by Erin McRae
She had to move an armchair over a foot to even stand in front of the door properly. Once she did, she hesitated. She didn’t know which room of Arthur’s the door led to, or if he was in his rooms at all.
There was nothing for it but to try. She raised her hand and tapped the heavy oak with her knuckles.
For a long, drawn-out moment Amelia thought Arthur hadn’t heard or wasn’t there. But then there was the faintest sound that might have been footsteps, the scrape of something heavy being moved across the floor, and the squeal of a long-unused lock being turned.
The door opened.
Arthur stood before her in his shirtsleeves, lit from behind by soft lamplight. It fell in a warm beam across the floor, reaching across the wood and carpet into Amelia’s own sitting room. She realized belatedly she hadn’t turned on the lights, even though it had grown dark outside. Arthur wore his reading glasses, behind which his eyes glinted brown at her.
“Amelia?” he asked, looking worried when she didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry. Am I disturbing you?”
He shook his head and stepped back to let her in. “No. Not at all. I’d forgotten this door was here,” he added as she crossed the threshold.
This room, too, was a sitting room. Judging by the decor, Arthur hadn’t had it redone to his own tastes since he moved in. The cream-colored walls, gold moulding, and rich crimson velvet of the furnishings and drapes were nothing like the cool blues and greys he seemed to prefer at Gatcombe and St. James’s.
On one of the armchairs, pushed close to a fire that crackled warmly in the chill that never seemed to leave the palace, was a yellow legal pad and a stack of printed pages, all well-thumbed. On a little table next to the chair was a cut glass decanter and tumbler.
“I’ve interrupted your work,” Amelia said awkwardly.
“No. Well, yes, you have. But I’m glad you came.” Arthur moved the stack of papers from the chair to the table and gestured Amelia to sit down. He took the seat opposite her as if having an unscheduled private conversation was completely ordinary to them. Then he seemed to hesitate. “Why did you come? Are you all right?”
“I don’t need something to be wrong to talk to my fiancé,” Amelia said. Nerves made it sharper than she meant it to be,
“No, of course not.”
“But I do want to talk to you,” Amelia said.
Arthur gestured for her to go on.
“You told George what you’re planning?” Amelia asked. “You — rather — asked?”
Arthur looked at her over the top of his reading glasses and then took them off. He dangled them from his fingertips as he answered. “Yes. I did. Does that bother you?”
“No,” Amelia said. She didn’t say that she’d thought for ages that George hated her. “It surprises me a little. You haven’t told your sister. Or I imagine your mother.”
“George has known almost from the beginning.” He chuckled, a little self-deprecatingly, but his eyes were very serious. “I could hardly make a decision like that without the permission of my court witch.”
“Did George tell you….” Amelia began and then trailed off. George’s pronouncement about the future was too terrible to say out loud and she had no idea what Arthur knew or felt about the matter of her gender.
“I’ve been perfectly aware of any number of things about George for a long time,” Arthur said.
“And you’re always trying to convince me you don’t believe in witchcraft. Yet you go to all the birds and magic of England for your advice.”
Arthur laughed. “If you had George at your disposal, wouldn’t you?”
Amelia sighed. “I was supposed to be scientist.”
“And now?” Arthur asked.
“Now I want to know if she told you what she told me.”
“Which is?”
“That if you married me and made me queen pari passu Britain would never have another king.”
Arthur nodded. “She told me that too.”
“What are you going to do?”
Arthur shook his head. “There doesn’t seem to be much I can.”
“Other than not marrying me and making me this strange new kind of queen,” Amelia pointed out. Someone had to say it.
“I promised you.”
“You did. But you also promised the realm you would take care of it. That’s why we’re doing this — all of this! — to make this a place where her king speaks for all her people. But now George says you’ll be the last and what would be the point?”
“Perhaps we’ll only have daughters. Perhaps the monarchy has done more harm than good. Perhaps an asteroid will hit the earth. A witch, regardless of what either of us thinks a witch is, riddles.”
“But —” Arthur held a finger to his lips to silence her.
“Did George tell you not to marry me?” he asked.
“No.”
“And she didn’t tell me to refrain from making you a strange queen. I’ve learnt many things from having George in my life. Among them, that there are always more possibilities than I can imagine.” Arthur gave her his fondest smile, the one that made them conspirators and convinced her he might one day love her. “Therefore, after everything, don’t you want to see what will happen?”
Whatever her fears and reservations, Amelia still didn’t have a no for this man. She nodded, and Arthur picked up the pad on the table next to him and handed it to her.
Amelia leaned forward to take it from him. “What is it?”
“The announcement. Of queen pari passu.”
“A speech?” Amelia asked.
Arthur shook his head. “The king doesn’t make speeches. Except on Christmas,” he said ruefully. “And I will give a speech then, but not about this. A speech would attract all the wrong sort of attention. Screaming curious crowds, analysis on the news of how strong my voice is as if that’s a measure of my conviction. This will be a decree in the papers. Let them try to argue with words printed in black and white if they can.”
