Chapter 2,
in which an expected party takes an unexpected turn
There is a certain kind of emptiness that can only be felt on the occurrence of an uncertain separation from a loved one. It happens when one or the other person moves to a distant place and there is no guarantee that a meeting will happen again. One never allows such a feeling to fall into absolute sadness, because that would be admitting that the parting was permanent. Neither can one entirely ignore it, because that would trivialize the importance of the relationship. So grief is held in limbo until it is either acknowledged with weeping, banished by another meeting, or, most terribly of all, quietly absorbed into one's nature.
Rhema felt this emptiness as she watched the Cottage disappear from her carriage window, taking her away from her home, from the garden, and from Jonathan. She folded and refolded her hands in her lap.
It will only be a week. Nothing more. Nothing will change. I will have a holiday in the capital, sleep in an exotic guest room in the palace, then come back and tell Jonathan all about it.
She tried to while away the time reading, but the empty feeling remained, as if a heavy cloak were slowing dropping over her shoulders.
"I'm bored." Roger's sharp, man-child voice broke her reverie.
"Then I suggest you find something to do," Rhema said.
"What are you reading?"
"A book."
"What kind of book?"
"The kind with words."
"What words?"
The conversation went on like this until Rhema conceded to narrating the book out loud. It was a frivolous French novel about fantastic things such as men walking on top of the moon. Roger made a surprisingly attentive audience. He gasped at the shocking parts, whooped at the exciting parts, and sat silent for the thoughtful parts.
"Rhema, do you think someone will have built a space ship by the time I am a man?" He suddenly interrupted.
"Don't be silly. It is only a story."
"I hope nobody does. I want to be the first."
Rhema rolled her eyes. "How do you intend to do that?"
"Charlie makes train cars without tracks, and I have seen balloons in the city. How far can it be? I've read the papers Neha gets from America. I want to live there one day so that I can be a captain of industry."
"Then by all means, stay in Gallia. What are we going to do if everybody interesting keeps moving to America?"
"You called me interesting."
"Only in the way that one day scientists will want to experiment on you to determine how someone so short can be so annoying."
"You talk like Jonathan."
"Do I?"
Rhema repressed a smile. What a pair she and Jonathan would make! She spent the rest of the journey imagining having adventures in America with Jonathan.
She only noticed that they arrived in Iderburg when waves of thin stone houses with red roofs waxed and waned in her window. Symmetrical buildings divided the cobbled roadways into hundreds of asymmetrical possibilities. Roger lost his power of speech, seemingly overpowered by the sights and smells that existed, to his reckoning, for his sole enjoyment.
A nauseous fear filled Rhema's insides as they drew closer to the castle. Her bones sat uneasily. She told her bones that it was nothing but excitement, but this did not satisfy them.
The iron gates before the moat bridge squealed as the guardsmen dragged them open, their age and weight evidenced by their moan. The scent of the fertilizer on the palace lawn competed with the odor of algae on the moat for Rhema's memories as her coach thump-thumped over a familiar wooden bridge. Rhema held her breath. She had nearly drowned in this moat when she was six.
Iderburg Castle's stone battlements sat on top of a tall hill, watching over the rows of red roofs of its city. A medieval wall formed its perimeter, perfect on its east side and half crumbled on the southwest side, as if it had been kicked in by a giant, unruly child. Ceremonial watchmen stood vigilant on the remaining un-collapsed towers, ghost-like vestiges of days long vanished.
The carriages passed through a second gate, through the decaying outer wall, over which a genuine portcullis hovered -- the rusted teeth of a skeletal citadel. Beyond the "teeth of the giant", as Rhema liked to call it, was fairyland.
The royal palace's fanciful Baroque design shone out of the ruin of the old castle like a pearl in the center of an oyster. Tailored gardens skirted its perimeter, populated by statues and topiaries. An eternal parade presented itself to every guest that dared to enter. Rhema regarded it as a sleeping beauty court, prepared to wake at any moment for the arrival of its princess. She could envisage sweet Princess Dahlia stepping into the court garden for the first time, with all her flutes and her fiddles, and waking the men of stone from their frozen state with nothing but her music and the purity of her love for the prince. Rhema had plenty of time to imagine this, for the driveway curved in a leisurely circle around the garden before it could reach its destination at the front entrance to the palace.
The Gallian flag, a gold star on a field of green, waved enthusiastically from the flag pole above the front entrance, welcoming them into its fold. Gold trimmed the many windows of the palace's cloud-gray surfaces, which rose into more magnificent shapes the higher they went. Many of the people living in the city below had never seen anything of this palace except those highest spires because it was hidden behind the decrepit old wall.
