The celebratory ball had ended in confusion, a weak and humiliated Marie being rushed out with Willow at her side, Garwin's litter trundling him back to the room, and every shocked guest milling about having no idea how to proceed. The ballroom slowly emptied, and a horrified hush spread over the palace.
In Garwin's chambers, he stared dully ahead while Angel looked at him in concern. Angel had taken great strides in his ability to relate to people, but he couldn't find any words of comfort, and all he could offer was his supportive presence. Both men looked up as they heard women's voices in the hall. After a moment, Thayne entered with a hesitating look on his face.
"Milord," he began, bowing ever so slightly, "Her Royal Highness is here, and so is...her lady, Marie."
Garwin's brow furrowed, but he nodded, indicating that they might enter.
Marie entered first, her head held high and her cheeks streaked with tears. Willow followed, and she shrugged helplessly at Angel's questioning look.
"I would wish to explain," Marie began in a voice tight and high with emotion.
"Pray be seated milady, Your Highness," Garwin answered, his eyes never leaving the older woman's face. She complied with a grace that seemed surprising after her rather traumatic evening.
"I was raised by a farmer," she began to explain, her eyes never meeting with those of her audience. "He was a good man, a wonderful father and he raised me without ever telling me two things that would turn out to be somewhat important. One was that I was not a peasant. I was not told that I was adopted, so I had no way of knowing that my station was a bit higher than that of the common peasant wench. The other," she continued, her voice turning hard, "was that I was pretty. I may look like any woman past the blush of her youth now-- worn out, faded. But when I was young, I now know that I was a beauty. I never understood why the village boys stared so, why women got such strange looks on their faces if I smiled at their husbands. Fortunately, my adoptive father was well-off for a farmer, and he managed to keep me from any unwelcome advances until I was sixteen years of age.
It was one day as I stood beside him in one of our wheatfields that we heard horns and horses. Recognizing the sound of Royal Trumpeters, we both bowed low as the king's convoy approached. Unfortunately, I was curious, and I allowed myself a peek as the king came abreast.
That was when he stopped.
"What is your name, lass?" he asked in an almost friendly voice. I had high minded ideas about kings and how they were supposed to 'protect' their subjects, so I replied without fear. "I am called Marie, Your Majesty," I smiled up at him.
"A lovely name for a lovely girl," he answered. I never thought twice about it, because I assumed it was the sort of politeness they indulged in at court. I didn't notice the looks exchanged between his men, the smiles that were not as kind as an innocent girl would wish them to be." She paused, looking down at her hands sitting limply in her lap. "I have learned to notice more, now." She closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for her voice to regain some of its strength.
"I cannot remember exactly how it happened, but somehow the 'generous' king had offered me the great honor of a position working in his castle. I, of course, was thrilled beyond measure. A simple country girl, leaving the farm, going to the capitol city to live amongst royalty-- it was like a dream. All of my friends were jealous.
I packed up my few belongings and a few days later, was escorted by a royal guard to the palace. It was the first time I had gone more than ten miles from the house I grew up in, and to say I was excited would be a ridiculous understatement.
I won't bore you with descriptions of my first few weeks there- they were a blur to me, and so exciting I thought I would burst. The next important part of the story happened one day as I was dusting in a room that was rarely used. I suddenly heard footsteps, and the next thing I knew, the king and his entourage had entered. When he saw me, a look of recognition crossed his face.
"Marie, isn't it?" he asked. I curtsied shyly. He stared at me for a moment, then smiled. "Forgive us for interrupting your work." I had no idea how to reply, and I began to blush in confusion when he turned and left. Later that evening, as I sat with other girls over our dinner, a page came into the staff kitchen. He asked for me, and told me to follow him. He led me to a room I had never seen before, and there was the king."
Angel winced, for although he had known where the story was headed, to actually arrive there was something else entirely. He had first lived in an age when being lovely, poor, and female was asking for abuse; and he was sorry to discover that droit du seigneur could exist in any universe where men considered women to be for their use and nothing else.
