temple steps. There wasn't a trace of fear, there wasn't a hint of self-pity in the look Clary's closest friend at this court levelled her. They'd had thousands of fireside chats during the years they'd been at this court. Most of them containing laughter and lightness. This was evidently not going to be one of them.
Clary, though technically the superior, held her tongue. She waited on Isabelle to speak, to impart whatever revelation she'd fully dressed herself and then roused Clary in the small hours of the night to impart.
Now facing one of her dearest friends, perhaps the dearest with Simon so far away and his missives poor substitute, Clary felt unsure of her footing. Or, more accurately, of Isabelle's footing. She did not know where Isabelle stood in their plans.
Isabelle blinked. "You did not imagine Jonathan would ever marry? What, did you think that he would simply melt away?"
"I knew my father had plans for him but I thought they were in view of the same ends. Our ends." Clary realised as she said it how loaded the insinuation was. She was so used to referring to the future plans thus, in euphemism, between herself and Jace. Where it was unquestionably a goal they shared. To put a good king on the throne. To save Idris. If Isabelle persisted in this, Clary was not sure they could continue to regard one another as allies.
Surely, if Isabelle had known what Valentine intended of her she would have come to Clary for help? Or at least to her brother, who would have hastened to Jace. They all would have solved it together. Instead, Isabelle had been silent. Judging by the resignation, clear cut as a diamond on her face, these tidings had come as no great shock. She had been expecting this where no one else save Valentine had.
Sensing the train of her thoughts, Isabelle softened her tone, "This is not a betrayal, Clary," she insisted quietly.
"It feels one!"
Clary pressed a hand to her sternum, trying to steady her breaths and her thoughts.
"My brother need not marry at all! He is a man, there is no haste. And with what my father intends-"
"He remains the heir." Isabelle reminded her flatly, firmly. Behind them, little Jeanne grizzled softly, to prove the point. Another girl, good only in this world for alliances and never intended for accession.
"Yes, but why you?" It burst forth with all the injustice, the hurt Clary was feeling. Was this truly intended as Valentine's punishment, to take Clary's closest and only true confidante and throw her to the wolves? To Jonathan, who could not possibly treat her well? Was this a way of sweetening Jonathan, keeping him mild with the girl he lusted for until Clary produced the promised son? None of this made sense, and less of it was fair.
Isabelle bristled, taking a half step forward, "Why not me?" She asked, laughing coldly, "Because of my humble origins?" She cocked an eyebrow, "Because I do not speak five languages?"
The dig landed, but it hurt more than Clary raged. She was breathless, speechless.
"You cannot be pleased with this, Izzy. You know my brother for what he is. He is a monster!"
"He is a man." Isabelle corrected sharply, her eyes wheeling toward the door, "Often a weak and a cruel one, but a man just the same."
"One who has done monstrous things!"
"By now, which of us have not? Jace slaughtered those peasants and Alec helped him, so why should I not sell my soul?"
"I think you are worth more than my brother. You deserve more than my brother."
Isabelle scoffed, turning her cheek to Clary, studying the window. "You still think people get only what they deserve?"
Clary rearranged the flaps of her robe over her crossed legs, wearied by their cross words and the coldness of Isabelle's reception. She had expected her friend to be fearful, to admit the situation had gotten out of hand and she needed assistance. She knew Isabelle to be proud but she had not been expecting her to be so steadfast. So dedicated to her own damnation.
But Clary was not alone. She had made friends at this court, heir or no, her husband was a powerful man. Whatever irreconcilable beliefs lay between them, she and Jace were unquestionably united here. "We can still stop this. I can stop this. I'll get you away from here, back home to Adamant."
Isabelle laughed again, a shuddering, soft, empty sound. "Home?"
She jerked her eyes off the pane and crossed over to where Clary sat, hunkering down. Her eyes were dry and clear.
"You cannot stop this, Clary. It is a waste of your energy to try and you will only garner more of the King's displeasure in the process. I doubt it is something you can afford."
Clary tried to speak, to insist Valentine could not resent her forever, but Isabelle just seemed to grow more frustrated.
