The city of Ravaenna is in a state of chaos when the company arrives through the heavy wooden gates. The closing of those gates once set the butterflies to soaring in her belly, but now serve only to remind her that she is a prisoner. There is no warm welcome for the former royal family in the capitol city, no banners hoisted in their honor, no procession to the royal apartments, no greeting from those who once served her lover or her father. No one dares even to call out to the Beaujolais family as they ride past.
"There is no welcome for his future queen? This king has no manners. Already he disappoints," Felicite remarks bitterly. "Could you imagine Jolis behaving in such a way?"
"Felicite," Anjolique hisses. "Jolis is dead. And so shall you join him if you do not learn to hold your tongue."
"If only it were that simple to be with him again," Felicite mutters.
Merely two days ago, she was betrothed to a good man. She had been designing her gown with her mother and the seamstress from Paredes, consulting with the hatmaker and the shoemaker, learning a new dance for the celebrations with the Master of Revels, and preparing a twenty-two course menu for the wedding feast.
Two days, and everything has changed.
Felicite takes a deep breath and then lifts her chin. She is an Agincourt princess, and regardless of which king she weds, she will be queen. She must compose herself so as to not bring shame to her family and the Agincourt loyalists who anxiously await their opportunity remove the new king from his stolen throne.
"My girl," a woman's voice calls from the crowd, and a wave of relief washes over Felicite as she recognizes a familiar face.
"Oh, Lady Margrithe," Felicite sighs, lifting her eyes in a silent prayer of thanks to the Ancestors. She soon finds herself in the welcome embrace of her beloved aunt. The comforting scent of her father's elder sister envelops her, and Lady Margrithe pats her back soothingly.
"Tell me, my girl, how was your journey? Are you well?"
Felicite finds herself at a loss for words. She fights against her tears.
"Hush, child. Not here. Anywhere but here." Lady Margrithe says firmly. "Come, we will go inside."
"Are we not to stay in the royal apartments?" Felicite asks in confusion. "Jolis gifted-"
"Jolis is no longer king. You must remember that."
With that, she sends Felicite ahead into her private apartments to compose herself while she greets Anjolique and Felicite's sisters. It will not do for Felicite to fall apart in public. She must appear the constant princess, strong and proud, to remain beloved by her people.
Soon after, Lady Margrithe follows behind Felicite with Dulce and Cosette positively dancing around her, everyone speaking at once, and there is happiness in the eyes of her aunt. Despite the circumstances, this reunion is long overdue.
"Now tell me about your journey," Lady Margrithe says once everyone is seated, to everyone's frustration.
"Margrithe!" Anjolique says impatiently. "Tell us what news in Ravaenna? What of Julien Fleming?"
"There will be time for all of that later," Lady Margrithe says, arranging for a tray of sweets and mugs of small ale to distract the smaller children. "Now, as for my girls. Claude, you continue to grow. You shall be taller than your mother soon. Such a beauty. The color of cream. Felicite, you look unwell. Have you been sleeping? You are pale, and thin. Are you not eating, child? You must keep up your strength."
"She is in mourning," Claude snaps irritably, the attention no longer on her. "Will King Julien still marry Felicite? If he does not, what will happen to us? He could not want her, after all, she has gone to bed with his sworn enemy. A man he defeated in battle. And if he does not want her...what will happen to us, Lady Margrithe? We will be destitute."
"Of course Julien is going to marry Felicite, Claude," Lady Margrithe says assuredly. "It has always been his plan, and he raised his armies on the promise of wedding the Agincourt princess. His mother has already spoken to me, and she requests to speak with you as well, Anjolique. He cannot risk an insult to the House of Agincourt. He is not a fool."
"But what of Felicite and Jolis-" Claude interrupts, her voice dripping with venom.
"We know nothing about Jolis," Lady Margrithe replies with a knowing smile, despite the harm Claude wishes to cause Felicite with her harsh words. "And King Julien knows less. So it is our duty to tell him everything about his new kingdom. Remember, he did not grow up here, as you all did. He grew up across the Narrow Sea, in the Isles, and in the Norselands, where it is very cold."
