Is the Law of Our Side?: Part Eight

"To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms?"

November 23rd

“I don’t feel good…”

“No, don’t fall behind, Hermia. Come along, quickly.”

“Where are Father and Tybalt? And Nurse? Why aren’t they here?”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I will find them all. Now, be a good girl and take my hand. It’s only a little further.”

"What if the bad people coming looking for us?"

"If it isn't safe to stay here, then you two must go to the manor house as quickly as you can."

"But how do I know if we should stay or go? We didn't practice that, Mother, and I feel so strange..."

"You'll feel better soon, I promise. Just be brave until I come back."

"We have to go, right now."

"Tybalt? You're all... your hair! And w-why do you have that axe?"

"I want Father and Mother to come!"

"Shh! We have to leave now, before someone finds us. Come on."

The Capulet siblings had gathered in the cozy, informal sitting room preferred by Hermia and her family. A low table in the corner, reserved for toys and scribblings, stood as a testament to happier times. In the present, there wasn’t a drop of joy in the entire room. The three siblings sat in utter silence, suffocated by a fresh grief for their parents.

Between them, the fire was not a normal topic of discussion. Losing their mother and father had been devastating, but it had not been the whole of the crime. They themselves had also been marked for death – poisoned, so they might burn alive in their beds like good children. It had not been a history lesson or a tale used to explain why they all knew of a hiding place in the orchard. Their home had been put to the torch, their lives ruined. Such enormities had been too much for the three of them, so they had formed an unspoken agreement not to revisit the night. Once, the pact had been a sensible defense, but it had hobbled them over time. They did not know how to talk to each other about that night.

Juliette tried to force herself to open the topic, as she thought a would-be leader ought. The early attempts did not take. None of them wanted to talk, but it was necessary. In the end, she leaned hard on her sway over her brother. “I think we must be certain of what we know about Mother's actions. We may have confused our memories over time. Tybalt, tell me again what Mother said before she left you.” When her brother did not answer, Juliette’s unease compounded every second that he continued to stare at the crackling hearth. “Did you hear me?”

He did not, not immediately. The flames beside him, though a harmless domestic fire, roared in his mind as he unwillingly remembered that night. He could almost smell his hair burning. Idly, he brushed the nape of his neck. Most of his ratty mane had been hacked off by his mother when the ends caught fire; the remainder had been cut away to neaten his appearance for the funeral.

“Tybalt!”

Swept back into the present, he shook his head and finally looked her way. “Sorry, Jule. What did you say?”

“I asked if you’re sure Mother didn’t say anything to you before she… left.”

He winced at the pain in her voice. That was the official story: his mother had woken him, armed him, and then dashed off to find his father. The tale was of his own crafting, the work of an angry young man who couldn’t make sense of what had happened to him and didn’t want anyone else to try. Looking at his sisters, now both mothers themselves, he realized the tale had outlived its usefulness. “She didn’t run away. I left her at the stairs.”

Juliette’s eyes flew open, if not wide enough to see her sister’s jaw drop. “What?”

“I begged her to let me be the one to look for Father or to just leave with me, but she wouldn’t do it. She said she couldn’t abandon him.” He shifted in his chair, and its slight groan reminded him of the terrible sounds of the burning house. “The situation inside deteriorated, and she stopped arguing with me. She told me that she was going to find Father, that you two were in the orchard, and that… that I had to decide who to help.”

Unlike her sister, Hermia was not too stunned to shout, “Then why you did tell us she just ran off?”

“Because I did! God, when I found you two, my blood was rushing. If anyone had crossed our path, I would have taken their head in one swing. But when we got here, when we were safe, it all went out of me. Then all the questions started, and I just said the thing that sounded the least awful. I wouldn’t let anyone think she would have really abandoned the two of you. She just wanted to make me go. When I came to my senses, I told Grandfather the truth, and he told me to leave well enough alone because the truth wasn’t that different and that you two were too upset and too young to understand it.”

“Then, maybe!” Hermia threw up her hands. “I think we’ve been old enough for a while to understand the finer points of parenting a stubborn lummox like you!”

