Page 30 of The Impossible Princess
My hand closes around something slim. Seed packets. I hold them up with a question on my face. When she nods, I read the quote on the label.
“Wildflowers on the Verge: Filling the in-between spaces with beauty.”
“It’s a charity that spruces up neglected areas. I didn’t go shopping or anything,” she hastily assures me. “I only got them from this absolutely mad woman at a garden party today, and I thought they might look nice along your wall.”
I press a palm to my chest. “It’s wonderful for taxpayer morale, knowing you re-gift things.”
She grins. “Noah does so like it when we’re thrifty.”
“And you were thinking of me,” I say, trying to work out how many steps were involved to make this happen. Princess receives the gift, aide whisks away the gift, princess requests the gift, princess brings the gift along, princess proffers the gift with suspicious casualness. One, two, three, four…
She raps the wooden spoon briskly against the skillet. “You’ll have a fat head if I say yes.”
I already have a fat head. Clara was thinking of me, and I can feel the carefulness in her manner. I’m trying to be careful too, feeling along the border of what this is and could become. It feels like friendship but also like I’m holding on to a downed power line, jolting with an electric current.
It is not simple and it is not clear, but I lean in, moving slowly enough that she’ll have time to rap that wooden spoon if she wants. But she doesn’t. Only holds perfectly still and closes her eyes as I kiss her lightly—my lips landing half on her cheek, half not. In between.
“Thank you,” I say. I’m fascinated when color runs up her cheeks as I straighten. “What’s the rule for receiving gifts? I suppose I’m not allowed to give you a yacht.”
She turns back to the not-paella and stirs, pulling the spoon out and letting the drippings run off. She puts her finger against the spoon and licks her knuckle. I want a do-over of that kiss now. “Pepper?” she asks and I hand her a pepper shaker in the shape of a Delft windmill.
“Do you want to give me a yacht?” she asks, smiling.
“I’ve got a little sailboat out there—”
“It’s not the size of the gift that matters. You could offer me a lifetime loan of a tiara, an entire estate for peppercorn rent, and so on, but the catch is that you can’t expect anything back. No invitations to the Summer Palace, no access to the Queen, no hospitality or services that would place any member of Sondmark’s Royal Family under obligation to the donor.”
“Quite official. Is that in writing?”
“It is, actually. We have something called The Red Book—tooled leather. It smells heavenly. It’s a sort of how-to guide to ruling Sondmark and goes back to Malthe III. Every generation adds to it.”
“The same rules exist for the Navy,” I sigh, sliding the seed packets across the counter. “I’d have to report this to my Captain and…” I shrug helplessly, but my smile has something calculating in it. “It’s out of my hands. Nothing to be done.”
“You have rules about receiving gifts in the Navy?” She slides the packets back, leaning against the counter, chin propped in her hand.
“It’s a matter of national security.” I hunch over, crossing my arms, getting down to her level, and slide the packets across again. She slaps her hand down over mine and now we’re touching.
“Strictly speaking,” she says, a wicked glint in her eyes, “this isn’t a gift. It’s a few homeless seed packets.”
“Homeless, huh? Sounds like we need to work out a joint custody arrangement.”
The not-paella is a little overcooked. She says I distracted her at a critical moment and it’s my fault the bottom of the pot is covered in scorched rice. But we take our dinner onto the back patio, and I light a blaze in the fire pit so that we can eat in deep plastic chairs. She holds her bowl like an oversized mug of hot cocoa with her legs curled underneath her.
“What are your plans?” I ask, returning from the kitchen after refilling our bowls. She lifts her brow and I explain. “The Navy is straightforward. I work hard, keep my record clean, and in a few years I’ll get a command of my own—small crafts at first, larger if I do well. What’s the career path for a princess?”
She bites along her lip. “The eternal question.” Her fingers trace the faux-grain of the plastic. “A few hundred years ago, it would have been more straightforward. My education would have been good, but probably not as good as my brother’s. When the time came, I would be betrothed to a foreign prince. Likely, I would have sailed away from Handsel and left my family forever, writing to my parents often, and spying on my new husband and his court full of intrigue and perfidy.” I nod. “An alliance would be strengthened, and I would continue serving my purpose by making lots and lots of Lutheran babies.”
“My niece is a Lutheran baby. I’m quite partial to them.” With a laugh, she kicks me lightly, but I capture her heel, setting it on my knee. She leaves it there and blood warms in my veins. “If that’s not your path, what is?”
“That remains to be seen. Mama only has one sibling, and up until a few years ago, we leaned hard on Uncle Georg to help shoulder the duties of the Crown. But there are five of us now—all adults. A lot of patronages were handed out while I was busy growing up, and I’m not sure how much they need me, trailing at the end, having not yet been taught everything my siblings already know.”
“Not everything can be taught,” I murmur, recalling the way she interacts with a massive unit of sailors every year, managing to make every one of them feel like he’s an admiral of the fleet. I tug the laces on her sandal. The knot springs free and I give her a look. “Massage?”
She smiles, wiggling her toes. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
I slip her sandal off and work my thumb up the narrow channel in her foot. She sighs, the sound of it like an ember spinning up from the fire, extinguished in the soft, night air.
“I don’t need paid employment, heaven knows. I aim to find a charity that needs me and speak about it as loudly as I can for as long as I can.”