The coaches halted in procession, and a company of servants peeled the luggage from their sides in a flurry of organized pandemonium. The De Frees family climbed the limestone front steps, each of which was so wide that a person could lie flat across it comfortably. Rhema tripped on the first step. A young maid materialized behind her to stop her from falling.
"These steps were taller the last time I was here," Rhema explained. The maid nodded and stepped back. Rhema continued upward. The maid followed, patient as a shadow. Rhema took a step to the side. The maid did the same.
"What are you doing?" said Rhema.
The maid's eyes went to the ground as soon as Rhema glanced in her direction. She curtseyed and answered, "I am at your service, Baroness."
Blonde curls escaped the maid's bonnet to frame a pretty, rosy-cheeked face. She looked to be about Rhema's age, if not a year or two older.
"To do what?" said Rhema.
"Anything for which you require service, m'lady."
"What is your name?"
"Miss Felix, m'lady. Becky Felix."
"Thank you, Becky. If I think of something for which I require service, you will be the first to know."
Becky curtseyed and stepped away.
"Oi! How come I don't get one of those?" complained Roger.
"She is not a 'one of those.' She is a Becky," said Rhema. "Besides, you have several valets already."
A loud POP followed by a series of rhythmic clatters drew everyone's attention to the drive. In the distance, there appeared to be a noisy, black "carriage" crossing the bridge with no horses pulling it at all!
Rhema stood on her toes and held her breath as the machine bobbed closer. Billows of steam rose from the pipe in its back. Its skinny metal wheels rattled dangerously on the rocky drive. A man's tall, black hat bounced up and down as if it were a second steam pipe. Dressed in a mechanic's trench coat, gloves, and goggles, the only visible part of the driver himself was his thick, red sideburns and mustache. He pushed several levers back and forth and shouted a triumphant "Hallo!" that could hardly be heard over his machine.
"Charlie!" yelled Roger, forgetting his mother's instructions to be civil.
"Oh my goodness. Is that the Overtons?" said Lady de Frees, forgetting those instructions herself.
A beautiful woman sat closely by Charlie's side. One of her hands wrapped around his arm, the other held her broad purple hat on her head. Before the car could come to a complete stop, Rhema cried "Charis!", bounded down the king's polished steps, leapt into the car before it stopped moving, and had her arms around her sister's neck.
"Rhema, really!" said Charis. "This is Iderburg, not the Cottage. Where is your dignity?"
The young Mrs. Overton had inherited all the best parts from each of her parents: her father's manners and her mother's dark red hair, the latter of which had always made Rhema jealous. Though somewhat timid, Charis made up for her lack of confidence with an overabundance of sweetness that quickly became apparent to all who knew her well.
When Charis stood, the carriage wobbled. The sisters held on to each other for balance. Charlie ran around the side to help them down.
"What is this contraption?" Lord de Frees asked Charlie, frowning at the soot on Charlie's gloves and the disorderliness of his daughter's wind-tried skirt.
"Is it not remarkable? An invention of my partners down at the Bauen&Raums Music Company," Charlie said, removing his goggles to gander at the splendor of the palace. "When they heard that I would be coming here, they made me promise to get the king to notice this beauty. With proper funding, we can test, design, and manufacture these right here in Gallia, and perhaps even get a contract in Germany."
"What on earth for? My horse is faster than this.... thing."
"So far. So far. But have you heard what they are doing in England and in the Americas? Great things are afoot, good sir. Take my word for it. Why in another ten years, horse travel will be obsolete!"
Lord de Frees grunted. His carriage horses whinnied.
"Why did you not send word that you were coming?" asked Lady de Frees.
"Charlie thought we should surprise you. Do you know we drove all the way from Kulkton in this?" Charis said.
"How dreadful. Such a dangerous looking device. What if you caught cold?"
"I think it is wonderful," said Rhema. "No better weather could be had for a long drive with someone you love." Charis turned a light shade of pink.
The chief valet gathered them together and escorted them into the palace through towering front doors, which had an unremarkable width, but a height of such immensity that if there were a cypress tree somewhere that suddenly gained sentience and had the inclination to visit the king, it would surely have been well accommodated.
As they entered, Charis remarked to her husband, "It is really amazing that we are never invited to the court in Freesia. We are direct descendants of the former King Phillip of Freesia, after all, and I have never even met this Princess Dahlia of whom everyone has something to say."
"I am not a freesie," grumbled Roger, but nobody ever paid attention to Roger.
The inside of the palace was exactly the same on every visit. The same flat carpet. The same marble columns. The same faint odor of dust, even though not a speck of dust could be seen. It was the place that never changed. Rhema glanced up, expecting to see the usual green and gold banners drifting from the ceiling, only to find to her surprise that black ribbons had taken their place. The ribbons murmured dully when the wind from the door struck them, secrets, no doubt, that only the empty corners could understand.
