Page 107 of The Winter Princess
FREJA
The press calls me The Winter Princess.
Asger Hom released a single image, snapped just as I was about to take my first steps toward the chapel, face and dress reflecting the glow of candlelight pouring from the doorway, the veil lifting gently with a gust of wind, snow falling around me. The photograph, along with a few, spare details of our elopement swallowed up every story across every Sondish news outlet and social media on Christmas morning.
I knew it would.
That already famous image has been reproduced on a massive scale behind me, covering an entire wall of the room that was once supposed to house the Romantics exhibit. It’s New Year’s Eve, and while The Nat has closed for the night, there’s one last bit of business to conclude before we send everyone home for drunken karaoke andoliebollen.
I remove the cap from the marker, my heart beating out of time.
“Well?” I prompt Erik.
Though I sounded so certain when I put this idea to Marie on the day of my wedding, it’s bound to be close. 28,000 guests in three days, just as the city was digging out of an enormous blizzard, was a lot to ask. As soon as the roads were clear they came in droves.
How many droves? I don’t have an expression prepared if we don’t reach our goal. Worry squeezes the air from my lungs. What if we’ve failed? The camera is going to catch me hauling a ceremonial axe from the wall and splitting the prime minister’s skull.
“Twenty-” Erik begins, dragging the word out like his childhood, “nine thousand, six hundred and forty-nine!”
Though we’re being filmed on Pixy, Oskar pulls me into his arms, lifting me off my feet. Lynda throws handfuls of shredded files like confetti and a cheer erupts in the gallery, an echo of riotous New Year’s celebrations launching across Handsel in several hours. I bury my face in Oskar’s tweed jacket as he spins around, and then lift my head. What do I care if Sondmark sees me kiss my husband?
“I’m shocked,” Marie says, tipping her glass of champagne at us with a wicked smile. It’s impossible to shock Marie. She knows more details than anyone, and when her ex-husband showed up on Christmas Eve with his tardy nut loaf and the juiciest gossip in northern Europe, I’m sure she pried every bit of information from him. The longshoreman was definitely a spy.
Oskar sets me down again, holding me steady against the jostling of the crowd piled into the gallery–every curator and restorer, every accountant and human resources officer, every janitor and lanyard-wearing volunteer has stayed long enough to hear the result. While I scribble out the white space at the top of the thermometer, someone pops a bottle of champagne and another sets up a portable speaker. An impromptu party breaks out.
I turn to the camera to sign off, but Prime Minister Torbald edges into the frame, hearty joviality on his face. “I knew you were capable of meeting my challenge,” he says, calibrating his remarks for unseen constituencies on the other side of the screen. “I knew you could be roused from inaction and discover how to bring new patrons into The Nat.”
He means none of it. After discovering I had given The Nat exclusive rights to stage a special exhibit about my elopement—complete with an array of hitherto unpublished Asger Hom images, a glass case Rik fabricated to hold my wedding gown, the veil and tiara borrowed from the royal collection, an illustration of the bride by her husband, and a supercut of Pixy feed highlights and raw video put together by Erik—he was livid.
He was also boxed neatly into a corner.
It was a foolish risk, bargaining with him in the first place. Museum staff gambled the future of The Nat and their careers on Oskar, refusing to dismiss him at the prime minister’s request. I can sleep easy now, knowing we didn’t send everyone to the unemployment office. I can sleep more easily knowing that they treated him as one of their own.
Mama protected me, too. On Christmas afternoon, Oskar and I watched her Address to the Nation, curled up on his sofa together after exchanging our gifts. He gave me the portrait I lent to the exhibit and a Waitrose Christmas sandwich brought over by a Pavian friend who came home for the holidays. I gave him a t-shirt, shipped from the Greybull Museum, which is a size too small or exactly right, depending on what your goals are.
“…Our own family shares the happy news that Her Royal Highness Princess Freja marriedNeerOskar Velasquez in a private ceremony last night,” Mama said, carefully avoiding the question of whether the family knew about it in advance. “Just as the family of Sondmark welcomes new citizens from every corner of the globe, our family welcomes a new member, eager to discover affinities and be invigorated by contrasts.”
“Was that bit of backhanded rhetoric aimed at Torbald?” he asked.
I burrowed my cold feet under my new husband, adding a kiss. “You’re catching on quickly.”
The jostling crowd moves the prime minister out of the frame, and I squeeze Oskar’s hand.
“Thank you for supporting The Nat,” I say. “We couldn’t have accomplished this without you. We hope you always feel at home here.”
Erik signals that he’s done with the Pixy feed, and Oskar gives Erik an avuncular nod of approval. Erik shoots us several finger hearts before melting away.
“Should I expect him to be godfather to our firstborn?”
I laugh but it was Erik who moved heaven and earth for Oskar—picking up the dry-cleaning on the wedding day, sourcing the candles and Christmas greenery, and pitching in as an organist when no one else could be found. Marie has offered him a permanent position when he’s finished with university, and we’ll be lucky to have him.
Oskar and I do the rounds, congratulating Roland on becoming a part-time contributor to a Sondish morning show. Agnes invites us to go boating when the weather improves. Finally, Oskar tugs me away from the party and to the outer rings where it’s quiet.
It hasn’t all been smooth going. Oskar and I have pushed Clara and Max out of the gossip columns for once. Questions have been raised about our relationship, as I predicted, and a small but vocal minority has called Oskar an opportunist and our marriage a citizenship scam. There have been calls for official investigations into the precise nature of our association—silly since the whole country watched me fall in love with Oskar on a live social media feed. Our honeymoon consisted of working flat out to get the exhibit up and running.
I smile primly. Not the whole honeymoon.
The press is mostly on our side, for now, inundating the country with write-ups like “Princess Freja’s Fashion Diplomacy” and “10 Things Oskar Velasquez Might Eat for Breakfast,” but the tide will turn one day.
