Chapter 10,
in which the Prince remembers

     The Verni court was broad and stark, high windows letting in the soft spring light while flush corners trapped in all the air. Bright black tiles and crisp white walls reflected every step Rhema and Bastion took towards the Queen Regent of Freesia on her ebony throne.
     It had been months since the king's birthday, since Freddie's disgrace, since the outlawing of the A.F.G. How naturally life returned to normal! Rhema reflected, her heels clicking on  Freesian tiles for the first time in her life. It was coming of age day for Princess Drucilla, the niece of the late king, which meant that tomorrow would be Drucilla's coronation as queen. Until then, they had Penelope for their host, the king's widow and childless mother who had last shown her benevolence towards Rhema's family by banishing her father.
     She greeted them from her throne like a queen of old, one who seemed better equipped to defend her kingdom from dragons rather than such mundane issues as economics and reform. Her skin was like chiseled marble in all but the dark places under her eyes, where her age and sadness gathered like dew.
     “Welcome, my husband’s cousins!” Queen Penelope said, rising and smiling. Rhema’s knees and head bent in supplication to this great woman. “It is a pleasure to have our friend, Prince Bastion among us again.” Penelope rose from her seat and kissed Bastion on either cheek.
     “The honor is mine, Your Majesty,” he said. His eyes glimmered with a fond memory that Rhema did not share. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Her Highness, the Princess Rhema.”
     “Yes. We have met before, though I doubt Her Highness was old enough to remember.” Her smile chilled when she looked at Rhema. “C'est un honneur d'avoir une de la famille De Frees ici avec nous de nouveau.”
     “L'honneur est le mien, Votre Majesté,” said Rhema.
     “By your accent, one would think you were never anything but a Gall,” said the queen.
     “I apologize, Madame. It has been a very long time.”
     “A very long time, indeed.” Penelope touched Rhema’s cheek. “We must invite your father’s family to visit one day. It has been too long since our cousins were at court.”
     “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
     Penelope took a deep breath and returned to her throne. “My home is yours. You are welcome to it. Now, there is much to be done. I will see you again for dinner.” She clapped her hands and the doors opened. Men in silk purple coats gestured them out of the throne room. Bastion bowed to the queen briefly and followed the men's gestures out of the room. Rhema, lost for a moment in the formalities, imitated his movements, half copying his bow before she remembered that ladies are supposed to curtsey. She blushed, but the queen did and said nothing, seeming more of stone than of flesh and blood.
     Rhema hurried after Bastion after the court doors were closed behind them and slid her arm through his elbow. “That was it?” she said.
     “They have many traditions here,” said Bastion. “We will talk more with Penny later.”
     “Penny?”
     “She honestly is a warm person, once you get to know her. You will see.”
     The palace of the Freesians had many wide halls and wide windows. Hardly anywhere they turned was not filled with light. No crumbling fortress wall. No moat. Much less confining than our palace.
     Bastion stopped suddenly, jerking Rhema back on his elbow.
     “Let’s take a detour,” he said. Their purple-coated guards looked at each other. Bastion pushed his shoulders back and nodded at them with authority. They bowed and Bastion took the lead, taking them and Rhema down a new passage that was not on their original path. They ended up in front of a gold-knobbed door with dainty floral etching in its wood. He fiddled with its locked handle.
     “May I enter?” he said to their escort.
     A young soldier with shaggy blonde hair laid a hand over his ring of keys.
     “That area is private,” he said.
     “Please, Gilbert. You remember me. I will not disturb anything.”
     “Yes, Your Highness.” Gilbert jingled his eyes until he found the little silver one that matched the door.
     “I only need a few minutes,” said Bastion.
     Gilbert turned the key in the lock. It clicked musically within its hidden latch. He pulled the door open for them.
     “Where are we?” Rhema asked, her excitement growing. She loved it when Bastion showed her hidden things.
