by Lexi Whitlow
I slip my hand around Norah’s expanding waistline, pulling her near. I begin telling her about the things I want to accomplish as king, starting with improving our healthcare system. “How do I get a thousand skilled specialists to relocate here? How do we even begin to build the hospitals and clinics we’d need to house them?” I ask. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times without arriving at a sustainable answer.
Norah shrugs. “You can’t,” she admits. “There’s no short-term way to do it. Rural communities all over the United States struggle with the same question. Lucky for you, you don’t have the same limitations they have.”
“What do you mean?” I ask her, pausing by an apple tree, plucking a ripe fruit for my wife, then one for myself. They’re luscious, sweet and juicy.
“You have money. Lots of money. And you have nobles with even more money.”
“They don’t want to part with their money,” I say.
“You have to give them the right incentive,” Norah says, a smile turning her lips. “Let me tell you about the introduction of the personal income tax and the 16th amendment to the United States Constitution.”
What follows from Norah is a lecture on motivating the wealthy to expend their income for the common good, instead of on yachts, mansions, and gilded swimming pools.
“Vanderbilt University. Duke University. The Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina,” Norah says, then rattles off a dozen more names I don’t recognize. “Almost every major university, museum, library, hospital, and arts facility in the country came into fruition because of the first real income tax law. The wealthy would rather have their names sprawled across the gates of a university or on the side of a teaching hospital than pay a smaller amount in taxes to the federal government. It’s great PR for the rich, and it serves a necessary purpose in society. Building things puts common men to work. Schools and libraries educate the common man’s children. Those children grow up to be doctors, teachers, business owners. They spend money, feeding into the economy, raising wages and GDP for the whole nation.”
That’s brilliant.
“What you need is a think tank to help you come up with ideas like that, and an evil genius marketing and data analysis firm to help you sell the ideas and defeat the people who oppose you.”
“A think tank?” I ask. I sort of know what that is, but I’m not sure I know how to put one together.
Norah grins at me. “Make me organizing chairman of your think tank, and I’ll help you pull it together.”
“Hired,” I say, not kidding at all. In five minutes she’s already conceived one idea that’s a thousand times better than anything I managed after weeks of puzzling on it.
“Excellent,” she giggles. “I’ll start tomorrow.”
“You’re going to want an office and your own secretary soon, aren’t you?” I tease.
She nods. “Yes, but not until after your coronation. We need to get it made official ASAP. If you piss off the nobles before you’ve got that crown, they may just depose you and pull Lloyd back into the job.”
I know she’s joking, but there’s a ring of cautious truth-telling in her tone.
“Yeah,” I say. “The nobles are pushing for me to name the date. I don’t know why they’re so hell-bent on a ceremony—it’s just crazy tradition. I’ve already signed all the papers.”
She smiles sweetly at me again. “You haven’t spoken the vows in front of them, pledging your fealty to Anglesey. They want to see you holding that scepter, wearing that ermine cloak, having that ancient crown placed on your head by the archbishop. That’s what a king looks like to them. They need it. I think the people need it, too.”
I pause in the lane, taking Norah’s other hand in mine. “How did you get to be so wise?” I ask her. “How do you know about things like think tanks, and income tax law?”
She grins. “Since we’re married, and you can’t easily get rid of me, I’m going to go ahead and tell you: despite my stunning beauty and astute fashion sense, I’m a closet nerd. I spent my childhood in libraries. I love books and newspapers, history and facts. I never thought any of that would ever be useful—just entertaining and interesting. But sometimes the trivia packed in my brain comes in handy.”
“It does,” I agree. She’s going to make an excellent queen.
“Ooowww!” Norah squeals, jumping, lifting a hand to her belly. “Oh, my word!” she says, big blue eyes going wide with surprise. “They’re boxing! I think they’re really boxing in there.”
25
Norah
It’s amazing who will return your phone calls when you say you’re calling from the royal palace at Cymrea on behalf of the Crowned Prince and acting king of Anglesey. Over the last month I’ve had tremendous luck putting together a board of directors for The King’s Society, the think tank Owen and I talked about that’s going to help us remake this country. Melinda Gates was thrilled to put me in touch with some incredibly bright thought leaders who have worked on economic development programs all over the world. She even said that the Gates Foundation may be interested in helping us seed fund the first endowment for the newly-proposed Medical School at Queen’s College, here in Cymrea.
Sir Richard Branson has been helpful, as has a brilliant man named Scott Levi at the Research Triangle Institute, an organization that provides research, development, and technical services for projects like ours, all over the world. They have a fantastic track record in the United States, working to transform rural economies into high-tech development centers. We’re all going to do great things together.
But first, we have a coronation to get through.
Having interesting work to do has been great for my confidence, which is good because my hair hasn’t grown out much, but my belly sure has. I’m just shy of eight months pregnant, and so fat! Tomorrow I’m supposed to kneel before my king, swearing an oath to be his “liege woman of life and limb,” and I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to get up again.
