Prisoner of the Crown Read online

  “So clever,” Ada murmured.

  “And see? I need only open this lever, to have hot water at any moment.” I opened the tap so the water gushed noisily. Then guided Ada, with an insistent hand at her elbow, into my closet. Lined with cedar wood, it had no peep holes—that I’d ever found—and bordered none of the servants’ passages. “Your confession?”

  Ada blew out a breath. “I can see I don’t have much time, so I’ll be frank. Freddy asked me to befriend you, to insinuate myself into your company and wrangle an invitation to the seraglio, for the express purpose of creating a trust between us, to further our political interests.”

  I shouldn’t feel this disappointment. My mother would laugh at me for having thought anything else, even for a moment. I was an imperial princess, which meant everyone would want my favor and influence. Mother had emphasized that enough times that I shouldn’t feel so blindsided that Ada hadn’t truly wanted to be my friend.

  The abrupt sense of intense loneliness took me by surprise. A good lesson there.

  “Oh! Please don’t look so sad,” Ada breathed, taking one of my hands in both of hers. “Curse being rushed that I put it so baldly. I only said it so because I wanted you to know that I very much like you and truly want to be your friend. I didn’t want to continue on false pretenses, but I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Ah,” was all I could think to say. Her hands gripped mine with a fervency I didn’t quite understand.

  “You don’t believe me and I don’t blame you. But let’s pretend that you do, that you understand that if we’d known each other longer, we’d be fast friends and trust each other with everything. I’m sure that sounds impetuous to someone as poised and collected as you are.”

  I had to smile at that, amused she’d describe me thus. And yet… I understood what she was trying to say. I didn’t think she’d be so clumsy if she’d planned this conversation. Unless she possessed a level of deviousness beyond even my experience with my mother.

  “I’m willing to call us friends, yes. Now would you care to see—”

  “Not yet.” She held onto my hand and I looked at it pointedly. I wasn’t accustomed to being handled so. Better get used to it. Rodolf will do that and much worse, a small voice whispered. “Jenna.” Ada’s voice went even lower and more urgent. “Do you need to be rescued?”

  ~ 9 ~

  I gazed at her in astonishment. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I’m doing this so badly. But this … marriage. Have you agreed to it?”

  “Of course.” I held up the hand she didn’t have prisoner, showing her the hateful diamond. “You would not be here if I weren’t getting married.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She finally released my hand to press fingers to her temples. “You can’t know, I know you’re sequestered here, but that man. He has a reputation. A terrible one. It would take forever to—”

  “Ada,” I broke in. Enough of this. Time to put a stop to this before she worked herself into a frenzy worthy of one of Helva’s tantrums. “I know about his previous wives. My brothers warned me.”

  Her mouth fell into an O, before she snapped it closed and searched my face. “Then you do know. So you must recognize that you cannot go through with this. Let me help you.”

  “Help me?” I nearly laughed, even as my heart hammered, my stomach turning over with a thousand feelings at once. “What will you do—have your Freddy stage a revolution to defy my father? For that is what it would take. And you’re speaking to an imperial princess of treachery to the empire.”

  Her eyes flashed with anger. “How can you—”

  “Your Imperial Highness? Did you plan to bathe or, oh! Forgive me.” One of the servant girls bent in half with her apology. “The water, on the floor…”

  I groaned at myself for such carelessness. “Oh that.” I waved it away. “I simply forgot. The princessa wished to see my collection of Bøka silk klúts and we became absorbed. Clean it up.”

  “Immediately, Your Imperial Highness.”

  I regretted giving the girl extra, unnecessary work, but too late for it now. And it would keep her occupied. The rush of water shut off.

  “Now this one,” I told Ada, sliding open a drawer, “is also from Bøka, but from the southern region. Very rare.”

  She bent over to examine it and nodded. “Indeed.” Then she glanced at me, expression full of concern. “I hate to see it locked away in a drawer.”

