Chapter Text
James was in the middle of training when his valet came through the training room — which was usually forbidden, unless there was an emergency — and interrupted a duel he was having with one of his most skilled swordsmen.
“Your Highness, her Grace the Queen and his Grace the King want you to join them in front of the North Tower.”
James, startled, raised his hand to properly pause the duel. “Now?”
The valet nodded once. Remus was one of the few people James trusted almost as much as his family. He nodded back at him, before handing his sword to his opponent, who knew to put it aside. Then James followed after Remus, wondering what was going on. His parents rarely interrupted his training time, knowing it was important for their only son and heir to stay in good form, ready to fight. Especially in those troubled times.
Their region was currently threatened by invaders, from a neighbour kingdom they always had maintained difficult relationships. If the King Fleamont and the Queen Euphemia had always made sure to keep diplomatic relationships with surrounding kingdoms rather peaceful, that did not work with everyone.
“Ah, James, there you are,” James heard his mother say, as soon as he appeared in her field of vision.
James didn’t have time to properly answer her, when he noticed two heavily armoured knights holding their swords against the neck of… what looked like a defenceless noblewoman. Kneeling on the floor, her dress pooling around her like a small pond. Her hair, as black as ebony, was hiding her face partially. The two guards were making sure she was keeping her head bowed, in submission in front of the Queen and the King, and now the crown prince.
Confused, especially because James was always a bit reluctant to hold a weapon to a woman’s throat if she wasn’t herself holding a weapon, James looked back at his parents.
“Son,” His father spoke, his voice steady and strong. He looked very serious, which worried James slightly. “We’re glad you could make it here so fast.”
“Of course,” James nodded, still concerned. “What is the matter?”
His mother looked up at his father, who answered him. “We found this woman in front of our doors. She was alone, and asking for us to let her in.”
James looked at the woman again. He couldn’t see her face properly, again because her hair was in her face, barely held by her headpiece. James could tell by her dress and the way she stood, that she was probably from high nobility. It seemed that for her, kneeling down on the ground was an insult. James crouched down, to get a proper look at her face.
“Do you know her?”
Lifting her chin, James was surprised to see piercing blue, almost grey eyes. It felt like looking in the eyes of a very dangerous animal, and James found himself quite unable to look away, for a small instant. Then his eyes drifted to the rest of her face, and concluded that she was a very pretty woman, though there was something slightly androgynous about her beauty, but he didn’t know her. He had never seen that noblewoman before, not even during one of his trips to another kingdom, for diplomatic meetings.
She shook her face off James’ hand, which had the consequence of making the knights tighten their hold, and she grunted. James slowly stood back up.
“I don’t know her,” He said, looking at his parents. “Do you think…?”
“She was alone,” His father gravely said. “This is unusual. No servants, no lady-in-waiting. And so early in the morning.”
“Have you questioned her?” James asked.
“She won’t say a word about where she comes from,” The Queen Euphemia his mother said. “Which is all the more strange.”
His parents seemed to be waiting for James to take a decision. He knew they could have done this without him, but it seemed they wanted to see if their son was ready to make strategic decisions. They did this, sometimes, and James with time, had assumed it was their way of making a king out of him. Preparing him for bigger choices, for bigger issues.
“I think we should keep her alive, and put her under surveillance. And eventually interrogate her further.”
That seemed to satisfy his parents who nodded at him. James then gave a sign to the guards who were still holding the lady to execute his order.
“Put her in the guest room of the North-East Tower. It’s currently empty.”
And they took her away, leading her to where James had told them to. They were holding their swords’ blades against her back, where a long plait of dark hair fell graciously. Somehow, James couldn’t stop himself from looking, unable to detach his eyes. He was intrigued.
“Do you think she’s dangerous?” James heard his mother say, which snapped him out of his trance. She was facing James’ father, but James listened anyway. “We don’t know any more if we should worry about ladies in distress nowadays… She looked genuinely so lost when we found her.”
“Let’s hope this is just us being too precautious,” He said, brushing her shoulder reassuringly, before taking her hand. He then turned to face James. “You made a good and rational decision. This is good, James.”
James bowed his head slightly. “Thank you, Father.”
His mother smiled at him fondly, grazing his cheek with her free hand. “You’re growing so fast, my son.”
James smiled at her.
“I’m sure she is not going to be threat for us. We will be careful,” He nodded.
“You’re becoming a very fair ruler,” She said, before letting go of him.
