by Roxie Noir
“I would like to welcome the Ambassador’s lovely, engaging daughter to Sveloria,” he says.
Hazel nods once, smiling politely.
“To another generation of continued American-Svelorian relations,” he says, holding up his glass.
“Nah zdrovya!” everyone at the table says, including Hazel.
We drink. I down the glass as I see Hazel glance around quickly, like she’s making sure she’s doing the right thing.
Then she does the wrong thing and swallows the vodka in one gulp, the only woman at the table to do so. The other women sip their vodka, putting their nearly-full glasses back on the table.
Hazel is beginning to flush a pale pink, but she uses the correct fork as we begin the first course.
I don’t think she knows that it’s customary to begin every course with a toast. She certainly doesn’t realize that she isn’t obligated to drink a full shot of vodka each time, and it isn’t as if I can correct a guest’s manners at this formal dinner.
I eat my first course and make small talk with Yelena, who is telling me a charming story about a time when she went fishing with her father as a child. I’ve heard it before, more than once, but I don’t tell her that.
That course is cleared and the next laid down. Our vodka glasses are refilled. Hazel watches hers like she’s concentrating very, very hard, then thanks the waiter for doing his job. Americans.
My father holds up his glass.
“To the sunset over the sea,” he says, a traditional Svelorian toast.
I try to make Hazel look at me, as if I can tell her just take a sip. She doesn’t, her eyes just skipping past me like I’m not even there.
“Nah zdrovya,” everyone says again, and then we drink, Hazel tossing hers back just like a man.
“The American girl is getting drunk,” Yelena says to me, quietly, in Russian.
“She doesn’t know better,” I murmur.
“She should learn,” Yelena says.
Hazel flushes a brighter pink and continues avoiding my eyes.
5
Hazel
The table is starting to wobble in front of me as we begin the next course. This one is grape leaves stuffed with some sort of spiced rice. It’s very good, or at least it would be if I weren’t quickly getting hammered just to be polite.
Is this going to be what my whole month is like? I wonder, very carefully cutting a slice and lifting it to my mouth.
I make it. Success!
It’s not like I’m a teetotaler. Fuck no. I went through a bottle of whiskey in a week after the shit hit the fan and I dropped out of school, but I’m a total lightweight.
Sveloria might be the death of me, I think. I successfully get another forkful into my mouth, and I just hope that I don’t look like a barbarian eating. I don’t want my head to end up on a spike.
The way Kostya keeps glaring at me, it’s starting to feel like that might be my fate. I’m not even doing anything, just trying my hardest to fit in here, be polite and demure, and not fuck anything up.
Partway through the course, my father leans over to me and speaks in a low voice.
“Your mother wants me to tell you it’s perfectly polite to sip the vodka, particularly for women,” he says.
I look at my empty glass, then glance at the queen’s glass. Mostly full. Yelena’s glass is also mostly full, as are all the other women’s glasses at the table.
Fuck, I think. How was I supposed to know this was gendered?
I nod once.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Hang in there,” he says, then leans away again. His face is beginning to flush pink.
I take a deep breath and keep eating. I make as much polite conversation as I can with the middle-aged man on my other side, but he’s much more interested in the other people, and that’s fine. I’m just trying to keep my shit together over here.
They clear plates. They fill glasses, and this time I watch the clear liquid fill the little glass triumphantly.
Not today, motherfucker, I think at the vodka. Not today.
The king raises his glass.
“To the grass in the fields,” I think he says. I mutter nah, froyo, and take the tiniest possible sip of vodka, then put the glass down.
Across the table, Kostya is still staring at me. Glaring at me. Stare-glaring.
There’s probably a word for that in Russian, I think. Or they don’t have a word for “looking,” only “stare-glaring.”
I look away first, because I know I’m not handling myself well, and I know he disapproves of me. Plus, I can feel my Asian glow out in full force, so I’m bright pink.
But I’ve cracked the secret to not getting super drunk at this formal dinner, and it’s gonna be fine. From here on out I can only get less drunk.
The waiter puts a very small bowl of soup in front of me. The second the steam hits my nose, I know it’s got kidney in it.
I cannot stand the smell of kidney, even sober, and my stomach lurches.
I take a deep breath through my mouth and focus on a salt shaker.
You’re fine, I think. You’re not gonna throw up from four drinks. No one does that.
I catch another whiff of kidney and have to grit my teeth together, because it’s abundantly clear that I am about to do that.
“Excuse me,” I manage to say.
I stand and somehow, through sheer force of will, I walk out of the dining room in my high heels. I have no idea where I’m going, but I have to get out of that room, filled with vodka and kidney smells.
I walk into some sort of passageway. The windows overlooking the sea are open, and the fresh breeze feels good. I take a deep breath, and some of my nausea dissipates instantly. I take another, and another.
There’s a bench along the wall, facing the windows, and I sit on it gingerly. I lean my head back against the wall and keep gulping air. Maybe if I can stay like this for a few minutes, the soup will be gone, I won’t puke, and I can go back in there like nothing’s happened.