  “It’s fine,” I assured her. “It’s stored as exactly as it’s meant to be, according to plan.”

  “But will it survive harsh treatment?” she asked me, giving me a hard stare.

  “That’s not for me to say,” I replied.

  “I suppose not.” Ada sounded as angry as she’d looked previously. “No matter how rare or valuable, a klút—even one of Bøka silk—is merely a thing, to be used and discarded, according the whims of its owner.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed, walking away. “I’ll escort you back out and show you some of the other treasures of our home along the way. Then Hede will show you back to your rooms so you may dress for the evening’s festivities.”

  * * * *

  My stomachache had gone to my head by the time I saw Ada off, paining me enough that I lay down for a while. I supposed the princessa had thought herself well-meaning, but she had no idea of what she proposed. That I might be able to refuse this marriage.

  Rescue. From my own family, my own life. Impossible.

  I fell asleep, hard and fast, and rose hours later feeling much more on balance. Much of my emotional state could be attributed to the short sleep of the night before—on top of all the excitement. I’d simply allowed myself to be overcome. I was the emperor’s firstborn daughter, pearl of two great ruling families. Rodolf would not use me carelessly. His other wives must not have been so valuable. He would not dare harm me, for the same reasons I’d taunted Ada with. The subject kingdoms of the empire would never risk a reminder of their subjugation. No one could withstand the might of the Konyngrr fist.

  Though I didn’t want it, I ate the svassnuht Kaia brought me, so she wouldn’t feel her efforts wasted. I wished I’d thought of an easier task for her. Truly, I wished I’d never arranged for Ada to speak to me privately. Words that cannot be spoken aloud are not fit words for virtuous ears. I understood that adage better than ever before.

  I dressed in my dancing clothes with care, taking my time. At least I could be free of the elegant toenails, as I couldn’t dance well in them. Besides which, Mother often observed that an imperial princess should not be confused with a skilled rekjabrel. I would not go to Rodolf as a dancing girl, but as a treasured wife. Just as I understood the basics of sexual intercourse and how to delight my husband, but not the finer points, as a virgin should not seem overly tutored. A man valued innocence in his wife, and I would bring that to our marriage.

  Perhaps these other wives had disappointed him. Such a distinguished king would have high standards of behavior and comportment. If nothing else, my mother had trained me to an exquisite degree. I would not disappoint my husband, thus he’d never have any reason to abuse me. Mother had said many times—and conveyed through Kral the night before—that if I did my utmost, the Elskadyr family would reward me with power. They valued me and would protect me. Ada with her clumsy analogies simply didn’t understand the ways of the great families.

  I would please Rodolf exactly as I’d been raised to do, ensuring our happiness, and bearing him many heirs. Children to love. I should never have doubted—or allowed the whispered words of the princessa to give me pause. I would delight Rodolf in every way, beginning tonight with my dance.

  * * * *

  This time Inga stayed behind also, as it was my showcase, my night to shine alone, my mother declared. I missed Inga on the long walk through the eight doors. Unlocked, then locked again. The guards were all new one
s tonight, and I missed those of the evening before.

  Look at me, so childish as to cling to small bits of familiarity. Soon my entire life would change—for the better, as my family intended for me—so I must embrace the new and different.

  It helped that I wore a long cloak, with a deep cowl over my head, as was traditional for this dance until the moment of reveal. Though made of ivory silk so light it floated, it kept me warmer than the revealing klút of the evening before. And its voluminous folds kept me hidden from those loathsome, too tactile gazes of the men.

  Hestar did not arrive to escort me this time. He and everyone else awaited my performance in the grand hall. Instead, a line of rekjabrel dancers met me at the final door, escorted by a few guards. They wore diaphanous scarves, less than klúts, but nothing overtly sexual, nothing like what they normally wore for their dances for men. Tonight they served as a frame for my beauty, and would not dare distract from it.

