Lady Jadis' Book of Shadows and Light

I’ve really cocked this up, and I don’t know what to do about it now. He’s here. It’s not that I mind having him around—he’s pleasant enough, when he wants to be—but he’s talking about going back to Italy to fight with the guerrillas, and the Company’s not ready to go back. I don’t know much about the Company, but I’m not an idiot, I saw those people, they deserve their well-earned rest. He says he doesn’t have to go with the Company. He says he can go and join his cousins in Toscana. I’ve heard him talk about Fulvio and I think he sounds like pond scum, but then I’ve also heard what Nico and Alessio have to say, and I asked him if he’d forgotten having to rescue them from those cousins of his. He just drank the rest of the wine.

I told him that he’s contemplating suicide, hoping that Giulio Evola will save him the trouble of blowing his brains out, and this is not the kind of conversation that I wanted to be having with this man. He says Dracaena doesn’t need him here. I bit my tongue to keep from saying congratulations for getting the hint, and that I wasn’t sure I did either, so not to get too comfortable. If I’d wanted a husband I would have found my own—but of course, I’m not Dracaena, who has just had it brought home to her that she can, actually, really get married now, and that if she does it had better be for real, because she won’t have an easy out if she does. She’s got one free ticket left, and once she burns it with Gabrielle—she’s stuck with whoever she chooses. And Nicodemo wants to marry her, the way men in Hell want ice water, and she always has loved being wanted.

Nobody really knows Ercole any more, least of all himself. I thought I did, and I appear to have been wrong. I never thought he’d give up on his life after her and Carmela this easily. Sure, he’s fucked up his life, but who hasn’t? He’s got rid of most of his major problems and all he has to do is look after his children—who need him—and not spend all of his money. And I won’t tolerate a drunk under my roof. Especially not when my son is home or after I have the next baby, even if it’s his.

Things are not going the way that I wanted them to. I went up to Dracaena’s house yesterday in the hope of having a date with Ercole, which we’ve rather been planning for a while, especially since he’d decided to let Dracaena and Nicodemo have their time together.

He must have changed his mind, because the three of them were sticking very close to each other and then Alessio came back and at that point Dracaena whisked him off (even though I’m a better lay healer than she is) and then the five of them (Ercole, Dracaena, Nicodemo, Alessio and Alessio’s disturbingly little, possessive and under-age girlfriend, whose name I did not catch) took off to St Pally’s. They are not yet back. I have the sneaking suspicion that Ercole is being an idiot. I told him not to interfere between Nicodemo and her, that Dracaena had lots of attention from people when she arose winged, but she wasn’t marrying my brother either. But he didn’t listen, because he’s Don Ercole and I am a woman who’s never even been married (there’s a reason for this, and he is an object lesson in why).

I do not know what I think about any of this. Will has never liked Nico much, for painfully obvious reasons. Will is of course not here, because he’s teaching.

The Trelawneys were pointedly absent from the festivities last night. I really think that they are overfond of Gabrielle, who as far as I’m concerned is a giant bloodsucking leech on our lands. I can certainly do without their wastrel son, but their daughter deserves better parents.

It’s been two weeks or more since I wrote in here, because everything’s been so busy. What a relief to have everyone back! Michaelmas will be a breeze after Lammas. Though I do wonder just what Don Ercole thinks he’s doing, hanging about the place. If he’s there to get reacquainted with his children, so much the better; but he’s an idiot if he believes Dracaena’s going to take him back when she has Nico.

Dracaena’s been such a busy little bee, which always worries me: she has been known to avoid facing her personal problems by piling the work on, and Nico’s no better. I’m glad she has all those Greek and Italian ladies to help, but prying the paperwork out of her pretty little hands may be a Herculean labour even for Nico.

So much work to be done, food to put by and babies to birth, though not as many babies as in spring. Our people aren’t starving; they pay their tithes, but I’ve seen troubling things when I go through the woods, especially when I go through the woods in my fur, and Will’s seen them too. There were little folk about, and none of our own. Scouts, I’m sure, and from another court entirely. Aisling’s court, or von Thorwald’s, and neither bodes well for us. Dracaena’s seen the signs as well, and the mists and the rosebriars have been made stronger, as have my protections as well. I’ve dealt with a few of them personally; I’ve got an idiot’s head I’m preparing with lime, just in case. Finndo can only do so much to keep the peace, as bad as war is for his business. But war on all fronts is a terrible thing.

Damn Gregor. Damn him to every hell there is. And Aisling as well. What does she think this sort of thing does for the Irish? Her cousin Ned has done more for the Irish than she ever will. And damn Alphonse as well, for leaving his land in the hands of a half-dozen bastards: little girls who know more about maths than they do about land. One of them broke something big, and it’s bleeding in here round the edges. And Yvon can’t even tell us all of their names.

Kyteler wants to have a meeting. Here. I hope it's good news, but I'm awfully afraid it might not be.

Will didn’t go back to the Academy. I know he didn’t, because he’s asleep in his room. He took his boots off before he fell asleep; I took his coat off him and he didn’t even wake up. I suppose I’ll find out what that was about tomorrow when we have the big meeting here. Kyteler said he’d be calling Delgardie and Saunders down from the Manor tomorrow if they don’t come down themselves before then.

I took down the party rug and took Abbott and the Magister and Mrs Scalara up to survey the and surrounds. It’s a good thing I brought one of Will’s cloaks along or Abbott would have frozen his bollocks off.

Mrs Scalara’s fever’s come back. I asked the Magister point blank if he knew what was wrong with her, and he said he did, he’d seen it before in people who’ve done a lot of fighting. I thought as much. I just hope she doesn’t die like Demelza did someday. Nothing to be done for her but make her comfortable till it settles. I suppose he could take her to that wife of his, and he said he would if she got bad enough. I hope for their sake he won’t have to. Reckon her finding them out won’t improve matters.

Will went riding this afternoon. When he came back he told me that the rosebriars have grown up into a maze, and he does not even think he will be able to get back in there again without a Malaspina. I wish he would just go and get Nicodemo out of the stews and be done with it. I also wish he wouldn’t torture himself like that, but he said he had to see her again, and that she is well, or as well as can be. He said he’s going back to the Academy, since the briars are protecting her better than we can, and since he wants to study the Leffoy artifice there. But I do not like my brother to live so close to Mathers, who has always hated us so.

I had thought to make the marriage for the year with Keresek, but somebody else beat us to it. If it was done by the ones I suspect then I think it is long overdue. And that is as it should be, for I think that that one will hold, and Keresek’s with me would have lasted only the year.

I did want the child. But this might not be the year. Not after what von Thorwald dropped into the circle, and not after all of the land’s strength went into restoring her. I can get pregnant whenever I like, it doesn’t have to be now. I do know how it’s done, and I don’t have so much silver in me that I can’t get it done when I like.

I really wish they’d all shut up. They’re scaring poor Florian out of his wits. Every single Leffoy heir has performed this rite since the days when we were all called Morgans. Kyteler makes it sound like he’s expecting Gregor von Thorwald to come up right out of the Grail Well. Dracaena did this four days after her son was born

Shite. I keep forgetting that she didn’t give birth to him...which is stupid, because I was the midwife. But Gabrielle is such a bitch. I have a certain amount of sympathy for her, because she was in love with Julia Peverell and she came back here on Julia’s account when she should really have made a break for it and cut her family off at the root. But that only goes so far, particularly when she’s cruel to my brother.