"You do not understand!" She gripped Clary's hands. Isabelle pinched her, hard, as though she was trying to shake something into her. "You do not see it Clary. How could you? Because you have always been so favoured. You are your father's favourite, and you must know it. This moment of unhappiness with you will pass, like it always does, and you will go back to being his delight. With all the beauty of your mother and your sire's set determination and cleverness, he often says so. Beyond that, you have always been smiled on. Given the best clothes, indulged in books. And now, adored by your husband. He values you, listens to you. I have seen it, many times."
Isabelle sighed, her eyes dry, but emphatic. "It is not so for the rest of us. It all depends on the powerful men we can get to smile on us, notice us. We have to carve out our lives inching toward what we want, trying to get what we wish through smiles and whispers. What other means at my disposal do I have? My family name is in tatters, our coffers empty. No one is going to broker a better deal for me."
Clary shirked back, pulled her hands free. She resented the portrait now painted of her as some spoiled, sheltered, self-obsessed fool. Who thought only of herself, and her own desires, blind to the consequences and to the privilege that trimmed her. She knew she was more than that, she thought Isabelle knew her better. Thought her better.
"What a fine way to think of me. To see me. And most unfair, I think. If you truly believe that I have been lucky, I wonder if you have been paying attention." Clary demanded further with brisk incredulity. "You think you can flutter your lashes, smile at my brother and inspire him to goodness?"
"Not necessarily. But I have little else in my arsenal. I think I must play my part in all this."
"You cannot want to marry Jonathan."
"No." Isabelle concurred, her eyes flickering to the wall. "Yet you and I both know by now how little what we want matters. We could scream, weep and tear our hair out and none of it would make a difference. Telling the powerful men of the world our desires will never make them count. We have learned other ways of fighting. Other means of getting what we want in a world where our wishes seldom matter." Isabelle's soft voice sharpened with insistence. "Your father would give you a tool, Clary. I urge you to use it."
"You are a woman, Izzy. A person. Not a hammer or a brush."
She only snorted, "I remain without a choice, just the same. I was never going to have one in the matter of a husband, was I?"
Clary turned over the fingers in her own grip slowly. She had always thought Izzy had practical hands. They liked to be in action all the time. Hands that liked to grip, to thread, to move. They tended to prove adept at whatever she turned them to, needlework, reins. Clean, short fingernails, there was a freckle just over the knuckle of her right index finger Clary had never noticed before.
"You are not a self-sacrificing person."
"There are worse lots. At least I would get to eat off plates off gold, under canopies of state. Wear the latest, most fashionable gowns. Have my own household, my own influence." Isabelle sighed, "I have spent so long wondering and dreading what should come next. When my mother's money finally ran out. This way, I finally know."
She lifted her eyes to Clary's and in the shadows and gloom they seemed purely black. There were no tears, no trace of fear. All her anger from before had evidently been honed and redirected.
"You are a Morgenstern, Clary. Have you learned nothing here? If you mislike the rules, change the game."
Clary turned away, unable to directly face Isabelle's unwavering stare.
"That is what my father would do." She admitted dry mouthed. "I am not my father."
Isabelle smiled slowly, without warmth. The glint of a blade slipping quietly out of its sheath. "No, Clary. You and I are made of something else entirely. It is just that few shall ever see it. They all think we are helpless counters to be bargained with and moved at will. Let them think so. There can be a power in that."
Clary lifted her slumped shoulders. Time to find her backbone and straighten it, things would seem. "We might be surprised at the moves we could make while no one expects us to be playing," She admitted, heart fluttering traitorously. Then she exhaled, "The risk to you remains too great, Izzy."
Isabelle tutted. She had not for some time seemed like the blazing, unapologetic girl that swished into Clary's presence when this all started with her chin held high. She still did not burn quite as bright, but today there was glimpse of a spark. Of her old fighting spirit.
"This is going to happen Clary, because the King wills it. He's a man who gets what he wants. I need a reason to make this count for something. Give me one."
"What of your brothers? They'll never stand over this, nor agree to it."
"No," Isabelle accepted that much, "That's why they shouldn't be told. They would only become a liability. Subtlety is a woman's art; they've never learned it."
It was not as though Jace didn't feint and divert Clary all the time. He had his secrets, his theological curiosities that he couldn't relent on. Why not have one of her own?
