by Roxie Noir
“I would love to take that ride someday,” my mom says, saving my ass. “Without the goats, naturally, but it’s supposed to be the best way to see some parts of the Black Sea coast that are difficult to reach otherwise.”
I take a deep breath. I’m tired and more than a little loopy. My dad pats my knee affectionately.
“Glad you made it, Freckles,” he says quietly. “Goat smells and all.”
I wrinkle my nose but laugh anyway.
“I wish that was everything,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows.
“Later,” I say.
Prince Konstantin is still glaring at me, his wide shoulders squared, his spine very straight, his hands clasped in front of him. I smile just a little, out of nervous habit, and he doesn’t return it.
Okay then. Guess we won’t be friends after all.
I give up and pay attention to the conversation my mom is having with the king and queen.
At least one of us is in her element right now, I think.
The castle is massive and beautiful. Even in person it looks like something that’s been put together by the Svelorian Tourism Committee: stone turrets, towers, and ramparts, all perched on a cliff overlooking a white sand beach that stretches down to the perfect, blue waters of the Black Sea.
If you told a kid draw me a castle, they’d draw something like the Summer Palace. It’s not the first castle I’ve stayed in — my mom’s a diplomat, after all — but it’s definitely the most castle-like.
My parents and I have a whole wing to ourselves, in two towers at either end of a hallway, and both of our suites are glorious. I’ve got a giant four-poster bed facing tall, iron-framed windows. Outside there’s a balcony that’s more like a patio, complete with an outdoor sitting area.
Inside the bedroom is another sitting area, complete with a big TV, two couches, and a miniature kitchen. A quiet, solemn man carries my bag for me and ceremoniously places it on a luggage rack, nods once at me, and leaves.
“This is nice,” I say to my parents. “How did any of this survive the Soviet occupation?”
“It was a backwater,” my mom says. “If this had been closer to Moscow, or strategically important, it wouldn’t have. Sveloria is lucky it didn’t find out that it had oil until the late nineties.”
Some backwater, I think.
“Try to enjoy yourself,” my dad says, smiling at me.
“I had most of your clothes shipped over from Boston,” my mom says. “They’re in the closet, along with some other things I took the liberty of getting you.”
She glances at my outfit again, and I cross my arms in front of myself.
“You don’t think I impressed them?” I ask. “Oversized sweatshirts are the thing right now in Paris, you know.”
My mom just laughs.
“Svelorians are very serious,” she says. “It takes some getting used to, but underneath, they’re very kind, warm people.”
“Way, way underneath,” my dad says, adjusting his glasses. “But that’s why they’ve got vodka. So they can smile sometimes.”
“Tom, stop it,” my mother says, playfully.
He shrugs, smiling.
“I’ll let you unpack and get some rest, sweetheart, but come to our suite an hour before dinner. We want to hear everything, and we’ve got a bottle of the finest South Svelorian wine.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Is it good wine?” I ask.
“It’s wine,” my father says evenly.
I laugh. They both hug me again, tightly.
“I’m glad you’re here,” my mom says, still squeezing me. “I know you’ve had a rough year.”
Yeah, I think.
My dad hugs me too, and then they leave and shut the big wooden door behind them.
I set my alarm, then get in bed without even washing my face.
After a long, deep nap I shower, do my hair, and venture into my closet. A tiny portion of it is taken up by the clothes I left at my parents’ house after my fiasco this spring, but most of it I’ve never seen before. Hell, most still has the tags on it, and I wade through it piece by piece.
There’s a couple designer things, but it’s mostly nice-but-normal clothes. Lots of J. Crew and Banana Republic, the kind of thing a diplomat’s daughter should be wearing when visiting foreign royals. It’s a good thing that my mom picked all these out, because I’m clueless about this stuff.
Still wearing a towel, I pick out a V-neck black cocktail dress. Miraculously, there are bras and panties in a drawer, and they even fit. Thirty seconds later I’ve gone from towel-wearing mess to perfectly respectable, and I look in the mirror and take a deep breath.
Definitely better, I think.
Then I put on a pair of black heels, touch up my eyeliner, and head for my parents’ suite. They’re both in their sitting area, drinking glasses of red wine and looking ready for a formal dinner.
When my mom sees me, she sighs and crooks one finger at me. I try not to laugh as I walk over. She reaches up, beneath my hair, and pulls a price tag off my dress.
“Thanks,” I say.
They pour me a glass, and I take a seat on a velvet couch.
“Tell us everything,” my mom says. “Start at the beginning.”
I tell them about the past two months of backpacking across Europe: London, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. I met a friend there and drove through to Switzerland, then through the Alps to Italy, where she immediately met a Florentine man and decided to go to Capri with him.
After Italy, I traveled the Adriatic coast. I meant to go to Istanbul but that train was sold out, so I went to Vienna instead, then Prague and Berlin before it was time to head east. I went through Poland, the Ukraine, and finally to Kiev and then here.
