Chapter Text
Cordelia had forgotten to take her hair out of its braid last night.
It was hardly the end of the world, but it did mean more brushing than she cared to do.
“I’m cutting all my hair off,” Cordelia announced as she walked out of the bedroom, tugging the cursed thing through her cursed hair. “I’m going to leave this world behind, become a nun in Saint Ophelia’s monastery and shave my head.”
“That’s a myth,” Isabella said. She was a thick-bodied woman with beautiful bright eyes and the kindest smile in the world. Both those had started to get lines around the edges recently, but Cordelia hardly cared about that. The love of her life could look like whatever she wanted. She was still the most beautiful woman in Kyaine and beyond. “The nuns there don’t actually shave their heads. I suppose they can, but the idea that someone forces them to comes from anti-monastic propaganda during the time when the crown was trying to dissolve them and take their assets as public property.” She didn’t even look up from the expense report she was reading.
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s disappointing. I’m still cutting off all my hair.”
“No, you aren’t, dear.”
“Of course I am. You can’t tell me what to do, love.” Cordelia sat down in the chair beside Isabella, smiling. A young maid came over and started to pour coffee.
“I’m pretty sure I can. It was in the wedding vows.” Isabella smiled. “And that’s not the point. You’ve been saying you’d cut all your hair off since you were fifteen, and you haven’t done it yet.”
Cordelia scowled. “Today might be the day.”
“Is it?”
Another scowl. “No. Thank you, Melinda.”
The maid nodded, and smiled. “Would you like to break your fast, my lady?”
Used after twenty years to being ‘my lady,’ Cordelia nodded. “Yes, just some fruit, please.”
“And an egg,” Isabella added.
“And an egg,” Cordelia repeated, dutifully. As Melinda retreated, Cordelia watched Isabella, still brushing her hair. Even after all this time, she never got tired of just watching her wife. “Where have you hidden my children this morning, love?”
“Christina has gone hawking with her friends.” Isabella gave Cordelia a look. “Among whom is little lord DiSheere.”
Cordelia sighed. Christina had never liked hawking until she’d liked Geoffrey DiSheere. “How did we end up with a daughter who likes boys?”
“Bad parenting,” Isabella said, shaking her head morosely. “It’s probably just a phase that she’ll grow out of.”
“We can only hope.” Cordelia liked Geoffrey, actually. He was a good kid, and his family weren’t assholes.
“Your son…”
“Oh, no,” Cordelia interrupted, hand over her eyes for a second. “He’s my son today, is he?”
“Yes. Iago is with his tutor, and he asked me how babies were made today.” That was met with pointed silence.
Cordelia uncovered her eyes. “Well, that sounds like a matter of lineage and inheritance, so that’s your thing.”
“No, it sounds like a matter of mother-son bonding, and you’re his favourite.”
“That’s not true, love.”
Isabella smiled, patted Cordelia’s hand. “Today you are, because I had the baby talk with the first one.”
“We both did that!”
“I did all the work.”
Cordelia thought about it, decided that Isabella wasn’t wrong, and subsided a little, setting the brush down. “Fine. You owe me.”
“We’ll see. The baby’s upstairs with his nursemaid.”
“The baby’s two years old,” Cordelia reminded Isabella. “He’s not a baby.”
“Tell me that when he can carry on a conversation with me about how our revenue stream is being interrupted by fears of piracy in the west, and I’ll believe you.”
Cordelia leaned forward, playing with the hairbrush. “I can’t carry on a conversation about how our revenue stream is being interrupted by fears of piracy in the west, love.”
Isabella smiled, and she leaned forward as well, giving Cordelia a kiss. “You could if you wanted to. You’re a very intelligent woman.”
Cordelia knew that just fine. “My talents lie elsewhere, they always have. I used them to trick you into marrying me, didn’t I?” She laughed, kissed her wife again.
“That you did, Lady Cordelia,” Isabella said with a grin, glancing over as Melinda brought the fruit and egg over for Cordelia to eat. “You managed to sneak your way into my house without me being any the wiser.”
“Maybe you’ll catch on some day, love, and kick me out on the street where I belong.” Cordelia sighed, started on the egg first. The coffee had cooled down enough to drink, which was nice. She glanced out the window at the rising sun. “It’s going to be nice today.”
“Lucky for our poor lovestruck daughter,” Isabella said, smiling. “Less so for us who will spend it all indoors.”
“The trials of being important, Lady Isabella. What are your plans for the day?”
“I expect I’ll spend most of it in meetings with the treasurer and then with someone named Fyrhawk.” Isabella shook her head. The Fyrhawk family had taken a lot more active control of Kyaine’s military in the last few months. “You?”
Cordelia shrugged. “I have a feeling a good amount of it will be spent meeting with people named Fyrhawk as well.” She wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the influence they had all of the sudden, especially with the queen’s brother-in-law missing, presumed dead and feared alive. “I think Francesca plans to take a tour of the city’s defences as well.”
A nod. “So, you will get to go outside.”
“I suppose I will,” Cordelia sighed, finishing the cursed egg and starting on the fruit. “Assuming I can cut my hair off in time.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, dear.” Isabella took up the brush and went about brushing Cordelia’s hair, which was what Cordelia had been angling for all the while. She finished eating her breakfast while her wife sorted out that problem, and by the time she was done she was both full and presentable. “There. You’re beautiful.”
“I wasn’t before?”
“Of course you were.” Isabella leaned down, kissed Cordelia upside-down. “But now you match the standards of beauty set forward by our exacting society.”
“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Cordelia stood, stretched, and kissed her wife again. “I should go. It would be unseemly for a companion to keep her lady waiting for long.”
“So it would be. Give Francesca my regards, dear.”
“I will, love.”
“And tell her I’d like something done about those pirates.”
“You and half the kingdom, Isabella.”
“Yes,” Isabella said, catching Cordelia’s hand as she went to leave. “But what’s the use of being married to the queen’s companion if I can’t use her to exert undue influence over the crown?”
“I think we have word for that…”
“Politics?”
“Treason?”
Isabella laughed. “Go to work, dear.”
“I’ll see you tonight, Isabella.”
“I love you, Cordelia.”
“I love you too.”
As Cordelia made her way to the castle she reflected, as she did most every morning, that her life had turned out just perfectly.