Archive of Our Own

After thrashing on the carpet in Jill's room, hamming up Madu's final (or was it?) death scene as much as he could, Clive suddenly jumps right back up to a standing position. "So then what happened after he died, is that Sir Crandall unties Sybil, and does his pledge." Clive drops down to a knee in front of Jill, and takes her hand, all very knightly — "Now that I am free of the bonds of kin, I can finally pledge my undying, singular devotion to thee, my dear Saint."

He pauses. "The next bit though, it was different. Usually she bids him to rise and he offers her his seal, but this time…" He runs to Jill's dressing table, grabs the first ring he sees, and then resumes kneeling, sliding the ring on her finger. "Please accept this token so that even when I am not by your side, all will know that I am, indeed, by your side."

"…Yes?" Jill affects a slightly confused version of Saint Sybil's voice.

"Er, that wasn't her line."

"I know, but this looks like a marriage proposal, and that's what you say when you accept a proposal."

"It's not…oh." Clive realizes he's still on one knee holding her hand, and suddenly lets go. Both of them blush, and then start to giggle.

"But why would they stage it like that? They can't get married. Sybil's a Saint." Clive is now simply Clive again, and sits cross-legged on the floor with his question.

"That's true, but if Sir Crandall is saying that he will be with her forever, and she accepts it, maybe it's kind of like getting married? What's the difference, anyway?"

"They never have a big wedding, and they never have children, is the difference."

"You don't need to have children to be married. The Lord Commander is married to Lady Hanna even though they don't have any children. Lady Hanna told me they didn't have a big wedding either. Just a scribe and your father. She said all you really need to be married is to make the oath, and then to keep it."

Both sit lost in thought, Jill turning the ring around her finger for a few moments, before Clive picks up the play. "Anyhow, Sybil's line is…"

Joshua runs down the hall despite Nurse's admonishments. He knows he needs to conserve his energy and that his lungs can't take too much running, but he's too excited to stop himself. His parents are both away, but Clive just got back from Uncle Byron's, and his nurse gave him permission to go play outside with him and Jill, so how could he not?

When he gets to the slightly ajar door, however, he stops in surprise, his mouth agape as Clive slides a ring on Jill's finger and says:

"Please accept this token so that even when I am not by your side, all will know that I am, indeed, by your side."

"…yes?"

The nurse startles him briefly when she silently comes up from behind and puts her hands on his shoulders, so the next thing he hears is: "this is a marriage proposal, and that's what you say when—"

Nurse reaches around Joshua and slowly, silently, closes the door all the way. "Let's give them some privacy, shall we?" she whispers in his ear.

Joshua reluctantly follows her, Clive and Jill, down the hallway and into the courtyard. He sits on a bench and pouts. Maybe they'll come by if he waits.

"I'm sure they'll come out here eventually," Nurse says. "And then you won't feel bad for interrupting an important moment."

"Was that a proposal? For getting married?"

"It sure seemed like one, don't you think?"

"Well, I'm glad," Joshua says. "That means Jill gets to be my sister for real. And they're going to have a big wedding, and that means a big feast and music! I'll get to go this time, right?"

"Oh yes. It will be grand, and I'm sure you'll play a very big part in it."

"I think Father will be happy. But we can't tell Mother about this yet. She'll get real mad."

"I don't doubt that. Let's not speak a word of this to anyone. Not even Clive and Jill, until they're ready to share the news with us first." She smiles and holds out her pinky. "Promise you will keep the secret?"

Joshua solemnly takes it with his own.

Joshua understands that a pinky promise is the most sacred of oaths, and never once speaks of what he witnessed to anyone. Not even when he was reunited with Clive and Jill eighteen years later, and found himself barraged with questions about their relationship from all of their associates and many of his.

However, Nurse understands that sometimes adults need to communicate with each other when they witness questionable behavior among the youth in their charge. A young nobleman proposing marriage to a princess at the cusp of womanhood, in her bedchamber, is very questionable behavior.

The Archduke is still away on a long diplomatic trip, and even if the Archduchess was home, which she is not, Nurse knows better than to approach her. The governess is likely the one who knows Clive and Jill bst among the household staff, so she wisely decides to seek her council.

"I'm not surprised," the governess says when she hears Nurse's tale. "They are always together, and both are at the age where they're starting to…notice the opposite sex, if you will."

"They did try to run off together on the last tour, too, remember?"

"How could I forget that," the governess says sarcastically. "Regardless, they won't be able to act on their engagement for a few years at least, and that assumes the Archduke approves. My only concern is that they may try to put the cart before the chocobo and do something to cause a scandal. We'll both have to be extra vigilant with those two from now on."

"I will be very vigilant."

"In the meantime, I recommend you keep this to yourself until he returns, and tell only him, no one else. You know how the rumor mill here works."