We’ve practiced the ceremony half a dozen times with all the central figures who have parts in the production. It’s all very choreographed and highly ritualized, and it’s rather silly looking with a hockey stick standing in for a scepter, a rugby ball for the globe, and a polo helmet for the crown. Owen’s been fitted for his crown, but he won’t get to have the real item placed on his head until tomorrow. The palace functionaries are absolute sticklers for tradition.
One person who is breaking with tradition is Owen’s mother. She could, by all rights, stand beside him while he takes his place on the throne. She’s opting instead to watch the proceedings from the audience. She’s officially retiring from public life as soon as Owen is crowned and has already moved out of the king’s apartments upstairs. She’s living temporarily in an apartment in the west wing. Soon she’s moving to a country house in Saxony, very near a certain handsome duke.
Our architects and carpenters are remodeling the king’s apartments to make them a proper home for Owen, me, and the twins. The work is coming along nicely and should be done before the babies are born.
Generally, everything is going swimmingly well. The only fly in the ointment is Lloyd, who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Last night he snuck out of the palace by himself and managed to scale the fifteen-foot-high wall enclosing the grounds. He ran around on top of it for hours, chanting, howling at the moon, babbling at the top of his lungs about The All-Exalted Toth. He entertained a lot of regular people on the public side of that divide. Before the royal guard could get him down, every paparazzi in the country had collected hundreds of photos and lots of hilarious video. Lloyd was all over the news this morning, upstaging the plans for the coronation.
Owen was not amused.
“Mother’s moving to the west country,” Owen said at breakfast this morning, glaring at the newspapers. “We’ve got a country to run, a palace to manage, and twins on the way. I don’t know what to do about Lloyd. We can’t possibly keep hi
m here. Maybe we should just send him back to Bora Bora.”
I asked Owen to give it a little more time before he made any permanent decisions on that question.
We’re all dining together tonight, a formal affair with members of the coronation party, the archbishop, the Minister of State, the Minister of Defense, and the Lord Mayor of Cymrea. Owen is terrified that Lloyd is going to make a scene this evening, and he insisted that he not come to the coronation.
“He usually behaves when I’m around,” I observe as Owen and I dress for the evening. “I’ll stay near him tonight while you and your mother entertain the guests.”
I’m wearing a calf-length, Empire style black gown that hides my growing girth better than anything else I’ve tried on in a month. Owen slips diamonds and sapphires around my throat and onto my wrist, fixing a new pair of sapphire earrings in my ears.
“You look good in jewels,” he says, running his fingers through my too-short, tight curls. “You look good naked, too. I can’t believe how sexy you are pregnant.”
“Keep talking,” I say. “I need to hear that right now. I feel like the broad side of a barn.”
Owen laughs. “Not yet, Duchess. You still have a month to go. You’ll get there, but you’re not there yet.”
My plan to keep Lloyd distracted during this very important dinner starts off a little rocky. Before the soup bowls are cleared he attempts to engage the archbishop—a stern, pious fellow with a single eyebrow and an enormous nose—in a theological discussion about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how they were actually written in the first century by ancient devotees of the cult of Toth who were exiled to the desert by a Roman prefect who ruled Egypt at the time.
The archbishop nearly chokes on his endive as soon as Lloyd starts expounding. Personally, I would love to hear how this tale unfolds, but I have a job to do, and I can’t allow the entertainment factor to get in the way of my royal duty.
“Excuse me, Prince Lloyd,” I say, interrupting, batting my lengthy eyelashes at him. “I heard a rumor running around that once upon a time, you trained in personal defense with a former IRA soldier. Is that true?”
Lloyd stops talking. He looks at me oddly, blinks, and then he smiles slyly. “Why yes, it is true,” he says. “Before I discovered the truth of Toth, I engaged in many useless endeavors like fighting, drinking to excess, and entertaining myself in various ways that would be impolite to discuss in the present company.”
“What was it like?” I ask him. “Hanging out with a genuine ex-terrorist?”
His eyes brighten. “Diverting,” he says, turning slightly toward me, now ignoring the archbishop. “I was a sheltered child, as you might imagine, and was unprepared for some of the crueler aspects of adolescence. My father thought it would be a good idea to teach me how to defend myself. I believe I took the lessons a little too much to heart. I excelled in the brutal arts.”
I manage to keep Lloyd engaged like this through four courses and dessert. Since he doesn’t drink, and I can’t drink, I ask Lloyd to walk with me in the park while everyone else retires to the parlor for after dinner drinks.
“You’re awfully nice to me,” Lloyd observes as we amble along, security following closely in case he decides to jump the fence again.
“You’re a little odd,” I admit, laughing. “But you’re easy enough to be nice to. And you’re certainly interesting.”
I see his eyebrows raise and a smile briefly cross his face. “Norah, my dear, you don’t know the half of it,” he says, his voice low so our shadows can’t hear. “I know what you’re doing, and I respect it.”
“What am I doing?” I ask, genuinely curious what he thinks.
“You’re running interference and doing it well.”
I’m shocked by his sudden burst of lucidity. I don’t even know how to respond.