Sitting beside Hermia, Juliette tried to compose herself, but her fingers only streaked the freshly-shed tears across her damp cheeks. “Did you really think that was better than the truth? How could you let us believe that all this time?”

“I…” He tried to consider his options, but Tybalt’s mind was still racing too fast for anything but the truth. “I don’t know. The more time that passed, the less any of us wanted to talk of–”

“Oh, don’t you dare try to feed me that tripe! It was you who didn’t want to bring it up, because you didn’t want to remember that you couldn’t save–”

“Hermia, that’s enough!" Juliette wailed. “You don’t want to say something you can’t take back.”

“Why would I want to take it back?” Hermia’s glare lingered on her sister a little longer than she had intended before she turned back to Tybalt. She had never been half so forgiving of his faults as Juliette, and these revelations had pushed her over the edge. She was pregnant, exhausted, and out of sympathy for her thick-skulled brother. “Can you comprehend what a complete and utter moron you are? No reasonable person – that is, anyone who isn’t you – thinks that it was your responsibility to save Mother. The worst thing you did was drag it out until she had to twist your arm into choosing to live. For Heaven’s sake, you let us think she just ran off when you were absolutely stupid enough to have followed her! Do you have any idea how hard it has been not to be furious with her for that!” At the end of this speech, Hermia’s eyes were stinging and her hands so tightly clenched that her freshly-trimmed fingernails nearly cut into her palms. She almost jumped out of her skin when Juliette touched her arm.

“I do.”

With the fire pulsing in one ear and his sisters’ wretchedness in the other, Tybalt thought he might run mad. He was indeed, by Hermia’s standards, incapable of reason because he could not shed all responsibility for their mother’s death. With all the anxious energy that had coursed through him in that moment, could he have not overpowered her? Could he have not saved her and changed all their lives? She would be alive now, and he would not have made it so his sisters would be further hurt on a night when they needed no more heartbreak. He would not be smarting under Hermia’s rebuke with no way to repent or even to relieve himself. He wished it was blood tainting him instead. If only it were blood, if there were only an enemy who could be killed to make it all right again! 

He closed his eyes. Immediately, his mind indulged in the unspeakable. Tybalt pictured his aunts, pale and panicked, alone and disarmed, desperately babbling to convince him not to end their tyranny with a single slice. If he pressed a little harder, they would break and confess their plan to make his father a faithless libertine and to make his mother, their own sister, a madwoman. A little harder still and they would promise to cede everything to Juliette at once, if only he would spare their lives. Tybalt could feel the hilt of his sword imprinting into his hand, which clenched at every brazen lie. He could feel it shift forward.

So they sat, the Capulet siblings, straining under anguish and anger and reaching for what they had long ago lost. Their would-be tormentors could hardly have hoped for better than the trio to be so badly affected – and without a whisper of the wretched tale reaching a single Montague ear. Indeed, they would have been pleased beyond words to have their plan betrayed, if they had but known how it would be.

It was so perfectly done that Juliette did wonder if it wasn’t all by design. It seemed smarter and safer to exploit enemy spies than to speak of this in public. The extreme anger of Lord Montague could not be dismissed lightly. Anger could cover many flaws. However, if her aunts were so clever as to detect and use spies, why would they have waited so long? Why was it now, only now, that this plan had bubbled to the surface? It seemed almost reactionary - but to what? She had already given her testimony. Tybalt was next, but he had nothing shocking to reveal. He had only overheard the conversation in which their grandfather and aunts had provisionally worked out the leadership of the family until she was of age. What was there to fear of that? She supposed they might think he would lie for her sake, but what could he have to say? What could he possibly pretend to know?

With a hard swallow, she decided it didn’t matter, no matter how it bothered her not to know. The lie had already brought them to their knees in private. If this filth were spewed in public, she and her siblings would drown in it. She couldn’t have that. If she and Hermia and Tybalt regressed into their past selves, into those scared and angry orphans they had been, they would lose the fight - and with the fight, lose everything else.