"Of course," Nurse says. Indeed, she does not tell anyone else, except for the Head Cook.

It is an unthinking, unfortunate slip of the tongue while fetching Joshua's dinner tray. Cook is gushing about some new potholders Jill had woven for her. "I hope she doesn't get married off to some asshole, she'd make a far better mistress than you-know-who," Cook says.

"Well, actually…" Nurse covers her mouth with her hand, but it's already too late.

Head Cook pries as much out of Nurse as she can, and swears on her mother's grave that she will not tell a soul. Fifteen minutes later, one of the assistants keeps pestering her about some sauce while she is deep in ideating mode, flipping through three illustrated books at once, and snaps, "shush, I don't want to get caught on my ass when I'm told to turn around a wedding cake for Clive and Jill when his father gets back!" She looks up and realizes that every single member of kitchen staff has heard her.

That evening, the kitchen staff who shared rooms with the housemaids catch up their roommates on the latest news.

"I heard he used a ring that used to belong to Jill's mother," one whispers. "So she can wear it, and no one will know that it's really an engagement ring."

"Ohhhhh the Archduchess is going to be so mad! I don't want to be anywhere near her when she finds out. She'll murder all of us."

Before sunrise, the maids cleaning out chamberpots share the news with the stablehands and gardeners, who then tell the weavers and smiths and potters in the craft shops.

"I knew it was coming," the silversmith says to the blacksmith, "so you know the ear cuff I had Jill practice with when she was last here? I've stashed it away for just the occasion."

"Yeah, I'll have to get started on her gift now, don't I?" says the blacksmith as one of the Shields walks in for some newly repaired practice swords. "Hey, Bryan, what's the protocol for the wife of the First Shield? You think she'd prefer a rapier or a dagger?"

"I've seen her take lessons," Bryan says, "definitely the rapier…wait, are they finally getting married?"

By sunset all of the Shields stationed around the castle now know.

"Smart lad, getting to the princess before any competition shows up," one says.

"She's the smart one," another says. "He's as loyal to her as he is to the Phoenix. You're not going to see that from any of those lords too haughty to wipe their own ass."

"If she's going to be hitched to one of us, bet that means we won't have to go fight up North anymore," an older one says. "Thank the Founder. Better to have those men on our side, not the other."

If Clive notices that his fellow Shields are smiling at him a bit more than usual, and being less flirtatious and more polite with Jill than usual, he thinks nothing of it. Neither do either of them notice an unusual number of stolases leaving the rookery; the spies embedded in the Castle are too good at their jobs for that.

A mere few days later, the rumor has spread throughout Rosalith City, through market visits and chitchat with couriers and castle staff at home for their days of rest. The next day, it reaches Port Isolde. Within a week, everyone in Rosaria, from the High Houses summering at seaside estates, to the bearers in their huts in Amber and Audhyl, know to expect a feast for the whole Duchy in honor of the First Shield and the Northern Princess, although no one is quite sure when they will need to break out their finest garb and secure lodging in the capital.   

"No wonder he wanted to go home early this summer," Byron says to Rutherford over breakfast. "Good for them!"

One stolas goes as far as Stonehyrr. Waloed's young Lord Commander hears the resulting intelligence report with curiosity and consults his map. He writes in his diary: Cementing the peace treaty through marriage may mean integrating the thegns into the Rosarian forces, now that the thegns are likely moving South. Their neighbors will be wary. I predict they will move for Drake's Breath within the year, lest the others seek to contain them first. His prediction does not quite come to pass, fourteen years later, he sees an extraordinary "bearer" defending a Dominant from a horde of Ironborn in the Nysa Defile, and knows that old rumor had truth to it.

Anabella finally gets word herself one day at court in Oriflamme, when a certain round of negotiations fall through, and a few ladies titter behind their hands that the Archduchess has lost control of her household. She keeps her public face and sweet voice plastered on long enough to retreat to her guest room. The servants in the hallway cover their ears to muffle the ear-splitting volume of profanity, and marvel at the variety of swear words from a lady too well-bred to have learned them. She cuts her visit as short as politely possible, and bids her retinue to hurry home so she can deal with, of all the people, Clive. 

Meanwhile, Clive and Jill spend their last weeks of parent-free summer vacation reading books and acting out plays and practicing swordsmanship and crafting things and wandering the gardens with Joshua. At no point do they realize that the entire world now considers them anything more than what they themselves know they are, which is the very best of friends. 

By the time Elwin is finally within the Rosalith Castle gates, he is finally able to keep down some broth and bread — the unspeakably wretched stomach ailment he picked up in Kanver followed him most of the way home — but he still had a pounding headache.