I stayed in hostels and cheap hotels, for the most part, though I did spring for a room with its own bathroom a couple of times. I slept on a lot of trains and busses. I asked a lot of strangers for help or directions and I tried to do it in the local language, though most people answered in English.
Most of the time, I was alone. I went on the trip alone, and I traveled with other people sometimes, but I was mostly by myself, and I loved it. When you travel alone, there’s no one else to hurry you along or make you stay behind somewhere. There’s no one to say haven’t we eaten enough gelato? or I don’t really want to see the catacombs, or let’s just hang out in the hotel room today.
There’s also no one to help carry things or walk next to you when it’s three in the morning and your train just got in, but I thought the tradeoffs were worth it.
“Then I got on a train, and now I’m here,” I finish, shrugging. “Ta-da.”
“Goat smells and all,” my mom says, teasing me.
“I showered,” I say, laughing.
“I’m glad we could convince you to visit this terrible place,” she says.
“You did have to blackmail me,” I say.
My mom sighs good-naturedly.
“Hazel, I told you,” she says. “This was bribery. Blackmail would be if I said visit us in Sveloria or I’ll post your old diaries on the internet.”
“Do you still have those?” I ask, tipping back the last of my wine.
“Refuse to visit us sometime and find out,” she says, and stands. “Ready to make a better second impression?”
“You tell me,” I say, and turn slowly for her inspection.
“Yes,” she says. “Come on, let’s salvage this diplomatic mission.”
“When the inevitable conflict starts, they’ll call it the Spandex War,” I say, dryly. “Future historians will debate what might have happened had I gotten your texts in time to change clothes this morning.”
“Get moving,” my dad says. “You can be late or you can be a smartass, but you can’t be both.”
I stick my tongue out at him. He laughs, and we leave the suite.
4
Kostya
“I do hope they use the old china pattern for the dinner
and not the newer one,” Yelena says, standing at my side, her voice high and soft. “I love those pretty pink roses on the old dishes. The ones rimmed in gold leaf?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding down at her, even though I’m not quite listening.
I think Yelena knows more about the palace’s china patterns than I do. No: I know she does, because I’m not really sure what she’s talking about. Apparently we own plates with roses on them.
“There may not be enough of those for this dinner,” she says, worrying at her lip. She seems concerned, like it’s her fault that the palace staff might have used a different china pattern.
“It’s no loss if they use the other china,” I say, because I’m sure the other china is just as nice.
She just sighs, her wide blue eyes flitting around the drawing room, taking in everything and nothing. Finally she looks up at me and takes my arm.
“Of course not, Kostya. You’re right.”
The double doors open and a footman precedes my parents in.
“May I please present—” he starts.
“It’s just our son,” my father growls. “He knows who we are.”
The footman ducks his head and backs out of the room, pulling the doors closed, and my parents walk toward us. Yelena curtsies to them, and I nod.
“You’re well, I expect?” my father asks Yelena.
“Yes, your highness,” she says. “We were just discussing the palace’s china.”
I try to make eye contact with my father, but he ignores me.
“Yes, it does need updating,” my mother says, her hand on my father’s arm. “It could use a woman’s touch, and I’m afraid that I haven’t the fashion sense or taste to do it justice.”
This isn’t a conversation that requires my input, so I let my mind wander. A waiter comes by with a tray of wine, and we each take a glass.
I take a long sip and look out one of the tall paned windows. This one looks onto the gardens. Today, they’re beautiful and well-kept, full of rosebushes in bloom, walking paths, everything neat and orderly and green.
The first time I saw this palace, I was five, and the gardens were bare dirt. It was the February after an ugly winter, and my mother and I had been sent here because the opposition forces were closing in on Tobov, the capital city.
The palace was freezing and miserable. My mother worried constantly, desperate for any scrap of news about my father, fighting for his life. I spent my days exploring secret, unknown wings of the palace until it was time for dinner, putting the prizes that I found — a bat skeleton, a scrap of gold cloth, a child’s spinning top — into a box in my bedroom.
My mother wasn’t the queen then. I wasn’t a prince, just a kid whose ancestors had sat on a throne once. We were always cold and usually hungry, and twenty-odd years later, here I am talking about china patterns.
“Don’t you think so?” Yelena says, looking up at me.
“Of course,” I say. I have no idea what I think, but I doubt I have an opinion.
“That would be very stately,” my mother agrees.
The doors open again, and the same footman steps through.
“May I present United States Ambassador Eileen Towers, her husband Mr. Thomas Sung, and their daughter Miss Hazel Sung.”
He steps aside, and the three of them walk past him. Each thanks him, because they’re American, and Americans love thanking people who are simply doing their jobs. The footman looks slightly confused.
Hazel nods her head slightly as she thanks the man, her long black hair shining in the light. Then she walks toward us, looking around the room as she does, taking in the portraits on the wall, the heavy wooden furniture, the overstuffed chairs.
She even walks like an American: shoulders back, head high, hips barely swinging even though she’s wearing heels. Nothing less than confident, even though we’re royalty who saw her in a sweatshirt earlier today and she’s a loud, brash commoner.