James could see the pride in their eyes. Recently, they had had less and less time to see each other outside of strategic meetings and other serious assemblies. They were attending these as their titles, but not really as themselves. James sometimes missed the times where he was spending time with his mother in the gardens walking around and talking about poetry — his mother was a woman of knowledge, often visiting the scholars and the schools, giving of her time. He missed the numerous times when, as a kid and later as a teenager, he’d accompanied his father hunting or going for a ride in the nearest woods. He knew now these times were gone, and meant to stay memories of a privileged time that was always supposed to be temporary.
As an only son, he had been raised to rule, to embody royalty. Soon enough, when he had started to reach his maturity, his duelling trainings had doubled in number and in intensity. Suddenly, James had to attend every council, learn to make decisions, learn strategy, learn diplomacy; learn how to lead a war, and learn how to avoid it. Every hunting outing became horse riding lessons. Every lesson in class became a metaphor of his future reign. He had to embrace it, without time to turn back.
And James rarely looked back. He knew he was meant to be exactly where he was. He only thought of the past with the little bit of innocence he had left in him.
Quickly, his parents walked away, to their own occupations, and James returned back to the training hall. He was still sweaty from the past two hours he had spent fighting and training, but he could feel his body had become cold.
This morning, James trained two times harder than usually, pushing himself until he was out of breath again. Around him, all the swordsmen training with him, exhausted, were also trying to catch their breaths, red-faced, holding onto their weapons stubbornly, despite the fact that James had pushed each one of their attacks away. Sometimes, James wondered if the tutors who had taught him how to fight with a sword hadn’t done their job too well; James had become one of the best fighters of his own army, and even if he knew it was almost his duty, as he had been born to lead soldiers, he sometimes regretted the fact that people struggled to hold a fight with him.
“Training is over for today,” James announced, and he could almost see how the training knights’ shoulders all simultaneously slightly dropped. As if they had all sighed in unison.
Himself was starting to feel the exhaustion. This was good. It was the sign of a good day of practice.
He walked over Remus, who helped him out of his training gear, helping him out of his chainmail and unlacing the padding around his torso and arms expertly. Then he held a towel out for him, and James thanked him before using it to wipe the sweat off of his forehead.
He knew he had to attend a council this afternoon, to discuss the crops management of the village situated right next to the fortress. Not highly important, but James still had to attend.
In the meantime, he decided to visit his friend, Lily, so he walked to the accountants’ quarters. Lily was one of the few women, besides the Queen, to sit at the Council. She was brilliant, and had followed after James’ mother steps in many ways, even though she wasn’t from high birth. She was very respected nonetheless, and James liked her company. If it wasn’t for her birth, really, she would have been marrying James before his twentieth birthday. But James was twenty-one now, and still unmarried. So was Lily.
James knocked at the door of her room, where she always worked, helping to manage the accounting of the castle and of the town nearby. He waited, hearing some rustling, and voices. Two different voices.
Lily opened the door, still talking to the person who was with her in her office, and when she turned her head toward James and saw that it was him, she smiled. James smiled back. Had a look at who was standing behind her, in the room. It was one of the nuns, from the monastery. James had seen her before — probably around Lily too — but he couldn’t recall her name, for some reason. She had pale blond hair, as if she had been bleaching it the French way, unless James knew no nuns could bleach their hair. He really couldn’t remember her name. He acknowledged her still, and she awkwardly bowed, curtsying reverently, before walking up to Lily, putting a hand on her shoulder, quietly, exchanging a strange look with her.
“Yes,” Lily said, looking down briefly, before looking back up. “I will see you later, sister Pandora.”
The nun’s hand lingered a second too long, and she walked past them, disappearing in the stairs. James followed her with his eyes, until she had disappeared fully, and her steps couldn’t be heard echoing in the corridor anymore. He turned back to see Lily arbored a somehow conflicted expression on her face.
“What is happening?” He asked, curious suddenly.
“Nothing. This is always the same conversation. Come in,” She said, stepping aside to let James walk in, and closing behind him once he did. Under his quizzical look, she added. “You know how I feel about the monastery’s behaviour towards the population.”
“Yes.”
James did. Lily had always valued her own thoughts over what religion dictated. She disagreed with a few principles, which James had been quick to learn, and he had been charmed by this way of thinking. He enjoyed getting her point of view, that diverged so much from everyone else in his parents’ court. James’ affection for her and his curiosity for her way of thoughts had lead her to get a seat at the Council, among other things. She had proven herself times and times again as well.