Pangs of responsibility had come upon her as she commiserated with Hermia, and they were growing rapidly. No-one could change the past. Their parents were dead before their time and beyond their children’s reach for so long as they lived. Memories were all that remained, and those memories were to be protected. Blame would not be shifted from old Lord Montague, for whom it had not been enough to merely try to burn her and her family alive. The old villain had paid for their last meal to be doused in a sedative, to make certain that no-one had the strength to escape. Juliette’s mother, feeling too poorly to eat all that day, had foiled his plans for three innocent children. She would not be demonized. Juliette’s father would not be transformed into a libertine whose betrayals had driven his wife to madness and murder. Juliette would not bend to fear.

She was sick of fear. She was sick of fear defining her family. Fear was for enemies, for those who would do harm, not for one’s own flesh and blood. It was not a path to honor or glory, and it was not a substitute for respect. True, most of the realm feared the ire of her aunts and cooperated with them; Juliette did not need to be a seasoned politician to realize that. But how could one build for the future on fear? Even if one created another generation capable of inspiring fear, what of the one after? The heiress would eventually come who was incapable of upholding such a legacy. What then? What happened to the unfeared tyrant?

 
Her aunts, of course, thought they were in the right. They were reshaping the family according to their vision. To a certain degree, it was perhaps even understandable after such a grievous insult to the family as the dower house fire was. But Juliette would not subscribe to their philosophy no matter how well she understood it. She would be better than those who would harm her. She would not raise her daughters to fear and be feared. They would be a credit to their name, as would they all, the entire House of Capulet, even if the doing fell to someone as ordinary as she.

And the way to that future was, like any other path, to begin with one step.

“They have to be stopped. I refuse to have to hope my children believe me when I tell them their grandparents were good people. I refuse to worry that my children aren’t safe in their cradles from their own blood. I will not stand for the three of us being known as the children of a madwoman. The past - what happened that night, what has happened since - cannot be changed. We can only save our parents’ memories, and I cannot do it alone. I need both of you, more than words can say, and we all must put the past to rest if we have any hope of changing the future.”

Hermia and Tybalt glanced at each other and formed a silent accord instantly. Even if they could not reconcile in an instant, they could abandon the argument. They could also agree on one point: both desperately wanted to seize this opportunity to finally protect their parents.

“What should we do?” Hermia asked.

“Our first priority must be to stop the lie from being spread.”

Five years of formal academics finally found its use when an ancient proverb popped into Tybalt’s head. “'Slander boldly, something always sticks',” he grumbled.

“And it will stick with that horrid Lord Montague. He blames us for his wife’s death when even his own father agreed it was not our doing! If our aunts present him with the opportunity to justify that blame, we shall have a catastrophe on our hands.”

Tybalt shifted in his seat, leaning subtly away from the fire. “We cannot be blunt about it without endangering Lady Summerdream’s spy. Anyone who quits Aunt Goneril’s household now will draw attention.”

“Titania has risked a great deal for us,” Hermia sighed, rubbing her belly all over. “If she is disgraced or her spy harmed…”

Juliette assured her sister. “I will not allow that. Whatever we decide to do, we will not implicate Lady Summerdream or the Fae.”

But what are we going to do?

The question hung in the air, and none of the siblings had a complete answer. It was time for six heads to be put together. Silently taking it upon herself to arrange it, Juliette rose and walked toward the door.

“OH!”

 

---

“Are we sunk?”

Fitzwilliam glanced at the wine but, though tempted, resisted the urge. He needed his wits, however careworn they might be. “I don’t know.”

The two were languishing in the small study Fitzwilliam had temporarily claimed. Several such rooms had been offered, all of them larger, but he saw value in a small room. He didn’t want to work in a gathering place, in a would-be venue for quarrels, idle chatter, or impromptu war councils. He needed quiet for his work and his sanity. That he could reach the room without venturing through the portrait gallery was also of great private importance. Even if it was nothing to his study at home, this work space had served him well.

Yet, he was now racing his best friend to the bottom of a bottle while the room still echoed with the most dramatic, heart-wrenching scene in the house since the death of old Lord Capulet. Juliette, Hermia, and Tybalt had excused themselves to grieve the revelations in private. Georgiana had gone to arrange their mother's departure. Puck and Fitzwilliam had thus been left to commence planning their counter-attack. They had yet to attack anything but the wine.