  Silently, they bowed in unison, graceful deep-knee bends, just as we’d practiced so many times in the dancing glen in the seraglio. They formed an oval around me, gliding with no sound, and we moved like mist to the grand hall. The guards stood at rigid attention, bowing to me before they opened the doors and we entered the hall.

  I took my place at the center of the tiles, the rekjabrel swirling in a dance of tribute to the virgin bride, settling like flower petals around me.

  All was silent but for the whisper of clothing as people shifted, a muffled cough from one. I took the moment to pray to the goddesses of women, to the three sisters—Glorianna, Moranu, and Danu—who governed the female provinces of love, beauty, and the quiet comforts of home.

  Praying to embody perfect womanhood, I waited until the chimes, sweetly, whisper thin, the most fragile and delicate of melodies, trickled through the air. I allowed myself to sway to the music, finding the heart of it. Of course, I’d never been able to dance to music played by real musicians. All I’d had was the seraglio facsimile, the singing of women backed by the staccato beats and off-tune chimes of improvised instruments.

  My mother had said it would be close enough, but that the real thing would be better. And she’d been right. Real music had an infectious glide, an implicit heart that seized mine and carried it. I made my first steps and the music followed.

  Setting my bare feet carefully on the chill marble, I moved so my bells wouldn’t chime. Not yet. The beginning was for innocence, for the silence of the meek and humble virgin bride. All they would see of me would be the occasional flash of my ankle, my toes—and then, the deliberate show of the arch of my foot.

  Thus does the virgin seduce her husband, showing her tender, hidden aspects. See my naked ankle, my unveiled toes, the unscathed sole of my foot. I am untouched, gently raised in beauty, all to delight your senses.

  I chanted the ancient poetry to myself as I danced, accelerating now as the music chased me, keeping my focus on the dance. If nothing else, I would execute this performance flawlessly. I would not shame my families or myself. All those dreams, those fantasies of the perfect husband, I poured them into the dance, showing my own longing and delight.

  The cloak flared as my tempo increased, revealing my calves, and flashes of my knees and thighs. I threaded my hands through the folds, opening them like flowers, offering my palms, each cupping a large, lustrous pearl. A sigh ran through the room, a groan of desire, and this time I didn’t mind, because I controlled it. I’d evoked it in them deliberately, stoking that fire with my dance, so carefully practiced and cultivated.

  I moved faster, my upraised palms weaving, balancing the pearls in offering. The sway of my arms parted the cloak further, the glimpses of my body within tantalizing, then revealing. Sheer scarves draped me, held on by strings of tiny bells that chimed now that I allowed it. Otherwise I wore only pearls, glued on to cover my most intimate parts. Nothing but they and the dance obscured closer scrutiny.

  And I didn’t care. In fact, I loved it. I exulted in my power for this space of time, flaunting what they couldn’t touch. I was beauty made flesh. All potent femininity, goddess, and exuberant youth, and whirling dance.

  I spun, the cloak flaring wide and the hood falling back as I raised my face to the sky, to Sól, father of all light and life. I danced for the god. And for myself.

  Without bobbling a pearl, I caught the last tie of the cloak with a pass of my hand, freeing it to fall at my feet. Loosed and unbound, my hair flew around me. It would stream to my ankles if I stopped moving.

  But I never stopped moving. I accelerated, bells ringing loudly with the stomp of my feet and the flex of my body. I felt lithe and alive, taunting the musicians to keep up with me. They couldn’t. No one could catch me unless I allowed it.

  I whirled closer to the high table where the emperor sat with his heir and my future husband. Dim figures on the periphery of my dance. My blood sang and I simmered with power, holding them rapt in my spell.

  With a final crash of drums, bells, and chimes, I folded at my future husband’s feet, palms upraised and offering him the three pearls—one in each hand, and myself.

  Perfectly executed.

  Crashing applause broke the mesmerized silence, followed by cheers of excitement. My future husband plucked the pearls from my palms and said something I couldn’t hear with the exhilaration so high in my ears, the roar of approval and admiration.