"But Felicite and Jolis-"
"That is one of the things that we need not trouble our new king with. If we know nothing of Jolis, what have we to share with King Julien?"
"Oh, fine!" Claude snaps crossly. "But if he does not marry her, it is not only Felicite who will suffer. It is all of us. Haven't we a say in our own lives?"
"No," Lady Margrithe says firmly, frowning at her failure to deter Claude from her line of demanding questions. "Now, enough of this talk. The king will send for you soon, Felicite, I am certain of it. As for the rest of you, come. I will show you to your rooms."
"Aren't we to go to our usual rooms, Aunt Margrithe?" Claude asks. "In the castle?"
Lady Margrithe shakes her head. "No, child. We are no longer the ruling family in Ravaenna. When Felicite is crowned queen, she will restore our apartments, so we may again know the luxury to which we are accustomed, but for now, the Fleming family has claimed all the best apartments for themselves. And so we are left with their leavings."
The former royal family moves into the lowest apartments in a building near the castle in Ravaenna and await Julien to command their presence at court.
He does not.
"Why was he in such a great hurry to force us from our home, to return to court, when he had no intention of seeing us?" Felicite asks Anjolique. "Why could we not have remained in our own home, kept the children to their schooling?"
"It is a power play," Anjolique says. "It is a demonstration of his control over us. We are subject to his every whim, I am afraid. We rise and fall at his will."
Lady Margrithe and Felicite's mother do not waste the time spent waiting for an invitation to be presented at court; they order new dresses for Felicite, so as she can impress the king when she finally stands before him. They order headdresses and slippers. They spend hours fussing over her hair and discussing their own beauty in their prime. They try to distract her from thinking of Jolis, but she cannot help herself, despite the knowledge that she must let him go. She must forget him if she is going to bring her family and her people through this crisis.
And still they wait, with no word from the new king.
The waiting is perhaps the worst for her. She sits in this dreary room, secluded again (seclusion, sanctuary, is the worst form of punishment - to live in hiding; her younger sisters do not remember as she does, one time for an entire year did they remain in seclusion while her father was away on campaign); no court to surround her with laughter and music and dancing, no friends to keep her company, no word from the king.
It is enough to drive her mad.
Julien has not yet restored her title, nor her lands or her fortune. She is to be his queen and yet the servants still call her "my lady", as though she is a bastard and not the daughter of two of the greatest monarchs the werewolf world has ever known, and not soon to be the queen of three Kingdoms.
His silence tells her all that she needs to know.
He will not marry her.
This should be a time of great excitement, not only for Felicite's family, but for the entire kingdom. But no seamstresses have come to measure them for gowns for the coronation of King Julien. No representative from the Lord Chamberlain has arrived to give the Beaujolais family their places in the coronation procession. No horses are ordered for them to ride to the great Tower, where it is tradition for them to spend the night before the coronation. And no gifts from Julien to Felicite, as is proper for a bridegroom to send his betrothed.
It is the silence from her intended that leads her to the conclusion that she will not be allowed to attend the coronation, even if he does still intend to marry her, and she says so to Lady Margrithe when they are alone together.
Lady Margrithe shakes her head, and the fire has gone out of her eyes. "I do not think so, child."
"How can a king that I am to wed not invite me to attend his own coronation? How can he do this without me beside him? Is that not the point of wedding an Agincourt princess, to show the unification of the two houses? To demonstrate our peaceful union?"
"It is not you, dear Felicite," Lady Margrithe explains. "For when he sees you, his heart will ache for you to be beside him. But for now, they do not wish to see the great hall filled with Agincourts. Not so close to him, with the crown so new."
"Why not?" Felicite demands. "Does he not care at all for my feelings?"
"It is not about your feelings," Lady Margrithe replies, "and if you expect him to care for you as a husband should a wife, I fear you will be thoroughly disappointed. The truth is, if it were my son, a king who obtained his crown only by right of battle and not his own lineage, I would not wish to see him receive his crown beside a true princess of the blood, a true royal beloved of the people, and a stunning beauty at that. It will look bad for him, Felicite. It will make him look like the pretender he is, and he cannot have that. Not at his coronation."