A few minutes pass, and I’m almost feeling better.
Then I hear footsteps coming down the hall.
My eyes pop open, but before I can stand, Kostya comes into view.
Great, I think. The very last person I want to see.
I swallow hard and lean forward to stand, but he holds up one hand.
“Sit,” he says, like he’s commanding a dog.
I glare, trying to give him a taste of his own medicine. He seems impervious to it.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re drunk,” he says.
I close my eyes and lean my head back.
“I’m sorry. Don’t put my head on a spike,” I say.
“You didn’t invade. You’re a guest,” he says, and I feel his weight settle next to me on the bench.
“I’m still a barbarian,” I say, eyes still closed.
I hear something rip, and open my eyes just enough to look down. He’s got a bread roll in his hand, and he’s torn a chunk off of it, holding it in front of me.
“You need bread,” he says. “It soaks up the vodka.”
“That’s not how digestion works,” I say.
His father must have sent him to do damage control with the drunk American girl, I think.
“Eat,” he says. I take the hunk of bread and put it in my mouth, chewing it slowly.
This is way, way worse than the train station. I look better now, but rushing out of a formal dinner because I’m so drunk I think I might vomit is beyond the pale. Hell, I should just pack my things and go home now, before this dinner is over, so I can’t ruin anything else.
My stomach stirs, and I lean my head against the wall, closing my eyes. Kostya presses another bite of bread into my hand and the tips of his fingers brush my palm. They’re warm and surprisingly rough for a royal.
I eat the bread. I swallow. I don’t open my eyes. He presses another bite into my palm, and we repeat this over and over again.
After a few minutes, I do start to feel better. I take a deep breath and open my eyes. He’s stare-glaring at me. I just blink.
“Better?” he asks. His expression stays flat.
“I think so,” I say. “You should go back. I’ll be okay.”
“It’s fine,” he says, and presses the last chunk of bread into my hand. “That vile soup will be gone when we return.”
I eat the last chunk of bread and try not to smile at vile soup.
“My mom gave me a brief on Sveloria, but I guess I skimmed the part about toasts,” I say.
“You’re not the first foreigner to be duped,” he says. “According to legend, that’s why we have so many of them.”
“To get foreigners drunk?” I ask. “Is Sveloria the frat party of Eastern Europe? You get outsiders drunk so you can get lucky?”
He frowns slightly and looks at me. I open my mouth, only to realize that I can’t possibly explain that dumb joke right now, so I just shake my head.
“We have an excellent tolerance for alcohol,” Kostya says. “In the old days, rulers would negotiate over a meal. In Sveloria, it was traditional for that meal to include a number of toasts, and anyone who refused to drink was committing a grave social sin.”
He still looks dead serious, but I start smiling.
“And your king would keep his head while the other guy got wasted,” I say.
“Precisely,” he says.
“Tricky,” I say. “You Svelorians are fucking crafty.”
I shut my mouth, because I probably shouldn’t call the crown prince fucking crafty.
“Times have changed,” he says. “Now it’s also considered polite for guests to sip their vodka. We can’t even put heads on spikes any more, even when we wish we could.”
I lean my elbows on my knees, take a breath in, and then look at him. He’s not smiling, but for the first time, he’s not exactly glaring, either.
“That was a joke,” he explains, and looks at the windows. “I don’t wish to put heads on spikes at all.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my finger and thumb and start laughing. I’m still drunk, so it seems extra ridiculous that the heir to the throne is here, feeding me bread and trying to be funny.
I’m sure his father sent him to check on me, but I have a feeling his father didn’t ask him to try to make me laugh.
“I think you may not be laughing at my joke,” he says, and stands.
I take a deep breath, trying to get control of myself, and look up at him.
“I think I may not be,” I say.
He offers his hand. I take it. It’s warm and strong and rough, and even though I wobble a little getting to my feet, he’s got me.
“Thank you for the bread,” I say.
“It was my pleasure,” he says, and offers me his arm.
It’s a formality, Hazel, I tell myself.
I take it, and he escorts me back to the dining room. As the doorman starts opening the heavy doors, we look at each other. I slide my hand out of his arm, and we walk back into the dining room.
As I sit, my dad leans over to me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” I whisper back.
I’m just in time for the main course, a heavily spiced lamb dish with some sort of thick red sauce. I inhale, and my mouth starts watering.
The bread worked, I think, even though I know perfectly well that it shouldn’t have.
I glance across the table. Even though I’m pretty sure Kostya was sent as damage control, and even though he just gave me bread and tried to be friendly, I have the strange urge to keep what just happened a secret.
My stomach squirms again. I tell myself it’s the vodka.
Yelena, Kostya’s pretty, blond, blue-eyed date, is speaking to him softly. He leans toward her, nodding intently, focused on whatever she’s saying.
He was being polite to you, I think, and a sliver of disappointment slices through me, even though I don’t know why. It’s not like I thought I was going to date a foreign prince. For starters, I’m the ambassador’s daughter, and I can only imagine that’s frowned upon.
