Post by rainstormamaya on Jan 18, 2010 9:54:39 GMT 10
Title: Drag Up The Past
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Delia of Eldorne and the secret she took to the grave; Cythera of Elden and the secret she kept for no real reason; the truth of that secret- what there was of it.
Warning: Character death, really weird ambiguity, a bit of bad language
A/N: Kind of in under the wire...
*****
i.
This ball would be much more interesting if Squire Alan was here to torment, Delia thought, waving her fan lazily. It was oversized, made of vibrant peacock feathers, and had a jewelled handle; thoroughly ostentatious, and Gary evidently had very poor taste, but it and a scrap of foamy lace were more or less all that was preventing anyone staring down her dress. Delia had few objections to people staring down her dress, since she could always find a use for yet another young man captivated by her figure, but she had to make some concessions to propriety.
“Lady Delia? Lady Delia?”
Oh, merciful Goddess, not Cythera. Delia hauled her attention back to the conversation and the young lady in air-blue silk. “Do excuse me, Lady Cythera- I was overcome for a moment by the heat.” She flapped her fan a little more vigorously in emphasis and noted, out of the corner of her eye, Raoul of Goldenlake’s eyes fixed on her chest. There probably wasn’t much advantage she could get out of his admiration; not while Jon was still... well, never mind. “Were you speaking to me?”
Some women would have rolled their eyes; Cythera merely smiled and looked concerned. “Yes, but it wasn’t anything important; I was just asking if you had any particular plans for the summer? If you are feeling faint, perhaps you would like to take my place? There is a really very refreshing breeze.”
Delia thanked her graciously and moved over to where Cythera had been standing. The cool breeze played over her, and Delia decided that she ought to be a little kinder to Cythera in future. “Plans for the summer? I will be leaving Corus, naturally. It is so dull in the summer months, and I would appreciate the chance to visit my family.” She smiled. “Why, I declare I have all but forgotten my sister’s face. Mother says she is growing very tall now, and quite the young lady.”
Cythera smiled back at her. “You will deprive us of your company, Lady Delia, and the Court of its greatest ornament.”
“I daresay the Court shall survive without me. You will be an admirable replacement, Lady Cythera.”
Cythera blushed, and it must have been in pleased embarrassment, for she could never have thought, no, I couldn’t whore myself out the way you do. “Oh, I could not, Lady Delia.”
Delia smiled, and it must have been generous, for she could never have thought, no, you haven’t got the brains. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Lady Cythera.”
ii.
Jon had better taste in trinkets than Gary, but he wasn’t any less eager. Unlike Gary, Delia let him have what he wanted, because this was what she’d planned all along, and it was working, and that was what brought the glow to her face that Jon admired so much: not love, but triumph.
Naturally, she didn't tell him that.
iii.
Three months later, shortly before she was due to leave for Eldorne, Delia was walking with Cythera in the gardens, and then they passed a strong-smelling... flower of some kind. Delia had never been keen on flowers, and she quickly became even less keen as her stomach heaved at the overpowering reek.
“I- do not feel-“ she managed, and then turned and vomited behind a tree; she leant against its trunk, gasping and grey-faced.
“Lady Delia! Oh, my goodness, are you feeling ill? What a stupid question- ignore me.” Cythera laid the back of one slim hand against Delia’s forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever. Perhaps you should consult Duke Baird?”
“I certainly shall,” Delia said, taking calming breaths which didn’t still her shuddering heart, thumping with a sudden, lurking fear. “Perhaps breakfast disagreed with me.”
Cythera agreed fervently that that was a possibility, walked Delia solicitously back to her room and gave her into the charge of her maid, who swept her away in a cloud of mutterings and promises of herbal teas and appointments with Duke Baird.
Delia lay down in a dark room and ate the dry toast and drank the tea mechanically, too afraid to object and already certain of what was happening to her. Something would have to be done- she was conscious of that –but what? How could she fix this?
iv.
She did have an appointment made with Duke Baird, which she did attend.
He asked his questions and did his tests, noting results down on a scrap piece of parchment, and looked at her with a sober expression. A swipe of vibrant colour in the Head Healer’s bland office, Delia gave him her coldest stare.
“You don’t need to tell me what is wrong with me; I already know.”