“Sister Pandora is a devout woman. You can guess we have very different ways to see things,” Lily sighed, seemingly tired, as she sat down in front of her desk. She took her quill in her hand, dipped it in ink, and started to write down things James couldn’t quite grasp. “We always argue on the same topics,” She paused. “Well I argue. She is always adamant on staying calm and she never gets angry, contrary to me.”
James sat down in front of her, on a comfortable seat that was propped near the only window of the room. He looked outside, listening to her.
“It never fails to irritate me even more. You know how I am,” Lily said, and James looked at her with a small smirk. She had a firey personality indeed.
“Yes,” He said softly, a bit fond. She had qualities that were rarely recognised in women, such as combativity and conviction, but she wore them well.
“I think her and I can be friends, but I can always feel that she stays distant on purpose. She’s in her own world when she’s inspired, and then I can never reach her. This infuriates me. I wonder if our friendship is even worth me getting angry over.”
James looked back at her — he had been looking at the window again. She had stopped writing, looking at James, unless she was looking at the window too? She looked lost in thoughts.
“This might be the first time I hear you say that you wouldn’t fight over something,” James chuckled, though he was genuinely thinking it was odd.
Lily sighed, putting her quill away. “She…” She let her sentence trail off. “She might be the only person who can appease me too. I think I’m the most patient when I’m with her.”
Tilting his head, James looked at her, surprised, but also not fully understanding what she was saying.
“Never mind,” She sat back on her seat with a tired smile. “You would hardly get it.”
“Hey!” James let out, chuckling, more frankly this time. “I’m not stupid.”
“Men like you don’t understand what it means when poetry seeps into a relationship and it becomes complicated. Like someone is playing the lyra with the strings of your heart, but you would gladly let them do because even if it hurts, what comes out of it fascinates you,” James stared at her. “Do you know love like that?”
This morning, in the accountant building, sitting across Lily in her room, James was unable to give her an answer.
*
Quickly, the word that a strange noblewoman was kept under surveillance in one of the castle’s towers had spread like a bad pox, until the outskirts of town. James and his family had done their best to stop this from happening, but people loved to spread rumours. Of course the story had been deformed from mouth to mouth, until the point where James had heard back of it, hearing two knights talk about it in the hallways as “the daughter of the king of a rival kingdom” being “held captive” in one of the towers, because she was “meant to marry the crown prince”.
These rumours weren’t worth much, and James wasn’t paying them much attention. Usually. But it had been two days since he had seen the strange woman, and he hadn’t seen her since. He knew a member of the council, designated, had tried to interrogate her further, to try to find out from where she had come, and why she had been travelling completely alone, with no servants, no weapons, and no guards. But the man hadn’t been able to get any information out of her. She had stayed silent.
James knew it wasn’t too good to be so curious about this person, but he could hardly help it.
He remembered how she had looked at him, with those fierce eyes. James had often wondered, thinking back about it, if she would have been looking at him differently if she hadn’t been kneeling down in the dirt, taking it as a personal insult. Probably not.
Knowing he was doing it for maybe, not quite the right reasons, James had volunteered to try to get information from her. She was around his age, and James had put this argument on the table to get the answer he had wanted. In the end, he had convinced the Council rather easily, as it seemed they wanted answers as soon as possible. People trusted James, and so did the Council.
That was how he had ended up walking up the stairs of the North-East Tower, to reach the highest floor, where the woman — whom he still ignored the name of — was currently held captive.
The North-East Tower was rather big, for a secondary tower, and held several apartments, that were usually reserved for noble families that visited, or sometimes merchants that were travelling the region, to whom James’ family always owed hospitality. The apartments were well furnished, and well kept, and it suited well enough the rank of the lady who was currently living in one. James rarely went there, because there was nothing to do here, besides visiting guests, and there was not always guests currently residing within the castle’s walls. With winter approaching, travellers didn’t travel too far away from where they were established, which left the castle with little to no guests.
Once he arrived on the highest floor, James took a deep breath. He hadn’t taken any weapons with him, knowing that he could defend himself without one anyway, and he was simply dressed in his afternoon attire. He knocked two times against the heavy door, to make sure to announce his presence, and to avoid any awkward situation, and after a few seconds, hearing no answer, he knocked again, and pushed the door open.