“You sound confident,” Amelia said. She didn’t feel the same. Arthur surely underestimated all the ways an unhappy public could tear apart anything they wanted to. His words were the least of it.
“I am. Go on, read it.”
Amelia looked down at the pad and Arthur’s precise, looping handwriting. It laid out everything Arthur had told her about the kind of queen he would make her. Softened, for public consumption — Arthur couldn’t very well come out and say ‘And now I’m making chaos for the good of our realm’ — but firm and clear in its intent. There would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Arthur was turning the world upside down.
“What do you think?”
Amelia swallowed. Holding these words in her hand, what Arthur was doing for York — what Arthur was doing for her — made it feel more real than it had the night he first offered it. Perhaps he was onto something, wanting to print this.
“I think it will do what you need it to do. What — we — need it to do. I still don’t know what’s going to happen next, though.”
“In life one rarely does. Sometimes that’s terrible and sometimes that’s good, but one never knows until the attempt has been made.”
“What does George think?” She still couldn’t believe Arthur’s niece had accepted this.
“She gave her approval. Unlike either of us, I suspect, she’s not frightened.”
“Is she frightened of anything?” Amelia asked.
“The day Imogene died,” he said, with only the slightest hesitation. “She was inconsolable. Hardly a wonder — Imogene was very fond of her. But how many six-year-olds grasp the idea of death so fully? She went to bed sobbing that all the ravens would die.”
“And then?” Amelia asked, knowing any story about George was unlikely to end there.
“And then in the morning she woke up, calm as a mill pond. She got out of her rooms and found me in the gardens. I’d not slept all night, and she looked like a ghost child rising out of the path in front of m
e. Like the child Imogene and I would never have. But she took my hand and told me that it would be all right. That I would find a queen again. I convinced myself for a long time after that, that some well-meaning chaplain had gotten to her and that she meant my wife, in the afterlife. Now, I think she meant you.”
Goosebumps broke out up and down Amelia’s arms. “That doesn’t feel comforting.”
“No. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now.”
Amelia was silent. What was there to say to that?
After a few moments she realized that Arthur was looking at her. Staring at her, really, his eyes intent as she sat, her head a bowed over the decree that would make her — very nearly — the equal of a king.
She flushed under his stare. But rather than change the topic or flee as she had so many times before, she let herself savor the sensation, the warmth spreading from her cheeks and down her throat to the rest of her body. Her entire being felt alight under Arthur’s gaze.
This wasn’t her imagination; she couldn’t have dreamed his gaze. This was not how one looked at a business partner or a political ally.
Arthur suddenly cleared his throat, the sound harsh in the otherwise still room.
“I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I have other business to attend to tonight.”
“Oh.” The dismissiveness, the carelessness, of Arthur’s tone was like a bucket of cold water. She stood so quickly she nearly stumbled over her own feet. She had grown too susceptible both to Arthur and his family’s magic. Fairytales existed for a reason and that was to tell little girls like her that to be under a man’s sway was not the same as having his love.
Still, she couldn’t help asking, “Can I see you? Later, tonight?”
Arthur raised his eyes from his hands to her face. For the briefest of moments he held her gaze. The intensity she thought she had seen there before remained, but she was no longer sure of its meaning. If George was a witch, then Arthur was too. But he was of a different sort entirely. He was a banked fire made flesh, a man waiting to turn the very air to flames.
He was looking at Amelia now like she was that air.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said. He cleared his throat again, and the spell broke. He was once again a normal man with very little interest in her. “I have meetings early tomorrow. I shouldn’t stay up.”
Chapter 23
ENGLAND ERUPTS IN RESPONSE TO KING’S PROCLAMATION
28 December
Year 1 of the reign of King Gregory I
The decree announcing the creation of queen pari passu was in the paper this morning.
Since noon there have been crowds outside the gate shouting. Some in joy. Some for my head. My actual head this time; I’m not just being paranoid.
I don’t think Arthur planned for this.
*
If Amelia had once been trapped in the palace by public relations uncertainty, she was now trapped by sheer practicality. The streets of London were filled with protesters, while news broadcasts kept her up to date on the ugly things they were saying about her, York, and a king who would take such a queen.
The newspapers were hardly better. There, lengthy opinion pieces criticized Arthur’s decision about queen pari passu and predicted the fall of the monarchy. Meanwhile, matters that should have received news coverage — debates in Parliament over things that actually mattered like jobs, schools, roads — devolved into shouted arguments about tradition, mythology, and ravens.
*
Amelia approached the conference room for a meeting of the wedding planning committee with reluctance. It seemed crass to debate decorations when she had thrown the country into turmoil.
Everyone in the room stood when she entered. Even Arthur. Disaster may have been at hand, but there was a force to her presence now. She nodded to the assembled and took her seat at the corner of the table next to Arthur, expecting the usual round of boring logistics she wasn’t actually invited to have an opinion on.
