Chapter 33 #2
Once I had read the entirety of number eighteen, I fled from the desk and took seventeen, then sixteen, then another installment, until I had consumed so much of their innards I could not consume more.
It had been hours. Hours. The novels were devoted to me, only me, and they each offered some slice of life advice, or secret emotion that he had buried deep within his walls.
My chest was tight and I was on the verge of rancid crying when Ser Elías’ shadow dimmed the slither of light in the room. He startled me, which startled him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He looked at the mess of tomes, scattered across the floor. “Miss Jocelyn said you summoned me.”
I nodded, though I did not want to conjure the accusation that I had sent for him to breach. Instead, I wanted to offload the burden of my discovery, to demand he tell me they were lies– he had known my father better than anyone, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak.
“Are you alright?” he asked. He stepped closer. “You look faint. Perhaps it’s time for bed?”
“I’ve just read a great deal of my father’s journals,” I professed.
He looked at the one I held and I shut it in self-preservation.
“Do you wish for me to return another time?” he asked.
“No. No, I wish for you to explain something to me.”
“Of course.” He offered me his hand and helped me rise. “Nikolai struggled with expressing how he felt,” he said. “He wrote those letters in hopes that he could one day share them with you himself.”
I frowned. “Wait. You knew? Of course you knew. …You’re just a man of many secrets then, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Am I?”
“I…” I blinked a few times, reeling in my father’s words. Loyalty. Honesty. Faith. “You’ve been hiding these from me. You hid Willem from me, too.”
He didn’t respond.
“Is your silence a denial, Ser?” I asked.
“No, Your Majesty,” he said. “It is not.”
“Then you confess?”
“I confess,” he said.
“I didn’t want you to say that,” I moaned.
“You preferred I lied?” he asked.
“I preferred you hadn’t maimed me!”
He paused, then offered, “Ask me why. I will tell you.”
“Duty,” I guessed. “I can figure it out, but thank you for assuming I could not. My, you must truly think so highly of your Queen and her ability. Hmph.”
“Svana,” he said.
“Please. I need nothing more of you. Leave.”
“I’d like to explain,” he said.
“There’s nothing to explain, Elías. I know how this conversation goes. I’ve played it a thousand times since I first discovered your lie.” He bore a look. “Yes. That’s right. I’ve known for some time that you hid the boy. I know lots of things I don’t necessarily need to share about you.”
“I see. I’m sorry then,” he said.
“Now you’ll remind me that I cannot marry ostler boys, that I must bear a royal heir for Sameer or destroy the future of our nations. There’s likely some misplaced value on chastity in there, I assume.”
“It is not misplaced,” he pressed. “It’s-”
“It’s gone,” I told him.
“What is?”
“My virtue, Ser. In case that wasn’t evident.” I stood taller.
“I see.”
“It’s gone; I gave it to Willem, despite your best efforts to destroy our connection, and I’m not sorry for it. I’m glad it happened. I’m glad it’s his.”
“Alright.”
“Alright? That’s it? It was the only time I’ve ever felt human, Eli. Not shuffled across a board like an object, a pawn.”
“You’re not a pawn,” he said. “You’re the Queen.”
“Pawns become Queens!” I yelled. He straightened. “Don’t you remember the rules, Lord Commander? You taught me how to play this game.”
He lowered his head, breathing carefully. “Your Majesty…”
“Tell me you’ve known where Willem has been this whole time!
Tell me that for six years, every time I begged you to find him, every time I sobbed over how they mutilated his flesh for touching mine, every time I puked because I could not stand the sight of burning meat, you lied to me! You chose my father’s side!”
“Not your father’s, my King’s, as was my oath!”
“You chose Miss Hellveig’s side,” I corrected.
“No. No, I was protecting you.”
“Protecting me?” I asked. I threw the journal at him. He dodged, barring an arm like a shield. “Like her?”
“Do not compare me to that woman or to your father!” he cried. “I am neither!”
“You’re right,” I croaked. “You’re right. You’re neither. That would be far too horrible for their perfect memories! At least that woman told me of her wrongdoings to my face! You coward!”
“Svana, please,” he said.
“All of you, all of you men go on and on about what you know to be good for poor little Princess Svana, but never once do you stop and ask what I want! What I think is best! Hellveig was right to hurt me. If it doesn’t hurt, you don’t learn, do you?”