The family walked by the pagaent of serious-faced portraits of royals from a history Rhema should have remembered but didn't. One of the newer portraits was that of Prince Bastion. On their last visit, some two years before, Charis had paused over that very portrait and gone on about how handsome the prince was. 'He's not that handsome,' Rhema had said to her then. This was somewhat of a lie. The artist drew him with soft, dark hair, a suitably proportioned nose, fair skin, and dishonestly black eyes. It was the eyes that threw her. Rhema had never had the opportunity to note what color exactly the prince's eyes were, but she could be certain that they were not black. She would have remembered something like that. The black eyes and expressionless mouth made the prince seem otherworldly. The more she stared at him, the more the portrait stared back at her -- into her. It was so discomforting that it was interesting.
"Come on, Rhema. You can dream about princes after you get to your room," said Charis. A secret smile showed that her opinion of the prince's handsomeness had not changed.
"I do not dream about princes," Rhema said, pulling her eyes off the portrait.
"Of course."
"Well, I don't. I was merely thinking of the quality of the picture. He looks well in it, to be certain, but how much of that can we be certain is him, and how much is the exaggeration of the painter? After all, what is a prince but a man who can afford a more flattering artist?"
"You cannot tell me, Rhema, that if Prince Bastion offered to carry you away right now on his white horse that you would not go."
"I most certainly would not! I would not go with Lancelot himself if I did not know him first. I should think a real prince would be quite dull, not a single original thought in his head. Whatever would I be able to talk to him about?"
"Love and politics, I suppose."
"Dreadfully dull!" said Rhema. "Besides, who's to say he even has a white horse."
Princes were too complicated. She preferred someone simpler. A buckle-maker's son, perhaps. Someone like Jonathan. Little sister. She tried not to think of it, but the trying made it worse.
Two right turns and the second door after the nursery. That was the way to the guest room. Rhema basked in the great privilege it was to be familiar with such a place as Iderburg Palace, to consider it her personal holiday home, to know the locations of the secret hiding places in the west wing, and to remember the color of the paint on the pillars -- ivory with gray speckles -- which she affectionately grazed with her fingers as she passed. It was more than a palace. It was her playhouse.
Preoccupied with memory, Rhema almost didn't notice the valet leading her left instead of right.
"Baroness, if you please," the valet said. He stopped in front of the Princess Suite, a room she had passed many times but had never entered. The maid Becky already busied herself inside unpacking Rhema's luggage.
"Are you certain this is my room?" said Rhema.
"Yes, Baroness."
"Thank you," she said softly.
"We will see you at dinner, liebchin," said her mother, with an unusually firm grip on her father's hand. Then they left her.
Rhema had always wanted to sleep in the Princess Annabelle Suite, but until now had only seen it through stolen keyhole glances. The corners of her mouth crept up her cheeks at the same pace her eyes crept up the tall patterned walls. No object did not delight her eyes, from the mahogany dressing table to the wide, four-poster sheer-curtained bed. Across from the door stood the portrait of the lady herself, Princess Annabelle van Sever.
The artist dressed Annabelle in green and gold, the colors of Gallia. Rhema examined the flow of the brushstrokes on her dress and the perfect pools of paint that made up her eyes. She was dark and feminine, a greatly admired beauty of her day. The picture was that of a young Annabelle, painted before she had ever thought of marrying the Freesian king. The story went that Annabelle's twin brother, Ambrose, who was the king of Gallia at the time, had been jealous of her marriage. Until the day she died in Freesia, he had hoped she would leave her husband and return to her homeland. Some stories said that she did return after her death, and that her ghost stalked the halls of the palace still, calling out for Ambrose.
That part is definitely not true, if any of it is. It is fortunate that I don't believe in ghosts.
Rhema straightened her back in mimic of Annabelle's pose, but a neighboring mirror reminded her that she was not at all like her ancestor.
"That is my great-grandmother," said Rhema to Becky. "The first baroness of Sever. This used to be her room."
"Yes, m'lady."
"Was any of this furniture actually hers? Maybe the bed? Or the mirror?"
"I do not know, m'lady."
"May I sit on the bed?"
"This is your room. You may do whatever you like, m'lady."
Rhema sat, sinking into the feather cushion. Before she knew it, she found herself lying down. The world grew still. The pillow welcomed her. The day, so full of movement, had a pause. She breathed the scent of clean linen and heard nothing but her own breath, the distant roll of carriage wheels, and the mute contentment of the room. If there was a ghost, it was a friendly ghost.
"Baroness--"
A voice crept into her reverie. Was it the maid or was it her own mind?
"Baroness--"
"Who?" Rhema muttered while forcing herself into a sitting position.
"Baroness Rhema, you must dress for dinner."