Duke Baird’s eyebrows shot up. “I... see.” He glanced down at his desk, and neatened a small stack of papers. “Do you have any... plans?”
“I have plans,” Delia confirmed harshly, hands fisted in her satin skirts and sitting poker-straight in her chair. This was dangerous; if Baird chose to reveal her secret, he could, and at a stroke she would be destroyed, everything she had worked for lost. Still, she had to visit him for medical advice, or there would be talk, and that was what she most needed to avoid.
“Very organised,” Duke Baird said blandly, and picked up the scrap piece of paper he had written his notes on; he glared at it for a few moments, and it burst into vivid green flame. Delia did not react, and after a few moments all that was left of a possible betrayal was green-tinged ash on his desk, dusting his fingertips. “Well, Lady Delia, I think it's only a simple case of food poisoning; it will pass. And I do hope you enjoy your holiday away from the capital.”
Delia smiled tightly, stood, and curtseyed. “A necessary respite from Court, your Grace. I’m really very tired.”
“I can well believe it, Lady Delia,” he told her. “Best of luck.”
As she left, she decided that she hated him for the pity in his eyes.
v.
When next she saw Cythera, the other lady said: “Lady Delia, I do hope you’re feeling better?”
“Better? Of course,” Delia said, as if in surprise. Curses- why couldn’t Cythera live up to her empty-headed appearance and forget everything? She had a disgustingly retentive memory. “I went to Duke Baird; nothing but a case of food poisoning, though very unpleasant while it lasted.”
“Oh, good. I am so glad it wasn’t anything serious!”
Delia looked into her friendly, guileless blue eyes and saw a little glitter in the limpid depths that nearly made her panic. Oh Goddess, she knows. Cythera knows, she thought frantically, and then Cythera smiled again and turned away to talk to Lady Rosaline, leaving Delia with a thudding heart and a perfect, flirtatiously lovely mask as Jon came up behind her and greeted her laughingly.
She knows, she knows, she knows, wailed some part of Delia’s mind that was never as unflinching as she would have liked it to be. Delia forced it into submission; she had no time for hesitation and fear, least of all now.
“Are you feeling all right?” Jon asked with a tiny frown, apparently noticing that she was distracted.
She found a smile. “I am perfectly well, thank you, your highness,” she said, and, well- it wasn’t really a lie, even if she did sometimes feel as if this had invaded her life and lay like a razor-sharp caltrop in her path, prepared to ruin everything she had dreamed of and schemed for. This happened to women all the time, and it was perfectly natural; it was just that it wasn’t supposed to happen to her.
vi.
Delia travelled to Eldorne and had the baby; he would be passed off as her sister-in-law’s (and really, need Lauryn look so self-righteous? She was barren, it seemed; hadn’t had a child by Tamur in the three years they had been married, all midwives’ charms and spells notwithstanding- it was lucky that Tamur was only third in line to inherit the fief. Lauryn ought to be grateful for a son.)
The midwife asked if she wanted to hold the baby; Delia, sweaty and hot with blood on her thighs, on her shift, on the sheets, shook her head wearily and closed her eyes in an attempt to sleep, too exhausted to say something cutting. Lauryn asked her if she wanted to name him; Delia curled her lip at her, and said that she had less than no interest in Lauryn’s squalling child.
They did tell her what they had named him, but Delia contrived to forget on her journey from Eldorne. When she casually told several family friends and distant relations of the new Eldorne son and they asked her what the baby’s name was, she shrugged and said dismissively that she believed it had not been settled; perhaps Tamur, after his father.
The callousness in her voice appalled those she spoke to, but it did not surprise them; and it was better, after all, that a little weight was added to accusations that she did not care for her family than that someone guessed whose child the baby really was.
vii.
Eighteen years later, Cythera was picking her way delicately through the mud, one hand resting on her husband’s arm to steady herself, the other holding up her skirts. They were meant to be paying a visit to Raoul (and possibly Buri, if she just happened to be there too, Cythera reflected, and smiled to herself.)
They stopped briefly by the spot where all the Own’s horses were picketed, and Cythera fed one a bit of sugar-loaf; a lovely, sweet-tempered mare with a star on her forehead. She was turning away and remarking “Beautiful horses,” to Gary when a young man ducked round the horse with a star on its forehead muttering things like Mindelan and ridiculous and girl, bumped straight into Cythera and reeled back, wide-eyed.