We all exchange pleasantries again, I introduce Yelena, and her parents start talking with mine. Something about architecture, but I’m not really listening, I’m looking at Hazel. She’s got on a black cocktail dress that’s curve-hugging yet tasteful, with a deep V that just barely hints at her cleavage.
Now that she’s rested and polished, she’s nothing short of breathtaking.
The waiter with the wine comes back, and Hazel grabs a glass and takes a sip.
“It’s nice to see you again, Konstantin,” she says.
“Likewise, Miss Sung,” I say.
“You can call me Hazel,” she says, with a little half-laugh. “We’re going to be seeing each other for a month.”
I don’t know why she’s laughing, but I nod.
“Then please, call me Kostya,” I say. “Konstantin is far too formal.”
She nods again and looks around the room.
“This is a beautiful palace,” she says. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and I’ve certainly never stayed anywhere like it.”
“It was built five hundred years ago to withstand barbarian attacks from the Black Sea,” I say. “The walls are five feet thick at the base.”
“Wow,” she says.
“Many of the interior passages still have murder holes in the ceiling,” I go on. “They’ve been plastered over, but if you know what to look for, you can find plenty.”
She takes another sip of wine.
“Murder holes?” she asks, politely.
“If the gates were breached and enemies got past the walls, the defenders would boil water or oil, and pour it through grates onto the attackers,” I explain.
“Did that ever actually happen?” Hazel asks.
“Once,” I say. “During the reign of Maksim the second, the castle was left undefended while he was fighting across the country, near the Russian border. But when he returned, he took the castle back and mounted the head of every man who’d taken it from him on spikes outside the walls.”
Hazel’s got both eyebrows up, her mouth partly open.
“All of them?” she asks.
I just nod.
“It was a simpler time,” I say. Then I lift my hand with my wine glass in it and point at a portrait. “That’s him,” I say.
Maksim the second stares out of the frame, his gaze intense five hundred years after his death. I’ve never had a problem believing that he would execute hundreds, maybe thousands, and display their heads on spikes.
Hazel looks from the portrait to me, then back again.
“I see the family resemblance,” she says.
“I’ve been told we have the same chin,” I say. “Though I’ve never put a head on a spike. I understand that’s frowned upon.”
Hazel just looks at me uncertainly for a long moment.
I guess that’s what I get for trying a joke.
“Maksim was a third cousin twice removed to Vlad Dracul,” I go on. “Known better as Vlad the Impaler.”
Her eyebrows go up again.
“Does that mean you’re related to Vlad the Impaler?” she asks.
“Very distantly, of course,” I say.
“I assumed,” she says, and takes another sip.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he’s been dead for hundreds of years?” Hazel asks.
To my left, Yelena is absently examining her manicure. She’s probably heard about Maksim the Second a hundred times, and I doubt she ever cared to begin with.
“Of course,” I say to Hazel.
I’m getting the sense that I’m not being a very good conversationalist right now, and god knows Yelena isn’t helping in the least.
“Your parents told me you were traveling through Europe for the past two months,” I say. “You had no commitments in America?”
Hazel looks quickly into her wine glass. I can see her take a deep breath, the hollow of her throat expanding as she does it.
For just a moment, I wonder what it would taste like if I licked it there, then ran my tongue along her collarbone t
o the point of her shoulder—
I’m getting hard. I force myself to stop.
“No, I didn’t have any commitments,” she says, looking back up at me. “I dropped out of med school this spring, so I was pretty commitment-less.”
“Was it too difficult?” I ask. “I’ve heard that becoming a doctor takes a great deal of work.”
Her face stays perfectly neutral.
“It was very difficult, but I left because I realized I didn’t want to be a doctor any more,” she says. “There were a lot of reasons. It’s a long story.”
“I enjoy stories,” says Yelena, in her soft high voice.
Her English is very good, but she hasn’t spent much time abroad and doesn’t understand nuances well. Hazel takes another deep breath.
“What was your favorite city to visit?” I ask, trying to steer this conversation back into pleasant waters.
“Rome,” Hazel says instantly.
The doors open again, and the footman comes in.
“Dinner is served in the Emerald Dining Room,” he says.
Hazel looks relieved.
The emerald dining room is the third-largest in the palace. Since it’s summer, the sun is still setting, and the view through the west-facing windows is spectacular.
My father sits in the center of the long table, my mother on one side and me on the other. While I was telling Hazel that I’ve never impaled anyone’s head on a stick, other dignitaries and important Svelorians trickled in, so the party now numbers about sixteen.
A small, intimate party, at least by our standards.
Servants refill wine glasses and lay out the first course, a small plate of pickled smelt and new potatoes. I’m sitting directly across the table from Thomas Sung. On one side is his wife, the Ambassador, and on the other is Hazel.
The room goes quiet, and my father taps his spoon against his wine glass, even though no one’s speaking.
“I propose a toast,” he says. In English, of course.
The door at the end of the room opens, and servants with chilled vodka bottles walk out and begin pouring a measure of vodka into our aperitif glasses.