That afternoon, I sat in one of the palace reception rooms and trembled.
I’d been shaking since the Queen’s aide had seated us. I’d shaken while she brought us tea, and my cup had rattled on its saucer when I sipped. I’d had to force my hands to steady, but that only made the trembling come out somewhere else: now my leg was nervously shuddering.
“Stop it,” muttered Jagor, not unkindly. He laid a warm hand on my back.
“I can’t.” There was just too much history. As well as a selection of priceless vases that had me scared to go within six feet of them, portraits of former kings and queens covered every wall. Even Jagor was up there, looking suitably regal. And then there was me, without a drop of royal blood in me.
The aide returned and told us simply, “The Queen approaches.”
The Queen approaches?! Dear God, even the way they announced her was intimidating. I stood up and tried to smooth my clothes. We heard footsteps approaching down the hallway, slow and deliberate. Jagor took my hand and squeezed it.
She swept in, in a turquoise suit that made even my Parisian wardrobe feel tasteless and ill judged. “Mother,” Jagor greeted her, and moved forward to kiss her on the cheek. She allowed it.
The Queen and I stared at each other. I curtsied: I’d been practicing, as well as checking the etiquette. The Queen let me get halfway through the movement before speaking, as if to deliberately throw me off.
“The last time we met,” she said, “you told me you were my son’s aide and translator.”
I stayed silent, hoping she’d continue…but she wanted me to confirm the lie. “Yes, Your Majesty.” Even as the Exkella, I’d have to address her formally until Jagor and I were married.
“But the entire time you were sleeping with him: correct?”
It felt like tiptoeing over red-hot coals. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
There was a long silence. “Well, at least your ability to lie will serve you well. Do you have any idea what awaits you?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I don’t mean allowing my son to tie you to the bedposts and flog you—”
“Mother!” Jagor grated.
“I mean the responsibility of carrying this family’s name. Even as Exkella,” she picked over the word as if she were turning over a stone with her foot, unsure what she might find underneath, “you are the woman my son has chosen and your actions reflect on him – and on us. Do you understand?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she was faster. “No, of course you don’t understand. But I hope you’ll learn quickly. Do you love her?”
The Queen was still looking at me but I realized she was speaking to Jagor. He was just as thrown as I was. “I—‘
“Oh for goodness sake, Jagor, it’s a simple enough question, do you love her or don’t you? The interviewers won’t be so kind if you hesitate. You must love her to even consider this, surely? Oh, no, don’t say she’s pregnant!”
My eyes were on the floor, my cheeks burning. I didn’t dare turn to look at Jagor, but I could imagine his expression: embarrassment and anger vying for dominance. “No! She isn’t pregnant and of course I love her!”
“Well.” The Queen clapped her hands in mock delight. “How romantic!”
***
When we’d escaped, Jagor led me to his private suite – our suite, now – and silently poured himself a generous tumbler of whiskey. I proffered a glass and he poured me one, too.
“Is she always going to be like that?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Would you believe me if I told you she’s really very kind?” I just looked at him. “She is,” he insisted. “But she liked Calara; she knew her since she was a child. Calara was practically one of the family—”
“You’re not helping,” I said quietly.
He sighed and knocked back his whiskey. “Sorry. Things will improve. Let her warm to you; let the public warm to you. Speaking of which, we need to go and get ready. They want us on the balcony in half an hour.”
***
The photos of us in Paris had been gradually appearing on gossip sites and in newspapers over the last week. Ismelda had put out a carefully worded statement that confirmed that the Prince was engaged to an American woman. A separate statement confirmed that he was no longer seeing Calara: the exact timings were left vague. I’d been surprised there weren’t more questions about the overlap: in America, the press would have mercilessly scrutinized every detail.
“Our press is a little different,” Jagor told me, looking almost ashamed. “The royal family has a greater degree of influence than in some countries.”
“Meaning you control the press?” I’d always believed in a free press. Now I was scared enough that total control seemed very appealing.
“More like they try not to offend us. It’s not always a good thing: it can make it difficult to judge things, sometimes, when we have no real feedback. The foreign press can be useful for that: we have no control over them.”
Great. It was going to be open season in all the newspapers back home.
Ismelda gathered us together, the King joining us at the last moment. She showed us into an old, stone-floored room with a large balcony at one end. “You’ll be on view from about halfway down the room,” she murmured in my ear. “Stand tall and stay close to Jagor: keep an arm around his waist. Big smiles.”
We walked in a line: The Queen, the King, myself and then Jagor. Just before we reached the halfway point, Ismelda whispered “Relax!” in my ear and then stopped, remaining out of sight while we walked on.
Relax?!
Jagor was taller than me, so he saw it first and I heard him draw in his breath. Then I was close enough to see over the parapet myself and I felt my mouth drop open.
We were perhaps four stories up, looking out of the front of the palace. Beyond the canyon that separated the palace from the city, a crowd stretched back at least as far as the first cross-street and filled our view left to right. There must have been twenty or thirty thousand people. Ismelda had done a very good job spreading the word that the Exkella would appear. Terrifyingly, they were there for me.