“I confess, I don’t know where to begin.”

Puck groaned. “Then we’re done for. You’re supposed to be the intellect. I’m only here for morale.”

“If you weren’t completely drunk-”

“You’re just jealous I got there first.”

“How can you be joking right now?”

“How can I not? How else can I bear it? We’re royally, utterly, completely, totally, and immutably fu-”

“We’re not! Not yet,” Fitzwilliam ground out. “If thought we were, I would admit it. If we had the time, a few days, surely we could…” As he glared at the fire in the hearth, an odd memory struck him. “Do you remember that game we used to play on the checkered floor in the entry hall at my house?”

Puck scoffed, “I remember you turning purple whenever I changed the safe color.” His first genuine smile in hours appeared, warming his own heart. “I loved that game. I was so much better than you.”

“That you were.”

“Yes, I was, and you should feel honored to be in the presence of the undisputed champion of… of… of whatever we called that game.” Puck’s heart crashed to think of all the occasions they might soon have for rematches, but he had just enough wherewithal not to speak of it.

“I kept playing because you were better than me. I wanted to be quick-footed like you.” Before the haze of fond memories could consume him entirely, Fitzwilliam pushed on. “That’s what this feels like, that game. The right steps can become the wrong steps out of nowhere. Nothing is stable, nothing is safe. And now it’s real.”

In the uneasy silence that settled upon him, Fitzwilliam let his thoughts drift past the boundary of reality. He revisited the terrible apparition of Juliette, that bitter woman so broken by her struggles for power, who did not love him. ‘You were a pawn in a game’. He also remembered the living mirror of himself, the haughty and selfish answer to Fitzwilliam’s pleas for the chance to be better. ‘My family does not follow noble relics who have outlived their time… Mother and Georgiana are safer… I thank God that there aren't any Capulets in Percria.’  Worst of all, he saw the ghost of his father. He saw the man he so respected, he so wished to make proud… and of whom had been so distastefully ashamed since their meeting in the ether. He knew he would not live to uphold his family’s legacy, and yet he chose it over his own. He brought his family into tribulation for it. Will I do differently? Do I do differently now, planning for a future lived in fear, because we dared to fight for her family’s good name? He leaned forward until his head rested in his hands, which scrunched up into fists against his temples. “Do they think themselves impervious to the consequences? Who in the realm would not hate them if they instigated a war?”

Puck snorted. “Weren't they the ones who coined, ‘let them hate, so long as they fear’?” 

They indeed ruled through fear, and such tactics were anathema to Fitzwilliam even without the direct threat to his family. Still, he would be a happier man if he did not have to fight them to be rid of them. A battle never had a certain outcome. Why did they not have the good sense to be afraid for their own interests? Could anyone be so self-assured? “I confess, this development is beyond anything I anticipated, and we have so little time. I wonder if I am quick enough to play my part.”

“You damn well better be, Fitz! Who else is going to? Not me, good sir. I’m drunk.”

“Only because you keep drinking.”

“See? You really are the intelle- hey!”

Fitzwilliam put the bottle out of his friend’s lazy reach. “Your wits are also needed. One more glass will fix you for the rest of the night as either a philosopher or a matchmaker, neither of which is helpful.”

“I’ll have you know, I happen to have a perfect record of arranging marriages.”

“The only marriage you have arranged is your own, which required a clandestine operation under cover of darkness.”

Puck cocked his head thoughtfully. “I suppose I would have to break Will’s teeth if he followed my example to marry Elna.”

“We’ll see about breaking things if you impugn my son’s honor again.”

“Will your empty threats never stop? Can you possibly focus on the matter at hand for even a moment?”

“Can I focus? You were the one who…” He stepped back from the tangent’s brink and took a deep breath. “We’ve had too much to drink. I’ll pour some water.”

Puck watched lazily as Fitzwilliam swapped out the wine. This brief rest let a finer point bubble up through the hazy nonsense of his mind. “I feel like I ought to feel something about my mother lying to me.”

Fitzwilliam handed him a glass of water and sat down again. “Do you really have the wherewithal for that right now?”