Isabelle exhaled, fixing Clary with another of those intense stares, "Clary, men make bargains like this over us all the time. They use weddings to barter for more power and more control. Why shouldn't we? If we're to be used, then let us be useful. Let's make an arrangement of our own. A pact, sworn tonight, at the eleventh hour. An oath of fealty to one another, an oath all our own. Why not swear to one another to turn this to our advantage? A pledge of sisterhood. They can choose our starting position, but we'll choose our moves hereafter."
Distantly, swaddled safely in her crib, Jeanne snuffled again behind them, but did not cry or stir further. The little girl named after a woman warrior. As a child, Clary herself had been fascinated by the girl-turned-saint. The young girl who'd braved the field, the girl who'd dared to make kings. Clary looked back over at Isabelle and considered her fully. If Isabelle too was to be flung by Valentine into the field, why not let Isabelle be her knight?
Her champion, in secret. Clary didn't want to make this pact with Isabelle, because she didn't want to be in this situation at all. But this was what it had come to. She could not put all the evils of this world back in Pandora's box. She might be able to keep a little hope alive in there, though.
A pact, an oath, sworn by two bonded sisters to save Idris. Why not indeed?
There'd be no glory in it. When the chroniclers wrote the history of this chapter this would not be in it. It would be a secret, a desperate gamble to steer the course of history.
If Clary did not try to take some control over her destiny, then what kind of world could she hope to leave behind for for her daughters? How could she raise them to be bright and brave and bold?
She could do this for Isabella and Jeanne, for the sake of a world where girls couldn't be traded mutely like chattel. A world where they might get make their own choices, or have at least a modicum of control over their destinies.
Clary clasped Isabelle's arm, just above the elbow.
Isabelle mirrored the hold on her. Two knights shaking hands over the jousting lines, about to make their charge in a different kind of war game.
Clary would grit her teeth and scrabble for foothold in the hope that neither of her daughters should ever have to.
"Sisters." She declared Isabelle both her shieldmaiden and sword.
Isabelle lifted her chin, "Sisters." She promised in return.
They already were, long before Valentine's desperate ploy had made them such.
-0000000000000000-
Isabelle was back in her new chambers long before the dawn. She was the picture of obedience when the servant came to rouse her. It was still dark outside as Isabelle hastily dressed under the sharp eyes of her new handmaiden. The buds of scattered raindrops on the glass panes the only indication it had rained during the night. She left her head bare of any headdress but wound scarlet ribbons into the braids pulling it back from her face. The bold colour had always served to make her bold, or to at least appear it. It was as close to a war banner as she possessed.
A torch bearing guard beckoned her into the small chapel.
The King personally ushered her down the aisle, as though she might truly baulk and run away. As if she could.
Though his grip on her arm was death tight, Isabelle could feel a tremor run through Valentine, despite his weighty furs.
Jonathan, ashen and unhappy, waited for her beside a priest.
Isabelle glanced behind her just once, to find out who her reluctant witnesses were to be.
Pangborn, looking more oppressed than usual and Starkweather, who would watch his own mother be torn apart by wild eagles if Valentine told him to. The were crammed together in the front row of the right pew.
Valentine left Isabelle at the altar and stepped into the first row of the left hand pews. Her one-man bridal party.
Isabelle wished her heart wasn't beating so loud. She faced Jonathan, who looked like he hadn't slept for days. He scowled down at her, as if a rotten enough look would banish her from existence.
Valentine cleared his throat. Jonathan took her hand in his. His hands were surprisingly warm. Clammy, even.
After all the trouble, after all the grand designs and scheming it was to be done like this. Under cover of darkness, like some clandestine, forbidden thing.
Ironically, it looked like a forbidden love match.
"I may have wanted you." Jonathan told her out of the corner of his mouth, with sharp emphasis in his tone that expressed it was important to him that she be made to know this. "But I never, never wanted to marry you."
Isabelle scoffed. "You were not my first preference either."
They turned as one to face the priest.
"Whatever you are being paid, I can double it." Jonathan tried the cleric, desperately.
Isabelle sniffed, stifling her disgust. Jonathan could beg, bribe and plead, but she'd fall on her sword with decidedly more grace. They talked of those who climbed the executioner's scaffold wanting to make 'a good death.' The concept had always seemed paradoxical to Isabelle before. She understood it now.
The priest just looked at the Prince with frightened, defeated eyes. He began the words of the service.
Isabelle Lightwood was a Princess of Idris before the break of first light.
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