"Right," said Rhema, pulling her mysteriously boot-free feet in the direction of the floor. "Where is my blue dress, Becky?" Even sitting, her head did not yet feel separated from Annabelle's pillow. Becky fetched the blue dress with too many buttons.
"Do you serve a lot of noble people, Becky?" Rhema asked, having distinguished one hand from the other and put them to use with the silver buttons.
"My family has served the house of Sever for many generations," answered Becky as she straightened and tied and fastened.
"Then you know better than I how a baroness is supposed to behave. Will you help me behave more like a lady?"
"I will do what I can, m'lady," Becky said.
Rhema believed her.
Noble guests waited in a clutter outside the dining hall. As Lady VanGall had predicted, most of them were Freesian. They whispered among each other in speedy French dialects. In all their colors, bows, ribbons, and sashes, they were like a garden. The men were dashing and erect like blades of grass, and the ladies were elegant and fanciful in their wide-bottomed skirts, like flowers.
They would look even more like flowers if you turned them upside down.
Rhema staunched herself from snickering.
A man in a green sash called their names one by one. As they were called, they disappeared under the arch into the dining hall. "Marquis and Marquise Lysander Phillip de Frees de Verni. Duchess Annette Sophia de Frees de Devon," the man bellowed in a high baritone. "Sir Alexander Emmanuel the Third of Randells and Miss Eliza Emmanuel. Duke and Duchess Lucian Martin de Montiff." The list went on in that manner, each name more beautiful than the next. If Rhema's grasp of her family tree was better than it was, then she might have noticed that every invitee was not only Freesian, but also a descendant of Annabelle.
"Lord and Lady Joseph Severin de Frees and Mister Roger Harold de Frees. Mister and Misses Charles Wylie Overton. Miss Rhema Anska de Frees, Baroness of Sever."
Not-so-subtle glances piled in Rhema's direction as she made her way through the threshold. Her blue dress extended her figure into a an elegant frame. Her hair, tightly pinned by a ribbon, forced her to hold her head tall and alert. She tried not to look like herself. Instead, she tried to look like the woman who had just been announced, this Baroness of Sever. She gazed down at the people in the room below.
Men she did not know bowed to her. Between them and the table stood King Harold himself, dressed in formal black attire. The king was tall, taller than most of his guests, but weighted around the area of his belly. He had a long nose, which his eyes, dragged downward by fresh wrinkles, could not compete with. On top of his head was a full topping of gray hair, but his upward curved mustache remained stubbornly black.
Next to the king stood his brother Fredrik, the Prince of Want. Fredrik resembled Harold in face and form, minus some years and one mustache. Fredrik rarely attended these sorts of gatherings. He was usually out "wasting government money on frivolities", as the papers would say. On King Harold's other side stood a gentleman who Rhema did not recognize, a slender man in his late forties. Only a single gray streak in his night black hair betrayed his age. The man wore a look of detached concentration. Of course, if Rhema had met Brys, the Duke of Middelwey, before, she would have known that he almost always wore a look of detached concentration.
Prince Bastion was entirely absent. This too was unusual.
Rhema did as she had been taught. She curtseyed to the king once by the door and once more after she approached him. The largeness of his physical presence multiplied her nervousness by the largeness of his stately presence.
"Bonjour... Enchante de vous avoir ici de nouveau, Baronne," said Harold. His pronunciation was perfect, but his accent lacked Freesian flair.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Rhema.
"The pleasure is mine," said the king with a twist on the side of his mouth. She curtseyed once more and found her seat.
When the king finished shaking the hands of all his guests, he went to the head of the great table, laid out with every kind of steaming, mouth-watering delicacy. Suddenly, King Harold drew a breath, and his eyes watered. Silence took the room.
"Please be seated," he said. The royal translator repeated his words in French so that the Freesians could understand. Chairs squeaked and feet shuffled.
"My friends, I much regret having drawn you from your homes in this tragic hour. We received the communication ourselves only this morning, when most of you were already en route."
The Duchess de Montiff sniffed, and the Duke de Montiff put his arm around her shoulders and handed her a handkerchief. The muscles in Rhema's face steeled themselves in preparation for something dreadful, if only she knew what it was. Where was the prince?
Harold continued, "As many of you know, Princess Dahlia was taken with pneumonia three weeks ago tomorrow. I received a telegram from Verni earlier today that confirms our worst fears. With great sorrow, I must inform you that Her Highness, Princess Dahlia de Frees passed away in the early hours of this morning in her sleep."
Gasps of horror transformed what should have been a happy gathering into a house of grief.
"My son.... my son could not be with us this evening. He is in grief and must prepare to leave for Verni to attend the funeral, taking place in three days. Any guests who desire to leave will of course be provided with transportation, the best we can provide, to escort you either to Verni or back to your homes. As you have been invited for the full week, my home remains at your disposal should you wish to grieve in privacy. I will have words on matters of business with some of you in private. In the mean time, please have something to eat. I hope you will forgive me for not dining with you at this time." The king, flanked by Brys and Fredrik, exited the dining hall, and a chorus of weeping began.