“Wave,” the King said helpfully – if he hadn’t, I think I would have just stood there, open-mouthed. I waved, copying their practiced, lazy motion. Running through my head was I can’t do this, I can’t do this.
The crowd cheered; a wave of sound that rose up towards us. Jagor pulled me a little closer and they seemed to like that, too. Then he turned me and I realized he was going to kiss me.
A kiss? Is a kiss on the agenda? What sort of kiss? How sexy should we make it? We’d done it before at the Louvre, but this was different. Twenty shining camera lenses just felt intimidating. Twenty thousand watching faces was terrifying.
My fear lasted until I felt his lips on mine, and then as my eyes closed, the sound of the crowd seemed to die away and there was only Jagor, our lips moving slowly, his arms sliding around my waist and pulling me in. When we surfaced, the crowd were roaring. I waved again, dazed, and we were walking away.
Was that it? I wondered, did they stand in line and wait for hours just to see that? I felt like a cheat.
***
Afterwards, the King insisted that we spend a moment with him. I don’t know if he’d guessed how the Queen had treated me or if he was just being friendly, but I welcomed it either way. The Queen excused herself, leaving the three of us to wander through the palace.
“I must am being apologetic but my sound of American is not Jagor’s,” he garbled, looking quite pleased with himself.
“Let’s speak in Asterian, Your Majesty,” I said smoothly.
He nodded. “I’m glad we can finally talk, Exkella. Last time you were here, the idiots had me laid out flat on my back.”
Jagor looked troubled. “I hope they really are just idiots.”
“Pfft. Just hooligans and criminals with ideas above their station. It’s over: your crash team is a waste, you know.”
Jagor looked unconvinced, and I remembered our conversation with Sarik, last time I was in Asteria. “Let’s be cautious, father. It can’t hurt to have a few soldiers around: just in case.”
The King sighed. “As you wish. It gives them something to do, at least. The army can earn their pay, for a change.” We wandered into the press office and saw that the staff had gathered around a TV. “What’s this?”
Ismelda turned and blanched as she saw us. I recognized the woman on the screen: Calara, sitting in a TV studio in a cozy one-on-one interview.
“I thought our future lay together,” she was saying. “But he’s chosen an outsider, a woman from America who barely understands—”
Ismelda stabbed a button on the remote and the screen went blank. “Sorry, Exkella,” she said to me, and sighed. “I should have predicted she’d do this today.”
Jagor looked around. The whole press office looked not just glum, but guilty: they’d been out-maneuvered. “It’s not your fault. She was going to do this at some point. Maybe it’s better that it happens now.”
I stared at the blank screen with a stab of guilt. Was it my fault Calara’s life had been wrecked? I glanced at Jagor and he got the message. He looked at his father, trying to hint that we needed some time alone.
The King just stared blankly at him. For some reason it made me smile. Compared to the Queen, compared to Jagor, even, he was socially inept: refreshingly straightforward and honest next to the Queen’s icy scheming.
“I should probably talk to the Exkella alone,” Jagor said gently.
“Yes,” said the King, nodding thoughtfully. Then: “Oh! Of course. Please.” He stepped back out of the way, giving us permission to leave. As I curtsied and backed out of the room, he gave me an encouraging smile. I really liked him: he was like the innocent parts of Jagor, without his mother’s cold anger.
In a quiet corridor, Jagor put his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “I didn’t love her,” he reassured me. “It would have been a classic royal marriage: polite and outwardly happy, with nothing between us.”
I rested my head on his chest. “Is that how it is with your parents?”
He laughed suddenly. “Actually, I think theirs is one of the few where love is involved, in their own way.” He kissed me again. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Have we really destroyed Calara’s life?”
“She’ll be alright. But unless she can find someone suitably powerful to marry, she certainly won’t have the life she expected.”
The guilt settled into me, heavy and cold. I’d have to live with it forever...or find some way to fix things.
***
That evening, Ismelda was pleased. “The initial figures look good, Your Highness,” she told Jagor. “Even with Calara’s interview, comments on you are seventy percent positive. Exkella, your hair style is trending.”
“My what is what-ing?”
Ismelda wasn’t listening. “I think in the long term we were right: ratings are up for the two of you together.”
That didn’t sound right. “Ratings are up?”
Ismelda stopped suddenly, as if she’d said too much. I remembered the brief looks of guilt I’d seen when we’d discussed how the public would react to me. I rewound our conversations.
“Jagor,” I said cautiously, “Before I came along...the public did like you...didn’t they?”
Of course they did, I told myself. He was Jagor: what wasn’t to like? But the silence grew longer and longer.
“I should go, Your Highness,” Ismelda said, already turning to leave.
“No,” Jagor told her. “Please. Stay.” He sighed, his hands clenching into fists as he tried to explain. “My popularity with the public has...not been good,” he said at last. “My father was a military hero: I never served. He has a way with the people: they respond to him. I don’t have that. He is a leader, I’m....” his voice grew bitter. “A playboy.”