“I’m sorry, my lady, my lord,” he said, and Cythera noted the pleasant voice used to saying scornful, maybe even cruel things, the sulky mouth, the floppy brown hair and the hazel eyes; the stubborn, wilful tilt of the chin...
She smiled at him. “Quite all right,” she said graciously, and she and Gary continued on.
That night, she was undressing when a thought struck her. “Gary?”
“Yes, love?” Gary answered. “By the way, you have some of that apple dessert just... there.”
He kissed the side of her neck, and she laughed at him. “Gary, I would have to be trying very hard to eat that messily. Do you remember what colour Queen Lianne’s hair was? Little Kally really reminded her of me for some reason the other day, and I was trying to remember her.” She paused, and said rather sadly: “I find I can’t.”
“Aunt Lianne?” Gary said, putting his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. “Dark. Black, actually; like Jon’s.”
“Hmm,” Cythera said serenely, mentally crossing off that possibility with a certain amount of relief. A secret illegitimate son-of-a-traitor heir embedded in the King’s Own was fairly high on the list of things that nobody ever needed to know about, and that included the putative father. “Thank you.”
Later, when they were in bed and Gary was snoring appallingly (but she was used to the noise and quite liked it really, found it comforting), she lay awake with her head pillowed on his chest and her arm thrown across his waist, and remembered. She remembered a beautiful young woman with bright green eyes and brown hair and more ambition than ever did her any good, and the insinuations always threaded through her words like poison in sweet wine. She remembered the shock of the Eldorne livery in the Hall of Crowns, worn by men with weapons who raised them and murdered; the fear lightning-cold in her veins as Gary roughly pushed her behind him and ran a man through with his sword, then hustled her to relative safety, kissed her as if he thought he never would again and then ran to defend Jon. She remembered Jon’s mercy. She remembered the lonely, high tower; she remembered the increasing years and increasing insanity and the rumour running through the palace of the fit of jail fever that finally ended it.
She closed her eyes. Lerant of Eldorne probably didn’t even know that his true parents weren’t Lauryn and Tamur, and in any case, Delia of Eldorne was long dead. It profited no-one to drag up the past.
In her sleep, Cythera of Naxen smiled as if she had a secret.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Delia of Eldorne and the secret she took to the grave; Cythera of Elden and the secret she kept for no real reason; the truth of that secret- what there was of it.
Warning: Character death, really weird ambiguity, a bit of bad language
A/N: Kind of in under the wire...
*****
i.
This ball would be much more interesting if Squire Alan was here to torment, Delia thought, waving her fan lazily. It was oversized, made of vibrant peacock feathers, and had a jewelled handle; thoroughly ostentatious, and Gary evidently had very poor taste, but it and a scrap of foamy lace were more or less all that was preventing anyone staring down her dress. Delia had few objections to people staring down her dress, since she could always find a use for yet another young man captivated by her figure, but she had to make some concessions to propriety.
“Lady Delia? Lady Delia?”
Oh, merciful Goddess, not Cythera. Delia hauled her attention back to the conversation and the young lady in air-blue silk. “Do excuse me, Lady Cythera- I was overcome for a moment by the heat.” She flapped her fan a little more vigorously in emphasis and noted, out of the corner of her eye, Raoul of Goldenlake’s eyes fixed on her chest. There probably wasn’t much advantage she could get out of his admiration; not while Jon was still... well, never mind. “Were you speaking to me?”
Some women would have rolled their eyes; Cythera merely smiled and looked concerned. “Yes, but it wasn’t anything important; I was just asking if you had any particular plans for the summer? If you are feeling faint, perhaps you would like to take my place? There is a really very refreshing breeze.”
Delia thanked her graciously and moved over to where Cythera had been standing. The cool breeze played over her, and Delia decided that she ought to be a little kinder to Cythera in future. “Plans for the summer? I will be leaving Corus, naturally. It is so dull in the summer months, and I would appreciate the chance to visit my family.” She smiled. “Why, I declare I have all but forgotten my sister’s face. Mother says she is growing very tall now, and quite the young lady.”
Cythera smiled back at her. “You will deprive us of your company, Lady Delia, and the Court of its greatest ornament.”
“I daresay the Court shall survive without me. You will be an admirable replacement, Lady Cythera.”
