5.9

As they walked along the last leg of their journey to Rochford proper Jewel mused.

Departing for home after the wedding had not been as different as she thought it would be.

The festivities and celebrations for the rest of the city of Kaeketeh had gone on for what she suspected was an obligatory ten days after the event itself. But most of the more esteemed guests were departing shortly after the highly unusual ‘vow’ had been made.

It was a relief to some extent that there were fewer people to gawk, scrape, bow or scheme at Jewel and her husband so quickly.

But fewer was not none.

She turned to her husband, riding a white charger who was honestly not well suited to such long road travel. A hackney like Smithson’s Oxhoof would have been better on the road. The poor stallion’s stamina was strained every evening.

But it was the horse he had to his name and one he’d ridden often and bonded close too.

So Jewel did not make much of it. Trying to act more like Father than her mother.

Paul for his part had worked hard to interpose himself and take the brunt of the questions and attention in Kaeketeh.

Which had been welcome, but Jewel soon felt so guilty that she tried to take at least some of the burden herself.

Or so she had intended.

The first evening of commoner festivities he had asked that she stay back to loom and intimidate silently unless he signaled her for assistance.

Which was something that was easy to slip into.

She had played a similar courtly game with her father.

But it still felt like a failure. It was not how Mother supported her husband.

But Paul had made a point then that Jewel could not deny.

Between the two of them it was Jewel who could best any and every comer in martial prowess.

Of the pair of them as Husband and Wife it was Paul, though a martial trained man that he might be, who could speak the softest, move the least intrusively and despite the promise of his divine boon act in a way that would be underestimated or overlooked by others.

In their evenings together Jewel found her husband had a very keen if distressing view on his position in their marriage. A lady Jewel undeniably was, but in the matter of her prowess and possession of prominence in court and on the battlefield it was the role of a Man that best suited her in their marriage.

She’d been very upset with him after that but he’d stared her down and said something that chilled her wroth dead.

“Of the two of us that might strike the other with the fullness of our strength in anger, who would be the most dishonored for it?”

And Jewel could not deny in such a case it would be her.

But still it hurt her and brought a terrible roiling to her flame that the awful words from Thurzó’s daughters could have even that shred of truth to them.

That there were in fact some ways that Jewel was less a woman.

Paul however did not care about the shame and she could not deny his sense in it.

So Jewel left the courtly work of a wife to her husband.

It was not entirely the same of course, there were no spinning circles for men to gossip among themselves. But Jewel had noticed that among the men in court at least there were even stranger diversions.

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They played games of cards or did training or found odd contests of recital trying to match wits. It all seemed especially frivolous activities to engage in compared to the many layered productivity of the way of women.

But Jewel had only seen a few of the ladies in Kaeketeh even pretend to actually work at anything but embroidering into cloth woven by other’s hands.

So perhaps city lords and ladies simply worked less in general?

Still all of that was at least for the moment behind them.

It was a strange but also a familiar pair they made in the dwindling crowd of the lords and ladies as the last days of the festival closed.

And now over familiar roads here she had been traveling as a married lady and it felt hardly different at all compared to traveling as a merely betrothed one.

Her husband and his household swelled their caravan.

Yet not as much as the High King or Thurzó’s party had.

When they made camp or sought lodging Jewel and Paul now had a room to themselves with the understanding they would take early evenings together each night. But given Jewel’s size she often had a room to herself by sheer necessity.

When they finally stayed at Hożanka’s there had been many well wishes and compliments. But really only as much fuss over Paul as had been brought to bear for Alexander. The Masondottir’s words were barely much more than the same compliments on ‘what a handsome catch’.

Jewel had noted it cost more coin to find lodgings, but the Countess had settled them with quite the dowry after all was done.

Which rendered even the greater expense for their party barely noticeable.

As Jewel skipped smoothly and elegantly along the well trod and familiar earthen road she could still only conclude one thing.

On the balance besides having time to talk and discuss matters with her husband each night on what was to come Jewel found married life little different from how she lived before it.

A new man was now a part of her life certainly, close and a trusted confidant perhaps?

But otherwise it was little different from when she finally started properly taking care of her Squire Smithson.

Speaking of, there had been a very brief and baffling tension between the two men when they first properly met.

Wholly on the side of her Squire as well!

For whatever reason the young man who now rode with Gem settled a little unsteadily astride the saddle in front of him had taken Jewel’s husband as an opportunity to prove his valor and loyalty to some excess.

It only took the very morning after she was married for him to march up to Pual and swear on his star sign goddess the wet lady that if Paul should hurt Jewel (as if he could?!) that the once stable boy and some day knight would slay the man no matter the cost to him.

The vow had shook in the faux flame around the two men and Jewel was fairly certain that if it ever (somehow) came to those circumstances that both of them would have ended up bringing their mutual divine patrons into a row with one another over it.

Which made it all the funnier when Paul’s immediate response was to match the vow with his own on Vorya the Lady of Dawn that he would renounce her blessing and protection if he ever did deed which would draw Smithson’s wrath sufficient he had to defend Jewel’s honor.

And that had also rippled in the faux flame, although Jewel was now certain that neither man could feel it. After a brief glare they had then matched one another in first the clasped forearms of brothers in arms, and then the full embrace of sworn allies or close family.

It had struck Jewel so absolutely in shock for there to be such a rapid turn in respect for one another she had been unable to prevent the smaller body of ‘Gem’ from squealing in delighted laughter at her Squire’s side.

Which had then turned into Smithson and Paul mutually fussing and crooning over her smaller self. Her husband after that further swore an oath to protect and raise ‘Gem’ as his daughter in truth.

All around that was uncomfortable and confusing in precisely how it made Jewel feel across both her bodies.

Still even that excitement had settled out and rapidly there was just a comfortable routine.

Looking at Smithson now on steady and reliable Oxhoof you’d not even think He and Paul were anything but the very truest of friends and sword brothers.

It was good she thought but also left her in disquiet and feeling more the fraud.

Wasin’t marriage supposed to change your life entirely?

Jewel felt hardly any different.

Annoyed to find something else inexplicable that was undeniably tied to her status as a dragon.

But on the balance she was in fact much the same.

Jewel had felt more changed from going to war than being married.

And that just did not seem right.