The Memoirs of Lady Damassande

It is in the most troubled of times that people prove what stuff they are made of.  In adversity can we rise to the occasion, or falter.

Paloma de Preston, the Duchess of the Farin at the time, stepped in to fill Farin’s seat on the regency council.  Gillian le Vanse, the elderly Duchess of Tubor, asked her heir, recently adopted Lithmorran ward Nicki le Vanse, to fill her seat.  I could write a chapter on each of them.  Perhaps I may, another day.  Their stories hardly end or begin here, but the measure I caught of each of them was self-serving.  Decisions were made based on friendships, or simply neglected altogether.

And Vavard, my beloved home.  We can still not say with any certitude whether Duke Auberon dul Vericus executed his niece for patricide or assassinated the former duke and framed her for it.  I did not find him an incapable duke or ill-intentioned in any of my dealings with him, but there is little praise to be leveled, even without the questions of legitimacy.

There are others who proved their mettle in those times, for the better, or less so.  I think, though, that the one that most sticks out in my mind, who truly blossomed in this time, is the young woman who would one day be queen.

Before she was Queen, Royal Seneschal or even the Keeper of the Seal’s new bride, she was Cellan ab Chevalier, the timid daughter of the country count of Mont Innes.  If ever I had doubted that it was at least as much a difference from Vavard City to Lithmore City as it was from the country to the big city, meeting her would have certainly enlightened me.

I met young Cellan freshly arrived in the city, and overwhelmed would perhaps be an understatement.  She was sweet, though, despite the shyness, and friendly.  Cecil dul Montaigne was an old family friend, which only commended her, though perhaps she relied a bit much on that old tie.  I would be glad to call her a friend from early on, discussing clothes we might put her in and such things as that.

She certainly garnered attention.  More, I think, than she knew what to do with.  Prince Enakai for example, thought to court Cellan, and she looked to be uncertain of breathing in his presence. 

When Cecil was granted the new-conquered March of Edessa, she married him, officially at Charmaine’s suggestion.  Many young ladies at court should have been reluctant to be tied to such a land, wartorn and precarious, but Cellan was ever content in the match.  I don’t think, then, she thought of what it meant, or that it would one day mean his life. 

But then came Charmaine’s death, and the regency council.  And Cecil took his position within the council.  And in the turmoil of those days, the resistance against the council, the Keeper of the Seal’s new wife was a weak spot.  And a target.

I remember clearly, early on in this time, Cellan huddled frightened beside Cecil as they stood there, speaking of spending time in Mont Innes, because this stress was too much for her.  The righteous anger that she should be submitted to it, simply for who she was married to. 

It is true, perhaps, if one speaks in ideals; she had done nothing to deserve it.  But I was distinctly unimpressed.  That is the lot of one who dabbles in politics, and all who touch them.  She had been happy enough to see him in the position, but was now disillusioned of the political implications?  There were no attempts at her, merely talk of a threat.

That might have been the end of it.  Cecil might have settled down, and Cellan might have been nothing more than any other dainty noblewoman, but I think there is really no sense in pretending it now, given everything.  Scant months later, I think she would have been surprised at herself, holding court amongst the city’s ladies, bravely facing what need be faced, and herself starting to politic.  Perhaps with a mix of resignation and understanding, she stepped up to the challenge, the first steps towards those later things.

And though she may yet be delicate – she is after all a Lithmorran woman, for all my taking on the challenge to teach her Vavardi ways, on behalf of her Vavardi husband – despite that, she has found a strength as well.  And a fire, when she needs it.  The young Cellan I first met in the city would have hardly erupted on behalf of her infant twins, in protection of them against the talk of the omens, but the one she became certainly did.  And if I would not put my own force behind that issue, I can respect, and am glad to see, that she found that in her.

And I cannot help but wonder if she would have come to it, if not for the testing of those days.