There were many leftovers in the kitchen that night.
Rhema felt this emptiness as she watched the Cottage disappear from her carriage window, taking her away from her home, from the garden, and from Jonathan. She folded and refolded her hands in her lap.
It will only be a week. Nothing more. Nothing will change. I will have a holiday in the capital, sleep in an exotic guest room in the palace, then come back and tell Jonathan all about it.
She tried to while away the time reading, but the empty feeling remained, as if a heavy cloak were slowing dropping over her shoulders.
"I'm bored." Roger's sharp, man-child voice broke her reverie.
"Then I suggest you find something to do," Rhema said.
"What are you reading?"
"A book."
"What kind of book?"
"The kind with words."
"What words?"
The conversation went on like this until Rhema conceded to narrating the book out loud. It was a frivolous French novel about fantastic things such as men walking on top of the moon. Roger made a surprisingly attentive audience. He gasped at the shocking parts, whooped at the exciting parts, and sat silent for the thoughtful parts.
"Rhema, do you think someone will have built a space ship by the time I am a man?" He suddenly interrupted.
"Don't be silly. It is only a story."
"I hope nobody does. I want to be the first."
Rhema rolled her eyes. "How do you intend to do that?"
"Charlie makes train cars without tracks, and I have seen balloons in the city. How far can it be? I've read the papers Neha gets from America. I want to live there one day so that I can be a captain of industry."
"Then by all means, stay in Gallia. What are we going to do if everybody interesting keeps moving to America?"
"You called me interesting."
"Only in the way that one day scientists will want to experiment on you to determine how someone so short can be so annoying."
"You talk like Jonathan."
"Do I?"
Rhema repressed a smile. What a pair she and Jonathan would make! She spent the rest of the journey imagining having adventures in America with Jonathan.
She only noticed that they arrived in Iderburg when waves of thin stone houses with red roofs waxed and waned in her window. Symmetrical buildings divided the cobbled roadways into hundreds of asymmetrical possibilities. Roger lost his power of speech, seemingly overpowered by the sights and smells that existed, to his reckoning, for his sole enjoyment.
A nauseous fear filled Rhema's insides as they drew closer to the castle. Her bones sat uneasily. She told her bones that it was nothing but excitement, but this did not satisfy them.
The iron gates before the moat bridge squealed as the guardsmen dragged them open, their age and weight evidenced by their moan. The scent of the fertilizer on the palace lawn competed with the odor of algae on the moat for Rhema's memories as her coach thump-thumped over a familiar wooden bridge. Rhema held her breath. She had nearly drowned in this moat when she was six.
Iderburg Castle's stone battlements sat on top of a tall hill, watching over the rows of red roofs of its city. A medieval wall formed its perimeter, perfect on its east side and half crumbled on the southwest side, as if it had been kicked in by a giant, unruly child. Ceremonial watchmen stood vigilant on the remaining un-collapsed towers, ghost-like vestiges of days long vanished.
The carriages passed through a second gate, through the decaying outer wall, over which a genuine portcullis hovered -- the rusted teeth of a skeletal citadel. Beyond the "teeth of the giant", as Rhema liked to call it, was fairyland.
The royal palace's fanciful Baroque design shone out of the ruin of the old castle like a pearl in the center of an oyster. Tailored gardens skirted its perimeter, populated by statues and topiaries. An eternal parade presented itself to every guest that dared to enter. Rhema regarded it as a sleeping beauty court, prepared to wake at any moment for the arrival of its princess. She could envisage sweet Princess Dahlia stepping into the court garden for the first time, with all her flutes and her fiddles, and waking the men of stone from their frozen state with nothing but her music and the purity of her love for the prince. Rhema had plenty of time to imagine this, for the driveway curved in a leisurely circle around the garden before it could reach its destination at the front entrance to the palace.
The Gallian flag, a gold star on a field of green, waved enthusiastically from the flag pole above the front entrance, welcoming them into its fold. Gold trimmed the many windows of the palace's cloud-gray surfaces, which rose into more magnificent shapes the higher they went. Many of the people living in the city below had never seen anything of this palace except those highest spires because it was hidden behind the decrepit old wall.
The coaches halted in procession, and a company of servants peeled the luggage from their sides in a flurry of organized pandemonium. The De Frees family climbed the limestone front steps, each of which was so wide that a person could lie flat across it comfortably. Rhema tripped on the first step. A young maid materialized behind her to stop her from falling.
"These steps were taller the last time I was here," Rhema explained. The maid nodded and stepped back. Rhema continued upward. The maid followed, patient as a shadow. Rhema took a step to the side. The maid did the same.