"He flattered me at first, but I was so young, and I did not know what to do or where even to look. I blushed and was silent, because I was not used to handsome words or men. I think it was then that he became impatient, for I did not turn out to be the kind of girl he had anticipated. Most women would have been honored by the idea of a liaison with a king, but I was afraid of him. I was afraid of his strong hands and his rough cheek and his dark eyes. I wished to be back in the kitchen with the soft spoken women who had never thought to explain to me what my real reason for being employed in the palace was, but he held me so tightly..." Marie's eyes were screwed shut, and her breath was coming more quickly. Willow put her hand on her arm, and Marie clutched at it like a lifeline.
"Yet he let me go that night. I ran back to my room and cried like a child, hot tears of confusion and destroyed illusions soaking my pillow. I decided to leave the next day, but in the morning it seemed like I was overreacting, and I went about my chores.
The daylight convinced me to stay, and it was in the bright light of a huge bay window that he found me that afternoon. That was the day that I discovered 'divine right' isn't always to do with statescraft.
In the weeks that followed, I didn't ever think of going home. After all, there was nothing left to save myself from. At least that's what I thought, until one of the other girls remarked that I was always getting sick before breakfast. I went to a healing woman, and she told me the one thing a woman almost always already knows.
I had no idea what was to be done. I was wondering if it was even worth telling the king, when heralds were sent around the nation to announce the anticipated birth of an heir." Marie looked at Angel, and her eyes were almost tender. "Everyone was so thrilled to discover that you were coming. I figured there was no point in telling the king. My situation was ages old, but a legitimate child is always much more exciting.
That night, tired of silently weeping into my bed, I fled to the castle chapel. It was dark in the middle of the night, but I fell on my knees and let my sobbing echo around me.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I thought it was him and I tore myself away, only to find myself looking into the eyes of the queen. "It was Aylmar that did this, wasn't it?" she asked quietly. I was so tired, and I couldn't keep myself from falling at her feet in hysterics. "Your Majesty, please, I couldn't- I couldn't- oh please, don't send me away. I have nowhere to go. I have no one to help me," I begged.
"Of course I won't send you away. It isn't your fault," she told me. I looked up into her sad and kind eyes, and I tried to let her know how sorry I was. "I don't know how to care for a child," I whispered.
"A child?" her voice was shocked, and I realized that she had imagined nothing worse than yet another affair. Her hand absently passed over her own already swollen stomach, and her chin lifted. "I have never hated the women my husband chose," she said proudly, "because most of them were well able to understand his intentions. How old are you, dear?" she asked. I told her I was sixteen and she winced. "Well, seducing wenches is one thing that I am sad to say I am used to his doing, but deflowering maidens is not and never shall be." She gently lifted me from my place on the floor, putting her arm around my shoulders.
That night, I was placed in the care of the castle nurses, and under the queen's orders, I was to be guarded day and night. She had confronted the king, and told him that as my child was his as well as the one she was carrying, he would have to live with both children. I remember being surprised by the outpouring of sympathy from women in the palace, women who saw themselves in me, women who wished they could have protected me as no one had been able to protect them, whether from the king himself or some other man. A nurse named Agatha was my most constant guardian during those months."
"Aggie," Garwin murmured, a small smile on his face.
"Yes, Aggie. I had been told that she cared for you after- well, I'm getting there. The queen gave birth four months before I did, a beautiful baby boy. The king's advisors came up with lists of valiant names, but when she came to visit me and introduce her son, she always called him 'Angel'.
The day that I reached my ninth month, I received a letter. My father was dead, but he had written me during his illness. In it, he explained that I was not his daughter. A foreign nobleman and his wife had been captured in the course of war. The lady gave birth to a daughter in the barn of a softhearted farmer who had no interest in diplomacy, and she begged him to take the young girl. They would never had been able to escape with an infant, at least not if they wanted her to live. So that girl grew up to become a maid in the castle of the greatest enemy of her true country.
I had a second cousin here. Her name was Neile, and she was-"
"My mother," Willow gasped.
"Yes, your mother, who was by then betrothed to the king. The king who was at war with the father of my child." Marie's eyes flickered towards Garwin for a moment before returning to her lap. "Angel's mother told me that I must try and find my cousin, who would surely welcome me, as she had a reputation of kindness.