     They entered a large dressing room, filled with pinks and blues, with a side room on their right in which was a bed with white lace draperies. Bastion glanced that way briefly and turned left, to the area of the dressing room covered with shelves, resembling a girl's library. Scattered about the area, as if someone had left them yesterday, were sheets and books about music, their edges curled and yellowing with age.
     “This was Dahlia’s room,” said Bastion. He stepped carefully around each object. “I have never been in it.”
     If Rhema had suffered a haunting feeling in Westbridge, never had it been so strong as what she felt in Dahlia’s room. She saw it now, all the marks of a young princess. The lace. The canopies. The assortment of ribbons and hats. Scattered, but not messy. All neatly arranged in boxes and racks. A busy little princess without the time for untidiness.
     “Is this where she died?” Rhema found herself whispering. Her eyes wandered to the white clothed bed behind the door.
     “I think so.” Bastion also glanced briefly in the direction of the bed but moved his attention back to the sheet music and the instruments lay out beneath the shelves. Dahlia had many instruments. Not one of them was dusty, though she had been dead for nearly three years.
     Bastion went to a cello, lying on its side next to a little stool in the corner. He traced his fingers around its edges and plucked a string. Its discordance bounced off the quiet wallpaper. He knelt next to it and began plucking and turning knobs, tuning it.
     “Can you play?” asked Rhema. She had never seen Bastion hold a cello in her life.
     “No,” he said, sorting out a flat A string. “But you should have heard her play, Rhema. For her age, she was quite extraordinary.”
     Rhema glanced about the room, unsure if she should touch or even look at anything. This room had an air of sacredness about it. One object in particular caught her eye, tucked between the books and the polishing clothes: a tiny photograph of Bastion.
     Once Bastion was satisfied with the tuning of the cello, he lay it back down, exactly as it had been. Resting his hand on it, he closed his eyes and began to hum. A low, gentle tune issued from his tremulous throat. The sound of Bastion’s singing wrapped around Rhema’s core. She felt as if he were wrapping her in the void and inviting her to sink into the walls, where a kind, vaporous ghost waited for her to join it in a dance. In comparison to his music, she felt less real.
     Bastion stopped humming, stood up, and sniffled, just once.
     “What was that you were humming?” Rhema asked.
     “A song she wrote for me,” he said. “She never finished.”
     He took Rhema’s elbow, barely touching her, and led her out of the room. As they passed the bed area, he looked up briefly at the light-drizzled bedspread and shuddered.
     After they were out, Gilbert locked the door again. Bastion held Rhema close to him and kissed her, transforming them both back into themselves.

     The rest of the day, Bastion showed Rhema around Penny’s Palace. Its hallways were wide and long, and its gardens were vast and open. Though large, the palace of Queen Penelope seemed like a place where it would be difficult to get lost, even for someone like Rhema. She almost envied the Freesians.
     When it came time to eat, they gathered in one of the smaller dining rooms, which was about the size of the largest dining room they had at Westbridge. The dishes were strange and drizzled in unfamiliar gravies and sauces, which Bastion assured her added exquisite nuances to the flavor. Rhema thought they made everything too mushy.
     Dining with them and Penelope were some Freesian nobles, many of whom she recognized from the day long ago at Iderburg Palace, the day they received the news of Dahlia’s death. Conspicuously absent from the dinner was Princess Drucilla, their queen-to-be.
     “She will spend the night alone in solemn reflection. It is our tradition,” explained Penelope.
     “Why alone?” asked Rhema.
     “She must ready herself for the crown. Let no outside influences weary the mind that wears the crown.”
     Penelope ate in small bites, as did Duchess Annette and many of the Freesian ladies. Freesian ladies were like canaries, dainty, feathery, and good for little more than warning miners when toxic vapors were present. Rhema mimicked them, finding it natural to eat slowly when the foods were small and mushy. She felt as if she could eat an entire cow when she got back home to Gallia. It wasn’t until the desert course came that Rhema’s taste buds completely forgave the main course.
     “What is this dish called?” said Rhema to the queen.
     Bastion nudged her foot and shook his head. Duchess Annette and the others glared at her, then looked anxiously at Penelope.