"What are you doing?" said Rhema.
The maid's eyes went to the ground as soon as Rhema glanced in her direction. She curtseyed and answered, "I am at your service, Baroness."
Blonde curls escaped the maid's bonnet to frame a pretty, rosy-cheeked face. She looked to be about Rhema's age, if not a year or two older.
"To do what?" said Rhema.
"Anything for which you require service, m'lady."
"What is your name?"
"Miss Felix, m'lady. Becky Felix."
"Thank you, Becky. If I think of something for which I require service, you will be the first to know."
Becky curtseyed and stepped away.
"Oi! How come I don't get one of those?" complained Roger.
"She is not a 'one of those.' She is a Becky," said Rhema. "Besides, you have several valets already."
A loud POP followed by a series of rhythmic clatters drew everyone's attention to the drive. In the distance, there appeared to be a noisy, black "carriage" crossing the bridge with no horses pulling it at all!
Rhema stood on her toes and held her breath as the machine bobbed closer. Billows of steam rose from the pipe in its back. Its skinny metal wheels rattled dangerously on the rocky drive. A man's tall, black hat bounced up and down as if it were a second steam pipe. Dressed in a mechanic's trench coat, gloves, and goggles, the only visible part of the driver himself was his thick, red sideburns and mustache. He pushed several levers back and forth and shouted a triumphant "Hallo!" that could hardly be heard over his machine.
"Charlie!" yelled Roger, forgetting his mother's instructions to be civil.
"Oh my goodness. Is that the Overtons?" said Lady de Frees, forgetting those instructions herself.
A beautiful woman sat closely by Charlie's side. One of her hands wrapped around his arm, the other held her broad purple hat on her head. Before the car could come to a complete stop, Rhema cried "Charis!", bounded down the king's polished steps, leapt into the car before it stopped moving, and had her arms around her sister's neck.
"Rhema, really!" said Charis. "This is Iderburg, not the Cottage. Where is your dignity?"
The young Mrs. Overton had inherited all the best parts from each of her parents: her father's manners and her mother's dark red hair, the latter of which had always made Rhema jealous. Though somewhat timid, Charis made up for her lack of confidence with an overabundance of sweetness that quickly became apparent to all who knew her well.
When Charis stood, the carriage wobbled. The sisters held on to each other for balance. Charlie ran around the side to help them down.
"What is this contraption?" Lord de Frees asked Charlie, frowning at the soot on Charlie's gloves and the disorderliness of his daughter's wind-tried skirt.
"Is it not remarkable? An invention of my partners down at the Bauen&Raums Music Company," Charlie said, removing his goggles to gander at the splendor of the palace. "When they heard that I would be coming here, they made me promise to get the king to notice this beauty. With proper funding, we can test, design, and manufacture these right here in Gallia, and perhaps even get a contract in Germany."
"What on earth for? My horse is faster than this.... thing."
"So far. So far. But have you heard what they are doing in England and in the Americas? Great things are afoot, good sir. Take my word for it. Why in another ten years, horse travel will be obsolete!"
Lord de Frees grunted. His carriage horses whinnied.
"Why did you not send word that you were coming?" asked Lady de Frees.
"Charlie thought we should surprise you. Do you know we drove all the way from Kulkton in this?" Charis said.
"How dreadful. Such a dangerous looking device. What if you caught cold?"
"I think it is wonderful," said Rhema. "No better weather could be had for a long drive with someone you love." Charis turned a light shade of pink.
The chief valet gathered them together and escorted them into the palace through towering front doors, which had an unremarkable width, but a height of such immensity that if there were a cypress tree somewhere that suddenly gained sentience and had the inclination to visit the king, it would surely have been well accommodated.
As they entered, Charis remarked to her husband, "It is really amazing that we are never invited to the court in Freesia. We are direct descendants of the former King Phillip of Freesia, after all, and I have never even met this Princess Dahlia of whom everyone has something to say."
"I am not a freesie," grumbled Roger, but nobody ever paid attention to Roger.
The inside of the palace was exactly the same on every visit. The same flat carpet. The same marble columns. The same faint odor of dust, even though not a speck of dust could be seen. It was the place that never changed. Rhema glanced up, expecting to see the usual green and gold banners drifting from the ceiling, only to find to her surprise that black ribbons had taken their place. The ribbons murmured dully when the wind from the door struck them, secrets, no doubt, that only the empty corners could understand.