For the thing that comes after starters, he’s a prince. He lives in a palace and stuff, and someday he’s going to be in charge of a whole country. A country where I don’t even speak the language.
Yelena smiles and touches his hand, her big blue eyes exploring his face. Kostya nods, not smiling, but I’m not sure he can smile.
Just appreciate the hot prince from afar and spend your month reading books and really finding yourself or some shit, I tell myself.
Then, as Yelena’s still talking, Kostya raises his head a fraction of an inch and looks at me.
I get that pinned bug feeling again. For a split second, I forget to breathe.
Kostya’s mouth twitches, just a little, for just a moment. I look back at my plate.
I think he just smiled at me.
6
Kostya
For the rest of the dinner, the vodka level in Hazel’s glass doesn’t change. At every toast, the waiter pours a few more drops in, but she’s only pretending to drink now.
Good. I’m glad she can learn.
As soon as the main course is over, Yelena wraps her hand around my forearm and gazes up at me, fluttering her long black lashes.
“What did you think of the lamb, Kostya?” she asks.
I hardly thought anything of it. I was busy keeping my eyes down, on the table or on my food and not looking at Hazel.
It feels like we have a secret, but I’m at a loss. I’ve got nothing to hide. There was no impropriety. She’s our guest, and I was hospitable.
“The lamb was excellent,” I tell Yelena.
“It was my mother’s recipe,” she says. She tilts her head just a little, looking almost like a pretty bird. “The chef asked her for it last week.”
“Your mother is an excellent cook,” I say, but my half of this conversation is on auto-pilot.
I’m just agreeing with whatever she says because my mind is back on the bench. I’m thinking of Hazel saying I’m a barbarian, of the strange electric jolt that passed through me when she took my hand.
“She’s taught me everything she knows,” Yelena says. “I could make you that lamb dish in my sleep.”
I’m so distracted that it takes me a moment to realize that Yelena is flirting with me. Or, if not flirting, trying to sell herself as my wife. She’s telling me that she’s a good cook, and if I’m not careful, she might move on to listing the number of children all her foremothers have had.
“What did you think of the soup course?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation.
She blinks, and I can almost see the gears turning in her blond head as she thinks back to the soup course. I missed it, of course, because I was taking a bread roll from the kitchen and finding Hazel in the hallway.
“I think it had a bit too much kidney in it,” she says, after a long pause. “It was very well spiced, though.”
“How would you have made it?” I ask as dessert comes around. It’s baklava and ice cream, and Yelena hardly touches it as she gives a long explanation of how she would have made the soup.
My father gives another toast. I drink again, finally starting to feel the effects of the vodka.
I glance over at Hazel, but she doesn’t look at me, instead carefully eating the baklava, doing her best not to get pastry flakes everywhere. Next to me, Yelena is eating neatly, delicately, with small bites.
I keep my eyes down and finish dessert.
After dinner, Yelena suddenly wants to take a stroll through the rose garden. It’s a beautiful, warm August night, and she takes my arm as the two of us walk around and she talks about which flowers are the loveliest.
How does someone who thinks so little say so much? I wonder, then feel bad immediately.
Thinking bad thoughts about Yelena is like being annoyed at a puppy.
Besides, she’s not the first girl who’s tried to win my interes
t. She’s not even the most aggressive. When you’re the crown prince, women just throw themselves at you in the most unattractive ways. Half the time I feel like a trophy to be won, like I’d simply be these women’s ultimate accessory.
Yelena, at least, is here at her father’s urging, and probably my father’s too. She’s genuinely pleasant and kind, even if there isn’t much going on upstairs.
“Don’t you ever wish it was the olden days?” she says, gazing up at a tower. “When ladies wore those beautiful dresses and men were so dapper, and the whole castle would have been lit by candlelight? There would be fancy dinners every night and balls each week, and everything would be lovely.”
“How long ago do you mean?” I ask.
“Oh, before all the bad things,” she says.
I know that she means before 1919, when tiny Sveloria was swallowed up by the U.S.S.R., but I can’t help thinking there was never a time before bad things.
I also can’t help being taken aback at the last hundred strife-filled years being reduced to the bad things.
“No,” I say. “I’ve never wished that.”
She smells a rose, then blinks at me.
“Why?” she asks. “You would still be king someday.”
I look up at the windows of the palace and imagine beautiful women swirling around, dancing with men dressed to the nines. The warm orange glow of a thousand candles.
“No, I wouldn’t,” I say.
“Of course you would,” she says. “Your family has ruled for hundreds of years.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say.
I think of Maksim the second, glaring out from his portrait. I want to say this castle has murder holes for a reason. I want to say the barbarians were always at the gates.
I want to say right now the barbarians are attacking villages in the north, only now they call themselves the United Svelorian Front, and my father insists on pretending that everything is okay.
“You’re of royal blood,” she says. “It isn’t complicated, Kostya.”
Everything is complicated, I think.
“When I was seven, I wandered into a part of the castle that was under construction,” I say. “And I stepped on a nail that the workers had accidentally left on the floor, sticking up through a discarded board.”