Prologue
Noblesse Oblige. Nobility Obliges.
Silk, satin sheets, golden embroidery, pearls and jewels all cast glints of various forms and shapes in the creeping darkness of the night, interrupted only by the flicker of candles that briefly swatted the dark away in order to allow a young girl to read from a thick tome filled with runes and carvings.
Just outside the doors, the guards stood watch in their gambesons, the thick leather embroidered with the fleur de lis surrounded by twin black lines that encased it in a diamond-shaped square. Small lanterns illuminated the hallway, the silence of the castle interrupted only by the loud voices coming a scant few doors away that were unintelligible to the guards. The flames flickered, a gust of wind passing them by due to an open window at the end of the corridor.
"Boy or girl?" one of the two guards whispered to the other, his eyes without really much of a focus -a wall could only be 'that' much entertaining, and even then, just for 'that' many nights, before one started to ponder how to break the monotony of the night guard.
"They say it's going to be a girl," the other replied dutifully in a whisper of his own. It wouldn't do to wake the princess up, not that she'd be capable of hearing them anyway if she was asleep, since her bed was on the far side of the room. "It's taking her time though. How long has it been? Five hours?"
"Guess she really doesn't want to be born," the first guard snorted. "I wonder why. I wouldn't wait a second."
The second shook his head, the wide metal hat on his head shifting slightly as his hand gripped a bit more loosely on the wooden shaft of his spear. "Maybe Brimir's telling her what to do as his descendant?" he chuckled.
"If it's a boy though-is he going to inherit the title of Duke?" the first guard asked.
"Uh, no," the second said. "You know how Queen Marianne's the one with the crown-though King Henry's practically the one ruling so...unless the king passes a law or something about the noble having to be male to inherit-it's the firstborn that gets the title of 'Duke'. It would be 'Duchess' though...dunno how it works with more than one. Do they all become Dukes?"
The first guard shrugged lightly, and then exhaled. "You've been to the capital recently? Scarron's changed the menu again."
"No, I haven't had the time. Someone here is a family man," the second said, jabbing his thumb against his gambeson, "He just turned five-already trudging around in the forest with his friends and winning fights just like his dad did," the guard had stars in his eyes.
"Last I remember, you always lost your fights, Serrah Mud-Face the First," the first guard whispered with a dry chuckle.
The two guards abruptly straightened up and stopped talking the moment a door opened up from the far end of the hallway, where two of their fellow colleagues stood guard, but looked quite tenser and outright jumped out of the way as a maid made her way towards the room they were tasked with guarding.
The maid entered carefully into the room, and as the young child on the bed lifted her head, her blond hair shone against the candlelight. "Young lady...your mother knew you wouldn't be asleep," the maid said with her lips slightly thinned. She was one of the older maids, and honestly, she had changed more nappies than any of the others put together.
It didn't help that the Duke and the Duchess were probably planning on putting up an army of children since this was, apparently, their second and third child all in one. She knew her future meant double the number of nappies of the firstborn girl right in front of her-and no matter how cute she looked now, she had done her fair share of...well, that would be uncouth to even think inside her head.
"Is it a girl?" the child asked, closing the thick book she wasn't supposed to be reading in bed, but that she read all the same because she was the eldest daughter, and she really wanted to see if someone dared to challenge her over it. The thought that her mother might disapprove never crossed her mind.
"Come see for yourself, young lady," the old maid said, and the child did not need to be told twice. As she hurried in her nightgown to her parents' rooms, to her mother's side, her eyes widened briefly at her sight. Her mother had always been pristine and flawless, but this had apparently taken a toll out of her too. There, nestled in her mother's arms, where two lumps of cloth. One of them seemed to be crying, the other not so much.
"Twins," the wet maid spoke to her father, who was pensively looking at them both. "There's a healthy baby boy and baby girl for you to name, my Lord."
"Cattleya...and-" the Duke pondered, "Your father or mine?" he asked to his wife, who in turn looked down at the face of the sleeping boy, and sighed.
"He has my father's nose," the Duchess said in a whisper, "And his lungs," she added with a wry smile. "I suppose 'Henry' would be a good fit?"
The crying, if possible, intensified. The blond haired child settled on the side of the bed, her hands on the mattress as she pulled herself up to gaze into the clean face of her sleeping baby sister, and into the red-faced one of her baby brother who didn't really seem interested in stopping his cries any time soon.
"Why is he crying so much?" she asked.
"That's something babies do, Eleonore," her mother answered. "It's because they want something-that is why they cry."
The crying, abruptly, ceased. It was so fast it took a moment for Eleonore to understand that it had, indeed, happened. The newborn had grown quiet, a sudden change that was perhaps something babies did, but that still puzzled the young girl to no end. Then, the child's eyes slowly opened up and they stared, firmly, determinedly, quite poignantly too, at his older sister.
"This, Eleonore, are your little sister and brother," she said softly, "Cattleya Yvette and Henry Philippe De La Valliere."
As if on cue, it was now Cattleya's turn to start crying, and a few seconds later, Henry joined in the chorus of tears.
Thankfully, it would soon be the maids' problem to deal with.