“We must talk about the dress,” Beatrice said.
“What about the dress?” Her dress had been done for months. What was there to discuss now?
“We have to do something about the roses,” the steward said.
“I don’t understand,” Amelia said.
Beatrice shot Arthur a grave look.
“Arthur?” Amelia turned to him, her voice rising slightly in anxiety that had nothing to do with the aesthetics of the flowers but everything to do their symbolism.
“It seems our staff,” Arthur emphasized the word almost cruelly, “is concerned about public sentiment regarding our wedding.”
“What do you mean?” Amelia asked.
“We’ve decided the design previously approved for the dress is no longer appropriate given the current political climate and His Majesty’s recent proclamation,” Beatrice said. “There is still sufficient time to create and approve another look. Designers are lining up for the chance.”
“But the roses were supposed to represent the unification of our houses, of the whole country. I even agreed to red roses along with the white,” Amelia said numbly. She felt as though the rug was being pulled out from under her. Again. Although not by Arthur this time. They had fought over the dress and come to an agreement; Amelia had been proud of that. She had even grown to love the design of the gown, both for its own sake and for what it symbolized.
“You can, of course, have roses in your bouquet or the arrangements,” Beatrice said, her voice a parody of placation. “Just not white ones. We’ve decided a pale blush would be appropriate.”
Amelia looked helplessly around the table. How mad would she sound if she objected to pale pink roses? In other circumstances pink would have been fine, but at the moment the symbolism of the blood of Lancaster tainting the white rose of York was too grotesquely literal to bear.
“No.”
Amelia sagged with relief at the sound of Arthur’s voice.
“Roses at weddings are ordinary. The absence of them is not and will create new problems, not solve old ones. If Lady Amelia would like roses on her wedding dress, she shall have roses on her wedding dress as previously agreed upon.”
“But sir —”
“The Crown may be upheld by superstition, but we do not bow to it. Nor do we make decisions based on the whims of people standing outside my home with tagboard signs threatening my wife-to-be. Now, do we have any real business to attend to?”
Amelia turned to Arthur to mouth a thank you. He graced her with a tiny nod.
The committee turned to discussing the order of ceremony for the wedding itself. The Archbishop of Canterbury woul, perform the service, and Amelia had nothing to add as the staff debated amongst itself over music choices.
She spoke again when the chief steward mentioned the presentation of the ring.
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “Don’t you mean the presentation of rings?”
“It’s a single ring ceremony, ma’am.”
“I don’t understand.” Unlike the mess about the roses and the ravens, this time, she truly didn’t.
The steward slid his eyes toward Arthur rather than answer. Amelia turned to look at her fiancé, too.
“I won’t be having a wedding ring,” Arthur said quietly.
“Oh.” There was nothing else Amelia could say, not in public and certainly not surrounded by people who didn’t like her. Not about how a wedding ring, if Arthur didn’t have one too, felt not like a symbol of commitment but a mark of her as his possession.
“I apologize for the interruption,” she said to the chief steward. “Please, continue.”
*
When the meeting was over, Amelia stopped Arthur with a hand on his arm before he could escape. “Can I talk to you a moment?”
Arthur gave her a considering look. “Come to my office.”
Amelia might have wished for a more neutral location but as long as he was king, there was no neutral ground for her in all of England. With a sigh she followed and to
ok a seat across the desk from him when he sat.
“No one told me it was going to be a single ring ceremony,” she said.
Arthur sighed and shifted a paperweight on his desk. “It’s tradition. Surely you know that.”
“You’re breaking thousands of traditions with queen pari passu. Why not with a ring as well? It’s only a symbol.”
“Symbols are important,” Arthur said.
“You just told a roomful of your advisors — and mine — that we do not bow to superstition.”
“And yet.” Arthur gave her a look that was almost regretful. “The ravens are still caged.”
Amelia was not going to stray down the witchcraft path with Arthur again. Not now, not when the very real shape of her future marriage was at stake. “How can I ever be your equal if I must wear your rings but you don’t wear mine? Is everything just clever words to you no matter the consequences?”
“We can’t have all things all ways,” Arthur said. “There’s a limit to what the people will tolerate.”
“Yes, and I’m fairly sure the scene outside indicates we’ve already passed it.”
“The protests will settle down,” Arthur said. “The tabloids will grow tired of this story and find something else to sensationalize. But understand that roses for a day are one thing. A ring for a lifetime — that makes me yours before I am this kingdom’s — might ruin everything.”
“I can’t be your equal if I’m also your possession,” Amelia said again. There was no rationale Arthur could offer that would change that. If she had to, she would keep saying so until he understood.
“And you can’t be my equal at all if the country cannot adjust. I know nothing but this life, Amelia, but I know that it is often the small things that are a step too far. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way.”
*