Surprise! Another chapter complete. Yay!
What surprised Gabby the most, as she left the dinner table and returned to her rooms was that this feeling propelling her into action was not the simmering anger that had been her constant companion earlier in life.
Perhaps anger had been the catalyst, but as she’d mulled over the possibility of a conference with her father, something deep in her gut had untangled, sending a rushing feeling of freedom tingling through her arms and legs.
This feeling tugged at her memories of a distant afternoon spent on horseback when she felt as though she were capable of taking on the world. It was tinged now with sadness that she wasn’t sure would ever completely leave, but it was the same nonetheless.
It was late in the evening by the time she was ready for bed and although she was exhausted, she sat at her writing desk for a moment to carefully compose a note.
Father,
I would like to speak to you about something of importance. Please expect to see me in your study just after lunch tomorrow. If this is not a good time, Acantha will be happy to make other arrangements with you upon the receipt of this note.
Thank you,
Gabriella
She folded in the edges of her stationery and emblazoned her seal upon the hot wax used to close the paper.
“Acantha,” she called, “Please deliver this into my father’s hands at once. I would like you to wait for a response.”
Both irritated and pompous because of her mysterious errand, Acantha bustled out of the room.
Will looked curiously at Gabby. Though baffled at her sudden behavior change, he’d really liked the way she carried her chin just then, and the confident movements of her hands as she settled onto the couch with a book on the Anglo-Saxon conflict. Though an odd choice for a bit of bedtime reading, Will was fascinated by it. He inched a little closer so that he might read over her shoulder.
Not the only one to notice her behavior, Isabella—who’d never really been working on her needlework anyway—spoke up. “You’re different today, Gabby.”
She looked up from her book, “Yes. I am.”
“What’s going on?”
Twisting her bottom lip slightly, she bit it softly as she thought about it. “I’m really not sure, but I feel different.” She knew it had a lot to do with her bedtime conversation with Will, but she wasn’t ready to say it aloud. The quiet conversation held a hallowed place in her mind, forging a golden thread connecting her forever with Will.
Isabella studied her for a moment before reaching out and squeezing Gabby’s hand. “Whatever it is, I think it’s good for you.”
Despite the sad ache in her throat, Gabby smiled back at her. “Yes. I think so too.”
In the gray of pre-dawn the next morning, Gabby pushed away her covers and slipped out of bed. Teeth chattering in the cold, she wrapped her robe tightly around her and put on her fur-lined slippers. As expected, her father had returned a message that he was simply too busy to see her that day and would not give Acantha a scheduled time, saying that he would call for her when he found a minute that week.
She knew that tactic. It was as much for stalling, as it was to gain the upper hand. The king would see her on his own terms and even if he was available at the time she’d originally suggested—which he probably was—he could have the advantage of catching her off guard by calling for her unexpectedly.
Two could play at this game.
A slightly grumpy Acantha waited for her in the dressing room. No need to make Isabella lose sleep as well.
After dressing quickly and having her hair arranged simply, she wrapped herself in a thick cloak and wound her way through the chilly corridors to one of the smaller dining rooms. The air felt thick with cold and it curled around her throat without mercy.
She had calculated correctly, though, and only had to wait a few minutes before she could hear her father’s heavy boots approach. Every morning, he met the queen for breakfast before beginning his day.
The king was visibly surprised to see her standing there. “Ah, Gabriella. What are you doing here so early?”
“I have come to speak to you Father.”
He pushed toward the heavy door behind her. “Yes, well, I told your maid that I was busy. I will call for you when I am ready.”
They were both distracted by the sound of the queen’s soft tread and the swishing of her trailing skirt.
Timing her words for the appearance of her mother, she said, “Yes, you did tell her that. This is, however, a matter of some importance that I would like addressed more quickly. Surely my own parents have a few moments to spend with their only child for something so pressing.”
A muscle on her father’s jaw began to twitch as the calculated possible responses. “I already gave you my answer.”
Then he swept past her into the room. Gabby stepped aside to let her mother pass. However, rather than leaving, she followed behind into the room where their breakfasts had been laid out.
The room was small, allowing a dining table that would seat no more than 10, with chairs carved of mahogany lined up along the edges. The king sat at the head of the table in the largest of them all. From the vantage point of any guest sitting at the table, it would appear that the figure of Julius Caesar in the painting on the wall behind him was smiling down on him.
When the king had seen that Gabby persisted, a deep frown etched into his face, but he clenched his jaw and stayed resolutely silent.
Gabby waited silently halfway down the table while her father was situated with her mother to the side. He began to eat, still pretending that she was not there. At any other point in her life, she would not have been able to muster the courage to break into his thoughts.