The family walked by the pagaent of serious-faced portraits of royals from a history Rhema should have remembered but didn't. One of the newer portraits was that of Prince Bastion. On their last visit, some two years before, Charis had paused over that very portrait and gone on about how handsome the prince was. 'He's not that handsome,' Rhema had said to her then. This was somewhat of a lie. The artist drew him with soft, dark hair, a suitably proportioned nose, fair skin, and dishonestly black eyes. It was the eyes that threw her. Rhema had never had the opportunity to note what color exactly the prince's eyes were, but she could be certain that they were not black. She would have remembered something like that. The black eyes and expressionless mouth made the prince seem otherworldly. The more she stared at him, the more the portrait stared back at her -- into her. It was so discomforting that it was interesting.
"Come on, Rhema. You can dream about princes after you get to your room," said Charis. A secret smile showed that her opinion of the prince's handsomeness had not changed.
"I do not dream about princes," Rhema said, pulling her eyes off the portrait.
"Of course."
"Well, I don't. I was merely thinking of the quality of the picture. He looks well in it, to be certain, but how much of that can we be certain is him, and how much is the exaggeration of the painter? After all, what is a prince but a man who can afford a more flattering artist?"
"You cannot tell me, Rhema, that if Prince Bastion offered to carry you away right now on his white horse that you would not go."
"I most certainly would not! I would not go with Lancelot himself if I did not know him first. I should think a real prince would be quite dull, not a single original thought in his head. Whatever would I be able to talk to him about?"
"Love and politics, I suppose."
"Dreadfully dull!" said Rhema. "Besides, who's to say he even has a white horse."
Princes were too complicated. She preferred someone simpler. A buckle-maker's son, perhaps. Someone like Jonathan. Little sister. She tried not to think of it, but the trying made it worse.
Two right turns and the second door after the nursery. That was the way to the guest room. Rhema basked in the great privilege it was to be familiar with such a place as Iderburg Palace, to consider it her personal holiday home, to know the locations of the secret hiding places in the west wing, and to remember the color of the paint on the pillars -- ivory with gray speckles -- which she affectionately grazed with her fingers as she passed. It was more than a palace. It was her playhouse.
Preoccupied with memory, Rhema almost didn't notice the valet leading her left instead of right.
"Baroness, if you please," the valet said. He stopped in front of the Princess Suite, a room she had passed many times but had never entered. The maid Becky already busied herself inside unpacking Rhema's luggage.
"Are you certain this is my room?" said Rhema.
"Yes, Baroness."
"Thank you," she said softly.
"We will see you at dinner, liebchin," said her mother, with an unusually firm grip on her father's hand. Then they left her.
Rhema had always wanted to sleep in the Princess Annabelle Suite, but until now had only seen it through stolen keyhole glances. The corners of her mouth crept up her cheeks at the same pace her eyes crept up the tall patterned walls. No object did not delight her eyes, from the mahogany dressing table to the wide, four-poster sheer-curtained bed. Across from the door stood the portrait of the lady herself, Princess Annabelle van Sever.
The artist dressed Annabelle in green and gold, the colors of Gallia. Rhema examined the flow of the brushstrokes on her dress and the perfect pools of paint that made up her eyes. She was dark and feminine, a greatly admired beauty of her day. The picture was that of a young Annabelle, painted before she had ever thought of marrying the Freesian king. The story went that Annabelle's twin brother, Ambrose, who was the king of Gallia at the time, had been jealous of her marriage. Until the day she died in Freesia, he had hoped she would leave her husband and return to her homeland. Some stories said that she did return after her death, and that her ghost stalked the halls of the palace still, calling out for Ambrose.
That part is definitely not true, if any of it is. It is fortunate that I don't believe in ghosts.
Rhema straightened her back in mimic of Annabelle's pose, but a neighboring mirror reminded her that she was not at all like her ancestor.
"That is my great-grandmother," said Rhema to Becky. "The first baroness of Sever. This used to be her room."
"Yes, m'lady."
"Was any of this furniture actually hers? Maybe the bed? Or the mirror?"
"I do not know, m'lady."
"May I sit on the bed?"
"This is your room. You may do whatever you like, m'lady."
Rhema sat, sinking into the feather cushion. Before she knew it, she found herself lying down. The world grew still. The pillow welcomed her. The day, so full of movement, had a pause. She breathed the scent of clean linen and heard nothing but her own breath, the distant roll of carriage wheels, and the mute contentment of the room. If there was a ghost, it was a friendly ghost.
"Baroness--"
A voice crept into her reverie. Was it the maid or was it her own mind?
"Baroness--"
"Who?" Rhema muttered while forcing herself into a sitting position.
"Baroness Rhema, you must dress for dinner."
"Right," said Rhema, pulling her mysteriously boot-free feet in the direction of the floor. "Where is my blue dress, Becky?" Even sitting, her head did not yet feel separated from Annabelle's pillow. Becky fetched the blue dress with too many buttons.
"Do you serve a lot of noble people, Becky?" Rhema asked, having distinguished one hand from the other and put them to use with the silver buttons.