Cythera blushed, and it must have been in pleased embarrassment, for she could never have thought, no, I couldn’t whore myself out the way you do. “Oh, I could not, Lady Delia.”
Delia smiled, and it must have been generous, for she could never have thought, no, you haven’t got the brains. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Lady Cythera.”
ii.
Jon had better taste in trinkets than Gary, but he wasn’t any less eager. Unlike Gary, Delia let him have what he wanted, because this was what she’d planned all along, and it was working, and that was what brought the glow to her face that Jon admired so much: not love, but triumph.
Naturally, she didn't tell him that.
iii.
Three months later, shortly before she was due to leave for Eldorne, Delia was walking with Cythera in the gardens, and then they passed a strong-smelling... flower of some kind. Delia had never been keen on flowers, and she quickly became even less keen as her stomach heaved at the overpowering reek.
“I- do not feel-“ she managed, and then turned and vomited behind a tree; she leant against its trunk, gasping and grey-faced.
“Lady Delia! Oh, my goodness, are you feeling ill? What a stupid question- ignore me.” Cythera laid the back of one slim hand against Delia’s forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever. Perhaps you should consult Duke Baird?”
“I certainly shall,” Delia said, taking calming breaths which didn’t still her shuddering heart, thumping with a sudden, lurking fear. “Perhaps breakfast disagreed with me.”
Cythera agreed fervently that that was a possibility, walked Delia solicitously back to her room and gave her into the charge of her maid, who swept her away in a cloud of mutterings and promises of herbal teas and appointments with Duke Baird.
Delia lay down in a dark room and ate the dry toast and drank the tea mechanically, too afraid to object and already certain of what was happening to her. Something would have to be done- she was conscious of that –but what? How could she fix this?
iv.
She did have an appointment made with Duke Baird, which she did attend.
He asked his questions and did his tests, noting results down on a scrap piece of parchment, and looked at her with a sober expression. A swipe of vibrant colour in the Head Healer’s bland office, Delia gave him her coldest stare.
“You don’t need to tell me what is wrong with me; I already know.”
Duke Baird’s eyebrows shot up. “I... see.” He glanced down at his desk, and neatened a small stack of papers. “Do you have any... plans?”
“I have plans,” Delia confirmed harshly, hands fisted in her satin skirts and sitting poker-straight in her chair. This was dangerous; if Baird chose to reveal her secret, he could, and at a stroke she would be destroyed, everything she had worked for lost. Still, she had to visit him for medical advice, or there would be talk, and that was what she most needed to avoid.
“Very organised,” Duke Baird said blandly, and picked up the scrap piece of paper he had written his notes on; he glared at it for a few moments, and it burst into vivid green flame. Delia did not react, and after a few moments all that was left of a possible betrayal was green-tinged ash on his desk, dusting his fingertips. “Well, Lady Delia, I think it's only a simple case of food poisoning; it will pass. And I do hope you enjoy your holiday away from the capital.”
Delia smiled tightly, stood, and curtseyed. “A necessary respite from Court, your Grace. I’m really very tired.”
“I can well believe it, Lady Delia,” he told her. “Best of luck.”
As she left, she decided that she hated him for the pity in his eyes.
v.
When next she saw Cythera, the other lady said: “Lady Delia, I do hope you’re feeling better?”
“Better? Of course,” Delia said, as if in surprise. Curses- why couldn’t Cythera live up to her empty-headed appearance and forget everything? She had a disgustingly retentive memory. “I went to Duke Baird; nothing but a case of food poisoning, though very unpleasant while it lasted.”
“Oh, good. I am so glad it wasn’t anything serious!”
Delia looked into her friendly, guileless blue eyes and saw a little glitter in the limpid depths that nearly made her panic. Oh Goddess, she knows. Cythera knows, she thought frantically, and then Cythera smiled again and turned away to talk to Lady Rosaline, leaving Delia with a thudding heart and a perfect, flirtatiously lovely mask as Jon came up behind her and greeted her laughingly.
She knows, she knows, she knows, wailed some part of Delia’s mind that was never as unflinching as she would have liked it to be. Delia forced it into submission; she had no time for hesitation and fear, least of all now.
“Are you feeling all right?” Jon asked with a tiny frown, apparently noticing that she was distracted.
