Chapter Thirteen #2
Evelyne smiled, a little sadly. “He has spent his entire life trying to protect people, solve problems, undermine the bad in this country, all enacted by my father and General Vinyes—and then fix it once he had the chance. I have never seen him… You don’t make sense to him.
By which I mean that you are something good for him—as a man, not as a king.
He doesn’t know what to do with that. I think it is new for him, and so it feels like a threat. ”
“A threat. Yes. Perhaps he thinks of it as a…curse, instead of a positive. What if he sees love only as that weapon? How could I ever be the one to show him otherwise if he uses that crown like a brick wall battlement between us?”
Evelyne clearly didn’t know what to say to that. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Ines sighed deeply. “Yes, that is the problem.”
Alexandre had been able to set aside what had happened in Ines’s bedroom. It was easy when things were moving at a quick clip. When the danger Gabriel had been concerned about seemed to snowball.
Vinyes had disappeared, along with a small group of soldiers. No doubt planning some kind of…threat.
Gabriel had been talking to all the soldiers he knew and not coming up with much, until a young soldier—who could not have been in service for any more than a year—had asked for a meeting with the king.
The man, little more than a boy, stood before him now in his uniform, explaining what he knew of Vinyes’s treason. Where Vinyes was hiding and the number of soldiers he’d taken with them.
“You’re certain?” Gabriel asked after the young man had outlined General Vinyes’s plan.
Alexandre looked at the young soldier—wide-eyed, a little pale, hands shaking. But he stood there before his king and Gabriel and nodded. “I’m certain. And I am certain it isn’t right, Your Majesty.”
“Your information is appreciated,” Alexandre said, somewhat stiffly. “We can offer you a safe place to wait until we’ve dealt with the Vinyes threat, or you may go back to your post. No one besides the two of us will know what was said here today.”
The boy straightened, chin jutted. The signs of nerves were gone now. “I will return to my post, sir.”
Alexandre nodded. “Very well. Should you change your mind, you only need to contact Lord Marti in the same manner you did before.”
The soldier bowed, then walked out of Alexandre’s office. Alexandre stared at the door as Gabriel closed it again. Gabriel looked at him, waiting for instructions.
Alexandre felt…at a loss. He was not surprised the general had handpicked a group of soldiers to storm the palace and try to enact martial law. What surprised him was how little fury he felt. It wasn’t a detached calm either.
It was a kind of…exhaustion at the games men played when they could simply have a damn discussion. Just like his father. They could never talk, strategize, decide. It always had to be action. Feeling. Emotional outbursts, really.
“It was true bravery on his part,” Gabriel said, “to stand there and do something he knew might cause him harm but was right. For the kingdom.”
Alexandre eyed Gabriel suspiciously. He didn’t know what Gabriel was going for, but it felt…metaphorical. “Are you drawing some kind of parallel, Gabriel?”
“He will make an excellent general someday, with some experience under his belt. I’d keep an eye on that one for possible promotions.
No doubt you’ll have to do some reconfiguring of the army once this is all done,” Gabriel returned, not answering Alexandre’s question.
As though he wanted Alex to sit with the metaphor and figure it out himself.
Alex grunted.
“Was there some parallel you think I was trying to make?” Gabriel asked, settling himself into one of the chairs opposite Alexandre’s desk. He was not relaxed, though he was clearly trying to appear it.
Having Vinyes’s plan was a good start, but now they had to decide what to do with it.
“No.”
“Ah. Perhaps you are just distracted,” Gabriel said. “I admit to missing my wife and my son. You seem to be missing…someone yourself.”
Did he miss Ines? She’d been gone all of a few hours. She should be arriving in Italy soon, and she was with Ines and Gabri and safe. Missing her would mean admitting…
It hardly mattered. This problem wasn’t about their families. It was about Alis.
“It is no hardship to love your family, Alex. It is not so different from loving your country and wanting to do the right thing by them. It is not so different from being a king.”
Alexandre sighed. Because if all it required was for him to be king, he would know exactly what to do and how to proceed. But to be a person within the title…
All he could seem to see were the shells his parents had turned into, on account of love.
Ines had called it control, not love, and maybe it was. Who was he to say? He’d been a boy.
Did semantics matter? What did it matter what it was called if the end result was the same?
That poked at him in ways that had nothing to do with revolution and everything to do with Ines. If he didn’t call it love. If he didn’t call it control. If he just accepted these feelings and tried to—
Gabriel’s phone chimed. He looked down at the screen.
“They have arrived safely with my parents.” He let out a slow breath, clearly one of relief.