"What does he look like, Lady Margrithe? King Julien, I mean?" Felicite finds herself asking despite herself. Her face reddens at the thought, but if she must wed him, she hopes he is at least handsome.
Lady Margrithe smiles. "I suppose I should tell you that he is quite ordinary, but if I were to tell you that, it would not be the truth. He is quite handsome. You will be a lovely couple upon your thrones indeed."
Felicite holds onto her foolish hope until the very day of King Julien's coronation that she will be invited. But as the day wears on, it appears that he has made a fool of her. Her heart burns with anger at the slight, an insult that outrages her to her very core.
Julien will be crowned alone, without Felicite at his side.
She tries to tell herself that this is flattering; that what Lady Margrithe said is true, that he does not wish for her beauty to steal the focus from the solemnity of the occasion. Perhaps her being a true royal, with him only a pretender, offends him in some way. As it should. He is not the rightful heir to the throne of the Three Kingdoms.
Will he not even use his coronation as a parade for his victory over Felicite's family? As a victory march celebrating the defeat of the old king? It does not make sense to Felicite, and her inability to understnd his motives frustrates her. He should want her beside him, and even if he does not, he should want to parade her through the streets, waving his Fleming triumph like a banner before the defeated Agincourts.
Felicite will not be permitted to watch him lay his filthy hand on her lover's crown, and for that much, she is grateful, for she did not know how she could bear to watch. Two crowns had been forged into one with the betrothal of Felicite to Jolis to signify the union of the Three Kingdoms, the first being the one worn upon the head of her father, King Remy the Fourth of Bruges and Bourbon, the second belonging to Jolis, King of Briony.
No message comes from Julien to confirm the decision, and for Lady Margrithe and Anjolique, this is an insult they cannot abide. Felicite considers sending a letter to him, or to even his Lady Mother, Saoirse, who has a reputation as a level-headed and kind woman, but her pride gets the better of her. She will not plead to attend a party, nor will she beg for a date for her wedding. She will wait, as her mother has insisted she do, and she will let him come to her. If he has decided not to marry her, then she will wait for another husband to be determined for her. There are still powerful alliances available, and she will do what she must for her people.
"We must go to the coronation, Mother," Claude whines. Claude's incessant pouting is making Felicite even more irritable. Margrithe has insisted that she maintain her control and not shift, although she is desperate for a run. Julien has forbidden it. He has decreed that she remain inside the apartments he has provided, presumably because she may run away. But if he is not to marry her anyway, why does he care where she is or what she does?
"We are not invited," Lady Margrithe says simply with a shrug of her shoulders. "It is a message, Claude. Nearly anyone with a name in all of the werewolf kingdoms of the world is in attendance. Our family's absence is a slight."
"It is an insult! He must at least have Felicite there."
"What if the people cheered for her, Claude? If they called out for her, the daughter of King Remy the Fourth and Queen Anjolique of Agincourt? You know how the people of Ravaenna love the Agincourt family. What if the people laughed at the House of Fleming and cheered for the House of Agincourt? At his very own coronation? He would be a fool to risk it. He will not," Lady Margrithe replies.
"But our family will be there! Our cousins will be there," Claude sighs.
"Turncoats," Lady Margrithe says, with a shrug of her shoulders. "All of them. Loyal to the king until their loyalty no longer suited them. They would back whichever man wore the crown when the dust settled on the battlefield. They are guilty of treason, and they are no kin to me."
"And so they should be there," Felicite snaps, irritable from the bickering, the waiting, the insult to her pride. She can take it no longer. "I am certain they will be as loyal to him as they were to Father and to Jolis."
Lady Margrithe gives a snort of laughter, and not even Anjolique can hide her smile.
"It saddens me to see you insulted so, dear Felicite," Lady Margrithe sighs. "It is an outrage. But we must play our hand if we are going to see our ambitions achieved."