     Penelope finished her bite and then said, “Un entremets poire chocolat. Do you not have it in Iderburg?”
     The queen’s smile was enigmatic. Rhema started to respond, forgetting that her mouth was full of food. Bastion nudged her again. Rhema swallowed.
     “No, Madame. I have never had the like.”
     Penelope leaned forward, gesturing to Rhema’s plate with her own fork. “The secret is in the glaze,” she said warmly.
     “It is delicious.”
     “It was my daughter’s favorite too.” Penelope’s smile broadened. Bastion gave Rhema an encouraging nod. Penelope reached over to squeeze Bastion’s hand fondly. “You have good taste in princesses, my dear.”
     “It would have been a joy to call you ‘mother’,” said Bastion. Rhema nearly choked on her bite.
     After more silence, awkward to Rhema, but normal for the company, the queen spoke again. She asked the De Montiffs how the sport was in Randell. She asked the Emmanuels how the weather had been on their trip. She asked Eliza, who occasionally let out pip-squeak sneezes throughout the course of the dinner, if she would be well enough to attend the coronation tomorrow. She asked Annette if she had received any further communications from her many suitors.
     “Le facteur n'est pas venu aujourd'hui,” said Annette, unconcerned with the language of their guests. Famous for her rejections of the many dukes, lords, and knights who had begged for her hand, many speculated about her reasons for continued independence. Annette poked at her food and sank into an insistent muteness on the subject.
     Observing them, Rhema finally realized her previous faux paux. Nobody spoke to the queen unless the queen spoke to them first, at least not without using the words “Begging the Queen’s permission” to broach the topic. This made conversation tedious, especially since the fast French the Freesians spoke made it difficult for Rhema to keep up.
     “May Drucilla have a long and peaceful reign,” said Lysander, the Marquis of Verni. “Yet, I find it hard to imagine anyone being more benevolent and wise in their office as Your Majesty has been.” He raised a glass to the queen. The others joined him.
     “I thank you, but we all knew this day would come. I am but the Majesty Incumbent. It was my husband who was wise. I have been the fortunate steward of his kingdom all these years, but it is time the office returned to his heirs.”
     It was hard for anyone to remember that Penelope was not a queen by birth. In every way she carried herself and behaved in the way a monarch should.
     Was it something she was born with or something she learned? Could I do that if Bastion died? Rhema’s stomach curled at the very thought. She pushed it away.

     Drucilla’s coronation, according to tradition, was held at sunrise, to symbolize the dawning of a new light to the nation. Rhema stifled a yawn as she watched from the ambassador’s box, the only corner of King’s Square not over-stuffed with throngs of people. From her vantage point, she could see both into the square and beyond it. Inside, the nobles lined up in order of rank next to a red carpet ranging from the front doors of Vide Cathedral to the podium at the center of the square on which sat the crown. Beyond, the public packed in as closely as they were allowed, full of hollow excitement.
     In dull fanfare, Drucilla marched forth from the cathedral doors. Her painted eyes held firm on the crown ahead as she marched, one halting step at a time, toward it. The girl who had once reminded Rhema of an over-stuffed Christmas tree was gone. In her place was a painted and plucked doll whose determination hung like a marionette from someone else’s string. Her pudgy face produced not one glimmer as she followed her course. By the time she reached the podium, an orange sun broke dimly behind her, making her barely more than a shadow.
     A vicar began a lengthy and well-rehearsed speech about the responsibilities of the office. Penelope, so tall, so perfect and queenly, laid a white hand over Drucilla’s puffed-up shoulder. When the vicar finished speaking, he put his hand on Drucilla’s other shoulder, and he and Queen Penny pushed her down to her knees. Then Penelope moved in front of her, blocking her from the crowd's view. She reached over the girl’s head and raised the crown. In one deliberate motion, she lowered it over Princess Drucilla’s pate.