“My men are in place to keep an eye on the property. I cannot imagine Vinyes will trouble himself or his men with them, but we’ll keep an eye out just the same. ”
Because there was danger. Real danger in front of them, and Alexandre had to determine what to do. About revolutions. About traitorous generals. And brave young soldiers ready to stand against them.
“I know what my father would do with Vinyes and the rest,” Alexandre said. He’d send an army into Vinyes’s hideout and slaughter them all. Without a second thought.
“Have them all killed?”
“Yes.” It would be swift and efficient and end this issue, but Alexandre was aware of what all his father’s violence had wrought—more violence, anger, division and festering distrust Alexandre still hadn’t been able to climb out from under—clearly.
Alex wanted something else. Not just power. Not just might and whatever he wanted. Alex wanted a solid Alis not just for the present day but for the future. For Gabri, the future king. For all who lived here and came after.
For your wife. For your daughter.
“We could go that route,” Gabriel said carefully. So carefully even Alexandre wasn’t sure if that would be his recommended position or not.
So he met his friend’s careful gaze. “You know I cannot.”
“I know. You will want to do the opposite.”
But what was the opposite of violence? Forgiveness? Peace? It couldn’t be that easy. “Vinyes will no longer have his position. The soldiers that followed him will face some penalty, but heaping violence on violence solves nothing.”
“True. The problem is the opposite of evil and violence isn’t always goodness and peace, Alexandre. We cannot simply give leniency and hope it fixes itself.” Gabriel spread his hands as if to encompass the entirety of the problem. “The safety of our families rests on a stronger response.”
Stronger. What was strength in this situation? Alexandre found he didn’t have an easy answer. That might have concerned him, but his father always found the easy answer. The violent, reactive answer.
So taking his time wasn’t wrong. Reasoning this out, looking at different angles could only be right.
The problem was, one of the angles had to be chosen. He could not simply refuse to act. Gabriel was right. The safety of too many people rested on action.
“What do you want to do, Alex?” Gabriel asked.
Alex.
Yes, Alex the man. Not the king. A man who wanted what was best for the future. For his kingdom, his family…and maybe even himself.
Alex. When this was a kingly duty. Except he was also protecting his family. And thinking of his kingdom. His past, his father’s legacy, his own. The soldiers who would stand for him and stand against him.
Maybe there was not only room for a king in this situation. Maybe there had to be room for…all the roles he played, all the versions of himself he inhabited. Maybe he finally had to be one and be unafraid that it might crumble everything.
“We know where they are now,” Alex said, thinking it through. If this had happened a few months ago, his actions would have been clear and precise.
But he was starting to understand middle ground. Complex ideas of duty and goodness. He could not be his father, but the opposite of his father, as Gabriel had stated, was not automatically goodness.
Ines had pointed that out to him as well.
Alex wanted to be good. He wanted to be correct. A king had to be. A man made mistakes.
Except his father had only ever been a king—only cared about money and power and military might. Not his children. Not his legacy. He had been a crown—a cruel, violent, controlling one.
The opposite of that was a kind, peaceful, compassionate crown…which was not necessarily good. Better, but not…good.
So what was the answer? It seemed he had to come up with his own view of what that meant. That he had to be not the opposite of this father, but his own man.
Ines believed he was a good man. Not because he was a king or the opposite of his father, but because of how he’d treated her before they’d married. And after. Up to this rather conflicted point of a few months.
And still she loved him. How did it make sense?
“We could send soldiers in,” Gabriel said. “Not to attack, but to arrest. But we would need to determine how to get a message to the soldiers who would support you and see if they are willing to storm in and arrest Vinyes and his men. This is almost certain to lead to violence, a fight.”
Alex didn’t want violence or a fight, but he also could not let this stand, so where did it leave him?
“No.” The plan took shape in a strange way.
Gabriel’s words about the opposite of evil.
Ines’s words about love and standing true.
“We cannot avoid violence at all costs, but we can mitigate it. I want a special team to arrest Vinyes—as quickly, quietly, and without violence as possible. Then I want the soldiers supporting him brought here. I would like to address them.”
Gabriel’s expression was unreadable. “That could be…dangerous. Even without a leader they might not feel beholden to our laws if they don’t now.”
“It could be dangerous, yes, but I need to know. What is it they’re against? What does Vinyes offer them? This isn’t about right and wrong. We all think we’re right. It’s about finding the best way forward, and we can only do that by discussing it.”
Gabriel still didn’t seem entirely sure, but Alex knew this was the right way forward. Not might. Not kingly disassociation.
Connection.
Just like Ines had given him.