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The Diadem yielded up more treasures than Claudius could keep in Hebona’s saddlebag. There grew lush, impossibly large blooms, cotton bolls soft as the clouds they floated through, vines that lashed from the backs of beasts half-plant half-animal and that could be scavenged, after a blast from the Aetheromatic Auger. A very Stephanivien-like invention, Claudius thought. Or course he’d find some way to combine gathering with gunnery.
Claudius couldn’t complain, but there were only so many ropes he could weave before he had to give his hands a rest. His retainer, Reynaldo, took what he could to the markets — but between the Gridanian markets and Ishgard’s, even the ever-reliable Roegadyn couldn’t be everywhere at once.
“Then why don’t I handle Ishgard for you?” asked Gertrude.
“If only you could,” quipped Claudius. “Somebody, handle Ishgard.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. I’m certain I can get you a good deal. I’ll even enlist myself as a retainer, if that will expedite the process.”
A high lady of Ishgard working as a retainer. What would your husband think? Claudius thought, but did not say. He didn’t much care what that man thought.
Gertrude could be very persuasive, he knew. She must’ve caught from his look that he was considering it, because she said, “It’s no trouble at all, I promise you. I want to do it. I miss you, you know, and if I’m your retainer, you’ll have to stay in touch. Unless you’re willing to lose all the gil I’ve earned you.” And then she smiled with sweet mischief, and a laughing look that invited him in on the joke.
Perhaps it was that Gertrude’s particular brand of persuasion always worked on him. First it was the markets, and then she confided in him, “You know, I think I could take some time away for travel. I so rarely leave the city proper. Why don’t you send me on a venture?”
Claudius couldn’t deny her a single one of her dreams. “You’ll need armor, you realize. “ Before she could read a soft refusal in his words, he went on. “I’ll craft you something.”
“Armor from a Fen-YII craftsman! Yes,” she said to Claudius’s surprise, “I do know about that. Well, I’d be honored. I’ll go find my old bow.”
As a retainer clad in glamoured armor, Gertrude bowed low and introduced herself anew. Her well-worn bow looked natural at her back, a part of her like wings to a dragon. “How do I look?” she asked, and Claudius wasn’t sure how to answer. He’d debated so long over dyes and prisms, on whether rolanberry reds would suit her best, or pale rose pinks. Red brought out the fire of her hair, a flickering flame that framed her face with blue eyes at its heart.
“Like yourself,” Claudius said, and she laughed.
“Is that all?”
There were days Gertrude looked like a shadow of herself, in the Helsingore Manor, tracing the same weary steps without passion or purpose — or gazing out a window, untouchable in thought. She hid it from Claudius as best she could, of course, flicked on a smile whenever he approached, and pulled up her gloves. Long gloves, to hide the marks along her arm, where her husband held her too hard while berating her for some imagined slight.
Sometimes Claudius would overhear her humming songs, to herself or to the infant Hamlet — soothing cradle-songs, songs in praise of the Fury, songs from faraway and above the clouds. Sometimes her voice would rise with swelling hope, and sometimes Claudius would hear it break from melancholy.
If Claudius had any talent as a bard, any skill in stirring his allies’ heart with song, he borrowed it from Gertrude. “It’s no meager thing, to look fully yourself,” he said. He crossed his arm behind his back, and bowed low to give the statement due solemnity. “There is nothing more beautiful.”
That surprised Gertrude — it surprised Claudius, to hear himself say it. But she covered it well, as she always had. “You are too kind.”
Before Gertrude’s first venture, she and Claudius met to take tea together, at a cafe in the Empyreum amid the new adventurers’ districts. “So," Gertrude said, primly, delicately — regally, Claudius thought, and he'd taken tea with a sultana. Gertrude put cup to saucer with a royal's grace and switched subjects like a career diplomat. "About you and Lord Aymeric ..."
It took all Claudius's noble bearing not to melt into his chair. Somehow, through force of will, he kept himself sitting upright, and only raised an eyebrow. "What, precisely, about us?"
"I'm not as sheltered as you think, Claudius. You must remember I am your older sister." Ah — that familiar twist of pain and gratitude whenever she called herself his sister. She said it sweet, and teasing, and Claudius should never have agreed to meet with her. He should've left it at a letter, or ... "Please, don't be embarrassed on my behalf. I think it's wonderful."
“I wouldn’t expect such a relationship to meet the approval of the nobility of Ishgard.”
“Oh, in our parents’ generation, perhaps. But the lord speaker is an elected position, yes? I’m sure he doesn’t have to worry about strategic marriages or raising an heir. But if you wanted to adopt … I know you’re quite good with children. The orphans at Rolanberry Fields told me how you helped them complete their first tradecraft leve.”
“Are you planning my whole life with Lord Aymeric?” asked Claudius, more bemused than offended. He liked Lord Aymeric well enough — no, that was too mild an expression. He found Lord Aymeric fascinating, charming, socially adroit, and just idealistic enough. He never thought, until Haurchefant, that he liked idealistic men. Ishgardian idealism used to frustrate him, so much blind and empty optimism to justify fighting the same pointless war to its end, because Ishgard had to win and no one cared what winning meant. But with the promise of peace, idealism became a balm. Claudius liked to listen to Haurchefant tell him what he believed the future could be — he made a future imaginable.
And having dinner with Lord Aymeric, trading stories from his travels for stories of politicking and peacemaking, making Aymeric laugh with his commentary … he felt the same way. It had been the same with Francel, playing piano in the Firmanent. The feeling that a new future could unfurl between them.
But Gertrude would always be his past, and it was hard to turn away.
“It’s a life you can choose,” she said, her voice warm. “And as I said — I think it’s wonderful.”
Claudius had to ask it now, or he never would. “Do you regret the choices that were forced upon you?”
Her eyes darted down from him, gazing into her cup of tea. “I haven’t always been the perfect wife.”
“You shouldn’t have to be the perfect wife.” You’re perfect as you are. “Do you regret having little choice in the matter?”
“I … worry about my son,” she said. It was the only thing — Claudius realized — she felt safe saying. “When I see House Haillenarte, I wish I’d had more children. They’re true friends and allies to each other, aren’t they?”
Claudius released the breath he’d been holding in a sigh. “Not all siblings are.”
“Still, a young man’s friends are his future. They help him become an adult. I’m afraid … Hamlet’s future won’t be in Ishgard. Will you look after him, if he ever decides to leave?”
Like you did, she didn’t say — she’d never reproach Claudius for abandoning her. Claudius wanted to say no, absolutely not, he’d stopped trying to befriend Hamlet when Hamlet started innocently repeating his father. It was dangerous to be close to his nephew — dangerous for his nephew, most of all.
But what was Claudius truly afraid of? And was it any worse than the fears Gertrude must have faced?
“If he does,” Claudius said, “then yes. I promise.”
“Very good,” she said, and smiled — not the shadow-smile she forced through pain, but a bright and steady flame. “And do keep in touch. Remember: I have your gil.”