“If only,” he sighed, swirling his water. “I’m four-fifths worried about Hermia, one-fifth grateful we weren’t ambushed, and, oh, maybe five-eights wine, too. I’m full-up. Later, though… oh, damn it, Fitz! Why didn’t she trust me?”

“That’s a fair question. If I had to venture a guess, I would say she was trying to shield you from the consequences.

“Probably. I don’t have a leg to stand on, anyway, do I? I wrote a letter begging my parents for help.” In one swig, he drained his glass. “And look how well that turned out. Morale has never been lower. Though I say it myself, well-done, Puck!” Miserable, he slumped in his chair.

“Right, it’s time for you to stop talking.”

“I know.”

Fitzwilliam tugged Puck’s arm. “Listen to me. Having a knack for raising spirits is just part of your talent for turning bad situations around. You are remarkably good at it - I should know.” He took a long sip of tepid water to quiet a bloom of old anxieties. “Yes, we are a miserable lot at the moment, but it is infinitely better to be miserable now and prepared than to be ambushed in court, as we would have been if you hadn’t written that letter. If we prevent this slander, it will be because you had the courage and the humility to ask for help. Call it whatever you like, but it was your doing and certainly not a joke.”

“Ugh, stop being right all the time,” Puck whined. “‘Look at me, I drank too much but I still make sense. Naaaah.’”

“Was the last bit really necessary?”

“It might have been the only bit that was necessary.”

Fitzwilliam sighed. “You know, most people have one drunken persona.”

“Not me. I’m a mélange.”

“Then you and your mélange are going to be quiet for ten minutes. We both need to have our wits about us so we can help create some sort of plan.”

“You cannot raise my spirits and then expect me to keep quiet! You must be an imposter! What have you done with my Fitz?”

“Ten minutes, starting right now.”

“Fine! But when this is all over, we’re going to get spectacularly drunk together, and you are going to listen to every one of my–”

“Puck, Hermia thinks the baby…” Tybalt abandoned his words for a quick hop back, making room for his brother-in-law’s dead sprint.

Fitzwilliam shook his head with a slightly wry smile. “Has everyone been sent for?”

“Georgiana is seeing to it.”

“Juliette?”

“With Hermia.”

“... wine, then?”

“God, yes.”

The brothers-by-law sat, though both knew it would not be for long. Puck would need handling once he was excluded from the birthing process. They drank in companionable silence, fortifying themselves for the task and a very long night.

---

“I am very sorry we put you to the trouble of coming out here. We all truly thought the time had come or we should not have sent for you.”

Father Laurent assured her he had not been put to any trouble. “I have been called to many false labors. Do not ever hesitate to send for me, my lady. I am at your disposal whenever Lady Hermia’s laboring begins – or is thought to begin.”

Georgiana lowered her eyes as they descended the stairs. “Then we shall not, for there is not another priest we… we would prefer.”

Though he merely nodded, the priest had not missed the hasty correction. He was, regrettably, glad of it for reasons beyond just pastoral care. Such wild rumors were flying about as of late; the word “Yacothia” was ringing in every pair of ordained ears in the land. If troubles were brewing in the ruins of that holy city, Father Laurent would certainly be better off with noble allies than without. But he pushed those thoughts aside for another pressing matter as he set foot in the great hall beside Lady Georgiana.

He had known her since the days when "Miss Darcy" seemed too grand a title for such a small, shy thing. Not half a year ago, she had glowed in the cathedral as Father Laurent wed her to her brash lord husband. Now, she looked ashen and weary, just like all the other inmates of the house. If God had seen fit to grant him an interview with all six of them, Father Laurent would have been very thankful, but he would never turn up his nose at any chance to soothe a troubled soul. “If there is any other matter on which I can provide guidance or comfort, my lady…”

She paused on the highly-polished stone floor, looking every which way for an unwanted audience. "I appreciate your concern. But I think I..." As she smoothed her skirts anxiously, her words stopped as her hand grazed the pocket sewn into the right seam. It was where she had tucked away Juliette's signet ring, the one needed to seal orders sent to the gate on nights like this. Slightly hesitant, she looked up at the priest. "Is it wicked to struggle with forgiveness, Father Laurent? If someone has said the words but struggles in their heart to truly forgive a hurt, are they wicked?"