"My family has served the house of Sever for many generations," answered Becky as she straightened and tied and fastened.
"Then you know better than I how a baroness is supposed to behave. Will you help me behave more like a lady?"
"I will do what I can, m'lady," Becky said.
Rhema believed her.
Noble guests waited in a clutter outside the dining hall. As Lady VanGall had predicted, most of them were Freesian. They whispered among each other in speedy French dialects. In all their colors, bows, ribbons, and sashes, they were like a garden. The men were dashing and erect like blades of grass, and the ladies were elegant and fanciful in their wide-bottomed skirts, like flowers.
They would look even more like flowers if you turned them upside down.
Rhema staunched herself from snickering.
A man in a green sash called their names one by one. As they were called, they disappeared under the arch into the dining hall. "Marquis and Marquise Lysander Phillip de Frees de Verni. Duchess Annette Sophia de Frees de Devon," the man bellowed in a high baritone. "Sir Alexander Emmanuel the Third of Randells and Miss Eliza Emmanuel. Duke and Duchess Lucian Martin de Montiff." The list went on in that manner, each name more beautiful than the next. If Rhema's grasp of her family tree was better than it was, then she might have noticed that every invitee was not only Freesian, but also a descendant of Annabelle.
"Lord and Lady Joseph Severin de Frees and Mister Roger Harold de Frees. Mister and Misses Charles Wylie Overton. Miss Rhema Anska de Frees, Baroness of Sever."
Not-so-subtle glances piled in Rhema's direction as she made her way through the threshold. Her blue dress extended her figure into a an elegant frame. Her hair, tightly pinned by a ribbon, forced her to hold her head tall and alert. She tried not to look like herself. Instead, she tried to look like the woman who had just been announced, this Baroness of Sever. She gazed down at the people in the room below.
Men she did not know bowed to her. Between them and the table stood King Harold himself, dressed in formal black attire. The king was tall, taller than most of his guests, but weighted around the area of his belly. He had a long nose, which his eyes, dragged downward by fresh wrinkles, could not compete with. On top of his head was a full topping of gray hair, but his upward curved mustache remained stubbornly black.
Next to the king stood his brother Fredrik, the Prince of Want. Fredrik resembled Harold in face and form, minus some years and one mustache. Fredrik rarely attended these sorts of gatherings. He was usually out "wasting government money on frivolities", as the papers would say. On King Harold's other side stood a gentleman who Rhema did not recognize, a slender man in his late forties. Only a single gray streak in his night black hair betrayed his age. The man wore a look of detached concentration. Of course, if Rhema had met Brys, the Duke of Middelwey, before, she would have known that he almost always wore a look of detached concentration.
Prince Bastion was entirely absent. This too was unusual.
Rhema did as she had been taught. She curtseyed to the king once by the door and once more after she approached him. The largeness of his physical presence multiplied her nervousness by the largeness of his stately presence.
"Bonjour... Enchante de vous avoir ici de nouveau, Baronne," said Harold. His pronunciation was perfect, but his accent lacked Freesian flair.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Rhema.
"The pleasure is mine," said the king with a twist on the side of his mouth. She curtseyed once more and found her seat.
When the king finished shaking the hands of all his guests, he went to the head of the great table, laid out with every kind of steaming, mouth-watering delicacy. Suddenly, King Harold drew a breath, and his eyes watered. Silence took the room.
"Please be seated," he said. The royal translator repeated his words in French so that the Freesians could understand. Chairs squeaked and feet shuffled.
"My friends, I much regret having drawn you from your homes in this tragic hour. We received the communication ourselves only this morning, when most of you were already en route."
The Duchess de Montiff sniffed, and the Duke de Montiff put his arm around her shoulders and handed her a handkerchief. The muscles in Rhema's face steeled themselves in preparation for something dreadful, if only she knew what it was. Where was the prince?
Harold continued, "As many of you know, Princess Dahlia was taken with pneumonia three weeks ago tomorrow. I received a telegram from Verni earlier today that confirms our worst fears. With great sorrow, I must inform you that Her Highness, Princess Dahlia de Frees passed away in the early hours of this morning in her sleep."
Gasps of horror transformed what should have been a happy gathering into a house of grief.
"My son.... my son could not be with us this evening. He is in grief and must prepare to leave for Verni to attend the funeral, taking place in three days. Any guests who desire to leave will of course be provided with transportation, the best we can provide, to escort you either to Verni or back to your homes. As you have been invited for the full week, my home remains at your disposal should you wish to grieve in privacy. I will have words on matters of business with some of you in private. In the mean time, please have something to eat. I hope you will forgive me for not dining with you at this time." The king, flanked by Brys and Fredrik, exited the dining hall, and a chorus of weeping began.
There were many leftovers in the kitchen that night.