  And I didn’t care. He was a bit player in this. A mere observer to my exhibition of the epiphany of an imperial princess.

  I remained where I was, gracefully crouched and shrouded by my hair, until the rekjabrel dancers swept up, wrapping me once again in the cloak, pulling the deep cowl over my head, and hiding me away. Rodolf might have plucked two pearls this night, but he’d wait one more for the third. I had one more day to be who I was, before I became something utterly other.

  Do you need to be rescued?

  As I walked back to the seraglio, allowing the bells their subtle music, I imagined what that might be like. In that moment, subsumed by the dance, it had seemed entirely possible that I could escape. I could soar away on the wings of the music and my own effervescent grace. With a sweep of my hand, I could scatter those men to the wind, laughing as I did so.

  But with each door unlocked, opened, closed, and locked behind me, it seemed as if I left one more part of that woman behind. Until I finally entered the cloistered warmth of the seraglio, greeted by Hede’s grave bow.

  The lights dimmed for night, only a few women lingered here and there, the children all gone to bed, so the splash of waterfalls and murmured conversations were the only sounds. A group of rekjabrel passed, decked out for a night of sensual activity, their work just beginning, bowing deeply and murmuring compliments. They’d join my dancing companions to continue entertaining our guests. I wondered what Ada thought of all that.

  Not ready to return yet to my apartments—especially to endure the trial of having the glued-on pearls soaked off, one by one—I gave my cloak to a servant and wandered over to the lagoon, for once still and undisturbed. Its glassy black surface shimmered under the moon-dim lights with glints of peach and orange. Would the real moon look like this—and would I get to see it, or was I trading one plush cage for another? The painters and artists made it look like a pearl, glowing white in a dark sky where they depicted the sun as burning yellow orange, in a field of startling blue.

  Though I wanted to dip my now aching feet, I tucked them under me for the moment, unwilling to disturb the pristine surface. Bending over, I studied myself, a luminescent moon in that dark sky. I’d seen my clear reflection in the mirrors, of course, before I left for my dance. Making sure I’d missed no detail.

  This image of me was different. Indistinct, a ghost of ivory white with shadows where her eyes should be. I looked, not exuberantly full of life and power, but already dead. A wraith of myself.

  Which would it be for me, this marria
ge? Would I grasp the power promised me, become an empress to rule even my mother, or would I dissolve away into a memory. The lost princess, never to be seen or heard from again.

  Do you need to be rescued?

  No, I didn’t require rescue, because I was an imperial princess. I would save myself. At least make an effort to take control, to seize the power I’d been promised. My mother shouldn’t be surprised. After all, she’d created me.

  Resolutely, I dropped my feet into the cool water, shattering that ghost self. In the morning, I’d confront my mother.

  ~ 10 ~

  At our private breakfast—which Inga and Helva delayed until I woke up, quite late in the morning—my sisters were full of secondhand praise for my performance. The rekjabrel and other ladies in attendance had painted a glowing portrait of how well I’d done. Of course, no one had seen an imperial princess perform the ducerse dance, outside of practicing, since my mother had danced it for the emperor nearly two decades before. Many of the women weren’t even that old.

  Everyone had been dazzled.

  “I hope I do that well, when it’s my turn,” Helva remarked wistfully. “I wish I could have seen you.”

  “If you want to do well, you’ll have to get more dedicated about practicing,” Inga observed, somewhat tartly. “And you have seen Jenna dance—hundreds of times, including the last weeks of dress rehearsals. It didn’t look any different than what you’ve seen here.”

  Helva regarded me steadily. “I bet it did. That’s what everyone is saying, that it was like Jenna became someone else. Is that how it felt?”

  I couldn’t see the harm in telling her. Or perhaps I’d grown less careful with my words, knowing what I’d go to that night. After all, what could my mother do to punish me that would be worse than handing me over to Rodolf? There was a freedom in that, facing the very worst.

  “It did feel different, like the goddesses came to me, filled me with womanly power.”