10A/N: I've written a lot of stories about the glimmerings of love and security that shine so unsettlingly out of Jace's childhood with Valentine. Here's a story to redress the balance: an overdue reminder of the darker side of his upbringing — and a stab at understanding it.
Canon: My fics take the original City of Bones trilogy as canon. (For more about why I haven't read the later MI books, see my profile).
As always, everything in this fic belongs to the incomparable Cassandra Clare: characters, story and universe, of course, but also tone and language and imagery, which I've borrowed shamelessly to try to get closer to the feel of her story. To the extent that I've succeeded, the credit is entirely hers.
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Take time to thrive, my ray of hope, in the garden of Dromore.
Take heed, young eaglet, till thy wings are feathered fit to soar.
A little rest, and then the world is full of work to do.
— Harold Boulton, The Garden of Dromore
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Discipline
by Midwinter Monday
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Some days you could tell before lunchtime it was going to be a bad day.
He'd been bogged down all morning in a boring bit of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and got told off three times for letting his attention wander; and then his knife slipped on the bow he was whittling, taking off a big splinter of yew — and a smaller slice of his thumb — and then he'd managed to lose his favourite lead Shadowhunter somewhere under the wintry tangle of the beech hedge.
And now this.
Jace hesitated a moment outside the door to his father's study trying to guess what he was in trouble for this time. There were, he thought regretfully, an awful lot of possibilities. He had a bad feeling he'd left the front door open on his way out this morning, and he knew for a fact there were some very muddy boot prints in the hall.
There was also the spade he'd left in two pieces by the garden wall he was trying to tunnel under.
Or — with a sudden sinking of the heart — he hadn't forgotten his dagger on the bench by the carp pond yesterday, had he? There had been some pretty dire warnings the last time he'd let good steel lie out overnight in the dew.
Promised retribution come due, he thought philosophically.
But when he pushed open the door, he knew instantly it wasn't any of these things. His father was standing by the fireplace, one booted foot propped on the fender and an open book in his hand. At the sound of the door he looked up and closed the book gently — too gently. There was a little silence.
"You wanted to see me?" Jace said uncertainly. His father's expression was carefully blank, but even across the room he could see the metallic glint in his eyes that meant he was very angry. He shifted uneasily in the doorway, hesitating, one hand still on the knob.
"Close the door please, Jonathan." His tone was glacial, as cold and inimical as the icicles glittering beyond the bright paned window. The faint hope that he might have misread his expression shrivelled up in Jace's chest. "And come here."
Swallowing, he shut the door quietly and set out across the vast Persian carpet towards the fireplace where his father was waiting, his footsteps muffled by the soft, deep pile. His heart had begun thudding inside his chest: slow, loud hammer strokes that made him feel sick.
This was something bad. Really bad. Jace wasn't sure he could ever remember seeing his father so angry — not even the time he'd tried to lift down one of the broadswords from the weapons room wall, gashing his foot nearly to the bone.
Coming to a halt in front of his father, he looked up reluctantly. The cold black gaze travelled over him slowly before returning to his face.
"I imagine, Jonathan, you know why you are here?"
But of course he hadn't the faintest idea.
Jace racked his brains urgently. It was hard to imagine worse trouble than he was in already, but if anything could do it, he thought feverishly, it would be not owning up to the crime — whatever it was — he'd obviously committed.
But what could he possibly have done to anger his father like this? And how could he have done something so awful without knowing it? Jace gazed down at his scuffed boots as if the answer might be knotted into his bootlaces or lodged in a crack in the marble hearthstone, and cast wildly about in his memory. He came up empty handed.
Unless —
He felt himself colouring. "This isn't about the book, is it?" he blurted out. The minute the words left his mouth he could see that he'd hit on it.
"But it was so boring," he protested before he could stop himself; and for a second, unaccountably, he thought he saw the hard lines of his father's body relax fractionally beneath the fine cloth of his shirt. But a frightening gleam of anger shone in his dark eyes, and his mouth was a dangerous line.
"You were expressly forbidden to read the books on those shelves, Jonathan," his father said softly. He set down the book he was holding carefully on the mantelpiece, eyes never leaving Jace's face. "You were not even to touch them."
A prickle ran down Jace's spine.
"Perhaps, son, you would care to explain how you came to disregard my exceedingly clear instructions. Did you suppose I didn't mean it, when I told you to leave those books strictly alone?"
His voice grew even softer. "Or perhaps you forgot?"
He hadn't forgotten, of course. He knew better than to forget anything his father told him — especially prohibitions. But he'd been curious to know what was so special about those slim leatherbound volumes with the unmarked spines. And nobody did what they were told all the time, did they?
He should have known he'd get caught — somehow his father always seemed to know when he did things he wasn't supposed to.
But he'd never dreamed, as he lugged the ladder from the far end of the library and scrambled up to the forbidden shelves beneath the bust of Socrates, that he was doing something really bad. Bad enough to account for the bleakness he'd glimpsed behind the bright anger in his father's eyes — and bring down the terrible punishment which was obviously in store for him. He looked up unhappily, a sick feeling of apprehension and guilt curdling the pit of his stomach.
His father was eyeing him appraisingly, the way you bent a bow to gauge its spring or balanced a blade between your palms, assessing its weight and reach.
"As a rule, your memory isn't as poor as that, Jonathan." His voice was as dry as dust. With an effort, Jace forced himself to meet the cool black gaze: if there was one thing his father disliked more than disobedience, it was shuffling.
"No, Father."
It wasn't a very good answer. Jace tried to think of something else to say, but his thoughts seemed to have shrivelled up like a leaf in autumn.
His father's voice became drier still. "Perhaps we'd better make sure it doesn't slip your mind again." He was behind the broad mahogany desk now — its polished surface was covered with papers, the lamp and globe pushed to one side: he must have been at work, Jace thought blankly, when he called for him — reaching down to open one of the drawers.
When he straightened, Jace saw he had something dark coiled in his left hand. It looked a lot like a belt.
A ripple of cold went through Jace. He watched his father walk around the desk and seat himself on the edge, his expression hard as glass. He could feel the cold anger flowing off him like air from an ice field.
"And make certain we are quite clear, Jonathan. If you disobey me, there will be consequences."
Unquestionably, it was a belt. Jace lifted his chin unconsciously. His heart had begun bumping beneath his ribs so hard he could hear each separate heartbeat, loud and distinct in his ears. His father was waiting, hand held out wordlessly in summons. Numbly, he obeyed.
Powerful fingers closed hard on his arm and the room tipped abruptly as he was plucked off his feet by the waistband and upended unceremoniously over his father's knee.
Jace stared down at the carpet, its familiar, elaborate geometries of dusky purple and gold. He'd stared at it often enough from this particular vantage point. But his father had never hit him with a belt before. He wondered, a little bewildered, what could be so terrible about a book. It wasn't like it had been a spellbook, or even a book of Runes. That kind of book was different, magical. It had power. It could do things to you. But all you got out of ordinary books was knowledge. It was hard to see how knowing things could hurt anyone.
He felt his father's weight shift, and squeezed his eyes shut tight. You'll just have to be braver, he told himself doggedly. He was not going to cry: Waylands didn't cry, and he was almost six and three quarters. Outside the window he could hear a thrush carolling, buoyant reminder that winter was almost over and in a few weeks there would be lambs, and archery out in the water meadows and interesting expeditions with his father into the high hills. A blackbird answered somewhere; and much closer at hand, a sharp whickering threaded the air.
Then the first careful blow fell, and thought became impossible.
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