“Svana,” he said faster.
“You all expect me to lead a country but not to think for myself because God forbid the woman have a real chance to decide anything important!”
“I am not prejudiced of your sex,” he said. “Had you been a son, I would have guarded you the same.”
“No, you would not have.” I floated toward the window.
“You have always spoken of my virginity and its importance. Never once did you speak of the boy’s.
You paid my Willem off. You saw him to Chalke.
You hid him. You helped him change his name so that I could not find him!
You lied to me. You betrayed me! Why? You think I don’t know, but I do.
It’s because there was always the risk that I would finish what I started.
Do you see how gross that is? Do not let the Princess be with the man she loves; do not let her find the man who makes her feel like more than an end to a means; a horse to trade!
No. She doesn’t know what’s good for her; let’s play a traumatizing game of Hide and Seek until she hates herself so irrevocably that no one will ever fill the gaping hole that’s left inside exactly where her heart should be!
There! That will show her! How dare she feel anything for anyone not preapproved by our explicit counsel! ”
He took a second. He said, “It was not about keeping you apart. It was not about your chastity. I shielded a young man from a life of humiliation. He could not stay here after what happened—you know how people talk.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, bobbing my head theatrically.
“I do know how they talk, don’t I? I know all the whispers, I’m afraid.
How many secrets do these walls contain, my friend?
I bet I’ve got them beat. How many times have I heard the story of The Ostler’s Boy and The King’s Iron by now?
I think that I’ve lost count, though every year it gets worse than it was before.
Once, I heard my former maid say that I had planned the whole ordeal.
That I wanted to scar the boy because it brought me joy! ”
“She said that? Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“To what point?” I argued. “To get rid of her? They all already think you murdered Miss Hellveig on my behalf. Should I enlist you every time someone hurts my feelings, Ser? No. I am the King’s iron, after all, and iron does not shatter.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Of all the liars in this world, you have hurt me the worst,” I said.
He laughed.
“Oh, is it funny? I asked you for honesty; you withheld it. Liar,” I said. “Liar, liar, liar!”
“You did not ask me for honesty; you asked me to defy the King. Do you think my role as Lord Commander is a comedy? A means for you to get your way of things because you can?”
“Oh, stop,” I moaned.
“I took an oath, Svana. To God. I did not agree with His Majesty’s decision; you’ll remember I tried to sway it, but my loyalty was to Nikolai as he was King, not his child who did not understand the importance of her role in what would come!”
My eyes widened slightly. “You knew the Treaty was coming? Even then?” I asked.
“Of course, I knew,” he said. “I was your father’s right hand. I helped design it.”
“Why did you not tell me?” I asked.
“Because I was trying to change it,” he said.
“What?”
“I was trying to find a different way to appease both empires,” he explained.
“But Nikolai did not appreciate ideas outside his own. You can be angry all you wish, but I have always done what I believed I could for you, and even things I thought I couldn’t.
You can’t take that from me. I know the truth.
Did I withhold information? Yes, but you were thirteen, Svana!
Why would I divulge such a plan to you if there was a chance to avoid it?
Can you imagine your response? Have you met yourself?
You are dramatic and hateful when things don’t go your way! ”
“I think I took the news very well,” I told him. “I went along with it, didn’t I?”
“Only because by the time we told you, you were in a far darker place,” he said. “When we told you that you were to marry the Prince, you were not the girl you had been when you were fawning over Willem. But ask me why I stand by my decisions; I will tell you,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you see? Whatever excuse you invent, I cannot trust it,” I said.
“Ask me why; I will tell,” he repeated.
“No. You do not control me anymore! This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? A strong Queen?”
Ser Elías turned from the desk, vanishing into the hall. I chased after him. He moved so quickly that it wasn’t until his bedchamber that I was able to get out, “Don’t you walk away from me, Lord Commander! I am not done with you, and you will comply!”
He ducked beneath his wardrobe and dragged out a large trunk, unlocked it, and then kicked it across the floor, where it halted near the end of my dress.
“There,” he said. “There’s your why, Your Majesty.”
I crossed my arms. “A box?”
“Look inside it,” he said. “But once you do, that’s it. You can never unsee it, but at least my devotion can never be questioned again.”
Annoyed, I hiked my skirt and knelt to open it. There were a hundred envelopes inside, if not more, all bearing a broken, waxy E at their seal. They’d been read.