He makes straight for his office anyway. His illness was so severe that he refused any reports that were below the level of "Titan is stomping on Rosalith" or "The Fallen have Risen." Now that he is certain he will live, he truly can't put them off any longer. He can't see his desk for the piles of letters and stolas transcriptions covering it. He picks up the letter at the top of the pile; the rest teeter over the desk and make a mess that he can't be bothered to pick them up.

This particular letter, he realizes, is from the Silvermane. "That can't be good," he groans, and breaks the seal:

Archduke,

As you have not yet followed the common courtesy to let me know yourself, I am writing to confirm the glad tidings brought to me of my daughter's betrothal to the young Lord Marquess…

"What glad tidings? There's been no betrothal," Elwin mutters to himself, wondering what the hell happened while he was away. He continues to read:

Assuming that my sources are telling truth, I am pleased to learn of this match. The Rosfields may be our eternal rivals, but considering the circumstances, the thegns respect you for allowing one of our own to align with a fighting prodigy instead of a sickly young prince…

Anabella slams his office door open and marches right over to his desk. Her face was scarlet and her eyes daggers. She is supposed to still be in Oriflamme as a guest in Sylvestre's court. "Elwin! Your son has gone too far and you must do something about it now!"

"What has our son done now, Anabella?"

"He has gone and proposed marriage to our ward! Behind our backs while we were both away!"

"Ah yes, that. I just learned myself." Elwin puts down the letter, and notices that the next one in the pile is a petition from House Wellesley to put the proposed bethrothal of Clive Rosfield and Jill Warrick for consideration at the next council meeting. How did everyone else know this before him?

"He has no right to do that, and I know, just know, he purposely waited until neither of us could stop him!"

"So what if he did? We'll discuss it at the next council meeting. You know nothing can actually come of it until I get consensus."

"So he's ruined months of dowry negotiations with the Duke of Oriflamme, who was ready to commit to Jill's betrothal! Now that he's heard she's betrothed so someone else — my son, even — of course he's abandoned it, and thinks I played him a fool!"

Now he's your son? Elwin thinks. "Anabella, you would haved played him a fool anyway. When were you planning to tell me of this scheme, anyway? When it was too late for me to say no, because you know very well I would have said no?"

"It is my duty as Jill's guardian to secure the best possible match for her, not yours. And as her guardian, I know her future will be far brighter and more secure as a duchess in the Imperial court, instead of settling as a marchioness for a boy constantly away at war."

"Jill doesn't see it that way, and neither, it seems, does her father. Who also has a say in the matter, and who has already sent his blessings for this one." Elwin holds up the letter with one hand, while the other one props up his increasingly throbbing head.

"Why do you care what he thinks? He has no power! He is nothing more than a castrated savage fighting other savages over blighted scraps!"

"I intend to honor our treaty. The last thing we need now is a pointless war with the thegns because you'd rather insult the Silvermane than some glorified old priest."

"That glorified old priest has more wealth than our entire treasury, Elwin. You know we need those funds now that we're being overrun by all the freeloaders from up North. Not to mention the power and influence. You're an idiot, Elwin. We're giving up too much because you want to keep a promise to a man who no longer means anything."

"No, keeping the peace is worth more than maybe having some extra gil in our coffers. I'm not worried about the Duke. He'll find some other girl and forget all about this in a month." He finally puts down the letter. "Besides, if this is true, then it saves us both a dowry and a season of courtship and negotiations. No need to go through a selection process if they've both already selected each other."

Anabella rolls her eyes. "Selected each other?" She scoffs. "Elwin, people like us do not get to select who we marry."

Elwin gives her a pointed look. "That may true. But as you so often remind everyone, Clive is not the Phoenix. Nor will he ever need to produce one. He does have a choice, and as long as it is a good one, I'm inclined to let him make it."

He stares at his wife for a long time, waiting for…something other than that glare of hers. It does not arrive. 

"Even so, nothing is formalized yet. Let me talk to both of them and make sure they know what they've done first, then we can decide how to proceed." After a beat, "I'd rather talk to them alone."

Anabella throws up her hands, but she finally leaves him anyway. "You are all hopeless!" she says before slamming the door behind her. Elwin allows himself the luxury of ten whole minutes of silence to calm the ringing in his ears before sending a summons. 

He notes that Clive and Jill seem slightly confused when they enter his office, but other wise nothing about either of them seems out of the ordinary. Nothing like two teens with a secret engagement. No rings or other unusual jewelry. Clive isn't wearing any ribbons. They sit neither too far nor too close from each other on the sofa across his desk. 

"Congratulations on your betrothal," Elwin says. 

"What betrothal?" Clive asks, now extremely confused. 

"I'm sorry, I don't understand...?" Jill looks at Elwin with an unusual amount of suspicion.

"Your betrothal." When he sees the two of them look at each other, he adds, "The one that began with you proposed to Jill, Clive."

"What??" Clive leaps to his feet. "I've never done such a thing? What makes you think I did?"