Unfortunately, I, as my mother before me, could not travel with a newborn babe, yet it was necessary that I leave as soon as possible. The Queen assured me that once I had discovered whether or not I would find myself in the good graces of my cousin, she would send my son to me.
The day that I arrived at this very palace was the day that the borders were closed. For five years, it was almost certain death to try to cross them, for it was a hideous war. I had no word of my child, and I prayed for his safety every night, fearing the wrath of his father as much as anything else. Eventually, the battles became less frequent and deeper in the countryside, and I finally received word of the queen. Word of the queen and not from the queen, because she was dead.
That was the day that I knew I would never see my son again, because no one else in the kingdom had the power to get him out of the country as long as the king did not wish it. All I could do was love my redheaded niece and dream of a dark haired baby boy with green eyes that run in the family." Marie's voice cracked with exhaustion and emotion. "When the war ended and the marriage was tentatively planned, all I could think of was that I might see him again. I did not even know his name, because I had left so soon after his birth. The queen had promised to choose one for me, but I never found out what it was...
And last night, when I heard that Aylmar had beaten a friend of the prince, for a moment I wondered if it might be him, if he was here, still suffering for the foolishness of a girl who didn't know what real life was until too late-" Marie stopped talking as Garwin moved. He crawled out of his bed, and although he couldn't stand upright, he was able to make his way towards her on hands and knees, since it wasn't a very far distance. Pulling himself up into a kneeling position by the arms of Marie's chair, he slowly wound his arms around her waist and buried his face in her lap. Her hands trembling with the separation of too many years, Marie wound her fingers through his dark hair, trying to remember the feeling of holding her son.
****
Willow and Angel made a mutual attempt to inconspicuously leave. Once they reached the hallway, they each let out a sigh of great relief. They made their way to the palace library and sat down together in front of a roaring fire.
"So," Willow began, "Does this mean we're related?"
Angel looked at her in surprise, then thought about it. "Well, Garwin and I are half brothers, and you and Garwin are...distant cousins? But you two are cousins through Marie, and he and I are brothers through my father, so I don't think so. Furthermore, are our bloodlines contingent upon this world, or the old one?"
"I don't know," Willow answered. "I just- well, in either case, I don't think we're related. Marriage to you is one thing, marriage to cousin you would be another."
"Willow? What exactly is marriage to me?"
She looked at Angel in surprise. "Well, I guess we're going to have to go through with it, unless we get home before then. Is that what you mean?"
"Not exactly. I was thinking more...are you worried about it? Dreading it?"
"Dreading it? Of course not! Granted, I wasn't expecting it, seeing as how I hadn't even declared a major yet back in Sunnydale, but no, I'm not dreading it. I mean, as far as freaky magical escapades go, this is relatively benign."
"Marrying me is benign. Okay, benign is good."
"No, I didn't mean it that way-"
Angel laughed at her embarrassed backpedaling. "Willow, for about two and a half centuries I was one of two things--a vicious monster or a guilt-plagued loner trying to repress a demon that wanted to kill everything in sight. Being called benign has been one of my many unrealized dreams."
Willow smiled, relieved. "So, how about you? What is marriage to me?"
"Well, at least I can keep my eye on you," he grinned.
"Oh, very funny." Willow's smile slowly faded. "I wonder how Marie is doing?"
"I was thinking the same thing about Garwin," Angel admitted. "He hasn't had it easy."
"Oh, but he had a friend like you, which had to have something to do with his turning out so well."
"And in return, I'm sure that you made Marie's difficulties easier to bear."
As Willow yawned slightly, Angel gracefully stood up. "You have had a long day, Princess. Shall I sort you to your chambers."
"La, milord, you are too kind," Willow replied, batting her eyelashes shamelessly. Taking Angel's arm, she giggled coquettishly.
"Should I be concerned that you're so good at that?" he asked mildly.
"Very," she replied in an ominous voice. As they reached the library doors, Angel stopped to face her. "All joking aside, Willow, I want you to know that we'll find a way to make this work. I don't know how long we'll be here, but I promise to do my best to prevent you from hating it here."
"I have no doubt that you will," she answered quietly. Together, they made their way towards the grand staircase.
****