As they were not within the confessional or even a private place, Father Laurent gave no sign of his knowing exactly of what and whom the lady spoke. She was right to protect her husband's name. "God wishes for us to forgive so that we, in releasing our hurt, do not suffer more than we must. To forgive is not to forget, but the kind heart may yearn to absolve. It is a hard thing to attain that level of grace in the best of times, my lady."

"But not impossible?"

"I would say very near to it, indeed." Father Laurent held her gaze. "It is no small thing to reopen a heart clutched with fear. Prayer will help, as will remembering that one can only do one's best each day. Forgiveness is a good and great thing, but great things are rarely the work of a moment." After allowing her a long moment to reflect, he gently asked, “Might I step into the chapel before I depart, my lady? I would regret passing up the opportunity to say a few prayers in such a fine place.”

“Certainly. But would…” Georgiana took a moment to gather her courage. “Would you mind terribly, Father, if I accompanied you? I find myself with several prayers to say tonight.”

---

Juliette watched the midwife depart, strangely caught between relief and anxiety. While there had been the symptoms of impending childbirth, it had been a false labor. The baby remained in safe in the womb – for now, at least. By the midwife’s order, Hermia was to stay in bed for the remainder of her pregnancy. The false labor had been blamed on too much stress and activity. In the morning, the midwife and two attendants would return, to stay on at the manor until the birth. Juliette didn't treasure having more ears in the house at this juncture, but keeping secrets was nothing to keeping Hermia and her baby safe and well. Unfortunately, that task would require more than just housing a few strangers under her roof. Hermia prided herself on strength, and her mortification over the entire uproar was promising to complicate everything. 

The pair sat in silence for some time. The night had been long beyond all description. Though it loomed large, even the scheme against their parents’ memory seemed to be from a different lifetime. Juliette was sure Puck would know better how to comfort Hermia, but he had drank far too much wine earlier in the evening and was being wrestled into bed by his brothers-in-law. Miranda might have been better still, but she was completely out of the question. And had not Juliette and Hermia shared a sisterly moment a few hours ago?

Alas, Juliette could not decide how to build upon the sisterly consolation before said sister broke the silence with a hoarse whisper.

“I’m not staying in bed.”

Juliette frowned. “You heard what she said, Hermia. It’s too much for the baby.”

“Good. I don’t want the baby anymore.”

Juliette’s eyes flew open. “You-you don’t mean that,” she stammered, trying to convince herself it was so. 

"I'd rather it die now than live in fear, being hated."

Lightly laying her fingertips on her sister’s arm, Juliette said, "It doesn't have to be that way for our children." 

“How long do you think we can hide the truth from them? How many years would this one have before finding out that men will burn little children alive? That the world is lousy with people who will try to hurt you because of your name? I was eleven." Her narrow eyes began to sting with tears. “How long will our father be ‘just’ a libertine before he becomes Puck’s father as well? How long before Puck has to hear people call our children monsters? And who is going to stop it? Who!”

“I will.”

"How?"

"First, by winning in court. And if you want to help with that, then promise you will stay at home from now on."

"I am not going to laze about here while the rest of you get to confront them!" 

Juliette sighed and bit her lip. Telling Hermia how much she sounded like their brother was not going to help, but it was so very hard to resist. "Please, try to relax. It's not good for-"

"I don't care!"

"Well, I do! Like it or not, this baby is coming, and the midwife said you'll be in terrible danger when it happens if you don't get your rest!" After nearly choking on her words, Juliette took a deep breath. "No-one in this family is going to sit by and let you take this sort of risk with your health, Hermia. I'm sorry."

Hermia slammed her fists against the bed twice. "You don't get to decide what I do! I have as much right to be there as anyone, and I'm not going to let them think I'm too feeble to sit in a chair. I'm not missing my chance to see them find out what it feels like to be powerless! And if it all goes wrong in court, Juliette, I swear I will strange them both myself!"

"Please, don't make yourself more upset than you already are."

"You think I'm kidding? All anyone sees of me anymore is this baby!" 