If she had said those words in life, the ones written in her will, none would have batted an eye.  There would have never been a question of it.  None of it the slightest stretch of the imagination to those who knew her.  But now, in her death, Charmaine ab Harmon had lost either her judgement or her strength, or so he would have us believe.

Undue Vandagan influence.  The accusation was on many lips, Kaemgen ab Beauparlant’s chief among them.  Always charismatic, even then.

I have said before that living with his wife’s betrayal broke Kaemgen, but in this time, in the wake of Charmaine’s death, was when I learned how deep those cracks ran.  He spoke for Charmaine as her half-brother by marriage, nevermind that those ties were cut for Aureliane’s would-be crimes.  I think that he truly believed it, that he thought he knew her better than any other.  But his protests gave lie to that fact, for all he didn’t see it.  Always they were well and truly his own concerns and never hers.

Cecil dul Montaigne was an early friend on my arrival in Lithmore.  An unquestionably Vavardi man, I found him well-reasoned and worthy of my respect.  When I met him, he was what the sainted Cardinal Jochen ab Blackwell called his camerlengo, and in the following years he also served as Grand Inquisitor and then Cardinal himself.  When he stepped down as Cardinal, I had not thought it was something which was done, but I did not blame him for it; the weight Lithmore puts upon her Cardinals, the every detail of shameful sin which must be fought, is more than I would ever ask.

But I digress.  Whatever I might have thought of Cecil dul Ansari, dul Montaigne before his ennoblement, others held darker views.  Cardinal Aidan Samson saw the new Marquis publicly branded for his actions when he was Cardinal. 

And Aureliane confided to me that the branding was at Kaemgen’s urgings, based on private confessions and driven by old jealousies. 

I think it surprised no one when Samson disappeared a short time later; Charmaine never recognized Cecil’s branding except in the most practical sense.  Only recently appointed as her Keeper of the Seal, he continued to fill that role behind the scenes as his new wife took it on officially.

And in her final wishes, Charmaine requested that he take that mantle back up, and with it a seat on a new regency council that would rule, the first seat.  Is it any wonder that Kaemgen objected?  His gambit had failed and his enemy had suddenly become the most powerful man in the Kingdom.

Of course he did not use those words, and, of course, the arrangement was not a standard one. 

Ianka von Dusairus’s unborn son, the offspring of Prince Enakai, would be king, and until his majority, a regency council would rule in his place:  each of the Dukes and the Keeper of the Seal, Cecil dul Ansari.  Between them, they were to ensure that Lithmore was wisely governed, five voices to reach sensible and even decisions. 

Kaemgen protested that Vandago was behind this.  Charmaine would not have wanted this.  We should have her son Enakai as King and it was only through their meddling that she did not declare it so. 

No matter that she was quite clear in life that he would never inherit, after his actions at the royal summit.  And that Vandago was likely offended that neither the unborn king’s mother nor grandfather were to serve as regent.  And that Anastaci von Dusairus was soon found just as dead as Charmaine.  It was far easier to point to Charmaine’s trust of Anastaci, her Keeper’s brand, and the fact her will was changed only shortly before her death.

We fought, Kaemgen and I, in the days following Charmaine’s death.  His words were incendiary.  The people would not stand for it.  Vandago must be stopped.  Enakai should be crowned.  But I would not listen to his madness, and it drove a wedge between us.  I would not condone war, and I told him I believed Charmaine’s wishes were her own.  And I told Cecil of his rebellion, worried for his sanity.  He saw demons everywhere, overtaken by the suspicion that had become his life.  I think he truly believed them, in the dark place that his life had become, but I would not let it influence me against Charmaine’s words, whatever friend he might once have been.

And then he was gone, fled into hiding.

I worried for him, but the Kingdom needed me.  They would be hard times, especially if Kaemgen incited riot, and the Regency Council was untested.  I would advise them as best I could, rising to whatever challenges would be ahead in a world without Charmaine.