     Queen Drucilla rose, crown on her head. Rhema half expected her to look taller, but she did not. Even with the choir singing and the bells ringing, Queen Drucilla still looked like plain, sour-faced Drucilla. By the unenthusiastic applause of the Freesians, she could tell they thought so too.
     After the coronation, the wait was long to win an audience with Queen Drucilla. The men and ladies of the court surrounded her, spewing compliments at every opportunity. Drucilla had few words to answer them. The poor girl seemed to be in shock. By the time Bastion and Rhema finally did get their private audience with the new queen, Drucilla acknowledged them only long enough to scowl at Rhema, smile shyly at Bastion, and to snatch the Economic Unification Proposal out of their hands. She glanced over it vaguely, asking “What is this?” and “What is that?” about every other paragraph and showing it to her advisers. Then she continuously sent Bastion and Rhema out of the room so that she may “consider a point” and summoned them back in again at her leisure. By the end of the hour, after her advisers had no more whispers for her ears, she finally said that “the great nation of Freesia will consider His Majesty’s proposal and follow up with him at a later date.” She had more important things to consider, such as all the young men who were suddenly enthusiastic to make her acquaintance.
     “She is young. She must have some time to become accustomed to her office,” explained Penelope to them privately. The queen-no-more walked with them out in the fountain yard.
     “I must know, Penny,” said Bastion. “How would you have answered were you still the queen?”
     Penny smiled, a sweet, sad smile. “You know my mind, my almost-son. I am for peace. Beyond that there is nothing but pride and bloodshed.”
     “Oh,” moaned Rhema, holding her stomach. A sudden pain halted her step.
     “What is wrong?” said Bastion.
     “I need to sit down,” muttered Rhema, crumbling onto the marble edge of one of the many cascades of fountains among the stone-sculpted courtyard.
     “Rhema!” Bastion turned as white as she. He held her up and looked into her face. Rhema’s eyes glazed with pain.
     Penelope observed the couple, her composure the most solid object in a court of stone. She flicked a wrist at one of her attendants, and they ran for help. Rhema breathed shallowly into Bastion’s chest. Bastion locked eyes with Penelope, but her great, dry pupils had no tears left to lend him. For an instant, they shared each other’s nightmare.

     Bastion paced. His bones twisted over each other as he waited on the news he least wanted to hear. His steps echoed off the foreign halls. The floor and walls were so well polished that no matter which direction he looked, he could see his own face, heavy and hideous with worry.
     Silence lingered over him. Light poured through the tall, narrow windows of the Verni Palace, crisscrossing over the columns and cutting through his brain, leaving his heart no better. He sat down on a bench, avoiding the eyes of the nursing staff, who stood like pillars around the enormous double doors of the infirmary. One of the doors creaked open. Bastion jumped to his feet, slipped on the heavily-waxed tile, fell, and sprang up again.
     The Freesian doctor, dwarfed by the great doors, said not a word to this.
     “Tell me,” Bastion said. He held his breath.
     “Her Highness was.... um....” said the doctor, struggling with his English. “She was with.... how do you say?.... child? However, child is no more.”
     Bastion cursed, dropped to the bench, cursed again, and stood back up. A child? He did not even know she had been pregnant again.
     “May I see her?” he said.
     “She is resting,” said the doctor.
     “I will not wake her,” he said.
     The doctor nodded grimly, opening the door for him.
     Rhema slept on a white cot, her hair matted and her dress tossed hastily over a rack to the side. She lay as if she were half-dead. Not for the first time, the possibility of death rolled over Bastion’s thoughts.
     This was no place for her. Verni was too full of ghosts. King Gervais, shot down in the streets. Dahlia, stolen out of her youth. Queen-no-more Penny, half a ghost herself, living in the shadow of her losses. Iderburg was no better, nor London, nor anywhere else. They always die.
     A sob rolled up Bastion’s throat. Then another. He swallowed them both, but the water escaped his eyes.
     “God, don’t take her from me,” he whispered. “Please, God. Not her. Please.”
     Rhema stirred in her sleep. Bastion wiped his face with his sleeve and pulled a chair up by her bedside.