This, however, was a new day.
After he’d eaten a few bites and had begun to feel comfortable in his snub, Gabby began, “You are probably wondering what would be so important for me to interrupt your breakfast, so I will not keep you in suspense.”
The king did not look up from his meal, but she knew he was listening. The queen, however, stopped eating and turned to listen, as was appropriate manners.
She continued, “This is about my future and from what our dear ambassador from Florence intimated last evening, you have failed to inform me of something rather significant that will impact me.”
Still refusing to look up, the king continued to put bread into his mouth.
“I cannot make you talk to me, so I will tell you what I will do. I will wait.”
He reached for his goblet.
“You are quite busy, as I can see. To be more readily available so that I will not miss an unexpected break in your schedule, I will wait by your side all day today, tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that until you have a moment to give me the information I need.”
The goblet stopped halfway to his lips and his eyes turned up at her in a glare. He measured her with his eyes, looking for her former submissiveness, but she remembered well what Will had instructed when greeting Liberazione.
Chin up and shoulders back, her eyes met the king’s without hesitation. Seconds stretched into several minutes until the king became angry and the queen stared down at her plate.
Suddenly slamming his fist into the dining table, he shouted, “Confound it, Gabriella! How dare you treat me with such disrespect.”
Gabriella did not flinch and she saw him quickly mask his astonishment.
Changing the tone of his voice, he began speaking as though to a small, disobedient child, “I had hoped to break the news to you gently, but you want to force my hand.”
She knew better than to believe he had meant anything gentle by the delay. Silently, Gabby continued to wait.
“Very well then, it serves you right.” He continued, “ I’ve arranged your marriage to Lorenzo Medici, Duke of Urbino. We will have the engagement ceremony after the roads clear up in the spring and the marriage shortly thereafter.”
Marriage to a duke this spring. This was not the alliance he had plotted for all these years. The Medici family were grasping, scheming upstarts and hardly the royalty from a powerful nation as he had planned from her infancy.
He watched her face triumphantly for her reaction, which she was careful to mask, though it felt as though a javelin had pierced her through.
With the javelin came another thought. No longer constrained by timidity in her father’s presence, she did not keep it to herself.
“Now that Claudio is gone, you are anxious to be rid of me.”
“What would the death of Claudio have to do with this arrangement?” he scoffed.
“It rankles you that I am the child that has survived. You cannot even stand the sight of me so you’ve sold me like an unwanted horse at the first opportunity.”
His face turned red and he stood quickly, his chair teetering dangerously. “Sold you like a horse? That is quite enough from you.”
“Yes it is enough—almost.” She approached the table, amazed that she could feel so calm while still digesting the sudden change in her future. Words began to bubble up inside her as from a sulfur spring. Years of repressed thoughts began simmering down her tongue, burning for expression.
Steadily meeting the king’s eye, she said, “I will marry the duke, and I will not hide from my duty as one born to my station. I will take what you have done with my life and fashion it to my liking.”
Standing now at the table, she rested her hands lightly on it, as though on a speaking platform. “Yes, I will be a dutiful wife as you have trained me, but I will be more.”
Turning toward her mother, she looked down at her while the queen looked up to meet her eye. “For all your stately propriety, you have never grasped the simplicity of motherhood—real motherhood. There are mothers whose affection can mold incredible men from their children. I will be one of those mothers, not a passive drone serving to ornament the arm of a temperamental king.”
Perhaps she stretched that statement a little too far. Will was not really a man in the literal sense.
“How dare you--!” the king jumped in, his hand rising as though to strike her.
Gabby raised her chin even higher and met his eye again, “Go ahead and strike me father. You’ve already done your worst.”
Instead, howling in anger, he swept his golden plate off the table. The queen jumped as it landed with a clanging that echoed through the room—and no doubt into the hall. With his upturned breakfast scattered around him, she began to see him clearly in a way that had eluded her since terrified childhood.
Taking another step toward him, she said, “You, father, are a bully and a coward. You puff your chest out and hold others under your thumb because you are afraid of losing your power.”
She lowered her voice. “You are unwise. Power is not something you take from others; it must be felt from the inside.”
Making a gesture toward her heart, she continued, “There are fathers who are not afraid to be kind and kings who rule with benevolence. I can do that as a duchess or even as a tenant farmer, but you cannot muster the courage to do it as a king.”
She turned and walked toward the door, turning slightly to look at her parents who were so near, but still so distant as she said one last thing, “All I have ever wanted from either of you is something that you will never give. Love is a powerful force whether present or absent and I will not make the mistake of underestimating it.”
Then she left.