"It is," Felicite admits, but she lifts her chin, refusing to pout. "But I only wish to be queen of the Three Kingdoms. I do not want him as a husband. So I do not care that he does not want me as his wife."
But she does care. He has hurt her feelings and wounded her pride and there is nothing she can do about it, except to pretend that it is of no consequence.
The younger Beaujolais princesses watch the coronation procession from the windows of the upper apartments of the castle as though it is a festive occasion. Cosette and Dulce, young and unaware of the great injustice done to their family, watch the festivities with eager eyes. They fawn and squeal over the elegance of the procession, the great horses that prance along the road, the colorful gowns and robes. King Julien appears on his great white charger with his long burgundy robe trimmed with ermine trailing behind him. Even Claude watches eagerly, seeking a glimpse of the mysterious new king.
Felicite watches with an air of curious contempt. She does her best to appear disinterested, but even she knows she is fooling no one.
Lady Margrithe is not wrong. Julien Fleming is handsome. Despite the distance, she can see the sharpness of his features, the golden-bronze of his hair. The brilliant, shining blue of his eyes.
Behind him is a gilded carriage that carries his mother, Saoirse, and behind her, astride four great black chargers, are the brothers of the king - Lucien, Florian, Torran, and Killian. She has only heard stories of them, certainly nothing favorable, particularly about Lucien. She hates them all, even those without a reputation to precede them.
Her eyes return to Julien and she presses her face to the glass pane as she studies him, wishing he were ugly, so she could have one more reason to resent her marriage, if it is to happen at all.
Julien's eyes shift to the window. He knows she is there. He knows she is watching.
He throws her a wave.
She wishes to strike him.
Julien throws his head back with laughter as his horse trots out of view.
Her hatred renewed, Felicite turns from the window, refusing to watch the procession further.
"Felicite," Margrithe says softly. "None of this matters. None of it. He will marry you, as soon as he is crowned king, and then we will have an Agincourt queen on the throne. It is the best we could have hoped for, at least for now."
"He shows little interest in wedding me," Felicite replies, gesturing at the procession below.
"It does not matter if he wants to marry you or not. He must. He won the crown only through battle, but if he wishes to keep it upon his arrogant head, he must keep his pledge to the people by wedding the Agincourt princess. You. The people of the Three Kingdoms will not accept him as their king. Not without you at his side. Whether he likes it or not, he will marry you. And everyone knows it."
"And what about what I want?" Felicite asks, although she already knows the answer. "What if I do not wish to marry a man who does not wish to marry me? What if I will not? Julien Fleming stole his crown through lies and betrayal and with the swords of traitors. What if I wish to join Jolis in death? Because my heart died with him!"
Margrithe remains calm as she faces down her raging niece.
"You are a princess. You have known all your life that this is what you were born for. To gain favor for your family, for the good of your kingdom. You will do your duty because you must, wherever your heart lies buried, whoever you want or do not want, and your father and I expect you to do so with a smile upon your face."
"You will force me? To marry a man I wish were dead? Because if I could trade his life for Jolis's, I would, without a second thought."
"Felicite, you know that we do not marry for love. Commoners have that luxury. Princesses do not. Jolis is dead. Julien lives. It is Julien we need now, and we will do what we must to keep him. Get yourself under control. Do it now."
"The Ancestors did not favor Jolis on the battlefield that day. And that had never happened to him before. We all believed his victory certain, even Jolis himself. It is not just you who staked your future and your hopes and happiness in Jolis's victory at Beaufort, Felicite. The hopes and dreams, the livelihoods and fortunes of hundreds, perhaps thousands, died with him," Anjolique adds, although her tone is softer than that of Margrithe.
"Is marrying Julien Fleming truly the only choice I have?"
"Yes. You will be Queen of the Three Kingdoms. You will restore the Agincourt name. You will keep peace in the Three Kingdoms. These are great achievements for a princess. You should be proud. If you cannot be proud, you should at least appear proud, Felicite. I love you, child, and I shall support you however I can, but you will wed Julien Fleming."