“I’d like to come to the coronation tomorrow,” Lloyd says. “I swear on the Good Book of Toth I’ll behave. I just want to watch Owen get that crown put on his head.”
Okay… Now I’m just confused. “Why?” I ask.
“Just ask Owen if I can come. Tell him I swear I won’t embarrass him. Tell him it’ll mean more to me than anything in the world. I’ll sit with Mother. I’ll be a perfect prince. He’ll never know I’m there.”
Later, after our guests have departed, after Princess Dalia and Lloyd have gone off to their own rooms, I tell Owen about my strange exchange with Lloyd, and his request.
“He swore?” Owen asks, his expression drawn with concern.
I nod. “He said, and I quote, ‘Tell him I swear I won’t embarrass him.’”
Owen stands silent a moment, contemplating. “When we were kids, if we swore on something, it was our code that it was a huge deal and we couldn’t break one another’s confidence,” Owen says. “It was our leveler. If you swore you wouldn’t tell, no matter how bad the lie was, you couldn’t tell, no matter what. Even as crazy as he is, I don’t think he’d swear if he didn’t mean it.”
“He really wants to be there,” I say. “It’s important to him. I’m not sure I understand why, but he seemed sincere.”
Owen shakes his head, shrugging. “As long as he’s got six royal guards with him to haul him out of the cathedral if he goes nuts, I guess it’ll be okay,” he says. “I can’t see the harm in it, and in a way, his presence lends some additional credibility to my claim to the crown that’s rightfully his.”
A few moments later, Owen calls Duncan to convey the news that Lloyd is permitted to attend the ceremony, and to oversee Lloyd’s security escort, making absolutely certain he doesn’t break his promise.
“I know something you don’t know,” Owen says smugly as we crawl into bed together.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He grins, twirling his fingers in my short curls. “You’ve been there for all the rehearsals for the coronation. When we get to the end and the Minister of State gets to the very end and says, ‘begin the elevation proceedings?’ That’s when we stop rehearsing.”
I nod. “Yeah, I always thought that was odd, that we stop when he says ‘begin.’”
“Tomorrow,” Owen says, “we’ll keep going. There’s a short list of people who will be elevated to noble rank after I’m coronated. I’m elevating your friend, Earl Whatsit, and Sinead to duke and duchess. I’m elevating a handful of barons and viscounts from the House of Lords who’ve been supportive of my ideas, up to marques and dukes. Duncan is going to receive an earldom, along with a knighthood. I’m reestablishing the Order of the Garter, which was traditionally a collection of king’s advisers composed of commoners. Duncan is going to be in charge of reconstituting that order, creating a think tank of Anglesey’s best and brightest commoners to help us connect with the general population.”
“And none of them know?” I ask. “Not even Duncan?”
“None of them know,” Owen says. “Duncan may have an inkling that something is up, as I asked him to invite anyone he wanted to see him in the procession. He invited his mother and your friend, Chantal. I think they’ve been seeing one another since the wedding.”
I suspected as much. That makes me smile. “Duncan will be so proud,” I say. “He’s the best.”
“He is,” Owen agrees. “I owe Duncan everything. He’s my guardian angel.”
“He’s mine, too.”
26
Owen
No nation’s leader wants a general strike to occur. It’s an expensive, inconvenient disruption to business and governance. It’s going to cost the country millions. The fact that the strike leaders have scheduled the thing to take place tomorrow—the day following my coronation—is symbolic. The nobles are still outraged: they’re asking me to bring out the army if the protesters block the streets or if the thing goes on more than a day or two.
I’m not going to do it. I haven’t asked the leaders to call off the strike. Instead I’ve asked the organizers to sit down with me, my cabinet, and members of the newly formed King’s Society to work wi
th us to draw up wage and human rights legislation, self-governance guidelines, a reformed tax code, and about a dozen other high-priority issues.
Initially they didn’t believe we were sincere. After seven meetings and agreement on the first draft of what I hope will become Anglesey’s fledgling constitution, they now know we’re sincere.
I receive stacks of mail every day. Most of it’s handled by my secretary’s office. This morning, as Norah and I are having breakfast, the butler delivers a letter. “This was sent down for you, sir. The secretary’s office said that you should see it immediately.”
Norah looks on curiously as I open the correspondence. It’s from the Worker’s Organizing Committee.
Your Royal Highness, Crowned Prince Owen, Acting King,
We the undersigned write to you today on behalf of our membership, and as unofficial representatives of the people of Anglesey.
We offer our congratulations on your upcoming coronation and wish you the greatest success as monarch of our nation.
Your willingness to listen to your people, to empathize with their concerns, and your determination to enact genuine reforms has demonstrated to us that you are indeed our king.
We anticipate that you will continue to act as our king, working to balance power, reform the economy, and invest in the country and its people for the benefit of the people, not just the privileged few.
In celebration of your coronation, and in hopeful belief that change is coming, we have called off the general strike previously scheduled to begin at noon tomorrow. There will be no work stoppage, no protests or demonstrations.
We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship working with you and the government.