He didn’t see her immediately, as he closed the door, but as soon as he turned around and searched for her figure in the room, he found her, sitting next to a window, contemplating. She had her chin in her hand, and her elbow propped on the edge of the window. The dress she was wearing was different than the one she had been wearing the day she had arrived, and James assumed some new clothes had been brought to her, as well as some accessories — like the hairbrush he noticed on the table, that he didn’t see her carry with her when she arrived either — to allow her to live there with decency. He felt a hint of relief for her, somehow, even if she was royally ignoring him.
“Good afternoon,” He said, greeting her properly.
She only deigned to glance in his direction, unimpressed, before looking back to the window. It made James want to smile.
He pulled a seat from around the table, and sat facing her, not too close, but not too far either, just close enough to be able to study her. If she was going to stay silent, James didn’t mind. He was used to having his way, and he wasn’t one to let someone destabilise him.
Looking at her intently, and at how she obviously ignored him despite being very aware of James’ presence — let’s say that James was very hard to ignore; he was tall and knew how to be noticed in a room — James started to notice little details.
She was tall, which he hadn’t been able to notice when she had been kneeling down in front of him the first time they had met. Her sharp features gave her an uncommon and unconventional magnetism, that was almost mythical. She had a mole right under her eye, and short hair all around her face, framing it in a strange way. Her headpiece was securing her braid in place.
James rarely stared at people like this. He didn’t usually have time for it, but more than anything, his interest was rarely piqued as much. And really, no one was really resisting him much. His status often pushed people to bend to his will rather than stubbornly opposing to it so obviously. Yes, people went against him sometimes, but always to reach an agreement, because everyone was willing to make concessions. Which didn’t seem to be the case here. She seemed adamant on not pronouncing a word.
She was fascinating truly.
James looked around, trying to grasp details about her, and who she might be; he wouldn’t learn her name, but maybe he could guess what activities she inclined towards, or any hint of her taste. But everything in the room seemed to remain as it was before she had entered it. There was still a very thin layer of dust on the parchments, the embroidery tools lied unused in a corner, and the small flask of ink was closed, the quill next to it perfectly untouched. Even the hair brush on the table was clean of any hair, and seemed to have been propped here just for the sake of decorating the room. Intriguing.
She was perfectly impossible to read. Through all the time James spent in her room, she hadn’t moved, or almost not, immobile like a statue, put there as if she was furniture. James noticed her chest heaving up and down under her dress and her moistening her lips every once in a while, though, reminding him that she was in fact, not a statue.
She was patient, and never getting angry, frustrated, or even slightly upset at James staring at her with a lot of attention; an activity gentlemen usually reserved for the lady they had set their sights on, and not for two strangers, who ignored each other’s name. James knew he was going against all the rules of the gentleman code, or almost, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to get a reaction out of her, even annoyance. Something that would tell something about her, anything. He was going to be the one to get it out of her.
He stayed a long time. Maybe several hours. He saw the sun decline outside, by the window she was looking out of, fixated on the horizon line. The glass of the window was getting fogged, the temperatures dropping. Nights were falling earlier and earlier.
James didn’t like winter. But he had a feeling it might be her favourite season. She was as cold as it.
At some point, knowing his parents would maybe worry to not see him come back, James stood up slowly, feeling his body tense with how long he stayed unmoving, on this seat. “It was my pleasure.”
It was only the second time she looked at him, and maybe James was mistaken, but she seemed almost openly relieved. He smiled at her, meaning it, and he walked away to the door, under her scrutinising gaze. He savoured this short moment of having her attention on him, as if he had fought to deserve it for all this time, and he closed the door. He smiled to himself. He felt like he had won something, even if he wasn’t quite sure what.
*
If his meeting with the quiet lady hadn’t been formally a success, and people on the Council had seemed to question the efficiency of James’ method, he had managed to convince them by explaining he needed to gain her trust first. Which did convince them. In a way, James knew it could work. A part of him also simply enjoyed sitting here in her company for some reason.
Therefore, James made sure to make these rendezvous a recurrent occurrence. Every day, or every two days, after Council meetings, James would go there, assuring officials he was effectively earning her trust, and simply stare at her for hours. He could never get enough of it.
She had long eyelashes, and even if she never really changed hairstyles, she had gorgeous hair.
But her room stayed untouched, with the exception of the bed, in a corner of the room, that occasionally looked less tidy than usual, but that was the extend of it. James wondered if she ever got bored, or missed the place she had came from. She had to be from somewhere.
All of his questions stayed without answers, however, and the lady stayed silent.