“You do yourself a disservice, Your Highness,” Ismelda said loyally.
“No. It’s true. They don’t like me the way they like him. Before I can rule, we need to change that.”
“And your engagement to Calara was meant to make you more likeable.” I felt cold and numb. “Was that why you were marrying her?” My stomach lurched. “Is that why you’re marrying me?”
“No!” Jagor almost shouted, and he pulled me close. “No, of course not. Lucy, my marriage to Calara was arranged many years ago. Yes, we hoped the public would like the idea but it would have gone ahead anyway. And it wasn’t the reason I proposed to you. If anything, you’ll be—” He broke off, but it was too late.
“A millstone around your neck?” I finished for him. I could feel Ismelda’s embarrassment at having to listen, but we were in too deep to stop now.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.” I walked out, trying to remember my way through the maze of corridors to our private suite. It didn’t help that my eyes were blurry with tears.
***
He found me an hour later. The sun had gone down and I was sitting in the darkness in our bedroom. The tears had almost dried but the deep ache inside remained.
“I’m sorry,” he told me in English. Hearing him mangle the pronunciation coaxed a laugh from me, even though I didn’t feel it. He kissed the back of my neck and then slowly worked around to the front, kissing away the last of my tears. “I should have better explained.” I winced at his English. “I did not want to load you with weight.”
“You didn’t want to burden me,” I corrected, and switched to Asterian. “I know.”
“Let me make it up to you,” he told me. He passed something around my head: silk, probably one of his ties. He was tying it like a blindfold.
“Wait,” I told him. I wasn’t in the mood: not so soon after we’d argued.
“It’s not sex. Come with me.”
He made me walk with him, hand-in-hand, and it was doubly disconcerting because I didn’t know the palace well enough to visualize where we were. Eventually, we stopped and I smelled flowers. He took off the blindfold.
We were in the palace gardens; an area I’d never seen before. Ancient stone pillars and low walls divided the garden into a thousand secret spaces. In front of us, a tree-lined path led to a clearing, lit by hundreds of candles in tiny tin lanterns. I could see a picnic blanket there, and a hamper. Music was coming from another clearing off to the side and as I took another step, I could just glimpse a string quartet playing there: close enough to the picnic that we’d be able to hear them, far enough away to prevent them spying.
“You did all this in an hour?” I asked weakly.
“I had a little help.”
***
The hamper contained bread, cheeses from around the world, succulent grapes, cold meats and salads, olives, several Asterian finger foods I couldn’t identify and a selection of cakes. There were two bottles of wine – just to give us a choice.
Jagor sat, leaning against a tree, and I nestled between his legs, my back against his chest. “Will we be able to do things like this?” I asked. “When we’re married?”
“Of course.” He stroked my cheek.
I was silent for a moment. “I don’t know if I can be who you need me to be.”
“Can you be yourself?”
“A librarian? I can be a librarian. Do you need a librarian?”
“A librarian is who I fell in love with. And you’re not really a librarian. You only look like one.” He paused. “Sometimes, you don’t even look like one.” I knew he was thinking of me in the corset, or in nothing at all.
“Calara would know what to say to people: how to act. She was bred for this life.”
He shrugged. “Maybe that’s a bad thing. I was bred for this life and they hate me.”
There was something in his voice: he was half-joking, but he couldn’t stop the note of pain creeping in. I turned to look at him: he’d heard it too, a
nd was covering his embarrassment by sipping his wine. This man who’s going to rule one day is just like everyone else, I realized. However formal and strong he had to be in public, on some level, he still needed what we all needed: to be liked, trusted and respected. And just like the rest of us, it killed him inside when he didn’t have it.
How much of this was because of his brother? His parents had never intended Jagor to take the throne: From birth, Vinko had been the one who would lead. How much had that shaped Jagor’s childhood: being told he was to be the playboy prince; the one who’d never ascend? And when Vinko died, what awful damage had that done to Jagor? Did he feel responsible, because Vinko had been captured trying to save him? Had he always felt like he was second choice: second best?
I knew he was in there: the Jagor I loved, the one the public didn’t see. Gentle but strong, caring but decisive. If he kept living like this, isolated from his people, trapped by his past, what would he eventually turn into?
The Queen?
Had she been just like Jagor, when she’d married the King? Had the isolation poisoned her, and made her demand fearful respect in place of the love she longed for?
“I’ll do it,” I said out loud.
He turned and looked at me, startled. “What?”
“Help you.” I was determined now. I was going to be the best damn exkella there’d ever been, and together we’d get the public on our side. Jagor would get the love he needed, from me and his people. I had the retinue to help me: all I had to do was not screw up.
Chapter Sixteen
We were eating breakfast on the terrace with the Queen when it happened. Unlike all those meals in Monaco, I could at least sit next to Jagor now, even if the cold gaze of the Queen meant that it was difficult to feel playfully romantic at the table. She was attacking some sort of Asterian smoked fish with a viciously sharp knife when Ismelda appeared. “Your Majesty,” she said tightly, “Exkella?”
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