Page 63 of The Winter Princess
Marie frowns. “We’ll have you start this week in the gallery, walking through some of the less visited exhibits and introducing the new series.”
“I’m going to be busy over the next few months.”
How high his walls are. He doesn’t tell her why he needs the time. He doesn’t share anything more than he strictly has to. Marie would understand about the citizenship test, but he doesn’t lay his neck open in case she doesn’t.
Marie shakes her head. “Whatever it is will have to wait until after the new year. This is more urgent. Sondmark is counting on us.”
I sneak a look. Oskar’s hands are curled over the edge of the console, gripping hard, but Marie gets us to agree to meet on Saturday.
My next few days are absorbed in duties for the Crown. I’m unsettled by the way Oskar and I left things. I attend the launch of a new orthopedic surgery wing at Arnhuis Hospital and lead a roundtable discussion of Women in the Arts. These events require research into personalities and issues. Royal secretaries spend hours stitching me into a cocoon of knowledge so thorough that nothing has been left to chance.
Not so when I return to the museum. Oskar greets me with withering professionalism, briskly suggesting our route down the gallery and various topics we might touch upon. Where is this much vaunted sexual tension Erik spoke of? Though Oskar’s wearing a brown herringbone three-piece suit like a man with many pheasants to shoot, I can hardly appreciate it. My mind is full of all the things I could say, all the things that could go wrong as I wander into the wilderness, live, without a script. I feel how thin the ice is.
He’s still irritated about the goblin crack. It’s too late to explain that I find goblins sexy, that I have an imaginary goblin lover who drags me off into the forest and likes it when my long skirts swirl around my ankles. That at this moment the goblin is smooth and civilized in brown tweed.
He checks his watch, tugging his sleeve back slightly. “It’s time.”
“Now?” I breathe, twisting my hands. There’s a non-negligible chance that I’ll throw up on a live Pixy feed. I really might.
He takes my phone and lifts it into position, not glancing at me as he takes my hand in a firm grip. We’ve done this before, and it will be fine. It will.
He hits the red button.
“Welcome to The Nat,” he says, doing a wide, slow sweep of the gallery space with coats of armor and ghostly outlines of war horses sheathed in protective metal. Banners hang from the ceiling. Unlike the modern main wing, this was once a palace mews, the stone and timbers a fitting backdrop to medieval pageantry.
Oskar’s manner doesn’t significantly alter now that he’s on camera. He enunciates more clearly when speaking to an audience, but his energy level doesn’t skyrocket. He doesn’t act like a showman. His way on screen is an accurate reflection of who he is. Authenticity, Erik called it.
He squeezes my hand slightly and I shift into action, holding up Erik’s sketchy thermometer sign, pointing to progress made and the progress yet to be made. “If you came once, thank you so much. Luckily,” I say, “The Nat has an inexhaustible number of delights, enough to fill days and days of visits. Perhaps you didn’t poke your head inside the Medieval armory.”
As Oskar guides us down the main gallery, my grip on his hand is murderously tight. He stops, prompting me to introduce the topic of shield designs.
“You can see the brilliant azure of the Counts of Herrenmendt who ruled and protected the southern border for five hundred years. A student of heraldic symbols has lots of material here to explore.”
“Wait a minute,” he says, brow arching. I can feel him going off our outline and my hand squeezes harder. His only response is a smile. “Princess Freja is a heraldic expert. Shall we quiz her?” he asks his camera.
A cloud of fire emojis bloom on his screen. Now he chooses to be a showman? He tugs me and points a finger at the case. “This orange one with the bear. What does that mean?”
“You’ve heard the phrase ‘mama bear’? It means the warrior is fierce and merciless to protect the ones he loves.”
He gives the camera, not me, a nod to show he’s impressed. “And the cat?”
I’m too busy thinking of the answer to be nervous. Oskar has found a way to loosen me up. Maybe this isn’t so bad. “It’s a northern lynx, actually, signifying vigilance and courage. If my own cat is any indication, it also means that the warrior liked to be rubbed behind his ears.”
Oskar’s gaze narrows on the screen. “You have a cat?”
We have strayed off topic and I smile into the camera, pretending the public has asked the question. Not him. “His name is Smit.”
He draws a quick breath and looks down and back up. “Here’s a question coming in,” he says. “User @balledout15 asks, ‘My History of Sondmark teacher will give us extra credit if we follow this account and ask questions. So: Why is history supposed to matter to me?’”
“I love your teacher,” I say, and the screen receives another of Oskar’s quick smiles. I’m not above throwing him under the bus. “PerhapsNeerVelasquez has a good answer for this.”
His lips pull in thought. “I think it’s because we like to think we’re different from those who came before us, smarter, as though it’s terribly clever of us not to die of the plague or childbed fever, wise enough to be born in a time of indoor plumbing. We can convince ourselves that we’d have the good sense to be on the right side of every historical question. I, for instance, would have freed the serfs.”
I laugh and follow his lead. “I would have talked my way into being the first lady-apprentice of Oppager the Younger.”
He looks into the camera, interested. “Do you paint?”
I wave a hand. “I don’t need your negativity.”