She found a smile. “I am perfectly well, thank you, your highness,” she said, and, well- it wasn’t really a lie, even if she did sometimes feel as if this had invaded her life and lay like a razor-sharp caltrop in her path, prepared to ruin everything she had dreamed of and schemed for. This happened to women all the time, and it was perfectly natural; it was just that it wasn’t supposed to happen to her.
vi.
Delia travelled to Eldorne and had the baby; he would be passed off as her sister-in-law’s (and really, need Lauryn look so self-righteous? She was barren, it seemed; hadn’t had a child by Tamur in the three years they had been married, all midwives’ charms and spells notwithstanding- it was lucky that Tamur was only third in line to inherit the fief. Lauryn ought to be grateful for a son.)
The midwife asked if she wanted to hold the baby; Delia, sweaty and hot with blood on her thighs, on her shift, on the sheets, shook her head wearily and closed her eyes in an attempt to sleep, too exhausted to say something cutting. Lauryn asked her if she wanted to name him; Delia curled her lip at her, and said that she had less than no interest in Lauryn’s squalling child.
They did tell her what they had named him, but Delia contrived to forget on her journey from Eldorne. When she casually told several family friends and distant relations of the new Eldorne son and they asked her what the baby’s name was, she shrugged and said dismissively that she believed it had not been settled; perhaps Tamur, after his father.
The callousness in her voice appalled those she spoke to, but it did not surprise them; and it was better, after all, that a little weight was added to accusations that she did not care for her family than that someone guessed whose child the baby really was.
vii.
Eighteen years later, Cythera was picking her way delicately through the mud, one hand resting on her husband’s arm to steady herself, the other holding up her skirts. They were meant to be paying a visit to Raoul (and possibly Buri, if she just happened to be there too, Cythera reflected, and smiled to herself.)
They stopped briefly by the spot where all the Own’s horses were picketed, and Cythera fed one a bit of sugar-loaf; a lovely, sweet-tempered mare with a star on her forehead. She was turning away and remarking “Beautiful horses,” to Gary when a young man ducked round the horse with a star on its forehead muttering things like Mindelan and ridiculous and girl, bumped straight into Cythera and reeled back, wide-eyed.
“I’m sorry, my lady, my lord,” he said, and Cythera noted the pleasant voice used to saying scornful, maybe even cruel things, the sulky mouth, the floppy brown hair and the hazel eyes; the stubborn, wilful tilt of the chin...
She smiled at him. “Quite all right,” she said graciously, and she and Gary continued on.
That night, she was undressing when a thought struck her. “Gary?”
“Yes, love?” Gary answered. “By the way, you have some of that apple dessert just... there.”
He kissed the side of her neck, and she laughed at him. “Gary, I would have to be trying very hard to eat that messily. Do you remember what colour Queen Lianne’s hair was? Little Kally really reminded her of me for some reason the other day, and I was trying to remember her.” She paused, and said rather sadly: “I find I can’t.”
“Aunt Lianne?” Gary said, putting his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. “Dark. Black, actually; like Jon’s.”
“Hmm,” Cythera said serenely, mentally crossing off that possibility with a certain amount of relief. A secret illegitimate son-of-a-traitor heir embedded in the King’s Own was fairly high on the list of things that nobody ever needed to know about, and that included the putative father. “Thank you.”
Later, when they were in bed and Gary was snoring appallingly (but she was used to the noise and quite liked it really, found it comforting), she lay awake with her head pillowed on his chest and her arm thrown across his waist, and remembered. She remembered a beautiful young woman with bright green eyes and brown hair and more ambition than ever did her any good, and the insinuations always threaded through her words like poison in sweet wine. She remembered the shock of the Eldorne livery in the Hall of Crowns, worn by men with weapons who raised them and murdered; the fear lightning-cold in her veins as Gary roughly pushed her behind him and ran a man through with his sword, then hustled her to relative safety, kissed her as if he thought he never would again and then ran to defend Jon. She remembered Jon’s mercy. She remembered the lonely, high tower; she remembered the increasing years and increasing insanity and the rumour running through the palace of the fit of jail fever that finally ended it.
She closed her eyes. Lerant of Eldorne probably didn’t even know that his true parents weren’t Lauryn and Tamur, and in any case, Delia of Eldorne was long dead. It profited no-one to drag up the past.
In her sleep, Cythera of Naxen smiled as if she had a secret.