As she stepped into the hall, it seemed that it wasn’t just a physical door that closed behind her.
Gabriella sensed that speaking as she had that morning had opened a fountain that would no longer be contained. There was no question about whether she could or would maintain the feeling she had discovered on the back of Liberazione. Pumping with every beat of her heart, the heat of assurance had made its way from the tips of her toes to the place behind her eyes that held her tears and burned irrevocably into the fabric of her soul.
She did not say anything about her early meeting with her father, but the effects were glistening in her eyes. As she went through lessons, she marveled at how her former fears had fallen away. Acantha could be subdued by busyness. Mistakes could no longer hold her hostage.
During her dance instruction, her movements became less self-conscious and more fluid. As he sat on the sidelines, Will could tell that something was definitely different. She radiated a magnetic force. When she finally sat down next to him at the end, out of breath and skin glowing pink, he found himself out of breath as well.
The sensation of shackles falling away stayed with her into the evening hours where she sat quietly after dinner on a couch in her rooms with Will and Isabella, having sent Acantha to retrieve a book from the library.
Rather than doing something with her hands, as Isabella was trying to do, she looked down at her pretty hands and thought. There was one more thing nipping at her mind. She was unsure what to do with Claudio’s golden ball.
The familiar ache that had faded into the background for the last few days swelled back into a few warm tears that slid evenly down her cheeks. She felt sure that she could solve it, but hadn’t the last two days shown her that it was time to move forward? Another reason tugged quietly at her, but she pushed it away. It seemed silly.
Still, the unsolved puzzle tickled at her brain.
Perhaps it was coincidence, but after Will’s previous lecture about magic she knew better. Just then, Isabella bent forward to see her needlework better in the candle light and an ornate golden pendant fell out from where she had tucked it inside the bodice of her dress with a delicate clinking sound.
Both Will and Gabby looked up at it.
Before Isabella could hide it away again, Will had seen enough.
“Hey Isabella, your necklace looks a lot like Gabby’s ball.”
Both of the girls froze with their eyes locked on each other. Gabby’s face held an expression of confusion, but Isabella’s face looked as though she’d been caught.
Slowly, Gabby extended her hand, “Do you mind if I look at it?”
Isabella paused, hand clasped over the pendant, as she tried to think of an excuse. The secret would be out if Gabby could see it up close. Deliberating, she was reluctant to share what had become sacred to her. Then, as she looked at Gabby with fresh tears on her face, she knew it was time to tell. He had wanted her to know one day.
With a sigh, Isabella lifted the chain off her neck and slipped it over her head. Leaning over, she deposited it into Gabby’s outstretched hand.
It was still warm from its place nestled next to Isabella’s heart and felt heavy in Gabby’s hand. She turned it over and over, looking closely at the engravings. At first, she could only see a similarity in style. The workmanship had come from the same person at least. Then, a symbol caught her eye.
It was an elaborately carved rose surrounded by winding vines and thorns. Claudio’s emblem. Gasping, she reached into her velvet purse and pulled out her golden ball. She rolled it over until she found the same emblem and held them side-by-side. They were identical.
Gabby looked up at Isabella who was now shakily pulling at her skirt and asked, “How?”
She meant the word in so many ways and she hoped Isabella understood.
Tears began to puddle in Isabella’s eyes as she shared what she had held close for so long.
“It was a parting gift from Claudio,” she began and then the story tumbled out mixed with rawness and warmth. Will and Gabby listened speechlessly as it all unfolded.
The story was jumbled, but the meaning was clear. Isabella and Claudio had been in love. They had been from the time when, as a young teen, she had danced anonymously with him at a royal party, too shy to tell him her name and had then run away with embarrassment. She shook her head with a small smile and told about accidentally leaving a dancing slipper behind.
Claudio had given her the necklace as a way to help Gabby with her puzzle and to broach the topic of their relationship.
Claudio was the reason her parents had not yet arranged her marriage. He was the reason Isabella had become Gabby’s lady-in-waiting. Claudio was why Isabella cried when the army left and why she still mourned.
All that was left of Isabella’s dream was the necklace.
The simplicity of the telling belied the depth of her loss and the intricate pattern of connection she’d forged with her prince charming over the course of months and years of stolen conversations and clandestine correspondence.
At first, they did not tell because the secrecy was exhilarating. In a world where neither of them had a choice in marriage, they had chosen love. Slowly, though, the secret became sacred and they did not share because it was etched into the tenderest places of their hearts.
There was nothing for Gabby to say but to hug her friend and cry with her about what would never be.
So, this chapter is kinda heavy still. Gotta lighten things up next time. I'll work on it, I promise. :) Thanks for reading! *hands you cookie*