She hated that. Certainly, Hermia loved her children, including the one in her belly. But her children were not (and could never be) her whole existence. She had to have an identity of her own, and that required identity was not blessed by Nature with an innate affection for young children. Her family was happier and healthier because she hired women to change napkins and live at the the mercy of a wailing child. To be reduced to a nesting hen, now of all times, was unbearable. 

"It's as though I don't even exist as a person anymore! No-one looks at me and sees me. They just see a pregnancy. I swear, I could wring Goneril's neck an inch from Lady Iden's nose and get away with it if I just rubbed my belly. They'd all convince themselves they'd dreamed it! That would be the only logical explanation because I'm having a baby. I have babies at home. No-one would believe I'd risk my baby's life just to murder a couple of old dragons. I'm a mother! A pregnant mother wouldn't do such a thing! Mothers don't have minds of their own..." A near-endless supply of sarcasm dripped over her words as her rant continued.

A great deal of patience and another hour were required for Juliette to talk her sister down. No promises had been garnered about following the midwife's directives, but Juliette hoped Hermia would be more amenable to them after some rest. It had been a uniquely exhausting evening. Either the scheme against their parents or the false childbirth would have been quite enough by itself. Together, they were enough to overwhelm anyone. Juliette exited her sister's room and began the long walk down the corridor with a leaden heart.

"Dearest?"

"Oh!" Juliette traded elegance for speed and threw her growing body into her husband's arms. "Oh, you must be so tired."

After the false labor abated, the other four adults of the family had conspired to keep Puck and Hermia apart. Puck had been rendered thoroughly irrational by his anxiety over his family, over Hermia's suffering, and by the large quantity of wine churning his blood. Inevitably, his heightened emotions had inflamed hers when they most needed to be soothed instead. How Fitzwilliam had managed to draw Puck away from Hermia's bedside, Juliette would never know. She was only grateful he could. 

"Me?" He pulled her a smidge closer and kissed the crown of her head. "Think nothing of it. You've been the one hard at work, dearest. You must be exhausted."

"I confess, I am. It was almost too much. Between Hermia and Puck, I thought the roof would come down on our heads. Of course, if I were Miranda, I could have knocked both their heads together to fix it in an instant, you know." She sighed deeply. "Puck is asleep?"

"I believe 'not awake' would be the best description of his current condition."

"That would serve for Hermia as well. But honestly, Fitzwilliam, after everything that's happened tonight, I don't know how she had the strength to be as angry as she was. I'm afraid she might be back at it in the morning, when she decides I've been too high-handed."

"Leave the morning for the morning. We've done the best we could with what we were given tonight. Even if she's unhappy in the morning, Hermia will come around." 

Reluctantly, she pulled away from his warm chest and nodded. "At least I know she can't hate me more than she hates Regan and Goneril now. She worked herself up into such a state, ranting and threatening to strangle them both in broad daylight, and I'm sure I don't know if she wasn't in earnest." 

"All anyone sees of me anymore is this baby... no-one would believe I'd risk my baby's life just to murder..." 

"Oh! Oh, Fitzwilliam! We have so much work to do!" 

"Juliette, it's going to be-"

"I need to find my brother! I know what we must do, and he's the only one who can–"

"He's gone to rest, dearest, as should we–"

She squeezed his hands and started to hurry away. "There's no time! I know what we need to do, Fitzwilliam, and I need-"

"We still have tomorrow. Tonight, you need to rest." His tone was more firm than his grip, and it well-masked his desperate interest in Juliette's solution. "If you would ignore your own well-being, then remember your sister's. You will never keep her abed if you work yourself to the bone right before her eyes." More quietly, he added, "Perhaps you might be so generous as to enlighten me first, in the privacy of our quarters?"

She would. She did. And she was pleased not to hear a word in response about the dangers of being caught in a lie by Lady Iden. There was no-one living, after all, who could say for certain that her mother was not with child that night – or just how she had lost her life after saving Tybalt's. The blind expectations of the world which so irritated Hermia would be twisted to force outsiders to believe what Juliette and her siblings already knew: their mother had loved them with all of her heart.