"He's never proposed to me, Your Grace," Jill says, much more calmly. 

"And yet, everybody is certain that he has. By everybody, I mean your mother, Clive, and your father, Jill, and apparently the whole duchy." 

"My father?" Jill, finally, stands up. "You've heard from him?" Elwin passes her the letter. She's had so little correspondence from the Silvermane lately, even something like this might make her day. 

"He gives his blessings," Elwin says. 

"I see, but...how? I swear by the Founder and on Metia, Clive and I did not betroth ourselves."  

 "Then why does everyone think you have?"

"I can't think of anything." Jill looks at Clive. Clive looks at Jill. Elwin notices that their eyes both go very wide, and then they both look at opposite walls. Not guilty, more embarrassed. Interesting.

Clive clears his throat, and turns to Elwin. "I don't know what people think they saw, or did not see, but I also swear by the Founder I have done nothing untoward towards Jill. Including proposing marriage."

"I believe you. Both of you." Elwin motions for them both to sit back down. "It seems someone is spreading rumors, that's all. Well then, now that we know the truth of the matter, I'll just write your father and let him know—"

"Please don't!" Jill interrupts, louder than she usually does. Both Elwin and Clive stare at her.

"It's just…if it'll make my father happy, then I should do it, right?"

"You don't need to do anything you don't want to just because it will make him happy. You have a choice, Jill."

"Do I really?" The look she flashes Elwin then — rage and sadness burning behind eyes on a very still face — sends a shiver down his spine. People like us do not get to select who we marry — he will need have words with Anabella later.

"I am the Archduke and your lawful guardian under the current treaty, so if I say you have the freedom to choose who you marry, then no one can say otherwise no matter who or how important they are. So yes, you do, really."

"I think it might make me happy, to keep this engagement." She blushes and looks at her hands. Clive keeps staring at her, but his own face flushes too. "I mean, if I were to become a Rosfield, then I could stay here. I wouldn't have to go to Sanbreque and marry a stranger."

"I don't want you to go away either," Clive mumbles. Jill reaches out for his hand, and takes it. "Your Grace," he says, with conviction, "if it makes Jill happy to keep the engagement, then I want to keep it too."

"You do understand how serious this is, both of you? Once you are married, you can't unmarry."

They both nod. Elwin sees their hands squeezing. No wonder there were rumors. Even he can see that since the day they met six years ago, it has been a matter of "when," not "if," with these two. 

And if he has the power to help them make it happen, how can he not?

"All right. I will write your father and confirm a betrothal is in the works. However —" Clive and Jill look at him at the same time, with the same tilt of their head, hands still together, "I think you are both too young to make this decision. It will be at least four years before a wedding can take place, and that is a long time for people your age. I am, however, willing to let the rumors stand, and seek approval from the Council, as long as you are both well aware of what that implies. You are both aware, correct?"

They both nod solemnly. "Jill, once you reach your thirteenth birthday, if you both still want to go through with this — and you can back out at any time if you change your mind — I will then issue the decree, and plan a betrothal feast."

"Yes, Your Grace," they both say. Elwin wishes that his son would stop being so formal with him in private. He thinks that he wouldn't mind if Jill would think of him as a father-in-law someday.

"Now go, before you have to deal with your mother's temper." They get up to leave, and when he sees Clive's hand on Jill's back, he adds: "One more thing. Now that everyone knows you are courting, you need to be especially careful of how you behave around each other from now on. No more visiting each other's bedchambers, and keep some more personal space, even if you think no one is watching, got it?"

Clive's hand pulls back from Jill's back like it is a hot stove. He does hold the door open for her, and bows slightly as she passes through.

Elwin allows his head to drop into his palms as soon as they leave, and lets out a loud sigh. He rings a bell for some tea. It has already been a hell of a day.

"I'm sorry," Jill says once they are out of earshot. "I shouldn't have put you in that position. I didn't even ask how you felt about it."

"It's all right, really," Clive says. He has to keep reminding himself to keep his hand at his side, and to not reach out for hers. As his father had requested.

"Are you sure? I mean, it was very selfish of me to assume you'd want this. You haven't even started courting yet."

"I think I do want this, though." Clive says, "I'm glad this means I don't have to be put on the marriage market. I'd rather just stay at your side."

"I don't want to leave your side, either," Jill says.

"I'll think of a real proposal when it's time," Clive says.

"You mean like Sir Crandall's?" Jill teases. Clive groans.

"I can do far better than that! You'll see, it's going to be better than any play."

"I look forward to it." Jill's smile is finally settling into her usual natural self.

"That reminds me though — once we're bethrothed, you can spend the summer at Uncle Byron's with me. Since you'll be family and all. You're going to love his house, and the theater, and there's some beautiful gardens, and the market…"

"I can't wait," Jill says, and looks over her shoulder before squeezing his hand one more time.